Crown of Secrets (The Hidden Mage Book 1)

by Melanie Cellier

  “You need help,” Darius said. “And you’re not walking anywhere.”

  He scooped me up, cradling me against his chest, and stood easily to his feet. I rested my head against his shoulder and sighed.

  “This is nice, too,” I said. “I might like it better, even.”

  “If you remember any of this, you’re going to be horrified.” His voice held a note of amusement that I liked. I didn’t hear it there often, although I couldn’t remember why.

  The rhythm of his steps and the comfort of his strong arms had nearly lulled me to sleep when a loud voice hailed us. I opened my eyes briefly but decided the effort was too great and closed them again.

  “What’s this?” asked a sharp voice. “One of my guards heard shouting, and…” An inhaled breath. “Is she hurt?”

  It was Captain Vincent, my tired mind supplied, prodded by his mention of a guard.

  “Thankfully not,” Darius said, his voice hard and imperious. “But she needs to rest.”

  “What happened?” Even in the face of a prince, the captain wasn’t ready to back down, and I wanted to applaud him.

  If I hadn’t been too tired to open my eyes.

  “Someone was foolish enough to dig a large hole in the garden and then leave it there,” Darius said. “She was running and didn’t see it in the dark.”

  “I’ll have it filled in immediately,” the captain said. “And have a talk with both the grower instructor and the gardeners.” His voice dropped a little. “And my men, too. It’s their job to notice any threats to safety, even ones that don’t come with a sharp blade attached. One of them should have seen it on patrol.”

  “Indeed.” Darius’s voice was colder than the winter air around us. “Now if you’ll let me pass?”

  “Of course, Your Highness.” Captain Vincent stepped aside, and our progress resumed.

  “Do you think he’ll notice it’s not an ordinary sort of hole?” I asked without opening my eyes.

  “If he’s half as good at his job as he’s supposed to be, he will,” Darius said, a dark note in his voice. “And then it will be very interesting to see what he does with that information.”

  “We could tell him,” I suggested helpfully.

  Darius’s arms tightened around me slightly.

  “We could. But he’s new here and appointed directly by my father. I haven’t had enough time to work out exactly where his allegiances lie.”

  “Layna liked him,” I said. “But I didn’t tell him about the other hole either.”

  “Yes,” Darius said slowly. “That other hole.”

  “It wasn’t quite so large as this one, though,” I said. “So he probably didn’t notice it.”

  A rumble in his chest might have been a suppressed chuckle. I snuggled closer to him.

  “You’re so warm,” I said, the sleepiness returning. “I like it.”

  Something soft brushed against my hair, although I couldn’t tell what.

  “Sleep if you need to, Verene,” Darius said in a softer voice than I had ever heard from him.

  “I think maybe I will,” I agreed.

  I felt the change in the air when we stepped into the building, though, and my eyes flew open when we started up the stairs. Someone—an older trainee I didn’t recognize—was coming down, and she stared at us in surprise.

  I wondered if I should explain the situation to her, but I couldn’t seem to form a coherent sentence in my mind. Darius, however, turned his head and gave her a single look that sent her scurrying silently out of my line of sight. I could imagine his expression even if I couldn’t see it. He could be scary when he wanted to be.

  We went up and up, finally turning onto a floor I had never visited before. The prince didn’t slow, however, striding up to one of the doors and kicking it with his boot. When it didn’t immediately open, he kicked it again.

  Chapter 22

  “I’m coming!” cried an indignant voice that cut off into a gasp as the door swung open.

  I recognized that voice.

  Darius carried me into the large room and laid me down gently on the bed against one wall. I turned my head and saw the astonished face of my friend.

  “Bree! I’ve never seen your room before. Why have I never seen your room before?”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Bryony sounded horrified. “What happened?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” said Darius. “But it seems she’s been drained of energy. She’s not talking sensibly.”

  “Excuse me!” I protested weakly, but they both ignored me.

  “Oh! Of course! That’s why you brought her here. Wait, I’ll get my strongest one.”

  Bryony hurried over to a desk, coming back with a fresh, flat parchment. “I only composed it this afternoon.”

  I frowned at her. “So that’s why you feel so low. That’s no way to spend a holiday, Bryony.”

  She put the parchment into my hands.

  “I wrote it for the arena, so you need to rip it yourself. Go ahead, Verene.”

  I frowned. “But this is yours. I didn’t like it when someone took my energy. I don’t want to take yours.”

  Bryony gave Darius a wide-eyed look.

  “Rip it, Verene.” He leaned forward, his face filling my view, his voice commanding.

  I sighed. “Fine.”

  Mustering the energy to move my arms, I ripped the parchment slowly in two. A jolt hit me, making me twitch against the bed, and for a second unreasoning panic gripped me. But then the sweet feeling of energy poured into me, and I calmed. This wasn’t like the last one.

  It didn’t take long for the composition to do its work. My exhaustion drained away, replaced by horror. I sat up and looked from Bryony to Darius. The sight of his face made me swallow, the blood draining from my cheeks.

  “What exactly did I say?”

  He grinned, his whole face softening and transforming in a way that made it hard for me to tear my eyes from him.

  “I wondered if you would remember. Maybe don’t try too hard to recall all of it.”

  I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “How about you try not to remember it as well?”

  “No chance of that. I intend to savor every word.”

  He chuckled, and I was gripped by the memory of how his suppressed laughter had felt while he held me against him. All the blood came rushing back to my face in what must have been an embarrassing riot of color.

  “Ugh, Bryony, kill me right now.”

  “Um, I have no idea what’s going on, but it kind of looked like someone already tried that.” My friend somehow managed to sound both amused and worried.

  My eyes flew open, and the humor dropped instantly from Darius’s face.

  “Yes,” he said, his usual seriousness back in his voice. “It did look a lot like that.”

  Reluctantly I nodded. “I think someone did. And they nearly succeeded. I was absorbed by my run, and they must have guided me somehow.” I shook my head. “I sensed something wrong but not in time to stop myself falling into that hole.”

  “Hole?” Bryony looked between us.

  “Someone dug a giant pit in the middle of the gardens,” Darius said grimly. “No doubt they did it with a composition, or it would have taken hours.”

  I nodded. “The sides did seem unnaturally sheer. I fell straight in, like a fool. And while I was still trying to get my bearings, they hit me with an energy composition. A draining one.”

  “What?” Bryony gasped. “But where would anyone at the Academy get a composition like that?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. But they had one.”

  “You got a shield up in time, then?” Bryony asked.

  I flushed again. “No. Although you can be sure I’ll have one at hand next time. It all happened so fast, and by the time I realized I needed one, it was too late to find it.”

  “So how are you still alive?” She looked confused, and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t have a satisfactory answer to that questio
n myself.

  “You said you got some of your energy back,” Darius said, his eyes locked on my face, his words tense. “What exactly did you mean by that?”

  I bit my lip, looking between him and my friend.

  “And just now you said you could feel Bryony was tired. It’s time for the truth at last, if you please. How did you save yourself?”

  I threw up my hands. “I don’t know! I don’t understand it myself.”

  I drew a deep breath. Darius had just saved me, and I clearly wasn’t going to get away without a proper explanation this time.

  “When I arrived at the Academy, the only ability I had was the ability to sense power.”

  “And to read and write,” Bryony added.

  I nodded. “I was basically a sealed mage. That’s it. I swear it. But when I worked Tyron’s energy composition in the arena during our battle, I started sensing energy as well.”

  “Like an energy mage?” Darius frowned at me.

  “Yes, but limited to just that sense. I think working his composition unlocked the ability somehow, but I couldn’t do anything else. I tried everything—I redid all the experiments we did back in Ardann. Nothing else worked. It hadn’t unleashed any other ability.”

  “Sensing energy wouldn’t have saved you in that pit,” he said.

  “No,” I said slowly. “That was something else. It started with the sensing, though. I followed the energy back to wherever it was going, and then I got angry and declared that it was mine. So…it turned around and came back to me.”

  “A verbal composition?” Darius said. “So you are like your mother!”

  He stepped back, his face closing off, and I stood, reaching out to him, suddenly desperate to have him hear me.

  “If I am, this is the first time I’ve ever done it.”

  “Oh sit down, both of you.” Bryony pushed me back onto the bed, pulling forward two chairs and gesturing imperiously for Darius to sit in one. “She’s telling the truth, so stop getting all high and mighty, and help us figure out what just happened out there.”

  Darius continued to frown, but he sank down into the chair, crossing his arms across his chest and fixing his eyes on my face.

  Bryony also turned to me, her exasperation transformed to excitement.

  “I can’t believe it, Verene! You composed! This is amazing!” She made a face. “Well, not the part where someone’s trying to kill you, obviously. But the rest. So you composed an energy shield for yourself? That must make you an energy mage, then. A shielding one.”

  I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t a shield. I didn’t stop my attacker’s composition, I just…reversed it. I started pulling the energy back to myself. But he—or she—must have activated a shield themselves because I didn’t get much before the flow was cut off.”

  “You mean you worked a composition to drain their energy?” Bryony asked. “That’s a slightly more common ability than shielding.”

  I shook my head again, my frustration building, although at myself more than anyone else. “No, I didn’t take their energy, I just took control of their composition and changed it.”

  Darius dropped his arms from his chest, leaning forward in his chair. His words came out slowly, each one dropping from his lips separately.

  “You took control of their composition. And you changed it.”

  “Sort of.” I shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, I didn’t change it completely. I just reversed it.”

  “That’s impossible.” His tone was flat, his face shuttered.

  “Of course it is! Do you think I don’t know that? But I’m telling you what happened.”

  “Spoken compositions were impossible too, thirty years ago.” Bryony’s voice dropped calm into the middle of our tension. “And Verene is literally the daughter of the Spoken Mage.” She gave Darius a piercing look. “Do you really want to refuse to consider the possibility she might have an impossible ability? It would explain why no one could work out what it was. Who would ever think to test such a thing?”

  She turned her gaze back on me. “You can feel power as well as energy. Do you think you could take control of a power composition?”

  I bit my lip, trying to recall the feeling when I reached into my attacker’s composition.

  “I’m not sure. It wasn’t like a regular composition. This one was attached to them. They were pulling my energy into themselves. I don’t know if it would work with a regular sort of composition.”

  Bryony nodded, tapping her finger against her lip. “That makes sense. Power mages are always avoiding open compositions that connect to them after they’re worked because of the danger of draining so much energy that they die. But it’s different for us. We don’t have the same risks.”

  Darius’s brows drew together. “What do you mean? Are all your compositions open ones then?”

  “In a way?” Bryony looked at me, but I gestured for her to go on. Unlike Darius, I had covered this in discipline class, but Bryony was the expert. “Our compositions have to be open because the whole point is for them to connect to someone’s energy. But they’re not draining our energy, so there’s no risk to us. Those of us who give energy—like me—have that energy drained when we write the composition. Once it’s worked, it connects with the person who works it, but since it’s giving them stored energy, there’s no concern. For those who drain energy, the composition connects with them in order to feed the energy into them, but once again, there’s no risk.”

  She laughed wryly. “Well, no risk to the person working it. There’s a great risk to the victim, of course.”

  “Shielding is different, though,” I reminded her. “Energy mages who can compose shields write them closed just like most power compositions.”

  “That’s true,” she conceded, flashing me a look that reminded me there was another type of energy composition that was closed as well.

  “But taking and giving energy are the most common,” I said quickly. “And those are done as open compositions—in a way, at least. So it’s possible I need a connection to the mage’s energy before I can…twist it—or whatever we’re calling it.”

  “We need to experiment!” Bryony sat up straight, glee on her face.

  “But not now,” Darius cut in. “It’s the middle of the night. Verene needs to sleep.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Now that I have Bryony’s energy.”

  He shook his head. “Classes start again tomorrow, remember. You’ll just end up exhausting all your new energy if you spend the night trying to compose.”

  Bryony looked disappointed, but she nodded her agreement. “And apparently someone wants you dead. So exhausting yourself doesn’t seem like a good idea.”

  From Darius’s dark look, the same thought had occurred to him.

  “And if I’m likely to be attacked at any moment, I should know how to use my new ability,” I muttered rebelliously, but I said it under my breath. They were right, and I knew it.

  “I don’t want you alone,” Darius said. “Bryony, you need to move in to Verene’s suite.”

  “What?” I glared at him. “Since when did you have the right to order me around?”

  He met my gaze without flinching. “Since I pulled you almost lifeless out of a pit on the Academy grounds. You’re a royal guest in my father’s kingdom. I will not have you assassinated here.”

  I groaned. “Fine. Although I don’t know what excuse you have to order Bryony around.”

  “He doesn’t need an excuse,” she said cheerfully. “I’m more than happy to move into your suite. Now you’ll never be able to hide from me.” She cackled gleefully and rubbed her hands together.

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re impossible.”

  “But lovable, remember,” she said, repeating our usual joke. A smile edged over her face. “And apparently I’m not as impossible as you.”

  There was room enough in my large bed to fit Bryony as well, although it wasn’t the most pleasant experience. She kicked in her sleep, and
for someone so tiny, she managed to cover an enormous radius. But I doubted I would have slept well anyway.

  My thoughts raced too much for easy rest, circling around and around. Someone had tried to kill me. I had nearly died. But I had saved myself with an undiscovered ability. I had power, just like I always dreamed. In fact, I had a new power—as impossible and unheard of as my mother’s had once been. I was special. Unique.

  But what was my power? If it was merely the ability to twist an energy mage’s working mid-flow, then I had already discovered what seemed the only valuable use for it. And I could have achieved the same result without any ability at all if I had only succeeded in putting my hand on my energy shield composition.

  It had been a spoken composition, too, which meant I couldn’t store them up or give them to anyone else. In short, it didn’t seem like a very useful power—more a curiosity than anything else.

  Except it had saved my life. When someone had tried to kill me. And so the circle started again.

  And laid over it all, intruding whenever I started to drift into sleep, was the memory of being carried in strong arms while I babbled incoherent nonsense. What must Darius think of me?

  I wanted to crawl under my covers and never emerge again. And yet. His voice had been soft, and his hands gentle. He had even laughed. More than once. Powerful, burning, intense Darius was fascinating. But soft, smiling Darius might turn out to be more dangerous still.

  When I did manage sleep, my dreams were chaotic and fragmented, slipping away as soon as I tried to grasp hold of them.

  Chapter 23

  Only Bryony’s cajoling got me out of bed in the morning and down to breakfast. It felt wrong to sit in the dining hall and eat as if nothing had happened but, as Bryony pointed out, what other choice did we have?

  Combat class was in the usual training yard, and I paired for all my bouts with Bryony. I was far too distracted to concentrate properly and didn’t want to risk fighting with anyone else.

  When the bell finally rang to release us, I was ready to sprint back to the Academy. But a tall, silent figure had come to watch the end of our class, and when I left the yard, he caught my eye, indicating with an inclination of his head that he wished to speak to me.