Wayward Magic (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 2)

by Melinda Kucsera

  But the Era of Gods had been over a millennium ago, and no one was alive now to remember it—not even High Elves lived a thousand years.

  As the other acolytes sat down on the benches, I joined them. The half-Elven girl sat down next to me, and on my other side sat a boy with unkempt brown hair, a round face and a small stature, reminding me of the half-dwarves I had seen in Ginderstund.

  Plates with a crust of bread and some slices of cheese sat in front of us. A cup of milk stood in front of the plate.

  My stomach growled in response—I hadn’t eaten since my late lunch with Hugo yesterday, and I was starving.

  No one was touching the food, though, so I followed their example, ignoring the rumbling in my stomach.

  Slowly, the main hall filled with other disciples of the Red God. I counted at least a dozen people clad in white robes—no idea what that meant—a larger group donned in black robes, and then the largest group walked in, wearing their trademark red robes. The red robes came in last, striding through the room as if they were kings walking toward their throne.

  All the while, none of my fellow acolytes dared to touch the food in front of them.

  When the last of the Red Priests sat down at the long tables, the High Priestess strode in. Altheia. She held her head high, a condescending look on her features, as if she wanted to remind us all that no matter the color of our robes, we were all vermin and she was the Queen ruling over us.

  A shiver ran down my spine when her gaze rested on me. Even if it only lasted a millisecond, I wished she hadn’t given me the time of day. Of all the people in the Red Keep, Altheia was by far the most threatening, and that was counting Cullyn.

  Cullyn. I searched for him, gawking at the rows of Red Priests and trying to discern him. When I caught sight of him, he was staring straight at me, his gaze unwavering. Even as our eyes met, he didn’t flinch.

  I was the one who pulled my gaze away, focusing back on the High Priestess.

  Altheia didn’t join the other Red Priests at the table. Instead, she sat on a more luxurious seat behind a small table on a makeshift stage at the end of the room. The Queen looking out over her subjects.

  She sat down gracefully, and then lifted her arms. “The Blood God has blessed us with this food,” she said, although I was pretty sure the Blood God was as involved in the process of baking this bread as I was. “Eat,” the High Priestess ordered, and her subjects attacked their food like ravenous wolves.

  I struggled to pull my gaze away from her, wondering how in the world she managed to hold that much power over the other Red Priests.

  The half-Elven girl poked me in the ribs, and then gestured toward the loaf of bread on my plate.

  I nodded at her, grabbed the bread, and started eating. It wasn’t too bad, and it was warm, obviously freshly baked. Still, it tasted nothing like the food back at home. I missed home so much it was making a hole in my stomach, a hollow feeling settling in my chest.

  No one spoke during lunch. The silence hanging over the room was only interrupted by the sound of chewing, people putting down their cups of milk, and the occasional person shuffling on the bench. It was not an icy silence, but rather a calm, easy silence.

  Then, a few minutes after I had finished my lunch, Altheia shoved her chair backward and stood up. She gestured for us to rise, and in one fluent motion, the acolytes next to me stood up.

  I quickly followed suit; half a beat slower than the others.

  “May you spend the rest of the day serving the Blood God.” Altheia softly bowed her head, then strode out of the room, not bothering to grant us another glance.

  The tables emptied one by one. The fully-fledged Red Priests left first, then the black hoods, then the white robes, and eventually my fellow grey robes and I shuffled out of the room.

  “Who will clean this up?” I whispered to the half-Elven girl.

  I had no idea if we were allowed to talk or not at this point, but since everyone had been quiet so far, it didn’t seem right to speak out loud.

  “The white robes will come in afterwards to clean. They’re in the stage where they must cleanse everything. The world, and themselves.”

  I frowned, not entirely sure what she meant. I opened my mouth, ready to pose another question, when I spotted Cullyn waiting for me outside the doors of the main hall.

  “Follow me,” he barked at me, the same way one would talk to a dog. He didn’t wait to see if I was chasing after him before he rushed off, making me run to catch on.

  “Where are we going?” I asked when he had crossed halfway through the hall already, leaving several meters distance between me and my fellow acolytes.

  “They have runecraft this afternoon,” Cullyn said. “And you don’t.”

  My frown deepened. “Why not?”

  Cullyn shot me a look that said, ‘shut up’, and then continued walking.

  I had no choice but to trail after him. Still, I wasn’t ready to drop this subject just yet. Runecraft sounded infinitely more interesting than woodcarving or herbalism. If I got to know anything about the rune marking my forehead, how it worked—and perhaps more importantly, how it didn’t work for me—then I had a chance of…

  That was exactly why they wouldn’t let me take that class, I realized. Because if I learned how the runes really worked, then I could use the runes against them.

  “You don’t trust me,” I said, trying to sound accusatory. “Altheia doesn’t trust me. Why let me join then?”

  Cullyn’s features darkened. “If the choice was mine, you wouldn’t have joined our ranks, mage.”

  “I’m not a mage,” I reminded him, gritting my teeth. “My magic is locked up, remember?” I pointed at the mark on my forehead. “I’m as human as you are.”

  “I advise you to never say that again,” Cullyn snarled.

  I was willing to put up with the condescending attitude from Altheia, because the High Priestess treated everyone the same way. But to have to accept the same bigotry from the other acolytes and from Cullyn was too much, and I wanted to scream at him.

  Still, getting into an argument with him didn’t seem like a good choice either, so I took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

  “What am I to do then, if I can’t join runecraft?” I asked.

  “I’ll teach you some archery. Because by the looks of it, I don’t think you’ve had any archery training at all, ever.”

  I wondered how he could judge that—did he mean I was scrawny? That my arms were two thin twigs lacking the muscle to pull back an arrow in its bow? Cullyn seemed to thrive on offending me every chance he got.

  “I’ve never shot a bow and arrow before,” I admitted, a tad reluctantly.

  By now, we had reached the courtyard with the greenhouse, but this time, we followed the path circling the greenhouse and then headed several meters down, along the slope of the hill on which the Red Keep was built. In the shadow of the greenhouse lay a practice area, complete with targets for archery, but also lined by several weapons’ racks containing swords, staves, clubs, and even weapons I had never seen before.

  “Why do I need to learn archery?” I asked Cullyn as we descended the last few meters towards the practice area. Herbalism and woodcarving made sense for priests. Even though the thought of a Red Priest healing someone using herbs sounded ridiculous to me—in my mind, the Red Priests brought only horror and despair, not healing or cures—it was technically within the repertoire of a priest. But archery?

  Cullyn rolled his eyes. “You ask too many questions that are irrelevant.” He grabbed a bow from one of the racks and held it next to me, sizing me up.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Checking if the bow isn’t too big. It needs to be a good ratio compared to your height.” He swayed the bow to the left and right, narrowing his eyes.

  A hot blush crept on my cheeks from being stared at like that. Not that he was looking at me for any reason but trying to gauge if the bow was the right size or not. Cullyn had mad
e it adamantly clear that he hated me simply because of the species I belonged to. Still, no one had stared at me for this long and this intently ever before.

  “Should work.” Cullyn shrugged. “It’s not ideal, but the other ones are even larger, and you’re remarkably short.” He handed me the bow.

  I took it with one hand, instantly regretting it. The bow was a lot heavier than I expected.

  “To answer your question about why archery is such a viable skill for us,” Cullyn said while he picked out his own bow, not hesitating for a second as he grabbed the weapon, “is because once it’s time for your initiation ritual from a white robe to a black robe, you will need to make an offering to the Blood God. An offering you have hunted yourself. Look there.”

  He pointed behind me and I turned around. At the back of the Red Keep lay an enormous stretch of woodland, reaching almost to the horizon. Lush, green trees as far as the eye could see. “Those woods are ancient, dating back to the Era of the Gods. They have seen wars, hardship, love, forgiveness, everything. In those woods, you must go hunt for a prey the Red God will accept. When you capture it, you may not kill it, because it needs to be sacrificed in the Holy Halls of the Red God, in the dungeons of the Keep.”

  I swallowed hard. Killing a living being? Sacrificing it? I had skinned rabbits before, eaten cow meat, but that was for food, for survival. Not to appease a bloodthirsty God. And I never had to go hunting for it myself.

  “Now, come on.” Cullyn waved for me to come closer. He moved his right foot back and lifted the bow and arrow. Concentrating, his eyes narrowed, he pulled back the arrow, and took a deep breath. Then, he breathed out and released the arrow.

  It hit the bulls’ eye.

  The target was not that far, and I was sure trained archers could reach a target much farther away, but Cullyn smiled smugly and handed me an arrow. “Your turn, mage.”

  “Again, not a mage.” I lifted my bow and tried to position the arrow properly. My arms trembled from effort when I pulled the arrow backward. This was a lot harder than it looked. Concentrating on the target was almost impossible; I was too busy trying not to drop the arrow. Gritting my teeth, I pulled back the string as far as I could, and then released the arrow.

  It sizzled downwards almost immediately, hitting the ground little more than a meter in front of me.

  Deflated, I stared at the arrow as if it had personally betrayed me.

  “As I suspected, you’re not strong enough.” Cullyn leaned on his bow, looking as happy as a cat who had just had milk. “You’ll need to get stronger first, mage, or you’ll never be able to shoot properly.”

  By the Gods, I wanted to punch that arrogant smirk from his face.

  “I thought you were here to train me,” I shot back. “So far, I’ve heard a lot of nagging, not seen a lot of training.”

  Cullyn scoffed. “Fine, but until you get more strength in those scrawny arms, I can train you from sunrise until sunset and you still won’t be able to hit the target. Now, stand like this.” Without warning, he had his hands on my waist, twisting my hips until I stood in the proper position.

  I froze on the spot. My heart hammered so loud in my chest that I feared he would hear it too. Why was he touching me like this?

  No one had ever touched me like that.

  Still, he was an idiot who hated me, so I ignored the tingling residue of his warm touch, and focused.

  Focus on the bow and arrow, on the target.

  Cullyn touched my elbow, urging me to lift my arms. “Now, pull back the arrow,” he said.

  I followed his command, but the moment my arm pulled the arrow backward, my muscles tensed and trembled.

  Cullyn groaned and put his arm forward, his hand resting on top of mine. Together, we pulled the arrow back, with surprising ease. I was still the one holding back the arrow, the one in control, but if Cullyn let go, the object would go flying.

  He was right; I wasn’t strong enough.

  “Take a deep breath.” His voice was close to my ear, and my heart smashed against my ribcage so hard I worried one of my ribs could crack.

  I breathed in deep, collecting as much air in my lungs as I could.

  “And…let go.”

  We both let go at the same time, and I breathed out the moment the arrow was released.

  The arrow hit the target. Not in the bulls’ eye but on the outer corners, but it still hit the target, whereas my own feeble attempt had ended with the arrow landing in front of my feet on the grass.

  Cullyn stepped backward, away from me.

  The moment he was gone, I missed his presence, the warmth of his body pressing against mine, of his arm encircling mine.

  Oh Gods, what was wrong with me? Why did I feel this way towards a brute who had zero respect for me?

  “As I said, once you have enough strength, you should be able to at least make a somewhat decent shot.” Cullyn reached for his own bow and arrow, and fired off another shot at the target, calm and in control, totally unlike me.

  “Keep on training,” he said when I didn’t move. “Pull back the arrow as far as you can and hold it for as long as you can.”

  Reluctantly, I walked toward the target, grabbed the arrow and pulled it free.

  While I did as Cullyn had told me to, trying to pull back the arrow as far as I could for as long as I could, I kept on glancing at him every now and then.

  He was handsome, in a way, I had to admit. But he was also brutish, arrogant, had made it clear he hated my guts, and there was no reason at all why I should’ve been attracted to him.

  But Gods help me, I was.

  Chapter Three

  After spending a few more hours with Cullyn training archery, he led me back inside the Red Keep.

  “At this time each day, we meditate, try to connect with the Red God,” he explained. “Your next class is meditation.”

  I frowned. Meditating wasn’t completely new to me—my mother had done it often when trying to channel as much magic as possible, before it was banned—but I had never considered using it to connect with a God. How would one even go about that?

  “So, then you… hear the Red God?” I hoped the skeptical tone in my voice hadn’t given me away. Maybe it was common for acolytes who had a real calling to hear the Red God all the time.

  “Not often, no. But on a rare occasion, someone does. Even if you don’t hear the Red God, if you open your mind to him, he can influence you in your choices and in your life.”

  I was surprised by Cullyn’s honesty, and he seemed equally surprised, because he scratched his neck, uncomfortable for the first time since I met him.

  “Anyway, Ethel will teach you how to meditate. Second door on the left.”

  “You’re leaving?” This morning, he had escorted me all the way into the greenhouse, and it seemed strange he was leaving me to my own devices now. If I was so untrustworthy, who was to say I wouldn’t go snooping around instead of heading straight towards Ethel’s class?

  “You’ll manage.”

  He left abruptly, and I wondered what had spooked him to the point he practically fled from me.

  While snooping around sounded infinitely more exciting than trying to meditate and connect with a God I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to, given he could’ve probably sniffed out my real intentions from miles away, I had to pretend to be a good student. If Altheia kicked me out—or worse—it would be up to Sebastian to fulfill my mission here, and I couldn’t expose my brother to that risk.

  To my surprise, class had already started, and the moment I walked in, the Priestess at the front gestured for me to sit down on one of the mats rolled out on the floor. The spot next to the boy who I suspected was a half-dwarf and who had sat next to me at lunch, was still free, so I chose that spot and sat down.

  “Cross your legs,” the Priestess—Ethel, I supposed—said, obviously reciting it for my sake since everyone else had their legs crossed already. “Put your hands like this.” She held up her arms, showing me her i
ndex touching her thumb.

  I followed her example.

  “Straighten your back,” she ordered. “Close your eyes. Take a deep breath.”

  Closing my eyes while surrounded by strangers felt awkward, but I did so anyway. While Ethel’s voice droned on, I tried to clear my mind. Connecting with the Red God ranked about the lowest item on my wish-list, but if everyone was opening their minds, I could try to get a feel for them with my powers.

  It was dangerous to use my powers while surrounded by my enemies, but the only one who might’ve picked up on something was Tamrin, and she was so desperate to hide her true self that I doubted she would rat on me. Still, I focused on the others’ thoughts, not hers.

  Opening my own mind, I tried to reach out to the acolytes and connect with them, but subtle enough that they wouldn’t realize it.

  The half-Elven girl’s mind was blocked. The wall wasn’t that strong, but tearing it down would raise her defenses, so I decided to stay away from her as well. I had no idea if the girl even knew she possessed a mental barrier, or if it was a side effect of her Elf heritage.

  The boy next to me was easy to connect to. His mind was so easy to read it was laughable. Rather than trying to reach out to the Red God, he seemed more occupied with what we would have for dinner.

  One by one, I pried the students’ minds, just to get an inkling of an idea of what occupied their thoughts. The majority of them were indeed trying to connect with the Blood God. Sometimes quite desperately, case in point being the girl with the braided brown hair. She practically screamed at the Red God to answer her. Some of the acolytes were more occupied with thoughts of dinner, or mulling their attraction toward one of the other Red Priests, although I couldn’t pry deep enough into their thoughts to figure out which Priest or Priestess was the object of their affection.

  Empaths had once been considered the most dangerous of mages, because of the erratic, uncontrollable nature of their powers. When I saw what my magic could do even in its latent, barely-even-there form, I understood why. The most powerful empaths, back in magic’s golden times, could twist someone’s mind until the person barely recognized themselves anymore.