My Gift.
In the end, everything depended on my Gift.
“You brought me here, so why doesn’t my Gift work? Why am I failing? Zoland says I’m the only one with a broken Gift. Why did You bother making me a blue and then ruining my life? I’m sorry. Not ruin. Giftless at the Kyer is ten times better than farming, but… I can’t even warm a pot of tea. What is wrong with me?”
Aside from my blood.
I leaned back on my heels, and my elbow hit something hard. Below the bench’s cushion, a shelf held a book. Curious, I slid it out.
Record, it read in gold on the cover. The leather looked new, and crisp pages smelled of paper and berries. Inside, a full-color illustration filled every left page, some pictures similar to the Illusions I’d seen in the Great Room. Words covered every right page.
Long ago, Darkness covered the world. The First One wept, for evil had taken over creation.
They were the same words the Speakers recited when they visited Stoneyfield. More or less. I’d never heard the Speakers say enough words to fill an entire book. I climbed onto the bench and began to read random passages. There, the creation of the dragons. I’d heard that. I didn’t know of the battle to the south against walking dead. Nor did I know how Drageria’s first king came to power.
“What about the Gift?” I asked the candle upon the altar. “What about blue mages?”
I began to flip to the beginning, but an illustration caught my eye. A blonde woman, bathed in blue flames. She held her arms open to the sky, and above her floated three smaller pictures: a battlefield, a river, and a rose.
In the year 258, the First One chose the blue mage Cylia as His champion. He singled her as His own by sending her three visions: the—
I dropped the book and shot to my feet. “I asked about magic, not about visions. I don’t want visions or a destiny or… Why can’t You just give me a home? You know? Home? Whenever I ask, You—You—You burn down the hut of the people who cared for me!”
I left the candle burning and the book on the floor. My tears smeared the Illusioned walls of the Great Room; they made the hallway’s streaks even more ghostly. I wandered without destination, my every step exactly that—a step. Going nowhere. Going nowhere as people with purpose whizzed by. So many people, yet I walked alone.
In my visions, my Gift always works. A confident Adara. Strong Adara. Incinerating chairs as they fly at her head Adara. Crying Adara bathing a dying man with blue flame…
But the magic always worked. Now I had visited the altar, I’d left chocolate of all things. My last visit to the First One had changed my life. Surely this time…
My hands stayed empty during my next magic lesson.
Chapter Thirteen
It took all my courage to go to the next Kyer class. Tressa had been so upset, yet I had no idea how to apologize. I’d scribbled notes and tossed them in the trash; I’d practiced fumbling words in front of the mirror. None had seemed right, and so I had avoided her by going to eat at odd times at the dining hall. I couldn’t miss class, however.
Sylvia arrived. Tressa’s seat by mine stayed empty. A new worry: What if Tressa didn’t come because she’s too angry?
Sylvia began handing out sheets of paper, explaining our latest assignment. She paused as the door opened. Tressa. The two women locked gazes—young versus old, crimson skirts versus militaristic breeches.
Sylvia broke the stare and set a sheet before Anastasi. “Yes, Tressa, we all see the envelopes you’re holding. There’d better be thirteen in that stack.”
“There are not,” Tressa said, sweet as a stick of candy. “There are fourteen. One of these invitations is for you.”
Sylvia continued to hand out papers. Because I knew her from my work in the Quarters, I noticed the smallest twitch of her eyebrow—Tressa had surprised her.
“Perhaps you’ll pass my class yet,” Sylvia said as she gave the last sheet to Tressa. She’d already given me mine. “Anatomy of a dragon. Page forty-seven. Copy in entirety. I will check it during our next class, and the test is in a week’s time.”
Tressa wrinkled her nose. “Don’t we have a dragon healer to worry about their bits and pieces?”
“The Seneschal is too valuable to risk in war,” Sylvia said. “Should your dragon be injured, you’ll need to care for it until you can reach the Kyer. We assume all trainees have no issues with blood. Since we are, of course, a military organization.”
“Of course,” Tressa replied. The two gave each other frighteningly similar smiles of pure serenity.
The moment Sylvia turned, Tressa muttered, “Old bat. Won’t even let me touch her.”
I drew a vague outline of a head. I rather liked Sylvia. She reminded me of some of the old farmwives: blunt and busy, with too much to do but enough experience to know how to get it all done, anyway.
Most of all, I liked Sylvia because she didn’t give a weasel’s whisker about my past. I liked dragons; she liked me.
I don’t think Tressa likes dragons. I peeked. Tressa was grimacing at the diagram of the dragon’s digestive system. I’m not sure she’s even met one yet.
Quiet conversations began. Sylvia didn’t mind chatter as long as we stayed on task. I swallowed against the nervous lump in my throat.
Get it over with. Apologize. With any words. I blurted more than said, “I am so sorry I ruined your party and embarrassed you and… if you never invite me to anything again, I understand. But I need you to know that I really am very sorry.”
The jumbled, not-at-all-elegant apology halted.
Tress blinked, then breathed a small laugh. She went back to drawing, so I continued sketching as well. My face burned.
“You didn’t ruin my little gathering, not really,” Tressa murmured. Her voice stayed tight. “That upstart Riversbend did.”
Anastasi. But
