“What?” Zabria leaned closer. “I can’t see anything.”
“Hmm, I’ll find out and get back to you. I don’t want to say anything and be wrong. You know what that’s like.” He gave her a pointed stare.
Zabria folded her arms, and her lower lip puckered into a pout that would’ve been devastating to anyone who wasn’t one hundred percent immune to her wiles.
“Fine,” she sulked when she saw it wasn’t working. “You’d better hurry if you don’t want your master to get angry you’re taking so long.”
“Ugh.” He cast one more look over his rune work, then stepped outside the room. Before closing the door, he pressed the preservation rune and sealed it with his magic. Now, no one could mess up his hard work. There was more than one person in the castle who would’ve destroyed it just to stop him from becoming the youngest Blood Mage. Professional sabotage at its finest. If that happened, the other Masters wouldn’t do anything about it. The assumption is that if he were a better mage, he would’ve been able to protect his work.
Sometimes, Masters were a bit fucked up.
At eight years old, he’d been surprised that the others were angry at him about his apprenticeship. Years later, he realized that his cranky mentor was the highest-ranked Blood Mage in the world. It had been a minor miracle that Xavier had been granted the spot days after Melcori’s last apprentice had graduated.
Others who had waited years for the position to open, only to be snatched up by an unknown child, made their displeasure known. After the third assassination attempt, Melcori placed hidden runes on Xavier’s clothing, turning back spells to their attackers.
Four deaths later, the most he had to contend with were sneers, and the occasional verbal abuse said far from his protective master. Not to say things were perfect, but they were far better than they could’ve been.
Xavier tried to think of what he could’ve possibly done for Melcori to demand his presence. It had been his master who told Xavier to spend the next month getting the kinks out of his project.
“Is he in his lab?”
“His office.” Zabria skipped beside him as he changed directions.
Xavier was happy to catch up with his friend during the long walk.
“You’re almost done with your official studies, right?” Blood Seers had different training than mages, but Zabria had been at the castle a few years longer than Xavier. There was only a year between them, and they had become fast friends. They had bonded since everyone else was older and insanely jealous of the talented youths.
“Yep. Master Jans said she was impressed with the accuracy and frequency of my visions.”
Xavier frowned. “Doesn’t it hurt when you have visions?” She’d scryed for him a few times when he needed insight into what paths to study. Although he’d paid her for her time with his hard-earned cash, he had regretted making her bleed.
“Yes.” She held up her hands. Light scarring went from the sides of her palms to her arms, where they vanished beneath her shirtsleeves. “But if I didn’t use it, I’d already be dead.”
“True.” Xavier sighed. “If people understood our burden, maybe they’d be less likely to pillorize us.”
“Or, they’d say the gods are punishing us by making us bleed for our magic.”
“That’s because other magic users have forgotten that all magic demands sacrifice. Just because they use their internal magical energy instead of blood doesn’t mean nothing is sacrificed.”
“Preaching to the choir, my friend.” Zabria took his arm as she continued to dance and skip down the hall beside him.
“What are you going to do when you finish? We haven’t talked about after.”
‘After’ was the nebulous phrase they used to discuss life after training and after they were done with their tests. The magical after.
“I’ll probably stay here and concentrate on special projects. Master Jans said I could remain as long as I wanted.”
“She means that, you know.” Xavier squeezed her hand.
“I know.” Zabria ducked her head. “I just don’t want to be one of those academics who never leave the castle. I want to see the world, but I need a partner, so I won't be injured if I go into a vision.”
“I’ll go with you,” he offered.
Zabria laughed. “That’s sweet, and I’d take you up on it if I didn’t know you’re going to be very busy in the future.”
“Doing what?”
Zabria smiled but didn’t offer anything more. Like Xavier, Zabria didn’t have a family. Unlike Xavier, hers died instead of abandoning her. She had come to Master Jans’s attention when her school called about Zabria’s powers freaking out the other kids. From what Zabria had said, it only took Jans a few hours to determine that Zabria was a Blood Seer and immediately adopt her. Leaving a Blood Seer with regular magical people was a recipe for disaster. They would either ignore her need to bleed for her visions or bleed her dry and force her to tell them what she saw. It had happened more often than historians were comfortable recording.
