“But then Styvius was killed.”
“By a Vu Trin sorceress.”
“And the war ended.”
“After a drawn-out battle.” Professor Kristian pauses to pour himself some tea, asking with a hand gesture if I want some, as well. I nod, and he pours me a cup. I sit back and sip at the bitter tea. “The Gardnerians had to cede some of the land they had annexed,” he tells me, “and my people reclaimed about half of what had been taken from them.”
His people, I note smugly. This has to be a biased account.
“What happened next?” I ask, wanting to catch him in a blatant half-truth.
He sips at his tea. “Many years of peace ensued. It was a time of growth for the Guilds, for trade. Verpacia once again became a major trade crossroads. The University was formally established. And Keltic society became more open to the point where even Icarals were tolerated.”
I stop him here. “Where did the Icarals come from?”
He tilts his head, considering. “No one knows for sure. They’ve popped up in virtually every race as far back as can be remembered, and are hated by almost everyone in the Western Realm.”
It’s true. It seems that practically everyone’s religious traditions cast the Icarals as demonic beings.
“Why are they hated so?” I wonder.
He shrugs. “Like the Fae, they can be full of unpredictable power. They’re often dangerous as children. It’s probably because they have wyvern blood.”
“Wyvern? You mean dragon-shifters?” I try to wrap my head around this. Are Ariel and Wynter part...dragon?
“Well, they do share the western wyverns’ feathered, black wings,” he says, his mouth tilting up. “And their fire power and fire magic.”
Wyverns. Not demons at all. It makes sense. “So...the Icarals are hated because of their wyvern blood?”
Professor Kristian spits out a disdainful breath. “I would postulate that they’re hated because you can’t hide wings.”
I scrunch my face up in confusion.
“All that wyvern blood floating around,” he explains, “interferes rather inconveniently with cherished ideas of racial purity. Which, in and of itself, is probably the greatest myth of all time.” His eyes gleam with mischief. “Gardnerians are touchy about racial lines not being clearly drawn. The Elves are even touchier. It’s easier to cast the Icarals as evil and shun them at birth than it is to admit that every race is a mix.”
I grasp at my mug, thoughts swirling as he stirs some honey into his tea and glances sidelong at me, giving his words ample time to sink in.
He sits back, a question in his eyes. “Shall we continue?”
I nod.
“Where were we, then?” His brow knits tight as he focuses into the middle distance.
“It was a time of peace.”
“Ah, yes,” he says, taking another sip and eyeing me poignantly. “So...enter Carnissa Gardner onto our historical stage.”
“My grandmother.”
“Yes, your grandmother. She was the long-awaited one. The powerful Great Mage of Prophecy, born with magic more powerful than Styvius’s. At a time when Mages saw their borders shrinking as the Kelts reclaimed lost land, purging that land of any Mages they could find.”
“You mean murdering them,” I flatly state.
He gives me a sober look. “Yes, Elloren. Rounding them up and murdering them.”
I sit back, cross my arms and wait for him to continue.
“Your grandmother, Carnissa, set out not only to avenge the Mages, but also to finish what Styvius had started. As she honed her power, the Mages secretly built a dragon army to rival the Urisk and Keltish forces—the Gardnerians were aided in this by the despised Urisk underclass, the Uuril.”
“The light-colored Urisk?” I question. “Like some of the kitchen workers? They have pinkish hair.”
“They would be part of the Uuril underclass,” Professor Kristian affirms.
I think of little Fern and her bubbles, troubled by her low-class status.
“Carnissa invaded Keltania and quickly annexed it,” Professor Kristian continues. “Then she aligned herself with the Alfsigr Elves, shipped the remaining Fae—as well as anyone with even a drop of Fae blood—to the Pyrran Isles and took over the Fae Islands. Like Styvius, she didn’t plan on stopping there. By that point she had turned into a cruel, religious zealot who wanted to wipe out every race in the Western Realm, save the Gardnerian Mages.”
This isn’t how I know this story. “She was protecting my people,” I protest. “The Kelts wanted their land back so they could enslave my people again.”
“It may have started out that way,” he counters, “but it certainly didn’t end that way. Your people wanted revenge. And they needed more farmland. They didn’t want just some of the land, they wanted all of it.” He pauses, perhaps seeing how much this is upsetting me.
He’s wrong. He has to be. My grandmother wasn’t some bloodthirsty, land-grabbing monster. She was a great warrior. She saved and protected us all.
“Elloren,” he says, his expression conflicted. “Your grandmother wanted to kill everyone who wasn’t Gardnerian.”
“Because they wanted to attack us,” I say, my voice tight and strained. My parents fought with her. They died fighting for her. Fighting for all of my people. They were heroes.
Professor Kristian tightens his lips as if holding back a counter-argument. After a short pause he speaks again. “An Icaral rose up during your grandmother’s push east. He killed her and died doing it. The Icaral was a Keltic healer who gave his life to save Keltania, a society that still harbored lingering prejudice against his kind.” He sets down his tea. “So, here we are.”
Here we are. A Kelt and a Gardnerian, calmly discussing the whole thing. Calm enough on the surface at least. My mind is a tumult of warring emotions.
“Your people and the Alfsigr Elves are currently the major powers in the region,” he continues. “With only a few very fragile checks on their power. There’s the Vu Trin guard at the Western and Eastern passes, positioned to keep Gardnerian and Alfsigr power confined to the Western Realm. There’s also the loose threat that war could force an alliance between the Lupines and the Amaz. And both groups are formidable opponents on their own.”
“And there’s the Resistance,” I add.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Yes, there’s a scattered Resistance movement. The Resistance being the only group willing to defy the Gardnerians and Alfsigr Elves at the moment.”
I hold his level stare. “You think opposition will grow?”
He tilts his head in consideration. “Perhaps. Especially with Priest Marcus Vogel poised to take control of the Gardnerian Mage Council.”
A thread of fear tightens in my gut at the mention of Vogel.
“I’ve met him,” I tell Professor Kristian.
He eyes me appraisingly. “And did you like him?”
I remember the dark tree, the feel of the black void. “He scared me,” I admit.
“He should,” Professor Kristian warns. “And you should start paying attention to what your own Mage Council is doing.” He rubs at his temple, then looks back at me. “Vogel’s a Level Five Mage, but he lacks the power of Styvius and Carnissa.”
“So he’s no Great Mage.”
Professor Kristian shakes his head. “No. But something is working in his favor—another Prophecy, echoed by the seers of several races, making everyone fearful and reactionary. It speaks of the imminent arrival of another Black Witch, the greatest Gardnerian Mage yet. It also speaks of the rising of another Icaral—a male—who will challenge her. According to this Prophecy, this new Black Witch will need to kill the Icaral, or an age of darkness will descend on Gardneria.
“Of course, the enemies of Gardneria see darkness f
or Gardneria as a good thing, so there are already assassins roaming the lands, desperate to locate the Black Witch of Prophecy. And, of course, the Gardnerians are desperate to locate both the Black Witch and the Icaral who is supposed to rise up and challenge Her. There have been some rumors that an Icaral baby boy was recently born to a Gardnerian girl, and that both the baby and the mother are on the run from the Gardnerian Mage Council.”
Sage’s baby. The Icaral of Prophecy—an unbroken Icaral who could come into his full powers. An Icaral who might keep his wings and possess unspeakable magic. And a new Black Witch—Fallon Bane.
For a moment we’re both silent as I digest all this new information.
“So...the next Black Witch,” I venture. “What if it’s true? What if she comes?”
He grows quiet, his eyes grave with foreboding. “The Gardnerians have built the most powerful army they have ever had, with more dragons at their command than ever before. If another Black Witch rises, it is likely that the Gardnerians will succeed in taking over every land that exists on our maps, crushing the Resistance and making everyone who is not a Mage into a slave, with the exception, perhaps, of the Lupines.” He leans toward me, his voice low. “Is that what you want, Elloren Gardner?”
I think of Fern and her bubbles. I swallow hard, feeling off-kilter and troubled. “I’m a Level One Mage,” I say, struggling to keep my tone light. “It hardly matters what I want.”
“Perhaps, but I’m still curious.”
“I don’t know,” I say, my worldview like shifting sand unsteady beneath my feet. “Lukas Grey told me that you have to dominate or be dominated. That all of history is like this.”
He considers this, nodding with a look of sad resignation. “Much of history is like that,” he agrees. “But perhaps there is another way.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Elloren Gardner. I don’t know,” he says sadly, shaking his head. “But for me, life would not be worth living without at least having faith in that one thing—that there is another way, a path of justice, if you will. And that there is at least a very small sliver of hope that this path will one day be discovered.”
“So you think there’s hope for something better than all of this fighting? Some other future that’s possible?”
“A future of fairness? A future of justice? A future where resources are shared by all peoples instead of fought over? Yes, I think it’s possible, but I think it will all come down to the choices of individuals.”
“Even powerless individuals?”
“I like to think so, yes.”
I sigh and slump down. “It all seems very confusing.” I eye him piercingly. “And I’m not sure if I even believe everything you say.”
Unexpectedly, Professor Kristian stands up and pulls several books from the shelves lining his small office. I read the front covers as he hands them to me one by one.
The Annotated History of Keltania, by the Keltic historian Mikael Noallan
A History of the Alfsigr Realm, translated from High Elvish by Ital’lyr Ciarnyllir
A Comprehensive History of the Faekin, translated from Asrai Fae by Elfhollen historian Connor Haldash
The Amazakaran Worldview, by the Keltic historian Mikael Noallan
Lupine Societies: A History, by Lupine historian Dolf Boarg
“But these will all be from different points of view,” I say as he once again takes his seat. “I’ll be even more confused than I already am.”
He smiles slightly. “Who said confusion is a bad thing? I have found that confusion can be a very good thing. Often you have to fall into the blackness of utter confusion before you can emerge to see even the smallest glimmer of the truth. My heartfelt wish is that you read these books and are thrown into a complete tailspin of befuddlement.”
I frown at him. “I came here for answers.”
He laughs at this, pushing up his spectacles. “Good history professors have only questions. You will have to find your own answers, Elloren Gardner.”
I stand up, my arms wrapped around the heavy volumes. “Thank you,” I say to him, my voice uncertain as I look down at the thick books he’s given me.
“Don’t thank me,” he says, all amusement gone. “Real education doesn’t make your life easy. It complicates things and makes everything messy and disturbing. But the alternative, Elloren Gardner, is to live your life based on injustice and lies.”
I bite at my lower lip, not liking what he’s saying. Hating some of it.
He abruptly glances back down at the papers on his desk and begins to write on them, making it clear that it’s time for me to leave.
I hug the heavy books tight under both arms and walk out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Damion Bane
Late that night, after spending about two hours peeling potatoes and a few more toiling in the apothecary lab, I start back to the North Tower. Halfway across the cold, windy field, I realize I’ve left Professor Kristian’s books in the kitchen.
It’s well past midnight when I return to the kitchen to fetch the books. I’ve never been out so late, and it’s strange to find the University so quiet and deserted, only a few stray scholars walking here and there, some scattered lamplight visible through windows.
I push open the door that leads to the kitchen’s storage room, hearing some muffled voices in the otherwise quiet kitchen up ahead. I hesitate near the second door, curious as to who could be here at such a late hour.
“Please...please let me go,” a young woman pleads, crying softly.
“Now, why would I do that?” a velvety voice answers.
I creep up to the door in front of me and peer through its window. My gut clenches when I see who it is.
Fallon’s older brother, Lieutenant Damion Bane, decked out in his black military garb, silver-striped cloak and white armband. He’s grabbing at Olilly, the shy, violet-skinned Urisk girl who cleans the floors at night. The girl Fallon chased away.
“I have to go. Please let me go,” Olilly begs, trying to pull away from the hand firmly clenched around her thin arm.
Anger courses through me, making my heart race. Trystan. I should get Trystan. He’s a Level Five like Damion. He doesn’t have as much training, but still...
“You have something that belongs to my sister,” Damion says with a smile. “So you’re going to do exactly what I want, or I’m going to report you for theft and get you sent back to the Islands.”
“I didn’t take anything. I swear it.” Her words are muffled by crying.
“There, there,” he purrs, reaching up to finger the buttons of her tunic. “What Fallon doesn’t know won’t hurt her. You’re going to come with me, and we’ll have a little talk. We’re going to take a walk in the woods.”
Anger boils over inside me. Level Five be damned.
I grab up the biggest iron skillet I can find, swinging it by its wooden handle, and make for the kitchen door.
I burst into the kitchen wielding my makeshift weapon. As Damion turns to look at me in surprise, there’s a crash, and a blur streaks through the kitchen, colliding with Damion.
He falls backward away from the girl and onto a table with a groan.
Yvan Guriel is now standing over him, Damion’s wand in his hand. Yvan deftly casts it into the bread stove’s fire. Cold air rushes in from the still-open back door, the logs Yvan had been carrying lying all over the floor near the door in disarray.
I blink, momentarily thrown off balance. How did Yvan move so fast? Impossibly so.
Yvan’s fists are clenched, his body tightly coiled as if he’s ready to spring at Damion at any moment, green eyes blazing.
Damion looks at him, then me, ignoring Olilly as she cries and huddles against the spice shelf. He smiles and pushes himself off the table,
then pauses to brush off his fine clothes.
“Doing some late-night cooking?” he asks me, amused.
My arm hurts from holding the heavy skillet, but I don’t care. I want to throw it straight at his head.
“Stay away from the kitchen girls,” I tell him, my voice steely.
I’ve heard all about him, and some of the other soldiers. Preying on any Urisk girl unlucky enough to find herself alone with them. The kitchen workers don’t talk to me directly, but they talk around me, and I’ve ears to hear.
“She’s a thief,” Damion tells me conversationally, flicking his fingers in the direction of the girl without looking at her. “She’s coming with me. She stole something from my sister. A picture.”
Oh, Ancient One. Guilt lashes through me. Lukas’s cracked portrait at the bottom of my cloak pocket. Olilly’s predicament is all my fault.
I hoist the skillet a little higher on the handle, fearing I may drop it. “She didn’t take Fallon’s picture,” I tell him, heart pounding. “I did.”
His eyebrows fly up, then his gaze turns malevolent and he lets out a short laugh. “So you have my sister’s picture of Lukas Grey?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Interesting rivalry you two have going,” he says, shooting me a dark look.
I fish the broken portrait pieces from my cloak pocket, walk over to him, the skillet hanging heavily from my other hand, and drop the pieces into his outstretched palm.
He smiles chillingly. “I don’t suppose she’ll laugh this off.”
“No, I’d imagine not,” I reply flatly.
I let out a long breath as he takes his leave, then turn to find Olilly and Yvan staring at me, Olilly terrified and frozen in place, Yvan’s eyes a storm of emotion.
“I left my books here,” I explain weakly, mind spinning with the many ways Fallon will soon be devising to kill me. And still reeling over Yvan’s otherworldly speed.
I awkwardly set the skillet down on a table. The kitchen is now quiet as a tomb, and my gaze is drawn to Olilly’s bloodshot eyes, the telltale spots around the corners of her lips.
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