I look over at him. “I didn’t give them the chance to. I blockaded myself in a storage closet.”
Lukas spits out a laugh. He straightens and fingers the hilt of his sword. “They’re easily managed, as well.”
“Easily managed?” Is he kidding? “They’re monsters!”
“No, they’re not.”
“They have wings! Which means they have their powers! They’re even worse than the ones in Valgard!”
“No, they’re not,” he says again.
I’m starting to feel at wits’ end. “How can you say that?”
“Well, for starters, Wynter Eirllyn is the daughter of Elfin royalty—”
“I don’t care if she’s a royal princess,” I vehemently counter. “It doesn’t change the fact that she wants to kill me.”
“Wynter Eirllyn is harmless,” he calmly disagrees. “She has about as many evil powers as I do.” Lukas smirks. “Probably fewer.”
This is just too much. “Don’t you believe in your own religion?”
“Not really.”
Well, that’s unexpected. “Does your family know that?” I ask, amazed.
“No.”
His candor surprises me. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t know, Elloren,” he says shortly, seeming exasperated with himself. “I feel a compulsion to be honest with you. I really don’t know why.” He looks away and leans back against the bench, staring off into the distance, wrestling with some private thought. After a time he turns back to me, a look of resignation on his face.
I knit my brow at him. “If you were here all this time, why didn’t you come find me after the wandtesting?” I’m unable to keep a hint of blame out of my tone. “If you’d been with me...”
“I’ve only just returned,” Lukas says, seeming amused by my discomfiture. He leans in close. “Someone caused a minor diplomatic crisis. The Elfhollen were not amused by my initial refusal to leave you.” His tone takes on a cutting edge. “Neither was my father. There was some talk of imprisonment.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling contrite. I notice he’s in a different military tunic, the silver Level Five bands on his sleeve thinner and close together. “Your uniform. It’s different.” I trace my finger along one of the silver bands, immediately aware of the intimacy of the gesture. Mortified, I jerk my hand away.
When I venture a look up at him, his smile is slow and seductive, his eyes intent on mine. He raises his wrist slightly, glancing down at the edging. “I’ve been temporarily demoted, for the usual reason,” he says, his voice like velvet.
I gulp. “What’s that?”
His smile darkens. “Insubordination.” He traces his finger lightly over the back of my hand. “And as further punishment,” he goes on, “I’m being forced to spend two months here training Gardneria’s most talentless soldier apprentices.”
“Sorry,” I mumble, distracted by the slow, sultry way he’s playing with my hand.
Lukas lets out a short laugh, sits back and eyes me with amused speculation.
I take a deep breath. “So you think Wynter is harmless,” I finally say.
“Completely. She’s an artist. Spends all her time drawing, sculpting, writing poetry. Hardly ever speaks. Seems afraid of her own shadow. Ariel Haven, on the other hand...”
“The demonic one,” I finish for him.
He laughs, but I fail to see the humor in it.
“She’s a real nuisance,” he continues. “Should have been sent back to the Valgard Sanitorium a long time ago.”
“Back?” I cut in, horrified.
“She spent most of her childhood there.”
“Oh, Ancient One...”
“She was almost expelled last year. Seems she has a penchant for setting fire to things. And to people who annoy her.”
I can feel myself blanching.
“Relax, Elloren. No one’s going to set you on fire.”
I gawk at him, stupefied. “How can you say that? I spent most of last night cowering in a closet while Ariel etched profanities and threats into the door.”
“And that was your choice. You let her have the upper hand. Ariel is about as weak and harmless as Wynter is. She just makes a big show of being threatening. And you completely fell for it.”
“She had a knife!”
“Here,” he says, pulling his sword out and handing it to me. “Now you have a bigger one.”
I push the sword back at him. “I don’t have any idea how to use it.”
He places his sword back in its sheath with one graceful movement. “You probably have about as much skill with my sword as Ariel does with a knife.”
“She’s completely demonic!”
“Maybe so, but I doubt she’ll do anything to harm any scholar this year. If she does, she’ll be arrested, expelled from Verpacia and sent back to the Valgard Sanitorium. Her wings will be cut off and she’ll be thrown into a cell, where she’ll rot out her days. She’d be as good as dead. Ariel knows this, and it terrifies her. Don’t let her fool you.”
“I don’t understand why the Mage Council hasn’t cut her wings off and locked her away already,” I grouse.
“Verpacia is bound by international treaty to surrender only male Icarals to Gardneria. Because of the Prophecy.”
“And she’s not male.”
Lukas nods resignedly. “Imprisonment of female Icarals is still voluntary, and at the discretion of the Icaral’s family. For now. There are some on the Mage Council who hold romantic ideas about Icaral ‘rehabilitation,’ but they’re slowly being voted out.”
“Good.” I shake my head. “So why didn’t Ariel’s family have her committed?”
“Her father. He left her wings intact to punish his unfaithful fastmate. So Ariel’s mother has to face the fact that she gave birth to a winged demon as a result of her evil.”
“Charming.” I let out a deep breath. “And the other Icaral? The Elf?”
“If you were to complain to the Elfin hierarchy about Wynter Eirllyn, she’d be cast out of Alfsigr lands and never allowed to return. The Elves hate the Icarals as much as the Gardnerians do. The only reason she hasn’t been cast out already is that she has a brother who’s fond of her.
“And there’s something else. Something you can use to your advantage,” Lukas confides. “Ariel is very fond of Wynter Eirllyn. She fancies herself Wynter’s protector and doesn’t want to leave her. So, you see, you have the upper hand.”
I slump down on the bench. “I really don’t feel like I have the upper hand.”
“Elloren,” he cautions, “you can’t be weak here. You’ll be eaten alive, especially with your appearance, your connections.”
“But I am weak. I have no magic whatsoever.”
A magic-free Level One. But still, there was that feeling of power during my wandtesting. Coming up from the earth.
He’s thoughtful for a moment. “I was surprised by the results of your wandtesting.” Lukas shrugs. “I have a good sense about these things, and I can sense magic in you. I still think it’s there, perhaps dormant.”
“You’ve only just met me,” I observe, feeling defeated and not powerful in the least.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says with a shake of his head. “I can feel it. I can hear it in your music, and...” He hesitates for a moment before continuing, his voice gone low. “I can feel it in your kiss.”
Coloring at his words and the memory of his fiery kiss, I lower my eyes. My skirts are filthy. Covered with dirt, and Ancient One knows what else. And my wrist, my head and the side of my face ache.
Now is not the time to be thinking about kissing Lukas again.
I groan and let my head fall into my hands. “So what am I supposed to do, Lukas?”
For a moment he’s silent.
“Wands aren’t the only tools of power, Elloren,” he says, his voice level. “Find your enemies’ weaknesses. And become dangerous.”
CHAPTER NINE
Balance of Power
Later that afternoon I walk to the kitchen, bolstered by the fact that I’m being escorted by a Level Five Mage in full military regalia whose father is the High Commander of the Gardnerian Mage Guard.