Star Mage

by R. K. Thorne

  When Thel reached the crest of the first cliff, he caught his breath. Niat had trailed along behind him, and she mustn’t have realized he’d frozen in his tracks because she ran straight into his back.

  “Thel, what the—” Still grabbing onto his arm for balance, she leaned around him. And saw it for herself.

  Anonil lay before them, at least what they could see of it. What was left. Some of the town curved farther around the mountainside, but most remained in view.

  And most of it was smoking, thick pillars of black coughing up into the air. It hadn’t looked anything like this when they’d checked with farsight only the day before.

  Soldiers swarmed the parts of the city that were not blacked out with smoke. Gods… Those were not Akarian soldiers. Thel elbowed Kae. “Can you look closer?”

  Kae hiked a bit back from the edge and turned his back to the city to keep the bright light out of view. Bringing up a view portal between two splayed hands, Kae frowned down into the window of light. Thel leaned over it. Sure enough, pennants and flags waved bloodred in the midday sun.

  “Anonil—” he started. His voice faltered, so he waited a moment, as he had no desire to reveal how much this shook him. “It’s fallen to Kavanar.”

  “I don’t understand why there’s so much smoke,” said Niat from behind them. He glanced up; she still stared out over the cliff, reminding him for the moment of nothing but a lost little girl. Her hands plucked uneasily at her cloak, the hood pushed back, and her gaze darted around, as if struggling to take it all in. “Oh, by Nefrana, this is it—this is what goes wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” he said, stepping toward her.

  “I— They… Never mind.”

  “Tell me, what is it? Do you know something about what part Alikar played in this? Or Sven or Detrax or anyone from Kavanar?”

  She hung her head, shaking it back and forth unceasingly as she looked at the ground.

  Thel scowled and walked the rest of the way over, then leaned closer so he was practically in her face. “They do not care about you, Niat. Why are you protecting them? Why?”

  She looked up and narrowed her eyes at him. “No one cares about me. People don’t care about other people. That’s just the way things are.”

  Kae dropped the window and rejoined them closer to the cliff’s edge. “Aw, now, that’s not true.”

  She folded her arms, probably as much out of frustration as out of the chilling effect of the mountain wind. “Yes, it is. Besides, I’m not protecting them, I’m scared of them.”

  Thel blinked, his gaze on her sharpening. “What?”

  “I fear what they will do to me more than what you will.”

  Well, that wasn’t entirely unreasonable. Completely logical, in fact, as he’d never harm her intentionally. How heartbreakingly sad, though, that she had such a dark view of people. “You know, some people actually want to do the right thing because it’s the right thing.”

  She shook her head. She glanced out at the Kavanarian troops, again her gaze darting. Searching.

  “I can protect you from them,” he said.

  Her expression turned pained, her lips pressing together. “I know you mean well, Thel, and it’s very kind, but—”

  “But I’m cursed and corrupted, I know, I know,” he muttered.

  “—but I don’t see how you can possibly protect me. No one can. I’ve been a failure at protecting myself, even.”

  “You’re here now, aren’t you?”

  She paused, looking down, then out over the Kavanarian troops again.

  “You protected yourself this much. Why do you keep looking like that? What are you looking for?”

  “Thinking I should turn myself in.”

  “What!”

  Kae raised his eyebrows. “I’ve known some like her. They don’t long for freedom, after so long in a cage.”

  She glowered at him. “I’m just being practical. They’ll find me eventually. It’s inevitable. If I show up willingly, the punishment will be less.”

  Thel’s hand was tightening into a fist, but he tried to hide it in his cloak’s folds. “But you’ll still get punished, damn it. Don’t go back, and you won’t be.” Stay with me instead, he thought. He blinked at the ferocity of the emotion welling up in him, a deep desire to make her stay, to not allow her to leave.

  “It’s unavoidable.” She was shaking her head again, the bleakness snuffing out the fire in her eyes.

  He reeled back, and she seemed sincerely surprised. “There are six territories in Akaria. The men you fear have dominion over only two, and one of them has already ceded his land to Kavanar. Before you killed him yourself.”

  Kae’s eyebrows flew up even higher now, and Niat’s eyes widened. She stared for a moment, then looked away, back at the city one more time. Kae turned and stalked away, as if finally deciding to leave this between the two of them. Thel waited, but she didn’t say anything. Just searched the horizon.

  That’s it, he thought. Whatever was supposedly wrong, she’ll never tell me. He turned to walk away in Kae’s direction. She was just going to head on back, walk down the trail, and fling herself into the nearest Kavanarian soldier’s arms. Throwing away all he’d done to get her free, of a chance at a future of her own making, of a chance of a future with—

  “They were not supposed to fight back,” she said softly.

  He stopped, turned. “Just… let the forces take the city? Akarians sitting by, letting soldiers from Kavanar take their city?”

  She nodded, still looking perplexed. “I heard Alikar say he ordered them not to fight.”

  He laughed darkly. “Well, you can see how well that turned out.” He started walking away again.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “No soldier I know would follow such an order. It’s preposterous. An affront. An insult. Your tormentors may have made some fancy deals and arrangements with each other, but they don’t know how to lead men.”

  “And you do?”

  He snorted. “I don’t need to, my brother does.”

  “And yet Anonil has still fallen.”

  He scowled at her. “If you met him, you wouldn’t say that. But thanks for pointing that out, traitor.”

  “I am not a traitor.” Fire woke in her eyes.

  “Then don’t throw the fall of a city and the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of good people in my face,” he shouted back at her.

  “That’s not what I was doing. Name one traitorous thing I’ve ever done,” she demanded.

  “You voted against my brother.”

  “I read a piece of paper stating my father’s opinion,” she shouted, and for a moment, he just marveled at the fire and hoped it’d never fade, even if it was aimed at him. “An opinion that was his right as an Assembly Member. Was it not?”

  He gritted his teeth. Grudgingly, he had to admit she had a point. “It was. And it still is. Fine. You’re not exactly a traitor.” He forced himself to take a deep breath. “But you have to admit your father clearly is. You can’t blame me for assuming things. Especially when you want to run back to them!” He gestured sloppily at the city.

  She folded her arms, looking exasperated. “Is that it? Spawned to traitors, betrothed to traitors—what can you expect?”

  “I can expect you to make your own choices. To do the right thing, to protect people that need protecting, to treat people with respect. And to not give up before the fighting’s done. But most of all, to choose your own path. That’s how the goddess will judge you.”

  Her face went completely white.

  He dropped to sit in the dirt, and she spun away from him. Her boots thudded away in the softening soil Thel had created as he’d heated the earth to warm them. Then the sound of the boots stopped. He listened intently for a moment, then another, but he heard nothing. Fine. Let her go back to them, he didn’t care. The tightness in his shoulders and the way he glowered out at the city told him he was not exactly being truthful with himself about
the matter.

  He studied the field, carefully looking for some way he could help. Maybe not turn the tide, but at least be a thorn they wouldn’t know they were dealing with.

  Kae called from behind him to the left. “I’m going to check the next cliff to see what’s visible from there and if there’s anything I can do. Maybe put out some fires.”

  Thel nodded, working his fingers into the dirt. Actually, it was kind of mud. Wet. He shouldn’t have liked it. But the feel of cold mud against his palms, his fingers was always more relaxing than not. Even if it got on everything afterward. It always came off. As his mother had frequently found out when he was a child. Mountain fortresses were mostly stone and well civilized, but there was still dirt to be found by clever young boys to play in. His aptitude for finding it more than his brothers made a little more sense now.

  Soft, feminine steps came up behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see her about to reach out and tap his. She pulled her hand away.

  They stared at each other for one heartbeat, another. The fire was still in her eyes, the bleakness gone. Well, good. Maybe if he was honest with her, but also respected her right to leave, it’d keep her from doing so. He wasn’t quite sure what kind of twisted logic that was, but his gut told him it just might work.

  “You can give up,” he said, “but I’ll be damned if I do. I’m an Akarian. We don’t give up. Go on, go down to them if you want. I’ll think you’re wrong, I’ll regret you went, but I won’t stop you.”

  He turned away, turned back to the city. There. A trebuchet on slightly uneven earth. He shifted the ground under one large wooden foot, raising it up just like he’d pull a boulder from the ground. It wobbled off-balance and toppled, the long arm breaking. He smiled wolfishly. Oh, this should be fun.

  He jumped at a motion beside him. He’d been so focused on the spell, he hadn’t heard her moving closer. She eased to the ground beside him, kneeling in a drier patch over some clumps of grass and clasping her hands in her lap.

  “What are you doing?” he said softly.

  Her eyes locked with his. A low flame smoldered in them now, and it sent a shiver through him, like he was watching someone that had been pulled violently out to sea get the barest grip on the shore’s edge. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Kneeling down in the mud.”

  “You’re an earth mage, aren’t you? Can’t you do something about that?”

  “Maybe. I’m not a very good one.” He stared a moment longer.

  “I’m praying for the city. Obviously. That’s what priestesses do.”

  He snorted. “Obviously.”

  Aven had received a handful of objections and warnings from Tharomar for stealing off with the translated map so soon, but ultimately the smith had relented and handed over the thick sheet. It was strange to see the map whole, and without its typical shimmering, but it was eminently more useful in this form.

  Back in his rooms, he studied by the window’s light. It had seemed like he’d known it well enough, but dozens of new details crowded the page, and he wasn’t sure which mattered. There would be no time to learn it all before he left. He sighed. He’d have to study it on the road.

  As he folded the map, the door opened behind him, and somehow against all sense, he knew it was her.

  He looked up. Her eyes had halted on the paper in his hand. Then her gaze met his. Her eyes swirled with an intense mix of emotions he couldn’t quite understand. Sadness, fear, anger. Was there a hint of betrayal?

  “Is that what I think it is?” she said softly.

  “Yes.” He held it frozen, his fingers gripping it gingerly by the corner, and he didn’t put it in his jerkin yet as he’d been intending to.

  Who would have guessed that the thing that had once united them would come between them?

  “You’re not going to destroy it, are you. Ever.” More of an accusation than a question.

  “I don’t know,” he said, simple and honest. If this was going to come between them, he didn’t need to add lies to it too. “There hasn’t been time to memorize it.”

  She stood frozen as she had since she’d walked in the door. His heart was racing, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Her hair was down again today and intermixed with a dozen tiny braids and silver beads, and her dress was silver, pale like a priestess’s robe. He wondered if he’d ever see her in a tunic and trousers again. How funny that he should miss that, and so quickly, but it was almost as if the Miara he knew was shifting, twisting before his eyes, and he was waiting to see just who would emerge, and if he would actually know her.

  They hadn’t known each other even two months. They might as well be strangers. How had he ever been so sure that she was the perfect one for him? Was it all just stubborn delusion?

  That didn’t ring like truth, though. The thought was frigid with fear. What even was “perfect” anyway? And of all the people he’d known all his life, how many of them had risked their lives for him when they didn’t have to? How many would have sought to do the right thing when the world had weighted everything to make them do the wrong one? He might not have known her forever, but he knew the important things.

  And that moral compass of hers was pleading with him right now to listen.

  Abruptly she rushed close, grabbing his arm like she thought he might fade away. Her sudden warmth, the scent of her drifting toward him—they were all subtle reassurances. When he rode out, when would he feel her this close again?

  And if he didn’t return?

  “Listen to me, Aven,” she said. “Some of those spells may seem innocuous, but they are dangerous. You have to believe me.”

  He ran the backs of his fingers down her cheek, along her jaw, trying to memorize the feel of her. “I do believe you. But where would we be without them?”

  She looked down for a moment, then back up quickly. “You’re thinking this map has done nothing but good for us. Why assume it can’t do more?”

  He pressed his lips together. “Yes. Where would we be without it? And I’m also thinking I don’t want the last words we ever say to each other to have been said in anger.”

  She squeezed his arm harder. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “You’ve heard Anonil has fallen, haven’t you? I could see it on your face when you walked in. Now that the others are here, and with that… It’s time, Miara. Kavanar’s knocked at the door.”

  “They’ve been knocking for a while now.”

  “Yes. And it’s time that I answered.”

  Her grip tightened further. It was almost starting to hurt. “You better come back to me, Aven Lanuken. I didn’t rescue you from Daes just so you could throw yourself at him again.”

  “He’ll be the one who needs rescue from me. And I fully intend to return, don’t worry. But that’s why I’m taking every weapon I can.”

  His eyes locked with hers as he lifted the map pointedly. Then, after a dozen heartbeats of silence, he tucked the map into his jerkin as slowly as he could manage, inviting her to stop him.

  She didn’t.

  She tore her eyes away, looked down at her shoes, then the fire. “I hate to fight over this,” she said softly, shaking her head.

  “You’re just trying to help me do the right thing. That’s a good thing.” He mustered a weak smile.

  Her expression turned earnest, and she grabbed his other arm too. “Aven, I thought about it for a long time. With the stars, yes, you’ve done some good, and I personally have benefited greatly. But people deserve to think for themselves. Everything that map does is the opposite. Anger, calm, slavery, freedom, even insight—it’s all mind control. That’s exactly what the Dark Days started over.”

  “You’re right. But the map also liberates them from that control. Undoes itself. If people try to abuse these spells, someone needs to be able to stop them. And if I need to use these spells to defend this city—and you—I will.”

  “You don’t just mean the freeing spells. You mean all of
them. You mean the ones that enslave, that control people’s minds. You want to use them.”

  “No, I don’t want to. But I will, if I have to.”

  “They’re evil.”

  “Evil or not, they’re all I’ve got to work with. Do you think if Daes captures this city—if he captures you—it will feel any better just because we have the moral high ground? ‘I might be dead or a slave, but at least I can say I never used any evil spells’?”

  She gasped. “Aven! Don’t talk like that. Don’t say that.” She was frowning hard, searching his face.

  “This is war. There are no second chances, and we’re vastly outnumbered.”

  “If you’re using evil methods to win, you might as well sacrifice your soul on Daes’s altar.”

  “We don’t know they’re evil.”

  “It’s mind control! I don’t know if I can marry someone who would enslave someone—or who would even consider using magic to control minds.”

  He reeled back. “Miara, the situation is nearly hopeless. We’re losing a hundred men to a handful, without the enemy taking any losses. At this rate, we’re doomed unless we come up with something more. I wouldn’t remotely consider it if it weren’t so dire, but we have to survive. We can’t let them win.”

  “Promise me you’ll leave the slave star alone. Promise me you won’t use it.” Her fiery eyes bored into him, and the implication terrified him.

  He opened his mouth, but no words would escape.

  A knock sounded at the door. He glowered at it. Talk about terrible timing. Couldn’t they just sort this out for five minutes without interruption? His eyes flicked back to hers.

  “Someone needs you, Aven. You have a journey to prepare for and a war to fight. I should go.” She took a step away.

  “Miara—wait! We can figure this out.”

  Another knock sounded, and he heard Perik moving from the far office toward the door to answer it.

  Impulsively, he crossed the distance between them, took her face in her hands, and kissed her. Let Perik see, or whoever was knocking, he didn’t care. If he never got a chance to marry her, he was going to have this one last kiss at least. To his relief, her mouth was firm against his, and he savored her one last time. Her fingers dug into him like talons, reassuring him that she wanted to hold onto him as badly as he wanted to hold onto her. He wanted the moment to last forever so they didn’t have to face any of the vileness that awaited them.