Blue Fire Page 2

  My stomach curdled. “So that’s why you’ll overlook everything. For the war.”

  Orrik pulled open a drawer from under my bench and withdrew a slim wooden box. “More than overlook. The Dragonmaster is willing to give you an entirely new life. You can read, I hope?”

  I nodded as he removed sheets of paper from the box. “Mother taught me. I’m not very good.”

  He handed me the first sheet: Adara of Threepines, I managed to make out. The words had been written in careful, large letters.

  “Threepines is a secluded mountain holding,” Orrik said. He flipped the page, and there was another with lines squiggled all over. He tapped some pointy ones that made me think of mountains. “The family is considered eccentric. They love children and avoid politics. No one will question if a Threepines comes across as awkward.

  “Within the family itself, you are the sixth child of eleven. This sheet lists your siblings, a few facts about each one, their spouses and children, et cetera. This sheet here details everything you may ever need to know about your home, from the layout of your bedroom to details of the holding’s towns.”

  Orrik picked up yet another slim bundle, this one tied with string. “These will begin your education on nobility. For example, ranks: Duke, Marquis, Count, Viscount, Baron, Baronette. How marriage, wealth, and connections alter power. Once we arrive at the Kyer, the Dragonmaster will arrange for private tutoring to teach you everything your Stoneyfield background has denied you.”

  I thumbed through the pages, dizzy. So many words, all… for me. “You expect me to memorize a lifetime?”

  “Yes,” Orrik said.

  The Kyer’s offer was beyond what any peasant could dream of. I’d only need to turn my life into a lie—and succeed at it. “What happens if I fail?”

  He considered, tapping the box with his forefinger. “Let’s just say, if your background becomes known, the outcry will be substantial. I suggest you stay in the shadows until you become comfortable with our ways. That includes keeping the color of your Gift secret. Many will see a blue mage as a political tool.”

  Orrik took back all the pages except the one with my false family. I held it out, shook it. “I can’t do this.”

  “Focus on one page at a time.”

  “But—”

  “Thorkel will not give up,” he said. At my confusion, he nodded at the window. “Carthesia’s new king, Thorkel. He single-handedly united both the dragons and the tribes. He’s a brilliant mage, and a ruthless one. What Thorkel cannot possess, he crushes. That includes people.”

  I shivered. The short battle had convinced me I had no chance against any mage.

  “One page at a time,” Orrik whispered again.

  One page. Then another. And another. Until it felt real. “How long until we reach the Kyer?”

  “By carriage? Two weeks.”

  I lifted the first page. Adara of Threepines. “I’ll start reading.”

  Chapter Three

  Orrik and the Dragonmaster had thought of everything. I memorized one sheet after another, each full of endless details: furniture names, room layouts, foods common to nobles. Adara of Threepines became a real person.

  Almost.

  For I still had my sun-kissed skin—avid horsewoman—and my accent—rural mountain. And my memories. Memories of sweating in the summer and of freezing in the winter. Of being weak from hunger or exertion. Of Mother dying. Of her on a thin pallet on the ground, choking on herbs because magical potions were too expensive. Even the crystals for creating rainbows had cost too much. Her spirit had died with no peace.

  The carriage rattled on. I memorized. I wondered.

  Orrik was in the area, he had said. He found me within a week of my manifestation, yet he had this entire life ready.

  I wondered, but I had no courage to speak.

  And so I studied, all day every day, with breaks only for food and sleep. Those times, I barely saw anyone, just a quick scurry into an inn, and then a deep sleep on a mattress. We didn’t even stop at an altar to leave an offering for a safe journey. I was fine with that. Perhaps my petition to the First One for adoption had been answered after all. It still had triggered events I didn’t understand.

  We arrived at the Kyer in the middle of the night. Earlier that evening I’d noticed the change in the carriage’s tilt, but even in the mountains Orrik wouldn’t let me look outside. I fell asleep and dreamed of my new home instead. Four particular mountains made up the Kyer itself, with a lake in their valley. So Orrik had described.

  “Wake up, Adara. We are here.” Orrik helped my groggy self out of the carriage.

  My first sight: more carriages. A cavern, extremely dim, full of carriages. No Dragonmaster. No dragons. No one but the driver unloading the luggage.

  And children. Several came over, each wearing a yellow armband and yawning. Orrik handed out a stack of folded messages, received one, and the children scattered.

  Orrik waved a hand over the paper and it sprang open. After reading, he dropped it. Black fire licked the paper as it fell, and black ash landed on the smooth rock floor. I wondered if someone would come later to sweep it up.

  “This way,” he told me with a wave.

  We left the carriage cavern for a smooth, gray hallway cut into the stone. I kept close—an ancient transportation spell helped everyone quickly cross the length of mountains. Orrik had decided I could learn the waypoints later. Until then, I’d need to keep pace with someone who already knew them.

  As we walked, the globes of magic that lit the halls—Light, Orrik called the spell—began to blur. The gray of the stone grew smudged. Occasionally, brown smears swept past: doors.

  “Is it all like this?” I asked after ten minutes of walking.

  “Like what?”

  “Like… gray.” Endless gray with no sun. After the midnight blue of the carriage, gray was quite nice. But not forever.

  Orrik could have responded, of course, you silly peasant, we live inside a mountain. But he paused. The Transportation spell paused as well, and the blurs ceased.

  He pointed at a wall. “There are veins of color, if you look.”

  I peered at the spot. Tiny threads of colored crystal spiderwebbed through the stone.

  “Hallways are for function. You can decorate your apartment.”

  My apartment. Where I’d live. All by myself. Orrik had sketched one for me. Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, dressing room—Garth’s hut had been a single room with curtains around pallets for privacy. Meanwhile, a trainee had the option of taking an apartment with an attached room for a servant. Later, after I bonded, I’d move to an outer corridor with a cave for my dragon.

  We finally came to my new home. Orrik swung open the wooden door.

  “This is all mine?” I said with disbelief as I stepped inside the living room. There was a sofa between two tables, a desk, a chair for the desk, a bookshelf full of books, and endless space to walk around all of it. A light blue rug covered the stone floor. I suspected the rug was really a faded deep blue, and that the furniture was old, but still. Two tables in a single room. And a desk—that made three.

  Craziness.

  “Do you like it?” Orrik asked as he shut the door.

  “This room is as big as Garth’s hut. Was.”

  Orrik raised an eyebrow. “But do you like it?”

  I ran a finger over the sofa’s fuzzy cushion. Cushion. Sofa. New words. New words, new life, all within gray stone. “I do, it’s just… new.”

  “You are free to decorate as you wish,” he told me. He pointed to a door. “In your dressing room, on the dresser, you’ll find your first month’s stipend.”

  I took in the room again. How much more could a noble own?

  Orrik went to the shelves and began tugging on books so their spines jutted out. “I suggest you spend all of your spare time reading. Tomorrow, a courier will deliver a schedule for your lessons. Any questions?”

  Thousands. Thousands upon thousands,
all in a tangle. But there were some I wanted to ask the most, the ones that burned in my heart… “How long did he know?”

  Orrik tilted his head as he moved two more books.

  Don’t question your betters, Lily said in my mind. But that wasn’t my life anymore. Nobles questioned each other. “The Dragonmaster. All of this—my false life, this furniture, the teachers. It had to take time to prepare. He must have known about me.”

  Orrik tugged on a spine, tapped it, pushed it back so it was even with the others. “I notified Merram the moment I learned of your manifestation. Arranging everything has been difficult, especially in secrecy, but he deemed it… necessary.”

  Hope still burned in my chest, stupid but stubborn. The way Orrik had studied me the day we’d met, it had seemed like he was searching for a trace of someone. Could Merram be helping me because he had known my father?

  I shoved hope away for the obvious. “Necessary because I’m a blue.”

  Orrik’s finger lingered on the spine a heartbeat longer. Two. It fell away. “Yes.”

  Tears stung my eyes. I sat on the sofa. The cushions were harder than the bench in the carriage. “Well. When do I see him?”

  Orrik turned, his expression gentle. “The Dragonmaster is on the front. He will meet with all of the trainees when he returns.”

  You’re not special. You’re a trainee like the rest.

  Which was good, right? The Dragonmaster risked so much by bringing me to the Kyer. If he treated me special, people might notice.

  “I myself leave tomorrow,” Orrik added, still gentle.

  “Oh.” I was going to cry, dammit.

  “Adara.” Orrik’s hand raised, just a little, as if he wanted to reach out. Warmth I’d never heard from him before filled his voice. “If you remember your story, all will be fine.”

  Story. A kinder word than lie. When Orrik left the Kyer, the only person who knew the truth left as well. Adara of Threepines, age sixteen, daughter of Baronettess Juliana and Baronet Wilhelm… First One above, can I do this alone?

  Maybe there was an altar somewhere. I’d always gone to the First One when I felt upset. Praying would be familiar… but I would remember that day again, praying then Garth’s hut burning when he told me no, there would be no adoption. If I went to the Kyer’s altar, I feared I wouldn’t be asking for guidance but instead screaming why, why, why?

  That seemed a bit childish.

  “You will find a place here,” Orrik said at my silence. “It will be difficult. There is a lot to learn. But the Kyer is made of good men and women, and they are more accepting of… eccentricity than the rest of Drageria. And don’t forget the dragons.”

  That made me laugh, the thought of forgetting dragons.

  Orrik gave me a rare smile. He lit some candles before leaving with his Light hovering above him.

  The orange glow of real fire made my eyes ache after living with Orrik’s Light for so long. I curled on the sofa and rubbed my eyes so tears wouldn’t spill. I couldn’t allow myself to be upset. That’s what had happened the day of my manifestation. So I held in my tears and wished for the millionth time that Mother had never died.

  Mother.

  I blinked, hard. Hadn’t Krysta left all she’d ever known? A lady’s maid had comfort and elegance and food. Mother had left that life, left it for me. She’d became a seamstress, living in the corner of a too-full room, sewing by moonlight for money to buy food. Then, when that life fell apart, she’d dragged a six-year-old across fields in hope to escape the Sickness.

  In all my memories of Mother, except her last few days, she’d smiled and sang.

  For me.

  Krysta’s daughter will not cry. Not in her very own rooms full of clothes and tables and books. I scrambled off the sofa to grab one of the jutting titles on the bookshelves.

  The bedroom was the farthest back, its walls bare. A wooden chair sat beside a bed covered by a simple moss-green quilt. I set a candle on the nightstand and crawled up. The mattress squished. It wasn’t full of straw but of feathers.

  “Introduction to Fire Magic,” I read. I opened the pages and read until I fell asleep.

  Chapter Four

  The Time Spheres lurking in the corner of the practice room did nothing to ease my anxiety over my very first lesson—a magic lesson at that. Sliver after sliver of the latest orb formed. There was nothing else to stare at. Stone walls, stone floors, stone ceiling. Even the two chairs—stone. As for the Lights… they didn’t move. Like snails. Like Time. Spheres.

  Every room in the Kyer had the spell. Always glowing, always forming. It took forever for each orb to complete, until suddenly it was time for me to fool my first noble.

  “You can do this,” I whispered to myself for the hundredth time. I fiddled with the embroidery on my cuff—tiny vines of green on gray fabric. Like colored threads of crystal in gray stone. “First convince Zoland, and then the others. By… not talking. If you don’t talk, you can’t make mistakes.”

  Trust your story, Orrik would suggest instead of silence. He had promised the Kyer would accept my ignorance. Why should a family waste money on the sixth child? She wouldn’t inherit. She wouldn’t marry well.

  “But she would still be a noble,” I argued with my imaginary Orrik. Perhaps the Baronettess wouldn’t teach her sixth child dancing or music or even the royal lineage, but magic? Nobles saw magic every day. So far, I’d seen Orrik battle the Carthesians, I’d read all of Introduction to Fire Magic, and I’d missed a lifetime of experiences. Orrik had shown me Light and Time Spheres; what everyday spells had he forgotten?

  Who better than my magic teacher to instantly see through the lie?

  The door creaked. I twisted in the chair to give my teacher a nervous smile.

  “I apologize for my tardiness,” Zoland said. “I was studying the inverse theory of Telekinetic manipulation and lost sight of the Spheres.”

  His gray eyes didn’t settle on me but instead looked elsewhere, as if he was still studying… whatever it was. His sunshine hair was fading to white but his skin was still smooth. Maybe forties? Fifties? I couldn’t judge nobles’ ages well. Zoland’s clothing looked rumpled, as if he hadn’t paid attention as he dressed.

  He reminds me of the miller. I relaxed, just a little. Bert could grind flour well enough, but life pretty much passed him by.

  “Anyway, I am Zoland, and you are Adara? Forgive the stark surroundings.” Zoland took the seat across from me and lightly rapped its arm. “Stone is difficult to destroy, and thus ideal for the new mage. We’ll move to a more stimulating practice area later.”

  I nodded.

  “I’m honored to mentor a mage of your magnitude,” Zoland continued. “Orrik says your manifestation took the form of fire?”

  I nodded again, since I didn’t know the noble version of mmm-hmmm.

  “We will test to see if that is your Talent, then. First we will cast Light. It is a spell that nearly every mage can manage.”

  Talent? Orrik hadn’t mentioned Talents. I guessed Zoland expected me to be good at fire, but Introduction to Fire Spells hadn’t listed Light. Yet we were starting with it?

  “I happen to be a Generalist myself, thus I am able to assist you with a variety of spells.” His gray eyes focused. “You have a question?”

  I went as still as a rabbit.

  “An inquisitive student is a successful student. Please, ask anything.”

  The distracted miller had vanished, betraying me. So much for my plan of silence. “I didn’t know Light was a fire spell. And if I am, well, Talented in fire, I can’t cast other things?”

  Zoland chuckled.

  I asked an obvious question.

  “Poor Threepines. Your manifestation as a blue must have shocked them exceedingly. You haven’t seen much magic, have you?”

  My cheeks burned.

  Zoland gave me a soft smile. “No, child, never be ashamed of a family of yellows.”

  A family of yellows? First One, bless Orrik. Ye
llows, he’d told me, could barely cast anything at all. Adara of Threepines hadn’t seen much magic.

  “To answer your question,” Zoland continued, “it depends. Some Talented mages have difficulty casting anything outside their area of specialization. For example, one of my pupils is a prodigy with Illusion but cannot lift a feather with Telekinesis. Others with a Talent manage a broad spectrum of spells. Another question?”

  I bit my lip. Orrik had mentioned two other colors of Gift: purple and white. Healing Gifts. “If I can cast spells other than fire, can I heal? A little?”

  Mother had died of the Sickness. Nobles had not.

  Zoland stroked his jawline and the vague, not-really-here expression returned. “That is a question. A black can sometimes manage minor healing. As a blue, I assume the answer is yes, but it is something we can only explore further once you reach advanced study. Are you ready to begin?”

  I nodded, my chest tight with anticipation. My whole life had built to this moment; the moment I’d be someone.

  I only prayed my peasant blood didn’t mess everything up.

  “Step one. Locating the Gift.”

  Zoland launched into a lengthy explanation of how to become aware of my body and Gift. I asked questions three times, because I only understood about half of the words he said. He asked me to try to find my Gift, but my eyes kept wandering over to the Time Spheres forming and forming…

  Zoland suggested I close my eyes. That was worse. It left me alone with my fears.

  “Deep breath, Adara,” came Zoland’s voice. He talked me through tensing one limb after another. Somehow it worked. It moved my mind from itself to my muscles. “And your toes. Tense. Hold. Release. Now. Travel back to your chest and sink into yourself.”

  I gasped. How had I not noticed my magic before? There, deep in my chest—life. A ball of giddiness and anxiety and energy, it surged like happiness on a dewy spring morning. So much promise, so much power.

  Too much power. Elation battled terror inside my own heart. I tried to pull away but I couldn’t; now that I had felt it, I couldn’t ignore it. First One, you made a mistake!