Chapter 1
Chapter One
“What do you mean I’m being dismissed from the Order of Mergen?” I demand, my voice squeaky from the panic gripping my vocal cords in a vice-like hold.
“It’s rather straightforward,” Prior Gremple says, looking down at me from his book- and scroll-covered desk.
“You used magic during your tutoring assignment, though you knew it was expressly forbidden.” He wipes his hands as if he’s sloughing off both me and this whole untidy situation. “It’s grounds for immediate expulsion.”
“It saved Ju—” I catch myself at Gremple’s disapproving frown at the familiar use of my pupil’s name. “The simple spell saved my student’s life.”
My excuse doesn’t soften his resolve. If anything, it seems to harden it.
“We send Mergen novitiates out into the world to root out the ones who lack the willpower and moral fortitude to resist the temptation of practicing the magic they’ve studied here.
” His gaze travels over me, his tight lips and narrow gaze obviously finding fault with my thin frame and mud-colored hair and eyes.
“Given your parentage, I had my suspicions you’d prove lacking. ”
“My family has nothing to do with my actions.” I defend myself, knowing I already have a strike against me because of the Mergen and mage mixture of my bloodline.
“You think so?” he asks coldly. I’d long believed Gremple disliked me, but now I’m sure of it.
With my dismissal at hand, he’s just no longer bothering to hide it.
“Though your father was a full-blooded Mergen scholar, his time here was spent challenging our traditions and then completely abandoning them to take up with a mage,” he says, pronouncing the word like it’s a curse.
“I had hoped our charity toward your—circumstances—would have tempered any such weaknesses on your part.” He shakes his head.
“Your actions prove bad blood wins out.”
I register the slurs he’s just visited on my parents and me, but being offended is a luxury I can’t afford. Not when I’m about to lose the only place in all the realms I belong. “Give me another chance,” I plead. “Send me out on another assignment, and I swear I’ll do better this time.”
“There are no exceptions,” he replies without a trace of regret. He speaks his next words slowly, as if he’s savoring them. “You are hereby dismissed from the Order of Mergen.”
This can’t be happening. I’ve spent the last fourteen years of my life fighting to fit in here. My grandmother left me on the Order’s doorstep when I was seven years old, after she deemed me hopeless at magics. Being a scholar is all I know how to be.
The only stable foundation I’ve ever known is disintegrating beneath my feet, and I have no safe place to land.
Desperately, I look for any footfall or hold that will stave off my descent.
My eyes fall on Gremple’s desk and spot one of the reports I performed the primary research on.
It involved the location of the lost Bryndonian Orb.
Through tireless research and an ability to read an obscure Dryad dialect, I was able to deduce that the Albasynnian Coven had stolen the magical artifact two centuries ago.
“If you let me remain in the Order,” I say, the words rushing out of me without thought, “I’ll reclaim the orb and bring it back to the Mergen archives.” As I hear myself speak, I’m just as surprised at my audacity as Prior Gremple is.
He barks out a laugh as dry and dusty as the ancient parchments housed in this room. “You think you can retrieve an artifact from a cult of primal dark magic witches infamous for their use of ritual sacrifice?”
“Yes,” I say, though my shaky-voiced answer reveals my own considerable doubts as I scramble for a plan that could somehow back up the hastily made deal I just offered.
An image of a lone raven feather flashes in my head.
I saw it just this morning, safely nestled among my belongings, even though I’ve meant to throw it in the trash every day since I found it.
A solid plan begins to form. “Yes,” I say more forcefully.
“If you let me stay in the Mergen Order, I will bring you the orb.”
“Impossible,” he scoffs.
“Most likely,” I agree. “But think about the acclaim you’ll receive if I’m successful and you present the last known magical artifact from an extinct realm as your discovery at this year’s symposium.”
His usually dull eyes brighten with greed, so I press on.
“If I fail to bring back the artifact, then you will never see me again,” I say, acknowledging the danger of my plan and the high probability I won’t be able to accomplish it.
“But if I succeed and bring you the Bryndonian Orb, you’ll be celebrated as a top-level scholar, which will surely bolster your bid to become abbot. ”
I watch quietly as he thinks over my proposal and weighs the cost-benefit ratio.
Even a substandard scholar such as Gremple should recognize he has nothing to lose from accepting the bargain.
He leans back in his chair and pinpoints me once again with his disapproving gaze.
“If you bring me back the orb, you’ll be reinstated to the Order of Mergen. ”
Relief rushes through me at knowing I at least have a chance of keeping my home. Gremple consults the cylindrical calendar on the corner of his desk and spins it several times to access the right realm’s method of time keeping. “You have a week to complete the task.”
“One week?” I object. Retrieving the orb will be an impossible task as it is. There’s no way I can accomplish it in such a short period. “I need more time to pla—”
“One week,” he interrupts me. “If the Bryndonian Orb is not in the Mergen artifact room by human Christmas, our deal is terminated, and you will permanently be excised from the Order.”
I realize in that moment that Gremple doesn’t just dislike me. He hates me. As much as he covets presenting the orb as his own discovery, he wants to witness me and my mixed Mergen bloodline fail even more.
“I’ll have it by human Christmas,” I vow, even more determined to throw his hate back in his face and return with the artifact.
“And there will be no use of magics,” he says with gleeful spite at erecting another roadblock in achieving my quest.
He’d be disappointed to know this second requirement isn’t the setback he thinks it is.
Unlike other Mergen scholars, I’ve never felt the temptation to use the magical knowledge I’ve gained here.
Because of the mage magic I inherited from my mother, I have access to a mystical source that doesn’t usually require spells or conduits to access it or enhance it.
I’ve always been terrified of the power of my magic, though.
It’s too vast. Too electric. Every time I’ve ever tried to harness it, it has overwhelmed me, and I couldn’t cast the simplest of spells.
It’s what frustrated my grandmother enough to finally wash her hands of me and abandon me.
The spell I cast, that Gremple dismissed me for, was an act of pure panic to save my student’s life.
The magic had charged out of me instinctively to help him.
Without such a threat, I doubt I’d ever be able to wield my magic so effectively ever again.
So heedless of Gremple’s stipulation, I will retrieve the orb using the only true power I possess—my intelligence.
Well, my intelligence and the help of a raven shifter thief who I must now somehow convince to help me retrieve the Bryndonian Orb from a coven of infamously dangerous and bloodthirsty witches.