Crown of Secrets (The Hidden Mage Book 1)

by Melanie Cellier

  Bryony called a command of her own, and the six of them broke into two groups of three, standing back to back in two small circles, blades facing out. She stood in one group and Jareth in the other.

  I eyed the arrangements. It was a sensible strategy in the face of our direct attack and would make our task of separating out the weaker fighters more difficult. I eyed the group that included Bryony, Royce, and Armand. That was their weak link.

  Catching Darius’s eye, I inclined my head in their direction, and he angled his run to bear down on them, me only steps behind.

  “To me!” he called, and the rest of our team converged on us as well.

  Seeing their huddle completely ignored, Jareth broke away from his position, Dellion and Frida following his lead. They moved fast, faster than I had seen any of them move before, but we were going at an equal speed.

  They tried to fall on us from behind, but when Dellion lunged at Wardell, he merely danced out of her reach, making a mocking face as he evaded her attack. She snarled and lunged again, while he continued to retreat. Soon he was fleeing halfway across the arena, his laughs floating back to us along with her frustrated snarls.

  Darius tried to lunge at Royce, but their circle spun, leaving him facing Bryony instead. The movement put Armand in front of me, however, so I pressed forward with an attack. His first defense was strong, but when I followed with another immediate counterattack, his response time was weaker than it needed to be against my heightened reflexes.

  I saw my opening and lunged in with a kill strike, tempering my force so as not to bruise him too badly. Just as I committed, however, I felt two spots of power blossoming behind me.

  My arm jerked in surprise, but it was too late to pull out of the move. My blunted tip hit him just above the heart, and I didn’t wait for Mitchell to complete his shouted call of Armand’s name before spinning around to face the threat at my rear.

  I couldn’t be the only one who had felt the forbidden use of power. Why hadn’t our instructor already intervened? Trying to circumvent the rules was a foolish move when there was no way to hide the action from every power mage present.

  “Ashlyn.” The declaration of my teammate’s defeat came as I was spinning around and went some way to explain how Jareth and Frida were both confronting me.

  They must have dealt Ashlyn a deathblow and somehow shaken off both Isabelle and Tyron. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Royce engaged in battle and realized that accounted for at least one of my missing team members.

  Had I missed another name being called in the distraction of my battle with Armand? If so, I might need to face both opponents without assistance.

  Our plan seemed to be falling apart—perhaps due to whatever compositions had been worked behind me. They must have come from either Jareth or Frida, or both.

  The power still clung to them, though, so it wasn’t likely to have been an attack. I frowned as I barely succeeded in beating back Jareth’s first lunge. Perhaps they were shielded, then.

  But it didn’t feel like a shield. The power didn’t surround them in a bubble. The sensation was more of a pulsing force inside each of them. Now that I was focusing more closely on them, it didn’t seem like any composition I could remember feeling.

  Tyron appeared from my left, distracting Frida with a wild attack. But Jareth kept his focus on me. When he attacked again, all his movements faster and more forceful than I had ever felt them in practice, I was too slow to respond. Distracted by the force that still burned inside him, I missed the flexing of muscles that would have alerted me to his attack.

  His sword pushed mine neatly aside and whacked gently against my neck.

  “Princess Verene.” Mitchell’s loud shout rang across the battle.

  Jareth grinned at me and turned his attention away. I stood frozen for a moment, staring after him in confusion. Was it still the lingering sensation of forbidden power coiled inside him that made me see something sinister lurking in his eyes behind his surface smile?

  Mitchell called my name again, his voice disapproving this time, and I jolted into action. Stumbling across the arena floor, I passed our instructor. Now that I was no longer distracted by the swirl of battle, I noticed a similar sensation pulsing inside him. It didn’t burn as brightly as the power I had felt during the battle, but it seemed to emanate from a similar place at his core.

  I looked back over my shoulder as I continued on to the seating, but Mitchell’s attention had returned to the battle that still raged. Was it something to do with the exercise then? Some composition he had worked? But why? And for what purpose?

  I sat next to a dejected-looking Ashlyn.

  “At least you killed Armand,” she said with a sigh. “I didn’t manage to achieve anything before Prince Jareth defeated me.”

  “Never mind.” I struggled to focus on her words and form a coherent response. “He’s a strong fighter, and you bought the rest of us time at least.”

  “Not enough from the look of it.”

  “What?” I frowned at her, distracted by the force that I now felt pulsing inside of her as well.

  She pointed back toward the battle.

  For the first time, I focused my attention on the ongoing conflict. Frida and Royce were both walking toward us, shoulders slumped. That meant my team had managed to knock out all three of our enemy’s weaker fighters, just as we had planned.

  But we had lost Ashlyn and me in the process. Which meant the numbers were only slightly in our favor as Darius, Tyron, Isabelle, and Wardell faced off against Bryony, Jareth, and Dellion.

  A moment later, Dellion finally caught Wardell, delivering a death blow that looked like it carried all her pent-up irritation at his evasive tactics. He would have a lovely bruise by tomorrow unless Raelynn took pity on him and deemed it a serious enough injury to warrant healing.

  Dellion was all the way across the arena, though, so it took her precious seconds to race back toward her remaining team. In the time she took to reach them, Darius managed to score a clear hit against his brother.

  Mitchell called the younger prince’s name, but a moment later he was calling both Tyron and Isabelle as well. Bryony had managed to fell them both. I couldn’t help a small smile of pride for my friend’s skill despite the deadly blow to my team.

  We now had only Darius left, and Dellion had arrived to support Bryony. The two of them circled the crown prince warily. He was the best fighter in the class, but he was outnumbered, and Bryony wasn’t far behind him in skill.

  The battle raged on for several more minutes, Darius holding them off with remarkable feats of swordsmanship. But eventually they managed to come at him from both sides, and Bryony delivered a killing thrust. Mitchell called Darius’s name, and declared Bryony’s team the victors.

  She whooped and hollered, racing back across the arena to celebrate with her teammates. Darius followed behind, his head high and posture rigid. It was impossible to tell from his expression if he was proud of having fought well or resentful of his defeat.

  I watched the hubbub around me with a detached air, trying to understand what I was sensing. The battle had ended, but the power still lingered. And now that everyone had gathered together, I could tell that every one of my year mates was infected with it.

  Bryony eventually made her way to me, congratulating me on my one kill. I mumbled out my own praise of her efforts, too distracted to put much thought into my words. She gave me an odd look but was distracted by Tyron, sitting behind me.

  She beamed at him. “That was fun.”

  “It was an interesting exercise.” He gave a quick frown. “More distracting than I expected. It nearly caught me off guard a couple times.”

  She nodded. “Everyone felt so full! It was almost bursting out of them. I’ve never felt it with so many people before—and then with so much movement as well.”

  I twisted so I could see them both clearly. “Everyone felt full? What does that mean?”

  Tyron gave me an odd lo
ok. “Everyone’s energy, of course.”

  “You get used to how it feels,” Bryony explained. “But it’s unusual to feel someone pulsing with so much energy, let alone twelve people at once. Usually people want us to give them energy when they’re desperately low, or else because they’re using it immediately on a composition. It’s different on a battlefield.”

  “It was amazing,” Ashlyn said enthusiastically beside us. “I’ve never felt so…alive. And I could move so fast.” She grimaced. “Not as fast as Prince Jareth, though.”

  Bryony laughed. “Yes, the advantage is greatly diminished when your enemies have it as well. But you can imagine how it might help if they don’t.”

  Their words faded away as I stared at my friend in shock. It pulsed, she had said. And it was bursting out of them. I looked around at each of the trainees, one at a time.

  It didn’t feel like power, really. That’s why I hadn’t been able to pinpoint what composition it could possibly be. And it burned right at each person’s core because it was a part of them.

  Somehow, impossibly, I was sensing the energy of everyone around me.

  Chapter 18

  I stumbled my way through the rest of the day in a daze. I kept expecting the new sensation to fade, but it didn’t. And it was incredibly distracting.

  I was used to the sense of power that hung over so much of the Academy, but now that it was mixing with my newfound awareness of every person in my vicinity, my mind was being continually overwhelmed.

  Bryony kept reassuring me about my performance in the battle, and I let her think it was the source of my abstraction. I couldn’t exactly announce the truth in the middle of the dining hall—especially when I didn’t understand it myself.

  Power mages couldn’t sense energy—except their own in the most general sense. Only energy mages could sense the energy of others. Well, energy mages and my mother, who was some sort of strange hybrid.

  My brother, Stellan, a spoken energy mage, could feel it, of course. It had been the first sign of his ability. As soon as he was old enough to communicate, he had shown an awareness of the location of everyone around him—even through walls.

  After I turned sixteen, I had been desperate enough to try every known ability, but I hadn’t been surprised when my parents had extensively tested me with power compositions first. I could sense power like Lucien, not energy like Stellan. It had seemed clear to me, despite my parents’ hopes, that I wasn’t destined to be any sort of energy mage.

  And yet now, here I was—able to sense both power and energy, as my mother alone could do. As soon as I could snatch a moment to myself, I rushed to my room to try composing both a power composition and an energy one.

  Nothing happened. They were just words on a page.

  I paid extra attention in discipline class that afternoon as Bryony and Tyron discussed the battle with Amalia, but there was no hint as to what could have affected me in such a way. It was clear from their conversation that the compositions they had distributed had been nothing more than regular ones to gift energy, as mine had appeared to be when I read it. And yet I could think of no other catalyst for this change.

  Unlike my brother and other true energy mages, my mother hadn’t been born with the ability to feel energy. She said she had first sensed it after drawing someone else’s energy. I hadn’t crafted my own composition to interact with the energy of another, but I had worked Tyron’s composition and received his energy from it. Perhaps that had been enough?

  While I had worked countless power compositions in my sixteen years, supplied by either my family or my guards, I couldn’t recall ever having worked an energy one before. They were in short supply in Ardann, even at court, and no one had any reason to give energy to a junior princess who couldn’t use it to compose.

  But for my mother, the new sensation had come alongside the expansion of her abilities. Yet my efforts to compose continued to fail. A sudden thought lanced through me as I listened to Amalia instructing Bryony and Tyron about replenishing their now-depleted supply of compositions.

  My brother couldn’t write energy compositions either. He had to speak them. Was it possible I was like him after all?

  Under my breath, in the quietest whisper I could manage, I recited the words I had earlier written, reading them off a mental scroll. I aimed my gift of energy at Bryony, holding my breath as I completed the working. Nothing happened. I felt no drain on my energy, and Bryony didn’t falter in whatever response she was making to Amalia. Given how it had felt to receive energy in the arena, I couldn’t fool myself that something had happened without either of us sensing it.

  With more trepidation, I tried the words for a composition to take energy, limiting myself to skimming the smallest portion. Again, nothing seemed to happen. Next I tried to shield my energy, but my renewed hope was already dwindling. Shielding was the least common energy mage ability.

  At least it was easy to picture the necessary words, the intense concentration with which I had attempted the same compositions with my parents bringing them easily back to mind now.

  Finally, with great nervousness, I attempted a composition like the ones Bryony’s father, Declan, used. I carefully worded it as my parents had showed me, attempting to give away only the tiniest sliver of my energy. Again, nothing happened.

  I let out a long breath and slumped in my seat. For a moment it had seemed like everything had changed, but it turned out nothing had changed at all.

  When I felt someone walk down the corridor outside the classroom, I flinched, earning a concerned look from Bryony.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” she whispered to me. “It isn’t like you to take a defeat so hard. Mitchell praised your strategy, remember?”

  I just shook my head, and since Amalia began speaking again, Bryony had to let it go. She continued to throw me worried looks, however, despite the sudden small lift to my own spirits.

  Feeling the person go past had reminded me of the small advantage that came with this new ability. Being able to sense the location of everyone around you was a skill that could come in useful, especially if I was to live my life at court beside my brother. Perhaps I might help foil an assassination attempt one day.

  I shook off the foolishly heroic daydreams. Despite the tumult of the beginning of her reign, my aunt had ruled in peace for many years now, and I sincerely hoped Lucien would do the same. I could be waiting a long time if I hoped my moment of glory would come through such a clumsy assassination attempt as someone concealed inside a room or behind a curtain.

  It was still comforting, though, to know when there were others around me. I suspected I would grow accustomed to the sensation and no longer feel the need to flinch or shield my overcrowded mind. Bryony certainly didn’t give any indication of the extra sense at all.

  At the evening meal, I headed off any questions from my friend by directing us to seats beside Frida and Ashlyn and launching straight into speech myself.

  “I’m so sorry, Ashlyn, but it turns out I can’t go home with you for Midwinter after all.”

  She froze, her fork halfway to her mouth, a horrified look on her face.

  “I wasn’t thinking when I accepted your kind invitation. It would have been lovely, but I’m forbidden from leaving the Academy grounds.” I grimaced. “Even on rest days.”

  She put down her fork and frowned. “Forbidden to leave the grounds? Whatever for?”

  “Security reasons.” I sighed. “Duke Francis had to make my family all sorts of promises about my safety, and I can’t ask Captain Vincent and his men to go trooping around after me wherever I go, leaving everyone else unprotected.”

  “Oh,” she said slowly. “Of course.”

  “Not that I mean to suggest your home is unsafe,” I said hurriedly. “But there is the travel to consider.”

  “Perhaps—”

  I jumped in before Ashlyn could suggest her family send guards to accompany me from the Academy or some such.

 
“But I was so sad at the idea of missing out on celebrating Midwinter with you all that I begged the duke to allow me to host a ball here instead.”

  Ashlyn stared at me, whatever she had been about to say forgotten.

  “A ball here?”

  I nodded. “For all the trainees and instructors. And your families, of course. Duke Francis has promised to send out the invitations as soon as possible. It won’t be an Academy ball, exactly, but rather an Ardannian one. I’m to share my home’s festivities with you all.”

  “How exciting!” said Frida. “I can’t think when there was last a ball here.”

  Ashlyn slowly smiled. “I’m sure my mother will understand needing to cancel her own plans in the circumstances. Of course we must put everyone’s safety first.”

  I grinned, almost able to see the thoughts whirring through her brain as she surveyed the small crowd in the dining hall. It would be an exclusive invite list, but one that included some of the most powerful people in the kingdom—among them the royal family.

  And no one could complain at being unfairly excluded since no politics had gone into deciding who was invited. Even the king was only receiving an invitation because his sons attended the Academy. Midwinter had always been a family celebration. And it just so happened the families involved spanned both factions of politics. Balance, as Hugh had said.

  Bryony seemed just as delighted as Frida, gaping at me and asking why she hadn’t known anything about the plan.

  “I only asked the duke this morning,” I said. “And then I was distracted by the battle in the arena before I had a chance to tell you.”

  She accepted this truthful explanation, joining Frida and Ashlyn in an enthusiastic discussion of gowns and accessories. I used their distraction to slip away in the most cowardly way, avoiding any private conversation with my friend.

  I would tell her of my discovery, but I wasn’t ready to do it tonight. I needed time to adjust to the idea myself.

  When I reached the peace of my suite, I breathed a sigh of relief and sank onto one of the sofas, massaging my temples. It had been an unexpected day in many ways and felt as if it had been going for at least a week.