set, so it was difficult to make out landmarks, but the river’s murmuring
and silhouettes of trees helped to orient him. Kron crossed through the
portal, then paused to consult his magic-finder. Traces of magic every-
where, most likely Sal-thaath’s trail. He couldn’t tell if Sal-thaath or his
mother had set up magic wards to detect another magician—or any hu-
man, for that matter. It was safer to assume they had done so. Kron felt
through the items he’d brought with him, enchanted a pottery shard to
4 2 · S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
magically resemble a human, and threw it toward Salth’s house. When
nothing happened, he felt his way forward, then repeated the process. If
he was going to trip a ward, better to let a shard do it. However, he made
it to the threshold without incident. He backed off, then circled the
house. Salth would undoubtedly have set up some protection or ward
here. He tried to locate the ward with his magic-finder, but again he
couldn’t tease it out from Sal-thaath’s own magic.
Kron scratched his chin as he thought about how to outwit the ward
when he wasn’t even sure what or where it was and what it would do.
Whatever artifact I use, it has to keep things exactly the same so the
ward doesn’t warn Salth or Sal-thaath. Perhaps a mirror would work,
to reflect the magic back at the ward. Do I have any polished bronze or
glass? He searched his pouch by feel. Eventually he found a silver coin.
Under his touch, the metal warmed, spreading out and softening, eras-
ing the king’s seal. He took the metal out of the pouch and let it expand
until it formed a ring large enough to go around his waist. He slid it
over his head and pushed it down until it fit snugly around his waist
without hampering his movement. Taking a deep breath, Kron crept, a
step at a time, up to Salth’s door. When nothing happened, he pushed
at the door. It was blocked on the other side, but Kron coaxed the bar to
slide back and let him in.
The fires had been banked for the night, but light still glowed from
Salth’s study. Kron listened over his unnaturally loud heartbeats. Two
sets of faint, regular breathing, one lighter than the other, answered him.
He smiled; even Salth had to rest sometime.
Salth and her son slept on a pile of reeds next to the fireplace. Sal-
thaath clung to her as if she was the only source of safety in the world.
Kron had never seen her look so peaceful, and he watched the pair for
a moment, wondering if Bella would be so tender to a child of their own
someday, before remembering his mission.
The sight-enhancer was still aimed out of the window. Kron crossed
the floor and peered through it. Stars beyond number revealed them-
selves to him. He blinked, about to look away and examine Salth’s
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 4 3
scrolls, when something else caught his eye. Beyond the stars was a
golden haze, like a shower of sunshine in the middle of the night. Kron
didn’t spend much time using his sight-enhancers or viewing the night
sky, so he wasn’t sure if this was normal or not. But when he shifted
the sight-enhancer to look at another group of stars, he didn’t see the
golden shimmer. Frowning, Kron returned the sight-enhancer to its pre-
vious position and unrolled the scroll Salth had been writing in. She’d
first noticed the golden glow in the sky last moon. It had been so faint
at first she’d thought it was a mistake, but every night, it grew a little
stronger. She predicted that if it kept getting brighter, it would be visible
without the sight-enhancer within a moon.
“As to what happens then,” she wrote in her tightly cramped sym-
bols, “no one can know for sure. But I suspect what we see is magic, or
a source of magic, and if so, I mean to study it and use it for my own.”
What for, Salth? What do you need so much power for? Do you want
to lead the Magic Institute, or your own country? You don’t even like
being around other people!
Kron unrolled her scroll to see what else she’d written, but he
bumped into the sight-enhancer and knocked it into the wall. Salth
jerked in her sleep, then sat up. Panic filled Kron’s belly with a storm,
and he wrapped the cloak around himself. He must not have covered
himself completely, for instead of settling back down to sleep, Salth
blinked her eyes.
Maybe I can convince her this is just a dream. Kron felt in his pouch
for something suitable for charming, but the clinking of his materials
made her blink more rapidly.
“Kron? Are you real?” She extracted herself from Sal-thaath’s grip.
“What are you doing in my house in the middle of the night?”
Kron took a deep breath, trying to calm his inner storm. Maybe he
could distract her. He did have another reason to be here besides spying.
“It’s Sal-thaath.”
The boy stirred, but he didn’t wake.
4 4 · S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
“What about him?” Her voice was sharp now; she was awake, but
not hostile—yet. “He can’t be hurt. He’s never been hurt.”
“He hurts others, Salth! He cast a spell on a woman earlier today,
making her a chicken in mind and body. It took us two separate attempts
to break his hold over her.”
She grinned as she gazed at her son. “Yes, he has strong magic.”
Kron slapped the table, making her inkpot jump. “Is strong magic
all you care about? What about control? Sal-thaath is a menace. No
child should have so much power. He has to be contained before he kills
an entire city with a thought!”
“And here I thought you liked the boy.” Salth trudged over to the
farm part of her house and returned with a shallow bowl of a bitter-
smelling drink. She drank half of it, stared at Kron for a few heartbeats,
and slowly offered it to him. Coming from her, it was a generous ges-
ture, but the unfamiliar beverage made him refuse.
“I’ve heard nothing but ‘Kron says this’ and ‘Kron says that’ for
days,” Salth continued.
He has been listening to me? Kron struggled to keep his surprise and
delight from showing on his face. If that was the case, why hadn’t Sal-
thaath listened in the marketplace? Something was off here, like trying
to assemble an artifact without some vital component. He’d have to talk
to the boy later and try to figure out why he was acting like this.
“And while I do appreciate you keeping Sal-thaath company,” Salth
continued, “I don’t want you teaching him things I don’t agree with.”
“Such as compassion and respect for other people?”
“People who will never be able to do what he can, people whose
only purpose in life is to work for others greater than themselves and to
make more servants?” She touched one of the tattoos on her cheek.
“Such people die faster than flies, Kron. One of them isn’t worth much.
Only when you have many of them do they add up to something with
value.”
She sounded as if she was already a city-queen. If she really had
been a r
uler, some of the places Kron had traveled to would consider it
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 4 5
blasphemy or treason to contradict her. Kron hadn’t been born to a rul-
ing family, or even a magic one. He’d spent much of his life with what
Salth would call ordinary people and couldn’t dismiss them so easily.
But he knew he’d never convince Salth of that while she isolated herself
in her house-palace.
“How many ordinary people have you met, Salth?” he asked. “If you
walked through a marketplace, or sat in a tavern and listened to musi-
cians and storytellers, you might see they have their own gifts too.”
“I don’t have time for that.” She glanced sideways at the sight-en-
hancer. “I’m busy with a very important ... project.”
The golden haze. Even if she’s right that she can sip magic from the
stars, is it worth trying? How could she control such power? And if she
can, what would she do with it?
This was definitely something that Pagli would want to know about,
but Kron couldn’t wait to report back to him before doing something.
If her project did involve the golden haze, then perhaps if he altered the
enchantment in the sight-enhancer, she wouldn’t be able to claim this
magic from the stars. All he had to do was touch the instrument for a
moment to make whatever she saw through there appear farther away
than it was.
“Do you want me to check your sight-enhancer then, to make sure
it’s working properly?” His conscience stung him a bit, since he’d be
ruining her equipment instead of repairing it, but Salth and her son
didn’t need more access to power.
Salth shook her head, then narrowed her eyes. “Perhaps you should
first explain how you managed to enter my house uninvited.”
It would be hard to veil his true intent from Salth now that she was
fully awake. Kron tried anyway. “I told you before, Sal-thaath caused
mischief in the market earlier, so I thought you needed to hear about
it—”
“But how did you enter my house?”
4 6 · S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
For a moment he was tempted to say Sal-thaath had let him in, but
he didn’t want to see the boy punished unjustly. Kron raised his head
proudly. “Maybe artifacts are more powerful than you realize.”
“Really? Then why did you join the fishes last time?” Salth’s eyes
turned blood red, a trick that might have terrified someone unaccus-
tomed to magic. “You’re annoying me. I think it’s time you joined the
little people you’re so fond of.”
The air battered down on Kron as Salth attacked. He pushed back
with all of his magic, drawing on skills he hadn’t used since he left the
Magic Institute. He had to do more here than defend himself; he also
had to sabotage the sight-enhancer without letting Salth realize what he
was doing. His body burned with pain as Salth shrank it several inches
and he forced it back to its normal size.
Maybe I don’t need to defend against this spell; I can use it. Kron
reached into his pouch and grasped a chunk of porous stone. Perfect.
As Salth’s spell continued to work, he allowed its magic to flow through
him into the stone. The stone absorbed most of it, then started to shrink
itself. That alone was proof that Salth already controlled more magic
than all the other magicians Kron knew.
When the stone was so tiny he could conceal it by pinching his fin-
gers around it, Kron pulled it out of his pouch, along with a more-
impressive but unpowered crystal. He raised it over his head with both
hands, taking the opportunity to transfer the pebble to his other hand,
closer to the sight-enhancer. “Prepare to feel your own spell, Salth!”
His voice was higher-pitched than normal. He lunged forward, but he
must have shrank more than he’d realized, for he fell short of the sight-
enhancer. Kron clenched his hand into a fist so he wouldn’t lose the
pebble. Salth cowered for an instant before spreading her hands as wide
as she could. Guessing she had cast a shield over herself, Kron didn’t
press his attack. Instead, he touched his hand to the sight-enhancer, al-
lowing the pebble to melt inside. Then he turned and bolted out of the
house, not stopping until he was winded. He staggered to a tree and
leaned on it, panting. If Salth wanted to send another attack after him,
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 4 7
now would be a good time to do it. When no fantastic animals or blasts
of power erupted from her house, he backed away, keeping a magic-
finder out in case she decided he was a threat after all.
He’d never thought of Salth as a threat before, even if she was too
obsessed with power. But if she wanted to use it against others—that
was another matter. As for the golden haze she found so fascinating,
was that her own desire speaking, or the truth? How could she be so
sure something so far away was so powerful, or that it would ever come
within anyone’s reach? This haze was too insubstantial to bother Pagli
with. Kron had to focus on finding some way to make Salth and Sal-
thaath leave others alone. He couldn’t return to Delns knowing that
Bella—and Vistichia—were at risk.
* * *
When Kron returned to Bella’s house late the next morning to check
on Phebe, he found himself greeted by a crowd of people so thick he
had trouble pushing through them. As he attempted to maneuver around
a bulky matron, she grabbed his arm. “I found him! It’s the magician
who turned Phebe back into a person!”
“I thought he’d turned her into a chicken,” a man said. “Didn’t the
city-king’s magician change her back?”
Kron gritted his teeth. He’d hoped they could avoid this kind of at-
tention, but more people must have noticed them than he’d realized.
Poor Phebe and Bella must be embarrassed by all the attention. Then he
spotted a city guard blocking the entrance to the house. What if more
people believed the man’s story instead of the woman’s? What if the
official magician of Vistichia wanted Kron out of the city, or wanted to
cause trouble? He wasn’t equipped to make up more defensive artifacts
on the spot. Maybe he could bluff his way through.
“Let me go,” Kron said in his gruffest voice. “I need to check on
Phebe.”
“Check on her, or cast another curse on her?” another man asked.
4 8 · S a n d r a U l b r i c h A l m a z a n
“I never cast a curse on anyone!”
“Your boy did,” the first man said, “and that’s the same thing.”
“He’s not my boy, not my son or apprentice,” Kron declared in his
loudest voice. He scanned everywhere he could see, from the flat roof-
tops to the barrels of rainwater beneath the houses, searching for Sal-
thaath. If he should appear now and hear him, it could be complete dis-
aster for everyone here. But perhaps that could be a way to disperse the
crowd.... “In fact, Sal-thaath is under no one’s control. If I were you,
I’d get away from here in case he returns. He might want to creat
e more
chickens....”
The woman holding his arm, shrieked, released him, and bumped
into several people as she fled. Others copied her, and soon Kron was
alone. Well, almost alone. The guard hadn’t deserted his position, and
a second man, tall, rail-thin, and ornately dressed and jeweled, stood
next to him, scowling at Kron.
“We don’t need more magicians in Vistichia,” he said. “The king
will tolerate none who oppose him.”
Kron shrugged. “I’m not here to oppose him or do anything more
than pay his fees with the artifacts I sell. I’m simply traveling home and
need to earn passage back.”
The man sniffed and stepped away from Bella’s door. “Then see that
you do so quickly, stranger.”
Kron waited until the guard and the king’s magician departed before
knocking on the door. He had to wait for an agony of heartbeats before
Bella finally opened it. Dark circles under her eyes showed she must
have had trouble sleeping. Kron wished there was more he could do for
her to ease her worries.
“Is everything all right?” he asked. “How’s your sister? Noth-
ing...else has happened, has it?”
“Not yet.” She opened the door a little wider. “But she had poor
dreams all night. No one slept well.”
“But she’s acting human now, isn’t she? Do you want me to check
her?”
Sea so n s’ Be gin n in gs · 4 9
“Troge won’t like it. He thinks you changed her in the first place,
even though I explained you were the one who changed her back.” She
glanced around. “His head’s as thick as the wood he chops. Come on
in, just for a few heartbeats. Phebe can’t complain after all you did for
her.”
And Bella couldn’t help her family. Kron slipped in to find Phebe
huddled near the fireplace, grinding corn so furiously kernels flew eve-
rywhere. She started as Kron approached.
“Good morning to you, Dame. How are you today?”
She glanced everywhere before replying, “He’s not with you, is he?”
“Sal—the boy?” Kron didn’t want to say Sal-thaath’s name out loud
in case the child was listening in magically. “No, I haven’t seen him
since the marketplace yesterday. He comes and goes as he pleases. I
can’t stop him.”
“But you must, Kron!” Bella said. “What if he comes back? What if
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