by Kova, Elise
“Now, we’re going to the West Clinic today, right?”
“Looks like.”
Together, they set off into the brisk spring dawn.
Ice still clustered around gutters and hung from awnings, sparkling like magic given form in the early morning light. Alyss’s breath plumed before her like a chimney in the cold. But Eira’s was invisible.
Eira closed her eyes, imagining for just a second that she was the spirit of winter itself. She was the crisp air. She lived in the snow banks. Her heart was buried deep, deep in the icy blue of the frost-covered peaks of the mountains that surrounded her.
“Spring can’t come fast enough,” Alyss muttered from under her scarf.
“Winter can’t hold on long enough.” Eira sighed contentedly, stretching her arms high overhead.
“You’re crazy.”
“So they tell me.”
“Lucky for you, I like crazy.” Alyss hooked her elbow with Eira’s. “Now, you didn’t tell me.” She held out the book. “Hear anything?”
“It’s not something I can command…” Smother at best. “You know that.”
“That’s because you don’t try and command it. You just suppress and sink into your ‘ocean.’”
“Because I’d rather not hear the whispers.” And there was no sound in the bubble of water Eira imagined herself within.
Alyss sighed dramatically. “You have a gift and you do nothing with it. So it falls on me to encourage you. Just hold the book and see if you can make it talk?” Alyss pressed the book into Eira’s hands. “Anything?”
Eira turned it over and flipped through the pages. Despite Alyss’s enthusiasm, she kept her magic bundled away. “No, it’s quiet.”
“Damn.” Alyss took the book back and shoved it into her bag, fitting it amongst the salves and potions that she was carrying to the clinic. “One day I’ll find something truly special for you to listen to.”
“I hope not.”
“You have a gift,” she repeated. As if Eira would suddenly agree on the one millionth time.
“I have a curse.”
“Stop being so down.” Alyss jostled her lightly. “It’s positively frigid out here. I know you can’t scowl when it’s this bloody cold.”
Eira cracked a smile. Then, it fell. “There was something, earlier…”
“What?”
…kill the sovereign… That was what the voice had said. A voice as cold as winter’s midnight. Eira shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“I know when it’s something, now tell me.”
“I ran into Noelle and Adam by the Waterrunner’s storeroom.” It was at least partially the truth.
“Oh, Mother above, no doubt mashing faces.” Alyss scowled, and proceeded to rant on something Adam had done during one of her history classes the entire walk to the clinic.
The West Clinic was a three-story structure located on what Eira considered to be the center level of Solarin. There were two others in the city, but this was the largest and always the busiest by default. It was where new clerics were trained in the arts of potions and salves, and Groundbreakers assisted them. It was also where Waterrunners, like her, studied how to use their magic to help the dying transition into the next world.
For every five non-magical people flooding in and out of the clinic—Commons, as they were called in the Tower—Eira saw one sorcerer.
Sorcerers were easy to spot for two reasons. The first being that most, like Eira and Alyss, wore black robes of varying styles depending on their rank and type of elemental affinity. The second being that Commons would take wide steps to avoid being in a sorcerer’s path.
Eira and Alyss entered through the main lobby, but stopped off in a side room, where they prepared for the day. They both tied masks over their faces and covered their hands with thick gloves before bidding each other goodbye. However, before Eira left, she couldn’t help but notice even Alyss had more people on her list than she did.
Sighing, Eira tucked her hair behind her ears and forced herself to focus. She may be the runt, the outcast, the weird one…but these people still needed what comforts she could bring. She looked at the first name on the list, cross-checked it against a cleric’s ledger, and then proceeded to a room in the far back wing where all activity was hushed by the presence of death itself.
Eira drifted from room to room, her magic at service to the people of the Solaris Empire. It had been the idea of the empress, they said, to make sorcerers at the behest of the people. To make use of magic beyond times of war and bring it into the sun from the shadowed corners and back alleys sorcerers had been repressed into for as long as time was counted in the Empire.
The tools of her trade were simple—a bowl and some wooden tokens. Eira would fill the bowl with water and then place the token at its center. Using her magic, she could record the words of the sick into the token and turn it into a vessel for his or her family to listen to later, just in case the worst befell them.
When Eira was finished, she returned to the Tower alone. Alyss would take at least double the amount of time. As a Groundbreaker, she was actually trying to heal the people. She could do that much. All Eira functioned as was an assistant to a friend she knew well—death.
Eira wandered the empty halls. Classes were in session and the sorcerers who weren’t attending were out in the city. People were tired of being cooped up, and they were eager for spring.
… I can’t believe… I’ll get him back…
… Prince Baldair is dead…
Eira paused at the familiar voice. The Tower Library was unassuming in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the back windows. It was completely silent—just her and the murmurs.
“Who are you…were you?” Eira whispered, taking a step inside. A tendril of magic reached out through the air without her permission, grasping, searching. Seeking that familiar voice that she’d heard so many times in these halls.
For the first time, Eira didn’t try and stop her magic. She dared to let her power wander, as Alyss would encourage, just to see what it would find.
…All of this…end very soon… The voice whispered from somewhere across space and time.
Eira paused by the back windows, looking out over the city.
Someone had been here. Someone immensely powerful. Someone with magic strong enough to imprint their words onto the very fibers of the cushions, or the stone of the walls, without even realizing it. Unintentional vessels, such things were called, and they were regarded as being highly uncommon.
Eira had tried to tell her teacher otherwise once and was reprimanded. Her theory on unintentional vessels being far more common than anyone realized—if you knew how to listen for them—was of the many things she now kept silent on.
“That reminds me…” Eira started back up the Tower, pausing at the storeroom across from the Waterrunners’ workroom. Instruction echoed out through the cracked door. She used one particularly zealous order to hide the soft squeal of the storeroom’s hinges as she slipped inside.
Luckily, Noelle and Adam were off elsewhere. Eira did a quick round of the dusty shelves. A single bulb of glass—a flame magically hovering within—danced with the long shadows cast by Watterunner tools.
“All right, Alyss. Fine. Let’s see if you’re right. If this is really a gift.” Eira gathered her courage and asked the air, “Who were you trying to kill?”
…just imagine, Emperor Solaris… the icy voice from earlier whispered as if in reply.
Eira spun, heart racing. She wasn’t used to the voices replying. The traces of magic were ornery things, difficult to pin down in the best of times. They spoke to her on their terms, never on hers.
Or, maybe Alyss was right. Maybe she’d never really tried.
“When?” Silence. “When?” Was there a plot to kill the emperor? Her heart was in her throat now. Surely no one would—
No one knows about this place…our secret…The voice was fainter, vanishing. Eira could almost
feel the ghost of the woman with the icy tones passing through her and heading…no, that couldn’t be right…heading to the back corner of the room?
Eira scattered the cobwebs and dragged her fingers through years of dust along a groove she had never noticed in the back corner. It was half-hidden by a shelf and a barrel. There, concealed by the shadow of an alcove, was a small handle. She gripped it and tugged. Then pushed.
Just when Eira was about to give up, unseen hinges groaned. She pushed harder. The door released at once, swinging open.
Eira went head-over heels and toppled into a secret chamber.
2
Coughing dust, Eira pushed her hair from her eyes and tried to get her bearings. The storeroom door latch disengaging drew her attention to the room she’d come from. Jumping to her feet, Eira grabbed the hidden door and snapped it shut before anyone else could see her…or her discovery.
She leaned against the door, holding her breath and listening. Supplies clanked in the other room as the person rummaged around the Waterrunner supplies. Eira prayed to the Mother above that they didn’t notice the door as she had—that she hadn’t left behind some clue as to its existence. The rummaging stopped and Eira bit her lower lip, bracing herself to hold the door closed if the person tried to open it. There was the rumbling of the storeroom door slamming shut and then…silence.
Eira exhaled slowly and wiped the hair from her face. It fell out of the loose knot she’d tied half of it into. The wispy strands hung limply between her fingers as she tried to tame them back into place.
Speaking of out of place…where was she?
Straightening, Eira took in the room for the first time. It reminded her of a Tower apprentice’s dormitory, simple and relatively unadorned. A bed, a desk, a bookshelf with some crumbling journals stacked on it. The remnants of a pennon clung to the stone wall. The majority of the fibers had long since given up and were now a heap of cotton on the floor.
“Who lived here?” Eira dared to ask—dared the room to answer.
…I will…the best they’ve ever known… the siren voice that had guided her in here answered.
Eira looked to the bookshelf. The voice had come from one of the books on the top shelf. Delicately, she hooked one with her index finger and pulled it down. By some miracle, it didn’t crumble in her hands.
Placing it on the desk, Eira slowly opened what turned out to be a journal. There was no name on the book; whoever had been its author had taken care not to give any indication of who they were. Eira could see why within the first five pages.
“Vicious,” she whispered, mostly in horror as she lingered on one particularly drawn-out instruction. But part of her, a dark, cold, and wretched place that she had chosen to ignore for the past two years, was impressed.
Laid out neatly on the page, void of judgment or emotion, was the start of what appeared to be clear instructions on how to completely freeze a person solid. Some Waterrunner had gone to great lengths, or very illegal experimentations—likely both, given the detail—to show how it could be done so that the person was frozen in stasis. They would be neither alive nor dead, completely trapped.
“Unless they’re a Firebearer, of course,” Eira mused, and then promptly shook her head. She shut the book and put her back to it. The deep currents within her stirred at the writings. Currents she needed to keep still.
As Eira worked to void her mind, she noticed the bookcase was slightly ajar. Pressing her face into the sliver of darkness, Eira confirmed her suspicion—fresh air and damp earth lay beyond. Eira pulled, revealing an opening. No, it was more of a crack in the wall that led into a rough-hewn passage. Eira couldn’t tell how far it went from here. But judging from the icy air, it progressed deep within the mountain the city and palace were built on, around, and in.
There were many hidden passages in the palace. Eira herself knew of a good few being a part of the Tower of Sorcerers. Most of the entrances and exits to the Tower were hidden in plain sight from the Commons who worked and lived in the palace.
But this didn’t look like any of the usual passages. The walls looked like they were naturally formed. And there were no flame-bulbs illuminating their depths. As such, she could only see a short distance before the unknown was consumed by the void.
“Just who were you?” Eira asked again. But this time, silence was her only reply.
She returned to the journal, curiosity daring her to open it once more. Her mind objected. But her hand disobeyed. She flipped back open to the page on freezing people solid and began reading.
The day dragged on and the pages slowly turned a deep orange with the fading light. Eira blinked, rubbed her eyes, and looked out the window. The sun already hung low in the sky. She was so accustomed to the flame bulbs that lit the majority of the Tower, constantly lending their glow, that the darkening of this forgotten chamber was an oddity.
She muttered a curse under her breath. Time never moved faster than when she was engrossed. Pressing her ear to the door that connected this secret room with the Waterrunner storeroom, Eira listened closely. She heard muffled voices and footsteps. There was a brief thundering of what sounded like a group running by.
Running to dinner, likely. Classes for younger apprentices and those not sent out to the city for the day, like her, would be ending for the afternoon. She needed to slip out now or risk someone catching her in the workroom while she exited.
Gathering her courage, Eira said a prayer and opened the door. She squeezed around the large barrel and pulled the door shut behind her. Scanning the room, Eira looked for something else she could use to obscure the opening. Something that people wouldn’t notice was out of place. Something like…a large bag of wooden tokens.
Grunting, Eira hefted the bag, placing it on the barrel. It obscured the small opening where the handle was hidden. But would it be enough? Now that Eira knew a door was there, it was all she saw. How had she never noticed it before? Surely, someone would now—
The door to the storeroom swung open. “Eira?” Marcus blinked at her. “Did you just get back, too?”
“Oh, yes,” she lied to her brother. Something Eira didn’t usually make a habit of because it was dangerously easy. He believed every word that came out of her mouth. “I finished earlier, of course, but I took a walk around the city.” As Eira spoke, she placed her bowl and leftover tokens on the shelves.
“You do like taking walks on frosty days.” He chuckled and began putting away his leftover supplies as well. Of course, he had much less than her. Eira watched him from the corner of her eye. “What is it?”
“Do you…notice anything different?” Eira dared to ask. She had to know if the door was as obvious to someone else as it was to her.
“Different?” Marcus faced her, hands on his hips. “Oh, you took your hair down. I like it.”
“That’s…that’s right. Yes.” Eira raked her fingers through her hair, making sure none of the dust or cobwebs from the room she’d spent half the day in were caked on her scalp.
“In any case, I’m headed to dinner. Want to come with?”
“I really should try and catch up with Alyss.” Eira laced her fingers tightly. She had half a mind to grab some candles and hunker in the room for the rest of the night. There were at least eight more journals for her to work through. And the tunnel to explore.
“Alyss was still at the clinic when I left.”
“I didn’t think you were sent to the West Clinic today?”
“They called me in last minute to help with pain management during a procedure and I had time.” Marcus smiled.
Pain management… That meant her brother had already been taught by someone—their uncle, likely—how to use his magic to cool flesh without damage, enough to make it numb.
“When did you learn how to do that?” Eira dared to ask, wishing her voice would cooperate and be stronger while she did it.
“Oh…” He paused. His shoulders slumped a bit and he ran a hand through his mop of hair. Gui
lty, every movement he made screamed guilty. “I suppose a year ago?”
“A year ago? When you were supposed to graduate the Tower?” Apprentices usually graduated at twenty. But Marcus had turned twenty last year and was still an apprentice for some inexplicable reason.
“Yeah, around then, I think. Maybe that’s why Uncle taught me. He knew I should have graduated and could’ve learned then.”
“He taught an apprentice,” Eira murmured.
“I’m sure he’ll teach you soon.” Marcus rested a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, bird-blue eyes, don’t look so down. Give your brother a smile.”
Eira forced a smile as she doubted Fritz would teach her anything.
She followed Marcus down the Tower, just behind him, in his shadow, as was her place. Marcus was the star. He was the Waterrunner who shone, the one who was always in control. He helped the young apprentices and teachers alike. He was a healthy blend of academic and practical.
And she…she was…there. Always just a step out of the spotlight.
But if she actually got into the spotlight, what would she do? She didn’t know. It was a question she’d posed many a night, alone in her room, and still didn’t have an answer to. Some people were made to be loved and doted on. Others weren’t.
Being in the shadow might make it easier if she ever did try to slip away. Those late and lonely nights usually set her mind to wandering across the sea to the Crescent Continent. She’d fantasize about striking out and making a life for herself there. She’d wonder how easy it would be to stow away onto a trading galley. Surely a few of the sailors she’d met as a girl in Oparium were still on the seas…
“Marcus?” Eira paused at the entrance to the dining hall. In a circular, central room of the Tower, apprentices and teachers alike gathered around tables, clustered in conversation. The smell of freshly baked bread and roast hog filled the air. “Aren’t we—”
“We just have a quick stop to make first.”
“Where?” Her heart sank.
“We’re getting Cullen from the training grounds. I promised—”
