Besides, I was starving.
“Good enough,” he said. “Your new friend does seem to have helped your learning. I quite approve of that friendship. Now sit here and have lunch with me. We can spend a little time together before I return to my duties.”
Days like this I felt so proud: living in the palace, with a new best friend, and studying for a chance to be a part of the work that my father and the Empress were doing to make Ananya a better place. Someday, maybe when I was grown up, I knew I would be able to make him proud without working so hard at it. But days like today, when he took time out from his work to help me learn and even shared lunch with me, gave me hope for the future.
* * * *
“Why don’t you like the theater?” I asked Tenia once. We were in her chambers pretending to study history together, so of course I was thinking about the theater.
“It’s an old place,” she said. “I’m not comfortable there. My mother says it’s filled with the old magic, even if no one can see it now.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Isn’t the whole palace filled with the old magic?” I knew about old magic, at least in theory. Between history lessons and all the mentions of it in the treaty that my father was making me memorize, I knew more than I wanted to about the magic that people had used to fight the gods to a standstill, and even kill some of them. But the old magic had been given up in the treaty that ended the Holy War, in return for the “new” magic channeled from the gods for the last eight hundred years.
“The oldest parts of the palace are, but a lot’s been rebuilt since then,” said Tenia. “The theater used to be used for something else, I’m pretty sure. I know a lot of the treaty was negotiated there, so it was filled with wards and with the most powerful magic people could manage because everyone expected the gods to turn on us during the negotiations. All those suits they used to use as festival costumes started out as the formal wear used to speak to the gods.”
“Really? Someone dressed up as the Mouse King to talk to the gods?” I wondered if that was what Clause 178 of the treaty was about, that odd bit about wearing “clothing appropriate to the occasion” so the gods wouldn’t lie to you.
“I know, really.” Tenia’s blonde ringlets shook as she laughed. “But the suits symbolized something different back then. They were really important.”
Tenia seemed to know about everything. I’m not sure I was much of a chancellor to her, but I loved to listen to her explain things, and I seemed to ask her the right questions. I let her do most of the talking, which seemed to be fine with her. I still wasn’t used to the idea of having a friend whom my father couldn’t send away if I said the wrong thing.
I’d asked her about that once, too, not directly of course. I asked her, hypothetically, if she thought my father could ever be wrong, or if I should trust everything he said.
“I think you should trust him completely,” Tenia answered. “My mother does. She says he’s the only person she’s ever known who doesn’t care about power, just about serving his Empress. And if the Empress trusts him completely, I wouldn’t question him. I mean, we’re smart, but we’re just kids. If he says to do something it’s because he knows better.”
So that settled that. Once my best friend and the Empress both said to trust my father, my doubts seemed pretty foolish. I found myself studying harder, trying to really understand what it was he was trying to teach me by having me memorize the Talisman of Truce. As a twelve-year-old the meanings of many of the clauses escaped me, no matter how many times I studied them. I could follow the basic meaning, but I knew there were implications that I wasn’t seeing hidden in the verses. I told myself that as long as I memorized every word of the treaty to my father’s satisfaction, I would gradually understand the hidden meanings as I got older and learned more. Which actually turned out to be true, although not in any way that I expected.
* * * *
I had thought that it was impossible to learn anything much about magic before you were admitted to the Empress’s Academy, and that was probably true for most people, but it wasn’t true for people living in the palace. Or at least it wasn’t true for people living in the palace who were friends with Tenia.
Whether because she was just naturally gifted in magic or because her mother had shown her how to find them, Tenia could draw small magics from what she called “practice threads,” bits of magic that had been connected to certain rooms or objects, but remained malleable, unlike other magic once a channeler finished molding it. Later I would encounter similar places at the Empress’s Academy, but when Tenia showed them to me it seemed exciting and new and almost forbidden. Except that if Tenia said it was okay I knew we wouldn’t be punished for it.
She worked the magic easily, changing the color of the lamps on the chamber walls and making their lights flicker, calling up a faint breeze. Nothing big but it was magic! Real magic. And we weren’t even channelers yet.
She showed me how to relax my focus and let my mind touch the practice threads, but I couldn’t do it. On the fourth try, I started seeing blue flickers out of the corners of my eyes again, and then, on the wall in front of me, a startling glimpse of a whole rune the size of my hand. Then my eyes refocused and the blue disappeared.
On the sixth try I was able to raise enough breeze to tousle Tenia’s ringlets for a moment. I barely felt the thread, but at least I had managed something.
Tenia remained patient and gently coached me; I think part of her liked how much more easily magic came to her than to me, the way memorization and recitation came so much more easily to me.
We did this a few times a week: whenever all our other lessons were done and she got tired of helping me recite treaty verses and we could sneak away. Practicing on the threads wasn’t exactly forbidden, but we weren’t sure if it was allowed, either. The threads hadn’t been created for kids to practice on, but for the use of channelers convalescing from illness or injury. I don’t think we were even supposed to know they existed, much less be able to sense them.
Of course, without all Tenia’s coaching I never would have sensed them at all. And I still felt more of the elusive blue streaks and rarely glimpsed runes than I did of the Empress’s magic.
Finally I asked Tenia about it, hesitantly.
“Do you think anyone can still see the old magic?” I asked her. “I know there’s plenty of it in the palace, lingering.”
“Of course not,” she answered. “I certainly can’t, and I know my mother can’t, and no one has more powerful magic than her.”
“But what if someone could?” I persisted.
“Nobody can. Even if someone knew how to use it, what’s left is hundreds of years old and faded. A few people can sense it maybe—that’s why the theater bothers me—but no one can see it.”
“What would you say if I could see the old magic? Not really see it, I mean. But maybe little glimpses of old things. More than I see of the new magic, anyway?”
“If that was true—and it’s not true, is it?” Tenia looked at me sharply, and I knew enough to shake my head vigorously.
“No, of course not. I’m just asking because it would be exciting, like in a fairy tale. I just wondered what someone would do”—I didn’t say I this time—“if they could see it.”
“I’d say to keep it a secret. Do you want to be a channeler or an exile? The old magic is forbidden in the treaty, right? So anyone who can see it has to be exiled or punished.”
“I guess.” Actually, Clause 119 of the treaty, which was the appropriate verse, seemed pretty ambivalent on the subject. It was one of the longer clauses:
All magic shall be channeled through the gods and
the practice of any other magic is forbidden. Let the practice
of magic that comes not from the gods die with this generation
of practitioners, who
will live long enough to stand guard against betrayal.
Those who persist in practicing magic
aft
er the first generation has died shall
be punished by exile or
turned over to the gods for punishment or
thrown from cliffs to their deaths,
at the discretion of their rulers.
No books on the practice of magic may be written
save those on the use of magic that flows from the gods.
Any books that now exist may be kept but not sold
or passed to the next generation: They must be interred
with their owners or destroyed at the time of the funeral.
Such magic as now exists outside the gods
must be destroyed or allowed to fade away;
it may not be renewed but only replaced
by magic that comes through the gods.
If any god shall violate the treaty in a material way
then this clause shall be held in abeyance
even though the remainder of this treaty remain in force.
My father hated that verse. “Poetry written by a committee,” he had called it the last time I recited it for him, but I knew that I didn’t have enough knowledge about either poetry or treaty negotiations to understand his mockery. And I knew that asking him to explain would just call attention to my lack of understanding instead of my successful memorization.
I never brought up the old magic again, and Tenia pretended I had never said it at all. She was a great friend that way; she never held missteps against me and she let me help her on the things that came more easily to me, like history and recitation.
It seems weird to say it, but having Tenia to confide in meant I actually got along better with my father. Having Tenia as a friend meant that I didn’t hold things inside until I couldn’t stop myself from blurting them out to my father. I could hold back more until I was sure of my words, so I didn’t say as much to my father that made him mad.
I just wished I was better at the magic. No matter how good I was at other things, magic was the one way he couldn’t help but compare me to my mother.
* * * *
“I’m not going to be very good with magic, am I?” I asked my father one day in a moment of doubt.
“Probably you will not,” he answered. “You are an acceptably quick study at history and law, better than many I have known, but you have very little aptitude for magic. Certainly nothing like the abilities your mother had.”
That was as close as my father ever came to a compliment, but it still stung.
“Does that mean I won’t be able to go to the Empress’s Academy? Tenia said I might not be good enough. I’m trying my best, I think.”
My father thought about the question for a minute, then looked at me directly.
“If life was fair, you would not be allowed at the Empress’s Academy,” he said, meeting my eyes directly so I couldn’t look away. “Were you nearly anyone else’s daughter, Ketya, you would be politely but firmly declined at the Empress’s Academy and encouraged to attend a civil service academy where you might be more successful. But you are my daughter, and because I am the Empress’s closest adviser, you will be accepted. Even if I were a nobody, your face looks enough like your mother’s that it is not unlikely the examiners would fool themselves into thinking you will someday wield the power your mother carried with such ease.”
The power that killed your mother. He didn’t say the words, but I could see the thought in his eyes.
“Even your friendship with Tenia might be enough,” he said. “She will be Empress someday, when her mother tires of ruling and takes back her name. When Tenia is Empress, the examiner who rejected her friend might have cause to regret it. Some Empresses have long memories for slights.”
“Is there nothing I can do to earn a place at the Academy for myself?”
My father made the annoyed expression he got when I asked a stupid question. “Why waste energy fighting a battle that you have already won? Your father is the Empress’s chancellor. You befriended the Empress’s daughter to make your success certain. Work on winning the next battle as decisively as you did this one. The best victories are in battles your opponent never realizes they’ve fought.”
I didn’t make friends with Tenia just to get into the Academy, I wanted to say. But I kept silent, since it was the one thing he seemed to think I had done right, even if I hadn’t done it for the right reasons.
So instead I said, “If I go to the Empress’s Academy, I will be far away. I won’t see you much for years.”
“That is true,” he said. I waited for him to say more, but he turned to some deployment reports on the desk in front of him instead and I knew the conversation was over.
Chapter 6
Ketya
The Empress’s Academy: Four years before the Loss
Tenia laughed. “You can stop gaping now. Everyone will think you’ve never been here before.”
“But I haven’t been here before. And it’s amazing. Can’t I gape a little?”
“Always act self-possessed, just like the drama teacher said.”
“He never said that. You made it up.” I couldn’t help smiling; Tenia’s playfulness had a way of infecting me.
“Well, he should have said it. It’s true.”
We had just gotten off the cable-carriage. The academy had its own platform, floored with sparkling blue tiles. Even though we had arrived at night, rows of lanterns on tall poles lit the platform as brightly as a summer day. The air smelled of jasmine, though I saw no plants. More magic? Everything here seemed magical.
Downhill from the platform, more lampposts illuminated a path across a broad green. On the other side, the pearlescent walls of the academy buildings glowed in the night as if struck by moonlight, though the moon had not yet risen. Light shone from every window. Most of the places I’d lived had been built for defense; the series of wars that ran through Ananyan history had colored its architecture as well. But the Empress’s Academy had been built for light and beauty and exuberant displays of magic. Even at night, the oversized doors of the academy buildings stood open—inviting and brightly lit. The slight chill in the air would not penetrate them, I supposed.
I hadn’t seen anyone unloading our luggage—perhaps it had been done magically while I stood gaping—but now a cart with all the trunks and bags from the cable-carriage rolled gently downslope along the path. Now they’re just showing off, I thought. So much magic for something that doesn’t really need it. Wordlessly Tenia and I fell into step behind the cart and followed it slowly down the hill and across the green.
It felt odd arriving to an empty platform. Perhaps this was part of the transition to adulthood we would be making? Once we finished our studies and connected with the Empress, we could be sent anywhere—to fight in battles, to clear swamps, to power ships across the sea to the colonies—and would be expected to perform as fully skilled channelers. A channeler who failed at her job could not claim inexperience as an excuse. Only sickness and weakened powers excused less than perfection.
Which, given my lack of channeling potential, meant that I had a lot of hard work ahead of me.
We didn’t meet another soul that night. We followed our luggage as it floated up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway—not so bright upstairs as in the entryway or the front of the building—to our rooms. We received our own rooms, next to each other, which surprised me for some reason; I’d heard stories about bureaucrats’ academies and officers’ academies, where even the highest ranking officers sent to prepare for a promotion were expected to share a room. For the lower ranks and would-be bureaucrats, barracks of eight or more seemed common. But privilege felt inevitable at a school for magic, even one like this where each student might, in theory, be drawn from the poorest family as long as she had talent.
In practice, almost every girl I knew at the academy was the daughter of a channeler, or at least very well connected. Like me, of course.
But most of them turned out to be a lot more outgoing than me. Most of them were used to being the most
important kids in their schools or circles of friends. Here, almost every girl in the school had been the most popular girl in her town. A lot of them had to adjust to being just another student at the Empress’s Academy.
* * * *
When I was a girl, I loved to dance. Not just country dances, I mean formal, festival dances. I’d picked up a little bit as a kid, and then when we moved to the palace I pursued it more seriously. I was trying to fit in and meet other kids my age, but my father was very conscious of his position in the palace, and didn’t want me to do anything that would reflect badly on him. Formal dancing was one of the things my father approved of, so he wrote a note to the palace dance instructor asking him to add me to the junior-level class. I loved it. I never got past junior-level—I was nowhere near ready to perform in an actual festival, and the dancemaster rarely had spots open for new performers anyway—but we performed at a lot of children’s festivals and palace garden parties and such.
Then, when I got to the Academy, I saw they had spots open for the dance class—and I could actually learn senior-level dances. I was pretty astonished to get into the class as a first-year student.
It didn’t take long to find out the reason. Dulcet, the dancemaster, had...wandering hands. Nothing that would leave a mark or that you could prove when it was your word against his, even if you’d had the courage to pursue it. He would never have dared to try anything on Tenia, but she wasn’t in the class with me. And I couldn’t tell her about it: Her mother had hand-picked the faculty, and Tenia had told me more than once about how elite they were, and how if we didn’t learn from them the problem was us, not them.
After I joined the class lots of other girls warned me about him, at least elliptically, but no one said anything before. People had a lot of strategies for surviving his class. Girls who tolerated some but not too much seemed to do best—you learned to do what you needed to survive.
We’d all heard the stories of girls who had tried to report him and gotten terrible assignments as channelers, cleaning up disease-ridden swamps or working on drainage projects in the colonies. Everyone knew he had some sort of influence. Besides, he was a teacher. At the Empress’s Academy. Looking back, I have no idea if any of those stories were true or not—whether he even had any influence at all, or if anyone had ever complained. Or whose side the Empress would have taken if someone had complained. You hear a lot of rumors like that when you’re in school, and you take them as fact.
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