Chapter 5
There were several ways I’d imagined my conversation with Lorian going about what we should do about the impossible situation we’d found ourselves in. How it was actually going was nowhere near what I’d expected. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it was going the exact opposite of how I’d expected.
“It’s our best shot, Nairu.” Lorian sat on the edge of my bed while I paced the room. “I know it isn’t fair. I am the one who got us into this screwed-up mess, and now I’m relying on you to get us out of it. I know—but this could be a blessing in disguise.”
“Except it won’t stop at him wanting to train me how to use my magic.
He isn’t doing this out of the goodness of his heart.
There is always an end goal, and I will not spend my life in service to a bastard like that.
These are the types of corrupt leaders we sail the realm to put a stop to, and you’re asking me to put myself in the position to be used by him. ”
“It isn’t like that.” He stood and put his hands on my shoulders.
“I promise, I would never ask you to do this if it wasn’t our only option for getting out of this alive, or if I thought it would put you in danger.
Alandris is not a bad male. He will protect you while you’re under his care here at the Consortium, and Kaelias, Makatza, and I will be here, too.
He has his reasons for what he’s doing.”
I swallowed. “You’re lying to me.”
“I’m not.”
“But you aren’t telling me everything you know.”
Though it was difficult to catch, Lorian had a distinct tell if you knew what you were looking for.
He would pinch his brows together just for the briefest of moments when he lied.
I’d caught onto it after losing to him in cards one too many times.
Now it was ingrained in my mind. He’d done it the moment I’d accused him of lying, and thus confirmed my suspicions in the same instant.
If not outright lying, at the very least, he was withholding information.
He frowned. He knew I knew—had known when I’d stopped losing my bets against him. “Can you trust me for now?”
Part of me wanted to say no. I trusted my Captain, my friend, with my life. But putting my blind faith in him when I knew he was hiding something from me? That was difficult to come to terms with.
I placed my hand on his forearm. “You promise me there’s a damn good reason why you aren’t telling me everything?”
“I promise.”
I hesitated, but conceded in the end. “Fine.”
Relief washed over his features. “This might be a good thing—mastering that magic you used on the ship. I’ll admit you scared me back there. Not that I was scared of you, but for you. I didn’t know you could use magic.”
“Neither did I, not truly. Prior to that night on the ship, I’d summoned tiny balls of shadow, but never on such a grand scale.
Honestly, I’m not sure I want to use my magic like that again.
” I looked down at the floor. “I’m so sorry.
Hurting you, Kaelias, and Makatza was not my intention. I didn’t have control of myself.”
“We don’t blame you, Nairu.” He reached to place his hand atop mine. “You were doing everything in your power—quite literally—to protect us. I don’t want to see you kicking yourself for it, alright? Captain’s orders.”
“It strikes me you could have ordered me to remain here.”
“I’m not that kind of Captain.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I’ve followed you these past two years.”
There was a quick rap at the door before a blond head of hair poked through the doorway, leaning halfway into the room.
“Is everything in order?” The girl’s voice was bubbly and sweet, the perfect match to her lively appearance. Her gently pointed ears identified her as a half-Elf, and her jacket displayed the same pin—a crescent moon within a sun—I’d seen on Alandris’s shirt. A Consortium Mage, then.
“Yes, I was just leaving.” Lorian mouthed me a quick farewell and pushed past the girl out of the room.
She was in front of me before the door could close behind him, grabbing for my hand. “I’m Luelle. I’ll be your roommate.”
There was always something awkward about meeting someone so incredibly outgoing when you were… not. “I’m Nairu. Are you showing me to our room?”
I had no idea where I’d been staying so far, but I’d gotten used to the room.
It was small, cozy, and best of all—all my own.
Not that I wasn’t used to sharing a space with other people—the ship had desensitized me to the idea of personal space—but I’d been enjoying the familiarity of this room in what was otherwise a completely unknown environment.
I could pretend everything was fine within these four walls.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to face the Mages Consortium in all of its glory, or lack thereof.
“I’m going to give you the full tour of the Consortium!”
Great. Nothing like ripping off the bandage.
Apparently, I’d been staying in a guest wing.
Luelle had given me extensive details on every notable guest the Consortium had hosted over the past ten years.
Mind you, Luelle had only been training at the Consortium for two years now, but she was basically a walking history book on the place.
I asked her questions even when I didn’t care, because it was both humorous and adorable to watch her light up with excitement at the prospect of showing off her knowledge.
My favorite place she showed me was the library.
The small collection I’d gotten to browse in the meeting room was nothing compared to the main library.
Endless rows of books shot high into the ceiling beyond where anyone could reasonably reach.
I suspected some sort of magic was at play that allowed the shelves to be accessed.
In the center of the room were lines of tables.
Several Mages sat at the tables, studying books in caplet jackets bearing the Mages Consortium emblem, just like Luelle’s.
“There’s a uniform?” I asked her.
“Just a jacket and the pin, of course. You’re free to wear whatever you’d like underneath, but I’d recommend something easy to move in. Probably not something you care about, either. Battle training can get intense. Spells misfire sometimes.”
“I have with me exactly what I’m currently wearing.”
She scanned her eyes over my outfit, and to her credit, did not give a look of abject horror when she saw my week-old, unwashed leather pants and once white—now yellowed cotton shirt. “I have some clothes you can use. The jacket is provided.”
We appeared roughly the same size and height, and if not, I could make it work.
I’d always been slender, but I’d managed to put on some muscle on the ship.
My week of bed rest and my chaotic magic use destroyed any muscle definition I had gained.
I could feel it eating away at me still.
I’d not had a chance to look in the mirror, but I had a feeling I didn’t want to, for more than one reason.
“Is there a bath?”
“Shall we?” She didn’t wait for my answer before grabbing my hand and half skipping out of the library.
The baths were as luxurious as I’d expected them to be, based on the rest of the castle so far.
Columns of carved stone jutted out from the ground separating the nine differing bathing pools, further separated by lattice panels covered in flowers and vines.
Not exactly private, but again, seafaring had ruined the concept for me, anyway.
I’d seen more in two years than I’d seen in my entire life.
Skin was just skin at this point, and I didn’t care enough to be bothered by a near stranger seeing me naked.
“Oh! If you wait, I’ll run and grab you a change of clothes!” Luelle said, setting her jacket on the nearby shelf. “There are some oils in the cabinet there. Pick whatever you’d like. I don’t mind, I like them all. You can get in first. It won’t take me long.”
“Thank you, Luelle.”
“Elle is fine.” She smiled and rushed off.
I sorted through the cabinet, pulling out lemon, clove, and cinnamon oils, and soap.
I poured the contents into the steaming water and took a moment just to breathe in the lovely scent.
It was so pleasant I became acutely aware of just how unpleasant I likely smelled, and stripped out of my shoes and clothes, tossing them in a basket next to the bath.
The heat of the bath was downright sinful.
This wasn’t a luxury you commonly got to indulge in with a life of seafaring.
One toe in and I was already in ecstasy.
Elle was going to have to pry my overheated, shriveled body from the water herself, because there was no way I was leaving of my own accord.
I sunk down to my shoulders and lifted my head to the ceiling, closing my eyes and letting my long hair float in the water behind me.
I’d lost track of time floating like that, but I eventually heard the fast tapping of Elle’s shoes against the stone floor.
“Amazing, right?”
I sighed deeply. “I am regretting the life I have lived until now.”
I heard her sink down into the water next to me and opened my eyes. “Can we stay a while?”
She giggled and pulled her hair from the blue ribbon that had been tying it. It fell midway down her neck in a perfect bob. “Yes, of course. They gave me leave from training today to show you around.”
“From Alandris?”
She gave me a strange look. “The Grand Arch Magus, yes.”
Titles. Right. Noted. I was going to call him Alandris. “What do you think of him? Sorry, can I ask that? Is it treasonous to speak against him?”
“Treasonous?” She burst into a laughter so loud it didn’t sound like it could come from her body.
“That isn’t how things work here. The Grand Arch Magus is the leader of the Consortium, but we do not answer to any kingdom, nor to any person.
Decisions are made collectively by the upper ranking Mages.
If at any time they were to determine he was not a capable leader, they have the power to remove him from his position.
It ensures we maintain absolute neutrality. ”
It wasn’t what I’d expected given the rumors I’d heard, especially based on my first impression of Alandris, but it was possible Elle wasn’t fully aware of the inner workings of the Consortium.
She seemed the type to see everything through a rose-colored lens.
If I wanted answers, I would need to seek them out myself.
Regardless of Elle’s faith in the system, I wasn’t going to trust someone who’d threatened my crew and me before gathering more information.
Elle continued, “before the Grand Arch Magus took over, there was a different Elven Mage in power, Lyandril Varellia. He was an exceptional Mage, but he rarely taught, and he was gone from the Consortium for months on end at a time, taking Mages with him who would never return. If I am being transparent, there were whispers of corruption from outside kingdoms, and our current leader suffers the consequences of the reputation Lyandril created for himself. He has been doing his best to make the Consortium a place to be proud of once again. As far as what I think of him personally, I’m happy to call him a mentor. ”
She was certainly singing high praises for the male, though that may have been why he’d assigned her to show me around in the first place. “What happened to Lyandril? Was he removed by the upper Mages?”
“He died.”
“Not of natural causes, then?”
She flicked the point of her ear. “Doesn’t make much sense that they call us immortal, does it?
Ageless is a more befitting term, even for someone half-blooded like myself.
That term isn’t perfect either. Closer—I suppose, when you consider the rate at which we age.
Unfortunately, death is quite possible for our kind. We bleed the same as Humans.”
It wasn’t quite an answer to my question, but I got the feeling she didn’t want to speak on it further, and it would be suspicious to push her for more.
Perhaps it was a point of the Consortium’s history that brought its students shame.
“You consider yourself Elven, then? You speak of Humans as though they are something else.”
She hummed. “Well, I will live several hundred years. A true Elf will live a hundred times more than that. There’s no perfect fit for me. I envy you, in a sense. A shorter life is so full of meaning.”
It was always interesting to discuss mortality with an immortal—or ageless, as Elle preferred.
They spoke of mortality with a wistful look in their eyes.
Humans were the opposite, viewing eternal life as the ultimate blessing.
Funny—a sad sort of funny—how beings always wanted what they do not have.
Though, I couldn’t agree with my fellow Humans—the appeal of eternity was lost on me.
Not all things were worth experiencing forever.
My mind flashed to the dark room in my village.
Not all things were worth remembering forever.
Elle cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Nairu. That was morbid of me, wasn’t it? Usually people tell me to shut up by now.”
“I find your honesty refreshing,” I assured her. “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”