The Ring of Eman Vath

AmyQuinn woke early the next day and was unable to fall back asleep. It was still dark outside, but the kind of silent, expectant dark that comes just before dawn. She had fallen asleep easily enough, but now that she was awake her heart was hammering against her ribs like it was trying to kick its way out.

She pulled the covers up around her and turned so she was facing the wall, but the change in position did nothing to help. It felt as though springs had been attached to her eyelids: every time she shut them, they would invariably snap back open again.

Finally, she gave up trying and sat against the wall to watch the thin slice of light that came through her window slowly brighten. With each second that passed, her nerves wound tighter and tighter, until there was a knock at the door and she jumped. She dressed quickly and followed the rest of the apprentices to breakfast and then to morning meditation in an enormous room on the opposite side of the Tower from the Sorcerers’ Court, where gathered everyone in the Citadel.

There were hundreds of people, but no one spoke. The only sound was the swish of clothing or the accidental scuff of a boot on the stone floor. Everyone acted as if they were alone, and a weight of solemnity weighed down on them to such a degree that the new apprentices barely dared to breathe.

Simple cushions lay over the floor of the enormous, bare room in perfect rows and columns, and the only illumination was the reflected light of the sun as it rose over the hills of Aginor behind them. The view through the open wall on the far side of the room was breathtaking – they could see all the way out to the Shining Sea over the last stretch of land around Var Athel. After a few minutes, a small bell was rung, and everyone sat, legs folded beneath them, and watched the sunrise.

What must have been half an hour later, the bell rang out again, its shivering laugh bouncing around the room to wake the guests from their meditation and hurry them on their way.

AmyQuinn and the new apprentices were led away by Deri’cael Pyrce, hurrying off with none of the measured calm with which they’d entered.

They whispered excitedly to each other about what they might expect. There were wild rumors – one of the taller boys quite stoically told them that he’d heard they would be tested first thing, and that those who failed would be asked to leave. A smaller boy, the one who had been brave enough to ask questions the day before, told them that he knew for a fact they would not be kicked out until the second week of training, and only if they showed no aptitude or could not keep up with the work.

AmyQuinn found neither of these possibilities comforting. In any case, what would the training be like? In all the stories she’d ever read or heard, Sorev Ael were always pouring over heavy tomes and writing notes with quill pens, and it was always the oldest who were the best and knew the most because they had spent so many years reading everything they could get their hands on. She felt horribly unprepared.

But when they arrived at their first Naming class, she found that there was no parchment, quill pens, or books of any kind. Instead, the Sorev Ael who led the Naming class told them that it was expected by each of the Seven Schools that the apprentices memorize all that they were taught, for a very simple reason:

The Words could not be written down.

The Words were what Master Rewit, the Sorev Ael who taught Naming, called the sounds of the deep language. He explained that they that bypassed spoken noise altogether and went straight to the level of thought.

Rewit himself was a kindly older man wrapped in dark green robes over simple gray breeches and boots, and, after he’d introduced himself, he spoke only in Words. He was a Master, the title given to specialized Sorev Ael who taught apprentices, and as such the Words came as easily to him as the common tongue of Aeon came to the apprentices.

That first hour of instruction was punctuated by long, frustrating bouts of silence, wherein Master Rewit asked them questions or spoke a sound to them that they were asked to repeat back. It was like trying to speak a language you had once been taught but that you could no longer remember. Like trying to think as a newborn does, or to reason like a madman. When the apprentices did manage to form one of the Words, managed to imbue the nonsense sounds with meaning and thought to give them power, the Master Namer immediately asked them to repeat themselves, a feat which none of them managed. By the time they left, it seemed to be the general opinion that they had learned not a single thing that day.

Next was Enchantment, taught by a tall, fair woman with lines about her face that placed her somewhere in her late thirties. She was dazzlingly beautiful and also had an air about her that quite clearly said she could beat anyone senseless who dared to trifle with her. By the end of the day, she was by far their favorite.

Her name was Esmaldi, and she captivated them with a sense of wonder and excitement about what they could do with the talent they’d been given. She began that first class by demonstrating how to imbue everyday objects with the power of the Words – giving them the ability to move on their own, making them burn when touched, transforming them from one shape to another by enchanting them with new names or making them forget what they were. She did all of this while singing and chanting in various rhythms and beats, and when she was done she would flourish her hands up and out and bow to riotous applause from the apprentices.

“Each and every thing in the world knows what it is and what it’s supposed to be,” she said, after she’d made a boy’s boots hop off his feet and chase him around the large central teaching room to gales of laughter from the rest of the class. When he’d finally turned around and confronted the boots, they’d rolled over like chastised dogs, at which point the boy in question joined the laughter and glanced sheepishly over at Master Esmaldi. Most of the boys seemed to look at her that way.

“Knowledge of Enchantment allows you to convince a thing to be more than it is,” she continued, vivacious enthusiasm coloring and lifting her voice. “You can tell a ring that it is also a music box, can even give it a song to sing; you can tell a cloak that it is made of shadow, make it hide the wearer; you can tell water that it is as smooth and hard as stone, even make it solid enough to walk on.”

They left at the end of the hour with their heads buzzing, and already there was talk about what they might enchant. Esmaldi had told them they would begin the following day, and they all had lofty ideas of what they would end up doing and were once more convinced that the dream of being a Sorev Ael was attainable, even after the terribly disappointing Naming class.

They next encountered the mad whirlwind that was Master Owain.

Magery was far and away the class to which they were all most looking forward. They left the beautiful Enchanter’s Wing and moved off to the dark, bleak Mage’s Wing, and along the way their talk turned to the most storied art of the Sorev Ael: Summoning fire, calling the wind, and shaking the very earth with words of power.

The Mage’s Wing was different from the rest of the Citadel. It had no soaring arches or ivy-covered walls, no soft golden light or welcoming floor rugs. It was instead simply carved and constructed from stone that faded from gray to black the farther into the wing they ventured. There were no candles, oil lamps, even sunlight from the bright fall day outside. The light instead came from heatless balls of fire hung up near the ceiling that cast strange, shifting shadows. The effect was chilling, and their conversation trailed off as they moved deeper into the wing.

Plain doors and hallways branched off to either side as they went, completely lacking any sign of ostentation. The doors were all wood, well-cut but uncarved; the simple flagstone floor was perfectly fitted but faded with age; and the air was thin and cool and seemed to proclaim a kind of proud, intentional neglect.

The corridor ended in the same large central room that the other wings had, around which the corridor split and continued on. The door was made of ironbound oak set in a doorframe that tapered to an arch, and over which was carved a shrieking raven, shouting a silent piercing cry into the empty corridors.

No one seemed eager to approach it.

“We have to go in,” one of them said – a tall, dark-skinned boy.

“After you,” said a different boy, this one with spectacles and a nervous, shifty demeanor.

“Let’s all just go together.”

“It’s a door,” AmyQuinn chimed in. “We can’t all go together.”

“Then you open it!”

“Let’s draw straws or something.”

“That’s stupid, let’s just –”

The door flung open of its own accord and crashed against the stone wall with an explosive bang that shocked all of them into immediate silence. But as the reverberations echoed up and down the corridor and nothing else happened, they slowly regained their composure and one by one gathered the nerve to slip inside.

The room itself was very tall, so tall that the ceiling was lost in shadow. The walls were made of the same creamy white stone that lined so much of the Citadel, but here they were also flecked with darker patches of black and gray. There was a fireplace on the far side of the room, and inside was a roaring fire that did not quite succeed in driving away the chill that filled the air. A wide carpet lay before it, on which was situated a large wing-backed chair.

There were no little balls of light here to provide illumination, and yet the very air seemed thick with otherworldly sensations, as if any movement or sound might consume them all in a rush of power. Marble statues lined the room in wall sconces – simple, elegant, images of men and women holding aloft handfuls of stone fire or frozen orbs of light, all watching, impassive, as the last of the apprentices slipped inside the room.

A single figure stood waiting for them by the fire. He had short white hair that matched his well-trimmed white beard, and he was dressed in a flowing white shirt, a charcoal-gray vest, and black breeches that tapered into black leather boots. He was of middling height at best, and the bottom of his vest strained against the beginnings of a late-life paunch, but his back was straight and his gray eyes flamed with intelligence.

“Welcome,” he said.

The door slammed shut behind them. They all jumped, and might this time have actually broken and run for it if there’d been any way to escape the confines of the room. Instead, they huddled together, as if this might protect them.

“I am Master Owain. Come forward.”

After a long pause, wherein he watched them expectantly, they did as instructed. When they were close enough, he motioned for them to sit around him in a half-circle and they complied.

“Magery is not like the other arts of a Sorev Ael,” he said once they were seated. He began to pace – a slow and steady walk that took him from one end of the fireplace to the other, and his silhouette loomed over them, frightening and larger than life. “Magery is not the study of herbs, nor the clever creation of tricks and illusions. These things have their place, and some Sorev Ael see them as higher arts. I do not.”

He stopped and turned, flourishing with an upraised hand. There was a flash in the darkness and an emerald light came from the ring on his left hand; the blank stone wall above the fireplace suddenly swirled and churned, and on it appeared words in the common tongue of Aeon, words that slowly wrote themselves one at a time in shining emerald light.

“This is the oath a Sorev Ael must swear if he chooses to earn his ring in the art of Magery. It tells you much about what you will be learning here. Read, and then we will continue.”

AmyQuinn did as told. The inscription said:

I swear to protect all those in need; to speak for those who have been silenced; to stand for those that have been forced to kneel. I am the light, and I shine through deeds, not words. Should it be required of me, I swear to lay down my life in the service of the world. I am the sound of the Word and the burning bright light of Flame. I am the light that shines on the darkness of the world.

After a suitable silence, he continued on.

“A Mage is a Sorev Ael of the world. What you learn here is what you will take out from Var Athel into the lands beyond. Sages contemplate; Enchanters modify; Illusionists bend; Namers categorize; Herbalists brew; Healers mend. All are noble pursuits in their own right, but they mean nothing without Magery. Nothing without the Sorev Ael who go out into the world to be the guiding lights of change.”

His gray eyes took in their every movement, every subtle intake of breath or nervous shifting. The energy of that room, the heaviness, ebbed and flowed through him. It was the same power AmyQuinn had felt in Valinor, the same power she had felt in herself when she’d touched his staff. Her pulse thrilled in her veins at the thought of it, and she felt incredibly light.

“As such, your time here will not be spent in rote memorization or clever word play. Your time here will be spent doing.”

He flung out an arm.

Several people screamed, and then all of the apprentices recoiled and clutched at each other as an enormous shadow detached itself from the wall over the fireplace and broke into the air. Wings the size of a full-grown man’s torso exploded in a halo of feathers as the shadow shot toward them; there was a screech, a predator’s cry of triumph, and light from the fire glinted off of razor-sharp talons.

“Azfar!”

The command cracked out and solidified the heavy feeling of power, pulling it down and away from the center of the room and cloaking the figure of Master Owain. The creature changed course in midflight and shot up into the air over them, then banked and flew back to the Sorev Ael.

Shaking, the apprentices watched the shape with wide eyes, and the illusion set in place not by sorcery but by fear faded away. The creature landed on Owain’s outstretched arm, and it clung to him with talons slightly smaller than a man’s hand. The wings were not several yards wide, but were indeed of normal size and proportion, and as they folded neatly into place on the creature’s back, the sleek body and beak of the raptor came into better sight, and they saw that it was a falcon with silver and black plumage. The bird shrieked once more, letting out that terrible piercing cry, and then was silent.

“I need to test your fitness,” Master Owain said as if nothing extraordinary had happened. “Azfar will assist me.”

AmyQuinn felt the beginnings of fear, and a number of the apprentices shot each other uneasy looks.

“You,” he said, motioning with his chin to Balin, a short boy with a mop of brown curls. “Run across the room and touch the door before Azfar can grab you.”

There was a stunned moment of silence. Owain arched an eyebrow.

“I assure you, his talons are quite deadly. I’d suggest you start now.”

The bird opened its wings, let out a screech of what AmyQuinn could have sworn was excitement, and then lifted into the air.

Balin took off running as fast as his small, slightly chubby frame would go.

The falcon raced after him, gaining height and soaring over him, watching with fierce golden eyes. The apprentices, who at first were dead silent in shock, began shouting encouragement. The words seemed to buoy Balin’s sinking sprits, and he redoubled his speed, but it did not seem like it would be enough. The falcon screeched once more and dove.

Balin touched the door seconds before the raptor’s steely claws passed over his mop of curly hair, and the bird gave a disappointed cry and veered away. Balin, seeing his pursuer give up the chase, promptly collapsed, his shaking legs unable to support him any longer. Master Owain called for him to return, and Balin managed to push himself to his feet and do so, though when he arrived his face was so white and bloodless that he was made to sit by the fire and take deep breaths before Master Owain turned and pointed at random to another apprentice.

“You. Go.”

He went through the class one by one. The flashing silver talons caught none of them, but there were a few dangerously close calls. AmyQuinn noticed, however, that even when the bird was so close it should have been unable to miss, the apprentices still just managed to evade it. After she went and returned – breathing heavily, but not as nearly as winded as some of the others – she realized that there wasn’t a trace of worry in Master Owain’s expression.

Is it all a game? she wondered.

“Very good,” Master Owain said finally when the last two, twins named Tyl and Wyl, had gone. “We’ll end early today. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

They went to lunch and were returned to their rooms for the short afternoon rest period. AmyQuinn passed out almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, only to woken by a new Deri’cael she did not know and taken with the rest of the apprentices to their second Naming class of the day. It went much as the first had, leaving them just as frustrated as before.

Next was Healing, which was the only class that seemed traditionally straightforward. It was taught by Master Spall, a young man with dirty blonde hair and spectacles who seemed to know every nuance of the human body. To begin with, they were expected to memorize lists of body parts and their locations, something on which they would be tested the following week.

Illusions began when the tall, brooding Master Yurer met them at the large entrance to the Illusionist’s Wing and told them to follow him if they could. They tried and quickly became lost, turning down corridors that dead-ended, walking into doors that were actually walls, and generally bumbling around hopelessly for the better part of an hour. Master Yurer reappeared periodically, popping out of thin air, or, once, out of what they had all assumed was a solid wall, to give them guidance with a calm, encouraging smile. Other apprentices, Deri’cael, and even full Sorev Ael, passed by them at times, but all refused to help, and indeed seemed rather amused by their predicament.

By the end of the period, they were all arguing with each other, and they only stopped when Master Yurer reappeared and told them they were done for the day. He dismissed them, and wished them better luck next time.

Sagery, which was last and took place well into the evening, was the opposite of Magery: the Sage quarters were full of the orange light of flickering candle flames, and the whole wing was done in pure white stone and marble. The circular teaching hall was high and arched, and full of countless candles in ascending rows. The Master who taught them was a man named Vero; he dressed in long white robes that, with his white hair and beard, made him look frighteningly ethereal and in danger of being blown away by a strong breeze.

When they arrived, they were instructed to sit on a smooth, raised platform in the center of the hall, on which had been placed a number of thick black cushions, the same cushions that were used for morning meditation. Looking up, AmyQuinn realized that the silver glow that suffused the room came from above: the roof was open to the night sky, and the light of the night’s moon, close to full and slowly rising, was filtering down to them through a series of flying buttresses and columns, giving the room an other-worldly beauty.

Vero told them that Sagery was not about strengthening the body, but about strengthening the mind. As they began, each of them trying to stay awake though their aching bodies and heads yearned for sleep, Vero asked them questions about the nature of life and the balance of the world. None of them knew what to say, but Master Vero did not seem put-off; on the contrary, he told them that the point of the Sage was to ask the right questions, not to necessarily find the right answers.

After gently waking those that had begun to snore, he ushered them to sleep with a kind, grandfatherly smile.

That first night, and all the nights that followed for the next several months, saw AmyQuinn fall into bed absolutely exhausted. Often times she was barely able to wash her face, remove her clothing, and crawl beneath her sheets before she drifted off to sleep.

The days began to blur together as the seasons changed and the blustery wind-cold of autumn became the wet, freezing-cold of winter. The constant demands of the Masters and the mental and physical stress the training entailed all took its toll, and those who neglected rest in order to explore the Citadel or to read or to simply enjoy each other’s company were often the ones who lagged behind and had to work even harder to catch up the following day.

As time passed, some of the apprentices began to pull ahead. Rylin, the small, black-haired boy from the first day who looked like a bundle of sticks given skin and motion, was far and away the best Namer. He picked up the Words so quickly that he was soon holding rudimentary conversations with Master Rewit.

The other girl in the apprentice group, Emia, was fantastic at Herbalism. She was the daughter of a midwife, and as such she knew many of the herbs and potions even before Master Poer introduced them. Many of the older apprentices excelled at Enchantment, something that was perhaps related to Master Esmaldi and her dimpled smile. The twins, Tyl and Wyl, were excellent at illusionists, perhaps because of all the time they spent pretending to be each other. No one was any good at Sagery, a fact that did little if anything to discourage Master Vero, but most everyone did tolerably well in Healing, though Master Spall, perhaps advisably, had yet to let them around any actual patients.

That left Magery.

From the first class onward, AmyQuinn excelled. She did not know as many Words as Rylin, nor was she as clever as Tyl or Wyl, but somehow she still outpaced them all, and when Master Owain began to teach them to control the elements, she was the first to hold fire in her hands. The nerves that still plagued her in the other classes simply disappeared when she stepped into that dark, fire-lit room, and as the days passed into weeks and she continued to surpass the others, she felt her confidence grow.

It would have been perfect – except for Xaior.

He was a short, skinny boy, with brilliant hazel eyes that gave the impression of constant vigilance and calculation. Added to his high, sharp nose and ever-present sneer, his overall look was one of near-universal disdain for the other apprentices and the world at large. He had long, thick black hair that he pulled back behind his head, and which seemed to glisten even in the shadows. Like the other apprentices, he wore white clothing, but he wore it with contempt, as if it were a foregone conclusion that he deserved more and would not long be appareled thus.

As the weeks wore on, it became clear that he did not approve of AmyQuinn’s presence. At first, she was baffled by the apparent contempt he showed her – and many of the other apprentices seemed baffled too. When she would sit with them at meals, Xaior and whoever else was sitting with him that day would abruptly stand and leave to eat elsewhere; when she was paired with him or one of his friends in class, they would switch immediately to be with someone else.

She did not understand it until she saw him do the same to Emia.

Her suspicions raised, she began to look more critically at the makeup of the overall Citadel population. Almost all of the Sorev Ael were men; most of the Deri’cael were men too; and though there were some girl apprentices, it was clear that they were in the minority.

And most of them were routinely ignored, or even shunned.

She began to hear snippets of rumor from the others over meals that Xaior came from a long line of Sorev Ael who clung to the old ways, from before the Sisters. Once, she even overheard him directly say that women who dared to join the Citadel were an affront to basic human decency.

But what had pushed him over the edge, what seemed to have made AmyQuinn in particular so unforgivable, was that she routinely outperformed him.

If she was the best, Xaior was next in line. In everything she did, she could almost feel him breathing down her neck trying to overtake her. When she managed to summon flame for the first time, beating everyone else by at least a week, the success angered him so much that he stalked out of the room claiming he needed to use the bathroom. When she was able to lift a feather by heating the air beneath it, Xaior tried to convince Master Owain that she had blown on it herself until she simply repeated the feat and put the debate to rest.

At first, she did as she knew her mother and father would have expected: she took the high road and ignored him. When it was clear he was getting away with his mounting abuse, though, he began to openly berate her in the hopes of getting her to react. He began whispering behind her back in the corridors that girls couldn’t be Sorev Ael, and when she turned to confront him, he fell silent and looked at her with mock-innocence before asking in a sickly-sweet voice what was the matter. He banged on her door in the middle of the night to wake her up and ruin her sleep; he tripped her so that she spilled her food in the dining hall.

In class, he would routinely try to sabotage her work: In Enchantment, he kicked her when Master Esmaldi wasn’t looking so that she sent a rock she was supposed to be convincing to roll over shooting through a nearby window instead. In Herbalism, he switched her herbs so that when Master Poer came to inspect her, she had nothing but diced celery to show for her hour’s worth of work.

And so she began to hate him.

Their rivalry, unlike the other petty rivalries that sprang up and disappeared within the group from week to week, never abated. It grew stronger with every class, to the point where she felt waves of loathing overtake her every time she heard his high, sickly-sweet voice.

She began to fight back. When he said something to her, she would turn and remark on his appearance, saying that his oily black hair made him look like a drowned rat. When he tried again to switch her herbs yet again in Herbalism, she pretended not to notice and then switched her brewed potion with his when he was not looking, so that she received top marks for the day by passing off his potion as hers, while he received a disappointed shake of the head from Master Poer.

The others saw it happening and began to take sides. In fact, she wasn’t Xaior’s only target: he went after Rylin as well, and even Lalin and Balin – both of whom, it turned out, were named Alin and had simply used their last name’s first initial to distinguish themselves.

His dislike of these other unfortunates followed a similar theme: they were from the outer provinces, from the Forts that held the passes to the Wilds, and as such not deemed members of polite society. Sorev Ael did not typically come from beyond the Peninsula or Aginor, and so Xaior proclaimed them backwoods pretenders.

The four of them joined together and began operating as a unit, in opposition to Xaior and his group. Emia joined them as well, though as the weeks passed by she became more and more withdrawn until it was all they could do to coax her into making a single comment on any given topic.

AmyQuinn took it on herself to act as a barrier between Xaior and the others, drawing his taunts to her instead of letting them land on them. She could take it, and every time she did, she paid back with interest.

Finally, the escalating conflict came to a head. As the top apprentices in Magery, AmyQuinn and Xaior often competed with each other openly in Master Owain’s class – a rivalry that the Mage himself encouraged.

“Xaior’s holding flame in both hands now,” he would goad her. “You must catch him.” He wasn’t one-sided though; as soon as she passed Xaior, he turned it back on the boy: “AmyQuinn has managed to rotate her flame, Xaior. Why haven’t you?”

So it came as no surprise to anyone that on the day of their first in-class examination, the two were paired up against each other.

The format of the examination was simple: having completed their first course on fire, the first and simplest of the five elements, Master Owain wanted to evaluate their overall progress. One by one he asked them to stand and conjure flame from thin air, then to multiply it, enlarge it, shrink it, and finally to extinguish it. Those that made it through the whole routine would be allowed to advance to air, the second element, while those that did not would stay with flame for the time being.

They were called forward one by one to the area in front of the fireplace – off the wide embroidered rug, as only Owain was allowed to stand there when handling flame – and put through their paces. A few of the apprentices were asked to do something extra – create a wheel or juggle – but all passed, even poor Jolend, who exceled at Healing and almost nothing else.

And as they all passed, it became clear that Xaior and AmyQuinn were being left for last. Whispers flittered between the apprentices who’d already finished the examination, and they eyed the pair eagerly. Gar and Cath, Xaior’s similarly conceited friends, gathered around him while Owain tested Tyl and eyed her wickedly.

“AmyQuinn,” Owain said finally. She rose. “And Xaior.”

She glanced over at Xaior, who was looking back at her with thinly veiled contempt. A surge of hot anger bubbled up inside her, and a titter of whispers went through the gathered apprentices.

“Come forward,” Owain said.

They did so, both of them pointedly ignoring each other. They were close enough that one or the other could have whispered a biting comment, but neither did; Owain was watching them far too carefully for that.

“AmyQuinn,” the Master barked without warning. “Summon flame.”

“Aduro,” she said immediately, imbuing the Word with power.

There was a loud crack and a flickering red-orange ball appeared over her out-stretched palm. She concentrated on holding it steady, and when she was certain she had control of it, she looked up at Owain.

“Xaior – do the same.”

“Aduro,” Xaior said – his own flame appeared, slightly darker than hers but just as hot and full.

“Both of you: split the flame in two,” Owain said.

This was harder – there was no Word to use, there was only thought and intention. AmyQuinn focused on her flame, and after a hesitant waver the red-orange ball split. Xaior’s did as well, but a second after hers did. She felt a rush of vindictive pleasure, and from the corner of her eye she saw anger flash across his face.

“Again,” Owain barked, now pacing back and forth before them.

She took a deep breath and concentrated harder, already feeling the exertion; sweat was dripping down her back, slicking the white cotton of her dress to her skin, and her hands had begun to shake. Maintaining flame like this without doing anything with it was like hefting a heavy weight and holding it out at arm’s length.

Her flame split again, and so too did Xaior’s.

“Turn to face each other.”

Startled, she shot a look at Xaior and almost lost control. The red-orange flame, now split into four but controlled as one, wavered over the palm of her hand and almost winked out. She gritted her teeth and hung on to the Word in her mind, trying to keep her concentration.

She and Xaior were only a few paces away from each other, and as such she could see the sweat beading on his forehead, just below his hairline. They’d already gone further than the rest of the class – the best anyone else could do was to split a flame the one time – but she had a feeling that this was only the beginning.

“Good,” Owain said once they were facing each other. “Now, both of you hold onto your flame and try to extinguish the other’s.”

There was a short beat of silence that followed this pronouncement, and then AmyQuinn felt a rush of panic. They’d never done this before – was such a thing even possible?

She had no time to think; the Word that would extinguish the flame came to her lips automatically, and she saw it form on Xaior’s lips in the same instant.

“Suf!” they shouted in tandem, spitting the Word at each other.

It felt as though a huge weight had suddenly slammed down on her shoulders. She staggered and barely managed to keep her feet. The rotating flames on her palm flickered and shrank, but did not go out. Through a haze of sweat and growing fatigue, she saw that Xaior too had staggered back as through struck.

She concentrated harder, trying to hold both Words in her mind, keeping one to herself and mentally throwing the other at him.

Aduro – Suf! – Aduro – Suf! – Aduro –

Her red-orange flames grew; his blue-orange ones shrank.

Xaior grimaced and began to mutter other Words under his breath. His flames grew and hers shrank. Gritting her teeth with the effort, she began to mutter aloud as well. They teetered back and forth like that for longer than she would have thought possible, each vying for control.

She felt as though she’d been detached from her body and was now floating in a strange blank space – all emotion gone, all thought disappeared. All she could think of was the bright ball of energy inside her and the flame it was feeding.

Finally, Xaior’s flames began again to shrink.

His wild hazel eyes fixed on hers with manic concentration, sweat flowing freely down his face. His arms shook, and then his back began to bow as if the weight on him had increased to the point where he could no longer fight against it. She could feel her victory approaching; she would win, she knew she would, she would beat him and show she did belong in the Citadel –

“Aduro!”

A new flame blue-orange appeared in front of Xaior, bright and uncontained, and shot straight toward her.

Forgetting everything else, she dove for the floor. The fire rushed through the air where she’d been only seconds before, and when she looked up again she saw that Xaior still held a palm full of flame. Hers, along with her concentration, had disappeared.

Rage boiled up inside her like nothing she’d ever felt before, and before she knew what she was doing, she strode forward, knocked his hand aside, and punched him right in the nose.

There came a heavy crunching sound, and then Xaior stumbled backward, clutching at his face. The flames he’d conjured disappeared, and blood started flowing freely between his fingers and over his lips.

“Aduro!” she screamed. A dozen balls of flame burst into life in the air around all around her, flaring bright and out of control. She had no idea what she was doing; her anger had taken her over, and through the gasps of the other apprentices and Xaior’s sudden look of disbelief and horror, she pulled back her fist again.

“ENOUGH!”

AmyQuinn was abruptly picked up and thrown through the air. She crashed to the ground twenty feet away from where she’d been, and the air immediately rushed out her lungs. Heaving and gasping, she tried to suck in a full breath but found she simply couldn’t. People appeared and tried to help her to her feet; she glanced up and saw bat-eared Rylin and blonde Lalin.

“That was disgraceful.”

Everybody froze. Gar and Cath had helped Xaior to his feet, and there was blood all down his front from his still-bleeding nose. He was staring daggers at her, and she was quite certain that if Master Owain had not strode forward to separate them, the fight would still be raging.

She shifted her gaze to the teacher, and his face was enough to cool her rage completely. He was looking between them both with such a terrible expression of mingled fury and disappointment that she couldn’t stand to hold his gaze. It was only then that she realized how stupid she’d been, letting Xaior provoke her like that. If she’d just kept calm...

It was worth it, said a savage voice in her head, a voice she did not understand. It spoke the way a wounded animal might, and she could hear desperation below the fury. He deserved it.

“My two best students decide to try and murder each other in the middle of a routine examination,” Owain said in the deadly quiet of the room. AmyQuinn felt her cheeks begin to burn with embarrassment.

“You both just attacked another apprentice,” he continued. “You specifically violated the code of conduct you swore to uphold when you placed your hand on the Book of Names. I should have you thrown out of the Citadel.”

Sudden panic crashed through her as the gravity of the situation became perfectly clear. He was right – she’d sworn never to harm another person save in direct defense of her own life. They both had.

The silence of the room deepened even further as Owain continued to glare. Finally, he broke the moment and strode over to Xaior. He muttered a Word under his breath and there came a sharp snap and then a cry of pain as Xaior’s nose reset itself. The bleeding stopped, though the swelling remained.

“Both of you report to Mistress Taliana,” Owain snapped. “Tell her what you’ve done.”

That broke the dam inside her. Suddenly the fear was gone and the anger was back. The injustice of it all was just too great. Xaior had attacked first, all she’d done was react. She didn’t deserve the same punishment he did, even if they had sworn an oath. She surged forward, breaking past the others and pointing her finger, dagger-like, at Xaior. He echoed the move, pushing away Gar and Cath and pointing back at her.

“But he – !”

“She – !”

“Speak another word and I will tell Mistress Taliana to expect you every day for the rest of the month,” Owain said. “And I will also tell her to double the lashes she gives you in order to help you learn to mind your tongues.”

They both fell silent again, staring at each other with utter contempt. The anger would not go away. Every detail of the arrogant, snotty brat who stood before her just made her want to hit him all over again.

“Leave this room,” Owain said. “Now.”

They both turned to go. When they reached the door, Owain spoke one last time: “AmyQuinn. Return when Mistress Taliana is done with you.”

He gave no further explanation, and so AmyQuinn and Xaior left the room. It took everything in her power not to turn and punch him again as soon as they were alone, but she knew that someone somehow would find out, and so she forced her hands to remain at her sides. They walked through the Citadel corridors so far apart that they were almost touching opposite walls, and then ascended the Tower to Taliana’s room on the third level and knocked.

A stern-faced woman with brown hair pulled back in a tight bun came to the door and looked them over. She took in Xaior’s nose and AmyQuinn’s slightly ashy braid and seemed to understand immediately what had happened.

“You first,” she said to Xaior.

AmyQuinn waited outside in sullen silence until it was her turn. The door to the room was so thick that she couldn’t hear anything of what was going on inside, which was just as well: she was starting to worry about what the punishment would be. A few apprentices and Deri’cael passed by and looked her over; she glowered at them in response, but that just seemed to make them grin, so she stopped. She began to shift her weight from side to side as anxiety crept through her.

Finally, the door opened. “Enter,” said a hard voice.

She did as told and found herself in a small, round room, in the center of which had been placed a chair. There were tapestries on the stone walls, and a fire burned in the grate to her right, pushing back the early winter chill. There were two other doors, one that looked as if it might lead out into another passage and one that looked as if it led into Mistresses Taliana’s personal quarters.

“I sent your compatriot out that way,” Taliana said, pointing with her chin toward the door opposite the one AmyQuinn had come through. “I had the feeling it would be better if the two of you didn’t met again so soon.”

AmyQuinn refused to look at her and pretended to be fascinated with the embroidered rug in the center of the room.

“Tell me what happened,” Taliana said, crossing her arms beneath her rather considerable chest and examining AmyQuinn with such a pointed, penetrating stare that she would have given Azfar the falcon a run for his money.

AmyQuinn took a deep breath and told the story. When she finished, Taliana nodded and motioned to the chair.

“Let’s get this over with.”

AmyQuinn crossed to the chair and bent over, gritting her teeth.

She returned to Owain much the worse for wear.

Everyone else had left by now for dinner, which, as far as AmyQuinn was concerned, was a very good thing. She hobbled along the long corridor to the Magery teaching hall, trying not to wince or hold her backside, very grateful that she did not have an audience. She did not think she would be sitting down comfortably for at least a week; Taliana had quite a strong arm.

At first, she thought the teaching hall was deserted. The fire had died down to nothing more than a bank of embers, and the room had been plunged into a kind of twilight. It looked strange – almost as though the room itself was sleeping. Had Master Owain forgotten that he’d told her to return? Maybe he was gone, eating at the upper dining hall with the full Sorev Ael and other Masters –

“You took your time. Come here.”

The voice rang out from the direction of the fire, and it made AmyQuinn jump. She immediately regretted her lack of control: a fresh wave of pain made her backside feel like it was on fire, and she only just managed to stifle a groan.

She hobbled forward in the direction of the voice. When she was at the edge of the carpet, she stopped, as she always did.

“Come,” Owain said imperiously.

Wary, AmyQuinn reached out and put a white-booted toe on the edge of the carpet, unsure. When he didn’t protest, she continued forward and then rounded the side of the tall wing-backed chair. She stopped when Master Owain was in plain sight and waited. Slowly, he moved his eyes away from the dying fire and caught her in his gaze. “Sit if you’d like,” he said.

She grimaced and shook her head. “I’ll stand.”

He smiled then – almost a smirk – and she felt a sudden urge to punch him too.

“Who brought you to us?” he asked with no preamble.

“Master?”

“Who brought you to Var Athel,” he clarified.

“A – Sorev Ael,” she said, surprised by the question. “Named Valinor.”

His eyes widened and his eyebrows rose. “That explains much and more,” he said, his voice colored with an emotion she couldn’t decipher. A long moment passed wherein he stroked his short gray beard, and then abruptly he seemed to decide something. He spoke again: “Do you know who he is? Do you know what it means that you were brought here by him?”

She frowned.

“He’s… a Sorev Ael,” she replied. Owain nodded encouragingly, but she had to stop there. What else could she say about him? What he wore? That he’d helped save Dunlow? None of that told her who he was. Why had she thought she knew him? They’d barely talked the entire journey to Var Athel.

But then something in her mind clicked. It was like a puzzle with a simple answer that, once you saw it, became perfectly clear: Valinor calling the flame, Valinor extinguishing it; Valinor’s ruby ring shining like fire in the sun…

“He’s a Mage.”

Owain nodded slowly, still watching with the full intensity of his gaze.

“Anything else?” he prompted. It seemed clear that there was something specific he was waiting for, some answer he was wondering if she knew, but she could not for the life of her guess what it might be.

“No,” she admitted, and then decided to tell as much as she could. “He saved my family. He was going south and stopped in my village – Dunlow. It was attacked, and he… well, he saved it.”

Owain was nodding again, and he did not seem at all surprised; instead, that look of pronounced concentration had increased to the point where she felt as if she were on display, her every move cataloged and filed away for later examination.

“Do you know his last name?” Owain asked. “Do you know what he’s called?”

Through the distance of memory she heard vaguely the name the stable boy had said when they’d arrived at the Citadel, though she couldn’t quite recall it fully. Thin? Ther? She shook her head slowly, and Master Owain nodded.

“Then I will tell you,” he said. “His full name is Valinor Therin, and he is the only living Sorev Ael to have visited the Eryn-Ra. He followed the path of the Sisters into the farthest Wilds, and came back with the ring he now bears.”

AmyQuinn’s whole body went slowly numb. She felt like she should say something, but nothing came to her. Owain, strangely enough, didn’t notice her reaction. He’d looked away, gazing once more at the embers of the dying fire.

“Valinor is known in stories up and down the Peninsula, and all throughout Aeon. Have you never heard his name?” He looked back at her.

Dumbly, AmyQuinn shook her head. She thought frantically through all the stories she’d heard from Lenny, all the stories she’d heard from her father, but nothing came to her. She’d never heard of a man named Valinor Therin. Had she just not listened carefully enough?

“I think perhaps you have,” he insisted with a growing smile. “He’s better known by the name he was given after he returned from the north and earned the title of Sorev Ael.”

He paused, and she barely dared to breathe. When he said the next words, they were almost like a sigh, and his gaze was intense and far away.

“They call him the Mage of the Eryn-Ra.”

She absorbed the statement and felt the insane urge to tell him he was lying. Surely it couldn’t be true. The taciturn, grumpy man who traveled with her for a week… that couldn’t be the same person. It couldn’t be.

She’d never heard of Valinor Therin, but she’d heard of the Mage of the Eryn-Ra. Trickles of the stories filtered into her mind, and then the floodgates opened and they all came pouring in together. He was the hero of a dozen tales, each wilder than the last, and she knew them all. The Sack of Cartino, the Peace of the Southern Isles, the Last Journey of Ronan.

It’s impossible. It can’t be. I did not argue with the Mage of the Eryn-Ra. I did not shout at him and throw a temper tantrum. That’s impossible. I… no.

Master Owain was speaking again, and she tried to listen.

“He and I were apprentices together. We were rivals, as are you and Xaior. We hated each other – until we went our separate ways and met again as Mages. He does not waste his time in anything. He is a hard man, and callous, but he is the best this era has ever seen… the best, they say... ”

His gaze was far away again, but he shook himself and smiled briefly as he focused back on her.

“If Valinor Therin brought you to us, then I would encourage you to live up to his vote of confidence. The next time you strike another student – even if that student has done something as underhanded as Xaior did just now – you will not get off with fifteen lashes and a sore backside. We learn here Words of such power that we can shake the very foundations of the world if we are not careful. You will not be allowed that power if you cannot show you are worthy of it.”

He watched her for a moment, examining her face as if looking for an answer to a silent question, and then finally raised a hand and motioned to the door. Numb, she nodded and walked away in a haze of forgotten memory, making her way out into the hall that led to the Tower Court.

The next thing she knew, she was back at the center of the Citadel, looking at the Tower. The sun shone on the white stone, making it glow. The sky was gray and clouds were coming in from the northwest – winter was taking over the world, and the smell of rain was in the air.

A sourceless sense of movement rushed through her, though she stood stock-still, and the world seemed to tip and turn around her as thoughts and questions chased each other through her head, culminating in a single litany that went around and around inside her, repeating the same words over and over again:

Mage of the Eryn-Ra.