Liv reached across the table, accepting the folded sheet of parchment from Caspian Loredan. She stood up and walked over to the portable desk that Thora had made certain to bring for her, where she opened a drawer and withdrew a small knife kept for just this purpose, which she used to break the red wax seal.

  The incantation, and accompanying notes, were all written in the archmage’s own hand – Liv had seen it often enough, on a slate in chalk, to recognize it instantly. One part of her mind noted that meant this was not the original record of the spell, but of course she hadn’t expected anything more than a copy: the original, if it still existed, would be carefully preserved somewhere safe.

  “Arum'Aluthō Skand Aluthic Theris,” Liv pronounced, carefully. Once, when she first began her studies with master Grenfell, she would have been afraid to speak the incantation aloud, but that was before she had spent decades learning control. She neither allowed the V?dic words to resonate with her mana, nor an intent to form. Aluth, she kept firmly slumbering in her mind, rather than permit it to wake.

  “Give me your best translation,” the old mage said. “Without reading the accompanying notes, first.”

  “Well, I recognize Aluth twice,” Liv said, beginning with the obvious. “The first instance in the form of a verb, in the first person, but the second it’s been turned into an adjective, which I hardly ever see. Magical – travel?”

  Caspian nodded. “Good. Continue.”

  “Arum'Aluthō Skand,” Liv repeated. “This is the means by which I use magic to –to climb?”

  “To block, in this context,” her former teacher explained. “Skand, as a concept, is about an obstacle, and it can be used either to convey overcoming, or imposing. Taken altogether –”

  “A spell which uses Aluth to block magical travel, but, presumably, not normal travel,” Liv finished. She scanned over the notes, which confirmed her translation and reasoning, elaborating on details here and there, such as the use of Skand. “If I cast this over a waystone, would it prevent the waystone from activating?”

  “Precisely,” Caspian Loredan said. “It would also prevent the use of a tether.”

  Liv smiled. “I’d wondered whether you knew that technique.”

  “Know the existence of, yes,” the archmage confirmed. “What fragments of Miriam’s writings her descendents have preserved discuss it from a tactical point of view – that without a spell like this, V?dim had a tendency to escape, returning to haunt her forces at a later time. Duskvale is one example that we have a partial account of.”

  He paused for a moment, meeting Liv’s eyes. “I had wondered whether or not the Eld had preserved the knowledge of how to make and use a tether, but I hadn’t been certain until now. I can’t think of anywhere else you would have learned about the concept.”

  Liv held up the parchment and gently shook it in her hand. “If I’d had this when we assaulted Nightfall Peak, Ractia wouldn’t have gotten away from me. We wouldn’t be hunting her right now. Why didn’t you bring it to me – or even tell me it existed?”

  “For the same reason that you are not going to teach that spell to anyone who has not obtained the rank of Archmage,” Loredan said. “It is dangerous. In the hands of a mage with less than scrupulous morals, it could be used to cut off a town or city from trade or travel. To prevent reinforcements from coming to relieve a rebellion or invasion, perhaps. To cause a famine, and demand a ransom be paid.”

  Liv bit her lip. She could, in all honesty, do most of those things with the Crown of Celris. She was certain that if she wanted to, she could take control of the waystone down on the beach, and the rift itself, as well. Caspian didn’t seem to know that was possible with a key. The question was whether or not to tell him. Would it send him off on a quest to find a key of his own? Would it make Lucania jealous of what she and Aira could do, with two keys – jealous, or afraid?

  “I’m not certain I agree with that,” she said, after a moment. “It might have made sense to protect this spell while there were no V?dim left in the world, but now that we’re fighting one of the old gods, this magic is needed again. Hiding it isn’t going to help anyone.”

  “Your instinct is to spread knowledge,” Caspian said, with a heavy sigh. “I do not disagree with you in principle, Livara, but I fear what a tool like this could do in the wrong hands. Grant me this: share it with no one but an archmage, until after I have passed.”

  Liv opened her mouth to interrupt, but the old man continued without stopping. “You will survive me, that much is obvious,” Caspian said. “There will come a day when you are the senior archmage of the guild, and I am gone. At that point, you will shape our guild without my voice. You, and those who come after you. But until then, I ask that you be ruled by my caution.”

  “Fine,” Liv said, after a moment. “I can give you that. But you know you’re going to have to relent and allow the guild to change. Integrating Eld is going to force us to adjust our ranking criteria, at the very least.”

  Caspian waved his hand, as if swatting away a fly. “Yes, yes, and I’m certain I’ll be discussing that with you and Lia Every – never mind an eventual conclave – at length. Leave it for the night, at least.”

  “Very well.” Liv reached for her goblet, and took a sip of wine. She got the feeling that if she just waited, the old man would have one more thing to talk about, and she was proved correct only a short while later.

  “She’s very angry with me,” Caspian said, staring down into his own goblet. “I was surprised by just how much.”

  “Lia?” Liv asked, and only continued after the archmage had nodded in response. “Some people – like your new professor here, from what I understand – care about the letter of the law. Lia cares even more about justice, and so far as she’s concerned, the guild failed when put to the test.” So far as both of us are concerned, Liv could admit silently, but decided to keep that thought to herself.

  “I’ve been trying to think of where I could have made a different decision, to change how things fell out,” Caspian said. “If I’d killed Roland’s wife, instead of sending her into exile, would Milisant still be alive today?”

  “You may not want to hear this, but she was already a piece of work by the time we had that meeting,” Liv told him. “She was more than willing to kill me in a duel just because her grandmother wanted to hurt Julianne.”

  “And yet,” the old man murmured, very softly, “I remember holding her when she was just an infant, and how she smiled when she grabbed my finger. She wasn’t born evil, Livara. Somewhere along the way, I failed her.”

  “No one is,” Liv said, and then tossed back the rest of her wine. “You’re right. You failed her. You can’t change that now – so make up for it by not failing her son.”

  ?

  To Liv’s consternation, it seemed like every fishing boat, rowboat, and even a few merchant ships had dropped anchor in a loose crescent around the rock that Caspian Loredan had chosen for her to demonstrate her archmage spell. The more cautious merchant captains had either remained at the docks, or already left on the tide; but there were a few who had packed every inch of their decks with paying customers who wanted to see what was going to happen.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  With a thought, she sent the plane of shining blue mana which supported her and her companions skimming over the waves to fetch up alongside the conjured platform where all of the professors waited. Every apprentice, journeyman and culling mage at Coral Bay had created their own platforms of brilliant color, and they were arrayed in a layered, scattered cloud that ascended up into the sky above the bay. Everywhere she looked, Liv could even see the first years and noble scions who hadn’t learned Aluth yet sitting along the edges, their legs dangling down, as they chattered to each other in excitement.

  “I’m really worried about what’s going to happen to those boats,” Liv said, raising her voice over the sounds of the sea, the breeze, and the crowd.

  Reginald Teck sneered, apparently having recovered his sense of self-importance sometime over the night. Liv wondered just what excuse he’d settled on to preserve his own ego. “We’ve already moved this test off the training field to cater to your whims,” the professor said. “The ships are all at a safe distance.”

  “You would be wise to send them all to shore,” Keri broke in, stepping up next to Liv. He kept one hand wrapped in Rei’s linen shirt, to make certain the boy didn’t accidentally go over the edge of the platform.

  “You truly expect this spell to be so devastating?” Professor Blackwood asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “I don’t expect that rock to still exist when Liv’s done,” Wren called over to him. At her side, Ghveris had been fitted with his replacement armor by Professor Norris, and the newly-forged and etched steel shone under the light of the mid-morning sun.

  Caspian Loredan nodded. “Let’s back them up further, then,” he decided.

  Wren opened her mouth to argue, but Liv just shook her head and swung their platform away.

  “They’re being idiots,” Miina hissed, as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “I don’t think any of them are really going to believe it until they see it,” she said. They settled in to wait, though Liv did notice both Master Grenfell and Lia Every speaking with Professor Annora, the three of them clustered in one corner of the mana-platform from which the professors would observe. Finally, half a bell later, all of the boats had been moved back far enough to satisfy the archmagus, and he raised his voice. Liv doubted that most of the observers would be able to hear Caspian’s words over the wind and the surf breaking on the rock, but she and her friends were near enough to understand.

  “For the second test, Mistress Livara is required to perform a spell that utilizes two words of power simultaneously. For those who have not seen these tests before, let me be clear: I am not speaking of two spells cast in quick succession,” Caspian explained. “She must actually merge two distinct words of power into a singular spell. Which two words do you intend to employ, Mistress Livara?”

  “Aluth and Cel,” Liv called back without hesitation. “That is magic, and cold, for those who don’t know. And the name of the spell is Skyfall.”

  “Do you require any further preparations to demonstrate the spell you have crafted?”

  “No.” Liv shook her head. She drew her wand, the stormwand that had belonged to Julianne before her death, and lifted it up to point to the heavens, where a few white clouds rolled along against the blue sky. Liv could see the hint of the ring past that.

  Liv felt a twinge of nerves in her belly, as much from being watched by such a large crowd – especially those who wanted her to fail, like Reginald Teck – as from any actual fear that she would make a mistake. It wasn’t the first time, after all, and if she could cast the spell in battle, she could do it when she had all the time in the world.

  Aluth and Cel woke at her silent command, eagerly. They strained against each other as she held both words at once, but perhaps, Liv thought, the two words of power were ever so slightly less wild, less determined to fight, as they had been in the past. Or perhaps her practice and experience was simply paying off.

  ““Celent N?v’belim ?n’Ceuvim. Cveia Sāit V?ris, Aluthet Co?'V?ris. Cveia Aluthim Sāit, Celet N?v’bel ?n’Ceuvim.”

  “That’s a long spell,” Rei hissed from his father’s side, and Liv couldn’t help but smile as Keri hushed his son.

  Then, her mana ripped though her body, down her arm, and out through the stormwand, just as it had done atop the heights of Nightfall Peak, when Ractia’s army of blood orbs had descended on the allied troops. It surged up into the sky, reaching for the heavens.

  There was silence, broken eventually by Professor Teck. “Is that it?” he asked. “Are you just going to hurl every ring of mana in your body at the clouds and hope for the best? What exactly are we supposed to be see–”

  Ten streaks of burning, fiery adamant ice dropped from above, like falling stars, but that was only the first wave. As the waste heat was converted into mana by Liv’s spell, more spears propagated, creating a second wave, and then a third.

  “Cover your eyes,” Liv told Rei, and then, not trusting him to move fast enough, she leaned over and wrapped her hands over his brows, squeezing her own eyes closed as she lifted the platform they stood on another ten feet higher, far enough above the bay that she hoped they would avoid the waves.

  She could see the light of the explosions even with her eyes closed, and the moment it had dulled, Liv looked. A blast of air battered them, and she let the force move her conjured platform, angling it diagonally so that her friends were thrown back into the plane of mana, rather than off it.

  All around them, mages were struggling to keep their mana-discs or planes in the air. At least half a dozen people fell, and were immediately tossed by an enormous wave that rushed out from where Liv’s spell had hit in all directions, a ring of surging dark water twenty-feet tall. The waves swept two of the lower mana-platforms clean, carrying away the mages who had conjured them, as well as their passengers.

  Caspian Loredan managed to keep his own conjured platform aloft, raising it in a rapid, smooth motion above the waves, but Liv caught a glimpse of the professors clasping onto each other in an attempt not to fall. Those on the ships had enough time to see a wall of water approaching, but not enough to do anything about it. The rowboats and smaller fishing boats were swamped immediately, and even the larger merchant vessels were caught broadsides, having turned themselves to present maximum viewing space for the paying customers on their decks. A chorus of screams erupted from the first ship to be rolled over, as people fell off the deck into the water.

  Liv sighed in frustration. “I warned them,” she grumbled.

  With only half her mana left, she summoned two hands of coherent mana, and then half a dozen gyrefalcons, which she set to fishing people out of the bay while she did what she could to turn the largest boat upright again before it sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

  It took nearly two bells, even with all the professors, journeymen, and culling mages there to help, in order to get everyone safely back to shore. One of the merchant vessels had managed not to capsize, but had been pushed out to sea after their mast was snapped off by the force of the explosion. One of the rowboats had been broken into splintered planks, and two of the passengers had clung to a pair of the larger chunks long enough to be swept south along a fast and dangerous current.

  Professor Annora and her journeymen had to get salt-water out of half a dozen people’s lungs, and by the time she was done there was a line of soaked, cold townspeople, merchants, and first-years wrapped up in blankets and huddled near to one of three bonfires which had been quickly built on the sand. If it hadn’t been for Miina’s liberal use of stasis bubbles on those they fished out of the ocean, some of those people might have died.

  It was a rather irritable Archmagus Loredan who finally, after much delay, made the announcement that Liv had always known was coming, anyway. He was attempting to maintain a veneer of solemnity, but the fact that the lower half-foot of his robes were visibly soaked in sea-water made it difficult.

  “The second test has been passed,” the old man declared. “Livara t?r Valtteri, sometimes known as Liv Brodbeck, is hereby recognized as an archmage of the Watchful Guild of Magim.”

  The applause that followed was scattered, half-hearted, and accompanied by not a few whispers and mutterings regarding the spell.

  “I’m not sure I did myself any favors here,” Liv murmured, looking out over the crowd stretched across the beach. “It almost makes me wish I’d made something different, instead of a spell for leveling mountains and killing armies.”

  “Almost?” Wren asked.

  “If I hadn’t had that spell, we would have lost hundreds, even thousands of people at Nightfall Peak,” Liv pointed out.

  “You did gain something, here,” Keri told her. “Even if you frightened some people, that means that word will spread throughout Lucania. And if they ever consider marching an army north again, this demonstration may make them think twice.”

  “Let’s hope so.” For her part, Liv felt exhausted. Perhaps it was everything that had happened since they’d come to Freeport, or it might have been that, in spite of her mana-concentrating formation of enchantments, she was starting to feel the effects of being so long out of a rift.

  “Let’s finish what we came south to do,” Liv declared. “I want to go home.”

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

  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. Headed home to put her feet up by the fire, right? [35 Rings of Mana, not counting mana stored in items.]

  Blackwood, Master - Professor of Beasts at Coral Bay. Working off a checklist. Has very bushy eyebrows. Good for raising. [19 Rings of Mana]

  Caspian Loredan, Archmagus - Head of the College of V?dic Grammar, serving on the Council of Regents for Lucania. Acting as Liv's teacher, perhaps for the last time. [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. Probably actually needs to get a leash for his son. [20 Rings of Mana.]

  Reginald Teck - Professor of Combat at Coral Bay. Famous last words. [17 Rings of Mana]

  Rei ka Inkeris k?n B?lris - Son of Keri and Rika. Longer spell = more powerful, right? [4 Rings of Mana]

  Wren Wind Dancer - Daughter of Nighthawk, cousin of Calm Waters. "I call bullshit. You are 100% satisfied with an army-killing spell."