I glanced down at the first line of the top parchment, and something in me lightened. I looked back up at her.
“A locking composition?”
She grinned. “Not exactly. This is actually a working of my own design. I have been perfecting it for some time. A locking composition is valuable, but to be sure it is effective, it needs to be created with great power. And it would need to be refreshed every time it was challenged. Otherwise it could be circumvented with brute force. This is something a little…neater. If I may say so myself.”
My brow crinkled, and I scanned the rest of the words.
“Oh. I see.” I looked up at her. “This working has all the subtlety of a senior mage, Layna.” And I didn’t just mean in the complexity of the composition itself. The idea behind it demonstrated a clever mind—the kind that was likely to succeed in the hierarchical world of the mages. Perhaps when I returned to Ardann I would find Layna had already been promoted to a more senior position.
She smiled, clearly pleased at my words. “I knew you wouldn’t be able to create or refresh any protections for your room yourself, so I wanted something that could last you the whole year. I’ve created a whole stack of them, so it should be more than enough. The beauty of this composition is that it doesn’t require a lot of power, so I was able to make a plentiful supply.”
“No, but it clearly requires control,” I said. “It is a most generous gift, and I thank you.”
The natural strength of a powerful mage was required not just to complete workings of significant power, but also to build greater complexity into their compositions. Mages didn’t study compositions until the Academy, so I didn’t understand the specifics of how it was done, but the stronger and more skilled a mage, the more complicated they could make their compositions and the fewer words they needed to use in doing so.
“I will admit there are a few other surprises built in that I didn’t write out,” Layna said, the pride in her voice making it clear she couldn’t resist the small boast. “But the main purpose is there for you to read. The composition won’t prevent access to your room, but it will alert you to an unauthorized entry and mark anyone who enters without your express permission. If you want someone to have ongoing access without your presence, you’ll need to place your hand on the protected door along with theirs and speak their name.”
I nodded. “Thank you. That inclusion will make it much easier to get my rooms cleaned.”
“The most important thing,” Layna said, “is that even the most inexperienced trainee here will be able to sense that your room is protected by a working. If they are a fool, they will blunder in anyway, and their identity will then be revealed. If they are not a fool, they will first use compositions of their own to attempt to decipher the nature of the power coating your door. I have specifically crafted this working to defy such attempts. Circumventing it would be far beyond the capacity of any trainee.”
“This is incredibly thoughtful of you,” I said, my voice soft. “I don’t quite know what to say.”
“Your thanks is already enough,” she said. “In truth I greatly enjoyed the challenge of creating such a working. And who knows when it will come in handy in the future? If it proves of value to you, I may perhaps put it forward to my own general for broader use within our discipline.”
“An excellent idea,” I said. “I’ll be sure to report back to you on the matter.” I liked to think that her efforts might prove of benefit to her and increase her standing within her discipline.
She bowed a final time. “I wish you all the best during your first year, Princess,” she said.
“And all the best to you,” I replied.
I watched her disappear down the hallway, off to join the rest of my guards, I assumed. When she reached the central stairway and disappeared from view, I let out a long sigh and turned back to the mess behind me.
Chapter 5
I let myself into the room and closed the door. Pausing to rip one of Layna’s compositions, I flicked my fingers toward the wood. Only when the comforting feeling of power enveloped the doorway did I turn to survey the room itself.
Now that I had time to focus, I read the words on the far wall.
Welcome to Kallorway, Princess.
The words themselves were inoffensive, but somehow they made the whole message more threatening. I forced my brain to consider the scene logically, however. My earlier assessment, made in a moment, had been right about the feathers. Soft, fluffy down covered everything. But my reaction to the red of the letters had been instinct rather than reasoning. They were written in bright red paint, not the dark reddish-brown of dried blood.
I rubbed at my temples and tried to decide what to do next. Telling Layna had been out of the question. She would be duty-bound to report the incident back to my family, and I didn’t know what trouble that might cause. I might feel alone here, but I remained determined not to fail at the task my aunt had entrusted to me.
Ever since my family got the first indication of my lack of power, they had ringed me around in a protective presence. I appreciated their love, but their concern only increased my feelings of uselessness. And now my aunt had found a way I could serve our family, the crown, and all of Ardann. A purpose that was open to me precisely because of my lack of power. I didn’t mean to throw the opportunity away before I had even begun.
And letting my parents know about the welcome I had received in Kallorway risked doing just that. Because my aunt might have sent me here for the good of Ardann—it was the only reason she did anything—but my parents had sent me here out of love for me.
In Ardann, among the mageborn, only failures, criminals, and traitors were sealed. With only a very few, unique exceptions, no sealed mages were accepted in society or among the court. By cooperating with the sealing ceremony, they won physical freedom, but that didn’t grant them a position among us. But in Kallorway it was different. In Kallorway, no one dared openly shun sealed mages—not when King Cassius himself was sealed.
That had been the price of peace with Ardann twenty-one years ago. Cassius had been permitted his throne only under condition that he seal himself. And in exchange for accepting his rule, the rebel leader who had overthrown him, General Haddon, had been given the right to choose which mages would be sealed alongside him. The fractured Kallorwegian court remained littered with sealed mages.
And so my parents hoped the children of those sealed mages might hold a different view of my powerless state from my peers in Ardann. I had suspected from the beginning that my being both royal and Ardannian would outweigh any such influence, and it appeared I was right. But I couldn’t let my parents find that out. Not yet, when I hadn’t had a chance to prove I could be of value after all.
Which meant I needed to deal with this problem myself, and I needed to do it quietly. Stooping to pick up a crumpled gown from the floor, I held it up and examined it critically. Feathers clung to its length, but as I picked them off, I noted no actual damage had been done to the garment.
And with every chair that I righted and dress that I gathered, I found the same thing. Even the tapestry on the left wall—which would not be nearly as easy to wash as the stones—had been left untouched. It appeared I wasn’t the only one interested in keeping this welcoming gesture from gaining too much attention.