‘Do we have a choice?’ Arram asked Ozorne woefully. He could see what remained of the marks on his slate rubbing off onto the rough inside of his leather bag.
Ozorne sighed. ‘Not really, no. Unless you want to pay a seamstress to do it if she has time.’ He walked into the room after Varice.
When Arram stepped over the doorsill, he halted abruptly, colliding with Ozorne’s back. His friend was frankly gawping at their new instructor. Arram knew her as the radiantly beautiful Master Dagani, who had been so kind to him the day he’d flooded his classroom. After a long time of only glimpses of her in passing, he saw that her beauty was enough to knock a fellow breathless, as it had done to Ozorne. She wore her wavy black hair pinned up in the heat. Her thin white silk tunic clung to her scarlet master’s robe. A gold-embroidered silk belt was wrapped several times around her waist, displaying a number of small vials decorated with vivid paints and gems.
Arram gently kicked Ozorne and bowed. ‘Master Dagani, greetings,’ he said, trying to ignore Varice’s soft giggles.
‘Welcome to my class in illusions.’ Dagani came forward and cupped Arram’s cheek in her hand. ‘You look far better than you did the day we first met,’ she said in her musical voice. ‘But you should take a breath and concentrate on your Gift. It is escaping your control again.’
Arram apologized and closed his eyes. Slowly he drew breath, in and out, ignoring the conversation around him as he let the flying edges of his magic fall back into himself. He found a handful of strands had wandered out of the room entirely, an event so strange that he forgot he was in class and let his mind follow them.
What in Mithros’s and Shakith’s names draws my power so far from me? he wondered as he tried to call it back to him. As he followed the strands down the corridor, past the masters’ classrooms, the gardens, and the student classrooms, he failed to notice that more of his power was escaping him. What he did notice was the interesting thing, the attractive thing, that was drawing his magic. It sang to his Gift far more sweetly than any temple or street musician. He couldn’t resist finding out what it was. He would do that, and then he would retrieve his power. That was his plan.
Then he struck the university’s magicked wall.
The power on the other side was moving. He had felt nothing like it before. It reared up, towering over the wall. It plucked his Gift with claws of fiery gold. Arram fought to yank his power from it, promising himself he would meditate until strange magics would battle to get free of him. The power was amused: it released the strings of his magic one at a time, letting them whip Arram as they returned to him.
Another Gift, cool and silvery, wrapped itself around Arram and yanked. He flew backward, away from whatever had entangled him, past the classrooms and gardens. His last confused thought was that he was going to die. He struck something with a hard thump.
Cold water trickled over his face and into his shirt. ‘I was flying,’ he mumbled.
‘Did you see it?’ That soft, awed whisper belonged to Varice. ‘His Gift – it just flowed out of him, like … like ink!’
‘It looked like the night sky, with stars. I thought he was dreaming something odd again, but awake,’ Ozorne murmured. ‘Is he alive?’
‘Of course he is alive.’ That was Dagani. ‘Do his dreams always force his Gift to manifest?’
‘Sometimes,’ Ozorne replied. ‘I’ve never seen it during the day before.’
‘Did you let him know that his Gift was doing things in his sleep?’ Varice asked.
Arram could tell by her tone that she was displeased. He tried to wiggle his fingers to indicate that she should calm down, or make Ozorne be quiet. He wasn’t certain which he wanted to tell her, but it didn’t matter – his fingers wouldn’t move.
‘Why?’ Ozorne asked. ‘He wasn’t harming anything. And it’s entertaining when I can’t rest.’
‘Arram, my dear, your Gift has hold of you,’ Dagani told him softly. ‘Make it release you. You are the master. Make it accept your will. Otherwise I will be forced to use stern measures.’ She paused and said, ‘They may involve removing your shirt.’
The thought of the beautiful Dagani seeing his bony chest made Arram fling his power around the fugitive tendrils, then shove them down into his centre with a strength he didn’t know he possessed. Once they were subdued, sinking into the pool of his Gift, he sat up, banging into Ozorne’s shoulder.
Dagani drew over a chair and sat on it. ‘You need to work on your concentration. You must not lose your hold on your power in your sleep – a greater mage might draw it from you as a spinster draws thread from wool.’
‘I would never!’ Ozorne said with a grin. Dagani quelled him with a raised eyebrow. The prince ducked his head and busied himself in drawing up chairs for himself and Varice.
‘What happened to you?’ the mage asked. ‘One moment you were with us, and then … your Gift broke away and your mind followed it. You collapsed.’
Arram remembered and moaned with disappointment. ‘I missed it! You see, there was this tremendous power outside the wall, so huge I could feel it—’
‘Oh, please,’ Ozorne said, though he was smiling. ‘The master didn’t feel any tremendous power! You’re mistaking your own loss of control—’
Dagani held up her hand. ‘This power, did it move consistently in one direction, or did it shift here and there?’
Arram had been staring at Ozorne with hurt – how could his friend say such a thing? The master’s question distracted him. There had been one strain of magic, immense, but farther away. It hadn’t come near him. It was the other that had moved, approaching the gate. ‘It moved,’ he murmured. ‘I think it was going to come through the gate, even with all the magic on it, but it stopped when you pulled me away.’
‘Well.’ Dagani tapped her full red mouth with a finger that was tipped with blue lace-like designs. ‘You would have learned these things in the Upper Academy as you grew more attuned to … the natural world, and the Divine Realms.’ The three students stared at one another, amazed. They hadn’t heard of this aspect of magecraft. ‘Magic attracts magic. Normally it is not a factor, unless you are working very powerful spells. As masters you would be taught how to ward off magics that would interfere. But there are other magics that might be drawn to you.’
She rose and walked to the open door, looking outside. ‘The power you felt – and I know you felt it – the slow one that moves in one direction is the Zekoi River and its god. I’ve been feeling the itch all day. He doesn’t always come this far north, but when he does, you know it.’ She leaned on the doorway. ‘And the other that nearly caught you must have been one of the lesser gods.’
‘Can they pass through the spells on the wall?’ Varice asked nervously. ‘I’m not sure I want to deal with any gods, ever.’
‘If they do, Master Cosmas will summon a group of us to deal with whichever god it is, be it hippopotamus, crocodile, hyena, snake.’ Dagani smiled. ‘You need not worry, my dear. This place has drawn magical beings for centuries, and we always manage to deal with them. Now, Arram will meditate for the rest of our time, to settle down, while you two will undertake our first lesson.’
At supper Arram was trying to create an image of the power he had seen for his friends when a runner tapped him on the shoulder. The image flew apart. Arram turned to glare at the older boy. ‘I almost had it!’ he snapped.
‘Shouldn’t use your power in the dining hall anyway,’ the runner informed him. He was chewing on a straw. ‘Cooks don’t like it.’ He shoved a folded note at Arram and wandered off. Fluttering her fan, Varice watched him leave.
‘Don’t tell me you admire that oaf,’ Ozorne scolded Varice as Arram unfolded the note. ‘I heard he goes into the city with his bully friends