I waited along with those around me, but nothing happened. I felt nothing at all.
One second passed and then another and another. I forced myself to breathe, glancing around at the others. Had anything even happened?
“Is…is it done?” a man closer to the guards asked in a carrying voice. “I don’t feel any different.”
One of the guards laughed. “I should think not. You’d have to be the Spoken Mage to sense something like that.”
“Unless you sense something?” one of the other guards asked the prisoner curiously.
The man just shrugged, his head still slumped so low I couldn’t see his face.
“No chance we’d sense anything,” said the opinionated man near me, although he’d been looking unsure a moment before. “We can’t sense power like the mageborn.”
“Or energy like the Spoken Mage and those new energy mages,” the sardine woman added.
“But then, how can we be sure it worked?” the breathy woman asked, sounding alarmed. “I don’t want to find out something went wrong when I try to write and blow myself up.”
The door behind me had been unlatched while she was speaking, but I didn’t immediately turn to leave, too absorbed in her words. I felt a burning interest in the answer to her question.
A light laugh made me swing around, however. The young woman standing in the open doorway smiled warmly at the breathy woman.
“That exact fear is why I’m here. When you all file past to leave, I will ensure that everyone has, indeed, been sealed. I can feel it already in you.”
The breathy woman’s eyes widened, and she sank immediately into a deep curtsy. “Your Highness!”
The rest of the hall followed in her wake, a wave spreading outward as everyone bowed or curtsied, cries sounding on every side.
“Princess Elena!”
“The Spoken Mage!”
I sank into a wobbly curtsy, trying to copy the women around me without taking my eyes off the Spoken Mage. She was so close I could have reached out and touched her.
She met my eyes, amusement in hers. “I’m shorter than you imagined, aren’t I?” she asked, and I nearly lost my balance completely.
“Not at all,” I assured her fervently, meaning every word. “You’re perfect.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and she laughed. “I’m not sure any of my brothers would agree with you.”
A laugh burst out of me, breaking past the awe that had rendered me witless and off balance.
“I have four brothers myself, Your Highness,” I managed to say. “So I know what you mean.”
“Four! Three is quite enough for me,” she said with a chuckle.
Stepping back, she gestured for us to exit the hall, walking past her as we headed back toward the entrance to the building. The crowd surged forward, rushing past me and blocking my view of the princess who had once been a commonborn girl just like me.
I had been proud, thinking of Faylee as the most famous commonborn in Ardann. But that distinction actually belonged to Elena of Kingslee—even if she was now the most powerful mage to ever live, a Devoras, and a princess of Ardann.
And she had just spoken directly to me! My brothers were going to be so jealous.
I joined the stream of people filing through the door and received a warm smile from the Spoken Mage as I passed her.
“Hurry home and tell your brothers you’re safely sealed,” she murmured.
The line continued inexorably forward, sweeping me past her before I could reply, but her words echoed in my head. My sealing wasn’t the only bit of news I would be sharing with mybrothers. They wouldn’t believe I had actually met and spoken to the Spoken Mage, the one who had changed everything for the commonborn of Ardann. The one who had given me my dream.
I didn’t make it many steps further before I was greeted with a row of guards. They weren’t facing toward me, though, but away, back toward the foyer, as if guarding against anyone else joining us. With our passage forward blocked by their presence, our line snaked sideways, passing through another door into a smaller room.
