Warrior Mage (Book 1) (3 page)

“They were for Arayevo,” Yanko whispered, and he had only written poetry one time, that was it. He’d had too many outdoor hobbies as a boy to spend time inside with quill to paper. Too bad. If he had actually finished any of those poems and handed them to Arayevo, she might have realized how he felt about her and stayed.

Yanko slumped, feeling the weariness in his limbs now that his muscles had cooled and the obstacle course was past. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not that the next test would be purely mental.

Mishnal surprised him by patting his shoulder. “I know you’ve been studying fire these last months. You’ll do well.”

“Thank you, Honored Uncle.” Yanko stood straighter, afraid he must look like a pouting child.

Mishnal gave him another pat, then headed to the log benches near the arena, an arena that would be used for something besides fighting this time.

* * *

Yanko sat cross-legged in the center of the arena, his hair and clothing dry, his fingers raw and tender but, thanks to the healer, no longer as tender as they had been. The rest of the applicants had finished—or hadn’t finished—the obstacle course and the results had come in. With his time, Yanko had come in eighth place. It was not as good as he had hoped, but he had done better in the swordplay than he had expected, so he was sitting in a comfortable place for this last challenge. All he needed to do was finish in the three-minute time limit to ensure himself a place at Stargrind. His father’s dream might finally come true.

But not your dream, eh?

Yanko shook away the voice in the back of his head. He had accepted years ago that what he dreamed of doing with his life and what the world—or at least his family—demanded he do with his life were not the same. Thanks to his mother’s choice, this was his destiny, the only one to which he could honorably aspire.

“A simple task for a future Stargrind student,” the proctor, a woman this time, announced as she strolled around the circular arena, her hands clasped behind her back.

Yanko would find out just
how
simple it was in a minute. He had been chosen to go first again. Even though the test hadn’t begun, his shoulders were tight, his muscles tense. He could feel the other applicants, the twenty-one that remained of the original thirty-two, staring at him from the side of the arena. Between the averages of the two events, he had one of the highest scores, and the whispers floating out of the crowd implied that nobody was happy about it.

“...can’t let some pirate’s spawn into the most elite academy in the Great Land.”

“...heard he didn’t even have a tutor or formal schooling. ...can’t be qualified.”

Yanko did his best to pay attention to the proctor and ignore the commentary from the crowd.

A bald man in gray robes strolled out, whistling, an intricate wooden candelabra balanced upon his shoulder. He walked into the arena and placed it on the packed dirt, about five feet in front of Yanko. He withdrew six stubby beeswax candles from an inside pocket and placed them in holders at different levels on the candelabra, some that would be easy to reach with a match and others that were in the middle of the structure and barred by wood on three sides. A strange choice of materials for something that held flaming candles.

Or... not. The realization of what the test must involve came over Yanko. The precision that would be required daunted him, but he
had
practiced creating flame and lighting candles countless times in the last six months. This was doable.

“There are six candles,” the proctor announced as the man walked away. “You will light each of them before the three minutes is up.” She waved toward the bored-looking timekeeper from the platform. “If you do not finish in three minutes, you fail. If you char the wood, you fail. Stargrind prides itself on its fire mages, so if you cannot demonstrate the ability to handle this simple task, you will not be allowed to go forward with the training.” She had been addressing all of the applicants thus far, but her gaze fell upon Yanko as she spoke that last sentence.

He was trying not to feel like the entire world was against him, but it was hard. He hoped that this would be a fair test and that nobody would attempt to throw obstacles in his path.

“Are you ready, White Fox?” the proctor asked.

Yanko wiped hands damp with sweat on his trousers, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Yes, Honored Teacher.”

“Begin.”

A click sounded, the timekeeper’s watch starting.

Yanko let his eyes lower to slits. First, the flame.

With his mind, he gathered the water vapor in the air, a task made simpler than it was back home, thanks to the humidity. He cleaved the molecules and ignited the flammable hydrogen left from the process. All thermal science manipulation was based on this process, and even though he would have been more comfortable manipulating the earth, the plants, and the trees, he had learned to deal with fire years ago. Before long, a small ball of flame burned in the air next to the candelabra.

“Thought you said he only knew the earth sciences,” someone whispered behind him.

“Just said he’s a slimy slug that would rather wallow in the dirt,” another applicant responded. That was Sly Wolf.

Yanko’s flame faltered, and he growled at himself to concentrate. He moved it toward the first candle, choosing one of the easier targets first, one that did not have wood all around it. His fiery ball whispered across the wick, and it burst into flame.

One down, five to go.

“Bet he gets tired before he makes it halfway through,” Sly Wolf said, not bothering to keep his voice to a whisper.

“He looks shaky.”

He did
not
. As much as he wanted to ignore the words, they kept seeping into his mind, irritating him and making him want to prove that he was just as capable as they were, even if he hadn’t gone to a preparatory school or had a long-term tutor when he had been growing up.

He squinted at his flame, manipulating the shape until it shifted from a ball to a skull, hollowing the eyes just so and making an opening for the mouth. A couple of surprised murmurs came from behind him. Good. He moved it toward the second wick, rotating it as he went, so the other applicants could see that he
was
a capable fire mage, damn it. Or he at least had the potential to become one.

As he lit the second wick, the timekeeper spoke.

“One minute left.”

Alarm flooded Yanko, and the outline of the skull wavered and morphed back into a lumpy ball. He couldn’t worry about looks now. He had to finish lighting the candles. What had he been thinking? And why hadn’t the cursed timekeeper made an announcement at two minutes, as well?

He licked his lips and veered the flame toward the third candle. The wick caught, but in his haste, he almost scorched the slender wooden support behind it. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face as he moved the flame toward the next candle. Unfortunately, he had lit all of the easier outside ones already. He had to dip between the wooden supports. He made his flame as tiny as he could, slipping it into the center of the candelabra, toward a stumpy wick practically lying on the wax, the candle cupped from above by six slender boughs of wood.

“Thirty seconds.”

Yanko clenched his fists. A few bets and snickers ran through the crowd, but this time, he didn’t lose focus. He lit the wick, carefully extricated his flame, and moved to the next candle. It was just as challenging, but he slid in from the side, lit it, and exited through a gap on the other side. He was veering toward the last one and hadn’t yet brushed the wood with his flame when the timekeeper spoke again.

“Time’s up.”

An instant later, the sixth wick brightened with flame. Yanko looked at the proctor, hoping he had been close enough. Surely he had demonstrated his aptitude? Some stupidity, too, but he could learn to do less of that. If he had a chance.

“The challenge was not completed in the time allotted,” the proctor announced, scribbling on her clipboard without looking at him.

Yanko sat and stared. Did that mean he had failed? Because of one second?
Truly?

A snicker came from behind him. “Told you,” Sly Wolf said.

Yanko jumped to his feet, spinning toward the crowd, wanting nothing more than to sprint over there and plant his fist in the man’s face. But someone stirred on the logs. His father. Yanko glimpsed a stricken expression on his face before he turned and walked away from the arena, his shoulders slumped.

All of the fight drained out of Yanko. He had failed his family, his entire clan. Not because he lacked the skill, but because of hubris. No, he had said it correctly before. Stupidity.

“Next,” the proctor called, not a hint of empathy in her voice.

Yanko walked out of the arena, his chin to his chest. He didn’t want to see his father and his uncle, not now, but he had nowhere else to go. And they were waiting for him. Actually, they were standing near the street, arguing with each other as lizards pulling carts trundled past, the rest of the world continuing on, not caring whether a man qualified for Stargrind or not.

Father spun as Yanko approached, his mustachios quivering. Fury burned in his dark eyes. “What was that? That was inexcusable. You were so close, but you dithered around, trying to show off.”

“No, I just... wanted them to know I was good enough, better than they thought.”

“
They?
The other boys? They matter nothing.” Father chopped the air with his hand. “The proctors were all that mattered, the timekeeper. I thought you were smarter than that, boy.”

Yanko wished Uncle Mishnal would come to his defense, but he merely stood in silence, saying nothing. What could he say? What defense was there? Yanko had been a fool, and he knew it.

“Don’t bother coming home until you’ve mastered your pride, boy.” Father flung up his arms, turned on his heel, and stalked away.

Yanko’s mouth drooped open as he stared after him. He wouldn’t even be allowed to return home? To see his cousins? His aunt? His great uncle? His friends in the village? His hounds? His bees and worms and garden?

Where would he go? What else could he do? This was everything he had studied for since childhood, unless one counted tending the gardens and the forest. But whose gardens would he tend if he couldn’t work on the family’s property? He wasn’t qualified to do anything else that people would pay him to do. Even if he came down to the city, would he be able to find a job when everyone seemed to know exactly whose son he was?

Uncle Mishnal sighed, clearly as disappointed as Father, even if he did not storm off in a huff. “You’re always welcome back in the mines, Yanko.”

Back in the mines. Hundreds of meters below the surface of the earth, below the trees and plants and everything he loved. It had been one thing to spend time down there to train for these exams, but to go back? To spend the rest of his life as a miner in the lightless depths of the earth?

When Uncle Mishnal walked away, Yanko had never felt so alone and so lost in his life.

Chapter 2

Y
anko stared at the wooden bar between his hands as he walked in a circle with four other men, leaning his weight into it, providing the power that turned the screw and raised carts of salt from the lower depths of the mine to this upper level for processing and packing. His uncle had given him this job on his first day, more than six months ago, to help him build the muscle a warrior was expected to have. It had worked, but unfortunately it hadn’t helped his brain muscles at all. Now, as he huffed and grunted in time with the other bare-chested men, sweat dripping down his arms and back, he saw it as a penance. His punishment for his failure.

“Well, well, well,” came a woman’s voice from behind him. “Look who’s back in the mines. They didn’t want your pretty face at Stargrind, after all?”

Yanko ground his teeth as a second punishment walked into view carrying a box full of carving tools. Lakeo stopped to look at him, a fist on her hip. She wore a shaggy sheepskin vest that left her muscular arms bare, aside from a pair of leather arm guards. Her short, black hair stuck out in all directions, as if she had been struck by lightning recently.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Yanko said. He did not stop pushing or leave the screw, even though he could have at any time. He might have failed his entrance exams, but he was still
moksu
, and his family still oversaw the mine. Most of the people here were criminals, prisoners of war, or serfs, so he outranked them. Not exactly a great boon.

“Enh, Stargrind is for prissy know-it-alls, anyway,” Lakeo said. “You would have hated it.”

“Uh huh.”

As usual, Lakeo acted as if she was so much more knowledgeable and worldly than he, even though she had grown up in some dusty village not ten miles from here and, by her own admission, had never been over the mountains and to the sea, or to anywhere more than a day’s walk away. She was only a couple of years older than Yanko, but she always seemed to think she was far more mature than he.

“Is this what you’re going to do with the rest of your life?” Lakeo pursed her lips and eyed the screw and the muscled slaves, men too tired and beleaguered to care about their conversation. An overseer stood on a platform overhead, tapping out a drumbeat to keep the men working—and to make sure that nobody started any trouble. Those known for it, or known to be dangerous criminals, wore glowing control collars around their necks.

“I haven’t decided yet. I’ve only been back for a day.”

“Don’t you think you’re kind of a burden on them?” She waved at the workers. “You’re awfully short and scrawny in comparison.”

“I am
not
scrawny.”

Yanko caught himself flexing his muscles and puffing out his chest, despite the fact that he did not care one iota what Lakeo thought of his physique. If he
had
been scrawny, he might have simply accepted her ribbing, but he had gained ten pounds of muscle in the months he had been working here. Sure, at five-foot-nine, he might be shorter than a lot of the hulks in the mines, but that was because most were half-breeds or even full-blooded Turgonians, and those people were commonly over six feet. For a Nurian man, he was perfectly normal in size.