[The Elustria Chronicles 03.0] Magic Betrayed

by Caethes Faron

  “I know it’s frustrating, but you should be grateful you’re alive. That could’ve gone a lot worse. I think the explosion was intended to hide the evidence, but still, if you’d been leaning over it when it happened, it could have killed you.”

  “Yeah, thanks for saving me. Really.” Now that I’d spent the energy of my indignation, only a feeling of violation remained. Someone had been in my room, had invaded my privacy, had listened in on my conversations. For some reason that felt worse than the knowledge that I could’ve died. The fear and adrenaline were stronger with the threat of death, but the violation was more pervasive, more insidious with the listening device. The explosion didn’t make me fear. The likelihood of it happening again was slim. But the fear of someone creeping into my life, of knowing I was never safe, that my words were never private, left me feeling vulnerable.

  Back at my room, I was happy to see that my satchel was intact with all the letters Alex had sent me and my old cell phone. It had been slung over a chair on the other side of the room. I was at a complete loss. I didn’t know what I’d be wearing tomorrow.

  “I’ll arrange some new clothes for you and all the basics,” Gareth said, as if reading my mind.

  “Thanks.” I looked around the room with the satchel over my shoulder. There wasn’t anything else. Just before I crossed the threshold to leave this room behind for the last time, I remembered something. I couldn’t believe I’d almost forgotten it. From underneath the mattress, I grabbed Alex’s letter. I would have never forgiven myself had I left it, and it would’ve been even worse if someone else read it. With that, I left for yet another new home.

  “Kat, I’m glad you’re all right. The explosion didn’t hurt you, did it?” Kellan approached me from down the hall.

  “No, I’m fine, just have to move.”

  “I’ve prepared a new room for you. I figured you’d need it at least temporarily. Lucky for you, the room next to mine was available. It’ll make things easier and a little more convenient until this is all worked out.”

  Goodie. What wonderful luck I had.

  Thirteen

  I fell face first onto the bed in my new room, not bothering to set down my satchel. Looking around, it felt different. It shouldn’t, but it did. I’d done nothing to mark my old room as mine, never settled in or decorated, but it had been mine. This new room looked almost identical. The view from the window was slightly different. That was all, but it wasn’t mine. I’d been driven here by an intrusion into my privacy.

  I rolled over onto my back and stared at the ceiling. At first glance it was the same, but it had its own pockmarks and scratches that made it unique. Not much of a difference to get used to. In a day or two I might even forget that this wasn’t the room I’d been living in since I started CCS training.

  Tiredness seeped through my bones and into my soul. Not the tired that yearned for sleep, but the tired that made me want to curl up and disappear. The tired that made me glad I didn’t have the energy to call for Millhook. Because if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from having him conjure a portal to Earth, to Nicole’s apartment or maybe to wherever Alex was. I’d leave this place and rest, and then I’d hate myself for it.

  I may not be able to see Alex, but I could read his letter. I needed it now, and I was glad I had saved it so tonight would be the first time I’d read these words.

  Kat,

  Sorry it’s been so long. I lose all track of time out here. It seems no matter the mood I’m in, this planet has a place to suit me. The heat and humidity of the rain forest grew oppressive, so I sought the snow of the Andes. It’s so interesting that there are four seasons, yet there are places you can go that have perpetual snow or perpetual heat.

  The snow reminds me of the Armory and of you wandering around outside after Casper kicked you out. I wish you hadn’t killed him so I could have the pleasure of doing it myself.

  Enough of that. It’s amazing how I can go weeks without seeing anyone and then Millhook will show up out of nowhere. Somehow, it’s always when I’m ready to shift back, to talk and write these letters. How much longer until your training is done? I was thinking maybe I could come visit and help you celebrate once you’ve graduated. That is if your snobby mage friends wouldn’t mind a shifter showing up. If that Kellan guy has a problem with it, I’m sure we can settle it. Is he still annoying you?

  You need to stop worrying about where you’re going to get assigned. The CCS would be crazy to send you anywhere other than Earth. You will have plenty of time for your ridiculous mission to find your mother’s talismans. I could even help you, but first you have to graduate. I don’t know what they could possibly be teaching you that takes so long. You seem to do a pretty good job without training. I expect after all this time, you’ll be able to kill someone with a glance or close your eyes and divine whatever information you need. I suppose having a panther shifter with you would be superfluous. You can probably heal yourself with a wiggle of your nose now, that is if you ever get hurt.

  I’m not going to describe for you the calm blankets of snow that stretch for miles or the oddly satisfying feeling of being the one to mark it with fresh paw prints. I won’t tell you how the wind whistles constantly, sometimes growing into a roar that brings with it a storm. I’m not going to tell you any of that. Instead I’m going to wait for you to have a little time off, and I’ll show you myself. There’s a lot of world out there to see without ever going to Elustria.

  I haven’t checked on Nicole since my last letter. I’ll head north again when I’m finished here. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind a visit either. Don’t trainees get vacation time? Seems like the humane thing to do if they’re going to keep you locked up for so long.

  The wind’s picking up, so I better get this letter to Millhook. He says you’re looking well. I don’t have any trouble believing that. Don’t let that Darian asshole get to you. Remember, you killed two powerful mages on your own. I still don’t know why they need to train you. You’re pretty bad ass as it is. Regardless of where you were raised or who your parents were, you’re better than all of them. Hell, you’re Serafina, Dark Sorceress. You outshine them all.

  Alex

  P.S. While I have been forced to accept Millhook’s use of the nickname Furball, I do not appreciate your using it in your last letter. Any future occurrences will result in me referring to you as Butterfingers for that time you thought you’d fight me off with a knife and I disarmed you.

  I laughed at the memory of our first real meeting. I’d come so far since then. It was a good thing I had magic because my knife-wielding skills left much to be desired.

  I read the letter again and again. Tears rolled down my cheeks without my permission. Alone in this new room, Alex was so close and impossibly far away. He wanted to be a part of my life, but I’d kept news of my trials from him. I didn’t even know what I could write him now. So instead I just read, his smooth voice running through my mind as clearly as if he sat beside me. I curled up and remembered the nights we’d spent running, staying in hotel rooms, cuddling. I could feel his warmth, the strength of his arm around me, and my tears came faster.

  I was so alone.

  Tomorrow I’d be strong. I’d find a way to section five and figure out who the golem was and who controlled him. I’d be a CCS agent, the mage who had killed, who had survived unimaginable injuries. I’d keep my secrets and carry my burden while working to stop the Directorate. But not tonight.

  Tonight I was just a lonely girl who wanted to be held and understood. I’d cry my tears in the darkness of night so that when day broke, there’d be nothing left, no trace of weakness.

  Fourteen

  If I could learn to port reliably, getting into section five shouldn’t be a problem. No one could teleport into the Citadel without having a special charm like Millhook’s, and charms were only given to select individuals who had the absolute trust of the Council. Within the Citadel, nothing prevented someone from porting from place to place
.

  Entrance to the CCS required a magical signature be matched against a list of authorized personnel, but the library didn’t work the same way. Once I’d received authorization to work in section three, a librarian had escorted me there the first time and after that I could use the teleportation rings outside of it. I assumed section five worked the same way, which meant as a pidge I could port there on my own.

  Nighttime was my best opportunity to get to section five. Normally, with so few people having access to the section, it was unlikely anyone would be there. But if word had travelled about the golem magic, I might not be the only person who wanted to do some studying. At night, the chances of being caught decreased. If someone saw me, my secret would be exposed. Mages couldn’t teleport without rings. The only explanation for my presence would be the truth: that I was a pidge. The last thing I needed was for that secret to get out.

  After work, I practiced in my room. Teleporting from one side of the bed to the other hardly compared to teleporting to a place I had never been to, but I didn’t have any other choice. I couldn’t appear somewhere else out of nowhere without raising questions. I figured this way the worst-case scenario was that it didn’t work and I stayed in my room. It seemed doubtful that I’d accidentally teleport somewhere else.

  Eyes closed, I thought about everything that depended on me being able to teleport. My life was at stake. Someone had tried to kill me twice now. The future of the CCS was at risk, all of my friends, everything I had worked for. To make this work, I had to re-create the sense of urgency, of danger, that had led to me porting during the trials. I’d been foolish to not think of this before. Casper had used fear and emotion to teach me how to first access my magic. It made sense that the same would work here.

  In my mind, I pictured the spot where I needed to be. The anxiety wasn’t as hard to conjure as I would have liked. For a split second, my entire body felt constricted and then I was free. When my eyes opened, I stood on the other side of my room. Everything inside me wanted to jump for joy, to scream in triumph at my success, but I had to stay quiet. I couldn’t alert the guard who stood outside my room.

  I teleported back to my starting point. Again and again I practiced, going to different spots in my room. The effort required diminished until I could port as easily as I could use rings.

  There was only one thing left to do. Nerves assaulted my stomach. I’d never been to section five, so the closest thing I could envision were sections one, two, and three, the restricted areas I had access to. The Citadel library was massive, taking up every floor of the building. Section five would be at the top. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and did my best to envision my destination.

  Nothing happened.

  I crinkled my forehead in concentration, willing myself into the section. After a few seconds, an invisible force squeezed my body, and I opened my eyes to find myself surrounded by books. The only light in the room came from a solitary window where two of Perkusia’s moons shone. I waved my hand and activated the illuminator orb nearest me.

  As in the other sections, a giant book stood on a pedestal near the door. It would be the catalog of every book in the room. I picked up the fountain pen sitting next to the book and opened it to the first page, which was blank exactly like all the other catalogs in the library. On it I wrote: golem magic. The page turned and before me were all the titles pertaining to golem magic. Taking the pen, I circled the ones that seemed most useful, and the books floated from their locations on the shelves and stacked themselves neatly on a nearby table.

  Six books, two reasonably sized ones and four enormous tomes, sat waiting for me on the table. The trick here would be to find the most relevant information. I was sure I could learn everything about golem magic, from how it started to theories about the use of it throughout history, but I didn’t need any of that. I was after the basics. I opened a volume from the mage’s version of the encyclopedia, except this one covered only restricted topics.

  Golem magic: origination unknown. Golem magic is a form of magic by which the mage takes control of another mage’s or being’s actions. What sets golem magic apart from animation magic by which an object or living thing is moved to the mage’s will is that golem magic can influence the target’s thoughts as well as actions. In these instances, the victim will not only perform the desired action without hesitation or mental fighting but they may also have no recollection of ever performing the task.

  That was scary as fuck. This made it sound as if whoever the golem was might not even know it.

  To perform golem magic, the mage must have an actual physical golem. Golems can only be created using clay found on the shores of the waters separating Elustria and the Vortex.

  The reports from the station at the Cushing Sea now seemed much more interesting. It might be smart to look them over again for any suspicious activity that might indicate a mage was harvesting this clay.

  Only certain mages are susceptible to golem magic, and the target must be selected with care. One of the chief—

  Footsteps climbed the stairs outside the door. My heart raced. What should I do? If I stayed, I’d likely end up face-to-face with the mole. Who else would come to section five at this hour? I wanted to know who it was, but there was no doubt in my mind I would lose to them in a one-on-one fight. Not only that, they would discover my secret and could expose me to the Council which would negate any accusations I made against them. I could easily be made to look like the traitor. It could be spun that I rigged the trials myself to divert suspicion from me. No, I had to get out now. I gathered the books in my arms and ported.

  I knew something was wrong before I opened my eyes. The weight in my arms was gone. While my body had ported to my room, the books had remained in the library. It was probably a security charm that kept them from being removed from the room. When the person I’d heard saw the books lying on the table, they would know someone had been there. My only choice was to return and hide any evidence of my presence. I didn’t know how much time I had, but I had to at least try.

  Back in section five, I sent the books flying back to their spots. The footsteps outside the door drew closer and closer. Just before I closed my eyes, I remembered: I hadn’t erased my entry from the catalog. I dashed to the book. Whoever stood on the other side of the door was so close I could hear their breathing. I waved my hand across the pages, erasing the words written there, and closed the cover. The doorknob turned, and too late I realized that I hadn’t placed the pen in its rightful spot. No matter, I didn’t have time. I had to hope that whoever it was assumed the last person was sloppy.

  I opened my eyes in the safety of my room and collapsed on the bed, breathing heavily as if I had run all the way there. Without those books, I’d have to keep making trips to section five to finish my study, which meant a lot of late nights and working on little sleep. At least this way, the missing books wouldn’t be noticed.

  Tonight had been a close call. My nerves couldn’t handle another one. Next time I wouldn’t have to practice teleporting. If only I had read the last paragraph to know what to look for. I’d just have to wait until next time.

  Fifteen

  “Hey, Kat, thanks for lending us a hand again. Calista said you’ll be here for a little while. We can certainly use all the help we can get,” Brayel said when Kellan and I reported to the pit the day after my first trip to section five.

  They weren’t making it general knowledge that someone had sabotaged my trials, so for now I was the agent who bizarrely wasn’t assigned to a station and was working really closely with an Earthside agent. These people probably thought I was a moron. “No problem. I’m glad to help out where I can.”

  “That’s the spirit. And that pile of reports there is ready for the crypt.” Brayel pointed to a giant stack of papers then turned back to his work as if our conversation hadn’t happened.

  With a flick of my wrist, I levitated the papers and headed to the rings to port. Kellan followed behind me,
because this was obviously a two-person job.

  The crypt was two floors below us. At first, it seemed odd that there wasn’t a magical method to move items around at the CCS or even those tubes banks used—Kellan had gotten a kick out of that suggestion when I told him about it—but each piece of paper had to be accounted for. In that regard, humans and mages weren’t all that different. Nothing bonded our people like layers of bureaucracy and red tape. So instead of magically sending the papers to the crypt, some poor schmuck had to take them there, and I was the poor schmuck of the day.

  In the crypt, so named because it was a gigantic cavern full of what looked like tombs but were actually the mage version of a filing system, the guardian greeted us. Esstrasa, or Ess for short, had to be a thousand years old. It wouldn’t surprise me or anyone else if she had been the first CCS agent. Back in her day, she was a field agent, as she loved telling anyone who ventured down into the crypt for any length of time. After a mission gone wrong, she’d been traumatized and her magic was never quite the same, so they’d stuck her down here to guard the archives—a job she took very seriously even though no one else did. If anyone broke into the Citadel, and into the Greenhouse, and got all the way down to the crypt, we had bigger problems.

  “And what have we here?” Ess asked from behind her tall stone desk that guarded the entrance to the cavern. Curly blue hair shot out from her head like Medusa’s serpents. Her right eye was stuck in a state of perpetual surprise from whatever happened on her last mission, and spidery red veins crawled out from the green iris. She used it to great effect staring down whoever dared venture into her domain, turning her face to block her normal eye from view.

  “I have reports that are ready for archival,” I said, staring straight into the eye. Experience had taught me not to cower.

  “Last time I checked, carting documents here and there wasn’t a two-person job. Since when do we have the personnel available to let you two loaf around on this assignment?”