Authors: Julie Dean Smith
Unless the Sage had been lying—and Athaya had no reason to suspect that he was—her talent was gone.
After allowing sufficient time for his audience to hone their anticipation, the Sage of Sare solemnly emerged from the priest’s closet behind the altar. He had exchanged his riding cloak for a silky white stole, making him look half king, half priest. The church quieted instantly at his advent.
“Beloved of God,” he began, raising his palms aloft, “we come together today to welcome another into our brotherhood and rejoice. She who stands before us has been called by God, as have we in our own time before her. It is our charge to instruct her in the use of her gifts and teach her the true and profound worth of the blessings she has been given.”
The Sage grasped the woman’s hands in his, patting them softly to ease her nerves. “Hilda, do you here in the presence of God and His children acknowledge and take joy in the gifts that He has granted you?”
Hilda looks up to him as if to God Himself, her eyes shining with rapture. “I do.”
“Will you use these gifts to His honor, for the betterment of His people and His world?”
“I will.”
“And do you promise to obey God in all things and therefore to obey those to whom He has granted greater gifts as a sign of His greater grace?”
“I do.”
The Sage released her hands. He stepped up to the baptismal font and picked up a gleaming pewter bowl filled with water. As he turned back and lifted the bowl to the sky, he scanned the congregation; for one uneasy instant, Athaya imagined he was looking directly between her eyes. Even knowing she was cloaked by magic, she shrank down instinctively.
When she dared peer back inside, the Sage had dipped his hands in the holy water and was sprinkling it like raindrops over Hilda’s face and hair. Then he set the bowl aside and laid his palms upon the woman’s brow. Her flesh gleamed golden where it met the Sage’s own, bathing the woman’s head in light like an angel’s corona.
“I hereby anoint you as one of God’s children and charge you be worthy of His gifts.”
The Sage offered the woman a ritual kiss of welcome on each cheek; Hilda reeled slightly, on the edge of fainting.
Grasping her shoulders, he turned her to face the others. “Rejoice, friends, for another of our brethren has been found. I commend to your love and care this woman, whom I as God’s first servant among you acknowledge as one of us. Do all in your power to increase her knowledge and skill so that her divine gifts can be used to the credit of us all.”
While the others sat silent, ignorant of the proper responses, the wizards in the congregation rose to speak in unison. “We recognize and welcome you, Hilda of Coakley, and hereby renew the vows made at our anointment, to uphold God’s law with our prayers and our gifts.”
“Now go in peace,” the Sage concluded, “and rejoice in His power, which He has deigned to share with us. May His blessings come upon us and remain with us, and grant us the grace to rule wisely. Amen.”
“Amen.”
With the formal part of the ceremony over, Hilda’s fellow wizards slowly formed a line in the aisle, each waiting to offer her a chaste kiss of welcome as the Sage had done. As the rest of the crowd dispersed, Athaya and Jaren slipped out of the village, remaining cloaked for safety. Not long afterward, the Sage and his escort thundered past them, heading for the manor.
“Do you still think we can change his mind?” Jaren asked dubiously, coughing up a mouthful of dust stirred to life by the escort’s horses. “After what we just witnessed back there, I think we’d do better to go straight back to Kaiburn.”
Athaya sighed, despairing but not yet ready to concede the battle. “I have to try. People will die if we go to war; I owe it to everyone who’s believed in me over the years to try and stop that if I can. And I owe it to Nicolas,” she added, kicking absently at a pebble in the road. “Maybe I can still convince the Sage to let him go.”
Shortly after midday, Athaya and Jaren arrived at the ducal manor of Nadiera, erstwhile home of Lord Mosel Gessinger, late of the king’s council and now a prisoner in his Majesty’s dungeons. The bulk of the Sage’s army encircled the duke’s stately mansion, their tents pitched outside graceful iron gates that were never intended to deter such a force. Athaya felt every muscle in her body harden with tension as she scraped her gaze across the landscape. All that she saw seemed to mock her; a sinister parody of her own camp in Kaiburn. In the fields to the north, hundreds of men and women drilled one another in battle magic, producing a constant flurry of explosions, fires, and illusory winged things, while those new to the Sage’s forces, some barely out of their own
mekahn
, learned the simpler spells of survival and stealth. This was more than a motley collection of students come to save themselves; this was an army on the march—wizards who sought not only to save their own lives, but to take the lives of their enemies. Suddenly, Athaya felt exposed and vulnerable; the Sage was the unquestioned sovereign here, and she his most formidable opponent. Were he to order her death, who among his followers would hesitate to carry out the sentence?
But it was too late to turn back even had she wished to; she and Jaren had reached the gatehouse and a bored-looking man in silvershot black livery stepped out to block their path. “If you’ve come to be tested, his Grace only does so for an hour a day, just afore supper,” he said rotely. He jerked a thumb to his left. “Wait with the others if you want.”
Athaya’s eyes followed the man’s thumb toward the ragtag host of peasants huddled outside the manor’s southern gate. Dozens of people had flocked to the Sage’s side hoping to learn whether they bore the seed of magic. Most were near the age of
mekahn
and many had small children in tow, desperate to know if persecution and absolution were the only future they had.
“We’re not here to be tested,” Jaren explained. “We’d like to speak to the Sage.”
The guardsman snorted as he tucked his thumbs in his belt. “You and a thousand other people. You’ll need an appointment.”
Athaya took a step forward. “I think he’ll see me. Tell him—”
“The Sage is a busy man, missy,” he cut in, dismissing her as just another demanding villager. “Half the folks in this shire want him to tell their future and if he did it for every pretty wench who strolled up to the gates and asked, he’d have no time for nothin’ else. Go on—off with you now.”
Athaya drew herself up and leveled him with her finest regal glare. Her tone was cold with command. “Sir, would you kindly tell his Grace that Athaya Trelane wishes to see him at his earliest convenience. Perhaps he will overlook my lack of an appointment.”
The man’s eyes widened at first, then narrowed in suspicion as he sent subtle threads of inquiry to brush against her mind. His eyes widened again once his truth test was done and he knew her to be who she claimed. Turning on his heel, he retreated into the gatehouse and whispered urgently to one of his companions. “Fetch Sir Couric—and be quick about it!”
A short time later, a sleek young man in a costly blue tunic arrived at the gatehouse. He appraised the newcomers with unhurried care, quietly bemused, as if unable to decide whether Athaya’s sudden appearance at the Sage’s stronghold was a stroke of tactical genius or shocking stupidity.
“If you will come with me,” he said at last.
Couric led them across the graveled courtyard, through an arched doorway, and into a well-tended garden. He guided them to a shaded gazebo and bade them wait while he went to fetch his lord. The look of calm bemusement never left his watchful face.
Athaya sat down on a marble bench near a bush of white roses. Even after many summers at the manor, she had never been in this garden before, but had only caught glimpses of it through locked gates. It was Lord Gessinger’s private domain; until now, no one had ever been permitted inside but the duke himself. Looking about her, Athaya knew why. The garden boasted nothing but roses… roses of every shape and size and color. Mosel must have planted the bushes in memory of his first love—a woman named Rose, absolved long ago. If she could not live, Athaya mused, thinking back on the duke’s sad tale, then at least Mosel saw to it that these blossoms would do so in her stead.
“I’ve been expecting you.”
Athaya whirled around at the unexpected voice, pricking her finger on a thorn. The Sage stood directly in front of her, grinning with delight that his cloaking spell had shielded his approach so well. He still wore his emerald-green tunic, but with one sinister addition—for her benefit, she was sure. Athaya balled her hand into a fist and blood welled up from where the thorn had pierced her. Around his waist was a scarf of runecloth—the very scarf she had given to Nicolas when he had departed for Sare last autumn. The red runes were stark against the black wool, as if painted in fresh blood. It was a cheap tactic meant to unsettle her, and she refused to betray how effectively it had worked.
Athaya rose slowly to her feet. Here, with barely a yard between them, it was difficult not to strike him for what he had done to Nicolas. But she had to tread carefully; Brandegarth of Crewe was the more powerful wizard now, and the arrogant glint in his sea-green eyes told her that he knew that as well as she did.
“I wasn’t certain when,” he continued, gazing languidly at the white clouds drifting by overhead as if considering altering their placement in the sky to something a bit more pleasing, “but I knew you would come. Sooner or later.”
His words hung heavy with pride, but Athaya would not be baited. “You remember my husband, Jaren.”
The Sage flicked him the briefest of glances. “I do.”
Circling behind Athaya, the Sage picked a rose and began pulling its petals off one by one. Surprising as it seemed, Athaya got the distinct impression that his full attention was not on this meeting, but he was instead looking beyond it to a far more important event.
“You could have saved yourself the walk and spoken to me in Coakley today,” he observed. His mouth curled up at her silent blink of surprise. “I saw you at the window of the church. Your husband’s cloaking spell isn’t very good,” he confided with mock covertness. “The air around him was shimmering. I lifted the pewter bowl to catch his reflection and saw you standing beside him. Your spell is near perfect. But then, you are an adept like myself, so this is not surprising.”
“Your Grace—”
The Sage tossed the now-naked stem aside. “I imagine that in addition to the rite of anointment, you also saw me foretell that man’s future—the one imprisoned in the green.” His gaze became a challenge. “You are not the only one to whom God has granted His gift of foresight; not the only one with whom He shares the secret of who His children are.”
“It is wrong for us to know such things. Just because we
can
do it doesn’t mean we
should
.” But even as she spoke the words, Athaya knew they would fall like seeds upon dry ground. Rhodri had never heeded such advice; why should the Sage, whose ambitions were far more grand?
The Sage snorted indelicately. “I expected you would say something like that. It has the oppressive ring of Reykan philosophy to it.”
Athaya fixed a hard gaze on him. “You will not have the power forever.” She had long debated whether to reveal that knowledge, but had eventually concluded that it would be better for herself—as well as Caithe—to plant the seed of doubt in the Sage’s mind, hoping to convince him to back away from using the gift so publicly rather than keep her loss a secret and have it forever misconstrued as a deliberate refusal to aid her people. “That power has faded from me… as it will from you, in time. What the sealing spell has given you is only temporary.”
I can only hope
, she added privately.
The Sage tucked in his chin condescendingly. “I should have known you would have a ready excuse. It is a most convenient explanation for why you refuse to share your gift with your fellow Caithans. But even if what you’re saying is true,” he went on, patronizing her with every syllable, “then do not blame me because God has decided that you are no longer worthy of His gift. You did not use it to its proper purpose and so He took it from you.”
Athaya felt her cheeks grow hot, appalled at the ease with which the Sage twisted the facts to suit his pleasure. “But you’re only using the gift to further your own ends!”
“Yes,” the Sage agreed, “I am. But my ends are God’s and that makes all the difference.”
Athaya squeezed her eyes closed in outraged exasperation. She never would have believed it possible, but talking to the Sage was even more infuriating than having a conversation with Archbishop Lukin.
“But let us get to the point,” the Sage continued, growing bored with their dispute. “I gather you have come to Nadiera to bargain with me? To offer me something so that I will take my army and return to Sare?”
“I offer nothing but reason, your Grace.”
The Sage smiled thinly. “Then you offer nothing that I do not already have, your Highness.”
Then, without awaiting her reply, the Sage spun on his heel and stalked away from her, bellowing for refreshment. With startling speed—the kind borne of fear rather than devotion—an old woman appeared in the garden with a tray of cakes and three pewter cups. She set the tray on the marble bench, not daring to meet her lord’s eyes, and scuttled nervously away.
The Sage took a cup from the tray on the edge of the bench. “Will you take some cherry wine? I find it rather sweet, but it suits a summer afternoon far better than whiskey.”
Athaya gazed at the remaining two cups of dark liquid, remembering Durek’s treacherous brush with death six months ago. “Thank you, no,” she heard herself saying, bristling noticeably. “I fear you might have compelled someone to poison it.”
Athaya sensed Jaren go rigid beside her, bracing for a backlash, but the Sage merely arched his brows in unison, amused by her impertinence rather than insulted. Idly, he glanced into the bowl of his cup. “Not this time,” he remarked.
“What you did to Nicolas was inexcusable!” she cried, even knowing that the Sage would never feel inclined to offer up excuses for anything he did.