Page 5 of War Mage

“I am going to supper,” I reply. “But I’ll be back. I look forward to more conversations. Hopefully, you will be less combative next time.”

I slide my finger on the runes, taking them back to just three runes and I hear the mage sigh in relief, though she tries to mask it with a yawn.

“Don’t count on it, orc,” she says, still trying to be defiant.

I tilt my head, considering, then hit the fourth rune again. She gasps.

“What was that for?”

“A lesson, Adara,” I say, as the door swings closed behind me. “Your defiance will only ever cause you trouble.”

With that I go down the hall, leaving four runes activated. She can live with the discomfort and the unspoken second lesson I have also left with her.

In the battle of wills between us, I will always win.Always.

Chapter 3

Adara

Three Months Later

Iwake to the loud buzzing in my skull. It’s annoying, incessant and stifling. My body also aches, down to the bones. It’s how being in a powerful anti-mage chamber feels when all the runes are activated, the anti-magic carved into its walls constantly pushing against the inside of my skull, inhibiting the magic in my veins, in my soul. Torture, pure torture. After months of being in the chamber and a week of it being fully activated, I really am starting to wish that they would just kill me.

I close my eyes again, trying to go back to sleep. It’s not easy, as the buzzing is always at the edge of my awareness, the lumen crystals are always lit, and I don’t have a bed anymore. My fault. After they moved me to Adrik Castle from Garden Manor, I tore the cot apart, trying to find a way to use its parts to escape and my captors didn’t replace it when they saw what I had done. So the hard, cold floor it is. At least the two idiot prisoners that kept fucking are gone. They were loud and passionate enough to wake the dead. I briefly wonder what happened to them, then decide I don’t care. At least I am alone and things are peaceful again. It might even be pleasant, if not for the buzzing and the aching.

The door to the chamber suddenly opens, and I slowly open my eyes to see my most hated person in the world there. My orc interrogator, the calm one with the scar on his cheek and the dead, cold eyes. I don’t know his name, as he has never told it to me during all our time together, but in my mind, I call him Lacrys, the gatekeeper to the Nether, reaper of souls, and the death goddess Karnia’s lover. He is austere and frightening enough to fit the mold of Lacrys, though I will never let him know that. When he is around, I try to pretend that I do not care, that I am not frightened, that he means nothing to me. Truthfully, I inwardly flinch every time I see him. He is the one who activated all of the runes in the room last time he was here. All ten. A punishment for trying to escape.

I don’t know what he wants now, though. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, ever since he discovered my broken bed and had the parts removed. We long ago established that I didn’t know enough about his enemies to be useful, so that can’t be why he is here. I lazily glance over his form, my gaze arrested on his right hand that holds a pair of iron manacles. Are we going somewhere?

“Get up, Adara,” he says in his silky smooth voice. I hate that I like his voice so much, after everything he’s done to me. “We are going to decide your fate.”

Is it my trial, finally? I breathe a sigh of relief. The sweet release of death at last. I scramble up and put out my arms, cooperating as he puts the manacles on. Then he steps behind me and commands, “Walk. And don’t try to run. I would catch you before you got far.”

I almost scoff at the stupidity of Lacrys’ words. After months of being in a cell, I have no strength left and with the iron cutting off my magic, I have no way to fight my way out. I’m no idiot. I won’t try to run from my fate. I would rather run towards it if it meant an end.

He gives my back a little push and I start walking, trying not to seem too eager, but the moment I walk out of the anti-mage chamber I almost start crying from relief. The buzzing, after weeks of it, is finally blessedly silent. The aching recedes, the lack of pain almost feeling euphoric. I could almost skip merrily to my doom, just because the buzzing is gone.

We move through the castle, a few people stopping and staring as we walk by. A few orcs stop and put their fists on their chest, bowing their heads when the orc walks by. I’ve seen other orc guards do that same sign to Lacrys at the cell. It’s a strange sight and looks like they are honoring him. Is Lacrys someone important? Why is he my tormentor then? Surely someone of higher status wouldn’t need to condescend to be a simple jailer. Though, perhaps, in their culture, jailers and torturers are just as important as dukes. Who can tell with these awful barbarians?

I expect to be taken to the throne room, where all high-profile trials are held. It’s not thatIam particularly important, but Ididtry to kill the queen and that is quite the heinous crime. It is, at the very least, the most ambitious thing I ever tried to do, stupid though it was. But no, we walk past the throne room, winding down some more halls, until we come to a small door, two orc guards standing at attention outside. Lacrys knocks respectfully and a high, sweet voice answers.

“Enter.”

I know that voice, though I have only heard it once before. What are we doing being taken to the queen? We enter a small, warm room. A large lead-paned window is on one wall and the queen sits behind a desk, making marks in a ledger. She looks up as we come in and I have to hold my breath at her uncanny beauty. Seeing it is as shocking now as it was when I tried to kill her in Undrian Forest. Then I had my anger to act as a shield from being affected by her, but now, after months of having my spirit broken, it almost feels like being punched to see her.

She doesn’t smile when she sees me, but gestures to a chair. “Sit.”

I glance at Lacrys, but his face is immovable. So, not knowing what else to do, I obey the queen and sit in the chair she indicated. She looks back at her ledger and makes a few more marks.

I am confused. What kind of trial is this? There’s no court and the orc king is nowhere to be seen. Am I to be executed without even a show trial being put on?

The queen finishes whatever she is doing in her ledger. She pours some fine-grit sand over her ink, then gently blows it away, before closing her book. Then she takes a piece of parchment out of a stack. It has words written on it, but I can’t make out what they say from my vantage point. She reads the parchment for a moment, and I get antsy. Nothing is going the way I always imagined it would when I was finally let out of the cell. If the queen wants me feeling off-kilter, she is succeeding.

Finally, her lavender-gray eyes flick up at me. “Adara Flameborn,” she begins. “Twenty-eight summers old. Orphaned and adopted by the Mage’s Tower. Most talented mage of her generation. A rare Fire Affinity mage, with training in combat and voidwalking. Captain of the Mages Cohort at Fort Attis. Your credentials are quite impressive.” She holds up the paper and I squint. At the top I can make out my name. She has a dossier on me?

“That’s me,” I remark, a little saucily. I feel the need to gain some power back in this situation, and being a little snarky is how I’ve always done that. “What does it matter to you? I’m going to be killed, anyway.”

The queen doesn’t respond to my needling. Instead, she looks back at her parchment, acting almost like I’m not here. She murmurs, almost to herself, “Maybe this is a bad idea.”

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