The girls let out high pitched squeals and bounced in a tight circle, gripping each other’s hands and talking so quickly that Becca barely caught one word in five.
Asha’s eyes were crossed. “Truly? A prince?”
“Only prince of Chahir,” Becca confirmed. Well, technically his father was too. It was too much trouble to explain that and she let it go with a shrug.
“Does not act like prince…” Asha trailed off uncertainly.
“No, he’s nice. Not arrogant.” Becca had to wonder what their impression of princes were but if the government and warlord here had been any indication, then they were not nice men. Certainly not the type to go around healing people and talking with them. Seeing that Asha was worried about this, she ducked her head enough to give the matron a smile. “Nolan came as Life Mage. Not as prince. Treat him as mage. Yes?”
“But is a prince,” Asha responded, her sense of propriety flaring to life.
Oh dear. Maybe Becca shouldn’t have said anything. “Is also mage. He came to work as mage. Respect that.”
Asha visibly struggled but finally nodded reluctantly.
Seeing that she had a chance to break for freedom, Becca took it and headed for the kitchen, finding that a plate had been made up for her. After not eating most of the day, she was starving and ate it quickly up. She had every intention of washing up afterwards until Asha elbowed her aside and shooed her up the stairs. This was likely another etiquette thing but Becca was too tired to ask and figure it out. Instead, she went up the stairs to her second story bedroom.
The room was as she had left it. It barely had space for a single bed, washstand, and a chest to put clothes into. She closed the door behind her with a nudge of the hip before stripping down, then washing with the tepid water from the washstand. Running around in a desert didn’t make a person sweat, not really, but it did leave traces of sand on the skin that was uncomfortable to sleep in.
Pulling on a loose slip, she crawled into bed, leaving the covers pooled around her waist. The desert had extremes of hots and colds. It was scorching hot during the day, very cold at night, but after sunset like this was a middle ground to where it still retained some heat. She’d need the covers later but not right at this moment.
Laying back, she pillowed her arms under her head and stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Absolutely nothing about this trip had gone to plan. First capture, then fighting to get free, and now having to convince people that she hadn’t come in to conquer their city. Well, no, Sumi more or less believed them. Really, if she had to pick an argument to win, it wasn’t that one. Trying to convince them that magician didn’t automatically mean ‘slave’ had been a more than uphill battle. The people here seemed to think that the three Chahirans were an exception to the rule because they were a different type of magician. Mages weren’t slaves. Witches and wizards were.
It was like trying to argue that magic wasn’t evil in Chahir all over again, it was so engrained in Khobunter’s culture. Becca felt like screaming.
The only saving grace was that the people of Rurick did understand this: they were not to try to enslave the magicians again. They would have three very upset mages if they did and they wanted to avoid that at all costs. Becca could live with that, for now. It did beg the question, though, of what to do later? Obviously they couldn’t just charge into a city and release the slaves and then go on their merry way expecting all to be fine.
Agitated, she flopped over to lie on her side, staring at the wall instead. This might be a moot point, at least in the near future. Trying to set up several magical academies here in Khobunter would be near impossible. The Trasdee Evondit Orra would likely want to just relocate all of the magicians from here and train them in Hain, or in Chahir, which would be the more sensible approach. She envisioned Garth’s reaction when he had several thousand students come into Strae and snorted laughter. Oh dear. He’d be torn between elation and panic.
Honestly, none of these were really her problems to fix. What she should do was go investigate the ruins, get answers, then report home on what they had found here. After that, she would go back to searching for her weather-tampering magician and free any slaves that crossed her path in the process. That was her task.
Putting aside the questions she couldn’t solve, she closed her eyes in a determined way. She had to get up early tomorrow to travel to the ruins and it would be best to get a full night’s sleep. Trev’nor was a notorious early bird.
As she slipped into sleep, one more errant thought floated through her mind. She hoped, wistfully, that she would be able to meet up again with everyone at the Academy after she returned home. She’d made friends with them, these past two weeks. It would be fun to show them what being a respected magician was like out in the rest of the world.
The next morning they were out again, finishing up the job they had started. Becca’s storm had done its job and filled the reservoir half-full and given the ground a good soaking. Well, as much as this soil could handle, at least.
Trev’nor surveyed the results inside their walled-in garden space with a satisfied expression. “Perfect. I needed moisture to really get the soil to optimum conditions.”
Watching an Earth Mage work was nothing like watching a Life Mage, or an Air Mage, or any other type. They didn’t have to concentrate in quite the same way. Trev’nor’s eyes seemed to go blind to his immediate surroundings as he saw something below the level of the ground that the rest of them could not detect.
But even she could see the results. A great deal of powdery substance and hard pebbles were shifted to the side in a rubbish pile. The earth around them became dark and rich, perfect for planting. She glanced at Nolan and found him rubbing his hands, eager to get started. “Perfect?”
“Perfect,” he agreed.
Trev’nor stepped back and gave Nolan a grand flourish and bow. “My apologies for the delay, My Lord Magus. Do proceed.”
Nolan punched him in the arm, playfully, and stepped past him with a grin on his face.
“Did you see that?” Trev’nor mock-complained to her. “I do the man favors and get abused for it.”
“You poor baby,” she cooed. “Should I kiss it and make it better?”
“Ew. Becca, seriously, ew.”
Snickering, she turned to find that Bala was in her shadow. Of course she was, someone had to be. She looked between the two of them with a blush on her cheeks and Becca could just see the girl jumping to the wrong conclusions. “Bala. Quit that. I was teasing him, that’s why he’s grossed out right now.”
She looked confused for a split second. Then she lit right back up. “Ah, then it’s Raja Nolan that you favor?”
Becca buried her head in both hands and groaned, loud and long. “No. No, I do not. Trev, stop laughing and help me out here.”
“I’ve been trying for three days now to convince people that I’m not interested in dating you.” Trev’nor sounded quite cheerful about the whole thing. “They refuse to be convinced. I’m alright with them misunderstanding you and Nolan, that’s much funnier.”
For that, Becca slugged him in the arm.
Bala gasped. Something about her horrified, befuddled confusion got Becca’s undivided attention.
“What?” Becca demanded of her.
“Raya Becca, you mustn’t touch a man casually if you are not attached to him,” Bala scolded in a shocked whisper, as if afraid one of the elders would overhear. Although who was a good question—they were the only ones in this section of town at the moment.
It was close, but Becca didn’t start screaming in frustration.
“Breathe, Bec,” Trev’nor advised, amused and sympathetic all at once. “Breathe. Miss Bala, our culture is radically different than yours, you probably won’t get it if I explain. So do us a favor. Treat us like siblings.”
The girl blinked at him as if she had never heard the word. “Siblings?”
“Right. Like brother and sister. Because that’s basically what we are, s
iblings. We grew up together like them.”
She did not seem able to wrap her mind around this idea either but seemed more game to try. “I see. I will try.”
“Good, good.” To Becca, Trev’nor said, “While he’s playing, let’s go eat something. I think we skipped breakfast.”
“It’s too early for lunch,” she pointed out.
“Then we’ll go for luncfest.”
“Trev. There has to be a better way to combine those words.”
He gave her a sweet smile. “We can debate the matter over food.”
Becca gave up. “Fine. Food.”
Nolan joined them an hour later looking more than a little dirty but with satisfaction all over his face. He dropped into the chair next to them, eyeing the remains of the dishes on their table the way a stray dog would leftovers. “You left some for me?”
“We did, but shouldn’t you clean up first?” Becca eyed him from head to toe, wondering aloud, “How did you even get this dirty?”
“I had to form a few plants by hand and then bury them more firmly into the soil,” he explained. “Trev, hit me.”
Trev’nor waved a hand expansively in his direction, like a stage magician would. “Dirt, I banish thee.”
The dirt leapt to obey and fell off Nolan in one fell swoop. It left the Life Mage looking clean but not exactly pristine.
Nolan grabbed a clean plate from the middle of the table and started filling his plate. “So I planted seven different fruit trees, more vegetables, a few grape vines, and the like. I tweaked them a little so they’re hardier and they’ll produce longer. They’ll also go dormant on their own without needing much care, but we need to run the proper way to take care of the garden by a few people. We don’t want them killing things by accident.”
Becca wholeheartedly agreed with that. “We also need to teach them what to do with all of these plants. They won’t know how to eat them, or cook them, or store them, or anything.”
Nolan nodded with his mouth full.
“How fast are these plants of yours growing?” Trev’nor asked with a slight frown. “Will we be able to show them all of this today?”
Nolan shook his head and reached for his cup, chugging it down. Once his mouth was clear, he said, “No, the plants will reach full maturation tonight. We’ll need to stay one more day.”
This surprised Becca. “Even the fruit trees?”
“They won’t be very big, but they’ll produce at least some fruit by morning. It’ll take years for them to reach full maturation.”
Well, that was a surprise. Becca had no experience with young fruit trees so she hadn’t realized even the small ones could bear something. “I’m guessing you used a lot of magic putting the garden in, that’s why you’re starving?”
“In a nutshell,” Nolan verified before pointing at a dish near her elbow. “That looks spicy.”
Nolan couldn’t handle any level of spice at all. He had no tolerance for it. Becca felt a spark of mischievousness take hold.
“It is—” Trev’nor started, only to clam up when she kicked him in the shin under the table.
“—n’t,” she completed smoothly. “It just looks that way because of some spice they used. But it’s safe for your tongue.”
Not suspecting a thing, Nolan popped a bite into his mouth. He probably intended to say something, but his reaction to the hot dish was almost immediate. His eyes bugged out of his head, his face flushed, sweat started dewing on his temples. Choking, spluttering, he downed another glass of water but of course that didn’t help much. Swearing unintelligibly around the mouthful he couldn’t (politely) spit out, he lunged to his feet.
Becca instinctively jumped up to follow him, which attracted the attention of everyone else on the street. They slowed as they watched their foreign mages react in a crazy fashion. Nolan stripped off his jacket, kicked off shoes one foot at a time, and headed for the nearest open aqueduct. Without a word to anyone, he climbed up, turning into a seal as he did so. Flopping inside, he ducked under the water and stayed there for a solid minute.
Of course Trev’nor had followed along, and seeing what his friend did, doubled over in laughter. “Bec, you’re mean!” he gasped out.
“You say that, but you’re laughing,” she responded, chuckling herself. “Why is he so bad at spice?”
“I have no idea. My question is, why does he constantly believe you when you tell him something isn’t spicy? This is like the hundredth time he’s fallen for it.”
Yes, it was close to that. Becca enjoyed pranking every time too.
Nolan finally surfaced. Bracing his front fins on the side of the aqueduct he leveled a seally glare at her and squawked indignantly, making honking noises.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak seal,” Becca responded with false contriteness.
The townspeople around them gathered in closer, awed and a little amused at this scene. Rikkana Sumi approached and studied Nolan with something akin to trepidation. “This is…?”
“Nolan,” Becca answered forthrightly. “Life Mages can assume the form of any animal they wish to.”
The Rikkana regarded the transformed teenager for another long moment. “Why…?”
“He ate something spicy,” Becca explained, still acting innocent. “He’s very bad at spice.”
Nolan gave another indignant protest that no one could understand.
“By that, she means she tricked him into eating something spicy,” Trev’nor explained, still chuckling and wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Ah, this never gets old. He goes into a different animal form every time.”
Yes, he did. That’s why she did it. Adopting a business-like expression, she snapped her fingers at him. “Alright, enough, climb out now and put your clothes back on. We need to finish eating lunch and return to work.”
Nolan gave her another glare, and a huff, and dove back into the water.
“I don’t think he trusts you anymore,” Trev’nor drawled.
Wise man. There was still another dish on that table she’d planned on making him eat. Well, another time would do. Feeling happy and light for the first time in many days, she skipped back to her lunch. Maybe Nolan wouldn’t come out of the water anytime soon, but she still planned on teaching the people in this city some of the joys of life before leaving. Fruits were high on that list.
Nolan stifled a yawn behind one hand. “Trev. Why are we up before birds are even awake?”
“Half-asleep people aren’t as prone to panicking,” Trev’nor explained cheerfully as he took them down into the earth. His magic wrapped around them in muted tones of green and brown.
They had spent two days longer in Rurick than anyone had planned, mostly because it had taken that long to teach people how to tend the garden and what to do with the food it yielded. She did not regret the extra time because it let her learn more about them. Becca liked to think she had formed friendships among the people and not just the magicians that she had shared such a horrific experience with.
Because of that, it was only this morning that they were finally leaving. Becca had extremely limited experience when it came to using the Earth Path. In fact, she had only been on it perhaps thrice before in her life. She wouldn’t begin to say that she was an expert, but to her Trev’nor’s path felt a little different than Garth’s. How, she couldn’t say, as it wasn’t something that she could put a finger on. It just did. Although, being down here did bring up a thought she hadn’t considered before. “Trev. How do you navigate down here?”
“Same way Garth does. By the feel of the land. I know by the map where cities are, and I can feel things like mountains and lakes and such. I use them as landmarks and navigate.” Pausing, he thought for a moment more before offering, “Also, the buildings that we’re going to are really old, right? I doubt anything else standing has quite the same feel to them so I’m searching for something that feels ancient.”
That made a great deal of sense. Most of magic was common sense applica
tion, really, although an outsider didn’t always see it that way. “You can tell how old a building is?”
“The age of it is very obvious,” Trev’nor admitted absently, focusing.
Nolan sidled up to her and whispered, “Try not to distract him. It’s hard for him to navigate in a place he doesn’t know and I’d rather he not trip over a ley line.”
Oops. Becca clamped her mouth shut and didn’t dare to utter another peep for the rest of the trip.
She had no way of sensing time, but it seemed like not even an hour had passed before they rose to the surface, the ground melting away from them like reverse quicksand. The morning sunlight was just turning to true day, still in that hazy wash of sepia tones and cool blue. Laid out before them was a small ridge of hills, like a miniature mountain range, and nestled into the basin sat a spread of what must have once been a magnificent city. The buildings sat half-destroyed, there were no roofs to be found, but the pillars of carved stone still stood straight and tall, forming archways and partial walls. Some of the buildings stood several stories, others were so demolished that barely anything of the original structure stood, just one brick on top of another. Even in its ruined state, it looked breathtaking.
Becca’s voice came out hushed as she asked, “How old is it?”
“At a guess? About thirty or so years after the Magic War ended.” Trev’nor pointed to the far right. “This part is newer by about a decade. The central part here is the oldest.”
Nolan tilted sideways to look around Becca, eyes fastened on Trev’nor. “What? You have the strangest look on your face.”
“Two things,” Trev’nor said hoarsely unable to look away from the ruins. “One, most of what we’re seeing was fashioned by magic.”
Her breath caught in her throat as Becca took in his meaning. This was a magically constructed city?! Was it something like the ancient form of Coven Ordan?
Oblivious to their reaction, Trev’nor continued, “Two, there’s a memory stone here.”
She had to catch her jaw and slot it back into place to demand, “Memory stone? Are you sure?”
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