Мария Снайдер - Magic Study - Study 2

Debate on why Tula survived the initial attack led to a guess that Ferde had been close to being discovered and fled before finishing the ritual.

“Yelena should be protected at all times,” Irys said. Her words brought me back to the meeting. “If we can’t find him, we’ll set up an ambush near the exchange site and apprehend him that way.”

The magicians continued to argue. It seemed as if I would have no say in the plans. It didn’t matter. I would either find Ferde or be at that exchange site. I had failed Tula; I wasn’t going to let Opal suffer the same fate.

A messenger from the Council arrived as the meeting ended. He handed Roze a scroll. She read it then thrust the paper at Irys in what appeared to be disgust. Irys’s shoulders drooped when she scanned the document.

What else has gone wrong? I asked her.

Another situation to deal with. This one is not life threatening, though, just bad timing, she said. At least this will be another chance for you to practice your diplomacy.

How?

An Ixian delegation is expected to arrive in six days.

So soon? I had thought the messenger with the Council’s reply had just left.

Yelena, it’s been five days. It’s a two-day ride to the Ixian border and a half a day to the Commander’s castle.

Five days? So much had happened in those five days that I felt as if I lived one endless day. Difficult, too, to believe I had been living in Sitia for only two and a half seasons. Almost half a year gone in what seemed like a fortnight. My ache for Valek hadn’t dulled, and I wondered if meeting the northern delegation would cause me to miss him more.

I followed the others from the room. In the hallway outside, Zitora linked her arm in mine.

“I need some help,” she said, guiding me from the Keep’s administration building, and toward her tower.

“But I need to—”

“Get some rest. And not go searching the Citadel for Opal,” Zitora said.

“I will, anyway. You know that.”

She nodded. “But not tonight.”

“What do you need?”

A sad smile touched her face. “Help with Tula’s flag. I believe asking her parents would only increase their grief.”

We entered her tower and climbed two flights of stairs to her workroom. Comfortable chairs and tables littered with sewing and art supplies filled the large chamber.

“My seamstress skills are limited,” Zitora said. She moved around the room, adding fabric and thread to the one empty table near the chairs. “But not for the lack of practice. I can sew and embroider, but I’m better at drawing. When I have the time, I’ve been experimenting with painting on silk.”

Satisfied with her collection, Zitora dug through another pile of cloth and pulled out a sheet of white silk. She measured and cut off a five-foot-by-three-foot rectangle.

“The background will be white for Tula’s purity and innocence,” Zitora said. “Yelena, what should I put in the foreground?” When she saw my confusion, she explained, “A grief flag is our way of honoring the dead. It’s a representation of the person. We decorate it with the things that made up a person’s life, and when we raise the flag high, it releases their spirit into the sky. So what would best represent Tula?”

My thoughts went immediately to Ferde. A poisonous snake, red flames for pain and a jar of Curare all came to mind. I scowled, unable to imagine Tula’s spirit free. She had been trapped in the blackness of Ferde’s soul because of my stupidity.

“He’s a cunning demon, isn’t he?” Zitora asked, as if reading my mind. “To have the boldness to live in the Keep, to have the skill to kill under our roof and to have you blame yourself for it. A masterful trick, I’d say.”

“You’re starting to sound like a certain Story Weaver I know,” I said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Zitora replied. She sorted through colorful squares of silk. “Let’s see. If you had listened to Irys and remained behind, the killer would have gotten Tula and you.”

“But I had gotten my energy back,” I said. Irys had thought it best not to mention Valek’s help.

“Only because you wanted to follow Irys.” Zitora raised a thin eyebrow.

“But I wouldn’t have gone with Ferde willingly.”

“Truly? What if he had promised not to kill Tula in exchange for you?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it, considering. She had a point.

“Once you say the words or move with intent, it’s done. What follows after will not change that, and he would have killed Tula anyway,” Zitora said. She lined the colored squares along the table’s edge. “If you had stayed behind, you would both be gone, and we wouldn’t have the information from the Sandseeds.”

“Are you trying to make me feel better?”

Zitora smiled. “Now, what should we put on Tula’s flag?”

The answer came to mind. “Honeysuckles, a single drop of dew on a blade of grass and glass animals.”

Opal had told me about Tula’s glass animals. Most of them Tula had either sold or given away as gifts, but Tula kept a small collection of them near her bed. The unwelcome thought of what we would sew on to Opal’s flag rose in my mind. I suppressed it, squashing the image into a small corner of my brain. I would not let Ferde murder Opal.

Zitora drew shapes on the silk and I cut them out. When the pile met her approval, we arranged them on the white silk. Honeysuckles bordered the flag, while the blade of grass rose in the center surrounded by a ring of animal sculptures.

“Beautiful,” Zitora said. Her eyes shone with grief. “Now comes the tedious part—sewing all these bits of cloth onto the background!”

I threaded needles for her, the extent of my sewing ability. After a while, she told me to go back to my room and get some sleep.

“Don’t forget about our agreement,” Zitora called as I started down the steps.

“I won’t.”

Now that she was back, I could begin teaching her some self-defense. With my thoughts preoccupied with scheduling her training, I was startled by two guards who waited for me outside Zitora’s tower.

“What do you want?” I demanded, pulling my bow.

“Orders from Fourth Magician. You’re to be protected at all times,” said the larger of the two men.

I huffed with annoyance. “Go back to the barracks. I can take care of myself.”

The men grinned.

“She told us you would say that,” the other man said. “We follow her orders. If our unit fails to protect you, we’ll be assigned to clean chamber pots for the rest of our days.”

“I could make your job very difficult,” I warned them.

The stubborn stiffness of their shoulders never softened.

“There is nothing you can do that’s worse than cleaning chamber pots,” said the large man.

I sighed; giving them the slip to search for Opal would be hard. Which was probably why Irys had assigned them to me. She knew that I would go hunting as soon as I could.

“Just stay out of my way,” I growled.

I turned my back on the guards and headed for the apprentice’s wing. The dark campus seemed to mourn, and an uneasy quiet filled the air. The raising ceremony for Tula was scheduled for dawn.

Then life would continue. I would have my afternoon lesson with Irys. Cahil had already reminded me of our evening ride. I would attempt to keep my promise to Moon Man. All these events would occur despite the threat to Opal. Or should that be in spite of the threat?

My guards refused to let me enter my rooms until one of them searched for intruders. At least they remained outside afterward and didn’t insist on staying with me. But Irys had informed them that I would attempt to “escape,” because when I looked out my bedroom window, I saw one of the guards standing there. I closed and locked the window shutters.