Scout- The Complete Scout Box Set, page 27
part #1 of Scout Series
The scream that shatters the tent should have belonged to me, but I’m fairly certain I was inhaling when it sounded. Opening my eyes, I find Raza pressing her back against the canvas wall. Her one eye is so wide with panic, I can see the white around her iris glistening from across the tent.
“What’s going on in here?” General Hewe’s deep voice booms from the tent’s entrance. Copa, Wil, and Trace file in after him and stop dead. All of them. Staring at me with eyes as wide as the princess’s.
Following their gaze, I look down at myself and choke on air.
Darkness as thick as night covers me like a blanket. Bringing my hand up to my face, I can’t see even the outline of my fingers. Yet the people standing just a few paces away are crystal clear. As if I’m looking from inside the shadows into a lit room.
“Kal!” Trace screams, wheeling about to face Raza. He advances on her like a predator. “Where is Kal?”
“I’m here.” My voice sounds too loud, my heart beating so quickly it hurts.
Trace spins back around, braces himself, and plunges into the darkness around me. His hands connect with my knee and shuffle quickly to my face. Warm, calloused palms touch my cheeks and smooth my hair. His forehead presses against mine. “Stars. Are you all right?” His voice is quiet, desperate. “Talk to me.”
“What did you do?” Copa demands of the princess. “Where is the wand?”
“What did I do?” Raza screeches. “What did that whore do?”
Trace’s hands roam down my arms, stopping at the manacles locked around my wrists. He growls. His hands move on, feeling the instrument beneath my shirt. He grips the wand and unceremoniously chucks it across the tent, then pulls me into his chest.
The crystal is a dull gray.
“Bloody stars, it’s depleted completely.” The horror in Copa’s words ripples like lightning through me. “That’s enough magic to kill ten men.”
Trace’s hold around me tightens. “You used a stim crystal on her?” The rage rumbles like thunder. “How dare you!”
“Enough!” General Hewe’s voice booms over Trace’s. “The stim crystal has its uses in questioning. It has no business in untrained hands. We shall address both of those issues once someone tells me what the bloody hells I am looking at right now.”
“A mage acting on instinct,” Trace growls toward the general.
“Then un-instinct it. Now.”
I shudder at his tone, even as that word—mage—ricochets inside my head. My body curls in on itself. Mage? No. Bahir is a mage. I’m just an oddity. An anomaly of magic.
Trace’s hold tightens. His forehead presses against mine again, his hands on either side of my head. “You are using magic to bend light into darkness, Kal. I need you to stop,” Trace whispers to me, the thunder beneath his voice so violent, I can feel its vibration. “Control the magic, and yourself.”
“How?” My voice trembles. My stinging bees, my magic, it wants to be doing something.
Trace draws a breath. He doesn’t know. My blood races, washing my insides with panic. How could he know? He’s a whisperer, not a . . . a mage. The mere fact that I absorbed and used an ex-healing crystal’s magic to manipulate light contradicts the whisperers’ principles. Here is a corollary for you, Leaf. If you manage to extract magic from a crystal and feed it to a mage, a lot of things can happen.
“All right,” Trace’s calm interrupts my panic. “Take a breath. Can you feel where that magic is now?”
I close my eyes, matching my breathing to Trace’s. I feel the stinging bees inside me. “Yes.”
He exhales. “Good. Can you release your hold on it? Stop directing it?” His words flounder for a second, synonyms being offered like keys in hopes that one will match the lock. “Wall it off?”
The last one feels right. The way I visualized myself absorbing the light, I imagine a hive forming around the bees. As the beehive’s edges harden, my darkness—my glorious, safe, wonderful shadow—starts to ebb. I halt, my body trembling in Trace’s arms.
“Keep going,” Trace whispers softly. “You must show the general that you control the magic, not the other way around. If you can’t—” The words catch in his throat, but I understand. I just absorbed enough magic to kill a squad of soldiers. If the general deems me too volatile, he may order me put down like a rabid beast. I allow the beehive cocoon forming around my magic to mature and harden, cutting off the bees’ interaction with the outside world.
Around the tent, gasps confirm my success before I dare open my eyes. When I do, Trace’s dark ones are only inches away. Our breaths mingle.
“Princess Raza,” Wil’s words cut the air as he throws all the authority of a would-be king behind an adolescent, still-forming voice. “Attempting to murder a member of my court is an act of war. Unhand her at once.”
Raza raises her chin. “Last I checked, Your Highness, our nations were at war. It is you who come here begging for peace and pity. As for the member of your court, as you put it, I find it insulting that you attempt to deceive my people by pretending she is anything but what she is.”
Wil steps toward her, his chest forward. “Lady Kalianna is my cousin, a close member of the royal family. I demand you unhand her at once.” I smile despite myself.
“Or what?” says Raza. Her head cocks to the side. “You demand I unhand her or you shall do what, exactly?”
Trace gives my shoulder a final squeeze and rises, coming to stand beside Wil. “Or,” Trace’s low voice rumbles through the tent, “your day will turn out worse than you can imagine, sister.”
13
Kali
The tent is mute. The general’s and Copa’s confused glances clash with Raza’s sudden frozen silence.
Raza swallows. “Whatever do you mean by that, sir?” Her hesitant stuttering morphs into indignation too slowly. A moment faster and she would have had the power of incredulity on her side. “How dare you—”
“That is enough.” Trace crosses his arms and towers over his sister. Calm. Strong. Too large for the constricting tent. “What’s happened to you, Raza? What in the stars’ name are you doing?”
She retreats a step, strikes the canvas wall, and recoils from it with a snarl. Her good eye glistens with silver tears. “So now you are back? After five years of hiding and war? Not for me, not for Everett, but for this . . . this harlot?” Raza waves her hand in my direction but keeps her attention locked on her brother. The hand hanging at her side trembles.
“First, her name is Kalianna,” Trace says.
Raza crosses her arms. Her question hangs in the air like a lit fuse.
The memory of Trace’s calloused hands cupping my face in the darkness echoes through my heart. Our foreheads touching, our energy merging into a whole greater than either of us alone. Then another memory. One outside a cave in the darkness of night, when I asked Trace to stay with me. And he did.
For the first time since hearing Raza’s accusations, something inside my chest stirs, tentatively wondering if the princess might be right. That Trace did choose me.
Trace’s gaze darts to the floor. Then to his sister. “Second,” he says in a cold, powerful voice, “I am back because I cannot permit the woman you’ve become to sit on my people’s throne.”
Reality’s chill percolates through me. Trace—Rune—is the crown prince of Everett. Of course his kingdom’s welfare, not some girl, guides his hand. And certainly not a girl who masquerades as a boy and conjures darkness. He told us all as much around the campfire, said outright that the man who entered Everett would not be the Trace we thought we knew. I raise my chin, force a smile, nod along.
General Hewe pinches the bridge of his nose. “My tent, if you please, Your Highness. Both of you. All bloody three of you.”
“My cousin—” Wil starts to say, but Hewe is already a step ahead, nodding to Copa to open my manacles. The relief I should feel when the metal falls away never comes. “It’s all right now,” Wil says softly, offering me his hand. “They can’t hurt you anymore.”
Apparently, I’m not the only one good at deceiving myself.
“Follow me, please,” Copa instructs, leading me back through the camp to a large tent where Calvin, Luca, and Alexa are waiting.
The old me, the Kali who left Lord Gapral’s estate, would be counting soldiers and steps as we walked, but I can barely keep the ground from swaying beneath my feet. What does it mean that I’m a mage? Might it be a temporary condition? No, of course not. Even I know that much about magic.
Copa clears his throat and I realize I’ve not been listening. “I said that, for the safety of both you and the Everett soldiers, you may not wander the camp without a male escort. The same is true for the other females in your party.”
“I don’t believe Jasmine will be doing much wandering just now,” I say dryly.
Copa nods politely and leaves.
Inside the tent I find a table with a pitcher of drinking water, a platter of dry bread and cheese, five chairs, and a set of pallets with woolen blankets. Taking one of the chairs, I recount what happened to the others, but I can only barely pay attention to their discussion. Luca is speculating whether Trace always planned to reveal himself or made a decision at the spur of the moment, while Calvin wonders whether Bahir might have suspected the full extent of my powers. And I count the seconds until I can be out of this place and as far away from Raza as my feet will take me. When Wil and Trace finally return to the tent, my palms are sweaty with anticipation.
“Well?” I ask, rising to my feet. “Do you know where King Owain is? When are we leaving?”
“We aren’t,” Trace says flatly. “A message has been sent to the king, and we are waiting for a reply before we may leave the camp. A soldier will be posted outside the tent to ensure that no one harasses you while you are here. Raza included. The men may walk around camp so long as you do not handle weapons or approach any locations where weapons might be stored.”
My eyes shift to a sword strapped to Trace’s waist. Apparently, the disarming didn’t apply to him. In fact, with his widespread shoulders and clean shirt, he seems to have already changed from the man I saw not two hours ago. More regal, with wisps of power flowing off him, making him equally more aloof and attractive. Tantalizing. My heart stutters.
“Are we prisoners?” I ask, my chest tightening when Trace’s full attention finally turns to me. “Because staying in a place with guards and no weapons feels a great deal like prison.”
Wil takes a chair beside me, his face low. “We are guests,” he says bitterly, making the word sound like an insult.
“You are not just guests,” Trace says. “There is also the matter of who—or what—Kalianna has turned out to be. We’d thought Bahir was the only mage on the continent, but seeing what Kalianna did with that stim crystal, we were clearly mistaken.”
“Can we talk?” I say, crossing my arms. “Alone.”
For a heartbeat, I’m certain that Trace will say no, but he nods his head to the exit and walks me several paces from the tent, acknowledging the saluting Everett guard with a dismissive nod. His sharp, intelligent eyes survey the camp even as I open my mouth to speak. As if he is doing many things at once and this conversation with me is just a small branch of his responsibilities. A delicate, sinister pain creeps through me at the realization that that—my demotion from relevance—is very likely exactly what’s happening.
I swallow. “Trace.”
“Rune,” he says softly, his face a mask of resolve mixed with a hint of apology. “Or Your Highness.”
I take a step back.
Trace—Rune—no, His Highness—follows. “All choices have costs, Kalianna. I did not ask to come to Everett, but I am here now. And it is how it has to be.”
My hands are cold as I bow my head and shoulders crisply. I will not let him see the slap his words delivered. “You’ve called me a mage several times now, Your Highness. I’d like to know what the bloody hells that is, exactly. What it means. How I control it. If it’s Your Highness’s damn pleasure that I don’t cause some catastrophe by accident, Your Highness might be required to condescend to speak with me.”
A sigh. As if he isn’t the one driving this dance. “Given that you’ve been a mage all your life and have never caused a catastrophe before, I believe the camp is safe enough,” Trace—Rune—says dryly. “Having studied Bahir, I can tell you that mages don’t generate magic themselves, but rather draw it from a source. I did not realize your nature when I healed you because the reaction was small and reflexive. In the incident earlier today, however, you clearly manipulated the magic your body ingested. You made the magic your own. Used it. Speaking of which, I meant to inquire as to whether any of the magic you absorbed in the prisoner’s tent is still contained inside you.”
Incident. Is that what we are calling Raza’s torture now? I school my face. “It is.” A cocooned beehive buzzing in a space it found for itself. Somehow living both in and outside of my body at the same time. I’ve tried to avoid thinking about it. Childish, perhaps, but too much is happening already without reliving nightmares. “I feel like a human living crystal now.” I’m uncertain why I bother adding the latter.
Rune nods, unsurprised. “I imagined the same analogy. Though a crystal’s nature stays constant, whereas you were able to use the unrefined magic of a healing crystal to manipulate light.” Clearly, Rune has given this more thought than I have. “Perhaps your eventual spectrum will come from the combination of the type of magic you absorb and the manner in which you are able to channel those magical reserves.”
“Have you any notion of how I might go about absorbing magic, short of stim crystals?”
“No. But no need to get ahead of ourselves.” Rune straightens his tunic. “I would like you to start training the way a novice whisperer would. Do the basic exercises, attempt to tune the magic that is within you. Perhaps the translation of skills will only be partial, but anything that might prevent an uncontrolled instinctual outburst is beneficial.”
A bloody royal decree. I want to shove Rune on his princely arse. I wonder whether training with Prince Rune will be as delightful as working with the captain of the Dansil Royal Guard, Trace. Regardless, it appears our relationship has come full circle and we are back at meeting for the first time. “All right,” I say finally. “Your schedule is the busier one. When would you like to start?”
“Work with Alexa,” Rune says, turning to leave. “It is unlikely that you will master the basics so quickly as to require my intervention before a more advanced tutor is located.”
14
Kali
“What can possibly be taking so long?” Wil demands, throwing down his cards. “It’s been a week, and every day Bahir holds the throne makes the bastard more entrenched. You’d think His Majesty King Owain might condescend to see either us or his long-dead son before now.”
“I cannot say,” says Calvin from his now-usual place on the sturdiest of the chairs. “But perhaps Master Luca might spend the time in a more productive activity than teaching you how to cheat at cards, Your Highness.”
Luca looks up. “I already tried dice and Wil is terrible. Cards are better.”
“I do believe you missed the salient point,” Calvin says dryly.
“The salient point is that we are trapped here.” I set aside the light crystal Alexa is attempting to teach me to tune. So far, I’ve only managed to wrap my hand in darkness, the shadows creeping up to my elbow. “At least when we were in the forest, it felt like we were making progress.” I scowl at the crystal Rune located for me to practice on. He should have saved himself the trouble and brought me a rock instead. I’ve tried every exercise Alexa can think of, and still, the only thing I can make the light crystal do is hit Luca between the eyes at three paces.
Luca squints at my shadowed hand. “That’s a neat trick, for dice especially. Is it difficult?”
I sever the flow of magic and my hand returns into view. “Unfortunately, yes.” I sigh. “And until I discover a way to absorb additional magic, once my reserves are gone, they’re gone. I wish I knew how Bahir does it.”
“What else can you do so far?” asks Luca.
“Nothing,” I groan. “I think absorbing light to create darkness is instinctual for me, but who knows what will happen if I replenish the magic from another breed of crystal. If I’m ever able to.”
The tent flap opens, inviting in light, silence, and Rune. His silver-blond hair is brushed and tied back with a leather thong, leaving his square jaw exposed. He is dressed in full Everett uniform now: black pants, green jacket with golden buttons, a braid of gold ribbon encircling his shoulder. It looks good on him. Stars, everything looks good on him.
“Jasmine’s fever broke,” Rune says by way of greeting. “She should make a full recovery.”
Alexa squeals, covering her mouth with her hands when Rune smiles at her. The smile fades as he turns to me and holds out a bundle. “It’s for you.”
I take the parcel tentatively, unwrapping the cloth to find an embroidered blue dress inside. The top is tight fitting but soft, with small gems sewn around the low neckline, while the skirt flares gently at the waist, whispering with the promise of easy movement and even riding. A pair of blue sapphire earrings, a matching necklace, and silver slippers complete the package. “It’s . . . beautiful.” I can’t help the words. The truth. It is beautiful. Not fancy like the evening gowns Lady Lianna wore, but more of an everyday elegance designed to bring out the prettiest version of its wearer. My fingers brush the fabric as I look into Rune’s face and catch a small blush rising beneath the skin. “Where did you find this?”
