“So, what does this mean for me, exactly?”
“That you’ll never need to worry about learning spells for projecting your voice. Save your time and energy learning spells for things you can’t do naturally.”
Will felt somewhat disappointed. “That’s it?”
“Not necessarily,” said Arrogan. “That might be it, until you find some other odd and unrelated talent unexpectedly. Then again, this might just be the first sign of some greater talent. Only time will tell. These things are unpredictable. Best to spend your limited time working on things you can control, like spells to shore up your weaknesses.”
“If it is a larger talent, how do I figure it out?” asked Will.
“You don’t. Thinking is of limited usefulness when it comes to wild magic. For example, when you learned to adjust your vision—Tailtiu’s description helped you figure it out, but if you hadn’t had some kind of affinity for it, you probably never would have managed to learn it. With this, you rely on your feelings and intuition more than straightforward reason. It’s a lot like the way elementals use turyn, to be honest. In fact, wild magic talents were part of what inspired the original design of elementals.”
“Really?”
“Most certainly. A few really talented wizards had gifts with various elements that were the envy of their peers. When Valemon got the idea to use enslaved souls to reproduce specific types of wild magic talents, elemental ones were an obvious choice.”
That took the wind out of his sails. “Having an elemental talent like that sounds a lot better than this.”
“Bah, like I’ve said before, you work with what you’ve got. What talents you have aren’t the important thing. It’s what you do with them. Preparation is everything. You don’t control what talents you get, but you can learn spells to do almost anything. Besides, elemental gifts aren’t necessarily the best thing you could have had. There was once a wizard named Leithon who had a special knack for illusions. He could hardly carry on a conversation, and he had the personality of a loaf of bread, but his illusions were so realistic they could fool anyone, even other wizards. Not to mention he could produce virtually anything at a moment’s notice. Think of what you could do with something like that? It’s way more useful than being able to move dirt around, or burn people alive.”
“Anything would be better than just being able to shout at people,” said Will glumly.
“Maybe,” said Arrogan, a cryptic tone in his voice.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Time will tell.”
“What?”
The ring pretended to yawn. “I’m feeling tired. Why don’t we stop for now so I can have a nap?”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t get tired, nor do you sleep.”
Arrogan refused to reply, so after a moment Will gave in and dismissed the limnthal before returning to the spell list he was curating for his sorcerer-soldiers. Force-wall, light-darts, grave-digging, darkvision, blur…
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door of his study. Will rose and opened the door, wondering why Selene or Blake would have bothered knocking. He was stunned to see his grandmother, Aislinn, standing in the hallway.
Once again, she’d entered his home without alerting a single person. As usual, Will found the thought that she could come and go at will very disconcerting. After a second of surprise, he got himself under control and gestured toward the second chair in his study. “Please come in.”
The fae woman was a legacy of Arrogan’s past and was only Will’s grandmother in the vaguest of senses. She was also known to many as the Goddess of Magic, although in fact she was just an extremely talented wizardess who had been forced into immortality. Will still wasn’t sure whether she wanted to help him or kill him—all signs pointed to both. Either way, she was not a person to piss off without good cause.
“No need,” she responded brusquely. “I’ll be brief. Stop calling my daughter.”
Her daughter was Tailtiu, but the relationship between the two was nothing like what one would expect between a human mother and daughter. With the fae, everything revolved around favors and debt—little else mattered. Consequently, Will’s response was one that he’d have never made to a human mother. “She still owes me two unbound favors.”
“She still hasn’t recovered fully.”
He frowned. Tailtiu had been captured by vampires, then tortured and bled beyond mortal endurance, until Will had rescued her. In fact, if she’d been human, she probably would have considered herself in his debt for that alone, but being fae, it didn’t count since he had helped her without being asked. Being fae, it didn’t make sense that she hadn’t recovered. Inhuman and immortal, the fae were nearly unkillable, but more importantly, they were unchanging. Emotional trauma simply wasn’t an issue for them.
“I saw her recently. She seemed fine,” he countered.
Aislinn grimaced faintly. “She escaped that day. I’ve taken stronger measures to ensure she won’t wander off again.”
Will lifted one brow in surprise. “You’re keeping her prisoner?”
“That would be the normal interpretation of the words I just said.”
“If you’re keeping her from repaying her favor then you become responsible for her debt,” Will remarked, his voice even.
“Is your need so pressing? Have you no concern for her health?”
He felt his anger rising. Once again, Aislinn was trying to play upon his all too human emotions, when neither she nor her daughter had them. “I’m more concerned that you’re keeping her confined.”
“It is well within my rights.”
“Don’t pretend to motherly concern,” he replied angrily.
His grandmother’s eyes were like ice. “She owes me a considerable debt. I may do with her as I please. Until I decide she is herself, again she will remain in my custody.”
“Then you must repay her debt to me.”
“Very well. What is it you need?” Aislinn’s tone was one of bored impatience.
“I need you to release Tailtiu.”
“You can’t use one of her favors to have me release her,” said Aislinn angrily.
He held up two fingers. “She owes me two unbound favors. For just one, I could ask for your life. What seems more unreasonable? Releasing her, or putting an end to everything?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would. In fact, those terms were too kind. Instead I’ll ask for her debt to you, in exchange for canceling the two favors she currently owes me, that and I’ll let you continue breathing.”
“Or I could simply allow her to answer your call and let you see how foolish you’re being,” said Aislinn, a strange light in her eyes.
Will nodded, a triumphant smile slowly forming on his lips.
His grandmother began to laugh. “As if I would be so kind. No, I won’t release her. Instead I’ll take your foolish offer. Cancel my daughter’s debt to you, and I will give you the debt she owes me in its stead. After that, she will be all yours and I will have no say in matters that concern her from henceforth. Deal?” She licked her lips and leaned forward slightly, a predatory eagerness showing on her hauntingly beautiful features.
Will felt an uncomfortable mixture of fear and desire suffuse him, partly from his body’s treacherous reaction and partly from the knowledge that somehow, despite everything, he had been outmaneuvered again. He didn’t know how or why, but Aislinn never came out on the bad end of a bargain. He knew he should back out quickly, but an image flashed in his mind, a vision of Tailtiu’s eyes when he had finally gotten her free of the vampires.
Fuck me, he thought angrily. He couldn’t leave her captive to Aislinn’s bizarre version of motherhood. “Deal.”
Aislinn leaned back, grinning at some hidden joke. “Very well. Will tomorrow be soon enough? I’m sure you’d like her cleaned up before I release her.”
Cleaned up? What the hell had she been doing to her daughter?
&
nbsp; Chapter 19
The next day was a big one for Will. He had his entire group of student sorcerers gathered for an exercise. They’d been learning to march and drill as though they were normal soldiers over the past two weeks, and today, they were to take turns pretending to be regular soldiers, magical support, or magical attackers.
Although all of them had elementals, Wil had decided against letting them be used during exercises due to the lethal potential. Since he wouldn’t allow them for attacking, it didn’t seem fair to allow them for defense either. Instead, the magical support and the magical attackers would rely on fire spells that substituted anti-demon flames. They performed identically to the ordinary fire versions, with the exception of being harmless, so they were perfect for drills. The defenders would be using primarily force spells for defense, along with their own fire spells to return fire.
Since they didn’t have enough participants to provide a group of ordinary enemies, the students who played regular soldiers didn’t have much to do. They mainly served as a pretend shield wall until they were eliminated by the enemy spellcasters. On the next round, everyone would change places so they could all get some practice in.
“Hold!” Will’s voice echoed loudly across the field. Despite his former complaints, he was finding his special talent particularly useful for training. Striding toward the line of defenders, he pointed to Emory Tallowen. “What was that?”
The young nobleman stiffened, the pride on his face replaced with mild confusion. “Excellence?”
Will rolled his eyes. “Look around you. Almost all the soldiers in your line were burned to death.” The students pretending to be soldiers had all fallen to the ground to indicate they had been struck by enemy fireballs.
Emory grinned. “But I took out five of the enemy casters! The enemy has been neutered!”
He wanted to pull out his hair. “And that means exactly jack if your army is massacred while you do it.”
“The meat shields served their purpose.”
Will came withing inches of losing his reserve and striking the young man. “I used to be one of the men who stood in such a line,” he growled. “And now that they’re dead, what do you think is happening?” He mimed the motion of a spearman. “While you were ignoring the defense, your shield wall was incinerated. Now the enemy spearmen are busy turning you into a colander.”
Emory’s mouth clamped shut and his cheeks began to redden, but he didn’t reply. Will was tempted to berate him further, but the man was actually one of his better students. He wanted him to learn, and humiliation would only make the young nobleman more stubborn. Instead, he called out to Burke Leighton. The humbler student had turned out to be just as promising as Will suspected. “Come here, Bug!” When the short man got closer, Will asked, “How many of your section are still alive?”
“All but one,” said Bug with mild embarrassment. “I wasn’t quite quick enough.”
It was better than anyone else did, though, thought Will. “You did well. Why did you set your shield as far forward as you did? The extra five feet would cost you more turyn.”
“I was testing an idea,” answered Bug.
“Explain.”
“Even though we don’t have an enemy line to face off against, I was imagining what it would be like if we did. It occurred to me that if there was an opposing shield wall, I could pull their teeth if I put my defensive shield between their shield men and their second rank where the long spears are. If I have to use a spell to stop an attack, why not also use the opportunity to give our soldiers an advantage for a short while?”
Will nodded approvingly. It wasn’t something that had occurred to him, but it made perfect sense. “Make sure you share that with the others. Everyone needs to learn that force-walls aren’t just a defense, but a means of controlling the battlefield.” He glanced at Emory and noticed that the nobleman seemed to be paying close attention.
Bug nodded, then asked a question of Emory. “Can you show me the spell you used? It looked as though you modified it.”
Emory nodded. “I got the idea from the light-darts spell we learned. Even if it’s just practice, it made sense to me that we could adapt the multiple-missile functionality to our practice spells.”
The rest of the day was exhausting, but Will could see that his fellow students were making headway. Not only were they learning the basics of army formations, they were beginning to think about their roles in the matter. More than once, Will found himself surprised when someone came up with an idea that had completely missed him.
That evening Will was tired as he walked home, his mind occupied with thoughts of Selene. She had finished adapting to the third compression weeks ago, but even though he had finally been able to remove the source-cage, she was still unable to use spells. Well, that wasn’t exactly correct. Every time she attempted a spell, she grew so weak that it took hours for her to recover. Her body was converting enough ambient turyn to keep her functioning normally, but it wasn’t able to pull in extra when she needed it. Naturally, that worried him, but Arrogan had told him that it wasn’t entirely abnormal, though he couldn’t say how long it would last.
“William.”
He stopped, surprised by the female voice that called out to him. Turning to his left, he saw her standing beside a tree near the path. For a moment he thought she was a stranger; despite the familiar red hair and green eyes, Tailtiu’s demeanor was entirely different. Ordinarily she exuded an almost overwhelming predatory sexuality, and even though she didn’t look much different, its absence made her almost unrecognizable. “Tailtiu?” he asked uncertainly, studying her for a moment.
The faint smile that crept across her face was uncharacteristically timid. “I’m not really sure anymore.” Her face was the same, and there was no sign of scars or other physical changes. He squinted at her dress for a moment, trying to focus on the skin that lay behind the illusion of clothing that she had adopted to avoid notice within the city. Seeing his stare, she dismissed the illusion, baring her skin for all the world to see. “Do I look any different?”
Will had dealt with the fae in general—and Tailtiu in particular—enough that he wasn’t overly startled, though his cheeks did flush a bit. He spent a few seconds looking at her skin, which appeared as flawless as before, then he looked away. “Put the illusion back before someone sees you.” He expected her to argue or tease, but the illusory dress reappeared quickly.
“Mother told me my debt to her now belongs to you,” she said without preamble.
He shrugged. “I have no idea how large your debt to her was. I more or less threatened her to get her to agree to the exchange, but as usual, I suspect she somehow profited more from the deal than I did.”
“Seven thousand thirty-four unbound favors and several times that in more mundane favors,” answered Tailtiu immediately. “Given the way you negotiate, it’s probably more than you can reasonably use even in a life that spans centuries.”
Will gaped.
His aunt walked over and slowly knelt before him, her every movement somehow expressing a genuine sincerity he had never seen in her before. There was no mockery in her eyes when she gazed up at him. “The number doesn’t matter, though. I will gladly render any service you need for so long as you live. You’ve given me something I can never repay.”
He frowned, his mind trying to understand her meaning, or at least her motivation. He wasn’t even entirely sure the previous sentences were something that any fae could say. It ran counter to the entirety of their being. Yet he also knew the fae couldn’t lie. So, either it’s true, in which case she cannot be fae, or it’s a lie, which makes more sense—but then it’s something she cannot say. The incipient paradox made his head hurt. Will looked away. “Get up. You’re embarrassing me.”
The old Tailtiu would have taunted him, licked her lips, drawn out the moment, or found some other way to torment him, but the woman in front of him did none of that. She stood and looked down. “I’m sorry. It’s t
he only way I felt I could express my gratitude. I meant no offense.”
A jolt of adrenaline ran down his spine. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her. Eyes narrowing, he took a quick step back and chanted her name three times. No matter what trick or magic the imposter was using, he would know the truth when he felt the connection of Tailtiu’s true name with the real Tailtiu, wherever she might be. The familiar tingle of connection snapped into being, and his eyes widened, staring into hers.
It was really her. “How can this be?” he asked, confused. “You’ve changed, but you can’t change.”
“Mother said much the same thing. She thinks I’ve been infected with something from your realm.”
He frowned. “Infected with what? You can’t get diseases.”
She shook her head. “Not a disease, something worse than that—a soul.”
Arrogan had once told him the fae had no souls, and over time he’d come to understand the old man’s meaning. Now he was utterly confused.
“Everything is different now,” she continued. “Everything feels different. I don’t know how to explain it. When I remember things from before—that night—they don’t feel real. I wasn’t real.”
“So, that’s a good thing, right?” he asked.
Tailtiu shrugged. “Mother didn’t think so. She called it an unending tragedy of immeasurable suffering, but I think that perhaps she was being melodramatic. Her answer to the problem was less pleasant, though.”
“What was her answer?”
His aunt blanched, expressing fear in a way he’d never seen from her before. “Pain. She told me that enough pain might be able to eliminate my fledgling soul before it could become too firmly established.”
Knowing the fae, knowing Aislinn, Will shuddered. Arrogan’s widow knew more about pain and torture than any mortal could comprehend. There was no telling what methods she might have tried. “You’re her daughter—that’s unthinkable.”
“It’s the standard solution for humans who become fae, to acclimatize them to their immortality and rid them of their useless emotions. My case is the reverse, but Mother felt it had a chance of success, whether it took years or centuries.”
Disciple of War (Art of the Adept Book 4) Page 17
