Star Mage

by R. K. Thorne

  “We’ll likely freeze anyway,” she muttered.

  “Have I ever told you what a ray of sunshine you are?”

  She shot a glare at him, but to her surprise, he was smiling. “Is that any way to treat someone who just untied you? I could have left you in the snow, you know.”

  He eyed her. And to her surprise, he did not point out that she wouldn’t have had the opportunity if he hadn’t freed himself and dragged her with him in the first place. “Is he dead?” he said instead.

  “Yes.” If Alikar weren’t dead already, he would be any moment now. She pressed her lips together, refusing to meet his gaze. Finally, she set her jaw and glanced at him. He was staring hard at her, but she couldn’t read the expression. “What? Don’t judge me. He was going to kill us. Well, you. I may as well be dead already. Priestess or no, I know I shouldn’t know how to kill people, and I shouldn’t do it even if I do know how. But the world should be a lot of ways, and it isn’t.”

  “Keep your voice down,” he whispered.

  She rolled her eyes and jogged forward more quickly.

  “I wasn’t thinking any of that,” he said between breaths, so soft she barely heard him.

  “Well. What were you thinking?” Perhaps he had some other clever angle to judge her by.

  “I was thinking I’m glad he got what he deserved, even if I couldn’t give it to him.” He watched the ground at his feet carefully now, checking where he was going. “I’m glad he can’t betray anyone else.”

  Oh. Not judging, then. Approving? They walked along in silence, boots crunching in the snow and the whistling wind carrying distant shouts. She quickened her pace again. The trees grew thicker, and the shouts quieter as they made their way deeper into the forest. She wrapped the cloak around her tighter. The press of more and more evergreens was reassuring in that it hid them better from those who might pursue them, but the air also grew colder, wetter. More dangerous.

  “I don’t hear any more shouting, do you?”

  She shook her head, slowing to a walk and turning to look back for a moment. “I’m sure they’re still coming. But I don’t see anything.”

  “Maybe they went a different direction. Or they found Alikar and had to deal with him.”

  They both said nothing for another while, walking more slowly now. She strained her ears, but he was right. She couldn’t hear them. The forest was simply a few foolish birds and the wind. So quiet, in fact, it made her nervous.

  “You were injured,” she blurted. “Detrax leaves a mean mark.”

  His gaze snapped back to her. “You know about that personally?” His voice held a dangerous edge, one she hadn’t heard before.

  “Injuries don’t encourage visions. But I am not unfamiliar with them.”

  “When? While we were in their dungeon?”

  “Just one. I don’t think he could help himself. But he seemed to believe me more about my vision than about the bluebell.” She hesitated. “There was another time, when he worked for my father. That’s when my governess gave me the Devoted stone. To help me spot people like him.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence settled around them again, restless and tense. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad he got what he deserved too. Even if I couldn’t give it to him.”

  He pressed his lips together in something that wasn’t quite a smile—it probably wasn’t appropriate to smile when receiving thanks for murder—but he did seem gratified.

  “I’m glad to see some measure of justice before we die out here.”

  “We are not going to die out here,” he said firmly.

  “Oh, I don’t see how you can be so sure of that. What, are you getting visions now?”

  “No. But we haven’t seen Anonil yet. And I think it still stands, based on what I heard. Didn’t you say you saw it fall? You’ll apparently live at least that long.”

  She didn’t point out that it was entirely possible for her to see things that could happen after her death. In this case, he was right. He was in the vision. Talking to her. The two of them must make it that far at least. “True,” she conceded. “But nothing says they don’t catch us again.”

  “Guess we’ll find out. Does it get annoying, not knowing?”

  “What?”

  “Well, I’d think I’d want to know everything. If some part of the future can be known, why not all of it? Can’t you just look through the rest of your life? I would want to. I always prefer to know as much as possible.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to know any of it. I’ve had enough sickness for one lifetime. I’d love to go a day eating and keeping it all down. Or choose food not based on what it might taste like coming back up.” She shivered.

  He crinkled his nose at her, and she dropped her gaze to the forest floor.

  “What? You asked,” she muttered.

  “No, no. I just… It’s a shame you have to bear that burden.”

  They walked for a moment in silence. She listened for the sounds of pursuers but didn’t hear anything. Odd, receiving sympathy from a mage. “Well, you have your own burden. So I suppose you understand.”

  “Hmm?” He was eying the terrain around them, searching.

  “Magic?”

  He shrugged. “Oh, it’s no burden. I only found out about it a week or two ago. Lost track at this point. But it’s a fairly recent development.”

  “Ah. So if you’d known about it your whole life, you’d have busted out of there earlier? No pleasant cutting?”

  He snorted. “I was waiting for you.”

  “What?”

  “I was waiting till I knew where you were. So we could get out together.”

  Fool. They could have killed him. Her heart pounded a little faster. “Why?”

  “Well, it hardly seemed decent to just leave you there. Especially with those blue vials in play.” He shuddered.

  She frowned down at the ground, unsure what to make of this knowledge. He’d waited for her. He’d made sure she got free too. Very, very foolish of him. He might have lost his chance to escape, she might have been shipped away from the fortress never to be seen again, and likely they’d just be recaptured anyway. It did make her feel a little better about dispatching Alikar with a poisoned kiss, though. Now she and this mage were quite even.

  How strange that he’d tried to help her. Wanted to. Looked out for her. As a matter of course, not out of any particular interest, or at least so he claimed. And he’d done it all after she’d treated him with fear and wariness. A sudden, unexpected wave of guilt hit her; he’d been so kind, and she’d been nothing but cold, judgmental, maybe even cruel. Once, she had thought Peluna had been similarly caring and generous, but now that withdrawal had kicked in, it seemed doubtful. Just another agenda, another plan in which Niat had been but a tool.

  Her mouth felt dry at the thought of those blue vials, and she rummaged in Alikar’s satchel for a bottle or skin. Nothing. Of course. Horrible man. Her shivering was continuous now.

  Thel was still inspecting the forest around them, scanning for something.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  “We need some way to get out of this snow. We’re leaving a perfect path for them to follow, even if they’re terrible at tracking. We may be faster than them. But I’d prefer to throw them off our path.”

  She nodded. That was good thinking. A cliffside loomed ahead, and trees all around them, but none thick enough to have blocked much snow.

  He stopped short and rubbed his chin, his blond stubble giving him a more rugged look than the day they’d met. His eyes were on the cliffside. “Are you… afraid of small spaces?”

  Her eyes widened as she followed his gaze. The earth itself began to move.

  Miara awoke the next morning with the same splitting headache as the day before, and now she knew for sure that something was wrong. Her dreams had again been fitful and confining, as though she’d been trapped in them. She ached down to her bones, and the dizziness that hit her
when she sat up was as bad as when she’d woken up in one of Regin’s tents after healing Galen. Except she hadn’t been doing anything nearly that intense.

  This time, she managed not to groan—aloud, anyway—and surveyed her surroundings. Could it be something in the room? The too-fine bed? The perfume or incense? The air was heavily scented with flowers, vibrant with roses and orange-blossom oil. But she wouldn’t have suspected any of it would give her such a headache.

  She slipped silently out of bed. She could hear her attendants in the next room, but she wasn’t ready for any of that foolishness yet. She crept toward a soft robe lying across an armchair near the fire. Perhaps a few minutes curled up away from that monster of a bed and the pain would go away.

  As she pulled the robe on, however, she stilled at the sound of a man’s voice. A man other than Aven likely shouldn’t be in the queen’s rooms, socializing with attendants while she slept, servant on business or not. She listened harder.

  “The knight’s rumors were right,” said a quiet voice. Miara would have recognized the stiff, proper tone anywhere—Opia. “To think, of all the women, he’s chosen a mage. And a commoner. To be queen of Akaria. Sleeping in my lady’s chambers even now. I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it.”

  “A true travesty,” said a man’s voice in a patronizing tone.

  Miara silently stepped toward the door. If there was any part of palace life she was made for, eavesdropping was it. Lucky her.

  Her attendant huffed. “And now with the king ill, that fool boy has free rein, so there’s no one to stop him. We certainly can’t appeal to him as to the inappropriateness of this choice.” The outrage in the woman’s voice would have colored Miara’s cheeks red if she weren’t already red with anger. Who by the gods was Opia to judge?

  “So I have your support then?”

  Opia sighed. Dishes clinked delicately against each other, then a wooden tray. Footsteps moved softly closer. “Fine, I’ll…”

  They were approaching the door. Miara backed away, sweeping as silently as a mouse across the floor as she dove back into bed, squeezing her eyes shut and pulling the covers up over her head. The dive didn’t do much for the pounding in her head or the dizziness. She felt like the bed was spinning while someone was pounding a hammer on the back of her skull.

  Barely a moment later, the door opened, and one pair of footsteps shuffled in.

  Miara gritted her teeth, thankful to hide under the white fluff of the bed. What had she just overheard? Certainly the woman had never acted like she approved of Miara, but that had sounded like they were conspiring to do something much worse. But what?

  Miara strained her ears, listening. Opia sat the tray down next to the bed, just the kind she carried the tea on, and Miara braced herself to be woken up.

  But there was nothing for a long moment, only silence. A spoon tinkled in the teacup, someone stirring. Then she marched back toward the main doors, opening them, and other footsteps joined the ruckus as she began her chirping. “Up, up! Time to wake and go about the business of ruling a kingdom!”

  The sickly sweet cheerfulness of her voice suddenly sounded more sarcastic than prim. Miara opened her eyes immediately but pretended to slowly rise, stretching and yawning widely. The tea sat on the table just in front of her, and she seized the cup and took a sip, glad for something to hide behind. She wasn’t sure she could keep the anger from her voice at the moment.

  After three large gulps, the pain in her head suddenly lessened.

  She stared down at the tea. She’d connected the headaches to her work around the city, but they’d also started when she’d moved to these rooms.

  And taken on these new attendants.

  She scowled at the back of Opia’s head without thinking, and so she had to quickly hide her expression when the woman spun around, ready to pontificate.

  Opia faltered; apparently Miara hadn’t hidden her glare quite fast enough. “The, uh, the king would like to see you in the library at your earliest convenience, my lady.”

  Miara leapt to her feet, her stomach twisting. The library could only mean one thing.

  Tharomar must be done with the star map.

  Miara grabbed a dress almost without looking just as Etral was arriving with two bowls of dumplings. Miara couldn’t help but eye them with both suspicion and longing. Etral caught the wariness in her look, though, and the girl’s eyes widened. Miara forced a smile. Neither Etral nor Kalan seemed like the type to be in on whatever Opia was doing. And they didn’t seem to show Opia any particular loyalty either.

  “Mushroom dumplings and blueberry dumplings, my lady,” she said, voice wavering.

  “Thank you, Etral,” Miara said, thrusting her arbitrarily chosen dress at the girl.

  A shame. Mushroom sounded delicious right about now, and of course she couldn’t eat any of that. She needed to get out of the room, talk to Aven.

  While she numbly went through the steps to ready herself for the day, most of her mind was carefully scanning her body, looking for whatever had been in the tea. While she couldn’t heal any effects a poison or drug might have, she could certainly identify them. And there was something odd, something dull about the way her brain lurched and her blood pumped, like she was drunk on too much ale.

  The voices had mentioned a knight. She clenched her jaw but tried not to let her tension show. If they were trying to kill her, there wasn’t anywhere near enough in her system—yet—to do that. Unless they were counting on the dumplings, which would be a good bet considering the number she’d inhaled the day before. But they might be simply trying to knock her unconscious, which she might be closer to. Either way, something needed to be done. The question was what?

  She was relieved to discover the dress she’d blindly grabbed was serviceable—simple and gray, its belt studded with sapphires. After a victorious fight for a simple bun and actually warm shoes, she turned to Etral. “I know the king would like to see me as soon as possible in the library, but would you please tell him I’d like him to come here to escort me? I wish to have a few words with him first.”

  “Of course, my lady,” Etral said, curtsying as she set off for the library.

  Miara slid into the nearest soft chair. The headache had totally faded now, and if it weren’t for her magic’s sense of the drug lingering in her system, she’d have thought things were very normal. She glanced at the table. A rooks and pawns game sat abandoned halfway through, its pieces in grim contrast, some made of bone, others of walnut. It was an ancient game of strategy. Idly, she reset the board to the beginning of play and then stared off at the flowers, the fire, waiting, before an idea occurred to her.

  Aven finally appeared in the wide entry bathed in blue and green light. He tilted his head and frowned.

  “Come sit with me for a moment,” she said, giving him a calm smile.

  “They’re waiting for us,” he said slowly, but he seemed to suspect something because he started forward.

  This morning, one of my attendants drugged my tea, she said to him silently.

  To his credit, he didn’t falter, his eyes only widening slightly. “But perhaps we have time for a quick game. You first?” He slid into the chair opposite her, one eyebrow raised. What? Which one? Are you all right?

  I’m mostly recovered. I’ll be fine. I think they were working up to a larger dose. She yawned and made a simple, predictable move on the board. It was that one—Opia. She flicked her eyes in the woman’s direction.

  He eyed the board, moved his piece in response, then glanced around the room casually. The one hovering closest?

  Yes. Coincidence? I think not. Speaking silently still, she detailed her mysterious headaches and the conversation she’d overheard that morning.

  I’m calling the captain of the guard; we’re putting a stop to this now.

  No—wait. How will we flush out whoever the man was? Or what if someone in the kitchens was helping her? Besides, I noticed this drug. I’ll notice if they do it agai
n.

  They could try something else and take you freshly by surprise.

  Not if we act like nothing’s changed, like they’re getting away with it. This way, I can just not drink the tea.

  Or eat or drink anything, really, if Opia goes near it. Which is everything. How long can you keep that up? And won’t they notice?

  She sighed. Maybe. But I’d still feel better if we could track down the Opia’s partner first. Give it a day. We can watch her and wait until they meet again.

  And if they don’t? I don’t want to put you in unnecessary danger. We’ll find another way to flush him out, or maybe seeing his partner imprisoned will scare him away.

  It’s just one day, and we might find out—

  No, Miara. She felt a flash of emotion swirl through him, hot and frantic—a mixture of regret, worry, rage, fear. She raised her eyebrows at the strength of his reaction and faltered before she set down the next game piece in a new location. Sorry. It’s just… I tried “wait and see” with Alikar. With Evana. And look how that turned out. No more waiting. He absently set down another piece, watching her all the while.

  I can understand that, but… She frowned, then glanced down at his latest move and stopped short.

  “You… won,” she said. Oddly, her shoulders drooped, actually defeated.

  “Miara, I— Wait, what?”

  “Look at the pieces. See? You won.”

  He scowled down at them too, then looked up. This isn’t about winning or losing. I just want you to be safe.

  I know.

  You could use your magic, couldn’t you? Maybe if she thinks of her coconspirator, we can find out that way. Or Perik seems trustworthy. Maybe he can poke around.

  She sighed. All right. You win. On both counts. But rifling through her thoughts when they’re so often ill of me sounds painful. Maybe one of the others can?

  Of course. They both rose, and he stepped closer, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder and frowning in concern. His thoughts were still close, and she could feel him searching for some way to console her, to ease her worry.