Read The Fire Mages' Daughter Online
Authors: Pauline M. Ross
In the end, I paid her off. To ensure the knot was cut completely, the child came to Kingswell to live with us. He was a lovely little boy, with Arran’s blond hair and nose, and a sweet disposition.
Yannassia rolled her eyes at my increasingly eccentric domestic arrangements, but I just laughed. “He will satisfy my maternal urges until I get round to producing babies of my own,” I told her.
“I suppose nothing you do should surprise me,” she said, shaking her head. “You are your mother’s daughter, in that respect.”
~~~~~
I married Ly on the eighteenth anniversary of my birth. Normally such affairs took a year for all the legal matters to be settled, and then another year to arrange the marriage, but no one was minded to drag things out. Ly was the leader of his people, well able to negotiate the marriage contract, although in fact he agreed to everything we proposed. And he would always be officially a prisoner, so he would never be confirmed by the nobles, and there was no danger of him having equal rank to me. Nor was there a need to allow time for his kin to journey to the wedding, since none were invited.
I stood in the Keep’s largest ceremonial hall beside Ly, with Arran just behind me, as the law scribes went through their rituals and the priests of the Sun and Moon temples bestowed the blessings of their gods on us, although without much enthusiasm. There was little liking for Ly or his clans. Too many people had died because of him.
Ly’s manacles had now been reduced to a symbolic silver bracelet with a loop of slender chain. He was as docile as ever, and although he said little, I thought he was quite content. Once the weather was warmer, we would travel to his clan to have the marriage formally recognised. There was no public ceremony to mark a marriage amongst his people, but it was required to acknowledge the arrangement, so that any children could be properly assigned to their clan.
It took five tedious suns to celebrate the marriage of a Drashonor. By the end of it I was exhausted, tired of the excess of rich food and the smilingly insincere faces of the nobles. Arran, Ly and I returned to our apartment late in the afternoon, with a little snow beginning to fall outside. We retreated to the blue sitting room, where gold-trimmed draperies shut out the winter darkness and fires crackled cheerfully. They were unnecessary, for the Keep was always warm, but I liked the room to be cosy. It reminded me a little of home.
Arran sent for his baby son, and sat on the floor holding him, while I enticed him with wooden toys for the amusement of watching his pudgy arms reaching for them.
Ly watched us from a chair a little way away, a wide smile on his face. He’d filled out a little since his capture, although he would always be thin. He loved to watch us playing with Callon, but he never joined in or sat too close to us. He was self-effacing to a fault.
After a while, when the baby grew restless, I picked him up and rocked him a little. Impulsively I held him out to Ly. “Do you want to hold him?”
His face shone like the moon. “May I?” Then, anxiously to Arran, “You do not mind?” When Arran shook his head, I carefully deposited Callon in Ly’s outstretched arms. He set him down on his knees, and began to sing to him in his own language. I understood the words, but they were mostly nonsense, although with a repetitive rhyme. Callon blew bubbles and cooed at him, and then babbled back in baby talk.
“He likes you,” Arran said softly.
“I like him, too,” Ly said, and when he lifted his face to us, there was a smile of pure happiness across it. “But I must hand him back to you, for I have work to do.”
“Work?” I said.
“Yes. I have obtained some fish that is very like the emperor fish you enjoyed so much, Princess. Tonight I am going to cook it for your evening board, as you call it. Your cooks have shown me how to use the equipment here. And then I shall go to my room, and you will have a nice meal and a pleasant evening together.”
“Ly, you can stay and eat with us. There’s no need for you to go.”
“I think there is. You have not had a quiet moment to yourselves for a long time. I am always here, always underfoot. So tonight, I leave you in peace.”
I passed the baby to Arran, and knelt at Ly’s feet. “Why do you do this, Ly? Scuttle away out of sight, keep to yourself, never ask for anything? Is it your people’s way? Or your way? Or is it the stone walls that drive you away?”
“No, I am beginning to be used to stone all around me. I do not like it, but it is not so frightening now. But I do not know what I should ask for. I need nothing. The gods have smiled on me, truly.”
His acceptance staggered me.
He must have seen the disbelief in my face, for he said, “I mean it. You could have killed me, Princess, there in the cellar beneath the tower. I was no better than an animal, a monster. You
should
have killed me. But you were merciful. And now – every hour is a gift. The evil in my blood is gone. I can bring healing to my people. I will even be able to watch this baby grow up to be healthy, and untainted. And I am with
you,
Princess.”
“But you aren’t, not really,” I said softly. “You’re my husband, don’t you want to be with me in that way?”
“Of course,” he whispered. “But you have Arran, and I am pleased for you. You will be happy together, and have many children who will be whole and undamaged, and I will do nothing to interfere. It is my punishment, Princess. I have done great evil, and I must be punished.”
I had nothing to say to that.
Ly cooked his fish, and served it for us, with one of his delicious breads, and some mushrooms, and went away. We ate in silence.
Eventually, Arran pushed his plate away. “That was magnificent, but I cannot eat another mouthful.”
“I’m not sure there’s even a mouthful left on those bones,” I said. “I’m so full.”
“He’s a very good cook.” A long pause. “Drina…”
I waited.
“Do you want children of your own?”
“Yes, eventually. Not yet. It’s too soon, and too much has happened. Every time I think I’ve reached the last change and my life will surely be more settled, something else turns up. I need time to adjust.”
“Yes.” He looked down at his plate. “I like him, you know. Ly, I mean. What he did tonight – that was a splendid thing to do. And he’s so good with Callon.”
“Yes, he is.”
He picked up a piece of bread and began crumbling it. “I think in time you should – you know – be a wife to him.”
“Do you think so?”
“I do. It would be the right thing to do. I find it amazing, actually, that he is so… so
calm
about it. I see how he looks at you, I know how much he wants you, but he makes no fuss at all. I find that rather impressive. I would make the most enormous fuss, in his position. And if he did, that would make life very difficult for all of us. He is a remarkable man.”
I had no argument with that. Ly was indeed remarkable. In time he would be a great leader of his people, and be loved and respected for his wisdom. It was my responsibility to guide him to that wisdom, but it seemed to me that he was most of the way there already, now that he was free of the malign influence of his mother and his blood.
He understood, better than I, the wrongness of what his magic had compelled us to do. Now he was giving me the one thing I’d never had before – he was giving me the choice. And I loved him for it.
Eventually I would choose to be a true wife to him. In time, when we were all ready. But there was no rush. We had all the time in the world.
THE END
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If you’d like to know what happens next to Drina, Ly-haam and Arran, watch out for the sequel,
The Second God
.
The Brightmoon Annals is a series of books all set in the same world, some five thousand years after it was reshaped by a magical catastrophe. The disaster almost destroyed magic – but not quite. The many different ways in which the pre-catastrophe mages tried to keep magic alive forms the theme of the series.
Each book can be read independently of all the others, but some characters and artefacts from earlier books make an appearance in later books, so there are fun references to enjoy for those who read the series in order.
The Fire Mages’ Daughter
is a sequel, and best read after
The Fire Mages
.
Here is the sequence so far:
1: The Plains of Kallanash
, published Sep 2014
Multiple marriages, a secretive ruling religion and a mysterious tower.
2: The Fire Mages
, published Jan 2015
A determined girl, a mage, an heir and a mysterious magical city.
3: The Mages of Bennamore
,
published May 2015
Bennamore clashes with the coastal ports; two different cultures, two forms of magic.
4: The Magic Mines of Asharim
,
published Sep 2015
A woman with dark secrets, a man with a strange talent, and some bizarre magical creatures.
5: The Fire Mages’ Daughter
, published Jan 2016
A girl who will stop at nothing to get her own way, and a clan whose living god controls blood magic. A sequel to
The Fire Mages
, but may be read independently.
6: The Dragon’s Egg
, projected publication mid-2016
A dragon’s egg. An unusual child. A dangerous journey to find answers.
7: The Second God
, projected publication late-2016
A sequel to
The Fire Mages’ Daughter
. A rival god appears to threaten Ly-haam, who must call on help from Drina and Arran to face up to his responsibilities to his people and prevent another war.
Any questions about the Brightmoon World?
Email me
– I’d love to hear from you!
I live in the beautiful Highlands of Scotland with my husband, my grown up daughter and a mad cat. I like chocolate, whisky, my Kindle, massed pipe bands, long leisurely lunches, watching TV with my daughter, chocolate, going places in my campervan, eating pizza in Italy, summer nights that never get dark, wood fires in winter, chocolate, the view from the study window looking out over the Moray Firth and the Black Isle to the mountains beyond. And chocolate. I dislike driving on motorways, cooking, shopping, hospitals.
The Fire Mages’ Daughter
is my fifth published work.
Thanks go to:
Lin White of
Coinlea Services
for beta reading and proofreading.
Glendon Haddix of
Streetlight Graphics
for the cover design.
Additional beta readers: Michael Omer; Axel Blackwell; Kira Tregoning of
Fantastical Reads
; Maia Sepp of
Maia’s Minced Words
.
Last, but definitely not least, my first reader: Amy Ross.