Leaning forward, Vi began to pour over the glyphs and symbols in the book before her.Memorize them. She’d look over every line and circle, feel the words they invoked, until she dreamt about them.
She’d prove to Sehra and to him that this wasn’t something she was going to be daunted by. But, more importantly, she’d master the only thing standing between her and going home. Vi flipped the page and took a breath.
“Durroe,” she repeated, time and again. Vi didn’t have her hand outstretched—she wasn’t even trying to conjure the orb of light. She merely said the word and allowed her ears to become accustomed to the syllables as her eyes ran over the glyph that came to life on the page before her.
She said the word fast, slow, soft, and as loudly as she dared. With every utterance, Vi seemed to notice something new about the symbol in the book. There was a line she hadn’t understood before or a juncture she’d overlooked.
Snatching up paper from the side of her desk, Vi began drawing on it as she repeated the word. Just like after her first vision, her hand seemed possessed. It moved flawlessly over the page and crafted lines that were at first clumsy and smudged, but became flawless with practice and cemented in her memory.
By the time Vi finally leaned back in her chair, papers scattered the floor,durroedrawn across them. Her voice was horse from countless repetitions, her eyes bleary. Dawn streaked the sky, competing with the fading candlelight that now burned low. She needed to go to bed—if she was up much longer, she’d risk running into a servant coming to attend her and arouse suspicion.
“But first…” Vi lifted her hand tiredly, palm flat. The open air was now her parchment, her words the ink; her mind and will together formed her pen. With a word, she combined them all, and willed the illusion to take shape. “Durroe.”
The tiniest of threads lifted off her hand, coalescing into lines that Vi knew inside and out. For one brief second, the symbol flickered faintly above her hand, an orb like Sehra’s atop. As quickly as it came, it disappeared.
A small blurt of sheer joy rolled into laugher as Vi’s hand went limp at her side. She stared at the ceiling, the back of her head against her chair. Slowly, Vi turned her head, looking at the sketch of the rose garden Romulin had sent her.
“One word closer to mastery… only a dozen more to go,” she whispered to the blueprint tacked up against her shelves. “I’ll get this, I promise. Then, I’m coming home to all of you.”
Chapter Fifteen
She was goingto summon him again tonight, Vi decided.
It had been two days since her first lesson with Sehra. Two days, two more lessons later, and Vi’s progress had been minimal—but it had been there. Her glyph was becoming stronger, slightly more stable, but it seemed to unravel all too quickly as if there was some knot she needed to tie in the light that she couldn’t find.
Summoning balls of light was still proving difficult, but she knew she could summon a voice in her head. So that was where she’d return to. As mysterious as that man was, he knew about the magic and his help last time had been invaluable. This time she’d insist he tell her some way to expedite—
A shadow blocked out the sun as Martis’s back-lit silhouette moved in front of her line of sight. Vi sat straighter, called to attention. But before she could mutter an apology for the distraction, he started in on her.
“Princess, please pay attention.” Martis tapped the desk in front of her with the pointed end of the long stick he favored. She wondered if it made him feel authoritative to hold a mini scepter before the Crown Princess. In a way, he had more command over her life than she did.
The scratching of a pen from behind her brought Vi’s mind fully back to the present. She glanced over her shoulder at Andru, who sat in the corner. He glanced back at her, as if sensing her attention. Vi swept her hair over her shoulder as she turned forward, fussing with the ends of her braids.
She couldn’t be as relaxed as she used to be anymore. Whatever rapport, however small, she had built with her tutors was gone now. She was under the watchful eyes of the Senate. After her magic got out of hand, she shouldn’t take any more risks. Especially not before she had her new powers sorted.
Vi could imagine what the Senate and Southern nobility would say if she was discovered to have a rare magic only passed down in Sehra’s bloodline. They would make her out to be so Northern that even the magic had worn off on her. Claim that Sehra had adopted her outright and she was no longer heir to her birthright. No, on second thought, they’d likely invent far worse lies than that.
“Yes, Martis. I am sorry. While it is no excuse, this past week merely has my mind preoccupied.” She made an effort to enunciate her words properly, draw them out even though she was so tired from days of double lessons. “I shall endeavor to be a better student.”
“You had four days off from your tutelage. You have six months—at most, likely less—until the parade arrives for you, and you are expected to return South with full and proper knowledge of your station. Now is not the time to add delays by daydreaming, however tempting it is to preoccupy your mind with all that has yet to pass.”
“I understand.” Vi folded her fingers, avoiding doing anything that could land her in further trouble.
“And you are by no stretch a bad student,” he mumbled softly. “In any case, perhaps a change of topic would refresh your energy for what remaining time we have.”
Martis crossed over to the desk opposite Vi’s. He shuffled through his papers, selecting a letter.
“Ah, yes, let us discuss the War in the North.”
“Did we not cover that last year?” Vi hoped she came off as curious rather than obstinate.
“Every year you can learn something more, because you are older, wiser, and more mature.”
“Right, of course.” Vi picked up her quill and promptly put it down. If she was holding any kind of writing utensil, she’d be at risk of scribbling cartography lines or magic circles on her page, either of which Martis certainly wouldn’t appreciate. “So what are we going to begin covering this year about the War in the North?”
“How the War in the North was a precursor to the rise of the Mad King Victor. So we are, in effect, drawing new connections between the two topics we have previously discussed.”
Vi tilted her head to the side. “The connection is plain, is it not? The War in the North directly preceded the uprising. It was the last war of Emperor Tiberius Solaris.”
