Dream on, part of her said. You are trangshi for life—unless, of course, a miracle happens and a Trader family is so indebted to you that they will pay to have your name written in the Trader logs once more. And how often has that happened? Once? Twice, in a thousand years?
She heard voices. With a scowl, Daja opened her eyes.
It was Sandry and her teacher, Dedicate Lark, robed for the bath. They were accepting wash-things from the attendant. Sandry glanced at Daja, then murmured to the servant. The woman bowed and left the room.
While Sandry shed her robe and inched into the steaming water, Lark sat on a bench. Lark’s skin was bronze-colored, revealing an eastern ancestor in her family. She looked a bit like a cat, with her broad cheekbones, sharp chin, and short, straight nose. Seeing Lark comb out her short, curly black hair with her black eyes half-closed, Daja expected the woman to purr. An earth dedicate like Rosethorn, Lark was a thread-mage, who worked her power into the things she spun and wove. She and Rosethorn managed the cottage at Winding Circle where the four young mages lived.
Had the new arrivals been Tris or Rosethorn, Daja would have gotten angry all over again, because that was what one did when they were around. Instead she tried to smile when Lark slipped into the pool. “I guess it’s silly for a trangshi to bathe, since uncleanness is more than skin deep,” said Daja. The joke failed miserably as tears rolled down her cheeks and continued to fall. She closed her eyes, which didn’t stop the tears. “If only it was all because of something I did.”
Lark sighed. “I’m sorry about the Traders.”
“At least I understand being trangshi, even if I hate it,” Daja whispered. “I don’t want other Traders to catch my luck.” She dashed the teardrops from her cheeks.
Lark put a gentle hand on Daja’s shoulder and nodded toward the vine. “Is that your creation, the one they bid so high for?”
Daja nodded as Sandry remarked with pride, “She told them they had to negotiate with her. She was splendid!”
“I don’t feel splendid,” replied Daja. “I feel unclean.” Picking up her soap, she began to scrub. “Besides, an opening bid means nothing. Only a hamot takes the first offer—it’s the lowest possible. They only bid gold to start because everyone knows magic drives the price up.”
“I don’t know what hamot means,” Sandry admitted. “I never saw much bargaining.”
Daja rested her head on the rim of the pool. “It’s the kind of person Traders dream of dealing with. Someone who’s too stupid to know the offered price is insulting.”
“Hm,” Sandry murmured, undoing her braids to wash her hair. “How high do you think they’ll go?”
Daja tried to think. “If I knew where they meant to sell, it would help,” she admitted. “They must have a buyer in mind.” She kicked her legs gently. “If they find a way to talk to me even though I’m trangshi, that says I should hold out for three gold majas at least.”
“You can buy more scrap iron with that kind of money,” Lark murmured. She examined the vine through squinted eyes, then reached out to brush it with her fingertips. “I’ve never even heard of such a creation. Metal that grows—how big will it get?”
Daja shrugged. “Depends on how much metal’s in the soil where it’s planted, I suppose. Once it’s used all the spare iron in the trunk, it’ll need fresh metal from somewhere.”
“I hope you make other things like that,” Sandry told her. “I think it’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful only because I didn’t want the iron for something else,” Daja pointed out gloomily. “What if I had? What if someone really needed the nails I was supposed to craft? I can’t even use this iron again, not with all our magics swimming through it. And what if someone wants me to create another one? This isn’t the smithcraft I’m supposed to be learning. I wouldn’t know where to start—the magic got away from me when I wasn’t paying attention.”
Sandry bit her lip. “Mine got away from me this morning, too,” she admitted, and told them about the scorched embroidery.
Lark settled back in the water, looking at the girls with interest. “Well. So far the results of your magic veering onto some unknown path have been good, or at least, haven’t done any serious harm, but things obviously aren’t settling down. The magic in all four of you is continuing to change.” She nodded decisively. “It’s time to see if it can be mapped.”
“How will you map something like magic?” Sandry wanted to know. Her blue eyes gleamed at the thought of learning something new.
“Not me, Lady Sandrilene,” Lark told her with a smile. “You. These changes came about as a part of your spinning. That makes you the best one to weave the map.”
3
Night came early in mountain valleys, earlier than on the heights that surrounded them. An hour or so before supper in the castle, the valley floor was in shadow. From the balcony outside the suite of rooms where Lark, Rosethorn, Niko, Frostpine, and their students slept, Daja watched the bands of dull orange wildfires glow brighter and brighter in the dark.
She knew without looking that the person who had just entered their rooms was Frostpine. “I wonder what could be forged in a blaze like that,” she called without turning around. “A bridge over these mountains, or a sword as long as the Emel Peninsula.”
“I doubt it. Grassfires don’t burn that hot.” He came out and sat on the rail where he could see her face.
A bird dropped from the sky to land on the railing between them. It was a starling, a brown, speckled bird with a sharp yellow bill and clever black eyes. Ignoring Frostpine, it chuckled to Daja, fluffing up its chin-feathers.
“I don’t know where Tris is,” Daja told the bird. “I think she was in the library all afternoon. Go catch bugs for supper, Shriek.”
The bird named Shriek chirped harshly.
“I can never tell if he knows what’s said to him,” Frostpine remarked.
“The problem is that he’s most interested in food, and he always wants that now.” Daja grubbed in a pocket and came up with some brown bread from lunch. Breaking it up into crumbs, she put them down for the starling. He ate briskly.
“I’ve been thinking about the work you can do while we’re here,” said Frostpine, watching Shriek. “We don’t want you getting out of practice, and I’m afraid helping Kahlib with his extra work is out of the question for now. It seems the Trader caravan wants him to do some touch-ups here and there.”
“And I can’t do any of their work ’cause I’m trangshi,” Daja said bitterly. “So what’s left?”
“Both Kahlib and the castle’s head carpenter are in need of more nails.”
“Frostpine!” Daja protested.
“I know, I know—but that’s the best I can manage. Besides, the discipline is good for you. Smithing of any kind, magical or not, is plain hard work.”
The door opened to admit Briar and Tris. The moment he saw Tris, the starling began to shrill in the bone-rattling squall used by all fledglings of his breed. Flapping inside to perch on Tris’s shoulder, he pecked her ear.
“Shriek, stop! You’re a grown bird—act like it!” Flinching, she removed the lid of the small covered bowl that she carried. It was partly filled with tiny balls of raw meat and hard-boiled egg yolk. Bouncing to her wrist, the starling began to gulp them down.
Frostpine got to his feet. “I’d best go put on a clean habit if we’re supping with Lady Inoulia,” he commented, stretching. “She looks like the kind of woman who cares if people come to the table in work clothes.” Passing Briar on his way inside, he tweaked the boy’s nose.
Briar grinned, swatted the smith’s hand away, and walked onto the balcony, one hand in his pocket. “Want to see something dumb I did?” he asked Daja, producing a lump of dirty, irregular glass.
Daja held it up to the last rays of the sun, inspecting it. Some of those black wisps looked like plant matter, dried grass or root. “Where’d you find this?” she asked.
“I made it,” was Briar’s glum reply.
He leaned against the door to the inside, running his fingers through his hair. “I fried about three silver astrels’ worth of dead saffron while I was at it.”
Daja figured the amount: he’d burned enough saffron to buy a poor family’s meals for three months? “Why do a stupid thing like that?”
Tris, joining them, asked, “Yes, why?”
“I didn’t do it a-purpose,” he snapped. “I was trying to see if the bulbs were still alive, and—lightning jumped out of me.”
Tris held out a hand. Daja passed the lump to her. “The soil in crocus beds is mostly sand,” Briar explained. “When I added lightning, I got glass.” As Tris examined the lump, her magic causing it to shimmer, Briar added, “If I have to cut my hair to stop lightning from growing in it like you did, I might as well shave myself as smooth as Frostpine is on top. It’s not like I have extra hair.”
Tris’s frown twisted into a wry smile. Even with her own hair cropped, she had more of it than Briar.
“Here you all are.” Sandry came out onto the balcony, pulling three bobbins of undyed thread from her string workbag. “I need you each to take one of these and keep it on you for a day or so.”
“Why?” Briar wanted to know, when she offered one to him. “It’ll get dirty.”
“That’s all right,” she told him, curling his fingers around a bobbin. “It just has to get to know you.”
“Why should we let it get to know us?” inquired Daja. It felt like plain old silk thread under her fingers.
“Lark thinks I can weave a map of our magics and see where they’re getting mixed up,” explained Sandry. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
“What about when we sleep?” inquired Daja. “Our nightgowns don’t have pockets.”
“Then they go under your pillow,” was the noble’s firm reply.
“Will this help?” asked Tris, her voice unsure. “Does Lark think it will help?”
Sandry nodded.
“What’s to lose?” asked Briar with a sigh. One by one, the friends tucked their bobbins into their pockets.
Lady Inoulia fa Juzon, whose domain Gold Ridge was, dined not alone with those whose rank was closest to hers, but with all the castle inhabitants, noble and servant alike. Sandry refused to think well of the lady for keeping to a custom that many nobles considered to be old-fashioned. She suspected that Inoulia—a cousin of hers by marriage—did it not to make people feel that the lady shared their lives, but to remind everyone who was in charge.
At least Lady Inoulia didn’t occupy the highest place on the dais alone, as she had since the death of her husband. Tonight she shared it with her father-in-law, Duke Vedris. Sandry had to smile when she saw her great-uncle incline his shaved head gravely to hear a serving-boy’s remark. The duke would listen to anyone, at any time. From Inoulia’s frown, she didn’t appreciate the reminder. She was the kind of woman who stared into the distance while her servants reported to her.
Sandry wondered if the leaders of Tenth Caravan Idaram, seated at the next table down, might have thought Inoulia was the greater noble if they hadn’t already known the duke. The lady wore a cloth-of-gold overrobe and a brown silk undergown with gold embroideries, both of which complimented her dark brown skin perfectly. The gold band on her brown, frizzy hair tilted up a little like a tiara and sparkled with emeralds; black pearls hung in three strands around her neck, and rings drew attention to her long, elegant hands. The duke wore a maroon linen tunic, white silk shirt, and black linen breeches. His only signs of wealth were a gold hoop ring in one fleshy earlobe and a heavy gold signet ring on his hand. To Sandry, Duke Vedris wore command on his powerful shoulders like a cloak. He didn’t need gems and precious metals to declare his position.
Lady Inoulia finished a remark to the duke and turned her attention to Sandry. “I regret that pressing duties today made it impossible for me to spend time with you, my dear Sandrilene,” she commented. “How did you spend your afternoon?”
“I was assembling thread for weaving, cousin,” she replied. “I need it for my studies.”
Inoulia raised a brow. “Women of our order do not weave.”
“You agree, do you not,” said an elegant, soft voice over Inoulia’s shoulder, “that mages must study that which best enables them to master their power? Sandry’s magic is expressed through weaving.”
Sandry leaned forward, so she could beam at her uncle. Trust him to hear and come to her rescue!
“Then surely Lightsbridge University is a better place for her to live,” Inoulia said to Duke Vedris. “Their mages receive a proper education—like our own dear Yarrun Firetamer and his father, Ulmerin Valeward. I believe most noble houses will hire only university mages.”
“A custom I deplore, my lady.” Niko, on Sandry’s other side, leaned in to meet Inoulia’s eyes. “University training does not cover all magic, and unusual power requires unusual teaching methods. Lady Sandrilene can perform prodigies unknown to Lightsbridge.”
The expression in Inoulia’s eyes clearly said she would believe that when she saw it.
With an inner sigh, Sandry looked over the length of table that stretched between the dais and the main doors of the dining hall. Halfway down, just above the salt-cellar, were Lark and Rosethorn in fresh green habits, and Frostpine in red. At the far end sat Briar, Daja, and Tris, talking among themselves. Didn’t she wish she sat with them!
The main course was over; the subtlety—a spun sugar and fruit peacock, made to be admired, not eaten—had just been presented when the main doors opened. A gray-haired white man entered, leaning on a tall staff decorated with bright enamels. He dressed in much the same fashion as Niko, wearing dark gray silk breeches and shirt and a short-sleeved overrobe of a garnet red velvet, its hems and collar embroidered in black silk. Unlike Niko, he wore his gray hair short; his face was shaved clean, and the scent of expensive soap floated in his wake. Seeing all the guests, he stretched his thin lips in a smile that betrayed no real feeling of pleasure. Sandry, eyeing him, thought that he didn’t look all that well. His large, moist brown eyes sported bags on bags, and there was a sallow tone in his skin.
“My lady, forgive me,” he said as he walked past the salt-cellar. “I was inspecting the cattle ranges when I heard that his grace the duke had come. I could not be laggardly in paying my respects.” He bowed deeply to Vedris. “Your grace honors we northerners by taking so personal an interest in our troubles.”
Inoulia smiled. “Your grace, may I present our chief mage, Yarrun Firetamer?” The duke nodded a greeting, and the lady continued, “My dear Yarrun, you have a colleague in my honored father-in-law’s party, Master Nikiaren Goldeye, who has been in residence at Summersea.”
Niko got to his feet. Yarrun bowed, though not as deeply as he had to the duke. “Everyone knows the name of Goldeye,” he said, as if he’d bitten on a sour apple. Niko returned the bow, though if the sideways twitch of his mustache were any clue, he was unimpressed by the newcomer.
Some of these university mages are like overbred cats, thought Sandry watching Yarrun as the lady introduced the most important of her other guests. They dress to kill and don’t want to get their paws wet. Even Niko is a little that way sometimes, especially when he’s on his dignity.
Since the diners were almost finished, the new arrival stood on the dais, talking quietly with the duke and Lady Inoulia. They were all about to leave the table when a boy stumbled into the great hall, panting as if he’d been running hard and long.
“Master Yarrun, you’re back!” he cried. “Thank all the gods!” He staggered up to the dais, still puffing. Everyone stared at him, noting the burns and soot marks on his rough peasant’s clothes.
The duke murmured something to one of the servers, who poured a crystal goblet full of water. The boy gulped its contents between gasps.
Yarrun had drawn back a step, as if to put distance between himself and the messenger. “I take it there is a fire,” he murmured.
The boy nodded vigorously,
draining the goblet. The server took it back and filled it again as the lad said, “It—it was the croft’s chimney, the night drawing down cool and them not cleaning it out first.” He took the goblet from the server once more and drank. “Their house is burning. We thought we had it under control, but the wind—”
“How bad is it?” demanded Yarrun.
“Treadwell’s roof’s burning, and one of the barns. It’s in the gardens. If it reaches the wall—you know our wall is just logs, sir—”
Yarrun held up a finger to silence the boy, then pondered for a moment—a long moment, Sandry thought, impatient—while everyone in the room shifted nervously. The village at the foot of the hill on which the castle stood was surrounded by forest.
Come on, Sandry ordered the mage silently. This isn’t a play on a stage, it’s real people—
Yarrun smiled brightly. “Would you like a demonstration of my skills?” he asked Niko. “I’m sure you will find it amusing.”
Tris’s magical voice rang as clearly in Sandry’s mind as if the redhead were shouting in her ear. Amusing! He calls a fire amusing! Why not put a torch to his tall and see if he finds that amusing, too!
Sandry shook her head, though she couldn’t help but think that her grouchy friend had a point.
Yarrun led the way outside. Niko rose and followed, beckoning to Sandry. A glance at Frostpine, Lark, and Rosethorn called the dedicates to him; Briar, Daja, and Tris ran to catch up.
As she passed behind Inoulia’s chair, Sandry heard the lady say to the duke, “This is a small matter, of interest only to those in Yarrun’s craft. I thought we might sit in one of the private rooms. Some of my ladies are really quite accomplished musicians.”
Is Yarrun so good at this that she doesn’t think anything will go wrong? wondered Sandry, joining her friends as they followed the adult mages. Or does she just not care about the village?
Yarrun led the way out of the castle and across the main courtyard, walking briskly. A servant girl caught up with him halfway, delivering a leather bag. Yarrun accepted it and walked on, until they reached one of the thick towers that flanked the main gate. Niko caught up to him there and walked beside him, talking quietly, as they entered the tower. A corkscrew flight of stairs led to the upper reaches and through a door that opened onto the wall.