“Is that why you cut yourself off from the city so much?” Alesh asked. She leaned in over the table onto her elbows, and her braid narrowly missed falling into the uneaten remains of her dinner. “Do you really think that everyone in Dradela thought of you as an outsider?”
“People told me that to my face,” Tatsu said.
Alesh cut him off, reaching for his hand across the wood. “There are always a few bad eggs in the bunch, Tatsu, but you can’t honestly think that everyone felt that way. What about Hesch? What about me and Ral?”
“My father used to tell me…” Tatsu trailed off, unable to find the words. “He used to say that he would hear people talking, when they thought he wasn’t listening, about me and my mother’s influence. He said, eventually, he just couldn’t deal with it anymore.”
“Your father told you people did that?” Alesh asked. She looked horrified, eyes widening.
The hot swell of shame forced Tatsu’s gaze down to the table once more. “Didn’t they?”
“No,” Alesh said, and her voice was very soft. “No, I never heard anyone say that about you.”
“And your parents never…?” Tatsu’s jaw snapped shut as he realized the implied insult, cheeks flaming, but Alesh didn’t seem upset by it. She just shook her head and squeezed the fingers on his good hand hard enough to sting.
Tatsu put a hand over his eyes, wishing he could swallow back all of it. He couldn’t tell if the emotion choking his throat was relief or anger—maybe it was both, coiled up around the increasingly tarnished memory of his father. The knowledge that had kept him happily alone for the past ten years had been so solid. He’d been so sure that closing himself off in his father’s cottage in the woods was necessary.
Alesh stood up from her chair and rounded the table to throw her arms around Tatsu’s neck from behind, pressing her face in the groove of his shoulder and neck.
“Tatsu, I’m sorry,” she said, and her breath tickled at the corner of his jaw. “I didn’t know that was why you kept away in the woods. I thought you just didn’t like crowds and people.”
Tatsu reached to find her fingers with his working hand again, just to feel the heat of her skin, but found that he couldn’t coax any words past his lips.
“Be careful,” she whispered. “Be careful with Yudai.”
“Why?”
“He’s a prince,” she said. “That comes first and foremost, and I’m afraid you’ll get hurt.”
Tatsu’s mouth went dry as his tongue expanded clumsily to stick to the roof of his mouth. He nodded once in a sharp jerk and then again to try and soften the action, though he didn’t think he quite succeeded. There were footsteps in the corridor behind them, and Alesh pulled back, patting both of Tatsu’s shoulders lightly.
“Oh, here you both are,” Leil said as she pushed the door aside and stuck her head into the kitchen. “I’ve been sent to get you. We’re going to the temple to meet the priestess.”
Nine
The temple of mages in Moswar was a small, cozy building acting as a representative outpost built of sand blocks that alternated in hue. In the elongated shadow of the council palace, it looked even smaller, like a wing they’d forgotten to add until too late. All the windows were high along the walls, narrow and staggered, as if to allow only arrows to slip between the edges. There were no ornaments outside to proclaim the building’s use, but behind the first set of walls, the top curve of a thickly-leaved tree was visible protruding from the roof with the building; the temple, it seemed, had been constructed around it.
There was no door, only an arch of blocks that gave way to the widening interior, so their group entered without so much as a knock. The space inside radiated serenity and smelled faintly of both burning incense sticks and wet leaves, and Tatsu found his thoughts quieted by its calm. Even just studying the trunk of the central tree that dug its root down beneath the uneven floor made him feel more like himself again. The tree’s widespread branches summoned a desperate ache in his chest when he thought back to his woods, but the sensation faded when a dark-skinned woman wearing simple, light-colored robes approached them, bringing with her an air of comfortable ease.
“Welcome, Prince Yudai,” she said and bowed slightly at the waist, which seemed to surprise Yudai. It took him a second to recover enough before he could return the gesture. “The High Council informed me of your visit and the purpose behind it.”
“Thank you for meeting with us,” Yudai replied stiffly, his shoulders square and tense.
“My name is Tiran. I am the current temple representative to Moswar. If you and your friends would follow me, we can begin the tests without delay.”
Yudai started forward without so much as a backwards glance at the others, and there was no choice but to follow. It took little time to cross the open space containing the tree, and the walls were lined with incense burning in small wooden bowls.
“What sort of test is this?” Tatsu asked under his breath to Jotin, whose face was a hard mask of stone. He didn’t voice the rest of his question—is it dangerous?—but Jotin seemed to pick up on the unspoken currents anyway.
“I doubt the High Council would send us here to be in further peril,” Jotin said. “However, I do not know what the priestess will do.”
“Is it possible that the Council would…” Tatsu’s voice trailed off as his cheeks burned with sudden heat. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—your father is on the Council. I didn’t mean to insult him.”
One of Jotin’s eyebrows rose, but his mouth stayed in a neutral line. “Yet you did anyway. Perhaps you are not wrong to question it. These are strange times. To find mercenaries within Moswar itself is troubling.”
“Do you think someone in Moswar knew of the hired men?”
“A week ago, I would have sworn that no one had,” Jotin replied, looking grim. “Now, I am not so sure. To have infiltrated the city so thoroughly that a child could track our movements… well, it might be possible after all.”
Tatsu let his eyes wander across the stones beneath their feet. “When do you begin your time on the Council?”
“A few months from now. I may be able to find out more at that time.”
In a few months’ time, anything Jotin learned would be useless, but the sentiment was nice to cling to. They followed Tiran to a small, mostly enclosed enclave in the back of the building that was lined with the same high, narrow windows as the main chamber and held two leather chairs and a low, worn bench that stretched across one entire wall. A waist-high table held a single burning candle and a small potted plant with bright yellow blossoms and waxy leaves. Tatsu took a seat on the bench and the others followed suit as Yudai took one of the chairs. Nothing about the room or the building itself was threatening, but even the most dangerous of situations could present the veneer of peace.
The midnight quiet, while serene, also hid the greatest threats.
From the miniature table, Tiran pulled out a linen cloth and leaned over Yudai to wipe at his left hand.
“I will need to take a sample of your blood,” she said. “Once I have that, I can attempt to analyze the properties within and locate the corruption.”
“Corruption?” Yudai echoed.
Tiran smiled, though it seemed a little forced. “We will learn more soon.”
Producing a small needle from the pocket of her robes, held within a hollowed bone case, she leaned in again. “This may hurt, but please stay still.”
Yudai’s gaze flickered to Tatsu’s own and stayed there, filled with apprehension. Their eyes held through Tiran’s finger-prick and blood-drawing, but after, Tatsu couldn’t stop himself from looking down at the small glass vial of what looked like cloudy ink. Even though he was expecting it, the air left his lungs in a harsh rush at the sight of the black blood, almost as if he’d been struck.
Yudai, Tatsu noticed, did not look down at the vial.
“Now what?” Yudai asked through clenched teeth.
“Perhaps you would like yo
ur companions to wait in the main chamber?” Tiran offered, holding the vial between her hands as if she were already studying it. “The results—”
“It’s fine.” Yudai’s eyes met Tatsu’s briefly again and then seemed to wrench violently away. “I—they can stay.”
“Then I will perform the analysis,” Tiran said. “Try to remain quiet; noise may disrupt my spell-charting.”
Tatsu had seen only a few mages actually work magic: Yudai, of course, and both Zakio and Leil. Even though he knew nothing of how magic was worked, all three were distinct in their casting. Leil always hesitated before she began anything, as if she were afraid of her own abilities. From what Tatsu had seen, Zakio flaunted his in grand, showy climaxes. And Yudai’s, when it slipped back within his grasp, was another extension of himself, something that he commanded with ease.
In his lap, Tatsu let his hands rest palms up and clenched his fingers a few times, wondering what another would notice about him had the ability been passed on.
Tiran’s was different still. Her magic was so subtle that he almost missed it until the air around his head began to vibrate softly with energy, humming just beyond his thoughts. Tiran moved with controlled, fluid waves that seemed to blend together. Then her fingers curved around the glass of blood, and the vial began to glow with a warm, yellow light.
The air in the room stood motionless. There was a bright flash from the vial between Tiran’s hands, and beside Tatsu, Leil let out a lungful of air in a half-gasp. All the light faded as Tiran sat back with beads of sweat glistening on her forehead.
“Well?” Yudai asked, and his voice sharp and nervous.
Tiran didn’t answer right away. She sat back, shoulders sagging, before shaking her head.
“The analysis was… inconclusive. It is possible that I am simply not an adept enough mage to fully uncover the changes made. However, there are still effects of the poisons lingering within your blood, and I may be able to identify what they came from with the help of an alchemist.”
As she stood, the frustration was obvious on Yudai’s features.
“I will send a messenger to retrieve one of our trusted mixers,” she continued. “We may be able to decipher which poisons were used, if you would excuse me for a moment.”
It was clearly more a polite statement than a request. Tiran left the small alcove for the larger room, her robes swirling around her form as she took the sharp turn. Yudai sank down in the leather seat, looking lost within himself, so Tatsu turned to Leil beside him.
“What did you feel in her magic?” he asked.
“I wish I had more time to study it,” Leil said. She stared at the glass vial Tiran had left behind. “The way the Joesarians weave magic is different from ours, but it feels the same at the base. I would enjoy getting a chance to watch a slower, drawn-out spell, to see if I could replicate the way they push through the fabric of energy.”
“But you couldn’t feel anything else in Yudai’s blood?”
Leil shot him a sympathetic look. “Sorry. Without having cast the magic myself or knowing what I was looking for, I won’t be much help.”
As the minutes ticked by, Ral got antsy. She stood, walking around the room and looking at the walls, and once she was finished with that, she migrated to the exit to peek around the corner. Alesh smiled thinly at Tatsu.
“Maybe we’ll take a walk,” she said. She touched a hand to Ral’s elbow and guided her into the large chamber they had entered through. “We won’t be gone long.”
“Do you want someone to go with you?” Tatsu asked.
“No.” Alesh glanced at Yudai’s slumped figure. “You should stay here. Besides, it’s never been us the mercenaries are hunting.”
After they left, Tatsu crept to Yudai’s side. “Are you all right?”
“I feel like I’m on display,” Yudai mumbled towards his clasped hands. “Like I’m some sort of experiment the scholars are conducting. This is exactly how it felt when my father would throw those celebrations to try and entice me a bride—like I’m some kind of prize to be bartered over.”
“I don’t think Tiran thinks of you like that.”
Yudai didn’t answer. His eyes were focused on the wall, or something far beyond it, glazed over in memory. It took a moment for him to come back to the present, and when he did, he sucked in a deep breath and dragged one hand over his face.
“It makes sense now,” he said, but it seemed to be for himself. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me. About my father, and the benefit of… of using me. Once it became an option, I think my father decided there was no further need for me. The celebrations stopped a year before my eighteenth birthday, and I’d never known why.”
He turned away, refusing to meet Tatsu’s eyes. “At the time, I’d been happy to stop the endless parades to the nobles and their daughters, and now I’d give anything for that to still be the worst of it. I thought my father had finally listened to my requests to stop it all.”
“Instead, Nota went to him with her plan to harness your magic.”
“It must have seemed a far better option for a king with a stubborn, disagreeable son,” Yudai agreed.
“You’re not always disagreeable,” Tatsu pointed out.
He got a strained smile in response as Yudai met his gaze again. “That’s because you’re not trying to marry me off against my will.”
Something angry and bitter hardened in Tatsu’s stomach, throbbing and pulsing against the bottom of his ribs. Unable to come up with anything to say in reply, he looked back at the bench where Leil and Jotin still sat and found Leil watching them both with undisguised interest.
He stood up at the sound of footsteps, slightly muted beneath soft-soled sandals.
“Tiran is coming back,” he said and returned to the bench.
Tiran re-entered with a fresh wave of incense following behind her. “I have sent the messenger. He should be here within the hour.”
“So we wait,” Yudai said with finality.
Ral and Alesh returned before the alchemist arrived. The mixer himself walked in about thirty minutes later, wearing some of the brightest colored clothes that Tatsu had seen in Moswar yet: a deep blue robe that fell down past his knees with splashes of green dye that spread out like uneven flower petals. His hands, clasped in front of his body, were stained with black that coated the ends of his fingertips and looked more like ink etched into his skin than the remnants of his work.
He was calm and polite, but there was something in his air that Tatsu didn’t wholly trust. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he brewed poisons powerful enough to change the very makeup of a man’s blood that gave Tatsu pause.
Tiran gave him the vial of Yudai’s blackened blood, and the alchemist took several minutes just looking at it before opening the top and pouring a few droplets into the palm of his hand. When the man leaned in to smell the congealed bits, Tatsu looked away, stomach turning.
“And you do not know which poisons were used?” the alchemist asked.
“Itur,” Alesh volunteered from the bench, “and umet. At least those were the two that I could identify. There were more that I didn’t know, and those were just the ones they had nearby.”
Tatsu stared at Leil until the woman began to fidget, twisting her fingers together in her lap.
“I can confirm those were used more than once,” she said quietly, and didn’t raise her eyes from their downcast position. “They also dosed him with both iyera and aoyma together.”
Alesh shot Leil a startled look that sharpened, though she said nothing.
“Then it is no wonder,” the alchemist said and wiped the blood from his hand with a grimace. The weathered lines of his face deepened as his features twisted.
“No wonder what?” Alesh asked.
The man looked up as he replaced the stopper on the blood vial with care. “He has been fed more toxins than any normal human should realistically be able to endure, and at extended lengths. The corruption in his blood is
not from the poisons. It is from the magic trying to combat them.”
“Are you saying that my own magic did this?” Yudai’s eyes flashed.
“It certainly would never have happened without the poisons,” the alchemist replied. “But the only way that your own body could protect itself was to neutralize the toxins in your bloodstream. By altering the base of your blood, it kept your heart from recognizing what the poisons were. I believe that this kept you alive, but the consequence was that those toxins were allowed to then remain where they were, festering and slowly corrupting your blood from within.”
Yudai’s hands shook against his thighs. “Are you saying this will kill me?”
“I cannot say.” The alchemist sighed. “Perhaps an adept mage could attempt to reverse what has transpired within you, but I can do nothing. The toxins in your blood are long gone; only magic can hope to reverse the effects now.”
Yudai’s face turned to stone. His rage was so palpable Tatsu thought he could swipe his hands through it if he reached out.
“It would have killed you far sooner had you been without your magic,” Tiran said. “And all is not lost yet.”
“And how do you figure that?” Yudai asked through clenched teeth.
“The matter with your blood is unrelated to the matter of your blocked magic. If you seek out the high priest at the mages’ temple, he may be able to do more for you. Your abilities are being held from you by a magic wall within, and I am afraid that I am not skilled enough to break it.”
“And the drain?”
“Also a matter for the high priest,” Tiran said. “What was done to you was quite advanced—I have not the ability to sort through the threads.”
It seemed to Tatsu that Yudai looked suddenly very tired. “Where is the mages’ temple?”
“South,” Tiran said, “through two dominions, located on the edge of the Dar-Itusk Basin.”
Yudai’s lips pursed and then flattened into a thin line before he looked at Tatsu. In the space between them, the incense coiled into a fog. “Can you give us a minute, please? I need to discuss the plan of action with my companions.”
The Mage Heir Page 11