The Red Grippe.
I’ve noticed that a few of the kitchen workers have been ill with this for some time. It’s easy, but expensive, to cure. I’ve tried to sneak medicine to them, but none of them have been able to get past their fear of me.
But maybe she’ll take it with Yvan here.
I pause, pull a medicinal vial out of my tunic pocket and hold it out to her. “Olilly, I made this for you.”
Olilly recoils and shakes her head stiffly from side to side. She looks to Yvan, terror stark in her eyes.
Yvan turns his back to me, puts his hand on Olilly’s arm and murmurs something, his words too low to decipher. He’s so gentle with her, his long fingers brushing her hair back so kindly, his voice so deep and resonant as he reassures her. It sets off the usual unsettling, warm thrum deep inside me.
Olilly starts to sob, lifting a slender, shaking hand to wipe at her eyes. She looks up at Yvan imploringly. “He could follow me. What if he follows me?”
“I’ll walk you back,” Yvan assures her, his voice low and soothing. “All right?”
Olilly sniffs back her tears and nods.
“Go on,” he tells her, his voice barely audible. “Gather your things.”
Olilly nods again, some of the tension loosening from her stance. She shoots me another fearful look, then disappears into the back storeroom.
I sigh and glance worriedly toward where Olilly exited. “Maybe you can give this to her,” I say, holding the medicine out to Yvan, my emotions pulsing through me in a tangled mess. “She’s much too afraid to take it from me.”
His severe expression doesn’t budge.
“It’s Norfure tincture,” I press. “I’ve seen what she’s taking. You know as well as I do that it won’t cure her. This will.” It’s medicine that works. Expensive Gardnerian medicine. Medicine she’ll never be able to afford.
Yvan stands, blinking at me. But then he walks over and takes it, his warm fingers brushing against my own, sparks lighting on my skin as my pulse quickens. His green eyes lock onto mine as he slides the vial into his pants pocket.
Feeling wildly self-conscious, I go and fish my books out from under a nearby table and straighten to find Yvan still watching me, his brow tensed as if he’s trying to figure something out.
“That was...brave, what you just did,” I tell him awkwardly, clutching at Professor Kristian’s books, hesitant to compliment him.
“You were going to attack a Level Five Gardnerian Mage,” he says, more a statement than a question. “With a skillet.”
I lift my chin defensively. “Why, yes. I was.” Heart thudding, I fight the urge to break eye contact with his intense, unwavering stare.
For a moment it looks as if he wants to say something. Instead he turns and picks up his own books, laid on a shelf with the spice jars.
Olilly emerges from the storeroom, cloaked and with a bag slung over her shoulder. Averting her eyes from me, she hurries out the back door and holds it open for Yvan to follow.
Yvan glances over at her, pausing. He looks back to me, his hard expression now conflicted. “Good night, Elloren,” he says stiffly, but not unpleasantly, before following Olilly out into the night.
His use of my name stuns me into openmouthed silence.
I watch him leave, his back broad and straight, deeply warmed by his thawing demeanor.
And still wondering how he could possibly be so fast.
* * *
I know I should put in an hour or so memorizing cough remedies. Especially after spending so much time with Professor Kristian—time that should have been spent studying.
I sit in my dim North Tower room, my Apothecarium text open on the desk before me, dawn soon approaching. I need to get at least a few hours of sleep, and I’m running out of time for study. But I can’t seem to focus. Professor Kristian’s tower of history books seems to be quietly waiting for me, and I find it hard to resist their forbidden pull.
Simply possessing these books feels like a traitorous thing. Especially the Keltic history. The Kelts oppressed my people for generations. How can I read a history book written by one of them?
But then I look to Ariel, passed out with one of her chickens. And to Wynter, asleep with threadbare wings wrapped tight around her thin frame. I think of Olilly—how poor she is, and how afraid of me. And of Yvan’s use of my first name, for the first time.
I decide to do the dangerous thing, not the smart thing.
I push my Apothecarium text to the side, pick up Professor Kristian’s history text and begin to read.
PROLOGUE
Vyvian Damon can’t take her eyes off him.
Marcus Vogel owns the Council Chamber. His piercing eyes are like green fire and send rippling waves of excitement through her.
And fear through everyone who’s not aligned with him. She’s sure of that.
He’s going to win in the spring.
The Council members’ seats are set between sanded Ironwood trees that rise up to either side of Vyvian, a tangle of branches flowing out over the ceiling. The arcing Council platform looks out over rows of seating, and today the Council Hall is filled with Mages—almost all of them with white bands around their arms.
Vogel bands.
“Where is the male Icaral?” Vogel inquires with terrible calm, his shattering stare pinned on Council Mage Phinneas Callnan, the traitors’ favorite for the spring High Mage referendum and Council envoy to the military.
Mage Callnan glares back at Vogel, jaw set tight. “Not found, as of yet.”
A troubled murmur sweeps through the crowded room.
“The Ancient One has set the Prophecy ringing in our ears,” Vogel states, the words burning with a zealous fire that shudders heat through Vyvian. “Louder and louder and louder.” Vogel holds up The Book of the Ancients. “Yet you ignore His Holy Voice.”
Mage Callnan rises to his feet, outrage smoldering in his eyes. “How dare you question my faith!” He jabs his finger toward the heavens. “No one is ignoring His Holy Voice!”
Vogel goes still as a snake, and when he speaks, his voice is low and frighteningly hard. “You ignore Him when you allow the Icaral demon of Prophecy to escape. You ignore Him when you let heathen races procreate like wild beasts on land that belongs to the Holy Magedom. You ignore Him when you dismiss His Holy Charge to claim Erthia for the Mages. You ignore Him when you allow Keltic spirits to be smuggled through our borders and for Selkies to be sold right here in Valgard! You ignore Him when you support a depraved University where races mix and Icaral demons roam free!”
The Council Chamber erupts into angry cries that slowly morph into a thundering chant that shakes the very floor.
“Vogel! Vogel! Vogel! Vogel!”
Giddy with vengeful fire, Vyvian scans the other Mage Council members. All twelve of them are there, the doddering High Mage Aldus Worthin seated in the center. Vyvian narrows her eyes at the white-bearded High Mage. He’s peering out over the frenzied crowd with a look of shocked befuddlement. Vyvian sneers.
The old relic.
Vyvian does the math. Five white-banded Council Mages are aligned with Marcus—herself, Mage Gaffney, Mage Greer, Mage Flood and Mage Snowden. Six heathen Mages are aligned with High Mage Worthin and his increasingly profane ideas—static borders that allow infidel races and shapeshifters to hold on to Mage land, a relaxation of the ban on intermarriage, trade with the perverse Amazakaran, support of the race-polluted University. And perhaps the most heinous of all—the allowance of Icaral demons to even exist!
Vyvian looks to the side of the room where bald Priest Alfex waits in the wings, a white band around the arm of his priestly robe.
The favorite for the next vacancy on the Council.
Vyvian smiles.
If Vogel wins, and P
riest Alfex slides into his Council seat, Vogel will hold a majority on the Council. Seven to six.
And just like that, the world will change.
CHAPTER ONE
Mage Council Papers
I read history every spare minute, but there aren’t many minutes to spare, the fear of imminent death by Fallon’s ice scratching at the back of my mind.
I read Urisk history while cough syrup simmers before me, poring over accounts of how the cruel Fae set the elements on the Urisk people, blowing whole villages to bits with great, funneling winds, crushing the Urisk fishing fleets with shattering storms.
I read Fae history when I should be memorizing medicinal formulas, with its tales of the barbarian Urisk and how their vicious wyvern allies rained fire down on Fae cities, the great dragons using long talons to rip Fae children to shreds. And later, how the cruel Keltic invaders were quickly subdued before they could wreak havoc on the Fae with their iron weapons.
I read Keltic history as I stir molasses pudding, the text propped up on a shelf just above the stove, half ignoring the thick bubbles popping up to the pudding’s surface like hungry fish mouths. I learn that the ancient Kelts’ ships were met by Fae aggressors, who forced them to their knees, separating families and shackling them all into servitude.
It’s enough conflicting information to make me want to scream.
“You’re reading Mikael Noallan,” Yvan observes flatly, pausing after dropping an armful of logs onto the growing pile beside my stove, his green eyes flashing.
I eye him with defiance. I can read Keltic history if I want to. “Professor Kristian lent me some books.”
Yvan meets my defiant stare full-on, and my pulse quickens.
“Ignore the Roach,” Iris sounds out from across the kitchen, and my muscles go tight with offense.
Let it go. Just let it go.
Yvan’s head whips around. “Don’t call her that.”
The entire kitchen goes silent and motionless. I gape at him in shocked surprise.
Iris glares hard at Yvan, her eyes catching fire, her lip curling with overwhelming, trembling disgust. “You’re defending...a Roach?” She can barely get the words out.
There’s danger in his eyes. “I said, don’t call her that.”
Iris’s eyes glaze over with tears as her eyes flit from me to Yvan, her fury collapsing into raw hurt.
“Iris.” Yvan relents, holding out a conciliatory hand.
Shaking her head violently from side to side, Iris bursts into tears, throws down the rag in her hands and runs out of the kitchen.
Yvan shoots me a brief, storming look, then strides out after her.
My heart is racing fast as a hare, the kitchen workers slowly and carefully launching back into their respective tasks, their eyes darting warily toward me.
Completely astonished by this turn of events, I absentmindedly notice that one of the pots is starting to boil over and reach for its iron handle without remembering to use a mitt.
Heat sears my palm, and I cry out and lurch back, pulling my hand protectively in. Pain streaks up my arm, and I dare a look at my palm, a red half-moon already rising up.
Everyone ignores me, going about their tasks with silent deliberation. I blink back tears and turn toward the stove, grasping my wrist, raw from the pain and from their pointed indifference.
There’s a gentle tug at my tunic arm.
I turn to find Olilly staring up at me with wide, amethyst eyes. Clear eyes. And skin free of red spots.
She used the medicine after all.
“Here, Mage,” she says softly, fishing a small glass container of salve out of her tunic pocket, opening it and holding it out to me. “For burns.”
I blink back more tears as an overwhelming gratitude washes over me.
“Thank you, Olilly,” I say, my voice breaking as I rub the creamy salve into my already blistering burn, the pain quickly dampening.
She ignores the subtle looks of censure thrown her way and gives me a small, tentative smile.
* * *
“I’d like a copy of this week’s Mage Council Motions & Rulings,” I tell the Gardnerian Archivist.
It’s late that same evening, my left hand wrapped with a thin bandage, the burn tamped down to an annoying sting by Olilly’s healing salve.
I think about Olilly’s debilitating fear of Gardnerians the whole walk over here. Her enforced servitude. Her shy doe eyes and gentle ways. And she’s so young—too young to be facing the rest of her life as a virtual slave.
Professor Kristian is right, I think. It’s time to start paying attention to what my own government is doing. And the Gardnerian Archives are a prime place to begin.
The archivist is bespectacled and has gray hair tied up in a loose bun, her eyes set on me with awed approval. There’s a white ribbon neatly tied around her arm.
“I’m so sorry, Mage Gardner,” she says with an apologetic smile. “They’re all checked out.” She motions with a subtle flick of her finger toward the crooked, taciturn Mage hunched over the papers at a table clear across the room.
Tierney.
I thank the archivist and make my way to Tierney’s table. The Gardnerian Archives are thinly populated at this late hour, the lighting dimmed to a soft amber glow.
“Can I see those when you’re done?” I say with no preamble.
Tierney looks up at me, her expression full of its usual grim sarcasm. “I thought politics wasn’t your domain.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind.”
Her sharp eyes flick toward my arm. “Still no armband.”
I throw a pointed look at her arm, as well. “You, either.”
Her eyes narrow to slits. “I hope Marcus Vogel rots in a fiery hell,” she whispers scathingly.
I stand there blinking at her for a moment. “Well, I might not phrase it quite like that, but I certainly don’t want him to be High Mage.”
Now she’s blinking at me like she doesn’t quite know what to make of me.
Without a word, she slides over and makes room for me next to her so we can read the papers together.
* * *
The Mage Council Motions & Rulings are deeply boring reading, and I have to bite my tongue more than once to keep from nodding off. Mind-numbing details regarding Council building, shipping and military contracts, tax figures and land disputes make up the vast majority of the tiny print.
But then my eye catches on a motion presented by Marcus Vogel and struck down by Phinneas Callnan’s majority.
“Look at this,” I whisper, pointing. “Vogel wants to make wandfasting mandatory by the age of eighteen.”
There’s tight strain around Tierney’s eyes, her mouth twisting into a grimace. “He’s been pushing for that for months. Refuse to fast, and the Council will pick someone for you.”
I bet Aunt Vyvian would love it if this motion passed.
“How old are you, Tierney?” I hesitantly whisper.
She takes a shuddering breath, her expression haunted. “Eighteen.” Her tone is the fall of an ax, final and inescapable.
I swallow, an uneasy chill working its way down my spine. I pull one arm protectively around myself and look back down at the papers.
There’s another motion, again presented by Marcus Vogel, to iron-test every Mage seeking admittance to the Guilds.
I look to Tierney. She’s sitting back, watching me read now with dark patience as if waiting for the full catastrophe that is Vogel to completely sink into my mind.
Wide-awake now, I follow the print down the page with the tip of my index finger.
There’s a motion presented by Marcus Vogel—and struck down—to execute any Urisk found to be in Gardneria without work papers. And a motion presented by Marcus Vogel, passed a
s a ruling, to execute a band of Keltic Resistance fighters for setting fire to the Sixth Division’s military barracks. Another passed motion to execute two Resistance workers found to be smuggling Urisk east.
A slim thread of fear pulls at my insides. Vogel seems fond of executions.
There’s one last motion passed to ruling, also presented by Marcus Vogel—to block trade with the Amazakaran in retaliation for their offer to give amnesty to Urisk women, even those here illegally. The Amaz leader, Queen Alkaia, is quoted as saying, “The Amazakaran Free Peoples of the Caledonian Mountains will not recognize any bindings of servitude placed on any woman.” In addition, the Amaz have made the “incendiary and outrageous” decision to also give amnesty to any women with mixed or even full Fae blood.
I look to Tierney, my finger resting discreetly and hopefully on the ruling.
Her face tenses, and she looks carefully around the empty archives, the archivist filing papers clear across the room, her back to us. Tierney glances sidelong at me. “The Amaz won’t give amnesty to males,” she whispers, the sound constricted and almost inaudible.
Tierney’s father. And brother. Are they Fae, too?
“At least we’re in Verpacia.” I reassure her. “Your family could come here, maybe?”
Tierney shoots me a deeply incredulous glare. “You don’t follow any politics, do you?”
“No... I haven’t in the past,” I stammer, worry rising.
She lets out a jaded breath. “The Verpacian Council’s elections were held just last month. There’s now a Gardnerian majority on it. For the first time ever.”
“But it’s still Verpacia,” I counter. “There’s a mix of cultures here. There are too many different races living here for any one race to have too much influence...”
“You haven’t followed politics because you haven’t had to,” she snipes, raw resentment breaking through. “And it shows. You’re incredibly naive.” She leans closer, confrontation burning in her eyes. “Your people have huge families. Because you’re supposed to take over the entire world.”
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