by Naomi Lane
Jenna began to feel a tingling sensation behind her eyes. The sensation changed into an itch, not unlike the one she had experienced earlier in the drawing room, which began making her increasingly uncomfortable. Jenna took the high mage’s advice and relaxed, focusing on her breathing instead of the itch. The discomfort lessened, and suddenly she experienced something she had never felt before. It was as if there were a pop or snap inside her head, but nothing bad as if she were injured, but instead as if something had snapped into place. Her emotions also changed. She felt calmer and her hand steadier.
“The link has been established. What can you see?” asked Lord Harcourt.
Jenna felt suddenly ill-at-ease. When she healed Storm the instinct to heal the pain felt natural, but she was unsure where to start with Prince Sebastian. She placed her hand above the Prince without touching him. She fell into a trance again and thought of how the healing magic felt as it flowed from her heart, however, the mage had told her not to try to heal Sebastian.
She thought of what he had said about mind magic and about her ability to see herself out-of-body. Would that work here? She went deeper into trance, relaxing all of her muscles. Lord Harcourt even provided her a chair, so she could sit. She willed herself to expand her vision and suddenly left her body. This time, instead of floating away, she plunged her consciousness into Prince Sebastian’s neck.
She could see the bone and tissue even more clearly than she did with Storm and so quickly identified the injury. “I see the break,” she said to no one in particular. “It’s in the fifth vertebrae down. The spine has been partially severed.”
“Can you see it as well, Harcourt?” asked the King.
“Yes,” replied the high mage. “Miss Mallory, I want you to continue to the next step. Direct your healing magic to the Prince, but do it slowly.”
Jenna struggled a moment to create a dual awareness of the injury and her healing magic as she had successfully done with Storm, but within a few minutes was able to direct the magic flow from her heart down to her hand. It stopped there. “There’s a problem,” she said. “I can’t direct the magic below my hand into the Prince.”
“Don’t fight it,” said Lord Harcourt. “I may be able to help.” A few seconds elapsed in silence, and then Jenna’s emotions began to change once again. Instead of just visualizing the injury, she could feel its sense of wrongness and pain more directly. With this, she was able to direct her healing magic into the injury, but it was still not working. She felt the spinal tissues wishing to reconnect, but with the bone in the way, they stalled. Her magic could not move the bone.
“It’s better now. The magic is trying to heal the injury, but it’s being blocked by the bone that has severed the spine. If it could be moved, I could help more.”
“It’s possible a mage with the ability to move objects could help,” said Lord Harcourt. “A sixth-level fire mage, perhaps. I could send for one.”
“No,” said the King. “I can do it. Show me the injury, Harcourt.”
Jenna stopped the stream of healing magic, but she kept the image of the injury clearly in her mind. She tried to make it as whole as possible and expand the awareness in all three dimensions.
“Heavens! It’s extraordinary,” exclaimed the King. Jenna did not have to wait much longer for the bone to start to move. She saw it snap back into position, and Jenna instantly restarted the flow of healing magic directly to the severed spine as quickly as she could. She felt the tissues begin to reconnect. It seemed to require a large amount of healing energy, much more than healing the simple fracture for Storm, but Jenna found she had a deep well to draw upon, so she continued to send the magic.
After several minutes Jenna heard the Queen speak for the first time. “He is breathing on his own. I am joining the circle.” Jenna suddenly felt a huge stream of magical ability meet her own. A sudden pang of fear hit her as she recalled the magical backlash she experienced with Delia, but there was no pain this time. With the Queen’s aid, the spinal column reformed much faster, and the bone settled permanently into place.
Once the spinal column had finished re-growing, Jenna felt the Queen’s magic fade away, and so she stopped the magic flow from her own body. She also pulled her hand into her lap and finally allowed her awareness to return to normal. She opened her eyes briefly to see the Queen sobbing what seemed like tears of relief into the King’s chest before she blacked out completely.
Chapter 9
When Jenna awoke, the sun was already high in the sky. She found herself in a room she had never seen before, lying in one of two twin beds on either side of it. Above the bed across from her, her eye was immediately drawn to an old broad sword and shield. Above her own bed there was a picture of a herd of horses on the Sevalian high plains alongside a crossbow.
She sat up and noticed a dress had been laid out for her on a chair near an open door, which led to a bath chamber. She quickly used it before changing.
While she laced her gown, she noticed a small bookshelf in the room by the bed with the crossbow. It contained some of her own favorite childhood stories, but she was most interested in the two bronze horse statues on the top shelf. She picked one up and noticed a resemblance to a horse with desert blood.
After placing it back on the shelf, she walked a few paces to the other side of the room where there was a music stand, but more interesting to Jenna was what was hanging on the wall above it. There hung a portrait of two young boys: one had brown hair the other blond. They were sitting across from each other at a table with what looked like some kind of strategy game laid out on it. Jenna noticed the dark-haired one was taller and had green eyes. He bore some resemblance to Queen Mirella.
“Good morning, Miss Mallory.”
Jenna whipped around, her face suddenly red as she saw the Queen. She felt ashamed, as if she had been caught snooping. She finally remembered to curtsy. “Good morning, Your Majesty. I’m sorry if I appear to be prying.”
“Oh, Heavens no.” The Queen smiled. “In fact, I’m sorry you had to wake up in a strange place, but I wanted you to be able to sleep as long as you needed undisturbed. This was Prince Eamon and Prince Dominic’s room when they were just boys.” She walked over to Jenna and looked at the picture with her. “That portrait of them was taken years ago. There’s a much more recent one of all three of them. Would you like to see it?”
Jenna nodded.
The Queen led her out of the room and down a hallway, then paused in front of a much larger portrait. “Dominic is the one standing on the right.” She referred to the Crown Prince and also the one with dark hair. His green doublet matched his eyes, which Jenna believed had a thoughtful expression almost sad.
Not so for his brother Eamon, the second prince, who stood next to him. His blue eyes and smile radiated warmth. Jenna thought him the most handsome and also the one most like the King. He had grown taller than Dominic by at least two inches, and his hair had grown out so that it reached his shoulders. He had one hand on the hilt of his sword and another on the shoulder of his younger brother. Jenna barely recognized Sebastian. The boy in the portrait looked so vibrant. He shared Eamon’s coloring, but his smile was quieter, a bit more like Dominic’s.
As Jenna admired the portrait, the Queen continued to speak. “You will most likely see Dominic and Eamon this fall after they are recalled from the northern border. It has been growing quiet up there of late. Of course Sebastian is eager to meet you right now.”
“How is he?” asked Jenna, thinking herself foolish for not asking earlier.
“He should be up and about again in a few days. He will most likely lose a little mobility in his neck, but otherwise is fine thanks to you.”
Jenna shrugged. “I don’t know, Your Majesty. I think you did most of the work.”
The Queen just chuckled a bit. “Don’t downplay your role. We had given up hope before you arrived.” She paused. “The high mage wants to talk with you a bit more. Are you hungry?”
J
enna’s stomach growled as if on cue.
“Well then,” said the Queen, laughing. “Let’s take lunch together.”
They walked back through the hall and down a flight of stairs, making their way to a small dining room. Jenna heard her stomach growl again when she saw the food laid out on the table. She greedily filled her plate, while the Queen left in search of Lord Harcourt.
She was already busy eating when they arrived and saw the high mage looked no more rested than the previous night. They both took a seat across from her and also took some food.
“Magic gives you quite the appetite, Miss Mallory,” said the Queen.
“I’ve always had a large appetite, Majesty,” Jenna replied. “My mother once attempted to restrict my eating, fearing I would get fat. Then I lost weight and fainted inside a crowded marketplace. The healer told her I should eat more, said I had a high metabolism.”
“It is not uncommon for mages to build up an appetite after a working,” said Lord Harcourt. “Given your ability to unconsciously self-heal, it does not surprise me that you would eat more food than average.” Jenna thought that made sense and kept eating her sausages. There was a slight pause in the conversation until the high mage spoke again. “How much do you understand about what happened last night?”
“Well, My Lord,” said Jenna. “It seemed rather complicated. You linked with my mind, and I was able to go out of my body to see the Prince’s injury. At first I couldn’t send my healing magic to the Prince, but you helped, through your mind-link, I suppose. Then his neck still wouldn’t heal, so you used the mind-link to show the King the injury, so he could move the bone out of the way. Then the injury healed with the help of the Queen’s magic.”
“An apt summary. Do you know what part was crucial to being able to heal the Prince where others had failed?”
Jenna thought about that for a few seconds while she cracked open an egg. “The ability to visualize the injury?”
“Yes.” Lord Harcourt stared at her with that piercing gaze again. “May I ask about your family history? I am aware that your mother is from the Great Desert and that her father is a tribal leader and has magical ability. I also understand your mother’s mother is his concubine?”
Jenna nodded.
“Does your grandmother have any magical ability or any Sevalian blood?”
“No, she is wholly Rahtani.”
“Then tell me about your father’s parents.”
Jenna was beginning to grow a little uncomfortable answering these questions. She paused in eating her food.
“Miss Mallory, please understand,” said the Queen. “You and your family are under no suspicion, and anything you say here will be kept in the strictest confidence between us. We only wish to fully understand where your unusual magical abilities come from.”
“You think I’m a mind mage,” said Jenna, remembering what Lord Harcourt had told her the previous night about their far-seeing abilities and her ability to leave her body.
The high mage sighed. “I don’t think you’re a mind mage, Miss Mallory, I know you are.”
Jenna felt slightly angry that he would say it that confidently. “How do you know? How are you sure it isn’t foreign magic again that seems like Sevalian mind mage ability?”
The high mage sighed. “Because I took the liberty of reading your bloodline last night, and the evidence is unmistakable. You are a mind mage, and it comes from a Sevalian line.”
Jenna couldn’t believe it. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “My father is no mage. And I thought both parents had to be mages in order for a child to carry magical ability among Sevalians?”
“There is some truth to that, but have you heard of second-level mages?”
Jenna nodded, beginning to understand.
“They are often born to parents when only one has magical ability. They are also not tracked by the guilds. My guess is that your father is such a mage.”
“But he doesn’t have visions.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s my father.”
“Your father is a powerful man. Does he ever seem to you to know what you are thinking? To know exactly what to say to get what he wants?”
Jenna gulped down some water. That was a fitting description of her father’s way with people. “But how? He’s not some nobleman’s bastard child.” Jenna let her fork clatter to her plate as realization began to dawn. “Oh.”
The Queen looked over at the high mage and then back at her. “Could you please tell us about your father’s parents? Were they or are they both Sevalian?”
“No.” Jenna bit her lip. She knew talking about her father’s lineage would win her no favors at court. She prayed the Queen meant it when she promised to keep quiet about the conversation. “My grandmother is Sevalian, but my late grandfather was Tenarran. He was an escaped slave.”
The high mage sighed. “Miss Mallory, I realize this is uncomfortable, but I did not detect any Tenarran ancestry when I examined your bloodline last night.”
Jenna’s face began to feel hot.
“We don’t want to cause any trouble with your family,” said the Queen, “but we would appreciate some outside confirmation of these findings. Is your grandmother well?”
“Yes. She lives in Salara.”
“Was she originally from there?” asked Lord Harcourt.
“No,” Jenna replied. “She grew up in the foothills of the Zidarian Mountains in the east.” The Queen exchanged a knowing glance with the high mage.
“Perhaps you could write to her,” said the Queen. “If you explain the situation, I hope she will be willing to share with you what happened. It would still be her right to refuse to answer.”
Jenna nodded. They gave her a few moments to let the realization sink in. Eventually, she had to ask. “In magic class someone said that mind mages were evil.” Jenna stared down at her plate, unable to meet the high mage’s gaze. “Magista Delia said it was disputed, but I understood it because I know Khazaran had powerful mind mages during the mage wars.” She was finally able to face Lord Harcourt again. “But if you are a mind mage yourself, My Lord, why would people still believe the magic tainted?”
The high mage began to look even more worn down. “The history of mind mages is complicated. I cannot explain all of the details now, but there is nothing inherently evil about the gift. The legends of evil mind mages stem mainly from one rogue mage, who was killed many years ago during the war. As to your question about why the rumors of evil mages persist in light of my position, the simplest explanation is that although the Towers and the Crown recognize my leadership, the guilds do not.”
“Oh,” said Jenna, realizing her question had opened a can of worms. Many more questions about mind mages popped into her head, but given how tired the high mage looked and her own weariness, she decided to leave them for another day. Nevertheless, there was one important thing that she still hadn’t addressed. “What about my brother and sister?”
“It is possible they have second-level ability,” replied Lord Harcourt. “Peter was tested and does not have enough magic to be trained.”
“Perhaps your sister would also like to come to court,” said the Queen. “She could be tested here and trained if necessary.”
“Ana would love the opportunity. She would make a much better Lady than I would.”
The Queen smiled. “Miss Mallory, you have given me my son’s life. For that you will always be considered one of my most valued and respected Ladies.”
Jenna knew the Queen was telling the truth, but she also knew that it would not help her make any friends among the other Ladies. “It still makes no sense,” she continued, still reeling in shock. “Why is it that I have all of this ability with such a mixed heritage?”
“It is most unusual,” replied the high mage. “Unfortunately, I don’t know. I would like to understand the Rahtani magic better, understand how it skips generations. Is it common there for some siblings to have magical a
bility while others don’t? What exactly are your grandfather’s abilities?”
Jenna shook her head. “I don’t really know. I think my uncle, my mother’s brother, has it too, but no one ever talks about it at home.”
“We hope your mother has some answers for us,” said Lord Harcourt. “In the meantime, I operate on the assumption that when you inherited the Rahtani magic it also amplified your mind powers. In any case, what is clear is that you need training. Unless your parents give me reason to believe the Rahtani have the ability to train you, I would prefer you stay at court.”
“Given what Peter has told me that would also be my family’s preference.”
“Excellent.” For the first time, Jenna saw a small smile adorn Lord Harcourt’s face.
“Magista Delia will not be pleased,” said Jenna, also unhappy with the prospect of facing Crystelle in magic classes again, especially after all the other Ladies found out about her strange magic.
The Queen gave Lord Harcourt a sidelong glance. “Miss Mallory, you misunderstand,” she said. “Delia does not have the ability to train a mage at your level. Lord Harcourt will train you himself in the Tower. You will go there when the Ladies normally have magic lessons.”
Jenna stared at the high mage. Escaping Crystelle was a plus, but she did not relish the thought of always being subjected to those violet eyes and his mind magic.
“This is nothing to be ashamed of,” the Queen continued. “I myself was trained in Harcourt Tower when I was just slightly older than you are.”
“You should also understand, Miss Mallory,” said the high mage, “that you are not only exceptional in that you have mind magic but that you are also a high-level mage. Your ability to visualize the Prince’s injury with far more precision than even I could achieve and your ability to participate in a group working last night both indicate that you are level six.”