Stray Magic Read online

  There were water fountains dotted around the perimeter of the field. They were formed from rock, and water bubbled out of them when you pressed a blue tile. Chen and I both got a drink. He held the bottom of his shirt to the cut beneath his eye so that he didn’t bleed into the fountain.

  A goblin tsked. She had blue skin that looked as if she’d rolled in blueberries, a flat nose in a round face, and purple hair. “Healers’ tent, young man.”

  “No. He is to fight,” Marton said. “Lajos’s orders.”

  The goblin’s glare should have incinerated Marton. She reached up a hand, not quite touching Chen’s face, and murmured an incomprehensible phrase. We were over the two minutes Lajos had given us, but Marton waited as the cut beneath Chen’s eye healed. With a final scowl at Marton, the goblin passed on to her next patient.

  Her actions distracted me. If I had to be a familiar, I hoped I was matched with someone like her; someone strong in healing magic and capable of standing up to bullies.

  “Begin,” Marton said.

  Chen and I simply stood and eyed each other.

  Marton clacked his beak.

  Chen and I moved into a staged fight. His kung fu and my karate forms had both been modified by street brawling, but the feel of our fight was that of an exhibition match. There was an exhilaration to it, that of knowing that you could do your worst and your opponent could match you. I grinned at him as I rolled up from the fall he’d flipped me into. The answering gleam in his eyes said he wasn’t intending to hurt me, either.

  The second time he flipped me, he followed through and rested a bladed hand at my throat.

  I tapped the ground, signaling that I yielded.

  Chen stepped back and bowed.

  “Honorable behavior,” Marton said. “Showing mercy to a lesser opponent.”

  I was too out of breath to laugh, but Chen’s expression of incredulity flattered me. He didn’t consider me lesser. Our eyes met. We both nodded, and resumed fighting.

  Digger and my other senseis had taught me better than to let Marton’s dismissal of me distract me via anger. Chen and I clashed in a flurry of blows—and froze.

  The freezing was not by our choice. I struggled to move, but couldn’t even blink. My body was no longer answering to me.

  The stasis power vanished, and Chen and I acted instinctively. We spun to stand back to back, ready to fight the unknown enemy.

  “Now, that is interesting,” Lajos said. “Opponents to allies.” Presumably it had been him who’d frozen us. “You two are dismissed until dinnertime. Lessons will resume after the meal.”

  A shiver started deep inside me and wracked my body. I’d never experienced an anxiety attack before, and I had no wish to start, now. I gritted my teeth. “Thanks for having my back,” I said to Chen.

  He bowed fractionally. Either he was less freaked than I was, or he had better self-control.

  At any rate, I had done what I could not to burn bridges with an ally. Before a second shiver could shake me, I ran off. I needed to exhaust the adrenaline coursing through my body. I didn’t trust the forest, so I ran the length of the field. I would run up and back until I’d driven out the fear that possessed me.

  To lose control of my body to a Faerene was petrifying.

  Chapter 8

  Istvan stood in the shade of the forest with Tineke and Koos, a female elf and a male werewolf, both prospective matches for the familiar candidates.

  “Lajos is an idiot,” Tineke snapped. She’d been observing the humans’ fights with her arms folded and an unimpressed expression on her narrow face. However, when Lajos had frozen two combatants mid-bout, her left foot started tapping. “Now this. This is what we did not need. They are back to back, allied against a greater danger, and that greater danger in their minds is us! We need to win their trust.”

  “Healers like Viola are doing so,” Istvan pointed out.

  “Bah.” Tineke added an expletive to Lajos’s name.

  Lajos turned to stare at them.

  Tineke gestured a rude, sexual suggestion at him.

  He took a step toward the trio, then his shoulders slumped.

  “Slime kisser,” Tineke hissed.

  “Give the man a break.” Koos leaned against a pine tree, unconcerned by Tineke’s anger and unbothered by the sap oozing stickily onto his shirt. “He’s just the puppet of the Fae Council. The trials are their idea, fueled by the scholars’ deductions from the old myths about familiars.”

  “Then they’re idiots, too.” Tineke’s ears flushed a darker green, a rare sign of rage in an elf. “The humans on Earth are reduced to a seventh of the population they had when the Rift opened. You were working on the Rift, but I was out there.” She flung out an arm. “I witnessed their suffering. Do you know what some call it? The Faerene Apocalypse. Lajos does not need to give the familiars further reason to hate and fear us.”

  Istvan shifted uneasily. He’d been focused on defending and sealing the Rift. Then he’d justified taking a break in Patagonia, from which retreat Piros had harassed him out to the trials. What Istvan hadn’t given attention to was the burden the Reclamation Team had been under, and still carried. Magicians like Tineke cast the spells that returned human technology to the earth, breaking it down safely so that natural cycles of birth, growth, death and decay could resume. By doing so, they strengthened the Earth’s shield. The Reclamation Team’s work had been essential to sealing the Rift. Evidently, the work had also placed an immense emotional burden on the team members.

  “Thank you for your work, Tineke,” he said.

  The elf switched from glaring at Lajos to glaring at Istvan. Slowly, the dark green flush to her ears faded. “The humans are hurting, Istvan. On Elysium it was easier to concentrate on the damage they had done to their world and to accept the theoretical idea of the price they’d pay for restoring the natural balance. But I have learned the difference between theory and reality. These are people and I have cried with them.” From an elven warrior, the admission of tears was significant.

  “They are not all good,” Koos said. “The trials have to sort out those we can trust as familiars and those who would use the opportunity provided by partnering with us to either hurt or exploit us. I witnessed humans turn on humans with the savagery of rabid beasts.”

  Koos was another Reclamation Team member. His experience had equal weight with Tineke’s.

  As a magistrate, Istvan was accustomed to judging testimony. Both of his companions spoke the truth. It was their emotional reactions to their shared experience that varied.

  He made a mental note to acquire copies of the reports for his territory. The trauma the humans within it had suffered through the last few months since the Rift opened would impact their behavior going forward. Most importantly, from his perspective, it would affect their interactions with the Faerene who’d been assigned land and rights within the borders of his territory.

  Perhaps the trials would serve a useful purpose for him beyond acquiring a familiar—an advantage about which he harbored reservations. He could use the trials to observe how humans interacted with the Faerene. It might be that the trials provided a microcosm for Earth’s immediate future.

  No one had ever expected that building a society that blended the Faerene and humans would be easy.

  “Tell me, Koos,” Tineke began, her tone pure challenge. “If the human woman that Lajos just subdued with a stasis spell had been one of your pack, what would you have done?”

  Koos came forward, straightening as he did so. His lazy slouch had transformed instantly into one of menace. Unlike Rory, who’d migrated with lone wolf status, Koos had crossed the Rift as part of the largest of the seven werewolf packs. “No elf would attack—” He broke off. When he resumed, his tone was thoughtful. “No elf would attack a werewolf in such a manner. They certainly wouldn’t interfere in one of our fights.”

  Tineke wasn’t above rubbing in the lesson. “And yet, you found nothing wrong with Lajos attacking a human
woman in such a way. Isn’t she the woman Rory flirted with? What would have happened if he’d seen Lajos’s attack?”

  A growl rumbled in Koos’s chest. Werewolves protected all their packmates, but women and children came first.

  Istvan intervened. “Rory has more discipline than to interfere in a training exercise.” Nonetheless, the griffin looked toward the western end of the field. It was fortunate that as a tutor Rory had been fully occupied supervising six fights.

  Of the one hundred humans brought to the trials, fourteen had channeled magic for fighting purposes, and only three of them had primarily used the magic defensively. Two of the fourteen fighters had chosen to die rather than live as a familiar. The remaining twelve fought one another in six separate fights. Injuries had whittle the fights down to two.

  Almost everyone else on the field had ceased fighting. People emerged from the healers’ tent, moving with greater energy than those who’d avoided requiring the healers’ services. Istvan suspected that the healers had done more than heal new injuries. They were compulsive meddlers. They would have healed underlying conditions in their patients, as well.

  Which prompted a new question. Why hadn’t all the humans been passed through the healers’ tent on their arrival at the trials?

  Istvan ruffled his feathers, momentarily inclined to join Tineke in her impatience with whatever schemes the Fae Council had weaving through the trials. People shouldn’t be left in pain when a remedy was at hand.

  As Rory dismissed the last of his fighters, Istvan scanned the field. The human woman, Amy, had vanished.

  “I need to hunt my dinner,” Istvan said to his companions.

  Tineke nodded impatiently. She watched Lajos as a hawk might watch a mouse. She no doubt intended to pounce on the man and berate him.

  Istvan hesitated. They’d been warned repeatedly that the first year of a migration was the most stressful. And that was without the complication of familiars emerging in the indigenous population. Tineke would be unwise to interfere with the Fae Council’s plans.

  “I will go with her,” Koos said.

  The werewolf’s promise shocked Istvan. The griffin had forgotten that just as he observed others, they watched him. Koos had read, and arguably shared, Istvan’s concern that Tineke would stir up trouble for herself. In the absence of others of his pack at the trials, Koos had protective instincts to spare.

  Istvan nodded his thanks.

  “I can look after myself,” Tineke said. “Adopt some of the humans, wolf, if you must fuss over someone.”

  Koos merely shrugged. “Adopting humans would interfere with the Council’s plan to partner each with a magician. I don’t want to cross the Council.”

  “Huh.” Tineke, all too evidently, felt otherwise.

  Koos grinned faintly. Werewolves enjoyed trouble and found humor in the strangest entanglements.

  More rational, or arguably, less adventurous, Istvan left them to find whatever trouble they chose. It wasn’t simply dinner he sought as he winged northward, passing through the barrier that contained the erratic magic of the humans gathered at the trials. Istvan wished to explore a little of his new territory.

  The Pontic Mountains had been chosen as the site for the trials on the basis that it was magically stable and would be able to sustain the chaos of a hundred untutored magic users congregating together.

  The Black Sea lay to the north of them, and at the northern edge of it began Istvan’s territory. As magistrate, he’d be responsible for what humans two centuries ago had called the Russian Empire, plus Mongolia and Japan. He’d researched them back on Elysium and understood their geography, but what changes the past few months had wrought on the people and land he had yet to discover.

  He knew which Faerene were settling where. The orcs were excited to have the Siberian tundra. They loved the cold of its winters and the vastness of the space. Although, with the death of the majority of humans, space in the sense of uninhabited land, was now readily discoverable. In fact, managing the safe, prosperous spread of Faerene around the planet would be one of the challenges of the first few years Post-Migration. Individual Faerene weren’t bound to the land assigned to them while on Elysium. Here, things had to be different, but the realities of life on Earth required flexibility.

  For magistrates such as Istvan, part of the challenge would be to balance flexibility with the need to build stable communities, and blended ones at that. Faerene and humans. Initially, Faerene would take the lead. They had to because they understood the risks involved if anything weakened the shield. None of them wanted a second Rift opening. Humans had little to no understanding of the danger they’d all been in.

  Tineke’s impassioned defense of the humans’ suffering recurred to him. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to convince the human survivors that the Faerene had acted for humanity’s survival when allowing, and in truth, encouraging, the annihilation of so many. Seen in that light, the behavior of the familiar candidates was outstandingly tolerant. Or else, they were deeply traumatized, terrified and cowed into compliance.

  For a magistrate as committed to justice as Istvan, the latter idea was an unacceptable situation. He would investigate. If he didn’t like what he found, Tineke would have a recruit for her cause.

  Below him, a fish splashed as it approached the surface of the sea that glittered in the evening light. Istvan entered a dive, capturing not that fish, but one near it. His long beak lacked the handsome lines of his brother’s and cousins’, but it was admirably suited to fishing.

  He swallowed the fish, enjoying the slippery slide of it down his gullet. The water was fresh, with a touch of salt. The fish was a good appetizer, but what he hungered for was real meat. He wanted to tear into a carcass with the blood still hot from the chase.

  Istvan angled east, in search of deer.

  Chapter 9

  The Faerene, apparently, didn’t abide by their own rules.

  After I’d run myself to exhaustion, I walked till I’d cooled down, then collected my soap, wash cloth, towel and clean clothes, and went to stand in line for a shower. The bathing facilities were strictly separated by gender, but when a female elf strode up to the women’s line, a man trailed in her wake.

  She stopped beside me. “I’m Tineke.”

  “Amy.”

  “I’m Koos,” the man said. “Werewolf.”

  I glanced at him with new interest. He was lightly shorter but about as wide as Rory. His skin was much darker than the only other werewolf I’d met. His hair was cut short, rather than allowed to curl, and was ash blond. His eyes were a similar gray shade of hazel to Rory’s.

  “How did you feel when Lajos hit you with that stasis spell?” Tineke demanded.

  So far all the elves I’d encountered could be described as slender, and Tineke met that profile. Slender, however, didn’t equate to weak. There was a toughness to Tineke, and a sense of barely restrained emotion.

  I compressed my lips. I didn’t like the reminder of my earlier helplessness, nor did I want to answer Tineke.

  The other women standing in line for the shower had edged away from us, reforming the line without me. But they watched.

  “Please, be honest,” Tineke prompted. “What Lajos did was wrong. Magicians should not use such violent spells of restraint on innocent people.”

  My lips parted on an involuntary gust of relief and hope. “I was scared,” I confessed in an under voice.

  Koos moved, placing his stocky body between me and the bulk of our audience.

  Tineke laid a tentative hand on my arm. Her fingers were a delicate pale shade of green, the nails clear and neatly tended. “If you would register a protest, we can get Lajos censured for his action and prevent this happening to another candidate.”

  I studied Tineke’s earnest expression. My instinct was that she meant every word, and that she was a crusader. I wasn’t sure I liked being picked as a cause, or what the consequences might be if I challenged the actions of the elf
running the trials.

  I looked at Koos for his opinion.

  “A protest has to be registered by the person affected for a magistrate to pay it heed,” he explained, but he didn’t hint whether I should or shouldn’t lodge one. But if he didn’t agree that I should, would he be here with Tineke?

  “Would Magistrate Istvan judge the case?” I asked. My complete ignorance of the Faerene legal system had me at a disadvantage.

  “No, Istvan is here to find a familiar, as are Koos and I. The magistrate would be Rens.”

  Tineke’s response didn’t help me much. I frowned. “Tineke, as frightening as feeling trapped in my body was, I just want to survive the trials and go home.”

  Her eager, determined expression pinched.

  My stomach felt as if I’d swallowed a cannonball. “Tineke, we can go home, can’t we?” Dorotta had said it would depend on the magician I was matched with, but now that I was at the trials, I wanted a definite answer. I wanted a promise.

  “It will depend on the situation,” Koos said. “I do not approve. Werewolves understand the importance of pack, of family and belonging. But other Faerene, those that dominate the Council, have stupid ideals of our duty to a greater good.”

  “So, what are they sacrificing?” I asked bitterly.

  Tineke rubbed my arm. “Two of the Council died holding the Rift.” She sounded sad rather than chiding.

  I sighed. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to get any deeper into this mess. I won’t register a protest against Lajos—this time. If he does it again, who do I speak to?”

  Tineke brightened. “Find me or Koos or Istvan.”

  I flinched.

  “You fear the magistrate?” Tineke exclaimed, shocked. “Oh no, he is the best of magistrates. A truly fair and fearless judge.”

  “But is he kind?” I asked.

  Koos snorted. “You are a wise woman. There is a difference between justice and mercy. But as harsh as Istvan may appear, you can trust him.” The werewolf looked at the remaining human women. The line had substantially shortened as everyone hurried to shower and escape the presence of the two intense Faerene talking with me. “Tineke, we need to leave the woman to be about her business.”