She shook her head, then stepped past the table and looked down at a mirror, lying in one of the half-empty boxes. It sparkled with magic when she tested it, but none of the spells seemed to do more than alter the reflected image. On impulse, she picked it up and studied her reflection, watching as the mirror showed her how she could improve her looks, if she was prepared to put in the time and effort. Shaking her head, she put it down on the table again. The mirror had probably been crafted for some minor daughter, someone who wouldn’t be expected to achieve anything beyond looking pretty and marrying well. No one else would have the time to primp and preen every day.
Not when they could use glamours instead, she thought, coldly. The mirror hadn’t been designed by a skilled magician, she was sure. It hadn’t noticed the glamour covering her eyes, let alone made suggestions for improvement. But there was no real improvement, she was sure, for eyes that glowed a brilliant red. All she could do was keep them hidden and pray no one looked past the glamour. Red eyes were not a good sign.
The next set of texts were copies of ones in the Great Library. She made a note of their titles, then marked them down to be returned to their owners. None of the owners had been pleased to give up their private libraries, after all, but the Grand Sorceress had been insistent. Elaine hoped – prayed – that none of them realised that she had requested access to their libraries, if only because she didn’t need more enemies. Being a Privy Councillor made Elaine a target for anyone who wanted power, even though she was hardly the Grand Sorceress. And if they’d known just how much knowledge was locked in her head ...
She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Some of the knowledge had faded, but everything to do with magic was as sharp and clear as it had been on the day she’d woken up and discovered just what had happened to her. The Great Library, repository for every last piece of magical knowledge in the Empire, had been copied and dumped into her head, including thousands upon thousands of forbidden spells that successive Grand Sorcerers had kept under lock and key. She knew she’d been lucky not to be executed, after the truth of her parentage had come out, but there were days when she wondered if she had really been lucky. No matter what precautions she took, she knew – all too well – that she was vulnerable to a more powerful magician.
They don’t know, she told herself.
But she knew one person – entity – who did know. The Witch-King had spent centuries manipulating events within the Empire, preparing for his rebirth. They’d been lucky to stave off his first assault on the Golden City and no one had heard anything from him since, but she knew it was just a matter of time. And yet, the Witch-King was functionally immortal. He could pull in his horns and wait for another couple of hundred years before he made another play for power, by which time everyone who knew he was still alive would be dead. How did one fight an entity who thought in decades and spent centuries crafting his plans?
She sighed again, feeling a headache building up under her skin. The headaches had been growing more frequent as she’d delved into the tomes, looking for something – anything – that would cut the search short, but there was nothing. She’d even spent hours reviewing history, looking for traces of the Witch-King’s influence, only to discover that it was largely impossible to tell what might have been his work and what was nothing more than a coincidence. All she’d ended up with, for her trouble, was a series of headaches and a hundred conspiracy theories. Anything could be the Witch-King, anything at all. The only thing that kept her from giving up was the certain knowledge that if the Witch-King was as omniscient as he seemed, he would have won by now.
The wards surrounding the Great Library shimmered, once, then sent her an alert. Johan had left his apartment, right next to hers, and was making his way down towards the underground chamber. The labyrinth spell prepared itself to grip him, leaving him walking in circles endlessly until Elaine or one of the other librarians could come to see who had tried to enter the private sections of the library. She hastily told the spell to let him through, then reached out with her mind, trying to sense Johan’s presence. The knowledge in her head told her she should be able to sense his presence anywhere, whenever she wanted to know where he was or what he was doing. But she barely sensed the merest flicker of his presence until he stepped into the chamber.
Elaine greeted him with a tired smile. Johan Conidian was tall and handsome – and, until very recently, Powerless. His family had practically kept him a prisoner until he’d developed magic, a very strange form of magic. Elaine had studied his power extensively, since the first day he’d used his magic, and yet she had no idea how it worked. Or, for that matter, why the apprenticeship bond hadn’t been sealed. They had sworn willingly, after all; he had accepted her as his mistress, even though it was rare for a female to take a male apprentice or vice versa. But the bond hadn’t formed properly.
“Johan,” she said. “Have you started to pack?”
“Yes, mother,” Johan said. He stopped, a moment later, his face filling with horror. “I ...”
Elaine stepped forward and rested her hand on his shoulder, trying to provide what comfort she could. Johan was emotionally unstable, unsurprisingly; his family had either viewed him as a cripple or a burden ... and always as an embarrassment. There were times when he was as mature as Elaine herself and times when he acted rather like a five-year-old, his mood swinging rapidly between happiness and tantrums. Elaine wondered, sometimes, if the reason the apprenticeship bond had remained incomplete had something to do with Johan’s mental state. It was impossible to take an apprentice who hadn’t passed puberty ...
... And while Johan was physically seventeen, his mental age was harder to determine.
It’s not impossible, her thoughts mocked her. It’s just forbidden.
She gritted her teeth. More and more, the knowledge in her head was popping up to the forefront of her mind, pulled by the merest thought. Every time she thought about the limits of magic, something would emerge from the back of her mind, pointing out that the limits weren’t what she thought they were. If there was a power imbalance between an adult master and apprentice, it would be far, far worse if the apprentice happened to be a child. And then the master would have to cope with the child passing through puberty ...
“Elaine?” Johan asked. “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” Elaine lied. The knowledge wasn’t painful, but the understandings it brought bubbling up into her mind often were. Her teachers had never taught her how much had been buried by the Grand Sorcerers over the years, just to prevent it being abused. And she knew it all. “And yourself?”
Johan sobered. His family had been devastated – and, even though they’d been horrible to him, she knew part of him regretted it. It was quite possible the Conidian Family would never truly recover, not now that so many of its members were Powerless or dead. The senior surviving member – Charity Conidian – was only eighteen years old. How could she hold the family together in the wake of such a disaster?
And to think his father wanted Johan to take over as Prime Heir, Elaine thought. She couldn’t blame the Conidian for wanting someone – anyone – to replace his bullying braggart of an older son. But Johan had been Powerless ... until he wasn’t. But he couldn’t have handled it either.
She shook her head, dismissing the thought.
“I think we have a rough plan for our travels,” she said. “The Travellers will take us up to the borderlands, at least, and then we will have to proceed on our own.”
“That’s what I came to tell you,” Johan said. “Your friend has arrived.”
“Daria?” Elaine asked. “She finally made it back?”
“Yep,” Johan said. “I asked your assistant to let her into your office while I came to fetch you.”
“You could just have sent a note,” Elaine reminded him, dryly. A normal apprentice would have been able to call his master, just by using the apprenticeship bond. Johan didn’t seem to have that option. “Or sent one of the staff down
here.”
“I just wanted to look around,” Johan admitted. “This place ... I could have been happy here.”
Elaine felt a sudden, bitter stab of sympathy. Johan was bright, smart enough to rise high in the world, even without magic. But his family had kept him a virtual prisoner, not daring to let him run free for fear of what their enemies would do to him – and them, through him. He might have been Powerless, for no reason anyone could determine, but he still had the Conidian bloodline. A career in the Great Library would have suited both of them, if Johan had had even a spark of magic ...
... And now he had power and far too much unwanted attention.
They think he’s dead, Elaine reminded herself. Light Spinner was the only other person who knew Johan was still alive. Let them think he was a freakish accident ...
She cursed mentally. Inquisitor Dread had told her that several known Powerless had wound up dead over the last few days, either through being murdered by their families or being accidentally killed when the families were trying to trigger their powers. If, of course, Johan wasn’t just a freak accident. The hell of it was that there was no way any of the murderers could ever be punished. Their fathers held absolute authority over their children until they came into their magic. In hindsight, the marvel was that Johan had survived so long.
“I was happy here,” Elaine said. “And now I will have to leave.”
Books had been her constant companions, first at the orphanage and then at the Peerless School. Fiction had allowed her to dream of other worlds; facts had allowed her to master magic and pass her tests, even if she lacked the raw power of her classmates. Daria had often accused her of lacking ambition, but – in truth – she had never really wanted to do anything other than work with books. Working at the Great Library had satisfied her, even if she had been a recluse with few friends.
And then she’d become the Bookworm. And then she’d been rewarded – and punished – by being made Head Librarian.
She wasn’t blind to Light Spinner’s political manoeuvrings. Elaine represented a danger to the Empire, after all; indeed, she was mildly surprised that the Grand Sorceress hadn’t killed her out of hand. Placing Elaine in the Great Library, even making her a Privy Councillor, had been a way to make use of her, as well as rewarding her for her efforts. But it also kept her firmly under control. The Head Librarian could never leave the city.
But I already have left the city, Elaine thought, ruefully. And now I may be leaving for good.
She’d never wanted to leave the Golden City. She wasn’t one of the hardy explorers who had mapped the world, or one of the warrior-magicians who had built the Empire, or even one of the farmers who had tamed the land and purged it of magical influences. Being Head Librarian had been all she’d ever wanted, even if it did mean spending far too long in pointless meetings. The idea of leaving, of severing the connection between herself and the ancient building, was terrifying. And yet she had no choice. No one else could search for the Witch-King.
It would be easier, she thought, if we knew how he influenced people.
Johan cleared his throat, breaking into her thoughts. “Are you listening to me?”
Elaine felt her cheeks redden. “I was distracted,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“My father used to do that too,” Johan said, softly. “He never actually listened to a word I said.”
“I’m sorry,” Elaine repeated, embarrassed. “What did you say?”
“Just that I think your friend was antsy,” Johan said. “You really should go see her now.”
“She always is,” Elaine said. Living with Daria in an apartment had been an education, even if she’d missed a single essential truth about her redheaded friend. Daria moved like lightning, hopping from one boyfriend to the next, darting around so quickly that Elaine couldn’t hope to keep track of her affairs. “But she’s also a very decent person.”
And a werewolf, she added, in the privacy of her own thoughts. How in the name of all the gods did I manage to miss that?
She took one last look around the chamber, then linked into the wards and issued a series of orders. The chamber would be locked down until she returned, ensuring that the ancient books and scrolls would remain safe and untouched. She hid a smirk as she looked at one chest of books, remembering what the owner had told Inquisitor Dread. Only people who shared his bloodline could read the books, he’d warned; anyone else risked everything from blindness to death. But it was astonishing just how easily such protective charms could be put aside if one knew how ...
And that is why they would want to kill me, if they knew what I could do, Elaine thought, grimly. I know far too much about how magic actually works.
Johan followed her out the door and closed it firmly behind him. Elaine took a moment to check that the wards were firmly in place, then led the way up through the book-lined corridors to the private apartments. As always, the corridors thronged with students and visiting magicians, including dozens of Court Wizards. They might have been summoned to attend the Grand Conference of Court Wizards, where they would pay homage to Lady Light Spinner, but they were taking advantage of the visit to catch up on their reading. Elaine didn’t blame them, not really. If there was one advantage to having to leave the Golden City, it was not having to attend the conference.
She frowned as she heard the sound of two students fighting, followed by shimmering alerts from the wards as they started to hurl hexes at one another. Two librarians moved in to separate the two before they could do real damage, then drag them both out of the library and dump them onto the streets. Elaine rolled her eyes in disgust – had she been as desperate to get the books first when she’d been a student? – then reminded herself that exams were coming soon. The students had to be panicking.
Shouldn’t have spent all that time having fun instead of studying, she reprimanded them silently. Now you have to fight to catch up ...
They passed through another set of wards, then stepped through the door into Elaine’s private office. Daria was sitting cross-legged in one of the chairs, her face twisted into a bored expression. The bookshelves lining the walls didn’t impress her, Elaine knew, but then they never had. Daria wouldn’t be happy unless she was doing something, anything. There was nothing in the room for her.
“Elaine,” Daria said, standing in one smooth motion. “It’s good to see you again.”
“And you,” Elaine said, as Daria enfolded her in a hug. Her friend smelt strongly of perfume, which she used to dampen her scent. “I’ve missed you.”
“Yeah,” Daria said. “Elaine, I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.”
Chapter Two
Johan had seen many beautiful girls in his time, despite effectively being kept prisoner by his family. His mother and sisters had been beautiful, the girls his father wanted to marry to his brothers had been beautiful ... but there had been something about them that had been fake, unreal. They’d used glamours, he suspected, to make themselves look attractive, matching their appearance to their target’s tastes. It had always struck him as a kind of fraud.
But Daria was stunning. Short-cropped red hair dominated a face with large, dark eyes and pale, blemish-free skin. She wore a long grey robe that was tight around her chest, then spilled out to hide her legs completely. He couldn’t help staring at her, even though there was something oddly canine about her eyes. And the way she moved, as she stood and hugged her friend, was smooth and almost inhuman.
A werewolf, he thought, suddenly. A new-made werewolf wouldn’t show any traces of the curse on his or her body, but a born werewolf would show hints of her true nature. He fought down the urge to panic, reminding himself sharply that born werewolves enjoyed much better control over their nature than made werewolves. Besides, he knew what it was like to be an outcast. The gods knew his family had treated him as their secret shame for years.
“And you must be Johan,” Daria said, as she let go of Elaine. Her voice was sultry, sending shivers down Johan’
s spine. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”
“All lies,” Johan managed. He’d heard enough of the rumours concerning him to know that most of them were complete nonsense. “I’m just her apprentice.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Daria said, briskly. She held out a hand, which Johan shook firmly, in the manner he’d been taught. There were tiny hairs covering the back of her hand, so fine as to be almost invisible. It was another sign of her true nature. “Elaine needs a male presence in her life.”
Johan felt his face turn bright red. He didn’t look at Elaine, but he sensed her embarrassment through the bond they shared. And she would be embarrassed ... he cursed mentally, wondering why that aspect of the link had to be the one that actually worked. There were some definite advantages to not sharing a full apprenticeship bond – he didn’t like the thought of a person being able to control him at will – but he’d always had a stronger sense of her than she’d had of him. It just didn’t make sense.
Elaine cleared her throat, loudly. “He’s my apprentice, not my boyfriend,” she said, as Daria let go of Johan’s hand. The irritation echoing through the link was overpowering the embarrassment, barely. “And you should know better.”
“Of course, Your Nobleness,” Daria said, archly. “I beg your pardon, Your Nobleness. I ask for your forgiveness, Your Nobleness ...”
“Oh, shut up,” Elaine said.
Johan concealed his amusement with an effort. It was hard to see what the two girls actually had in common; Elaine was shy, almost a recluse, while Daria was outgoing and friendly. And yet, they did seem to have a solid friendship, one that had survived Elaine’s elevation to the Privy Council. Perhaps they grounded each other, he told himself, or perhaps it was their differences that made the friendship work. Daria reminded Elaine that there was more to life than books, while Elaine allowed Daria to relax and actually do something serious with her life. Or maybe he was completely wrong.
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