1
The walls could talk, and they had secrets.
…where…going…
I don’t…
…keep this just between us…
Eira ignored the mutterings, keeping her head down and her nose in her book. The words were nothing more than magically trapped whispers of people who weren’t there—people who might not have been there for hours or even decades. They were her companions and her torturers. Eira fought to suppress and ignore the voices because when she’d tried to talk about them, no one believed her.
No one else could hear them.
She ascended the main walkway of the Tower of Sorcerers, a sloping path that wound like a corkscrew between lecture halls and libraries in the center and apprentice dormitory rooms on the outside. People brushed past her, quiet in contrast to the cacophony that threatened to deafen her if she let her magic run awry and unchecked.
Instead, Eira tried to fill her mind with the words of the book she was reading. They painted pictures of a land far away—the Crescent Continent, Meru. A land filled with magic vastly different than hers, and peoples that seemed as if they were straight out of a folktale. It was easy for her to place herself beyond her body, imagining standing on those distant shores, until a voice said—
…kill our sovereign…
She stopped in her tracks. Two apprentices emerged from a storeroom, whispering amongst themselves. The man wore Tower robes like her—no collar, loose sleeves to the elbows, hem falling at the small of his back. The woman’s robes had capped sleeves and a high collar. A Waterrunner and Firebearer, Adam and Noelle, also known as the Tower’s “power couple”—and the last people Eira ever wanted to see.
“What’re you staring at, freak?” Adam, the Waterrunner, said.
“I’m sorry, what?” Eira asked calmly, slipping her book into her satchel so they couldn’t turn her reading about Meru—her passion—into more ammunition to be used against her.
“Is she deaf now? Wasn’t she the one who ‘heard voices’ all the time?” Adam scoffed and looked to Noelle, who gave a snicker and tucked a length of dark tresses behind her ear.
“Perhaps she was talking to her imaginary friends and couldn’t hear us?” Noelle suggested.
“That it?” Adam took a step closer to Eira.
Eira looked at him from toe to head. She stared at the tip of his hooked nose to avoid his dark brown eyes. Just like Alyss had told her to do so she wouldn’t be intimidated. “I thought I heard one of you say something about the emperor.”
He laughed, a grating and terrible sound. A laugh Eira knew well…a laugh he reserved for at her. “Do I look like someone who would talk politics?”
“No.” Eira shook her head. “I suppose not. You’d have to have half a brain to have an opinion on politics.” She tore her eyes away and started back up the tower.
Adam grabbed her elbow, snarling, “What did you say?”
“Let me go,” Eira said quietly. Her magic swelled at the offending contact; if he held on to her much longer he’d be swept away by it, as helpless as a child in a rip current.
“You think you can just insult me and walk away?”
“Come on, Adam.” Noelle grabbed the arm not holding Eira in place.
“It’s not insulting you if it’s true,” Eira said softly.
“Say that again!” Tides of magic rolled off of him, uncontrolled, unstoppable. Eira felt like the moon, spinning around him with her words. Pulling him from one direction to the next was all too easy. Making him feel whatever she wanted him to feel—
Stop.
Eira closed her eyes and sighed softly, trying to ward off the dark depths she was sinking into. It was a place she could never risk going. “I’m sorry. Now let me go, Adam, please.”
“I’m not—”
“She’s not worth it.” Noelle regarded Eira warily from the corner of her eye. “You know what she did three years ago.”
Because of you. I didn’t mean to. If you hadn’t… The words still bubbled up in her, as horrible and dark as the memory of that day. But Eira was eighteen now. She no longer had to say everything that crossed her mind.
Silence was often the best path forward in a noisy world. Stasis and quiet and numb.
“What’s going on here?” a familiar voice interjected. All three of them turned to face the speaker. Adam’s hand quickly fell from Eira’s elbow.
“Nothing, Marcus.”
“It better be,” Marcus said with a note of warning. “Come, Eira, we don’t want to keep the Minister of Sorcery waiting.” Marcus breezed past her and up the Tower. Eira followed dutifully behind.
“Run along, coward,” Noelle hissed, just loud enough that Eira could be sure it wasn’t a magical whisper from the wall, or door, or floor.
Eira paused, glancing over her shoulder and meeting Noelle’s black eyes.
“Isn’t it nice to have Mister Perfect for a brother, who always comes to your defense? Wonder what would’ve happened to you if you didn’t have him to keep you in check and your uncle as the minister. The senate would have eaten you alive.” She sneered, her pretty face twisting into something that more resembled the ugliness in her soul.
Eira simply stared. She kept her mind vacant—as though she were sinking deeper and deeper into the bitter cold of the ocean that rolled within her. Underneath the water, everything was muted, distant, and dull. Voices couldn’t carry. No one could reach her.
“Eira?” Marcus called.
Snapping back to reality, Eira followed swiftly behind, leaving Noelle and Adam standing in the walkway. “I don’t need your help.”
“I didn’t do anything.” Her brother rolled his eyes.
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, what do you expect?” He sighed. “I’m not going to just stand by and watch them harass you.”
Because you’re afraid of what will happen if they push me too far, Eira added mentally. “If you keep standing up for me, they’ll never stop.”
“That something Alyss told you?” He arched a dark blond eyebrow at her, knowing he had her pegged. Marcus had hair more like their parents—a honey gold, darkened with bronze. Whereas Eira’s hair was a platinum shade, so bright it looked nearly stark white in sunlight.
“Maybe.” Eira twisted the strap of her bag. “But she’s not wrong.”
He sighed. “Eira, I told Mom and Dad I would protect and look after you. I promised Uncle Fritz and Uncle Grahm, too.”
“I just turned eighteen. I don’t think it’s really necessary to protect me anymore.”
“Yet I always will.” His large palm landed heavily on the top of her head and Marcus shook it back and forth.
“You’re going to mess up my hair.” She swatted his hand away.
“How will anyone tell the difference?”
Eira scowled at him, which only made him laugh.
“Don’t give me that look. Come on, Eira, smile. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you smile.”
“Let’s just get our assignments for the day.” Eira crossed to the second-to-last door in the Tower of Sorcerers, nearly at the very top—the office of the Minister of Sorcery. She knocked quickly.