Page 8 of War Mage

“Yes,” confirms Queen Adalind. “He was part of Yorian’s Cabal, the group you admitted the Mage’s Tower helped by providing forbidden texts to them. It is likely one of those texts gave them the knowledge of the ritual they performed.”

“Another reason to give the Tower its independence,” points out Adara. “We only surrendered those texts because it was the king asking for them and we had no choice but to obey him under our charter.”

“Quite,” agrees Adalind, her tone deceptively agreeable. I can see her already strategizing about the sovereignty of the Mage’s Tower. She is likely thinking of a plan to make it benefit Adrik and Orik, even while losing control of the mages.

“Then we have an agreement?” Adara asks. “I do this mission for you and you free the mages?”

“If yousucceed,” the queen emphasizes, “I will give the Mage’s Tower its sovereignty. I will not give you something so precious for a mere attempt.”

“I will succeed,” the mage proclaims brashly. “The only mission I ever failed was my attempt on your life and if I had known about your magic, I wouldn’t have even failed that.”

She is arrogant, this mage. I suppose I already knew that from my times interrogating her these past months. But to bring up her assassination attempt in front of the target of said attempt and to claim that she would have been successful? That is in another realm of arrogance entirely. It borders on stupidity, even if I can’t help but somewhat admire her audacity.

Queen Adalind doesn’t seem offended by the mage’s claims, however. “Then let us be sure that you have all the information you need going into this mission. We can't have you making excuses for why you failedthistime. The stakes are too high.”

Adara flushes at the slight censure in the queen’s words, but she raises her chin proudly, not backing down. “We have a deal?” she repeats.

“We do,” replies Queen Adalind calmly.

The mage then raises her wrists, the iron manacles hanging off of them. “Then will you release these bonds?”

“Oh, Adara,” says the queen, her voice amused. “I’m not stupid. I have not survived this long by just releasing people who have wanted to kill me in the past at their word alone. There’s something you must do first.”

“And what is that?”

Queen Adalind’s lips quirk. “How do you feel about needles?”

Chapter 5

Adara

“Ow!” I grit out. “Ow, ow, ow!”

“Sit still,” the troll woman gently rebukes while repeatedly stabbing me with a needle of sharpened dragon bone.

“Yousit still,” I grouse back, desperately trying not to wince. Or cry. I definitely don’t want to cry in front of the queen. Or Lacrys, who stands stoically in the corner.

“A troll child would be less squirmy than you are,” remarks the troll woman, still intent on her work.

“I’m not a troll,” I mutter. “My skin is thinner.”

“And yet you are not the first human to get a tattoo,” says the trolless, teasing amusement in her voice.

I look down at my forearm, where a large rune has begun to form. It is a complicated symbol, made up of a few smaller Fae runes, intricately woven together into one image. I don’t know all the runes and their meanings, but I pick out “forbidden,” “friend,” and “fire.” The ink the troll woman is using is made of the queen’s magical blood and the gods know what else. Coming together, it effectively binds me so that I cannot use my magic against Queen Adalind or anyone that she considers an ally. A permanent shackle.

I balked when the queen first told me about her requirements for me to take off my iron manacles, but she was firm. Either I get the tattoo done by her wisewoman or there would be no deal. And Ineedthat deal.

Freedom for the Mage’s Tower. It is always something that we mages have talked about in whispers, with longing and no hope. No kingdom is going to give up its mages. Magic is power, simply put. Once one has power, there’s no way that one will let it go. Yet, Queen Adalind has promised that she will. In exchange for my measly life and a successful assassination. A small price to pay.If she’s telling the truth.

I find myself wishing that I was an orc, with their ability to smell lies. The queen could be playing on my desperation to see my dream fulfilled, just as I am playing on her desperation to rid herself of this demon. I have no way of knowing.

The troll woman keeps at her work, my arm burning with pain. I don’t know if this is how tattoos normally feel, or if it is the blood magic in the ink, but I am having a hard time not snatching away my arm from her strong fingers, even though we are only half-done.

“Can we take a break?” I gasp out once the pain becomes too much.

“This must be done quickly, in one sitting,” the trolless explains calmly, “or the magic may not stick. You want your manacles removed and to have access to your magic again, don’t you?”

More than anything. I’ve been cut off from my mana for months, the experience painful in more than one way. It’s like missing a limb. A part of a lung, like I can’t quite breathe without my mana. But even that yearning cannot take away the agony in my arm, the burning pain that reverberates from every prick of the needle.

---