The Mage Heir

by Kathryn Sommerlot

  Yudai stared at it, motionless, before slowly running his thumb over the largest of the baubles.

  “She’s been carrying this around since the Shyreld,” Yudai said.

  “I forgot she had it,” Alesh said. “She wouldn’t take it off, even when we were back in Dradela. She fought me when I tried to take it once.”

  Ral laughed, cheeks a dark orange in the firelight. “Sorry.”

  “What is it?” Tatsu asked.

  Yudai hummed a low note of surprise and then turned the necklace over once to inspect the back. His fingers slid over the beads a few times. “How did she know?”

  “Who?” Tatsu asked.

  At the same time, Alesh asked, “What are you talking about?”

  Yudai looked up at Ral with a shrewd gaze while his fingers continued their ministrations on the accessory. “How could she have known this was going to happen?”

  “Ral?” Alesh said.

  “The elder,” Yudai replied, but his voice was still distant, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

  “Is it magic?” Tatsu asked.

  Jotin stepped through the entrance of the cave with his knife held tightly in one hand. He didn’t appear surprised to see Tatsu awake and moving about, and while his eyes held for several seconds on the necklace in Yudai’s palm, he didn’t ask any questions.

  “No, it’s not magic,” Yudai said, “at least, not exactly. The pendant is made of lodestone.”

  “That’s a natural magnet,” Jotin said. “They are sometimes used as guides in the absence of stars.”

  “I don’t understand why that has anything to do with our situation,” Alesh confessed.

  Ral dipped her head down so that tumbles of her loose waves fell over her shoulders, hands clasped together. “Use, Yudai.”

  “You can use it?” Tatsu asked.

  “I… might be able to,” Yudai said. “Lodestone can be a focusing device for mages.”

  That got everyone’s attention, and all eyes swerved to Yudai’s seated figure.

  “Are you saying that Ral’s had that this whole time, and we just now figured it out?” Alesh asked.

  Tatsu’s stomach twisted for a much different reason as he leaned forward. “Could you have used this before you got the siphon under control?”

  “No,” Yudai said to Tatsu, and the tension in Tatsu’s abdomen receded. “No, it wouldn’t have done anything. But now…”

  “You aren’t really considering using the siphon again, are you?” Alesh asked, sounding incredulous.

  Yudai hesitated. He met Tatsu’s eyes, dark and heavy with a thousand things he’d likely never say out loud. When he finally found his voice, he said, “I don’t… know.”

  “Look at what happened!” Alesh said.

  “But if the necklace acts as a focusing device, wouldn’t that prevent the same sort of catastrophe?” Jotin asked.

  “Tatsu almost died,” Alesh said, and the reminder brought Tatsu’s attention back to the dull ache that had taken up residence in his bones.

  “I suspect that it’s not really our decision to make,” Jotin said. His tone was light, but the hard line of his shoulders as he sat down was anything but.

  Throughout the conversation around them, Yudai had neglected to pull his gaze away from Tatsu’s, and when both Alesh and Jotin lapsed into a strained silence, he sucked in a breath that whistled through his teeth.

  “I almost killed you,” he said, just loud enough that Tatsu could pick out the words. “I can’t do that again.”

  “It’s still the only way to ensure you don’t get killed later,” Tatsu replied.

  “Nothing can ensure that.”

  Tatsu winced but chose not to respond. “This is your best chance. I lived through the first time.”

  “That’s no guarantee that you’ll live through the second,” Yudai said, “and I can’t be responsible for your death. I can’t, I—”

  He shut his mouth with a snap of clanging teeth, the statement hanging unfinished.

  “This necklace might change things,” Tatsu told him as gently as he could. “Right?”

  Yudai said nothing.

  “Test it first,” Jotin said from across the fire. “Test it first and then decide.”

  They walked out past the drained foliage until they found a tree left alive—a still-green coniferous dotted with pinecones—and formed a semicircle around the trunk. Yudai turned the necklace over in his hands in a nervous gesture before biting down on his lip and taking a step forward.

  “What if it doesn’t work?” he asked, voice low.

  “What if it does?” Tatsu returned.

  Yudai looked annoyed, but his nerves seemed to keep him from replying. He waited as several more seconds ticked by before exhaling loudly.

  “Focus on the tree,” Jotin said. “That lodestone has got to be the answer.”

  Tatsu agreed—the Oldirr elder, with all her foresight, wouldn’t have given them something that they wouldn’t eventually need. Still, the remnants of memory from the first time they tried rose up in his mind, clouding his thoughts with small spikes of fear, and he struggled to temper them down.

  Alesh moved back as well, taking Ral with her, clearly feeling the same apprehension.

  “Right,” Yudai said to himself and then held the necklace out in front of his chest with both hands wrapped around the bulk of the beads. When the siphon flared into life, Tatsu’s ears rang. The energy bubbled up in front of Yudai, swirling so thick in the air that Tatsu could almost see it, and then, with a snap like a bowstring, the drain’s magic enshrouded the pine tree. The needles went from green to brown in the blink of an eye, too quickly for Tatsu to see anything but the aftermath. Withered and shriveled, the pine cones had melted into the branches in grotesquely misshapen lumps.

  It all happened so fast. Yudai’s whole body stiffened as his arms went out to either side, and all of the life held within the siphon’s deathly touch sparked in the air before he inhaled it into his lungs. Then his shoulders slumped forward as he gasped, one hand flying to his throat to grapple at the skin.

  Only the tree was touched—the decay didn’t extend past the deep-dug roots.

  “It worked,” Alesh said from behind Tatsu’s shoulders. “I can’t believe that worked.”

  From the look on Yudai’s face, he couldn’t believe it either. He turned to face them with the necklace held gingerly in one hand.

  “I can control it,” he said. “I can direct it.”

  “Then that’s what you needed all along,” Tatsu said.

  Alesh crossed back across the space to join them. “You’ll try again? With Tatsu, I mean.”

  Yudai’s chest expanded, pulling creases in his shirt, as he sucked in a long, hissing breath. “If Tatsu agrees—”

  “Yes.” Tatsu nodded to reaffirm in case there was any question of his sincerity. “I agree.”

  Yudai’s expression softened into something very fond that warmed Tatsu’s stomach. “Alright. Let’s try again.”

  It didn’t seem like a good idea to mess with powerful magic outside where they were exposed and vulnerable, so they moved back into the cave. Tatsu’s nerves remembered the agony that the siphon had wrought the first time, and the bile rising up in the back of his throat was his body’s knee-jerk reaction to facing the entirety of it again. But somehow, he got himself to the side of the fire and sat down, straightening his clothes as if it would matter should the worst occur once more.

  “Are you afraid?” Yudai asked, quiet enough that it was between just the two of them. “You’ve gone very pale.”

  Tatsu thought about lying, but there wasn’t much point if his fear was so visible. “It’s not exactly a pleasant sensation.”

  “Tatsu, you don’t have to do this if—”

  “Stop.” He tried to be gentle as he cut Yudai off, but his gut was churning. “I want to. I want to help you.”

  Yudai pursed his lips and nodded. “I know. Don’t you dare die, you hear me?”


  “I won’t,” Tatsu said and hoped that the promise would hold true.

  He lay down slowly and wriggled to move the small pebbles that embedded themselves in his back. Taking in a deep breath, he closed his eyes and tried to center himself. It helped when he focused far beyond the cave and what they were doing, to the world beyond the drained husks on the mountainside, but only so much. His thoughts spiraled back to the fear lodged like a stone in his throat.

  Yudai’s fingers closed around Tatsu’s.

  “Everything will be fine,” Yudai whispered.

  Tatsu took one final, deep breath, and then the siphon slammed against his chest to knock all the air loose.

  The sensation was much different; rather than the magic pulling at his skin, it was centered on his chest. From his shoulders to his thighs, his body began to warm, hotter and hotter, until Tatsu was sure he was emitting some kind of light. His fingers and toes remained motionless even when he tried to jerk them away from the fire blazing up from his abdomen. The strangest thing was that it didn’t hurt. The whole thing felt like the siphon was asking permission and waiting to get a reply. The pull was insistent and firm but holding steady without forcing anything further.

  Tatsu honed in on the bubbling warmth, and, with a soft sigh, gave in. Take what you need.

  The effect was instantaneous. The heat flared throughout his body, right down to his fingertips, and then even further outward, past the confines of his skin. Beside him, Yudai gave a noise that was not quite pleasure and not quite pain, and for a short while, they were joined by the magic arcing between them. Tatsu could feel Yudai—Yudai’s breath a staccato rhythm that didn’t line up quite right and his heartbeat an echo in Tatsu’s ribcage. And then he could feel the necklace’s lodestone center, an insect with fangs that sank down into his flesh and drank.

  For a few beats, the connection merely shimmered, but in the next moment, those same nerves lit up with bright blossoms of pain.

  Tatsu thought he cried out, though he wasn’t sure. His awareness faded as he clung to the sensations, hoping they would keep him awake, and when it threatened to fail, his arms jerked enough to smack against Yudai’s leg.

  The siphon cut off with a pop that reverberated in Tatsu’s ears as the cave, fire, and reality snapped back around him.

  He gulped in air, wondering if, somehow, he’d failed to breathe for the duration of the drain’s ghastly touch. But he was conscious, and the ache in his body was already calming, and that was certainly more than he could say of the previous try. It took a while to wrench his eyes open. When he did, the fire was painting the walls orange.

  “Did it work?” he rasped, and his tongue was swollen and stuck to the roof of his mouth.

  “You’re awake,” Yudai said. He leaned over Tatsu’s chest and pressed the back of his hand to Tatsu’s cheek.

  “Wasn’t I always?”

  Yudai shook his head, and Tatsu felt rather than saw it. “You were out for a while—ten minutes or so, maybe.”

  It hadn’t felt like everything had gone dark for so much time, but Tatsu’s lips were very dry when he ran his tongue over them. He spent some time bending his knees and elbows until there was no pause between his command and the movement.

  “Did it work?” he asked again.

  Wind rose up around him, encircling his arms and legs and lifting him off the floor. He floated there, confused and breathless, until the miniature cyclone deposited him gently back onto the rock. Then he swiveled his head around to meet Yudai’s eyes, which were sparkling in mirth.

  “It worked.”

  Twenty

  Four days later, Tatsu was standing on a ridge and looking out on the slanting tile roofs of Runon’s capital of Yuse. The close-set buildings filling the horizon in front of them prompted a heavy apprehension, and the thought of returning to the city was more palpable than his weariness, which was still lingering after the siphon’s energy drain. But if seeing the settlement again was strange for him, it had to be even more conflicting for Yudai.

  A glance in Yudai’s direction told him that he’d been right, since Yudai’s features were twisted with too many emotions to name.

  “Breathe,” Tatsu said softly. The last thing they needed was Yudai succumbing to thoughts of old trauma. There was no doubt that the torture he’d suffered within Yuse’s palace walls had been beyond cruel, but they needed him in control if they had any chance of getting back out of Runon alive.

  Tatsu’s directive seemed to help. Yudai’s shoulders rose with a deep inhale and relaxed on the exhale.

  “How are we going to get into the castle?” Alesh asked. “We had help last time.”

  Yudai looked as if he were filing that tidbit of information away for future use. “We walk in. Nota will be expecting us.”

  “A lot can go wrong between here and the front gates,” Alesh said and then flattened her lips down into a thin line, like she wanted to add something more and had thought better of it.

  Tatsu didn’t need to be reminded of the dangers, and honestly, neither did Yudai. They stood posed on the rocky hill that stretched out gray and narrow from the high peaks of the Grand Mountains on the north edge of Runon’s border. It was some time before Yudai seemed to shake off his misgivings enough to move forward. The path that curved down into Yuse’s outer boundary was well-worn but empty, and Tatsu wasn’t sure what that could imply. Their footsteps were the only sound as their soles scuffed against loose rock and dirt hardened by winter’s lack of rain. They picked their way down the ridgeline and into the basin that flattened out into the city proper.

  Since the drain, Tatsu’s muscles had ached from when he woke to the time he fell asleep, but it was a familiar sort of pain that, if he was focused on something else, he could sometimes forget about. The worst of it was the odd sort of buzzing that had been left behind—an empty, agitated noise that tended to get louder as the world around him did. He wished he could ignore the disquiet as well as he could the exhaustion in his limbs. The lodestone necklace itself was back safely around Ral’s neck, and Tatsu didn’t particularly want to come in contact with it again.

  When they grew nearer to the wooden buildings on the outskirts of the city, Tatsu expected to hear the sounds of the slums. He should have been able to pick out the sounds of too many bodies too close together, especially in the bite of the winter chill, but there was nothing. The silence was worse than the uncomfortable din would have been, and it continued even after they made their way past the first of the shambling houses.

  “I don’t understand,” Alesh said. “Where are all the people?”

  A loud clang from within one of the shacks took away any chance to answer. Tatsu stumbled back in surprise as the door, hanging precariously on one hinge rusted over with brown, swung open and allowed a figure to tumble out. The stranger, who was hunched down within layers of thin-looking linen that couldn’t possibly do much against the cold, paid no notice to them as he trudged down onto the lane and shambled further into the city. Tatsu stared at the retreating lump of fabric as the shuffling footsteps slowly faded away.

  “Follow him,” Jotin said quietly.

  Alesh looked surprised. “What? Why?”

  “Something’s not right here.”

  They did as directed, keeping a safe distance between themselves and the stranger until they arrived at a square where the road widened and opened into one of Yuse’s many market hubs. The trade carts and stalls were still there, some nestled into the paneled buildings and the rest propped up with spindly poles, and Tatsu let the wave of nostalgia roll over him. The last time he’d seen one of the market squares, it had been well past nightfall, and most citizens had been in bed. The timeworn signs of constant use were far more visible in the daylight.

  Jotin stopped them at the edge of the closest building with a hand in the air, and Tatsu watched as the stranger they’d followed approached one of the carts in the same sluggish gait. The man reached toward the merchant with his outstretched hand,
palm up with a silver coin flashing against his skin.

  Tatsu wasn’t sure what exactly Jotin was staring at, but whatever it was had to be the cause of his creasing eyebrows. There were a few others milling about the open square, and Jotin’s eyes jumped between them until he dropped his hand back down to his side.

  “What is it?” Tatsu asked.

  “The man we followed is wearing a ruby-inlaid signet ring,” Jotin said, “and all three of the people here have hands smooth and free of calluses.”

  “A ruby ring?” Alesh asked. “To afford that, he’d have to be a—”

  “Noble,” Yudai said as he stared at the scene playing out in front of them without looking away, even as one of the people caught sight of them and stared right back.

  Alesh looked confused. “But that man came from a house in the slums. Why would he be there, dressed like that, if he was a noble?”

  Instead of answering, Yudai strode into the square toward the nearest figure. With far more force than was necessary, he grabbed the woman’s hand and studied it, peering down with narrowed eyes even as she squawked in indignation and tried to snatch her fingers away.

  When she finally succeeded in freeing her hand from his grasp, he straightened and said something in Runonian. What followed was a quick exchange that Tatsu could not understand, until the woman covered her face with both hands and let out a small, piercing wail that was almost immediately swallowed back. She ran off in the opposite direction, and Yudai returned to the group’s position with an unreadable expression.

  “They are nobles,” he said. “They were… punished for failing to support Nota’s position on the throne. She stripped them of their homes and property.”

  “Can she do that?” Alesh asked and wrinkled her nose.

  Yudai shrugged. “She must have enough other support—either through fear or genuine belief—that the others within court backed her decision.”

  “At least this tells us that there is dissent within the castle over her rule,” Jotin said.