Any lingering anger faded away at the torment on his face.
“I’m worried about you,” I said in a soft voice. “And I want to know what’s going on. Because I know something is going on.”
He ran a hand through his hair and barked a harsh laugh as he turned partially away from me. “You’re worried about me. Of course you are. I’ve been nothing but horrible to you since you returned, and yet you’re concerned about me.”
I took two steps toward him, causing him to step back. I stopped.
“Yes, of course I’m worried. I know you, Darius. Even if you’re determined to pretend I don’t. You promised me at the end of last year that I would be safe in Kallorway now, and yet I was attacked just outside the Academy. And no one seems to be able to work out who was responsible.”
He sucked in a breath, pain flaring on his face, so I hurried on.
“Maybe it’s foolish, but despite everything, I still believe you’re a person who can be trusted to keep your promises. I trust you, Darius, so I know something deeper is going on here than you’re letting me see.” I willed him to meet my eyes again. “Won’t you trust me back? Please?”
“Trust you?” The words seemed wrung from him. “You’re one of the few people I’ve ever trusted. It’s everyone else I don’t trust.”
I took another step forward, and this time he didn’t step away, although the pained look on his face deepened.
“Then, please, tell me what’s going on,” I begged.
A shudder rippled through him, before he straightened, his posture stiff. “You’re wrong to place so much trust in my promises. I believe it was my father behind the attack, although neither Captain Vincent nor Captain Layna has managed to secure any definitive proof.”
The news wasn’t a surprise, but it hit me harder than expected, and I swayed slightly. Darius responded instantly, closing the distance between us to place a supportive hand on my elbow. He guided me to the sofa a short distance behind me, and when I sat on it, he dropped to one knee, grasping one of my hands in his.
“Please know that I would never willingly break my word to you, Verene.” His ragged voice tore at my heart, his eyes burning into me. How many sleepless nights had those eyes seen?
“I believe you,” I said, and for a brief moment he closed them, calming his breathing.
My heart raced, intoxicated by his closeness and the raw vulnerability I had so missed. Something had happened to tear him apart, but this was still the Darius who haunted my dreams. I would have barged in here weeks ago if I had known this was all it would take to see his true self again.
But when he opened his eyes, he had regained his control. He stood swiftly, letting my hand drop.
“Something has changed in my father.” Darius’s tone was harsh but no longer ragged. “He is…out of control. Something—or someone—has managed to tip him beyond reason. He has always been cruel and power-hungry, but he has also been careful. Now he has lost that caution.” He frowned. “Perhaps my starting at the Academy had something to do with it.”
“So what does that mean?” I asked. “Am I not safe here?”
“No,” Darius said swiftly. “You are safe within the Academy walls. My father still dares not act openly, and Captain Vincent is trustworthy. I am convinced of that now. He guards this place like a fortress. Nothing has changed for you. I’m the one who has changed.”
I rubbed at the side of my head, feeling a headache developing.
“Don’t do that,” Darius said, a new soft note in his voice that caught me off guard. My eyes flew to his. “You always rub your temples when you’re stressed. But this is my stress to carry.”
I looked away, trying to hide my flush. He was right. I did massage my temples whenever I was stressed. I didn’t realize he knew that about me.
“You may be the crown prince,” I said. “But you’re also a trainee at the Academy. What can you do about your father, even if he is out of control?”
“I have never had the luxury of being merely a trainee,” he said, the harsh note back in his voice. “Now more than ever. I’ve done the only thing I can do—I’ve moved forward my timeline. I can no longer wait for graduation to force my father’s hand. I must do it now. He can no longer be trusted on the throne.”
I gasped, jumping back to my feet. “You’re going to seize power now?”
“This year, at least. If I can.”
I stared at him wide-eyed.
“Oh, I don’t think the Mage Council will actually crown me before I’m a fully qualified mage,” he said. “But I can still claim the throne and tie my father’s hands.”
I tried to pull my racing thoughts together. “Is that why you were so harsh to me today? It was a…a performance?”
He nodded, a brief look of pain crossing his face before he clamped back down hard.
“This has happened too soon,” he said. “I don’t have everything in place yet. Which means my only hope is to take my father by surprise—to take both sides by surprise. It has never been more important that I appear to be neutral. And you…” He sighed. “You are not neutral, Verene. You know the chaos you caused last year just by accepting a Midwinter invitation.”
“I understand,” I said slowly. “I told you I knew something was going on. But what I can’t understand is why you didn’t just tell me all this as soon as I arrived. And not just because we’re friends—or at least I thought we were. I’m also a representative of the Ardannian crown, remember. And Ardann has promised to help you.”
“Friends?” He sounded almost startled. “Is that what we were?”
I flushed, not sure how to respond.
“You’re right, though,” he said heavily after a moment. “I should have sought your assistance immediately as your aunt’s representative. I was…” He trailed off, and although I waited hopefully, he didn’t finish the sentence.
My eyes narrowed. Clearly I had not gotten to the bottom of Darius’s complicated tangle of motivations and emotions. And equally clearly he didn’t mean to share them.
“As Ardann’s representative,” I said after a moment of heavy silence, “I will help you in any way I can without compromising my crown.”
“Of course,” he said quickly. “I won’t ask for your official support. Not until my plan has succeeded.”
I nodded, and the moment hung between us. I had offered myself as Ardann’s representative, not as Verene, and I could read in his eyes that he understood the difference.
Darius might not mean his public actions toward me, but neither had he chosen to be open with me—not when I first arrived back, and not completely even now. Which meant I needed to guard my heart.
I still believed he was the best future for Kallorway, and I would stand his friend in the political games he played. But I certainly couldn’t risk telling him the truth of my abilities. A brief flash of guilt filled me at that thought. I had claimed I trusted him and asked for his trust in return, but I was no more being completely open with him than he was with me. But I could not give in to that feeling. I could not afford to let my emotions rule me.
Only when I was safely back in my own room did I acknowledge, even to myself, that I had already been trying to guard my heart since the end of last year. But neither absence nor daily exposure had proven enough to drive the prince from the corners of my heart. I only had to see his tall form for my heart to leap out of control.
Well, I concluded grimly, I would just have to try harder.
I attempted the effort in the only way I knew how. Distraction.
I threw myself into my secret training with even more focus. I had learned to use my abilities instinctively, like a muscle, but now I needed to learn complete mastery over them. It was the only way I would ever be able to safely train in an environment like the arena. But until I achieved that goal, I needed to find a way to remove myself from danger.
Every time my thoughts tried to turn to Darius in the days following our conversation, I forced them inst
ead onto the issue of how to avoid arena training. It meant I spent a lot of time contemplating the issue.
In the end, I decided my answer lay in the strange and unexplained delay in the start of arena battles for the second years. When we had finally come to battle, Mitchell had paused when he looked at me. I had thought in the moment that he was trying to decide where to assign me, but what if it was more than that? I had been attacked multiple times last year, but few people knew of it. The open attack against me in the village had been different, though. What if the furor it had caused had made Duke Francis hesitant to allow the other trainees to attack me in battle—even in training? I could imagine the incensed messages he might have received from my aunt and parents after they heard Captain Layna’s report.
My strategy decided, I waited for the next time Mitchell announced the second years would spend the following morning in the arena. And as soon as class finished, I approached him. I assumed my most regal air, hoping he would believe I spoke with more than the authority of a single second year trainee.
“I’m afraid I can no longer participate in arena battles,” I said. “Please let me know how you would like me to complete replacement work so that I don’t fall behind in your class. Perhaps I could complete written assignments analyzing the strategy I observe in my year mates’ battles?”
I had been working hard to hide my tension, but apparently I needn’t have been concerned. Mitchell actually looked relieved. The out of control fireballs in our first battle must have confirmed all the instructors’ fears about the risks of having me in the arena. If I had been the one hurt instead of Isabelle, my family might have tried to claim it wasn’t an accident at all.
“I can see no need for written assignments,” he said. “You may observe the battles from the shielded arena seating and take part verbally in the strategy discussions after the fighting is concluded. I have no concerns about your physical sword skills, and you can continue to bout in the training yard.”
I thanked him and hurried back to the Academy, not wanting to miss lunch. Bryony had waited for me, just out of range of our conversation, and I responded to her raised eyebrow with a broad smile.
She shook her head. “It must be nice to be a princess,” she muttered.
“Sometimes.” My smile dropped away as my mind filled with thoughts of Darius and the complicated politics that both bound us and tore us apart. Now that I had succeeded in freeing myself of arena battles, I would need something else to focus on whenever his dark eyes intruded on my peace.
Chapter 12
The answer came in expanding my training. I was familiar at this point with the compositions of each of my year mates and could connect with them with ease. I wanted a greater challenge.
The next time Alvin began composition class with a composition of his own, I was ready. As soon as he tore the parchment, I whispered, “Take control.”
Only Bryony sat close enough to hear me, and she gave me a startled look. I ignored her, focused on those crucial few seconds while the working ran its course.
After so much practice controlling the compositions of my fellow trainees, connecting with one done by an expert was heady. The power he had gathered was tight and controlled, and layers of understanding blossomed in my mind. I could see not only the words he’d used to shape the power but the depth of intention behind them.
We were back working on plants again, and he hadn’t just told this seedling vine to grow thicker and stronger, he had directed the level of its growth with a fine-tuned understanding. The power leached all available nutrients from the soil, pushing them into the plant to allow an explosion of unnatural growth that would remain strong enough for the vine not to wither and die within hours.
I knew immediately that most of my year mates would not be capable of a composition like this. Not for years, at least, and for some, maybe never.
It should have made my task easy, but I realized in a split second that it actually made it far more difficult. There was no chaos of battle to hide my actions here, and Alvin clearly knew exactly how he had directed the power to behave.
Panicked, I instructed the power to do exactly what it was already attempting to do. When the vine grew—not with quite the dramatic display of the purple flowers, but still with impressive speed—Alvin smiled. He continued with his instructions as if nothing unexpected had occurred, and I breathed a small sigh of relief.
Bryony gave me a quizzical look. “What did you do?” she whispered.
“Nothing,” I admitted.
She frowned, no doubt confused, but didn’t attempt to question me further in the middle of class. I didn’t interrupt any of my year mates’ compositions that lesson, my mind distracted with what I had discovered inside Alvin’s working.
Already the exact knowledge on plant growth I had so easily grasped in the moment was fading away. If I had been able to access power normally, I couldn’t have replicated his efforts. But something of the feel of his composition lingered.
I had stumbled onto something valuable. While I would have to think carefully about small ways I could adjust instructor compositions that wouldn’t be detectable, I could also learn without diverting them at all.
Two days later, Amalia announced in our discipline class that the time had finally arrived for us to start visiting other classes. I had always known that was the eventual intention, but the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for my purposes.
No one was interested in me, of course. As far as they were concerned, I was trailing along just to observe. But I felt almost euphoric at the access our visits would give me to expert mages across a range of disciplines.
When Amalia led us into the first class, a number of unfamiliar faces greeted me. I hadn’t expected the class to be so big until I remembered that discipline classes were mixed across the year levels. It was easy to forget when Bryony and Tyron were the only energy mages currently at the Academy.
Amalia had chosen to start with the wind working class, and an undercurrent of excitement threaded through the room. Not every group of trainees who studied at the Academy got the chance to train with energy mages.
The wind worker instructing their class deferred to Amalia, and she explained that we would be working with this class for two weeks. To start, the class would watch Bryony and Tyron compose and then work an energy composition. Isabelle had already had the chance to experience receiving some of their energy in our arena battles, but the trainees from other year levels would each be given such an opportunity.
In return, Bryony and Tyron would observe some of the specialist compositions the class had been learning. The two energy mage trainees would then work together with the class to develop ways the ability of the energy mages could benefit the compositions of the class.
“Surely that’s obvious,” one of the fourth years drawled. “We’ll be able to complete much more powerful compositions.”
Amalia gave him such a withering look that he sank back into his chair. I had to stifle a smile. Clearly this class had yet to be exposed to Amalia and her teaching style.
“Certainly that is one benefit—the most obvious one. The true rewards will come if you are capable of looking beyond the obvious.” It was clear from her tone that she didn’t expect such a feat from him.
When she looked at the rest of the class, no one else said a word.
My role in the lessons was to sit in the back and observe, which perfectly suited my purposes—as would all the demonstrations apparently planned for the next few days. But since they started with Bryony and Tyron, I didn’t immediately interfere.
Even Amalia understood they couldn’t compose endlessly, however, so it would take a number of days to produce enough energy compositions for all the wind worker trainees. Thankfully for me, that meant by our second combined class, the wind worker demonstrations had begun.
To give the class full rein to work, we met out in the grounds. I caught a glimpse of the grower class working in the extensi
ve Academy garden beds, but Amalia led us past both the training yards and the gardens to a large stretch of open ground on the far side of the Academy.
Several outbuildings sheltered on the edge of the wall, but a substantial patch of clear space stood between them and the Academy itself. I had never noticed this part of the Academy before, perhaps because there was nothing here of any particular visual interest.
“It’s best if we have the Academy building between us and the stables,” Isabelle said to me quietly when she saw me looking around. “Captain Vincent doesn’t like it when we terrify his horses.”
No doubt wanting to impress us, the wind worker instructor began by composing an enormous whirlwind, which roared around the confined space without so much as ruffling our hair. After that she had a couple of her fourth years produce first lightning and then rain.
By the time they had completed the workings, I was almost bouncing with excitement, eager to connect with one of them and see what it felt like on the inside. I chose to start with the instructor, not confident to fiddle with such a powerful working if it might not be entirely stable to begin with.
When she explained that she would next show us the whirlwind again, but in a smaller form, I was initially disappointed. But as soon as I whispered the words to take control of the working, all such feelings flew away.
A smaller whirlwind might look less impressive, but it was actually harder to compose because it required more control. Once the air started spinning, it wanted to draw more air into it and grow in size. I didn’t try to change anything about it, merely releasing it to do its pre-shaped job and marveling at the expertise required to safely complete such a working. My mind filled with an instinctive understanding of not only the wind dynamics of the funnel itself but all the flow on impacts on temperature, weather, even cloud formation. A responsible wind worker didn’t interfere with the weather until they understood the full consequences of their actions.
When the whirlwind died out, the power dissipating, disappointment filled me. I had admired the intricacies of our composition instructor’s workings, but they were nothing to the feeling of pure power from holding the weather itself in your grasp.
Crown of Danger (The Hidden Mage Book 2) Page 11