Bryony appeared at my side. Looking first at me, and then following my gaze to the two mages, she heaved an enormous sigh.
“That mage looks uncannily like our discipline instructor, Amalia, considering he’s male and must be two decades older. We’ll be back in her not-so-loving care soon enough, I don’t need reminding of her right now.”
I chuckled although her words brought the scene into instant clarity. The creator discipline must be using the project as a chance to train one of their newer members. That would explain why there were two mages in attendance.
Sure enough, when the man with the building plans called a loud halt, sending the workers scurrying to the edges of the site, the older mage stepped forward, beckoning for the younger one to follow. When the second sealed man glanced at them, his hands poised about to rip his composition, the mage spoke loudly enough for me to hear.
“If you please, we will take care of the foundations.”
The commonborn glanced at the man with the plans before shrugging and nodding his agreement, carefully placing his unworked composition into an internal pocket. The younger mage stepped forward, drawing a visible breath and pulling out a composition of his own.
“Verene,” Bryony said by my side, lengthening my name into a plea.
I started to reply as the young mage tore his parchment, but the words died in my throat.
“Bree!” I hissed, and she stiffened, instantly alert to my change in tone.
Sliding closer, she whispered. “What is it?”
I didn’t answer, my full focus on the scene now unfolding on the site in front of us. As an energy mage, Bryony couldn’t feel power at all and only knew a working was being conducted because she had seen the composition torn. And while power mages like Captain Layna and the creator mages in front of us would be able to feel it, they would sense only a general, swelling rush of power released by the composition as it spread out to hover over the piles of stones around the edges of the site. For most of my life I had been like them, despite not being a power mage myself.
But everything was different now. I could sense the working in a way none of the rest of them could. At the end of my first year at the Kallorwegian Academy, I had stumbled on hidden powers I never suspected I possessed. And ever since then, my awareness had shifted, expanding from its old limits over the course of the summer. Now, if I concentrated on a specific working, I could feel the broad shape and purpose of it. And if I let down my guard, it called to me, a siren song inviting me to take charge of the power and shape it to my own will.
I didn’t need my new ability to know the purpose of this composition—the creator mage had spoken it aloud. But something felt wrong. The power bucked and twisted, almost as if it fought against the shape it had been given. No one else reacted, but the sour note grew stronger as stones rose into the air and began to move around the site.
I hesitated, torn. I wanted to call a warning, but what could I say? No one but Bryony knew of my new ability, and I couldn’t put my concern into words. I just knew something was very wrong.
An itching sensation, more mental than physical, urged me to reach out with my words and claim the power, but I held back. What would I do with it? I knew nothing of the expertise that must go into creating a building foundation.
And I had never tried to subvert a composition that felt so twisted before. While one part of me longed to reach out and control it, another part of me pulled away, repelled by the discordant note in the power.
The stones drew together, stacking on top of each other in an unnatural shape that could only be held in place by power.
Bryony frowned. “I’m no expert, but shouldn’t a foundation lie flat on the ground?”
Almost as if he’d heard her, the older mage uttered a sharp exclamation, striding forward to pull the two torn halves of parchment from the hands of his student. He held them against each other and scanned their contents, his expression growing thunderous.
The stones piled higher and wider, forming the outline of the base of a large building…If the base of the building rose vertically into the air instead of lying against the ground.
Captain Layna stirred beside me. “Your Highness,” she murmured, unease in her voice.
She didn’t have to say more for me to know she wanted us to move away from whatever was developing here. But my feet had implanted themselves in the ground, and I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to.
Other passersby lacked the instinctive caution of a trained guard, and a number of them stopped, drawn by their curiosity at the strange sight. The younger mage babbled at his mentor, but I didn’t catch his stream of words, my attention too focused on the sensation of the power.
“Look, Mama!” A high-pitched voice broke through my concentration as a young girl pressed in beside one of my guards, oblivious to our presence. Her full attention was on the stones still dancing through the air to stack ever higher.
Her mother gave us a wary look, but when no one remonstrated the girl, she moved to stand beside her daughter.
“They’re building a new office for the sealed,” she told the girl, apparently better informed than me.
But she frowned as she spoke the words. I was no longer the only one who could tell there was something awry with the composition.
“Princess Verene,” my captain said, more sharply, but I continued to ignore her.
Bryony dropped her voice to the faintest whisper. “Can you…?”
“I don’t know,” I murmured back. “I don’t know anything about creating.”
All of the stones had now reached their place, although the structure they created was clearly unstable. A fresh surge of power fused them together, merging them into one solid block of stone more effectively than any mortar could do.
But now that they had formed a solid shape, the power holding them together loosed. If they had been spread out on the ground, it wouldn’t have mattered. But they weren’t. The tall, thin structure teetered.
“Take control!” I gasped.
If anyone heard me, they must have thought I was entreating the creator mages to take action. But my power responded instantly, free to do what it had been straining toward.
Reaching out, it grasped control of the working, and the hazy sense of a twisted composition became instantly clear. Without having to think about it, I knew immediately the full shape of the working and all its intricacies. I could feel the power trying to drive the footings deep into the ground, the effort muddied by the incorrect placement of the blocks. The power kicked and writhed as it fought against itself, torn by the two competing directions that had gone into its composing.
As the power attempted to drive the stone shape into the suddenly soft dirt, the whole structure swayed. For a moment it looked like it would fall onto the site, but then the momentum moved in the direction of the street.
The mother beside me screamed and snatched up her daughter as the solid stone shape fell toward us.
“Flat!” I gasped, as quietly as I could in my panic.
Power sprang to life around me, enclosing both Bryony and me in the comforting sensation of one of Captain Layna’s shields. But it was tight and contained, offering only enough protection for the two of us—and only that because Bryony stood so close to me. I ignored it, my focus on the creator composition.
Its power, now under my control, quieted, no longer fighting itself as I asserted the correct image of flat footings driven into the dirt until they hit the solid stone beneath. Instantly the power caught the falling stone, pulling it away from the spectators and back upright into its original position. It teetered there for a single breath before crashing down in the opposite direction to lie flat on the work site. The structure slid, creaking slightly as it found the right position on the site, before pushing itself down into the already softened dirt.