Guild Mage: Apprentice

"No," Liv said, shaking her head. The sudden motion made her sick to her stomach, and acutely aware of the headache she'd been ignoring constantly for days now. "That is not at all what your mother intended. And as far as Triss is concerned, I have an idea for how to help her. More than one, in fact."

Matthew reached out with his good arm to catch Liv by the shoulder and steady her. "Are you alright?"

"I've been away from a rift too long," Liv admitted. "Which is another reason I couldn't do what you're asking me to, even if I wanted to."

"You mentioned it had been getting worse," her brother said. "I'd hoped with the shipments of food from Al'Fenthia, that would help a bit."

"Maybe a little?" Liv guessed. "It's hard to tell. If there'd been someone else to take charge here, I would have left already, but I needed to wait for you."

Matthew held her in place, and stared into her eyes for a long moment before nodding. "I'm here now, Liv. Go do what you need to do. I can handle things here until you get back."

"Wren says your friend Thurston Falkenrath is on his way, along with his father," Liv told him. "He knows the dowager queen worshipped Ractia. You're going to have to -"

"I said I can handle it," Matthew said. "You go and recover. I'll just tell everyone you needed rest after your fight against an archmage. But get back as soon as you can. And think about what I said."

Liv nodded. "Alright." She put a hand over his, then turned away and headed for the ladder. Kaija went first, as if the older woman was afraid Liv would tumble off, like a child. Indeed, Liv had to pause halfway down, close her eyes, and focus on her breathing, but she made it to the bottom without falling. Before she could walk away, though, Matthew called down to her.

"My mother tried to be the sword and shield of the north, all by herself, for twenty-five years. And it killed her, Liv." Matthew's voice cracked at the end.

Liv turned around, and looked back up at the wall. She met her adopted brother's eyes, despite the height difference.

"I don't want to do that. I don't think I can do that," Matthew continued, lowering his voice. "I'm not her, and I'm not like you. And if Triss and I ever do have a child, I don't want to force it on them, either."

"No one will dare come at us again while I'm here," Liv told him. She could hear the whispers: Archmagia. Lady of Winter.

"Exactly," Matthew said. "I'm not the one who broke an army, Liv."

"I'll come back tomorrow morning," Liv said, turned and began walking toward the wall. Kaija and Ghveris fell in at her sides, and she knew Wren would be watching them from overhead.

"You've got a tether?" Kaija asked, keeping her voice low, and Liv nodded.

"I just want to find Rose first," she admitted.

☙

They found Rosamund repairing the wall. Days of bombardment had left the structure in need of far more care and attention than Liv's lover had been able to give it during the battle. Broken merlons, chunks of rock sheared off and fallen to the ground below, cracks in the foundations. There was enough that needed setting right, it would take a team from the mason's guild weeks of work. Perhaps months.

Liv had lent her the gold bracelet and rings again, so that Rose could work for longer at a stretch. As they approached, she was standing with her arms outstretched, fingers spread, a chunk of unworked granite floating between her palms. Liv paused to watch as Rose lowered the rock onto the broken stump of a merlon atop the wall. With a whispered incantation, the granite seemed to melt and flow, settling into a regular, uniform shape, fused to the wall where it would replace the missing piece.

"Looks just as even and straight as if you'd been doing it your whole life," Liv remarked.

"I like it," Rose admitted. When she turned to Liv, her smile was open and genuine. "I've gotten a bit sick of killing people, but I like the idea of building things, instead of always just breaking them. I'd like to make something people will look at in a hundred years."

"You will." Liv didn't realize she'd reached beneath her helm and started rubbing her temples until Rose stepped forward and reached out for her arm.

"It's getting worse?"

Liv nodded. "I'm going to stay the night at Bald Peak," she said. "Come along with me?"

"I'd like to," Rose said. "Only, Arjun says I should take a break. You know I've never been as good at handling rifts as the rest of you - well, the rest of them. You're something else altogether."

"I understand." Liv tried not to let her disappointment show, but Rose must have caught it. The disadvantages of having someone who knew you so well.

"Forget it," Rose said. "I'll come along anyway. One night won't hurt me."

"No," Liv said. "You stay here. I don't want you hurting yourself for me."

And so when she went, it was with only Ghveris, Wren, and Kaija, who'd attached themselves to her like a personal guard. The four of them, and one more - someone who couldn't choose whether to stay or go, and so Liv made the choice for him.

They left from the room where Keri had been laid down to rest, where Liv took his hand in hers. The others crowded in around her, placing their hands on her arms or shoulders as they could find room. Ghveris could hardly even fit in the room, but they made it work, and after a flash of light, appeared on the waystone beneath the mountain.

"I need to take him up to the ring," Liv said. She shrugged off their hands, and walked around the recalibrated waystone until she found the sigil that she was looking for. "You don't all have to come."

"Until you're lying down in a bed and sleeping, I'm staying with you," Kaija said.

"I will hold Inkeris," Gheveris said. "You should not carry him until you have wrested."

Wren merely grinned. "With these two around, it's like I don't even need to say anything at all," she remarked.

Still, when they passed the great window that looked down upon their world, Kaija stopped and stared. Liv didn't know who would be able to do anything else, their first time. Once Ghveris had brought Keri to one of the healing rooms for her, and laid the Elden warrior out on the table, Liv slipped the crown of Celris onto her brow, and activated the ancient layers of enchantments. She wasn't certain exactly what was reasonable to hope for, but it was the best she could do for a man who had quickly become her friend.

She wrote a letter, using a page from her journal, and the pot of ink and quill she kept on her. Once Liv was certain the ink was dry, she tucked it into Keri's hand, placing his arm over his chest.

"I'll come and check on you tomorrow," she murmured. "Before I go back to the wall."

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"I can remain," Ghveris volunteered.

"Are you certain?" Liv asked.

The war-machine nodded. "Inkeris should not be left to wake alone. He will have questions. I will wait for him."

"Thank you. I don't - I don't think I'm quite thinking clearly," Liv admitted. "I should have thought of that."

Afterward, she couldn't have said just how she ended up back at the great window that looked down upon the world, nor could she remember more than scattered flashes of getting to the half-built fortress atop the mountain. Kaija must have used the waystone, because Liv certainly didn't. Had there been a platform of ice, rising up the peak, carrying them to the curtain walls Rose had built? She thought so.

Finally, there was only the relief of sinking into the thick, mana-rich rift. It soaked into her, like scented steam rising from the spring beneath Castle Whitehill, after oils and perfumes had been dumped into the hot water. Liv felt like she could finally take a breath again, and when Kaija and Wren helped her into one of the cots in the barracks, she was immediately swallowed by sleep.

☙

The smell of breakfast woke Liv from a dreamless sleep.

She stretched in the light of the morning sun, and found that someone - whether it was Kaija or Wren - had stripped her down to her underthings the day before. Liv stretched her arms out to either side and above her head, arched her back, and felt gloriously, wonderfully free from pain for the first time since she'd ridden south to the pass.

"Hungry?" Wren asked.

Liv finally opened her eyes, to see her friend holding a tray full of food. There was a trencher of fluffy eggs, sprinkled with pepper and grated cheese; what smelled like a venison steak; and a pot of tea. "Starving," she admitted.

"Your men tell me everything is from the shoals of a rift," Wren explained, setting the tray down on Liv's lap only once she'd had a chance to sit up. "Either this one, like the stag, or something back in Elden lands. The eggs are quail, and everything in the tea except the tea leaves themselves comes from the north."

"And the leaves are from Lendh ka Dakruim, of course." Liv nodded, lifted her fork, and immediately began shovelling eggs into her mouth. Every bite hit her mouth with a splash of mana, and it ran down to her core and warmed her, like hard cider on a cold autumn day. "What time did I fall asleep? I don't really remember."

"Not even noon." Wren took a seat on the edge of the bed. "You've slept for near twenty hours. A group came through the waystone last night - Crosbies and Everys with them, if I recall correctly. Won a battle at Valegaard, but it didn't sound nearly as bad as what we had at the pass. They rode on south."

Liv paused, swallowed her bite of venison, and then wet her throat with a gulp of tea. "Did anyone tell them Julianne and Henry are both dead?"

Wren shook her head. "Word hasn't reached the garrison here yet, but I expect it will sometime today. I didn't say anything to the Whitehill troops, and I don't think Kaija has yet, either."

"You still think the Falkenraths will get to the pass today?" Liv asked.

"That would be my best guess."

"I need to be there for it." Liv cut another slice of the steak.

"You'd be better off staying here to recover," Wren said. "Look. I saw how Ractia was, on our way across Varuna. By the time we'd got from one rift to the next, she couldn't even walk. It took her days to recover."

"I don't think I'm as bad off as her quite yet," Liv said. "I'm not actually one of the Vædim."

"Tell that to the Elden troops." Wren barked out a laugh. "They're starting to look at you like my people used to look at her."

Liv paused, and lowered her fork and knife. "Does that worry you?"

"Maybe a little," Wren admitted. "It isn't healthy, Liv. When people put their faith in someone so absolutely."

"I didn't ask them to do it."

"You didn't have to ask. You called a blizzard down to destroy their enemies." Wren sighed.

"Anyway," Liv said, after a moment. "I have to get back to the pass before the Falkenraths arrive, and you should be there too."

"Don't trust your brother?"

"It isn't that I don't trust him," Liv said. "But Matthew might need help. He's always been happiest running around culling rifts with his friends, not handling politics."

"That sounds familiar." Wren nudged her with an elbow. "You sure you're not actually related? Anyway, if he's going to be duke now, you're going to have to trust him to run things."

"I know," Liv said. "I know."

☙

Thankfully, she'd stayed long enough at Bald Peak during the construction of the curtain walls that she had kept a good variety of clothing there. Who'd cleaned it while she'd been gone, Liv wasn't certain; but she was grateful. Kaija had used the time she'd been asleep to clean and oil her armor, as well, even if it would take longer to handle major repairs. Thus, by the time she was ready to leave, she felt halfway presentable.

A mana disc down the mountain saw her, Kaija, and Wren to the waystone, where she attached herself a new Tether. Before they could depart, however, Piers approached her from out of a knot of nervous Whitehill soldiers.

"Your pardon, m'lady," Piers began, ducking his head in the way of a bow. "But the boys have been wondering how the battle at the pass went. We know Valegard was a victory, from the troops passing through on their way south, but the only ones who've come back this way from the pass are you and Lady Wren and Lady Kaija."

Liv winced. She would have preferred not to answer that question quite yet, or better yet to leave it to Matthew entirely. But now that it had been said out loud, she didn't see any possible way of avoiding an answer. The men here didn't deserve to be ignored - they'd done their duty.

"We held the pass," Liv said, meeting choosing to look Piers in the eyes because at least she knew him. "The crown army has surrendered."

When the soldiers gave a cheer, it made her feel sick to her stomach.

"But we lost a lot of people," Liv continued. "And there's just as many wounded who might not recover." The cheers subsided, and she took a deep breath to brace herself. "Both Duchess Julianne and Baron Henry are dead."

As Greta might have said, with one of her tired old expressions, you could have heard a pin drop. Whatever joy had illuminated the faces of the guards had fled, to be replaced by wide-eyed fear for the future.

It was young Albert Butcher, whose chin-fuzz seemed to have thickened a bit in only the short time Liv had been gone, who asked the question they were all thinking. "What happens now? Is Lord Matthew the duke, then? Are we going to be alright?"

"Matthew and Beatrice were already at the pass when I left to come here," Liv explained to them. "When last I saw him, he was getting ready to sort out our prisoners."

"He's a good lad," Piers said, a little too loudly.

The soldiers were looking at Liv for reassurance, and it felt just the same as the Elden woman who'd reached out for her in the healing tents. Aura. Liv didn't like it, but she also couldn't leave them with nothing. "It's going to be alright," she told them. "Everything is going to be fine now. We've beaten the enemy back."

"You promise, m'lady?" Bertie asked.

"I promise." Saying the words felt like shouldering a burden.

☙

Liv only conjured a single gyrfalcon, and Kaija rode behind her, the armorer's strong arms wrapped around her middle. It was hard not to think that it should have been Rose sitting there. Wren flew on her own wings, and they followed the Aspen River south. The water was already getting high and fast from all the snow melt, and wherever there were rocks in the middle of the current, there was the roaring white foam of rapids.

They passed the Crosbie and Every contingent just south of Fairford, and by the time they reached the pass, Liv could see the Falkenrath army making their camp just south of the battlefield, where the crown chirurgeons were still working on the wounded. Liv circled the bird of mana once, then brought it in for a landing just outside the Sign of the Terrapin.

"Well that was an experience," Kaija said, with a grin, as she clambered down off the conjured bird's back. "Know I know what an Iravata feels like, riding their wyrms."

Liv allowed the gyrfalcon to dissipate into motes of sparkling blue and gold mana the moment her boots touched the ground. As she watched the colors drift away, she had the sudden urge to experiment, and to see whether or not she could replicate Genevieve Arundell's technique. Instead, she found herself immediately mobbed by her great uncle Eilis, her cousin Miina, and even Sohvis.

"You have to put a stop to this," the blonde man from Mountain Home began, before anyone else could speak. His words were in Vakansa, rather than Lucanian, and once again Liv resisted a stab of anger that he was walking about while Keri was unconscious, high above on the ring.

"To what?" Liv asked.

"Matthew Summerset allowed all the noble-born prisoners to leave the stockade on their word of honor," Miina said. Her throat was still wrapped, but Arjun must have given up on trying to keep the woman in bed. "They're in the Sign of the Terrapin right now, eating and drinking like the war never happened."

They might have said something more, but Liv didn't hear it. Instead, with Wren and the the Eld trailing at her back, she strode directly to the doors of the inn and threw them open. The common room inside was filled with the hearty smells of cooking food and woodsmoke, and the murmur of conversation.

Scattered about the tables, she saw them: no longer wearing their armor or weapons, there was that at least. Some, like Duke Richard, were thoroughly bandaged. But there was Baron Seton, sitting next to Baron Ward, with his arm in a sling. Celestria had her leg wrapped, and a crutch. Merrick Sherard paused with a goblet of wine at his lip, and Lord Commander Bennet Howe looked across the room, and met Liv's eyes without flinching.

"Matthew," Liv growled, and couldn't help her hands curling into fists.