“Do you really think you can undo the magic that binds them?” He pushed Fesh away and straightened.
He hadn’t set out with a plan to do exactly that, but he had hoped. By all the saints, he had hoped. “No, sir.”
He did not expect the sting of Bairith’s hand to his cheek and instinctively covered the burn. Fesh whined. The mage snapped something in a language Sherakai thought he recognized, but shock robbed him of the ability to think clearly. Fesh slinked toward the door, his back hunched.
“You will not lie to me, do you understand? You may learn to hide deceit with your magic, but you cannot avoid revealing it through our link.” Grasping Sherakai’s wrist, he yanked the sleeve up, exposing the tattoo. “Magic joins us. Magic that you cannot ever break.”
Sherakai tried to pull away, but the mage held him in an iron grip.
“I want this to be perfectly clear, so that you will not make such a foolish mistake again.” His displeasure scraped across the youth’s nerves like sand across a raw wound.
“I understand.” He pulled again, wanting to flee.
Bairith’s hold turned gentle, but he did not let go. He traced the shape of the ink figure. It stung fiercely. “I will send Tylond with a sleeping draught. That should keep you out of any further trouble today.”
“I’ll behave, I swear.”
“Yes,” he agreed, stepping away and turning to leave. “Tylond will make sure of that.”
“What about dinner and Mimeru?”
He paused with one hand on the door. “After this recklessness? I think not. I advise you to consider more carefully in the future.”
The door thumped shut behind him.
Chapter 66
“I trust you slept well.” Bairith did not look up from the papers arranged before him on his desk, though he waved to the empty chair across from him, indicating for Sherakai to sit.
Fesh and Teth herded the youth to his place, then stole toward the fire on the hearth.
“Yes, the drugs saw to that.” Bitterness twisted the word ‘drugs.’
The mage smiled and turned a page over, then tidied them all in a stack. “You look healthier every day. Truly, I thought it would be longer until Tylond judged you fit to to go forward. Sit down.”
He did not use his Voice this time, and Sherakai stalled because he could and because he didn’t want to appear too anxious to please. Drawing his fingers across the ornate chair back, he wondered how anything that had received so much careful attention could look so unwelcoming. If he leaned against the back, the curling vines and leaves would leave marks.
Bairith rested his elbows on the desk and tented his fingers together, as patient as a saint.
Bracing himself mentally, Sherakai perched on the edge of the seat. In his imagination, the carved figures slowly loosed themselves and crept toward him. With every beat of his heart the sensation grew. A vine caressed his shoulder. The scent of greenery wafted through his senses. Not real, he told himself and deliberately leaned back into the chair, pressing against the carving. The lumps and knobs prodded him, uncomfortable but not painful. Instinct prompted him to move, but he forced himself to stillness and rested loose hands on his thighs. It was just a chair, and he was the son of a jansu. If he could not control a situation, he could still control himself. His recent failures made that more difficult to believe, but Mimeru counted on him and him alone.
The jansu continued to study Sherakai for a little while, then tapped his fingers together once. “You are an intriguing creature, extraordinarily bright one moment, then an exasperating idiot the next. A result of your youth, perhaps. I suppose that will pass—preferably sooner rather than later. In the meantime, there is so much more I will learn about you.”
He did not like being called an idiot. It drew a frown. “Will you take what you want to know through the link?” He did not call it our link, and tensed lest the mage reach into him and rob him of all the knowledge and the memories he held dear. It shamed him to realize how little he’d valued the things he’d learned while under his father’s roof, though he hadn’t treated all his lessons as unimportant. “The Gift of Spirit does not allow us to read minds. Does the link create a way to do that?”
“The link allows us a greater intimacy. Emotions are not limited to an individual, but shared. In the same manner, by way of the link, we are able to share impressions and suggestions.” Stand. Look outside.
Sherakai turned toward the window, hands on the arms of his chair to rise—and caught himself. It startled him how easily he was influenced. Hearing a lesson was completely different from having it practiced on him.
“There are those who can exchange words as well, with enough time and practice.” He made a gesture with one hand that conveyed the possibility of more. “There are some mages who can speak mind to mind without such a bond. One mage to another.”
“One mage to another who is receptive,” Sherakai corrected, remembering his lessons.
“Indeed. In much the same way, a spell of illusion works better on someone who is naturally receptive, be he mage or no. If the mage is capable, an ordinary man will see what the mage wishes him to see. If the illusion goes against what he knows, or if he is given time to think about it, the illusion may fail. There are extremes to consider. Someone blind to magic may be completely convinced. With those who are receptive to magic, mage or not, the illusion may be ineffective.”
Exploring the weight of the command that had been more impression than words, Sherakai did not reply. He had never experienced such a thing as Bairith had just done to him. His father had never—He paused. His father had used magic on him when he’d interrupted the meeting before the wedding. This, though, was more subtle, more… cunning. Unbidden, the image of a snake came to him again.
“A snake?” Bairith inquired. “I am not certain whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, accompanied as it is by thoughts of your father. I am canny? Possessed of keen insight?”
“Stay out of my head.” Sherakai frowned, shoving himself from the chair and stalking to the window. He brushed aside the heavy golden damask and glared. Bright sunlight blinded him to the activity in the courtyard. The chill on the glass reminded him of the season.
“I am not in your head, I am in the link we share.” He rose to come stand behind Sherakai’s shoulder. “For just a moment, loosen that incredibly rigid hold you have on yourself. Not only are you blocking me, but you are cutting yourself off from everything that surrounds you—including those horses down below.”
He twitched closer to the window to get a better look and without thinking reached with his senses. A half dozen or so horses stood around a hitching rail, waiting and expectant. He could barely make out the men milling around them, and lifted one hand to shield his eyes.
A shadowy pressure slid into him. It came like an unexpected icy breeze, raising the hairs on his body and subjecting him to double vision that faded as quickly as it came. Dizzy, he braced himself against the stone sill.
“Shh, shh,” Bairith murmured, stroking Sherakai’s back. “All is well. I am here.”
Companionship edged aside loneliness, comfort assuaged hurt, promise replaced relentless dread. The exchange confused Sherakai and yet, purling in tandem with that confusion was certainty. It resembled the double vision, but created of emotion and senses. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes as if that might relieve the turmoil.
“You feel it now, don’t you? Is it not sweet?”
Tears sparkled through Sherakai’s consciousness, glittering and warm. He did not recognize them at first, but when he wiped his cheeks his fingers came away dry. This is not mine, he realized. None of this is mine.
“You must not push me away.” The Voice came sweet and coaxing as Bairith gently removed Sherakai’s javannu and set it aside to comb his fingers through the youth’s short locks. “Don’t fight it. Let it be, and perfection will be ours.”
The urge to give in was a powerful thing. He had nothing,
and Bairith could give him anything. Everything. To fight would cause endless pain and misery, and what was he but an ignorant boy? Here was a man who knew exactly what it was like to possess this Gift of Spirit—and more. A man willing to take him in and teach what he knew, encourage him to do and be more than just the youngest son of an aging former soldier. A man who recognized Sherakai’s true potential and would not try to shape him into something else, something easier for society to accept. He wouldn't owe anything to anyone, and what strength and power he could wield! He could enjoy riches and comfort, a broader education, security, travel…
“Horses?” he breathed.
“Anything that pleases you,” Bairith answered, stroking, stroking.
“I like horses. And—and books.”
“Worthy pursuits for any man.” He held Sherakai’s upper arm as he combed through his hair, gentling him like a frightened yearling.
Sherakai opened his eyes. Sunlight pierced the window in a thousand tiny beams, diffused here and there by ripples in the glass he’d not noticed before. Lazy dust motes danced. The stone framed the light but could not capture it. Light of another sort wove around him and he turned to discover the source, immediately arrested by the bright beauty of Bairith’s eyes. They were not blue, precisely, but a rich, deep shade of beryl that reminded him of a necklace his mother wore. The most perfect sea would be the color of those eyes—and how they shone! Magic suffused them and saturated the very air. As he breathed, did it fill his lungs? Steep into his blood?
“Shall we go on?” Bairith asked, and who could refuse him?
“Yes.” As perfectly as the word came from his lips, a distant voice in his head cried out in protest. Perplexed, he wrinkled his brow and strove to hear the muffled words. There was something he had forgotten…
The mage caressed the youth’s hair once again, then turned him with a touch to the elbow. “Come, let us see what you know of geography. You are familiar with many aspects of the Suminian Empire. Do you know about its geography?”
“Yes,” he repeated, and then once again, more firmly. “Yes.”
“Tell me.” He took Sherakai to the map on the wall with its ridges and jewels.
Sherakai needed no urging to go to it, drawn by the colors and shapes, the intricate decorations, the perfect rendition of paint, plaster, and antiquing. The jewels marked capitals, while beads of precious metals marked major cities. Suminia was an area painted ochre bordering a sea that very nearly matched the mage’s eyes.
“The capital is here,” he said. “Istaana.” He reached out to touch a stone, to see if it were real. A hairsbreadth away, he caught himself and stopped. Such a thing must be priceless…
Bairith questioned him about rivers, cities, a forest, and several other landmarks, then asked Sherakai about places beyond Suminia. After a time, he took his seat behind the desk. “I suppose that will do.”
The link tugged Sherakai to the chair with the creeping vines. “What?”
He fluttered the fingers on one hand. “Your education is adequate.”
Sherakai bristled. “It’s better than most can claim.” Tameko’s friendship with King Muro had won him and his siblings the services of one of the foremost tutors in all of Alshan.
“I dare say you’re right but time is, as I said, precious. We cannot afford to spend it foolishly, and while there are gaps in your education, there is a reasonable foundation. You will learn more in time, and as it becomes suitable. For the present, I will focus your studies elsewhere. You know what I need you to do—”
“Not really.”
“—and it is critical that you have the strength and ability to accomplish it,” he continued, unperturbed by the interruption.
“Accomplish what?”
“I will tell you the details in due time. Until then, I will not simply give my enemies any information they might use against me. Do you understand?”
“No,” he said, risking exasperating idiocy. “I rarely see anyone at all, and only three people aside from you will even talk to me. I have no one to tell.”
“Except those three. Or your guards. Or the servants.”
“You don’t trust Mage Iniki or Tylond? Your wife?”
“Not even the dead can keep secrets.”
How awful to go through life unable to trust anyone with what you knew, what you’d done, or what you wished for. Sherakai leaned back in the chair. The vines and leaves pressed into his flesh and he straightened abruptly, uneasy. “I am your secret weapon, then.” Secret even from himself.
Bairith inclined his head. “You will be soon.”
“When?”
“That depends on you. Not more than a few years, I think.”
A few years?
“I will give you the world, my son, if you will but let me.”
“I would rather you gave me back my life.”
The jansu smiled, sweet and utterly captivating. Magic swelled through the link, carrying reassurance and affection. “Youth limits your perspective. One day you will see much further. For now it is time for you to work on strengthening your body. Master Iniki awaits you in the practice chamber.”
He was scarcely aware of rising, bowing, and offering his thanks. The magic escorted him out the door and on his way, and he could do nothing against it. How could he ever hope to fight that kind of power and experience?
Chapter 67
Mage Iniki proved no less gentle with his lessons, and further broadened Sherakai’s understanding of his complete and utter helplessness. For exercise meant to strengthen him, it did a remarkable job of turning his muscles to jelly and his brain to soup. Had his brothers suffered so? He could not imagine them as anything but brawny and rugged, nor could he imagine himself matching them.
When his trembling legs finally carried him up the many stairs to his room, he wanted nothing more than to collapse on the bed and sleep until morning. Better yet, the morning after that.
Bairith had other plans.
The two boy servants were on hand to usher Sherakai to the bath—which, admittedly, he adored. They did not let him soak for long, but scrubbed him down, pulled him out, and dried his body with gentle but determined efficiency.
Fesh and Teth observed the process, and the slightest protest brought Teth to his feet with a lip curled in warning.
Heaving a sigh, Sherakai endured the unwelcome intimacy, then the dressing and attending of his appearance. When they’d finished decking him out in finery, perfume, and jewelry, they drew lines of kohl around his eyes, covered his bruises with powder, and made sure all the short ends of his hair were safely tucked beneath the javannu he was required to wear.
“Why do I have to wear it?” he asked, but they said nothing. They didn’t say anything to him at all except to give him directions, and that in whispers. If they had names, he still did not know them. He asked, but they would not say.
Fesh and Teth took him to the private dining room and a meal every bit as lavish as the first he’d taken with the jansu. His lessons for the day continued, this time with military tactics. Bairith instructed, then questioned Sherakai. Schemes and strategies tangled hopelessly, and a goblet of izaku tripped his tongue even further. The over-sweet drink did not sit well in his belly and Bairith laughed when he complained.
“It is a drink of the nobility. You will learn to like it.” He swirled his golden spoon in the thick liquid at the bottom of his goblet and sucked the grains of pepper off as if they were the finest of treats.
“I doubt it.” Sherakai scowled at the dregs. The aroma floated upward in ribbons of gleaming ruby, and while he thought it a lovely hue, smelling color didn’t make the least sense.
“You are not yet accustomed to such good fare.” The mage rose and a servant pulled the chair out of the way. Bairith ignored the man the same way he’d ignored the servants who had appeared as if by magic throughout the day, bringing refreshment, a change of footwear, messages, or food. They performed their duties without meeting either the ma
ster’s gaze or that of his young companion. “I think you’ve had enough for today. I suggest a walk in the gardens. Your guardians will accompany you. If your belly is still troubling you afterwards, send one to Master Tylond for a tonic.”
Sherakai stood, too, tugged on an echoing string. “Yes, sir, thank you.” As if he would ever go to Tylond willingly.
The creatures materialized next to him. Fesh grinned with his usual toothy charm and took one hand to lead the youth away. It made his pace awkward. Teth stalked ahead, looking this way and that as if something more formidable than furniture might spring at them.
Outdoors, the cold cleared Sherakai’s head, nipping his fingers and nose. He tucked his hands under his armpits as he walked, shepherded along by his dutiful companions. His quilted tunic might just as well have been a linen shirt for all it protected him from the breeze. Gravel crunched underfoot. Frost embellished statuary, bare branches, and stone alike. Sherakai shivered.
“Why do I not have a coat or a cloak? Even a blanket would be nice.”
Teth clicked his teeth and picked up the pace.
Torches burned near the door to the keep and at an intersection along the path. The shadowy figures of the guards were the only movement in the poor light cast by the torches on the curtain wall. No one called out to him. As far as he could tell, they didn’t even look his way. He might not have existed at all. The lack of any attention whatsoever from other human beings—save the jansu and Mage Iniki—fed his sense of isolation. Of loneliness.
It brought him to an abrupt halt. Shoulders hunched, breath hanging in a cloud, he fumbled for the connection between himself and Bairith. Reassurance slipped along its intangible length.
Even as he relaxed, a door sounded behind him. The crunch of gravel announced the approach of a servant dashing up to drape a cloak around Sherakai’s shoulder. The youth bobbed a hurried bow and darted off the way he’d come.
Blood and Shadow (The Mage's Gift Book 1) Page 38