“I didn’t pick one at all,” Wren said, surprised. “In fact, I have to talk to you about that. I just don’t think I’m ready yet. Wait until you hear about my flubs on the sea. Beginning with squawking chickens!”
She would have gone on, but she saw Tyron send a strange glance Connor’s way, a look of smothered laughter followed by a hasty assumption of mock solemnity.
“What,” Wren said, glaring from one to the other. “What is it? Are you going to start telling all the new students about my chickens?”
Teressa came forward then, arms out. Wren hugged her, then stepped back, looking doubtfully into her friend’s face. “I’m sorry about what I said,” Wren offered. “Hawk, I mean. I hope—I hope it’s going all right.”
“Hawk is gone,” Teressa said, looking wry.
“I think I’ll just see about some chickens,” Tyron said loudly. “Connor. Let’s strut.” He flapped a hand toward the door. “Cackle-cackle!”
Wren had to laugh at the unsubtle hint.
“Buck-a-buck buck!” Connor crowed, then whisked out of the door, shutting it behind him.
Teressa looked around. The room was one of the many minor parlors, with pleasing, old-fashioned furniture designed around the few pieces left over from the fire and destruction of the war. “We may as well talk here,” she said. “I want to hear everything.”
“It’ll take a long time,” Wren warned. “But first. I apologize for the things I said that day. Nosing into your business.”
Teressa’s smile faded. “But you were right. Hawk does what he wants when he wants.” She moved to the window, her hands dusting back and forth along the window sill. “We got our first rain of autumn today,” she said, then turned. “And it seemed to wash away all the foolishness of summer. As for your words, when we were small, and heart-free, we used to tell one another what we thought. Somehow, when it comes to matters of the heart, it’s harder to hear what you don’t want to hear.”
Wren nodded, not knowing what to think, or to say. So she just listened.
And it was enough. Teressa went on, “Others told me the same thing you did, or tried. Carlas was the loudest and most determined, as you’d expect. But I didn’t listen, until something happened that made me hear what all of you had been saying all along. But a fierce attraction can make a person see only that and shut out the rest of the world, if you let it. And I did. For a time. Then, well, I sent him away. No, I didn’t send him. He left, and he knows why. I don’t know if
anything
will be worth the effort of his changing his perspective. Only he knows that.” Teressa sighed, then frowned in puzzlement. “Have you ever felt any attraction for anyone?”
Wren got prickly heat all over. “A week ago I would have said no, but I think I would have been wrong. Now I know.”
Teressa gave a slow nod. “Ah. Connor, is it? He certainly seems to care for you. I’ve never seen that expression on his face, the way he was smiling at you when Tyron started clowning around about chickens.”
“I really like hugging him.” Wren grinned. “I just discovered that. It makes me feel like, well, like a sunburst happened inside my skin. And before that, I was missing him so much. You too,” she added quickly. “But it was different, somehow. I can’t explain.”
Teressa smiled, but Wren felt a small shock at the sight of unshed tears along her friend’s eyelids. “And so you two will probably find your path goes together, as easy as that.”
Teressa whirled around, then back again. “Not that I want it to be difficult for you! I want you to be happy, for the rest of your life. I just don’t see why I can’t be as well, but it seems I make mistakes every time I—”
Teressa stilled, her face so taut that there were shadows that one day would be lines. Wren was amazed at how much she resembled King Verne, who had had that very same expression when he was troubled.
Wren held out her hands.
Teressa reached, touching Wren’s hands, but Wren could see it took an effort. Teressa did not want a pity hug—or pity words. So Wren changed the subject. “Did you notice my father among all those people? I figured you wouldn’t mind if he came back with us.”
Teressa’s eyes widened. She dashed her embroidered, silken sleeve against her eyelids, then said, “Your father? Tyron said something about that, but—well, of course he’s welcome! He can stay here, and as long as he likes. I look forward to meeting him.”
“He’s weak yet,” Wren said.
Teressa nodded, then straightened up, chin lifted. “Forget what I said. I was just whining. Time and experience might not be so bad a thing for me.”
Wren was relieved to see Teressa sounding more herself. “Sure. That makes sense for Connor and me, too. Time and experience. His mother might be wanting him to marry some princess some day, and as for me, oh, I don’t know, it’s just so new. And fun. But new means it has to get a little age on it before I figure out what to do next.”
“Then don’t worry about it now,” Teressa said. “I’m just glad to have you back.”
A knock interrupted them, and Teressa opened the door.
Tyron poked his head in. “Wren, they’re ready for you.”
“They?” Wren asked blankly.
Tyron slipped in. He was wearing his white tunic with the formal blue sash of a master neatly tied round his middle. His hair was even combed!
“Tyron?” Wren asked, eyeing that combed hair warily.
“Come along, Journeymage,” Tyron said, taking hold of her shoulder and guiding her out.
Smiling, Teressa fell in behind.
They walked down the long hall to the most formidable of the parlors, the Queen’s Audience Room, all peachy marble with fine gilt chandeliers and two splendid tapestries, one depicting Queen Rhis founding the kingdom, and the other the wizards Prince Morayen and Tre Resdir discovering the Rainbow River, a place of ancient magic.
Before that tapestry stood a line of mages in their formal white and blue, except for two who wore white with white sashes. Wren stopped, staring in surprise when she saw Master Gastarth and Mistress Selshaf. Then she realized that all the mage teachers from the school—including Mistress Leila, Connor’s older half-sister, who must have come straight from Siradayel—were there as well!
“Step forward, Journeymage, so that we may invest you with the robes of a Mistress of Magic,” Halfrid said.
“What?” Wren looked around. “Haven’t you got the wrong person?”
Despite the formal room, and them in their best mage clothing, they smiled, half of them trying not to laugh.
Master Gastarth said, “Do you not think defeating an entire pirate fleet is enough of a journeymage work?”
Wren’s mouth opened. “But that was easy! Once I knew what I was doing, and planned it all out. When I had the
real
emergency, that first pirate attack, I almost got us killed for all the mistakes I made. I am not ready to be a journeymage yet.”
“How many people would have been able to fend off six ships, Wren?” Mistress Leila asked.
Wren pointed. “You, for one. I knew you would have gotten rid of them in a couple of clever spells, and never once a flub.”
“Maybe now,” Mistress Leila said. “Though it would take more than two spells. But when I was a young journeymage on her very first journey?” She shook her head.
Mistress Selshaf said in her kind voice, “Wren, these tests are really only guideposts we make up along our way, but the truth is, great mages are always learning, and improving, and learning and improving some more. Very few of us could have done as well as you with so little aid, when we were at the same age and had the same level of experience.”
“And some never make it that far. They find meaningful work in small ways that do not require tests such as defeating pirate fleets,” Halfrid said. “But you have the makings of a great mage, and if you regard this day as one of many marking your upward road in knowledge and skill, then you will have achieved all we really want for you.”
Wren swallowed, turning doubtful eyes to Tyron. He gestured. “Come on, Wren.” He flashed his foxy grin. “How do you think I felt, getting my white robe right after the war, when the school was a fire-scorched mess, half the staff was missing, and I still thought I had to take my last year of classes?”
Master Gastarth added, “We watched you during your so-called easy portion. You did exactly what we spend so much time training you to do: take the responsibility for solving a problem that needs solving, make your plans, work carefully on them, and delegate tasks to those who are best equipped to carry them out. The actions, in short, of a master mage.”
“Oh,” Wren said in a small voice. Then she squared her shoulders. And, in a steady voice, “In that case, well, I guess I’m ready.”
The Sendimeris twins both held the robe, dropping it over Wren’s shoulders. It felt light and cool and heavy all at once. Halfrid stepped forward with the blue sash held in both hands, but he stopped, and it was Mistress Leila and Tyron, her two main teachers, who took the ends and wrapped the sash around her middle. Mistress Leila tied the knot, then stepped back. “Welcome to the ranks of the Magic Council of Magicians, Mistress Wren.”
And, one by one, the others said the same words. By the end Wren’s eyes blurred with tears, but then the formality was over, and they all crowded around, everyone talking and laughing, until the distant bell rang, and Teressa touched Wren’s shoulder.
“Mistress Wren, will you lead the way to dinner?” she asked.
Mistress
Wren
. Somehow it sounded almost real, coming from Teressa—who had had to become a queen at far too young an age, when she’d barely gotten used to the idea of being a princess.
Afterward, Wren remembered only bits of that happy occasion. All the masters took turns telling of flubs and near-disasters they had encountered during their early years, until Wren began to feel that the chickens actually had their proper place in the ceremony, as much as her new blue sash.
At the other end of the table, Connor sat with Mistress Leila and with a tall, hard-looking man who was vaguely familiar.
Wren watched, puzzled, as the man talked to Connor, making him laugh from time to time. “Who’s that?” she asked Tyron.
“Don’t you recognize Prince Rollan?”
“Oh yes! But why is he here?”
“Truth is, I don’t know all that much myself. Mistress Leila appeared just today, with him in tow. We were running about getting everything ready and I had no time to ask.”
The dinner did not last much longer than that. Halfrid had to return to the island and see to the mages. The Sendimeris twins had the Magic Council waiting for them. Wren knew that her investiture was just one pleasant occurrence among many in their lives, and their responsibilities still awaited them.
One day
I
will
be
one
of
those
seniors
, she thought as she said the last good-bye.
Leaving
behind
a
happy
young
mage
and
going back
to
my
real
work
.
She felt very strange.
After they’d said farewell to the last of the visitors, Tyron tapped Wren on the shoulder. “Connor is waiting upstairs. Teressa, he wants you as well as Wren to hear this.”
“This what?”
“My question as well,” Teressa said from Wren’s other side.
The three sped upstairs to the other end of the royal guest suites, where the Shaltars usually stayed when they visited Cantirmoor. Prince Rollan and Mistress Leila awaited them in the outer chamber. Through the wide windows, cool, fresh air swept in, carrying the scents of wet leaves, grass, and the faint sweetness of summer’s last roses.
Rollan turned a weather-beaten face to his sister.
Leila said, “Connor, we first have to ask: are you still planning to wander the world? You’d spoken of wanting to take two or three years, so is this a brief visit, or a return?”
“A return.” Connor shook his head. “I had fun, but I decided whatever I was looking for was here.” He touched his head. “Not there.” He waved his hand at the window. “And I missed home.”
Rollan grinned and rubbed his hands. “Well, here’s what: it looks like I’ll be moving to Eth-Lamrec. My princess wouldn’t have me on any other terms.” He chuckled, and Wren vaguely recalled the Princess of Eth-Lamrec who had come at the head of a trained group of warriors to help fight against the Lirwanis, true to their treaty. She’d had a loud, hearty voice, a swinging stride, and a dashing manner. “But there’s Dareneth, my own principality, up in the northern mountains. You already know I head the Brown Riders. I want you to take them over. I already know how good you are in the field, when you have to be.”
Connor shook his head. “I could ride with them. Maybe. On some missions. I can’t lead, as I don’t carry a sword any more. I can’t take life from living things.”
“But you don’t need to. We don’t kill anyone, by preference. We keep the peace. The worst you’ll face is renegade Lirwanis who turn to robbery because all they know is how to fight. We round ‘em up and give ‘em a choice of going back over the border for Queen Idres to deal with, or we put ‘em to work in Siradayel.”
Connor nodded slowly. “I could do that.”
“They’d accept you. Everyone’s heard of your exploits during the war, and this business about Andreus won’t hurt, either.”
“But it was Wren’s magic.”
Leila waved a hand. “By the time rumors—and songs—make their way up here, it will be the two of you against an entire pirate fleet. You don’t have to confirm it, but never deny it. People like that kind of heroic tale. Makes them feel safe.”
Connor winced. Wren sensed that he felt a little like a fraud. She remembered that feeling.
“Here’s why we need you,” Rollan said, exchanging a glance with Leila, who nodded. “The truth is, our mother is probably going to step down from the throne. She discovered she likes having nothing to do but socialize. She’s thinking of taking up residence at her lakeside retreat year round, where she’ll probably be joined by the older courtiers of her day. She still gets all the social precedence, but with no work involved.”