River Running (Indigo Elements Book 1)

by Eden Reign

  Confusion flashed across his face, and his clear, fervent brown gaze clouded over. He blinked, stepping back, his brow furrowing as though he had a sudden headache. He jerked. “Manda, come meet them! You and Grey. They’ll love you both.”

  Manda stared. Her mind tilted in a sickening whirl. “Sir, he—we can’t. They’ll know that he’s a—that he’s your ward, and that I’m—his governess. Surely—”

  “Oh, that won’t matter. They already know you’re here; I told them. Miss Blazen has a gift for Grey. She’s so looking forward to meeting him.”

  They already know. They already know. They already know. The thought pounded like panic inside Manda’s head. She wanted to run, but where?

  “Grey!” Jackson called the boy, who had been standing in the shade of a tree, watching them. He bounded over, stopping short in front of Jackson. Jackson ruffled his hair. “Come along, Grey. I have some people I’d like you to meet.”

  “Jack—Master Coal,” Manda protested. “Please, think!”

  But Jackson was not listening. He strode away, one hand holding Grey’s, the boy trotting beside him as quickly as his legs could go. Manda lifted her skirts, hurrying after them, terror and anger fighting for mastery.

  She tried once more on the steps of the rear verandah, grasping Jackson’s coat, restraining him. “Master Coal,” she hissed. “Please, consider what this means. A—a halfmage, sir.”

  Jackson smiled, but it wasn’t the normal soft smile she’d seen before when he’d watched her in unguarded moments. It was a porcelain smile, a painted impression of the one she had grown to love.

  Jackson threw open the rear doors and strode inside with Grey.

  “Master Blazen, Mrs. Blazen, Miss Blazen, this is my ward, Grey Tailor.”

  Manda stood in the doorway, staring at the gathering in the great room. Wilcott Blazen turned his attention to Grey. “Well, Jackson, the boy is older than I thought.” He peered at Grey with the same kind of speculation he gave everything—the art on the wall, the carpet beneath their feet, Manda herself. As though gauging their worth down to the last fullmark. “This must be the governess, I presume?”

  The collection of people in the room all stared at her, and Manda shifted uncomfortably. The petite girl—Miss Blazen—laid her perfect, white glove on Jackson’s arm. In a loud whisper meant to be heard, she said, “It’s positively scandalous, Jackson, to hire a pretty governess. You know how people talk. She’ll have to go, of course, before much more time passes.”

  Heat rushed to Manda’s face as helpless fury swept through her. Jackson, indeed! Anger pulsed in her throat, and her gaze pinned to Miss Blazen’s slim, lithe fingers gripping Jackson’s forearm. Moisture collected on the skin of Manda’s fingertips, her neck, even at the small of her back. Dancing drops of water swirled and formed. With an effort at self-control, Manda closed her eyes, only opening them when she heard Jackson’s voice.

  “This is Manda Rivers, my governess. I hired her from—”

  “From Savana, south quadrant,” Manda interrupted. Her cheeks flamed. Great Rivers, Jackson, if you tell them I’m from Peachtree Orphanage, we may as well kill me now. A simple chat with Mrs. Hurley is all they’d need to find out I’m a halfmage.

  Jackson cast her a puzzled glance. She met his gaze, again disturbed by the confused, clouded difference from the last time she had seen him. Had four weeks changed him so much?

  Wilcott Blazen bowed to her and then turned to Grey, shaking the boy’s hand. “Well, my boy, it’s good to meet you. I’ll bet you help Master Coal oversee all the planting around here, do you?”

  Grey blushed. “A little,” he murmured.

  Mrs. Blazen, a small, slender woman who looked as though she were being forced to smell rotten eggs, glanced coldly down her nose at the boy. “It must be difficult, Master Coal,” she said, “to put up with the ravages of children about the place. I assume you have a large staff?”

  Confusion flashed across Jackson’s face, the same cloud of uncertainty that had struck Manda as odd in the clearing. Mr. Stone stood to the side, holding the Blazens’ traveling cases. When it seemed that Jackson would not answer, Mr. Stone quietly said, “Master Coal employs a permanent staff of five, madam: Miss Westerly, Miss Windham, Mr. Driver, Mr. Reed, and myself, besides the governess, the sharecroppers, and the overseer. We have temporarily hired on another twenty for the ball.” He turned for a side room to place the cases away.

  “Oh, the ball!” Leah Blazen squealed, again clutching Jackson’s sleeve, bouncing in her delicate, brass-toed boots. “Oh, Jackson, only five more days! You cannot imagine how excited I am about the ball. I do hope you’ve invited everyone I wanted so I can fill up my dance card.”

  Jackson nodded stiffly. “It will be the event of the year,” he said woodenly, his gaze straying to Manda, his expression still tinged with the same confusion.

  Manda had had enough. “Grey,” she said, breaking the silence.

  Grey glanced back at her.

  “Come, it’s time to go.” She didn’t wait for an answer, simply took him by the hand and pulled him onto the back verandah, bypassing the balustrade and hurrying with him down the steps, turning north toward the servants’ quarters where she’d keep him well out of the Blazens’ way.

  They had hardly passed the house when a high, breathy voice spoke behind them. “Stop, wait, please. Miss Rivers, a moment.”

  Manda turned, astonished to see Leah Blazen hurrying toward them across the green grass. “Did you need something, Miss Blazen?” Jealousy stabbed hard as Manda studied the young woman’s green eyes and beautiful, heart-shaped face.

  “I—I brought a gift for the boy. I hoped I could give it to him now.” She smiled at Grey. “May I?”

  Instinctively, Manda wanted to pull the boy away. But there was no valid excuse she could offer, and Grey tugged at her hand. “Please, Miss Rivers?” he whispered, curiosity tingeing his voice.

  Manda allowed Grey to approach Miss Blazen, who held a small box, and when she bent down in front of him, she pulled the box open, sliding out a beautifully crafted heart. It seemed to be made of red porcelain, with ribbons of the material creating the outer face of the heart, and inside, between the strips, a glowing coal burned with fiery brilliance.

  Manda gasped. It was beautiful. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just a small token for Grey,” Miss Blazen said. She put the box on the ground and carefully placed the heart into Grey’s hands. Then she rose and said softly to Manda, “It’s a fireheart, a traditional gift among firemages. I gave one to Jackson; it seemed fitting that I give one to Jackson’s ward, too. Go on, Grey, use your fire power to open it.”

  A cry issued from Manda’s mouth. “No, wait—”

  The heart exploded. Flames burst outward, slamming into Grey’s chest, throwing him to the ground. He screamed.

  Horrified, Manda ran forward. “What did you do?” she shouted at Leah, who backstepped quickly, her face pale.

  Grey curled in pain, sobbing loudly.

  “It was only a fireheart!” cried Leah. “It shouldn’t have exploded.”

  Manda wanted to slap the girl’s impassive rosebud mouth, but Grey writhed beneath her, and she turned her attention back to him.

  “Perhaps,” Miss Blazen suggested waspishly, “the magic that he used to open it wasn’t the right kind …”

  Manda ripped Grey’s waistcoat open, and then his shirt, searching for damage. His thin chest heaved frantically beneath a fiery mark that cut into his skin like a brand. The mark curved into a pulsing heart shape that mirrored the porcelain trinket that had exploded.

  Manda stared. A magemark. She had seen such markings before—most memorably on the body of her own mother. Her mother, dead, slung over the sofa, limp white limbs hanging, water pooling all around her on the floor, the mark on her body a clear example of what the Nanu called a Drowning Magemark—Manda shuddered. What had this horrible girl done to Grey?

  Blood oozed from Grey’s che
st with every throb of his heart. This mark Leah Blazen had inflicted was not a Drowning Mark, which could only be made by a watermage, but it seemed to have a similar effect, which was a quick death. Yet if it wasn’t a Drowning Mark, what was it? It did not conform to any of the four traditional elemental magemark varieties used among the Nanu, the water Drowning Mark, the air Revealing Mark, the earth Binding Mark, or the fire Roving Mark. A cold terror took hold of Manda’s insides. She whirled to demand a cure for the mark from Miss Blazen, but the girl had disappeared.

  Manda was speechless. How dare she?

  Grey breathed raggedly, grasping Manda’s hand where he lay on the ground. Manda’s mind raced frantically as she tried to recall the healing lessons of her childhood. What had Bitter Root, her Nanukata mentor, said about magemarks?

  “Miss Rivers, am I going to die?” Grey panted. His eyes were wide and scared.

  “No!” Manda snapped. “No, Grey, you are not going to die.” Manda’s hands were slick with Grey’s blood. Closing her eyes, she pulled every bit of knowledge she had learned from Bitter Root, every portion of halfmage magic she had practiced through the years. This was no typical Roving Magemark, the Nanu fire elemental mark, thank the Good Waters. Roving Magemarks had no cure. No, this was not a magemark like any Manda knew from Bitter Root’s teachings. It was something new.

  But she could touch it and feel it with her healing sense. She could grasp it.

  Water life. Feel life, let life flow, let Good Waters flow. Bitter Root’s deep raspy voice reached through the years, helping her.

  Manda felt the moisture in the blood, allowed it to sink into her skin, to build and coalesce until the heaving currents concentrated in her fingers.

  Closing both hands over the pulsating heart mark, she willed her cleansing waters to push through the fire and indigo that had cut the magemark. Manda shuddered again as she understood the nature of what she felt. Leah’s spell was monstrous—had Manda not been a water halfmage who could touch the raw elements physically, Grey would have died. No fullmage, watermage or otherwise, could have saved him.

  Water flooded Grey’s chest and the grass around him, soaking through his blood-stained clothes. It settled deep into the fire caused by the magemark, and loud hissing erupted from the wound.

  Grey screamed, and Manda let him. It would be painful, the cleansing process, but it had to happen.

  It was over in a moment. When she removed her hands, the mark was completely gone, and not even a trace of red remained.

  Manda pulled Grey to her, wet and sobbing as he was, and rocked him in her lap while both of them cried.

  “I thought I was going to die,” Grey whispered behind choked tears. “I thought you would die, too.”

  “No,” Manda said. “I wouldn’t let that happen, Grey. You’re too important to me.” She kissed his forehead and then helped him up. “Let’s go get you cleaned up.”

  His hand trembled in hers as they walked. “Will she come back? Will Miss Blazen get me again?”

  “No.” Manda’s anger reverberated in that one word. “We would leave here before I’d let that happen.” She softened her voice. “Don’t worry, Grey. I’ll talk to Master Coal. We’ll take care of this.”

  Manda wanted to pull Jackson aside as soon as she’d safely removed Grey to the servants’ quarters, but every time she went to demand an audience with him, he mysteriously melted away with Miss Blazen or her father. Miss Blazen wouldn’t let Manda get anywhere near him, and the evil young woman never seemed to let go of Jackson’s arm. Short of climbing the wisteria trellis to sneak into Jackson’s bedroom in the middle of the night, Manda did not know how to reach him. She half-suspected if she did find the courage to climb the trellis, she’d discover Leah Blazen’s mask-like face staring at her, a porcelain jailor presiding over Jackson’s sleep as she did his waking hours.

  In the meantime, the house was astir with ball preparations, and Manda was pulled in often to help. Before she could scarcely draw breath, five days had passed, and carriage after carriage traveled up Coalhaven’s oak-lined drive. Ladies flooded into the vestibule and the great room, clad in colorful gowns with low décolletage and glittering jewelry that likely had not been brought out since before the war. Gentlemen in cravats and stiff, tailed coats ushered the ladies into the house.

  Grey had begged to see the dance, but Manda wasn’t to be persuaded. After Leah Blazen’s vicious attack with the fireheart, Manda had done everything in her power to keep Grey far away from the manor, and though Jackson requested she bring the boy to the drawing room each evening, she conveniently “forgot.” Due to whatever madness had taken hold of Jackson, he did not notice her insubordination.

  Grey went to bed in the farthest remote house among the servants’ quarters. Once he was asleep, Manda, unable to resist, slipped outside. She wanted to see the ball.

  Pausing, she faced the cabin where Grey slept, her gaze tracing over its simple frame. Taking a deep breath, she called liquid to her fingers, brushing down the door. A nearly invisible shield of water, hard as steel, materialized in front of it. Walking around the house, Manda did the same for the windows. No one could break through such a barrier. Fullmage magic from the Wells would be completely useless against this, its strength an ephemeral wisp against her halfmage magic derived from the very fibre of nature, from the elements themselves. The fact that a fullmage could not touch it was the reason they hated her so much, no matter how they cloaked their animosity and envy with other excuses.

  With Grey’s safety ensured, Manda crept through the back gardens toward the manor, hiding behind a hedge that lined the back verandah of the house, with a clear view through the rear windows, her hands cupping her upper arms as she watched.

  The house overflowed with ladies in wide hoops draped in satin and carrying fans made of real peacock feathers. Pearls, diamonds, and lace regaled every neck. The gentle hum of conversation and the soothing strains of a waltz floated on the night air from the open doors of the house.

  Through the window, Manda could see Mr. Stone leading several footmen through the crowded hall, silver platters crowning their gloved hands as they bowed and offered hors d'oeuvres and champagne in shimmering fluted goblets. Leah Blazen danced with Jackson Coal near the center of the ballroom, her ivy green gown swishing, an emerald hanging low in her décolletage. Jackson’s gloved hand held her tiny waist as he swung her around, an errant strand of dark hair flopping down his forehead. Leah gazed up at Jackson, and she laughed at something he said.

  Jealousy and anger sliced through Manda. The heinous woman had violently attacked Jackson’s ward, and the man danced with her as though she were made of spun sugar and porcelain.

  “I have never spoken ill of any master I’ve served, but that man should know better.”

  Manda whirled in surprise. Rose stood nearby, her hair waving in a self-conjured breeze across her flushed, freckled face.

  “Rose! You startled me.” Manda pressed a hand over her heart.

  “I’m sorry, Manda. I only came out for a breath of fresh air and to get away from the crowded kitchen and Abigail’s high-handed bossing. That kitchen isn’t designed for the number of kitchen maids we hired, and it certainly isn’t designed for two people to be in charge. I have abdicated to Abigail’s stronger personality rather than getting into a territorial war. I think she has appointed herself housekeeper.”

  Manda smiled her understanding. “So it seems. And Master Coal seems … oblivious.” She sighed. “Are you at least nearly done in there?”

  Rose glanced over her shoulder. Through the windows of the detached kitchen, Manda could see other figures bustling around the small area. “Nearly,” Rose murmured. “The food is all out on the sideboards. It’s only a matter of clearing away when they’ve eaten.”

  “I can help with that.”

  “Oh, no, Manda.” Rose shook her head. “You’re Grey’s governess. It wouldn’t be proper.”

  “Hogwash,” Manda protested, but Rose
stubbornly shook her head. Manda glanced back at the house, her thoughts turning for the thousandth time to Leah Blazen’s fireheart. She’d tried to talk to Jackson. Each time, Miss Blazen had kept her from it. She needed to confide in someone. She lowered her voice. “Miss Blazen tried to curse Grey, Rose. Tell Mr. Stone that Grey is not to be anywhere in her vicinity while they are visiting. We must keep an eye on him at all times.”

  Rose’s eyes widened and her lips parted. “Miss Rivers—”

  The music changed, and couples issued from the house onto the back verandah. Rose hurried back to the kitchen, and Manda stepped quickly down the verandah steps, seeking out the dark path to the servants’ quarters.

  Checking on Grey, she pulled the blankets up around him and tucked his small, stuffed bear beneath his chin. His face was relaxed in the forgetfulness of sleep. Her mouth softened as she bent to kiss his flushed cheek before heading into the warm night air.

  Outside, she reset her water shield protections on the cabin before sighing and turning away. She meandered beneath the trees toward the peace of the river.

  She stared at the water for a long time, hating the knots that had tangled in her mind. Nothing was clear-cut and simple anymore. No answers whispered to her from the gurgling water.

  Manda walked along the river’s edge, wondering when the dance would be over. She needed to tell Jackson what Leah Blazen had done to Grey. Could she free him from Miss Blazen’s company? Given his manic, strange behavior, would he even take her part? She ranted at him in her head: that woman nearly killed Grey, Jackson! Do you even care?

  She dropped her gaze to her folded arms, wishing she had the courage to spout those very words to his face.

  She heard his voice and stopped in her tracks, searching the darkness.

  It came again. “I did my best, Miss Blazen. Your dance card was full, so your presence here with me would make it seem that you preferred my company.”

  Manda found them through the trees, almost beyond the circle of light from the hanging lanterns that lit the back gardens. Miss Blazen sat on the wide swing beneath the magnolia, clutching the ropes with her gloved hands. The normally peaceful song of crickets and tree-frogs grated against Manda’s ears as a nasal laugh brayed from the woman’s lips. Jackson leaned attentively over her, a smile plastered across his own face. The quiet murmur of his voice drifted through the evening air.