Sorcerous Rivalry (The Mage-Born Chronicles Book 1)

by Kayleigh Nicol

  “That’s not much of a wager.” I leaned my elbows on the bar and considered it. “Do I get the wake-tea first?”

  “No, you’ll get it after.”

  “Ugh, that’s too hard.” I dropped my chin to my chest, sulking. “You’re probably going to charge me for using the well and the soap anyway.”

  Wix’s mouth twisted in distaste; she hated getting caught double-dealing. “No milk or sugar in your tea and you can have the soap and water for free.”

  “Nope, not worth it.” I flicked my fingers, dismissing the bet. It was my hope to get Wix up to a whole meal in exchange for me washing my own clothes. She had bent before; apparently, she liked keeping the oak floors happy. It just meant I would be wearing dirty clothes for a few days more.

  Wix frowned, once again balancing precariously to reach a distant sconce. “You don’t work, you don’t wash your own clothes, you don’t even make the guests stumbly and sleepy. Just what am I getting out of this—hello, sugar lump!”

  Wix stepped off the bar, landing with a gentle, if bouncy, thump. Kestral stood just inside the door, one hand on the doorframe. Wix beamed brightly at him, holding her oilcan behind her back with both hands so that her chest was thrust forward. “Can I get you something from the bar?” Wix offered. “It’s a little early for dinner, but I could fix something up right quick.”

  Kestral shook his head, frowning at the doorframe. “This is ash, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” Wix positively beamed. “I had the carpenters work it special. Nothing is too good for my little Broken Wing.”

  “But your window frames.” Kestral turned to the nearest window and ran his fingers over the sill. “These are hazel.”

  “Well, of course,” Wix replied, tilting her chin. “What else would you use to keep out—”

  I coughed, loudly. Both Wix and Kestral turned to stare at me. Slowly, Wix’s face drained of color as understanding dawned on her. As she raised a hand to cover her mouth, Kestral’s glare became more pointed.

  He’s too smart, I realized. He was smart, dangerous and had admitted to being a mage hunter. I should have started running before he ever got here.

  “I was just setting up for the dinner crowd,” Wix said, a little too loudly. She swung around behind the bar and began setting out mugs and plates. “Everyone in town knows I serve goose tonight, so we’ll be busy. Will you join us for dinner tonight, bright eyes?”

  “No.” The pressure of his glare made me shift uncomfortably. “But maybe I’ll come down later. For a drink.”

  “I hope you will. Timerie will be playing her lute tonight, so it should be fun!” Wix waved as Kestral made his way up the staircase. He ascended with excruciating slowness, staring darkly at the wooden railing as he went. Once he was out of sight, a heavy tankard of ale thunked down in front of me. I looked up at Wix, deliberately not setting a hand on the mug.

  “In thanks for the warning.” Wix gave the mug a little shove. “It’s repayment, so don’t worry about it.”

  “Well, in that case.” I raised the mug to her. “Cheers.” It was a nice, thick brown ale. Wix wasn’t skimping at all; she must have been truly grateful.

  “Ugh.” Wix stretched her arms across to the far side of the bar and dropped her head in between them. “He’s dangerous, isn’t he?” Her voice echoed softly as she spoke into the wood.

  “Yeah, I think so.” I took another drink from my mug.

  “What are you going to do about him?”

  “Me?” I laughed quietly. “Nothing.”

  Wix turned her head to look up at me.

  “I mean, I’ll keep stealing his energy, of course.” I stared down into my ale. “Maybe he’ll feel so tired that he’ll think he imagined . . . whatever it is he’s thinking.”

  Wix bobbed her head. “I’ll leave it to you, Reshi.”

  I toasted her again before drinking deeply, trying to hide my own trepidation.

  As Wix predicted, it was a busy night for the bar. A few village families stopped by for an early dinner and the tradesmen and farmers came by later for drinks and a good time. As a seasoned bar mistress, Wix traded banter and dirty jokes while dodging overly-friendly hands. For myself, I went to work as the town’s loveable drunk: flirting, story-telling and gambling. Most villagers were willing to at least buy me a drink, several even shared their meals with me, keeping me out of Wix’s debt. A few even wanted a little more out of me, including a blacksmith apprentice who shyly wrapped his leg around mine during a game of dice, and the fletcher’s daughter, who insisted I spin her about to the lutist’s tune.

  Kestral didn’t come down to the bar for dinner, but after several drinks and sprightly dances, I noticed him sitting at the bar with a drink. I flashed him a grin and a wink before returning my affections to . . . wait, which tradesman’s daughter was this, now? Whoever she was, she laughed and ordered me another drink, so we went back to dancing. But I couldn’t shake that ice-blue stare as Kestral sat drinking at the bar.

  As the dinner guests trickled out, I saw Kestral head upstairs to his room. I waited an appropriate amount of time—perhaps ten whole minutes—before ducking into my room to hide my transformation. In the form of a cat, I snuck outside and leapt onto a rain barrel, to the gutter, to Kestral’s open window. He was already half-dressed, treating me to quite a view before he doused the candle and climbed into bed.

  Once again, I circled his room in silence, sniffing his travel sack, boots and sword. I could smell the remains of his waterbird in the waste bucket but refrained from helping myself to them; once something hit the trash in Wix’s inn, it became hers and I couldn’t even afford the cost of garbage. At least I had eaten well that evening. Once Kestral’s breathing evened out, I leapt into bed beside him and curled up. I didn’t wake him this time—ever since he had admitted to being a mage hunter, I’d felt more than a little uncomfortable around him. But that didn’t stop me from drawing from him to fill my wellspring as he slept.

  “Reshi?” The voice had a tinny echo to it, as if the speaker was at the end of a long tunnel. “Reshi, can you hear me?”

  It wasn’t a dream. Not a real dream. My real dreams were a lot more interesting than this. Maybe if I ignored it, I’d find a better dream.

  “Reshi, the hunters are closing in on us.”

  You have no idea, I thought. At the edge of my awareness, I could feel a warm body pressed against my back. I would have smirked if I could in the strange not-dream.

  “We must join up, Reshi.” The voice was pleading and edged with desperation. “It’s the only way we’ll survive. If we band together, we can be safe.”

  Or we’ll all be one big target. I’d rather stay hidden. Besides, I’ve never met any of the others.

  “Brother Velyn is on his way,” the voice continued. “We can convince the others to come as well. We can be strong, Reshi. We don’t have to be scared.”

  I’m not scared. I’m fine on my own.

  “I can see the hunters, Reshi. They get closer every day.”

  Which one is Velyn? I never could keep them all straight.

  “You’re being stubborn, Reshi.” The voice took on a stern quality.

  From what I hear, that’s the one trait we all share. I tried to sink deeper into sleep and drop beyond the voice’s reach. It must have worked, because although the voice continued speaking, I could no longer make out the words. My shared bed was warm and the life force I sipped from its occupant made me feel stronger. Better to stay hidden in plain sight than to step out into the open with the others. I tucked my face beneath a paw and spiraled into a deep sleep.

  Drawing from a person’s life force should make them tired, and it should energize me, which normally meant the person I drew from slept much longer than I did. Imagine my surprise when I woke up to a rolling and stretching bed companion tossing blankets over my head. I twitched my tail and struggled to climb free.

  “Sorry.” Hands lifted the blanket, allowing me to step out with a little more d
ignity. “I didn’t know you snuck in again last night. Did you smell my dinner and invite yourself in?”

  I flicked an ear at him and glanced past him to the window. For stars’ sake, it was still dark outside! What normal human wakes up so early? Pre-dawn light gave the room a soft illumination, giving the hunter just enough light to see by. Kestral moved around the room slowly, checking each of his belongings and sheathing the sword he had left within reach the night before. He shook fresh clothes out from his travel sack and laid them over a chair, then turned his boots over, frowning as he checked the worn soles.

  That’s right. We’re running errands today, I remembered. I hope he gets those boots fixed. Wait, why do I care about his boots? He’s a mage hunter. I began a vigorous cat bath to distract myself.

  “Huh.”

  I looked up.

  Kestral peered into the waste bucket. “You didn’t steal any of the leftovers. You’re either a very polite cat, or a very successful hunter.”

  I blinked slowly at him and went back to washing myself. I wondered idly if I could eat the scraps if he offered them to me, or if they were still considered Wix’s property since they had been in the trash. Not that it should matter; I had eaten well the night before and felt full after filling my wellspring all night. But my animal instincts made it difficult to pass up any offered meal.

  Wait, shouldn’t he be at least a little sleepy? I glanced up from my bath to stare at him. I drew a lot more than I had meant to, but he looked completely refreshed. No stumbling or stretching or grumbling for wake-tea. In fact, he looked like he might—no!

  He did. He started exercising.

  Without a shirt on.

  Kestral went through a series stretches that worked his arms, shoulders, chest and legs, flowing from one stretch into the next. I might have drooled a little; I had never seen a more perfect body move with that level of precision. It was an artform. Were all mage hunters like him? Or was this something from his past? His face looked completely blank as he worked up a thin sheen of sweat, as if his body didn’t need his mind to take it through the motions.

  He followed the stretching with sit-ups, then moved on to push-ups. I decided I could only be so good for so long, so while he counted out his repetitions, I hopped off the bed and walked beneath him, sliding my back along the muscles of his stomach and chest. He chuckled softly at first then scooted me out from beneath him. I walked in front of him, flicking my tail beneath his nose. He switched to one-handed push-ups and gently pushed me aside. My tail twitched. I wasn’t sure what had me more irritated—the fact that I was being ignored or the fact that I couldn’t do even a single one-handed push-up.

  I walked around him and stepped carefully onto his back, riding the rise and fall as he continued to exercise.

  “If you scratch me, I’ll skin you,” Kestral warned between counts.

  I settled down into a crouch on his shoulder, adding weight to the side without support. He tucked his free hand behind his back for a while, then switched arms to work the other side. As I shifted my weight to the other shoulder, I thought I heard him chuckle softly.

  “All right. Get down.” Kestral rolled to one side, encouraging me to hop off his back. He stood, rolling his shoulders and cracking his knuckles. After wiping the sweat from his skin with a cloth, he dressed. I was surprised to see morning light streaming through the window; had he really worked out that long? Wix would be starting breakfast soon.

  I sat beside the door, and before long, Kestral opened it. I trotted just ahead of him on the stairs down to the common room.

  “Great morning, sun drop!” Wix called out cheerfully. I flicked an ear at her as I darted under the bar, heading for my room near the kitchen. She smiled at me knowingly.

  “Does he work here?” Kestral asked, jerking his chin at me.

  “Oh, well, I wouldn’t really say that.” Wix’s grin was full of mischief. I stopped in my tracks and looked back at her over my shoulder. “But he is a welcome intruder.”

  “He comes in through the broken window,” Kestral explained, sitting at the bar.

  “I really do need to get that fixed.” Wix sighed deeply, managing to look chagrined. “Let me get some breakfast started for you, morning lark.”

  I snuck away, trusting Wix to keep her mouth shut. She was a great friend, truly, but sometimes she could simply be forgetful. Once in my room, I nudged the door shut and shapeshifted. I sifted through my clothes, trying to find something remotely respectable for running errands in the village. At least I felt more awake this morning than I had in a long time. Did Kestral possess a depthless well of life force? Wix would probably chastise me again today, even though I had drawn quite a bit from him.

  After smoothing my hair back into a tail, I made a show of yawning and stretching as I left my room and entered the common room.

  “You two are so noisy,” I complained, setting my elbows on the bar and dropping my head into my hands. “How’s a guy supposed to get over a long night of drinking if he can’t sleep in?”

  “Try wake-tea,” Kestral suggested, his voice even. He sounded a lot friendlier when he spoke to me as a cat.

  “Mmm, wake-tea.” I glanced across the bar at Wix. “Do I have enough credit for some of your most wonderful wake-tea, bar mistress?”

  Wix smiled playfully. “You certainly do, tippy toes. But only enough for one cup.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  Wix made a show of preparing the tea properly instead of blinking it into existence, as she did when we were alone. For as long as I live, I’ll never understand how Wix calculates credits and debts, but I’d learned that often after a fun night of drinking and dancing, she almost always credited my account. I had asked about it once but Wix couldn’t explain it well. It was a little like she paid me for entertainment. I could live with that.

  “So where do you need to go today?” I asked Kestral, cupping the mug of hot tea between my hands. I inhaled deeply. The smell of fresh mint and warm honey were waking me up even before taking a sip.

  “Blacksmith,” Kestral replied. For the first time that morning I noticed he had his sword on his belt. How did I miss that? I had practically watched him dress. “General store. Any place that will sell oats for my horse.”

  “Not the tanner?” I raised the mug to my lips, letting the flavors tease my tongue before taking a tiny sip. Fresh tea was nothing short of pure starlight.

  “Why the tanner?”

  “Hm?” Oh, I had been thinking about his worn-out boots. I shouldn’t know how worn his boots are. “For your saddle. Out in the barn. It looks a bit . . . broken in.”

  Kestral shook his head. “It will hold out a while yet.”

  “Where are you goin’ at such a hard pace and on such little coin?” Wix asked, curious. “There’s not much worth passing through these parts for.”

  “My journey is my own.” Kestral stood as if to leave. He gave me a pointed look.

  “Whu—it’s still pretty early,” I protested, hugging my tea to my chest. “Hardly anything is open just yet.”

  “In my experience, blacksmiths open early.”

  “Yeah, but they won’t have the forges hot yet.”

  Kestral stared at me from the doorway. I heaved a sigh.

  “Wix, I’m borrowing this mug,” I said it just to be clear. “I’ll return it later.”

  “Be sure that you do, Reshi, my starling.” Wix winked at me before clearing away the breakfast dishes. I followed Kestral out into the street.

  Kestral was right and the blacksmith’s workyard was already occupied by a few sleepy apprentices. The forge fires had been lit but were still being worked to a high heat. After a brief introduction, Kestral told the head blacksmith that he needed to put a new edge on his sword as well as sharpen a few recovered arrowheads. The smith agreed to set his apprentices to the work quickly, the cost of which had Kestral grimacing. Rather than argue with the hard-headed blacksmith, I lifted myself onto a work table and called out to s
everal of the young apprentices. I flirted with a few of them and joked about the village girls with the others, setting an alluring distraction from the early-morning work. The smith grumbled something to Kestral about letting him do the work himself for cheap, as his apprentices all seemed “too busy” for paid work. Kestral seemed relieved to hand over a few coppers for the use of the smith’s tools before he shooed me off the table to begin his work.

  “I thought you were here to help me,” Kestral said as he gathered files, stones and cloths to begin his work.

  “I did, didn’t I?” I winked at him. “You’re not paying full price for the work, are you?”

  “No, but it could take me hours to do the work myself.” Kestral eyed my critically. “Do you want to help?”

  I laughed. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  Kestral shrugged as he sat on the work bench, hunching over his blunted arrowheads.

  It only took a few minutes for me to become extremely bored. There was nothing interesting in just sitting and watching someone else sharpen arrowheads. I sipped my tea and wandered around the shop aimlessly. I was considering attempting to juggle horseshoes when the young apprentice who had flirted with me the night before found me.

  “I’ve never seen you out and about this early, Reshi.” He smiled shyly at me. “Not enough fun for you last night?”

  I laughed and leaned in towards him. “I didn’t hear you offering to make my night any more fun.”

  The apprentice blushed. “Well, Alma seemed exceptionally keen on your affections last night.”

  Shoot, which one was Alma? “She couldn’t keep up with me.” I smirked playfully. “I prefer partners with a little more stamina.”

  The young blacksmith started to reply, then hesitated, looking over my shoulder.

  I glanced back and found Kestral staring intensely at us.

  The youth ran a hand through his hair nervously and dropped his gaze to the floor.