The Black Mage: Complete Series

by Rachel E. Carter

  Suddenly I was furious.

  He was the one who kissed me, not the other way around.

  I only kissed him back because… because, well blast it, it didn’t matter, because he kissed me first.

  Darren should apologize for not asking my permission. He had no right to act like I was an embarrassment.

  “Really?” I jerked my chin up angrily. “First you assault me. Then you avoid me for weeks. And now you send me on my way like I'm a mistake?”

  “You think I assaulted you?” Darren bristled. “You kissed me back, Ryiah.”

  “I didn’t kiss you back.” It was a blatant lie, but I didn’t care. “And take note, you are supposed to ask.”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t protest.”

  “I tried to push you away, but you were too wrapped up in—” My cheeks burned hotter as I stammered an explanation. “—in assaulting me!”

  His eyes flashed. “Girls don’t complain. And believe me, there’ve been plenty.”

  How dare he!

  My voice dripped with spite. “Not every girl welcomes the advances of a weakling prince with no chance at a throne, even one so lowborn as me.”

  It was cold and untrue, but I wanted to hurt him in any way that I could. His dismissal stung more than I cared to admit.

  “I could have any girl in this Academy.” Darren’s words were clipped and cold. “You were just a mistake.”

  It was a punch to the gut, and I should have expected it, but for some reason, he still caught me by surprise.

  I took a hitching breath and swallowed, hard. I couldn’t even come up with a retort and tears were threatening to break.

  I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

  “G-get out of my way.” My voice caught as I started to push past.

  “No, Ryiah, don't—”

  It was too late.

  The moment my hand twisted on the knob, a sea of red dropped from the sky.

  Buckets of gore covered every inch of my clothes.

  Rivulets of scarlet dripped from my hair, my face, my arms, and my legs… everywhere.

  “Go back to where you came from, lowborn.”

  Jake, William, and Priscilla were standing just outside the door with empty buckets in hand. Between that and their malignant smiles, it didn’t take much to ascertain their roles.

  My skin burned beneath the plaster of repugnant red.

  “Go home, Ryiah,” Priscilla repeated Jake’s earlier taunt. “This school was never meant for commoners.”

  I swiped at the blood on my face. “I might be a commoner, but at least I don’t resort to petty hazing to eliminate my competition.” The blood and the guts shouldn’t have bothered me really. They were harmless, and I’d been expecting an attack for days… But for some reason, I was seething.

  No, not some reason. Because of him.

  Darren stepped out from behind me, eyes averted, to stand beside his friends. His clothes were immaculate. No blood.

  I could not control the shaking of my fists. He’d known exactly what was waiting for me beyond that door. Hadn’t he asked me to follow him outside?

  He’d planned this. After… after I’d finally started to—

  “I have to say, the pig's blood was a nice touch.” Priscilla smirked. “When Darren first proposed the idea, I was reluctant. But seeing you now, well, it obviously worked. You should see the look on your face.”

  There was a loud pounding in the back of my skull. All I could hear was the boom, boom of my heart thumping away, echoing right into my bones.

  I was seconds away from flinging that condescending traitor as far as my limits would go.

  I couldn’t care less about Priscilla or the hazing. This was personal.

  “Don't be a fool, Ryiah.” Darren’s eyes were locked on the fists at my sides. “Plenty of first-years get hazed.”

  “But never you, right?” If he thought I was reckless before… I locked eyes with the enemy. “Time to change that.”

  In that moment, I didn't care that he was a prince or the most powerful first-year in the Academy. All I knew was that he was a boy who hurt me, tricked me, kissed me, betrayed me, and somehow won my trust against every instinct and piece of advice I’d ever received.

  I was a fool, but Darren, he was something else—something twisted and cold. Gods, I couldn’t believe I’d ever imagined him any differently.

  Don’t trust a wolf, he’d warned me, and yet, here I’d done exactly that.

  “Dueling will only get you expelled, Ryiah.”

  “Are you afraid you’ll lose?” I taunted. “Because I’m not.” It was a lie, but lighting that prince on fire would sure feel good while it lasted.

  Even if I spent a day in the infirmary after.

  “Give the wench a lesson!” Jake urged. “If you don’t—”

  “I will!” Priscilla leaped forward and our castings shot out in an instant.

  Before the attacks could clash, a wave of power crushed them both. I watched our powers explode in the air in shimmers of violet and gold.

  “Let her be. No one is dueling today.”

  I glared at the prince as Priscilla pouted. “Why not?”

  “She’s not worth it.”

  The words cut like a knife.

  I wasn’t worth it? I was worth a thousand of him. I didn’t toy with people because I was some sadistic, brooding prince.

  The four of them started toward the barracks, leaving me dripping blood onto the stone walkway.

  “Fight me, you coward!” I lunged forward and sent a blast rattling the ground. My magic barreled forward, straight toward the prince’s unguarded back.

  Darren spun around.

  With the flick of his wrist, my casting rebounded harmlessly into the forest.

  His dark eyes met mine, unreadable.

  “Fight me!”

  “If I fight you,” he said quietly, “they’ll send you home. Is that really what you want?”

  It wasn’t, but I couldn’t look at him without fire singing my veins. All of my senses were bursting, screaming at me to cast.

  I looked away and clenched my fists harder.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  I needed to say something, but he was already turning to leave.

  “It turns out I was wrong.” I raised my voice and called out after his group, watching as they walked away. For a moment—just a moment—the prince’s shoulders tensed. “I never made a mistake. You are exactly who I expected.”

  Darren didn’t bother to reply.

  But then again, I never expected he would.

  AN HOUR LATER, Ella found me in the barracks, furiously scrubbing the stain of pig's blood from my skin.

  “Oh, Ryiah, I’m so sorry.”

  I didn't respond. I just kept washing.

  She grabbed a cloth to help rinse the red from my tangled hair.

  “You never showed up for our practice,” she said quietly. “Was it Priscilla?”

  “Darren too.”

  “The prince?” She gnawed on her lip. “Not that I don’t put it past him, but he hasn’t been involved in any of the hazing. Why you?”

  I watched the crimson haze twist and curl around the tub's drain. “Why not?”

  “Ryiah.” She placed her hand on my wrist. “What happened between the two of you?”

  “I should have listened to you,” was all I meant to say, but instead I found myself spilling the secret I’d been holding onto for the last month.

  When I was finished, my cheeks were burning with shame. I couldn’t believe I’d gone against my best friend’s advice. She’d been warning me about the prince all along. It was like my old friends in the village back home. I used to tell those girls to stay away from my brother, but inevitably they’d been drawn to him like flies. Each one had thought that somehow she was special and he wouldn’t break her heart like the last.

  Darren hadn’t broken my heart, but he’d broken our friendship, and somehow that
was worse. All these months of building my trust and helping me just so he could play me for a fool. He was probably having a good laugh.

  “I think it's time I told you what really happened in Devon.” Ella’s gaze was apologetic; she hadn’t spoken a word until I was done. Even now, there’d been no judgment, just pity. “There's something I think you should know…” Her eyes clouded and she took a shaky breath. “I would have told you sooner, but I was ashamed.”

  THAT NIGHT, I stared up at the ceiling, long after Ella and the rest of our barracks had fallen asleep.

  How could I have been so naïve?

  For some reason, I’d really thought there was something genuine to the prince, something likable and kind, something that could justify the reckless attraction and confusion I’d felt in spite of all his sarcasm and condescending talk.

  Now I knew with certainty there was not. What Darren had done to me was terrible, but what he’d done to Ella was worse.

  No wonder she hated the prince.

  Ella and her family had lived in the capital for years, in one of the palace's many rooms. She'd grown up playing with the children of court, though the two princes had usually not been a part of that group.

  “Blayne and Darren were too important to mingle with most of the court… It was only as they got older that they started paying attention to the rest of us. Darren was private and aloof, much like he is now. He spent most of his time with the knights. I hardly ever saw him. Blayne was the older, more sociable of the two. He was handsome, popular, self-aware. He was also charming, and he could do no wrong.”

  Ella had only been twelve when the crown prince had lured her away and attempted to rape her in the midst of a ball. She’d tried to fight him off, but Blayne had muffled her screams.

  “But Darren heard me anyway. When he came to investigate the shouting, he found his older brother on top of me. He could see there'd been a scuffle. It was obvious from the rips in my dress and the long scratches on Blayne's neck. Darren looked me right in the eyes, Ryiah. He knew exactly what was happening.”

  But Darren had just walked away.

  “At first, I thought maybe he’d gone for help... but no one ever came. He left me there, Ryiah. That’s the kind of person he is.”

  The only reason Blayne never succeeded in his mission that day was by accident. In the heat of their struggle, the boy had slammed Ella's head against the wall and her powers had knocked the crown prince unconscious.

  Until that day, I hadn't even known I'd had magic. I tried casting for months afterward, but it took another two years to learn.

  Her family left court the very next day.

  Ella had warned me repeatedly. She'd said it since day one. Don't trust Darren. Don't trust the non-heir. Don't trust a prince.

  The overwhelming hostility had never made sense.

  Now it did.

  Darren had willingly stood by as his sixteen-year-old brother attempted to rape my best friend.

  Prince Darren, second son to King Lucius III, was the most base, amoral person I’d ever met.

  He wanted to try and send me home by pig's blood and an embarrassing kiss? Did he really think that would work?

  He’d just guaranteed my stay.

  I was not going anywhere.

  Someone like that would not win.

  If the prince was to be an apprentice, so was I.

  The whole blasted school thought he was a prodigy and the next Black Mage. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t, but the gods would have to stop me from trying to steal that away.

  IF I WANTED the prince’s head on a stick, it was nothing next to my brother.

  “The prince did what?”

  I grabbed my brother's wrist in an attempt to quiet him over the morning meal. “Please, Alex,” I begged, “don't make a scene.”

  Much to my dismay, rumor had spread around the compound in the span of a night. Ella hadn’t said anything—she was too loyal to me—but Jake in particular had made a big show about regaling the men’s barracks with the hazing while my brother was present.

  I’d had no choice but to fill Alex and our friends in on the rest. I’d kept out certain details. As far as I knew, Darren hadn’t told anyone about that kiss, but my brother heard the gist: prince befriends and betrays girl; then he and his friends share a good laugh.

  Alex was the levelheaded twin, the pacifist… except when it came to me. Then brotherly instinct took over, and no one, not even me, could calm him down.

  The last time I'd seen him this upset was when his best friend Jayson called an end to our courtship. It’d been amicable, but that hadn’t stopped my brother from ending a ten-year friendship and swearing that he would gut the trader's son, should he ever come calling again.

  Alex had broken many hearts in his wake, but the gods should fear if anyone ever hurt his sister. I had tried to point out as much the last time, but it hadn't gone over too well.

  My brother broke free of my hold and took off toward the front of the room.

  I scrambled over the bench. “Alex!”

  Ella stood up. “No—”

  It was too late.

  The two of us raced after my brother, calling his name, but Alex had already shoved his way past Jake and William and grabbed the non-heir by the neck of his tunic.

  The entire room went silent, all eyes trained on Alex as he sent a fist flying into the prince's face.

  Alex had only a split-second of advantage. Moments later, my brother was airborne, plummeting into the table behind him, as Darren stood brushing himself off angrily. There was blood dripping down the prince’s face.

  “You spineless predator!” Alex roared as Jake and William held him down. “All you do is prey on the weak!” He swore as Jake's fist collided with his nose.

  No, Alex! I started to run.

  “You think you’re the next Black Mage.” Alex spewed blood and saliva through his teeth as William kicked him hard, and again. “All I see is someone too insecure to let anyone with potential try. You think you can bully everyone into leaving. Well, my sister Ryiah—”

  At my name, Darren started, his knuckles grazing his platter as he jumped from his seat.

  “—is staying and so will anyone else you haze, if I have anything to do with it!”

  I reached Alex’s side just as Jake raised his knee. Magic was pulsing in my palm—I didn’t want to fight, but that was before they laid a hand on my brother.

  “Stop.”

  Jake lowered his leg to glance at the prince.

  “That's enough.” Darren shoved the boy aside to offer Alex a hand as he struggled to rise.

  My brother spat at it. “I might not be a mage of Combat,” Alex croaked, “but at least I’m not a tyrant.”

  The prince’s eyes were still locked on my brother as Ella thrust her way forward, offering Alex her shoulder so that we held him up by the pit of his arms.

  “Healers don’t win wars,” Darren said.

  “Neither do monsters.”

  The prince stared at Alex and then me for a long moment, anger burning in the dark recesses of his eyes.

  Then he turned and left the room without another word.

  My brother’s words echoed long after.

  IN THE WEEKS THAT FOLLOWED, my brother became a bit of a hero.

  Hazing stopped. There hadn’t been a single incident since my bout with the pig’s blood, and the whole school had been witness to my brother’s confrontation with the prince.

  None of us had any doubt who was responsible for the change.

  Alex, for one, was enjoying his newfound fame. We’d gained a lot of new faces to our study group. Many, like the rest of us, had been upset by the hazing but unwilling to speak out… The other half, of course, was a pretty new fan base.

  For a while, we were accepting of our new members. The larger our group, the better our defense, and so on. I was still wary the prince might retaliate, but nothing happened as the weeks flew by, and it quickly became apparent that the
latter was more trouble than they were worth.

  “If I hear giggling in the library one more time…”

  I glowered over at the cluster of girls—and a couple boys—who held on to my brother’s every word.

  “Just look at them fawning over him!” Ella sawed away at a defenseless piece of cabbage over our evening meal; we’d been restricted to the back end of the table in light of our new flock. “They’re treating him like he's a god… Gwen and Kylan wouldn't have looked twice at him a month ago!”

  “You sound jealous.” Please don’t be jealous; please just be annoyed that they are crowding our table.

  Ella glowered. “I’m not jealous. I’m disgusted.” She eyed my promiscuous brother, who was now seated a good five spaces ahead, surrounded by a cult of his newfound admirers. If we got any more, we’d be exiled from our own table.

  “It'll pass.” It had better.

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “A bloody massacre?”

  Ella didn't comment. She was too busy watching Alex to hear my joke.

  Does she like him? There was a sharp twinge in my side. Had my best friend started to fall for my brother over the course of our year and I’d failed to notice? All those nights I’d gone away to study, had he been walking her to the barracks and charming her all along?

  You’re not the only one who likes someone you shouldn’t.

  I swallowed hard and forced myself to chew, swallowing the tasteless gruel that seemed to make up so many of our meals. Blast it, Ella wasn’t supposed to like him! She was my friend.

  “He’ll break your heart.” The words slipped out, and I couldn’t take them back.

  “I know.” Ella shook her head with an exasperated sigh. “I know it so well.”

  At least she was fighting it. There’s my girl.

  Still, as soon as my friend looked away, I could feel my brother’s eyes on our section. It didn’t take years of practice to recognize those crinkled lines in the corner of his eyes.

  Alex was enjoying this. He was enjoying making Ella squirm after months of her turning away his advance.

  Idiot boy.

  I stabbed at my bowl, letting the metal clatter against the stone surface. Alex was going to ruin everything. It was worse because I could see a part of him cared.