The Abjurer: Chapter 22-23

“It won’t be enough. I just ran through calculations of fighting her with your staff. It can do damage for sure, but it’s simply not got enough charges or power to let it keep up with her the entire battle.”

“Calculations?” I asked. As far as I was aware, there was no way to measure power so directly, and even if where were, none of them would factor in skill with using the power.

“They’re generalized, but Elderglass has a standardized unit for Aura with an average thirty percent error margin. It doesn’t account for skill, and I suppose I could be within that error margin or you could have a high level of skill and her a low one, but even if I am, then it’s still cutting it too close for comfort. Never rely on your enemy making a mistake.”

I added that into my list of things to research, though I didn’t know if I’d be able to find anything of that sort in Paerús.

“One thing you may not have accounted for is his defenses,” Osheen said. “Not only does his cloak provide defense, but the sword is attuned to work against Spring and Summer. On top of that, my scabbard provides a level of heat resistance.”

Garnet examined me again, taking in everything, before he nodded.

“I’ll contract a freelance fire fae to get you some experience against faerie fire magic,” he said. “That will have to be enough for your defenses. In terms of your offense, there’s not much I can do. I can offer you these, but that is all I can do.”

He reached into his cloak and removed three items. The first was a smooth ball of magic. It was little more than a drop of Autumnal power, but it would let me use it in a ritual I set up.

The second was a piece of petrified wood that radiated death and decay. It wasn’t as strong as the components I’d looted from the ritual chamber, but it was close.

The third was the most valuable of all of them.

It was a memory bank, clearly full to bursting with information.

“That contains all the knowledge about Constellations magic and Death magic that I can freely give to an ally,” Garnet said. “It will have to be enough. I do wish that I could give you more, for what it is worth.”

“Why don’t you?” Osheen asked. “You want to, and we’re allies.”

Garnet’s smile faltered, and he let out a slow, sad sigh.

“I am more powerful than most human Archmages. That’s true of many of the Fae Kings or Queens. But do you know why?”

It was a rhetorical question, because he stood and began to pace as he continued to speak.

“Limitations. A human Archmage can ply their power however they want. They can destroy, create, harm, heal. I cannot. I am only able to serve as a vassal for my court, and play within the rules of the Fae Sovereigns, the true ones, the absolutes like Medb.”

He smiled sadly.

“I’ll not bother you with my personal issues. Make good use of my gifts, as it’s all I can do. Perhaps you should seek out someone else from the Court of Air to get you an upgrade to your staff.”

With that, he swept out of the room.

I slumped in my chair and let out a long, slow sigh.

“So, do you have a plan?” Osheen asked. “You always have a plan. Usually, you have several.”

My mind churned as I closed my eyes.

“For right now, we just need to sleep,” I said. “I’m tired, and you’re tired.”

“Fine by me,” he said. “But if I can suggest something… Read the memory crystal while you sleep. It’ll layer better into your subconscious that way, and help when you actually review it.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes, really,” he said. “I never suggested you do it with the memory saber because it was a sword. Trying to sleep with one is a fool’s errand. But a crystal should be safe enough.”

That was interesting, and had me revising my plan somewhat. If I could unleash the memory spell to initially target people who were asleep, then actively play the memories while they were awake…

I pushed my thoughts for the future aside. They were wonderful and useful, but they weren’t going to help me win the duel.

Sleep, on the other hand, would. So, I crawled into bed with Osheen, clutching the crystal, and passed out.

I slept for a long, long time. The bed that Medb had provided was absurdly comfortable – I wasn’t sure how I was going to go back to sleeping in a normal bed after this party. I finally awoke to Osheen brushing his teeth in the bathroom.

“Wha’ time is it?” I asked sleepily.

“Late,” he said. “Almost lunch time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sleep this much, to be honest.”

“Mmm,” was my only response. I stayed in bed for a while longer before I finally dragged myself out and got ready.

“We should probably make a run to the buffet table for breakfast. Brunch? Lunch? One of them,” Osheen said.

“This time, we stick together. Holding hands, no separating at all.”

Osheen waggled his eyebrows at me, and I started to laugh. It wasn’t even that funny, I was just so stressed out that it felt like the greatest joke in the entire world in that moment.

We got ready and headed out.

“You know, I hope that you learned the cleaning spell that Garnet cast,” Osheen commented. “I know that it’s your defense, and basically armor, so I didn’t say anything, but your cloak was getting a bit… Rank.”

I decided to show him the upmost dignity of a Maestro, and so I stuck out my tongue at him. He laughed as we entered the ballroom.

Despite the joking, I was absurdly on edge as we headed in to get food. I flickered my cloak on, letting the precognition wash over me. It wasn’t perfect, but at least it was something.

But we weren’t attacked by anyone as we made our way to the food table.

Accosted, however, was a different story. Multiple Fae approached us, asking me to craft various items for them, and promising a wide range of payments. Some of them sounded pretty decent, and I would have seriously considered in more free circumstances, and others were so laughably terrible that I only responded with a ‘no’ and kept walking.

Even within my circumstances, I was tempted, but part of the issue was that most of them were offering me boons of power, spells, or effects. That was great, but I wasn’t a druid. My Aura was already stretched pretty thin as it was, between Oracle and the Ligature’s knot. Anything else would start messing with my ability to do ritual magic.

The Silver Queen had insinuated that I’d be a talented druid, but now wasn’t the time to completely shift my focus, and even if I did, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

We piled our plates with food, and I flagged down a Winter Court servant who was passing by with a tray of wine – or at least, I thought it was wine.

“Yes, Maestro?” the servant asked.

“Send a message to Awel Meddal, Queen of the Breeze, if you will,” I said. “Tell her that Evander, Emissary of the Silver Court wishes to speak with her.”

“Of course, sir,” the servant said as they whisked away.

A few more offers came through, but when it became apparent I was only taking payment up front, and would repay them in the future, they began to die down.

“Don’t you know that nobody’s going to take that deal?” a mermaid asked, suspended in a floating orb of water. “You’re going to be dead or enslaved soon, so why would we bother?”

“We’ll see,” Osheen said. “Evan’s craftier than you give him credit for.”

“Perhaps,” the Mermaid said as she drifted away.

A while later, Awel Meddal approached us, a smile on her face.

“Ah, hello Evan, hello Lord of Flame,” she said. “What can I help you with?”

“I need my staff upgraded,” I said.

“I believe the Court of Flesh may be a better choice there,” the Queen said delicately. Osheen let out a snort and choked on his toast. I whacked his back a few times until he was able to breathe again.

“Serves you right,” I said. “But no, I meant literally, my lightning staff. I need it to be more powerful.”

“Your upcoming match,” Awel said seriously.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s strong, but I need it to be stronger.”

“Stronger, or better?” she asked seriously. “A member of my court, Mellt, is a Lady of Lightning. Your staff already has a considerable reserve of power, but it’s used… Crudely.”

She held up a hand.

“Now I don’t blame you. You come from the Sealed Lands, you haven’t learned much about electricity. You should see the things that they’re doing with lightning in Elderglass.”

That was the second time I’d heard Elderglass referred to in a way that made it sound directly superior to Paerús. I wasn’t a nationalist, not after everything I’d learned, but a part of the old, instilled pride from grade school did still rise up and get insulted.

“If you think that Mellt would be able to help me construct a staff to be more efficient and useful, then I defer to your wisdom,” I said seriously. “You’ve done right by me. What would her help cost?”

“I’ll give you an hour of her assistance in reconstructing your staff in exchange for a sample of your Aura, to be used in crafting in my court,” she said.

“No deal,” I said. I liked this Queen, she seemed fairly kind and reasonable, but that would be worse than handing over blood.

“Oh, you’re no fun,” she said. “Fine, fine. How about in exchange for allowing me access to your knowledge of working with Autumnal magic?”

“Change magic,” I countered. “The Silver Queen uses that, and it’s exceptionally useful. You can’t tell me that something as protean and wild as the wind doesn’t have any aspects of change in it.”

She seemed to waffle back and forth for a moment, and then she nodded and extended her hand. I shook it, and I felt her smash through my mind bubble protections. She seemed to copy something from my mind, and then she smashed out again.

I shuddered. That had been supremely uncomfortable. But I didn’t lose much by doing it, so it was a worthwhile price.

“When would you like Mellt to assist you?” she asked. I glanced at Osheen and he shrugged.

“If she’s willing to do it in our ritual room, then she’s welcome to come as soon as we get back to them,” he said, and I nodded.

“As you wish,” the Queen of the Breeze said.

With that, we headed back to our rooms to find a tall, lanky woman with an arm made of a silvery metal standing outside.

“Heyheyhey!” she said excitedly. “You’retheonewhoI’mteachingaboutlightning?”

I stared at her.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I’m going to have to ask you to slow down. I didn’t really catch most of that.”

“You’re Evan Tailor, right?” she said more slowly. Her speech was strange, it was almost as if it was painful for her to speak so slowly.

“Yes,” I said.

“Okaygreat!” she said. “I’m here to teach you!”

“Please, enter,” Osheen said as he opened the door.

~~~

Mellt entered the room in a flash of lightning, and I followed her. She was already in the ritual room, plucking items off the shelves, and she’d placed my staff in the center of the ritual area.

“Great! The first thing you need to understand! Lightning isn’t just big bolts of heavenly wrath.”

“Okay,” I said. “I did know that. There are small bits of lightning that build up when you do something like rub your feet on carpet, or if fabric gets really clingy.”

“Yep, but why just small and large?” she asked.

“Because… That’s just how it is?” I asked. “What would medium lightning even look like?”

In response, Mellt held up her hand, and it was encased in a ball of lightning. She flashed forwards to punch me, and my cloak sparked to life. The lightning struck my cloak, but it was stopped, as if it was just an ordinary spell, and not a powerful lightning spell.

I stared at her.

“That was… weird,” I said. “How?”

“Your mortal magic describes reality, right, right, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“There is real medium lightning,” she said. “It’s just not seen much in nature.”

She held up a coil of copper and a stone.

“Do you know what a lodestone is?” she asked. When I nodded, she continued. “Great! So, if you change the magnetism that a lodestone produces around some wire, it actually creates a bit of electricity in the wire.”

“Wait, does that mean an earth mage or metal mage could create lightning?” I asked. “Since they can control lodestones or cast some magnetic spells and stuff?”

“Duh!” she said. “Not as good as me, though, I’m a lightning specialist. And while they can produce it, they can’t, like, aim it or anything.”

“Alright,” I said. “I buy that there are ways to produce lightning or electricity outside of the way that nature does.”

“Good,” she said. “Now your staff here. Why do you unleash all the power in a bolt all at once?”

I opened my mouth to respond, then shut it. After a moment’s thought, I spoke again.

“Because I didn’t know I could do a lower output.”

“Yeah, yeah!” she said. “Now you do. Let’s start working on some junk to lower the output. You’ve already got guiding magic in it, and that is a good start, but you can still miss. If we make it strike lightly at first, then release the full power when it’s actually hit? It’s good!”

“What if they get out of the way first?” I asked seriously. “Like, it hits them, and they move.”

“I think you underestimate how fast lightning is,” she said. “It’s, like, a third as fast as light itself is. It’s suuuuuppppeerrr fast.”

“You are the expert,” I said.

“Good! Let’s start wrecking this! You set up the spell while I lecture you more and more and more.”

While she talked about lightning, I chalked out some spells that would allow me to alter the spellcraft going on inside my staff. Thankfully, I didn’t have to alter the anchor or the power source, since those would mean altering the landglass, which I didn’t have time for.

When I was almost done, however, Mellt said something that caught my attention.

“But yeah, the bad thing is that like, against a prepared opponent, lightning is almost useless! Useless!”

“Wait, what?” I asked.

“Well, duh,” she said. “There are these spells, I don’t remember what mortals call them, but there’s a cage that works as the physical equivalent to them I think. Basically it’s just a mesh of magic that makes an outside bit of electricity to change the electricity in the spell or cage’s material to be distributed so that they cancel out! They’re like, super frustrating. There are ways to break them, but they’re also annoying to try and do. It’s part of why I’m trying to understand how to use wind and water magic too. Even if it resets me to Maestro of the Storm, I’ll be able to use other ways to attack.”

I stared at her.

“I could hug you,” I said.

She blinked twice, then shrugged.

“Okay? That’s fine I guess, if you want to. But moving on…”

“Hold on,” Osheen said. “My father’s spear. It infuses all of his attacks with lightning. It’s not the only reason he’s so deadly, but it’s a part of it.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Mellt, you’re an enchanter too, right? That’s why you were sent to help us.”

“Right-o!” she chirped happily. “Though I can only enchant lightning spells and stuff.”

“Can you make one of these… cage effects into an artifact?” I asked.

“Oh, sure, easily,” she said.

“I’d like to buy one,” I said. “You need a way to hurt people through these sorts of cages, right? I’ll make you a force artifact within a year and a day of the end of the party in exchange.”

“I don’t know,” she said doubtfully. “You’re gonna be enslaved to Spring soon. Do you have it now?”

“No,” I said.

“But how about this,” Osheen said. “You think he’s going to become a servant of Spring soon, right?”

“Yep!” she said, with far too much cheer.

“Then how about a wager. If he loses the duel, you get Evan’s cloak and other defensive artifacts. If he wins, you give us one of the defensive fields.”

Mellt looked at me, clearly waiting to see if I agreed with the wager.

For my part, I considered. If I lost, I was going to lose Osheen, and I’d owe the spring queen three favors. I didn’t know what I could do if I truly lost. Was throwing in my best work really worth anything at all compared to the risk of losing Osheen?

No. Not really.

“I agree,” I said.

“Okay!” she said, then stuck out her hand. We shook, and I felt the looming sense of dread intensify.

“Back to working on this?” I said, poking the staff.

She agreed, and we quickly set about working on it.

Even though she had to leave before I could implement most of the changes, the hour with the Lady of Lightning had given me more knowledge about lightning than I’d gotten in Yesgol in my entire time there.

I wasn’t sure if that spoke of her excellence, or if it spoke of Yesgol’s failure as a teaching institution.

Either way, her instruction had me reworking a lot of the assumptions that I’d made about the way lightning worked, and adding a lot into the spell. It took time – not in the charging, since I just slammed it with Aura from Medb’s castle, but in actually working out how to transcribe everything I learned onto the page in the language of either old Bradlewyr or that of ancient Paerús.

By the time I finished and let the spell begin to charge, it was already well past lunch. Osheen and I headed out to get more food, and then I worked my way through the memory crystal.

Just as Osheen had told me, having had it channeled into my mind while I was asleep made actually learning the content much easier. It felt like a review, rather than having to learn something for the first time.

Constellations magic was fascinating. It shared many things in common with change magic, but rather than guiding the changes, it was squarely in the realm of astral magic. It gave me a few ideas of how to use Oracle’s recharge better, and some ideas for ways to really empower my divination spells.

It could also even be used to help with the growth of my artifacts, if I used it right.

Of course, a memory crystal couldn’t bring me from neophyte to master in a couple of hours, but between it, the knowledge of change magic, and my leap in understanding of lighting, I was feeling more and more as if everything I’d been taught as Yesgol was merely a base.

There was an entire world of magic out there – no, not a world. There were worlds of magic out there, and I’d only scratched the surface of a few of them.

The death magic that was also contained in the crystal was a different matter. It didn’t have the depths of constellations magic, nor the depths of my own mortal rituals. It was, in essence, very simple. It exerted its will over the world to try and wear the opponent down, ruination of their flesh until nothing was left.

Really, almost all of the death magic in the crystal was almost entirely variations of the same spell. Instead of having a variety of tools, it was a single flexible tool.

It wasn’t… bad. But it reminded me a little too much of a sorcerer’s rune bond for me to properly love it.

But still, the core idea that it had, that was certainly useful, and with the death and decay components that Medb had given me, as well as the actually powerful one that I’d been provided by Garnet, I thought I had an idea.

My idea almost made me laugh, since I’d only learned about it because of Archmage Roark.

While I worked on all of my enchanting, Osheen did the same. He wasn’t a master enchanter or anything of the sort, and with his rune bond, he’d never be able to enchant anything other than flame spells.

But the Vernal court had domain over fire, thanks to their heavy connections to the sun.

With my guidance, Osheen was able to start working on building up some basic burners incredibly quickly. He’d already known some of the theory, just from watching me, and thanks to his own raw aura amount and recharge, he was able to build just as fast as I could with my connection to Medb’s castle.

During the three days before the duel, there was only one consistent break that we took, other than to eat.

To fly.

Sometimes, it was easy to forget just how amazing magic could be. After all, in many ways, I’d only seen the worst of magic. The weapons of war, the dark deeds of the nobility.

But when I activated the stream of wind, felt the crisp autumnal air swirl through my cloak, and lift me off my feet?

For the first time in a long time, probably since the first few days after my aura awoke, I felt the beauty of magic.

I let out a soft laugh that could uncharitably be called a giggle as I leaned forward, holding onto Osheen’s forearms.

His own phoenix wings were spread out behind him as he slowly guided us up into the air, and in the soft light of the fiery feathers, he looked stunning.

After a moment, we’d drifted several feet in the air, and Osheen kissed my cheek.

“I’m going to let go of your arms now,” he warned. “Be careful. You shouldn’t fall, but you could lose your balance.”

I nodded to him and slid back at the same time he did. With his stable strength no longer supporting me, my windstream did bob and shift slightly, but it wasn’t so bad that I completely lost balance.

I slid forwards, letting the air scoot me towards Osheen, who dropped like a stone. I let out a gasp, but his wings fared, and he was underneath me, then coming up from behind me, wrapping me in a hug.

Ah, yeah. He did have a third dimension to move in.

He let me go and drifted back, and I turned in the air to face him. I slightly over turned, though, which resulted in me spinning in a loop.

I threw my arms out to either side to help stabilize myself, then drifted upwards. Osheen rose to meet me, and I shot towards him with as much speed as I could manage.

In this case, my speed was more limited by my mind than the spell. The flight spell in the bracer was complex and powerful, as well as incredibly mana-efficient, and responsive to will.

Which was a fancy way to say that my will wasn’t sharp enough or convinced enough of my safety to commit fully to flying yet.

Osheen lazily spun above me and gently bonked me on the top of my head.

“Hey!” I protested, rubbing the top of my head. Osheen just grinned at me in return.

Oracle, in the air next to us, dove around with an elegance that put even Osheen to shame, and I let out a soft chuff.

Sadly, the power of my armband only lasted about fifteen minutes, and I was forced to land. Osheen landed next to me and frowned.

“With the limited time we have, I don’t think that you’ll be able to really get in shape to fully use flight in combat yet, but it could be a good trick to pull out in an emergency. A Queen of Spring will likely have some control over the air currents.”

I nodded my agreement, but before we left the practice room, I stopped Osheen.

“I want to graduate.”

Osheen turned back and looked at me, then tilted his head as if confused.

“What?”

“We’ve talked a lot about exposing the truth,” I said. “I will do that. I want to do that. Need to do that. But…”

I shook my head.

“The last semester, it… Hasn’t been fun. I haven’t been able to enjoy life. I’ve been rushing from one task to another, building up power as fast as I can, because I don’t have any other choice. At this party, I’ve just done more of the same. I… haven’t been with you.”

Osheen nodded quietly, before he eventually spoke.

“You haven’t. I haven’t either. I’ve been doing nothing but combat practice, day in and day out, because I know that I’m not good enough to stand up against an archmage. I don’t know if I ever will be. I… I think I’d like that. Our next semester, once we return to school, it can be… Normal. We can graduate, we’re both advanced enough to do that, and then we can figure out what comes next.”

I sagged in relief and wrapped Osheen in a tight hug. He hugged me back, and I kissed him on the chin.

When we did finally leave the practice room, we found a presence that was not entirely unexpected, nor entirely welcome.

~~~

Lord Luis Draven waited for us outside the door. He was dressed in even finer clothes than normal, and he leaned on his cane, just as he always did, smiling at us with his all-too-predatory teeth.

“I must commend you, Evan,” he said as we exited. “I admit, I’d kept my eye on you. The Flames of Fate burn brightly around you, and I do think I was the first to notice that. But you’ve gathered quite the little hubbub at our dear hostess’ party.”

“Draven,” I said with a sigh. “What do you want?”

“I want to help,” Draven said.

He sounded… serious.

I didn’t trust it.

“Why? You’ve got a Silver Fae familiar, but you’ve hardly sworn allegiance to the Silver Queen. I’m here as her emissary.”

“Yes, I did notice that. So uncouth of the Vernal Court, to attack a lowly group like the Silver Court. Why, they could only scrounge up two ambassadors. And humans, at that!”

“Get to the point,” Osheen said, his tone shorter and less respectful with Draven than I’d ever heard him before.

“My my, you have grown,” Draven teased. His eyes suddenly shone blood red, and then he was gone. He rose out of the shadows behind us, a hand on each of our shoulders. It applied a crushing pressure on us, so much that it triggered my cloak, and Osheen channeled his force armor tattoos.

“I said I wanted to help, and I meant it,” Draven said, his grip slowly relaxing as he strolled forwards. “Evan... Have you figured out the secret of my cane yet?”

I blinked. The… What?

“I recognize that its voidtree,” Osheen said. “It had to have cost you a fortune. I always assumed there was an enchanted blade or something inside of it.”

“Correct, my dear boy!” Draven said. He reached down and twisted the cane. The silver tip and black wood fell apart until he held a thin, slender rapier, covered in runes.

A familiar, cramped style of runes.

A style that hung around my neck, even now.

“Rowan’s sword,” I said, taking in a sharp inhale.

“Indeed, your adoptive mother’s blade. I’ve heard that you intended to give your blade to our lovely hostess after your duel, and I thought that you could use a new blade to replace it. Of course, you’re no swordsman, nor do you have the aura to power its enchantments for more than a few seconds. But Osheen… You need an archmage’s weapon to kill an archmage.”

Draven tossed the sword in the air and caught it by its blade, then extended the hilt out to him.

“If you accept my offer, then it’s yours. It’s a good blade.”

He rolled his foot over the fallen cane, kicked it into the air, and slid the sword back in.

“And Evan… Your three-by-five defensive cloak is impressive, even by my standards. Rowan would be proud. Your staff has some serious offensive punch, too. But tell me, can you access Zheren, to speak to your allies.”

“Yes,” I said. It was true, in a sense. I could speak to my allies in Zheren. Just not get there physically.

For the first time, Draven seemed a little bit thrown off by that.

“Well, you are prepared, then,” he said, a small smile crossing his face. “And I assume you’ve already found an artifact capable of allowing you to create simulacra? You have seen other archmages doing as much, as of yet.”

I paused. I hadn’t actually considered that kind of artifact. I knew only the most rudimentary details about them – my knowledge of sympathetic magic more or less stopped at using it to fuse effects within a spell.

“No,” I admitted.

Draven removed a jewel from his pocket. It was an Aura storage crystal, but instead of being made of quartz, it looked to be grown from a ruby. It was covered in tiny runes in a spell language I didn’t even remotely recognize, and strange gold-white light pulsed through a few of them

“This is an artifact that burns itself out after a single use. It creates a simulacra that is all but identical to you, down to the flesh, bone, blood, and body, and allows you to remotely pilot it for an hour. If you were to take it into battle, it could save your in your duel against the Queen of Spring. Or, perhaps, against an archmage.”

“And what do you want, in exchange for these gifts?” Osheen asked.

“I’ve heard traces of what you two want. Seen it in your eyes.”

Draven’s face grew serious.

“I can’t say I agree with what you’re doing, but on the political side… Paerús is dying. Our isolationist policies pushed by the old nobility has caused the wealth divide to grow extreme to the point of destruction. Our imports and foreign relations are growing, but too slowly to support us. There’s still a substantial portion of the council upset we’re negotiating, believing we should conquer Zheren and use it as a stepping stone to take control of the entire top half of the continent.”

“And you don’t side with them?” I asked, suspiciously.

“Of course not,” Draven said. “I support what keeps me in power, and that’s going to lead to collapse. I saw what happened in Tracktath, when they tried to expand south and north.”

I stared blankly at Draven, and he waved his head.

“This was in the days before the war with Bradlewyr, when I was a child. Your adoptive father likely remembers, but few other than the very old do.”

“Okay,” I said. “So… What? You approve of us? And that’s enough to make you want to give us free stuff?”

“Hardly,” Draven said, snorting. “I approve of change. I know that Eira Talik and Zachary Dormer want the same. More, like Chantal and Byron, are ambivalent. But most, like the Roarks, Heenlings, Elide, Hasting, and Castor, like things the way they are.”

“You keep rambling, but not telling us what you want,” Osheen pointed out.

“I want to make sure I’m standing with Talik and Dormer, when the time comes,” Draven said, leaning forwards. “You’re hardly the first to try and change things, and I doubt you’ll succeed. But on the off chance you will… I won’t stand in your way. I may even help you. But I want a seat at the table, when the dust settles.”

I felt a sense of revulsion at Draven. This man was willing to sell out his own country for his personal power?

I wasn’t a patriot, not after all I’d seen and learned, but even for me that felt sleazy. He didn’t care that people were being crushed, just that he’d keep his position.

But as much as I hated to admit it… making an enemy of him was far worse.

I shared a look with Osheen, who then turned to look at Draven.

“Nothing in direct rulership,” Osheen said. “You won’t be the new king, or chancellor, or whatever. You’ll be able to keep whatever fortune you have, but not scrabble for more.”

“Special tax and legal exemptions if I help,” Draven countered.

They devolved into negotiation then, going over the specifics of what Draven could and couldn’t do. It mostly flew over my head, but after a solid thirty minutes, Draven handed over the cane and the jewel.

“Put a drop of blood on the jewel,” Draven said. “That will bind the sympathetic link. I wish you both luck in your duels.”

With that, he vanished into thin air.

I used a dagger and did as he said, then looked at Osheen.

“I feel like we just signed a deal with a devil,” I said.

“Me too,” Osheen admitted. “But… I think we need his support. He’s too old and too well known in the power circles.”

“Still…” I said as I began walking back to my room.

“I know,” Osheen grimaced.

Before I knew it, the time for the duel had arrived. That morning, my stomach was churning far, far worse than it ever had in any of my previous tournaments. I honestly couldn’t think of a time where I’d felt more sick.

Osheen was looking nervous too, though he tried to hide it as we headed to the arena.

I half expected for someone or something to ambush us on the way there, for them to have paid off another small court to attack us, but nothing came.

A winter court attendant ushered Osheen to a collection room, despite my protests, and another led me to a small room that resembled a human locker room to get ready.

Inside, I saw a tall bear of a man leaning against the doorway out.

"Seth?" I asked, blinking.

"Evan," he said, greeting me and stepping over to shake my hand. "You've gotten yourself in quite a pickle, haven't you?"

"It was necessary," I said. "I didn't have a choice."

"We rarely do," he said, shaking his head sadly. "But choice is fundamental to human nature. The choices you make dictate more than you know."

He let out a slow sigh.

"I cannot give you any power. Your aura is already close to degrading into that of an Fae focused Druid's already, anything I gave you would permanently corrupt your ability to enchant with purely mortal magic. And I'm not wealthy enough to collect magical artifacts and give them away."

I nodded silently, and his hand fell and gently squeezed my shoulder.

"Win."

He really was awful at motivational speeches.

Then Seth turned and pushed me out the door and into the dueling ring.

The world around me fell away as I stepped out. Distantly I was aware of people in the crowd, of monsters and more making bets.

But my main focus was on the Faerie Queen already in the arena.

"So, the court of wayward children has arrived!" she shouted.

In that moment, something clicked.

"I don't care," I said, thinking out loud.

She glared at me, pride burning in her eyes.

I didn't care about her. She'd taken Osheen because of her politics, and that did upset me. I'd beat her.

But I didn't want or need or care enough for a blood fued with the Vernal Court. If that's what the Silver Queen wanted, she could do it.

No. My battle was with Archmage Roark. With the brutal system that crushed people.

I didn't know how I'd fight it.

But this Faerie Queen, for all her power, was just a stepping stone.

Then the gong rang, and the battle began, Oracle swooping upwards, far overhead, and out of the way of the battle.

I snapped a wand off my belt and aimed it at her, releasing the spell and dropping the wand.

It was a simple fire spear that Osheen had enchanted for me.

The Queen's natural defenses caused the flames to simply slide off, like a duck shedding water, and she launched towards me on a current of spring winds.

"Is that the best a Maestro of Defense and Master of Curses can do?!" she called, laughing.

She was in front of me then, slicing at me with a root-whip. I engaged my cloak for just a second, used its speed to rush in even closer…

Then tapped her with a gloved hand.

During my very first year at Yesgol, I'd nearly died by attaching a spell to the bridge between my soul and body, my lifeline.

During my second year, I'd learned how the same aspect could be ripped out of someone and made to form an aura-spark.

During that same year, I’d seen how an artifact could be modified to discharge all of its power in a single, massive strike, and I’d dismissed it as wasteful.

And during my third year, I'd been handed the knowledge of Faerie death magic.

And now?

Now, a human spell designed to drain and tear away pieces of her lifeline was coupled with death magic meant to scour her into nothing, imparted onto a cheap cloth glove, empowered by the single great component that Garnet had traded me, modified to release a single massive strike of power.

The glove turned to ash in an instant, and the faerie was thrown back with a violent spasm.

For a second, I thought that I’d managed to end it with a single strike. It was plausible, after all.

“I call upon the boon owed to me by my Vernal King,” the body croaked as it died. Viridian light swirled around her as something in her Aura popped and her lifeline began to heal.

I didn’t waste time. I lowered my staff at her and unleashed a bolt of lightning, then another, and another.

By the time my fifth bolt of lightning struck, she was standing, overflowing with a life power that regenerated her wounds faster than I could deal them.

“You know,” she said, flexing her hands. “Up until now, I just didn’t like you because you were a splinter of my enemies. But now? I’m going to break you.”

I didn’t know why she was monologuing. That felt like a terrible choice, at least to me. But I used the time to raise my knife and release a flash spell at her, followed by paralysis spells.

She caught the light and shadow in her hands, tearing them apart, and used a flicker of her root whip to slice the paralysis spells out of the air.

She stomped her foot and fire erupted out of the earth, spinning around me, but between my cloak and Osheen’s scabbard, I simply caught the spell and sent it flying back at her, untouched by the heat.

She’d used the flames to prepare another spell, but had to drop it as she was forced to dismiss the fire.

Using the opportunity, I used the burst of speed in my cloak to move, then vanished from sight.

The viridian light around her was dropping slightly, but not fast enough. She’d heal from any wound while the light was around her, if my guess as to the boon she’d called on was right, so I just had to wait it out.

The Queen leapt into the air, her dress fluttering wildly as she called on winds.

“There you are!” she snarled, and my eyes widened.

She had enough control of the winds to sense where I was based on the movements from her flight spell? That was… Troubling.

She clapped, and roots erupted out of the earth beneath me. I flared my ward, but for the first time, an attack broke through them. I quickly fixed it as the growth pattern of my cloak adapted to the magic.

Too slowly.

With a grunt, I unsheathed the blade I’d created, but had yet to use in real battle.

If nothing else, this would at least improve its ability for when I gifted it to Medb.

The air hummed with a silver light, and I drove it into the roots.

The blade's humming intensified as it scanned the spell structure and began to slowly break it apart.

If it had been a tool of merely mortal magic, then it wouldn't have worked fast enough.

But it wasn't.

The blade combined a spell stolen from an archmage's secret weapon with the power of a Queen of Fae, tempered to be used against Spring and Summer.

With a roar, I ripped the sword through the roots. They shattered, the spell structure that kept them in place breaking down.

"How?!" the Spring Queen demanded.

She wasn't a neophyte, though. Even as I'd been dealing with the roots, she'd been building a spell overhead, twisting and shaping an immense amount of fire, enough to fill an entire lake.

She made a smacking motion with her palm, and the fire condensed into an orb merely the size of a covered wagon, and it slammed down at me.

And I laughed.

The spell she was using wasn't exactly identical to Osheen's immolation spell, but it was very close. As close as Faerie magic got to human, in fact.

The scabbard glowed as its defenses against heat held, and I flared out my cloak, taking control of the spell, disassembling it and making it mine.

Then I unleashed the same Vernal Immolation spell on her, reflecting its power and adding some of my own.

Her defenses against flame were excellent, but she still had to weave new magic around her to protect her.

I thrust my new staff into the air, ozone filling my nose as lightning smashed into her, burning her, and breaking apart her defenses. She spasmed and fell, the wispy edges of her spell burning her.

When she hit the ground, the green light around her flared brightly once more, and then vanished completely.

I was panting, but I leveled my staff and let out another bolt of lightning.

She was ready for it this time, though. She spun up a spring thunderstorm around her hands, caught the bolt, and threw it back at me.

I caught it with my own cloak, then redirected it with almost no loss of power – my cloak had experienced my lightning more than enough times, after all.

The rain of lightning bolts that emerged from the cloud a moment later, I had a much harder time dealing with.

I zipped away, using the speed as best I could, then flared my ward around me, and the Spring Queen floated upwards, allowing her bolts to pour endlessly on me.

As the bolts hammered down on the ward, cracking it, and the cloak worked overtime drawing in new power to fix the ward, I waited, clutching the sword tightly.

Then I thrust it into the air and activated its enchantments.

The timing here had to be perfect. Lightning would draw itself to metal, after all, and I wanted that, to be able to catch and reflect it.

But if my will was too slow, I'd just wind up frying myself, and then I'd really put my defenses to the test.

More than that, the wards on my cloak were good, but they weren't able to hold up against a continual assault from lightning. If I waited too long, then I'd end up pasted either way.

I may have triggered the blade too early to have it operate at maximum efficiency – I had no way of knowing, not with the speed of lightning – but better too early than too late.

The lighting spells broke, then reformed under my control.

I dropped my ward, activated my arm bracer, and spent all of the power left in the cloak on a single surge of speed.

Through the air.

Carried on an autumnal flight spell, I moved blindingly fast, flickering through the air like a wind spirit, then slammed the silvery sword into the Faerie Queen's chest.

And discharged all of the lightning I'd taken under my control.