“Please. Fire this time.” Hastily, he brushed together another pile of leaves before I changed my mind.
Pendant clasped in my hand, I focused, envisioning the flames blazing on the ground between us. I opened my eyes to see Anders clapping his hands together in childish delight at the small blaze I'd created.
He danced over to where I sat and crouched beside me. “One more small test, please?”
Still in rather a bit of shock and confusion, I asked, “What would you like this time?”
“Wait here.” Anders ran into the cottage and came back with a cup full of water. Calling on his own seamage talent, he closed his eyes, changed the water to a cloud of steam, and back again. “Try that.”
I nodded with unbridled eagerness, wondering at the guarded look on his face. Clutching the pendant again, I held the cup. Nothing happened. Not at first. As my frustration grew, I dropped the cup with a shout and a vicious curse as flames danced inside, singeing my fingers. Anders caught the cup and extinguished the flames. I was shaking and didn't bother to hide it.
“I suspected you'd fail.”
Puzzled, I stared at his sympathetic expression as he took my singed fingers and cooled them with water. “I don't understand.”
“I think you can use your mage talent to control all four elements. Fire, water, earth. Even air now.” He smiled in open delight. “But not like the Crownmage, who can control all four elements within themselves. You, it seems, dear Alex, can use your mage talent to change elements. Thus, water becomes wind; fire becomes wind or earth, or whatever you choose.”
“I'm still not sure I understand,” I whispered, uncertain whether to laugh or cry.
“The Crownmage can take the water from a stream, divert it, turn it to steam here, send it as rain there.” An amused expression lightened his eyes, taking years from his face. “You, on the other hand, can take the same stream and turn it into roaring flame or take the raging fire and turn it into a windstorm. You change elements from one to another. The Crownmage changes the form of the element within itself.”
I was doomed, had known Anders was trouble from the very moment I laid eyes on him. I tried to ignore the rising panic in my head. “But what about Mother's pendant? How did I manage to unite the pieces?”
“That's still a mystery. It may have something to do with your father’s bloodline, or perhaps it was simply Emila's way of touching you.” He took the copper pendant from my trembling fingers and held it in his own palm. “She never admitted how she split the pendant. Knowing that devious woman, she had a trick or two hidden away.” Anders returned the piece to me, lifting my hair to settle it on my neck. “Maybe she just wanted you to use it the way you just did. Alex—” He touched my cheek, tracing the lines of my face, his expression a mix of emotions I couldn’t quite read. I wondered what Lauryn would make of it. “She would have been very proud of you.”
My voice shook as I tried to laugh away my tears. “What would she have done with such a monster?”
He never even hesitated. “She would have loved you. Taught you all she knew, and more.” Hand still resting on my cheek, he kept his eyes fixed on mine.
“I was frightened before. But now,” I swallowed with deep uneasiness. “I'm absolutely terrified.”
“I don't blame you.” His voice was calm, soothing, and I neatly fell into his little trap.
“There's a question in your eyes.”
“Just wondering if you were going to tell anyone about your talent.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Are you going to tell Jules?”
Expecting that question, I turned from the window overlooking the gardens to face Rosanna. “You mean am I going to tell Elena?”
Rosanna sat in the old, carved rocking chair by the fireplace in her parlor, teacup poised in mid-air. “I can see maturity, wisdom, and tact don't accompany mage talent.” When I laughed aloud and turned back to stare out the huge window, she said, “If you're trying to decide whether to turn my blossoms into mud-splattered weeds, I can breathe a sigh of relief. I know they're safe because you can't tell the difference.”
“It'd serve you right,” I muttered, tracing a random pattern on the frost-covered pane.
“I'll be frightened when you pose a real threat to my garden. And we both know that won't be in my lifetime. Besides, my aging heart couldn't survive the shock.”
“Are you quite finished?”
“I suppose. Alex—”
“You're not finished.”
“I suppose not. In theory, your talent makes you just as valuable to Elena as though you were Crownmage. It would ease her mind to know she has a uniquely talented ally.” She paused a long moment after that word, ally, not friend, but I chose not to comment. And so she pressed on, “It would ease her heart more to know she has a loyal friend. I've known Elena from the moment she was born and disciplined her with the rest of you ill-behaved beastly children over those long, hot summers. So I know she values the friend far more than the ally.” When I still didn't respond, she added, “You know it, too.”
I continued to trace my finger along the smooth glass, leaving a smudge. “I won't be a pawn in one of her vicious political games.”
“This vicious political game isn't a game. Elena's struggling to hold her monarchy together. And you're denying—”
I spun around to face Rosanna's blatant disapproval and accusation. My stomach tightened at the disappointment in her eyes. It wasn't fair. “Make me feel guilty for not offering my unique talent to our devoted monarch, and sitting by, doing nothing, while the kingdom crumbles. You're very good at this, Rosanna, but it won't work.”
“I do it when I need to.” She fidgeted with the teacup. “Only when I think you're wrong.”
“I'm not the one who's wrong. She tried to deceive me into using my talent with no regard for how I felt about it. She's the one who's always pushing. I won't be used as her weapon. All I want is to be left alone. Is that so much to ask?”
“When you deny her your help because of pride? Yes.”
“Pride? She betrayed my trust.” Pushing aside the memory of my last visit to Ardenna when I eavesdropped on Elena and Jules, I added, “If there's an ache in her heart, she has only herself and your son to blame.”
“I'm relieved to see there's no ache in your heart.”
“Because I don't have one?”
She watched me in silence for a few tense moments. “You haven't answered my question.”
“Which one?”
“Well,” she sidestepped my bitter words, “since you insist they're one and the same. Are you going to tell Jules and Elena?”
I shrugged and headed for the door. “I haven't decided.”
* * * *
“I've been trying to solve this riddle of your unconventional talent,” Anders said later that afternoon after another exhausting session of experiments.
“You're really trying to find out why a selfish, immature, ungrateful, disloyal woman is graced with such magnificent talent.” I knocked aside a pile of books.
When I didn't bother to pick them up, one black brow rose eloquently. Anders settled back against the huge pillows on the floor of my small, cluttered parlor that always seemed smaller when he was there. “You've been to see Lady Barlow.”
“You noticed? Has she convinced you I should tell Elena?”
“No.”
“Preserve me from the wrath of the lords of the sea,” I muttered. “How on this wondrous earth is that possible?”
“Simple, Alex. It's your decision. When you're forced to act,” he held up a hand to forestall my indignant reply, “if you're forced to act, you'll still do whatever you think is right. Despite her anxiety and your stubbornness, you have a very powerful sense of right and wrong. She trusts you.” I muttered a crude oath, which he ignored. “Now, back to your unconventional, magnificent talent.”
“Any ideas?”
Anders steepled his fingers under his chin and narrowed his eyes t
o slits. “There has to be a connection to your father somehow, but there's so little known about his people. Not even your mother was able to pry many secrets from your father.” He tapped his fingers against his chin. “But that's got to be the key.”
“How can we find out?”
“We could journey to the forests of Glynnswood.”
“I can't leave the children now,” I said, rubbing nonexistent dirt from my scuffed boot. Even to my own ears, my reaction seemed peculiar. But I could only explain it away as instinct. “Perhaps—”
“Perhaps means you've no intention of ever making the journey. Besides, you've left the children before.”
“This is different.”
“I’m not entirely sure how, Alex. Why don’t you explain it to me?”
“I don’t want to go, all right?”
Anders eyed me with wariness. “It might be worthwhile to find out just what you're capable of doing. In case you’re needed.”
“I won't be needed.”
“Perhaps not,” he said mildly, a twinkle in his sea-gray eyes made me want to strangle him, “but your talent might be.”
* * * *
“Have you been avoiding me?” Jules' deep voice thundered across the length of the schoolroom, quiet now the children had escaped for the afternoon. Honestly, one would think I punished them.
“Would I even consider such a thing as avoiding you?” I continued to sort through the children's art drawings, humming to myself.
“It's been weeks.”
I looked up in surprise at his pouting tone. “I should think you'd feel easier knowing we weren't at each other's throat all the time. It's not good for the children to be around such bloodletting.”
Expression serious, Jules strode into the room and propped a muscular leg on one of the low wooden benches. He leaned over, chin in hand, arm on knee. “Whenever you avoid me, you're either angry or secretive.”
“I'm neither. I just thought it wise to avoid confrontation.”
“So your lessons are progressing.”
“I said no such thing.” Annoyed, I reached over and shoved his leg from its precarious position.
“Ow.” Catching his balance, he smiled, staring me down with those huge green eyes. “Come on, Alex. Tell me the truth.”
“Jules,” I sighed with unfeigned weariness, “there's nothing to tell. Go away.”
“I will. But not yet.” I grabbed a massive book and aimed it at his head, but he persisted. “Don't you want to hear the latest news from Ardenna?”
“No.” I slammed the book on the table, scattering some of the drawings, and started sorting through them again, putting them into meaningless piles.
“You're just saying that to be difficult. Elena's found an eyewitness to disprove the charges against the alleged assassin. Seems the poor gentleman—”
“I'm not interested.”
“Had a reputable witness to provide an alibi. The Crown Council's furious. The Meravan ambassador's relieved. And—”
I slammed another book on the table, making Jules jump. “Elena's happy as a seawhale frolicking in the Skandar Sea with a mate in heat.”
“Well, yes.” Jules looked surprised. “Shouldn't she be?”
“Don't you see how self-sufficient she is? Elena doesn't need you or me. And she certainly doesn't need my insignificant talent.”
“Just how insignificant?”
“Very. And very useless.”
“Then I'll tell Elena,” he said in a silky smooth voice that made me want to leap across the desk, rip out his heart, and stuff it down his throat, “not to bother you over insignificant and useless talent.”
Chapter Nineteen
“You can't seem to change the magnitude of what you're doing.”
“Would you rather I tried to set the entire woods ablaze?”
The same argument had gone on for some days, though now it seemed to have lost its subtle tone as we both reached a breaking point.
“Alex, be reasonable,” Anders tried the diplomatic approach, “for a change.”
Well, not quite diplomatic.
“I should be reasonable?” I shouted, grateful for my lack of neighbors in the forest. “You want me to risk the woods, my cottage, your worthless body, and me, by trying to force my uncontrollable talent to its potential?” I stamped around the clearing, muttering and swearing viciously. “Are you mad? Or just an idiot?”
Anders stood in the center of the glade, arms crossed against his broad chest, legs slightly apart, balanced. The man was persistent as a hungry seahag with delicious, tempting, and cornered prey within reach. Engaging, in an odd sort of way I wasn’t quite able to put my finger on.
“I don't want to push your talent to its limit, Alex, particularly since we don't know what those limits are. These puny manifestations you've been showing may be all you can do.”
“Puny? How dare you?”
“It wouldn't surprise me.”
I should have scratched out his eyes the first time I saw him. He was nothing but trouble. Suddenly, he didn’t appear quite so engaging.
“All I want is for you to give me a bonfire, perhaps, instead of a candle flame. Not a forest ablaze with crackling flames. A small hill of dirt rather than a pile no bigger than I'd find in Lady Barlow's gardens. Not a mountain. A pool of water bigger than a bucket. Not the Skandar Sea.”
“I quite get your insulting point.”
“Then do it.” Anders stood motionless, taunting me with a cool stance. “Stop muttering, and do it before I grow old and die.”
“I wish you would.”
“I'm not quite ready.”
“That’s too bad.”
Furious at his nagging, I coaxed the fire and ice and tamed them until they merged with scant effort, copper pendant clutched so tight in one hand I thought the imprint of the tidal crest would burn into my palm. Not a candle, or a hill, or a bucket for this flameblasted old beast. I kept an eye on the fallen, decayed log to Anders' side and envisioned a gust of wind stronger than my first attempt those weeks ago. Not a tempest, of course. The old man wouldn't approve, but a gust strong enough to make him pay close and careful attention.
Envisioned it. Felt it.
Opened my eyes to watch in spiteful joy Anders' dark hair tossing wildly in the wind I'd created. Stubborn, he stood in the same spot, cloak snapping from the force of the wind. I coaxed the talent further, seduced it, pushed it. Felt the gust increase a hundred-thousand fold in strength. Watched as small pieces of deadwood and leaves were swept away. Watched tree limbs bend and sway, fighting the gale.
Watched in horror as the wind snatched Anders up as though he weighed nothing more than a fallen leaf and slammed his body against the oak tree.
I panicked.
Losing control of the cool warmth, I felt the sharp pain of ice and flame rip through my head, blinding me. Shaken, I waited only a heartbeat before running across the clearing to Anders. He lay unconscious, slumped against the tree trunk, just like Jules all those years ago. Frantic, I felt Anders' neck for a pulse in the loud silence of the banished windstorm.
* * * *
“You're reacting like a frightened child.”
Refusing to listen or watch Anders limp painfully to my side, I turned my back on him. “I won't use the talent ever again, Anders. I could have killed you.”
“But you didn't.” He eased the weight from his bandaged knee with careful movements. “Besides, I provoked you. I wouldn't leave you be.”
“That doesn’t excuse what happened.” Bitterness and shame nearly choked me. “I risked hurting you to spite you,” I admitted, studiously avoiding his eyes. “I was careless and arrogant.”
“Yes, you were.” Anders put a hand under my chin and forced me to look into his calm gaze. “So you learned a lesson.”
“At your expense.”
“You would have been well rid of me if the wind was any stronger. That should be a comfort to you should you ever be angry with me again. Or
are you so accustomed to my engaging personality you would have missed me?”
“You know I would.” My voice was subdued, instinct telling my heart a truth my head wasn’t quite ready to accept. “That's not funny.”
He restrained a laugh, hand still resting under my chin. “I'm all right.”
“You were lucky.” I sat back, forcing his hand to fall away.
Anders straightened, groaning involuntary as he leaned on his injured knee. “At the risk of making me aware of my aging, decrepit bones, you will, at least, admit we made some progress?”
“It doesn't matter. I'll not use it again. Not ever. Not for you or Elena. Most of all not for me.”
“Then you'll have wasted everything I've taught you.”
“I'll make it up to you somehow; pay you for the time you wasted.”
“Don't be sorry, Alex!” he snapped, grabbing his woolen cloak and heading for the door. “And don't insult me. I'm not doing this for money. I'm here because of your mother. And because I believe in you.”
“Even now?”
“Learn from this mistake and put it behind you. You're not a coward, but you're acting like one. You'll withdraw where it's safe just so you won't risk making another mistake. And another lifetime will pass.”
“My choice.”
“A wrong one. You'll throw away your talent when you could be doing something useful with it. How can we ever learn or better ourselves without making mistakes or taking risks?” I didn't bother to answer, didn't move, fighting back tears of grief and humiliation, of which he took unfair advantage. “Your mother would have been disappointed.”
“Bastard.” I snarled, spinning to face him. “Get out.”
Anders shuffled to the door of the cottage. “When you've come to your senses, you know where to find me.”
* * * *
“You’ve let the little beasts out early?”
Without much enthusiasm, I waved Lauryn into the empty schoolroom. “They were unusually smart today.”
“And you were unusually sad,” Lauryn shoved aside a pile of books to perch on the edge of the table, “according to Hunter.”
Mage Confusion (Book 1) Page 14