Ember sighed. “He’s alive, but I don’t think he wants to be. It’s only a matter of time before the lung sickness takes him. Mother fights it, but even she has had to admit that his days are numbered.” She gave his arm a squeeze. “He misses you, Aldarin. I think the greatest joy you could give him would be to spend as much time with him as you can spare. I know he would never say it, but you are his greatest pride. You live the dreams he never could. Guard to one of the greatest magi of our time? How could a father not be proud of you?”
Aldarin shrugged. “I’ll do what I can,” he promised, urging Monster into an easy lope, eliminating any further conversation.
The trip was made quickly, and within a matter of minutes they had reached their destination. Ezeker’s tower was lit up in full glory, blue and orange magelights beaming in strips that ran from street to rooftop. The sky was still dark as a moonless night, but Ezeker lit the whole area with his magic. A distinct line of ash circled around his tower as if a great, invisible dome covered his home and had swept it all aside—his oversized version of a weather charm that somehow still functioned. She knew she shouldn’t be surprised. The weather charm she wore was active, after all, so why not his shields—but seeing magic still working on such a grand scale was amazing.
Ember threw her leg over the back of the stallion and slid down his side while Aldarin looped the reins through a ringed post just inside the gate. He led his sister across the courtyard.
It was odd to hear footsteps again instead of the swish-swish of ash against Monster’s legs. The courtyard they crossed was small; only seven noisy steps before the thick wooden door stood beneath Aldarin’s outstretched hand. He caressed the wood with his fingertips, and Ember was startled to see faint trails of green light sparkling in the tracks of sweat he left behind on the dusty door. She blinked, but the tracks faded when her eyes opened again. She shook herself. It had to be some strange effect caused by the gasses that had erupted from Devil’s Mount. The smell did make her a bit lightheaded. Oddly, it was easier for Ember to believe she was hallucinating than the impossibility of magic coming from Aldarin.
The door clicked and swung slowly open.
“Wait for me, and I’ll let him know we’re here. He’s probably upstairs packing, even though I told him not to,” Aldarin said. Moving to the left and through an alcove, his heels clicked as he jogged up the stairs, chain mail chinking. Ember could follow his movement above her, his voice echoing as he called for the master. The sounds faded as he made his way to the upper levels, then silenced for a very long while.
Ember sat at the stone table with its mismatched wooden chairs and waited.
The main area was dark, the only light coming from Ezeker’s green room where he grew herbs and medicines each year and raised his own tomatoes and cucumbers as well. Some years there was even melon, and Ember remembered many a New Year celebration that included Ezeker’s bright red, out-ofseason melon that was as ripe and warm as the middle of summer. She breathed in the smell of life that surrounded her and relished the fragrance. She closed her eyes, then immediately snapped them open again, heart pounding.
For just a moment she had seen something more—green swirls and surges and spikes as she had seen around Aldarin’s hand on the door. With her eyes open she could see nothing, but when she closed them . . . there again, twirling in a ghostly dance that unnerved her. Was she going crazy? How could she be seeing things that weren’t really there?
Now that she thought about it, she’d been seeing the green sparkles all morning, ever since the volcano exploded. She remembered the dancing light at the edge of the cloud and the swirling lines that hung in the hawk’s wake. Could it really be as simple as volcanic gasses?
Ember was beginning to think not. Her heart pounded as she thought of the possibilities. Hadn’t one of her grandparents gone insane? Hadn’t they complained of seeing things nobody else saw? She had a vague memory of Paeder’s father running full into the barn siding, chasing a huge butterfly no one else could see. He’d knocked out some teeth with that hit.
That had to be it. Ember gnawed at her thumbnail, knee bouncing up and down in agitation. She was going insane. The tears welled up, and she was so lost in her panic that she jumped when Ezeker’s voice sounded from behind her.
“That’s not a good sign.” He sat down in the chair across from her and motioned toward her bouncing leg. “What’s bothering you, child?” he asked, forcing her eyes to meet his.
Ember didn’t dare say. She couldn’t bear to think he might confirm she was going crazy. She battled within herself, and the tenderness in his eyes finally sent it pouring out. “I’m seeing things, Uncle, and it scares me to death.”
Ezeker was still. “What kind of things?”
“Green spikes and whorls and stuff. Aldarin put his fingers on the door, and I saw it then. And earlier this morning around the eruption. But figured I was hallucinating because of the gasses from the volcano. I saw it again in your green room. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m going crazy, aren’t I?” She was sure he would say yes, but instead he laughed.
“Oh, heavens no, child. I’ve been waiting for this to happen, and it’s certainly taken its time about it.”
Ember’s heart stilled for a moment, then its beat returned to its usual pace. Her hand dropped from her mouth to slap the table. “You mean this is normal?”
“It is when you are coming into your power,” he answered, smiling as he reached and placed a gnarled hand over hers. “Green is the color of life. It is perfectly natural for you to begin with this color. Others may appear later.”
Ember didn’t really hear him beyond his telling her she was coming into power. She really could be a mage? Not just in a dream, but in reality? Her heart pounded again, but it was no longer in fear.
“What you are seeing is life: the force, the energy, the power in all living things. This is good. This is very good. If you can see the power of life, you can tap into it and borrow from it. That is, in part, what I do when I heal things and help them grow.”
“So, do you think I could help Paeder?” she blurted the desire of her heart.
Ezeker shook his head. “I’m afraid he is too far beyond your reach. He is beyond even my abilities. I have spoken with your mother about taking him to the Mage Council at the trials. Perhaps the council can heal him when I alone cannot, but I fear she has waited too long.”
“He’s dying, then.”
“Yes, child, he is.” Ezeker brushed Ember’s hair back from her face, then let his hand rest on her shoulder. “The medicine will ease his cough and help him sleep, but there is nothing more I can do. I only hope your mother will set aside her feelings for the magi and allow us to at least try.”
“I’d talk to her, but you know how much good that would do,” Ember said, only slightly bitter. She knew her mother well enough to understand that the quickest way to doom an idea was to talk to her about it.
“It will not always be thus, Ember.” He squeezed her shoulder, then let go. “Now, if memory serves me right, and it usually does,” his eyes twinkled at her, “you’re due at a birthing day celebration.” Ezeker stood and shuffled to one of the chairs on the far side of the table. There he took up a small, wooden box from the cushion and handed it to her. “Happy birthing day, child.”
Ember’s fingers trembled as she took the box in her hands. It was made of thin cherrywood, with the top nestled over the bottom. She gave the lid a slight shake, and it came free. She gasped, so stunned that she sat there absolutely dumbfounded, until Ezeker took the box from her, chuckling, and set it on the table. He moved behind her and pulled on the leather thong around her neck until her pendant lay upon his palm—the pendant her father had given her. Ezeker wrapped Ember’s hand around the amulet.
“Hold this,” he said, pulling the cord from the ring. He took a silver chain from the box and threaded it through the pendant, then pulled the ends up and around the back of her neck. He whispered a few words
, and a slight surge of heat grazed her neck as the ends of the chain were merged together as one. Ember twisted the necklace around and could not find where it had been joined, so perfect was it.
“This chain is spellcast,” he said. “It will not break, nor will it tear your skin, though it will do serious harm to anyone who tries to take it from you.”
She glanced up at him, tears in her eyes. “I’ve never had a finer gift, Uncle. Thank you.”
“Oh, we’re not done yet, child.” He gathered the other two items from the table and grinned at her. “Your father gave these to me for safekeeping long before he died. Somehow he knew he might not be here to do this himself. I was told to give them to you when I felt the time was right. Today is that day.”
He held in his hands two of the most unique pieces of jewelry Ember had ever seen. They were a set of what most would call slave bracelets, matching in every detail. A wolf, twin to the one at her neck, sat upon a ring, with emerald eyes peering straight ahead. A single fine chain ran from the ring to a carved wolf head the size of a coin, and from there a short link joined ring and coin to a scrolled bracelet.
The bracelet also carried the wolf theme, but in representations of the phases of lupine life. Each part was beautiful, in and of itself, but all together they were magnificent. Ezeker slipped the ring on her middle finger and bent the bracelet around her wrist, then joined the ends together with a single surge of light and heat. The piece was beautiful on her wrist, and knowing it came from her father was just . . . overwhelming.
The second bracelet and ring went on her left hand just as easily, and a few whispered words from Ezeker had them sealed in place. It amazed her. She kept expecting the metal to pinch, but wearing it was no different than a leather glove or a silk scarf, and it was even lighter than she imagined the latter to be.
Ember sat admiring her two new ornaments when the eyes of the wolves on both bracelets and her pendant began to glow with a brilliant light that nearly hurt her eyes.
She put her hand over her eyes, her heart racing. The light got brighter. She could see the green glow through her fingers and wanted to do nothing more than rip the bracelets off. The light sparkled across her skin like miniature lightning bolts.
She squealed and shook her arms, trying to fling the bracelets from her, but the action had no effect. Her heart beat so fast, it felt as if it would rip its way up her throat or explode any moment. Why would her father have given her a gift that would do her harm? No, he wouldn’t.
Her skin began to itch as the light brightened. It terrified her. The entire day had her scared and doubting herself, and now this was happening—it had to be Uncle Ezzie’s magic. “What are you doing,
Uncle?”
Ezeker was silent.
She glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed against the piercing light. Her stomach dropped at the shock on his face. “I’m not doing anything, child,” he croaked.
Ember’s skin prickled as she watched the light from the jewelry fade, but with the diminishing light came the sound of a coal popping from a fire, then a flash of green that faded quickly, but took the detail of the chain with it. What had been three dimensional before, so obvious to touch and eye, began to melt into her skin.
Ember was horrified. “Get it off, get it off!” she screamed, clawing at the bracelet. But there was nothing to grasp. It was a mere shadow of itself, fading quickly into her hands. She expected the chains to burn, but they didn’t. She shook like a tree in the wind, but there was nothing to be done. All she could do was watch as the chains continued to merge with her skin, as if they were nothing more than lotion or soap to be absorbed.
The ring-bracelet sank just as the chains had—flattening until at last they appeared to be a tattooed decoration instead of removable jewelry. She touched one shaking fingertip to the gleaming eyes twinkling at her from the back of her hand, but it felt no different than her normal skin.
And then it started all over again as the necklace she wore—the one her mother had told her so often never to remove—flared to life. Bright emerald eyes flashed intensely as the necklace, too, faded from the silver pendant she’d worn, to a light silvery-gray tattoo with green eyes flashing from the bottom of her sternum.
Ezeker was as stunned as she. “Well, never in all my years . . .” he whispered. Their eyes met and held. Ezeker’s eyes shone with every bit as much fear as she knew was in her own.
Ember held up one hand. “Can this come off?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“I don’t rightly know, child. It should. But then again, that should not have happened.” Ezeker touched the middle of her inner wrist where the ends of the bracelet joined, and whispered a few words. Ember felt the surge of power and heat, but it dissipated into her skin with no change in look or feel.
The old man scratched his bald head. “I am certain your mother is going to be rather unhappy about this.“
“No questioning that,“ Ember responded, still staring at the fading lines of silver. “She’s going to hate it.” Her face softened as she caressed the image of the wolf in her palm and traced the lines across the back of her hand. “But, you know what?“
“What?” he whispered, pale and shaken.
Ember grinned at him, suddenly happier than she had felt in a very long time. “It’s worth it. She can’t do a thing about it—and from my father, to boot,“ she whispered, awed. “I couldn’t ask for a better birthing day gift. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
Ezeker just nodded his head and smiled.
CHAPTER FIVE
C’Tan stood in her bedroom, bare stone walls surrounding her. Only the luxury of a large feather bed with red silk sheets made it look at all like a place to sleep. The room was round and gleamed with shiny black stone, a lair she had created for herself out of a lone mountain jutting from the midst of a dead lake, a dwelling that was not and never had been a home. An unfamiliar sense of wistful longing sneaked into her heart. The last place she remembered as home was a little shack in western Nifan, a place with a mother who loved her and a brother she adored . . . but that was before, in her previous life, when she had been young and innocent and beautiful, before her brother had become another enemy eliminated by her hand.
“Jarin.” She spoke his name aloud. Even after all these years, it was beyond her understanding how she could love and hate someone so much, like the love she’d held for her mother and the hate for her father burned into one.
Ever uncomfortable with the memories of her past, she waved her hand in a plucking motion and pulled a brass mirror from thin air. It appeared before her as if it stood upon a stand, and yet it hovered, unsupported and unmoving in the center of her room. The mirror never lied, and each time she summoned it, the hate in her heart knifed a little deeper. For a moment she stood within the illusion of what she had once been—tall, beautiful, with a lush figure, hair the color of golden apples, and a face so beautiful, it was as if the Guardians had molded a masterpiece in her.
And then Jarin had created the monster behind the mask.
Her eyes narrowed as she let go of the magic that hid the truth from the world. The blonde brows and pale locks that flowed to her shoulders disappeared, and in their place was a reddened scar. Somehow in the inferno that claimed Jarin’s life, S’Kotos had used fire to carve his mark upon her, the symbol for fire starting at the end of her chin and rippling upward to the crest of her head. It mattered not that he wasn’t present during the battle. He was the Guardian and master of fire. It did his bidding and marked his servant as his own. She had truly been her master’s creature since that moment.
There was something about destroying the person you loved most in the world that killed the heart. What was left of Celena Tan still ached for what had been, for the innocence she held before, and not the monster she had become. Her thoughts circled back to the same place they ended every morning of every day since that dreadful fire—back to the one person who could have ended her torment and freed her fro
m S’Kotos—the child of her brother.
The Chosen One.
Her teeth ground in frustration. For fifteen years she had been searching for that child. For fifteen years she had failed. Without Shandae, she could never be free. Without Shandae, S’Kotos could not be destroyed, for it was she who must bring the keystones together and banish The Destroyer. Only with that act would C’Tan be free.
C’Tan could bear the sight of her scarred and fallen state no longer. She was hideous and it shredded her soul a bit more each day to witness it. She bent and gathered up the red robe, pulling the silk around her and belting it at the waist.
A light tap sounded at her door. She waved her hand at the mirror, sending it back to its home until she had need of it again.
She gathered illusion around her once more: the blonde locks, the slightly over-ripe figure, the perfect face. None saw her in her true state. None but the mirror saw her emaciation, her scarred body, and hairless features. Only she and S’Kotos knew the truth behind the mirror.
Armored in illusion once more, she gestured at the door, opening it to the man who had once been her master, but now served her unquestioningly. C’Tan turned her back on him and sat on the end of the bed, legs curved beneath her and a single arm supporting her body as she listened to Kardon’s daily report. She interrupted him almost immediately, as she always did.
“Have you found her?”
His eyes hardened. His opinion of C’Tan’s obsession with the wolfchild had been expressed often enough that C’Tan knew what the look meant. “Nay, mistress. Jarin has hidden her well. We can only wait until the power takes her and hope that the strength of her magic will overwhelm that which hides her from us.”
“That is too long!” she spat. It was the same every day.
“Not so long now, mistress. Fifteen years have passed. Most children have reached their power by her age. Any day now, a year at most, we shall find her.”
“You base a lot upon that hope, Kardon. I hope for your sake that you are right.”
The Sapphire Flute Page 6