by J. P. Larson
“I wish I could teach more people,” I muttered.
I looked over at Iladarta. She only shook her head. “You’re the only one who can make your salves, Kia. You’re using both botany and healing when you make them.”
“I can’t be the only one with that combination.”
“You’re not,” Marie said. “But you’re the only woman living, at least that we know of, with both in such large measure. Even I have a little botany magic, but not enough to accomplish anything.”
I nodded. “Cleo, how do you feel?”
“Are you offering to massage my feet as well?”
“If they look like these I am,” I said. “Do you currently have any aches? A bruised hip? Anything like that?”
“Just the normal aches of life.”
I nodded. “Then relax,” I said. I looked around, ensuring no one new had entered the room since we’d sat down. “Eva, is anyone else coming? I don’t want any surprises for the next few minutes.”
“Loralai,” Eva said. The woman nodded and stepped to the front door. From there, she spoke to someone outside, and I realized the queen’s guard must be watching the house. Then Loralai nodded and returned to her seat beside Lunia.
I nodded myself and then let my magic expand, growing outward until it engulfed everyone in the room.
“Kia,” Marie whispered. “Please don’t overdo yourself.”
“I won’t,” I said.
“What is she doing?” Cleo asked. “I feel something.”
“She’s filled the room with her magic,” Marie explained. “Healing magic, Kia?”
“Yes,” I said. Then I grinned. “I could make it knowledge instead.”
She laughed. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
Quartain had her hands up, moving them slowly through the magic, causing it to swirl. I could feel the drain on my magic, most if it from Quartain. But even without looking, I could feel where Cleo was, and I thought perhaps Loralai had strained something during training. I looked over at her. “Why don’t you come to me when you do something like that?”
“I don’t like to bother you.”
“Eva,” I said. “Handle that.”
Eva smiled. “What good is having Kia if we don’t make her heal our bruises?” She looked pointedly at Loralai, and I thought the two would talk privately as well.
Then I turned to Marie. I cocked my head. “What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Don’t ‘nothing’ me,” she said.
But Cleo was watching me, and she said, “Your Majesty! Congratulations!”
Marie waved a finger at her. “Do not jump to conclusions.” She looked down at her own stomach. “I am not pregnant.”
“I believe you, Dr. M,” I said. “Perhaps you should see your doctor and ask her about that very, very small growth.”
“She’s pregnant?” Quartain asked. “Marie. You’re pregnant!”
The room filled with congratulations for Marie. She looked dumbstruck. Then she leaned forward and hugged me. “Put your magic away. You’re going to turn stupid.”
“Quartain still hurts.”
“Kia, I do not want you turning stupid.”
I sighed. “I’m sorry,” I said. Then I withdrew the magic, slowly. I helped Quartain with her socks and boots. Then I turned to Marie. “Please see Magus Larpeen tomorrow.” Then I sighed. “I’m not satisfied with my skills as a midwife.”
“I told you-” Quartain began.
“-That I should learn the skills of a magus before focusing on the spells of childbirth,” I finished for her. “I know.” I sighed again.
“You’re learning as fast as anyone could hope,” Quartain said. “Kia, learning never stops. One of the requirements of Senior Magus is to create three significant new spells, or recreate ones that are lost.”
“Or to create a new spell of sufficient complexity and usefulness as to truly impress me and all living magi,” Marie added. She leaned forward to set fingers to my cheek. “Thank you for telling me, Kia.”
I nodded. “I’ll point out I didn’t tell you anything; Cleo did.”
Marie smiled. “Thank you, Cleo.”
“You’re welcome, Marie,” Clea said with a little snort.
I turned to Quartain. “I want to make a change in my lessons. Do I have to beg?”
“Kia you are an adept of Ordeen. We now guide you, but it is your choice what you will learn.”
“I want midwife training before spring,” I said. “The basics, at least. Can we fit that in? I wasn’t at all satisfied with my abilities this fall.”
“You were good enough to save my sister,” Eva said.
“And I passed out afterwards,” I replied. “I bet Larpeen wouldn’t have passed out.”
“Kia, from what you’ve said, I believe you’re the only adept who could have saved Maureena,” Marie said. “You’re right; your technique was probably crude, but no other adept would have been significantly better, and you had the pool of magic required for the job.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” I said. “I haven’t been learning adept level childbirth spells because the expectation is I will become a magus. Adepts who will remain adepts would learn those spells and have done better.”
“Kia, you saved Eva’s sister’s life?”
“And the baby,” Eva said. “And that was her second childbirth that night.”
“I barely did a thing for the first one,” I said. “The midwife handled it. I just offered a few good health and strength spells.”
“Right,” Eva said. And then she told the entire tale, start to finish. Everyone listened intently, some of them with smiles.
When she finished, Cleo asked, “Your Majesty, is that a story I may publish?”
“You know, Cleo,” Marie said. “I think I’d like that, although I’d rather you receive permission from Eva’s family or make significant changes to effectively disguise them.”
“The real heroes in that story were the two midwives, Ruth and Vera,” I said. “I don’t want you telling the story unless you give them full credit. I couldn’t have delivered either of those babies myself. I assisted, and that’s all.”
“It sounds like you assisted with the first,” Cleo said, “But you did a lot more than assist with the second.”
“I didn’t even know what to do,” I replied. “I told Ruth what I could see, but then I did what she told me to do. If you’re going to tell a story, that’s the story to tell.”
“All right,” she said. “Then I will. Eva?”
“I can’t offer permission for my family, but I can help you contact them.”
“That’s all right,” Cleo said with a smile. “I already know how to do that.”
* * * *
We had a lovely dinner. The conversation was intriguing, with Marie and Cleo clearly far more knowledgeable regarding events outside the walls of the school than the rest of us. Lunia and Loralai were more likely to chime in than the rest of us, and Lunia made several observations the queen or Cleo declared as “astute”.
Eventually we moved back to the living room. And that was when Quartain said, “So, Kia. We have a little present for you.” Cleo got up and moved to the front closet, withdrawing a small box from the shelf.
“This was something I wanted to give you,” Marie said. “But I consulted Quartain.”
“And I consulted Eva.”
“And I consulted Lunia and Cleo,” Eva said.
“Together,” Cleo said, “We determined a theme, but we couldn’t make good on the theme without Iladarta.”
“I actually did very little,” Iladarta said.
“As you can see,” Quartain continued, “it’s not a big gift, and it’s not necessarily one you know you need.”
“But you’re not a novice anymore,” Eva said. “You’re an adept. And so it’s time for this.”
Then Cleo stepped over and set the box in my lap. “Don’t shake it,” she said.
I
looked at the box. It was a cube perhaps a hand width wide, and made of wood with a hinged lid. I admired it for a moment and then carefully opened it. Nestled inside on a bed of soft cloth was a seal for my letters. It had a metal head and an elegant, marble handle.
It was gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.
Carefully, I picked it up. The handle gave it heft, but it fit my hand well. I turned the head to face me so I could see what image it would make in the wax.
“Cleo found a designer,” Marie said.
Eva had supplies ready. She lit wax and drizzled it over a sheet of paper then used a board for a firm backing, setting it into my lap. I rolled the seal over the wax and lifted it. I hadn’t realized it at first, but the head itself formed a stylized KS, my initials, and the image inside was of a mountain meadow, with parson’s toes clearly present in the foreground. I thought back ten years to Grandmama and Iladarta fighting over plants, when the only real difference between them were the names they used.
“I love it,” I said. “Thank you.”
“It’s not the sort of thing you’ll want to take with you when you travel,” Marie said. “You may want to commission another design for that.”
“I love it,” I said. I moved around the room, hugging and thanking people. Then Eva helped me put it away and set it aside.
“Tomorrow is the students’ monthly trip to Nalori,” Quartain said. “Would the four of you like to help chaperone?”
“We’d like that,” Eva answered for us. “Will you be going, Quartain?”
“Yes, although I’ll be spending the day with Marie.”
“And there are dinner plans,” Marie added. “We’d like you at the palace by late afternoon.”
“That sounds lovely,” Eva said. Then she turned to me. “Kia, I want you to listen to something for a minute.”
“All right,” I said carefully.
“It is easy to focus on the past. It is easy to second guess our choices, or third guess, or one hundred guess.” I snorted at that. “It is easy to get mired in guilt for mistakes, or for the hurt we’ve caused others. There are days I still feel guilty for how I behaved after you learned to make the twisted helix.” She’d broken up with me, and she’d been cruel about it, but had come to realize her mistake.
“Eva,” I started to say, but she held up her hand.
“Do you dwell on that, Kia?”
“No, Eva.” I took her hands. “No.”
“I do, sometimes. But you dwell on something else, and it’s going to hurt everyone in this room.” She lifted one hand and kissed it. “We are to be married, and I don’t want any past mistakes marring that.”
“Eva,” I whispered.
And then Lunia was there, kneeling in front of me. She took my hands from Eva. “I said privately what I wanted to say.” Then she kissed each hand. I leaned forward and hugged her tightly.
Then Loralai peeled me from Lunia and pulled me into a hug. “I love you,” she whispered into my ear.
Loralai gave me to Cleo, who simply hugged me and brushed my cheek, refreshing her scent as she did so. “Remember that I am always your friend, Kia.”
“And I am yours, Cleo,” I replied.
She gave me to Iladarta. “I missed you when you were gone, but you’re back.” She squeezed tightly, then she led me to Marie and Quartain, now standing beside each other and holding hands. Iladarta stopped me perhaps two paces from them then stepped away. I looked over my shoulder at her, then turned to face the queen and the senior magus.
And then, as I looked on, horrified, they both lowered themselves to their knees and bowed before me besides.
“What are you doing?” I screeched. “Get up.”
“Let them say what they want,” Eva ordered.
“Adept Kia Shortshadow,” said the queen quite formally. “Your time since first encountering my agents has been, at times, tumultuous. None of that has been your fault. Some has been theirs, but more of that fault has been mine.”
“And at least as much as been mine,” added Quartain. “There have been reasons for the things we’ve done, and you know some of those reasons.”
“I ask much from my sorceresses,” said Marie.
“There is much need,” Quartain said. “At times, we drive a student far harder than is good for her.”
“You have our apologies, Adept Kia Shortshadow,” Marie said. “And our gratitude.”
“We can’t say it won’t happen again,” Quartain said. “That’s a given. In the future, when Hallamarie plays games with you, you should come to me.”
“And when it is Quartain playing games, you should come to me,” the queen added.
“And when you think it’s both of them,” Eva said, “You come to the three of us.” She gestured to Loralai and Lunia.
“If you need someone else to talk to, Eva, you may always come to me,” Iladarta said.
“If you ever require a retreat, or a friend, or to spread a rumor,” Cleo said with a glint in her eye, “My doors will always be open to you, Kia.”
I started to cry but then stepped forward began lifting Marie by the shoulders. “Please get up now. Please get up.”
She did, and then she helped me with Quartain. I hugged them both, and then I found myself at the center of a very large hug.
“Kia,” said Marie, “Everyone in this room is a friend. We are all friends to you, and you are a friend to us. And we are to each other as well, with varying degrees of familiarity.”
“No more guilt,” Eva said. “No more weirdness. Or else.” She wriggled her fingers at me, threatening to tickle me.
I laughed and brushed some tears away. “Yes, Senior Roommate.”
She smiled. “That’s right. What else do we say?”
“What Eva says.”
“Good. No more guilt.”
“I’ll try.”
She nodded. “No more weirdness.”
“No more weirdness.”
“We’re going to have a nice little show here in a bit, then we’re sending our guests home. We’re spending more time with them tomorrow. And you’re going to spend one-on-one time with everyone in this room. We’ll make room in your schedule. It’s important. That’s a permanent rule. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good.” She kissed me quickly.
Our big hug group separated a little bit, and then Marie asked, “So, what are you going to do for us tonight?”
“I haven’t worked on anything special. I mentioned that to Iladarta earlier.”
“You have done performances in front of a testing panel,” Marie countered. “I’m fairly certain you can produce something to entertain your friends.”
“Cleo won’t be able to watch,” I said. Nor would Lunia or Loralai.
“You know a lot of magic, Kia,” Marie replied. “But Eva knows more.”
I turned to my lover. “Oh? And what magic does Eva know that applies tonight?”
“We stumbled upon this by accident,” Eva said. “It turns out that I can let them see through my eyes, although only one at a time. We can’t tell if they can see everything I can see, and they can only see those flavors of magic that I can see.”
“Lunia is her swordswoman,” Cleo declared. “And she should watch tonight.”
“Loralai and I talked,” Lunia said. “You are our guest. I want to watch another time. Eva will let you see tonight.”
“Very gracious,” Cleo said with a nod of her head.
“Outside?” I asked. “Or is it too cold for you?”
“Outside would be lovely,” Marie declared.
* * * *
We dressed in warm clothes. There was a bench waiting. Eva prepared her spell then invited Cleo to the bench. Once they were both ready, she wrapped the spell not around Cleo, but around both of them. They both stiffened for a moment, and then Cleo smiled. “Oh, this is strange. I’m looking at myself.”
“Don’t make it too long,” Eva said.
“Right.” I moved into place
before the bench, ten steps away, lifted my arms, and then began to raise my magic. It took little time, pouring away from me and forming a large, leafy tree all around and above me, the branches swaying in the breeze, so to speak.
“Oh,” Cleo said. “All those colors!”
“Someone decide,” I said. “I can do a short little story, or we can just have… some… fun.” And with that, I sent tendrils of magic flying out from my tree, high into the air before breaking into twinkling lights. “Those who wish could play, too.”
“Oh, Kia!” Cleo said.
And then Marie added her magic, and Quartain as well. Iladarta, not to be completely left out, added her own, her magic all various shades of green and brown. We put on a little show of lights for a minute, most of us laughing. As we did, I wondered if there were any students in the dormitories, their windows facing this way, wondering what was happening.
But then Marie asked, “Kia, this is fun, but could you put on a little show? I do miss those.”
“Of course, Marie,” I said. I stilled my magic, letting the tree settle down into a tree. And then I let it grow shorter, but spreading around in a circle, a little like a hedge. And then the hedge grew into bushes, one bush over me, and one over everyone present. Then they shifted, and shifted some more.
Cleo gave a gasp. “Eva! That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Kia, when did you practice?”
“Two years, Eva,” I said
She reached her hand for it, and the image knelt down and brushed fingers with her. Then I straightened the image and had it look around. At the same time, I began animating the others as well, letting them appear to look around before all of them stepped forward. I had the images curtsey to the image of Marie. Some of them kissed cheeks. Lunia’s image stepped to mine, and they danced for a moment. Then Eva’s and Loralai’s also danced before facing mine with Lunia’s. Loralai’s pulled out a sword. Lunia’s did the same. Eva’s image and mine clustered behind our swordswomen, and I simulated one of the first exercises I had learned the day I arrived, back and forth while trying not to get whacked.
Finally I had those images bow and fade away, leaving only Marie’s and Quartain’s. They moved together, standing side by side, and I added a crown to Marie’s head, changing her clothing into something more resembling court dress.
