It was, like always, just another of her stupid tricks – Ferius pretending that things that weren’t real spells were just as important as true magic. I could have just forgotten it and gone home, but the truth was, I felt pretty awful about how I’d acted towards Nephenia. So when I noticed her lagging behind the other initiates leaving the oasis, I ran quietly up to her.
She turned and saw me and I saw the fear in her eyes. Fear that I was going to yell at her or say terrible, angry things to her. Fear that I was going to reject her. The way you rejected me. I shook the thought from my head. If I was going to make a fool of myself, I’d at least do it properly. Calm, I reminded myself. First comes the calm. I closed my eyes for just a second, envisioning the spell doing its work, and then I spoke the incantation, exactly as Ferius had said it to me. ‘You said you weren’t special, Nephenia, but you’re wrong. One day you’re going to figure that out for yourself, but in the meantime, just know that you’re special to me.’
For a long while she stood there as if every part of her was trapped in a binding spell. Then I watched a single teardrop begin to form in her right eye. Just before it began rolling down her cheek she threw her arms around me. ‘Thank you, Kellen,’ was all she said.
She didn’t kiss me or apologise, or promise to stay friends with me. She didn’t give me some keepsake or secret code. I knew that tomorrow she’d have to do just what she’d said – go along with the others, because that’s what you do when you don’t feel powerful enough on your own.
But for those few seconds while I had my arms around her and felt her face pressed into my shoulder, my cheek buried in the soft curls of her hair, I didn’t mind.
Okay, so it wasn’t magic.
But it felt awfully close.
I returned to my bench between the columns, intent on making a few clever remarks to Ferius about her spell – only to find her gone and Shalla sitting there in her place. She looked paler than usual. Tired.
‘Where’s Ferius?’ I asked.
Shalla shrugged. ‘She left. I don’t think she likes me. Then again, she’s some kind of Daroman spy so—’
‘She’s not a spy,’ I said.
‘Then what is she?’
A woman. It’s like a man only smarter and with bigger balls. No, that was not going to make me sound clever. ‘Who knows? Probably just what Father said: an Argosi wanderer.’
Shalla started to say something but then coughed. I was going to ask her what was wrong when she nodded towards the street where Nephenia had gone. ‘What was that all about?’
I glanced back just in case Nephenia was still there, but the street was empty. ‘Nothing. I was just—’
‘I don’t know why you waste time with Mouse Girl,’ Shalla said. ‘Her family isn’t powerful, she’s not that pretty and she’s never going to be much of a mage.’
A dozen angry retorts arrayed themselves in my mind, organised from nastiest to least likely to get me in a worse mess than I was already in. I tossed them all out. ‘She thinks you’re amazing.’
Shalla’s mouth opened and then closed again. Now there’s a magic spell if ever there was one. It didn’t last of course. ‘You know these people aren’t your family, right? Panahsi, Nephenia, that crazy Ferius woman? None of them are family.’
‘So what?’ I asked, the anger rising in my throat despite my attempts to stay calm. Shalla really is smarter than I am. Somehow she always knows just how to dig down into me. ‘What has my family ever done for me? All those hours Mother and Father spent doing spells on me to bring out my magic? All they did was make me feel sick and weak and horrible. Do you think they’ll even let me sleep upstairs any more once I’m stuck being a Sha’Tep for the rest of my life? Will you even call me your brother when I’m coming to serve your dinner or scrub your floors?’
I expected Shalla to launch into a tirade, but she just smiled and took both my hands in hers. Then, as if that were somehow insufficient, she let go of my hands and reached over to hug me. ‘None of that matters, Kellen. You’re always going to be my brother.’
Of all the shocks I’d had in my life recently, that was the biggest. Was my sister really going to tell me that it didn’t matter if I became Sha’Tep? That she’d love me no matter what? I guess that’s why I was doubly surprised when she whispered in my ear, ‘Because I’ve figured out a way to fix your magic.’
14
The Snake
‘It was your idea really,’ Shalla said as we crept along the path.
‘What was my idea?’ I asked, shouldering the pack she’d brought with her and now expected me to carry. ‘You still haven’t told me what this is all about. And what are we doing on the Snake, anyway?’
The Snake was the second of the intertwining routes that ran north–south through the Jan’Tep lands, so called because of the way it wound itself around the nearly five hundred miles of caravan track called the Staff. Daroman military engineers had carved out the Staff from the surrounding forest hundreds of years ago in order to facilitate trade, travel and, in times of war, moving an invading army into our lands. The Snake was a much older road whose proper name was the Path of Spirits. It was said to be occupied by the ghosts of our ancestors who waged a never-ending war with those of our ancient enemies, the Mahdek. It was also the place where Jan’Tep mages went on vision quests when seeking out the high magics.
‘When you were duelling Tennat the other day,’ Shalla said, ‘you spoke to that falcon flying overhead.’
I nearly dropped the pack to the ground. ‘Shalla, that was just a trick. I was just pretending so that I could—’
‘Scare Tennat. I know. But you haven’t thought about the reason why it scared him. It’s because a mage with a power animal can channel magic even if their bands are still in place.’
‘So?’
‘So what if you really did have a power animal?’
It was a stupid hypothetical question. The kind of impossible thought experiment that appealed to ageing spellmasters, my annoying sister, and pretty much no one else. ‘Well, we’re never going to find out, are we? Since you need actual magic to summon a power animal, which, in case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have any more.’
‘But I do.’
I stopped right there. ‘Father’s allowing you to continue your trials? I thought he was going to make you wait because you …’ almost killed your own brother.
I supposed he had to let her finish. If the council was considering the strength of the bloodline, then my father’s only hope of becoming clan prince was for Shalla to make an impression on the lords magi. She wouldn’t receive her mage name until she was sixteen, but by passing her trials three years early she could prove the strength of our house. Not that any of that would help me. ‘Shalla, hardly anyone bonds with power animals any more. They’re too risky. Why would …?’
She looked down at her feet. ‘Mother helped me convince father that a familiar might … temper my behaviour somewhat.’