The girl lay on the ground, a knife lodged in her throat while the Seeker was vainly trying to stem the bleeding. No one moved to help him save the girl.
“What happened?” asked Akosh, nudging a woman beside her.
“Girl grabbed Tull’s knife from his belt,” said the woman. “Stabbed herself rather than be taken away.” There was a hint of pride in her voice.
“Help me!” said the Seeker but everyone just watched. It didn’t take long. The blood pulsing from the jagged wound in the girl’s neck slowed and then stopped. Her eyes glazed over and she let out a final breath.
“Leave her be,” said the girl’s mother, finally stepping forward and taking responsibility. “She doesn’t belong to you.”
At this distance Habreel could see the horror in the Seeker’s eyes. Everywhere he looked in the crowd he was met with the same blank expression. No one was horrified by what the girl had done to herself. The Seeker gently laid the girl down on the street and quickly marched out of sight. Habreel was willing to bet the Seeker wouldn’t stop on the road until he was miles away from Glienned.
Once the Seeker had left, the mood of the whole crowd seemed to lift. People began to disperse, quickly going back to their lives as if nothing had happened. Soon only a few remained in the square, including the dead girl and her weeping parents. Habreel and Akosh followed others back to the tavern.
“Well, that was bracing,” said Akosh, finally able to laugh out loud without it drawing too many stares. “But it will take more than this to change things. One town refusing the Red Tower will not have much of an impact, even with it being the doorway to Zecorria.”
Her tone was mocking but Habreel ignored it. This time it was his turn to grin.
“Did you think I was doing this on my own?” he asked, shaking his head in disappointment. “You have your followers and I have mine. My people are fanning sparks like this all over the west and, any day now, one of them will catch fire.”
“You want one of the tests to turn violent,” said Akosh, suddenly interested again.
Habreel shrugged. “I dislike violence, but understand that sometimes it’s necessary. People are terrified of magic and after what happened during the war, they should be. One mage changed everything. He helped start a war that served no purpose. People lost loved ones and friends in the slaughter and all of it comes back to one mage. In the long run, eliminating all magic from the world will save countless lives. It’s been a blight for too long.”
“And what if it means killing more children to achieve your goal?” asked Akosh. “Could you do it?”
“I will do whatever is necessary, no matter the cost.” He knew what she wanted him to say, but Habreel wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. He sincerely hoped he would never have to get his hands dirty, although a small voice in the back of his mind told him it wasn’t possible. But they couldn’t begin to rebuild without first scouring away those who were already cursed. If it happened, he would find a way to live with it, but in the end it would be worth it to achieve a lasting peace. If a few had to be cleansed to save tens of thousands, then so be it. “Can I count on your support?” he asked.
Akosh’s feral smile made a shiver run down Habreel’s spine. “Oh, yes. I’ve not had this much fun in years.”
CHAPTER 2
Danoph was screaming again. Tianne had been dreaming of her village in Zecorria but the sound of his voice brought her fully awake in a second. She rolled out of bed and scrambled sideways on all fours like a crab towards his bunk. She was at his side a few seconds later, but other students were already starting to wake up and complain about the noise.
Tianne tried shaking him by the shoulder but he was deep under. Tonight the dream didn’t want to let go. Danoph’s golden skin was slick with sweat, his dark hair plastered to his face and he smelled ripe with fear.
The nightmares were getting more intense.
“Shut him up!” someone yelled.
Danoph started howling like a mangled wolf, his voice echoing off the bare stone walls. More students were waking up now and the level of noise in the room began to rise. All around her people were yelling and throwing things which rattled off Tianne’s back. She tried to shield him from the worst of it, but a few items hit his chest and head. Not that they had any effect. He remained deeply asleep.
“Danoph!” said Tianne quietly into his ear and then more loudly, but still he didn’t respond. Normally physical contact and saying his name was enough. A glance through a gap in the curtains showed a foggy sky with no hint of sunlight. The worst nightmares always seemed to swallow him during the hour of the wolf, the darkest part of the night.
He screamed and thrashed about, tangling the sheets, binding his arms to his sides.
“They’re burning!” he shouted. “They’re all burning.”
Tianne was still shaking him, gently and then harder, when she heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching.
“Shut him up, or I’ll smother him with a pillow,” said a harsh voice. She didn’t need to turn around to see who it was. Brunwal was two years older than her and one of the largest students at the school. He also had the worst temper in the whole dormitory.
“I’m trying,” said Tianne, hating that her voice sounded whiny. She couldn’t help it. Sometimes she felt Brunwal staring at her in a way that made her skin crawl. Tianne shook Danoph by both shoulders, but he still kept muttering and then started a wordless keening that set her teeth on edge.
A meaty hand landed on her shoulder and Tianne tried to shake it off. Instead Brunwal’s fingers dug into her skin and she couldn’t help groaning in pain.
“Get out of the way,” he said, yanking her aside. Tianne flew backwards, landing badly and trapping one arm under her body. She rolled over and came to her feet in time to hear a loud smacking sound as Brunwal hit Danoph across the face.
It had no effect. He was still asleep and screaming about a fire. Brunwal pulled Danoph off his pillow and slapped him hard the other way, leaving a red mark on his cheek.
“Leave him alone,” said Tianne, grabbing Brunwal’s arm before he could slap her friend again. With a snarl Brunwal tried to shake her off but she doggedly held on. A nasty sneer crept across his face and he flicked his other hand towards her. An invisible force slammed into Tianne and she was thrown six feet away, only stopping when her back collided with another set of bunks. Spikes of pain ran up and down her spine, black stars dancing in front of her eyes. Gritting her teeth she forced herself onto hands and knees and then slowly upright. After a few seconds the spots faded but she felt sick and dizzy from the pain.
Brunwal was still slapping Danoph, and now he was offering others a turn. Blood was running from the corner of Danoph’s mouth and his bottom lip was split open. If this continued for much longer Brunwal might break something. Most people didn’t like Brunwal, but right now everyone was more annoyed at being woken up in the middle of the night once again. Usually she managed to wake up Danoph before he disturbed too many people. It had never been this bad before.
Brunwal was bigger and meaner than her. She didn’t have any other friends to call on for help and he wouldn’t listen to reason. That left her with only one choice.
It was forbidden to duel with magic, but it didn’t stop most students at the Red Tower from trying at least once. Everyone wanted to know who was the strongest among them in each dormitory. Normally age and physical size would create a pecking order, but not at the Red Tower. The size of your muscles meant nothing if you had a strong connection to the Source. Tianne’s strength was middling, but, as the teachers tried to impress on all the students, a skilled mage could do much with just a little magic.
Tianne reached for the Source and embraced it, feeling its glory flood every part of her body. The ocean of power was always there on the periphery of her senses, waiting for her to siphon off the smallest amount. As she drew the power into herself the pain in her back vanished and her mind became more alert. Her senses stretch
ed and the shadows in the room faded from black to grey. Featureless lumps in the darkness coalesced into beds and the restless forms of other students. For a little while, at least, Tianne felt brave and unafraid.
“Get away from him!” she roared, slapping Brunwal across his back with a narrow bar of power. He squawked in surprise and dropped Danoph back onto his bed. She’d wanted his full attention and now she had it. As he stood up, towering over her, her bravery drained away like water from a bucket full of holes. She fought down the impulse to flee and pretended she wasn’t petrified. Brunwal sneered at her bravado, flexing ham-sized fists as he stalked towards her.
“You shouldn’t have done that, you black-eyed bitch,” he said, rolling his shoulders.
Tianne swallowed hard and glanced around for some help. All of the other students were looking at her with a mix of resentment and pity. Coming from Zecorria had made her an outsider from her first day at the Red Tower. It didn’t matter that her family had not been involved with the war. Or that it was ten years ago and she’d been six years old at the time. All anyone saw was her dark eyes and that was enough to condemn her. There were other students from her homeland, but they had to fend for themselves and would not come to her aid.
Since arriving she’d made a few friends, but none of them were willing to stand beside her at this moment. The only one who would was still caught up in a terrible nightmare.
“I’m going to make you scream,” promised Brunwal. She sensed him drawing heavily from the Source and started weaving a dense shield around herself. Each layer was formed from a flexible crosshatch pattern that would cushion her from whatever he was preparing, but there was still a risk that the shock could kill her. In the few seconds she had frantically pulled together multiple layers into a dense shield. Tianne hoped it would be thick enough to stop his attack causing any serious damage.
Just as Brunwal hurled something at her, light blossomed in the room as every lantern and candle was simultaneously lit. She had a second to notice before her attention returned to the glowing green ball of energy hurtling towards her head. Tianne had no idea what it was, but she knew that it would hurt as Brunwal relished causing others pain.
Someone finally came to stand beside her, but it was too little too late. She’d never seen an attack like this before and instinctively knew her shield wouldn’t be enough to stop it.
Craning her neck, Tianne looked up and saw beside her the grizzled features of Balfruss, a member of the school’s Grey Council and one of the most powerful mages in the world.
Originally from Seveldrom, he was a tall man with greying hair, a salt and pepper beard and dark, brooding eyes. But it wasn’t his stare that Tianne noticed whenever he came into a room. It was his presence. His will and connection to the Source was so strong it made her teeth ache to stand next to him for too long. Most senior mages took the title of Battlemage, but as a Sorcerer he possessed a depth of knowledge about the Source that few achieved after a lifetime of study.
Balfruss glanced at the glowing green ball the bully had hurled at her and negligently gestured at it with two fingers, diverting its path towards himself. With one outstretched hand he froze it in mid-air, seemingly with little effort.
The ball hovered above his hand and he inspected it, tilting it one way and then the other before closing his fist. Tianne expected him to grimace in pain but there was no reaction. He’d absorbed the energy or banished it. She had no idea how he’d done it. Absorbing power was something she’d never heard about, not even from the oldest students.
“Crude and amateurish,” he muttered, so quietly Tianne didn’t think anyone else besides her could have heard him. Across the dormitory Brunwal was staring in horror, his mouth hanging open at being caught attacking another student with something so dangerous.
The heavy drumming of boots announced a new arrival in the dormitory. Tianne’s throat tightened as Garvey marched into view.
Something invisible picked Brunwal up by the scruff of his neck and hurled him through the air before pinning him to the wall.
It was rare for one member of the Grey Council to come into the dormitory. Tianne couldn’t remember a time before tonight when she’d seen two of them at once.
Garvey scared Tianne like no other person and she was not alone in her feelings. Most of the other teachers did their best to avoid him and only spoke to him when strictly necessary. There seemed to be a permanent cloud hanging over his head. Garvey was always seething with rage and quick to anger. With rugged skin, a bald head and a bright red beard he strode into the room as if going to war.
Garvey’s snarl was so loud it echoed off the stone walls and sounded like a mastiff getting ready to attack. He stared at Brunwal with such disdain Tianne saw the boy wither under the glare. Eloise entered the dormitory and went straight to Danoph’s bedside. His screaming trailed off at her touch and there was an audible sigh of relief in the room in the quiet that followed.
Eloise was the final member of the Grey Council. If Balfruss was the most mysterious and Garvey the most intimidating, she was the most loved by all. None of them would be here at the school if not for her. For nearly twenty years the Red Tower had been a derelict ruin. A few years ago she had reopened it, bringing together all of the teachers, staff and Seekers.
It was because of her determination that so many children had been spared a grizzly fate at the hands of their community. Trying to control the magic growing inside without supervision was dangerous and potentially deadly. Back home in Zecorria many children were still terrified at the idea of finding out they had magic. Tianne had heard countless stories of children disappearing and entire communities denying all knowledge of their existence. It had improved when the Regent had changed the law, allowing Seekers to visit every month, but the fear of magic and what it could do was still prevalent. It was the Warlock’s legacy.
Originally from Seveldrom, Eloise had long, blonde hair, flawless skin and her presence immediately made everyone in the dormitory feel at ease.
It wasn’t unusual to see the Grey Council around the school, but standing so close to all three of them was more than a little intimidating. Balfruss and Eloise had only been figures from stories until she’d come to the Red Tower. Meeting them and talking to them had not diminished her awe. Being so close to all three of them at once was physically painful. Tianne saw several other students wincing and rubbing their temples.
“Maybe I’ll peel the skin off your body, one strip at a time,” Garvey said to Brunwal. It was said in such a conversational way it made Tianne feel more than a little sick. She wondered if he’d done it before.
“Garvey, leave the boy and help me,” said Eloise.
Garvey moved closer towards Brunwal until his bristling red beard was almost touching the boy’s face. It seemed to Tianne he was willing Brunwal to say or try anything with his magic. But even he didn’t dare.
Garvey’s class on shields was the one at the school that none of them wanted to attend. It was an important subject but he was known for being relentless and without mercy. Quite often he pushed students beyond their limit and many had collapsed or ended up in the hospital.
Eloise and Balfruss were war heroes who had fought against the Warlock and his apprentices. No one knew anything about Garvey’s background or even where he came from.
With a harrumph Garvey turned away and went to Danoph’s side but Brunwal remained pinned to the wall, feet dangling off the floor. He didn’t complain, and barely seemed to be breathing.
“Are you all right?” Balfruss asked her.
Tianne found she couldn’t reply. He was a living legend and she was just a student. There were a hundred stories swirling around Balfruss and she had no idea how many were true. One story claimed that he’d been married to a tribal princess across the Dead Sea but had to flee in fear of his life when she’d died. Another story was that he used to carry an axe, which made no sense at all. Why would one of the most powerful Sorcerers in the world need
a weapon?
The one story she knew to be true was the critical role he had played in the war. Balfruss had stood alone on the battlefield facing an entire army, and called out the Warlock. The man responsible for starting the war and manipulating all of the rulers in the western kingdoms. It was because of the Warlock that she and every other person from Zecorria were now scapegoats.
Balfruss had done what no other mage during the war had been able to do. He had destroyed the Warlock single-handed, effectively ending the conflict and changing the course of the world.
Remembering all of that made it hard to talk. Instead of speaking Tianne just nodded and remembered to release the Source. The pain flared in her back and she would have fallen if Balfruss hadn’t caught her by the arm. He helped her to the nearest bunk where they sat down together.
“Are you hurt?”
When he stared at Tianne she felt her stomach tighten and forced herself to concentrate on not saying something stupid. “My back,” she managed, pointing for clarity and then inwardly cursing her stupidity for stating the obvious.
Balfruss rested a hand lightly on her shoulder and she felt a warm glow flood her entire body. It was as if she had sunk into a warm bath as all of her muscles relaxed and tension eased from her shoulders. A contented sigh escaped her lips and her eyelids began to droop.
“Hmm, nothing is broken. Just relax.”
Tianne woke to find herself covered with a warm blanket. She was lying on a comfy bed and nothing else seemed to matter. Sleep pulled at her but just as she drifted off she heard someone come into the room. Balfruss sat down on the edge of her bed, offering her a rare smile. The grey in his hair meant he was old enough to be her father but, even so, she thought he was a handsome man. Tianne almost said it out loud but her rumbling stomach saved her from horrible embarrassment.
“Sleep for now. When you wake up, I’ll make sure there’s some food.”
Tianne smiled and felt herself drifting down but then forced herself awake. “Danoph. Is he all right?”
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