Chapter 27 #2
Alric’s answer was quick and sincere. “Of course. We’ll take turns helping each other.”
“Alric and I have already talked about this,” Cameron tacked on with a smile. “We’re a bit too new to have children just yet. Maybe in a year or two, when we’re more settled. So why don’t you go first?”
There was a brightness in Rodrigo’s eyes that had nothing to do with the light pouring in through the windows. “Thank you.”
“And I’ll teach you the Noh seeking spells to help you find more mages,” Cameron promised them both. “I think we can all agree we need to find them before the Jaeggi do.”
Evora actually smiled. A full-blown smile. And her face didn’t crack. “Bless you, consort. We need those just as much. Our own seeking spells have no real range to them.”
“Ours can go hundreds of miles.” Cameron winked at her.
“Works better in situations like this. After this meeting, why don’t you follow me to Lisette’s workshop?
We can start teaching each other things, get all our mages in on this.
Our new mage, Tori, might have some interesting input as well.
He tends to know things the rest of us have forgotten. ”
“Yes, talk to me of this new clan.” Rodrigo was back to being perky. “And your new mage; Tori, is it?”
Baldewin grimaced, unable to contain the expression fully. Just thinking about Tori’s clan gave him heartburn, and he still wanted to go up there and do a little dragon-smash, maybe burn a few buildings.
Catching his reaction, Rodrigo pointed to him. “Is there an issue?”
Alric turned mild eyes on him. “Baldewin, why don’t you answer this question?”
“I’m not sure if I can without a lot of inappropriate language. King Rodrigo, the clan in question is not a kind one. Tori had to escape it.”
“Escape…? I don’t understand.” But Rodrigo’s expression indicated he had a sense where this was going, and he wasn’t happy about it already.
“They were allies of the Jaeggi during the war,” Baldewin sought to explain without losing his temper and punching things.
“After the loss of many mages during the war, they went into hiding in the northern tip of Finland. They have serious glamours over their town to keep it hidden. From what Tori tells me, the culture became…toxic. They created set standards for everyone to adhere by, and there’s no tolerance for going outside of those expectations.
They’re extremely homophobic. They didn’t take it well that he’s a male mage—there’s a stigma about a mage not being female.
A belief that females are the most valuable because only they can mate with dragons and are the ultimate source of new mages.
And they truly didn’t take it well that he’s gay.
He finally made a break for freedom this past month. ”
“Which is how we found him,” Cameron tacked on. “Because he left the glamour and traveled closer, our seeking spells were able to pick up on him.”
“The glamour is that intensive?” Evora didn’t sound happy about that. “But what of his magic?”
“Tori’s exceptional,” Cameron reported with a hint of pride.
As he should, since Tori was now a Burkhard mage.
“His knowledge of herbology is incredibly extensive. Lisette’s made that comment more than once.
He’s also very versatile. He can make substitutions on the fly and adapt spells with limited or even the wrong elements.
And it works, every time. I sat with him yesterday and picked his brain.
Felt stupid after the conversation, too. That’s how educated in magic he is.”
The door to the room abruptly banged open, Lisette stomping in like a herd of rampaging elephants. “Alric! We’re raining dragon fire on that shitty—oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you’d started the meeting.”
Baldewin was half out of his chair on instinct. Whenever Lisette lost her temper, it was never a good thing, and he wanted to curtail the problem as much as he could.
Alric turned so he could see her, as his back was to the door. Alarmed, he demanded, “What’s happened?”
Lisette took in the occupants of the room, and her expression firmed up again. “You know what, you need to know this, too. King Rodrigo, Evora, Thiago, forgive my intrusion. Have you spoken about the new clan of mages yet?”
“We were just touching on it,” Rodrigo answered. He sighed gustily. “And nothing good has been said about them yet.”
“I’m about to add to the bad,” she announced, marching to the nearest chair.
She didn’t sit in it, clearly too agitated to do so.
“This morning, I reviewed with Tori all he knows, as I still haven’t quite grasped what all he was taught.
The Taavi, his old clan, have their own specialties, I’m sure.
But what came out of the conversation is absolutely appalling.
The teaching methods of the Taavi Clan are perfectly reprehensible.
Tori explained that they are very exacting with their magic.
You have to measure the precise weight and power level of each element and do a formula to double check the power level of the spell before you can enact it. ”
Evora’s jaw dropped. “That’s insane. Each element will vary a little; that’s to be expected of natural elements. Doing that kind of math every time for a simple spell? Have they lost their minds?”
“It gets worse,” Lisette informed her, voice like a glacier. “If you can’t do the math correctly, or if there’s something off in your result, you cannot use the spell. So, anyone who is math-challenged, for whatever reason, isn’t allowed to do any magic whatsoever.”
Voice rising, Evora spluttered, “But magic isn’t all math! It’s power and instinct.”
“Doing that takes all of the intuition out of it,” Cameron joined in hotly. “I mean, I’m the first to say, ‘yay math,’ because that’s my engineering brain, but come on! If you do stuff rigidly by formula, you never make any innovations!”
“Tori’s dyscalculic.” The room fell silent. Baldewin lifted his head, his fury matching Lisette’s. “Was he allowed to do magic at all?”
“No,” she denied flatly. “No, they wouldn’t allow him more than basic spells. It’s why he keeps telling us that he knows what to do in theory but has no practice at it. It’s why he left this clan; that and he’s gay. Those two things pushed him out of his home.”
Shit. Tori really should have told him all of this.
No, he couldn’t blame his sweet Tori for not saying it before.
He was likely terrified of not keeping his place here, the place he’d just earned.
He didn’t know enough of the Burkhards yet to realize that they would never hem him in or judge him the way the Taavi obviously had.
He didn’t have a full understanding that magic in this clan was completely different from what he was accustomed to.
But Baldewin would make it very, very clear later that he had nothing to fear here.
“Fire and destruction,” Lisette repeated.
“Done,” Baldewin agreed flatly.
Rodrigo groaned and flopped back into his chair. “I was incredibly excited on the flight over here, thinking of an entire clan that we could absorb into our own. And now, I’m not sure I want anything to do with them. I’d like to speak with Tori directly before coming to any decisions.”
“We’ll introduce the two of you,” Alric promised him. There was a tic in the corner of his jaw as he demanded of Baldewin, “Did you know of this insanity?”
“I saw hints of it. I guessed that things weren’t great because of how he flinched.
But he hadn’t told me all of that.” Not yet.
He might have, given more time. They’d both been a bit giddy, the newness of a relationship turning everything rose-colored.
Baldewin hated that reality came crashing down this quickly.
“What the hell is wrong with them?” Evora stood abruptly. “Lisette, I want to talk to him about this.”
Lisette nodded, looking as if she was still grinding her teeth in anger. “I don’t blame you. But let me have some time with him, first. I don’t think he fully understands how odd his clan’s teaching methods are. I want to show him that the rest of the world, at least, isn’t that cruel.”
Evora nodded reluctantly. “Alright.”
For mages, magic was an integral part of the self. Baldewin understood that, and he couldn’t help but ache for the man.
To be denied a part of himself was obscene. It must have been like functioning without a limb, even though it was still attached.
Baldewin had to fight to stay in the room, his instincts demanding he go immediately to Tori. To somehow soothe the damage done.
Lisette had the right idea. Some destruction was called for. Dragon-style.