Chapter 25 Sofie
Chapter twenty-five
Sofie
If everything about Dewspell felt a little different since my return, Master Aynia’s rooms were the exception: They were exactly as I remembered them.
Cheerful, buttery yellow stone welcomed me like a warm hearth as I stepped onto the zigzagging stair.
Just setting foot in one of Dewspell’s many turrets, I felt transported back to earlier days, when I was a student just coming to grips with my burgeoning chaos magic.
When these halls made me feel safe and strong.
For just a moment, I was the person I was before, fresh from Aegle, a little afraid but so determined to master the rare gift that plagued me.
That was just a fantasy, of course. I could never be that girl again. I wasn’t even the same person who sailed from Elchion to attend the naming ceremony for Princess Auravelle of Endergeist.
My time with Jax had changed me forever.
As if my innocent years were a fading spell that wore off the higher I climbed, my steps grew slower and heavier.
One of my knees even cracked as I reached Master Aynia’s landing.
I paused, wincing as I tested the joint, and inadvertently caught a view of the harbor through one of the diamond grill windows.
The huge, deep harbor around Dewspell was always busy with ships.
Some bore magical goods, ingredients for alchemy, or magical objects either purchased by the academy or sent here for safekeeping—or destruction.
Others contained merchant goods or food for the school itself, or were destined for the open market in town.
It was said every corner of the realm could be found in Dewspell Academy.
The truth was, Dewspell housed goods from multiple realms. And right now, I felt like the one thing that didn’t belong.
Before I could knock on the door, Master Aynia threw it open, greeting me with a huge smile.
“Welcome home, godmother,” she said, gathering me into a fierce hug that was made up of dangling robe sleeves and her long silver hair.
“Sorry I didn’t call on you sooner,” I mumbled as I withdrew from her warm greeting, guilt no doubt etched on my face.
“You always come to me in your own time,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Come. I’ve got a fine selection this month.”
I knew she meant spirits and not actual tea. Nor were we about to eat dainty little sandwiches and cakes. Like me, Master Aynia did nothing by half measures.
“So,” she said, gesturing at a seat at the neatly set little table that was now pushed against the wall—the only wall outside of her corner kitchen that wasn’t reserved for bookshelves, worktables or her desk. “There’s a rumor going around that you were swept off your feet by a handsome pirate.”
I blanched. “That’s what everyone’s saying about it?”
“A handsome pirate does capture the imagination,” she said in a sing-song voice.
“Doubly so since there’s a bounty out for him, placed by this very school.
” She collected a pair of serving platters, filled with skewers of fruits, meats and cheeses to bring to the table.
“Though I will say I’m still sore about losing out on those enchanted decanters. ”
“Were they for wine or for potions?”
“I planned to split them fifty-fifty.” She set down the plates that would be our first course. I could already smell something delicious and hearty cooking in the cauldron hanging in the kitchen hearth. “Well, is it true?” she asked.
“That he’s handsome? I suppose so.”
“I know that.”
“How?” I asked, laughing even as my heart stung.
“When someone asked Dean Andaren whether your pirate was really as good looking as everyone was saying, he told them he was ‘fine looking enough for a non-fae man, if you like the unshaven, unwashed types.’ High praise from him. And, evidently, no one minds the unwashed and unshaven bit.”
I wrestled with what to say—with what to admit to my mentor. She wasn’t here to counsel me in matters of the heart. Yet in my lowest moments, I’d always called on her. She was one of the few people in this world who understood the burden of chaos magic—and of being a balancer.
“He’s not my pirate,“ I said, sounding more glum than I’d meant to.
She merely tisked. “You married him, did you not?”
“Under a siren’s thrall.” I sighed. “And then I agreed to stay and help him. And then I danced with him, and fought beside him. Fought with him, too. And then I suppose I fell in love. What a foolish thing to do.”
Master Aynia took the seat across from me, her round face all sympathy. “Not just any man would try to win the heart of a balancer.”
“To be honest, I don’t think he even had to try that hard.” I pressed my hands to both my reddening cheeks. “What’s wrong with me? I was like a silly school girl. He just kept getting under my skin, and before I knew it he was getting into my heart, too. I don’t even know how.”
She shook out her napkin, placing it over her lap. “I’m sure you do know.”
I pressed even harder into my cheeks, as if I could will my embarrassment and heartache away. “I have an educated guess.”
“And?”
“Well, I tried to think of what you would say to me, if you were there to guide me.”
“And?” she pressed again.
“You would ask me why I was letting him get under my skin. A pirate, a rogue, a man who kidnapped me and forced me into marriage, and yet I couldn’t get him out of my head.”
Master Aynia patted my hand sympathetically. “And what was the answer?”
I sniffed. “He reminded me of home.”
The thin inked-on lines of Master Aynia’s brows arched in surprise. “Of Aegle?”
“Ye—no. Not exactly. Of the life I wanted when I lived there, before Master Frida discovered me.”
Aynia’s smile was full of gentle kindness. “Perhaps we should have something a little stronger for this discussion. Wine pairs well with matters of the heart, I think.”
I nodded, happy for the cozy warmth of my mentor’s rooms and these little bits of sophistication I had missed while aboard Carabosse. Master Aynia had a wonderful palate and always selected the perfect wine pairing—a delicate gift that would surprise those who only knew her as a master of curses.
I waited in comfortable silence while my mentor uncorked a bottle of Laufeean white, picking at the soft bread and aged cheese on my plate beside the skewers.
The food was fresh and good, full of the tastes of my true home here at the Academy.
But somehow it didn’t satisfy, even when I tasted it with the surprise golden cherry and peach notes of the pale gold wine.
Everything was perfect. I was home. Safe. The wicked pirate Bluebeard had been thoroughly foiled. Yet everything felt so wrong.
“Tell me,” Master Aynia said, taking her seat across from me.
And so I told her. Told her how the ships of Carabosse could’ve been longboats launching from harbor, how that surprisingly eloquent, brutish man could’ve been a clever-tongued Aeglean, our people being known for their sharp wit.
How it felt like in another life, with the details rearranged just a bit, it could’ve been everything I’d ever dreamed of as a girl: A mate who was my equal, someone to start a family with, someone to share a life with, split between the sea and the rocky land.
How those nights sharing the captain’s cabin could’ve been around a fire in an Aeglean house, warm inside and cold outside.
As I spoke, I realized that the parts of Dewspell I loved were the ones that reminded me of my first home. And I realized that the parts of my unwitting adventure with Jax that I’d loved reminded me of that, too.
I also told her how I had fallen for him. Loved him, even, despite everything. And how he would not or could not choose me over his precious treasure.
“Perhaps there was a good reason for it,” Master Aynia said after a long pause. “Can you see it, now that you look back?”
I suddenly lost my appetite. I’ll admit, her words surprised and stung me. I’d expected her to be sympathetic to me, not Jax.
But I knew Master Aynia better than to react without hearing her out—something she’d reprimanded me for a hundred times when I was still a hot-headed girl who’d been rejected by her people, who was trying to prove something every moment of every day.
And there was the reason I’d lost my appetite. After all this time, I was still acting like her. The rejected, weak girl with a gift for magic, trying to prove that she could be just as good as the shield-maidens.
And I had tried to make Jax prove something, too. I had placed so much value on his choosing me—as if that would mean I was worthy. As if that single choice meant his feelings for me were true or false.
“I was only one of nine brides. He tried to tell me. If he didn’t win the treasure, he believed their deaths and those of his crewmembers would’ve been for nothing.” I hissed out a breath through clenched teeth. “But they were for nothing! All for that stupid treasure.”
“As if you never risked your life to master a spell,” Master Aynia said, tutting before taking another sip of wine.
“Our spells help people,” I said, “or at least preserve magic.”
“The Queen of the Sea would’ve helped Jax and his crew a great deal. Are they not people? Besides the other ramifications.”
My stomach sank further. “What ramifications?”
“I know the stories, that a cherished heart must be sacrificed to use the Queen of the Sea. But that is the kind of foul magic dreamt up by dark wielders of our realm. Objects from the World of Monsters are usually far cleverer than that, responding to absolute power of both mind and magic.”
“There’s always another way,” I found myself quietly repeating. I thought of the day we’d landed on the Bride’s enchanted isle. Jax had believed there would be ways around any sacrificial magic the Queen of the Sea would require.
Worse than that, he’d believed we’d find it together.
“If he could’ve mastered the Queen of the Sea,” Master Aynia continued, “truly mastered it, even the Diam Sea could be crossed for the first time since the final runeships failed. Just think of it, Sofie. The northern and southern woldings no longer divided. The City of Nox in easy reach for every magical creature wasting away in lands of ungoverned chaos magic. Your Jax could’ve changed the world. ”
I let that sit like a rock in my throat for a while, then stuffed it down with wine and cheese.
I’d destroyed all that. Me. A balancer of House Fairwill who was supposed to help preserve magic in Elchion and, perhaps one day, the world.
My entire purpose was to restore balance to the world’s now-chaotic magic—the very chaos that made the Diam Sea impossible to navigate.
And I’d melted an enchanted relic that could’ve changed all that. I could’ve retrieved it, could’ve studied it—and sailed the world with Jax.
I could’ve sailed the world with Jax, all the while pretending to be something I’m not.
I was no shield-maiden, nor was I a raider fighting alongside my husband and kin, bringing spoils back for all of Aegle; nor would I ever be a dutiful household priestess content with protecting my husband and our family.
I was a powerful sorceress, and a leader in my own right, looking to protect the world.
I hadn’t been acting like it.
“I find it very hard,” I said haltingly, a lump still in my throat, “to let go of the other paths in life I once glimpsed. I think I confused my time with Jax as a way back to one of those paths.”
“Did you?” Master Aynia layered slices of cheese onto her bread, making a sort of makeshift sandwich. “That does not mean your love was untrue. If love could blossom even in such circumstances, it might have stronger roots than we’d think.”
“I suppose we’ll never know.”
“Raise your chin, Sofie.”
The shift in Master Aynia’s tone had me automatically raising my head, even if it was to view her with surprise.
“You are not a victim of fate,” she continued, her gray eyes fierce.
“You chose this life, and you chose it because it was truest to who you really are. You are someone who makes difficult choices. You make them, you survive them, and you have always found a way to thrive after them. You are a balancer for a reason.”
“I couldn’t bring balance to him.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I think you already have.” She pointed out the window. “Is that not his fleet returning?”
What?
I wasn’t even embarrassed by my response. I leapt to my feet, hurrying to the window to get a better look. It couldn’t really be Carabosse, could it?
“Spyglass is in that drawer,” Master Aynia said dryly.
I nearly yanked the entire drawer out of her worktable in my excitement.
She was right. I recognized Temerity, headed for Dewspell’s harbor. I counted four ships behind it.
And then, as I watched its approach, I turned the spyglass to the horizon and spotted four more.
Then another two.
“Master Aynia,” I said, my words pinched. “Either Carabosse is under attack, or we are.”