Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “Stay away from her,” Graegor called after him. Stay away from all of us.

  The Adelard sorcerers didn’t shut the door behind them. So Contare did, with a wave of his hand, before Jeff and Rose and the others could come through. The force of the slam snuffed the lamp by the door, and the lamp on the nurse’s desk flickered. Contare turned, and the blue of his eyes was as bright as the afterimage of his gen in Graegor’s mind.

  Graegor still held Brigita’s hand, still felt Koren’s solid presence behind him. He couldn’t tell if Contare was still upset with Pascin or was now upset with him.

  The old man looked down at Brigita, and though his voice was quiet, his lined face was stern. “You warned Metyas.”

  Graegor opened his mouth to protest, but before he could, Brigita nodded. Her eyes were still closed, but her gen was bright with emotion. Graegor could only stare at her in disbelief. “You warned Metyas?”

  Brigita nodded again.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Easy,” Koren sent to him, whisper-soft.

  Brigita opened her eyes, wet and bloodshot, and when she saw Graegor’s face, she pulled back her hand, and her mind retreated from his. It left him cold. She looked up at Contare. “My lord, I told him to run, as soon as you came in. I knew you or Lord Pascin would delve my mind. I didn’t say anything because I wanted to give him as much time as possible to escape.”

  The purple of Graegor’s gen was as dark as a bruise. “You should have told me.” He could not believe she had kept this from him. He had trusted her. He had told Contare to trust her!

  “You would have told him,” she said, nodding slightly toward Contare. “He would have told Lord Pascin. Waiting … waiting for Lord Pascin to delve it from me gave Metyas that much more time.” She closed her eyes again. “These people cared about me, cared for me, when I had no one else. I don’t want them hurt.”

  “But you said you wanted to stay here. You said you didn’t agree with them!”

  “I don’t,” she insisted. “If they try to call to me again, I’ll tell them I won’t help them.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “But I won’t help anyone capture them either.”

  Graegor felt Koren’s soft call again, though he didn’t want to listen. “She’s protecting them like you’re protecting her,” she sent. “If she’s betraying your trust, then by the same logic, you’re betraying Contare’s.”

  The idea stung him to silence. He’d never meant it that way, for either of them. And it was unnerving that he had reacted so strongly and so immediately to what he’d perceived as betrayal from Brigita, a girl he’d never even met before today.

  He forced himself to breathe, to think. By the same logic. He couldn’t fault Brigita for calling to Metyas, or Contare for calling to Pascin. Everyone had conflicting loyalties.

  It was such a mess.

  “Brigita.” Contare drew everyone’s attention back to him, and his frown at her was deep. “Pascin was about to corrode you.”

  Graegor felt Brigita’s shock, Koren’s shock, with the chill down his own back. “Why?” he whispered.

  Contare still spoke to Brigita. “He saw that you had warned Metyas, and that you hadn’t told us about it, even though Graegor insisted you would tell us everything. He decided that since you were obviously still devoted to your rogue cluster, even after two sorcerers had saved your life, you should be treated as a threat. Corroded, then exiled.”

  Corroded. Exiled. Stripped of her magic, then thrown into the wider world without the protection of that magic. As Graegor struggled to find words, Koren murmured, “You stopped him.”

  “I did.” Contare’s gaze did not lift from Brigita. “I convinced him that Graegor’s bond with you will ensure your future loyalty.”

  Graegor, and Koren too, sensed that there was more to the “convincing” than Contare was saying. But neither of them asked. Contare and Pascin had hundreds of years of history between them, and Pascin’s reasons for walking away from this might be complicated. As complicated as the patterns of earth magic. “Thank you, sir,” he said to Contare, bowing his head.

  “Thank you,” Brigita echoed, and then she shivered, so much that she wrapped her arms over her chest to try to stop. “I’m sorry, my lord,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

  “This must be the end of it,” Contare stated. “If any rogue tries to call to you again, you will refuse the contact, and then you will immediately call to Graegor and tell him about it.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Your oath on it.” When Graegor opened his mouth to remind him that Brigita had already given her pledge, he clarified: “Your specific oath on this specific thing.”

  Brigita nodded. She started to extend her hand to him, but Contare gestured at Graegor instead. “Not to me. To him.”

  Brigita turned to him. Her hand meeting his felt colder and smaller than before. Weak. Ferogin had called her weak.

  “My oath on it,” she sent to him, and repeated the words aloud. “My oath on it, my lord. I swear by the One that I will tell you immediately if any of the rogue magi call to me.”

  He didn’t want to think of her as weak. She wasn’t. How many people put in her position would have done better? She was human, and he forgave her. “I accept your oath.”

  Brigita nodded, and her shoulders slumped. Contare also nodded, and he, too, seemed very tired. Graegor hoped that Contare would forgive him, but he could sense little of his master’s mind or magic as the old man walked to the door to the room. On the other side, Jeff, Rose, and everybody else still hovered in the corridor, and Contare briefly regarded their worried faces. “Go on in,” he said finally. “Keep it quiet.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Jeffrei said, and the other magi repeated it as they shifted to let the old sorcerer pass. Then they crowded into the ward, and their minds crowded against Graegor’s and drew his anxiety into theirs. Without even trying to, or meaning to, he passed on to them what had just happened, his sending dense and wordless, and they all sat down on cots and chairs and on the floor in a tight bunch around him and Brigita, who kept her eyes downcast. Although Koren had drifted back to sit at the nurse’s desk again, Graegor could feel her soothing strength directed toward Brigita, to help her endure for a little longer.

  Jeffrei was looking at the door as if he could see which way Pascin and Ferogin had gone. Unlike Contare, Jeff didn’t believe Ferogin would leave Brigita alone now that Pascin had delved her. “Nothing direct,” he sent grimly. “But there are a hundred ways for his magi to make her miserable.”

  “The other Adelard girls will harass her,” Rose agreed, “especially her roommates.”

  “Then she can room with us,” Selena declared.

  Errie was enthusiastic, and some discussion followed, mostly about whether either of Selena and Errie’s other two roommates could be persuaded to switch rooms with Brigita. Room-switching was very common between terms, since there were always magi graduating and other magi starting. Rose was one of the dean’s assistants, and she didn’t think it would be difficult to convince certain girls to move from one to the other. She herself had her own room and other privileges, some of which could be used as bribes if necessary.

  “Don’t worry,” Errie sent with a smile at Graegor when she, Selena, and Rose seemed to have it all settled. “We’ll protect her.”

  Graegor glanced at Brigita, whose magic against his was thin and faded. While the others continued to chatter at the speed of thought, he focused his sending to her directly. “Errie and Selena want to switch your room …”

  “Yes, Koren told me.”

  “Is that all right?”

  “Yes.” The speed of her answer made him raise an eyebrow, which she saw. She was embarrassed, but she didn’t explain, and her wine-red gen faded even further.

  “Before you get too pleased with yourselves,” Logan sent, nudging Selena with his arm, “that won’t be enough. We don’t stay in our rooms all day. In fact we’re almost never in our roo
ms. Won’t the Adelards find other ways to harass her?”

  “Not just the Adelards,” Jeff predicted. “Once Ferogin tells all his magi—and he will—they’ll tell everyone else.”

  “It’s just the Adelards we should worry about,” Graegor corrected him. “None of the Telgards or Khenroxans will do anything to her, even if they can’t forgive her past.”

  “And the Thendals?”

  Graegor hesitated. He still had no idea how to tell Tabitha about all this. His hesitation became a pause, and then a fragile silence, which everyone carefully left alone until he realized it was up to him to break its awkward hold. “I’ll figure out something,” he sent finally. “But even if it’s only the Adelards, Logan’s right. Switching her room doesn’t solve everything.”

  Agreement and frustration flooded the link. Jeff suggested that the boys take turns escorting Brigita to her classes, while the girls looked out for her in the dormitory. “But that makes her look weak, feel weak,” Koren argued. “Ferogin called her weak. To her face. He’ll tell his magi she’s weak.”

  “She should take the unarmed combat class with me this coming term,” Selena declared.

  “You already took that class,” Jeff sent.

  “I’ll take it again, with her. And all of us will help her practice her magic.”

  “Remember she has distance hearing,” Patrick sent. “She should get fully trained in that as soon as possible, so no one will be able to sneak up on her.”

  “She should skip language and history and all those classes for now,” Errie sent. “She should focus what will teach her to protect herself.”

  Everyone liked this idea, and Graegor thought it was a good one, even though he knew Brigita would really miss the scholarly classes. Koren agreed to ask Brigita what she thought. All the boys still thought escorting Brigita around the Academy during the next term was warranted, and Koren agreed to ask her about that too. “Tomorrow,” she told them. “We should stop talking about her and let her rest.”

  Another silence filled the link. Everyone knew Koren was right; Brigita was exhausted. But no one wanted to leave. No one wanted to separate, not yet. They wanted to stay up and talk together, be together.

  Then Marcus sent, “Just one more thing. I’m just making sure we consider … I mean, I’m not saying that going to Telgardia is the best idea. But, like I said before, my aunt does take apprentices.”

  Graegor held back. He couldn’t object, not when he himself had thought of Scherrhafen as a safe place for Brigita. But he knew he could protect her much better if she stayed near him, and the general feeling in the link seemed to match his.

  “Why don’t you find out what your aunt thinks, first?” Rose sent, with equal parts encouragement and caution. “That might be a good place to turn if … “

  “If Ferogin decides to become a problem,” Logan finished for her.

  “He already is a problem,” Jeff sent. “He’s a threat, and we all need to treat him and his magi as such.”

  “Without open war in the Academy halls,” Rose sent, looking directly at Jeff. “It was bad enough right after Graegor and Ferogin dueled. We should not let that happen again.”

  “It won’t, with Josselin watching.” Koren’s deep green magic had suddenly filled the link, demanding their attention. “Josselin’s power and authority are Brie’s best protection. If anyone harasses her, tell Josselin. Don’t handle it yourself. I know it stinks to back down, but do it anyway.”

  Graegor had never witnessed anything half so forceful from Koren before. A moment later she added, seeming embarrassed, “I’m sorry. Josselin told me to say that.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Patrick sent, and whether it was meant for Koren or Josselin, it was quite solemn, and prompted echoes from the other magi.

  “Thank you.” Koren still seemed flustered, and Graegor thought that maybe she was one of those people who was good in a fight, but bad with a speech. “I … I think we should let Brie rest. Maybe just … move to the other side, here?” She gestured toward the three cots against the wall opposite Brie’s. “And turn down the lamp?”

  “I like this plan,” Jeff sent as he stood up, and he promptly claimed the far cot, stretched out, and closed his eyes. Besides being tired, he still had a bad headache from that afternoon. While Koren reduced the flame in the oil lamp, Rose and Errie sat together on the middle cot, Selena and Logan took the one closest to the nurse’s desk, and Patrick and Marcus dragged their chairs to that side of the room. Graegor pulled his around too, just to the foot of Brigita’s cot, so he could still make sure she was all right without disturbing her.

  “Let me know if anyone bothers you,” he sent. “Koren will take you back to the dormitory in the morning.”

  “Thank you.” Brigita’s tone was formal, and he worried about it until he realized that politeness was the only thing keeping her upright now. He heard her lie down, and her breath sigh out.

  Then he joined the conversation in the group link, because it was better than worrying about what Tabitha would say.

  Chapter 13

  Tabitha turned the page, but the words on it were swimming. She let her eyes flutter closed for the fourth or fifth time that night, resting into the swing of her hammock. Or, “hanging cot”, as Captain Flint called it. The difference between the two was … was …

  She blinked awake, feeling that something had bumped her. It was Isabelle’s hammock, swaying next to hers. The oil lamp above her head made a creaking noise as it gently swung on its hook. Her book was still open on her lap, the little pouch of nuts and raisins tucked by her elbow. She noticed a slight grey break in the curtains that covered the windows, and she heard thumps and voices from above. It was morning, or nearly.

  Trying to sleep on board ship in this crowded cabin had proven impossible on the voyage to Cuan Searla. So for the return trip, she brought a book of poetry to bed every night, and she read until she dozed off for a time, and when she woke up, she would read a little more. Read a little, sleep a little, all night, while Isabelle regularly bumped into her, and Clementa muttered in her sleep from one of the horrible little built-in bunks, and Maga Rollana sniffled and wheezed from the other. All with the constant, wet smell.

  It would be so nice to reach Maze Island again, and her own bedchamber.

  In Natayl’s house.

  She wished she could have stayed with her family longer.

  She faded in and out of sleep for another little while before a particular warmth pressed softly against her mind with the scent of summer grass, and she came fully awake. “Graegor?”

  “Tabitha.” His touch was full of emotion, strong but indistinct, the layers blending. For a moment she did not even know if he was happy to have reached her. “I really missed you.”

  “I missed you too.” It felt foreign to use Mazespaak again.

  “I kept thinking about you.”

  “I kept thinking about you too.” His feelings were so intense, she felt guilty for not quite sharing them. Of course she had missed him, but she had had her mind on so many other things. “I have a lot to tell you.”

  “Where is your ship now?”

  “Still making our way through the archipelago.”

  “The usual route from the north?”

  “That is where the wind blows in the spring.”

  “I thought I’d commandeer Contare’s ship and come out to meet you.”

  That seemed odd. Was it odd, to not wait for someone to return from a journey? She supposed she had heard of people who traveled an hour down the road to send a loved one on his way. But returning? “The captain said we should be there in another day or so.”

  “I really want to see you.” Suddenly anxious, he added, “Is it all right? Can I meet you?”

  “Yes,” she sent with an affectionate laugh. “Yes. I look forward to it.”

  “Were you asleep?” he asked, now anxious about that. “Did I wake you?”

  “No. I have not been able to sleep much.”
>
  “I’m sorry.”

  Yes, the constant apologizing. She had forgotten about that. “I will be fine.”

  “I’ll send to you this afternoon to see how far apart we are. Just make sure your captain tells you if he changes his route for some reason.”

  Was he breaking contact already? She had so much to tell him, and no reason to wait. “Are you leaving right now?”

  “Yes. Well, within the hour. The ship’s mostly ready. I’ll call to you later, all right?”

  Why would Contare’s ship be ready to leave? Graegor must have already asked to borrow it, a day or two ago. “That would be fine.”

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Soon.”

  Normally he waited for her to break contact, but this time he did it himself, leaving her confused as she lay in her hammock under the lamp. From the deck, she could hear the muffled talk of the sailors, and on the other side of the bulkhead, the sea water rushed by. The grey light between the curtains had grown brighter, but it was still quiet in the cabin, all her magi asleep.

  Something was wrong. Graegor had missed her, and he wanted to talk to her. She was sure of that. But one more day was not a long time to wait after an entire month. Why did he want to sail out here and meet her before she got back? Why had he cut off their conversation?

  He did not like to argue by telepathy. They sometimes had disagreements, as any couple did, and if one began when they were not together, he would either back down and change the subject, or he would ask to join her wherever she was so that they could talk.

  He wanted to talk now. Which meant it might lead to an argument.

  What had happened while she was gone?

  Tabitha’s mind reached for the tiny polished pebble that was her connection to Velinda. It was even smaller and fainter than usual, especially after Graegor’s all-encompassing warmth, and for a long moment Tabitha worried that Velinda was too far away. She needed to determine once and for all where the telepathic thresholds lay for each of her friends, both when they were trying to reach her and when she was trying to reach them. Magus Uchsin had said those would be different, since she was a sorceress and could make a connection from further away.