A Trial of Sorcerers: Book One

by Kova, Elise

  They finally came to a stop outside an unfamiliar door.

  “The study you mentioned, I believe it’s right down the hall,” Deneya whispered and pointed.

  “I have no interest in going back there.” The darkness thickened down the passage, obscuring her vision beyond shafts of moonlight with a sinister edge.

  “I thought not.” Deneya produced a key from her pocket, unlocked the door, and ushered them both inside.

  Eira did a turn about the room. She wanted it to seem more nefarious. She wanted there to be maps and writings of Ferro’s plot strewn about. She wanted to see daggers and implements of torture littered around stacks of dark literature.

  But everything was so very…benign.

  The dresser, bed, chair, and desk were all what she would expect of Solaris nobility—stately, gilded, crafted from cherry with an impeccable hand. The linens were freshly pressed and tucked around the bed. Ferro was fastidious with everything else; it only served he would be about his chambers, too. There was a quilt that was stitched with symbols resembling Lightspinning, a closed chest at the foot of the bed, and a locked lap desk set out on the dresser. They were the room’s only personal touches.

  “I already did a preliminary sweep, but he tidied up well.” Deneya folded her arms and leaned against the door. “I didn’t find anything suspicious. But perhaps you’ll hear something my eyes missed.”

  Eira glanced over her shoulder and nodded. Taking a deep breath, she braced herself. No matter if she found something useful or not, she had no doubt she was about to hear Ferro’s voice. She packed the ice around her heart and swore that she’d never let it feel again. She’d never let her heart dictate whom she trusted. From this moment on, it wasn’t in control, it wouldn’t guide her.

  On her exhale, she imagined her magic filling the room. Tiny crystals of ice sparkled in the moonlight, each an anchor for her power. The room sparkled with her malice—a shining sea of hate—and Eira steeped every item with her magic.

  She turned first to the bed, inviting it to speak with her.

  Turn down… I can do it… Thank you kindly… Snippets of conversations drifted through her mind. Every one was a harmless discussion with what sounded like palace staff. She hadn’t expected the bed to yield much and that was part of why she’d started there.

  But even though the conversations didn’t yield much, they still hurt to listen to. Ferro’s voice was an arrow to her temples. It sparked searing pain that nearly made her ill. The warm sounds she’d heard in the study contrasted against the man charging for her in the night—the man who’d tried to kill her.

  When she had her composure, she turned to the chest. It also had little information to give her and Eira pulled up the latch, opening it. The fact that Deneya had yet to move from the door or say anything to stop her was all the permission Eira needed to rummage through Ferro’s effects.

  A tunic was particularly chatty, the echo of some woman bidding him farewell during what Eira assumed was a going away party back on Meru. She listened for anything that could give her a clue, but there was nothing. The conversation danced around concrete topics. Every discussion he had seemed to be a carefully edited script.

  Eira went to the lap writing desk last. She pulled it off the dresser and placed it on the bed. The tiny fractals of ice in the room moved around her as though they were drifting in invisible currents.

  Lifting the top to reveal the main compartment, Eira found exactly what one would expect—three quills, two ink bottles, and a stack of blank parchment. Right when she was about to close it, the faintest whisper drifted toward her.

  Yes, everything is going according to plan, Ferro said in hushed tones. There was a long pause, and then he continued. No, they suspect nothing. Though Deneya might be a problem. Another pause. Yes, the Court of Shadows is no doubt onto us. But we will stay one step ahead. They are no longer in control of Risen.

  Eira touched the various objects in the writing desk. When her fingers met the middle of the three unassuming quills, Ferro’s words were louder and clearer.

  Once the treaty is dismantled, we can step into the void created by the ensuing chaos. The people will be starved for leadership they can trust. It will be your glorious return. Then, we will purge the heretics and any associations with them. We will—yes…yes, Father, I know.

  A bitter laugh escaped her.

  “What is it?” Deneya asked.

  “Everything he said to me was a lie.” Eira picked up the quill, twirling it in her fingers and, for the moment, silencing the words. “He said he was an orphan, like me.”

  “He was.” Deneya shifted off the door. “At least…according to the best information I could find. What did you hear?”

  “I’m not sure, but I believe this is one of your communication tokens.” Eira held out the quill. “What is it? Narro hath?”

  “Indeed.” Deneya approached, the fragments of ice shifting around her. “Why do you believe this to be a token?”

  “I’ve only read about them in books, but I hear a lot of conversation from this item—as if Ferro was speaking to it. But I can’t hear any other voices. If it’s a communication token someone else has, then it makes sense I’d only be hearing half of the conversation.”

  “Such an unassuming object.” Deneya scowled, taking the quill from Eira and turning it over in her hands. “I would never suspect this thing to be a communication token. Usually, people keep their tokens on them. But perhaps he realized that would be too suspicious. Or if he was caught, we’d confiscate everything important-looking, and he assumed this would be discarded.”

  “Seems likely.”

  “What did you hear?” Deneya asked. Eira quickly recounted the brief conversation as she listened intently. “That’s all?”

  “For now, yes. I’ve only begun trying to actively use this power recently. Perhaps there are more layers I could peel back and get more snippets of conversation. But for now, that’s all I’ve heard.”

  “Heretics,” Deneya murmured, repeating Ferro’s word with a deepening frown. She snapped out of her thoughts, looking to Eira. “Well, you have been useful. I’ll take you back now before anyone finds you missing.”

  “Wait.” Eira stopped Deneya before she could open the door. The magic of the room vanished as she released it. “I can be more useful if you let me. I’m the last Waterrunner; I’ll be going to Meru.”

  Deneya played with the end of the quill in thought. “Do you know what you’re asking?”

  “I’m asking for the opportunity to avenge my brother.” Eira leveled her eyes with the elfin’s. “Whoever did this, I want to make them pay. I want to see Ferro brought to justice. Meru has called to me my whole life, perhaps for this purpose and perhaps for another.” Had Ferro’s claims about Adela and Eira’s possible bloodline to the elfin been a lie as well? Eira no longer believed it at face value, certainly. But she knew one place that might have the truth—the Archives of Yargen. And if not there, the Court of Shadows.

  “You still want to go to Meru, after what happened to you?” Deneya arched her eyebrows.

  “Yes. And I want to help the Court of Shadows.”

  The elfin slowly stalked over to her, as much shadow as solid. A grin slipped onto her lips. “You still think I’m part of the Court of Shadows, do you?”

  “I know you are,” Eira said without hesitation. “And that makes you my best chance at revenge.”

  “If you come into my world…there’s no going back.”

  “There’s nothing keeping me here.” She’d killed Marcus. Even if her family would forgive her for the actions she’d unknowingly taken that had led to his death, there was no way they would ever look past the fact that she couldn’t save him when it had mattered most. Eira had taken her parents’ son. How could she hope to ever look them in the eyes again without, at the very least, bringing to justice the man—and organization—responsible?

  Deneya’s eyes shone in the darkness. But whatever thoughts pro
mpted the contemplative expression, she kept them from Eira. “Very well. Come to Meru and the Court of Shadows might just have a use for a woman of your talents.”

  * * *

  She spent six days alone in the Imperial quarters. The same servant came in and out to attend to her needs—an elderly woman who was no doubt more loyal to Solaris than her own self interests. But the woman never made conversation. She never answered Eira’s questions about the world beyond and what was happening. She muttered reassurances: “Trust the crown,” she’d say, and then leave.

  Eira’s thoughts were dangerous companions to be left alone with. She went over the night with Deneya time and again to remind herself that it was real. But the more she dissected it and picked those hours apart, word by word, the more it all seemed like a dream. Something about late-night meetings with elfin was too unbelievable to be real. And, just like with Ferro, she had no token to substantiate her moonlit memories come dawn.

  Deneya never returned, of course. One or two days, Eira stayed up way too late to see if she visited in the night to check in. But if Deneya did, she left no trace.

  It was the lack of Fritz, or Grahm, or Gwen that really began to eat away at her. Surely, they were busy. Fritz was likely drowning in managing the crisis that followed apprentices dying. Grahm was helping him. And Gwen was overseeing the palace guard at the empress’s order.

  But…couldn’t they stop in just for a little?

  Her logical protests against the insecure portions of her mind grew weaker by the day. It was becoming all too easy to object to the notion that they’d ever loved her. They were so eager to cast her aside when she finally showed her true colors. This was their chance to finally be rid of her.

  No! her heart would try and object. But Eira was done listening to her heart. She’d risked it with Adam, then with Ferro.

  Never again.

  On the morning of the seventh day, the same elderly servant appeared with a bundle of clothes and announced, “I’m going to take you back to the Tower now, dear.”

  Eira dressed and followed the woman out of the Imperial halls, secret passages once more—different ones from those Deneya took—until they got to a normal servant’s thoroughfare.

  “I know where I am.” Eira adjusted the Tower robes on her shoulders. The candidate pin was affixed to them once more. She had her freedom and her title as competitor—Yemir had lost. “I can go from here.”

  “I was told to take you to the entrance.” She was insistent and Eira was too tired to object further. They came to a stop by an illusioned passage, the entrance shrouded with magic to look like the stone walls on either side of the tunnel. “There will be someone waiting for you on the other side.”

  “Thank you, for everything,” Eira tried to say with sincerity, though it was so easy to resent the woman for withholding information at every turn.

  “It’s my duty to the crown.” She bowed and left.

  Eira slipped through the illusion into a dim passage. At the far end was a woman with thick braids cascading down her back. A woman Eira ran to.

  “Eira!” Alyss planted her feet and stood firm as Eira crashed into her. Their arms wrapped around each other in crushing grips. “Thank the Mother you were finally cleared. I prayed every night. I heard they had you in a cell. How bad was it?”

  Alyss had believed the lies spread by the emperor and empress: that Eira had been held as a suspect but declared innocent on investigation. She opened her mouth and shut it before she could tell Alyss everything. She might, eventually, but now wasn’t the time.

  “It was…very lonely.” Eira continued to hold her friend, inhaling deeply the familiar and comforting scent of the lotions and perfumes Alyss used.

  “I can imagine… Marcus, he… I went to the Rite of Sunset for him.”

  “You did?” Eira yanked herself away to meet Alyss’s dark eyes.

  “Yes. I would’ve regardless, but when I found out they weren’t letting you attend, I had to go.” Alyss smiled sadly. “I said a prayer on your behalf.”

  “Alyss, I do not deserve you.” Eira pulled her friend close once more.

  “After all you’ve been through, you deserve someone far better.” Alyss gave her a final squeeze but Eira was reluctant to let her go. “I saw your parents there.”

  “My parents?” News had certainly traveled quickly. “Did they…did you speak to them?” Eira asked awkwardly. Hope tightened her chest. Though she didn’t know what she was hoping for.

  “I didn’t. It…didn’t seem like the time.” Alyss frowned.

  “Right, of course,” Eira mumbled. Fritz, Grahm, and Gwen had visited with her, briefly. Couldn’t her parents have come? Had they wanted to?

  Alyss took her hand. “We should go; your uncle is waiting.”

  Fritz was the last person Eira wanted to see, especially after the torment her mind had delighted in creating about her family for the past few days. But she knew she had no reason to object. So Eira followed Alyss dutifully back into the main spiral of the Tower.

  Other apprentices stopped and stared as she passed. Eira heard whispers fluttering around her like small birds, ready to pick at her weary mind. They regarded her with skeptical glances and a few with outwardly hostile stares.

  Cullen had been right. Everyone saw her as having a motive to get rid of her competition. Suddenly her known obsession with Meru was a liability. These people—her peers—thought she would kill them to get across the sea. They thought she would actually kill her brother for it.

  Though, he wasn’t her brother. Perhaps that rumor had finally leaked somewhere and begun to spread too. Maybe, to all of them, she looked like a raging, orphaned child, shunned and cast out, seeking to take vengeance on a family she’d never belonged to.

  Eira kept her eyes forward and her mouth shut. She didn’t trust what she might say if she opened it.

  “I’ll be reading in my room. So when you’re done, if you want company, come and find me,” Alyss said as they came to a stop in front of Fritz’s door.

  “Thank you,” Eira said. What she really wanted to do was beg Alyss not to leave. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “You better. I missed you.” Alyss squeezed her hands and took a step away, waiting. Intentionally or not, her presence gave no room for Eira to run.

  Ready or not, she had to face her uncle.

  He was behind the desk, silently motioning to the seat in front of him. Eira shut the door and sat in her usual spot. The chair next to her—the one Marcus would fill—was painfully empty.

  Eira broke the silence. “I’ve gathered I’m no longer a suspect?”

  “In the eyes of the crown, and thus the senate? Yes. But there are many still skeptical of you.” He sighed. “But, more importantly, how have you been?”

  “Fine,” she lied.

  “I know that can’t be true.”

  “You would’ve seen it if you came to visit me,” Eira said casually. She’d practiced this conversation in her head.

  “I had matters to attend to that I couldn’t ignore—for your sake as well. None of us could risk coming to you and having it be discovered that you were no longer in that horrible cell.”

  “Thank you for your efforts on my behalf.” Eira gripped the armrests of the chair lightly, bracing herself. “Did my parents make any efforts to come and see me?”

  “I just said it wasn’t possible.” Fritz frowned and his eyes held a heavy sadness.

  “Did they try and send a letter?” she asked. His silence told her the answer, but Eira pressed anyway. “Did they leave any message with you?”

  “No.”

  One word, spoken so calmly, had never been so loud. Fritz said nothing else on the matter, but Eira didn’t need him to. Her parents had written her off. And how could she blame them? After how she’d acted over the past few months, the revelation, Marcus’s death?

  Eira expected it to hurt more. But any chance of feeling pain had been drowned in the ocean of numbness that she was
sinking deeper and deeper into by the day. They stared at each other for a long minute, neither saying anything.

  “Is there anything else, Uncle?”

  “Yes, I need to go over the next steps for you.” His eyes dropped to the pin on her robes. “In light of the incidents, the fifth trial will not be happening. There aren’t any Waterrunners left as candidates, save for you. However, one of your instructors has said he’s willing to take your place.”

  “You…you’re still expecting me to drop out?” Eira asked, incredulous. Her hand covered the pin, as if shielding it from his grasp.

  “Eira…” He trailed off, staring at her. Was he somehow, honestly shocked she’d still want to go? Eira thought it’d be obvious. “Please, don’t do this.”

  “I’m going,” Eira said calmly, even though she wanted to scream at him for even thinking of asking this of her after all that happened.

  “I know how you must feel. This has been hard for you—for all of us.”

  “You don’t have the slightest idea of how I feel.”

  He ignored the remark. “Your family has had enough heartbreak. I can’t sit here and send you off to Meru after…after Marcus’s death. We love you and want you safe, here, with us.”

  “I must go.” And Marcus’s death was precisely the reason.

  “This isn’t the time to be selfish.”

  “I’m doing this to see that the men who killed my brother are brought to justice.”

  “Men?”

  “Man,” Eira corrected quickly. Fritz didn’t know about the organization behind all of this. The fact filled Eira with a strange sense of power and duty. “I have to go.”

  “What do you honestly think you can do?” Her uncle looked down on her, even still.

  “Whatever I can.”

  “Your parents have lost one child. They need you. I need you. I’m sorry for the transgressions you feel I’ve committed against you. I’m not perfect, none of us are, but we’re trying.” The ghost of the surrogate father she’d once known him as passed over him. The sight of it nearly broke a part of her heart somehow still intact. But Eira banished it with a silent reminder of everything he’d done the past few months—every time he had held her back or stepped in her way. “Don’t leave now, please.”