Page 12 of War Mage

Queen Adalind gives a small smile at my words, but it doesn’t quite make it to her eyes. Her expression is often like this, with Rognar gone. “Good,” she says simply. “Now prepare yourself. Melelea, are you ready for Urim?”

The trolless nods. “I am ready. We should begin quickly while your blood is at its most potent.”

“Then let us start. We have much to accomplish before you all leave on the morrow.” Queen Adalind declares. “And I’ll leave you to it. As sole acting ruler, I have much that needs to be done.” With that, she sweeps out of the room, her guards at the door moving in silent, almost choreographed, steps to escort her.

With Queen Adalind gone, I move to sit in front of Lady Melelea. She begins the finicky work of transferring the magic rune into my skin, one of her own design. The glamour rune will go on my forearm for ease of use, the same place Adara’s shackling rune went on her arm. The needle pricks my skin and it burns more than I thought it would, being an orc, but it must be from the magic in the blood. I am not one for speaking when I have nothing to say and Lady Melelea doesn’t force conversation. We sit in comfortable silence and all while she works, I think and plan. I’ll need to keep the mage on a short leash and make sure she accomplishes her mission. Her words earlier give me an idea how to do just that, but it’ll be tricky. I’ll be going against my queen and risking my own life, but if I die in service of my rulers, so be it.

???

It’s late at night when I come to the cell door where the mage is staying. No longer is she in the anti-mage chamber. A concession to build goodwill between us and Adara. I can’t help but feel that it is a mistake, even with the magic tattoo on her skin, inhibiting her casting against any of our allies. Adara is smart. If she wanted to find a workaround to the magic, I’m sure she would succeed.

But it is true that she is bargaining from a place of strength. She is the only one in all of our two countries that can do this mission. We could send feelers out to surrounding countries looking for other fire mages, but there’s always the risk that the enemy will find out what we are doing and ascertain our plot. Besides, finding a fire mage and finding a fire mage willing to attempt soulfire in front of an arch-demon on a suicide mission are two different things entirely. No, this must be done and it must be donenow, before Grazrath has time to grow in power, and Adara is the only candidate. Even if that fact chafes.

With a slight bitter twist of my lips, I am able to school my expression back into its emotionless mask before I knock lightly at the cell door. Another concession. She is to be treated with respect and the niceties of politeness, even though she is still technically our prisoner. I look through the grate at the top of the door and can’t see her easily, so she must be in the cot on the far side of the wall. I resist the urge to push my face closer to the grate to see what she’s up to. I don’t want her to think that she has me worried.

“Come in,Urim,” Adara says lightly, emphasizing my name again. She obviously likes showing off this new piece of information she has gleaned. It’s true that I kept my name from her before on purpose, a method of mental torture, denying her the smallest bit of control over her situation, even the name of her tormentor. I do not like that the power balance has shifted so radically in the space of a day. It takes away the power and control I have spent months building. They are what I, as a spymaster, thrive on. I barely stop myself from grimacing again, keeping my face trained, expressionless. Something about this mage gets under my skin like no other prisoner ever has. Do I hate her, I wonder? Is that what this incessant, needling feeling is? I hope not. Hate gives the object of that emotion power over one and one’s reactions. It incites fear and obsession. I learned that lesson once. That is one of the reasons I spent so long learning to command my emotions. Still, I fear that may be what’s happening.

It’s been so long since I have truly hated anyone that I can’t quite remember the sensation, but Ihavefelt hate before. When I was alone and tormented by those bigger and stronger than me, beaten and afraid on the streets of Ilustan, our nation’s capital. I think briefly of Gajek, the leader of the youth band of cutpurses who tormented me when I was a young child, orphaned and alone. Him, I hated and feared, a boy barely older than me who made my life on the streets a nightmare. When I rose up through the ranks of the Horde, however, I swore I would never give someone that kind of power over me again. Apparently, I was lying to myself, which frustrates me more than I can put into words. Whydoesshe affect me so deeply?

Turning the key in the cell door, I enter the cramped and dim room. An empty cot faces me and I turn deliberately to the far wall, seeing Adara lounging on her side on the other cot, propping up her head with one hand. She smiles at me without warmth and more than a little triumph, the cat with the cream.

“Welcome to my new lodgings,” she says. “Have you come to check that I’m comfortable? I was just starting to get hungry and was going to ask for a meal.”

Hellion. What I wouldn’t give to punish her right now for her insolent little speech, but I cannot. Not now when we need her. More of that needling feeling rises up in the back of my skull, but I squash it down ruthlessly. Letting the door close behind me, I hear it latch, the sound echoing in the silence. We stare each other down, my face impassive, hers pleased and teasing.

“We need to talk,” I say finally firmly, breaking the stalemate.

“Oh?” she queries lightly, mockingly, while sitting up. “What about?”

“I don’t trust you,” I tell her calmly, yet forthrightly. “You are a wild card with no loyalty or honor except unto you and yours, and I dislike that the fate of the world rests on your shoulders. You don’t even care about the thousands of lives that hang in the balance, dependent on your success, only your own aims. Besides, I suspect that you are no warrior at heart and are, at your core, a coward. Unpredictability and cowardice are a bad combination.”

“It is a great tragedy then, that you need me so badly,” she remarks, still mocking.

“Yes,” I agree with her, though I know she is being sarcastic. “It is.”

The mage sits back on her cot, leaning against the wall, her gaze assessing. “What will you do then?” she finally asks. “We must work together. The plan and all that.”

“We will work together,” I agree blandly. “I have never failed a mission, and I have no intention of starting now. But to make sure of that, I will give you my mating bite.

“What?” barks out Adara, disbelieving. “I’m sorry, I must have just lost my mind because I thought that I heard you say that you were going to make me your mate?”

“It is only logical,” I tell her evenly. “I want to be able to keep tabs on you and make sure that you succeed in your mission. You want to be able to live to see the sovereignty of your precious Tower, don’t you? A soultie is the way for that to happen, for both of us.”

“But . . .” the mage says, obviously at a loss for words, which is strange for her. “. . . but I don’t evenlikeyou.”

“Nor I you,” I return calmly. “This would not be about feelings. It would be about the mission.”

“But what about orcs dying without their mates? I won’t be sticking around after the mission to have your babies and play mates with you just because you bit me.”

“The queen was forgetting the obvious,” I tell her. “Thereisa way to sever our mate bond. It is . . . unpleasant for you, but it would give you your freedom and preserve my life.”

“What is this ‘unpleasant’ method?” asks Adara warily.

“You will have to cut off my bite,” I say bluntly, scenting her alarm in the air. It makes her normally spicy scent rancid.Curious. I’ve never been so repulsed by someone’s fear scent. Ignoring it as best I can, I continue, “Then you will need to get a tattoo on the scar to completely sever our soultie.”

“More tattoos,” mutters the mage with a distasteful twist of her lips. She looks up at me, holding my gaze challengingly. “But if I did that, we would be separate again and we wouldn’t owe each other anything?”

“Yes,” I reply. “Completely separate.” I don’t tell her that even with this method, there is a chance that I won’t be able to have children, even if I gave a second mate bite. This method of severing a soultie is an ancient wisdom and much of the information on its side effects has been lost to time. But I never intended to have children anyway, my true loyalty to my rulers, so it will be no great loss, even if I become sterile.

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