Mageborn Read online

  So far she’d not seen anyone she recognised and she wanted to keep it that way. She wasn’t the same person any more. Munroe wanted to leave Perizzi and go back to where she belonged as soon as possible.

  The tavern she was staying in was popular with visitors and located in the bustling heart of the city. That meant the streets were regularly patrolled by the Watch and, beyond a few pickpockets, there were few criminals from any of the crime Families. Trying to rob someone here just wasn’t worth the risk and aggravation that would follow. The people she had dealt with in the past tended to stick to the shadows and avoid the bright lights. The odds of her running into them were very small.

  Realising she was getting distracted again Munroe focused on the flame. With the window closed the flame didn’t waver. Staring into the heart of the fire she focused on the tiny blue centre and tried to let go of her anxieties. Her shoulders eased and her breathing deepened as her mind started to drift.

  Lifting her eyes from the candle she stared at her reflection in the standing mirror. Minutes passed in silence as she did nothing except stare at her twin and the candle in the glass. With her mind finally at peace she summoned an image of Balfruss in her mind and drew power from the Source. The magic thrummed in her bloodstream and all of her senses became more focused. She heard scratchy, uneven music from a few streets away as a child practised on the fiddle. Her room at the tavern had been well aired when she’d first entered, but now she could smell old food that had been spilled on the floor. A tiny spider was silently spinning in the far corner behind her while several flies vainly struggled to break free of the sticky web.

  Keeping her eyes open Munroe concentrated on the picture of Balfruss in her head and brought to mind all the little details she could remember. The three scars on his jaw that he refused to let anyone heal. The greying beard and thinning hair. The tribal tattoo around one of his wrists and the deep sadness behind his eyes.

  Even before arriving at the Red Tower she’d heard stories about him and not just those about how he had defeated the Warlock. After the war he’d travelled across the Dead Sea to distant lands most people thought were only myths. Sometimes Choss mentioned something Balfruss had told him during one of their drinking sessions which left Munroe with her mouth agape in amazement.

  Staring at her reflection Munroe trickled a little bit of magic into the mirror and pictured Balfruss sitting on the floor opposite her. The glass rippled once like the surface of a pond and then was perfectly still. Sweat began to trickle down the sides of Munroe’s face and her knees were aching, but she gritted her teeth and tried to ignore it all. Reaching out with one hand she pressed her fingers against the surface which now felt unusually warm to the touch.

  The glass turned cloudy and then black before returning to normal. Instead of seeing herself in the mirror the reflection showed Balfruss sitting in a room she didn’t recognise. He looked more tired than she’d pictured and his clothes were rumpled and mud-spattered from travel. On the floor beside him she saw a candle like her own but also a wicked looking axe.

  “Focus,” he whispered and she concentrated on her connection to the Source. The power thrummed in her veins and Munroe knew there was so much more she could summon. Power enough to flatten the entire room or destroy the whole tavern if she wanted. It was intoxicating and alluring, to draw more power and use it to shape the world to her will. Her strength was almost without equal, but when it came to subtly wielding magic she struggled enormously.

  Munroe concentrated on her breathing, on the slow steady trickle of power she fed into the mirror and Balfruss’s image. She felt the surface of the glass bend and her fingers sank into it until she gripped his callused hand.

  “What did you find in Morheaton?” asked Balfruss. His voice was clear and sharp in her ears. His lips were slightly out of sync with the words but she tried not to focus on that. She could sense his urgency. Neither of them knew how long she could maintain this connection. They had practised a few times before she’d left the Red Tower and she’d only managed to keep it going for a few minutes. There was an easier way to communicate over long distances, but she’d refused as it bonded her with the other person in an intimate way. They would be able to hear every surface thought and feel every emotion, making them closer than lovers. The only man Munroe wanted to be that familiar with was her husband.

  “The Seeker is dead. Murdered by the town Mayor, a man named Burelle, and some of his people.” Munroe quickly told him what else she and Tammy had found. “Tammy spoke to her boss, the Old Man, and he said there have been attacks on Seekers across the west. One town in Zecorria banished the Seeker and told him they never wanted to see another ever again.”

  “A few others have fallen silent in the north,” said Balfruss. “All of this is not a coincidence. Someone is making a concerted effort to undermine all that we’ve done in the last few years.”

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Munroe, trying not to think about how she could feel the warmth of Balfruss’s hand against hers.

  “Where are you?” he asked, glancing over her shoulder.

  “Perizzi. I came here with Tammy.”

  “That’s good. Focus on Yerskania. We need to warn the other Seekers there. I can tell you where they live.”

  “Do you want them to return to the Red Tower?”

  “Not unless they have to,” said Balfruss. “Tell them to forget about the monthly tests for the time being. They’re to stay hidden, stay safe and keep an eye on their communities. Someone is poisoning people against magic and the Red Tower, and we need to know who is doing it.”

  “What if a child with magic starts to manifest and lose control?”

  “They’re to use their discretion, but if they intervene and even one person talks, it could put their life at risk.”

  Either option didn’t sound appealing. Let a child struggle with their wild magic and risk them hurting themselves and other people, or save the child and risk exile and being attacked. Balfruss ran through a list of towns in Yerskania where the Seekers lived and she repeated it back to him, committing the names to memory.

  A headache was forming at the back of her skull and Munroe could feel her damp shirt clinging to the base of her back. They were almost out of time.

  “I spoke to your husband,” said Balfruss, startling her so much she almost lost control. “He’s worried about you.”

  “Tell him I’m safe and I’ll see him soon.”

  “I will.”

  “Why did you send Tammy to keep an eye on me?” asked Munroe.

  “It’s not about trust, Munroe, it’s about control. You might be the most powerful mage I’ve ever met. You have the strength and the will, but you’re far from subtle. She’s an experienced investigator, trained to spot small clues and read people’s body language. Tammy can find out who is behind this. She’s also my friend and I trust her with my life.” Munroe was stunned. She couldn’t remember him saying that about anyone, apart from Eloise. Then again, for some reason he’d also said the same about Garvey.

  The surface of the mirror flickered, turning black for a second, and Munroe felt her connection waver. “Find out who is doing this,” said Balfruss in a rush. “Contact me again in seven days.”

  “I will.”

  “Garvey said you weren’t ready for this, but I disagreed. My vote gave you this opportunity to go out on your own. Prove me right. Save our people.”

  Pain flared in Munroe’s head and she felt Balfruss release her fingers. She pulled her hand away from the mirror and her connection to the Source evaporated. Her senses contracted again and she fell backwards breathing hard. For a few minutes she just lay there until her heart had slowed down. Her clothes were drenched with sweat and a bone-weary exhaustion was pulling her towards sleep.

  Rolling onto her side Munroe slowly pulled herself to her feet. She blew out the candle and glanced at the mirror. It was whole and the image was hers again. Stumbling across the room she flopped down o
n the bed and managed to pull the blanket over herself before falling into a dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER 13

  Wren felt the occasional glance of other students in her class, like an ant crawling across her scalp, but she did her best to ignore them. It had been over a week since she’d embarrassed Brunwal and yet she was still being ostracised. They were treating her like a frenzied animal that might attack at any moment. If not for Danoph and Tianne she would have been totally isolated. Her hope of creating a different life for herself was proving far more challenging than she realised. Yet she was still determined to succeed. Magic was now the centre of her life and, once she’d achieved a certain level of skill, she could go anywhere and leave such petty concerns far behind.

  Wren returned her attention to the teacher, a kind man from Shael named Rue Yettle. He was busy demonstrating the basics of healing, but it was so complex she couldn’t really follow what he was doing.

  It was the final lesson of the day and she was already feeling quite tired and hungry. Her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that lunch had been a long time ago.

  On the surface it looked fairly easy. He simply placed a golden net of energy over a patient and through it healed them with power from the Source. The only problem was upon looking deeper into how he’d constructed the net she realised its complexity. Healing a cut on the skin seemed simple. The weave of diamond-shaped nodes was uniform, like sewing a line of thread in a shirt. At the very least Wren thought she might be able to heal the skin.

  When he moved on to healing bones she saw the net was constructed of multiple layers, each slightly different from the other and yet all working in unison. It required an understanding of not only magic, but how the body worked and the importance of different organs. If you attempted to heal someone without such knowledge, you could end up doing more harm than good. That meant she would have to spend more hours in the library reading books on anatomy.

  Over the course of the class Master Yettle had explained the theory of healing in great detail, but no one had shown an affinity or an innate Talent.

  As Danoph had told her earlier, each teacher at the school was proficient in at least one Talent. These were areas of magic most mages found difficult to master, even with years of study and training. But every now and then a student would instinctively understand a Talent and be able to repeat it almost immediately. Some Talents were so peculiar and rare, people had not considered such things possible. Tianne had even told her of one mage who could talk to spirits of the recently deceased. She had doubted the story until Danoph had confirmed it, having seen the mage visit the school months earlier.

  Despite thinking she would be able to heal a cut on her finger Wren failed every time. It looked easy, moulding the energy into the diamond weave, but each time she managed to create one node it soon fell apart.

  So far neither Danoph nor Tianne had found an innate Talent, but they were both still looking. Thankfully there were hundreds of Talents catalogued in the library, inside the tower, and a few more were added every year.

  Some students believed everyone had at least one Talent and that everyone was special, but to Wren it sounded like childish wish-fulfilment. Some of the students in her class seemed unwilling to work hard to accomplish anything. They wanted simply to have a unique ability that set them apart.

  Although she came from a society of artisans, where mastering a trade took many years, she’d encountered such laziness before. The more she learned about the culture in Shael and other nations in the west, the more disappointed she was by their depressing similarities.

  By the time they reached the last part of the lesson, Wren was exhausted from practising and couldn’t even pull together one healing node. With a sigh she realised it was not going to be her area of expertise.

  “The odds were always small,” said Master Yettle, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. He didn’t seem surprised that no one in the class was instantly proficient in healing. They would all have to learn it the hard way and that meant it would take years of study and practice.

  “Well, thank you, Master Yettle, for demonstrating healing to the class,” said Master Jorey, their current teacher. It was Master Yettle who had healed Wren after her fight with Brunwal and whose presence she’d sensed patrolling the halls while recuperating. According to Tianne’s gossip he was rarely seen outside the tower as there was always more than one patient in the small hospital.

  Apart from the circumstances, Tianne had been jealous of her visit to the hospital as few students were allowed beyond the fourth floor of the tower. The ground and second floor were taken up by the expansive school library which was managed by Master Ottah, a waspish man with a vicious glare. He was not a mage and yet not a single student dared cross the diminutive librarian. His tongue was sharp enough to cut through steel and in his eyes, which saw everything, mistreating a book was worse than murder.

  The hospital occupied the next two floors of the tower and beyond that several floors were taken up by the private rooms of the Grey Council and senior teachers. No one was really sure what was above that as the floors were off limits and no one except the Grey Council had ever been to the top. Tianne suspected it was where they kept the most secret and dangerous books that were not stored in the library.

  There was a polite round of applause for Master Yettle who waved and returned to the hospital.

  Master Jorey, who some pupils had unkindly nicknamed Stump, was a short, rotund woman in her sixties. Wren had overheard some of her classmates wondering why she was a teacher when her connection to the Source was so weak. Reaching out with her senses, Wren could barely feel an echo between herself and Master Jorey.

  She thought that Master Jorey resembled a fish wife rather than a teacher with her weather-beaten face, red hands and homespun woollen clothes. Whatever she’d done before coming to the Red Tower, it had involved spending a lot of time outdoors. Wren realised that another difference between her and the other pupils was that she would never treat one teacher differently from another. They were in a position of trust and authority and she firmly believed they had earned the right. It was not her place to judge their worth.

  The more she learned about the other students the more Wren worried about fitting in as she was so different. Many of them had little respect for teachers and from listening to their conversations at meal times they showed no deference to their elders. It was so different at home in Drassia where age and wisdom were respected at all times. For the first few days Wren had struggled to contain her shock at other students openly making fun of their absent parents and older relatives.

  “As you saw from Master Yettle, healing does not require brute force,” Master Jorey was saying. “You don’t even need to have a strong connection to the Source. It’s incredibly delicate work that requires skill and patience to learn.”

  “Maybe that’s how she became a teacher,” muttered someone behind Wren. She frowned at them but either they didn’t notice or simply didn’t care. “They’ll let anyone into the Red Tower.”

  The two students sniggered and somehow Master Jorey seemed to hear them. Her welcoming smile quickly faded and all whispered conversations faded until silence filled the classroom. The stillness of Master Jorey was unnerving and every eye in the room was drawn to her like a magnet.

  “Students often wonder what each teacher did before coming to the Red Tower. Can anyone guess what my job was?”

  “Butcher.”

  “Seamstress.”

  “Blacksmith.”

  “Cook.”

  A dozen other ideas were shouted out and each time Master Jorey shook her head. She let it continue for a while until the number of ideas dwindled.

  “I will tell you,” she said, pausing for dramatic effect. “I was a merchant captain. I spent my life at sea, transporting goods around the world. I owned a fleet of vessels and was one of the most successful in the business. I have three sons, two daughters and fifteen grandchildren. A few y
ears ago my eldest took over the business and I came here to teach.”

  “Why?” asked a wealthy student from Yerskania. Wren had noticed he always wore silk shirts and his clothes were the latest fashion. Ironically, he was someone her mother would have liked. Most of the other students thought him foppish and shallow for caring so much about his clothes. “Why give up all of that?”

  Master Jorey perched on the end of her desk, a wry smile on her face. No one was whispering or laughing at her now. Every face was rapt with attention. “Tomorrow it will rain.”

  Her comment struck Wren as peculiar and everyone else seemed equally puzzled.

  “You have the Talent of second sight,” said Danoph, leaning forward intently.

  Master Jorey smiled at him and nodded. A few of Wren’s classmates looked sheepish, wondering if perhaps Master Jorey had already seen this day and overheard their nicknames and snide comments.

  “A kind of second sight. I can predict the weather for up to a day in the future. I can tell you when a storm is brewing, or if it will be bright and sunny. It was how I never lost one ship from my fleet. Not one,” she said with obvious pride. “If I focus my Talent and think about something other than the weather, I can peer into the future, but only a little way. A few heartbeats at most. If you flip a coin I will be able to call it almost every time. But ask me what will happen in an hour or tomorrow, and I cannot say. The Grey Council have tried to study my Talent, but as with many others, they have no idea how it’s done. But it’s as simple as breathing for me. I don’t have to think about how I do it. All of the teachers came here from other lives and we all have one or more Talents. In time, you may discover yours and few require a strong connection to the Source.”

  Silence filled the classroom until it made Wren’s ears ring. Some had been visibly bored at the start of Master Jorey’s class on Talents, but she knew that next time everyone would be paying close attention.