On the other hand, he was teaching me things, and so far, he had offered me more than I could ever offer him: knowledge, a way to tame my wayward magic. So, I shouldn’t complain too much, not even if he was a slightly strict teacher.
“I…” Veritas sensed things that went on inside the walls of the Red Keep, as he had proven by his statement the other day when he said I sensed I had used my magic. While I didn’t want to confide in him completely, I did want to check if he would tell me the truth if I asked.
“A priestess in training, Freya, passed away yesterday during an initiation ritual,” I told him, trying to keep my voice neutral. “I… I wondered if that was normal.”
“Normal?” Veritas raised a single eyebrow.
“If people die often during these initiation rituals.”
“I suppose they do.” Veritas shrugged. He seemed eager to evade my question. “You are priests to the Red God, after all, the God of blood and war.”
“Something about her body startled me, though,” I admitted, letting my gaze linger on my nightly companion, trying to gauge his reaction.
He sat against the bars of his cage, leaning against them. If not for the slight twitch in his jaw, he would’ve looked perfectly peaceful.
“What is that?” Veritas asked.
“The scent of magic.”
“Ah.” He didn’t say anything else. Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the bars.
“You don’t think it’s odd that her body would smell like magic?” I pried, trying to get a reaction from him.
“No,” he said. “It makes perfect sense to me. Why wouldn’t it smell like magic, if magic was performed on it? It would be odd if it didn’t have a whiff of magic at all.”
“But only the most potent forms of wayward magic leave a scent… The forbidden form.” I kept staring at him, trying to figure out if he knew more than he was letting on, but with his eyes closed, it was impossible to guess what he was thinking.
“And in this situation, you smelled magic?” Veritas asked eventually.
“Yes.”
“Which tells you what, exactly? Isn’t it possible the Red God uses this type of magic?” He opened his eyes, staring straight at me. “It’s not because it’s forbidden for men, that a God could not wield it.”
“My mother always told me the magic from the Gods is different.” I bit my lip. The memory of my mother as she explained to Sebastian and me the basic rules of magic was forever engraved in my thoughts. “She said that the Gods draw their magic from the very essence of their being. They are made of something beyond this world: of stars, of the universe itself. Regular mages, on the other hand, draw their powers from this planet, from the soil beneath us, from the wind whirling around us. I don’t think the magic of the Gods would have this scent.”
“When was the last time you saw the magic of the Gods in action?” Veritas seemed curious now, as he sat up straighter, focusing on my every word.
“I… Never,” I admitted eventually.
“Hm.” Veritas shrugged. “Well, let me tell you then. I think you might be right. If you smelled a whiff of rot, and the corpse decayed as fast as you said it did, that sounds like forbidden magic to me. Not something a God would do. Gods have no use for games like that.”
“But who is behind it then?” I moved closer toward him, nearly jumping with curiosity. “And why? For what purpose?”
“Think of what magic is,” Veritas told me. “Think of what I’m trying to teach you, when you’re not too busy worrying about Gods and Red Priests and sacrificed little girls.”
“Balance,” I said. “Magic is balance.”
“If you take something, you always have to give something in return. Think about the Great Famine and what happened when too many mages drained the earth of its energy. The crops started dying, the harvest was a catastrophe, and people starved to death. What the mages took from the earth, had to be restored to it.”
I nodded, mulling about what he had said. “So, what you’re saying is that someone used Freya as a sacrifice for something else. Drained her…” As I said the words out loud, the gravity of the truth sank in. Someone had drained Freya’s life energy for a nefarious purpose, which explained why, only hours after she died, her body looked as if she had been dead for years.
“But who? And why?” I scratched my cheek.
“That’s the question worth a hundred golden coins,” Veritas said. “Why would anyone need that much energy? When you find out why, you’ll probably find out who.”
I tilted my head to the right, looking at Veritas suspiciously. “How do I know it’s not you draining them? I mean, you sensed my magic even when you were locked up in here. You might have something to do with this as well.”
Veritas barked out a laugh. “Why would I tell you then, and help you? No, Saleyna, trust me: I’m not the one behind this.”
A thousand questions popped up in my mind. Was it Altheia, the High Priestess? But if so—why? What did she have to gain from syphoning the energy of her priests and priestesses? And why was she using magic, the very thing she fought so hard to forbid? Or was it another one of the Red Priests, operating right under the High Priestess’ nose without her realizing it?
“Do you have any idea who is behind it, then?” I asked my mentor.
Veritas sighed. “No. I have no real access to your world. I’m stuck here, and while sometimes I feel things, I can’t really say who is wielding this magic. I must admit though that last night, I felt a powerful magic blasting through the world. Forbidden magic. It takes a powerful person to wield such magic without losing their minds.”
“Have you ever felt this power before?” I asked, leaning my elbows on my knees.
“More or less,” Veritas replied. “About once a month, I feel a surge of energy. A power I can’t quite place. However, it’s only since you’ve come here that my grip on your reality has become strong enough to allow me to feel things clearer.”
This made me pause. “Why is that?”
“Because you’re anchoring me to your world, Saleyna,” Veritas explained, sounding annoyed, as if he’d already explained this a thousand times before. “You anchor me to your world; I anchor you to mine.”
My mouth dropped open slightly. “You could’ve told me that before.”
“There’s so much to tell you. Each time you come here; you have more questions.” Veritas stood up, stretching his legs. “Anyway, it will be dawn soon, and your guard is about to wake you up.”
“No, no.” I scrambled to get up, rushed to Veritas, and grabbed his arm. “I can’t leave now. Tell me how I should track down the wielder of this forbidden magic. I need to—”
I never got to finish that sentence, as a hard knock on my door woke me up.
Chapter Seven
“Good morning.” Cullyn stared at the floor as if it was a masterpiece of art worth all his attention. “You have herbalism first, and then woodworking.”
I groaned and stumbled out of bed, lingering between being asleep and being awake. “Again? I’m starting to think the curriculum here only has a handful of classes.”
Cullyn rolled his eyes at my sarcasm. “I’m in a bit of a hurry, so please get a move on. The High Priestess has been called out on a mission this morning, and she put me in charge of handling things while she’s gone.”
A mission. I wondered if that meant Altheia had travelled outside the walls of the keep for the purpose of executing a magic wielder. Ironic, considering that arguably the worst magic wielder in the Seven Kingdoms was hiding behind the walls of this monastery.
“If you don’t have time to escort me from class to class like a faithful bodyguard,” I said while rubbing the sleep from my eyes, “I can probably find the route on my own, you know.”
Cullyn gave me a blank stare. “No.”
“Come on.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “It’s bad enough that I have a rune on my forehead showing the others how out of place I am in the hou
se of the Red God. You trailing behind me like a tiger stalking its prey isn’t helping.”
“Fine.” Cullyn threw his hands in the air. “But one wrong step from you, and you’ll lose any privilege you have, and I mean any. You go straight to herbalism class, and then you follow the others straight to woodworking. Understood?” He sounded like a teacher scolding his pupil, and I grinned.
“Yes, yes, I understand.” I waved his concerns away. Freedom. Or a glimpse of it, at least. Although I didn’t mind Cullyn’s company, it would be a relief to be on my own for a bit.
“I’ll see you tonight then. Don’t disappoint me, Saleyna.” He gave me a stern look, and my heart squeezed together in my chest.
The last thing I wanted was to disappoint him, but Altheia leaving Cullyn in charge and him finally allowing me to go somewhere on my own, was the opportunity of a lifetime. The Gods couldn’t have created a better scenario.
And I planned to take full advantage of it.
The library was gigantic. It contained dozens of bookshelves lined up on each side of the walls and reaching to the ceiling.
My mouth dropped to the floor while I wandered around, letting my hands glide over the hundreds of volumes displayed in the room.
My excuse for missing herbalism was simple. I planned to spin this entire story about how I got lost wandering through the halls of the monastery and hadn’t found my way outside. I didn’t plan on missing the entire class, because that would be suspicious—anyone would understand me getting lost for five or ten minutes, but not the entire hour.
Meanwhile, I tried to figure out the order of the volumes on display. Each bookcase had a gold-encrusted tag on the seventh shelf, slightly above my height, that stated the applicable genre. Fiction. Poetry. Philosophy. Mathematics.
Passing by bookcase after bookcase, I spotted volumes relating to various languages, history, zoology, and myriad topics that all sounded intriguing but had zero to do with magic.
Halfway through my quest, someone rested a hand on my shoulder, and I almost jumped out of my skin. Chills ran up and down my spine as I turned around, the blood freezing in my veins.
Ethel.
The old woman’s lips were curled into a smile that didn’t look particularly pleasant, and her fingers dug into my shoulder, sharp and pointy. “I never quite got your name,” she said with a smile that made my stomach turn.
“Uhm. Saleyna.” I clenched my hands. “I was looking for the greenhouse, but I got lost.”
“Did you now?” Ethel smirked while her nails were still clawing into my shoulder. “I saw you browsing through our vast library for the last five minutes, so I was wondering, did you expect to find the greenhouse in there?”
I opened my mouth and snapped it closed again. Busted. “I did get lost, but then I got distracted…” I gestured at the treasure trove surrounding us. “This place is amazing.”
Ethel’s ice-cold smile seemed to melt a little. She let go of my shoulder. “You’re right. It is amazing. Can you read?”
“My mother taught me.” While my brother Sebastian detested reading almost as much as he detested the Red Priests, I had fallen in love with reading the first time my mother showed me a picture book. To be able to read about foreign worlds, about knights and princesses, and go along on their adventures, was simply amazing. We only had a handful of books at home, but the town had a small library where we sometimes borrowed reading material.
“Not everyone here can read.” Ethel turned away from me for the first time, taking in the magnificent collection around her. “Some pupils we have to teach from scratch. It’s an advantage, being able to read. Were you looking for a book in particular?”
Anything relating to forbidden magic, but of course I couldn’t say that.
“No, no, just curious about all of it.”
Ethel sighed. “Well, curious or not, you’re not supposed to be here. Priests with the grey rank can only be in here on certain times, and always when in the company of a Red Priest.”
This surprised me, and I frowned. I thought that I was the only pupil not allowed in here, courtesy of the rune marking my forehead. That my fellow students could only venture in here when accompanied by a fully-fledged Red Priest told me one thing very clearly.
This library held secrets the Red Priests wanted to keep from anyone who had not yet joined their ranks as a full member, who wasn’t fully indoctrinated yet by their teachings.
Which meant that whatever the secrets hidden in here, they could be helpful for me, and if not for me, then at least for the Brotherhood of Whispers, the underground organization of mages fighting against the Red Priests that had recruited me to work for them.
“Sorry, I didn’t know that.” I tried to look apologetic.
“I’ll have to tell Altheia about this,” Ethel warned me.
“Please don’t. Cullyn let me go to class on my own, and I don’t want him to get into trouble for giving me a shred of freedom.” My voice squeaked, and I realized I meant the words as soon as I spoke them. I didn’t want Cullyn to get in trouble because of me.
I wanted to slap myself on the head; I never should’ve come here, never should’ve risked it. Instead, I should’ve just gone to class with the others. Why was I worried that someone was using forbidden magic to destroy these Red Priests in the making? Maybe it was the Red God’s doing after all, as Cullyn had said. Or maybe a mage far more powerful than I was, had infiltrated the monastery with the intent of destroying it from the inside out? Which should be considered a good thing in my book, as the Red Priests were the enemy, after all.
Then I thought about Reslyn, who tried to be friendly to me and made me feel included. I considered Tamrin, a shapeshifter hiding from a world that would otherwise destroy her. And Cullyn…
Enemy or not, I didn’t want any of them to die because of a magic they didn’t even know existed.
Play-acting was never my forte, but I exaggerated every word and movement, pouting so much it hurt. “Please don’t tell Altheia. I promise it was just an accident. I don’t want anyone to get in trouble because of me.”
I wasn’t sure if sounding like a whiny brat helped, because Ethel looked skeptical. “You shouldn’t wander around the library, since you’re not allowed here. Especially you.” She pointed at my forehead. “This means that you have to abide by the rules even more than everyone else. Blend in, keep your head down, follow the rules, and try to connect with the Red God and then…” A flash of grief passed across her features. “Maybe you won’t end up like Freya then, may the Gods help her soul.”
Ethel’s grief sounded genuine, but thankfully it didn’t bring me to tears like the combined grief of all my fellow students had done yesterday. I didn’t want a repeat of that—especially not in front of this woman who now, quite literally, held my fate in her hands.
“All right, fine,” Ethel said eventually, warming up to me a little. “For one time, I’ll make an exception. This can stay our little secret, but you have to promise me you won’t go wandering off on your own anymore, or I’ll have no choice but to tell Altheia and Cullyn.”
“I promise,” I said while crossing my fingers behind my back.
The Red Priestess didn’t seem to notice. “If you’re so desperate to read something, I’ll give you my copy of The Princess and the Crown to read tonight. No one will mind that, and it’s my favorite fairytale. Do you know it?”
“No, I don’t. I love reading, but we didn’t have many books.” Only two, actually, one of which was a witch’s grimoire, and the other a picture book I knew inside and out. Every word of that book I could recite from the top of my head.
“Deal then. Now, come with me.” Ethel linked arms with me while walking past the rows of books to the library exit. “I’ll take you to Marletta and tell her you were lost, and I’ll make sure The Princess and the Crown is waiting for you tonight as some bedtime reading material. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
“Thank you.” My pout turned into a rad
iant smile. Slightly exaggerated, but with Ethel it seemed to do the trick.
She guided me further down the library, talking about The Princess and the Crown, and how her sister Letha always used to read it to her, but I didn’t pay much attention to Ethel. Instead, I peered at all the bookcases we passed by, desperately trying to find one about magic, runes, anything that could help me.
But I saw nothing. Nothing in this entire forbidden library that could help me figure out what in the Gods’ name was going on in the Red Keep.
Chapter Eight
The rest of the day was a blur of classes—we had a mathematics class after herbalism and woodworking, which was taught by a teacher named Vern, a grey-haired man with an impressive beard running to the floor that he constantly nearly tripped over.
Afterward, we headed to the common room, where Reslyn, Tamrin, and I snuggled in front of the fire.
“Are you all right?” Reslyn asked me as she pulled her knees to her chest, curling up on the couch. “You seemed pretty upset yesterday.”
“I’m fine. It was an emotional day.” I tugged at the hem of my sleeve. “Does it happen often, that people don’t survive the initiation ritual?” I already knew, based on what Cullyn had told me, but I wanted to hear it from my friends too.
Tamrin sat up straighter. “You shouldn’t talk about that. It brings bad luck.”
“We don’t like to talk about the deceased,” Reslyn explained. “Like Tamrin said, it draws their spirits closer, and I doubt those spirits are particularly happy.”
Despite their warnings, I refused to give up. “If that book of blood says I’m ready, what are the odds I’m walking straight into an untimely demise?” I asked them. “Well? Don’t I deserve to know? Don’t we all?”
Reslyn sighed. “The challenges are tough. They test your character. It’s… The Red God can’t be blamed for it, if you’re not ready.”
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