Esther took it, warmth seeping into her fingers. “If you weren’t my maid, I’d knight you.”
Lucy grinned. “If I were a knight, wait, am I a guy or a girl knight?”
“Why does it matter?”
“I need to know what equipment I’m working with!” she said, crossing her arms. “Anyway, semantics later. Try not to set any chairs loose this time. Basil can’t afford any more grays in his hair.”
Esther cringed at the memory. In the last lesson, she had accidentally brought an innocent chair to life while trying to heat some tea. The chair ran away on all four of its animated legs, Basil still atop it. It scurried like a weird spider and was eventually found in the barn, where the sheep ate it. Such a tragedy: to bring life into something only for it to be immediately consumed by farm life. Since then, Basil had been hunting for a rune sigil that could be added to the room to contain anything like that.
“No promises,” Esther muttered.
Lucy gave her a final, reassuring pat on the back before sprinting down the hall, her comfortable-looking shoes squeaking on the floor.
Esther exhaled and stepped inside the room, wishing she had the same luxury of comfortable shoes to help her endure the lessons.
The chamber smelled faintly of smoke and wet stone. Scorch marks decorated the floor like souvenirs from past disasters.
Magic hummed faintly beneath the tiles, like a heartbeat beneath stone. Esther had grown up surrounded by it, woven into the architecture, embroidered into banners, but understanding magic and controlling it were very different things.
Every mage was taught the same fundamentals:
Magic comes from emotion.
Runes give it shape.
Runespires keep it safe.
The first two rules Esther understood well enough; the third she found deeply insulting. A runespire was meant to focus a mage’s power, jewelry inscribed with microscopic sigils capable of containing unruly spellwork: necklaces, earrings, bracelets, even anklets, if one lacked dignity. The palace owned hundreds. And while they worked flawlessly on most people…
…Esther’s magic tended to ignore them.
Or melt them.
Or occasionally fling them across the room with enough force to crack a window.
Lucy once joked that Esther’s magic wasn’t fire, lightning, or heat, it was pure spite. Basil refused to confirm or deny.
Other kingdoms categorized magic differently. In Kraggmar, it was considered a sign of ancestral blessing. In elven lands, it was treated like a craft, something to refine as patiently as glassblowing.
But here in Valedara?
Magic was treated like a tool. And sometimes a weapon. And in Esther’s case, a liability.
Golden magic was rare. Revered. Feared.
But no one could explain why hers behaved like it had opinions.
Sir Basil was already there, looking as nervous as he always did before a lesson. His hair was brown, streaked with gray, and he dressed as if he’d been personally wronged by fashion. He had been with her since she was sixteen, and the exhaustion showed in the deep lines of his brow.
“Greetings, Sir Basil.” Esther curtsied.
“Enough with the formalities, Princess. Ready for another lesson in control?”
“That depends,” Esther said, dragging herself to the center of the room, slouching again now that Lucy was gone. Basil cared less about her posture than about surviving the lesson. “Are we measuring success by the number of fires or the size of the explosion?”
The faint charred scent from last week’s disaster still clung to the walls. Those pea-green curtains were ugly anyway, so Esther decided her magic had done everyone a favor by burning them.
He sighed. “Neither. Today we practice patience. Remember: magic mirrors your heart. Control that, and you’ll control your power.”
