My mouth hung open. The smaller of the men at the table was grinning at me. The larger – if only at the waist – raised an eyebrow at me, as if he was trying to gauge how much of a threat I might pose to them. Stravus, however, took my reaction in stride. He held his hand out a moment longer, then shrugged and pulled it back.
“I always thought shaking hands was too human anyway.” He looked down at his own hand, then back up at me. “I heard you gave the Pit Viper a fright yesterday. Spooked her so bad she had to follow you home.” He raised an eyebrow and looked at Baila. My eyes shot to her, then back to the High Mage.
Baila pulled her helmet off, revealing a wicked smile. “Well, I guess I could have just let him follow me down here, hope he wouldn’t sell us out to the nearest knight for a spin on some Terran AltReal ship.” She pulled a chair from the table, sitting in it and propping her feet on the glass table, ignoring the map that the men had been examining before we walked in.
“He got the jump on you,” the big man said. “He –“ the man held out his open hand toward me “ – got the jump on you?” The small man was giggling now like he just found out how Terrans reproduce. I hated being the butt of their joke.
“She got lucky, that’s all.” The words were quiet, barely even a whisper. The men stopped laughing, locked eyes with one another and stared across the table, both of them stone-faced. Then a flood gate of laughter was released. The small man laughed himself into a breathing fit. Sand lung. The rattle was unmistakable. The room fell into another silence after he caught his breath, this one lingering and awkward.
“Well, I think you’re full of shit.” Stravus let out a booming, infectious laugh. The other two joined in. Baila joined in. I don’t remember when I started laughing, but we all finally stopped and the tension from a moment earlier was not even a memory. “Viper says you know the work? Your Apa told me you showed the signs, but I never thought he would train you. Right under our noses, too.” He shook his gigantic head and looked me once over.
“I – I don’t know the bloodwork, sir. I was tested when I was ten spins in, with the needle and the feather, just like everyone.” It was the only ‘birthday’ our people celebrated. By ten spins around Alnilam, you had either attuned to the rhythms that allowed you to manipulate your blood, or you had to work at your family’s old toy store.
I sat in the center of the courtyard, sitting in view of the knights and the Priest of Boh’Gren. Most would be tested in front of the lord of your city, but Boh’Gren was not large enough to get the attention of our lord every time someone put a needle to their finger. The needle was white hot from the candle that it had been held over. It still felt warm as it broke the skin on my thumb. I fought the urge to wince at the feeling, managing to keep all but a soft gasp from escaping.
The drop of blood welled up, and I held it out like my Gr’apa had showed me. After I had showed the crowd, and gotten a nod from the priest, I wiped my blood onto a hawk’s feather and put all of my focus into making it do something, anything at all. My jaw felt like it would never loosen again. My whole body shook and my eyes were burning. After an eternity of the eyes of the town staring at me, I finally dropped the feather, and everyone clapped unenthusiastically except my Gr’apa, who was cheering as if I had just made the feather float through the air and set it neatly on the pillow at the priest’s feet.
The memory felt unremarkable to me. I had only ever seen two children do anything more than to shake and squint and scream. One boy actually had sent the feather through the air. It didn’t get anywhere close to the pillow that the priest had laid out, but it did shoot up into the air and explode, raining tiny bits of down onto the nearest observers.
The other stuck the feather in his own hat. He didn’t use blood work to accomplish this. He just stuck the feather in his hat, and said something about a Terran viewcast, and how it was supposed to be humor. He was the son of one of the wealthiest merchants in Boh’Gren, so he had access to all of the latest Terran tech and habits. Those of us that hoped to be his friend laughed, even though we didn’t know why it was funny.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The feather-capped boy runs his family’s store in the evenings now, and drinks the honeyed ale that comes from the nearest Terran settlement until he can’t stand and has to close up shop for the evening. I stopped buying imported Terran goods a long time ago, but there are plenty who think that the alliance with the Empire will lower prices and make more tech available to Altura.
“Anyone can pass that test. Or fail it.” Stravus shrugged his massive shoulders and smiled at me. “It is easy to make sure someone doesn’t pass, no matter how attuned they are. A more powerful blood mage could make sure the feather didn’t move. It’s how your family has kept from taking the Oath for generations.”
“But we’re - we’re just toymakers. We don’t fight.” Stravus and the others erupted into a new fit of laughter at this. “I mean it! The only person in my family who wasn’t a toymaker was my father, and he was a diplomat.” I hesitated, thinking of all I had learned about him recently. “At least, I thought that he was a diplomat.”
Baila broke through the laughter, staring straight through me. “Your father was one of the greatest blood mages of his generation. He was part of the delegation that went to Terra because he was not under oath to the king. He was one of only a few that could fight the Skyfallen after King Damaron offered the Terran Empire his protection. The Oath is powerful. The only thing that can break it without causing extreme pain is release by the king himself.”
Stravus looked at me intently now, nodding agreement to Baila. “The Sadie family has been one of our people’s greatest assets for as long as we have been on Altura. Maybe even before that, but we don’t have the histories from that far back. I had hoped that your grandfather would have shown you the way, but he refused to use blood magic so I am not surprised that he didn’t teach you anything. No matter, Baila will begin instructing you immediately.”
My head was swimming. I tried to form a question, but couldn’t decide which one to start with. What finally came out was, “Is my father still alive?”
The four exchanged sad gazes, and the large man spoke in hushed tones. “He was a damned good fighter, but he hated that he didn’t get to watch you grow up, get to train you himself.” His gaze sank to his shoes, and nobody else would meet my gaze.
Once we left the meeting room, Baila had given me some light robes to change into, then directed me to a large empty room with dark stains all over the walls and ceiling. There were a few weapons along the wall, and a Terran-shaped statue in the center of the room.
“You were able to use your blood magic to save yourself in the aftermath of the explosion. Do you remember how you did it?” She walked around the perimeter of the circular room, eyes staying on me the entire time.
“No. I remember feeling, but I don’t remember how I did it. It just... happened.” My face was warm with embarrassment. I didn’t have any idea how I had forced the stones off of my leg. I only knew that I didn’t want to die.
“Okay, but you remember the feeling, right? Being able to feel the stone from outside of your body?”
“Yes! I remember the feeling vividly. I could feel each groove and crag in the stone as if it was in my hand.” I got excited remembering the feeling. Baila asked me to focus on that feeling, then she reached out and slashed at my arm with a blade that she seemed to pull from thin air. I screamed as the blood rolled down my arm and onto the floor, jumping back away from the woman and her blade.
“Now, stop me.” She charged full-force then, her blade raised above her head. It swung down and I ran away, leaving a trail of blood in my wake.
“Do not run. Stand and defend yourself,” she shouted as she rushed me again. This time I tried to stand my ground, but lost my courage at the last second and jumped away. I was not fast enough, and the tip of the blade sliced through my leg. A few more attempts, and I was dripping blood from several wounds, leaving my own stains on the floor.
“Stand.” She swung again, her blade digging into my arm and hitting bone. Another scream reached my lips as my knees buckled and hit the hard floor. I thought she would stop, but she swung again. I lifted my arms up in front of me, closed my eyes, and swallowed hard, preparing for the blade to end me.
I felt the room now. Not just where my knees hit, but the entire room. Everywhere that my blood had hit, I could feel. It all rushed toward me and surrounded me. The blade hit, but it didn’t sink in this time. I opened my eyes to a world bathed in red. Baila’s grin was wide and devious. “Good, now let’s see how long you can keep it up!” She raised the blade again and brought it back down at me.