The Magician’s Apprentice

breath, forcing tears away. Nothing happened.

But something could have. Her mind veered away from that possibility to a memory of blackened walls. Something else had happened. Not what the Sachakan had intended. Something powerful and destructive. But what?

Magic?

Suddenly it all made sense. Lord Dakon. He must have heard something and come to rescue her.

But he didn’t arrive until after it happened.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t have reached out from wherever he had been. It would explain the destruction. The magician would not have made such a mess of the room if he’d been able to see where he directed his power. He’d been working blindly.

I owe him gratitude for doing so, she thought. He broke a lot of expensive things to save me. No wonder he stared at me so strangely. He was expecting thanks, and all I did was rush off home.

After drawing in a deep breath, she let it out slowly. At least she had managed to treat the slave first. Next time she would not be going to the Residence alone. She would stay by her father’s side, every moment she was there. Closing her eyes, she surrendered to exhaustion and slept.

CHAPTER 4

Now that the pain had receded a little, Hanara was able to think, though his thoughts were slow and sluggish from the drug the healer woman had given him. He was not sure being able to think was to his advantage, though. There was no direction in which he could set his mind without finding fear and pain.

He never liked to look backwards. The past was stuffed with bad memories, and the good ones left him full of bitterness. His current situation was hardly one he could find pleasant distractions from. Even if moving didn’t send agonising pain through his body he couldn’t have got out of bed. He was so trussed up with bandages, he might as well have been tied up and gagged.

Considering the future was even more unpleasant. The servant woman who fed him had told him during her last visit that his master had left. Takado was gone, she’d said, declaring he was headed for Sachaka and home.

She had told Hanara he was safe now.

She has no idea, he thought. None of these Kyralians do, except perhaps the magician, Lord Dakon. Takado will come back. He has to.

Sachakan magicians never freed ordinary slaves, let alone source slaves. They never left them behind in enemy territory. Not alive, at least.

When he comes back, he’ll either take me with him, or kill me.

If Hanara hadn’t healed enough by then to be useful to Takado, then the latter was more likely. No Sachakan magician was going to waste time tending to the wounds of a slave, or wait while that slave struggled to keep up, or put up with a slave too weak or crippled to serve their master properly.

Would the healers have worked so hard, if they knew there was a chance their efforts would be wasted?

Remembering the young woman, Hanara felt a strange constriction inside. Her touch had been gentle, her words kind. A person like her could not exist in his homeland. Only in this country was it possible for a woman her age to be so lacking in guile and bitterness.

She was like all the other good things he had seen in this land, which filled him with longing even as he despised them. He wished Takado had never visited Kyralia. The healer woman and Kyralia were the same: young, free, blissfully unaware of how lucky they were. It was hard to imagine she could ever defend herself against the cruel power of Sachakan magic, yet even his master had admitted that Kyralians could be “annoyingly feisty” when faced with a threat.

Takado. He will be back.

While slaves of Hanara’s value weren’t common, they were not impossible to replace either. Takado would test all his slaves when he returned home, and would probably find one with enough latent ability to be his new main source of magic. After all, once the man had discovered Hanara’s latent ability, he’d made sure his source slave had sired plenty of offspring.

Hanara felt only a faint pity for whichever of his progeny would be chosen. He’d never had the chance to know any of them. He was not even sure which of the child slaves were his. A working slave’s life had as many disadvantages as that of a source slave. All slaves’ lives were equally likely to end abruptly, whether by accident, overwork, the cruelty of a slave controller or the whim or violent mood swing of their master.

Why should I care who replaces me, anyway? When you’re dead, you’re dead, he thought. And if Takado finds another source slave, he’ll be more likely to kill me when he returns, if I haven’t healed fast or well enough.

But he couldn’t prevent that from happening. He could barely even move. All he could do was lie still and wonder, as he had all his life, if he would survive the next day.

The miniature paintings were quite amazing. Jayan peered at them closely, wondering why he hadn’t noticed them before. The woman’s tiny eyes even had eyelashes and he wondered what sort of brush could have produced such impossibly thin lines. There was a subtle blush to her cheek. She was quite pretty, he decided.

Where did Lord Dakon find the time to purchase art while entertaining Takado? Or has this always been here, and I’ve never noticed it?

He nudged a frame with one finger, swinging it slightly across the wall. Beneath was a faint dark shadow where the paint hadn’t faded as much as the exposed area around the miniature.

They’ve been here for years, he mused. It’s as if I’ve been away for a while. I’m noticing things I’ve become so accustomed to that I don’t see them any more.

But he hadn’t been travelling the country, he’d been stuck in his room. Now, according to Malia, the reason for his imprisonment had ended. The Sachakan magician, Takado, had packed up his few belongings, ordered his horse saddled and his pack horse loaded, and left.

As soon as Jayan had received the news, he had gone in search of Lord Dakon. Moving through the house, he noticed the excited chatter of the servants, adding to the impression that an oppressive force had been lifted from the place. In one room he saw silver tableware being packed away in an ornate cabinet; outside another on the guest floor he passed house servants carrying bedding away to be cleaned.

One of them nodded to a closed door and mouthed a word. Slave.

Jayan had looked at the door. So there was still one grim shadow remaining in the Residence. He had been surprised to hear the Sachakan had left his man behind. Perhaps Malia’s reports that the slave was healing well were wrong.

He had left searching the guest floor until last. It was possible Malia had been wrong about the Sachakan’s leaving. It was also possible Takado had come back, having forgotten something.

I won’t feel completely at ease until Dakon confirms Takado is well and truly gone.

The smell of something burnt reached his nose as he continued down the corridor, adding to his growing anxiety. He peered through an open door – and stopped.

“What...?” he muttered.

One corner of the room was a mess. The walls were cracked, and the floor and furniture scorched. He moved to the threshold and stared at the destruction.

“What would you say did this?”

Recognising the voice, Jayan turned to see that Lord Dakon was sitting in a chair facing the mess, his head resting on one hand and his elbow on the arm of the chair. His expression was one of absorbed thoughtfulness.

That side of the room, Jayan noted, hadn’t suffered any damage at all. He turned back to examine the damage critically.

“Takado,” Jayan replied. The destruction must have a magical cause, and Dakon wouldn’t have asked the question if he’d done it himself.

“I thought so too, at first. But it doesn’t make sense.”