I had wanted to help out with shelving and serving customers, like I used to do, but I might be more help just by taking myself back to the house. Just by being here I was losing business for my parents. Should I head home, so they could salvage the rest of the day’s sales?
I had secretly hoped that my presence might help them, since the half of Kingslee that didn’t fear me seemed to hold me in excessive reverence thanks to my newfound hope of Ardann status. But whether fear or respect, the end result seemed to be the same. No one wanted to come near me.
The bell sounded again, making me flinch. A young local boy I didn’t even recognize wandered in alone, and my body only relaxed when I saw his age. He was here to gaze with longing at the large jars of candies and couldn’t care less about the Spoken Mage.
Coralie’s face lit up when she saw him, and she hurried over to intercept him at the counter. No doubt he would soon have his desired treat despite his lack of coin.
I seized the opportunity. It wasn’t easy to get a private moment with my parents when Coralie knew no one else here and slept in the same room as me. I joined my mother where she was stacking shelves.
“Mother, can I talk—”
“Oh, Elena. There you are.” She turned and thrust a small box into my arms. “Could you take this to the back room for me?”
“Of course, but I just wanted to—”
“I need to get this shelf finished off, so could you bring a crate of soap back with you?”
The bell rang again before I could make any further attempt to bring up the question I needed to ask her, so I ducked my head and hurried for the back room, hoping the newcomer wouldn’t see me. As I passed through into the safety of the crowded rear of the store, I chewed on my lip.
I needed to ask my parents about my ancestry and why my blood suggested I wasn’t fully Ardannian. But my mother and father seemed to be colluding in their efforts to prevent any private talk between us. At first I had put it down to their desire to be polite to Coralie, but I was finding it harder and harder to make excuses to myself. My parents didn’t want to talk to me.
When I returned with the soaps, my mother had moved on to another shelf, so I unpacked and arranged them myself. My thoughts swirled, an unsettled feeling gripping me. If I wasn’t Elena of Kingslee, who was I? My family had always been my anchor, and I could feel myself starting to come adrift.
“Elena!” The excited voice pulled me up short, and I turned warily. When I got a good look at the speaker’s face, I nodded a greeting.
“Alice. Good afternoon.”
She smiled brightly, and I tried to hide a wince. She obviously didn’t fear me, but I wasn’t sure I had the patience for adulation either. Not when I was already feeling on edge. Alice was my own age, but we hadn’t spoken since the night I accidentally opened my mouth and discovered a power no one else possessed. And back at that last meeting—when I was just an ordinary girl, like her—she hadn’t shown me any great respect. How different would our interaction now be?
“I heard your friend’s a mage,” she said, watching Coralie deliver yet another candy to the small boy who had successfully wrapped her round his finger.
“Yes, she is,” I said warily.
Alice watched for a moment in silence as the little boy laughed before toddling away with a treat grasped in each grubby hand. Coralie pretended to give chase, demanding the return of her candy while the boy squealed in glee.
“She’s not like I imagined,” said Alice, after they disappeared out of sight down one of the rows of shelves, the laughter floating through the store.
I made myself focus on the other girl. She had chosen to approach me and had no sign of fear on her face. But she didn’t have the fervent light of admiration in her eyes either. The one that made me want to go hide under a rock at the weight of expectation.
No, she merely looked intrigued. A slow smile spread across my face. Intrigued I could handle.
“How are you, Alice?” I asked, meeting her eyes for the first time.
“Well enough.” She shifted a little nervously and then her face suddenly brightened. “Oh, I almost forgot. The reason I came to find you. I wanted to thank you, for what you did in Abalene. I have cousins who live there.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, my mother’s sister moved down south before any of us were born.” She paused, and then spoke all in a rush. “We were all so relieved when we heard what you did. It was amazing.”
I shook my head. “Don’t believe everything you hear. I didn’t turn back that epidemic all on my own, or anything. There were a lot of mages helping, and many of them were far more skilled and important to the effort than me.”
“But you helped? Right? You helped heal the commonborn who were sick.”
I nodded reluctantly, and she shook her head, the first note of wonder creeping into her expression.
“How incredible,” she whispered. “Who would have ever thought someone from Kingslee could do so much good?”
Her voice sounded wistful, and I fixed my attention on the boy and Coralie who had rounded the far end of the shelving and come back into sight, heading toward us. Her emotion rubbed at something painful inside me, something I usually tried to ignore.
I had escaped Kingslee, I had expanded my world beyond anything I could have dreamed possible. But it had been an accident, one I still didn’t understand. One no one understood. There could be no equivalent escape for Alice. If she wrote so much as a single word, she would destroy herself and those around her in a fiery explosion. For all the marvels I had managed to achieve, for all my unique power and remarkable control, I could do nothing to change that fate. Alice, and untold others like her, could never read and write. Could never transform themselves into something more than they were born.
The guilt ate away at me. Why me? Why was I so special?
Living in the world of the mages, it was all too easy to forget how the rest of the kingdom lived. But I had sworn to myself to be their champion. The problem was, I didn’t know how.
“Johnny!” A sharp voice sounded from the doorway of the store, and the little boy froze. “Get over here at once!”
He hesitated, looking down at the candies in his hands and then up at Coralie who had now caught up to him.
“Johnny!”
Coralie gave him a gentle push toward his mother, whispering that he could keep his prizes, and he cheerfully trundled away. The woman stepped forward and bundled him into her arms, casting quick, nervous glances in our direction. She murmured in his ear as she hurried out of the store, no doubt warning him to keep to his own kind.
I sighed. “We should go back home,” I said to Coralie.
Her mouth twisted, but she didn’t protest. Coralie came from a minor mage family, rich by our standards, but nothing compared to the great families. She understood the value of money, and I didn’t have to explain that my family couldn’t afford to have us linger here, driving away customers. Jasper still needed to be funded through a final year at the University, and after three days my presence had already caused more than enough disruption for my family.
“I’ll walk back with you,” said Alice, as if nothing untoward had happened. I could read in her face that she understood, however, and I wished I could thank her for not sharing the woman’s fear and mistrust. But that would no doubt prove far too awkward a conversation for both of us, so I let it drop.
We strolled down the dirt road, Alice talking about her southern cousins and asking Coralie questions about Abalene. Coralie responded in a friendly fashion and kept shooting me small encouraging smiles. They were easy to read. See, she was saying, some of your old friends can still treat you normally.
“So, do you have a young man here in Kingslee?” Coralie asked, bumping against Alice’s shoulder in a teasing way.
Alice glanced quickly up at me and then away, and I remembered how she had been with Samuel the last time I saw her—alone together on a secluded walk near
the bank of the local river. Samuel who had a loose tongue, an ugly temper, and a tendency toward bullying. Alice deserved better.
“None at the moment,” she said lightly, then paused. Turning to me, she said, “I stopped walking with Samuel after that, you know. It wasn’t right, the way he treated that child.”
I smiled at her. “I’m glad to hear it. For your own sake.”
She nodded, but her eyes strayed toward the river off to our left, and she sighed. “There isn’t a great deal of choice here in Kingslee.”
Coralie made a sympathetic sound in her throat before pausing and turning in the direction of the river herself. Several clumps of bushes stood between us and the water, and she cocked her head to the side, frowning in concentration.
“Did you hear that?”
I followed her gaze but could see nothing. “No, what was it?”
“I don’t know, but it sounded like—” Her words cut off abruptly as she stiffened and then toppled sideways into the dust.
Alice screamed before the sound choked off in her throat, and she too toppled to the ground. The rush of power surrounding them both had come too quickly for me to recognize its approach, but as Alice thudded against the road, I was already yelling, “Shield!”
My own power blossomed around me just as a third wave of power crashed against me. This one felt different from the workings that held my two companions frozen, but I couldn’t identify its purpose. The attack ebbed and dissipated, some of my strength draining out as my power kept it at bay.
At the end of second year I had thought myself skilled at the shielding composition. But my skill then was nothing to my current ability, thanks to weeks of grueling one-on-one tutoring with Lorcan. The politics of the upper court had shifted, and I was no longer perceived as a threat, removing the need for Lorcan to keep his distance from my training. And he had apparently been determined to make up for lost time over the empty summer weeks following Coralie’s birthday.
We had uncovered no new secrets about either my powers or their origin, but I could now do a single word shielding composition almost without thought. The skill saved me now, and I swayed for a moment with shock as I stared at the two bodies beside me.
To my relief they both still breathed, their eyes staring frantically up at me, although their lips appeared as frozen as their limbs. I stepped toward Alice, who lay closest to me, my shield moving with me, and then thought better of it.
Instead my hands balled into fists, and I took off running for the bushes. I could only guess that Coralie’s sharp sense of hearing had precipitated the attack, and perhaps if our attackers weren’t fully prepared, I could catch them off guard.
I crashed through the greenery, my shield doing nothing to protect me from their scratches, since I had limited it to magical attacks. I didn’t know how much strength I would need before this was over.
“Quick! Grab her! Stop her!” The rough, accented voice hit my ears a moment before my eyes took in three figures in front of me.
A middle-aged woman pointed in my direction, and I could feel the power trailing off her in the direction of my friends. Had she tied their binding to her own energy? A foolhardy move, if so, and perhaps it might allow me the chance to overwhelm her. I narrowed my eyes and focused in on her just as a pair of strong arms grabbed me from behind.
I used my momentum to hurl myself forward, and the man, unprepared, toppled with me. Twisting as we fell, I thrust up my knee, connecting with his stomach. When we landed, his weight drove him hard against my knee, the force of the blow leaving him gasping for air. As he struggled to breathe, I pushed myself back to my feet and spun lightly just as a second man lunged toward me.
“Block,” I yelled, and his attempted blow stopped short in mid-air. The crunch of bone sounded from his hand, followed by his scream.
Another rush of power swept over me, and yet more of my energy drained away into my shield.
“I need support,” the woman yelled, retreating backward toward the water, her eyes on me. She already held another intact parchment, and as I watched, she ripped it, sending another rush of power my way.
My shield held, but my steps faltered slightly as a wave of fatigue washed over me. Whatever those workings were meant to do, they were powerful. Some of the most powerful I had ever felt.
I glanced quickly back at the road, but the bushes now obscured Coralie and Alice. I hesitated, but the sound of approaching steps drew my attention back to the retreating woman. She already held yet another parchment, and a man had appeared behind her. He held one in his hand as well.
I needed to act quickly and incapacitate them both.
Before I could speak, however, yet more pounding feet approached, this time coming from behind me. Whirling, I saw two newcomers—both robed mages—racing toward us, each with a composition already in his hands.
I was surrounded.
Chapter 3
I had no time to consider the consequences of attempting to incapacitate so many attackers at once. I might not have the strength for it, but if I didn’t speak a composition now, I definitely wouldn’t once those four attacks hit.
I formed the words I needed in my mind’s eye, layering the full sense of the limitations I wanted built into the working over them. But I was too slow. I hadn’t spoken even the first word when the two newcomers ripped their compositions.
Two fresh streams of power raced toward me, and I braced, trying to reform the words which had vanished from my mind. But no force hit my shield, both workings brushing past me without contact.
I spun, following their trajectory in time to see the woman’s shocked exclamation cut short as both she and the man with her collapsed. No new power whirled through the air, only the weight that hovered over the two of them, holding them down. The thread that had connected the woman to the distant road had dissipated.
My friends.
But I lingered still, properly considering my two attackers now that I had a moment to do so. Both wore the clothes of commonborn, although they were clearly mages. And the woman had spoken with a distinct accent.
“Elena, are you harmed in any way?” asked one of the robed newcomers, coming up to stand beside me. I turned to get a proper look at him and his companion. Now that I had a moment to think, I could see the differences between these two and the two on the ground. The most obvious being that these wore the robes of Ardannian mages.
And silver robes, too. Officers then, in the Armed Forces. Belatedly, and with reluctance, I straightened and gave a salute.
The second man reached and passed us, going to kneel beside my attackers. He glanced back up at me and signaled for me to be at ease. I let my hand drop and glared at them both.
“What exactly is going on here?” I asked, exhaustion adding extra bite to my voice.
“That’s what we intend to find out,” said the kneeling one in a grim voice as he moved to examine the second attacker. Already he had stripped the first one of a small pile of compositions, and he now added more to their number. If they all held the strength of the ones used against me, it must have taken a very long time or a small army to produce them.
The mage beside me looked considerably younger than his companion, although still a number of years older than me. He had a pleasant face, darkened from recent days spent in the sun.
The older one looked up and saw him still standing there. Grunting, he jerked his head to the water behind us. “They must have a boat stashed back there. I can’t imagine they meant to try to get her out while she was still conscious.”
The younger one glanced at me, uncertainty clear on his face, but the older one just jerked his head again.
“Get on with you, Martin. You already saw she can take care of herself well enough.”
“Yes sir, Captain Carson,” said Martin, his words appropriately respectful, although he winked at me in a friendly manner before obeying his orders.
I watched him walk off, still somewhat dazed, until I started and l
ooked around me.
“There were two other men. I don’t think they were mages, but—”
“We dealt with them already,” said Captain Carson. “That’s what delayed us.”
“And my friends?” Even as I said the words, my feet started moving back toward the road.
The captain looked up sharply. “I’d prefer you stay here, Elena, if you don’t mind. You might be able to protect yourself, but you must be closing in on exhaustion after that performance.” His cool eyes weighed me. “Those workings carried a hefty weight.”
I just shrugged, uncomfortable discussing my unnatural strength with a stranger.
“And if I do mind?” I asked, instead.
His hands stilled, and he turned fully toward me. For a long moment our eyes held as we each measured the other’s resolve.
“Well, I suppose I’d have to issue an order…private.”
My eyes narrowed. So that’s how it was. I took a backward step, not taking my focus off his face, to test his reaction. He frowned, and I weighed up my need to check on my friends against the determination I read in his expression.
“Elena!” A breathless cry and hurrying footsteps behind me relieved me of the need to choose. Both Carson and I relaxed, looking away from each other.
Coralie threw her arms around me, and I felt the slight tremble shaking her body.
“Thank goodness you’re all right,” she said, drawing back and looking in confusion at the scene around me. “What happened? Who are they?”
“I’m just glad you’re all right. Both of you,” I added, nodding toward Alice who hung back, her eyes round and her face white. “Did that attack hurt you?”
“We’ll have a few bruises from landing on the ground, I’m sure,” said Coralie. “But that’s the worst of it, thankfully. A simple incapacitation, no doubt aimed at you. But what happened?” She looked around again, her gaze jumping from the captain to Martin, who had reappeared from his search of the riverbank.
Voice of Dominion (The Spoken Mage Book 3) Page 2
