Voice of Dominion (The Spoken Mage Book 3)

by Melanie Cellier

  “I wonder what Natalya would say if we threatened to tell the rest of the trainees back at the Academy that she was making eyes at a commonborn guard,” she said with a chuckle in her voice one afternoon.

  “A guard?” I stared at her. “Natalya would never be interested in a commonborn.”

  “Oh, not seriously interested, of course,” said Dariela, stretching out her long legs. “But she has eyes in her head just like the rest of us.”

  When I continued to stare at her in confusion, she groaned and rolled her eyes. “Of course the mighty Spoken Mage is the only one free of such weakness. Surely you’ve noticed that one of the royal guards in the prince’s squad is remarkably good-looking?”

  “Umm…” I couldn’t actually call to mind the image of a single one of Lucas’s guards. I tended to focus on someone else when they were around.

  “The tall, dark one,” Dariela said, trying to prod my memory.

  “Oh, yes,” I said vaguely, and she sighed.

  “Well, take my word for it, he’s extremely good looking, and Natalya has noticed. She thinks she’s very subtle about it, but she always rubs her neck when she’s self-conscious. She used to do it all the time in first year around Lucas.” She smiled. “Nowadays she looks more frustrated around him than anything. Not that she wouldn’t still snap him up if she got the chance, of course.”

  She sat up straighter. “Wait, there he is!” She pointed down the side of our tent, and I had to lean forward to follow her line of sight.

  The guard stood with his back to us, but seeing him refreshed my memory. He was the tall one. And objectively speaking, I couldn’t deny he had an appealing look. But almost immediately my eyes slid sideways to his companion. Lucas. And this was why I couldn’t bring up a clear picture of any of his guards.

  While I watched, bent awkwardly to see around the tent, Lucas pointed back toward his own tent. The guard showed visible reluctance to whatever order Lucas was giving, probably because the prince appeared to be ordering him to leave his protective post. But when Lucas straightened slightly, the man nodded and walked away.

  As he stepped out of sight, Natalya and Lavinia came into view, walking from the mess tent toward the entrance to our sleeping tent.

  “Watch,” Dariela said quietly, her own eyes fixed on our year mates.

  And, sure enough, although my two year mates appeared to continue their own conversation uninterrupted, Natalya’s gaze flicked sideways to the passing guard, and her hand slid up one side of her neck before she tugged at a lock of her hair and let it fall again.

  “See!” Dariela sounded amused.

  “So what do you do when you’re self-conscious around someone?” I asked, trying to hold back my grin.

  “Me?” She raised one eyebrow, the opposite side of her mouth quirking up. “I’m never self-conscious.”

  “Of course not,” I murmured, but she maintained her innocent expression.

  Lucas looked in our direction, and I pulled back into my original position, out of his sight. But I had already seen his remaining guard take up a station at the side of the tent.

  Lucas himself strolled into view a moment later.

  “Good afternoon, ladies.” He sank down onto the grass beside us.

  His hands were empty—even trainee princes didn’t scrub their own boots—and he held them out imperiously for my boot and brush. For a moment I hesitated, but when I saw Dariela giving me a curious look, I handed them over, not wanting to cause a scene.

  “There’s something peaceful about scrubbing boots,” he said, after taking a few swipes at mine. “No thought required, just the satisfaction of making something shine.”

  “Maybe you missed your calling as a boot polisher,” said Dariela with a snort.

  He grinned up at her, his hand moving rhythmically along the shoe, and she blinked several times before looking sideways at me. I just shrugged, my idle fingers plucking at the grass. She had already proved herself far too observant. I was now dreading a future conversation about the subtle changes in the usually serious and focused prince. Would she believe he had scrubbed my boots out of no more than general chivalry?

  I told myself I should move away from him, put some distance between us, but I seemed to have grown roots into the dirt below me. Lucas handed me back the clean boot, holding out his hand for my other one, and I reluctantly handed it over. Our hands connected as he took it, and he lingered in the touch for a moment, completely destroying my train of thought. The warm sun and the domestic scene lulled my previous caution, and I swayed toward him.

  The rasp of Dariela’s brush made me pull back, my face warming. One hand reached up toward my hair, and then I dropped it quickly, trying to remember if I always did that when I was uncomfortable. No doubt Dariela had noticed if I did.

  The sound of a cleared throat made Lucas look up, his own view down the side of the tent clear.

  “My guard has returned. Enjoy the sun for me, ladies.” He handed me back my boot and stood, nodding at us both before striding away.

  Dariela had completed her own cleaning and pulled on her now shiny boots while she watched him go. Once they were both in place, she turned to me.

  “I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you.” She held up her hands, as if to cut short my words, although I hadn’t spoken. “And I don’t want to know. I won’t say anything to anyone.” She shrugged. “Friends, right? But you should know that if I have my suspicions, others will too. Do with that as you will, it’s none of my business.” She stood and gave me a small wave before heading off to put away her cleaning apparatus.

  I sat there in shocked silence. If only I could talk it over with Lucas, but that was half the problem. We couldn’t find a moment alone together.

  I still hadn’t moved when Finnian came into view. He slumped down beside me, stretching himself out on the grass.

  “Wake me when it’s lunchtime. Or better yet, when they tell us it’s time to go home.”

  “Don’t overwhelm me with your cheery positivity, or anything,” I said.

  Finnian, who had thrown an arm across his face to shield his eyes from the sun, just chuckled.

  I watched him, giving an internal sigh. He seemed like the same old Finnian, but I couldn’t look at him without thinking of Coralie. I had always known he was from an important family, that he was as deeply enmeshed in this game of power as all my year mates. But somewhere along the way I had forgotten it, and I had come to see him as just a friend.

  “Why are you looking at me like that, Elena?” he asked without taking his arm off his eyes.

  “Like what? You can’t even see me.”

  “I can feel the weight of that stare, though. If I was in water right now, I would sink like a rock.”

  A recklessness gripped me. If Lucas could change—and he’d already begun, suggesting to the general that he would be willing to serve beneath a commonborn officer—then surely Finnian could, also.

  “Some things are more important than strength, Finnian,” I said.

  He rolled onto his side, propping himself on his elbow, his fist supporting his head. He examined my face with a slight frown although his voice was light.

  “A great many things, if you ask me. Now if someone could please just convince the good general of that, perhaps we could all get away from this infernal mud.”

  I frowned, trying to read the truth in his quizzical eyes.

  “Surely love is one of those things,” I said, but my voice had become hesitant. Was I missing a puzzle piece somewhere?

  He sat up fully, leaning toward me.

  “Now that is a very interesting proposition. Naturally I, of all people, think so.” He gave a flourishing half bow from his sitting position, neatly capturing his usual charming persona with the gesture. “But are we perhaps talking about…someone else?”

  I blinked at him, thinking of Coralie, and then my mind caught up.

  “Oh. Oh no. I mean, yes.” I growled. “Enough of thi
s. Finnian, I’m talking about Coralie. You and Coralie. Does it really matter to you so much that she’s only a Cygnet and her compositions have less strength than yours?”

  Every ounce of joking good humor fell from his face. “I thought we were friends, Elena. How can you say such a thing?”

  Now I was completely lost. I stared at him wordlessly while he frowned back at me.

  “You…don’t…feel that way?” I asked slowly.

  “Of course I do not. How could you think that of me?”

  “I understood it was a common way of thinking.” I examined him carefully, trying to work out where I had misstepped.

  He relaxed a little, leaning both forearms against his knees and looking away from me.

  “I suppose it is.” He looked back at me. “But then common thinking back in first year was that the commonborn in our midst should be avoided. I’ve never bought into common thinking.”

  I blinked at him, feeling a little foolish. This was the Finnian I knew. A heaviness lifted from my shoulders at the knowledge that I hadn’t misjudged my friend so completely.

  Sudden comprehension flashed across his face. He leaned forward again.

  “Where is this coming from, Elena?” His perceptive gaze pinned me in place. “Coralie told me she didn’t want anything serious while we were at the Academy. And thus, behold me.” He gestured toward himself. “Entirely unserious. I’m wounded you assumed there was anything else behind it.”

  But his eyes asked me if perhaps it hadn’t been an assumption at all. A sudden fear that I was betraying my best friend gripped me. But if Finnian truly didn’t care about her family or her strength…

  “Perhaps I’m not the one making the assumptions,” I said.

  He paused for an endless moment, not a muscle moving, and then he stood to his feet in one liquid movement.

  “Please excuse me for a moment. I have someone I need to speak to.”

  He had nearly made it off the grass when I called his name. He stopped and looked back at me.

  “Don’t make any promises you’re not willing to keep.”

  “I never do.”

  I didn’t see Coralie until the evening meal. She gave me a look that did not bode well, and all my hopeful excitement withered.

  “Did you speak to Finnian?” I asked as we collected our trays of food.

  “Funny,” she said with a flat look, “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

  I winced. I guess it had been friend betrayal after all.

  “But you said—”

  She cut me off. “Not here. We’ll talk later.”

  We sat down and began to eat our meal, but I couldn’t enjoy a bite without her usual cheerful conversation. After she caught me watching her from the corner of my eye for the fifth time, she sighed.

  “Fine. Let’s get out of here and talk.”

  We took our rolls with us, and I grabbed an apple on the way out as well. Neither of us said anything as she led me to a secluded spot on the outskirts of the tent city. I had barely come to a stop when she whirled on me.

  “Why did you say something to Finnian? He’s been bothering me all afternoon.”

  “Bothering you?” My brow creased. “Don’t try to pretend you aren’t a little in love with him, Coralie. Or a lot. Because I won’t believe you.”

  She threw up her hands. “That’s what makes it worse!”

  “But you told me he didn’t want you because of your family. And it’s not true! I thought you would be happy.”

  “What?” She stared at me. “I never said that.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Yes, you did! After Midwinter.”

  “No.” She shook her head rapidly from side to side. “That’s not what I said. I never said he didn’t want me because of my family. I said it would never work because of his family.”

  “But I thought…”

  “Oh Elena.” Coralie sighed. “At least you meant well, I suppose.”

  “Why do you care about his family?” I asked. “What does it matter what they think? If he doesn’t care, why should you?”

  “Because he does care, of course. You’ve seen what he’s like with Saffron and heard them talk about their mothers. Finnian is his mother’s world. He may think he loves me enough to flout them, but he would hate actually having to do it. And that’s without even considering the mockery of his peers. The snide looks, the omitted invitations.”

  “Would you want their invitations?” I asked.

  “Not for me. But I would want them for Finnian. I couldn’t bear to be the reason he was looked down on, overlooked for positions within his future discipline, even. And then one day he would start to resent me for it. Start to wonder if I was worth it. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but eventually. Maybe only when our children got to the Academy and couldn’t keep up with their year mates among the strongest of the great families. I love Finnian, but I don’t want to have to spend the rest of my life proving that I was worth the sacrifice.”

  An icy sensation started in my scalp and spread slowly through my body. I wanted to shake her, to tell her she was wrong. To tell her love was worth it. But I couldn’t seem to move. Her words reverberated in my mind. She was speaking of herself, but she wasn’t the only one who had dared to love someone who should have been out of their reach.

  Was she right? Would Lucas some day come to resent me? And would I come to resent the pressure to be worth it? What sort of children would a Spoken Mage have? Would they inherit my limitations? A prince or princess cocooned in the middle of court but unable to pen a single word.

  I had always mocked and even feared the game. Was I really ready to commit myself to a life ensnared at its very center?

  When Lucas kissed me everything in the world seemed clear. But he was nowhere to be seen right now, and suddenly the weight of a crown seemed like a burden far too heavy to bear. I stared silently at my friend. I had no answers for myself—I certainly had none for her.

  “What’s that?” she asked, looking past me. Slowly, awareness of my surroundings returned. A distant commotion split the evening calm. Raised voices sounded from a growing gathering of soldiers on the fringes of camp not too far from where we stood.

  Exchanging glances, we took off toward the hubbub. Others had the same idea, and the crowd continued to grow. We wormed our way through, our white robes keeping the soldiers from shoving us aside.

  At the center of the gathering, two soldiers crouched beside a third. The third man—the focus of all the attention—appeared to have collapsed onto his knees where he swayed slightly despite no longer being on his feet. A ragged gash along his hairline slowly seeped blood, and his nondescript clothing was dirty and torn, bloodstained in several places. A rough bandage had been wrapped around his upper right arm, clearly not the work of any reputable healer or healer’s assistant.

  “The general. I need to see the general,” he croaked, his glazed eyes sweeping the crowd.

  The watchers across from us bulged and rippled as two men in red and gold elbowed them aside, creating a passage through the crowd. Lucas emerged into the small open space in the middle, his gaze fixed on the man.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “The general,” the man repeated. “I need the general.”

  “I am Prince Lucas, you may tell me your news.”

  The man blinked and attempted unsuccessfully to regain his feet. Lucas knelt swiftly beside him.

  “No, do not stand. You are injured. Healers are no doubt on their way, but if your message is urgent, we must hear it without delay.”

  “An attack.” The man stopped to cough before regaining his breath. “An attack is coming.”

  “Then we will prepare for it,” Lucas said calmly. “And drive them back as we have always done.”

  I tried to read if his confidence was real or assumed for the sake of the soldiers around us. I couldn’t tell.

  “No!” The man pulled at Lucas’s robes, and the two royal guards surged forw
ard. Lucas waved them away.

  “No,” the man whispered. I leaned forward from my place at the front of the crowd to hear better. “This isn’t like the last one. This is a full-scale attack. Their entire force is on its way here. They will arrive within hours.”

  Chapter 21

  Only the closest soldiers could hear his words, but the ripple of the news passed from mouth to mouth, the cry growing louder.

  “Attack!”

  “An attack is coming!”

  “Hours?” Lucas gripped the man’s shoulder. “Impossible. They could not have kept secret an attack of that scale. The troop movements, the preparations…Impossible. Our intelligencers would have sent us word by now.”

  “So it’s true, then.” The man slumped in on himself, losing what little color he had still retained. “You have had no warning. We feared our messages weren’t getting through. Even the compositions seem to have failed. I wasn’t supposed to leave my post, but two had already tried to come in person, and yet no word had come back through the usual channels.”

  He gasped and swayed. He would have fallen if Lucas hadn’t held him upright.

  “This is too big,” he said between labored breaths. “I had to try, or all of Ardann will be lost.”

  “Healers!” Lucas called from down in the mud. “Where are the healers?”

  A purple robe appeared and knelt beside him. To his credit, Reese wasted no time asking questions, his whole focus on the patient.

  “You and you.” Lucas pointed at two burly soldiers. “Carry this man to headquarters.”

  Reese muttered a half-verbalized protest, but Lucas waved it aside.

  “You can accompany them, Reese. We have no time to waste.”

  He stood and surveyed the crowd. His eyes fastened on the silver robes now dotted among the gray uniforms, even more approaching from further in the camp.