The Mage Heir

by Kathryn Sommerlot

  Nota lunged at Yudai, and around her, bits of the floor tiles themselves began to rise, spraying clumps of mortar and rock called to action through her will.

  Yudai was weakening, and Tatsu could feel it. Yudai was still there beneath his skin, the magic and the bond forged by the siphon a cold wave in his blood. There hadn’t been enough time for Yudai to regain the control he’d once had, and his magic, in the aftereffects of everything, was a disobedient child sluggish to respond to his commands.

  There was a tug at Tatsu’s awareness, a silent question, and Tatsu sighed out the answer. Take what you need.

  The bond flared to life once more. The siphon, which felt more like a bridge than a sword, curled its way through Tatsu’s limbs and up into his chest. After a moment of resistance, it burst free, causing Tatsu’s vision to blur and his thoughts to grow foggy. He fell forward onto his elbows to avoid pushing the glass in his palms further in and sucked in a dizzying lungful of air just in time to see Yudai’s abilities erupt in an almost beautiful explosion of light and color.

  Red fire spun around his head and gray floor tiles were pulled up in chunks, and as the wind and flames swirled around his figure, there seemed to be a rainbow of light in the chamber. At first, Tatsu thought he was imagining the hues from some kind of strange siphon-related effect, and then he realized that the stained glass had been caught in the magic release too.

  Tatsu was so entranced by the sight that he almost missed how the cloud of magic and color and raw power overtook Nota’s body until he could no longer see her. By the time her figure was visible again, she was lying crushed and limp on the ground and Tatsu knew the fight was over. The siphon’s bond released its hold within him, fading out like the cloud of magic itself, until there was nothing left in the chamber but the three of them and Nota’s ragged breaths.

  Tatsu’s heart was hammering against his ribs when he stood, and he winced at the soreness in his knees that pulsed up with each step. Yudai stood over Nota’s form, and he turned to look at Tatsu when he approached with a blank expression.

  “I thought you might like a word before I kill her,” Yudai said. Drain her, Tatsu’s mind supplied, and he kept the addition to himself.

  He knelt down on the ground next to his mother’s broken body. There wasn’t much left—the fire had burned away more of her skin, and several tiles must have hit her legs, for one of the bones was splintered so badly it stuck out of her flesh. In less time than it took to track a deer, he’d both met and lost the image of his mother he’d wished for his whole life. It was sad that the way he’d remember her would be how she looked at the end, with tiny cuts littering what remained of her skin from the glass, but even that seemed morbidly fitting.

  She stared up at him with dark eyes as her fingers jerked uselessly at her sides.

  “I knew it would be you,” she said in a rasping voice. A trickle of blood had worked its way down her chin from the split in her bottom lip. “I knew letting you live would one day come back to haunt me.”

  Tatsu frowned. “Then why did you?”

  “I couldn’t kill you.” She coughed, a wet sound that echoed. “In the end, I couldn’t do it.”

  It felt like it should have meant more, like her admission should have changed his outlook and memories. It felt like it should have fluttered quietly between them and forged some kind of connection, but Tatsu felt nothing. The absence of emotion rattled him more than his mother’s ruined face.

  “I would have died for him,” he said quietly, though he knew Yudai could probably still hear, “so I suppose it’s fitting that you will instead.”

  He stood, and only then realized that he’d never reached for her hand. The only thing that they shared was blood, and that was all it ever would be. By taking a step back, the truth of it felt lighter than it once had. He’d expected a monumental confrontation, but the entirety of his time with his mother would end with an uncomfortable nothingness as her blood silently stained the chamber floor.

  “Do it,” Tatsu said to Yudai. “I have nothing else to say to her.”

  Yudai regarded him with another unreadable expression but said nothing more and eventually turned back to Nota’s body on the ground. Tatsu looked away when the siphon bubbled up, though he could still feel it buzzing against his ears when the magic sizzled in the air around them all. When he finally craned his face over his shoulder, the body on the ground looked nothing like the woman Yudai had been fighting. It looked like the Oldirr elder on the snowy mountainside of the Shyreld, trapped in place as a desiccated mummy with leathery skin and too-thin appendages.

  There was a pang of regret in his heart, but it was brief, and then it was gone.

  Yudai’s arms fell back down to his sides as he sighed a satisfied sound. His hair was sticking up at sharp angles, likely from the altercation, but there was more color in his cheeks than Tatsu had seen in a while.

  “Are you all right?” Yudai asked.

  “Yes,” Tatsu said, and somehow it wasn’t a lie. The jittery feeling in his skin reminded him that they’d come to the end of things and won. Against all odds, they’d both managed to emerge the other side intact; not only were they alive, but Yudai’s magic was back under his control and the siphon’s threat was extinguished.

  Perhaps it should have felt more exciting, but all Tatsu could feel was exhaustion.

  “I’ll get the others,” Yudai said and turned towards the door.

  “No, I’ll do it.” The throne—Yudai’s throne—was lying on its side halfway across the chamber with one arm splintered off and the reliefs broken in several places.

  He found Alesh, Ral, and Jotin just outside the receiving chamber in the narrower entryway, standing behind a small section of the stone wall that jutted out into the room. There was no sign of the soldiers.

  “They took off after they were blasted out of the throne room,” Alesh said. “I think they realized things were going to get ugly.”

  “Or they recognized the possibility of Yudai reclaiming his throne and did not wish to be on the wrong side,” Jotin added.

  Ral leaned in to reach for Tatsu’s injured hand. He’d nearly forgotten about it in the fallout of the fight and looking back down at the blood again brought the dull ache back to the forefront of his thoughts. Ral’s fingers gently curled around his as she looked up at him.

  “I’ll be fine,” Tatsu said. His wince probably gave him away.

  “Yudai?” Jotin asked.

  “He’s not hurt,” Tatsu said and then added, “At least, not badly. Nota’s dead.”

  “I’m sorry.” Alesh sounded sincere and thankfully didn’t say anything more. Ral let go of Tatsu’s hand, and the three of them followed Tatsu back into the large chamber where Yudai hadn’t moved from his position standing over Nota’s body. His hands were clenched tightly at his sides, and Tatsu could see the deep set lines of weariness on his face as they approached. Yudai looked as if he’d aged ten years in the ten minutes he’d been battling.

  The others formed a small semi-circle around Yudai and the husk of Nota’s remains, and for a long time, no one spoke.

  “So what now?” Alesh asked. “You’ve won your throne.”

  “He’s won it, but he hasn’t actually reclaimed it yet,” Jotin said. “The power does not come from the crown itself—”

  “—but from those who agree to follow the one wearing it,” Yudai finished. “I’m aware. We’ll need to gather the court.”

  “At least what’s left of it,” Tatsu said.

  Alesh pulled her chin up. “And the poor who were given the rich estates?”

  “I’ll do what I can,” was all Yudai said on the topic. It was obvious from Alesh’s resulting frown that she didn’t consider it enough, but if she was going to say something, she didn’t get another chance. The heavy double doors behind them swung open with so much force they shook in their hinges, and a broad Runonian man strode in, iron-spiked boots clanging loudly against the tiles. He stopped before them, firs
t with suspicious eyes and then with a visible unclenching of his shoulders.

  “So it’s true,” he said. “You returned to kill her.”

  “Iharu,” Yudai said in greeting. He shifted, widening his stance, and though his hands slid out of view behind his back a bit, the flexing muscles in his forearms let Tatsu know that his fingers were still rounded into fists. “That was fast.”

  “The guards came straight to my chambers to alert me,” Iharu replied.

  “You were working for Nota?” Yudai asked.

  “We thought you were dead.” Iharu’s eyes flashed as his lips thinned. “It’s good to see that we were wrong.”

  Tatsu might not have had any knowledge of the Runonian court, but he did know the state he’d found Yudai in many months ago, tied to a chair and kept catatonic. That Yudai’s torture had happened beneath the court’s very noses was offensive.

  “You thought he was dead when he originally fell out of your gaze years ago,” Tatsu asked, soft and slow as if treading on unsteady spring ice, “or when we rescued him from Nota’s use?”

  Iharu’s nostrils flared, and Tatsu imagined the man wanted to reply to point out Tatsu’s use of the word rescued instead of stole. Iharu said nothing, however, and eventually turned his gaze back to Yudai.

  “The others who worked beneath your father will want to know that you are back. Nota’s coup splintered the court. It will take time to gather them all again.”

  “Get started,” Yudai ordered. “I’ve lost enough time as it is.”

  Iharu bowed at the waist and left the room without another glance. Alesh swayed awkwardly between her feet while Ral stared down at the remains of Nota’s body and Jotin adjusted his leather belt. Yudai, at least, seemed willing to break the silence.

  “Will you stay?” he asked them as a group.

  “No,” Jotin replied without hesitation. “We have seen your journey through, and my own will begin once I return to Moswar. The High Council is keen for my service to begin.”

  Yudai turned to Alesh. “And you?”

  “What can we do here?” she asked, quieter than Jotin, like she was afraid a raised voice would carry too far through the expansive ceiling beams. “This is the end.”

  “Then before you go,” Yudai said, “you had an informant when you first came to Yuse. Someone loyal to the Chaydese queen.”

  “Yes.”

  Yudai ran a hand through the strands of hair falling into his eyes. “Go and fetch him, if you will. I think we’ll find an awful lot to talk about.”

  Twenty-Two

  After Alesh and Ral left to find Akao within Yuse, and Jotin excused himself to somewhere Tatsu didn’t know, Yudai sank down onto the floor littered with the finely ground dust of the stained glass windows with his head in his hands. The air around them was strangely quiet. Nota’s body was still lying behind them, and part of Tatsu wanted to move it, though he couldn’t identify why. In the end, he didn’t reach towards it, and he couldn’t explain the hesitation either.

  “You won,” Tatsu said.

  “Then why does it feel so hollow?” Yudai murmured. His fingers shakily pulled down across his skin, leaving red lines behind that blossomed bright and then faded to a dull pink before disappearing completely.

  Tatsu sat down next to Yudai on the tiles. “I should have asked earlier—how are you?”

  “I’m alive.”

  “There’s a lot more to it than that,” Tatsu said. “Don’t push me away now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Yudai said, an exhale, and the apology sounded sincere, a far cry from where the two of them had started. “I’m just… overwhelmed. For a long time, I never thought I’d get the crown, and certainly never like this.”

  Tatsu couldn’t think of anything to say. They sat in silence until Tatsu’s knees began to ache in protest, and he shifted to try and alleviate the pressure.

  “You should rest before the court gets here,” he said.

  “There’s no time,” Yudai said, “not now.”

  Tatsu knew by the sharp tone in his voice that there was no talking him out of staying for the court’s return.

  “You asked the others if they would stay,” Tatsu said instead, without looking at Yudai’s face, “but you didn’t ask me.”

  “I didn’t,” Yudai agreed.

  “Why?”

  Yudai’s eyelids flutter closed. He took a deep, steadying breath, and let it out in a low hiss through rounded lips. “Because I won’t be able to function if the answer is no, and it seemed easier not to hear it.”

  “Did you think I would say no?”

  “I don’t know,” Yudai said. “I want you to stay more than I want the throne, but I’m not used to getting much of what I want anymore.”

  “I suppose not,” Tatsu said.

  Yudai sucked in a heaving lungful of air. “Tatsu—”

  Tatsu leaned over and kissed him, and he didn’t know if he was shaken by what Yudai was going to say or by what he wasn’t going to say. It didn’t seem to matter. They were both alive and relatively unscathed, and Yudai’s lips were parting beneath Tatsu’s mouth in a contented little gasp. Tatsu knew they didn’t have much time before the members of the court began to filter back in, but he couldn’t stop himself from deepening the kiss, just a bit—a taste that lingered on his mouth even after he pulled away.

  Yudai’s eyes remained closed long after they broke apart.

  “There’s a lot of work to be done still,” Tatsu reminded him. “There’s a lot that you probably don’t know from your time spent under Nota’s control.”

  “And a court that is split in its allegiance to me and the woman who murdered my father?” Yudai said.

  “That’s not including the issue of the drained areas on either side of Runon’s borders left behind, nor the power clash from Nota elevating the poor citizens.”

  “Stop,” Yudai moaned piteously, though it seemed only half serious. The beginnings of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  “This is your birthright.”

  Yudai shook his head. “That doesn’t mean I’ll be any good at it.”

  Tatsu pressed his hands against the sides of Yudai’s face, sliding his thumb across the smooth skin there. “You’ll be fine, even if it takes some time to get a handle on everything.”

  “How do you know that?” Yudai asked.

  “I know you. I believe in you.”

  Yudai’s eyes shone in the sunlight streaming in through the empty window panes. “I think you’re the only person who’s ever believed in me like that.”

  Tatsu leaned forward to press their foreheads together, and Yudai’s hand rose, his fingers gliding across Tatsu’s until they laced together.

  “Are you ready?” Tatsu asked.

  “No,” Yudai said and laughed, the sound wobbly, “but I suppose I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  The nobles arrived first, looking anxious and worried, and they began to cluster near the raised floor tiles that led to the broken splinters of the wooden throne. Yudai made no move to hide Nota’s body, and as the court took notice, whispering with wide eyes among themselves, Tatsu understood why. It was a show of power, a sign of his right to rule strewn across the floor like the broken glass. The intimidation technique was well-chosen.

  When the first of the mages arrived, something squeezed Tatsu’s lungs. He’d not thought of the other mages, the ones who hadn’t been part of the coup, and after everything with Leil it felt like a betrayal. The mages in Runon didn’t wear the thick, dark robes or the gold bracelets that those in Chayd did. Instead, they were clothed in layered beige tucked into loose-fitting pants like the rest of the court, and the only difference was a thin circlet of silver that curved down across their foreheads. The first one, a young woman shaking so badly that her iron-studded boots screeched against the tiles, went beyond the waist-bending bow of the nobles and sank all the way down to her knees in front of Yudai’s position. With her palms flat against the floor, Tatsu could hear
her muffled sobs as her shoulders trembled.

  “Your Majesty,” she said, and the tone of the honorific lifted up as she began babbling in quick, sharp Runonian gasps that Tatsu didn’t understand. She continued for a good minute before Yudai stopped her, stepping down off the dais and bending over to place a hand on her shoulder. Whatever he said, it was done in low tones that made the woman cry out once, in surprise more than anything else, and then nod again and again until Yudai stood back up. She followed clumsily and moved to the far end of the dais while wiping at her face with the back of her hands.

  Yudai’s shoulders straightened when he faced those of the court assembled.

  “There are to be no consequences or punishments for the mages who were not involved in Nota’s assassination,” his voice rang out in Common, which surprised Tatsu. He didn’t know if it was the language or the message that most agitated the nobles clustered around the middle of the chamber, but whichever it was, a cry of disagreement rose up in a cacophony of angry words. Tatsu stumbled back as if he could escape while Yudai held his ground—chin held high and looking every bit the king Tatsu had known he could be.

  The mage behind Yudai looked furtively at Tatsu and then just as quickly away.

  Iharu strode in as the court was in chaos and pushed his way to the front of the crowd, carrying with him the air of a man used to getting his way. He shouted something at Yudai in Runonian, and Yudai bristled.

  “In Common, Iharu,” he ordered. “You can translate later for those who need it.”

  Iharu’s eyes narrowed. “Your Majesty, if I may—”

  “You were my father’s advisor, so speak.”

  “This country has been through much in the past year. With so much change comes instability, and should we appear weak to those around us, they will seize the opportunity to strike back.”

  “Strike back?” Yudai repeated, as one eyebrow shot up and disappeared beneath his hairline. “An interesting choice of words. You believe that those who share our borders will attack us. And would the reasoning behind this imagined retaliation have anything to do with how I was used as a weapon against my will?”