The Court Wizard (The Archetypes #1)

Chapter 1

Evie

Cold prickled along my skin, the hairs on my neck rising as something unseen pressed against the edges of the room, heavy in the shadows. A sensation I knew too well. It came when I was anxious, when emotions swelled too large, like worry, anger, or fear.

The gray stone walls seemed to lean closer, ready to swallow me whole if I lost control. I had to stay calm, keep my heartbeat steady, or an echo or two might strike.

The lovely curse of being a seerling.

Fate could have made me a seer. An augur, a precognizant mage. But no, I had to be the feeble one.

Proper clairvoyants were like oracles in temples on mountains.

They saw the future and advised kings. Seerlings, on the other hand, were just pretend-seers, cursed with echoes of the past that filled their minds with ghosts.

Unsolicited, uncontrollable, and painfully intrusive.

We saw things no one wanted witnessed. And the worst part was, there was no way to stop it.

And so, people either mocked us or cast us aside so we would not be a bother.

I sat alone in the dark. No windows, only arrow slits carving narrow stripes of light across the chamber. The chandelier above could have banished the shadows, but I hadn’t lit it when I’d arrived. Now my nerves kept me pinned in place. The dark was comfortable enough.

The stone table loomed in front of me, massive enough to take up more space than the breath in my chest. The weight pressing on me wasn’t fear of ghosts.

It was fear of the living. Of those who would walk through that door at any moment.

I’d arrived twenty minutes early, dragged here by nerves, and the silence punished me for it.

Silly. They were the ones who were late.

And somehow that made me more nervous. I didn’t want an echo, not now, not in front of them.

Some in the Court already mocked me for talking to goats.

If they learned I was a seerling, and probably the worst one from the mere handful on Terra, my post at the Council of Farming would vanish like smoke.

Magisters didn’t lose control. Magisters were powerful wizards who willed the arcane into perfect shape.

I was one of them now. I should know. But my true powers, the ones I shoved down a box of blackiron whenever they stirred, were unruly.

Insolent. And whatever echoes prowled the room tonight seemed to laugh at me.

The heavy door groaned open at last, a sound that filled the chamber like a warning bell.

Jorren Pellam entered first. Rings polished to mirrors, blood red tunic embroidered with golden roses.

He stood for the Council of Trade. He blinked when he saw me, then gave a smile that did not touch his brown eyes.

Fake, like everything about him. He didn’t like me.

He didn’t like anyone. On the day we’d met, he’d told me I’d be bored here soon, as though boredom were a fate worse than death. He slid into his seat with a flourish.

Isolde Karreman followed, brisk as a whip, black robes slicing the air.

Her hair was bound in a flawless knot, not a strand astray, her face pale as chalk.

Shadows beneath her eyes betrayed sleepless nights.

She lit the chandelier with a flick of her fingers, and her frown cut toward me, as if wondering why Jorren and I had chosen to sit in the dark.

She’d given me the tour of the halls my first day, but she’d never felt like an ally.

The Council of Justice left little room for warmth. She settled on my left.

“You look tired, Isolde,” Jorren purred, voice like poisoned honey. “Still buried under the Crown’s new edicts?”

“Someone has to be, Jorren,” she said, clipped.

“I half expected you to breeze in late again.”

Her eyes flickered as if she could stab him with a glance. “Unlike your trousers, my work does not fall open at the first distraction. Mind your own business, will you?”

Jorren simply laughed, her words being no more than background chatter.

Have I just suddenly vanished? Their chatter was spilling on as if I weren’t there. These two clearly had history. Or maybe it was simply magisters being magisters, brilliant, too proud to bend, their brilliance always walking the edge of cruelty.

Their bickering was cut short when Thalen Mierske entered.

The battlemage. Council of War. Long silver hair streaked with stubborn black, a scar carved deep across his cheek, and the scent of steel and smoke clinging to him as if he’d carried the battlefield inside.

He nodded once in my direction, curt, dismissive.

Lo, my only friend here, had warned me he was scary.

Scary was too soft a word.

That man looked lethal. He sat on my right, and a shiver ran down my spine.

No one spoke. For a heartbeat, it felt like we were all testing each other’s silence. Then Thalen’s booming voice filled the chamber.

The monthly assembly of magisters, my first since joining the Court, was about to begin.

“Restoring trade routes still causing trouble, Pellam? Last time you said Lutessian port masters were being…” his lips curled, “dickheads. You look like you had a rough month.”

Jorren chuckled wryly. “Must mean I had a good month, then. And no, I’ve better matters to manage than the tantrums of port masters. For one,” he pointed a jeweled finger at Thalen, “your soldiers are making certain Bretannian nervous.”

Thalen scoffed. “How would you know about matters of the people? You’re a trader, Pellam. Not Chancellor of the Commons.”

“And you are a battlemage,” Jorren drawled, twisting a ring, “But, in case you’re interested, Selena told me.”

Thalen laughed, harsh and deep. “Of course she did. And where is Selena, so we can finally speak of the unrest in Befest?”

So. Straight to the bleeding heart of the kingdom.

Where in the seventh hell is Lo? He’d warned me about these assemblies. Magisters were difficult, hotheaded, and never in agreement. Such was the fate of court wizards. Trust no one, doubt your friends, despise everyone else.

And more importantly, where was the Court Wizard?

Three weeks ago, I had joined the court wizards, making my parents proud. Relieved, more like. I wasn’t the idle seerling in hiding anymore.

Where I came from, and almost everywhere else, it was hard for seerlings to find work as magi.

We could be admitted into academies, but we’d be kept under close watch.

So my parents had made me keep it quiet.

They wanted me to have a future, a good and stable life. They didn’t want echoes to ruin that.

You don’t want to know some of the things I’ve seen against people’s will and my own. They’d put a few to shame, for sure.

And so I hid my magic, the real one. I could cast the usual spells, and I was very good when it came to matters of nature.

I had taught weather magic, even animalism, at the Magi Academy of Hauvia.

But my parents still worried I would be stuck to a life behind academy walls forever.

They lived half a world away, yet I’d always felt them breathing down my neck.

Here in Befest, magisters served as advisors and savants to the seven councils.

Each chancellor had their own wizard. When I put myself forth for the Council of Farming, Chancellor Bramwell Alderholt had said he’d seen something in me.

I wasn’t convinced what yet. Speaking to animals, reading the weather, coaxing crops to grow, all of it served the farmers.

So I became Bram’s own personal wizard, spending my first weeks listening to farmers’ complaints and, yes, talking to goats, learning about the land.

So instead of academy walls, I found myself confined to the castle and the fields. Which, in its own way, was a quiet blessing.

As long as my powers stayed quiet.

The guards here called me goat-whisperer. Not exactly cruel, just a jest I had earned. Still, did they have to keep repeating it as if it were the cleverest thing ever said? In truth, I preferred the goats to their masters. Who wouldn’t?

My thoughts snapped back as Thalen’s booming voice cut through the chamber.

He spoke of these rumors of new revolts in the State of Bretannia, then of the riots festering in the city gutters again.

His tone made it sound like magic should be used to pacify, or perhaps to punish.

I wasn’t sure which. Shame curled in my chest. I should have been listening, but my thoughts were too loud, that sense of dread too sharp to let me shape a single word that mattered.

The creak of the door interrupted him. Another magister slipped inside.

Selena Hart.

My gaze followed her without permission.

Her skin caught the light like silk, her golden braid laid carefully over one shoulder.

Her eyes, sharp, ashen blue, matched the robe she wore, impossible to miss.

Lo had told me she could soothe with a word, disarm with a glance.

She was an empath, a powerful psion. I believed him.

And there was Lo himself, trailing after her.

His shoulder-length smooth black hair hung loose, his blue embroidered robe flowing as he moved, a heavy leather-bound notebook under his arm and a quill balanced in his hand.

The only true friend I had here in this court.

We’d met at the academy back when we’d been students.

He was half elf, and for me, who was a stranger in this land, we could relate to each other.

He’d been the one who’d told me of the open post. His presence steadied me now.

And his presence meant one thing. Because Lo was the Court Wizard’s assistant, so he would follow next.

“Enough with the talk of casting spells on civilians, Thalen,” Selena said, her voice soft but iron at its core. She did not need to shout. Her words cut clean as a blade. I admired that.

She took her seat beside Isolde, all grace, while Lo slipped in beside her, opened his notebook and sent me a quick smile. My chest eased.