Book 3, Chapter 36

Jules made a show of tripping over herself bowing and scraping and being generally obsequious before the two women, both of whom were trying and failing to conceal just how unimpressed they were with the local priestess.

“We’ve only just reached your town a few minutes past,” Aphrona said. “Surely there cannot be some emergency so dire that it couldn’t wait for the official blessing this evening?”

“I apologize, Divine One,” Jules said, and to my ears she truly did sound sorry. “But this concerns two people who have recently come to our town. They are apostates and deceivers who wield false miracles to sow lies and dissent.”

“Two of them, you say?”

I winced. It wasn’t like I’d been trying to hide Senica; I just hadn’t gotten that far in the conversation before they’d asked me to step out. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have mentioned my sister if they hadn’t specifically asked. I couldn’t see any good reason to drag her into the middle of this, not when Senica was still years away from being ready to fight another mage.

“A man and a teenage girl,” Jules said.

“And what have they been doing, exactly?” Aphrona asked.

Jules went on to describe basically every single spell I’d cast since walking into Halgir, including some that I had no idea how she’d even discovered. I could only conclude that there was a whole network of people reporting my every movement back to her. Some of her depictions of my magic were embellished and she frequently painted it as though I was shrouded in some malevolent aura that struck fear into the hearts of good, honest townsfolk.

Throughout the speech, Aphrona maintained a steady, almost serene expression. Ivetra, however, turned to look away from Jules and let her emotions play clearly across her face. It was a mixture of amusement and annoyance, though I spotted occasional hints of fear. When Jules started talking about my ‘evil fortress out in the woods,’ Ivetra’s interest spiked. I made a mental note to warn Senica about possible visitors if either of the two women left their wagon.

When Jules finally wrapped up her speech condemning me, Aphrona thanked her for her time, promised to look into it, and unceremoniously booted the old priestess out the door. Jules spotted me immediately, harumphed in my general direction, and strode off in as dignified a manner as she could manage.

“That was such a waste of time,” Ivetra complained.

“It’s literally our job,” Aphrona reminded her.

“Not like I asked to be saddled with this caravan thing.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure if you promise to stop eating any of the food the pilgrimages bring back, they’ll exempt you from the rotation.”

Ivetra threw her hands up. “Fine, fine! I get it. Whatever. What are we doing about this Keiran guy?”

I shifted in place, drawing some attention from a few townsfolk who were working to get the animals drawing the caravan wagons settled. They were some sort of shaggy ox thing, ones without horns and with long, wide tails instead of the thin ropes I’d normally associate with the species.

A few of the pilgrims had been eyeing me up since I’d stepped out, all of them wondering what business I’d had in the wagon. A quick sweep of mind reading confirmed that not a one of them was anything other than curious and occasionally jealous. Jules and some of the locals were far more hostile than anyone who’d just come into town today, though the early pilgrims from the previous few days had picked up the generally negative opinion of me and would no doubt spread that through the rest of the caravan unless Aphrona and Ivetra put a stop to it.

“Honestly, I have no idea. We don’t know anything about him or his magic. I doubt it’s anything special if he’s some heathen from beyond the borders. If his country had any real magical might, they’d have been drawn to the Sanctum of Light generations ago instead of just now taking their first steps outside their own lands,” Aphrona said. “Still… something is strange about him.”

I loved when potential enemies underestimated me. Sure, it got annoying when friends and allies did it, but I’d had years to get used to it when I’d been stuck as a child. Now that it was happening, not through any fault of my own, but through the sheer arrogance of these people who went around proclaiming themselves to be divine emissaries, tickled me.

“We might as well make a decision,” Ivetra said. “It’s pretty straightforward. Do we help him or not?”

“What if we choose wrong?” Aphrona asked, but her tone was more that of someone involved in a debate, not someone who was agonizing over a decision.

“If we choose to help him, and we’re wrong, then… he goes to the Sanctum of Light and they take care of him,” Ivetra said. “Which would probably be best case for us, anyway. I don’t know about you, but I barely passed my combat magic class. If this guy really is a child of darkness, he’s going to eat us alive and swallow without bothering to chew.”

“I, er… I managed a passing grade,” Aphrona said, looking embarrassed.

Ivetra regarded her shrewdly. “You’re not telling me something. You passed… but… Wait! Wasn’t your aunt one of the professors?”

Cheeks flaming, Aphrona nodded. Ivetra just groaned and slumped back. “So you’re even more worthless in a fight than me. Great.”

“By our standards, not the rest of the world’s,” Aphrona said. “Just because I couldn’t outduel any other mages doesn’t mean I can’t thrash these dirt people.”

“Which brings us back to whether Keiran is actually a mage. It’s clear he’s got some magic. So, what have we seen him do? What has that annoying priestess reported him doing? Can we get a gauge on how strong he is?”

Aphrona frowned to herself. “Nothing… really stands out. Mostly basic magic. She said he flew and picked her up magically. So that’s two intermediate spells. It’s rare to find mages outside the city who can use any intermediate magic, but there’s so little mana out here that he probably tapped himself out just using those two spells. I mean, I felt basically no mana inside his core. Did you?”

Ivetra shook her head. “Not a thing. Actually, kind of suspiciously not a thing. He should have had at least a little bit of mana left, right?”

“Maybe he used the rest of it with his little attention grabber knocking through the ward,” Aphrona said. “But you’re right. It is weird.”

If only they knew the truth. I had ten times as much mana as either of them in my core. Getting a feel for how big a core was when it wasn’t packed with mana was a tricky job, but I’d been studying these two ladies long enough that I had a good idea of their capabilities. Both were at maximum capacity and trickling mana into those crystals set into their earrings. They were adults in their early twenties, or at least appearing to be, but I suspected that was their true age, which meant their cores were as developed as they were going to get naturally.

Judging by the flow of mana into the crystals, I was pegging them as either stage ones with exceptionally good ignitions or stage twos with exceptionally bad lattices, and I was leaning more towards the latter explanation. Neither of them struck me as strong mages, and their lack of skill pointed at a poor advancement.

“I say we help him,” Ivetra said suddenly.

“Okay… Why?” her companion asked.

“Well, what’ve we got to lose? If he’s telling the truth, then he’ll go to the city and either be a curiosity as a foreign mage or a threat they’ll take care of. If he’s lying, then he’s probably a child of darkness who already knows the way, and we can’t take him anyway.”

“That would mean we’re playing into his hands,” Aphrona argued.

“What play? Giving him information he already has? I literally can’t think of a reason not to tell him where the Sanctum is.”

“How about the fact that the dirt people aren’t supposed to know? If he is telling the truth, we could be giving him information that he’ll spread around. These peasants might be a lot less forthcoming with tribute if they decide we’re not divine beings after all.”

“So what do you think we should do?” Ivetra asked.

“We could go along with the priestess’s suggestion, condemn him as a heretic, and kill him.”

“Which only works as long as we’re right about how weak his magic is.”

“He’s either completely out of mana, or he’s got the strongest veil around his core that I’ve ever seen,” Aphrona said.

“Okay, let’s test that,” Ivetra said. “Get him to do a bit of magic. If he makes up some sort of excuse, we’ll know he’s tapped out. If he does the magic, we’ll know not to screw with him.”

Aphrona sat quiet while she through Ivetra’s suggestion. “That’s a good idea,” she finally said, almost begrudgingly.

“Well, I’m not an idiot. I do occasionally think up something clever.”

“Like that stunt with the bread back in that town with the two lakes?”

“I thought we agreed not to mention that again,” Ivetra said in a tight voice.

“In public,” Aphrona said. “Because it makes us look fallible. That doesn’t mean I’m never going to tease you about it.”

While they debated on what kind of magic they could get me to perform, I thought on my own best course of action. Obviously, I couldn’t let them kill me. What wasn’t clear was whether a show of power would secure their behavior, or if it would just lead to them plotting and scheming some new way to get rid of me.

Wherever these people came from, they viewed anyone outside that place as inferior, like cattle that existed solely for whatever value could be extracted from them. In this case, it was food. Building on that, if these caravans were regular things, that meant they came from a city with a lot of people and probably a lot of magic. Food would be one of the few things their own spells couldn’t provide.

It could help grow it though, and I would have expected it to be far easier to magically grow the crops at rapid speeds to feed the city than to perpetuate this whole scheme of being divine messengers roaming the countryside and bilking towns. I was missing an angle here.

But then, did it really matter? None of this was my problem. The only thing I wanted was the direction of my next destination. I could browbeat them into giving up the location of their home city if necessary. Considering they’d been casually discussing whether killing me was the most convenient course of action, and that their objections to that plan had been entirely because they weren’t sure they’d win a fight, I didn’t have much reason to show them any mercy.

“I’ve indulged you in this game long enough,” I said, sending my voice directly into their cabin via a sound projection spell. “You would be idiots to attack me, but I’m more than willing to swat you down into the dirt if you’d like to try.”

Both women jumped with renewed panic, but I ignored their reactions and kept on speaking. “Yes, I know all about your childish plans. Consider this my demonstration that yes, I have plenty of mana in my core. Just because you’re not competent enough at perceiving mana to pierce my shield doesn’t mean the mana doesn’t exist. Now, I’ll be walking back through that door, and the only thing I want from you is a true answer about the location of your home city.”

I pulled the door open with telekinesis as I strode back to the wagon. Both Lightbearers watched me with wide eyes as my body filled the frame. Releasing the sound projection spell, I said with my physical voice, “Well, what’s it going to be?”