‘Because her forging was incomplete, Lady Mielitta will please enter the Maturity Barn with the other candidates, to repeat the process.’
Bastien’s words rang in Mielitta’s brain as people made way for her, murmuring the formula for good luck as she paced the distance to the entrance.
‘May the stones bring you fortune.’
‘As Perfection wills,’ she replied, wondering why she would need luck if everybody passed the Test. Her temples throbbed and she longed to connect with her bees and take flight but she would not go without Drianne. As she passed so close to Rinduran she could have spat in his one good eye, she looked down demurely. She gathered her skirt in one hand, as if to enter the Barn with ladylike elegance but it was to avoid touching him with so much as a scrap of cloth. Both from repugnance and the fear he would detect an anomaly in her, she emptied her mind. She refused to feel Bastien’s breath on her neck as he followed her into the darkness.
The glowing outline of the entry vanished at Bastien’s command and only their breathing and scents revealed the presence of the candidates.
Mielitta blinked, reached for a hint of bee vision, and at once the interior of the Barn filled with dark blue human shapes. She was on one side among the girls, fresh-scented as apples. Among them was the heady perfume of Mage Puggy, an exotic orchid in their midst. Drianne’s spring sweetness reached Mielitta from the furthest side of the group.
On the other side of the Barn were the boys. Like the drones’ gathering place, thought Mielitta as she inhaled their adolescent pheromones. And something else. Sharp as vinegar, the smell disabled her nose and she quickly reverted to merely human senses. Bastien.
It didn’t take wall magic to figure out who had told Bastien that her forging had not worked properly. She had only used that excuse to one person in the Citadel: Bastien’s friend. Of course, Jannlou had betrayed her. She was glad she hadn’t told him what Bastien really thought of him. Serve him right when his turn came! And his father’s. Judging by Rinduran’s speech, the new regime was poised to take over. But she’d only find out what horrors that meant for the Citadel if she survived this ordeal without losing her mind or being exposed as a traitor
Bastien was not among the boys but central in the Barn, at the focal point from which tiny glowing cups floated outwards to each candidate. Pink for the girls and blue for the boys, just as Hannah had remembered. There was something hypnotic about the rays of glowing cups and Mielitta shut her eyes to avoid their patterns. Even with her eyes closed, she still kept seeing something that made no sense. One cup had stopped in front of Mage Puggy’s mouth, forced her lips open, emptied down her throat.
Then Mielitta’s own lips felt the tap of her cup and the instinct to open her mouth. She had learned to override such reflexes during long hours training in the archery yard and she held back a moment to shut her bees and her suspicions into her deep thinking. Then she opened her mouth and let the liquid explore her mouth before slipping down her throat.
As tasteless as the usual Citadel water, the liquid was more viscous and it sparkled, tingling on the palate, anaesthetic. Mielitta’s mouth grew numb and the insensibility spread, affecting her sense of smell, travelling up her nose, seeking her mind.
Pretty colour, lavender, she thought. Maybe Jannlou will dance with me and then, if I’m lucky, we’ll kiss... and more than that. It wasn’t ladylike to linger on the details of his body glistening with sweat as they fought in the forest, so she didn’t. But something in her deep thinking fought to keep a memory of the salt tang of his skin, to know that it mattered in some visceral way. Somehow this diminished to Wouldn’t it be nice to have babies with him, to support him in his important work as a mage, to be envied by all the other wives.
Her shallow thinking preened at the picture: Mielitta on her wedding day. Such a pretty gown. And herself, so happy, so safe, protected by Jannlou in a Perfect Citadel. All eyes on the beautiful lady and her desirable mate.
Drone, a voice suggested somewhere in the distance.
As Mielitta pleasured herself in such visions, swaying in a slow dance, she became vaguely aware of another intrusion in her mind. First, a warm spot glowed. She could see it reddening, feel it growing hotter, but there was no pain. In her dreamy state she enjoyed the strange sensation. She was an arrowhead in the forge, melting enough to be welded to the shaft. The rod turned the exact shade of cherry red required and she felt its touch on the compartments of her mind.
She was being forged. Dancing in Jannlou’s arms. Her deep thinking was being sealed off forever by magecraft. Such a happy life ahead. So pretty. In Perfection we trust. Sealed off by the craft of a Mage-Smith.
That bastard, Kermon! Help me! she summoned her bees, fighting every fluffy thought that filled her head.
An angry buzz rose up as the bees joined the hive mind to hers, blocking out shallow thoughts of dances and perfect babies. She didn’t want perfect babies. She wanted ones like her, wild and free. Still the welding rod continued its fiery work and she could feel something closing inside her, a future being destroyed.
Oil it, she commanded, giving the bees a picture of the implacable torch, and of their own special elaiophore glands releasing the floral oils that some had collected instead of pollen.
Work! the oil-collecting bees thrummed as they obeyed orders. Flying rank on rank, then retreating into the depths of Mielitta’s mind, they oil-bombed the red-hot rod. It merely worked faster to close the access point through which fresh bees came to do battle.
More! Faster! she told them, digging her nails into the palms of her hands so that the pain would shake her out of the torpor. It wasn’t enough. She unclasped the arrowhead from her neck and jabbed the inside of her arm. How fitting that she should fight Kermon with the help of a weapon he forged himself. A moment of refreshing clarity came with the pain and she directed the bees in a wave of attack.
The white halo round the red glow diminished, then the fiery heart turned black. Mielitta could see the texture of the rod, see the tongs holding it, the hand holding the tongs. The person to whom the hands belonged wavered into view through the smoke given off as the rod cooled but was gone before Mielitta could identify him. She didn’t need to. She knew the soul-reader had penetrated her mind.
Panting with effort, Mielitta gradually regained feeling in her mouth, a sour taste. She could smell a false sweetness in the Barn, sickly, stomach-churning. Should she try to fly?
Drianne, she remembered, opening her eyes, glancing round cautiously. What in the stones’ name had happened to the other candidates? She could see the girls around her swaying. Imaginary dances with all-too-real partners, she thought bitterly, part of her yearning still after the future she’d given up. What did the boys see?
Mielitta identified Puggy, her body moving like reeds in the wind, more erotic in her mature sensuality than the dreaming teenagers. There would be no help from that quarter. Beside Puggy was Drianne, indistinguishable in her movements from the others. With a start, Mielitta remembered to feign her own drugged state, to fit in, be the lady she could have been.
Maybe Drianne would be happier forged. Maybe that’s what her words had meant, Mielitta mused as she swayed like a branch in the breeze. She’d be alone with her bees. She licked a salt trickle from her cheek, remembered the taste of Jannlou, who’d betrayed her. But the dream world was not real. She could not live there.
We are with you, her bees told her.
It will be all right, Drianne had said.
Around her, the candidates were jerking to a halt, returning to their senses – or rather to the new people they’d become. Mielitta copied the actions of those around. It was easy enough in the dark to blend in.
She glanced at the corner. Was the pile of ashes higher? She’d tried to count the candidates but the drink had wiped out her memory of the numbers and left only vague pictures of the procession, no faces other than Puggy and Drianne, who were both still here. Would their faces have been wiped from her mind too if they’d become ashes? If their forging hadn’t worked? But she was still here. And still herself.
Jannlou would be pleased. Her lie was now true. She had been through a Maturity Ceremony and it hadn’t worked properly. Of course she could never tell him. She would just have to lie better next time.
‘From this day forth, you are ladies and knights, tested and found true to the Citadel. May the stones protect you in your Perfect lives as adults. May you have two forgeable children, lead faultless lives and be obedient to those in authority,’ intoned Bastien. ‘Lady Puggy, lead the ladies to the greensward and the Ceremony!’
The newly-demoted mage waited for Bastien to speak the password, open the glowing rectangle. The shaft of sudden daylight revealed no regret on her beautiful blank face. Her full, reddened lips parted slightly in what could have been either a smile or a gasp of pleasure as she took her first step into a new life. Rinduran was waiting and took Lady Puggy’s arm, escorted her to pride of place in front of the audience, while the procession followed. Girls trooped out first, holding their skirts up above the sterile ground in a ladylike manner.
Mielitta eyed up the distance she had to cover to reach the table. She tried to catch Drianne’s eye but was ignored.
The boys filed out, solemn with the weight of their new responsibilities. Finally, Bastien emerged, silhouetted against the open door for a moment, a giant bat in his fluttering robes. Even he looked changed, older, tired. At the first Maturity Ceremony he’d led, the Apprentice had presided over the forging of his own mentor, Puggy.
Bastien walked along the row of candidates, while the pink and blue flares enlivened the grey canopy in the traditional salute. Did the flares carry the same magecraft as the drinks? Prevent the waiting crowd remembering how many had entered the Barn? Let parents forget their own children if they didn’t emerge as new adults?
Like grubs hatching. Nobody counts.
The Maturity Mage stopped beside Drianne, spoke a few quiet words and she flushed. Then she smiled prettily at him, a little girl playing grown-up, and she took his arm. Bastien was not playing grown-up and Mielitta knew what he’d said. Betrothal. Wife. Her stomach lurched as Bastien continued his inspection, moving towards her, Drianne at his side.
‘Congratulations,’ Bastien said to the beaming girl beside Mielitta.
Clever braiding, Mielitta’s remaining brain fog noticed. Rose ribbons wound through glossy black frizz. Wonder what hair treatments she used. Must have taken ages.
Bastien and Drianne stopped in front of her. She looked down, her hands clasped in front of her, stilled all thought, whether shallow or deep. Not one ripple.
The Maturity Mage sniffed, looked puzzled, opened his mouth to speak but Mielitta would never know what he had been going to say as Rinduran’s voice overrode his son’s. ‘Arrest her. She is vile, a traitor, riddled with Forest.’
There was a gasp at the forbidden word.
Mielitta lunged for the table. But Rinduran’s order had not been to any person. The greensward itself had obeyed and was reaching upwards, curling tendrils of grassette around her legs like shackles. She was locked in place. She reached for her bees, thought of the glowing queen on her thigh but instead of communion there was absence.
Rinduran nodded at her, his eye patch black as stone death. Whatever he’d done had isolated her. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t fly as human or bee. In the flood of panic, she felt a connection she recognised, the eye behind the patch looking at her through her own powers, using them against her as she’d used Jannlou’s own weight to throw him.
She was drawn by the black poison dart into that poisoned eye, into the putrescent milk of the cornea, where she floundered, alone. Her own inner darkness told her to give up. Death would be a relief. She should just let go, surrender.
‘Throttle yourself,’ she suggested. ‘The crowd would enjoy that. A fitting end.’ Her hands rose to her throat, felt a thin gold chain, hesitated.
‘Break it,’ she told herself but instead she reached for the arrowhead, knowing exactly how she’d stab herself, multiple times, until there was peace. But she was thwarted in the attempt to end her despair. Steelwing hurt her but did no further damage.
Then Rinduran laughed and the pressure on her withdrew in a mocking rush. She would have staggered if not bound in green chains. Instead she had no option but to listen to the mage’s plans for the Citadel while facing her own execution.
‘I promised you changes.’ Rinduran’s tones oozed a politician’s sincerity. ‘And, like this cohort of new adults, the Citadel will be born again, sovereign and Perfect, cleansed of the impurities that have wormed their way into our community.’ His arms embraced all those who’d just passed their Maturity Test and then fixed the impure worm with a glare. All eyes were on Mielitta. So much raw hatred was worse than hands on her throat.
It was a relief when Rinduran drew the audience’s attention to the woman at his side, holding her in what he probably thought was a loving embrace. ‘It is with great pleasure that, on this special day, I can now announce my forthcoming marriage. Lady Puggy is to be my wife.’
Thank the stones, Mielitta no longer had to join in with the false cheers. ‘Always make the best of things,’ Declan would have said. If only she were still the little girl he’d comforted over a scratched knee or difficult schoolwork. She’d so wanted to be an adult and now she knew what it meant, she couldn’t think of anything worse. She looked around for her father but Declan was nowhere to be seen. The back door to the forge was closed and unless you knew it was there, the spyhole was invisible. Maybe he was watching her, ashamed of what she’d become.
Rinduran was still droning on about the future. As long as he was speaking, Mielitta’s death sentence was postponed, so she might as well listen. Anything to distract her from her own doom.
‘For too long, girls afflicted with magecraft have lived unnatural lives, forced to join male mages in work and even in Council, unable to marry or to have children. My own betrothed, dear Puggy, suffered such a fate.’ He kissed the ex-mage on the cheek, raised her hand and kissed that too. She seemed compliant, her vacuous half-smile never faltering. Bastien seemed less enamoured of his father canoodling with the new wife-to-be but quickly schooled his expression on hearing his own name.
‘Things have changed! The new Maturity Mage Bastien has intervened during the Test to ensure that no woman will ever again endure such a fate. From now on, girls will have the curse of magecraft excised during the Maturity Ceremony, so they will all be able to live full women’s lives.’ Rinduran paused on a triumphant note and was rewarded with applause.
‘Today is a great day for the Citadel and I want to thank Mage Bastien for his leadership in this new Ceremony and for saving Lady Puggy with his skills. You will forgive me if I take pride in this achievement, for I am a father as well as a mage. So it is with personal pleasure that I want to introduce Lady Drianne, my son’s betrothed. Their wedding, and our own, will be the symbol of the Citadel’s renewed future!’
While the crowd yelled variations on ‘Our saviours! Mage Bastien and Mage Rinduran!’ Mielitta focused on her bee sigil, willing the queen to merge, so they could fly together. But there was no glow. No interior voices. No company. Just these hostile faces and shouting mouths.
Mielitta scanned the audience again. Not all those watching were enthusiastic. Or at least they did not display any enthusiasm. Declan wasn’t present but his Apprentice was. That bastard Kermon. Hatred was a steel core and she used its hard certainty to hold back tears. She would not give him the satisfaction. But he wasn’t even looking at her. His gaze never left Drianne, at Bastien’s side, as cheerful and compliant as Puggy.
Then she recognised another mage and forgot Kermon as her unruly heart lurched. Jannlou. Taller than those around him and grim as she’d never seen him, not even when facing the tiger. Worried for his father at last, no doubt, having noticed Rinduran’s high-handed words and gold braid. Mielitta could have bled laughter at his pain. He’d betrayed her to Bastien and he deserved everything that was coming to him. She stared at him, willing him to turn. When he did, she held his gaze, long and hard, then spat on the grassette, hoping the contamination with her spit would make it shrivel. No such luck. But Jannlou did not look down and in the end, she couldn’t face him out. Not when she remembered what dreaming of a future in his arms had felt like.
