“It was certainly not without its little inconveniences. One must expect such things in this line of employment.” Belinda had adopted a tone I had not heard from her before. Her mannerisms had shifted ever so slightly to… courtly?
I glanced at Aella, whose eyes laughed though her face remained composed. She had said they’d spent time with more refined company, and Belinda had lived with nobles. I’d just never pictured her speaking like them.
In equally arched tones, Aella and Lucas took turns describing the battle. They were theatrical, gesticulating, pausing, and whispering at all the right parts. Lady Famai’s mouth parted in a moue, her dark eyes bright as she leaned forward, hands clasped on her lap.
Once she had gleaned from us all she cared to know about sewer fighting, Lady Famai did not, it seemed, require a person to do more than add the occasional “Mm,” “Mhm,” or similar noise. I didn’t necessarily mind. She was nice, in a flighty way, and she was my first noble. I was relieved to not have a chance to say something that might offend her.
“Drakes, well, they are impressive, there is no question of that, but being close to them is not pleasant,” she mused with a slight curl of her lip. “When I was young, there was a herd of perytons that lived close to our summer home. They could be fed and viewed, so long as one made sure to get a good distance away before they lighted upon the offering.” She sighed. “They were beautiful. You cannot imagine. So graceful and so powerful. I was very fond of them.”
“Please, Lady Mai, tell us more,” Luke said encouragingly, and she did.
She told us about how they had nested in the deep forests that surrounded her home estate. She described the way they pranced across open ground and leaped into the air as though totally weightless. By her description, one would have thought they were gentle creatures, but I knew better.
Mariah had once told me a story of a herd of them swarming an entire caravan of merchants, and the results had been devastating. No one without guards could afford to forget that those beautiful creatures needed only to taste blood once before they became insatiable. Still, the lady seemed to miss the curated view she had got of them, and as she spoke, she took moments to gaze artfully forlorn at the river.
Lucas ate up her tales, asking the proper questions that a wistful sigh or leading chuckle necessitated. He even refilled her juice with the decanter at her knee before the servant had the chance and offered her the cup when she delicately cleared her throat. She took the drink with profuse thanks and apologies, which he gallantly waved aside.
Much of her was practiced, but I didn’t fault her for it. Everything I had heard and read had convinced me that living among nobles called for that sort of play acting. I just hoped Lucas didn’t have earnest plans to pursue her. That would be disastrous, I was sure. She was married.
I only wished her mages had not joined her on this ride. If they had only stayed back at the inn, perhaps I could have enjoyed the lady’s visit. Since they were with her, I found myself silently urging them to speak more. If they did, I could get a better feel for them.
Noble though she was, Lady Famai—Mai—seemed so kind. It would have been nice to discover that I had been wrong about the nature of her companions. It was possible that they felt dangerous to me only because they were mages and guards. Perhaps they were meant to root out any potential danger to their mistress, and that was what had caused my dizzy spell in town.
After much meandering, we eventually came back to the subject of the drakes. Mai wanted to know who had managed to kill the monsters.
“Was it you, Taryn?” she asked, her eyes intent on mine. “You seem so young to be in this life but looks can be deceiving. Are you secretly an impressive warrior?” Her tone was teasing, and I grinned.
“No, Lady Mai. I am still learning. We would have to be split into very small groups for me to be at the front of any job.” I tried to speak as my companions had, with careful diction, but it made me feel a little silly.
“With so many other trained warriors, it was better for the more experienced to go first down the tunnel where the drakes were. Our commander and one other from our company made the actual kills,” Aella told her. “Even I was taken by surprise.”
“Is that how you got…?” Mai waved her manicured fingers at Aella’s cheek. When Aella nodded, she winced in sympathy. “And so, Taryn, did you see the beast coming, being so far back?”
“I wasn’t even in the tunnel where the fight happened,” I said, feeling the beginnings of embarrassment tickling me. I wished I had an impressive story to tell her. “Truly, among us, only Aella could give you a good account.”
Almost reluctantly Lady Mai turned her attention back to Aella. “Was it very thrilling?”
“Oh yes, my lady.”
I shifted uncomfortably as Aella turned on her crooked smile and angled herself to face the lady more fully.
“But, you see, we are experts. Very skilled in all things monstrous.” She spared me a dashing wink, and I quickly stomped on my jealousy. Aella did not pursue married women.
“With so many mages, it is a wonder that you did not simply send them in to cleanse the warren. Even a mage in training must be good enough to fight, if they are in the,” she made a thoughtful noise, “what would you call it? The field?”
“Ito is a bit too expensive to waste on something that can be done by hand,” Aella giggled. “And Belinda—”
“I specialize in healing magics, Lady Mai,” Belinda explained.
Mai pouted playfully at Aella’s teasing tone. “And you? What is your specialty?”
I blinked. She was speaking to me again. “My lady, I am only new to this company, so I haven’t got a fighting specialty yet.”
She was too well-bred to roll her eyes. “Magic, child. We are speaking of magic.”
My cheeks colored, as secondhand embarrassment for her washed over me. “I haven’t got any magic at all.”
Lady Famai’s thinly plucked eyebrows rose toward her hairline as less than polite disbelief swept across her face and faded. She looked to Gabriel and Anya. “I am rarely wrong about such things. I have but little magic—enough to light candles, really. Still, one of my gifts is the ability to see magic in others. It is what no few of my appointments have been in town—identifying the magical talents of those who otherwise might have gone untrained. In you, the power is unmistakable. Even a novice would see it, the way it moves about in you.”
Anya inclined her head. “My lady is incredibly gifted in this regard. Have you seen no indication of magic in yourself, child?”
For a moment, I bristled at being called child. I certainly couldn’t think of anything she might have been talking about. Magic? In me? The only time I’d even seen magic done was from Ito, Belinda, or from the healer back home. I blinked. And Michael. Michael had cast a spell on me. Had that spell stayed on me—in me? Even after his death?
I looked to Aella for support, but there was something in the way she stared back. She didn’t look surprised, I realized. A frisson of nerves shuddered through my chest. She looked as though she was urging me to hold my tongue.
When her eyes slid to Ito and Belinda, I looked their way as well. Belinda’s lower lip twitched, as though she had gone to bite it and then stopped herself. Ito gave the barest shake of his head. “Not now,” his eyes seemed to say. “Later.”
Aella’s gaze flicked back to me, and the apology in her quick glance sealed it for me. My stomach flipped and rolled. They knew something. The magic Lady Famai had seen in me was real, and they had known about it.
The exchange had taken mere moments, and when I returned my attention to the lady, I found she still watched me. When our eyes met the black of her pupils began to grow. Surreally, I felt myself almost fade backward, or perhaps it was the rest of the world that was fading as I sunk into the darkness.
Unbidden, little pieces of a memory tickled my mind. Heat. Pain. I tried to push them back down. I tried to look away from the lady’s eyes, but I c
ouldn’t. I couldn’t move at all, and time seemed to slow. All at once, the fight in the Nophgrin forest rushed back.
It was like a candle lighting a dark room. The whole of my battle of wills with my brother’s magic ran through my mind in rapid, vivid detail. Things that had been foggy with what I thought was grief suddenly stood out starkly for my recollection.
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. My mind repeated in a loop. I can’t remember. I don’t want to remember. My throat constricted as panic slunk through me uninvited. My eyes were dry, but I couldn’t shut them against the memory of magic rushing through my veins and out my fingertips. It had been like burning alive.
And the magic. That was supposed to be gone. Ito was supposed to have drawn it out of me. The part of me not caught up in the scene playing out in front of me was shrieking. I had trusted him. Why hadn’t he told me that he had failed? And, how had I pushed aside knowledge of magic inside of me for months?
“If you have not shown any indication of magical gift, it could be that your powers are dormant, or so paltry that they have never bothered you.” Gabriel spoke into my shell-shocked silence, gazing into his cup as he idly swirled its contents.
Tearing my eyes away from the lady’s at last, I became aware that I had clenched my jaw. I eased it. My eyes had widened as I stared into my past, and I allowed them to relax. I forced a smile for Gabriel. It stretched tightly across my face.
“I’m sorry, no, I mean yes, I do have some magic. It is as you said. It is so small that I more often think of myself as without it.” My brain grasped at the speech patterns that my friends had adopted. For some reason, I did not want these people to know that they had shaken me.
Lady Famai chuckled, but her eyes, which were still not quite back to normal, were too intent on me. I didn’t think she was blinking enough. “It is a pity, is it not? To have only a taste of such power? I see what Gabriel and Anya can do—why they could pull every fish from the river if they so choose. All I can do is pay them to do it.”
Suddenly, I didn’t find her so charming. She had done something just then, to unlock my memories, and I’d have bet all my coin that she had done it on purpose. She was as dangerous as her guards, or I was a lesser gryphon.
I felt sick, and I wanted to hide behind Aella, who was looking at me with thinly veiled concern. Well, what I really wanted was to talk to her, Ito, and Belinda privately. What I wanted was for them to explain my lapse in memory. That had to wait. For now, I knew we had to be a united front.
“I wouldn’t know anything about either sort of power, my lady,” I said, pleased to find that my voice did not tremble. “I try my best not to concern myself with such things. A person lives longer that way.”
“So wise for one so young! But you know, if you have even a speck of magic, you can do something with it. If you want, I am sure that Anya and Gabriel would be more than happy to be of service to you. To train you. We are of a set that is always encouraged to lend such assistances to the young when we can.”
I felt like a rabbit being watched by a lesser gryphon. Her kohl-lined eyes had mine trapped again, and I couldn’t think of a polite way to run away screaming.
“My lady, you are so kind,” Ito said before I could make my tongue cooperate. “However, since she came to us last year, Taryn has been under the tutelage of myself and Belinda, and I must say, she is doing very well. We are more than happy to continue her education.”
“Oh,” Lady Famai said. One word, but it held such frosty displeasure that I half expected a puff of mist to come from her lips as she spoke it. “Well, how nice.”
Lucas coughed into the tension, his gaze roaming between the faces of his companions, all in varied states of uncomfortable silence. When he spoke, his attempted gallantry felt awkward and forced. “My lady’s companions do seem most impressive. Do you two come from the mage school in the capital?” He pointed between Anya and Gabriel.
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “That is where anyone with sense becomes a master mage.”
Aella had shifted, ostensibly so she could take a piece of fruit from the bowl in the middle of our circle, but it placed her between myself and the lady’s watchful gaze. Grateful for the reprieve she and Lucas provided me, I let my eyes fix on the intricately patterned blanket beneath us.
Funny how scornfully Gabriel seemed to think of getting an education any other way but at the capital. Yet hadn’t the lady said that they concerned themselves with “identifying magical talents of those who otherwise might have gone untrained?” I caught myself before a snort could escape me. Agreeing to be trained by them didn’t guarantee being trained at the capital. Somehow, I doubted that was part of the deal at all. Didn’t that sound all too familiar? Wasn’t that like The King’s Snakes? And even my brother?
The wine the lady’s servant had given us was sweet, and light. A few sips, along with a couple of even breaths, and I had smoothed the jangling rhythm of my heart enough to attend to the conversation once more.
“Belinda and Ito trained in the capital. Do the four of you, um, know each other?” Lucas was asking.
“No,” the four mages chorused at once. Not one of them seemed to be particularly flattered by the implication that they might have run with the same crowds in their youth. Gabriel looked almost amused by the notion.
Again, we lapsed into silence. Abruptly I felt, rather than saw Aella move to stand next to me. “I am so sorry,” she said crisply, “but I’ve just become aware of the sun. Before we left the inn, my commander voiced concerns that my leg needed more resting, and I fear she is right. It is beginning to pain me. In any case, we have orders to be back at the inn within the hour, and I believe we will be late if we don’t leave now. You will excuse us, my lady?”
Lady Famai’s gaze flicked between her two mages, cold and calculating. The moment flitted by so quickly that I thought I must have imagined it as a sunny smile broke over her face. “Naturally! I’m so sorry that you do not feel well. Is there any way that we might assist you?”
“No, my lady.” The others of our party were rising slowly. “Some healing just takes time. You have done more than enough by merely have midday with us. I could not possibly be more grateful.”
When Aella reached down to give me a hand, I shot her the most appreciative stare that I could muster, but I felt conflicted. She had kept something from me, something huge. And yet, I also knew without question that when faced with an outside threat, Twelfth Company stood together. When I was upset, Aella stood by me, as she had in Nophgrin.
“Yes, thank you, my lady,” I added into the silence. “It was wonderful to see you again.”
“I’m sure it won’t be the last time we are all together. Until next time.” Lady Famai waved her fan at us as we mounted, but she did not rise to see us off. She settled back on the pillows that her servant had drawn near to prop around her, at an unseen signal. Again, I thought he glared at me as he did so. When he finished, he drifted back to his post once more, and the lady watched us leave without another word. A smile remained stained across her lips, but it didn’t feel so sweet anymore. Once mounted, none of us turned back to see if she continued watching us until we were out of view.
When we were back along the rows of fields, Lucas was the first to speak, his voice wistful. “I’ll tell you one thing I don’t miss about living in the capital—noblewomen. One minute they’re honey, the next they’re giving you the creepy crawlies. It’s a cursed shame.”
“Oh, because otherwise you’d have a chance with them?” Aella teased him, but her tone was heavy, and the joke fell flat.
I had the creepy crawlies. It was more than that though. What I was feeling was that buzzing in my veins and head that had come and gone since I left Nophgrin. It was like those times when I had considered my own tongue in my mouth. I couldn’t not realize that that feeling was magic humming beneath my skin. I couldn’t breathe. Things from that day were coming back to me, things that I by no means should have forgotten. My body
kept remembering the feeling of alien power roaring through me and coating the inside of my skull. It was remembering what it felt like to be burned from the inside out.
All the while we road in silence. I didn’t look at any of my companions. I was afraid that if I did, they would begin to explain why I had magic in me still and why they had not told me sooner. Now that we were riding away from the imminent threat of Lady Famai, I didn’t know if I was ready.
What I did know was that I was on the verge of tears, and I felt like I was going to be sick. I needed to get back to my room, by myself, to sort this all out. Cinnamon flicked her ears back at me and whickered gently. She was only a horse, but she could tell something was very wrong with her rider. I patted her neck, letting my hand linger on the warmth there.
Silence prevailed throughout our ride from the river to the center of the city. Lucas attempted small talk a few times, but it was impossible to have a real conversation when we road in a single-file line and were swarmed on all sides by strangers.
As traffic thinned closer to the inn, I kicked Cinnamon into a trot that put me ahead of the group and into the stable first. I hurried to groom her, then made my way upstairs before the rest of them had finished.
“Taryn—Taryn!”
I pretended that I didn’t hear when Aella called out for me to wait up. Ito and Belinda said nothing to me. Perhaps they recognized that I needed time to be alone and think.
Since Lady Famai had broken through whatever barrier had protected my awareness of its existence, I could feel the magic in me. It was distracting, to say the least. It buzzed like cicadas in my veins and made my head swim.
I needed to sort out everything that I was remembering. I needed to decide how I really felt about this new part of me. I needed to figure out how I felt about my companions, specifically Aella. Ito, and Belinda too, who almost certainly had known about it. Probably also Dai, Kaleb, and Aedith. If the mages and Aella knew, there was no way the commander and her seconds did not.
Of Dragon Warrens and Other Traps Page 24