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“GOT ANOTHER ONE.” CAPTAIN Torg dropped the report on Shianan’s desk. “Four killed, planting seed taken.”
Shianan reached for the report but did not look at it. “To the northwest again? Do we know of any established bandits there?”
“Due west this time, too far to be the same bandits on foot. Survivors insist the raiders were Ryuven.” Torg delivered the news levelly, though frustration showed in his pinched mouth. “But Ryuven can’t come here, not with the shield again.”
“Exactly. So why would these people lie?”
Torg scratched his beard. “I don’t pretend to understand the magic of it, but couldn’t the shield work both ways? With the shield, the Ryuven can’t come—but they can’t leave, either. Maybe there were some who were trapped in our world?”
“It’s possible. But in multiple places?”
“I suppose we wait to hear if anyone spots them. They can’t fly too much without being seen, so that will slow their travel.”
“True. But if they’re trapped here, why take the seed? Why not something more, I don’t know, immediately useful, like ordinary robbers?”
“They’re doing what they know,” Torg suggested. “But if they’ve got nowhere to go, we just wait until we have a lead on them and then pick them out like lice. Now, you want to hear what fourth squad will be drilling again?”
Shianan made a show of putting his face in his hands. “What have they done now?”
IT WAS THE LONGEST week Ariana could remember.
By day she sat in her workroom, pretending to work on the new ink while in fact she stared at her utensils and books with a slow, sick dread. For an hour each day, she went to Mage Parma or her father or the two together, attempting simple exercises in magic as if she were a child, struggling to master the simplest of fundamentals which had come more easily to her the first time.
It was worse than being a child, in fact. When she had been a young girl, propped on her knees and leaning on her elbows to concentrate on a blackened candle wick, she had been thrilled with each small success. Now that she could remember practicing magical combat, creating an amulet to heal a broken limb, sealing Tamaryl’s Ryuven essence—now each tiny success was a fresh cut to her pride, salting anew her terror that the others would learn, would find she was more an impostor than ever, would cast her out of the Circle.
By night, she hugged herself in her bed and choked on sobs that were harder to fight down in the dark.
She had told no one else. After her first desperate grasp for help, rushing to her father, she was afraid to speak of her loss. If the other mages of the Circle learned, she would lose what standing she had in their eyes. Worse, she might be removed from the Circle altogether.
Nor could she tell Ranne, who had been so supportive and so proud of her. Or Bethia, who had lost her own chance at the Circle when Ariana became the Black Mage, who could only be insulted to learn Ariana was no longer capable of it.
And Shianan. She was ashamed to recall her outburst, ashamed to have lashed out at him when she knew he had just come from the king and that something, something had happened. She should have gone to him, should have apologized and asked—but she wasn’t supposed to know what happened in the king’s private meetings with the bastard, and she didn’t know how to ask without humiliating Shianan too.
So she avoided her friends, letting them believe she was buried with Great Circle work while she sat useless in her workroom.
It was late in the week when she achieved for the first time the newly difficult conquest of lifting a silken scarf tossed into the air. The effort exhausted her and left her trembling, but she had done it. Mage Parma’s look of satisfied pride was salve enough for Ariana’s raw nerves after a long session of struggle.
“Now take the day off,” Mage Parma told her. “Don’t push any further just because you accomplished more today.”
Ariana shook her head, her muscles like water. “No worries there. I don’t have the strength.”
“Just bask in your glory, then.” The Silver Mage turned to her table and began to collect the array of training items.
A knock sounded at the door, and Ariana went rigid. Mage Parma called for the visitor to enter.
A woman in orange robes came in. “Sorry to bother you, but I wondered—oh, hello, Mage Hazelrig. Sorry to interrupt.”
Ariana nodded tightly.
“Mage Tadak?” prompted Mage Parma.
“Oh, I’m just out of dark shield paper, and I need only one, and I thought you might save me a trip to the market.”
“Of course, help yourself.” Mage Parma nodded toward the shelf of supplies.
“Thank you.” Mage Tadak smiled at the half-cleared table. “I remember those days well enough. Looks like you’re starting a new apprentice?”
Ariana’s breath snagged in her throat. Mage Parma only shook her head. “No, not at the moment. Do you want to take some extra shield papers, just in case of need?”
“Thank you.” Mage Tadak gave them each a friendly smile and let herself out.
Mage Parma turned to Ariana. “What was that about?”
“I don’t want her to know.” Ariana’s face burned. “I don’t want any of them to know.”
Mage Parma waited.
“They won’t—they won’t look on me as if I’m one of them. Because I’m not one of them. And they will put me out of the Circle.”
Mage Parma scooped the last of the training items into a shallow wooden box. “Do you think so?”
Ariana couldn’t think to answer. “The Circle is supposed to be the best of mages, the elite. The Circle is supposed to be a polished unit, a cadre working together, each member reliable and accountable to the others. That’s not me.”
The Silver Mage set her hands on the box’s sides and waited.
Slow dread rose in Ariana’s torso, twisting her stomach and reaching up to choke her with her own words. “Oh. Oh, no. I have to tell them.” Her throat closed, but she forced her voice out. “I can’t keep this from them, or I’m not a failure, but a traitor.”
“I wouldn’t have put it in quite those words.” Mage Parma’s eyes were soft, sympathetic. “But you should tell them.”
“Tell them what? That I’m no longer a mage, that I must leave the Circle?”
Mage Parma tapped her notes from the session. “Tell them you have experienced effects from your exposure to the Ryuven world, show that you are rebuilding your skills, and report what progress you have made thus far.”
“And am I making progress?”
Mage Parma gave her a stern look and tapped the notes again.
“All right, I am. But is it enough?”
“Just be careful,” the Silver Mage cautioned. “If you try to rush ahead, you might set yourself back. Don’t, in your eagerness to prove yourself, make your hill into a mountain.”
“It feels like a mountain already,” muttered Ariana, but she nodded. “I’ll be careful. No outside practice.”
Mage Parma smiled. “Now go and treat yourself to something special. You earned it today.”
In the corridor, Ariana squeezed her eyes shut against silent, burning tears as she returned to her own office. She would have to tell her friends first—they shouldn’t hear it from Circle news or rumors.
Ranne was in the market. Shianan was closer, if in his office instead of with his soldiers. He would understand if she told him.
It would be so hard to tell him.