I passed the food booths, heading for the notions stall in the back corner of the market. I adored buttons, and lace, and jeweled threads. I allowed myself a few extra minutes to look over all the wares in the booth, before selecting the sensible threads I needed for my work.
“These three,” I said, handing the merchant butter yellow, silver, and coral thread of medium weight. The colors would work well together against the navy fabric the duchess had selected for her new apron.
He glanced at the threads. “Forty.”
My breath stalled in my chest. “Forty?” I repeated. “I paid twenty for this much thread only weeks ago.”
The merchant curled his fingers around my would-be purchase. “Prices have gone up. Heona has increased the importation taxes.”
I looked southward, though I could not see beyond the walls of the market. I imagined the hills which rose in the distance, separating Umon from Heona and the ocean. Heona controlled all the ports, something both Umon and Nyth, which lay to the north, paid for dearly.
The Queen of Heona did not know magic, but was a master in economics. Oake insisted I keep up with the movement of rulers and their philosophies, claiming that a magician living in our uncertain times, and in a country stuck between two others, needed to know whom she could trust.
And right now, I couldn’t even depend on the price of thread to be stable. I looked at the merchant helplessly, then focused on the materials I needed. “What can I get for twenty?”
He considered the spools and held up the silver thread with a question in his eyes.
I simply couldn’t monogram the duchess’s apron in a single color. I’d never get hired again. I thought about the funds we still needed for rent, how bare the pantry had been, how Olive needed additional flowers to complete her arrangements.
I looked over my shoulder, remembering my promise to my sister. Worry seethed inside my bones as frustration built into a lump in my throat, one I could not swallow away. The market lay in the center of the city, filled with people. A simple persuasion rhyme would not be noticed.
Yet I stalled. I did not wish to take what I couldn’t pay for, but stitching the duchess’s apron in monotone simply would not do. I would suffer for this mistake for years, something I couldn’t afford. The merchant could absorb a small loss—and I vowed to make up the difference over time.
So I opened my mouth as if to speak, barely giving sound to the spell-song. I felt my power rush out of me, and I quickly stoppered it. My magic buzzed beneath my skin, making me itch.
The merchant took a step backward, his fingers releasing the thread. He studied me with blank eyes. I blinked and his face twisted, flickered, and became someone else’s.
My father’s face.
I had seen his kind eyes and gentle smile hundreds of times in the only portrait of him that Grandmother owned. Although he was familiar to me, I had never looked upon his face in person, as he had died when I was just four days old.
He couldn’t be here, now, in the marketplace of Umon. I couldn’t draw a proper breath as the merchant spoke with a voice not his own.
I closed my eyes, forcing reason into my mind. When I looked again, the merchant had morphed back into himself. Familiar ginger beard; watchful hazel eyes.
“Twenty?” he offered. My spell-song had worked. The thought brought me little comfort. I paid what he asked as my magic cleared from his eyes. I caught the distrustful look he gave me when he saw the lesser amount in his hand, and I quickly turned away from the notions stall.
Fear escalated through me as I navigated the crowd. I needed to get away from the merchant before he called for the guards. I needed to escape from the press of all these people, get out from behind this city’s walls. My legs shook with every step, and each face I saw bore my father’s midnight eyes.
I tried to erase his image from my mind, but it wouldn’t go. My power writhed within me. I worried that my footprints would shine with magic, and that I might not make it home without fainting.
I stumbled and collided with someone, who steadied me with his iron grip. “Are you well?” a man asked, but I dared not seek his face. I didn’t wish to see my father in him, could not bear another hallucination caused by my foolish use of singing spells while unbonded.
I leaned on the stranger for a mere moment, though I wanted to clutch him until the ground settled and people once again wore their own skin. “I am well.”
The man released me, and I chanced to look at him. A sigh of relief escaped my lips when I didn’t see my father’s face. But horror snaked through me when I recognized the Nythinian soldier who had entered the aristocrat’s house immediately after I had left.
“You should head home and rest.” His words curled with the slightest of accents. His eyes were the color of murky water; his hair dark and short. This time, he didn’t wear a scowl, but a watchful glint in his eye, like he knew something I didn’t.
Anger rushed through my head. “Don’t tell me what to do.” I turned and melted into the crowd before he could respond. I felt spent as the fury faded, and walking became a chore. I leaned against the outer wall of the market to catch my breath. I didn’t believe this particular soldier’s presence at the market was a mere coincidence. How much he knew about me, I couldn’t fathom. But he certainly knew something.
#
When the merchants began closing their shops, I eased into the flow of people leaving the square, taking care to stay out of sight of any soldiers. I dreaded returning to the apartment, where I faced another argument with Olive.
A thunderous crash ripped my thoughts from crafting the excuses I could provide for my sister. A jolt of magic froze me to the path, and the magically purchased thread fell from my fingers.
“No,” I whispered, but the power I kept carefully contained did not obey my command. A strange grinding noise tore from my throat as I tried to stop the song-spell from joining the escalating storm.
A note burst from my mouth as an arc of blue light whipped above my head and into the atmosphere. It cackled with the other magic already formed, and as the magicians calling up the storm continued their songs, the sky foamed with dark clouds.
I silenced my voice and sucked in a breath, remembering Oake’s teachings. He had warned me never to underestimate the power of proper breathing when working magic. But I didn’t want to work with magic right now. Able to move again, I slowly backed into the wall as the evening sky flashed cyan and then violet, and white lightning lit the rooftops. The magic-spun storm clouds seeped a magenta glow, and a voice, booming like thunder, shook the fragile ground beneath my feet.
The magic in my body tried to respond to the arches clawing into the sky. I suppressed the urge to stride through the streets, find the magicians producing this storm, and twine my voice with theirs.
My deep breathing did nothing. The pulsing in my gut sped; the need to release my power built toward a crescendo I feared would have to be satisfied.
Voices rained from the sky, bellowed in the language of the northern kingdom of Nyth. I didn’t understand a word, just like I did not understand why the High King had unseated our king, or how he had stayed only long enough to introduce his soldiers to Umon’s streets. I did not understand why he sent his son to control affairs in the city, just like I couldn’t comprehend enslaving magicians simply to produce colorful storms.
But what I didn’t understand was not important. The tingle of magic had reached my fingertips, and I turned quickly down an alley leading to the tight circle of towers in the residential sector. I couldn’t stay in the street where the imprint of my magic now existed.
Too many questions would be asked, questions I couldn’t answer. I ducked my head, forcing my feet to move faster over the rivuleting paths. I needed shelter, not only from the storm but also from myself. Every second outside urged me to release my power to the skies.
If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to hide this time. And if I cannot hide, I’ll—I cut off the thought, refusing
to imagine what songs I would sing to escape. Olive had been quite detailed about what the High King did to his magicians to coerce them to obey his will. I’d become just as vile as he if I used my magic to inflict pain, even if only to remain free.
“This way,” a man’s voice said, the sound emerging from the stones of the surrounding buildings. His words curled with a Nythinian accent. I faltered, my pulse and my magic pounding. Had he seen me release my magic? Heard my voice?
At the corner, a man gestured to me, his face cloaked by a hood. I continued forward, my steps sure, but my mind screamed at me: Wait!
At the corner, he linked his arm through mine, turned his face away before I could identify him, and steered me down an unfamiliar side street. I yanked my arm out of his grip, but kept moving, anxious to put as much distance between myself and the magical imprint I’d left in the market.
“Who are you?” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth. “Why are you helping me?”
The man walked faster. After a few minutes, we emerged into the quad across from my tower. He delivered me to the door just as the clouds turned from magenta to black. “You should not be out in such a storm.”
“Neither should you,” I replied.
I couldn’t see the man’s face, but I felt him smile beneath the darkness of his hood. “Until next time.” He bowed his face against the wind and started across the street.
Next time? I stood in the protective archway of my tower and watched him. He continued across the quad to the neighboring tower, where he ducked into the second doorway. As he did, his hood blew back, revealing his face. A face I had come to know well today.
I didn’t know this man’s name, but I’d first seen him marching toward me as I left the aristocrat’s house just this morning. He’d broken my hallucinations in the market this very afternoon. I couldn’t comprehend why he had given me yet another pass.
Amid a tremendous clap of thunder, I spun and shoved open the door to my tower. By the time I passed the sixth floor, my heart pounded more from exertion than fear. Still, I knew that man was watching my building.
I wondered how long his silence had bought me the simple life I’d led in Umon. Because he must know what I was, what I could do. Surely it was his job to find and arrest the magicians in the city, but he hadn’t taken me. As I continued climbing, my footsteps in the stairwell rang with a single question: Why not me?
#
Olive sat in the stuffed chair, her fingers working flowers into beautiful centerpieces. “I need more flowers,” she said, which did nothing to soothe my constant financial worries. I escaped her questioning eyes in favor of our bedroom, where I unwound my scarf and dropped it to the dresser. From the twenty-third floor of the tower, I could see across the city, past the wall, and into the surrounding land. The thick sky bled to the ground, but the northern mountains separating Nyth from Umon appeared darker than everything else.
Rain pelted against the glass, needling the window the same way confusion pricked my mind. The High King from Nyth had only stayed in Umon for a few weeks, and he was gone by the time I had arrived in the city. His soldiers kept the peace, and his magicians took orders from his son, the Prince, who had arrived a week after me. I wondered why he needed the cover of darkness tonight, why he would waste his magicians’ talent to conjure such an annoying storm.
The sound of knocking penetrated my thoughts. I turned to answer the door, snatching an apple off the counter along the way.
Five soldiers stood in the hall, their hats ramrod straight, their black-gloved fingers clenched into fists at their sides. The apple fell from my hands. I tore my eyes from the unsmiling faces of the guards to watch the fruit roll in slow motion across the uneven floor.
A guard spoke in the swirling, vibrant language of Nyth. I caught “king” and something that I believed translated to “wet.”
“We don’t wish any trouble,” I said, cursing my stumbling tongue. My language sounded so harsh against their lilting words. I scanned the guards, and when my gaze landed on that oh-so-familiar face, I stifled a cry of recognition as I took the tiniest step backward.
Had he delivered me to the safety of my tower, only to gather his soldiers and arrest me?
Now, as before, his green-brown eyes searched mine, and they seemed to hold a message. I couldn’t quite decipher it, but I did my best to regain my composure and tear my gaze from his. I felt it important not to give him away, to repay the multiple favors he’d already given me.
“It is time,” he said, which made about as much sense as his Nythinian words. “Perhaps you’d like a cloak. It’s raining outside.”
My feet moved to the kitchen table where I’d left my cloak, my power building toward a peak I must release at exactly the right moment.
Olive stood near the stuffed chair, her fingers now worrying around each other. She shook her head, but I wouldn’t simply accompany these soldiers to my imprisonment—or my death.
With trembling hands, I pulled the hood over my hair and turned. Before anyone could so much as blink, I unleashed my voice, belting a powerful, high note that sent the five soldiers away from me.
The door slammed closed as I changed the music into a spell-song to bewitch objects. The lock slid into position even as my vision blurred and then became crowded with silver starbursts.
I cut off the note still flying from my throat. My knees met the floor, though I tried desperately to stand. I needed to get to the window in our bedroom, climb out, and use the fire chute to escape from the soldiers. “Olive.” The name came out as a moan. She helped me stand just as the sound of singing came from the hallway. “We must go.”
I stumbled with unseeing eyes, hands outstretched, toward the back of the apartment. A voice came through the haze in my head. Low and insistent, it sounded like a woman.
Grandmother. The thought came unbidden, and sourness accompanied the vertigo cascading through my core. Grandmother couldn’t work her half of the spells from the other side of death, no matter how much I wished it.
The apartment door crashed open; the baritone singing became louder. My vision cleared just enough for me to see the depth of the storm beyond the glass as I fumbled with the lock on the window.
I had just gotten the window open when a soldier barked out a Nythinian order. I sang an old chant Grandmother had woven for me, a song to make a man fall into a deep sleep.
“Not endless,” she had admonished when I’d asked. “We do not use our power to harm permanently. Remember that, Echo.”
Right now, to get away from these armed guards, I couldn’t restrain my power. The guard at the door slumped to the floor, as if dead, and Olive cried out. “Hurry, Echo,” she said. “I will hold them as long as I can.” She secured the bedroom door as I flung my legs onto the platform outside the window.
My whole world tilted as I finished the spell-song. A sharp ache pulsed behind my eyes. “Olive, no,” I said. “You’re not safe here either.”
Not here, not here, a voice whispered through my head. I didn’t recognize the woman’s voice, though it felt familiar.
The voice rang in my ears so loudly, I expected to see a woman with dark, curly hair, vibrant blue eyes, and a serious set to her mouth. I expected to find my mother, someone I had only seen sitting next to Father in the portrait my grandmother owned.
Though I had not seen Mother in my lifetime, I knew the voice belonged to her. She continued to babble and I clapped my hands over my ears to drown out the sound. Father had died just days after I was born, and Mother had wandered the lands looking for a way to reclaim him.
The legends said that the magicians in the country of Relina had ways to fulfill such a need. Immortal chants; songs entwined with hope and magic. Bits of sky that held swatches of clouds that could make a blind man see, and a deaf child hear, and bring the dead back to life.
Whether any of it was true, I didn’t know.
“Echo.” A man’s voice interrupted my mother’s vibrating words. I
spun toward the new sound, and my brain felt like it had knocked into my skull. Black spots appeared, but not before I recognized the soldier who had spoken my name.
“Come back inside,” he said kindly. “Olive is safe. You’re unwell.” He reached for me as my mother’s voice recycled through my mind, as I wondered how he knew my name, as I lost my balance.
His fingers gripped my forearm, and I sang a melody to get him to release me. I’d barely produced three notes before he covered my mouth. “Stop that.”
I wilted into his arms, unable to see anything but blackness. He called for the other soldiers as I sank into unconsciousness.
Three
“We cannot delay much longer,” a man said somewhere beyond me.
“We cannot carry her through the storm,” a second man answered, and this time I recognized the calm, deep tone of the soldier who’d assisted me three times in one day. “Think of how that will look.”
“There’s no one looking.”
“She’s awake.” A third man entered the conversation, and I sensed movement about me.
I took a few moments to center myself, to find my own core of magic and listen to it, just as Grandmother would have cautioned. I found nothing sinister. My neck ached, and a sharp pain radiated through my body from front to back. I tried to sit up, but a magical power not my own compelled me to stay down. I didn’t recognize this magic, but it felt calm, and solid, and flowed through me as if it belonged to me. I sighed into its comfort and opened my eyes.
The bedroom—my bedroom—appeared lighter than it should have, what with the raging storm battling the glass to my right.
“Echo.” The soldier leaned over me, his eyes warm and inviting. His voice sounded like the wind playing through the plain grasses outside my village. “Please come with us. I promise no harm will befall you.”
When he spoke, I believed him. I didn’t fully understand why, but I wondered if the goodness of his magic still swirling with mine had something to do with it.