(The Zero Enigma Book 6) The Family Pride

by Christopher Nuttall

  “And you pushed her away,” Louise said. “Why?”

  I found my voice. “I’m betrothed,” I said, carefully. “I can’t give her anything ...”

  “You’re betrothed,” Louise repeated. “Does that even matter?”

  “Yes.” I felt a surge of anger, mingled with guilt and shame. I’d kissed Saline ... no, she’d kissed me, but I’d kissed her back. Just for a moment, but more than long enough to cross the line. “Louise ... I love Cat.”

  “Do you?” Louise met my eyes, challengingly. “Have you spent time with her, alone, for the last five years? Or have you always been chaperoned, unable to talk freely?”

  I winced. That struck a nerve. My firstie year had been dangerous, but ... I’d enjoyed being with Cat, working with Cat ... sharing our mutual love of forging even as the world around us went mad. Afterwards, with Cat at the Workshop ... we’d never been truly alone. We’d never been able to completely relax. We’d never been able to talk freely, to share our hopes and dreams. Even our letters were read by both sets of parents. There was no way either of us could put anything intimate into them. Who knew who might wind up using it against us?

  “I know her,” I said, finally. “And I ... I like her.”

  “Really?” Louise didn’t seem impressed. “Really truly?”

  My temper flared. How old was she? Sixteen? Seventeen? She was talking like a girl who hadn’t even entered her second decade. She was mocking me. I knew she was.

  “Yes.” My voice was very flat. “I know her. We have a lot in common. We can build a life together” - I winced, remembering one of my father’s rare lectures on married life - “and work towards the future together. And I’m not going to throw that away for ... for anyone.”

  Louise rested her hands on her hips. “And how do you know you don’t have more in common with Saline?”

  I found myself speechless. I’d never thought to put it into words. Cat and I had just ... clicked, back when we’d first met. We’d worked together well, even though we were from rival families. She was brilliant and imaginative and ... and I’d loved working with her. I missed that, more than anything else. The days when we could slip into the forgery or discuss new designs over a cup of tea were gone. They wouldn’t come back until we were married.

  “You don’t.” Louise caught my eyes and held them. “You don’t know.”

  I took a breath. I honestly didn’t know what to say. I’d barely known Saline, even though we were in the same year. I hadn’t paid much attention to anyone, beyond Francis and a handful of others. In hindsight ... I shook my head. Hindsight might be clearer than foresight, but it wasn’t much use. There was no way anyone, even Cat, could produce an Object of Power that would allow me to go back in time and do it again.

  “Cat and I were betrothed at the end of the House War,” I said, instead. “The peace between our families rests on the match. We cannot betray it - I cannot betray it - because of ... of anything. And I don’t want to betray it!”

  “That’s horrific.” Louise sounded shocked. “Were you and Cat forced into the match?”

  It had been Cat’s idea, but I had a feeling Cat had understood as little about the realities as I had, back then. She couldn’t have really understood what she was giving up - and what she was asking me to give up - any more than I had at the time. And then the grown-ups had latched onto the idea, as if it were the answer to all their problems. It might well have been. Five years of peace between our houses had solved a lot of problems.

  “We chose it,” I said.

  Louise snorted. “How could you possibly understand what you were agreeing to?”

  “I knew,” I said. It wasn’t entirely true, but ... I didn’t care. “Louise ...”

  Louise cut me off. “Saline likes you and you ... you kissed her back. I saw you.”

  “And I shouldn’t have.” Cat was definitely going to be angry. I really shouldn’t have kissed Saline back. “And she shouldn’t have kissed me either.”

  “Hah,” Louise said. “You liked it.”

  I coloured. “It doesn’t matter ...”

  “Yes. It does.” Louise took a step closer. “You wanted her and ...”

  My temper snapped. My magic boiled within me, demanding release. “Enough!”

  “It isn’t enough,” Louise said.

  “Yes, it is.” I controlled my temper with an effort. “She shouldn’t have kissed me. I shouldn’t have kissed her back. It was” - I tried not to think about the feeling of her body pressed against mine - “a moment of weakness. It was ...”

  I shook my head. “I like Cat. I like being with her, working with her ... and even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be selfish enough to throw it all away and jeopardize the peace between our two families just because” - I caught myself, on the verge of saying the unsayable - “I wanted someone else. And ...”

  Louise jabbed a finger at me. The spell struck me before I could react. My entire body locked solid, my muscles aching painfully as they were jammed in place. I tried to muster a counterspell, but her spellform was too precise. She must have learnt the spell from Saline, I realised numbly. It had a lot in common with the spell Ayesha had cast on me.

  “Your system is evil,” Louise snapped. “Evil and monstrous and ...”

  She clenched her fists. For a moment, I was sure she was going to hit me. “You and Cat are being forced to sacrifice your happiness, your chance at a future of your own choice, merely to keep the peace between your families. Neither of you knows what you want. You were children when you made the agreement. You didn’t know what you were agreeing to, did you? How could you? And now you’re being forced to keep the agreement when you’re not sure if you want it!”

  I wanted to protest, to say it wasn’t like that at all, but I couldn’t move. I struggled desperately against the spell, yet ... it twisted and turned, just like Ayesha’s spell. I couldn’t break free. I was at her mercy. And she was angry. I could feel her magic, pulsing on the air. She might turn on me at any moment.

  “And Saline likes you and you like her.” Louise’s voice hardened. “I saw the way you looked at her, from time to time. You found her attractive. I know you did. And yet, you rejected her ... because your family needs you to marry a girl you barely know. Can you not see how inhuman that is? Can you not see how monstrous it is?”

  She went on, her voice rising. “You’re not evil, Akin, but you’re trapped within an evil system that turns people into monsters. Your sister nearly destroyed your entire family because she was trapped, because she had to take power for herself or spend the rest of her life at someone else’s mercy. And Francis ...”

  Her face twisted. “How could you let him back on the team?”

  I couldn’t answer. My lips were locked solid. But ... I wasn’t sure what I would have said, if I could. The team needed Francis. It needed as many competent and capable magicians as it could get. And Francis had been there for me, when I needed him. I’d forgive him a lot, just for being there.

  And yet, he was threatening the entire family too, my thoughts reminded me. What would have happened if someone else had caught him with Lindsey?

  Louise’s voice was shaking. “He’s an ass,” she snarled. “He looks at Saline like she’s a piece of meat. Me ... he looks at me like I’m an object, like I’m so lowly I don’t even qualify as a piece of meat! He laughs at me, pokes fun at me ... pokes fun at you too, when your back is turned. And the girls! I know he’s been courting girls, lots of them. How many natural-born children do you think he has?”

  Her voice rose until she was practically shouting. “How many bastards do you think he has?”

  I flinched, nearly tumbling over as my body jerked reflexively. I was in shock, too stunned to take advantage of the brief opportunity to break the spell. A properly brought up young woman did not use that word. She just didn’t. And ... my mind ran in circles. Could Francis really have gone that far? It would have been the scandal of the century if he had managed to impr
egnate another student, but ... he wasn’t that stupid. He would have used contraception spells. Wouldn’t he?

  Louise paced the room. I saw tears glistening in her eyes. “I should have known better,” she said. “Blood will out, right? That’s what you lot always say. And even the decent aristocrats get pulled down by the rest. Your system is corrupt, as foul and fetid as a cesspit; it makes monsters out of decent men and makes monstrous men even more monstrous. And it sucks in people like me, taking their magic and blood and giving them delusions of grandeur and acceptance in return. But they’re just delusions, aren’t they?”

  No, I wanted to say.

  It was true. Common-born magicians like Rose, the ones who showed immense potential, were brought into patronage networks, even married into the Great Houses. Of course they were. There was no point in letting such people go to waste, simply because they didn’t have aristocratic blood. Cat’s mother was common-born. And her daughter was remarkable ... I wondered, suddenly, if we were looking in the wrong place for Zeros. Perhaps we should be looking amongst the commoners instead ...

  “I should never have agreed to join your team.” Louise wiped tears from her eyes, then turned to face me. “But I gave my word.”

  She stared at my frozen face for a long moment. She looked ... pitiful, and yet terrifying. I wanted to hug her and hex her, at the same time. Her hair was coming loose, falling around her face. She might never be classically pretty, not like Isabella or Alana or Saline herself, but she was striking. Her face had raw character. I ... I told myself not to be silly. I had enough female troubles right now.

  “I gave my word,” Louise repeated. “I’ll talk to Saline. I’ll tell her ... I don’t know what I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her something. And we’ll be at the training session, later today. We’ll do everything in our power to make sure the team wins, that you get crowned Ruling Wizard of Wizard.”

  Wizard Regnant, I thought.

  “And you will keep your word to me,” Louise continued. “You will continue to tutor me. You will teach me how to behave. Because I’m going to go into politics, I’m going to reform the system, I’m going to fix the problem or bring the entire system crashing down. And if you don’t, I swear by all of my ancestors I will make you pay. I’ll tear your life to shreds.”

  I stared at her, too numb to be shocked. I’d known Louise resented her station in life, but this ... I wanted to tell her that she was being stupid, that she was pitting her frail body against the might of the Great Houses and Magus Court itself. I wanted to tell her that she could make things better, if she tried. But I couldn’t speak. She wouldn’t let me speak.

  “Don’t give Saline a hard time, either,” Louise added. She sounded calmer, now she’d given voice to her frustrations. She knew, I suspected, that she’d crossed a line. There was no going back now. “And watch your back. I wouldn’t trust your cousin any further than I could throw him.”

  She walked out of my field of vision, her footsteps retreating. “The spell will wear off, sooner or later,” she said. “See you at training.”

  I heard the door open, then close. I stood there, helplessly. I could feel the seconds ticking by, each one as long as a minute ... I tried to concentrate, summoning my magic to break the spell. But ... I cursed Louise and Saline and Ayesha as I worked, even though I knew I was being unreasonable. If Ayesha hadn’t enchanted me, Louise would never have known the spells existed ... my head spun as I realised the implications. If Louise hadn’t been taught the spells, when she was a little girl, how safe had she been on the streets?

  The spell broke. I dropped like a sack of potatoes, hitting the ground hard enough to hurt. The muscle spasms caught me a second later ... I nearly screamed in pain as pins and needles jabbed into my body, my muscles protesting. I forced myself to cast a general painkilling spell, even though it was dangerous. The pain faded to a dull ache, then vanished. I rolled over and forced myself to lie flat. There was no point in trying to stand, not yet. The painkilling spell might have banished the pain, but it wouldn’t have done anything for the damage ... if there was damage. Locking someone’s muscles could be dangerous, if the spell wasn’t done properly. Most magicians preferred more generalised freeze spells.

  I stared at the ceiling, wondering what I was going to do. I’d known Louise was resentful of her station in life, but ... I hadn’t realised how deep her resentment ran. And that worried me. I hadn’t realised at the time just how deeply Isabella resented her position, let alone how far she was prepared to go to claim the power she thought should be hers. And she hadn’t been wrong. I thought about Alana, so calm and confident and capable, and shivered. What would Isabella have been, if she’d been Heir Primus? If she’d had something to work towards, instead of watching helplessly as it was dangled out of reach?

  A part of me wanted to run after Louise, to hex her again and again until she begged for mercy. Another part understood her, though, all too well. And yet another part knew I couldn’t afford to kick her off the team, let alone push her away. And ... I swallowed, hard, as I remembered what she’d said about Francis. Did he have other girls? I found it easy to believe, even though ... surely, there would have been rumours? I didn’t know what to believe. Francis wasn’t betrothed. No one would care as long as he was careful.

  I forced myself to stand, slowly. Louise had promised to stay on the team ... I had the odd sense she meant it, that I could trust her that far. After all, I’d promised her something too ... I scowled as I realised I might be in some trouble. If Louise told everyone that Saline had kissed me ... she’d land Saline in hot water too, but she might not care. I’d have to keep my promise to her, just like I’d intended to do. I hadn’t had any intention of betraying her.

  My thoughts wandered as I packed up the bag, checked to make sure I’d collected everything and headed for the door. Things had changed, for better or worse. And I had no idea what would come next ...

  And I have to talk to Cat, when I have a chance, I thought, glumly. I’d have to tell her what had happened, before rumours started to spread. She deserves to hear it from me.

  Chapter Thirty

  If things hadn’t been so tense, between ... just about everyone, the training session would have been a great success.

  Saline was powerful - I’d known she was powerful - but she was also brilliant. Without the curse, she was almost a different person. Magic crackled around her like a living thing, flaring in and out on command. It was beautiful, just like Saline herself. And her control was so fine that even Francis complimented her. She was practically dancing as she cast spell after spell, pitting herself against Francis and Harvard and almost coming out ahead. Her control ... even Alana wasn’t so controlled. I had the strangest feeling that I understood, perfectly, why her uncle had wanted to cripple her. His daughter hadn’t stood a chance.

  And yet, the air was tense. Saline looked at me, her expression wistful, whenever she thought I wasn’t watching. Louise, beside me, seemed to be having second, third and fourth thoughts about remaining part of the team, after everything she’d said and done to me. I wondered if I should be hexing her, or - at the very least - invoking my authority as Head Boy and giving her a lecture on casting powerful spells on her fellow students. There were limits, after all. And pranks stopped being funny very quickly.

  “That was amazing,” Francis said, after Saline caught a spell he hurled at her and sent it back. It crashed into his shield charm and vanished in a shower of sparks. “It really was.”

  Saline blushed. “Thank you!”

  I eyed Francis warily. He’d been subdued, at least in my presence, since I’d returned from Riverside, but ... I’d caught him watching Saline, a hungry expression on his face. He hadn’t said anything, nothing I could object to, but ... I understood, I thought, why Louise disliked him so much. I wouldn’t have liked someone looking at me like that. And, in hindsight, his open disdain for Louise could easily come back to bite us. I wondered how he treated Tobias, when I
was not around. Tobias was common-born too.

  “We’re doing much better,” I agreed, putting the matter to the back of my mind. I’d just have to keep an eye on it and hope for the best. “Tobias? How do we stand on potions?”

  “I’ve brewed up a dozen vials each, of various different potions.” Tobias sounded gruff, but confident. “We should have more than enough to keep us going.”

  “If we manage to keep the vials intact,” Francis pointed out. “What’s to stop the other teams raiding our supplies?”

  I shrugged. Preparing for the Challenge would be a great deal easier if we knew what we had to do. But ... there was no point in crying over it, not now. We had to cover as many bases as possible, carrying as much as we could without being weighed down. I had a feeling there were limits to what we would be allowed to take onto the field. I still didn’t know if I’d be allowed to take the sword.