Of Dragon Warrens and Other Traps

by Shannon McGee

  “But?”

  “But something that happened today caused it all to come back to me, and now I realize how much of that day was just gone from my mind. As though it actually had been blocked off or taken from me.”

  She squinted. “You think that they knew you didn’t remember keeping the magic?”

  I shrugged. “They must have. They can’t think I’m so butterfly-witted that I knew and didn’t have any questions.”

  “Do you think they blocked your memory?”

  I scowled. “I don’t know.”

  “Have you… and don’t bite my head off Taryn, but have you asked them yet?” I glared at her, and she grinned wickedly. “You haven’t.”

  “It has been a bit of a busy day. Excuse me if I haven’t had the most level head through all of it,” I said churlishly. And I was afraid of what they would say, I realized. I was afraid that they would say they had locked the memories away because they feared me. Just like the people of Nophgrin feared me.

  She pursed her lips. “I asked you very nicely not to bite my head off. Look,” she jabbed a finger at me before I could respond, “does it make sense that they would block your memories, but also train you to be a warrior and let you talk to your best friend when you find out the truth?”

  “I guess not?” I said, drawing out the words.

  “You’re right, something here isn’t adding up, but I think you should at least give them the benefit of the doubt. They saved your life—saved a lot of lives here as well, I think. Ask them. Don’t be a chicken and just decide you know what the truth is.”

  My cheeks heated. I had forgotten what being lectured to by Nai felt like. “You don’t know what it’s like out here,” I said sullenly.

  “Maybe not,” she allowed, “but I know that those mercenaries are probably your best bet at handling it. The gods know I couldn’t have done much else for you but hidden you under my bed and fed you until the pastries made you too fat to fit.”

  I chuckled then. Listening to Nai was like coming home. I wished I could reach through the mirror to hug her. “I miss you,” I said, instead.

  She smiled. “I miss you too. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Keep doing what you’re doing,” I said instantly. “Keep looking after my parents. Tell them…”

  “I’ll tell them you’re ok. They’d want to know that much. Even if they can’t hear it from you,” she finished for me. I nodded my appreciation. “Anything else?”

  I almost shook my head, then another memory swam to the surface. “Actually, yes. Do you still have Michael’s journals?”

  “Yeah, they’re under my—” Nai blinked and cast a furtive glance in the direction of her door. She pressed a finger to her lips.

  “Naieed, who are you talking to in there?” I heard Salma ask. A fist squeezed around my heart. It wasn’t the same as hearing my own mother, but it was close. I heard the door crack open, the hinges squeaking, as darkness enshrouded the mirror’s surface. Nai must have put her hand mirror under her blankets.

  “No one, Mother,” her voice sounded muffled. “Only to myself.”

  “Mm…” came Salma’s disbelieving murmur. I heard movement and could picture her checking that the window was closed and locked. “Well, you have to be in the kitchen early tomorrow morning. Do not stay up late.”

  “I won’t mother.” They said their good nights, and then Nai waited a few moments before retrieving the mirror. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I think she’d probably be ok with this, but she also might think it’s too dangerous. Best not to risk it.”

  I nodded my understanding. Salma had always been a very protective parent. “I won’t keep you up any later. Just, Michael’s journals?”

  She dove out of sight, only to reappear a few moments later, several leather-bound journals in hand. I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’t touch the leather itself and instead used a handkerchief as a mitt. “I’ve got them.”

  An unexpected amount of relief flooded me. “Ok. Great. I need you to hold onto them a little while longer. Just until I can come and collect them. There has to be something in there as to how to reverse what he did. Michael was nothing if not thorough.”

  “Until then, you will see if the mercenaries can help you?” she asked sternly.

  A yawn forced my jaw wide. “Yes. But if things go south, you had best be ready for me to live under your bed.”

  She grinned at me. “Promises, promises, but where would you put your spear? I’ll speak with you soon, Taryn. Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  Ito had to be fetched so that he knew to cease the scrying spell. There were words I could say to end it myself, but I didn’t know them. The moment her figure vanished, and the room I was in replaced her in the mirror, was bittersweet. It had been good to see her, but my life here and now needed attending to, as she had said. By the time Ito had wiped down the mirror with some sort of elixir, the other two had joined us once more.

  “Thank you,” I said to them sincerely. “This was more than I could have hoped for. I know there are things we need to discuss. Should it be now or after supper?”

  If I hadn’t known better, I would have said Aedith looked impressed. “Now is as good as ever.” She moved to sit on her bed and gestured for us to find our own seating. There were two arm chairs and room on the bed. Ito took a chair, Belinda sat on the bed. I decided to stay standing, as least for the moment.

  Talking with Nai had made this sound easy. Now, in the moment, my pulse was racing. What would come from this discussion. More loss? But I reminded myself of what Nai had said: did you buy weapons and armor and a horse for someone you feared?

  “Firstly, I need to ask—do you remember the men that attacked Aella and I when we first left Nophgrin?”

  The three exchanged surprised looks. This was not the discussion they had expected to have. “Yes,” Aedith said. “What do they have to do with anything?”

  “One of them, the man who was Beth’s father, he never made it back to the village. He told Corey and Martin that he was going to take another shot at getting to me, but I never saw him. Is there any chance that someone caught him again and dealt with him a little more… severely than the first time?”

  Aedith shook her head. “No, not that I’m aware of, and I have to believe any of the company would have informed me if they had to deal with him again.”

  I relaxed a little. It didn’t explain what had happened to him, but it was a relief, nonetheless. I wasn’t sure how I could have told Nai if we had been responsible for Benjamin’s disappearance.

  “Ok.” That settled, I could get to the meat of the matter. “I’m sure Ito and Belinda have told you by now about our encounter with Lady Famai at the river this afternoon?” Aedith nodded, and I went on, “You three knew that I had magic. Did you know that I couldn’t remember that?” I forced the words out of a throat that was impossibly tight.

  It was Belinda who answered me. “At first we thought you didn’t want to talk about what had happened. It was natural that you would need space before you came to us.”

  “But when I didn’t?”

  “Yes, as time went on and we watched you and asked you questions—talked to you about magic—we realized that wasn’t the case. That you didn’t know. Upon looking inside of you—gently, only enough to determine the state of your powers,” she added hurriedly at my wide eyes, “we found that your own mind had blocked you from the trauma of what happened.”

  “I remember Ito watching me,” I said, slowly. I’d thought it had to do with Master Noland. Well, I was at least partially right, I thought, ruefully. “So…it wasn’t the two of you? You didn’t block my memories?”

  Belinda’s eyes widened in horror. “No!”

  “Absolutely not, Taryn,” Ito said firmly.

  “But then, why didn’t you tell me as soon as you found out I didn’t know? Any of you?” I kept my voice low, but heat was building in it as fear turned to anger. “You
all knew. Those were my memories. Why didn’t you unblock me, or do whatever needed to be done?”

  Ito rubbed his forehead. He looked much older suddenly—and tired. “We didn’t want you to reject what we told you. Or worse. We didn’t want your rejection to cause your magic to lash out, which could have happened. Belinda thought, and I agreed, that if you came into the realization gradually then it would have a less disastrous effect on you. Can you honestly tell me you didn’t suspect anything was amiss in the last few months?”

  “You had already been through so much,” Belinda whispered when I refused to respond to her partner. Her dark brown eyes were too kind, and I focused on the grain of the wooden bedpost. “You lost your brother, your home. To be burdened with a life you were never meant for—it was too much to ask of you all at once.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, bewildered. “A life I wasn’t meant for? This isn’t permanent, is it? We can undo it, right?”

  Belinda gnawed her lip. “It seems unlikely. First of all, we’re really not sure exactly how your brother did it. He took on magic from Master Noland and rooted it within himself. Whoever led that spell made it so the magic could amplify on its own, basically disconnected from its source, except for the smallest hint of…otherness that clung to it.”

  Blood magic, I thought, though I didn’t say anything. I remembered the sketches and diagrams in Michael’s journal. I hadn’t understood much of them at the time, but the information made sense now, paired with what Belinda had just said.

  Belinda continued, blithely unaware of how my stomach heaved at these recollections. “When he attempted to forge a magical link between the two of you so that his familiar ritual would recognize his essence within your own, the magic was meant to stay within him.”

  “But he was not skilled enough for the complex working he undertook,” Ito interjected. “Magic has its own rules, and it tends to follow paths that are familiar to it, especially when being worked by a novice. When his magic found itself within a new host, it did what it knew how to do in someone empty of magic.”

  “It rooted,” I murmured, more to myself than any of them.

  Belinda nodded. “If he hadn’t done whatever it was he did, then you would never have come into any powers. The fact that it could root at all indicates that you probably have some magic in your bloodline—”

  “Down my mother’s side,” I said. “But neither of my parents had any signs of it, and we didn’t either.”

  Belinda nodded. “Sometimes magic skips a few generations. Only the gods know why. Regardless, by the time the fight was over, the magic was already inside of you and beginning to become a part of you. We hoped that what was given to you through your bond with Michael would… fizzle out with time.”

  “But it hasn’t.”

  Ito shook his head. “No. It’s all still in you. In fact, it rooted and grew stronger, as it did with Michael. It is unfortunate that we did not take his journals when we rode out,” he added with a probing look that I turned away from. “They might be able to tell us more.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, blandly. I didn’t quite know why, but I still didn’t want anyone else to know where Michael’s notes were hidden. “So, what I have, it’s enough to need learning about?”

  “It’s not enough that you’ll ever become a great mage,” Belinda hedged, “but—”

  “If it’s enough that Lady Famai can sense it, it is enough that you must learn how to control it,” Aedith said sternly. “Whether it is here with us, or if you decide to go to the capital for training. With the jobs we have in store for us this year, you could afford it if you decided not to renew your contract with the guild.”

  Fear and excitement twisted in my stomach. I’d never craved magic as Michael clearly had. It had always seemed like a lot of work. Healers like Belinda took years to learn about the human body. Andrew and David from my home-town were novices by comparison, and they’d spent most of their adult lives learning whatever they could without journeying to the capital. I also knew that those who worked with battle magic, like Ito, could find that their magic boiled over if it wasn’t used and trained. If I had enough magic to need training, I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t experienced anything like that. I asked the resident mages as much.

  “Aella did you a service, introducing you to combat training early on. The exertion of your physical training has given us time. By burning away at your stores of strength, you’ve kept your magic at a manageable level,” Ito explained.

  A connection snapped into place in my head, and I stared at them. “Wait. When you don’t use your magic, what does that feel like?”

  Ito shuddered. “If I let it go for too long, I feel as though I’m going to explode.”

  “It makes me dizzy,” Belinda agreed. “It’s like I’m coming undone.”

  “Gods. I thought I was going crazy.” I pressed a hand to my forehead, utterly gobsmacked.

  “So, even with regular combat training, an overabundance is something you’ve experienced.” Ito said. Not as a question, but more like he was making a mental note.

  “I did mention that an overfull magic reserve could be uncomfortable,” Belinda said, a hint of reproach in her voice. “It’s not an uncommon occurrence. Actually, before the most recent monarchs came to power and began to do testing as part of military recruitment, some warriors who came to the capital didn’t find out until after they had completed their training that they had latent magical gifts.”

  “So, once they’re discovered, are mage-gifted folks at the capital sent to Master Noland to be trained?” The thought of so many young men and women given over to his tutelage made me squeamish. I certainly didn’t want to go to the mage school if he was in charge there.

  Ito shook his head emphatically, but it was Belinda who spoke again. “When I was trained at the capital, and even still to this day, Master Fletcher was in charge of training young mages. Master Noland is banned from the school in all but writing. It was considered quite a snub—”

  “Master Fletcher is Master Noland’s brother,” Ito interrupted, acknowledging my lost expression.

  “So, they’re both mages, and they’re brothers.” My eyebrows drew together. “Why don’t they both teach?” Not that I was complaining.

  “The two have never got along. When the old king died, Master Noland was expected to be appointed as King Lionel’s advisor, but Master Fletcher was given the role instead. Seeing as Master Fletcher was already the headmaster of the mage school, he was expected to abdicate from one role or the other but—”

  “Enough history.” Aedith rose her voice to be heard over Belinda. “Taryn, do you have any questions about what is happening to you today?”

  I tugged a braid, gnawing at my lower lip. I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that she had stopped Belinda’s explanation, but now didn’t seem to be the time to press for a history lesson. “Yeah,” I stretched the word out, as I tried to figure out how to word my questions. “I think I know the answer to this, but can’t you two try again to pull the magic out of me? Like you tried to do in Nophgrin?”

  Ito and Belinda exchanged a look, and then both of them shook their heads. “When I tried last time, the magic was fluid and unstable. That was our best chance. However, it was so strongly attracted to itself, that as a result, you took on what Michael had put into Zehya. I’m sure you recall that the experience was more than a bit unpleasant. Now that it has had time to wind itself around your very being… to attempt to pull it out of you, especially without reading Michael’s notes…well you might not survive it.”

  I nodded, subdued but not surprised. They wouldn’t have been talking about training me if they thought they could take the magic out of me altogether. “Ok, so next question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Who knew?” The three older mercenaries exchanged looks, as though they were trying to decide if I ought to be privy to that information. I pursed my lips in displeasure. “I have a ri
ght to know. Even if you all thought you had good reason behind not cluing me in, I have a right to know if everyone in the company was keeping this from me.”

  “Those who were aware of your magic were my seconds, Ito, Belinda, and Aella.” Aedith met my mulish look squarely with her own. “I trusted my mages’ judgment, and my company in turn, followed my orders not to tell you.”

  I looked away and sucked at my teeth. It wasn’t everyone, and it explained more than it didn’t. That didn’t mean I wasn’t still hurt. Especially by the knowledge that Aella had known. How could she not have told me?

  “All right?”

  I nodded. “Ok. Last question.”

  “Let’s have it,” Ito said.

  “When do we start training?”

  Even if Master Noland wasn’t in charge of the mage school in the capital, I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of uprooting my life again to go there. It would take a great deal more consideration and planning, and in any case, I wouldn’t have the money to do so, even if I decided I did want to, until the end of summer. However, my magic could not go that much longer without being trained. At the commander’s leave, Ito and Belinda were allowed to begin teaching me immediately.

  “Nothing big,” Aedith warned, “and not for too long. Just some basics, so we can get a grip on what is needed.”

  The mages and I had agreed. The sun was still high, giving us a few hours of daylight left, even if we all did have to turn in early in preparation of the next day’s hunt.

  I spotted Aella down in the courtyard as Ito and Belinda led the way to the stables. She stood, as though to follow us, but I jerked my shoulder up between us, and from the corner of my eye I saw her slowly sink back down into her seat. Lucas reached across the table to get her attention, a quizzical look on his face, and then they were out of sight. That was fine. Let them talk. I didn’t care.

  As we began our ride I noticed Belinda looking at me, a small frown on her face. Before she could voice whatever was on her mind, I began to ask my own questions. “Where are we going? And what will this first lesson be?”