Chapter 6

          What if you could be more than a tool?

          Issi groaned and tried to focus on the medical reports.  They’d been coming in quicker and in larger batches, but they all said the same thing.  The mage’s illness showed no sign of slowing.  She’d been staring at it for bells, a headache had already worked its way beneath her temples.  Words swam before her, meaningless.

          Three moons, that was the longest most people survived.  And Qasha was hemorrhaging mages.

          “Issi,” she looked up from the piles of papers she’d spread across an open patch of floor.  Her master towered above her, his face contorted in disgust, “Tea.”

          She stared at him blankly. The words from the reports whirled between her ears; death dates, confirmations of drownings, stabbings, and poisonings.

          “The tea,” he insisted.

          It still felt unnatural, having him present as she read and crafted castings.  Either one of those things would be enough for him to turn her over, have her hung, but he simply watched her with distaste.  His eyes started tracking along the ceiling as he waited for her response.

          Tea.

          “Yes,” she set the report down and stood, “Sorry, I forgot.”

          The Grand Mage gave her a stiff smile, “This is your idea. Do better with the execution.”

          She bit back a retort.  Eight moons she’d kept this fool alive, going on nine.  She’d shattered every godsdamned survival record there was.  They both knew it wasn’t enough.

          Issi pulled on a raven shaped handle and picked four cups, two tins, and two kettles, from the deep bellied drawer.  She set them all on top of the table before grabbing a pitcher and filled the kettles absently.  Her thumb pressed against the stamped enchantment on the vessel’s handle, awakening the magic locked within them.  It raised curiously beneath her before she used her will to set the water boiling.

Opening the tins released the sweet scents of earth, and flowers.  She set leaves inside the strainer and waited.  Her fingers drummed against the table as she counted in her head and tried not to think of how low one of the tins had been running.  She’d order more, but the herbs were Chousalian and nothing that went into Chousal returned these days. Steam dusted beneath her eyes as she filled two cups with a brown bitter liquid and the last two with a sweet-scented tea.

          “Master?” she turned to find he’d wandered off to go staring at a corner of the ceiling.  His eyes tracing the molding.

          She waited, hoping he’d come to himself.  When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, she grabbed two cups and approached him carefully.  Her shoes sounded loudly as she desperately tried to make enough noise to keep from startling him.   

          She called him again.

          The Grand Mage didn’t move even when she was close enough for the soft smelling oils the maids delivered to keep his skin soft and smooth to reach her nose. She sniffed searching for the familiar tint of his magic and found nothing.

          She tapped him gently with one of the mugs, “Master?”

          The Grand Mage flinched but his attention stayed above her.  His expression was full of the love and adoration he imagined he’d been giving her all these years.  She looked away.  It’d been easier to accept her treatment when she’d thought her master incapable of such soft emotions.

          But he wasn’t.  He just hadn’t been willing to give that sort of tenderness to her.

          “Master, your tea is ready,” she clinked the cups together.  The high ring of them finally dragged his attention from the heavens.

          He looked at her distractedly, “Is there any way to make this taste better?”

          She raised the cup in her left hand, “You have the tea.”

          He frowned before snatching the vessel in her right hand and emptying it with clear distaste.  She nearly dropped it when he shoved it in her face and grabbed for the tea which he finished next. 

The Grand Mage focused pointedly on dredges at the bottom of the cup.

          “They’re still here,” he murmured.

          Issi didn’t bother asking what. His face brightened unwillingly as his gaze drifted to the table beside him.  He dropped the cup.  Issi dove for it barely saving it from dashing to pieces against the floor.  Pain rainbowed behind her eyes, her breath coming shallow as she waited for the pain in her back to subside.

          Her lips almost formed a prayer for Ipheoth, goddess of mercy, before she forced them together.  Issi deserved a great many things, but mercy wasn’t one of them.

          She took a shuddering breath, thanked the gods that the cup had the good fortune to stay in one piece, and made her way to her feet. Her legs shook as she forced them into service, making them carry her to the basin for dirty dishes the maids would pick up in the morning.

          Gods she hurt. Her headache had doubled as if in sympathy for her body.

          She sighed, finally making it back to her own cups grimacing at the dark brown liquid staring up at her.  She pinched her nose and drank it as fast as she could. 

Somehow, it’d turned out gritty. The art of setting leaves in hot water was lost to her.  She dragged the second cup back to her patch of floor settling between the reports.

          An array of noble seals surrounded her; an array of colors, beasts, and weapons begging to be addressed. She picked one at random and broke the wax absently, shattering the enchantment that kept it closed and dry.  The papers that spilled from it might as well have caught fire for all the good they did her. 

          She finished her cup and set it to the side.  The reports all followed the same pattern, a strange mark appeared on a mage’s body, followed by vivid dreams, hallucinations, and death.  She frowned moving the papers around, the mark went down to the bone, dyeing muscles and scraps of vein with strands of silver.  Even the removal of limbs only resulted in the marks reappearance in a more vital location. That was it, the sickness was brutal and simple. 

          Well, the sickness was, the deaths themselves were fascinating.

Starving despite the insistence of friends and family that the victim had been eating regularly, deaths from trauma that almost looked like a carriage strike on individuals who hadn’t left their homes in days, people who drowned on dry land.

Half the papers seemed turned out useless, they started clinical but rapidly turned into fanciful things obsessing over visions and dreams.  Interesting, but useless.

          And the deaths had worn a hole in Qasha’s army, while small-town mages near the epicenter were becoming scarce, causing a host of domestic problems.

          They needed a cure.

          Issi ruffled her hair.  Her head pounded. So far, she could only delay the inevitable.  It was still coming.

          The Grand Mage was going to die.

          What if you could be more than a tool?

          Issi cursed, wishing Ardein had kept his well-meaning mouth shut.  If she could leave, she’d have done it.

          Her hand ran over her stomach.

          It wasn’t anything as simple as donning an enchantment and skipping off palace grounds.  She picked up a report from one of Jadan’s territories smaller lords and sighed at the broken Qashan scrawled across the page.  The reeducation of the Reprenians was slow going, spoken language had gone a lot faster, but many of their survivors hadn’t been able to read in the first place, having preferred passing their histories down in song.

          She flinched, curling into a ball as something shattered.

          Another crash sounded in the far corner.  She unfurled herself. 

He was getting worse. 

She let out a curse.  Her master saw birds, blue birds, blue as the clear summer skies, he’d once whispered to her.  In the beginning he could ignore them, focus despite their existence, but as time wore on they’d started tugging at his attention.  It had started small, his eyes would skip to them and back to his work, he’d cock his head at times to better hear their chirping.  Now it appeared to be a compulsion.

          He trailed after invisible birds like a lost child.  It was better when the sun marched across the sky, though she caught his eyes ticking at times.  It was night when the illness really showed itself.

          And Issi had no idea why.

          She found the Grand Mage with his shoulder shoved through the shelves of a bookcase.  The crash she’d heard had been a bauble leaping for freedom only to find that gravity had determined to shatter it.  From the amount of gold, it had been expensive.

          “Master,” she called gently.

          He pulled his arm back like something had burned him, “Issi…,” his eyes skipped to the shards scattered across the floor, “You should have stopped me.”

          Rage tore at her throat. He was being ridiculous, and he knew it. She swallowed her pride, bowing shortly, “I’m sorry.”

          Pain blossomed across her right cheek as her head snapped to the left.  Her ear rang.  The headache she’d been nursing spiked viciously.  The Grand Mage’s hand returned to his side.

          Breathe.

          She dropped lower, tasting blood, “I’m truly sorry, master.  It won’t happen again.”

          “My well-being is your primary concern,” he growled.

          “Of course, master,” her back ached, and her skin still stung and warmed where he’d struck her.

          “Stand.”

          She complied, shoving down reluctance.  She flinched when his hand brushed against her cheek.

          “I’m all you have, Issi,” he forced her gaze to match his, “Without me, you won’t last.  People will find out what you are and what you can do, and they will not be as kind.  They’ll cut off your hands and they’ll hang you in the market square as they did with your teacher.”

          The hanging would be a mercy. 

          If it was just that, she wouldn’t have cared.

It was what happened before that sent her pulse skittering.  It was the loss of her hands, the loss of her magic, that terrified her. She’d not be able to carve, or weave enchantments and it’d take ages for her to teach herself to cast any other way.

          In the interim, the world would bleed color until it felt far and unreal.  She’d stop feeling.  There’d be no fear when she walked up the steps to the gallows, no sadness, nothing. 

          She’d be questioning if she was alive at all by then. 

          “I’m sorry,” she repeated. A tear trickled down her cheek.

          He struck her again, a closed fist dug into her stomach.  Her legs gave as the breath was driven from her lungs.  She collapsed to the floor, gasping.  She was crying in earnest now.

          Run.

There was nowhere she could go that he wouldn’t follow. 

          “Does it hurt?”

          She refused to answer. 

Fear and anger mixed in her stomach and gods, she was torn between throwing up that awful tea and breathing.  The answer burned on her tongue.  Her master loomed above her as she tried to haul in air.  She swallowed and focused on digging her nails into the stone floor.

          What if you could be more than a tool?

          What would she be if she’d been born anyone else?  As a child she’d held some distant dream of being loved, but even she knew that this was something else.

          “Does it hurt?” he repeated.  She watched his foot swing back and had a beat to brace herself before the blow to her ribs sent her sprawling.  Whatever air she’d managed to haul into her lungs, was lost.  Everything hurt, her back, her stomach, her arms, her head.

          All she had to do was answer.  It wasn’t hard, she’d just have to let the word she’d caged behind her teeth leave as it so obviously wanted to do.

          Her throat sealed as a series of scars on her inner thigh chilled.

          She fell silent.

Choking was a very quiet affair so long as she didn’t insist on thrashing about.  Her heartbeat was loud in her ears.  He kicked her again, but no sound escaped her. Her lungs began to scream.  Each beat of her heart was thunder in her skull.

          Her vision started to darken near the edges.

          What if you could be more than a tool?

          What else in Naya’s hells was there?  

          “No,” she sobbed.  Her throat spasmed and she set to coughing and sputtering. 

          The Grand Mage had off and disappeared.  Likely chasing after those damned birds.  Issi rolled onto her back, trying to convince her lungs to take in air.

          She was fine. She was fine.  She was fine. 

          She wiped her tears on her sleeve as she pieced together a haphazard list of chores.  The experiments needed tending and she still had to finish cleaning up the reports.  Her breath rattled uncomfortably in her chest.  Go to the gardens and pick herbs for a few oils.

          Her fingers probed her cheek.  There’d be swelling.

          Issi almost started crying again.  No amount of make-up would be able to hide what he’d done. She sat gingerly cradling her aching head.  It was so close to the King’s dinner.

          Gods, she was so tired of it all.