attendees. There were more than just the seven conclave members of each order. There were other luminaries who made
A hand wrapped in red silk and tapered into elegant, henna-painted fingers touched Tythonnia’s knee.
“Be still,” Amma Batros whispered. She smiled, a flash of pearly white teeth against a backdrop of lustrous mahogany skin. A tiara rimmed with a trim veil of glass beads rested on her forehead; her brown eyes shone thanks to heavy kohl that blackened the rims of her eyes and painted her cheeks in unblemished arcane script. Her ruby nose stud sparkled.
“I’m sorry,” Tythonnia said, immediately intimidated and taken with her mentor’s beauty. She felt small and lumpy in Amma Batros’s presence, her skin too pasty in contrast to her teacher’s rich brown hue, her dirty blonde hair dusty in comparison to Amma Batros’ luxuriant black mane. Where Amma was lithe and supple, Tythonnia felt pudgy and stout-like nothing but a farmer’s daughter in the middle of all the Conclave’s finery. “I’m nervous,” she admitted.
Amma Batros laughed delicately in a way that was both simple and enchanting, and Tythonnia blushed.
“As well you should be,” Amma whispered. “Our greatest are here tonight. See that Black Robe there,” she said, motioning to a seated dwarf with a pale complexion; a black, scraggly beard; and dark, scowling eyes. “That’s Willim the Black. And over there,” she nodded to a white-robed human with a youthful smile, “is Antimodes.”
“It’s Master Merick,” Tythonnia whispered. Amma followed her gaze to the grizzled old man in red robes who sat to the back, away from everyone. He appeared lost in thought. “I want to ask how Justarius is doing.”
Amma, however, shook her head. “No,” she said simply. “Justarius was gravely injured during the test, and Merick is taking it hard. It’s not easy for any of us to see our pupils hurt so.”
“But he’ll recover, right?” Tythonnia asked. Her thoughts flashed on Justarius, on the hollow in his eyes. The test had changed him. It was the last and only time she’d seen him since his ordeal, and she wondered if her cousin would ever be the same.
“Time will tell,” Amma replied.
Tythonnia went quiet at that. She’d undergone the harrowing Test of High Sorcery, the three final exams that push a wizard beyond their limits, near to the point of failure or, in many cases, past it. Each test was unique, and more often than not, it permanently affected the wizard. Most escaped physically unblemished but forever mentally scored. Their thoughts would never leave that fateful day; they would remember it with a clarity that would forever reopen their wounds. They remained haunted.
A rare few suffered a physical affliction or injury. It was a reminder that magic has a cost, that it was a burden and privilege to possess an affinity for spellcraft. It weeded out those unworthy of their gifts, and for a time, Tythonnia thought she’d be among them. She’d survived, however, but the cost was something she never expected. She learned things about herself she wasn’t ready to face yet. But neither could she escape that knowledge.
All around Tythonnia, even the greatest among the wizards seemed somehow marred by their tests. Willim the Black walked with an obsidian staff mounted by an ebony orb. Other wizards carried their scars in their eyes, invisible for no one but themselves to feel and know.
If anyone could have emerged unscathed from the test, many young wizards believed it would be Justarius. He was fearless, physically adept, and level-headed. The best of the reds, it was whispered. Only, he didn’t survive intact; far from it, in fact. Whatever happened to him had left him bedridden, a shadow of himself. Some said he was crippled; others claimed he was disfigured. Tythonnia knew better, but the rumors alone created a crisis of confidence among the many wizards who had yet to take the test.
“If Justarius could almost fail and die,” a young acolyte had confided to Tythonnia, “what hope do I have?”
Tythonnia tried to counsel and console the other students as best she could, but she lacked the conviction to lie, to tell the others that everything would be all right. What happened to Justarius left her wondering: if he had undergone his ordeal before her, would she have possessed the courage to carry through with it? She wasn’t sure anymore.
She pushed such thoughts from her head and distracted herself by studying the people around her. It took a moment before she realized someone was watching her, a black-robed wizard of exceptional beauty. The female Black Robe was striking, from her wide, jet eyes to her long and braided raven hair; silver jewelry girding her fingers, wrists, and neck. Like Tythonnia, she appeared to be in her mid-twenties, but her gaze was unbridled. Tythonnia immediately looked away, unable to meet and match the fierce stare. She found the white-robed Pecas and studied him instead, even though her thoughts never left the other young wizard.
Servants scuttled about with jugs of water to fill the goblets of those gathered, among them the sour old Pecas. Pecas was hardly alone, but neither did he engage anyone in conversation. Everyone had by then heard of his shame: his own acolyte turned renegade and thief in stealing a handful of valuable tomes. Some wanted Pecas to discuss what happened, in some vain hope for idle gossip, but he merely grunted at whoever spoke to him until they left him alone.
Thirsty, Pecas snapped his fingers to attract the attention of a servant. As the lean man with sea-blue eyes filled his goblet with water, Pecas studied him with a sudden and intense curiosity. He’d seen the man before … recently in fact. But where?
The man nodded respectfully to Pecas and continued on his rounds. Pecas followed him with his gaze, still unsure where he’d seen him, but his memory wasn’t what it used to be. That soured his mood even more. He grumbled and returned his attentions to the three wizards waiting patiently upon the chairs.
From somewhere nearby, a gong rang, filling the chamber with its booming echo. Tythonnia started at the noise. Amma Batros continued staring straight ahead even though a small smile escaped her lips at Tythonnia’s jolt of surprise. The other wizards obediently fell silent and turned to watch as the accused was brought in.
First to step into the chamber through the great archway was a woman, a renegade hunter. Many eyes flickered over her appreciatively, but Tythonnia found something reptilian in the woman’s gait and bearing. Then she found herself staring at the woman’s chest and upon the intricate bronze tome strapped to it. Tythonnia was about to ask her mentor what that was, but Amma Batros was leaning forward and squinting hard at the unusual tome. She didn’t know either.
The huntress approached, her gaze never deviating from the three chairs. Behind her was the accused, Virgil Morosay, defrocked White Robe. Tythonnia studied him, but he seemed no different than the young students who came to her for guidance or solace. She pitied Virgil and ached for the wound to his face. He seemed tiny under the angry gazes of his former masters, and his eyes remained fixed on the floor. Pecas, in particular, wore a mask of utter venom. His fingers clenched and furled, as though ready to let fly with a spell, and Tythonnia half thought she might very well witness a murder today.
Bringing up the rear were two more renegade hunters, one a bearish man with a thick beard, the other slender and blond. Quietly, the entourage made their way to the steps of the dais, where they stopped. The woman gracefully dropped to one knee, her head down. The other two hunters forced Virgil down before they knelt respectfully as well. It was only then that Virgil happened to glance at the three people sitting upon the dais. His face blanched, and he swooned under his own fear.
Tythonnia suddenly realized Virgil had no idea who’d be presiding over his fate until that very moment. They had not met thusly in years, the masters of the three orders, dressed in the most crimson of reds, ivory of whites, and obsidian of blacks-these masters of magic and mouthpieces for the wills of the three moons.
Upon the left chair sat the red-robed master, Yasmine of the Delving. Her light skin was milky for her fifty- odd years, and her black hair streaked with copper highlights was pulled back into dozens of tight braids. At her side waited her chief advisor, the wizard Belize, seen by many within Tythonnia’s order as an opportunist.
Upon the right-most chair sat the master of the Black Robes, Reginald Diremore. His skin was glossy and pale. His greasy gray hair, combed straight back, added to his almost rodentlike features, while his eyes were those of a shark searching for its next meal. One eye was the natural green of his birth, the other completely black from pupil to sclera. He studied Virgil intently, as though preparing to mount a siege against his weak points.
