by Jasmine Walt
“Well, have fun with this one,” I said, giving them a sarcastic salute. I turned my back on them, no longer feeling quite so nostalgic about being an enforcer. I had bigger things to worry about than whether these guys liked me. Like making sure I stayed alive, for one. And as soon as this quake thing was under control, I was going to deal with Father Calmias once and for all.
5
Iannis was busy handling state matters when I returned, so I didn’t bother telling him about the attack in Rowanville. He didn’t need to spend the rest of the day worrying about it since Rylan and I had handled it well enough. I’d tell him about it before dinner, if I had a chance.
I spent the early afternoon on my Loranian lessons with Fenris. He was a patient teacher and explained well, but I kept mixing up the eighteen different tenses, so I was relieved when I finally moved onto practicing spells in the training room. Iannis had deemed me sufficiently advanced that he was comfortable leaving me alone to practice, so long as I didn’t leave the warded room. At the moment, I was working on changing a block of wood into a living rosebush, and then back again. I’d already become proficient at changing one inanimate object into another—I could turn brass into stone and wood into gold. But changing a non-living object into a living one was a much tougher challenge.
Focusing my attention on the wood block, I turned my palms toward it, then spoke the transmogrification spell. I envisioned the square of walnut stretching and transforming, carving itself into trunk and roots potted in soil, branches reaching out to the world around it. To my delight, the block complied.
“Yes,” I crowed as leaves began to sprout from the branches, followed by rosebuds. They quickly blossomed, petals unfurling into brilliant shades of red…and then began to shrivel and blacken.
“Dammit, no!” Panicking, I shoved more magic into the plant, willing it to blossom and grow. But that only seemed to accelerate the decay—the trunk and branches crumbled until all that was left was the clay pot with a heap of ashes inside.
Disgusted with myself, I buried my face in my hands and groaned. How the hell was I going to speed up my apprenticeship if I couldn’t master this technique? Iannis could probably do this with his eyes closed from a different room. How would I ever be seen as his equal?
A knock at the door dragged me from my pity party. “Miss Baine, are you almost finished?” Rylan called from outside. I’d ordered him to stay in the hall, so that I didn’t have to worry about accidentally hurting him with a spell gone wrong. “Dinner’s in less than an hour.”
“Coming.” I gave the pot of ash a dirty look, then turned it back into a block of wood. Humph. At least that part was easy, I consoled myself, picking up the object. It looked exactly the same as it had before I’d changed it, right down to the trio of tiny knots on its side.
“You look like you were just slapped by a porcupine’s tail,” Rylan remarked in mindspeak as he escorted me back to my room. “Everything okay?”
“I’m just…frustrated,” I replied, exhaling heavily. “Iannis and I are getting married in less than nine months, and I’m still just a rookie apprentice.”
“No, you’re not.” Rylan playfully punched me in the shoulder. “You’re Sunaya Baine, champion of the underdog and royal pain in my ass. You’ve never been ‘just’ an apprentice, and you’ll never ‘just’ be a mage or ‘just’ Lord Iannis’s wife, either. Your titles, or lack thereof, don’t define you.”
The tension bled out of my shoulders at the familiar words, and I smiled a little. “Iannis said something similar to me the other day.”
“He’s a wise man.” Rylan paused for a moment. “You know, when Fenris offered me that deal to reduce my sentence in exchange for helping you, I came very close to refusing. I was Captain Rylan Baine, an officer of the Resistance, and I didn’t work with the fucking enemy.” He snorted, and I grinned a little. “But I felt really shitty about what happened with the forgetting spell I’d put on you, so I agreed mostly because I wanted to make it up to you. It’s taken me a little while to get used to not running a company of soldiers, taking orders from colonels and commanders and working day in and day out to undermine the very establishment I’m now working for. And it’s been really fucking hard to come to terms with the fact that the organization I’ve worked for these past seven years has always intended to wipe my kind from the face of Recca.”
I took my cousin’s hand and squeezed it briefly. I’d been outraged enough when I’d found out Thorgana’s true plans for the Resistance. I couldn’t imagine how betrayed Rylan must have felt. His whole world, his entire purpose for the past seven years, had been ripped out from under him.
“But, like I was saying to you, I began to realize if I didn’t want to sink into a funk, or drive myself insane, then I had to learn to define myself as something other than a captain of the Resistance. I have to figure out who I am—which is a challenge, by the way, considering I have to pretend to be someone else all the time,” he added dryly.
I winced. “That won’t last forever,” I assured him as we stopped outside my bedroom door. “No matter what, I promise you won’t have to live your days out as my tiger-shifter bodyguard.”
“Thanks.” He hugged me swiftly. “Now hurry up and get ready before we’re late. You don’t want Kardanor walking into the meeting without you there to explain his presence.”
A quick shower and change of clothes was needed after this morning’s excitement—my clothing still had bits of dusty drywall on them, and it was probably in my hair, too. But instead of dressing for dinner in finery, I put on a pair of fresh leathers and strapped on my weapons. Though I wouldn’t admit it aloud, I was still a little rattled from the attack this morning, and I’d been attacked on the Palace grounds before. I wasn’t willing to walk around unarmed and encumbered by a frilly dress, even if that meant offending someone’s sensibilities.
All the mages were already assembled around the dining table when I arrived, snacking on bread and butter while they waited for the first course to be served. Iannis and Director Chen sat at the head of the table, with Cirin to Director Chen’s left, and an empty chair next to Iannis for me. Fenris was there, too, sitting on the other side of my chair, and I sat down between him and Iannis.
“There seems to be an extra setting,” Director Chen remarked, looking at the empty space at her side. “Are we expecting anyone else?”
“Yes,” I said. “I told my guest eight o’clock, so we should wait the few minutes till the hour.”
They all stared at me, even Iannis.
“Who did you invite to join us?” Fenris asked with an encouraging smile, before someone could gather their wits about them enough to reprimand me.
“A human architect named Kardanor Makis,” I said, giving him a grateful smile “He has some important information for us that is relevant to our discussion tonight.”
“That is most unorthodox,” Director Chen said stiffly. “I understood this was to be a working meeting amongst the top mage leadership. At the very least you should have given us warning—”
“I am fine with it,” Iannis said mildly, cutting her off. “Sunaya will have her reasons for inviting this architect, and I, for one, am curious to hear them. How did the two of you meet?”
I took a deep breath, then gave them a rundown of the attack this afternoon. By the time I finished, Iannis’s eyes were glittering with fury, and Director Chen looked pale.
“You are lucky to be alive,” Cirin said, breaking the tense silence. “Your bodyguard ought to be highly commended, and your architect friend as well.”
“Father Calmias again,” Fenris said thoughtfully. “His followers are really getting out of hand. Something must be done.”
“It will,” Iannis said, his expression stony. “This persecution of Sunaya cannot be allowed to continue.” He conjured a pen and paper, then quickly scribbled out a letter, which he handed to a servant. “Make sure this gets to Dira, right away,” he ordered.
“What are
you doing?” I asked, a little alarmed at the rage rolling off him in waves.
“I’m having Father Calmias transferred to the Palace. I plan to have a long conversation with him tomorrow.” His tone was ominous.
The doors swung opened before I could ask any more questions, and Rylan stepped inside. “Your guest is here,” he said, then moved aside so that Kardanor could come in. He wore the red coat from earlier, but as he shucked it off and handed it to a servant, I noticed he wore a decent grey suit and red tie, and silver cufflinks glinted at his wrists. A man with a sense of style, and not poor, though he didn’t seem to be particularly wealthy either.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Makis.” I rose from my chair to greet him. Shaking his hand, I was careful not to brush against his cufflinks. “I appreciate you coming on such short notice.”
“It’s an honor,” he assured me, bowing over my hand with a charming smile. Hiding my grin, I turned and introduced him to the others. The men greeted him politely, but Director Chen was a little frosty in her reception. Kardanor, on the other hand, stole more than a few admiring glances her way as he was seated and served at her side, despite the self-assured way he conducted himself around the other mages. He probably viewed her as an exotic beauty, with her ivory skin, almond-shaped eyes, and delicate features. In fact, her chilly demeanor would only make her more alluring, since confident men like him would take that sort of thing as a challenge. I had to wonder where he got his balls from, though—most human men wouldn’t dare look at the Director of the Mages Guild the way he was.
“Well,” Chen said coolly once our appetizer course had been cleared from the table. She fixed her dark gaze on Kardanor’s face. “Now that you are finally here, I am interested to know what information you have that Miss Baine found so pertinent. Please tell us what you think we need to know.”
“Certainly,” Kardanor said, responding to her chilly tone with another charming grin. Oh, man. He was definitely going to give Director Chen a run for her money. “I am an architect, as Miss Baine may have already explained. Public buildings are my specialty. I went to school at the University of Alacara, and assisted in the rebuild when a highly destructive hurricane struck our coast some seven years ago.”
“Ah. Then you have experience with natural disasters,” Cirin said, looking mildly impressed. Alacara was located on Northia’s southeastern coast, which was notoriously prone to hurricanes.
“Yes. I moved to Solantha a few years ago, and found work here quickly enough. I’d always wanted to experience life on the West Coast.” He smiled, but the expression faded quickly. “A year and a half ago, I worked on plans for a new school in Maintown. The contract was given to Mendle Construction. I make a habit of checking in on projects that I design, even when I’m not directly involved in the execution, and I was very dismayed to find out that the company was deviating from my plans to save money. They cut corners by making pillars less sturdy, and using cheaper, shoddier materials than I had specified.”
“Resulting in a building that would not stand up to an earthquake?” Iannis asked, his eyes narrowed.
“The roof would very likely collapse even in a moderate quake, killing the teachers and students within.” Kardanor’s square jaw tightened. “I immediately brought the matter to the attention of the Maintown school board, insisting my designs were not being properly followed and that they were putting the students and staff in danger. For whatever reason, they decided to take the builder’s word over mine, and I’ve had difficulty finding work ever since.” His blue eyes glittered with ire now. “I discovered that Mendle and Gorax, the other large construction company, had gone about spreading rumors that I was overpriced and difficult to work with. Being new in town, nobody wanted to hire me after that.”
“Well that’s fucked up,” I commented. Director Chen shot me a scandalized look that I completely ignored. “Did you consider filing a lawsuit against them for slander?”
Kardanor shrugged. “That would have been very costly, and Mendle and Gorax have high-powered lawyers on retainer, who no doubt would have ground me into the dust. I’ve lived frugally off my savings, hoping for things to improve, though lately I’ve been seriously considering relocating once more. In the meantime, I have done an informal survey on the schools, hospitals, and other government-owned buildings in Solantha. I’ve identified some fifty-odd buildings that are in a perilous state, though with most you would never know from the outside. Many of them are structurally unsound, with the foundations inadequate to bear the building load. With additional stress like a quake, the factor of safety would be zero.”
We exchanged looks of shock and dismay as Kardanor continued. “What’s just as bad is that I’ve discovered numerous buildings where fire hydrants are merely decorative and not properly connected to the water mains.” He pulled a map out from his jacket pocket and spread it out on the table. “You can see for yourself right here.”
Everyone leaned in close to get a good look at the map. It was drawn with thick black ink on white paper, and the buildings in question were marked in red. I was not surprised to see that the Enforcers Guild was listed amongst these endangered buildings, and an alarming number of other buildings were marked down as well. Maintown had the largest concentration of red marks, while Shiftertown had the least, since the town’s few newer buildings had been constructed by shifter companies. The buildings that didn’t have their hydrant lines connected were marked with an additional X, and I was dismayed to see how many there were. If a fire broke out in the city, those buildings would burn to the ground, and the flames would engulf the entire neighborhood very quickly.
“This is unacceptable,” Iannis finally said, leaning back in his chair. His violet eyes simmered with annoyance. “Solantha’s building inspectors are clearly not doing their job. I find myself very surprised that the Maintown and Shiftertown Councils have not done anything about this. Did you contact them?”
“I have attempted to gain an audience with the Maintown Council numerous times,” Kardanor said. “The Shiftertown Council would not see me because I’m human, and barely tolerated my survey efforts as it was. But the Maintown Council inspectors have likely convinced them that I am raving mad, so they refuse to see me. I am certain they have been bought off by Mendle and Gorax.”
“I recall hearing about a large earthquake in Naraka some thirty years ago,” Fenris said, speaking up for the first time. He stared at the map, his yellow eyes tight with concern. “The quake was quickly followed by a devastating fire, which ended up tripling the overall damage. In fact, from my reading, almost all serious quakes cause fires, since stoves, furnaces, candles, and electric lines are shaken up and will inevitably find fuel here and there. These buildings must be made both quake and fire resistant, if we hope to escape the impending earthquake relatively unscathed.”
“I wish we had known about this predicament sooner,” Director Chen complained, studying the map as well. Her lips were pursed, and I was surprised to scent anger radiating off her—she usually had an even cooler head than Iannis. “If Lord Faring’s prediction is anywhere close to correct, there is not enough time, or mage power, to magically secure these structures before the big quake hits.”
“At the very least, we must ensure the schools and hospitals are protected,” Kardanor countered. “Can you really magically protect buildings from fire?”
“Yes,” Iannis said tersely. “However, it takes a lot of energy and manpower to keep up such spells. It would be impractical to keep up fire protection for the entire city at all times.”
“I wish I’d known about this,” Kardanor said. “Inadequate resources simply mean that priorities must be set. To stop fires from engulfing the whole city, barriers of protected buildings might help, perhaps adjacent to open spaces—something that should have been included in city planning from the outset,” he pointed out.
“There is little point in dwelling on what should have happened,” Iannis said firmly. “We must move forward
, and do what we can to protect the city. Director Chen, I would like you to draw up a plan with Mr. Makis as your advisor, and present it to me tomorrow night.”
Chen nodded. “I will send teams to the public buildings Mr. Makis has marked off, according to priority, to verify their condition and apply provisional protection spells.”
“I believe the situation warrants a state of emergency,” Cirin said. “All local mages should be summoned to the Palace for refresher courses on fire protection and shielding against falling debris.”
“That is an excellent idea,” Iannis said. “I will teach some of the courses myself. We cannot afford to take any chances.”
We spent the next thirty minutes tossing ideas back and forth as the servants brought out the main course, and then dessert. Kardanor suggested organizing extra earthquake and fire drills in the Rowanville, Maintown, and Shiftertown neighborhoods—the schools did them every so often, but he insisted they be extended to businesses and other government buildings as well. I proposed that we should prepare large, army-style tents and start pre-positioning food and water supplies outside the city, in case an evacuation was necessary. I was very pleased to see that everyone was fully engaged in the discussion, and that the mages had all seemed to accept Kardanor as part of the team, now that they’d gotten over the initial shock of working with a mere human.
Eager to start work, Chen and Kardanor left right after dessert to pick out an office big enough to spread out his detailed city maps, which he would be bringing up to the Palace as soon as possible. Cirin went back to his own office so that he could review the finances and increase the disaster-relief budget and order the tents and supplies, as per my suggestion.
