Sample Scene from
Chapter One:
The
Reluctant Graduate
The Tower bell of Mâton’s College of Magic tolled the end of the morning session. Master Rinstarki had not quite finished his portal to the Câlaren, despite the surreptitious help Darma had given him on some of the subrituals. Indifferent to the lesson, nine of the Master’s ten morning students left immediately, but Darma stayed and helped with the last incantation. “Is it ready, Master?” she asked, looking at the glow around the worn oak door.
“You should know, Darma,” Master Rinstarki said. “You did half the work. Open it. Quickly now, or
you’ll be late for lunch.”
Darma opened the door into a flurry of snow and wind. Two peaks of the Câlaren pierced the sky before her, while the third was but a step away and buried in snow. “Shall I go through, Master?”
“You can if you hurry. Don’t shut the door!”
Darma ran forward, and nearly fell as her feet touched the icy path beyond the doorway. Recovering, she bent and scooped up a handful of snow, the first she had ever held.
“It’s best if you pack it into a ball. Like this!” Master Rinstarki’s eyes twinkled as he made a snowball.
Darma followed his lead. “What is it for, Master?”
“Why, for throwing at someone, of course! But not at me. Now, off to the dining hall with you. I don’t want the Archmage in here claiming I’ve kidnapped you.”
“I wish you would,” Darma said, half seriously. “This is the most fun I’ve had all week. Goodbye, Master!” Clutching her snowball from the supposedly holy mountains, Darma left Master Rinstarki’s rooms and stepped out into the bright spring sunshine. Most of the students were already disappearing across the school’s central quadrangle into the courtyard that led to the dining hall, but Darma didn’t care. In a choice between food and magic, Darma usually chose magic.
“Darma.” Startled, Darma took a step backward as Archmage Sunestri appeared less than three feet in front of her.
“Father,” she said calmly, with the barest suggestion of a nod. Sunestri was prone to sudden, magical arrivals, albeit not usually to see her specifically. His purpose was as much to intimidate as communicate, maintaining his status as the one person on Mâton that everyone—from master mages to farmers to his only surviving relative—feared. It was a fear Darma preferred not to show. She looked at him, steadily but politely. As usual, he wasn’t really there. Darma could see the bushes through him. She wasn’t impressed. She had learned to do the same at the age of seven.
“I saw what you did this morning,” Sunestri said. “Good work.”
Darma shook her head. “Master Rinstarki did it. I only helped a little.”
“Don’t be modest. How many specialties does that make now? Seven? Eight?”
Portal magic was actually her eleventh specialty, but Darma wasn’t about to admit that to Sunestri. “Something like that. Once I truly master portal magic, that is. I don’t think I could do it on my own yet.”
“I think you could. Darsuma, it is time, past time, for your Robing.”
It was what every other student wanted, but the thought filled Darma with panic. “But I’m not ready! There are six Masters here I haven’t studied with yet.”
Her father laughed. “True, but you’ve worn out the other nineteen, and fulfilled the advanced study requirements several times over. Most mages only ever achieve two specialties. Even I have but five of them. Would you stay in the nest seeking to gain them all? You are needed elsewhere.”
That didn’t sound good. Darma had always hoped that her first assignment as an adept would be at the school, teaching under the supervision of one of the Masters. “I’m needed elsewhere? Where?”
Sunestri looked at her. His eyes were calculating, and there was something almost feminine in the curve of his smile. “How would you like to be Queen of Mâvarin?” he asked.
