Voice of Dominion (The Spoken Mage Book 3)

by Melanie Cellier

  He regarded me steadily.

  “That was not the first time I stared death in the face, and it will not be the last. But when you restrained yourself, you proved to me that while you weren’t born a mageborn, you should have been. Control and power—those are the tools that will take you far in court.”

  There was something very disturbing about the fact that it took my threatening his life to convince him that I belonged among the mages. But did it really matter why, at the end of the day?

  “Very well, General Griffith, I accept your offer,” I said.

  “Excellent,” he replied. “I already have the legal documents drafted, they require only our signatures. I’ll call for them now. And please,” he paused as he reached for the bell that would bring a footman running, a wicked twinkle in his eye, “call me Father.”

  I almost ran back up the steps into the Academy. I had assured the general that I would not be calling him Father, and we had agreed on sir as an appropriate mode of address. The documents had arrived by that point, and it wasn’t until I found myself back in the streets that I had been able to contemplate the change in my status.

  All I could think of as I flew up South Road toward the Academy was telling Lucas. Everything had changed. The law no longer needed to be changed. No barriers at all stood between us now. With the legal status of a Devoras, I dared anyone to question if my strength was sufficient for the royal family.

  But in the entranceway, I came to an abrupt halt, entirely distracted from my purpose.

  “Jasper? Clemmy?” My siblings both came forward with large smiles, fighting over who got to hug me first. I met my father’s eyes over Clemmy’s head.

  “Mother? Father? What’s going on? What are you all doing here?” I would have been terrified to see them turn up so unexpectedly if I hadn’t had Clemmy whole and healthy in the circle of my arms.

  “We came up to the city for Jasper’s graduation,” my mother said, pride beaming from every line of her face. “A university graduate! In our own family. Seems too good to be true.”

  “Oh Jasper!” I turned to my brother. “I missed it! I’m so sorry.”

  He ruffled my hair. “Never mind. It was only a ceremony.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Only, he says…”

  He grinned, and I grinned back.

  “We’re going out to celebrate,” Clemmy announced. “Mother and Father have saved some coin, and we’re going to the best restaurant in the city.”

  I glanced a little longingly at the stairs, but Lucas had said he wasn’t going to the palace until the morning. I had time to spend with my family.

  I let Clemmy tug me out the front door, chattering all the way down the street about all the things she had so far seen in the capital. Jasper kept pace beside us.

  “I have some other news,” he said.

  I looked up, a smile and congratulations on my lips, but he didn’t announce his betrothal to Clara as I had expected.

  “I’ve taken a position.”

  “Oh.” I raced to recover from my less than enthusiastic response. “That’s wonderful. Tell me all about it.”

  “There isn’t much to tell, really. It’s as a palace official.”

  “Wait—what? I thought you were going to work for a merchant family?”

  He shrugged. “Plans change.”

  We reached the restaurant, and I pulled him aside while my parents requested a table.

  “Jasper, what do you mean? Why have your plans changed?”

  “I’ve heard some rumors while you were away, little sister.”

  I groaned. “Not the rumor that I defeated an entire army on my own, I hope?”

  “I have heard that one, actually, but that wasn’t the one I had in mind. It’s the one about you and a certain person who is so far above us that I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation. Except it’s you we’re talking about, so somehow I’m not surprised at all.”

  I flushed and looked away.

  “Oh, Elena.” He sighed. “You know there’s no way that’s going to end well, right?”

  I shook my head stubbornly.

  “And this is why plans change.”

  “What do you mean?” I stared at him, my brows drawing together.

  “When I started at the University, it was to protect one of my little sisters. And the best way to do that was to earn as much money as I could as fast as I could. But now she doesn’t need me anymore.” He threw an affectionate glance at Clemmy who bounced up and down at my mother’s side, looking around the restaurant with wide eyes.

  “Instead my other little sister needs me. And I can keep a better eye on her inside the palace than anywhere else.”

  “What does Clara think?” I asked.

  He looked away, suddenly as interested in the restaurant as Clemmy. “She understands. And it may not be as high-paying as some other jobs, but I’ll be able to save still. I’ll earn enough eventually, if she’s still…”

  He bit his lip, still studiously not meeting my eyes, and I got the impression there was something else going on that he wasn’t telling me.

  “Oh, Jasper, no.” What exactly had he given up for me?

  “It’s already done. There’s no point talking about it further.”

  Our parents called to us, and reluctantly I let it drop. But I determined to find out the full story, and if Jasper was making sacrifices for me, to convince him to change his mind. I had just been pulled the last of the way into the complicated game of court—there was no turning back for me now—but that didn’t mean my brother had to come with me. My family would have the prosperous and productive life in the commonborn sector of Corrin that they had always dreamed for themselves.

  When everyone had eaten their fill, and the talk turned to their journey back to Kingslee, certainty filled me. I had just transformed from Elena of Kingslee to Elena of Devoras. It was time for my family’s long chapter with Kingslee to end.

  “You’re only going back to sell your store,” I told them. “And then you’re coming straight back here. We’re all going to spend the summer in Corrin.”

  “Yes!” Clemmy crowed.

  Jasper frowned. “I haven’t had the chance to save much money yet, Elena. I don’t know how far the sale of the store will go, considering—”

  I cut him off and told them all what I had just done.

  “You’re still my real family, of course,” I assured them, suddenly nervous that they would be hurt by my decision after all. “It’s just a legal thing. I no longer have any need to claim Kingslee when you all are leaving it. Elena of Devoras will be the same person. And it comes with an allowance. One I have no need of myself, since I’m still at the Academy.”

  The allowance had been a surprise, and I had tried to refuse. But the documents had already been signed at that point, and the general had merely regarded me with surprise.

  “You are now my daughter, Elena. And I can assure you all my other children receive such an allowance. Just ask Natalya.” Amusement had sounded in his voice, perhaps at the idea of his true daughter refusing his money, and it had felt churlish to keep pushing. Now I was glad I had acquiesced. Why shouldn’t my family gain from my arrangement?

  Their exclamations and the required explanations lasted all the way out of the restaurant and up the street toward the Academy since they insisted on returning me there. But my parents slowly drifted into silence, exchanging looks with each other that put me on edge.

  I let Clemmy race ahead of us, Jasper going after her with an affectionate sigh.

  “What is it?” I asked my parents. “Are you disappointed in me?” I worried at my lip. Should I have told them about Lucas and me? I wanted to wait until he had spoken to his parents, but it might help explain my decision to my family.

  “I know you were afraid of losing me,” I said, “but that isn’t what’s happened. Please believe me when I say that I would never truly wish to be a part of the Devoras world.”

  “I should al
ways have known we would never get to keep you to ourselves,” said my father quietly. “Or your brother. You’re too special. But we are grateful for the claim we do have on you, whatever papers you may have signed. We want what is best for you, and we recognize we no longer have the experience to advise you as to what that must be. We trust in your judgment.”

  “Thank you, Father.” I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “But what do you mean you should always have known? There was nothing special about me before my powers appeared.”

  My father looked at my mother, and she nodded. A stirring of unease shot through me.

  “You’re entering a whole other world now, Elena. Your mother and I realize that. And we’ve been talking. There’s something we haven’t told you. Something we probably should have…”

  I stared at them, my wrung-out mind unable to come up with even a remote guess as to what they could be referencing.

  “When your father and I were first married, we couldn’t have children,” my mother said. “We tried and tried, and I grew desperate. Your father said we should go for a holiday. That perhaps a trip might help. I didn’t have any hope left, but I also had no energy to resist, so I went along. But it turned out the holiday was only a story for our neighbors. He had something else in mind.”

  She glanced at him, and he resumed the tale.

  “I had heard distant rumors of someone who could help in such situations. My parents had worked hard and amassed a small fortune in gold from their profits at the store. They left it to me, and I could think of no more worthy use. So we went to this woman. A mad eccentric she was, in the end. But she sold them to us anyway. Two of them. A boy and a girl, she assured us.”

  “Two of what?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

  “Two compositions,” my mother whispered. “I ripped the first one as soon as we got home, and a month later I was pregnant with Jasper. I ripped the second two years later.”

  “I’ve never heard of a healing composition that produces pregnancies.” I frowned. “Did she analyze you first, like Beatrice did with Clemmy? Perhaps she worked out something in you needed healing.”

  My mother shook her head.

  “She wasn’t…wasn’t a normal sort of mage,” my father said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “We don’t understand mages like you do these days, Elena. I just know she wasn’t the normal sort.”

  “But it worked,” my mother said. “And that was all that mattered to us. And then Jasper turned out to have a mind like he does…” She shook her head in wonder before turning her eyes on me. “And then you…”

  “We just thought you should know,” my father added. “There’s a reason you’re both so extraordinary, even if we don’t know what it is, exactly.”

  I stared at them, my mind racing. “Do you understand how important this is? That a composition might have made me like this? It seems beyond impossible, but perhaps the situation could be replicated!”

  I frowned. “But Jasper can’t compose. He’s as unable to control power as the two of you. It can’t have been just that composition. No composition has the power to grant an ability like mine.”

  I ground my teeth in frustration.

  “Can I read them? The compositions she gave you?”

  My mother shook her head. “We burned them as soon as we tore them. We had no use for them once they were used, and keeping words in our home any longer than necessary? No.”

  “Well, perhaps I can find this mage then? Ask her directly.”

  “I’m afraid she wasn’t young when we found her,” my father said. “There’s no chance she’d still be around now with your brother already twenty-one.”

  “I can’t believe you never told me this. Why did you keep it a secret even from me?”

  My parents exchanged a final glance, and then my father leaned close to me.

  “Because this mage woman…she lived in Kallorway.”

  Sudden understanding filled me. We had already been at war with Kallorway twenty-one years ago. Some might try to argue my parents’ actions were treasonous. I could never take this story to Lorcan, so perhaps it was a good thing, after all, that they could tell me nothing of the woman or the composition.

  When they said goodnight, my mother gave me a lingering hug, and I understood what her words didn’t say. We had all been through a lot to create and protect our family. All of us had made sacrifices in our own way. And each of us had been forced to do our best in a less than ideal situation. Through it all, it had been love that drove us, and it was our love that would bind us together, no matter what.

  As soon as they disappeared through the gate, I hurried to Lucas’s suite, no one appearing to prevent me this time. I had even more to tell him than I had thought.

  But when I knocked at the door, I received no answer. I turned away, trying to think where else he might be. Surely he would not have gone to the library? We had neither exams nor assignments to study for.

  “You won’t find him here,” said a cold voice from the stairs.

  Slowly I approached my new sister. “What do you mean?”

  “Lucas is at the palace.” Something nasty in her smile stripped away the buoyant joy that had carried me here.

  “Oh really? He told me he intended to wait until morning.”

  “I believe,” she said, her voice offhand, “that he may have had a summons from his parents waiting on his bed.”

  I frowned.

  “It seems they got word he was showing some…undesirable tendencies, and they wanted him out of the Academy as soon as possible.”

  Outrage filled me. I didn’t need her to spell it out to know where that word had come from. Lucas had feared that if word of our relationship became public, someone in Corrin would turn his parents against me before we could return, but the poison had come from someone with us at the front. Had she sent word through her older brother, Julian? I couldn’t imagine she had done it through her father—not given his plans where I was concerned.

  With effort I tamped down my emotion.

  “Undesirable?” I loaded my voice with surprise. “You can’t mean me. No one would call a Devoras undesirable, surely?”

  “What do you mean?” A note of panic entered her voice.

  “Why only that I also received a summons of my own this afternoon…sister.”

  “No. No, no, no. He didn’t. Father wouldn’t…I told him…” She stared at me with horror.

  “Go ask him yourself.” I shrugged. “He can show you the documents.”

  She turned pale and started down the stairs but paused only two steps down. When she looked back at me, her expression squashed any feeling of satisfaction.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. Not where Lucas is concerned. You could be as much a Devoras as me, and it won’t change a thing.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You haven’t heard? Another delegation arrived from the Sekali Empire while we were away. And the rumor circulating Corrin is that this time they’re ready to propose a marriage alliance. Their oldest princess with Prince Lucas. It’s supposed to be signed by the time we graduate. Not even a Devoras can compare to a princess with the might, resources, and soldiers of the Sekali Empire behind her.”

  I swallowed. An alliance? With the Sekalis? Impossible. And yet Lucas was gone. And Prince Cassius had alluded to something like this.

  I swallowed, trying not to let my fear show on my face. Lucas’s parents would never agree to his courting me if there really was an alliance offered. But he would still fight for me. I could feel his lips lingering on mine. I knew he would.

  “If Ardann ally ourselves with the Sekalis,” Natalya continued, “we would have Kallorway suing for peace within a week.”

  All my certainty crumbled into nothing. If Lucas could single-handedly end the war without a life lost, how could he possibly refuse? How could I ask him to do so?

  I wanted to laugh although I felt no hu
mor. I had just discovered I had access to limitless power—I had become the most powerful mage who ever lived. And none of that power was enough to get me the one thing I wanted.

  Natalya turned and marched down the stairs, her departure turned into a walk of triumph. Coralie bounded up past her, grimacing at her back before slipping her arms around my waist and giving me a squeeze.

  “You survived the general, I see! Don’t let anything Natalya said get you down. I want to hear what the old codger wanted.”

  “I don’t think you’ll believe it,” I said slowly, my mind barely functioning well enough to process her words.

  “Well, try me, I’m the believing type.” She led me up toward her suite. “Finnian and Saffron will be joining us any minute. Turns out they had some more cookies waiting for them, and they also want to hear what the general wanted with you. Then we’re all going to write to our parents to ask for permission to stay on at the Academy for a while.”

  My family on hand, the best of friends—and cookies. It had the makings of a perfect summer. If only my heart wasn’t in the middle of ripping in two.

  Coralie continued to chatter about the various things she hoped to achieve over the summer, and my mind snagged on the word hope. Hope. That was what I needed to hold onto. If Natalya was right, I still had time.

  All I had to do was find a way to end the war with Kallorway during our fourth year so that Lucas wouldn’t be obligated to go through with the alliance. No big deal at all, in other words.

  I rolled my eyes at myself and let Coralie pull me into her suite. As I flopped into one of the chairs, Prince Cassius’s face again filled my mind. Perhaps it could be done. Perhaps there was a way.

  “Cookies!” announced Saffron, entering the room with a large box carried ceremoniously in front of her. Finnian followed behind, sweeping Coralie into his arms and placing a kiss in her hair.

  “How are you, light of my heart?” he asked.

  “I only saw you five minutes ago,” she protested.