by Rin Grey
Again Melana and Jarkarl exchanged glances, this time slightly worried. “You need to ask Jocelyn,” Melana repeated.
And that, much to her frustration, was all she could get out of them.
They had plenty of other questions for her of course, despite refusing to answer hers. As Melana interrogated her about anything and everything, Elizabeth continued to walk around the room, looking at the objects on the shelves.
As she was trying to explain how she’d created the force field to shield the camp on her trip to Anyir, she idly ran her hands along a shelf of books. There must have been forty or fifty of them, all with almost identical leather covers.
She broke off mid-sentence, staring at them.
“Elizabeth?” Melana asked after a few moments of silence. “What is it?”
Elizabeth carefully pulled one of the ancient looking volumes from the middle of the collection off the shelf and turned it over in her hands. Something about the book tugged at her mind, although she had no idea why this book, rather than any of the others.
For some reason, it felt familiar. Not just the look of it, but even the feel and the smell, like she’d held this book in her hands every day. A strange feeling of déjà vu hit her, disorientating her.
“Where did these come from?” she asked distractedly. She glanced at the rest of the books on the shelf and noted that they were the same except for the numbers on their spine. Someone had arranged them in order, although there were a few volumes missing.
Melana and Jarkarl exchanged glances. “They’ve been in the Salinga family for years. They’re journals, written by ancient generations of Salinga women,” Melana said eventually.
Elizabeth nodded and turned her attention back to the book. After turning it over in her hands a couple of times, she opened it.
Or attempted to.
But it wouldn’t open. It was like someone had stuck all the pages together, and then glued the cover to that. She looked up to find Melana and Jarkarl watching her in amusement.
“We’ve tried to open them. They’re all stuck like that,” Melana said with a grin. “It’s something to do with magic. We’ve even managed to open one or two of them, but each one uses a different type of magic.”
Elizabeth nodded, only half listening. Something tickled at the back of her mind. Almost without thinking, she twisted a little of her own magical energy and eased it into the book.
It sprang open in her hands.
Melana and Jarkarl stared at her in disbelief, but she didn’t notice them.
The pages inside were in perfect condition, not showing their age as the outside was. The magic that had sealed the book must have protected it as well.
An elaborate, flowing script, again achingly familiar, filled up the pages, and automatically Elizabeth began to read…
It is all happening just as he said it would.
Today was the first. We watched it, safe up here far away from it all.
The young man throwing magic around him wildly, as though trying to strike some unseen force, was enough to silence all my doubts.
What have I done?
I have no solutions for what is about to pass, yet I criticized Sean for agreeing with his father on the only solution anyone has proposed.
Here I am, safe from the confusion and terror, my mind and body protected by Naucelis, and I had had the temerity to tell Sean that what they planned to do to save themselves was morally wrong.
I considered it wrong enough that I chose to leave him. To leave him and all those innocent people to this.
How I wish I could tell him. I can feel his own fear and worry through the bond, but no matter how hard I try, I don’t think I can ever convey my guilt for my own actions.
While I still cannot condone their choices, and I still wish they had searched for another way, I can no longer believe that they aren’t acting out of desperation.
What is to come will be terrible and tragic. And I can do nothing but watch. Naucelis tells me that it is too dangerous for me to leave now, that I must wait here until it is over.
I only hope there is a world left then.
And that I can find my love, and hope against hope that he forgives me.
“Elizabeth? Elizabeth?”
When her attention was pulled roughly from the vibrant images her mind had created of the story, Elizabeth realised from the tone of Melana’s voice that this wasn’t the first time she had spoken.
Deliberately she looked away from the page in front of her and smiled slightly. “Sorry, this is… interesting…”
That was an understatement. She had been drawn into the page almost as if reliving a very clear memory. Was there more magic to this book than that which had protected it? She’d never seen, nor heard of, anything like it.
“How did you open it so quickly?” Melana asked.
Elizabeth looked at the cover of the book again and realised that she couldn’t even begin to explain it. In fact, she wasn’t even sure herself how she had opened it. She closed it again, but the magic didn’t reactivate and the book remained open and readable.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
The need to know the answer warred with Melana’s curiosity over the book itself.
Curiosity won. “What does it say?” she asked.
For some reason, Elizabeth was reluctant to hand the book over. She wanted to read more, to see if the rest of it was as vivid as the passage she’d read.
And at the same time it made her a little nervous, and not just because of the vivid imagery. The scene she’d seen awakened a deep fear in her, almost as if it had revealed a coming horror that she’d known about, but had forgotten.
Melana and Jarkarl were waiting expectantly, and the only thing Elizabeth was more reluctant to do than hand the book over, was explain her experience to them. So she handed it over, albeit reluctantly.
As Melana and Jarkarl poured over it, she wondered what had happened. She’d never known any kind of magic to produce an experience like that. It was almost as if she were remembering it, not reading it.
Despite the book not having described it, she knew that they were watching the horrific scene of the young mage in an ornate mirror in a silver frame, not through a window as one might have guessed from the text. She’d seen people fleeing the scene, their screams unheard through the mirror.
Every detail was so clear, even parts of the scene that hadn’t been described.
And she could feel the regret the writer felt for her choices as if it were her own. Perhaps even stronger than her own. It mingled with her own regrets and seemed almost to amplify them.
That, as much as the same name, made it easy to explain why she imagined the man in the story as Sean.
What didn’t make sense, though, was that even though she had imagined him as Sean, he had looked decidedly different. A shorter haircut, plainer clothes, and even his expressions were more open.
Everything else in the scene was so detailed, the imagery so vivid, and unlike anything she’d seen before. So why did her mind not create a suitably detailed image for the man called Sean?
She shook her head, confused. If she hadn’t had it drummed into her over years of training that magic couldn’t affect her mind, she might well have believed the effect had been created by some sort of magic.
She looked over at Jarkarl and Melana, who seemed unaffected, discussing the book in excitement.
“This is amazing,” Melana exclaimed. She looked up at Elizabeth. “We’ve spent hours trying to open each and every one of these books, yet it only took you minutes. How did you do it?
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth admitted honestly. “I just… opened it.”
Like I knew how, she wanted to add, but didn’t. Melana and Jarkarl wouldn’t understand. How could they, when she didn’t even understand it herself?
Melana jumped up, pulled out a book several volumes earlier and put it into Elizabeth’s hands. “Try this one.”
Elizabeth
stared down at the book. She could sense the magic in it, but not how it worked.
She waited for a moment, wondering if something would come to her like last time, but nothing did. It was just a book. Nothing like the other one.
She tried a few brief tricks to try to get around the magic, but with no luck. She shrugged. “I don’t know. This one is different. Given time I could probably open it, but not as quickly as that one.”
Jarkarl was studying the book, and for the first time since Elizabeth arrived, she saw a look of excitement in his eyes. “This is the first one we’ve opened that’s from the last cycle. There could be something really important in here.”
“The last cycle?” Elizabeth asked sharply. They couldn’t be referring to…
But they had to be. The writer had clearly had magic, and not just like Evelyn had. There had been widespread magic in the world, the man misusing it indicated that. And it just as clearly hadn’t been from this time. It stood to reason that the book was from a previous time of magic.
A thrill of excitement ran up her spine. She’d heard the theories plenty of times, but this was the first proof she’d ever seen that magic had existed in a previous time. She wanted to snatch the journal back and read more.
She half wanted to discuss it with Sean, but that could mean admitting she saw the man as him, and she didn’t want to know how he’d react to that.
Melana and Jarkarl exchanged glances again, and Melana said, “Perhaps it’s time you went and talked to Jocelyn.”
Elizabeth looked at them, but it was clear they weren’t going to tell her anything more. Perhaps Jocelyn might be more forthcoming. She doubted it, but it couldn’t hurt to try.
“I think you’re right,” she agreed, and stood up.
“But you’ll come back tomorrow and help us with the rest of the books, won’t you?” Melana said quickly.
Elizabeth laughed. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away,” she assured them.
As she left, they were both bent over the book again.
Jarkarl had turned to the first page and said in his gruff voice, “It says Bethany Salinga. Where is she on our family tree?”
As Melana turned to pull out a book from behind her, Elizabeth felt the same strange disorientation she had experienced while reading the book. As though the name had struck some memory in her mind, one she couldn’t bring to the surface, no matter how hard she tried.
*****
Jocelyn was waiting in her office, as she’d promised.
“So, exactly what is it you’re up to?” Elizabeth asked without preamble.
“You haven’t figured it out yet?”
Elizabeth sat back in her chair. “Oh, I can make a good guess. You’re looking for information about the cycle of magic. Maybe when it left the world and how long it was gone for. Maybe even why it left. What I find surprising is that you don’t already know whatever it is you’re trying to figure out.”
“You’re on the right track,” Jocelyn agreed. “Except that why would we have any more idea than you have? I thought the Dome knew everything about magic.”
Elizabeth considered her for a moment. The truth was, up until today, she’d thought the Dome mages knew more about magic than anyone outside the Dome, even after finding out about Evelyn’s magic.
Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Then again, there was every possibility some mages in the Dome, particularly Sean and the other princes, not to mention the king, knew more than they were going to share with her.
But she wasn’t going to say any of that to Jocelyn, especially when she was pretty sure her niece wasn’t telling her all she knew either. “Well, Evelyn did have magic long before the Dome was formed, didn’t she? So you must know something about it.”
Elizabeth bit her lip to prevent herself from blurting out the first thought that came to her mind, which was, how had Jocelyn managed to gain her position without having magic? Somehow, she suspected that would only get her off side, and reduce her chances of finding out anything.
Jocelyn hesitated for a moment, staring at Elizabeth appraisingly.
Despite her momentary inclination to say something sarcastic, Elizabeth kept her mouth shut. She was surprised to find she was actually interested in the answer.
“Not as much as we’d like,” Jocelyn answered eventually. “We know magic existed, but we have no idea what happened, why it disappeared, or how to stop it disappearing again for that matter.”
The journal passage came unbidden to Elizabeth’s mind. The madness, the screams of fear. She shuddered. “I think I may have inadvertently helped you with that one.”
“What do you mean?” Jocelyn asked sharply.
“I opened one of the journals.” When Jocelyn’s face remained blank, she clarified. “The Salinga Journals, the ones that are magically sealed.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t read much, but it was about some disaster. Some disaster that involved magic on a grand scale. And I don’t think it ended well.”
Jocelyn’s face went pale. She stood up. “I have to go and see to this immediately. Consider yourself dismissed for the day, Elizabeth.”
And without further discussion, she swiftly left the room, leaving Elizabeth with many puzzles to ponder and the hopes of finding some answers in the future.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be quite so dull working at the Salingas after all.
Chapter 9 - Fate
Elizabeth returned to the Salinga Estate the next morning, eager to get to work with Melana and Jarkarl on the journal. Her discomfort with the journal’s contents had faded away, leaving only an intense curiosity as to what else the pages said.
Even more surprising, Jocelyn’s words had inspired her too. If the Salingas had kept detailed records through all that time, then the answers to what had happened to the magic could be in there somewhere.
And, no doubt inspired by the horrific scene she’d imagined when she’d read the journal entry, she couldn’t help being concerned that the magic wasn’t going to go quietly. If there was some cataclysm coming, the more knowledge they had about it, the better.
Unfortunately, her curiosity was not to be satisfied. When she arrived, Melana told her apologetically that Jocelyn had said they weren’t to show her the journal, and no amount of ranting at Jocelyn or reminding her that she was the heir made any difference.
Instead, she spent the rest of the day, and many others like it, working on how to open the rest of the journals.
While that was fascinating in and of itself, the magical problems each being so different and complex that it took several days to open even one, it still did nothing to abate her curiosity about their contents.
Not that any of the others were like that first one. She glanced at their pages briefly when she opened them, before Melana and Jarkarl whisked them away, but not one sparked the same overwhelming cascade of images as the first. And none seemed to hint at anything other than normal, if magic filled, days.
Nonetheless, she continually found herself working late, determined to get just one more lock open or one more puzzle solved. Melana and Jarkarl worked at her side, as fascinated by the puzzles as she was.
Two weeks passed in this fashion, and at the end of the second week, Elizabeth had unlocked five more journals. Melana, Jarkarl, and even Jocelyn were over the moon.
She left work early on that Friday, and when she arrived home, Elizabeth was just plain exhausted. She lay down on the couch, intending just to close her eyes for a few minutes, since Gemma hadn’t even begun to start dinner.
It was dark when she woke, the oil lamps lit, and Digger was sitting on the arm of the couch, watching her, a grin on his face. “What’s wrong, Liz? Are you getting old or something?” he teased.
She sat up, disorientated, and ran her had groggily through her hair. “What happened?”
“You fell asleep. It’s all right though, your dinner didn’t go cold. I ate it.”
Elizabeth gave a half-hearte
d grin at his comment. “How long was I out?”
“I don’t know, a couple of hours?” Digger shrugged.
Elizabeth stood up, then abruptly sat back down again, overcome by a wave of nausea.
“Are you all right?” Digger’s concerned voice seemed distant.
“Yeah, I just… I guess I’ve been working too hard,” Elizabeth said in confusion. She was missing something. She had to be. Had one of the journals had some side effect she’d missed? Had she tripped some sort of magic?
“Well, I was kidding about the dinner. Gemma’s been keeping it warm for you. You’ll probably feel better if you eat. I’ll tell her to heat it up.” Digger glanced at her once more, worry on his face, but when she didn’t respond he stood and went into the kitchen.
Her head cleared in a few moments, and Elizabeth stood up. She’d been so engrossed in her work, she’d skipped lunch. She was probably just hungry.
She walked down the hallway and stepped into the doorway, and the smell of dinner hit her. Her stomach turned again, and she only just kept it under control.
Her hand to her mouth, her eyes met Digger’s across the room just as the answer hit her.
A flood of emotions washed through her. Fear, elation, desperation, and finally—hope.
She backed away, then fled out to the veranda, her heart thudding in her chest.
The cool night air settled her stomach some, but it was easy now that she knew the cause to use a flick of magic to settle it completely.
Her hands spread out across her abdomen, prying magically to confirm her guess. Even as she did so, her heart refused to believe. It wasn’t possible, was it?
But it was. Her search found the tiny, glowing sac, only a few weeks old, yet already pulsing rapidly with its own heartbeat.
For a moment her own heart stood still, and then sensation and thought returned with a rush of adrenaline. A baby. It was true. She was pregnant.
She was going to be a mother. Again.
She should be happy. This was what she had wanted for so long, a chance to prove to Sean that she could do this differently. A chance to undo all the mistakes she’d made last time and do things the way they should have been done.
