Chapter Nine Riela
Chapter Nine
Riela
Early the next morning, I dressed in a pair of dark trousers and a silvery blue tunic. The fabrics were finely woven, and
either of the pieces would’ve sold in the capital for enough to feed me for half a year.
Yesterday’s clothes that I’d left in a dirty pile by the door were hanging in the wardrobe, clean and mended. They were plain
and shabby next to the extravagance of the rest of the options, and I very nearly put them back on just to remind myself why
I was here.
I still had monsters to kill—and now I likely had a curse to break as well.
But I couldn’t quite bring myself to change back into my old clothes. I pulled on the boots Garrick had summoned for me and
turned toward the door. “I would like to go to the kitchen, please.”
I opened the door and was disappointed but not surprised when I saw the hallway outside. But when I crossed the threshold,
between one step and the next, I arrived in the kitchen.
Grim was curled up in his usual corner, and Garrick was at the table with a half-eaten bowl of porridge. In the moment before
he noticed me, the mage’s expression was unguarded.
He looked haggard, like he’d been carrying a heavy weight for a long, long time, and he was summoning the strength to take
another step. It transformed him from a cold, forbidding mage into a normal man, and my heart squeezed in sympathy. How long
had he been trapped here, unable to leave?
Because even a pretty cage was still a cage.
The instant he sensed me, his walls slammed up, and his face became unreadable once again. “I did not expect you to be up
this early,” he said, glaring at me as if I’d purposefully interrupted his breakfast.
I lifted a shoulder. “I am used to rising before the sun.”
His gaze flickered over me, taking in my new clothes, and something like appreciation flashed across his face before he dropped
his eyes back to the table.
I joined him without an invitation, and since he didn’t ask me to leave, I figured that counted as permission. Although I
still had a pile of questions, I let him eat the rest of his meal in peace while I tried—unsuccessfully—to conjure myself
some breakfast. Garrick had to know what I was doing, with the way my magic kept rising and falling, but he didn’t offer to
help.
When his bowl was empty, it vanished, then he moved to stand. I gathered my courage and looked up at him. “Could you show
me how to make food again? I can’t figure out how to give the castle my magic. The two refuse to mix.”
He glanced at the door behind me, then sank down onto his bench again, his reluctance clear.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “The castle gave me apples, but I can’t live on apples unless I also forage in the forest. And the
forest is dangerous, so . . .”
I trailed off as something in his gaze sharpened. “What do you mean, the castle gave you apples?” he demanded.
Rather than explaining, I looked down at the table and whispered, “Could I have some food, please?” An apple appeared by my
hand at the same time I felt a pulse of magic and a bowl of porridge appeared in front of me. “Oh!” My gaze flew to his. “I
didn’t mean for you to—”
But Garrick wasn’t looking at me; he was frowning at the apple. He picked it up, and with another pulse of magic, a knife
appeared in his hand. When he cut the fruit in half, it looked just like a regular apple. His gaze returned to me, sharp and
accusing. “How did you do this?”
“I just asked for food. That seems to be all the castle can make on its own. I have another one upstairs.” My cheeks heated.
“The castle also gave me the one I threw at you last night.”
“The castle,” Garrick said, “should not be able to make anything on its own.”
Now it was my turn to frown. “But it gave me cleaning supplies. And a ladder. And it cleaned my clothes from yesterday.”
Garrick’s eyes went distant and moonlight magic rose around him. My own magic rose in response, cool blue in my mind’s eye.
The two magics swirled together, never quite mixing. It was hypnotic, so it took me a moment to realize Garrick’s focus had
snapped to me.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
I spread my hands, palms up. “I’m not doing anything.”
The moonlight glow intensified, and my magic did the same. A band of tension wrapped around my ribs, squeezing slightly. I
rubbed my chest, but the ache didn’t go away.
Garrick’s magic surged and a pear appeared on the table. My magic did not react, and I still didn’t know exactly how he’d given the castle his magic.
“So you’re not a mimic,” he murmured. “I wonder . . .”
His magic curled around mine and then yanked. I stiffened as the ache in my chest turned crushing, then my magic wrapped me in a protective cocoon made of a thousand
tiny spikes.
A ferocious growl rolled through the room from Grim’s corner. Garrick’s jaw clenched in either pain or fury, and the moonlight
magic retreated. “Not a source, either.”
My magic slowly uncurled now that the threat was gone, but my chest still throbbed. When I’d diverted the flood, it’d felt
like my heart was being squeezed through my ribs. This ache wasn’t as bad, but I’d thought I could trust the mage, at least
a little. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“Why did you hurt me?”
He tilted his head and frowned. “Did that hurt?”
I clumsily reached out and wrapped my magic around his. He watched me with suspicious attention, but he didn’t try to stop
me, so I gently pulled on the thread of his magic. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I wanted him to understand what I’d felt.
Power surged through my veins, and I gasped in surprise. New magic rose, nearly the same silvery blue color as my tunic, and I could see past the silver of the castle’s magic.
I could see everything.
Small, vibrant blips of magic were scattered throughout the forest in oranges, blues, and colors I didn’t have names for.
Farther away, deep in the woods, a thicket of bloodred magic throbbed like a pulse.
The scarlet magic stirred, and I could almost feel it as it turned its attention this way.
Deep, visceral terror whited out every thought except escape. I tried to back up, to leave the kitchen, but it was hard to
remember how to move my physical body when I could see the entire forest slowly being swallowed by red.
Garrick growled, and the flow of his magic abruptly cut off. My view of the woods dimmed, but not fast enough. Tendrils of
bloodred magic were creeping ever closer, and I couldn’t stop them.
Garrick grabbed my hand. “Give the castle the excess magic,” he commanded urgently.
“I don’t know ho—” I started, but then his magic was there, guiding me just as he had when I’d created the sticky bun.
The silvery blue magic merged into the vast pool of silver that was the castle’s magic. The room vibrated, rattling the bowl
on the table, then settled.
I sat tense and frozen, waiting for the bloodred magic to find me. After a long moment, I blew out a heavy breath. I tried
to shake off the adrenaline, but my heart continued to beat rabbit fast.
“What was that?” I demanded. My skin felt too tight, but my chest no longer hurt.
Garrick’s expression turned cautious. “What do you mean?”
I leveled a flat glare at him while I tried to collect my scattered thoughts. “How was I able to draw your magic, and why
did my magic change colors?”
“You’re a focus.” There was something odd in his tone, but I didn’t have the capacity to work it out when so many other questions
needed answers.
After I’d manifested, I’d read every book on magic I could get my hands on—which, sadly, wasn’t many. The information I’d found about how mages harnessed their magic had never worked for me, and there had been no mention of sources or foci or mimics.
When Garrick didn’t offer any further explanation, I prompted, “And a focus is?”
He sighed and pushed the forgotten bowl of porridge toward me. “Eat and I will explain.”
The cooling grains had congealed into something resembling thick mud, but I spooned a bite into my mouth. It was better than
nothing, which was what I could produce on my own.
Garrick grumbled something under his breath, and a pulse of magic reheated the porridge. “Can you use your magic at all?”
I summoned the light I’d accidentally learned how to make. The little glowing orb floated in the air above my head. “And I
can sense things at a distance,” I said. “That’s about it. But you’re supposed to be explaining what a focus is.”
The mage ran a hand down his face. “If you were trained, this would be easier.”
“If I were trained, then I would’ve killed you in the forest when you appeared from thin air.”
For the first time, true amusement lightened his expression, and it transformed his face from dangerous to devastating. “I
do not doubt that you would have tried. And maybe you would have succeeded, if you’d had a few more mages for backup.”
I snorted. The royal court would be far more willing to burn the forest to the ground than send mages to help my tiny village.
“A focus,” Garrick said slowly, “can combine magic in ways that normal human mages cannot. Normally, mages can only use their
own magic, and when that power is depleted, they have to wait for it to recover, which can take anywhere from minutes to days,
depending on their strength.”
“So after the flood, I passed out because I’d used all of my magic?”
“Yes. You went past all of the warning signs of magic overuse and eventually your body shut down. If it hadn’t, or if you’d tried to keep going, you would’ve died.”
I shivered at the finality in his voice.
“A mimic is exactly what it sounds like: a mage who can mimic another mage’s magic, even if they don’t know the exact spell
that is being performed. A source can give their power to another mage, either to replenish spent magic or to act as an additional
power boost to perform more difficult tasks. But it is a one-to-one relationship. A normal mage can’t draw from multiple sources.”
“A focus is different?”
Garrick nodded. “A focus can draw magic from multiple mages, including those who are not sources, and when they do, they don’t
just augment their own power, they create something entirely new. It makes them incredibly powerful—and incredibly dangerous.
One focus can wield the power of a dozen or more mages in a single, devastating attack.”
“Is being a focus why I can’t control my magic?”
Garrick shook his head. “Foci are as adept as any other mage. More so, maybe. You just need training.”
“Will you train me?”
The reluctance in Garrick’s expression was clear, but finally, he nodded. “I will have to,” he murmured. “It’s too dangerous
for you to remain untrained.” He absently rubbed his face, and the scars over his cheek seemed to catch the light.
I could work with reluctance, but there was another question that needed an answer. “There is other magic in the forest.”
Garrick went still and alert, like a predator sensing prey. “What did you see?”
“A thicket of scarlet magic. It was the same color as the chagri’s, only much, much bigger. And it seemed to sense me the
same way I sensed it. It was searching for me.”
The silver in Garrick’s eyes darkened. “You saw the Blood King’s castle.”
“The Blood King is a myth,” I denied with a laugh.
Garrick did not laugh with me.
“Etheri aren’t real,” I insisted. Garrick’s brow furrowed, but I didn’t give him a chance to interrupt. “Much like the saints
who came after them, Etheri were invented to explain away natural phenomena like seasons and floods and plagues.”
Except one of my favorite fairy tales had mentioned them—but only in the edition in Garrick’s library. The change still bothered
me. As soon as Welde was revealed to be Etheri, I’d expected her to turn on Verity, because every other story about Etheri
that I’d heard or read had been the typical sort of cautionary fairy tale that warned against trusting beautiful strangers
or offers that were too good to be true.
My stomach twisted with foreboding, and I stared at Garrick’s striking face and glittering eyes with new wariness.
In the fairy tales, Etheri were changeable tricksters who wielded godlike magic and thought humans were playthings. They were
ruled by six sovereigns of varying powers and temperaments, but all six were exceptionally gifted—and exceptionally deadly.
Many houses still had a patch of wildflowers near every exterior door in an effort to please the Emerald Queen, who was rumored
to be the kindest of the six. My father had planted ours, and I’d helped keep it alive for as long as I could remember.
Old habits died hard, even if they didn’t make any logical sense.
Even the blacksmith, who abhorred magic, had given me the old blessing: May you safely pass unnoticed by the sovereigns.
Garrick’s voice fell into the growing silence like stones into the lake. “The Blood King lives. His creatures stalk the woods,
and he is the reason I cannot leave.”
I swallowed as dread slowly crept up my spine. “And who are you?” I whispered.
Garrick’s eyes glinted as he held my gaze. “I am the Silver King.”