Shadow of a Slave (The Blood Mage Chronicles Book 1)

by Saffron Bryant

“Not yet…”

  “She won’t let you move up until you’ve learned control, and from what I hear, you haven’t quite mastered that.”

  Ash pushed out of his chair and paced the room. “So what if my lights are a little too bright sometimes? That doesn’t mean anything. We’ve spent weeks on heat to light; it’s a waste of time. I want to learn real channeling. Like healing.”

  Avarie shrugged and pulled herself higher in the chair, some color returned to her cheeks and her voice came out stronger. “Until you’ve got complete control, you can’t learn healing. It’s too dangerous, for you and the patient. Don’t worry; I’m sure with your natural talent you’ll be moved up by the end of the semester.”

  “That’s months away!”

  “It’s for the best.”

  “Can’t you teach me?”

  “Oh no. No way. I’m not risking getting thrown out of the hospital and advanced magic just because you’re impatient.”

  Ash turned away from her so she wouldn’t see the fury building behind his eyes. Why couldn’t she understand that it wasn’t impatience? Every day he felt his link with Rae weakening. He needed to get to her, to save her, and to do that he had to know how to heal.

  “I’m sorry, Ash,” Avarie said. “But it really is for the best.”

  She brushed her hand across his shoulder and shuffled to the door. “You did well today. I’ll tell Pulmen to stop punishing you and get you on some real work.”

  Ash nodded but didn’t turn around.

  49

  Ash rolled over on his hard mattress and glared at the wall. He’d been lying awake in bed for hours. No matter how hard he tried, his brain refused to be quiet. Thoughts of Rae, of the scene at the hospital, of the Faceless Monks, kept running through his head in wild circles. He alternated between rage, despair, fear, and back again, never coming close to sleep despite the exhaustion plaguing him. His heavy eyes begged to be closed and yet, as soon as they did, images of Rae suffering filled his vision and he was forced to spring them open again.

  He clenched his hands into fists and rolled again, now glaring across the room toward Loren’s bed. Ash hurled his thin blanket to the floor and sat. He pulled on clothes and slipped out of the dormitory door then crept along the corridor and down the stairs. He made it out onto the quiet street and took a deep breath of cold air. It cleared some of the cobwebs from his mind, leaving him feeling foolish for standing in the middle of an empty road at three in the morning. He ran a hand down his face and started walking. At first he had no destination but as he went farther, his feet made it clear—the library.

  Instead of the usual wizened old man, a woman with thick glasses looked up at him as he entered. “Name?”

  “Ash,” he said.

  She noted it down on a sheet of paper and waved him onward.

  He slipped into the library. A deeper silence than usual echoed around him. Somewhere far in the distance a tiny blue glow bobbed amongst the shelves but other than that lonely traveler, the library appeared empty. Ash followed his familiar path through the shelves, flicking his own light to life once he reached the darker aisles. In the south-west corner, he went straight to the shelf where he’d hidden the advanced channeling book and pulled it out, settling against his cushions.

  He scanned down the table of contents and, sure enough, in the fourth chapter he found Channeling for Healing. His heart skipped a beat as he opened the book to the right page. Warnings plastered the first two pages, about using up your own energy to heal someone else, about channeling too much or the wrong sort of energy into someone and killing them. At the bottom of the second page, bold, underlined letters read: Do Not Attempt This Channeling Unless Under Supervision of a Senior Channeler. Ash flicked past the warning to the next page.

  Despite reading and memorizing the Basic Magic textbook, the instructions for channeled healing may as well have been written in another language. Symbols and descriptions that made no sense to Ash covered the pages. He ground his teeth and slammed the book closed, wishing that for once they’d make it easy. He took a calming breath and re-opened the book to the first page; Chapter One: Exercises and Methods of Advanced Channeling.

  He read down the page and some of the tension in his shoulders eased. Here the book listed definitions and explanations of some of the words he’d seen in the fourth chapter. It looked as though he’d have to start from the beginning. He settled deeper into his cushions and began the process of memorizing every word of the book. He couldn’t smuggle it out, but that didn’t matter as long as he committed it to memory. He hadn’t technically tried all of the channeling from the Basic Magic book, but he had no doubts in his ability to do them. It was all just basic forms of energy, like painting in different colors; once you could paint in one, it didn’t take much more skill to paint with others.

  Hours later, Ash rubbed stinging eyes and placed the book back on the shelf. A headache lurked behind his eyes but he’d memorized every word from the first four chapters. Most of the healing chapter had made sense after reading the others; although he had no doubt that it would be harder in practice than anything else he’d ever done. Of course it would be easier if he was in the Advanced Magic class and Thimble could actually talk him through it… he resolved to ask her to move him up.

  He shuffled out of the library with hunched shoulders, letting his light flicker out. He gave a bare nod to the woman with the glasses and entered the cold street. Morning light lit up the buildings and already merchants and students strolled past in both directions.

  Ash sighed, so much for his plan to catch a few hours of sleep before class. He shuffled between the buildings and arrived in the classroom a little ahead of Loren.

  “Where have you been?” Loren said.

  “Library,” Ash said. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “You look like crap. Here.” Loren handed Ash a piece of buttered bread. “I was saving it for later, but it looks like you need it more than I do.”

  Ash’s stomach rumbled. “Thanks.”

  He bit off a chunk of warm bread. Delicious. He resolved to be a better friend to Loren; the man deserved it.

  “Are you ready to impress Thimble with heat to light?” Ash said, sucking the last of the butter from his fingers then wiping them clean on his pants.

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “Just remember what I told you. They’re just strings. You’re in control.”

  Thimble entered the room and everyone fell silent. She set the usual metal brazier on her desk but followed it with another contraption; a series of gears attached to a propeller-like fan.

  Loren groaned. “What are we supposed to do with that?”

  “I assume it’s for kinetic channeling.”

  “Dammit,” Loren said. “I haven’t got light channeling yet. Why do we have to move on?”

  Ash tried to give Loren a sympathetic look but in his chest he couldn’t wait to get started on something new. By the look on Braydon’s face, he couldn’t either.

  “Okay, class, those of you who have yet to master heat to light, please come to the front. The rest of you review chapter four: kinetic energy.”

  Loren and a few other students shuffled to the front of the room, heads bowed.

  Ash spread the textbook out in front of him, but he could have recited the whole thing from heart. He bit his lip and willed Loren to do his best. He’d managed to make light a couple of times in the privacy of their dorm, but under the watchful eye of his fellow students it became infinitely harder.

  “Come on, Pete,” Thimble said, gesturing to the mousy boy who knew so much theory but struggled with the practical side.

  Pete’s face lost color and he glanced over his shoulder, as if looking for an escape. When none appeared, he inched forward to Thimble’s desk.

  “Just take a deep breath and concentrate,” Thimble said.

  Pete did as she said and closed his eyes. His brow furrowed but despite his whole body trembling and his face goi
ng red, not a single spark of light appeared in his hand.

  Thimble laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Pete.”

  Pete’s shoulders slumped and, from the way he kept blinking, he was trying to keep back tears. “But I tried so hard. I studied every night…”

  “I know. But channeling takes more than brains. Some people have the gift, others don’t.”

  Pete shrunk under the eyes of the class.

  “You’re bright,” Thimble said. “Try alchemy. I’ll put in a word with Professor Thali for you.”

  “Thank you,” Pete whispered. He shuffled to his desk, collected his things, and walked out without meeting anyone’s eyes.

  “You’re next, Loren,” Thimble said.

  Loren shambled to Thimble’s desk.

  “Breathe and focus,” she said.

  Loren took a rasping breath and closed his eyes.

  Ash watched red tendrils of heat creep up Loren’s left arm, to his chest, and then down his right. They were dim and stuttered, unlike the solid tendrils that snaked up Ash’s arm whenever he channeled, but at least they were there. The red strings collected near Loren’s right hand, entwining.

  Ash sat on the edge of his seat, urging Loren to make the final little tweak that would change heat to light.

  Loren trembled and his face glowed red.

  “Come on,” Ash said under his breath.

  The tendrils pulsed, tensed.

  Silence lay on the class like a blanket, except for Loren’s harried breathing. His shaking became more violent and shudders rocked his shoulders.

  “Come on,” Ash said.

  Loren let out a deep grunt and light flared in his palm, dying out seconds later. “I did it!”

  A few students clapped. Ash slumped back into his seat, tension falling from his muscles.

  Thimble smiled and patted Loren on the back. “Keep practicing. You’ll need to be able to sustain it.”

  Loren danced back to his seat. “I did it!”

  Ash grinned. “I saw.”

  None of the three other students huddled at the front of the room managed the conversion and were forced to leave, red-faced.

  “All right, class,” Thimble said, when the last failed student left the room. “As you’ve all probably gathered, today we’re doing heat to kinetic conversion. I want you all to be aware that this is much harder than heat to light. Kinetic energy is completely different; you’ll lose far more energy during transference than you did before. Also, using kinetic energy requires precision; you have to put just the right amount of force into just the right spot.”

  She moved the strange contraption toward the center of her desk. “We’ll be using this for practice.” She turned a tiny wheel at the side of the device. The gears spun and the fan at the end turned, rustling some papers at the end of her desk. “Your aim will be to use kinetic channeling to turn this wheel. Let me demonstrate.”

  She brought the handle to a stop and stepped back. She reached one hand toward the fire, and pointed her other at the device.

  Red tendrils of energy snaked from the fire to her hand, across her chest, and then leapt out of her other palm as muddy brown tendrils. Ash had no idea how the others saw the flow of energy, but to him the tendrils were as solid as anything else in the room.

  The tendrils wrapped around the wheel and the wheel spun, driving the fan to turn. Thimble let her hands fall to her sides and the wheel slowed to a stop.

  “Form a line, let’s have a go,” Thimble said.

  The students assembled into an eager line. Ash hung back to the end while Loren remained in his chair.

  “I don’t think there’s any point me trying today,” Loren said, resting his chin in his hand.

  Ash patted his back. “Next time.”

  The class’s enthusiasm faded as student after student failed to make the wheel turn, even a bit. They went back to their chairs with grim disappointment plastered across their faces.

  “Don’t worry. Like I said, this is harder than any other channeling you’ve done before. I don’t expect any of you to get it today.”

  Even Braydon looked nervous as he approached the desk. He glanced at the surrounding students but his usual expression of unshakable confidence wavered at the edges.

  He closed his eyes and red energy poured from the fire into his hand. He took a deep breath and a tiny sputter of brown energy came out of his other palm. It landed on the contraption’s wheel and it vibrated.

  Braydon opened his eyes a slit. “Did I do it?”

  “Very close,” Thimble said. “With a bit of practice, I think you’ll have it by next class.”

  Braydon’s face darkened and he stormed back to his chair, other students scrambled to get out of his way.

  By the time Ash got to the front of the room, a pall of disappointment lay over the students. Only Braydon had got anywhere close to making the handle move.

  “Professor Thimble,” Ash said in a low voice.

  “Yes, Ash?”

  “I would like to be moved to advanced channeling.”

  Thimble chuckled. “I do admire ambition, but perhaps you should focus on this first.”

  “I think I would be better suited to the advanced class.”

  Some of the humor left Thimble’s face. “Ash, I’m not going to lie. You have extraordinary talent. But until you’ve mastered all of basic magic, you can’t be moved up.”

  Ash turned away, stony faced. At least he had a target; if he mastered all of basic magic, he could go to the advanced class.

  He reached out for the furnace and tendrils of heat leapt out to meet his palm, as if hungry for his touch. They wrapped around his forearm, snaked up to his chest, and slid into his other hand. He bent all of his focus on turning the wheel, on converting the energy to real movement. He took a deep breath and then released the pent-up energy. It poured out of his hand like a thick brown vine and slammed into the handle.

  The handle whirled forward, buzzing. The fan zipped around and created a wind that threw the loose papers from Thimble’s desk.

  The class gasped. Even Thimble took a step back.

  Ash let his hands fall to his sides, exhausted, but he couldn’t help turning back to Thimble with a self-satisfied glint in his eye.

  “Very impressive,” Thimble said. “Although you still haven’t mastered control.”

  Ash spun and stomped back to his desk, every eye in the room followed him.

  “I will leave this device here for the coming weeks. You may come in to practice at any time. Of course, you can also practice on other items, such as rolling a pencil across a table. Remember, this is hard. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t do it straight away. Class dismissed.”

  50

  The next day in the Spilled Mug, Loren raised a foaming glass in Ash’s direction. “To Ash, for showing Braydon some real magic.”

  A dozen voices echoed back. “Cheers!”

  Ash grinned and tilted his glass to Loren before taking a long drink. While his drink looked much the same as everyone else’s, he’d had a quiet word with Grenwall before he’d sat down and the apple juice had far less kick than the ale he’d drunk on his first day. He shrugged off his exhaustion; he’d spent the whole morning practicing with Thimble’s device but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the wheel to turn at a steady speed. It was almost like the energy took control of him and dragged him forward, pushing itself faster.

  “I’ve never heard of anyone getting kinetic transfer on their first day,” Avarie said. “That must be some kind of record.”

  “Not for a hundred years.” Pete’s small voice barely overcame the din of the bar. “Back when Professor Yarrow first started here.”

  Ash tensed. Despite quiet satisfaction at his rapidly improving channeling abilities, the library had yielded nothing on the Faceless Monks and he was running out of patience. Yarrow was just the person he’d been meaning to see.

  “Professor Yarrow is a nutcase,” Loren said. �
��Ash here is a genius.”

  Another chorus of cheers met this and everyone drank.

  “Are you deaf? I told you it doesn’t work.” Braydon’s voice echoed in the relative silence as he stormed into the Spilled Mug and dragged a seat out at a nearby table. His usual cronies sat around him, not meeting his gaze.

  “Here he is,” Loren said, voice slightly slurred. “How does it feel to be second best, Braydon?”

  Braydon glared at him and then at Ash. “Your friend just got lucky. The machine’s broken; it probably started spinning on its own.”

  Ash snorted. “It’s not broken.”

  Braydon leaned forward, eyes flashing. “It is. I just tried to use it and it didn’t work.”

  Snickers echoed around Ash from Loren and his friends.

  “It worked fine for me this morning.”

  “Well, it’s broken now,” Braydon said.

  Loren chuckled. “Poor guy can’t admit he’s not up to the challenge.”

  Ash grinned but a part of him itched to be away, back to the device, just to prove that it did work and that he deserved to be in the advanced class. He skulled the rest of his drink and smacked his glass onto the table. “I’m off.”

  “What?” Loren said.

  Ash stood and gestured to his chest. “Do you think I get this good by drinking all day?”

  Some chuckled, Loren groaned. “Don’t be back too late; you need to teach me this new trick of yours.”

  Pete rested his head in his hands. “Maybe if I got to share a room with the next channeling master, I would still be in class too.”

  Loren clapped him on the back. “Don’t feel too bad. I don’t think I’ll last much longer, and at least you have that brain of yours to fall back on.”

  “Exactly,” Ash said. “Whereas Loren’s got nothing.”

  A wave of laughter, mixed with Loren’s threats, followed Ash out the door. He couldn’t help grinning as he strolled from the pub to Thimble’s classroom.

  The kinetic channeler sat in the middle of her desk, where he’d left it that morning, but unlike the last time he’d seen it, now a stark piece of parchment with jagged letters hung plastered to the side.