What did the sorcerer make of Saphienne?

  Vestaele’s initial impression was that Saphienne was immensely gifted, both with prodigious reserves of magical endurance and with an astonishing aptitude for controlling its expression. That the girl had tremendous self-control had been evidenced when she resisted the fascination cast upon her: a spell of the Second Degree should have been potent enough to ensorcell any mere apprentice. Therefore, for all that her precocious spellcasting was extraordinary, her finesse made intuitive sense.

  However, Saphienne’s claim that she must memorise sigils was – so her new master insisted – simply not the case. The apprentice had convinced herself of that fiction due to hours spent agonising over wizardry; Vestaele resolved to disabuse her of the error.

  Entrusting Saphienne to the care of Almon for one more night, she announced that she would return the next day.

  Thus it came to pass that Saphienne went for a walk with her sorcerous instructor through the wintry woods, having been brought a cloak lined with dark fur to supplement the new robes she was still admiring as they crossed under the snow-laden boughs.

  “There is no such thing as an unproven sorcerer,” Vestaele informed her as they strolled, “for all sorcerers are identified through the outburst of their magic. While wizards progress from junior to senior apprenticeship through attaining the First Degree, for sorcerers there are three requirements: demonstrating control over your magic, internalising a sigil, and stating the secret of the First Degree. You have completed one–”

  “Two,” Saphienne interjected. “I know the secret of the First Degree.”

  Vestaele stopped walking. While her nigh-inscrutable expression began with a trace of disbelief, experience transformed it into uncertainty. “…Until yesterday, I would have deemed that impossible.”

  Saphienne politely waited.

  “If this is true,” Vestaele inclined her head, “then I will have to radically revise the timetable for your education.” A thin smile tugged at her lips. “Not that I would be adverse. Let us see: whisper it to me.”

  Hesitating, she didn’t immediately approach. “I was told that the secrets of the degrees are never to be spoken or written–”

  “Good.” Vestaele approved of her caution. “This is the sole exception. When an apprentice sorcerer is asked by her master, she may repeat the secrets of the lowest two degrees, for – unlike wizards – casting is insufficient proof. Come: share.”

  Leaning in, Saphienne found the absence of Vestaele’s scent eerie, whereupon she became aware of a perceptual veil; as she whispered into the sorcerer’s ear she inhaled the hidden aroma of lavender and frankincense with which her master had perfumed herself.

  That the fascinator did not respond before she resumed their ramble told Saphienne she was close to being a senior apprentice.

  “Tell me…” Vestaele was thoughtful. “What kind of sorcerer do you wish to be, Saphienne? Do you have ambitions to seek membership in the Luminary Vale?”

  “I do.”

  “To what end?”

  “Mastery of magic.”

  For the first time since they had met, Vestaele openly grinned. “But to what end? For what purpose do you seek the Great Art, Saphienne? For love of learning? For power? And if so, for what kind of power — to do what?”

  Her stride slowed. “…Love of learning is part of the reason. And I do want power, but not for the sake of having power over others.” She glanced at the woman as she caught up. “I hope you won’t be offended by this, Master, but I have no intention of specialising in Fascination.”

  “No?” She raised an eyebrow. “Everything I recognise in you tells me it’s your most suitable discipline. You’re the only person I’ve met in this vale who can read me.”

  And that meant Vestaele could read Saphienne. “…Then, you’ll know how I feel about Fascination.”

  “Frightened.” She said it mildly. “Afraid of your capacity to control others.”

  How true that was. “More than that.”

  “You think it wrong to pursue?”

  Saphienne crossed her arms, hunching against a headwind only she could feel. “No; I’ve seen the good that Fascination can do. And you’re right — I know I’d be very capable with it. I could help a lot of people–”

  “You don’t want to help people.”

  Saphienne blinked. “…I do, but not in that way. I’m not a healer, like Gaelyn.”

  “Master Gaelyn,” Vestaele corrected her. “While he may not care, you will address all sorcerers and wizards by their proper title when you are speaking to me.”

  She bowed. “As you wish, Master Vestaele.”

  That petty barb won a laugh from the sorcerer, who reached out to pat her shoulder, putting no weight into her touch. “I think I might grow to like you, Saphienne. Your edge, while unhoned, betrays a keenness that has been lacking from my prior students…” She folded her arms as well. “But to return to the subject: what else are you, then, if not merely frightened?”

  Many faces flitted through her thoughts as she reflected on herself. “I would be very good with the discipline; I would do good; but Fascination would not be good for me.” She nodded as her certainty grew. “The parts of myself that make me right for the discipline make me wrong for who I want to become. Other magicians, such as yourself, may practice it without growing superior–”

  “You are superior.”

  There, Saphienne went no further. “No, I’m not.”

  Vestaele rounded on her apprentice leisurely, lifting back her hood to expose the braid crowning her brow. “Saphienne, I see you have been taught to be ashamed of yourself for what you have been granted by nature.” Her smile was condescending, yet welcoming, inviting the girl to partake of the view from her vantage. “False modesty is not a virtue; denying yourself is not laudable. You are supremely gifted, and a commanding place within the woodlands is yours by birthright. The world needs its leaders, Saphienne, and you were not born to follow.”

  “Leading isn’t–”

  “Meritocracy.” Vestaele’s low voice lilted as she said the word. “Rule by those with the greatest merit. Those with merit are superior to those without; that does not mean our rule need be unkind,” she reassured, “but it does mean that we are called to rule.”

  Saphienne knew then that she might grow to detest Vestaele, and was extraordinarily discreet as she buried the realisation in her presence. “The consensus is not ruled.”

  “Yet it is.” The sorcerer loomed closer. “Elders rule where they must, and where they are insufficient for what is required, magicians of the Luminary Vale intervene. That we consent to be bound by the consensus does not mean we do not rule it, nor is magic the only means through which rulership is wielded: you well know how people may be persuaded, guided, and moved, don’t you?”

  “Manipulated, you mean.”

  “Where required.” Vestaele could not be shamed. “Idiocy cannot go unchecked. The malign cannot be allowed to accrue power. What has been bequeathed to us must also be defended from within, as without.”

  Saphienne shut her eyes, her mind on scythes and sickles. “I don’t want to rule. I don’t want to manipulate people. Being that person wouldn’t make me happy.”

  “There are many kinds of happiness.” The fascinator’s aroma grew strong. “You needn’t accept the happiness available to the mediocre. You are free to set the terms for the life you want to live — to choose what form of happiness completes you.”

  Beguiling though the vision, Saphienne had refused herself before. “…Yes.” She opened her eyes, which were very bright. “Yes, I am. And I have. That isn’t the power I want to exercise.”

  Close by, her master studied her, unconvinced. “…You are young. We’ll see how you feel once a few centuries have passed, in witness to the recurring foibles and foolishness of the unilluminated.” She smiled, not without affection. “You have all the time in the world. You won’t be active in politics until your adulthood, and even then, it needn’t be constant: the High Masters are quite judicious in choosing which agendas are pursued.”

  Vestaele drew her hood forward, sauntering on ahead.

  Shaken, Saphienne hid her disquiet as she followed.

  *   *   *

  Master and apprentice soon arrived at the frozen shore of the river, where a large rug had been laid upon the bank. Had Saphienne any doubts as to who’d prepared the scene, the hypnotic, interweaving patterns of violet and night she surveyed as she sat down would have dispersed them.

  “Fortunately,” Vestaele announced as she unclipped a cylindrical case from her belt, “I had decided this first session would address your preoccupation with that sigil.” She parted the black leather, drawing out a scroll with weighted edges, rolling it flat before Saphienne without flourish.

  Upon the golden page, another sigil in silvery ink deconstructed the girl who scrutinised it, reserved before her, yet replete with observations it was eager to convey.

  “Master Almon tells me you are acquainted with the Second Sight. Rather than contest your belief that you must memorise a sigil for spellcasting, I will teach you the means by which this spell may be internalised, adding to that already present within you. This will be a slow and difficult process — the meditation required involves symbolic manipulation, contemplation of your nature, and above all, patience.”

  Saphienne nodded, deciphering the magical script. Spells below the First Degree were straightforward to apprehend by comparison to what she had studied, and knowing what the divination was to achieve – as well as having experienced its benefit – made the symbol warm to her, opening up as it acknowledged her acuity.

  “To begin with, notice the associations that the image provokes. What shapes do you read into it? What do you imagine?”

  “…It’s a divination spell below the First Degree, comprised of the word for ‘Sight,’ the gesture of unveiling, the feeling of peering into darkness to seek a glinting, and the thought of lighting a lamp.”

  Vestaele’s sigh was nearly silent. “A very difficult process for you. While this knowledge is necessary, it is secondary to the experience of the sigil, and how you can come to relate it to yourself. Clear your thoughts, and I will guide you through a structured meditation …”

  Idly, Saphienne listened as she negotiated with the sigil, recognising that it was a willing servant — but, like the verbose elf who had taught her shoemaking, that it gave too much, endlessly offering insights that cluttered and obscured its being the more intently she examined. Across a quarter of an hour she determined the essential essence of its diagram, then withdrew herself, refusing to engage the spell unless it approached her — to abide by the terms she set, only then admitting it as her advisor.

  “… Do not try to impart meaning on what you discern, but rather accept them for the reality they hold, that they may expand your–”

  “Done.” Saphienne rolled up the scroll. “I have the sigil.”

  Vestaele indulged her. “Saphienne, while you may believe you have memorised it, knowledge of the form alone–”

  She didn’t need to hold the coin for such a simple work, contented that the world turned while it lay still and solid within her pocket; Saphienne let the shape of the Second Sight inform her where she bounded the green of her magic, whispering the syllable as she brought her first two fingers together, flicking them as she embodied a search by lamplight.

  The white that could not be refracted settled into her pupils, ripples before her vision coalescing into muted violet that gilded the staring sorcerer…

  …Whose mouth hung open.

  *   *   *

  “The girl is a wizard!”

  “I assure you, Master Vestaele, that Saphienne is most certainly not. No wizard could attain the First Degree in less than a year, and the number of castings she performed exceeds what a newly recognised–”

  “She memorised and cast the Second Sight!”

  “…You mean, internalised?”

  “No! There is no sorcerer, alive or dead, who could internalise a sigil so quickly! She hasn’t even learned the meditations–”

  “As remarkable as Saphienne is, she is remarkable as a sorcerer, not a wizard.”

  “No, Master Almon: your apprentice is a promising wizard.”

  “My apprentice? Your apprentice is a prodigy! Saphienne, tell your master you are–”

  “A wizard!”

  “Enough of this! A sorcerer!”

  “Wizard!”

  “Sorcerer!”

  …

  “I’m writing to–” “–the Luminary Vale.”

  *   *   *

  Five days passed. Early in the wait, Almon furtively confirmed what Vestaele had observed, testing Saphienne with the Least Gift of Sunlight, marvelling as she delighted Hyacinth with the same offering as Iolas had given to prove himself a wizard.

  For the remainder, an unnerved Almon kept his composure by explicitly teaching her the rules of elven chess. He still beat her whenever he paid attention, but only due to having studied the myriad openings known to serious players.

  She was content to annoy him with her improvisation.

  *   *   *

  Celaena and Iolas arrived for their regularly scheduled lesson on the morning of the fifth day; tellingly, Almon had neglected to send Peacock to cancel the lesson. Rather than turn them away from the classroom, the wizard announced they would be finishing an hour earlier than usual — then invited a longing Saphienne to sit in.

  “Are you allowed to teach me,” she teased him as she took her usual place, “if you’re not my master?”

  He gave the matter serious thought as he sat on his chair. “Vestaele insists she is not your master… and it would be remiss of me to let your education falter due to a jurisdictional question…”

  Iolas was grinning as he hung up his outer robes. “He wants to teach you.”

  “I unequivocally do not.”

  “He doesn’t,” Celaena agreed, resting back on her palms in imitation of Saphienne’s irreverence, “but he does want the three of us to have a happier final lesson together than when we were last gathered here. Our master is secretly sentimental.”

  Peacock was perched by the window, and the familiar cackled with laughter as his master declined to hear her.

  An hour before midday they were finished. Having spent the morning on early magical theory in which she was well versed, Saphienne had been permitted to direct herself to another pursuit that helped her forget her anxieties: enjoying the reactions of her friends. The numerology the wizard had introduced to Iolas and Celaena had been particularly fascinating to the latter, who’d asked enthusiastic questions about the intersection between the philosophies of magic and numbers throughout the lesson, several of which had made Almon fetch down books to refresh his memory. Saphienne made a mental note to revisit the topic from that perspective, keen to share Celaena’s passions.

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  Yet the apprentice wizards were not dismissed. “Celaena, Iolas: wait here and occupy yourselves with revision. The lesson is done, but I may have another task for you before long…”

  Intrigued, they settled back as Almon and Saphienne went upstairs.

  *   *   *

  “…Would it be rude to ask–”

  “Yes,” Almon snapped, wringing his hands where he waited beside Saphienne in the garden, dressed in fine, enchanted robes that held a scintillating shade of blue both striking yet incongruously, hallucinatorily understated. “They will arrive at noon.”

  Vestaele stood on the other side of the girl, having traded practical garb for more traditional robes in rich purple, the fabric fluorescing violet whenever Saphienne glimpsed it in the edge of her vision. “Saphienne: do not speak unless you are spoken to. One day, Master Illimun will be responsible for determining whether you are to join us, and first impressions matter.”

  “She means Master Lylae.” Almon clasped his hands together. “Master Illimun is responsible for wizards, and regardless, he has previously–”

  All three magicians felt the translocation, pressure rolling through Saphienne as powerful magic descended on the gravel to manifest as an indigo dusting suspended in the air. The glittering motes spun and scattered outward to form an upright circle, or perhaps the outline of a sphere, the space within contorting and falling away to show the lensed distortion of a glowing, dazzling room that lay in another place:

  The Luminary Vale.

  Three shadows appeared within, and only when they stepped through the portal did Saphienne comprehend that they were not cast by herself, Almon, or Vestaele–

  Then she felt herself nudged from both sides, and bowed low with the sorcerer and wizard as the Translocation spell concluded.

  “Welcome to the Eastern Vale,” Almon announced as he straightened — placing his hand on Saphienne’s back to keep her bowing. “We are honoured to receive you, Masters Illimun and Lylae…”

  A clearing of a throat, then a masculine voice – familiar to Saphienne in a way she could not describe – answered him. “A pleasure to visit, and a personal pleasure to be back again, Master Almon. Please do let the girl rise: she is why we’re here, after all.”

  “Of course.” His palm lifted away. “On behalf of her master, may I present Apprentice Saphienne of the Eastern Vale.”

  The man who’d addressed Almon was tall, thin, and wore robes that were superficially unimpressive, being well tailored but of conventional cut; yet the longer Saphienne gazed upon them, the greater her surprise that they lacked contour, their warm purple patterns unbroken where they hung from and through the wizard. Beside him was a woman who was equally tall, but attired altogether differently, wrapped in riotous oranges that claimed the air around her as they protected her figure somewhere within their diaphanous flowering.

  And further back, hands warmed under her overlong sleeves, an unusually short elf dressed in plain robes of earthy brown did not participate in the meeting as she discreetly went to admire the well-tended, slumbering flowerbeds.

  “Master Vestaele,” acknowledged Illimun with a smile, “good to see you well.”

  “Master Illimun, charming as always.” The fascinator greeted her contemporary in evident friendship; she addressed the woman who had arrived with him more formally. “Master Lylae, a rare delight. Have you had occasion to meet Master Almon before?”

  “Not in person, not until today.” The woman floated over to the wizard in blue, offering her wrist to be clasped and shook. “Your contributions to the pedagogical discourse are always quite insightful. Perhaps we can share lunch, after this is done?”

  Trying yet failing to hide his pride, Almon accepted.

  Meanwhile, Illimun had advanced on Saphienne, waiting for the pleasantries to finish before he spoke. “Apprentice Saphienne…” He mused on her name. “…Master Lylae and myself have heard that you pose something of a riddle.”

  Distracted by trying to place his voice, Saphienne was slow to reply. “…That’s correct, Master Illimun. Master Almon is convinced I’m a sorcerer, whereas Master Vestaele believes I am a wizard.”

  Lylae joined Illimun. “Whichever you are, you’re very young for the Great Art.”

  Visions of Faylar and Iolas were desperately gripping her shoulders. “…So I have been told, Master Lylae.” She pulled free of them. “Repeatedly.”

  The senior sorcerer chuckled. “Poor girl! You have my sympathies — I implied no judgement of your readiness to study the Great Art. Your youthfulness is quite striking, in context with your attainment.”

  Illimun politely concurred, then moved the conversation along. “Apprentice Saphienne, you will understand that we are here to determine how you are to be taught. Do you have any questions you wish to ask, or shall we proceed?”

  “If I may, Master Illimun…” She indicated the third visitor. “…What of–”

  “Transportation,” the woman cheerfully called over, her voice high and childlike. “Don’t mind me.”

  Satisfied, Saphienne returned her focus to her assessors. “I’m ready.”

  Yet as they led her closer to the house to sit on the dry ground from which snow and frost had been abjured, she frowned and looked back across her shoulder, her gaze regaining its sharpness…

  *   *   *

  Although their divinations were dizzyingly complex, the questions the two senior members of the Luminary Vale asked Saphienne were deceptively simple.

  “What do you first notice, when you examine a sigil?”

  “Can you explain your magical praxis?”

  “Have you always felt different to everyone around you?”

  “How do our spells feel to you?”

  “Describe preparing to cast.”

  Lylae provided her a unknown spell below the First Degree and asked her to explain her working as she memorised it; neither the sorcerer nor the wizard responded as she established it was a personal abjuration against windy weather. Illimun asked Saphienne to clarify what she meant by the calligraphy barring her, attentive as she related how the orange sigil attempted to ward off her dominion.

  Once Saphienne had successfully cast, Illimun presented another scroll — containing a fascination of the First Degree.

  “…I don’t think I can retain both at once.”

  Illimun had expected this. “Try anyway.”

  She summarised once again, hesitating only when she realised the fascination seemed too quick to submit, as though she were being appeased with the promise of service that was, so it intended, to be forever delayed. After cutting through its bullshit, Saphienne indeed found she couldn’t concentrate on both the violet and orange sigils simultaneously.

  “Reassuringly normal,” Illimun commented. “We shall move on–”

  “Do you want me to replace it?”

  There, the duo assessing her exchanged a puzzled look.

  Lylae was unconvinced… but encouraging. “If you can?”

  Saphienne felt as though it ought to be possible.

  Taking out her coin, she pressed it into her scarred palm, meditating on the edge that had branded her as she mentally brought the abjuration over the more complex fascination that she was pinning. Assuming the magic that surged in her was related to sorcery, then it dissolved sigils; could what served as a solvent not, in reverse, act as an agent of distillation? She conceived of the abjuration on one face of the coin she held, wrought in adamantine, then lowered it into the greenness… as it began to corrode, she willed the fascination be etched on the other side.

  With an intense effort of will, Saphienne flipped the coin.

  When she retrieved the sigil from her depths she was sweating, but the Fascination spell was as clear in her mind as on the page. “I have it. I can cast it, if you wish.”

  Their perturbed assent saw Saphienne become wreathed in the same glamour as had beautified Taerelle on the night of the summer solstice.

  *   *   *

  Illimun and Lylae had gone to the far end of the garden, where they were engaged in quietly animated conversation; Vestaele and Almon were silent near the gravel, their attention not on Saphienne.

  Amiably, the short woman in brown robes traipsed over, her smile conspiratorial as she hovered nearby. “Looks like the two of them are actually arguing; that’s uncommon.”

  Saphienne bit her tongue.

  “Don’t worry,” she giggled, “you haven’t done anything wrong.” She nimbly dropped down beside Saphienne, her unbound hair floating over her shoulders, crossing her legs as her long sleeves draped across her knees. “What do you think? Which would you prefer to be?”

  “My preferences would seem not to count for much.”

  “Then what are you? A sorcerer, or a wizard?”

  Acrid with resentment, Saphienne fixed the girlish woman with the same stare she’d turned upon the fascinating sigil. “Why don’t you tell me, Lenitha?”

  The High Master grinned.

  Leaping to her feet, the ancient elf freed her hands, cupping them to her mouth. “Well? What’s the consensus?”

  Almon and Vestaele were scandalised by the interruption — but their superiors exhibited intense embarrassment as they hurried over.

  “…We can’t decide,” Lylae confessed. “She fits the criteria for both, and the exclusions, and we’ve no explanation for how she replaced the sigil.”

  “She memorises like a wizard,” Illimun agreed, “yet her apprehension of sigils is equally intuitive and intellectual. Her praxis is well-defined, High Master–”

  Both of Saphienne’s teachers blanched.

  “–And she would be a senior apprentice under both definitions. She’s utterly without precedent in the history of our vale.”

  High Master Lenitha tutted, shaking her head. “What a sorry pair you make! A wizard of the Fourth Degree ought know better; a sorcerer even more accomplished has no excuse; two of the finest minds in all the woodlands, and this is your conclusion?”

  They bowed, Lylae shamefaced. “Whatever we have overlooked about her, High Master, we apologise for our failure.”

  “Oh, you haven’t overlooked anything about Saphienne here.” She winked at the girl, her dark brown eyes dancing at an unshared joke. “Based on her past performances, perhaps she can tell you why I’m disappointed?”

  Annoyingly, she could, but Saphienne wasn’t about to oblige. “I decline.”

  Vestaele gasped — while Almon flushed hotly, incensed. “Apprentice!”

  Amused by him, High Master Lenitha dropped her sleeves back over her hands. “You really do have quite the temper, don’t you, young Almon?” She spoke with all the fondness of an adult endeared by a toddler as she dismissed his outrage. “Saphienne is within her rights to decline; I think she’s more than justified.”

  Still seated, Saphienne didn’t let her guard down. “As you say, High Master.”

  “Lylae, Illimun, tell me…” She swept her arm across the garden. “…Why have I come here?”

  The two of them reached the logical implication at the same time, Illimun’s exasperation revealing he was well-acquainted with the High Master’s antics. “Our mistake was assuming that because we have never seen the like, that means she’s unprecedented.”

  “We’ll make magicians of you yet.” The sentiment was undercut by her snorting, and she wheeled to Saphienne with mirth. “I have a conjecture — but I can’t confirm it from out here. Saphienne, would you allow me into your mind?”

  Saphienne narrowed her eyes–

  “No!”

  Almon stalked forward with urgency, faltering only as he interposed himself between Saphienne and the greater magician; he steeled himself and plunged on. “…Regrettably, High Master Lenitha: I must forbid it. As Saphienne’s master, I do not consent to your intrusion.”

  Setting her hands on her hips, the High Master glared up at the interfering wizard. “No? You would refuse the Luminary Vale?”

  “…I must.” He stood tall, blocking the way to his student.

  Saphienne rose behind him, amazed.

  Lenitha acknowledged him softly. “Very good, Master Almon…”

  Then she tilted to peer around him at Saphienne. “…But, Almon is not technically your master — nor is Vestaele, until your status is resolved. That means only you decide, Saphienne.”

  Saphienne’s defender backed toward her, gripping her shoulder. “Saphienne: refuse. No wizard with sense admits into himself an untrusted presence, and never a presence he cannot contest. You would forever be uncertain that what you recall was what truly transpired…” His voice lowered. “…And unsure you were free from lasting influence.”

  High Master Lenitha happily nodded. “All correct! How unwise you would be, to invite me in, given what you believe you know. Who in the world could predict what mischief I might get up to?”

  Yet her stare was a challenge.

  Saphienne wondered. “…Will you answer a question for me, High Master Lenitha?”

  “Isn’t this an answer, Apprentice Saphienne?”

  She ignored her paradoxical humour. “Why do you wear overlong sleeves?”

  “To obscure my gestures,” the High Master grinned again, “when casting while observed. Anything more is an assumption on the part of my audience — one that I freely play upon, for being underestimated is useful.”

  Prying away Almon’s hold, Saphienne shallowly bowed. “Thank you, Master Almon, but I’m already within her power: all of us are.”

  He would have argued… but her logic was irrefutable.

  “Come on.” Lenitha offered her sleeve. “Sit with me, Saphienne. We’re overdue for a chat, you and I.”

  *   *   *

  Upon the circle in the centre of the garden, Saphienne seated herself opposite the High Master, close enough that their knees were touching. Whether evil or good, the supremely capable magician barely flexed her exposed fingertips as she wove strands of silver and violet between them, humming to herself as she held out the vanishing threads for scrutiny. “…Demonstrate your learning?”

  While potent, what she sensed was much less overwhelming than the earlier translocation. “Assuming you’re not changing the colours… Divination and Fascination, no higher than the Fourth Degree.”

  “Why no higher?”

  “Portals are uncommon enough to require favours to arrange, but wizards other than yourself and your peers can cast them; that makes them a Fifth Degree spell at most, but this is less striking.”

  “Well reasoned.” She spread her fingers, offering them to Saphienne. “Third Degree, but not possible for one who is unversed in advanced Invocation. Guess why, then join your palm to mine.”

  Saphienne couldn’t help but smirk as she thought of Hyacinth. “You’ve replicated the elven experience of spiritual possession?”

  She took the hand of the High Master–

  The world fell away.

  *   *   *

  Trees.

  She needed a moment to compose herself, having lost her bearings, her inner world become physical as she leant by the doors to her library, gazing at the overgrown edge of the mightiest forest she had ever beheld. Never had she seen trunks so thick or gnarled, their branches knotted, gargantuan where they blocked out the sunlight, plunging the steps into gloom.

  This was a primeval memory, she was sure.

  And there, lurking in the shade of the boughs, the faint silhouette of what appeared to be a girl shorter than Saphienne — who was glimpsed for but a moment, lost in the impenetrable shadows.

  “…Very well.”

  She appraised the festival dress she was wearing; immutable to her imagination, Saphienne lifted the hem and tied it up with her sashes.

  Then she descended, and roved out into the mind of the High Master.

  So dark were the woods that she struggled to see. Half-blind, she crept and stumbled through thickets, snaring and tearing her fine clothes on briars until a whisper without sibilance carried from somewhere near.

  “…Dimmer the day, both eye and ear were needed…”

  She searched for the speaker.

  “…We moved limb and lip in ‘ealth…”

  Sharpness pricked her neck; the scent of sweat and compost filled her nostrils; cold lips pressed to her ear.

  “…Dead.”

  Saphienne turned as she was released, seeing Lenitha holding a knife fashioned from a leather-wrapped claw, dressed in furs and smeared with bands of green and brown across her skin, even her eyelids painted where they were closed. She was shorter than in the garden, younger, too thin for her age to be guessable.

  “Your name alone would get people killed.” Her teeth and eyes flashed as she abandoned her stealthy speech. “Too audible, when whispered.”

  “…That’s why names like mine are unlucky…”

  “They were more than unlucky.” Lenitha took her hand and pulled her onward. “They were fatal. We lived by chance and guile — for the wilds were not our friend.”

  Intrigued, she ran with the ancient elder, unimpeded in her wake. “Aren’t we meant to be examining my mind?”

  “This is only fair.” Saphienne’s guide giggled. “You want to know me.”

  She did. “How can I trust what you show?”

  “Trust is a choice you have already made.” Lenitha squeezed her hand. “You were right: you are within my power, child.”

  They broke from foliage into a cave filled with smoke, Saphienne’s eyes stinging as she was led through flickering shadows. The impression of people, of voices, of songs thronged around her.

  “I was born in a place like this,” the High Master declared, “but I do not remember.”

  Shouts, screams, and a downpour that was warm as it stained her dress.

  “I was one of the lucky ones.”

  Daylight ahead, through smoke made into mist — upon which the silhouette of a little girl was cast, was struck, hard, by a far larger figure. His words were guttural, his anger palpable as he barked at her, pointing to the flowers she scrambled to tend.

  “They kept me. Taught me. Sometimes, I was even fed.”

  Once more into the verdure of the ancient past, and the daytime burst into a blaze of uncontained wildfire. A shape barrelled from the ashy haze toward them, roaring, and Saphienne was knocked down as the yellow-eyed bear set upon screaming men, tearing and snapping in its ferocity.

  A red-streaked murderer, masked in oak, stood over her, reaching–

  She was pulled upright into a calmer scene, chanting rising in her ears as she was guided by the tall woman now behind her, protected and ushered into a moonlit glade and a circle of hooded figures, many of whom walked with spirits.

  “I am counted among the founders, but I was only a girl.” Lenitha was at her side, now attired in stitched leaves and crudely woven cloth. “My master had offered me the choice — but what else was there, for me? I had outlived my family because of my wyrd for the Great Art… and, because of the same, I gave myself to our cause.”

  The High Master cut her wrist with the claw, a blood oath welcomed by shrill ululations.

  …And Saphienne perceived another, subtler, nagging detail, nearly lost in the bedlam. She forced herself to turn and look, and for a heartbeat, she glimpsed a sea–

  *   *   *

  “But the procession of the ages does not relent.”

  Lenitha, fully grown yet eternally stunted, sat on the library steps in her brown robes.

  “Show me your mystery, then ask me whatever you wish.”

  Wary, Saphienne approached the High Master, crouching down. “Tell me this, first: what do you want from me?”

  “Nothing.” The girlish woman with dark, sad eyes propped her chin on her covered palms. “All I want is for you to live, and to live happily. Everything I have involved myself in has been in service to this end…” She smiled. “…You don’t believe me.”

  “No.”

  “You will, soon.” She folded her arms. “Show me your arcana.”

  Then Saphienne laid bare the gyre of her mind, desks and shelves and flowers and books repeating from the green below to the violet star overhead. Lenitha bade her cast the fascination a second time, and where the sigil descended the library took shape around its outline, making of it a breach through which the magic could flow, rendering the girl as mesmerising in flesh as was her mind to the High Master.

  *   *   *

  They sat beside the fireplace, the flames burning purple while the spell endured.

  “…How much of me has been your doing?”

  “All of it — from a certain perspective.” The elder among elders was wry. “But you are not inquiring after your life as shared with ordinary elves.”

  “No.”

  “I did not prophesy you, Saphienne. I did all I could, within the bounds of your prophecy, to change how it would come to pass — or, who would come to pass from it.”

  Goosebumps covered her skin. “…I was foretold?”

  “Your prophecy is a curse; I do not wish you to be accursèd.”

  “When–”

  “Six thousand years ago.”

  “What–”

  “That a daughter of green eyes,” Lenitha recounted, “would behold the suffering of the world at too young an age; would choose for her art the Great Art; would commit apostacy while still a child; would achieve mastery earlier than her antecedent; and would face a choice to either live out her life in the woodlands, or be destroyed by dragons’ fire.”

  Saphienne blinked.

  All youthfulness had vanished from the High Master. “These five omens are inviolable. Last time, the attempt to prevent them brought them to pass.”

  “…Last time?”

  “We hoped the prophecy fulfilled, but you are part of a very long tradition. You have inherited the wyrd of Kythalaen…”

  Still the High Master was defiant. “…Only, you can choose a different fate — you are not the same person. Kythalaen was but a wizard; her apostacy was intentional; and she never tried to fight her own nature, Saphienne.”

  End of Chapter 103

  Chapter 104 on Friday the 9th of January.

  Thanks for reading!