“Gods, but those slaarh are nasty creatures,” Captain Varyn said, scowling. “Filthy, hard to kill . . . I hope we’ve seen the last of them.”
“Me, too,” Meg said.
He nodded toward her burn scars. “You’ll fit right in with the rest of the company,” he said. “I don’t think there’s one of us who escaped this battle without marks of one kind or another. But no one lost, thank the Lady. Not in our group. Plenty of other good men went down, though. The commander will be even happier to have you permanently with us now, I imagine.”
“When should I report back for training?” Meg asked.
Varyn looked around at the crowded infirmary. “I think we’ll need at least a week or two before we’re ready to get back to drills,” he said. “And you’ve earned a bit of a break, I’d say. But after that . . . I intend to work you harder than ever before, now that I know you’ll be sticking around. Think you and that dragon of yours are up for the challenge?”
Meg smiled. “Yes, Captain.”
He smiled back. “Thought so. Now let me get some rest so my jailors will see fit to release me sometime soon.” He paused, then added, “Glad to have you with us, Dragon Princess.”
“I’m glad, too, sir.”
She stood and left his bedside, walking slowly out between the rows of wounded and hurrying medics, saying hello to soldiers that she knew. But even the ones she didn’t know smiled at her as she passed.
She saw Devan, one bandaged leg propped up on several folded blankets. He blushed as she approached but kept smiling.
“I’m happy to see you still with us,” she told him. “It’s not like I’d trust my armor to just anyone, you know. Especially now that I’ll be joining the company for real.”
His blush deepened at that, and he nodded shyly. Meg shook her head. “Someday you’re going to speak to me. I swear you are.”
One side of his mouth twitched up a little higher. “Someday,” he agreed, looking up at her. “I promise.”
Meg stared at him, then broke into a grin.
“Yes!” she heard Captain Varyn shout from behind her. “I win the bet! Pay up, boys!”
Meg turned to give her captain an exasperated glare but couldn’t quite make her grin go away. She gave Devan’s hand a gentle squeeze before she walked on.
In a bed near the corner, she noticed Wilem sitting up and watching her. His handsome face was bandaged below his right eye, and his left arm was wrapped tightly in gauze.
She walked over to sit beside him.
“I wondered whether I’d find you here,” she said. “Are you hurt badly?”
He shook his head. “Not compared to many. I caught a slaarh scratch to the arm, and the tip of a sword just missed my eye. I was very lucky. The arm looked bad yesterday, but the treatment the mages have started applying seems to be helping a lot.” He touched his face with his good hand. “And this should heal up well, I think.”
He’d probably have quite the scar when it did, Meg thought. For so long since she had first discovered that he’d lied to her, his fine features had seemed like an affront every time she looked at him. Now she was sorry to see them altered. Although . . . he’d earned his scars, too, of course. And she thought he would still be plenty attractive even with them. Meg found she didn’t mind looking at him at all, really. She hadn’t ever decided what to call her feelings for Wilem now that “not-hate” was clearly so inaccurate. Were they . . . friends? Or something else?
They were going to be fellow soldiers. For all she knew, he could end up joining their company when Captain Varyn recruited additional men. The captain had told her he’d already had about twenty volunteers that day so far, and they hadn’t even officially announced it yet. Meg thought about Zeb and Devan and the others. Some felt like friends; some felt almost like brothers. She wasn’t sure she could fit her feelings for Wilem into either of those categories.
She had thought she could never let go of what he had done, or — especially — what he had been prepared to do. Calen had told her once that some things could never be forgiven. She had never quite figured out whether she agreed with that or not. Calen had made some fairly terrible choices himself since then, and she’d forgiven him, but that was different. Of course it was. She just wasn’t sure how, exactly.
Wilem had never forgiven himself, as far as she could tell.
Was forgiving someone even a choice? Or was it something that happened whether you had decided to allow it or not?
How far could you move forward if you were still holding on too tightly to the past?
Meg reached over and took Wilem’s hand — gently, not wanting to aggravate his injury.
He looked surprised, and then . . . something else. Wary? Cautious. Curious.
Pleased?
“I’m glad you’re all right,” she said. “I would have been . . . unhappy, if you’d been killed, I think.”
He smiled at her, his fingers curling lightly against her own.
“Likewise, Prin —”
She glared at him.
“Meg,” he corrected. “You do seem to enjoy placing yourself in danger, but at least you also seem to have a knack for surviving it.” He started to say something else, then stopped, then started again. “Trelian would not be nearly as appealing a place without you in it.”
She smiled back, feeling a ridiculous warmth color her cheeks, but deciding she didn’t care. It was not exactly an unpleasant feeling.
“Well,” she said after a moment, retrieving her hand. Slowly. “I should let you rest. Perhaps — perhaps I’ll come visit you again tomorrow.”
“I would like that very much, Meg,” he said, still smiling.
She nodded and took her leave, thinking again about how things could change. And how sometimes change was good.
The princess-heir ceremony was usually a private one, but the king and queen had felt that the people could use a bit more celebration, and so the next day, Meg found herself standing on a hastily erected dais outside the castle’s main gate. There was a stage in the grand hall, of course, but inside they would never have been able to include even a small fraction of the people who had gathered all across the Queen’s Road and the fields that lined the road on either side. Every person who had sheltered within the castle lands during the war had to be standing out there now, Meg thought, along with everyone else within traveling distance and all the people who normally lived in and around the castle, and the visiting Kragnir soldiers and their attendants and servants and camp followers and gods-knew-who else.
The most important people were all standing in the first row, including Calen, who alternated between looking up at her proudly and making faces in an attempt to get her to laugh. She was going to swat him for that later. Anders was there, holding George, whom he had taken to carrying around with him. Serek was there as well, and he’d offered to cast an amplification spell to help the speakers’ voices carry to the edges of the crowd. Maurel had wanted to bring Lyrimon, but no one had been willing to attempt to catch and hold him other than Maurel herself, and Nan Vera had nearly fainted at the idea that the little princess would appear before the entire kingdom with dirt on her dress and bloody scratches on her face. Maurel had relented, eventually, but as they first stepped out onto the dais, Meg was pretty certain that she caught a flitting catlike shape of not-quite-there-ness against the grass out of the corner of her eye.
Jakl was present too, of course, sitting at silent attention beside the platform’s edge and looking out at the crowd with interest.
Maurel was standing beside her, nervous but hiding it well, and her parents were standing across from them both. Meg spoke the formal words by which she relinquished the title in favor of her sister, and then Maurel recited the words of acceptance, her voice ringing out clearly in the open air. Meg smiled at Maurel’s solemn poise. She thought Maurel was going to do just fine.
When the title had been formally passed and accepted, Maurel stepped forward, and the people gave her
a deafening cheer that completely shattered Maurel’s hard-won formal demeanor. She grinned and looked at Meg in delight, and Meg nodded at her. Yes, that’s for you, silly girl.
When the cheering died down, the king stepped forward and announced that there would be another title conferred today. Meg had known this was coming, but she still felt a thrill of excitement. Jakl picked up on it, and she told him to hush. And wait.
“In recognition of her bravery, resourcefulness, and special abilities, as well as her proven dedication to the defense of this kingdom and its people, we are pleased to award Princess Meglynne the newly created title of princess-guardian. Long may she protect us all.”
As arranged, Commander Uri stepped forward and presented Meg with a silver pin showing the crest of Trelian. They were having the master silver-worker create a new pin, one that combined the crest with the image of a dragon in flight, but her parents thought some sort of symbolic item was required for today, so they were using the regular pin as a stand-in.
Meg bowed to the commander, then to her parents. Then she stepped forward to address the people spilling out across the land as far as she could see.
“I am grateful for this honor,” she said as loudly and clearly as she could, “and happy to be able to serve the people of Trelian in this important way. I accept on behalf of myself and my dragon, who is also proud to serve.” With that, she winked at Calen, shot an apologetic glance at her parents, and then took a running leap for the side of the dais where Jakl was waiting. She was supposed to just walk over to him and touch his neck, but Meg thought that would have been horribly anticlimactic. Instead, as soon as she slid into place on his back, Jakl launched into the sky, performing a tiny series of celebratory swoops before settling into a more dignified victory lap, just high enough to avoid scaring anyone, but low enough that she could still hear the cheers and voices from below. From the sound of it, Meg felt certain she had made the right decision. They wanted a proper symbolic gesture, and watching Jakl flying above them in all his magnificent glory was far better than having him sit there like a trained pony. He snorted at her, offended by the comparison, and Meg threw her head back and laughed, unable to contain her overwhelming happiness in this moment. This was what she wanted. Everything she wanted. She got to be here, herself, with her dragon, and both of them were not just accepted by the people below, but loved.
As they banked and came back down toward the stage, where Meg would let Jakl drop her off and then find a more open space to land, she heard the cheers intensify. She risked a glance at her parents, who seemed to be trying to pretend that this had been the plan all along. The commander, she was relieved to see, was plainly fighting a smile. Calen was laughing so hard he was almost crying.
The words “Long may she protect us all!” rang out from the crowd, followed by several cries of “Dragon Princess!” And Meg laughed again. She had a feeling that was going to be the title that stuck in the end.
She couldn’t really say that she minded.
CALEN SAT IN SEREK’S STUDY, WATCHING Anders trying to teach his bird to say his name.
“It’s easy,” Anders said. “Come on . . . Anders! An-ders.”
“Are you sure he can talk?” Calen asked.
“Of course he can talk,” Anders said. “He’s a genius!”
“Hmm.” Calen glanced at the door again. “Do you know what Serek wanted to speak to me about?”
“Yes,” Anders said. “But I’ll let him tell you. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.” He turned back to the bird. “An-ders. Come on. . . .”
Serek did, in fact, arrive a few minutes later. He looked harried, closing the door behind him a little harder than necessary, as though wanting to be sure it didn’t open again for a while. Anders leaned against the counter with George tucked into the crook of his arm.
“Calen,” Serek said. “Good.” He strode over to his desk to drop off a stack of papers and a leather-bound book, then turned around to face him. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Calen said. He shrugged, then winced. “Well, almost fine. My shoulders are still sore. But otherwise I was just exhausted. I’m feeling a lot better now.” Several of the mages had attempted to heal the lingering pain in his shoulders over the past day and a half, but whatever Krelig had done to him appeared to be resistant to healing. Calen had tried, too, with no better results. They were sure the pain would go away on its own in time. Fairly sure, anyway.
“Good, that’s good.” Serek fell silent, looking at Calen seriously. Calen waited. There had been a time when Serek’s silent gaze would have made him squirm in his seat, but not anymore.
Finally Serek ran a hand through his hair, looked at Anders, then said, “I’ve got to go back to the Magistratum for a while. There is . . . a great deal to sort out, as you might imagine. The current council has been voted down for its mishandling of the Krelig situation, the surviving mages who joined his cause need to be dealt with in some way. . . .”
“Everything is basically a disaster,” Anders put in helpfully.
“I understand,” Calen said. “I thought you might need to go back for a while.”
“You will need to come with me,” Serek said.
Calen blinked. “I will? But . . . why?” He tried to push down the rising panic he felt. There was no reason to think he was in trouble. They probably just wanted him to report on his time with Mage Krelig. Surely they weren’t going to punish him for doing what he’d had to do. But he couldn’t help remembering how suspicious so many of the mages had been, how sure they had been that he’d been in league with the enemy. Was he going to have to prove himself all over again, now that the fighting was over?
“We’ve had some discussions,” Serek went on, “and based on your . . . accelerated training, and your demonstrated abilities over the past few days, I put forth a motion to have you raised to full mage status.”
Calen felt his mouth fall open. He closed it, but then opened it again, trying to think of what to say. Full . . . ?
Serek held up a hand. “Junior mage status, of course. First level only. Way down in the chain of command. Way, way down.” Then he smiled one of his rare, small smiles. “But you’ll no longer be an apprentice. While you’ll still be in training, you’ll have full mage rights and responsibilities, and the ability to direct your own learning and focus. You’ll need to come with me to be officially raised and get your first-level tattoo. Along with, I am certain, some other marks to reflect your recent, ah, advances.”
Calen still couldn’t seem to make his voice work. He tried again, unsuccessfully, to say something, but only ended up opening and closing his mouth again in silence. Full mage status?
Anders chuckled. “You’re right, Serek. He looks just like a fish when he does that.”
Calen glared at him, then tried again. “But . . . will . . .” He wasn’t even sure what he was trying to ask. After everything he’d been through, he really hadn’t thought anything could surprise him ever again. He had apparently been wrong about that. “What . . . ?”
Amazingly, Serek came to his rescue. “I’ll still be helping you with your training, but since I’m likely to be staying at the Magistratum for . . . some time, Anders is going to act as your mentor here until I get back. I don’t imagine you’ll want to stay any longer at the Magistratum than you have to, for which I certainly do not blame you.” He frowned, and Calen felt a little sorry for him. The workings of the council and the behind-the-scenes politics of the Magistratum had always been Serek’s least favorite part of being a mage, as far as Calen knew. And now he was deep in the center of it, and probably would be for a long while to come.
“I —” Calen paused, swallowed, tried again. “Thank you, Serek.”
Serek nodded. “Well, you’ve certainly earned it. We could not have beaten Mage Krelig without you. And I know you had to sacrifice a great deal along the way.” He fixed his gaze on Calen firmly. “But you do still have a great deal of training ahead of you. I hope yo
u realize that. So much of what you do now is by instinct alone. I expect you to do as Anders tells you, and not just decide you know enough to proceed on your own, unsupervised. This is even more important now than ever before. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.” And he did. He remembered how good it had felt to wield all that power, how strong he’d been during that final battle. And he was still very strong, of course, even without what he’d borrowed from the other mages. He was a little . . . uneasy about all of that strength. Sometimes. Now that the immediate goal of using it against Krelig was gone, he wanted to be sure he didn’t get carried away. Because he could see how easy that might be. Sometimes.
“Good,” Serek said, seeming to consider the matter decided.
“Do you know Mage Avicia?” Calen asked abruptly. “Do you know if she’ll be at the Magistratum when we go?”
“I believe everyone will be at the Magistratum, at least for the first several days while we try to figure out the new council structure. Why?”
“I — I have a message for her.”
Serek waited, but then seemed to understand that Calen wasn’t going to elaborate, and let it go.
“When do we leave?” Anders asked.
“Tomorrow,” Serek said at once, his usual brusque demeanor reasserting itself. “And despite the rampant self-transportation that has been occurring over the past several days, we will be returning to our more conventional modes of travel from this point on. I believe there will be a blanket pardon considering recent circumstances, but that time is now at an end.” He looked significantly at Calen. “No exceptions.”
Calen nodded. For some reason he was finding it hard not to grin.
Serek noticed. “What?”
Calen stopped fighting it. “I’ve missed your lectures,” he said, smiling broadly.
Anders laughed.
After a moment, Serek laughed, too.
The Mage of Trelian Page 27
