power. That’s not what this movement is about.”
Tythonnia listened and nodded in places she thought appropriate. Only she found herself nodding more often than she realized. Raff explained how Berthal’s movement was about freeing magic again, so its use wasn’t restricted in practice or parsed out to only those who could afford it. He wanted to eliminate the barbaric practice of the test, a process that crippled or killed bright and promising students who be forced into the test too early.
The more Raff spoke, the more passionate he grew in his statements. He was truly bothered by what he saw happening with the wizards. And the more he spoke, the more Tythonnia realized that he was once a wizard himself.
Finally, after an hour of talking, Raff excused himself. It was getting late, and they all needed their sleep. Raff retreated into the darkness to relieve his bladder, and Tythonnia made her way to the bedrolls. She found Ladonna lying there, awake and watching her. Tythonnia hunkered down next to her and pretended to drift asleep.
“Good conversation?” Ladonna whispered.
“I–I think he’s Berthal,” Tythonnia responded.
“I know,” Ladonna said. “His staff holds powerful magics … too powerful for a mere guide.”
“He doesn’t trust us yet,” Tythonnia said. “For the last couple of days, he’s been leading us in circles. He’s taking his time and-shh. He’s coming back.”
Raff returned and settled down away from the three of them. Shortly after, his rumbling snores filled the air.
Over the next two days, they continued walking, though both Ladonna and Par-Salian finally realized their path was not straight and true. Raff took the time to speak with each of them, finding out why they’d decided to become renegades and how they ended up meeting.
Their stories were well rehearsed, what with all the time spent practicing on the journey to Palanthas and during their nights in the Wanderer’s Welcome. Ladonna spoke of a desire for power without the restrictions of High Sorcery impeding her ambitions. She was convincing in her story, and Tythonnia had to wonder what shred of truth made it so compelling. Par-Salian spoke of falling in love with a woman who died during her Test of High Sorcery. The grief drove him away from the principles of the wizards.
Finally, the question came to Tythonnia, and after considering her predigested answer, she decided on a different tack. Her talk with Raff had been intimacy of a sort. She found herself wanting to share her story with him and was suddenly worried that anything she lied about would sound false because it lacked any real conviction. Neither, however, could she tell him the real truth about why they were there.
The fact was, she knew
“I don’t know,” Tythonnia admitted. “I’m not sure
Everyone stared at her in surprise-her companions for her off-script remark and Raff with an enigmatic but bemused expression that said she’d caught him off guard. Beyond that, however, she couldn’t explain herself. She hadn’t realized it until listening to Raff the other night, but the fact was, she’d been feeling that way since the journey began. The nostalgia of sleeping under the stars, of hunting and surviving, of speaking with the Vagros and remembering the Wyldling spells she once learned through Desmora-all that had affected her deeply.
Ever since the test, she had been forced to reexamine her very identity, down to her sexuality. The only words that brought her comfort belonged to the voices of Desmora and Grandmother Yassa and Kandri; the only lessons that gave her strength were learned outside the books and stuffy lecture halls of the orders. The tenets of High Sorcery no longer reassured her. They were just words, applicable to everyone in general and never meant to console anyone in particular.
Everyone was still staring at Tythonnia, however, and she realized Raff would not let a remark like that slip away. So she shifted to another truth.
“There’s a member of the order,” Tythonnia said. “Justarius. He’s a good friend. Not scared of much and a bit reckless maybe. He could shoot an arrow straighter than me, and there was nobody better at handling a horse. He was better than me at spell-riding. And fast on his feet.”
“You loved him?” Raff asked.
“No,” Tythonnia said quickly. “It’s just that he reminds me of my cousins … men of the woods. Only Justarius is smarter than them. Honestly, he’s better than me at about everything I think I’m good at. Or-he used to be.”
“What happened to him?” Raff said.
“The test,” Tythonnia responded. “He survived it, but it crippled his leg. He’ll never ride well again or run or hunt. He’s now just another book-learned wizard. The test hurt the strongest parts of him while it left me untouched.”
“The test leaves no one unscathed,” Raff said.
“Maybe not. But I survived it better than he did. And he was better than me at everything. Doesn’t that mean I should’ve been hurt, not him?” Tythonnia asked.
“The test is arbitrary,” Raff said, his gaze growing distant with a sad twist of his mouth. “It kills the best of us, makes us beggars desperate for the scraps of talent left.”
The remainder of the walk was spent quietly, though it didn’t escape Tythonnia’s notice that Par-Salian and Ladonna had exchanged troubled glances when they thought she wasn’t looking.
For whatever reason, Raff seemed to trust them more after that. He led the trio to a camp nestled at the foot of the Vingaard range. There were more than three dozen tents of various sizes and almost as many wagons with countless horses either hitched or standing idly by. They rested near a mountain stream that cascaded down over polished rocks, surrounding a great fire pit that had been dug into the ground. The smell of roasted meat tickled Tythonnia’s nostrils. Nearby, children sat around a woman who read to them.
As soon as Raff appeared, several men and women greeted him with eager hails and smiles. They eyed his three companions, but there was nothing belligerent in their stares, merely curiosity.
When they called him Berthal, he merely turned to the three wizards and asked, “So when did you know?”
Ladonna smiled, Par-Salian appeared embarrassed, and Tythonnia answered, “The night we first talked, just you and me.”
Berthal smiled and made his way to one of the tents. Before entering, he motioned to the three of them and told the others to find space for them. He vanished through the tent flap.
Berthal found Kinsley and a woman waiting for him. Both were standing, as though expecting his imminent arrival, and chatting, though the woman appeared embarrassed and awkward. She was very slight, more like a young boy in frame than a woman, and she wore weathered traveling clothes made of worn leather. Yet for all her mousy qualities and a lower lip that drooped, she was attractive still. It was her brown eyes, Berthal decided, soulful and yet nothing escaped their notice. Whoever was caught in her gaze was caught completely. Around her arm, she wore a ragged, black armband.
“About time you got back,” Kinsley said. “Everything go well with the three new arrivals?”
“Well enough,” Berthal said. “We’ll talk about it later. This must be Mariyah?”
Kinsley introduced Mariyah, who smiled shyly in acknowledgement. From the pack slung forward on her shoulders, she produced a small wood box inlaid with mother-of-pearl panels. She presented it to him with both hands, her smile eager.
Berthal accepted the box and sat down on his bedroll. When he noticed he was the only one seated, he motioned for the others to join him.
Inside the velvet-lined box were scrolls, bits of jewelry, and flasks of liquid-all magical, no doubt, but Berthal was eager to dig deeper. He’d heard about such pocketsafe boxes, containers that were larger on the inside than they appeared on the outside. While the box itself was impressive, it was said to hold a valuable artifact, at least, that’s what Mariyah’s overly amorous mentor had told her in one of his bids to win her to his bed.
What she must have endured, Berthal thought and stopped rummaging. “Thank you for this,” he said, putting the box on his lap.
