“Yes,” she said, her gaze meeting mine without flinching, “you can. I just saw you do it.”
I bit my lip and then reluctantly opened my mouth, and said, “Take half.” At least that way I knew I wouldn’t risk taking more than she had to give.
More energy flowed into me, buoying me up. My aches and pains disappeared along with the last of my tiredness. I felt as if I could run a hundred miles, as if I had just woken from the most refreshing sleep of my life.
“Wait,” Lucas said. “All of you.” He looked at each of the three of us. “This needs to stay our secret.” He met my eyes. “At least for now. You’ve just worked out how to access almost limitless power. There are people who would kill for that.”
I swallowed, averting my eyes from Clarence’s mangled body. He was right. People were already killing for the power I possessed.
Leila and Araminta murmured assurances of their secrecy, but I couldn’t stay to hear them. Energy burned inside me, set afire by anger, and it was time I gave it an outlet.
The other remaining members of our team converged on us, but I took off without looking back, even as Martin’s voice called questions to Lucas. I broke through the last of the trees at a run.
I didn’t turn toward the river, and the fleeing Kallorwegians. If I wished to end this entire thing, I had a different target in mind. Running faster than I had ever run, I sped toward Bronton. When I reached the gates, I planted myself in front of them.
“Let me in!” I screamed up at the guards. “Let me through!”
I had no doubt their orders were to let no one through, but something in my appearance must have convinced them. After a long, slow moment, one gate inched slightly open. I slipped through the gap, and it crashed closed behind me.
“Spoken Mage,” a guard said with a respectful nod.
“Spoken Mage,” repeated another.
I didn’t stop to speak to them, rushing past through the streets. The soldiers at the doors of headquarters likewise made no effort to stop me. I only slowed as I walked through the doors of the old ballroom.
Everyone in the room froze and stared at me.
“Out,” I said, my eyes fixed on the general. “Everyone out.”
Not one of them waited for his confirmation, scattering before whatever fire burned in my eyes.
“Griffith.”
“Elena.” He spoke calmly, but I could see a wariness in his eyes he’d never directed at me before.
“There was an ambush waiting for us.”
“Where is Prince Lucas?” He looked behind me as if hoping Lucas would appear at my back.
“The third Kallorwegian ambush I have encountered this year. Tell me, General, Head of the Armed Forces, Devoras—how do they know so much about my movements? And how do we know so little about theirs?”
The general stared at me uncomprehending for a moment, and then enlightenment dawned on his face. And, swiftly following it, came fear. The sight of it filled me with a heady elation. Let one of them tremble for once. Let one of them know what it was like to be afraid before someone of greater power.
“I have been trying to work that out for some time,” the general said slowly. “If you have any insights, please share.”
Fury filled me that he would make so little attempt at an answer. That he didn’t even attempt to explain away the fact that all intelligencer messages came through him. Or that he was the only one who had known of our mission against the breach team. Well, he and the handful of aides who had been in this room with him the entire time since.
“You claim you want what’s best for this kingdom,” I snarled at him. “You claim to want to see the war end. And yet everywhere you ignore the commonborn. You let them fight and die for you, and yet you brushed away the idea that they could be properly equipped or given positions of command.”
I trembled so hard, I feared I might fly apart.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you’re the traitor. You’re still responsible for hobbling this kingdom. For propping up your own power while commonborn—and even mageborn—blood waters the soil. I would be doing Ardann a favor if I killed you right now.”
The general took a step back, his fingers twitching toward his sleeve.
I laughed, an ugly sound.
“I promise you, general, you don’t have a shield strong enough to stop me.”
I could feel the strength coursing through me, filling me to bursting, begging to come pouring out. I could destroy the general, of that I had no doubt. And more than that. Since tapping into Lucas and Araminta’s energy, I had gained a new awareness of the way it filled the core of every person I encountered. I could feel it filling the general now.
Take it all. That’s all I’d have to say. Take it all. And my power would drain his energy dry. And maybe he even deserved it. Maybe the kingdom would be better off without him as I had just said.
But still I hesitated.
My own anger scared me. It burned too brightly. Was this justice talking, or grief and rage? What was the use of learning to control my impetuous tongue, if I couldn’t control my actions?
I forced myself to take a step backward. To take a deep breath. The general didn’t move, didn’t try to convince me, just watched me with cautious eyes.
A voice I didn’t recognize sounded in the otherwise empty room, and my eyes flew to the corner where his aides had been receiving incoming communications minutes before.
“The enemy is starting to retreat,” the voice repeated. “Should we pursue? Or withdraw and assess casualties? We need immediate orders.”
The general and I exchanged startled glances, the shock cutting through my threat and the dangerous tension between us.
“Is this your doing?” asked the general. “When you burst in here, the battle wasn’t going well for us. We were holding them back, but only just.”
I said nothing. Another ball of power appeared with another voice requesting orders.
Griffith pointed to a composition on the table in front of him.
“I need to reply. To give them the order to withdraw. We’ve suffered enough casualties tonight.”
His words snapped something inside me, and I raised a hand to my pounding head. Weakly I gestured for him to proceed. He ripped the composition, barking a rush of orders into the ball of power that emerged.
I stumbled away from him. What had I nearly done?
I had always resented the mageborn for using their superior power to rule over the commonborn—and yet I had nearly done the same thing. I had nearly appointed myself judge, jury, and executioner over a member of the Mage Council, no less. If I started here, where would it end? If having greater power gave me the right to remove those above me when I disagreed with their decisions, I could see only one eventual end: a crown I did not wish to bear, followed eventually—inevitably—by an assassination I didn’t see coming. No one could rule entirely alone through nothing but sheer power—and no sane person would want to.
I wanted them to see there was a different way. And I had to start by showing them with my own actions. If General Griffith was a traitor, then he needed to be declared so by more than just me.
The general sank into a chair, the last of his orders apparently given. For the first time since I had met him, he looked old and unutterably weary.
After a moment he looked up and met my eyes.
“Two soldiers found Reese, by the way. He had been hit over the head and stuffed in a storage closet. He didn’t see his attacker.”
I slumped into another chair and rubbed a hand across my eyes. Energy still filled me, but it no longer compelled me to action. My grief had taken a different turn, and I now felt heavy and detached.
“I was at the front this last summer, you know,” said the general.
I looked up and frowned at him, unsure of his meaning.
“Lorcan told me he meant to keep you safely at the Academy all summer. You can ask him for yourself. I never knew he let you go h
ome for a week. I didn’t even hear about the attack until a month later.”
“But Captain Carson and Lieutenant Martin are your men. Lorcan didn’t request them from you?”
Griffith shook his head. “No, Lorcan assigned them directly. All of my officers get regular postings away from the front. Both Captain Carson and Lieutenant Martin were posted to Corrin last summer. They would never have been available for the assignment if they had been under my command.”
I frowned. It did make sense.
“But what about the intelligencer reports? They come only to you.”
He sighed. “That I cannot explain. They should come to me, and yet I have received none for some time. It’s been a quiet spring, though. I tried to tell myself no reports came because my agents had nothing to report…”
A sick feeling began to build in my stomach.
“You can work a truth composition, if you still doubt me. I won’t try to stop you.”
When I hesitated, he leaned forward, a sudden energy filling him.
“Do it! I want you to know that I am no more a traitor than you.”
His eyes bored into me, and for a shame-filled moment, I remembered Cassius’s hand on my back as I went with him willingly. But I pushed the thought aside and called up the words of a truth composition.
I spoke slowly, ensuring the working was tight and strong. Whatever the outcome, I never wanted to have cause to doubt it.
The general didn’t hesitate once, and the glowing sphere of white light in front of me never darkened in the slightest. Mages valued their privacy, and only the Head of Law Enforcement could compel another mage to submit to a truth composition. But Griffith seemed to find the process fascinating rather than insulting, watching me almost as closely as I watched him.
“That you have energy left for such a working,” he murmured when I ended the composition. “Remarkable.”
I turned my face away hurriedly and let my shoulders droop. I had been foolish to let him bait me into such a powerful working. And yet, I had needed to know. And now I did.
General Griffith was not the traitor. The sick feeling in my stomach had spread, the tremble now back in my hands. How close I had come to killing an innocent man.
But another thought loomed over me, distracting me. If Devoras were as loyal as Lucas had always claimed, then there was no one person with the position and power to have colluded with the Kallorwegians alone. There must instead be a vast network of traitors—a whole family of them. My mind turned back to the moment when I saw my attacker standing among the Stantorns. I had let myself get distracted by the general, but it must always have been them.
Redmond, my composition instructor, perhaps, who had known about my visit to my family. Jennica, who had ordered us out on patrol. Even Reese, who could have turned his healing powers to evil, as the Kallorwegians had done, and then locked himself in that closet. The endless possibilities gave me the terrifying sensation that the walls of the enormous room were closing in on me. I hadn’t left my enemies out there on the battlefield, they surrounded me at every turn.
Helplessness gripped me. I had just committed myself not to take the law into my own hands but instead to work within the system to bring lasting change. But could I do that if no one else would believe me about the Stantorns? Could I go back to the Academy and sit in Redmond’s class as if nothing had changed? And if I did, how many more attacks would I have to endure before eventually one succeeded?
But neither could I act. Because what if I was wrong? What if I was not the only new development after centuries of unchanging power? What if Kallorway had discovered a game changer of their own—some new way to wield power and evade our defenses? Perhaps their intelligencers were part of that network—I knew they had smuggled in two new ones just in the time I had been at the front. For all I knew that whole attack had been feints within feints, and the intelligencers had made their way back here to Bronton, where no one was looking for them.
The possibilities weighed me down, exhausting me with a fatigue that had nothing to do with the physical. And the idea of all the twisty possibilities made me think of the green fever epidemic. I should tell the general its true origin.
But I couldn’t bring my mouth to form the words. I couldn’t tell him that I had stood within striking distance of the Kallorwegian crown prince and instead of attacking had agreed to accompany him to Kallorway. And most of all, I couldn’t tell him that all this death and destruction had been so the Kallorwegians could get their hands on me.
I would tell Lucas, of course, and that would have to be enough. Let him decide who else should know.
Chapter 25
When the trainees assembled for the return trip to Corrin, we were a somber group. Already a small year, Clarence’s absence felt glaring at every turn. Even Natalya and Weston had been shaken when the rest of my squad brought his body back into camp, Lucas at their head.
The other two trainee groups had mustered under Lorcan and Thornton when news of the attack broke. Our instructors had commanded them to join the single reserve squad guarding the camp. A few Kallorwegians had broken through, but the fighting had been light from what Coralie told me.
Every time someone asked me in an awed voice how I had succeeded in fighting off the entire Kallorwegian army, I told them instead of Clarence’s bravery and intelligence, and how he turned the tide of our own small battle. It was all I could do, and it didn’t feel like nearly enough.
Leila pulled me aside to whisper that my secret was safe with her, and for all her open, chattering ways, I believed her. She had thrown herself in front of death for me—I didn’t doubt she could do this too.
Heat pressed at us from every side—summer had arrived. We would be arriving back at the Academy only to leave again in a few short weeks. Well, for most students, anyway. I wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Lucas had insisted that the Mage Council at least must be told what the Kallorwegians had been after, and also what they had done with the green fever. He hadn’t told anyone about Cassius’s offer to me, however, or that I had nearly accepted it.
It often haunted me at night, though. What would have happened if Lucas hadn’t arrived at that exact moment? Was it possible Cassius’s offer had been sincere, and he had tried to strike me out of fear that Lucas would change my mind? Perhaps he thought it easier to get me back across the border unconscious?
Lucas remained steadfast in his belief that Cassius had intended to kill me, but he hadn’t been there to hear the crown prince talk. He hadn’t looked into his eyes. And so, I wondered.
But even without the knowledge of my near treachery, the information that Kallorway wanted me badly enough to send their entire army as a decoy for my abduction meant I held no hope that Lorcan would let me out of the Academy for the summer. And that despite the fact that I was no longer a private in the Armed Forces.
Lorcan had insisted that Griffith discharge me for honorable service. The general agreed far more readily than I had expected—no doubt because after the attack, no one wanted me within striking distance of the front lines.
And Lorcan had informed us all of one other silver lining as well. After consultation with Thornton, he had declared the Battle of Abneris—as the soldiers had started calling it—sufficient to ensure a third year passing grade for all of us. There would be no exams at the end of our journey.
Carriages had arrived from Corrin for us, but they waited on the other side of the Wall. Colonel Jennica insisted that we walk the distance from camp to Wall, saying that while we might not have survived a full conscription, we had survived a major battle and should honor the traditions. I no longer trusted the colonel, but as we trudged slowly along the road, the jagged line of gray rocks approaching ahead of us, I found myself appreciating the time for reflection.
We had left more behind than we could afford to give. And yet we could have lost so much more still. And some things even had been gained—as Lucas’s hand in mine attested. I had t
ried to protest, but he only gripped it harder.
“No more hiding,” he said. “I nearly lost you, and I’m not wasting any more moments together.”
Natalya’s eyes narrowed at the sight, and her head leaned close to Lavinia’s. I suspected I wouldn’t like whatever backlash was coming from them, but after the battle, I couldn’t seem to care.
When we reached the Wall, Lucas let my hand drop, however. This was something we each had to do alone.
One at a time, all ten of the other trainees approached the rocks and ripped a parchment—some big, some small. When my turn finally came, I stood there for a long moment, sensing the complicated tapestry of power enmeshed in the stones. And I felt something else, too.
The new awareness I had gained since taking power from Lucas and Araminta had remained. Now I could not only feel power in the workings of other mages, but I could feel the potential of it resting inside them, the energy that pulsed at their life core, and in the core of every commonborn as well. And I felt how easily I could pull their energy into myself.
Sometimes the sensation frightened me, and I had done no further experiments since my desperate attempts among the trees. But I felt some ghost, some whisper of that energy now. Drops scattered among the rocks. The blood left by the commonborns who survived mingled with generations of mageborn power.
I thought of their sacrifices and of the horrors they took away with them, like the ones that now traveled in me. And I knew what composition I wished to speak. But there was something else I needed to do first.
Pricking my finger with the tip of my knife, I flicked a drop of deep red onto the rocks. Ignoring a muffled murmuring behind me, I whispered the words of my composition so no one else could hear, taking my time to shape them. And when I finished the binding, each of the droplets, not just my own, flared, their own lingering energy fueling my power as I poured it into them. Death would await anyone now who tried to cross them.
I turned back to the road and found Lorcan watching me with a strange expression. I refused to meet his eyes, clambering into a carriage after my friends.
Voice of Dominion (The Spoken Mage Book 3) Page 25
