“You would have rather seen me dead!” she was shrieking, her face framed by dirty blonde curls. “I finally have the chance to get out of this foul little village and you want me to throw it all away!” She threw a clod of dirt at him, not bothering to pick the dung out of it first, and as he instinctively raised his arm to shield himself, his elbow caught the edge of the boundary. He yelped in pain as a shower of sparks lashed out at his flesh, leaving a series of ugly red welts. The village children squealed with delight at his misfortune.
“These people are lying to you, Hilda,” he said, though his words were countered by a loud chorus of jeers from the adult onlookers. “True, they might actually give you some of the money and lands they promise, but what good is that if you lose your soul to them as well? If you have to use your magic, then why not go to one of the princess’s camps? At least they’ve never tried to overthrow the king.”
“And that’s the damned problem! What good does her royal Highness do us, might I ask? Oh, she’ll show us our spells well enough, but can she stop the Justices from slitting our throats right after? We deserve better and she won’t get it for us. Think, Ben! We could have ten times the land we do now. And money, too… and decent food and clothes—”
“Only by stealing it all from someone else,” the prisoner argued back. “Where’s the justice in that?”
Hilda sniffed at the irrelevance of the remark. “Where’s the justice in absolution?”
Drawn by the dispute, one of the Sage’s soldiers strolled lazily toward the prisoner. “If you keep spouting that sort of talk, friend, then the Sage will use that head of yours to decorate the gates of his new manor.”
“What difference would it make?” the man said, staring despondently at the toes of his leather boots. He stole a quick glance at his wife. “He’s taken everything else.”
As the crowd taunted the man with mewling wails of mock pity, Athaya’s ears picked up the underscore of hoofbeats rumbling behind them—and coming closer. A half-dozen men galloped into the green a minute later, a thick cloud of dust rising from the road in their wake. One man she recognized instantly; he could not have been overlooked in a crowd of thousands. With seeming idleness, Athaya let her hood fall across her face; this was neither the time or place for their meeting. The people of Coakley had likely been fed the tales that Mason warned her about, and if they were to discover their princess among them, they might assault her—or worse—for not using her power to tell their futures and say who among them was Lorngeld and who was not.
The Sage of Sare eased his ruddy stallion through the crowd of villagers, the archetypal image of a conquering king. Enemy or no, Athaya conceded that he was a glorious sight to behold; gold glittered at his ears and throat, and he was elegantly clad in emerald-colored silk, his black hair and cape flowing freely behind him. He reined in beside the prisoner, glancing down in mild curiosity.
“What’s the trouble here, Dorrit?”
The soldier stepped forward and offered his lord a sharp salute. “This man was arrested earlier this morning, your Grace. His wife is one of us—you scried her seed last week, if you’ll recall. He was caught trying to persuade her not to join you.”
The Sage grinned at his captive as if amused by the tangled prattle of a child just learning to speak. “He misunderstands me, then, for no one who truly knows my mission could say it is not the will of God.”
Like a tickle in the back of her head, Athaya sensed the thread of power in the Sage’s words—a single strand of silver in a tapestry of black. Like the subtle pressures a wizard employed to entice a man to sleep, the Sage twined a bit of mind-magic into his speech, adding a touch of arcane power to his already persuasive words. “It is time to absolve Caithe of her sins, my friends,” he proclaimed, extending his arms to embrace the whole kingdom. “We shall take back what is rightfully ours—those lands and goods stolen by the Church and her adherents—and then we will take our proper place… first in Caithe and then in the world!”
Procuring the expected cheers, the Sage bowed graciously to his audience, gold adornments catching the sunlight and dazzling the eyes of all. Then he approached the prisoner, stepping through the glasslike boundary with ease. The man backed away, but was soon dangerously close to the shimmering walls of his cell with nowhere else to run. The Sage cupped the prisoner’s head in his palms. The man flinched once as the wizard’s gaze bored into him, but then quickly went limp in the Sage’s grasp and slumped to his knees in the dirt.
After a moment of quiet study, the Sage straightened and slowly backed out of the cell, leaving the now-slumbering man alone in his ensorcelled square of earth. “Your husband does not have the power,” he said to Hilda. “He will never be what you are.” The Sage shook his head in a show of grief as if informing her that the man was dead and not simply barren of magic.
“Tell me, young lady,” he continued, placing one finger underneath the village woman’s chin. “Have you been anointed?”
Hilda blushed crimson at his touch. “No, your Grace. Not yet.”
The Sage smiled broadly in response. “Well, then, this seems a fine day for it. I shall do the honors myself.”
“Y-you, your Grace?” The woman’s mouth opened and closed several times in succession like a beached fish starving for the sea. “Such an honor…”
“All my people are worthy of honor, child. Come,” he said, taking her trembling hand in his, “leave your husband to his miseries. I would have you serve me by learning to use the gifts you have been given. But first you need a proper welcome. Attend us!” he shouted to the onlookers, raising his other arm high. “Summon everyone to the village church!”
After a hasty glance back at her husband, Hilda tossed her curls with a dash of insolence and strode out of the green on the Sage’s arm. Like an impromptu parade, they were quickly trailed by dozens of villagers and soldiers, all following the winding dirt road to the squat little church on the outskirts of the village proper.
Jaren tugged on Athaya’s arm. “Let’s go see what this ‘anointing’ is all about.”
Even as she trailed after him, Athaya craned her neck back to the imprisoned man. He had been quickly forgotten, displaced in the attentions of the villagers by whatever ritual the Sage was about to perform. “I wish I knew how to release him, but I’ve never seen that spell before.”
“His heartbeat is linked to the binding somehow,” Jaren returned quietly. “Breaking him free would probably kill him. Remember what Master Hedric said about trying to unweave the threads of Nicolas’ compulsion?” Resignedly, Jaren urged her forward. “Come. I know you’d like to, but you can’t save everyone in Caithe single-handedly.”
By the time they arrived at the village church, the pews were filled to overflowing with curious and excited spectators. The Sage’s wizards had the privilege of the forward pews, while those without magic were guided to the rear. To avoid being seen among the congregation, Athaya and Jaren concealed themselves with cloaking spells, content to watch the ceremony from the safety of a narrow arched window.
The village woman stood alone before a crudely cut stone altar hastily adorned with sprays of summer flowers and greenery. She picked at her grubby skirt with restless fingers, suddenly shy at the array of attentive eyes upon her. As candidate and congregation both waited restlessly for the rite to begin, Athaya realized that this was the ideal opportunity to discover if her ability to scry the seeds of power was truly gone. Her ethical stance made little difference at this point—Hilda’s future had already been revealed. The outcome of the inquiry would change nothing, but at least Athaya would know in her heart that she did not lie when professing the power had faded from her.
Though physical contact would make the reading clearer, Athaya dared not enter the church; even a cloaking spell was risky in a room full of wizards, one of whom might catch her reflection in a random scrap of glass or curve of silver. Instead, from her place at the window, Athaya cast out probing tendrils of thought, se
arching the woman’s mind for a pinprick of radiance. If Hilda felt the gentle touch, Athaya hoped that she would merely think it some aspect of the upcoming rite and say nothing.
Through the murky haze of Hilda’s anxiety, Athaya could sense her banked exhilaration, but she also harbored hidden pangs of regret; she knew her husband for a stubborn man and was sure that he would never bow down to the Sage and join his wife in her new future. But aside from these immediate emotions, the rest of Hilda’s mind held only darkened swirls of memory and thought, unbroken by the coruscant seed of unborn magic that the Sage had claimed was there.
Unless the Sage had been lying—and Athaya had no reason to suspect that he was—her talent was gone.
After allowing sufficient time for his audience to hone their anticipation, the Sage of Sare solemnly emerged from the priest’s closet behind the altar. He had exchanged his riding cloak for a silky white stole, making him look half king, half priest. The church quieted instantly at his advent.
“Beloved of God,” he began, raising his palms aloft, “we come together today to welcome another into our brotherhood and rejoice. She who stands before us has been called by God, as have we in our own time before her. It is our charge to instruct her in the use of her gifts and teach her the true and profound worth of the blessings she has been given.”
The Sage grasped the woman’s hands in his, patting them softly to ease her nerves. “Hilda, do you here in the presence of God and His children acknowledge and take joy in the gifts that He has granted you?”
Hilda looks up to him as if to God Himself, her eyes shining with rapture. “I do.”
“Will you use these gifts to His honor, for the betterment of His people and His world?”
“I will.”
“And do you promise to obey God in all things and therefore to obey those to whom He has granted greater gifts as a sign of His greater grace?”
“I do.”
The Sage released her hands. He stepped up to the baptismal font and picked up a gleaming pewter bowl filled with water. As he turned back and lifted the bowl to the sky, he scanned the congregation; for one uneasy instant, Athaya imagined he was looking directly between her eyes. Even knowing she was cloaked by magic, she shrank down instinctively.
When she dared peer back inside, the Sage had dipped his hands in the holy water and was sprinkling it like raindrops over Hilda’s face and hair. Then he set the bowl aside and laid his palms upon the woman’s brow. Her flesh gleamed golden where it met the Sage’s own, bathing the woman’s head in light like an angel’s corona.
“I hereby anoint you as one of God’s children and charge you be worthy of His gifts.”
The Sage offered the woman a ritual kiss of welcome on each cheek; Hilda reeled slightly, on the edge of fainting.
Grasping her shoulders, he turned her to face the others. “Rejoice, friends, for another of our brethren has been found. I commend to your love and care this woman, whom I as God’s first servant among you acknowledge as one of us. Do all in your power to increase her knowledge and skill so that her divine gifts can be used to the credit of us all.”
While the others sat silent, ignorant of the proper responses, the wizards in the congregation rose to speak in unison. “We recognize and welcome you, Hilda of Coakley, and hereby renew the vows made at our anointment, to uphold God’s law with our prayers and our gifts.”
“Now go in peace,” the Sage concluded, “and rejoice in His power, which He has deigned to share with us. May His blessings come upon us and remain with us, and grant us the grace to rule wisely. Amen.”
“Amen.”
With the formal part of the ceremony over, Hilda’s fellow wizards slowly formed a line in the aisle, each waiting to offer her a chaste kiss of welcome as the Sage had done. As the rest of the crowd dispersed, Athaya and Jaren slipped out of the village, remaining cloaked for safety. Not long afterward, the Sage and his escort thundered past them, heading for the manor.
“Do you still think we can change his mind?” Jaren asked dubiously, coughing up a mouthful of dust stirred to life by the escort’s horses. “After what we just witnessed back there, I think we’d do better to go straight back to Kaiburn.”
Athaya sighed, despairing but not yet ready to concede the battle. “I have to try. People will die if we go to war; I owe it to everyone who’s believed in me over the years to try and stop that if I can. And I owe it to Nicolas,” she added, kicking absently at a pebble in the road. “Maybe I can still convince the Sage to let him go.”
Shortly after midday, Athaya and Jaren arrived at the ducal manor of Nadiera, erstwhile home of Lord Mosel Gessinger, late of the king’s council and now a prisoner in his Majesty’s dungeons. The bulk of the Sage’s army encircled the duke’s stately mansion, their tents pitched outside graceful iron gates that were never intended to deter such a force. Athaya felt every muscle in her body harden with tension as she scraped her gaze across the landscape. All that she saw seemed to mock her; a sinister parody of her own camp in Kaiburn. In the fields to the north, hundreds of men and women drilled one another in battle magic, producing a constant flurry of explosions, fires, and illusory winged things, while those new to the Sage’s forces, some barely out of their own mekahn, learned the simpler spells of survival and stealth. This was more than a motley collection of students come to save themselves; this was an army on the march—wizards who sought not only to save their own lives, but to take the lives of their enemies. Suddenly, Athaya felt exposed and vulnerable; the Sage was the unquestioned sovereign here, and she his most formidable opponent. Were he to order her death, who among his followers would hesitate to carry out the sentence?
But it was too late to turn back even had she wished to; she and Jaren had reached the gatehouse and a bored-looking man in silvershot black livery stepped out to block their path. “If you’ve come to be tested, his Grace only does so for an hour a day, just afore supper,” he said rotely. He jerked a thumb to his left. “Wait with the others if you want.”
Athaya’s eyes followed the man’s thumb toward the ragtag host of peasants huddled outside the manor’s southern gate. Dozens of people had flocked to the Sage’s side hoping to learn whether they bore the seed of magic. Most were near the age of mekahn and many had small children in tow, desperate to know if persecution and absolution were the only future they had.
“We’re not here to be tested,” Jaren explained. “We’d like to speak to the Sage.”
The guardsman snorted as he tucked his thumbs in his belt. “You and a thousand other people. You’ll need an appointment.”
Athaya took a step forward. “I think he’ll see me. Tell him—”
“The Sage is a busy man, missy,” he cut in, dismissing her as just another demanding villager. “Half the folks in this shire want him to tell their future and if he did it for every pretty wench who strolled up to the gates and asked, he’d have no time for nothin’ else. Go on—off with you now.”
Athaya drew herself up and leveled him with her finest regal glare. Her tone was cold with command. “Sir, would you kindly tell his Grace that Athaya Trelane wishes to see him at his earliest convenience. Perhaps he will overlook my lack of an appointment.”
The man’s eyes widened at first, then narrowed in suspicion as he sent subtle threads of inquiry to brush against her mind. His eyes widened again once his truth test was done and he knew her to be who she claimed. Turning on his heel, he retreated into the gatehouse and whispered urgently to one of his companions. “Fetch Sir Couric—and be quick about it!”
A short time later, a sleek young man in a costly blue tunic arrived at the gatehouse. He appraised the newcomers with unhurried care, quietly bemused, as if unable to decide whether Athaya’s sudden appearance at the Sage’s stronghold was a stroke of tactical genius or shocking stupidity.
“If you will come with me,” he said at last.
Couric led them across the graveled courtyard, through an arched doorway, and into a w
ell-tended garden. He guided them to a shaded gazebo and bade them wait while he went to fetch his lord. The look of calm bemusement never left his watchful face.
Athaya sat down on a marble bench near a bush of white roses. Even after many summers at the manor, she had never been in this garden before, but had only caught glimpses of it through locked gates. It was Lord Gessinger’s private domain; until now, no one had ever been permitted inside but the duke himself. Looking about her, Athaya knew why. The garden boasted nothing but roses… roses of every shape and size and color. Mosel must have planted the bushes in memory of his first love—a woman named Rose, absolved long ago. If she could not live, Athaya mused, thinking back on the duke’s sad tale, then at least Mosel saw to it that these blossoms would do so in her stead.
“I’ve been expecting you.”
Athaya whirled around at the unexpected voice, pricking her finger on a thorn. The Sage stood directly in front of her, grinning with delight that his cloaking spell had shielded his approach so well. He still wore his emerald-green tunic, but with one sinister addition—for her benefit, she was sure. Athaya balled her hand into a fist and blood welled up from where the thorn had pierced her. Around his waist was a scarf of runecloth—the very scarf she had given to Nicolas when he had departed for Sare last autumn. The red runes were stark against the black wool, as if painted in fresh blood. It was a cheap tactic meant to unsettle her, and she refused to betray how effectively it had worked.
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