Two - Isabel
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“Really?” I glaredat the heavens. Only a few puffy clouds interrupted the crystalline blue of the sky. “A perfect summer day? Just a hint of autumn in the air, preventing the sunshine from being unbearable? Tsy take it, we’ll only get a handful of days like this before the rains come, and today has to be one of them?”
I kicked at my skirts, the rocks in the road, anything. “How can I properly sulk with birds singing at me?”
Unsatisfied with kicking things—and tired of tripping myself—I grabbed a fallen branch and began whacking at the tall grass creeping onto the road. Under normal circumstances, the route between Leort and Rose Castle saw enough traffic to beat the grass back. Then, two months ago, a flood of castle workers had arrived in town with no explanation, declaring the castle closed to visitors until further notice. No one had traveled it since.
“Almost no one,” I corrected my thoughts aloud and threw the stick into the verge. I had always preferred to vent my frustrations verbally rather than physically. It didn’t matter that no one but the birds and the gods could hear me now.
“He had to try for a big score, didn’t he?” I found another pebble and kicked it down the road. “I know, I know. He always wants to do something bigger. Even with me working with the constables and Sofia with the magistrates, he still thinks he can get away with being a thief.”
I thought I had come to terms with my father’s disrespect for the law years ago, but this time, he had gone too far. He had no right to drag me into his problems.
“You’d think he’d realize that—even with all the rumors—a castle brimming with magic wouldn’t be an easy target, wouldn’t you?”
A lark trilled from a nearby tree, and I shook my finger at it. “You’d be wrong.” I imitated my father’s gruff voice. “It should have been a quick in and out, Isabel. The duke sent everyone away. I figured he was dying. Or dead. The castle was as good as empty.”
I threw my hands up in the air, startling another bird into flight. “The castle sits on a damn node and is the home of a duke! Even if the craziest rumors were true—and even those never went so far as to claim the duke was dead—Father never had a chance of stealing anything.”
I savored my rage, not telling even the birds my real problem. If I admitted it, despair might take over the rage, and I refused to arrive at the castle blotchy and teary-eyed. It would send the wrong impression.
I had every intention of delivering a tongue-lashing once I reached the duke, and such things were more effective if the deliverer looked calm and mature. Poise lent tongue-lashings more weight. Tears made them sound like the product of a girl throwing a fit.
Luckily for me, I had plenty to be angry about. The final mile of my walk, I focused my energy on my father. I alternated between cursing his ego and calling him every word for stupid I knew. Experience had given me quite a selection.
The birds ignored my tirade, and I ignored their damned, cheerful singing.
My litany of insults trailed off when I crested one of the taller hills in the area and caught sight of Rose Castle. Truthhold was situated in a stretch of hilly land surrounded on three sides by mountains. The castle perched at the peak of the next hill over, not quite centered, with the ridges of the Gaboor Mountains behind. Constructed out of pale pink granite, people had named the manor Rose Castle shortly after it was built. Then the magic pooling in the Truthholder node intervened. Now Rose Castle truly lived up to its name. Technically a manor house, it had a tower at each corner that fit the term castle well enough. But it was the rose part where the magic had truly taken over.
I couldn’t see a single patch of the pink stone as I walked down my hill toward the castle. The sun hadn’t quite sunk behind the mountains in the west, the most distant stretch of the Gaboors from where I stood, and the light was enough to illuminate the briars covering every inch of the castle walls. Scarlet, pink, yellow, orange, and white blooms alternated with the deep green of the vines. The facade looked more like a tapestry woven from the castle’s namesake plant than a stone wall.
The breeze carried the sweet scent of roses all the way to the base of the hill. For a moment, I stopped, my anger and hopelessness fading. Under any other circumstances, walking up to the castle doors would have left me gaping.
Even without the ability to sense the power in the air, how had my father overlooked the magic permeating this place? Usually, I had to concentrate to sense magic, and could still only catch it under very specific circumstances, but here, so many trickles of power joined together that it shivered over my skin, the vibration of a sound too low to hear.
I concentrated on that energy, trying to hear it. Instead, I felt the power twined around my torso pulling tighter. I rubbed at my sternum, wishing I could ease the pressure. I took another step, but even that didn’t satisfy the magic at this point. Perhaps the sensation wouldn’t be so strong if my father had told me what he had done the instant he returned to Leort last night, instead of spending the evening in a tavern and staggering home after I was in bed.
I hadn’t understood the tug of the magic when it first wrapped around me. This morning, the pressure had been almost unbearable. Then my father stumbled downstairs and told me I had to go to Rose Castle because of a contract he signed in order to save his own hide after getting caught trying to rob the duke. Magic bound me to fulfill the terms of a contract I hadn’t even seen.
It should have been impossible for my father to sign away my freedom. I was an adult. Father had lost his legal authority over me years ago. But somehow, I was still bound by this contract.
With every step up the hillside, a little more of my wonder at the beauty of Rose Castle was replaced by indignation. My father wasn’t the only one at fault in this situation. Since I hadn’t had the time to yell at him, the duke would bear the brunt of my anger. I refused to let my awe of the castle and the magic suffusing the hillside affect me.
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I didn’t botherto knock at the doors of the castle. I knew there was no butler here to welcome me. The people of Leort had tried for weeks to get Master Berklay to explain why he, the handful of servants, and the passel of clerks who lived in the castle had left. The butler only said the duke wanted solitude. The clerks and secretaries could do their jobs just as well in Leort.
Even my mentor among the constables—who happened to be Berklay’s brother—couldn’t get a straight answer. I had been too busy to devote any time to satisfying my curiosity.
I looked at the brass doorknob. For the first time in my life, I wished I wasn’t about to have my questions answered. I’d take not knowing over this forced excursion to Rose Castle.
I threw open the doors, the tug of magic directing me inside. Candles flicked to life in the sconces on the walls as I walked into the foyer. If my father had even a lick of sense, he’d have fled the instant the first candle lit on its own. I certainly wanted to flee. But I couldn’t.
The magic pulled me deeper into the castle. Two doors stood open across from me, leading to a large, mostly empty room. I crossed into what had to be the great hall. No candles came to life here. The only light came from the large brazier in the center of the space. Slightly longer than it was wide, the room lacked any other ornamentation. Nothing but that marble pillar topped with a copper bowl of fire.
The flames licked back and forth, reflecting off the marble floor but not illuminating the entire room. Shadows danced along the perimeter in time with the flickers from the brazier. The phantom movements left me uneasy. The tug of power around my torso had stopped once I reached the node, but I didn’t know what I was doing here. Nor could I shake the feeling that someone hid in the shadows, darting from corner to corner.
I closed my eyes and concentrated. Raw magic flowed toward the brazier from every direction. Rivers of power all pooling inside the flames that seemed too small to contain the torrent. Despite the emptiness of the room, I felt crowded by the power pulsing around me.
The energy emanating from the node sounded like nothing I had ever experienced. My magic manifested as sounds, bells I heard in my mind when people spoke. Raw magic hummed at a pitch just at the edge of my magical range. The vibration of the power from the node, on the other hand, resonated in my bones, the hum growing louder the longer I listened. It sounded like shaped power, brimming with the potential to do any truth-magic imagined.
“Miss Sofia Cardh.”
My eyes snapped open, and I spun toward the source of the deep voice. I saw nothing in the flickering light. My response came by rote, a sing-songy refrain I had uttered countless times over the years. “Wrong twin. Try again.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not Sofia.” I squinted into the shadows, wondering if the empty room played tricks with acoustics, making it seem like the voice came out of the floor itself. I still saw nothing. “You have the wrong twin.”
“Impossible. The contract your father signed clearly stated he would send me his younger daughter, Sofia.”
“Well, there’s your problem. Sofia beat me into the world by a good five minutes.”
“But she’s . . . you’re not . . .”
“I’m not . . .?” I had heard it all before. I never came out ahead when compared to my sister—except in stubbornness. Sofia was so sweet and kind that I didn’t even resent my twin after spending years listening to recitations of my own shortcomings.
The owner of the bass voice—who must be Duke Felix, though I wasn’t willing to rule out this castle having enchanted, talking floors—didn’t name any of my flaws, though. He settled on a heartfelt curse. “I had to be clever and say ‘younger daughter.’ I couldn’t just name Sofia, because there are ways of changing names. Idiot.”
I had to bite my tongue, but I managed not to voice my own opinion on his intelligence.
“Well,” he continued, “at least you are a mage with a truth-magic, too. It’s not a complete loss.”
“In fact, I am the more powerful mage.” Modesty came near the top of the list of traits Sofia possessed in greater abundance than I. Right under agreeableness and discretion. Not calling the duke an idiot had stretched the limits of my tact for the next month, at least.
“But you, Miss Isabel Cardh, are a truth-reader. I wanted a truth-teller.”
“As if you need either power here.”
“Normally, no,” the duke drawled. “However, things are a bit strange at the moment.”
“Really? The empty castle and disembodied voice didn’t clue me into that at all. Not to mention your disregard for legalities in order to kidnap me.”
“My voice isn’t disembodied. It is more . . . mis-embodied. And I assure you the contract only worked because it technically adheres to legalities. Besides, I see it as more of a recruitment than a kidnapping.”
“Recruitment implies choice. This was a conscription at best.” I wanted to expound on my chastisements, but I had to ask, “What do you mean by mis-embodied?”
“Well.” He cleared his throat, then fell silent.
“Well?”
“You know there is a non-disclosure clause in the contract your father signed?”
“I do now.” Father hadn’t told me any more than the fact that he had signed a contract that had allowed him to go free in return for me traveling to Rose Castle. The power enforcing that contract hadn’t given me the time to question him more fully. It hadn’t given me time to do anything but throw a change of clothes into a bag and go.
“You can’t tell anybody.”
I rolled my eyes. “I understand what non-disclosure means. Get on with it.”
“I’ve been cursed into another form.” Each word came faster than the last.
I repeated the sentence in my head, making sure I hadn’t mixed anything up. It still made no sense. “What do you mean, another form? And cursed? Curses don’t exist.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Circumstances have changed my mind.”
I opened my mouth, ready to demand an answer that actually explained anything, when I noticed for the first time that my power lay dormant. I could still hear the pure tone of the node if I concentrated, but nothing else. My eyes widened. “I can’t tell if you are lying!”
I heard no bells signaling the truth of anything he said. Unlike truth-telling, my power always remained in effect. If a person spoke in my vicinity, then I sensed if they spoke the truth, a shading of the truth, or a lie. Musical bells underscored truths, klaxons identified lies, and variations in harmony showed me the shades in between. But I heard nothing under the duke’s words.
“Of course not.” The duke clearly shared my level of modesty. “My tie to the node gives me immunity to your power.”
“But the node is locked to truth-telling, not truth-reading.” I thought back over my lessons in basic history and magical theory. When within a certain distance of the node, the duke’s blood-tie essentially made him a mage with the same power as had been used to lock the node. “You should only be immune to that power.”
Technically, even then, he didn’t have true immunity. A truth-teller simply needed more power than the duke to affect him. It was the same for all mages with the same type of magic. I could only read another truth-reader if they had less power. I had never encountered anyone I couldn’t read before. But no mage had more power than a node.
“They are both truth-magics.” The duke’s voice slipped back into that lazy drawl. “Truth-telling is stronger, so my immunity makes sense.”
I crossed my arms, guessing as best I could where to direct my glare. “You cannot possibly believe that drivel that active powers are more powerful than their passive counterparts? They are two sides of the same coin—different, but equal.”
“Do you really think that knowing a storm is coming is as good as being able to divert the storm?”
“It’s the difference between being proactive and reactive.” I warmed to the argument. Reason replaced outrage. “Knowing to take shelter before a storm strikes is far better than being able to banish the rain after you’ve already been caught unaware.”
“The weather-changer can learn mundane ways of predicting the weather and still be proactive. The reader will never be able to alter the weather, though.”
I scoffed. The duke’s argument was true—except that most active-power mages shared his disdain for passive powers. “How many weather-changers will take the time to learn how to predict the weather, pay attention to the signs, and never make a mistake? The weather-reader might never be able to stop rain, but they will always know what is coming and never make a mistake. Your attitude is short-sighted at best.”
I crossed my arms, then realized we had drifted far off topic. I couldn’t even place all the blame on the duke. I huffed out a breath. “No wonder you wanted Sofia instead of me. If you really think passive powers are useless, you might as well release me and I’ll be on my way.”
“Oh no, you are going to help me break this curse.” The duke chuckled. “It should be no problem for you, since you think your power is better.”
“I never said that.”
“And I never said truth-telling is stronger.”
My jaw dropped, my arms falling to my sides. “Yes, you did!”
“Well, I didn’t mean it.”
“You didn’t . . .” My hands curled into fists. “It is no surprise somebody cursed you. I want to curse you.”
“Too bad. You are contractually obligated to help me to the best of your ability.”
I strained my eyes, but I still couldn’t spot the duke in the flickering light. He said he wasn’t disembodied, but what form had he taken? I wanted to know, but understanding my own predicament took priority. I’d allowed the duke to sweep me into a pointless debate for too long. “How does that even work? My father doesn’t have the authority to sign for me.”
“Actually, he does. While women have been granted full legal status, there is still an old law on the books detailing the hierarchy of male next of kin from before. Since you are unmarried, your father has the legal authority to sign in your name.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I am the legal master of my own life, even if that law wasn’t repealed. My autonomy supersedes any rights my father might have.”
“For practical purposes, certainly. A magistrate would rule in your favor without hesitation. But as far as the magic of the node is concerned, your father’s signature is legally binding.”
I knew several magistrates who would probably hesitate, despite the clarity of the laws. Powerful positions in Leort were filled almost entirely by hide-bound misogynists. It was why I had given up on my dream of working as an advocate. The magistrates would never let me argue cases. They’d only ever see me as a secretary who could double as a truth-detector. I had instead pursued a job with the constables.
Chief Nassan might not think that women could handle the rigors of enforcing the law, but I had Frederic and a few other of the men on my side. After years of proving myself over and over again, the balance was shifting. At least, it had been before I’d been forced to leave town without a word.
I added Duke Felix to my list of men who didn’t deserve their power. Though I was willing to admit that his issue probably wasn’t my sex. He simply had no compunction against exploiting a loophole in the law. “I think I might hate you.”
The duke chuckled. “I can respect that. Evidence suggests you aren’t the first to feel that way.”
“Ah yes, your curse. Are you ever going to explain what you meant about being mis-embodied? I promise not to scream upon seeing your cursed form.”
“I doubt a scream will be your first reaction,” he muttered.
There was a ripple in the shadows where his voice had come from. At first I thought the movement was a shadow itself, then I noticed the details. Four legs. A tail.
He was right; I felt no temptation to scream. I clapped a hand over my mouth, stifling my laughter.