Chapter 5

           Issi pressed her enchantment to her forehead.  The wood ground into her skin as she crouched low in her master’s garden.

           To leave so soon after her last trip was idiocy at its finest. 

           And yet she did nothing to stop the smell of oranges and spices that leapt into the air.  Or the magic that dusted itself across her skin.  A sigh escaped her as the world focused for the first time in days.

           The Grand Mage was panicking, ever since that night she’d dared to sleep through, he’d been on edge, afraid to cast, hesitant to activate enchantments.  The world had bled dull from the lack of magic.

           Issi woke that morning to echoes of nothing pressing against her. Even the panic that realization summoned had been a cold, distant thing.  Her heart hadn’t even had the decency react.

           She let out a shuddering breath.  Tears burned her eyes.

           “A short break,” her voice caught itself in overgrown branches and weeds.  Somewhere far above she heard birdsong.  Her ears strained for the sounds of the Grand Mage’s rage or Ner’s searching call.

There was nothing, Issi forced her shoulders down.

Relax.

She did a very poor job of it. 

The servant’s corridor welcomed her with its blue light.  She worked her way through it quickly, nodding a brief hello to the guards.  She was terrified that if she stayed too long, or tried so much as a proper greeting, she’d burst into tears.

She didn’t even know what she was doing or where she was going to go.  She’d just been struck by the need to leave.

Issi slipped down an increasingly complicated series of halls, some dark as pitch and others warm and blue.  Only one held a window, which the servants kept spotless, she suspected it was the only window the vast network of corridors had claimed.  It looked out towards one of the courtyards though which of the nine it was, she didn’t know.

The scents of summer fresh blueberries and hearth fire stopped her in her tracks.  The entire corridor was aglow with it.

Had she been searching for magic?  She hadn’t been thinking of it, she’d even been avoiding the kitchens, rather than face Ardein and his questions about her last visit.

But now that it was there, it was all she could focus on.  She found herself wandering in circles running her hands along the stone surface of the tunnel walls until her fingers brushed over a brick that was not quite brick. 

When she tapped it, it echoed. 

Hollow. 

Issi straightened and peered down the hall.  A torch sent shadows scattering along the walls, but this was one of the emptier corridors.

She crouched and ran her hand along the surface, her fingers dipping into grooves and elaborate lines.  Issi squinted.  A rune?

           How anyone had even gotten the magic to stay bound for that long without regularly bathing the brick in herbs and oils was beyond her.  But there were no signs of scrubbing or the gentle circles needed to get long standing castings to settle.

It felt abandoned.

She pressed her thumb against it and felt the old magic attached to it rouse sluggishly as her will urged it into motion.  From the smell of it, whoever had crafted this enchantment had loved rainstorms and old paper.  Behind her, a torch sputtered and died. Whatever extra energy the rune needed, it drew from her setting her teeth chattering.

The wall groaned as it swung open.  A giant door on hidden hinges.  The opening was just wide enough for her to see another corridor lay on the other side.

More magic snaked through the opening.  Blueberry and hearth fire fought cimmeaon jam and wet soil, Issi pressed against the door, her shoes digging into the ground as she forced herself forward.  It protested as she coaxed it wide enough to let her through.

The new corridor was dark and Issi warmed up by ramming her shoulder against the door and pressing until it lay flush against the wall.  Precisely as she’d found it.

The hall was extremely narrow, her arms brushed against both walls without her trying.  She navigated by feel, there seemed to be no branches, and going backward led her to a dead end.  Issi yelped as she tripped on a patch of raised floor.

She crouched, her hands searched for the rise only to find it followed by another, and another.

She hesitated, her ears straining for the sound of stone grinding against stone, or footsteps. 

Issi didn’t like casting in this manner, it was more common for the Athijans and, more importantly, if she was ever caught with her illusion enchantment she could always lie and say that she’d coerced it off an old student.  Casting directly, was riskier.  Unless someone was hiding behind a wall nearby when she got caught and felt like being very kind, it would be a quick trip to the gallows.

Still, she wanted to see.  So, she borrowed magic from the small well that ran beneath the castle walls, using herself as a conduit to pull it to the surface.

As she moved a pale thread of off white trailed her hands.

She bound the magic in quick moving arcs, drawing runes in the air and locking them temporarily with her will.  Every limit she placed set the air smelling of oranges and spices.  When she finished she ran her hand through the center, the smoke collapsed into a small bright orb of light that pulled heat from her core. 

In its glow she made out a narrow set of steps.  They climbed well over her head and disappeared somewhere above the ceiling. 

Where exactly was she?  Kothen palace had always been a bit of a mess, but she’d never heard of hidden doors.  Forgotten, yes, inconvenient, sure, but secreted away behind runes was something else entirely.

She went up.

The steps let off in a small room. 

It seemed to be a closet of some sort that had been converted into a napping area.  A thin mattress was folded in a corner beside a stack of chairs set before a door.

A wave of disappointment doused her casting, plunging the room into darkness.

Issi groped through the darkness, bumping into the chairs and pushing them to the side.  She pressed her ear to the door.

She felt for the doorknob and opened it.  She let out a groan, it was another corridor. Light and noise spilled in from the end.  Issi shuffled towards it, wary of attracting attention.

As she got closer, it became clear that the sound was coming from below.  She found herself on a balcony.  Spread beneath her was the vast dining hall in which the King’s Dinner would take place.

It smelled wildly of magic.  Issi’s heart thrummed as she took in the sight of it, climbing ceilings supported by marble pillars atop which bloomed flowers so delicate they looked real.  Warm as it was, the windows had been taken down so the hall opened to the palace’s primary courtyard.  Jewels tumbled in dainty strands from the ceilings and sparkled like the night sky.  The stage had been cleaned and was now lit by lanterns whose cloth bellies had been filled with mage’s fire. Small contraptions that, at this distance, were little more than smudges against the light danced through the air.  One of the servants did something and the bits of darkness moved in unison, their delighted laughter echoed off the walls.

“I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Issi turned and let out a helpless high-pitched laugh, “Why?”

The cook lowered his brows, “Well, I’ve only ever seen you in the kitchens.”

She blinked, that wasn’t what she’d meant, “Why are you here?”

“To watch the decorating,” he answered as he joined her by the railing.  He peered over the side, “You?”

Somewhere Issi couldn’t see, she was sure Mihr-Did, god of tricksters and thieves, was laughing at her.  There was no good answer to that question.  She followed his gaze to the patterned flower the tiles made across the floor.

“The…uhm, the same.”

His disbelief settled across her shoulders, “Mhmm, how did you get here, Del?  The doors are locked and guarded.”

She blurted the first answer that came to mind, “Secret.”

Ardein barked a laugh, that sent Issi’s heart beating frantically against her ribcage, “Del, really?  That’s what you’re going with?”

She gave him a curt nod, “How’d you get in then?”

He grinned, his tongue peeking through the gap between his front teeth, “Secret.”

They were both liars then.  Issi giggled at the absurdity of it all and Ardein sprung towards her.  She cringed away.

“You laughed,” his eyes sparkled with excitement, for a moment in the light, the warm brown almost seemed blue, “That was genuine laughter, right?”

Issi glanced around for somewhere she could step back, but short of taking a leap over the railing, she was trapped.

“Uhm…Ardein…I need.”

“What was it?  I didn’t think it was that funny,” he pressed.

Blood tinted the air.  It wasn’t there, it couldn’t be, but she smelled it. The bright scents of copper and salt bit at her nostrils, “Ardein, please step back.”

Her ears stopped.  Like the world had swallowed all sound and left nothing but ringing behind. She watched nervously as his lips moved but the meaning of the noise he made was lost to her.

“Ardein,” she tried.  She couldn’t hear herself, couldn’t make the sound out over the high-pitched wailing that pressed against her ears.  All she knew was that it didn’t seem to slow him.

  Maybe the words hadn’t made it past her tongue or had died somewhere in her throat.

She watched in disbelief as a fist made contact with his face.  Her fist, though surely, she had to be wrong.  The pain that buzzed along her knuckles belonged to her, but the fist couldn’t possibly—

His eyes widened in surprise.  The blow hadn’t landed well, the last person Issi’d ever hit had been her sister, and she’d been a child. The step back he took was more from shock than pain.

Space.  She wanted to dart for it, but her feet rooted to the floor.

The cook ran his hand along the curve of his cheek, it’d already started to go a bit red.  His lips moved.

He frowned and said something else.

He wasn’t the Grand Mage and she wasn’t his Pet. 

Ardein was a friend, or as close as she could get.  Guilt lay like a stone in the pit of her belly.

She’d hit him.

“Del?” his voice broke through. 

She studied his face, looking for any of the little ticks that appeared on her master’s when he was going to fly into a rage.  But all she saw was annoyance that was vastly outweighed by genuine concern.

Issi found it in herself to nod.  Once, a sharp jerky motion that hurt her neck. She needed to slow her breathing.

The cook sighed, “Did I scare you?”

“I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

His face stretched as his eyebrows arched, “So…you punched me?”

“Yes.”

He let the silence linger like he was waiting for her to add something else, when she didn’t, he sighed.  His hand ran along his jaw.

She’d hit him.

“I’m not going to pretend to understand you, Del, but it’s nice that I found you.  I guess,” he was very careful about keeping out of arm’s reach.

“I’m, I’m sorry,” the words left like they’d been squashed and stuck together in her mouth, “I never meaning to—, meant, it just, I was so, I didn’t want what happened to Ner to—,” her mouth snapped shut.

Ardein smiled, “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once.”

“I’m so sorry,” her throat burned, “I hit you.  I don’t want to be that kind of person, you didn’t—.”

“Del,” he interjected, “I wanted to tell you that there was someone looking to hire a mage.”

Issi blinked, “You can’t be serious, this isn’t the time. I just struck—”

“There’s no such thing as a right time,” he rolled his eyes, “And since you hit me and feel guilty about it, you can make it up to me by considering the offer.”

Issi was nearly convinced she’d heard wrong.

She couldn’t even begin to tell him all the things that made his suggestion impossible, “I’m sorry, but I can’t—”

He clutched dramatically at his face, “Oh, ouch, it really stings, Del.”

She sighed, the tension in her shoulders eased, “I’ll think about it Ardein, but I’m working with the Grand Mage.  I can’t see anyone matching the status of that.”

“Status isn’t everything,” he pointed out, “He’d be a nicer boss.”

She stilled for a beat, she didn’t like how it felt like he was seeing straight through her, “I’ve been nothing but a mess the last two times we’ve met, huh?”

He smirked. 

Issi blushed, gods above, “Things have just been…getting harder.  He’s ill, so I have to do what he can’t.  That’s all.”

“But, Del—.”

“That’s all it is, he’s not a cruel teacher,” she didn’t remember him being so, but she’d only heard his lessons when she’d been feeling brave enough to press her ear against the doors of his workrooms.

He’d seemed almost kind at points.

Ardein let out a frustrated breath, “Think about it, you’d still get to work for a noble—”

“That doesn’t matter,” she interrupted, “Do you expect me to work on petty enchantments, or, or, stupid trinkets for small-minded people. Till land?  Bring back dying crops?  Ardein, I’ve written papers on that, set new protocols, I am indirectly responsible for at least half of this year’s harvest.”

The cook looked at her with disappointment, “So, you want the clout?”

“What would you do to get the entire world to listen to what you have to say?”

It’d started slowly of course.  The Grand Mage had been busy, and he’d had so many students.  She’d already taught herself the enchantments.  Scoured even the oldest tomes.  She’d been better than his prized students. 

It’d taken her three moons to get his handwriting just right.  Her heart had almost burst through her chest the first time she’d slipped a paper bearing his hand into one of his files.

He’d been confused, but he hadn’t questioned it.

After all, he’d been busy.  And the theories had proven helpful enough.  Inventive enough.  After a few moons, he’d simply accepted he’d become more scattered than he once was.

And how clever people had begun to think him.

“Del,” Ardein’s brows lowered, he picked his next words very carefully, “What if I could promise something similar?”

Her chin ticked upwards in defiance, “I’d call you a liar.”

His face collapsed into a mask of annoyance, “Think about it.”

She couldn’t.  She wasn’t Del, the Grand Mage’s last student, who could do whatever she damn well pleased.  She was Issi, the girl with tracking brands running across her belly, and even if she cut through another one, her blood had sunk into her mattress.  Her master could track her in other ways.

And then he’d brand her again.

“I’ll think about it Ardein,” she assured him, “But I promise, I’m perfectly happy with the work I’m doing, even if it’s running me a bit thin.  I’m useful.”

“But what if you could be more than a tool?”

If Issi could be more than an object to be kept pretty and ignorant and caged, she’d have surely figured out how to do so by now.

“I have to go back,” she muttered. 

He didn’t look like he believed her in the least.