In the classroom, Bryony had been ushered to the front, but now that we were standing in a clump outside, she had stubbornly stuck to my side. When I finally regained proper awareness of my surroundings, I found her frowning at me.
“Are you sure that was a good idea?” she asked.
I waved her words away. “Nothing went wrong, did it? I wish you could feel it, Bree. It’s incredible.”
She didn’t look convinced, but I was already concentrating on the instructor’s words, wondering what compositions she might have the class demonstrate next.
The fourth years were given the most access to Bryony and Tyron, presumably because the younger trainees had two more years after this one to work with the energy mages. It was fascinating to feel the difference in the compositions of the fourth years compared to the second years. Their workings had noticeably more power and control, but they still couldn’t match those of the instructors.
After our two weeks with the wind workers, Amalia moved us on to the creators, and then the growers, which involved spending most classes out in the gardens, despite the increasing cold. This new access to compositions proved almost absorbing enough to overshadow thoughts of Darius in my mind, and I could feel my understanding of not only my own ability but compositions in general growing by the day.
Bryony never sat with me in these classes—she was always the center of attention, while I lingered unobtrusively in the back. When she did glance back my way, an unhappy expression on her face, I always waved her off. This was her moment to shine, and I was too distracted to feel lonely or overlooked anyway.
When she said we needed to talk and shadowed me back to my suite after breakfast one rest day, I had a pretty speech prepared in my mind to reassure her. But her first words took me by surprise.
“I’m worried about you, Verene. I’m worried you’re losing yourself.”
I stared at her, all my prepared sentences slipping away.
“Losing myself? What do you mean? I’ve never enjoyed classes so much. It’s amazing, Bree!”
Her face didn’t lighten. “Yes, that’s what I’m worried about. You know I was excited for you to discover you have an ability after all, but this…”
I frowned, instantly defensive, as she continued.
“You don’t just have an ability, you have a powerful one. And you haven’t told anyone about it—not even your own family.”
“But you were the one who said I shouldn’t tell them!” I protested. “And I think you were right.”
Bryony grimaced. “So do I. I stand by that advice. It’s necessary for your own protection. But the unfortunate side effect is that you’re doing your training in secret. You sit there, with none the wiser, tapping into powerful compositions—more and more of them. Nothing seems to make you pause anymore. If you had openly acknowledged your ability and were receiving guided training like the rest of us, do you really think they’d let you do so much? That they’d let you take over any composition you wanted without permission or regard for its power or destructive potential?”
I opened my mouth to retort before slowly closing it again, an unwelcome flush heating my cheeks.
“No, I’m sure they wouldn’t,” I said.
Bryony drew a long, shaky breath, and I realized for the first time how nervous she’d been about this conversation. I hadn’t even noticed—already preparing to brush her off.
“I understand that there’s no other way for you to practice, and I can see that you’re careful not to interfere too much. I’m not saying I think what you’re doing is wrong…” She drew a deep breath. “I just think power is dangerous. And I think it’s especially dangerous for someone who never had any and spent so long wishing for it.”
“You’re worried I’ll get lost in it,” I said slowly, repeating her initial comment.
“I’m sorry.” She sounded nothing like her normal, bubbly self. “I’ve been worried about saying anything in case I was just being selfish.”
“Selfish?” I frowned at her.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Have you even noticed that we don’t spar on rest day mornings anymore?”
“I…” I paused and looked around my suite, as if surprised to find myself here instead of out in the training yards with my sword in my hand. “It’s gotten so cold,” I finally said, without conviction.
“I don’t get the impression you’ve been spending time at the library like you used to anymore either. Isabelle mentioned something the other day about hardly ever seeing you there.”
A heavy silence sat between us that I couldn’t remember ever experiencing with Bryony before. I thought back to all those unhappy glances she’d thrown me from the front of various classrooms. Embarrassment flooded me at how condescendingly I’d responded, even if it had only been within my own mind.
I hadn’t noticed my own obsession or the distance it was driving between us. I had been drunk on the power of the compositions I was stealing, on the access it gave me to so many minds. Not that I could read anyone’s thoughts, of course, but just dipping into their hard-won knowledge and expertise had been heady enough. How addictive it had become to feel that rush of understanding without first having to do the work to earn it.
Another thought intruded. Darius.
Bryony wasn’t the only one I had abandoned when my quest for distraction had proven so effective. I had told myself to guard my heart, but instead I had tried to drive him from my mind. And in the process, I had forgotten my responsibilities. I had promised I would help him as the representative of Ardann. But what had I done to contribute?
I looked back at Bryony’s strained face. In my quest to escape my own emotions, I had hurt one of my closest friends—someone who had stood by me like family and always watched my back. Now that I saw the damage, I was horrified. How had I not recognized what was happening?
Nothing had ever mattered more to me than helping those I loved. It was the only reason I had desired to have power in the first place. Bryony was right. I had been losing myself.
“I’m so sorry.” I threw my arms around her with a sob. “You’re utterly and completely right. I’ve been a complete fool. And a horrible friend. I don’t know why you put up with me.”
She disentangled herself with a watery smile. “We’re basically cousins, aren’t we? Which means I’m obligated to put up with you.” Her smile grew. “And besides, even at your most abstracted, you were still better company than Dellion would be.”
I chuckled weakly. “I’m not sure how much reassurance I can really draw from that comparison.”
“In all seriousness, though, you’re a good friend, Verene. I wouldn’t want you to doubt that. I’ll admit, when we were children, I was just desperate to have a friend to play with—any friend I didn’t have to keep secrets from. You can imagine how delighted I was the first time we visited your family when I discovered we were the same age.” She smiled in fond reminiscence. “And then when we got older, I liked how determined you were despite not having any ability at all. Sometimes my own ability felt like an impossible burden, but you were never willing to let anything drag you down.”
I knew from her tone of voice that she wasn’t referring to her openly acknowledged ability to give energy, but the other, secret, one.
“Sometimes I’ve thought about how different our lives are,” she said. “I don’t mean with our abilities. I mean with your rank. You’re a princess, and you could have turned out very differently from how you did.”
“That sounds a little ominous.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s a compliment.” She gave a rueful smile. “Or it’s meant to be. I don’t mean that you’re a bad princess. I just mean that somehow despite everything, you’re willing to acknowledge when you’ve made a mistake. You’re willing to listen to me of all people and try to change. I’ve always thought that was the most important quality of all.”
“What? To be willing to listen to you?” I asked with a chuckle.
She laughed. “No, although it’s a quality I’m highly in favor of, naturally. I mean to be able and willing to acknowledge weakness and attempt change.” She looked thoughtful for a moment. “I think I get that from my mother. She doesn’t often talk about her life back when the energy mages were known as the Tarxi and lived in hiding in the mountains. But she’s sometimes said that their problem was they couldn’t change. Or some of them couldn’t, anyway. Generations had passed, but they were still holding on to the injustices of the past and nursing their resentment. They couldn’t see that we needed a fresh start.”
“Until they did,” I said. “And I’m so glad you all came down from the mountains.”
Bryony gave an exaggerated shudder. “Me too! Can you imagine me spending my life foraging for food on some icy rock?”
“Not at all. But then you’re far too fierce for that. No doubt you’d have been fighting mountain lions, or some such.”
“Well, I prefer being here and fighting the human versions.” She winked at me, reminding me of my description of Dellion on our first day.
“You would certainly have been wasted on the mountain lions,” I said. “And they are no doubt happy to be left in peace again without humans invading their territory.”
“Talking about fighting…” Bryony said in her most wheedling voice.
I winced. “I’m truly sorry about abandoning you on rest days, Bree, but even you have to admit it’s freezing outside in the mornings.”
“We could still run inside, though. Like we did last year.” Her hopeful look almost made me laugh.
“That’s true,” I said. “We could. In fact, why don’t we do it right now?”
“Yes!” She leaped up and down, her face wreathed in smiles. There wasn’t much that could keep Bryony suppressed for long.
I smiled back. The mindless exercise would do me good. Maybe I could regain some of the perspective I’d allowed myself to abandon in the last weeks.
Chapter 13
Pounding up and down the stairs and along the hidden servants’ corridors proved even more cathartic than I’d hoped. It had been nearly a year since Bryony and I ran this route last, but everyone we encountered flattened themselves against the wall at our approach as they had learned to do in winter of our first year. And they smiled at us as we passed.
Seeing them only reminded me how much I had let myself be consumed by my focus on my ability. At the start of the year, I had resolved to discover more about the position of the Kallorwegian commonborns—for the sake of both Ardann and Darius—and yet here we were approaching Midwinter, and I had done nothing toward that goal.
As we ran, I kept an eye out for both Ida and Zora, but we encountered neither of them. When we finished our exercise, I dragged Bryony back to my suite. I wasn’t going to make the mistake of shutting her out again.
“You just spent the whole summer break in Corrin,” I said, after telling her what I wanted to discover. “Have you noticed a difference between our commonborns and the ones here?”
“Definitely,” she said, without needing to pause and consider. “The issue of the commonborns always made me a little uncomfortable when we visited Ardann in the past from the Empire. I didn’t grow up with the same sort of barriers you’re used to. Of course there’s still a distinction between mages and everyone else, but it’s different when everyone can access words, it’s…”
“Better,” I supplied, in case she was too polite to say it. “Mother has always wished it could be like that in the south. But we just don’t have enough mages.”
“I know,” Bryony rushed to say. “And I noticed a difference this summer.”
I gave her a surprised look. I couldn’t think what might have changed since her previous visit.
“I don’t think anything had changed in Corrin,” she clarified. “I think it was just that I was seeing a different comparison. I was used to seeing Ardann compared to the Empire, where everyone is sealed. But seeing it compared to Kallorway…well, your commonborns seem much better off.”
I nodded. “I always expected it to be more formal here, but it seems like it’s more than that.”
“So what’s our plan?” Bryony asked.
“That’s what I still need to work out. But I think my best hope is starting with Ida.”
Unfortunately, the servant woman always came to clean my rooms while I was in class. And while I reduced the amount I was practicing my own compositions, I still needed to attend classes. Ida kept my rooms supplied with a pile of bell compositions, but I didn’t want to use one to summon her just for an interrogation. I suspected I was unlikely to get the answers I wanted with such a direct approach.
When I woke up several mornings later with a sore throat and runny nose, I knew my opportunity had arrived. Hurrying straight to Raelynn’s healing rooms, I found no sign of the healer. My next stop was the library, where the library head, Hugh, greeted me with enthusiasm. If I had needed it, his attitude provided further proof that Bryony had been right. She wasn’t the only aspect of my life I had been neglecting. Even the sight of the books gave me a pang of guilt. Their pages held many lifetimes of accumulated knowledge, won through hard effort, not stolen with a shortcut, as I had attempted.
Hugh himself gave me no recriminations on my recent absence, however, merely directing me straight back to the corner where his office door hid. Inside I found Raelynn. I should have known she would be with her husband as usual. I could have saved myself time and come straight here.
Thankfully she had her healing case with her. I suspected she even slept with it tucked beside her bed.
Healing my cold took only moments, although she spent several extra minutes chatting sociably, asking me about my classes and commenting on the recent cold turn of the weather. I tried not to show my impatience.
But since I didn’t know what time of day Ida usually appeared in my rooms, I didn’t want to waste any time out of them. Finally Raelynn turned back to the topic of my healing, reminding me that I should spend the day resting despite now feeling as healthy as usual.
“But you know that, Your Highness,” she said. “This healing won’t have taken as much out of you as healing that awful break last year, but it still needs a day of rest at least. I’ll let your instructors know and tell the servants to send up your meals on a tray.”
I thanked her effusively and almost ran from the library. Would Ida bring the trays of food herself? She must have done so in the past on the occasions when a tray had been left in my sitting room. None of the kitchen servants would have attempted crossing the guards on my door.
I almost collided with Bryony at the door of my suite, her hands full of rolls to replace my missed breakfast.
“There you are!” she said. “I was coming to drag you out of bed. Where have you been?”
“With Raelynn. I had a cold.”
Bryony gave me a bewildered look. “You sound strangely triumphant about that.”
“This is my chance.” I pulled her into my sitting room. “I’ve been instructed to spend the day resting, of course, so I’ll have the chance to catch Ida.”
Enlightenment broke across Bryony’s face. “Brilliant!”
A bell sounded, and she thrust the food into my hands and rushed for the door. “Let me know what you find out,” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared.
The pain and discomfort were gone, thanks to Raelynn, but I did feel unnaturally weary. I dragged the cover off my bed and propped myself up on one of my two sofas, wrapping the warm material around me. I had initially worried the day might be unbearably boring, but I now realized my true concern should be the danger of falling asleep. If Ida came in and found me sleeping on the sofa, she would no doubt creep straight back out again.
But the thought of everything and everyone I had been neglecting lately had reminded me how long it had been since I wrote my family. So I set myself up with a makeshift writing desk on my lap and spent the morning hours writing several letters.
The healing fatigue must have had a sentimental effect because the exercise made me so homesick I nearly used one of my father’s precious communication compositions so I could speak to them in person. Only the thought of the toll it had taken on him to produce them stopped me, along with the memory that the message would be sent straight to my aunt. She had entrusted them to me for official use only, and the secret I was keeping from her only made me determined not to betray any other part of her trust—a resolution I had nearly lost sight of in the pursuit of my ability. Thank goodness for Bryony’s intervention.
Ida didn’t appear until lunchtime, when she delivered my tray of food. I brightened instantly at the sight of her, but she looked startled.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Your Highness! I thought you’d be in bed. I was only going to leave this on the table there.”
“Please don’t apologize.” I gave her my most winning smile. “It’s pleasant to see another face after so many hours alone.” I drew in a deep breath through my nose. “And that smells delicious.”
“I’m sure it is, Your Highness. The duke’s cooks are excellent.”
I jumped on the tiny opening. “Don’t the servants eat the same food? I would have thought it was simpler for the kitchen to prepare one meal for everyone in the Academy.”
She paused from arranging the tray on a small table within my reach to give me a shocked look.
“The same food as the trainees? No, of course not, Your Highness. We have our own kitchen and our own cooks in one of the outbuildings.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t sound efficient. And Zora strikes me as efficient above all else.”
Ida grinned. “She’s certainly that. But some things aren’t up to her. It’s always been done this way at the Academy.”
“But practices can change.” I nodded toward where her long hair partially hid the intricate markings that ringed her neck. “Like sealing for instance.”
Crown of Danger (The Hidden Mage Book 2) Page 12