The Traitor Queen

stronger than you – if you let them. You have to sort them out while they’re weak. Stop them getting strong.” Bokkin caught himself, forcing himself to stop remembering, but not before Lilia caught three quick flashes of emotion-laden images. Love and hurt. Beatings. Anger. Grief.

She understood, then, that Bokkin believed this fiercely and completely, and thought it the best piece of wisdom his father had taught him. After all, his father had proven it by beating his own son into obeying and fearing him. Then his father had been killed by a man he had admitted he should have been harder on.

That’s what he’s trying to do to me, she realised. He is thinking about the future. I’m going to be stronger than him, so he’s trying to weaken me now. She shuddered at the thought of the kind of magician he would become. By then he’ll be stronger than most people. It’s only other magicians he’ll be threatened by. Like me.

—Lilia? Kallen spoke.

She moved out of Bokkin’s mind.

—Yes?

—You have done well. That is enough for now.

She felt his hands leave her head, so she opened her eyes and released Bokkin. Kallen moved around to the chair and sat down. The door behind him opened.

“You can go now, Lord Bokkin. Thank you for your assistance. Tell one of the others to be here tomorrow morning, at the same time.”

“Yes, Black Magician Kallen.” Bokkin bowed and hurried out of the room.

The door closed behind him. Lilia leaned against the back of the chair, delaying sitting down. She didn’t even want to feel the residual warmth of Bokkin from it.

“What did you learn?” Kallen asked.

Lilia grimaced. “That he believes anyone who might grow stronger than him is a threat, so he has to find a way to dominate them before they dominate him.” Then it occurred to her he was probably asking about mind- reading. “Which is the opposite to how mind-reading works. You don’t succeed by trying to dominate.”

Kallen nodded. “Yes.” He shook his head. “Magicians like Bokkin are the reason we do not teach this level of mind-reading to all magicians.”

“Wait... you mean anyone can learn to do this?”

“Unfortunately, yes. High Lord Akkarin was the first Guild magician to learn how to read the mind of an uncooperative person, so it has always been assumed that it was a skill that required black magic. He revealed to Black Magician Sonea that this was not true by teaching her how to read minds before he taught her how to take and store magic. Sonea agreed to keep that fact to herself. You must do so as well.”

“Oh. Definitely.” The thought of what Bokkin might do with such knowledge sent a shiver down Lilia’s spine.

“You have a fresh and interesting way of approaching things, Lilia,” Kallen said. “Like this idea of using a quick, strong stab of forcestrike as a substitute for a knife when performing black magic. It is ingenious. I have described it to Lady Vinara, and we have discussed ways we could experiment safely.”

She felt her face warm at the praise and looked down. “Well... I hope it works.”

“Even if it doesn’t, it’s worth trying. Well, that’s all for today. You had best get to your first class.”

As the door opened again, Lilia bowed and murmured his name. She made her way to her first class of the day feeling alternately cheered and worried. I’m learning so much from Kallen, and he seems to approve of me more now that our lessons aren’t all about Warrior practice.

Yet while she now knew why Bokkin was harassing her, she had no idea how to stop him. He’s always going to be working against me. I’m always going to be stronger than him, though, and he’s too stupid to ever be a threat in other ways, so it could be worse, I suppose.

But she was going to have to keep a constant eye on him, and that was going to get very, very annoying.

* * *

Once Anyi’s footsteps had faded from hearing, Gol stood up and retrieved his tools from under his mattress. As he got back to work, Cery inspected the holes his friend had drilled into a section of wall earlier, each one piercing mortar and the earth beyond. Anyi hadn’t noticed them. The bricks were rough and cracked in places, and Gol had chosen positions where the lamplight cast heavy shadows.

He had to bend close to see the end of the tubes Gol had inserted in each hole, each with a little tongue of oily paper protruding.

“How many more do you want to do?” Cery asked.

Gol had moved to the opposite wall. “Depends how quick you think we can light them. You don’t want the first lot to go off while we’re lighting the rest. If I do five in each wall and we do a wall’s worth each, we might get them all lit. Bring me a tube, will you?”

Moving to the box of fruit Lilia had brought them the night before, Cery emptied it and lifted the sacking at the bottom. He’d stored the minefire underneath, relying on Anyi’s dislike of fruit to keep her from discovering it.

As he carried the first tube to Gol, he noticed a fine stream of dust leaking from a fold in the paper at one end.

“It’s broken. Is that bad?”

Gol turned and his eyes widened. “Hold it so the hole’s at the top,” he said urgently.

Cery did so and the leak stopped. “Is it that dangerous?”

“Yes.” Gol’s expression was serious. “Get too much of this floating in the air, a candle or lamp could set it off.” He looked down at the tube, then tipped a little powder into his palm before stuffing it into the wall. “I’ll show you. Take a candle out into the passage and put it down about twenty paces away.”

No more than a pinch of the dust lay in Gol’s hand. Cery picked up a burning candle and took it out of the room, setting it down in the passage. Gol beckoned, then shooed Cery behind him. “You’d better cover your ears.”

Cery did as Gol advised.

“Watch this.”

He gathered the powder between two fingers, dashed forward and threw it at the candle. A flash of light dazzled Cery’s eyes, and at the same time a sound like a very large hand slapping a table echoed in the passage. Dust and dirt trickled and puffed out of the walls near the candle, which was suddenly much shorter and surrounded by a molten pool of wax.

Cery removed his hands. That, from just a pinch. And we have a lot more of it in those tubes.

“Are you sure you want to put that many tubes in the wall?”

Gol shrugged. “Gotta put it somewhere. Safer if it’s in the wall, than in the room with us.”

Of course. Even if we leave it in the fruit bowl, it could still go off when the rest does. Better it fries the inside of a wall than us. “How long do the delay strips take to burn?”

“A count to twenty.” Gol retrieved the candle, gave it to Cery and moved back into the room. “If we don’t have enough time, we might get away with only lighting one on each side. When it goes it should set the others off.”

“So we each light one, then run.”

Gol frowned. “Is that Anyi coming back already?”

Cery listened. As he heard the faint sound of footsteps he hurried over to the fruit box and placed the sacking and fruit over the tubes again, while Gol hid his drilling tools. Just in case it wasn’t Anyi, they kept hold of their candles. A moment later a low whistle echoed quietly in the passage and they relaxed.

Cery whistled back and a moment later Anyi hurried inside clutching her lamp. He realised that he’d assumed she was further away because her steps had been so faint. As she saw them, she let out a quick breath.

“One of the walls has collapsed near Lilia’s barrier. Or it was broken. Whatever the reason, there’s now another way to get through to here without breaking her barrier.”

Cery’s heart skipped a beat. “Any tracks?”