Star Mage (Book 5) (19 page)

Mara nearly collapsed by early evening, after an exhausting day spent in silly social conversations, lavish feasts and long introductions to countless nobles with their odd sense of pride in wearing only black or white-colored clothes. Her favorite part of the day was when they sauntered over to a shaded veranda adorned with climbing roses for afternoon tea and cakes, including fresh strawberries and whipped cream. All the social torture was made palatable by the sweet deserts and fragrant tea.

The evening slowly stole hours away from the day, and the dark fingers of twilight stretched across the outdoor dinner party situated along a fantastic man-made lake with seven waterfalls spilling from the gaping mouths of seven gods and goddesses. In a peculiar change in the scene, all the women had disappeared from what the men coined,
The Resting Hour
, and returned renewed and radiant wearing sheer silk dinner gowns that revealed far more of the women's’ figures than Mara’s dress.

At the first cheerful note played from a lute, Mara could tell that the night’s festivities were an anchor point for the nobility, as the amount of royals out milling around the lake at the dinner party tripled from many of the events earlier that day. With the orchestra playing full and furious now, the warm sultry air possessed only a faint hint of humidity, though enough to keep the night pleasant enough for Mara’s exposed skin. As she stood arm-in-arm with Talis observing the migratory patterns of the royals, she felt a firm flow of steadying power from having him at her side. Something about his tousled hair and dazzling eyes filled her with a sense of belonging and confidence that she so desperately needed right now, especially after the incident with her slaying the three sorcerers.

Gasps and murmurs cascaded across the various groups as heads turned towards a stain of blood-red that showed far off in a slow-moving boat that appeared underneath a god’s head. Mara craned her neck to see around stretching heads trying to get a better view of the arrival of someone very special. The blare of trumpets burst out. A luminous red falling curtain covered the sky from the zenith all the way down to the rolling surface of the lake. The boat and its riders had teasingly vanished in the shimmering show of power likely created by invisible magicians positioned mysteriously across the grounds.
 

And then an eruption of fireworks from hundreds of spouts in the lake jettisoned white and red pillars of fire high into the sky and ignited the curtain into a raging inferno that blinded Mara for a moment and sent her heart racing in ecstatic delight. With the smoke came a dark and dreadful mist that showered the celebration in obscuring phantoms and faeries that moved and swirled and danced around the heads of the partygoers. But soon absolute darkness rampaged across the screaming, wailing women and brought a roar of frenzied exclamations. The sounds seemed as if coming from the mouths of men sentenced to death, men pleading to indifferent executioners.

Mara felt the fury of fear surging in her chest, the same feeling as when Talis had led her into the Ruins of Elmarr, into the place of doom where the malevolent voice spoke words of terror to her mind. Was the same being haunting here in a visitation upon Carvina, summoned through the channeled spells of its most ardent sorcerers? The power surged and scintillated as a ripple of fire and electricity danced in sheets across the sky, so intoxicating that Mara felt her legs quiver and tremble under the force of magic, and she found her teeth clenched in a weird, uncontainable wrath. She longed to grip her daggers and destroy and destroy until the sky was a deluge of blood.

Silence and a wash of nothingness. A familiar hand holding hers. Talis staring over her with concerned eyes. The smell of smoke and cinder serenaded her nostrils and caused her to gasp in a sudden wakefulness.

“Where am I?” Her voice sounded surprisingly soft and sleepy, as if she’d just woken from a long, dreamless sleep. She glanced around and her eyes discovered a dimly lit room and Talis sitting at her bedside. His face held the concerned expression of a father studying a sick child.

“We’re back in your room at the Regent’s Inn.” He looked as if he were uncertain of how much to reveal to her. “You fainted in the park. It was pretty intense when the Emperor arrived with his consorts and royal sorcerers and illusionists. You weren’t the only one to faint. I saw countless women and even men gasping and convulsing with horrified expressions gripping their faces. It was a grim and devious scene. Master Goleth believes it had something to do with our arrival in Carvina and the letter that he wrote to the Emperor. He said that Emperor Ghaalis likes to awe first-time visitors to Carvina with a massive display of his power.”

“Did I go into convulsions?” Mara studied Talis’s face for hints of her unruly behavior, but he only shook his head and his clear eyes told that her she didn’t act out of place.

“You just fainted after the darkness came. I felt your knees buckling and I scooped you up before you could fall.” He grinned at her and cupped her cheeks with his hands and she pushed herself up and kissed him in appreciation for his chivalry.

 
“Gods, that’s a relief. Here I was imagining myself spasming on the lawn like a deranged lunatic.” She sat up and glanced around the dark room. “What time is it? I’m starving. Is there any place we can go and get something to eat?”

“We could ask the servants to bring us something.”

She shook her head, wanting to go outside and feel invigorated by the cool night air. “I’ll change into something black and make sure I fit in with the crowd. I got way too much attention today wearing red. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You certainly did draw a lot of stares.” He stood and helped her up and chuckled at her woozy face as she found her legs wobbly.

“Wow, I must have really been out of it,” she said, and steadied herself against Talis’s arm until they reached the changing room filled with clothes that had been made especially for her. “How late it is?”

“Like midnight?” A nervous expression flashed across Talis’s face. “I hope it’s ok for us to go outside.”

She waved away the idea and rummaged through the collection of clothes and dresses hanging from brass hooks in the huge wardrobe. A short sleek black dress with frilly lace below the waist caught her eyes and she pressed it against her chest and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She wasn’t what she’d call beautiful, not compared to all the other tall, gazelle-like girls that loped around in long, lavish dresses that accentuated their lean and lengthy arms and legs. Their slender figures had just the right amount of curves to inflict cruelty on the imagination of men gawking at them like puppies. But many men did stare at her tonight, and Talis beamed in pride at having her by his side.

“This one,” she proclaimed, and decided for certain after Talis’s bright eyes fixed the decision. She told him to turn aside while she undressed, but when he went to leave she asked him to stay and keep her company. The black dress fit perfectly and she stretched out her arms and twirled in front of the long mirror, admiring her toned and slender legs that looked longer than the last time she had studied herself.

“Am I getting taller?” she said, and looked to Talis for confirmation.

“You are taller, actually. Your mother is quite tall, so no reason you won’t grow more.” Talis was being kind and Mara knew it; her mother wasn’t tall, definitely not compared to how tall and thin the women were in Carvina. They looked like giraffes.

She seized his hand in an excited rush and slipped on a pair of shiny black slippers the servants had brought for her, and tugged Talis out into the hallway. They quickly escaped out a side door into the crisp, fragrant night air that possessed the faintest hint of a cool mist. The streets were still surprisingly bustling, with fewer couples and far more younger, livelier girls and boys threading through the streets with jubilant and conniving faces. Mara noticed the curious eyes of boys older than her, drugged and intoxicated eyes that roamed and laughed and raged ebullience and freedom.
 

Music poured out across the streets from performers singing and playing and dancing for coin, upended velvet hats collecting a bounty based on the skill and popularity of the artists. She caught sight of the most beautiful and exotic young woman she had ever seen, dancing at a wild street corner thronged with admiring men and jealous girls. The dancer wore diamonds slunk around her exposed, sensuous belly that gyrated and pulsed to the sound of drums hammering away in a frenzy of hypnotic rhythms. Her silk top teasingly revealed upright breasts that bounced in time with the music. Mara found a blush coming to her face at the woman’s erotic movements.

She looked up at Talis’s entranced eyes and elbowed him in the ribs to shake him out of his gawking. He glanced down and gave her an embarrassed but entertained smile that caused her to relax and enjoy the show. As Mara returned her gaze to the dancing, the woman’s almond eyes caught hers and sparkled in a mischievous look. The dancer twirled and twirled in a pirouette of pleasure, and her delicate hands and long fingers flourished graceful gestures while her hips rocked and bounced in a seductive fury.
 

The music stopped abruptly and the dancer bowed, sending a wave of cheers and clapping across the crowd. Mara cheered along with them, waving her hands in an excited flourish that matched her free feeling.
 

“Such a wild and wonderful city,” she said, and giggled as the crowd pushed them along towards a marketplace filled with steaming stalls where savory and sweet scents wafted into Mara’s nostrils, driving her stomach to gurgle and complain in expectant delight. Soon Talis commandeered a place underneath a sprawling sycamore tree and offered her a white chair at a table already stocked with a selection of chocolates.

It seemed as if the youthful crowd was also hungry and thirsty from flirting and gossiping and enjoying the excitement of the street shows. Well-heeled girls plopped down on chairs while the young men stood and sipped on mugs filled with frothy beer, admiring the girls as they preened and exposed legs and flapped dresses as if pretending to cool themselves. It was quite a lavish scene.

A candle was brought to their table, and Talis, obviously showing off for her, aimed a palm at the flame and caused it to twirl and dance about a foot into the air. Several gasps went out as girls from nearby tables noticed the outburst of brilliant light. But Talis remained undisturbed, and instead focused even more on the flame.

“I’ve been practicing with fire and force,” he said, keeping his voice soft and sultry like the night. He aimed both palms at the flame, facing each other in a kind of cupping gesture. “Flame feeds off wind, and wind drives fire crazy.”

Mara chuckled and lifted herself a bit to see better. “Kind of like you and me.”

“You do drive me crazy more times than I care to admit.” He winked, but kept his eyes fixed on the flame. Soon the flame split into two, then three flames that illogically had twisted around in a fixed twirl where each flame did not touch the others. It was almost as if Talis had learned how to independently control each flame, and yet each flame still burned within the confines of its own spiral.

A smile burst across Talis’s handsome face as he leaned back a bit and watched as the three flames continued to grow and spiral into the air, like three long-stem roses artificially twisted and splayed apart in the air. Shrieks of joy and exclamations of amazement echoed out across the nearby tables. So much for a night out unseen. Though Mara would’ve preferred anonymity, she was pleased to see Talis enjoying the entranced attention of the crowd that was gathering around their table.

“Flame and dragons married along the serpent’s spine.” Talis projected his voice in a high, mysterious tone as he snapped his fingers and caused three dragon heads to sprout and come alive atop each flame fingerling. Mara marveled at his sophisticated artistry, and the level of detail he could command, including causing the eye area inside the dragon heads to burn white-hot. How did he do it? She had never seen him practice such complicated creativity, other than flame-play at campfires and fires at the hearth.

“Three dragons consume each other in ecstasy,” Talis proclaimed with a playful chuckle in his voice, and spiraled his index fingers and caused the dragons to face the sky and twist around like cobras under the bewitching tune of a snake-charmer. Indeed the dragon’s mouths opened and devoured each other and dove down to the candlewick and burst back up as a single, larger dragon with churning, white-hot eyes that flared a bright heat. Mara jerked her head back in a giddy gasp of pleasure.

Then Talis clapped his hands and the flame was extinguished in a burst of white, fragrant smoke that smelled like temple incense. The silent crowd stood stunned and gaping at the rising, twisting smoke, as if expecting the smoke tendrils to come alive and form into some hideous beast.

“That was amazing,” Mara whispered, but even the softness of her voice managed to startle the assembled crowd out of their reverie. She glanced around at the entranced faces of the youthful citizens of Carvina, the faces of people least likely to be amazed, considering all the spectacular displays of art and magic she’d already seen here in the capitol.

One bold and beautiful girl opened her mouth to speak. She was perhaps sixteen-years old with long, luscious yellow hair that danced as she shook her head in amazement at Talis. Her voice sounded enviously silky and smooth as she spoke. Mara instantly hated her.

“Dragons are forbidden from all displays of magic in Carvina.” The girl’s pleasant proclamation startled Mara, as she had expected the girl to praise Talis for his artistic expression. “From what city do you hail?”

Talis’s surprised pause gave an opening for Mara to respond. “We’re from Naru, a city to the north nestled in a vast oasis in the Nalgoran Desert. A city that has long been at war with the Jiserian Empire.”

The yellow-haired girl pivoted her pretty face around and gawked at Mara as if shocked that she had the audacity to speak to her. “Naru?” She scoffed in a fetching, taunting exclamation that caused the girls around her to break out in a fit of pretentious giggles. “Didn’t we completely obliterate that frightful little city? I heard father talking to his club friends that after our sorcerers and troops demolished any resistance, our necromancers turned the entirety of that vile population into frothing undead.”