Doing a Bit of Magic Eavesdropping
Chapter Two
Welcome to The Children of Una series. Here’s a handy index of the published chapters.
In the last chapter, Danen Vinier worried what his father would think if he discovered he’d been playing hooky. Now, Danen’s at a point of no return and he’s feeling defiant.
With a jerk of his arm, Danen snapped the leather thong and stared down at the palm-sized amulet in his hand. When he spoke again his voice didn’t waver, and it wasn’t quiet. “I’ll see for myself what I’m capable of!”
Perching on the branch, Danen grasped a hand-hold overhead and reached out into the empty space before him. He opened his fingers, tilted his palm, and watched the amulet drop swift and silent through the thumb-shaped leaves of the oak. He heard the dull thud of it landing in the earth among the tree’s roots.
He ignored the nervous racing of his pulse, but he couldn’t keep his doubts at bay. What if Da finds out?
A comforting thought presented itself. His uncle was going to have charge of him now, as his father had painstakingly pointed out the night before. No one else could be as strict as Kalaran.
The trinket was hidden from sight far below. Danen knew it was too late to take it back, but it wasn’t too late to go home without doing anything risky. Leaning against the tree, he took stock of himself. It was odd not to feel the light weight of the necklace or the warm smoothness of the stone resting on his collarbone. But he didn’t feel any sudden rush of magical power, nor any threatening explosion of inhuman sensation. No magic spell came to mind; not that he’d have known how to cast one. Apparently, that hadn’t been a barrier to him spell-casting as a six-year-old, but he didn’t remember.
That struck him again as odd. What if his parents and Uncle had been wrong? What if there was nothing unusual or dangerous about him at all? Inhaling slowly through his nose, Danen closed his eyes and searched his awareness of himself. There was something different about how he felt.
It would be a pity to go home before making a decent attempt to find out what his magic could do. Damn the consequences, he might not get another chance like this anytime soon.
Eyes still closed, Danen thought about what he felt. It was similar to the moment after he dove into a lagoon and opened his eyes under the water. It took a second to adjust to the dimness and the sting of salt, but once his senses were attuned to the underwater realm, he could explore.
Sitting in the oak tree, Danen sent his senses inward. After about three breaths, he became aware of a part of him he’d never felt before. It was like a pocket of air trapped in an underwater cave, isolated unto itself entirely. When he paid attention to it, something began to seep outward from that inner space, providing a new perspective of the world around him. Danen realized he could almost see the tree he was sitting on! Its image was there in his memory, true, but it was also presenting itself to his senses in a new way.
Danen’s eyes blinked open in surprise. Laughter bubbled up from his chest. The tree was alive. He’d known that before, in theory. But now he felt its life, as though he were connected to the oak in some mysterious way. Was his magical ability providing the bridge of awareness he felt? He decided to test that theory by reaching out his hand, palm upwards. Looking into the branches overhead, he pushed his wish toward the tree’s life-essence. A heartbeat later a fat, green acorn fell into his waiting hand with a soft smack. Had a breeze blown it loose? Perhaps it wasn’t magic, only a coincidence, but it still left Danen feeling ridiculously pleased with himself.
Then the breeze did stir the oak’s branches and Danen caught sight of figures moving through the mountain pass. All those miles away, it was impossible to pick out many details, but he could tell by their pace they were on horseback. One of the party unfurled a tall standard — it looked like a white dot on a maroon pennant — and Danen knew at once to whom that crest belonged. The Royal house of Coblaine.
Danen wished he could see them clearly or perhaps hear what they said to each other. Then an idea occurred to him. A tantalizing, reckless sort of idea.
Like most children in a port city, Danen had grown up overhearing sailors swap wild tales and dubious rumors in the open marketplace. Some of their stories had been about mages and spell-casting. He knew communication spells were one practical use of the craft. Perhaps there was a spell for long-distance sight? Danen wondered if it would be a dangerous sort of magic to attempt on his own, but that didn’t stop him trying.
He sat focusing on his sight and hearing, willing his senses to extend further. Metal flashed in the sunlight; he fancied he could hear a clinking of chainmail at the same time. But the figures moving along the mountain road remained indistinct. He closed his eyes, wondering if focusing would help. His stillness lasted several minutes without any apparent change. Fearing defeat, Danen opened his eyes to try something else.
The sound of a man’s voice struck his ears, out of sync with the movement of the speaker’s lips, but as clear as if someone spoke near the base of his tree.
“ . . . Corundus, never fear. We are nearly there.”
Sourly, a bald man answered the speaker. “I know, your lordship. I’ve been to the Vinier estate before.”
The first speaker was an older man with a refined, hooked nose and piercing grey eyes. His mount was a grand charger who raised his feathered feet like he were on parade. The rider shot a sidelong glance at a lad Danen’s age who rode alongside him. They shared something in that look Danen did not understand. But their bald companion wasn’t finished complaining.
“I don’t know why you won’t travel south by water, High Mage. His Majesty would gladly lend you one of the royal caravels. By sea, the journey would take a mere ten days, if not fewer! We would not be forced to camp out of doors as we have been ever since we left the Marsh Lamp in our dust.”
“You know why I don’t take the easier route, Corundus,” the High Mage replied.
His uncle, Lord Lewison Coblaine, wasn’t at all what Danen had expected. His older sisters’ voices grew wistful when they spoke of his rare visits before Danen was born. Danen had thought Uncle Lew would be a charming, handsome, bookish sort of man; the kind of person Hannah and Eleah would admire for being smart and able to make good jokes. They’d both married men of that description.
Danen didn’t remember his uncle’s last visit a decade ago. But he wasn’t shocked his Uncle was tall and rode a spirited horse with ease. The impression his mother had given of her brother had prepared Danen for the High Mage’s noble carriage. She’d been anxious about his coming for months; eventually Danen intuited the source of her anxiety was her wish for her son to impress Lewison. Seeing him now, Danen suspected the man was not easily impressed.
When she’d told Danen he must be fitted for new clothes and brush up on his studies, he’d at first felt confusion. Why hadn’t his parents asked him if he wanted to be educated like a noble? He didn’t care about impressing his uncle that much. His studies included lessons on court politics, history, and formal composition. It had proven impossible for him to learn it all last minute, but his mother had insisted that some was better than none. He’d written it off as pointless busy-work while he counted down the days till Uncle Lew arrived and he’d be free to daydream of voyaging again.
Until last night.
Kalaran had informed him the Mage College was the only fitting place for someone with Danen’s unpredictable abilities. He’d been careful to emphasize students weren’t chosen for their potential. Training at the college was reserved for sons of nobles. Despite those facts, Danen would not only be given the high honor of becoming the High Mage’s acolyte, he would be thrust among people he had no business knowing. Kalaran expected his son to be appropriately grateful.
What will he expect of me? Danen wondered, studying the straight-backed old man.
When it came to the magical arts in Celandra, his uncle was at the top of the hierarchy. Lewison was the High Mage. Whatever had happened when Danen first cast a spell had been serious enough the High Mage had traveled all the way to Vinnegottera to attune Danen’s protective amulet himself.
“At least promise me we’ll stay long enough to heal our saddle sores.” The bald man was whining again. “Your sister sets her heart on your staying and every time you disappoint her. Let us linger, for her sake!”
Danen leaned forward, concentrating on his uncle’s annoyed expression. Was he going to agree? The breeze shifted.
Danen hadn’t realized he’d been leaning into it until the wind’s light pressure on his chest fell away. A fall from such a height would’ve been a far more immediate threat to his health than his foolish dabbling with spells he didn’t understand, though that was dangerous too. But with the luck of the young, he arched his back and clutched at the branches overhead, casually avoiding danger purely on instinct.
Once he’d regained his balance, he discovered the travelers had receded back into the distance. Whatever spell he’d been using to eavesdrop had evaporated with the summer wind. It was abruptly sticky, the still air suffocating. But that wasn’t the only heat he felt.
He lifted his hands, palms upwards. It had felt like currents of warmth were flowing through him, leaking out his toes and fingertips when the spell faded. Visually there was no indication of his having done anything out of the ordinary. But he wondered if his uncle would be able to sense the magic on him when they met. Even if he paid for it later, though, the experience had been worth it. Danen gave a screech of delight and swung down a couple branches in swift succession, howling like a monkey. His body was still vibrating with excitement when he dropped to the soft earth below the tree.
I cast a real spell!
It was easy.
He watched the standard-bearer ride ahead of the party at a swifter pace. In a few minutes, the rider would arrive at Vinnegottera and announce the party’s approach. A servant would be sent to fetch Danen from his study and his absence would be discovered before he had time to return through the window.
Danen placed his palm against the oak. “It’s no use worrying about what can’t be helped, is it?”
He plucked the amulet from where it had fallen amid tangled roots and moss. What would happen when his father learned about his experimentation no longer troubled him. Gripping the trinket in a tight fist, Danen gazed across the miles at his indistinct destiny.
“What Da thinks doesn’t matter anymore,” he declared.
And, he was right.