Shona rose well before dawn. Though she was bone-weary from the trek, the hours of lost sleep would not be missed. Not after what had woken her.
She dressed and left her sleeping chamber. Like all the citadel’s rooms, hers was a vast stone cube. She had not once felt lonely on the journey until the previous evening.
As Shona walked the long corridor, gradually the slap of her sandals became overlaid by a faint din. She halted by the dining room’s entryway and listened to the happy chatter. She stayed there, her hand resting upon the aged wood, and thought of her father. She recalled other students taught by a teacher they both loved and wanted desperately to please. She pushed open the door, wondering how it was possible to be both delighted with the journey and aching with remorse for having ever left her home.
She was eighteen years old that day.
Connell’s chair scraped overloud in the sudden silence as he pushed from the table and rose to his feet. “Miss Shona, did we wake you?”
“No, I . . .” Shona had no idea what to say. The entire group was watching her. She could feel the gazes, especially those of the older boys and the male wizards. She had been followed by men’s eyes for years now. Why it should bother her so this pre-dawn, she had no idea.
Connell rounded on his students and roared, “You lot could wake the dead! The ghoulish army would find you a nuisance! Eat up! Class in ten minutes!”
They laughed at his pretended ire and resumed their breakfast. Which was clearly what Connell had intended. He stepped in close enough to be heard over the noise and asked, “Are you hungry?”
“No, well . . . Can I speak with you in private?”
For one brief instant Shona glimpsed the man behind the mocking jollity. Connell’s gaze became sparked by a deep and compassionate wisdom. He asked, “Bad night?”
“Not bad. But the dawn was . . .”
“Unsettling.”
“Very.”
“No amount of cleansing spells can erase all the shadows this palace has known,” he replied. “We can speak in my chambers if you like, but I do not meet privately with anyone. You understand?”
She took a moment to study Connell. He wore the traditional robe, tailored to suit his broad shoulders and narrow waist, yet otherwise unadorned. The severity suited him. Shona said, “I have misjudged you. For years.”
The impish gleam flashed in his eyes once more. “Nice to know I have the capacity to surprise.”
She tried for a smile of her own. “Astonish, more like.”
“Come. Why don’t we sit here.” He led her across the hall to an empty table. “Their noise will create walls. Would you like breakfast?”
“Perhaps a tea.”
“Tea it is.” He turned, and instantly a young man rose from his place and hurried over. “Bring our guest a mug of tea, will you, Fareed?”
When they were alone once more, Shona told him, “I was woken by a dream. I stood before a tall candle. I reached out, and I picked up the flame with my bare fingers. Not the candle. Just the fire. And it didn’t burn me.”
Connell was so intent he did not notice the student’s return. “Did the dream end then?”
“No. I held the flame for a time, then I set it down. Not on the first candle. On another. I watched the flame burn on this second candle, and I felt . . .”
Fareed watched her with the same intensity as Connell. The mug smoked unnoticed in his hands.
Connell said, “Tell me.”
“I felt so excited.” She knew her face burned with embarrassment. The whole thing seemed ridiculous now. “Like I had finally discovered something I had been searching for my entire life, and didn’t even know it until that very moment.”
Connell fished in his pocket and came up with a ring of keys. He handed them to the student and said, “You know where to find them?”
“In the corner of your study, Master Connell. Where they always are.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Yes, Master Mage.” Fareed shared a conspiratorial grin with Shona as he handed her the tea. Then he hurried away.
Connell asked, “You are seventeen, are you not?”
“Eighteen today. Please don’t tell the others.”
“Why ever not?”
She could not bring herself to say more than, “I don’t want any fuss.”
He started to protest, then shrugged. “Eighteen is very late for such an event. But it does happen. Occasionally.”
“What do you mean by event?”
“For your abilities to wake up.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Twelve is the most common age. I’ve one student, the girl you see over there with the white hair, she became aware at nine. Three of my charges started at fourteen.”
“You mean, I have . . . I might be . . .”
“We’ll soon see.” Once again he showed her the somber intensity. “You need to eat something.”
“I’m not the least bit hungry.”
“That doesn’t matter.” He rose, walked to the central refectory table, and filled a plate with bread and fruit and cheese. He returned and set it down before her. “It’s important that you eat all you possibly can.”
She selected a grape and almost gagged when she swallowed. “I can’t.”
“You must. Here. Take some of this cheese.”
She broke off a sliver and took it like medicine. “It tastes vile.”
“You only think it does. Now some bread.” He pared an apple and held out a slice. “Eat it, Shona. It will ground you in the material realm.”
She forced herself to do as he ordered. “What is happening?”
“The older the individual upon awakening, the more intense the transition. There is every risk of someone your age losing touch with the substance of this earth.”
She swallowed another morsel and felt the meal settle in her stomach like a brick. “What happens if I lose touch?”
“We’ll discuss that later. Right now . . .” He glanced over as his student entered the dining hall. “Here we are.”
The candles were thick as her wrist and were planted in iron stands almost as tall as Fareed. At their appearance, the din cut off for the second time that morning. Connell did not seem to notice. “Set them down there by the far wall. Come with me, Shona.”
Gone was the mocking tone, the boyish flirtation, any hint of the wealthy, insolent young man who had once teased her constantly. Connell was gentle and severe at the same time. “Shona, this is Fareed. Trace actually bought him from a desert merchant, but that is a story for another time. He serves as the class monitor when he is not causing me endless grief. It is customary for another student to join in this process. Fareed?”
The young man was a year or so younger than Shona and delighted at taking part. “Think back to your dream. Before you touched the flame, how did you protect your fingers from the fire?”
Shona asked, “The dream is common?”
“All your questions must wait,” Connell replied. “Answer Fareed.”
Shona did her best to ignore all the mages and acolytes who watched them. She recalled, “I concentrated on my hand. It tingled.”
Fareed cast a look at his teacher. Shona saw their shared excitement and felt a tremor course through her. As though she was entering into a secret shared by only a select few. The wizards of this realm.
“Do you feel the energy now?” Fareed asked.
“I . . . yes.” Her hand felt on fire, and yet it was a pleasant sensation. As though her limb vibrated to the excitement shared by everyone in the hall.
“Draw it around your entire body. From your head all the way to your feet. Feel it encircle you with an aura of protection. Tell me when you are fully shielded.”
By the time he finished speaking, it was already done. The energy flowed up and around and around, until it rang in her voice. “I feel it!”
“This is your safeguard. Each time you draw upon it, you also strengthen it. You must practice this daily. Do you understand?”
Her heart was racing now. She wanted to sing, to shout, to fly away and never return. She understood. Not just the shield, but the need for the food she had eaten. It anchored her. “Yes!”
Connell turned and called to the acolytes and mages who watched from the far table, “Shield yourselves and this room!”
One of his fellow teachers called back, “It is done!”
Connell said to his student, “Light the first candle and step back.”
Fareed grinned at Shona, his eyes dancing with whatever was about to come. He touched the candlewick with his finger. A flame ignited.
Connell said, “When you are ready, lift the fire and claim it as your own.”
With those words, Shona’s entire world was rearranged. She still felt the energy course through her, deeper even than her bones. A sense of knowing filled her. The fire was an opportunity. She could both focus on it and draw upon it. In an instant of otherworldly awareness, she had realized that the fire was not something outside her. She did not merely hold the flame. She joined with it.
With the realization had come a new ability. One to draw upon the same force she now used to shield her fingers from being burned. It coursed through her like a surging torrent, demanding release. Which she did, by doing as the master mage of Emporis instructed.
Lifting the flame from the candle was the most exciting event of her entire life.
“Stretch out your arm,” Connell said. “Extend the flame beyond its normal boundaries.”
Shona did not ask what Connell meant because she did not need to. She took a deep breath and extended her force, bonding and releasing at the same time.
The fire exploded outward, blinding her momentarily as it surged through the dining hall. Shona was horrified by what she had unleashed and fearful she harmed the others. She retreated by taking an indrawn breath, and she sensed that Connell assisted her in damping down the force.
But when the fire was diminished and her vision was restored, she could see the entire company of mages and acolytes were grinning. At her.
Connell then said, “Fareed?”
“There is a formal closure to this event,” the young man told her. “You must show that you have the ability to reduce your power to safe levels. Being a wizard is not only about releasing the mage-force. Even more important is controlling the power. You must now take the flame and light the other candle.”
The act was both simple and telling, for the temptation to release the force a second time was very strong. The power still surged and roiled, beckoning her to create more havoc. Resisting the temptation caused her fingers to tremble as Shona transferred the flame from one candle to the other.
Fareed nodded. “Whenever you are tempted to act without full control of your abilities, do you give your word that you will always remember this act and what it represents?”
She breathed, “I will.”
He beamed. “Then I welcome you to the company of acolytes.”