2. The Mage Behind the Wall #2
My feet touched the floor, and suddenly the room was only half full.
Liquid spun lazily around my legs, flowing down the drain.
I coughed aggressively, the pounding in my skull unbearable.
Arm still raised toward the mirror, I looked ridiculous.
Soaking wet and wild, possessed, surrounded by whirling water, reaching for someone . . . I don’t even know who.
The churning water was now at my ankles. Shivering, I sank to my knees with a loud splash, arms falling to my sides.
The water stilled, placid.
I keeled over.
Pain slowly receded from my throbbing forehead as I pressed it against the chilled floor. Exhaustion had never felt so catatonic. I tried to make sense of my surroundings. I was on my side in the fetal position, overtop the drain, as the last droplets of water emptied from the room.
Tiny silver flames danced mesmerizingly across my fingers.
Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Squire was pecking at the glass like he was trying desperately to get to me. I barely breathed, the raspy whistling too much on my very sensitive ears.
The door slammed open. Inching forward cautiously, the Marshal approached me with her sword drawn like I was a wild dire beast in a cage. Her blue eyes were frantic, cape hanging off with the clasp unpinned. “You . . . you . . . you . . .”
Squire flew over, settling onto my shoulder. “Zora swim!” he hooted with delight.
“Did . . . I . . .” Water exploded from my lips and streamed from my nose painfully. I propped myself up, gagging violently. “Pass?”
The Marshal straightened her uniform, inhaling deeply like she was steeling herself. “No,” she said coldly. “You are no Knight Mage.”
I collapsed back to the floor, unable to hold myself up, face pressed against the cool stone, stomach cramping with failure. The Iron Ritual hadn’t worked.
“Somehow . . .” the Marshal whispered as she stared at my silver scar. “For some reason, the Iron Ritual made you into a . . . Royal Mage. You don’t neutralize magic. You wield it.”
Squire gasped. “Zora royal?”
What?
“You created a storm. This changes . . . everything.”
I blacked out.
* * *
Clutching a towel around my wet clothes, I leaned my head against the red painted wall and tried not to pass out for the second time.
“Was there a Royal Mage . . . behind the mirror?” I asked slowly. “Was that their water magic filling the room—”
“Silence.” The Marshal leaned into my personal space. We were in another dark room tucked away deep in the lower labyrinth of the base. Shadow Swords waited outside the door. “That is above your clearance level, soldier. Never speak of it again.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then clicked my jaw shut. Miming a key, I mockingly pretended to lock my lips. Judging by the Marshal’s blistering expression, she was not impressed.
A hanging oil lamp, the room’s only source of light, cast ominous shadows across her pinched features as it swayed slightly over a circular table covered in model terrain: two continents separated by two oceans.
A map of Antichthon.
The Marshal stalked away and resumed pacing around the room.
I inched closer to the table.
Westmere was separated from the Empire’s Azote by the great Moor Ocean to the east and the unfathomably expansive Glacial Ocean to the west. Both bodies of water were basically uncrossable, infested with dire killer whales larger than entire Communes.
The Moor Ocean was technically navigable if you had monsters at your disposal, which the Empire did. It was why they always attacked us from the east and why the continent of Azote was a blank. No Westmerean had ever visited and lived to tell the tale.
Within Westmere’s three distinctive climates—modeled with frosted trees, expansive orange sand, and lush tropical forests—sat seven circular brick walls filled with play homes.
The isolated Northern Commune sat along the Eastern Coast among icy mountains. The four desert Middlelands Communes were nestled among sandy canyons, and the two Southern Communes were in a tropical rainforest.
In the middle of the Moor Ocean stood two figurines. One had a crown and a white fur cloak; the other had a blue spider tattoo. Dozens of boats were positioned behind them. Facing them were two Knight Mages, a helicopter, a plane, and a missile.
The Marshal twisted her cap in her hands, reciting complex statistical theories under her breath that I’d never heard of before.
As she strategized about how to win a centuries-long magical war, I contemplated the best way to remove myself from her presence and get inside a hot shower.
Just tell her what you know so you can leave.
I blurted, “I have something to say about Tarantula. He’s—”
The Marshal froze and shook her head slowly, her blue eyes filled with paranoia. “Do not speak his name aloud.” She glanced over at the door pointedly and stalked toward me.
“But we’re alone in here . . . ?” I shivered as I looked around the empty, shadowy room.
She leaned close. “Do not underestimate the enemy. Royal Mage abilities are shrouded in secrecy because they are more than you can imagine,” she whispered quietly. “There’s a reason we still don’t know exactly what the Emperor’s storm magic is.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think? Wait, don’t answer that,” she said coldly. “I don’t want to know what goes on in your mind.”
She whirled on her heel and stalked over to the board. She muttered to herself, staring at the map, lost in thought. I stopped trying to listen as I leaned against the wall, vision blurry.
I jolted awake, her scarred face hovering in front of mine—I’d fallen asleep standing upright. I blinked wearily. It was once again impossible to tell how much time had passed.
The Marshal leaned in, studying me intently. “Did anything happen to you during the Iron Ritual? Did you speak with anyone or experience any . . . revelations?”
An emerald figure shrouded in light. They were probably a figment of my imagination.
“No.”
“Have you ever shown signs of possessing magic? Any mutations or abilities?” She peered suspiciously at my silver scar and then at where Squire snored loudly on my shoulder.
“No.” I rubbed at the lines on my face. “It was a normal dire bear attack—I swear.” Until today, my hands had never glowed silver with magical flames. I’d never felt anything remotely similar.
“Have you ever been to Azote?” Her eyebrow rose with accusation.
“Sure,” I said sarcastically. “I crossed the uncrossable Moor Ocean.”
“Watch your tone, soldier.”
I sighed heavily. “I’ve lived my entire life in the North . . . What does all this mean? Why would this happen?”
“It means—” lines pulled tight around her mouth “—perhaps we can win this war. Maybe the old god isn’t dead.
Maybe we’ve been blessed.” She shrugged, face pinching with frustration.
“We do not and have never understood how magic works. They keep it cloaked in mystery. All we know is the Iron Ritual creates Knight Mages who can nullify it, and Royal Mages can have three storm affinities: snow, wind, or water.”
My head spun with this new information.
“Isn’t snow technically just . . . water?” I breathed out, dizzy with confusion.
She scoffed. “Is a blizzard the same as a tsunami?”
“No?”
“Try not to play the fool. You now possess the ability to wield storm magic—water,” she whispered with gravitas. “Daily training is imperative for mastery, but no one on the base can know about this except me. No one. Do you understand?”
“Why can’t I tell—”
“The fewer people the information can get tortured out of, the better. Do you understand, soldier?”
I nodded tiredly.
“I need verbal confirmation.”
“Yes, sir,” I muttered.
“Beginning today, I will tutor you in the military history of Westmere. Your lack of education as a Northerner is common knowledge.” Her lips rolled with distaste, and I swallowed down my vitriol. “Shadow Swords will meet you at your room at high noon and escort you down here.”
Is she calling me stupid?
“Do you understand, soldier?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will not reveal your new abilities under any circumstances, including but not limited to extreme physical and mental abuse. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“To everyone on this base, and in all Westmere, you are a novice Knight Mage who is struggling to control your defensive magic. If it comes to it, they are to believe the ritual failed and that you are magicless.”
“Yes, sir.” My voice cracked because I’d never been good at pretending.
She narrowed her eyes like she could read my thoughts. “Convince yourself that you are actually trying to gain Knight Mage powers, and act accordingly. Frustration . . . fear . . . annoyance—let yourself feel it all and then show it.”
I nodded, sliding a little down the wall, trying to put space between us. Her intensity was overwhelming. She grabbed my face, stopping me from getting away. Her fingers were freezing.
She leaned forward so her mouth hovered right above my ear. “Tell me everything that has happened to you,” she whispered, so softly I could barely hear her. “Quietly. I want to know every interaction you’ve ever had with them.”
I didn’t need to ask who she was referring to.
The tooth marks scarred onto my throat prickled as I brought my lips to her ear and obeyed. I’d been dying to tell someone for weeks. To get the crushing weight off my chest.
Her eyes widened, her pupils consumed her irises, and a sickly pallor spread across her face as I told the tale of a boy who became a man; the Great Siege of the North; Mom’s kidnapping; Aurora’s death; Tarantula’s capture in the woods; and the threat that currently hung over my mom’s head.
When I was done, she ripped away, shaking. For the first time, the lines around her mouth and the scar above her eye didn’t seem cruel. Signs of trauma.
“Why didn’t you say something as soon as you arrived on base?” She raised her head, suspicion twisting her face. Shhkkk. She drew the sword from the sheath on her back and leveled the tip at my throat.