“Much good that will do me,” Sophie muttered. One hand strayed to the silver-gray pearl hanging from the slender chain at her throat. Salt protect me. Lady give me light.
Her thumb rubbed the surface of the pearl again, the smoothness a comfort, though she still missed the uneven texture of the strand of five natural pearls she’d worn for as long as she could remember. But they were a creamy white, and as long as the princess was in half mourning, her ladies couldn’t wear white.
The gray had been a gift from the princess herself. Its color alone made it expensive, more than Sophie’s family could afford. It was not as darkly beautiful as the rope of black pearls Princess Eloisa herself wore. But then again, Eloisa’s pearls could have bought Sophie’s family estates many times over.
A true symbol of her family’s wealth. And Eloisa’s power. Both mundane and magical.
The princess was the strongest royal witch yet living. Magic hadn’t ruined her life.
But Sophie was not the crown princess. Magic would bring a woman of her rank only unwelcome attention and an even more narrowly prescribed life: Performing the seasonal rituals. Keeping the water sources blessed. Tending to her husband’s lands or the court’s as demanded. Earth witchery was hardly exciting. Useful, in a prosaic sort of way, being able to coax crops and animals into fruitfulness and supposedly anchor the prosperity of the court and the country. But hardly exciting.
Once, royal witches had been able to do more, to call the weather and do other things only hinted at in the history books. But it had been long years since any royal witch of Anglion had been able to do such things. Eloisa was the strongest living royal witch, and she was gifted with wards and healing and, so it was said, foretelling, but she couldn’t, as far as Sophie knew, move so much as a puff of air.
She’d asked her mother once, long ago, why royal witches no longer did such things. Her mother, possessed of only a little power herself, had said that no one knew. Her father, overhearing, had muttered something about inbreeding but then laughed when her mother had told him not to be an idiot.
Privately, since coming to court, Sophie had decided that maybe they just never got the chance to try to do anything exciting. Royal witches were carefully hemmed in with rules and protocol so that their powers served the Crown as the Crown wished to be served. And after that, they served the goddess and her church. It didn’t leave much time for trying to tame lightning. And with the pampered court life, there was really no need to try for more.
She tried to imagine the look on Captain Turner’s face if she asked him what she would need to do to call lightning. He would probably have apoplexy. And then possibly march her straight to the temple for a lecture on the proper uses of earth magic. She sighed, finger and thumb rubbing the pearl again. It was disappointing to think that actually doing earth magic, or the variety she would be allowed—if she was even able—would be even less exciting than learning the theory.
The captain cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to him. “Maybe magic will be of more use to you than you realize.”
“It’s not as though I’ll be allowed to do anything useful with it. Witches don’t fight battles or anything.”
He lifted the book they had been studying. “You’ve been talking to the crown princess again. Earth magic keeps Anglion prosperous. Feeds our people. Fighting battles isn’t everything, milady.”
“I believe your fellow soldiers in the Red Guard would disagree with you, Captain. And it’s difficult to avoid talking to Princess Eloisa when I’m one of her ladies.” The princess, widowed just over a year, had certain views about marriage and the role that women should play in the court. Views that were not exactly conventional. She had, so far, avoided being wed again. Sophie wondered just how long past her mourning time Eloisa would continue to get away with that. Her father doted on her, but he also wasn’t a man to waste a prize in his possession. Not one that could be traded for strength and loyalty. Or he hadn’t been before his recent illness. He was recovering from the sickness that had gripped him most of the winter and spring, but there were whispers in the court that he was weakened for life.
Captain Turner laughed beside her, a friendly deep, rumbly laugh, at odds with his stern weather-carved face. “Maybe so. Still, you won’t need to fight battles, milady. No one crosses a royal witch. No one sensible, at least.”
That made her smile, unwilling as she was. She picked up her notebook and tried to remember the last thing the captain had said about grounding to a ley line. She knew the theory off by heart. After all, she had been schooled in the history and tenets of earth magic and the lore of the goddess since she was fifteen. Captain Turner was charged with ensuring that those lessons were retained. She thought it strange that a Red Guard battle mage was the chosen instructor for potential royal witches, but that was what the temple had decreed. She also had regular sessions with temple priors, but they always stuck to the lore of the goddess and wouldn’t discuss earth magic. She’d even had one nerve-racking session with the icily formidable Domina Skey, who was in charge of the Kingswell temple and therefore also in charge of all of Anglion when it came to matters of the goddess. But Sophie hadn’t learned anything new from her. Anything she hadn’t learned by now, well, it seemed that it was just about too late.
Of course, amongst that learning was a large hole about the actual rites undertaken by a royal witch—that information being deemed unsuitable for those without power to know of—which seemed entirely unfair. But that was another improper thought for young ladies. Until her power manifested, all she was allowed to know was the foundational theories of magic developed by the temple. The ones that underpinned all three branches of power. And there was nothing she could do about that, either. “All right, Captain. We have another hour. The princess asked me to attend her at midday.”