Disciple of War (Art of the Adept Book 4), Page 2
Michael G. Manning
He gaped at Blake. “You hired a cook?”
The man’s eyes went toward the stairs and then up in the direction of the study. “It wasn’t my decision, sir.”
“Oh.” Will finally understood. This is how she wants to punish me. He had come in feeling regretful, but now he was already shifting to annoyance. Hiring a cook was a disproportionate reaction to his behavior that morning. “I guess I’ll go up and discuss matters with her then.”
“As you wish, sir,” said Blake neutrally, though his face conveyed a subtle warning.
Will didn’t care. He marched up the stairs and went to the study. The door was already open, and Selene was sitting at the desk penning a letter with her flawlessly elegant script. He felt a faint sense of envy every time he saw it. After two years of struggling at Wurthaven, his own handwriting was just barely legible.
Selene glanced up at him, then held up a finger. She reached for the sand and sprinkled a portion over the page, then lifted it and poured it back into the box. Eyeing the page, she decided it was acceptable and then set it aside in a tray to finish drying. With that done, she capped her ink bottle and put away her pen. Once things had been tidied up, she gave him her full attention. “Ready to talk?”
Will pulled up the other chair and sat down. “Already done with your correspondence?”
She pursed her lips, then replied, “No. I have quite a few more to pen, but you’re more important than that.”
That put him back on his heels. He hadn’t had many arguments with Selene, but soon after her return he had quickly figured out he was outmatched. She never fought while she was actually angry, as she had been that morning. Instead, she would set her feelings aside and return to the battle later, after she had consolidated her arguments. It probably had something to do with her strange upbringing, but Will never knew how to deal with it. At the moment she was cool and reasonable, leaving him at a loss for how to approach the subject. “About this morning, I had no idea you wanted to cook. If I had known—”
“You’d what? Pretend to like the food?” She lifted one brow. “I don’t want false praise.”
“Even so, what I said was too much.”
“You think my feelings were hurt because you insulted the food?”
He nodded.
Selene covered her face with both hands.
“Hiring a cook was a little over the top, though,” added Will.
Her fingers opened and she stared at him through them. “I’m not angry about what you said about the food. I was angry because of what you said to Blake.”
Will frowned. “Huh?”
“Would you like to know the easiest way to judge a nobleman? Watch how he treats his servants. What I saw this morning was ugly. It made me so sick I wanted to empty my stomach. How could you talk to him like that?”
He tilted his head to one side. “That’s just how we talk. Blake’s a friend.”
“I’ve never seen you talk to anyone else like that. Certainly not your other friends.”
His jaw dropped. Thinking back on it, he realized that if one were to actually look at the words he had used, they were pretty harsh. But his relationship with Blake was different somehow, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. His mouth went with the first thing that popped into his head. “He was in the army.”
“He isn’t in the army now. He’s your employee.”
Agitated, Will got out of the chair and began to pace. “I eat with Blake. While you were gone, we lived together like two bachelors. I don’t treat him like a servant. Even Tiny commented on it while he was here. You think I abuse him? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’ve never felt that way before, but after what I saw this morning…”
It was Will’s turn to cover his face with both hands. He took a moment to carefully put his thoughts together. “I think I can explain,” he said at last. “Blake isn’t a cook. I never asked him to cook, but he took it on himself a few times, and even ignored my requests when I told him not to. As a result, it got to be sort of a running game between us, and then later he asked me to teach him. In return he’s been helping me with my swordsmanship.”
She stared at him suspiciously. “You were angry this morning.”
He sighed. “Well, that’s true. I was just shocked. He cooks better than that. I was looking forward to making breakfast, and then when I saw what was on your plate, I did overreact.”
Selene nodded. “Maybe I did as well. Blake told me much the same thing you just did.” Rising from her chair, she rounded the desk and moved to give him a hug. After a few seconds, she pushed herself away so she could study his eyes. “What you might not realize is how things were for me when I was growing up.”
Lognion. Will hadn’t considered that angle, and he certainly wouldn’t doubt the man was capable of every sort of cruelty. “Did your father mistreat the servants?”
“Surprisingly, no,” she answered. “He always believed in treating them well, except for instances where punishment needed to be meted out. No, what I meant was his treatment of my friends. When I was small, I played with some of the servants’ children.”
“What happened?”
“I snuck into his office one day. I wanted to borrow some paper to play with. I was only seven at the time, and I accidentally knocked over the inkwell, spoiling a number of important documents. When Father found out I was playing with the daughter of one of the washerwomen, he confronted me about it, and I lied.”
Will winced. He had firsthand experience with how Lognion reacted to lies.
“He wouldn’t punish me directly, though,” said Selene. “Instead, he had Lena whipped in my place—while I watched.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s awful,” exclaimed Will.
“It was a long time ago. I’m well past it now, but things like this morning, watching you berate Blake for what I cooked...”
He scratched his head sheepishly. “I feel like a real jerk now.”
“Let’s forget about this morning,” she suggested. “There’s something else I’d like to talk about.”
Will’s stomach tightened. He already knew the topic she wanted to address. “Maybe we should get to that another day.”
Her eyes hardened. “You’ve said that dozens of times now. I’ve been back for months and nothing has changed. You’re done with school for the summer. If we miss this chance, we might not have the time to try again later.”
“What do you think might happen?” he asked, frowning.
“Anything!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been a royal my entire life. There’s always something that demands attention. I’ve learned not to squander my opportunities.”
“I think we need more time.”
“You think I need more time, or you think you need more time?” she said pointedly.
He rubbed his face reflexively, then stared at her for a moment before admitting, “I’m scared.”
“I’m the one who has to suffer,” she countered. “Why should you be afraid?”
“Because you’re the one who has to suffer,” he said, emphasizing the point. “I can take anything but that, and I don’t want to consider what might happen if you don’t—” He stopped, unable to continue.
Selene grabbed his collar and pulled his face closer before planting a heavy kiss on his lips. She released him and replied, “I’m not going to die. You said yourself that my chances are good.”
“Maybe in a few weeks,” he said hesitantly.
“I’m sick of waiting. Now.”
“No.”
“You’ll say the same in a few weeks. You have a choice to make. Teach me or let me go.”
Will’s eyes widened. “What does that mean?”
“What it sounds like. I’m not going to let you watch me get old and die before you even get started on your long life. If you want me as your wife, help me, so that I can be there with you for as many centuries as you’re blessed to live.”
“You’re already my wife.”
“But…”
She held out her hands. “A few decades, or a few centuries? I know which I would prefer. And if things go wrong, you’re still young enough to find love again.” Her voice was cool and rational.
He closed his eyes. “So be it.”
Her arms went around him, but after a few seconds she pulled his head back to look at his face. “You’re shaking! What’s wrong?”
“I told you I’m scared,” he answered angrily. “You’re old for this and I’m not experienced. You may think I could start over without you, but I couldn’t. After everything else I’ve been through, losing you would be the death of me.”
She kissed him again, and nothing more was said for a short while, then he tried to pull away. “I should get the stove ready.”
Selene held onto his hand. “Jeremy is cooking.” There was a mischievous smile on her lips, and she glanced out the door in the direction of their bedroom. Will understood her meaning immediately.
Later, after they had risen, eaten, and retired again, Will left her alone and went to the study by himself. He closed the door and activated the limnthal. “Selene’s impatient.”
Arrogan picked up his meaning. “It has been a while.”
“You made me wait a year or more.”
“Her case is different,” said his grandfather. “She’s well past the proper age, and she’s already an accomplished practitioner. I don’t think waiting will improve things.”
“Can I really do this?” asked Will.
“You? Definitely, your part is easy. You just put the spell on her and watch her suffer. When it gets to the really bad part, you’ll have to restrain her, as I did with you. The real problem is that you can only paralyze her, no more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Remember me telling you that masters who taught their apprentices some magic early on sometimes took decades to train them through the first stage of turyn control?”
The thought of that horrified him. “Is that going to happen here?”
“Selene knows very well how to use her turyn. Once it starts to put pressure on her, to hurt, she’s going to want to vent some of it. Eventually she’s almost guaranteed to start using spells, and that will set her back to square one. She’ll never learn to compress her source if she gives in to the impulse to use magic. You can use a source-link to paralyze her, but you can’t separate her from her source, otherwise she won’t be able to learn to control it.”
“But if she can touch her source, she’ll be able to use spells,” muttered Will.
“Exactly,” said the ring. “That’s why it’s so hard after they know how to use magic. You can’t stop them, or they won’t learn, but at the same time, they almost can’t help themselves once they feel as though they’re going to die from the turyn building up within them.”
Will still vividly remembered the sensation, locked inside his body while it felt as though his flesh was on fire. The pressure had gotten so great that he was sure he was about to die at any moment. If he had known how to cast a spell of any kind, he would have started doing so compulsively to lessen the pressure. Imagining Selene going through that torment bothered him immensely.
“One thing in your favor,” said Arrogan. “If she’s strong-willed enough to nearly kill herself fighting her father’s control through the heart-stone enchantment, then she ought to be strong enough to hold out long enough to learn this.”
“I hope so,” said Will. “What do I need to do first?”
“You already know the spells. The only thing left is to make sure she isn’t pregnant.”
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t have to worry about that with you, but make sure you remember it for all future female students,” added Arrogan.
“I didn’t mishear you then.”
“No. It’s another benefit to younger apprentices. They’re less likely to be married, or otherwise engaged in activities of that sort. Remember how sick you were after you first compressed your source?”
“I do.” Will had been weak and lethargic for nearly a month until his body had learned to adapt to the lack of turyn coming from his source. It wasn’t until later that he’d learned that he was actually beginning to absorb environmental turyn to make up for the missing energy. “Will she be able to have children later?”
“Think about that for a minute, then explain to me why you’re such an idiot.”
He wanted to smack himself. “Aislinn was your teacher, and you had children much later.”
“Exactly. Once her body adjusts to whatever level she eventually reaches, everything will be fine, but until then, it’s important she does not get pregnant or she’s almost certain to miscarry.”
“So how do I check?” asked Will, feeling suddenly nervous. His grandmother’s previous injunction against them being intimate suddenly made sense. Before she had gone into hiding with Aislinn, Selene had used a spell to prevent pregnancy, but during the months since her return, they had been enthusiastically making up for lost time. And she hasn’t been allowed to use spells.
“There’s a spell for it. Perhaps you can get that doctor who keeps stitching you up to teach it to you.”
Chapter 3
The next morning Will woke early, intending to make a quick visit to see Doctor Morris, but before he could escape the bedroom Selene opened one eye. “Are you trying to sneak off?”
Will froze with his hand on the door handle. “No. I just wanted to take care of an errand before you woke.”
Her other eye joined the first in wakefulness. “What errand?”
For some reason, he had hoped to avoid the conversation. In his mind he had envisioned himself simply getting a quick explanation of the spell and then returning to cast it surreptitiously on Selene before beginning the compression of her source. It had been a foolish thought. “I need to learn a spell to see if you’re… uh…”
“If I’m what?”
He’d been around any number of pregnant women when he was growing up, and had even helped his mother deliver a few babies, but for some reason with Selene he felt intensely embarrassed. “If you’re with child.”
“With child—are you asking if I’m pregnant?”
He nodded.
“I’m not,” she said confidently. “You could have just asked me. I can even teach you the spell if you want to check for yourself.”
“Oh.” Feeling foolish, he waited for her to rise and then went to the study with her where Selene wrote out the spell. It wasn’t too difficult, being about third-order if he had to guess. With a few minutes of study, he constructed the spell and tried it out and saw a flash of yellow light around his wife, indicating she wasn’t pregnant. Green would have been the color if she were with child, followed by a pink or blue flash to indicate the child’s gender if the pregnancy had gone past the first two months.
“Told you,” she said smugly.
“I had to be sure.”
“Is it dangerous for an unborn child?”
He nodded. “It’s dangerous for you. A baby wouldn’t survive if you were carrying one. How did you know you weren’t pregnant?”
“We’ve been careful,” she said, her voice changing slightly. “Plus, I’m sure I would have noticed some changes. Call it a woman’s intuition.”
Will frowned at her. Something was off. “We haven’t been that careful, and since you haven’t been allowed to use spells you haven’t been using the prophylaxis spell.”
She smiled. “I guess we got lucky.”
“You aren’t hiding anything, are you?” he asked.
“You don’t trust me?” she asked innocently.
“Of course I do, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t telling a white lie.”
She winked at him. “Trust is like clothing…” Will winced at the words, for his friends had been
teasing him about his attempt at a wise metaphor ever since the vampire incident. Selene went on, loosening the front of her robe, “Perhaps you’d like me to surrender my clothing? Would that help?”
Will chuckled. “Fine, you win.”
“Can we start now?”
“I had planned on eating breakfast, but—”
“But what?”
He shrugged. “You’re not going to be hungry afterward. It might be better to have an empty stomach, although I would definitely make sure you take care of any other morning business before we start.”
“Is this so bad I won’t be able to pee?”
“Not exactly, but it would be best to be as comfortable as possible before we start. You won’t be comfortable again for quite some time.”
“How long?”
“For me it was an afternoon and most of a night in misery. After that, I just felt awful for a month or so.”
Selene headed for the door. “I’ll be right back then.”
Will sat down behind the desk, and while he waited, he formed the source-cage spell that would force Selene to halve her turyn production—or eventually kill her if she failed to do so. The scary part was that the final outcome was impossible to know until it occurred.
Arrogan had described it to him from a teacher’s perspective. “Most apprentices struggle for half a day or more, right up to the point that they’re on the verge of expiring. At the end, if you’re connected to them, you’ll feel their turyn drop, but that still doesn’t mean they’ve succeeded. You have to wait, because the same thing happens if they’re dying—their turyn production drops, and then keeps dropping. Even if you release them at that point, they’ll die. It’s too late. You’ll only know they’ve succeeded when they’ve survived a few hours like that.”
“I’m ready!” Will looked up to see Selene had returned. Taking a deep breath, he rose from the chair and crossed the room to stand in front of her. The expression on her face was hopeful.
“You’re sure about this?”
“Just do it already!”
With a thought, Will caught Selene with a source-link, then lifted the already prepared source-cage spell and pushed it into her chest. Connected to both the spell construct and her source, he guided one to the other and felt it slide into place. Her eyes met his, and a smile formed on her lips.
