The Black Mage: Complete Series

by Rachel E. Carter

  My parents apologized for missing Alex’s and my ascension, but I’d already known it would be too much to leave the store in the midst of the new apprentices’ training. Besides, the mages’ ceremony wasn’t open to the public, and while I was sure they would’ve been able to attend the feast, it would’ve been a long journey to take for such a short event. I was just happy my parents had supported my studies.

  Of course, I came bearing news…

  But it’d already arrived by Alex’s envoy a week before, not that it made it any easier to accept.

  My father was in a constant state of shock. During my apprenticeship, all my letters home had refrained from mentioning Darren—mostly because I hadn’t known what to write—so to hear the prince and I had been falling in love all this time was something my father had never considered.

  My mother was more understanding, stating that she’d suspected something was afoot during the week of our first-year trials. “He wouldn’t stop staring at you. I knew there was more to it… I just never expected this.”

  It was a hard notion to accept. A prince of the realm had chosen to take their lowborn daughter not as a mistress but as his wife.

  My parents were happy, but confused, and I didn’t have five years to explain exactly how it came to be. To be perfectly honest, I was still reeling from the news as well.

  Things like that just didn’t happen. Not to me.

  We discussed the coming Candidacy, and they promised they would be there to watch Alex and me participate. “The girls should be able to run the shop by then.” We discussed the wedding, and my father was the first to inquire on the absence of a date. When I tried to explain, my mother grew quiet.

  It was only as I was saddling my horse the next morning that she finally spoke. “Be careful, Ryiah. I can’t imagine the king is pleased with whatever his son did to win you a seat at their table.”

  I nodded, mutely. It wasn’t something I hadn’t already considered. My plan was to stay as far away from the king and his heir as possible—yet another reason to accept Commander Nyx’s offer.

  From there it was a swift farewell and a return to the well-traveled dirt road that led up a steep trail to the great forest of the north. King’s Road skirted the base of the Iron Mountains, and the remainder of our trip was uneventful. Paige and I spent each night at an inn along the way, and we made good time.

  When we finally spotted a giant stone fortress built into one of the mountains, I let out a deep sigh of relief. Next to me, I heard Paige do the same.

  It was a magnificent picture. With the setting of the sun just an hour behind us, the great keep was made alive by hundreds of flickering yellow dots. The torches lined each wall, up and up each subsequent lookout until the light finally disappeared into the mountain itself.

  From where we stood, I caught the sheen of metal glittering off the wall’s lowest sentries along the walk. It wound from the fortress’s bottommost point to the base of the mountain floor.

  I gathered my reins and nudged my mare forward.

  Ferren’s Keep.

  “PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME AND PURPOSE.”

  Paige and I declared ourselves to the guard at the edge of the dais, holding our horses in place as we presented our official papers—my approval from Commander Nyx and Paige’s signed orders from the Crown.

  The soldier and his two comrades examined the documentation carefully, verifying the seals to make sure they weren’t forgeries. When they found what they were looking for, the lead waved us forward with a rattle of chainmail.

  We continued along the raised walkway, horseshoes clattering against rock, until we reached the fortress’s base: a protruding barbican with yet another set of soldiers guarding its gate.

  We presented our papers again, and the gate was raised. Once more the process was repeated inside with another set of guards and another gate, and then we gave our horses to an awaiting hostler as we followed a steep set of stairs and then a long tunnel into the keep itself.

  Spiraling floor after floor, chamber after chamber, everywhere we looked hundreds of supplies flooded the space of the storerooms. There was a giant well, barrels of grain, great mounds of firewood, weighted artillery, and racks. I also noted racks of swords, knives, javelins, and every type of armor one could hope to imagine: chainmail, breastplates, arm guards, spare tunics, and breeches. The inside of the fortress was armed to withstand a siege.

  I’d seen it all during my last year of the apprenticeship, but I could tell Paige was impressed now. The frown she usually wore was nowhere in sight. The knight walked around with wide eyes and gawked unabashedly as we passed through the rooms.

  We reached a locked set of reinforced doors—the Commander’s private meeting chambers and her personal quarters—followed by an open, much larger space for regiment meetings. It was only a matter of minutes before we reached the men’s barracks, a long parade of rows with cots lining the wall as far back as the eye could see. Beyond them, I knew, were the women’s quarters, and just a bit further, leading out of the tunnel and through another set of guards, was the small village of Ferren, named after the keep because its only entry and exit was through the fortress’s tunnel itself.

  Ferren was settled in a small valley and decorated by steep, impassable crags on every side. Because of its size and location, it’d become home to the kingdom’s best blacksmiths, renowned men and women who furnished the northern defenses and supplied the Crown’s Army with the finest steel one could buy. In some ways, the mass production of Jerar weaponry was the most valuable resource the Crown had, and as such, the keep’s village was reserved to local regiment and blacksmiths only, with the exception of a small but hospitable staff for general upkeep.

  I led Paige to the women’s barracks, and we began to unpack. The door was left open. Both barracks were empty, which meant the regiment was taking dinner in the dining commons on the second floor.

  “Ryiah? Is that you?”

  I spun around and recognized a stocky boy with amber eyes and curling black ringlets at the barrack’s entrance. He was clutching a cloth in one hand and gaping. He was one of my old factionmates from the apprenticeship, a young man I’d seen just three weeks ago during our ascension ceremony. “Ray!”

  “I knew you would take Commander Nyx up on her offer.” He grinned. “And who is this you’ve brought with you?”

  Paige gave the boy a stony look. “Her guard. And I do not engage in frivolous conversation.”

  He started. “I-it was nice to meet you too.”

  My knight went right back to ignoring him, carefully folding her shirts as she pressed them away into a trunk of her now-claimed cot. I felt a surge of irritation. I would definitely be talking to my guard later in private.

  “Sorry about that.” I gave my friend a sheepish smile. “Paige and I had a long ride here. Some of us are more irritable than usual.” Actually, I believed she was born that way, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain. “I was just unpacking before I checked in with the commander.”

  “She’s still at dinner with the others… I could take you there, if you’d like.”

  I hesitated. I really wanted to clean up first—granted I’d had a hot bath at most of the inns we’d passed along the way, but I still had a day’s worth of grime coating my clothes and hair.

  And if memory served, the wait to one of the two small bathhouses in Ferren was easily an hour, though that’d been with sixty visiting apprentices stationed in the keep.

  Then again. Why not? The rest of the regiment had just served long hours sweating in armor, so I would fit in right alongside them.

  “Lead the way!”

  A SEA of faces swarmed my vision the moment we entered the dining hall. Ferren’s Keep had the largest regiment north of Devon. The count was somewhere close to two thousand when all were in residence, which was never since fifteen of its twenty hundred-men units were always on patrols. Still, its regiment was one-fifth the size of the Crown’s Army, four times the si
ze of anywhere else. Most cities’ branches were closer to five hundred.

  It was the perfect place to house a large regiment until more northern aid was needed from the Crown’s Army.

  That said, it wasn’t the most prosperous. The contents were worn and meals were tubs of wilted produce, dry meat, and stale breads—the product of a city without local farming. That, and five hundred sweat-stained faces fighting over the last scraps of food amidst tankards of ale.

  “No better than a pack of ravenous dogs,” Paige muttered.

  I opened my mouth to tell her we didn’t look much better, and froze. Even though the crowd was overwhelming, there was one person who caught my attention almost immediately. His broad shoulders and infectious laugh were impossible to miss.

  Ian. Ian was here. Ray noticed my direction and nodded. “He arrived two days ago, right after me. Guess Port Langli wasn’t to his liking. Jayson is here too. He’s been promoted twice since his ascension. And if you look hard, you should be able to spot Ruth from Alchemy. Ferren’s Keep is a popular post.”

  “Well, this is a surprise.”

  I spun around and came face to face with the leader of Ferren’s Keep, an imposing, if slightly short, woman in her early forties with a blonde mane cropped close to her ears and steel-gray eyes that missed nothing. The woman knight had one of the most sought-after posts in the entire kingdom.

  Commander Nyx studied me, arms folded across her chest. “I’m happy you took me up on my offer, Mage Ryiah. I wasn’t sure you would after the news. A title can go to some people’s heads.”

  I blushed. “It’s not my title yet.”

  The woman raised a brow. “And what does the Crown have to say about that?”

  “The king has agreed to let me serve on your regiment until Prince Blayne’s wedding… But I will always be a Combat mage of Jerar. No title can change that.”

  “And you don’t expect any special accommodations while you are here? A private room? Or a high position in my regiment, perhaps? Because I only promote from performance.”

  I stood my ground. “I would expect you to treat me the same as any other mage who enters your keep.”

  At this, Paige made a choking noise. “Certainly not!”

  “The keep is fine.” I scowled at my guard. “I will be surrounded by hundreds of brave women and men who fight for our country. Who better to protect me?”

  “Me! The knight appointed by the king himself!”

  “Well, your job just got a whole lot easier.”

  Paige scowled and said nothing.

  Commander Nyx cracked an amused smile, white teeth flashing. I was immediately struck by its oddity—like a sudden dunk in an icy bucket of water. The woman was made of frowns. “I assure you… What is your name again?”

  “Paige,” the knight supplied shortly.

  “Well, Paige, my men and women are just as capable as your regiment in the capital. Ryiah will be in good hands.” Nyx’s gaze fell to someone behind us, and she made a momentary gesture. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a meeting to attend. Ray, Ryiah will be serving on your squad with the rest of the newcomers. I expect you to introduce her to Sir Gavin first thing in the morning. Paige, while you’re here, you can serve alongside your charge so long as you defer to her squad leader’s command. I believe the King’s Regiment orders only decreed Ryiah’s safe transport to and from my keep, did they not?”

  Paige glowered as I thanked the commander for her time. Nyx withdrew back into the crowded hall, and Paige made a sniffing noise beside me.

  “I don’t like the commander.”

  I stifled a snort. “You don’t like anyone. You don’t even like me.”

  “Well, I really don’t like her.”

  Ray and I exchanged weary glances as the knight snatched a half-eaten loaf off someone’s plate and began to devour it without an apology. “What?” she spat. “I’m useless so long as you are surrounded by ‘capable’ others. I might as well eat. Or is that something else I must defer to this Gavin to do?”

  Ray gave me a sympathetic clap on the shoulder. “I’m off to scrounge up a wash before the rest of the men get to the baths.” He jerked his chin in the direction of Paige. “Good luck with… things.”

  As soon as he was gone, I turned to my guard with a sigh. “You are going to be stuck with me for a long time. A little cheer once in a while certainly wouldn’t hurt your cause.”

  “Cheer is for fools with idle minds. I am neither a fool nor idle.”

  And that was the end of that.

  THE NEXT MORNING came much too soon. I’d spent most of the evening before catching up with some of the regiment women I’d met during the apprenticeship. By the time the bell tolled down the keep’s narrow walls, I was ready to return to sleep.

  Five years of the same routine, and I was still not used to early mornings. “Mmmphf.” I shoved the warm blankets aside, and then subsequently cursed as my toes touched the icy floor.

  “Missing your accommodations back at the palace, my lady?” Paige‘s tone was anything but sympathetic.

  I fixed her with a bleary-eyed glare. “All this hatred you harbor must be exhausting to maintain.”

  “You should’ve asked for a private chamber.”

  “I thought you didn’t care for frivolities,” I snapped.

  She threw her hands up in frustration. “I was the best knight of my rank and spent six years working up to a promotion in the King’s Regiment—and for what? You haven’t listened to one suggestion I’ve made! I told you to keep west and you insisted on that detour—”

  “To see my parents!”

  “Then you bombarded me with banal questions about the weather when you should’ve paid attention to the road!”

  “I was trying to be friendly, and I was paying attention! I am capable of doing both!”

  “My only purpose is to serve as your guard, and you insist on harboring this foolish notion of sleeping out in the open with six hundred other women where I cannot possibly fulfill my duty should one of them harbor ill intentions!”

  “Those women are soldiers, mages, and knights like yourself,” I countered. “Hardly the type to wish me ill.”

  “How would you know? You are too busy smiling at everyone you meet. There are rebels in this great country, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “Ferren’s Keep is our nation’s stronghold. It is the last place a rebel would choose to stay.”

  “It’s exactly where I would go.”

  I yanked my chainmail over my tunic a little too roughly. “Well, it’s a good thing you aren’t a rebel.”

  Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to reign in my temper. In a twisted way, she was only doing her job, even if it was in the most grating way she could do it. “I am sorry, Paige. Please understand I wish to comply with your orders, but the king did grant me this leave. I can’t exactly go around demanding my own chamber. I promise to consider all future advice.”

  The knight tied her hair in a high knot and then looked past my shoulder. “I don’t hate you.”

  “W-what?” She’d caught me off guard.

  Paige cleared her throat. “What you said earlier. I may not enjoy your company, but I don’t hate you, my lady.”

  And that was as close to an apology as I’d get. I handed the knight one of her boots, and she took it without complaint.

  Neither of us spoke another word as we trudged down the dank corridor and up the stairs to the top floor of the keep. I was concentrating so hard on my own thoughts that I almost missed colliding with another in passing.

  “Ryiah?” The boy did a double take.

  Ian. I stopped and gave a nervous smile. “Surprise.”

  “What are you doing here? I heard…” He tried again. “I thought you’d be at the palace.”

  I flushed. Our history and the awkward context of our present conversation were not lost on me. “No—I mean, yes, I will be, eventually, for the wedding, but…”

  “She’s here to m
ake her mark,” Paige interrupted, “the same as the rest of you.”

  Ian noticed the other woman and frowned. “And you are?”

  “The knight charged with her safekeeping.”

  I smiled apologetically. “Paige is my personal guard. She was the only way I could serve outside the capital.”

  The two exchanged wary glances.

  “King’s Regiment?” Ian stared at the girl.

  She met his gaze head-on. “By Crown orders. To protect the prince’s interests.”

  I changed the subject before she could utter any more uncomfortable remarks. “You grew tired of Port Langli so quickly?”

  He hesitated. “I got a better offer.”

  “In Ferren’s Keep?”

  “Well, this is where I grew up.” Ian fiddled with a leather cord at his wrist. “Nyx and my parents are good friends. There’s always been a position for me here. ”

  “Oh.” I’d forgotten.

  “I suppose congratulations are in order.”

  I glanced up and saw Ian’s poignant expression. There was no mistaking his meaning. “T-thank you.”

  An awkward silence followed. I was searching my thoughts for the right thing to say, and I could see Ian struggling to do the same.

  Just then Ray appeared, sidling between us to grab me by the arm and spare the rest of the awkward exchange. “Ry, are you ready for your first official day as a war mage?”

  “Only my whole life.”

  “SO, YOU ARE THE INFAMOUS RYIAH?”

  I stood silently, back erect, as the squad leader circled me slowly, taking in my narrow frame with a studious gleam. I was aware of every fault in my appearance—from the way his eyes lingered on the small tear at my sleeve to the slight pause as he caught my scarlet-red locks—still sticking up all over the place in my rush to make the morning’s meet.