After the explosive opening of the great council, things settled down somewhat - though, upon Liv’s reflection, it would have been difficult for the proceedings to escalate any further without breaking into some sort of violence.

  Duke Falkenrath gave his report on what had been found at the burned guildhall, though it would have been more accurate to say he relayed what he’d discovered by questioning the dead with his word of power. He was able to confirm that a small, hidden group of the drovers, led by the assistant to the guild master, one Vorius Carver, had been slowly growing their numbers since Ractia’s return.

  The day-to-day activities of the butchers in the guild provided the perfect cover for rites of blood sacrifice, while drovers were employed to carry instructions to cells of the V?dic Lady’s servants all across Lucania. During the days between the burning of the hall and the opening of the great council, arrest orders had been sent out to nearly two dozen cities and towns throughout the kingdom.

  The revelation - finally - of just how many servants the Lady of Blood had, scattered throughout their lands, shocked the barons into movement. Apparently, the knights who had been rounded up to accompany Wren, Ghveris, and Falkenrath to the guild hall had returned to their liege lords and ladies with ghastly stories about animated human corpses hanging on meathooks, and pools of blood shining with magical power. The rumors had spread as fast as an autumn forest fire, panicking the barons.

  Liv considered their urgency nearly a decade too late, but at least it had finally come. An unexpected outcome of the shift in focus was that she ended up answering more questions about the war in Varuna than about the proposed peace terms, which had abruptly been overshadowed by what had happened in Freeport. To her satisfaction, their allies - or at least those with common interests - were able to use the incidents to push the direction of the council. The priests of the Trinity, led by Eustace, pushed for a renewed effort to track down every cell of Ractia worshippers in the kingdom. Sidonie’s father gave her a perfect set-up, when he asked directly what Lucania could do to aid the fight against the risen goddess.

  “After the battle at Nightfall Peak, we know that Ractia fled, but we don’t know which rift she’s retreated to,” Liv explained. “Wren Wind Dancer has been leading our scouting teams to every rift we can find, one by one, but the hunt would go far quicker if we could use a few experienced culling teams to help.”

  When it came to the actual treaty, and details like Thurston Falkenrath’s trade requests, Liv largely left Blaise to answer which she sat back and listened. He’d had months to ensconce himself in Freeport, after all, and get to know the major players at court. Liv was growing to appreciate the keen political mind that lurked beneath the man’s veneer of a dissolute rogue.

  “You made a good choice,” she told Keri, leaning over to put their heads together while the debates passed them by.

  “I’m pleased you think so.” Keri smiled, for a moment, but the expression didn’t last long. “How are you, really? I know you like to pretend you’re invincible -”

  “I had another nightmare last evening,” she admitted. “That feeling of falling apart, and not being able to put yourself back together...” Liv shivered, the way anyone else might if they felt a sudden, cool breeze.

  Wren leaned up from behind them. “What that means is that you need more practice,” she murmured. “It should feel like letting go, almost like a relief. If you’re frightened of it, you can’t use the technique right.”

  “I can think of about a dozen things I’d rather experiment with,” Liv grumbled. “I still want to try that trick with the ice crystals and your light.” She nudged Keri with her elbow. “Like the bear outside the Tomb.”

  By the end of the day’s council session, it was clear to Liv that the peace terms would be accepted. While she would be required to put her name to the final copy of the agreement, her presence for the rest of the council would likely do more harm than good, in Blaise’s estimation.

  “You’ll be a distraction,” he argued, over a late dinner of seared sea scallops in a sauce of garlic butter, grilled whitefish, fresh bread, and white wine. “Let me handle the next few days, and I’ll call you back when it’s time to make everything official.”

  Fortunately for Liv, Keri, Rei, and Miina, there were scallop beds in close enough proximity to the Gull Island Rift that their own servings, coming from a separate batch, were bursting with mana. “In that case,” she said, “I think it’s about time we took this boy to the theater.”

  Eight years ago, when a younger Liv had pressed her face to the windows of a carriage rumbling down the hill from the waystone through Freeport, she might have gotten away with fading into the audience as one of the groundlings, or in the cheap seats, where cushions had to be rented for two copper pennies. Now, it simply wasn’t possible to attend without drawing a crowd of onlookers. Using Blaise as a go-between, she paid a silver sun to secure them a ‘lord’s room,’ so that Kaija could post guards outside the door in order to keep away any unwanted company. Another few silvers saw them all delivered wine, fried fish and potato wedges tossed with salt and vinegar from a nearby tavern.

  The story was an old one: the tragedy of King Reginald, the grandson of Lucan the first. In his old age, the king had attempted to divide his kingdom among his three sons, leading to a decade of civil war as each one, not satisfied with their own portion, pressed their claim for the entirety of Lucania. By the time it was over, not a single one of the original claimants was still alive, and peace was only established when the son of one was wed to the daughter of another, combining their claims.

  Rei couldn’t have cared less about the politics, and needed occasional translations into Vakansa, when he couldn’t keep up with the actor’s speeches - but every time the swords came out, and the actors danced around the stage putting on a show, the boy leaned so far over the balcony that Keri had to hold his belt to make certain he didn’t go tumbling down into the crowd of standing commoners thirty feet below. Scarves of brilliant red stood in for gouts of blood, and every character who died did so just slowly enough to make a final speech.

  When they finally left, after giving the players not only an ovation but a purse of silver from Liv’s own hand, Keri’s son was running and leaping about them as they walked to the carriage. It took quite a while to get him finally settled down for bed, once they’d returned to Acton House, but Liv found that she didn’t mind.

  Afterward, they sat in the garden, listening to the sound of the waves breaking against the shore. Anyone else might have felt the bite of approaching winter coming in off the sea, but Liv hadn’t really minded cold since the Tomb of Celris, and Keri was able to keep himself warm using Savel.

  “Thank you,” he told her, after a long stretch of silence. “I’ve already missed so much of his childhood, I don’t want to miss any more.”

  “You don’t have to thank me,” Liv said. “I like spending time with him. He’s a good kid.” She hesitated for a moment. “You still don’t want to go back to Mountain Home?”

  “No.” Keri shook his head. “It almost feels like another life, now. I don’t think I can go back - or at least, not for a long time.”

  Somewhat selfishly, Liv was glad of it. “Good. I feel like I shouldn’t say that, but I’d rather have you stay with me.”

  Keri slipped an arm around her, and that felt good, as well. “I was afraid we’d lost you,” he admitted.

  “I was afraid too. I know Wren wants me to practice, and honestly she’s probably right - but I’d like to at least stop having nightmares about it before I try that again.” Liv sighed, and snuggled up against Keri. She’d missed this - having someone to hold her, since things had ended with Rose. The ache that came at that thought was growing dull, a nostalgic sadness for things gone rather than a ripping, bleeding wound in her heart. “It did make me think.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “Oh?”

  “About what would happen to the alliance, to Whitehill, if I’d died,” Liv said. “I want to say that there would be people to pick up the pieces - you, my father, Wren and Matthew...”

  “It wouldn’t be that easy,” Keri said. “You’ve become a symbol. The woman who killed an archmage, stopped an army, and forced a goddess to flee. What do you think would have happened to the rebellion of Mirriam had died in the first battle?”

  “It probably would have fallen apart,” Liv admitted. “I suppose we’d all still be slaves right now. She did die, eventually.”

  “Not until after she’d had a son,” Keri pointed out.

  “I suppose that’s the other thing I’ve been thinking about,” Liv said. “I know exactly what Julianne would tell me to do. Get married, immediately, and make an heir.”

  Keri was silent for a long moment. “I’m not my aunt,” he said, eventually. “I would never want to push you to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

  “What if it isn’t?” Liv asked. She created just enough distance between them to sit back and meet his eyes.

  Keri opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and then began again. “Tell me what you’re thinking?”

  “It’s never been the case of not wanting a family,” Liv said. “Even with Cade, I didn’t necessarily object to that part of things. It wasn’t the right time, and he wasn’t the right person, but I do actually want to be a mother.”

  “Do you think you’ve found the right person?” he asked. “And the right time?”

  “I think it's going to take us months or years to find Ractia,” Liv told him. “Even if we do get culling teams from the guild. And I - I like this.” She reached for his hand. “So, maybe. But I can tell you one thing - I’m not going to be anyone’s extra wife. I know how the Vakansa do things, but I was raised in Lucania. If that’s a problem, you should tell me now, and we can stop this before either of us gets hurt.”

  Keri raised her hand to his lips, and the light touch on her knuckles made Liv shiver. “Too late for that, I think. But no - I’ve already been hurt that way once. I couldn’t do this again, try this again, with someone who was going to find another man while I’m away. I need to be able to trust that -”

  “That I won’t abandon you?”

  Keri nodded, and Liv remembered the look on his face when they’d gone to Mountain Home, and he’d realized what had happened between his kwenim and his cousin while he’d been away. How she’d wanted to reach out and gather him up in her arms, and hold him until his heart stopped hurting. She hadn’t been able to do it then, but she could now.

  “I won’t.”

  ?

  It took a week before the final documents were signed, and they were able to move on to Coral Bay, during which time they finally had their long overdue breakfast with Thurston and Tephania. That mostly consisted of a promise to arrange a visit, once everyone had gone back north.

  When they left, Caspian Loredan went with them in his own carriage, leaving the two dukes behind to rule Freeport and, by extension, Lucania in his absence. They hadn’t made any secret of Liv’s request to be tested, and in fact Liv had intended for word to spread when she told Cassandra Banks. As a result, they weren’t the only ones travelling to the college.

  Appearing on the southern beach was a pleasant transition, and Liv couldn’t help but grin when they were bathed in warm sunshine. Kazimir Grenfell, Pandit Sharma, Rei, and Miina had remained in the carriage while Liv, Keri, and her remaining guards shared the cost of activating the Freeport waystone. Rather than immediately climb back in and squeeze herself into a place, Liv strode to the center of the Coral Bay stone and knelt, teasing out a strand of her own mana to hook it about the enchantment beneath the surface of the white stone. Only once she’d established a tether did she accept Keri’s hand back up into the carriage.

  Once the team of horses had pulled them up to the top of the bluff, past the stables and the training grounds, Liv could see that things had changed in her absence. The Hall of Bricklayers and Masons, the Masterful Guild of Framers and Joiners, and the Most Worshipful Society of Pipes and Waters had all set up tents around Blackstone Hall, which was topped by an extensive series of wooden scaffoldings while they rebuilt almost the entire second floor of the old keep.

  Liv could also see that, just like during the conclave, the beach below the bluff, to the west of the campus, had become home to a village in miniature, made up of tents, pavilions and cook-fires. The scene was not as extensive as when Genevieve Arundell had staged her takeover of the guild - likely because there simply hadn’t been time for word to spread, and most of the guild to come.

  Before they’d even come to a halt in the courtyard at the center of the campus, a crowd of students had begun to gather, pointing at Ghveris and whispering. Despite his clearly damaged armor, the Antrian still struck an intimidating image, by sheer size and presence alone - nevermind the fact that most of the apprentices had never seen anything like him before.

  When Caspian Loredan emerged from his carriage first, the crowd’s excitement only intensified; and when Keri helped Liv down the step from their own, a moment later, the volume rose high enough that she could make out some of what was being said.

  “-say she killed Jurian-”

  “-call her a queen-”

  “-definitely killed Arundell.”

  The old feeling of wanting to hunch her shoulders and hide from those around her had been coming less and less, but Liv felt it now. It had only been a bit over a year since she was here last; many of those in the crowd were people she knew, faces she recognized.

  Miina came out of the carriage next, and then Keri helped his son down. Rei’s eyes widened at the rumbling crowd, and he immediately reached out to each side, grabbing his father’s hand in one of his own, and Liv’s with the other. Kazimir Grenfell and Pandit Sharma came last.

  Liv turned to Caspian Loredan, and raised her eyebrows.

  The old man nodded. “As you may have heard, students, there has been a request for an archmage test. Under any other circumstances, I would laugh someone who was a journeyman a year ago out of the room for such a request, but in this case the guild will honor the request.”

  “I hardly think it appropriate to even consider jumping a journeyman three ranks,” a man with honey-blonde hair spoke up, pushing his way through the crowd toward the carriage. He wore an arming sword on his belt, and a gambeson. “Nevermind someone a lowborn bastard who has, if I recall correctly, been formally expelled from the guild by our late guildmistress - for the crime of murder.”

  Liv looked at the man, tried to place his face, and couldn’t. “Who are you?” she asked.

  Caspian Loredan coughed. “That is Professor Reginald Teck, who has been teaching our combat courses since you left,” the archmagus explained.

  Wren laughed. “You’re the idiot Tephania was complaining about,” the huntress exclaimed. She glanced over to Liv. “I’m not sure I told you, it was when we met up in Courland during the war. Said he only bothered to train the nobles, and let all the common-born students rot.”

  “I will not be insulted!” Teck exclaimed. “Particularly not by - whoever this is.”

  “Your concerns are noted, Professor,” Caspian broke in. “And since they’ve been voiced in front of so many, I will address them here and now. Queen Livara is confirmed, by numerous sources, to have delved multiple rifts after having achieved the rank of journeyman, which is more than sufficient for her to be recognized as a full guild mage. She will be presenting her research to our assembled faculty to be recognized as a master mage, which means that you yourself will have the opportunity to evaluate it. Only after the professors have made their judgement will the testing proceed.”

  “That does not answer the charge of murder,” Teck insisted.

  “No, but the first article of the peace treaty just signed by the great council does,” Liv interrupted. “Forgiveness and amnesty for everyone who fought on the side of Whitehill during the war which, it turns out, includes me and everyone standing next to me. Not that it should ever have been needed - I didn’t kill Jurian.”

  “He was my teacher, and he protected me when no one else could or would,” she continued. “Anyone who knew me here should have recognized that as a lie the moment they heard it. How he actually died was that, during his fight against Genevieve Arundell, his heart gave out. She admitted that to me herself.”

  “Finally, Professor Teck,” Liv said, twisting the title into an insult that clearly showed her contempt for him, “when the time comes for three professors to face off against me, I look forward to you being one of them. Since you have been, as you say, insulted, it should give you the perfect opportunity to get your satisfaction.”

  Before Teck could respond, a familiar voice burst through the crowd as Professor Norris elbowed his way over to Ghveris. “By the Trinity,” the enchanter gasped. “What has happened to you? Come, come, we must get you to the workshop right away.”

  At the sight of her former teacher grasping the immense war machine by the hand and trying to drag him away for study, Liv couldn’t help but laugh.

  here. I am more available there than I am here.

  2025 has been the year that Guild Mage really came into existence, and it's been incredible. Yeah, I started making notes in summer of 2024, and I started writing in November of 2024, but it was only after that Rising Stars run that I started to get into contact with people like Max, who is now my agent, Selkie and Savitr, at Mango Media, and Taylor and Chelsea at Podium Entertainment, and KJ, who has become the voice of Liv.

  It has been a wild ride, going from an idea to three published books in this series. Thank you all for coming along with me, and for making it happen.

  May 2026 be even better!

  Dramatis Personae

  Livara T?r Valtteri Kaen Syv? - Guildmage, former scullery maid at Castle Whitehill, the bastard daughter of Maggie Brodbeck and Valtteri Ka Auris. Mountain Queen, and Lady of Winter. Setting relationship boundaries. [35 Rings of Mana, not counting mana stored in items.]

  Blaise Crosbie - Ambassador to Lucania, sons of Baron Arnold, brother of Beatrice (among others). Accepting the handoff and running with the ball. [12 Rings of Mana]

  Caspian Loredan, Archmagus - Head of the College of V?dic Grammar, serving on the Council of Regents for Lucania. Isn't this like the 3rd archmage challenge he's had to oversee? [26 Rings of Mana]

  Inkeris "Keri" ka Ilmari k?n B?lris - A young warrior of the Unconquered House of B?lris, father to Rei. A bit damaged, when it comes to relationships. [20 Rings of Mana.]

  Reginald Teck - Professor of Combat at Coral Bay. Definitely not Jurian. [17 Rings of Mana]

  Wren Wind Dancer - Daughter of Nighthawk, cousin of Calm Waters. "Get back on the bike!"