Dead Letter (2 page)

Dean
Fynze offered her another sweet and this time she took it. Perhaps
there was wisdom in his advice. “I’ll go, though don’t expect me to
be foolish enough to believe your talk was motivated by compassion
for Calimska’s citizens. I will be using my personal time as I see
fit.”

“
As is your right.”

“
And when I find Rix, what then?” She didn’t care what people
thought. She’d say his name until Nathis claimed her soul. No one
would forget.

A dark
frown wrinkled across Dean Fynze's brow like a storm front. “That
is for you to decide, but don’t sacrifice your future here to spite
your mother.”

Kettna
rose from her book-seat and bowed to the Dean with as much grace as
she could muster, dusting her robes of the dust she accrued in his
chambers. “I will pack my things and catch the afternoon
ferry.”

“
There is no rush. Say your farewells before you
go.”

“
This letter is as much as a farewell as I will get. The
Archmagus holds duty to the Order above her family.”

The
uncomfortable look on the Dean’s face was proof enough that her
mother was likely too busy to wave her off at the docks. In any
case, Kettna was a woman grown. She didn’t need the pointless tears
of a sentimental mother to make her feel loved.

“
Return safe, Novice.” Dean Fynze handed her the edict and she
tucked it into an inside pocket amongst the folds of her
robes.

“
The Constable might not be so eager to keep me on. I’ll be
back before the first dragon shadows the city.”

Kettna bowed to her senior again then left the chambers,
taking each step down the stairwell, swinging on a pendulum of new
worries.
What if I find him? What if he’s
dead?

***

Kettna hurried back
to her dormitory and packed a rucksack with clothes and her most
prized possessions. She decanted a flask of Beggar’s Respite—a
restorative she’d been studying—into three ceramic tubes with such
haste the potion frothed over, spilling on the floor. “Ash it!” The
alchemical components of the potion were cheap, but the
distillation process took many days to make half a flask. Not only
that, she had to book moons in advance just to access the
laboratory equipment. Kettna considered mopping the spill with a
cloth and wringing the drips out into another beaker. Instead, she
spread a cloth down to soak it up and hung it over the back of her
chair. She didn’t expect to return for several days and wondered
what the dry properties of the residue might be. There would be a
small paper in it and an extra publication with her name on it was
never a bad thing.

The novice stoppered the tubes and slotted them into a snug
pouch on her belt of reagents beside a vial of
Hydra’s Tincture
, an approved
enhancer. Small cantrips were all she could cast with reliability.
She knew more of the utilitarian spells than most elders ever
bothered to learn. Talented weavers concerned themselves with much
more powerful magic, turning their noses up at hedge wizardry and
commoners craft. They had little use for paltry variations of
arcane knowledge. Kettna could summon a point of light to aid her
late night reading in bed, whereas a sorcerer could illuminate the
Grand Hall brighter than a summer’s day.

In any case, reading in bed was preferable to illuminated
halls of politics. Kettna pleasured in the moments of comfort where
she immersed herself in knowledge, away from the critical eyes of
professors. While their instruction was helpful in many ways, it
also tethered her learning to the limited syllabus sanctioned for
novice practitioners. She would miss her small room with the soft
straw bed and reading desk. It was her tiny fortress where she read
what she wanted and thought what she wanted. Whilst it wasn’t much
to look at, she’d miss her small collection of books, clinging to a
narrow shelf that sagged under their weight. It was nothing
compared to the Great Library, but it felt like she was abandoning
a friend to leave the tomes behind. Her finger traced across their
spines—
Gillingtin’s Essential Alchemy,
Arcane Angular Suggestion, Calimskan Wildflowers and Cultivars,
Bestiary of the Inherently Magical
.
Others, like her collection of sketches and research notes, would
be of no use in Calimska, but they would be missed.

Under
her pillow was her favourite. Kettna wrapped her arms around the
blue silk-bound book and lay down, closing her eyes. Rix had given
it to her for her name day. How he got the shine to buy it was
beyond her. He didn’t have a highborn father to pay his tuition. He
relied upon a frugal scholarship. Floral designs were woven onto
the cover and inside were pressed flowers, some from as faraway as
Tashiska. The collection of dried specimens even had pepperbush
blooms from the northern wastelands, and rare honeywort from the
Great Dividing Range. He had told her that one day they would
travel to every place the flowers bloomed. They would see what the
world was like outside the books. Kettna wondered if he had found a
new flower in the city. She knew there were prettier girls out
there. Rix was a man like any other. He had desires that she had
shared, but there were some she could not sate. In the end it was
her determination that tore them apart; her need to be the best, no
matter the route to power. A need that remorse had stripped bare
and bitter tears had worn away.

Rix had
insisted the book was better than a bunch of flowers that would
wilt and die. These were preserved, just like their love. They kept
their perfume and kept their colour when cut from their roots.
Magic kept the blooms alive, as it would for Kettna and Rix. She
hoped the sentiment was true.

The
mixed floral scents relaxed her body and she tried again to reach
out with her mind to Rix. Magic tickled from her heels to the back
of her legs and zipped up her spine, thudding into the base of her
skull with a deep resonance that vibrated like a tower bell
silenced under the ocean. Her sense of the room around her washed
away and she summoned a memory of Rix into focus. Like always, she
pictured him leaning against the doorframe, a sly grin entertaining
his handsome features, eyes beckoning her to leave study till
later. Just a quick kiss. Just a little break to relax. She stayed
with his image, flirting with her memory of him, though the
connection was absent. Where was he? Why had he pushed her from his
mind? Had her magic fallen so flat she couldn’t even reach him
across the lake, or had he severed their connection? Their sacred
bond, cut. Their vow, broken. The painful idea shattered her
concentration and her grasp on the weave slipped. Magic scorched
from her skull to her toes like a flame racing across lamp oil,
punishing her for the lapse of control, punishing her for
hack-handed sentimentality. She took her time rising from the
bed.

Noting
the afternoon shadows that crept across her room, she stuffed the
book of pressed flowers into her satchel and gingerly walked from
her room. The pain in her legs from the uncontrolled retraction,
eased a little with each step. She felt like an apprentice,
hobbling along after a failed trial of a basic technique. Through
the narrow dormitory halls she received polite nods from other
mages of the Order. They were always courteous to her face with
whispers behind her back. Let them talk. Once she resolved what was
happening with Rix, her magic would return and she would graduate
the trial a sorcerer true—an adept.

CHAPTER TWO

Worded
Stitch

Although it was late afternoon, the sun persisted
in its attempt to bake civilisation. Kettna took the shady path
beside Wanderer’s Wood to the docks, sneaking behind the gnarled
old maple tree on the way. With a practiced hand she reached into a
hollowed out knot, where she kept her stash of mana frogs. There
was only one left, but a sly trader in the city would have one on a
back shelf gathering dust. She checked to see if anyone had seen
her, then returned to the path and walked on with the contraband
secure in the false bottom of her satchel.

At the
water’s edge, a cool breeze greeted her and she took a seat on a
bench to wait for the ferryman. Squinting across the Lake of Tears,
she tried to pick out the ferry boat. A puzzle of perspective,
distance and direction made it difficult to tell which vessel it
could be. Fishing boats and merchant skiffs worked the calm waters
with full-bellied sails, crowding the lake like traders at market.
They all looked similar from a distance.

“
Kettna!” Her father’s voice gave her a start. The Chamberlain
came running over, out of breath by the time he reached her seat.
He claimed a place on the bench beside his only daughter and patted
her knee. “Why are you going so soon?”

“
I’ve waited half a moon for permission. Why wait a moment
longer?”

“
Of course, yes.” Kettna’s father was weary. “There’s a
terrible backlog, but we’re trying to get through it. So many
requests for leave at this time of year. Dragon season draws ever
closer and people want to be with their family.”

“
Do they? Even Mother?”

“
Especially her. She serves unforgiving hours. You know
that.”

Kettna
kept her silence on the old argument, letting the breeze cool her
anger and spill through her anise brown hair. There was nothing
more to say that she hadn’t argued a dozen times before. Her
mother’s position was a great responsibility, but that didn’t ease
Kettna’s unhappiness. Surely the Archmagus, of all people, could
wrangle time for her family. “Did she organise this post reporting
to the Constable?”

“
No, I did.”

“
What? Why would you do that to me?”

“
The other elders voted against your request for sabbatical. I
voted for it, but there was no way to sway them.”

“
Why should they care? What good am I here? I keep failing to
rank for the trials.”

“
The truth is, I asked for the decision to be postponed until
your review was complete. That’s why it took so long. I’m sorry,
Kettna. In the meantime, I reached out to the Guildmaster and the
Constable. The Order of Calim has a responsibility to protect the
city, just as any other guild.”

“
You put me in the Guard! How am I going to protect a whole
city if I can’t conjure a shield to last half a breath?”

“
This was a contingency in case you failed again. The elders
would never permit the only daughter of the Archmagus to wander
alone in the city. You’re right. If you’re not fit for the trials,
how could you defend yourself in Calimska against thuggery and
crooked minds? I made the argument that the city watch would be the
safest place for you. I had thought it would be enough to sway the
elders.”

“
Well, it obviously worked. Mother must have been in a fine
state when she found out you went to such lengths.”

“
She was at first. The elders still voted it down. I put your
case in the best possible light, but they wouldn’t have any of it.
Your Mother came around to the idea in the end. She vetoed the
elder’s vote.”

“
Mother did that?”

“
She did. She loves you, Kett. We only want to see you smile
again.”

“
Even if that involves Rix?”

The
Chamberlain took his daughter’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “I
don’t want you to get hurt. But I see that separating you and Rix
has done just that. You’re not our baby girl anymore. I think it’s
time you were left to make your own decisions about
love.”

“
And the rest?”

“
As much as the Order allows, my dear. You enjoy the benefits
of our guild’s resources and power, so remember the oath you took
for our ink.”

Kettna’s
enchanted tattoos glimmered across her fingers. Her left hand
crawled with a web of spider-silk connections, bridging arcane
symbols and ancient words of power. One for each knowledge
confirmed. They crowded over her left hand, painting her skin with
magical ink and pride. Her right hand was her disappointment. Only
her thumb had all its ink; a meagre confirmation of her connection
to the weave. Her forefinger was complete to the second phalanges.
That did not make her proud, as it had not been earned through her
innate ability, but through poaching. She was a lame owl, a head
full of knowledge with no means to fly. Better a lame owl than a
blind falcon, diving through the weave and hitting the ground fast.
She’d give anything to paint the bare fingers of her right hand
with ink.

“
Kettna?” asked her father, breaking the daydream.

“
Of course, I remember my oath.” The novice took her father’s
hands in her own. His were perfect. His left had knowledge to the
wrist and masterwork up to his elbows. His right hand wasn’t heavy
with sigils, yet it had a balanced collection complete with minor
masteries across his palm. Her father was the Chamberlain after
all, and rose to that position before her mother even claimed
eldership, long before her ascendance to lead the Order of Calim as
Archmagus. When Kettna’s connection with the weave stalled, her
father’s warm intellect had encouraged her to pursue her academic
leanings. Being a prodigy was wonderful, until everyone around you
outpaced your talent. She’d become a lovesick lame duck. What more
could she expect than a year in service to the city? She would take
the bitter pill, if only to find Rix.