Mage Confusion (Book 1)

by Virginia G. McMorrow

  “What have I done now?” Wide-eyed innocence met my gaze across the waist-high shrubbery.

  “What have you done?” I snarled, edging closer to the bush Rosanna was busy pruning.

  “I'm sorry you're troubled.”

  “Troubled?” I shouted, grateful for once Rosanna kept so few groundskeepers. “I'm not troubled at this moment, old lady. I'm furious.”

  She clipped dead leaves from the shrub as a chill wind rustled the overhanging branches nearly bereft of leaves. “I hadn't noticed.”

  I leaned over the bush and snatched the clippers from her hands. “What are you trying to do to me?” I shook the clippers at her tranquil expression. “It was horrid enough to send that—that—that old fool after me the first time, but worse now with the children. How could you?”

  “Oh dear.” She frowned, tugging worriedly at her garden gloves. “The children didn't find him helpful, did they?”

  “The children loved him. And you knew I hadn't a seahag's chance in hell to deny them his far-too-entertaining lesson on what a civilized, well-mannered, responsible seamage could do for queen and country.”

  “Now, Alex, really. Besides, you could have refused.” Rosanna retrieved the clippers with care. “You are their schoolmistress. I'm only the duke's mother.”

  “Only the duke’s mother.” I snorted. “I could sooner have shown some mage talent than refused.” Hands resting in resignation on my hips, I stared her down, but her arched eyebrow was eloquent. I started to respond, thought better of it, and decided it wasn't worth the trouble.

  “Alex?” Rosanna called sweetly from her side of the shrubbery as I turned to leave. “Did you at least learn anything?”

  Muttering a long string of imaginative oaths, I nearly bowled Lauryn over in my blind fury.

  She took one look at my face and sighed. “The children told me about the lesson.”

  “I was ambushed.”

  “No doubt about it.”

  “I’ll rip out his heart if he comes within sneezing distance of my cottage.”

  “I’ll hold him down while you do.” Lauryn’s expression was so determined I couldn’t help myself and started to laugh. “Just when you think you’re safe, he comes out of the woodwork again.”

  “I’ll never be safe until he’s gone.” I sagged against the fence. “Sitting there today, watching his tricks,” I chose my words with care, only then recognizing a truth I’d been hiding from all day, “I felt—”

  “Angry.”

  “No. Jealous.” When her blue eyes widened in surprise, I explained, “The old beast made it seem so effortless, so harmless. I know I’m being naïve, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit a tiny part of me wished I could do it, too.”

  Her voice was gentle, nonjudgmental. “That’s a far cry from what you’ve been saying all along. If the feeling doesn’t disappear maybe you should have a private little chat with Master Perrin.”

  Reality reared its ugly head. “I’m too afraid.”

  “Alex, listen to me.” Lauryn grabbed my sleeve as I pushed away from the fence. “I can’t imagine your fear, but I respect it. If you test your power…” She clutched my wrist to keep me still. “You have the chance to do it safely with a man who was trusted by your mother.”

  “I’ve only his word on that.”

  “He had the pendant.”

  “He could have stolen it.”

  Her expression was eloquent.

  “Still…”

  “I know you’re angry with Rosanna, but you know she’d never let him near you if she didn’t trust him, either.”

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “Sometimes, Mistress Keltie,” Lauryn’s eyes held me motionless, “you even try my patience.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lessons shoved aside until the next day, my thoughts were jumbled; my heart divided; my mood contentious. Distracted, I bumped into the table where I had set a light supper. The two halves of Mother's seamage pendant lay beside the plate and I wondered how she split the metal so perfectly.

  “Now that was clumsy.”

  The jug sloshed, sending water down the side of the table, my motion knocking over the small loaf of brushed oats. As the bread sailed to the floor, it dragged the two pieces of copper with it.

  “Damnation.”

  I bent to snatch the loaf before it became waterlogged. The pendant lay on a dry spot where the trickle of water sought to engulf it. Odd, both halves fell together so neatly keeping the circular shape intact. I suppose there was some truth to Mother's watchful eye.

  “Now,” I mused, kneeling on one knee, “if I were truly a seamage, I'd be able to focus inwardly and concentrate as Master Perrin explained to my lambs today. And divert that trickle of water around mother's pendant.” Grinning at my foolishness, I gestured with excess drama and pretended to focus as Anders demonstrated to the children earlier. “Ah, well. See. I'm not a seamage.”

  I groaned as the floor chafed through my light wool trousers. Grabbing onto the chair to drag myself up, I lost my balance and yelped as ice slivers and flaming hot pain tore through my head. Flames of fire went running the length of the trickling water, heading straight for Mother's pendant. I snatched up the pieces and looked wildly about for a cloth to smother the flames. Grabbing the water jug instead, I poured the remaining contents over the fire, extinguishing the flames.

  Breathing heavily, I sat back on my haunches, refusing to even consider what happened, or recognize the sensations I felt all those years ago. I stood on shaky legs, leaning on the chair for support, and placed the two halves of the copper pendant on the table. I caught my breath in a painful gasp and dropped woodenly to the chair, uttering every single vile oath I ever heard in all my years.

  The pendant; Mother's seamage pendant, was intact. One piece. Not a flameblasted scar or seam visible.

  I picked up the empty water jug and flung it across the room, wincing as it shattered into a hundred thousand pieces.

  * * * *

  I woke, echoing Mother's scream. It was her scream, I knew it now. Knew the fire and ice haunting my dreams were signs of my raw talent lashing out. The untrained talent drove agonizing pain through every inch of my mother’s body as she struggled to release me. I knew it in my heart as I lay weeping in my bed, but still needed to hear the truth, to be judged and found guilty.

  I flung back the wool covers, shivering in the cold. Grabbing clothes blindly, I shrugged them on and made my way up the dark and lonely road to the turret on the Hill. No servants were about to see me fumble my way to Rosanna's suite and shove past her bewildered expression. Still weeping, hand still clutching the pendant I wouldn't let from my sight, I shivered without control.

  “Alex.” Rosanna followed me to the window where I leaned my throbbing head against the windowpane. “Child, what's wrong?” Voice gentle, there was deep, abiding, and unconditional love in the touch of her hand on my shoulder. “Tell me.”

  I wiped my eyes free of tears with the sleeve of my rumpled tunic. “Did my mother scream as she lay dying?”

  Rosanna paled. “What's brought this on?”

  “Did she?” I grabbed the older woman’s arms and gripped them tight, unwilling to release her until she answered me with the truth.

  Rosanna nodded, eyes brimming with old grief and heartache. “She was in terrible pain.”

  “Did she…” I paused, throat on fire from weeping. “Did she say anything about fire and ice?”

  “What are you talking about?” Tears came to her own eyes as she caressed my cheek. “What's happened? Is it the dreams again?”

  “Please.” I sobbed, leaning in exhaustion against the window ledge. “I need to know. Fire and ice, Rosanna. Tell me. Please.”

  “Right before the end, as she struggled to birth you, she was burning with fever, muttering in delirium. She cried ice and flames were devouring her. She pleaded for help. We didn't know what she meant, Alex. We thought she was talking about
the fever. We thought—”

  The rest of her words were lost as I felt the remnants of fire and ice and unforgivable guilt devouring me.

  * * * *

  I pried one eyelid open.

  “Thank the lords of the sea for watching over you,” Rosanna muttered in open relief, coming to my side, tucking me back under the woolen covers of her huge bed.

  My throat was hoarse and dry, as though I hadn't used it for a time. “How long have I been here?”

  “Two days.”

  “Two days!” I sat up, immediately dizzy, and fell back against the pillows, appalled at the weakness in my limbs.

  “Easy,” she soothed, resettling the soft pillows behind my head. “You were burning with fever. I couldn't very well send you back to your cottage now, could I? What would the neighbors think?”

  “Rosanna—”

  She stopped her maternal fidgeting at the tension in my voice.

  “I'm sorry,” I whispered, unable to meet the old grief in her eyes.

  “For what? Something troubled you deeply, and you came for help. When you're quite ready, you'll tell me. And not before.”

  Listening to her calm assessment of the facts, I remembered the pendant. Pulling my hand out from beneath the heavy blankets, I caught back a gasp when I saw the pendant was gone. In my blind rush to get to her rooms, I must have lost it along the way, though I remembered clutching it tightly.

  “It's on your neck,” Rosanna said softly.

  I fumbled at my throat and pulled the copper pendant to where I could see it. Rosanna had placed it on a delicate leather thong around my neck. Seamless, unscarred. I met her compassionate look with an anguished look of my own.

  “When you're ready to tell me, Alex. And not before.”

  * * * *

  “I had an entire party of very promising, eligible young men and wealthy older gentlemen rounded up to visit you, but Mother found out, and wasn't impressed.” Jules lounged in the doorway to his mother's suite, a trace of uncertainty in his voice despite the lightness of his words.

  “I wish I could say I missed you, Jules, but truly—” I shrugged, tucking bare feet under me on the soft armchair Rosanna had snuggled me into beneath a pile of wool blankets.

  “I was worried about you.” Exhibiting a wariness in his movements, he edged into the spacious sitting room, inch by inch.

  “I'm sure,” I said dryly, though caught off guard by the honest hurt in his clear green eyes. “I know. I'm teasing.”

  Taking a relieved breath, he sat in the other tapestried armchair. “Lauryn and the twins have been frantic with worry. Mother said you were burning with fever, delirious. I told the boys they could see you later if you were strong enough.”

  “If I could tolerate their father's presence.” I shrugged.

  Jules' answering smile was warm and affectionate. “Well, Alex, I have missed you. But I've been afraid you'd cut off my toes if I came anywhere near the schoolroom or cottage.”

  “I'd probably have cut off more,” I said with a grin, “but then Lauryn would suffer, and I'm terribly fond of her.”

  “Is this a formal end to hostilities?”

  “Consider it a tentative truce.”

  I was still confused, weary, and not a little terrified from all that happened. Before we could explore the end to our fighting, the door opened as Rosanna came in, Anders Perrin close behind her.

  “Is he bothering you?” She glared at her son, one hand perched with authority on her hip, looking more the stern schoolmistress than I ever could.

  “He's been quite civil. Probably up to mischief.” I threw a cautious, noncommittal glance in Anders' direction as he nodded a polite greeting.

  “No doubt. Jules.” She turned back to her son, mistress of the manor again. “Aren't you needed somewhere else?”

  “I was just on my way to somewhere else.” Jules met my gaze with ease now. “Shall I send the captain or one of those wealthy old gents to visit after lunch?” With a hasty bow to Anders and a jaunty kiss on the cheek for his mother, he fled.

  Rosanna looked after him, sighing deeply.

  “It's all right. He really was civil. But what does he know about Master Perrin?” I tucked the blankets back around my toes.

  “Only that I'm a friend of your mother. Nothing more,” Anders said quietly. “May I stay a moment without causing you undue temptation to rip out my heart?”

  “You promised to leap off the falls.”

  “I'd forgotten.”

  Rosanna cocked her head, decided not to comment, and started to leave, but I called her back. “You may as well hear my story so I don't have to repeat it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.” As they settled near the fireplace, Rosanna in her ancient rocking chair and Anders opposite me. I related what happened the night after we'd gone up to Jendlan Falls. Rosanna's eyes widened as I spun my tale, but Anders, well, Anders was his calm, infuriating self. Nothing of his thoughts betrayed themselves in those cool sea-gray eyes. Nothing.

  “May I see the pendant?” He examined it after I tugged it over my head, holding it up to catch the late afternoon sunshine, peering at it from every possible angle. “Useful talent.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I knew there was something odd about you, but I'll be damned if I know what it means. Although it might just be explained by the fact your father was from Glynnswood.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Mage power is different there, so I’ve been told. I’ve been trying to find out what that means, but they’re a very closemouthed people.”

  “And you couldn’t charm them?”

  “Not yet. However,” he added, as I started to answer, distracting me by returning the pendant, “I'd like to see if I can help you find out just what sort of talent you have. If you'll allow me, of course.”

  I stopped with the pendant half over my head and looked at Rosanna with an accusing stare. “I don't know how, old lady, but you planned this.”

  “If I could have planned it without your pain and grief,” she said, hands fisted in the folds of her gown, “I would have, believe me.”

  I settled the pendant on my neck. It always came back to trust, good intentions, deep love, and affection here on the Hill. I was surrounded by all this care but refused to accept it without a fight, without feeling burdened or suffocated, without feeling I didn’t really belong. Lauryn was right. It was easier to stay away, on my terms, regardless of how anyone else felt about it.

  Rosanna watched the subtle shift in my expression as though she knew precisely the pattern of my confused, defensive thoughts. “If Master Perrin can help you, please let him try. He's not a member of the councils. He's a renegade like your mother. And if you're both discreet, the council won't suspect.” She added as an afterthought, “Besides, Anders knows the difference between ferns and weeds, and I could use help in my gardens.”

  “As partial payment for his lodgings at the Seaman’s Berth?”

  “Anders Perrin is a gentleman. He refused payment. However,” Rosanna held my gaze, her own mischievous, “would you rather he stay here on the Hill?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Then don’t protest if he’s helping me in the gardens. He, at least, knows how to use his gifts, gardening being one of them. So, Alex, will you let him help you?”

  “I don't have a choice,” I complained like a petulant child, knowing this was untrue. No one needed to force me. I was well hooked and snagged. And the old beast knew it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I forced Rosanna to tell me the truth.” Lauryn stepped aside as I tucked my breeches into well-worn boots before heading back to the cottage.

  “It’s a hell of a tale, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Lauryn touched my arm, seeming to instinctively know there were some bits of the tale I didn’t want to discuss. “It’s not your fault.”

  I shut my eyes. “How can you say that?”

&nbs
p; “Because I’m a mother. I’ve borne twins. No one could have guessed what happened to your mother.”

  “It doesn’t erase the simple fact her body couldn’t handle the wild magic I was releasing.” I opened my eyes and met her compassionate gaze. “I killed her, Lauryn. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Some things aren’t so simple.”

  “This is.”

  “You’re wrong.” Lauryn didn’t flinch as my anger flared and died.

  “I killed my mother. I almost killed Jules years ago. Who else am I going to hurt? Sure, I’ve no choice but to see what talent I have, but I’m scared half out of my mind.”

  “Then learn to control it.”

  “It won’t bring my mother back.”

  “No, but it will give you peace of mind.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Stop being cynical.”

  “Stop sounding like Rosanna.”

  * * * *

  “If it weren't for Rosanna, and Lauryn, I might add, I wouldn't even be talking to you,” I complained to Anders.

  “Is Lauryn on my side, too? I hadn’t known that.”

  “You stay away from her.”

  “What exactly did you do that night in your cottage?” Anders asked, ignoring my rude words.

  “If I knew I wouldn't be having this problem, would I?” I dropped to the cluttered floor of my parlor, absently shoving aside a pile of books.

  Anders rolled his eyes, sighed with melodrama, and poured himself a full glass of cool Marain wine.

  “That might help me,” I suggested, holding out an empty glass.

  “Absolutely not.” He took a sip from his glass and sighed in contentment before taking the empty glass from my outstretched hand. “It'll ruin your easily distracted concentration. Now think back, Alex. One more time.”

  When I tugged off my boots and flung them in a far corner, he chuckled. “What's so humorous?”

  “You've your mother's impatience.”

  “I thought you said she was lovely and charming.”

  “And incredibly impatient,” he finished, a warm smile lighting his face. He tucked his legs beneath him with a grunt as he joined me on the cramped floor, knees barely inches from mine. “Did I forget to tell you that?”