by R. K. Thorne
He didn’t like the sound of that. He stretched out the blankets. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the shadows grew longer. Soon the fire would be the only light.
He lay down on the blankets and looked up at the treetops reaching toward the starry sky. Neka was already shining between the branches, low and bright. He took a deep breath of the forest air. Stupid as it was, he felt pretty darn good. The air swirled with pine musk and freedom, and the open sky had been above him for hours. He was almost drunk on it. He should be plotting his escape, but the allure of the heavens above stole all his thoughts.
He looked over at her. Tendrils of red hair drifted down toward the papers she studied. Her orders? A map? Her black, well-made leathers fit extraordinarily well, in a style unfamiliar to him. Not Takaran. Many Takarans refused to use animal products such as leather anyway. There was Isolte, the home of his lovely princess. Could this have to do with everything that had transpired with Evana? But she had seemed more bent on killing him personally, and this woman didn’t seem to desire his death. At least not yet. Evana had also described herself as having little power within Isolte, so it seemed unlikely she could orchestrate this via her countrymen. Maybe via these Devoted Knights—perhaps this Mara was one of them? But how could any mage be in the employ of an organization that sought to hunt down and kill mages? No, that didn’t make any sense.
Akaria had never been on great terms with Winokin to the north, but the journey from there to Akaria over the mountains was hellish, if not impossible. The massive barrier of rock between the two countries kept a fairly solid peace, so they had no reason to kidnap him. Besides, if she were from Winokin, she should have flown the other way. They were headed toward Takar, but also out of the wilderness and toward the main roads. Their direction was likely temporary. He could think of only one other option: Kavanar, their long-time rival and enemy.
She must’ve felt him studying her. She shattered his gaze with a glance. He pretended to be intently studying the sky.
“Here,” she said. “Tea’s ready.”
“Time to sleep,” she told the prince. “This might be a little uncomfortable, but there’s no way around it.” She could hear the hint of apology in her voice. Damn. It hadn’t even been a day. She couldn’t go soft on him already. He’d likely stab her in the back first chance he got.
She rubbed her fingers together slightly, a small-enough gesture she was sure he didn’t see. Her vines snaked from the soil and coiled around him, pulling him tight to the earth. His face was a mix of horror and fascination.
He was so utterly surprised each time. And he was an air mage who couldn’t even light a fire. Did he really not know any magic? Could it be some kind of act? Could magic be that rare in Akaria?
“Well!” he said simply.
“I told you night would be cozy,” she said.
He snorted. “No exaggeration. Cozy, indeed.”
“Goodnight.” She lay down, her back to him.
Of course, she couldn’t fall asleep. She hoped to hear him fall asleep first. Thank the ancients for vine spells. She might be able to sleep just a little easier because of them. Of course, she’d woven plenty of other spells around them in case he found a way around the first spell or two. The dirt outside the brambles was ready to become a deep, thick mud that would take an hour to trudge through. Foxes in their burrows waited to rouse Miara at the sound of footsteps.
She couldn’t manage this effort every night, but it made her feel just a bit safer at the start of this impossible task. Also, much of Akaria was not as forested and lonely as this stretch. A locked room in an inn would be far more defensible.
She listened to his breathing—not a slow, sleepy rhythm, but many long, deep breaths. Had he never smelled forest air before or something? She must be mistaken, but she swore there was a joy radiating from him that mystified her.
Eventually her side became uncomfortable, and she turned onto her back. He lay on his back with his eyes closed, breathing deeply. He could be asleep. She studied him.
The question of his magic gnawed at her. Could he really not know? Having magic had never exactly been convenient for her. Perhaps for an Akarian prince it was equally problematic. Or perhaps he didn’t know. Either way, how sad. As a mage, he was quite pathetic.
For a moment, old fears and thoughts of her mother flitted through her mind again. Would their lives have been better if she’d been born without magic? Perhaps—no. She thrust the emotions aside. She didn’t need the love of someone who would betray her own child so easily over something that Miara had no choice about. To hell with her. A shame her mother had been such an easily manipulated twit.
In Mage Hall, she had finally begun to really learn. She remembered the exhilaration she’d felt first coaxing little seeds into saplings under her father’s tutelage. What would life even be like without magic? She could soar in the skies, dig into the earth, swim in the sea, capture this strong man, and control him easily. She was powerful. She had fangs, feathers, fur, fins, and everything in between. She could hear a horse’s whisper and call a rose to life. She could feel this man’s heart beating, his life force, deep inside her mind, the way a non-mage would hear wind outside the window—absently, constantly, without end. Imagining the world without that seemed depressingly empty.
Did he know what he was missing? Had he had a choice?
It didn’t matter. He was in this situation either way, just like she was.
She hadn’t been listening to him, so she stilled her thoughts and listened. Definitely asleep now. She studied the angles of his face in the dwindling firelight. His eyelids twitched a little. He was really quite handsome, as she supposed princes ought to be. She could still see his soft green eyes, the color of sage leaf or silvered elephant’s ear. Who was he? Who had he been? Had other women dreamed of those eyes and remembered them fondly? Longed to be as close to him as those vines? Even… closer? Did someone even now grieve and worry for him?
What about the voice behind her on the terrace?
She forced her eyes toward the sky. It didn’t matter who he was or who loved or missed him—she had no choice in this. It was best not to think about it.
She remembered Brother Sefim. He was a priest, her father’s close friend, and also her teacher. Before she’d taken to the road, she’d told Sefim of her mission to kidnap the prince.
“Don’t worry,” she had said, trying to reassure herself more than him. “I’m sure the Akarian’s a fool. All royals seem to be. Everyone they’ve sent me after thus far has been.”
“Every single one of them a fool?” Sefim had laughed, raising an eyebrow.
“They are not the most diverse lot. I’ll cling to the likelihood that this noble-born prince will be a bastard who deserves to be kidnapped.” He had shaken his silvered head at her, grinning broadly. “All right, all right. No one deserves to be kidnapped. You have no love for my sanity, do you?”
“I have more love for your soul,” he had said. “But I’m not worried about it. It is the Masters who are in the wrong here. Not you.”
She smiled to herself and hoped Aven wouldn’t notice. She wanted to believe Brother Sefim. But she still felt herself working magic against the Way. She still felt like she was very wrong. It was hard to believe she would not be punished for it, one way or another.
Was there some way to avoid such a thing? Right this wrong, short of setting him free? Although she had not chosen to kidnap him, she could choose whether or not she understood what she had done. Would that help? Could she punish herself with the suffering and guilt and not carry yet another debt against this man or against the Way?
And if she could understand, could she stand the pain of it?
The stars were coming out, and she could see them clearly now. She took a deep breath of the cold, smoky air, and she knew—painful or not, she had to understand. Tomorrow, she would ask her own questions.
The next morning, Aven awoke to discover that none of it had been a drea
m. It was all very real, and he was still tied to the ground by very real magical vines that didn’t show any hope of letting go.
The sun had risen, but its rays didn’t shine into the camp just yet. He looked toward the woman—Mara. She lay sleeping, or at least it seemed so. The fire burned low but still gave off enough heat to hold back the morning chill.
He lay for a while, listening. The wind through the trees, the birds excitedly singing the tidings of morning, the cracks and pops of the fire—all were lovely to his ears. When was the last time he’d left Estun? He couldn’t remember. He shook his head. He had missed so much, locked inside that damn cave. He should be thanking this woman.
And what was it all for? He loved his parents, but they’d locked him in a dungeon of dark and earth and fire for years, and it hadn’t even accomplished anything. His magic still lingered; it couldn’t be choked out. He carried its burden but none of its benefits. This woman could easily control him with her power, and what could he do about it? Nothing but swirl the air around in annoyance!
Then, suddenly, something occurred to him. All his life, he’d hidden his magic, been afraid of the consequences of someone finding out that he was secretly a mage. But right now, there was no one to know, no one to be afraid of.
Maybe getting kidnapped was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And hell, that really said a lot about where he came from, didn’t it.
On the other hand, he didn’t think she knew he had any magic yet, and if she had bothered to kidnap him, chances were she didn’t have his best interests at heart. Perhaps she was exactly the person he should be hiding his magic from. Not that that made him any more capable of doing it.
And besides. She was still asleep.
Now was the time to experiment. What to try? Clearly the air came naturally to him. But he had rarely tried to do something deliberately. Where to even start? And how would he know the difference between his magic and an incidental breeze at the exact same moment?
He probably couldn’t, but what the hell. There were yellow, orange, and browning leaves scattering the ground. That’d be as good a place to start as any.
He turned his head to face the woman while he tried. Of course, blowing leaves near him meant he could blow them into the fire and perhaps then out of it again, alight. But, well, he would hope for the best. And perhaps they would blow onto his captor and this whole matter could be settled!
Eyeing her out of the corner of his eye, he focused on the leaves beside him. Now, how to begin?
First, he focused on them as intensely as he could. He tried to imagine pushing his mind and his will toward the leaves, or across the leaves from his head toward his toes. He tried to imagine the leaves doing what he wanted.
Nothing.
He was about ready to physically blow on them, but obviously that defeated the purpose. He visualized more carefully, closing his eyes, but he snapped his eyes open barely a moment later because, of course, how would he know if it had worked?
The leaves looked unmoved.
He kept trying for he didn’t know how long, attempting every way he could imagine to use magic to move the leaves, but to no avail.
He felt disgusted with himself. What was he missing? What did he not know? Damn his parents for not even teaching him the tiniest bit. Was there a secret to it? Did he need a totem or token of some kind? Were there magic words you needed to know, like those listed in the star book? But then how would anyone have ever figured them out?
Suddenly he remembered the star map. He’d slipped it in his pocket in the library what seemed like a lifetime ago—it could still be there. Having survived that journey in his pocket would be remarkable, but he could hope. His hands and arms were hugged to his sides by the vines, but he squirmed his hand and felt the slight crunch of paper. By the ancients—it was still there. Perhaps that could help him figure something out if these guesses were fruitless.
But at the moment, tied up like a roast, guessing was his only option. He turned his head to face the woman and tried again to move the leaves.
After a while of trying, his mind wandered from its various visualizations of leaves moving. He thought of his mother’s whispered lessons to him, the few things she’d tried to tell him in precious, stolen moments on the garden terrace. He remembered her arms around him, when he was younger, looking up at the stars with him, whispering, “The stars, the moon, the sun, the very air—they are all yours, Son. All yours to breathe your will.” It had been important information, really, but it was also the moment his mother sounded most like what he imagined a mage to be. There was a hint in her voice of a lust for magic, for bending the power to your will. He sighed. It was a fine idea but sounded grand and silly when he couldn’t even move a leaf.
And then suddenly it hit him—move a leaf! Of course. That night his mother had whispered that the air was his, the moon, and stars. Not the leaves. Those—did they belong to this woman sleeping nearby? To his mother? And the dirt—that wasn’t his, either. Air, creature, earth. He could only control from the top of a leaf on up!
Feeling renewed, he focused again on the leaves. He took a deep breath. She seemed to be stirring, so he probably didn’t have much time. Another deep breath—focus on the air, focus on the feeling of it moving, in and out, back and forth. He centered his thoughts and moved them up from the leaves to the air above them. He imagined tiny particles moving, a breeze blowing from his head toward his feet, struggling to visualize the invisible air.
A leaf twitched. Another.
Excited, his mind immediately brought forth the idea of a gust of wind flinging leaves into the air—and suddenly up they flew!
He gasped in surprise. The gust stopped abruptly, unnaturally, and the leaves tumbled straight down. Several of them hit him in the face. He almost laughed aloud at it.
He had done it! He grinned like a fool in spite of himself. What should he try next—a tree branch? The brambles? Sparks from the fire! What would be hard and what would be easy?
In his excitement, he forgot he was not alone.
“Well, looks like you’re having a good morning.” Her voice cut through his grin, and he turned to see her eyeing him strangely. “I can’t imagine what you have to smile about.”
He said nothing and just looked from her to the fire and back. She didn’t answer his questions; he wouldn’t answer hers if she didn’t even phrase them as such.
She sat up, throwing off the furs and blankets she’d slept under. To his surprise, she’d slept with her boots on. Her bun had loosened, and she reached back and began to take it down. Locks of fiery red tumbled down her shoulders in a sudden rush, and he caught his breath. All thoughts of magic dwindled as he watched her brush through her hair with her fingers, toss it over her shoulder, and tie it back up. Luckily, he broke his eyes away before she noticed.
She stood up and stretched. Stiff as he was from not being able to move the entire night, he squinted his eyes and glared at her. She noticed and stared at him for a moment as if considering, and then she shrugged. She turned away and began rummaging in her pack, and he thought she was going to ignore him, but slowly the vines began to loosen.
They had somewhat untangled, but not completely. He was studying them when he realized she was coming toward him with a dagger. He jumped, but she gave him a look of disdain.
“You think I’d keep you alive all night just to kill you now?” she said, gripping the vines and taking the blade to them vigorously. She cut them from top to bottom in a gesture or two; he was glad it was the vines and not his stomach.
“Well, pardon me for not thinking clearly first thing in the morning,” he replied. He sat up as she headed back toward her pack. His stomach gurgled. Ah, to be in the kitchen at home—eggs, bacon, oats and milk and sugar. He doubted she had any of that in her pack. And the wondrous head cook’s sugar-dusted apple dumplings—that was definitely not in her pack. Would he ever taste them again?
He swallowed and watched carefully where
she slid the dagger back into her pack. Perhaps that would come in handy later. But killing her was out of the question. Beyond the Code and the matter of honor, there was something about her. Instincts told him he would pay the gods if he wronged her. He had no desire to. No, he would have to focus on some kind of escape.
Miara tried to focus on choosing which of the two main roads the maps showed could take them most of the way to the Kavanar border. But something that morning flared the animal instincts in her, and she couldn’t help but feel the sense that she was being watched. Each time she checked for anyone who could be studying them, she found nothing, however. And if someone was indeed watching them, why hadn’t they acted after she made camp for the night?
According to the map, it looked like they could make it to a town if they rode a little farther east and then started heading south when they hit the main road. The towns would be larger than some she had passed on the way here, which would help her to fade into the background, but she hadn’t seen these towns before to know anything about them. It was hard to know which road would be easier. She hoped she was choosing well.
She turned her eyes to the forest around them, but she could find no sign of any creature. The treetops seemed empty. Could it be under the ground? There was only one way to know, although she dreaded meeting mind-to-mind with anything that watched her.
She cast out a tendril of thought, feeling for life in the earth beneath them, around them. It teemed with life—insects, rodents, spiders—but nothing that cared about their presence. She worked her way up slowly—nothing, nothing—there.
Cleverly hiding itself in the autumn leaves, a hawk perched in a high treetop. Its mind regarded her without thought or word, aside from its mission to indeed watch her. She stood so she could partially see it through the leaves. It did not seem particularly keen on what they were doing—just knowing their general location.
The woman’s voice on the balcony. Perhaps this prince wasn’t the only mage they had. Although that gave her a small thrill of fear, this “spy” wasn’t much of a reaction. A simple bird tracking their location? An Akarian mage knew she had their prince, and this was it? Or were they working toward something more?
