I look sightlessly toward the shuttered windows, wondering how I can make him see. “Imagine someone could take your true form from you, your wolf form, and control it. Imagine that, even if it was because you did something to uphold your honor, even if you’d do that thing again if you had to, you will still lose who you are.”
I gesture vaguely to the walls and the world beyond the wards that encircle me, my hand a mottled blur. “Tomorrow, one way or another, a part of me will die. That pill, it’s a coward’s way out. I want to take it because I’m not really sure I can survive what the Council will decree for me. And I don’t want to bring harm to those who aided me, those who stand against what Blackflame is doing.”
I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, make myself wait for his response.
“I’ve heard tales of Arch Mage Blackflame.” It’s a neutral statement, telling me nothing. I could worry that he’s already in Blackflame’s pay, but I can’t afford to consider it. So I don’t. Plus, he’s nothing like the few memories I have of Blackflame’s mercenaries.
“I used to live in Karolene. People disappear without a trace. His mercenaries kill in broad daylight.” I shrug my uninjured shoulder. “He has a torture chamber in the basement of his home.”
Osman Bey’s eyebrows rise slightly.
“I’ve been held there,” I say simply. “But you need not believe me. Seek out the Degath family. They’re here in Fidanya. They were once a noble family of Karolene. They can tell you.”
“I’ve heard of them as well.”
I nod. I am so very, very tired. I’ve done what I can. Tomorrow will come, and each day after that, whether I have breath or mind or heart to see it. Whether or not Osman Bey believes me, I cannot imagine he will make his decision before the morning. I will face this trial one way or the other.
He rises and slips the pill back into my pocket. I watch him with the same numb disbelief as I did Talon.
“I won’t make your choice for you. I believe she gave it to you. It is not for me to take it away.”
I close my eyes, wanting to weep. I don’t want this choice.
He moves to the door, pauses there. “I will ask,” he says, his words soft in the room, and lets himself out.
Lying sleepless through the quiet hours of the night gives me time to consider all the things I don’t want to: what my bond with Val really means; whether the breath he gave me has changed me as deeply as my sunbolt did; how my life is built upon the deaths of others. All this time I have tried not to kill again, tried not to take what I should not, and now I find that my very essence may be formed around the stolen lives of others. As long as I consider it, I can find no way around this truth, no way past it.
Then there is the question of the trial, who I will betray and what price they will pay, and what will become of me afterwards. I cannot doubt that Osman Bey’s question will be repeated by the Council: how did I fight so well? With a truth spell as potent as the Huq spell, I will be forced to answer and my bond with Val will be uncovered.
Lying with my cheek pressed against the pillow, I almost laugh. Developing alliances with creatures inimical to the High Council. Stormwind stood trial for such a charge, and it doesn’t even begin to touch on what my bond with Val may be.
The trial will happen tomorrow unless I kill myself first. There is a small chance I might escape before it, but I expect I will be closely guarded by both lycans and mages. If I can find the phoenix feather and burn it, then that will be my best option for calling in help. Though the phoenix, if he is in contact with Kenta, should have a good idea of what’s happening to me already. The feather will merely pinpoint my location for him, make it easy for him to rescue me or not, as he sees fit.
The sentence, once decided, will no doubt be carried out immediately. The Council would hardly give me time to escape now that I’ve destroyed their faith in their ability to keep prisoners safely contained.
I must either find a way to evade the consequences of the Huq spell, or accept that the chance of escape before my sentence is carried out is very, very small. I do not want to bring down a building, or rain fire on my captors, as Brightsong put it. Smaller spells will hardly take out a contingent of guards as well as mages. And that leaves me with no alternative from the bleak future of a madwoman, source slave, or corpse.
No matter how I turn things over in my mind, I can find no other possibility.
I will simply have to stay alert. If I see a chance to run, I must take it no matter what. If there are no such opportunities, then this is the future I chose when I left Stormwind’s valley, and again when I summoned the phoenix. Each person who helped me made their own choices in their own time. Talon, when she created an avenue for Stormwind’s escape. Stonefall, when he answered my questions and let me go, knowing why I came. Jabir, when he named me a free mage and allowed me passage. They’ve had time since I was caught to plan for their future, to escape before I am forced to name them.
If Talon’s plan was to demand my suicide, then she’ll simply have to learn to live with her disappointment.
But as much as I try to absolve myself of all responsibility, I can still see Stonefall’s face in my mind’s eye as he offered to answer three questions, can still hear Jabir’s voice as he promised not to notice when I left the Mekteb. I can still feel the certainty that hummed through me, as if I could not possibly betray them.
Brightsong brings my breakfast early in the morning, setting the tray beside me before bustling out again. It’s the first time she has allowed me to feed myself.
While I eat, she oversees a pair of servants who bring in a low tub, two buckets of water, and a small stool they set within the tub. She sets a stack of clean clothes at the foot of my bed and waits for me to finish.
It is another level of humiliation to be guarded through my bath, though at least it is only Brightsong and the female lycan once more. Brightsong tsks her tongue at me as I struggle with my tunic, and assists me out of my clothes and through the process of bathing with an efficiency that speaks to years of experience. At least at the end my hair is washed, the last of the blood scrubbed from my body.
Brightsong bundles me into my new clothes without a word. The tunic she brought is an elegant charcoal gray with white cord sewn in a floral design down the front as well as around the cuffs. Knot and loop closures made of the same cord allow the tunic to open down the front—which explains why I am being offered such a beautiful item: lifting my arm enough to fit into a closed tunic would have been near impossible. The accompanying selvar is a simple utilitarian white, but its color works with the embroidery. I will be going to my trial dressed in the richest clothes I’ve worn in a year.
In a pile on the ground beside me lie my discarded clothes, and with them, the pill Talon gave me. I make no attempt to recover it. Instead, I turn to Brightsong with the one question she might be able to answer for me.
“I was wondering,” I say. “When you checked me, you found fire and stone. Was there anything else you noticed?”
Her expression stiffens. “Isn’t that enough?”
“It’s already too much,” I agree, trying not to sound cheerful. Perhaps the breath Val gave me didn’t change me as deeply as I’d feared.
“You are about to be tried before the High Council.” The quietness of her voice does not belie the ruthlessness of her words. “If I were you, I would focus on finding a way through the next few hours so that, when next we speak, you are still able to ask me questions.”
I have nothing to say in answer.
She gathers my discarded clothes and moves to the door, and there she stops. “You saved the life of a high mage here,” she says finally, without looking at me. “Be sure that you mention it before the Council.”
“I will.”
A guard knocks at the door, calling through to inform us that my escort has arrived.
“A minute,” Brightsong says, surprising me. She faces me, my clothes cradled in her arms. “I tried to argue th
at you were too weak to go through with this so soon.” There is a darkness to her steady gaze, as if she struggles with regret. I hadn’t realized how conflicted she finds herself by my situation. “The Council would question you in hopes of gaining a lead on where Mage Stormwind has gone.”
She’s apologizing. “I understand,” I say, offering her a faint smile. “Will you be there?”
“No. Only those who are known to have encountered you will attend the hearing.”
Ah. It could have been a completely closed trial, but the Council may need help asking the right questions. A Huq spell may demand the truth, but you don’t have to give what you’re not asked for. A helpful loophole, except that I can’t count on the Council not asking for information I don’t want to give. I will have to flood them with my story in hopes of leading them away from details I’d rather not reveal.
Brightsong glances toward the female lycan, who waits without comment beside the door. I have yet to hear her voice.
“See how well you can stand,” Brightsong says.
I have no intention of being carried. If I can take three steps to a bath, I can make it to my trial. I stand up once more. My body answers a little better for the stretching I’ve done. It’s my wounded arm I’ll have to be careful with, for each step sends a slight twinge through my muscles. For now it will be bearable. By the end of the trial — well, I’ll worry about it then.
The female lycan swings the door open. No less than a dozen lycans and six mages wait for me in the hall. The lycans are heavily armed. Their hands rest on the hilts of their weapons and they watch me with complete attention. The mages are somewhat less cool. Their expressions range from grim to wary to anxious. I keep my gaze lowered as I step into the hallway, knowing that if I look subdued that should at least calm the more anxious among them. A fidgety mage with a deadly spell hovering about their fingertips is hardly a good thing.
“I am High Mage Ravenflight.” I look up to meet the assessing eyes of a tall mage who carries herself with the natural grace of a warrior. Perhaps she and Stonefall work together on occasion. I could easily imagine her as a rogue hunter. She continues, “I will head your escort today. Please refrain from any sudden movements, and do not speak until we have entered the hearing room.”
I nod and start forward, my escort falling into place around me. Nearly half walk ahead of me and the rest behind me, but for Ravenflight to my left. We descend the stairs slowly, mostly because I take them one step at a time, leaning heavily on the railing. Brightsong gave me only a partial dose of the pain potion to help me keep my thoughts clear. Moving slowly jostles my injured arm less.
I reach the bottom of the stairs, pause to gather my courage.
“Do you require help?” With her black hair, brown eyes, and golden-brown skin, she has the look of the people of the western Kingdoms.
I take stock of my body. I am slightly out of breath, but okay. I shake my head.
We continue out the door and I realize why my escort is so large. The whole of the Mekteb has come out to see me walk to my trial. The gardens overflow with students of every age, the far arcades packed with people. Even the windows of the buildings opposite are filled with curious faces. How foolish of me to think a mistake on the part of my escort might allow me to escape.
“Keep walking,” Ravenflight says as my guards knot around me, creating a tight circle two or three people deep in every direction.
At first, the crowd remains relatively quiet. But as we continue down the arcade, and they catch glimpses of me past my escort, a low rumble begins to rise.
“It’s a girl! And young, too!”
“What is she, a camel rider?”
“She tricked the guard? She’s no more than a child—”
“Can’t tell where she’s from—”
“Mixed blood—and desert at that.”
“Where’d she get those clothes?”
“That’s who got past the lycan guard? They must be—”
I clench my teeth. I am not too young, my blood too mixed, to be intelligent. What kind of school is this?
“Easy,” Ravenflight murmurs, her expression even more grim. “No use getting angry.”
Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be upset with those I walk past. How could I have imagined that, were my life different, I would have found a place here? Among people who think that my age or breeding are signs of what I lack?
For the first time, I am truly grateful that my parents kept me from this. I expected the world to be set against me, and I was prepared for it. If I’d grown up here, been taught to accept these prejudices and based my expectations for myself on them, would I be anything like the person I am now?
I complete my walk to the Great Hall in a reverie of outrage and unexpected insight. But my temper steadies as we enter the building where I’m to be tried. From the vast, soaring spaces and stained glass to the tiled mosaics rising up the wall and the calligraphy scrolling around the high domes, the grand entry is breathtaking. At the center of the entry, a great water clock tells time, a work of genius to measure out the minutes and hours of the day, its marriage of beauty and function a thing of wonder.
The entryway opens into a great open space where the chant of a holy man reciting a prayer resounds. We bypass the prayer space, walking through a side door into a long hallway, and proceeding to a door halfway down.
Across from the door waits my mother. The shock of seeing her drains the last of my temper, leaving me numb. She wears jade-hued mage’s robes, a lovely, shifting green that remains completely unadorned. Beneath them, the pale cream edge of her kimono throws the color into greater relief. Her neck is long and curved, her hair upswept so that her profile is elegance itself. She watches us approach without expression, but I can tell the moment she recognizes me: the slight hardening of her jaw, the crystalline stillness in which she stands.
She knows who I am. Five years’ separation, the time it took me to grow from child to woman, protected me at our last meeting. But my features still reflect both her and the man who was my father, and word would have traveled very fast after my capture. It was her name-spell I used at the last.
As we turn to enter the doorway, Hotaru Brokensword lowers her gaze, dropping her chin slightly, to all appearances a respectful, meek woman. I doubt any of my escort recognize it for what I do — a greeting, and perhaps also a farewell. I look away because I cannot return her courtesy without arousing interest, and because I don’t yet know what to make of it. Nor am I sure I want to return it.
The Council’s meeting room is meant to intimidate as much as the Great Hall is meant to inspire awe and wonder. The ceiling here is high but nothing like the entryway, the walls covered in another mosaic so complex that my eyes merely gloss over it. What intimidates are the two great curved tables, set facing each other upon a low platform, like the two crescents of an impossible moon curved toward each other. Between their far tips, a third table sits, just large enough to accommodate the first mage while lending him the prestige of pride of place.
The bottom tips of the crescent tables are spaced farther apart, allowing the Council an easy view of the rest of the room. My guards escort me past a set of brocade-cushioned benches to a seat placed at the very bottom of the tables, facing the first mage’s place of honor. As I walk, I catch sight of Jabir standing quietly to the side, rheumy eyes giving nothing away. Stonefall, who should have long since fled, has taken a seat on one of the benches, his eyes on the Council tables. I recognize the two mages who were on the patrol I joined, the stocky mage glaring. On the other side are Osman Bey and the two lycans who escorted me to Stormwind’s cell. Kemal watches me through narrowed eyes, radiating fury. Osman Bey, on the other hand, keeps his gaze trained on the front of the room, giving no indication that he’s noticed my entry. Talon is conspicuously absent.
My chair sports wooden armrests and a cushioned back and seat. I ease myself down, careful not to jar my elbow against the armrest. A few of
the Council members stand about behind their tables conversing.
I don’t have long to wait. Within a few minutes, a rustle of robes heralds the arrival of the remaining members of the Council. I stare straight ahead as they walk up the aisle behind me.
The first two mages pass me without a glance, caught up in a quiet discussion. The one mage I do not recognize, but the other I would know anywhere: Blackflame.
Today, he wears ceremonial robes, black as the night with gold embroidery rimming the front and the ends of his sleeves, complimenting the bright yellow of his hair. As he walks, the robes sway about him so perfectly I wonder if he’s charmed them.
He is beautiful and powerful and considers me nothing more than a nuisance, and a convenient excuse for taking over the Council. It would almost be worth releasing the fire I carry in my bones at him in a second sunbolt, even if it destroyed me. Just as well the room is no doubt warded against every form of aggressive magic imaginable, and such an attack would never reach him. I’m glad not to have the choice.
He takes his seat at the center table and motions to a mage who sits far to my right, papers spread before him. A scribe, I think. A small metal stand sculpted to look like a bird in flight sits before him, a silver bell hanging from its beak. The mage taps the bell once with an ornate hammer. As the silvery note fills the air, I feel a faint brush of magic against my cheeks. I strain my senses, trying to discern what the spell has accomplished, but I can’t be sure. It might be that the doors are sealed, or that the room itself is sealed against any type of spying, magical or physical. It feels as though we are, somehow, floating free, untethered to the rest of the world.
Blackflame leans back in his chair, fixing his icy blue eyes on me. The other mages have already seated themselves and likewise turn their gaze to me. I look back silently, waiting. When he finally speaks, though, Blackflame addresses the Council. “It is our duty today to question the prisoner before us in hopes of understanding exactly how Mage Stormwind escaped, and to learn any details that may allow us to recapture her. We must also decide on the future of this … wild Promise, as it were.”
Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) Page 27
