Eolyn (15 page)

“The point is,” Rishona was saying, “Tahmir has a special interest in Sarah.”

Adiana twirled a lock of golden hair around her fingers. “It must have been quite the blow to Tahmir’s pride when you went searching for Corey after the show instead of him.”

“I had no need for a lover that night,” Eolyn snapped. “I needed employment.”

Not a single statement Eolyn had made during this discussion was intended as a joke, and she could not comprehend why her companions kept bursting into laughter.

“And when you need a lover,” Rishona asked, “whom will you choose?”

Adiana gave an exaggerated sigh. “Rishona already knows the answer to that question. She’s seen all of our futures.”

“That’s not true,” Rishona said.

“What I want to know is who you’ve been with. You speak as if you’ve long since entered into these pleasures, Sarah. Tell us about your lovers.” Adiana said the word ‘lovers’ as if she were biting into a honey cake.

“I have not yet experienced a proper awakening of
aen-lasati
, but my grandmother instructed me in these arts. She explained what to expect and taught me the importance of…preparing myself.”

“You have not
experienced a proper awakening
?” Adiana mimicked Eolyn with amusement. “You did grow up on the periphery of the kingdom! Nobody talks about it that way anymore. It’s all about
losing
now. You can lose your virginity or you can lose your innocence or you can lose your lily. In the process, you will lose your reputation or at the very least you will lose respect. And it’s always the women who seem to be losing. Nowadays the men are born without anything to lose at all. It’s enough to make a woman lose her mind, if you ask me.”

“Renate told us that in the time of the Magas, the women of Moisehén were better instructed in the arts of love,” Rishona observed. “Your grandmother must have been of that generation.”

“Indeed she was.” Eolyn fell pensive at the invocation of her tutor’s memory. For a moment she was back in the South Woods, working side by side with the old maga in the garden.

“Tell me, Sarah,” Rishona’s voice fell to a murmur. “Did your grandmother also teach you how to reject a man’s seed when you so desire?”

This was a dangerous question, and Eolyn knew it. But the day had left her unsettled, as if a fence were being drawn around her. She felt the need to defend something of herself. If she could not yet defend her right to magic, then at least she would defend her right to intimacy. “Of course. I carry the appropriate herbs with me always.”

Adiana sucked in her breath. “You know the old medicines of women?”

Rishona hushed them at the turn of the shopkeeper’s head.

“You
must
teach me,” Adiana insisted in a fierce whisper. “You must teach us all!”

C
hapter Eighteen

Although Eolyn’s appearance
in Mage Corey’s act of illusions brought more than a few angry mages to Corey’s tent, show after show passed without incident. Indeed, every audience received her with adulation. No one came to arrest Eolyn, and little by little the young maga felt more at ease in the company of the Circle.

Rishona and Adiana remained her faithful companions. Eolyn gained respect among the women with her knowledge of plants and traditional medicines. Through their travels, she learned much about her homeland: the elegance of Selkynsen, the rich veins of magic that hummed under Selen, the song of metal that reverberated over the ruling province of Moisehén.

When autumn began to fade toward winter, Eolyn’s spirit dimmed under a growing suspicion that their season might pass without Mage Corey’s caravan ever reaching the King’s City. She had hoped to find Achim before year’s end, and to abandon the Circle for his protection.

All her fantasies of encountering Achim were happy ones. Eolyn imagined him essentially unchanged from the boy she once knew, and her heart glowed at the thought of rediscovering their friendship. Achim would keep her safe and give her a new home. Together, they would find a way to restore the Old Orders.

A few days before the autumn festival of Samhaen, the Circle gave its last show in the town of Selen. Eolyn’s companions celebrated the High Holiday with customs meant to honor the dead and bright revelry dedicated to bidding farewell to fellow artists and good friends. The Circle would lose more than half its company during the winter months, as many members returned to their homes and families for the off-season. Those remaining, including principle figures such as Mistress Renate, foreigners like the Syrnte siblings, and others who no longer had a family such as Adiana, would retire together to Mage Corey’s estate in East Selen.

The afternoon before their anticipated departure, Eolyn took her customary walk accompanied, as she often was, by Mage Corey. The scent of winter had just begun to permeate the air. Dry leaves rattled as wind shook them from the trees. Eolyn remembered the day her village fell, and an involuntary shiver ran through her shoulders.

“Are you all right, Sarah?” Mage Corey asked.

There was no detail he did not notice.

“There’s a chill on the air.” Eolyn would speak no more of the raid on her village. She had already endured countless questions about it. “It’s too late in the season for me to be using a summer cloak.”

“We can go back if you like.”

“No. Autumn is fading already. I wish to enjoy it as much as possible.”

Corey paused, removed his cloak, and set it about Eolyn’s shoulders. The intimacy unnerved her.

“That’s not necessary,” she said.

“I know.” He fastened the clasp at the base of her throat. It was a beautiful jewel of solid silver, intricately etched with images of Dragon. For a moment he allowed his hands to rest on her shoulders. “Is that better?”

“Yes,” Eolyn admitted. Already warmth was penetrating her limbs. The wool cloak was impregnated with a comforting aroma of pine and winter winds.

Mage Corey stepped away and they continued their walk.

Although he always requested Eolyn’s permission to accompany her, the maga understood she had little option but to accept. She chaffed under Corey’s vigilance, yet found some pleasure in his charismatic presence. She admired Corey’s easy jests and natural attention to the details of the landscape: a winter hawk gliding in the distance, a fallen leaf painted in stunning colors, the harvested field illuminated by auburn rays of a chilly afternoon sun.

“I have heard many legends of East Selen,” she said. “I look forward to seeing your home.”

“I look forward to showing it to you, though I will not be able to for many weeks yet.”

“What do you mean? I thought we were leaving tomorrow.”

“You and the others depart for East Selen at dawn. I must journey to the King’s City.”

“Why do you not take us with you?” Eolyn’s disappointment spilled out unhindered. She bit her lip, already regretting her outburst.

Mage Corey cast her a sideways glance. “This trip holds no interest for you or any other members of the Circle. There will be no performances, and I will be locked up in meetings with the Council—which will put me in a very foul mood, I might add. All the more reason why I should go alone.”

“But I would like to see the King’s City, the Stone Foundation of Vortingen, the great castle of the warrior kings. My grandmother told me wonderful stories about it.”

“It is a place of grandeur, though many who knew it before the war say it has lost much of the magnificence it once had.”

“Why did you not take the Circle there this past summer?”

“The City of Moisehén is a difficult place. One sour-faced High Mage can kill the show. And of course, it means more work for me, managing the visits and discussions of the countless mages who reside in the city. On top of all this, we’ve put you in my act of illusions. I could not bring that to the King’s City, not yet. Though I am certain your place in the show has been reported in full by the magistrates. I will spend a good deal of time defending that decision.”

“What will happen if you are unable to win the Council’s support?”

“I will have their support in everything by the end of my visit. I always do. It is simply a matter of persuasive argument.”

Eolyn turned this statement over in her mind, her fingers passing idly over the cool metal clasp that secured Corey’s cloak. She had seen him go head-to-head with almost every magistrate of every village they performed in. Always the mages challenged him with the same arguments, and always they threatened to report him to Tzeremond. Yet the Circle continued unhindered, and Mage Corey’s confidence in the security of his endeavor never faltered, not even now when he talked of defending his actions before the Council.

“It is not just persuasive argument, is it?” she ventured, casting him a careful glance. “You are never truly concerned about the magistrate’s accusations, and you are always certain of the Council’s support. Why is that?”

Mage Corey’s smile faded. He paused in his stride and furrowed his brow, as if struggling with the thread of a new idea, or coming to terms with some quiet revelation.

Eolyn wondered if she had been too bold.

“I perform a service for the Council.” Corey resumed his pace, keeping his gaze fixed on the path ahead. “The Circle is not simply a show. It is a laboratory, of sorts, invented to study alternative forms of magic.”

Eolyn’s feet rooted into the ground beneath her.

Mage Corey continued a few paces before he turned and focused his silver-green gaze on the maga.

“For what purpose?” she asked.

“Master Tzeremond and the King fear the manifestation of a new class of magic, something beyond their ability to detect or control. So they have launched a great project to try to understand the magic of foreign lands, of the Syrnte, the Mountain People, even the Primitive and Simple Magic that persists in the hearts of the women of Moisehén. The Circle is part of that project. My work is to observe the ways of our members and to study the effect of their magic on the people of Moisehén. The purpose of my yearly visits to the King’s City is to report everything I learn to the Council.”

“And you do this for them?”

“It is what they expect of me.”

“But the magistrates and all the others…the threats they make to the Circle…?”

“The magistrates understand nothing of the true nature of this endeavor. Only the Council knows, and the King.”

“And the members of the Circle?”

“Each person under my employ knows what I judge necessary for him or her to know.”

Eolyn wanted to resume her pace, but her feet clung stubbornly to the ground. It was a maga’s reflex, this anchoring of one’s spirit deep into the earth when confronted with fear. Eolyn hoped Mage Corey would not recognize the technique.

“You must understand that you are not to discuss what I have revealed with anyone,” he said.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Mage Corey closed the distance between them. His magic spread in a hush through fallen leaves, surrounding her, cutting off all retreat, and daring her to defend herself with a counter spell. He stopped just in front of her, his face a breath away.

“Because, Sarah,” he murmured, “sometimes I like to imagine you and I live in a world where we do not feel compelled to keep secrets from each other.”

Eolyn’s throat went dry.

“Indulge me in this fantasy,” he continued, “and tell me: Why do you desire so much to go to the King’s City?”

Eolyn willed her eyes to remain on his. When she spoke, her voice was steady. “It is a child’s wish. I had a friend growing up. I believe he lives there. I wish to find him. That is all.”

Mage Corey studied her for a moment. Then he stepped away and continued his walk. The autumn earth released Eolyn’s feet. She quickened her pace to catch up with him.

“A friend,” he asked, his voice a mask of idle curiosity, “or a lover?”

“A friend. We were only children when we knew each other.”

“I see. I am sorry, Sarah, but I cannot take you to the city, not because I object to you finding your friend, but because I am averse to leading fawns into nests of vipers. Though having you there would be worse than that. Vipers at least have some sense of who their true enemy is. Too many mages of Tzeremond do not possess subtlety of judgment. They do not have the patience to distinguish a true threat from a false one. That place is not safe for a woman of your...qualities. And I will be far too busy with the Council to look after you.”

“I understand, Mage Corey.” In truth, Eolyn was now quite relieved she would not be accompanying him.

“Still.” Corey stopped to face her once more, his expression thoughtful. “I know many people in the City of Moisehén. If you give me the name of this friend of yours, perhaps I could...”

Eolyn’s expression put a stop to his words.

“I see I am pressing too hard,” he said. “Very well, Sarah. We have had a fair exchange today: one truth for one truth.” Touching Eolyn’s chin, Corey brought her gaze back to his. “Perhaps we can continue this conversation when I return to East Selen.”

Eolyn nodded, though she was already reconsidering her decision to spend winter with the Circle.

“I’m pleased you will accompany us, you know.” Corey released her chin with a subtle caress. “I expect your presence will bring much warmth to the cold nights ahead.”