Few mages had ever failed the Academy—most of their mageborn prison mates were those who had misused their power—but Araminta was unusual. She had confided in me in second year that her mother was a commonborn, which explained why she could only call on minimal levels of power and only with weak control.
Walden waited for us in the library, eight sheets of parchment on a table in front of him. My friends spread out, writing their names on the relevant lists for their chosen studies. A handful of third and fourth year names preceded us, and more trainees trickled into the library behind us. The second years wouldn’t start until the second week of the year, since it would be their first introduction to discipline studies.
“Ah, Elena!” Walden beamed at me. “Lovely to see you as always. And where may I place your name this year?”
As the only trainee unable to write, I would need Walden to do the actual scribing for me.
“I’ve decided to branch out this year,” I told him. “I’m going to try growing and wind working.”
“Ah! It’s always a good idea to try something new.” He spun the relevant parchments around to face him and leaned over them. “I had rather hoped you might try law enforcement, you know.”
“Law enforcement?” I asked. “I’ll admit, I didn’t even really consider it.” Although now that he said it, I wondered if I should have. The truth composition—one of the only law enforcement workings I had ever tried—had already proven extremely useful to me.
“It’s often overlooked, I’m afraid,” Walden said, finishing with the parchments and spinning them back around. “But I myself was considering joining law enforcement before I realized my true calling was in a library.”
He smiled as he gazed around at the rows of shelves. “I must admit that even in my own distant trainee days, I was more likely to be found here in the library than conducting extra training in the yards outside. The combat instructor at the time despaired of me a little, I think. He was an older mage and is sadly no longer alive to see how well my love of this place has served me.”
He looked back at me, the smile still lingering on his face. “But even so, I sometimes think there must be something very satisfying about striding the streets, bringing order and justice to the kingdom.”
I had always thought I could do the most good for commonborns as a healer, but he was right. Law enforcement would be a powerful place to work for change. But I had already made my decision, and I wasn’t going to second guess myself now.
“I attended the Academy with Duke Lennox, you know,” said Walden, naming the Head of Law Enforcement. “But we are very distant cousins, and he comes from a stronger branch of the family, so I’m sure I would not have been challenging his rise through the ranks if I had decided to join him with the Law Enforcers.”
“Head librarian at the Academy is a senior position,” I said, “I’m sure you underestimate yourself. Not that I’m complaining. My time here would have been a lot more difficult if you had joined law enforcement.”
Dariela approached the table, not looking in my direction. Carefully she wrote her name down on the lengthy armed forces list, and then her hand hovered above the grower list. I tried to tell myself it was my imagination that her eyes lingered on the last name on the list. Mine.
A heartbeat passed, and then she stepped to the side and wrote her name on the creator list. When she looked up and saw Walden and me standing to one side of the table, her face flushed slightly. But she merely nodded and moved further into the library.
I watched her go, my stomach churning. What had happened to our fledgling friendship?
“Her parents are extremely exacting,” Walden said in a gentle voice. “She’s under a lot of pressure.”
I managed a tight smile for the librarian, knowing he was only trying to comfort me. As Ellingtons, Dariela’s parents must be some sort of distant relations of his, so presumably he would know. But he hadn’t been there at the front to see the beginning of our friendship, so he couldn’t understand the change now. Rather than attempt any explanation, I bid him farewell and went in search of my friends. They, at least, had not changed their opinion of me over the summer.
Classes fell into a familiar routine. Black robed academics from the University sometimes sat in on our composition classes, as if they had suddenly realized that I was soon to be out of their reach—taking my unique type of power with me. I welcomed their presence, since they provided a point of interest in an otherwise tedious class.
Redmond clearly despised their presence, but Lorcan had ordered that they were to have free access to me, and we had some interesting conversations on the various theories behind the usage of power. Sometimes I got so caught up in them that I had to watch myself unless I slipped and mentioned something about my new ability. And sometimes their conversations made me long to try out exactly what I could do with it. But I firmly tamped the instinct down. There was no way to experiment with it without involving someone else. Without stripping them of something central to their essence.
Many of my visitors came from the Callinos family—no surprise, perhaps, since both the Academy Head and University Head hailed from Callinos. I tried to be as friendly as possible, eager to show them that my becoming a Devoras had not been intended as a rejection of the Callinos family. Given I had not had a single private conversation with Lorcan the entire summer—a stark contrast to the previous one—I suspected he disapproved of my accepting the general’s offer.
Jocasta and Walden encouraged those of us studying growing to choose a small section of the Academy gardens to claim as our own. A couple of the third years had started on their second year of grower studies, and they had returned to their patches from the previous year. Already impossible blooms filled their sections to bursting, and I started to be able to recognize which parts of the gardens were tended by commonborn gardeners and which were the play areas of mages.
The afternoons spent in the gardens putting our studies into practice soon became my favorite part of the week. Growing required a certain level of manual effort, alongside the compositions, and I found I enjoyed having my hands in the dirt, working to produce something alive and beautiful. It reminded me of the days I used to spend alone in the woods, searching for rare herbs my parents could sell in their store.
After a month, Saffron was seriously considering joining the growers after her two years with the Armed Forces. I could understand the appeal, but I knew that healing would draw me back. Still, I would learn as much as I could in this year, and maybe one day I would have a house with a large garden.
Thoughts like that always caught me off guard, beating at my heart with frightening force. A small house with a large garden was a future without Lucas, and I wasn’t ready to resign myself to a life without love. Even if defeat pulled at me in quiet moments, reminding me that each week brought us closer to an alliance with the Sekali Empire but no closer to a different sort of end to the war.
When Lucas and I could find odd moments to snatch a few words, we threw ideas at each other faster than we could absorb them. But none of them stood up to debate. And the seeds that had begun to sprout inside me over the summer—of the utter foolish conceit of the task we had set ourselves—only continued to grow. Who were we to think we could end a war the whole kingdom had been trying unsuccessfully to win for over thirty years?
Our most common place to steal a moment was in combat class which had been gripped by a new level of chaos. When the second and third years fought in the arena, we continued our regular arms training, but as the most senior trainees, we had been assigned three sessions in the arena a week.
We spent one session doing command exercises with the illusory soldiers from third year. But for the remaining two, Thornton had returned us to fighting each other. When I challenged him as to why he never called my name for a bout, he actually apologized, a response which almost floored me.
“It is wrong that you never have the chance to train,” he said. “And I am c
onsidering…”
I raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t continue the sentence.
“It’s not fair to the other trainees to pit them against you. You too far outmatch them. But I would like you to begin observing the bouts with me in a junior instructor role. It will allow you to achieve maximum learning from observing their fights.”
I had to be content with that and, to my surprise, I enjoyed the process. Analyzing each performance and working out advice for improvement based on individual strengths turned out to be absorbing. Occasionally I got so carried away, I even gave excellent advice to Natalya and Lavinia. And once Weston surprised us both by thanking me for a particularly ingenious suggestion. But the culmination of the role came when Thornton took me aside after class one day.
When he finally released me, I was grinning as I ran to catch up with my friends. Finnian regarded me suspiciously.
“What’s going on? You look terrifyingly gleeful.”
“Not now,” I told him, glancing at Natalya who watched us with narrowed eyes. “I’ll tell you all later. But this is going to be fun.”
The next morning we all settled into our usual places in the arena. But before Thornton could issue instructions as to the day’s bouts, Coralie’s fist punched the air.
The night before, when they were strategizing in my room, she had insisted that she be the one to give the signal. Parchments flashed out all around me before her hand had even fallen back to her side, and the sound of tearing filled the arena.
I scrambled from my place and dashed higher up the tiered seating to give myself a better view as my friends attacked the rest of our year mates. Thornton had been very clear that my role was adjudication only.
With the advantage of surprise, the whole thing might have been over within seconds if it wasn’t for the almost superhuman speed of Dariela. She must have been watching us because she had a shielding composition out just in time. Weston’s came several beats behind, shoring hers up, as they scrambled into a huddle with Calix, Natalya, and Lavinia.
My friends had prepared for such an eventuality, however, and Lucas ripped a composition that made the arena seating shake, sending them all sprawling in different directions.
After that, battle was properly joined, and the ten of them scrambled up and down the seats, weaving around and through each other as they hurled combat compositions in every direction. I watched from the highest row of seats, safe behind a shield of my own working, and Thornton watched from the arena floor.
His and my role was to remove those deemed to have been incapacitated or killed by the battle. He rescued Lavinia, dousing the flames that engulfed her before her hair could go up, and shortly after Araminta joined them on the dirt floor so that Acacia could heal her injured arms.
Lucas battled Calix, wielding the extra advantage of higher ground, but his confidence made him sloppy. Dariela swooped in from behind and caught him with a binding composition.
I worked a releasing composition and then called for him to join me out of the battle.
“Sorry,” I said when he clambered over the two rows between us. “I’m not allowed to intervene.”
He shook his head. “No, it was my error. I should have known better.”
He glanced at me sideways, and I suddenly realized we stood above everyone else, a small distance from the current hub of the battle. He had been defeated at the perfect moment and location to afford us an unusual moment alone. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he had returned to watching the action, not a trace of guilt on his face.
He moved slightly, following the action with his body, and brushed up against me. Hidden from those below us, his hand found mine and gripped it tightly.
Warmth rushed through me, and I had to force myself to keep my eyes on the fight.
“Thornton did well to give you this role,” he whispered. “You’re a good instructor.”
“Not as good as you,” I whispered back.
“I miss those days when we trained together.”
“Me too.” I sighed. “I miss you.”
His hand tightened around mine. We had managed to exchange a few whispered lines the evening before when he had met with our friends in my suite for a strategy session. But the suggestions had been our most ludicrous yet.
“We can’t do anything from here,” I said. “And we don’t even have any workable ideas if we found ourselves at the front.”
“Perhaps your new ability could provide some solutions,” Lucas murmured. “If only we could get away so you could try practicing it on me.”
“Absolutely not!” I struggled to keep my voice low.
“We have to try something,” he said.
I took a deep breath. “I think it’s time we considered—”
“No,” he said sharply just as Dariela came sprinting past us.
Two compositions from both Finnian and Coralie caught her square in the back, and I had to intervene before she bounced head over heels all the way to the arena floor. I declared her incapacitated, and she climbed up toward Lucas and me.
“You are not going to Cassius. He cannot be trusted. I don’t care what else we have to do,” Lucas managed to whisper before Dariela arrived, forcing him to fall silent.
His eyes continued to glare at me, however, until I relented and slowly nodded. He relaxed, looking back toward the last of the attack as Dariela looked between us with knit brows.
Both Calix and Weston stood with Thornton—I had missed whatever happened to them, distracted by Lucas. With Dariela also now removed from the bout, Finnian, Coralie, and Saffron easily overwhelmed Natalya. She shouted her surrender, and Thornton declared my friend’s team victorious.
The three of us at the top of the stands hurried down to join the rest of the group as Finnian and Coralie embraced, and Araminta and Saffron slapped hands.
“Woo! We did it!” Coralie called to me as I joined them.
“With the element of surprise,” Weston muttered. “See how you do when the tables are turned.”
I suspected Thornton wouldn’t do anything as predictable as an exact rematch—but then perhaps he would consider that the more unexpected move.
He had us all sit down and go over the bout in detail, discussing ways everyone’s performances could have been improved. We finished in time for an individual bout, and I saw Thornton’s eyes skim the class, pausing on Natalya before settling on Coralie.
“We have time for another bout,” he said. “Between two of the survivors, perhaps. Natalya and—”
“Finnian,” I said, jumping in.
Thornton frowned at me, and I tried to look confident and knowledgeable. After a moment, he nodded reluctantly.
“Yes,” he said, “Natalya and Finnian. No doubt you have already used the more effective compositions you carry with you. Consider this an…”
I tuned out the rest of his words, my eyes lingering on Coralie. Her core of energy had been worryingly low ever since we met up at breakfast, and the exertion of the recent mock battle had left her looking wan and tired. She might not have needed to compose on the spot, but she had spent the time clambering up and down over the backs of seats and physically tousling with our year mates.
“Thank you.” She leaned in to whisper the words to me.
“What have you done to yourself?” I asked.
She screwed up her nose as she watched Finnian stride out to the center of the arena floor. “I might have stayed up half the night composing for the battle.”
“Coralie!”
“Shush!” she whispered, her eyes on Thornton. “I’ll make sure I’m better prepared next time.”
“You’d better! Or just let yourself get hit early on. That’s better than draining yourself dangerously.”
“Yes, Mother.” She rolled her eyes at me, and I shoved her in the side.
“I’m serious.”
Her face softened. “I guess I didn’t realize how drained I felt. Not until I saw your expression at breakfast when you got a good l
ook at me.” She dropped her voice even lower. “Do I feel strange?”
I shook my head. “Not strange. Not like that Sekali or anything. Just really weak.”
Thornton called for the bout to begin, and we dropped the conversation, focusing on Finnian. We shouldn’t have been talking about it around the rest of the year, anyway.
After class, as my friends congratulated themselves on their victory once again, Thornton pulled me aside.
“I don’t like to be overridden.”
I tried to think of an excuse for why I had shielded my friend, but he saved me the necessity by continuing.
“But on further observation, I can see that Coralie is not fit for a further bout. That was perceptive of you.” He hesitated. “If you decide you have an interest in teaching, I feel sure Lorcan would find you a place at the Academy after your term in the Armed Forces is completed.”
I stared at him. I had never seriously considered any discipline other than healing, but now I seemed to have options everywhere. But did I like teaching well enough to do it forever? However appealing I found the idea of returning to the only place where I still felt at home, I knew instinctively that my place wasn’t in this insulated world, serving only the mageborn.
But I thanked him anyway. It was the best affirmation he had ever given me. We had come a long way from first year when I disliked him nearly as much as I did Redmond, and he sat back and watched the other trainees abuse me. For so many mages, it had taken my becoming a Devoras for them to offer me any respect. But although Thornton was a member of Devoras himself, I knew it wasn’t our new kinship that had swayed him.
In the end, it had been his passion for his job—for teaching the next generation and equipping us against the war to come—that had changed his attitude. His desire to do his task well, and to preserve life, had overcome any distaste for me as an individual. And I had now had ample opportunity to see the wisdom he possessed in his own sphere. We had each, in our own way, come to respect the other.
My friends’ jubilation lasted all day, culminating at the evening meal when Finnian called Lucas over to our table before producing a large cake with the word Victors scribed across the top in icing.
Voice of Life (The Spoken Mage Book 4) Page 5