“But you healed the dying ferryman,” Chitai protests.
Elianna sighs. “Only because I had a potion I’d already activated.”
I shove my hair out of my face and catch sight of myGMbrand out of the corner of my eye. Mostly I can ignore it, but right now a wonderful, horrible thought jumps into my mind. “Elianna,” I say slowly. “Do you have any of that potion left?”
“Yes, thankfully.” She gives me a sharp look. “Why? I thought Artemisen healed you.”
“She did.” Now that I’m thinking of it, I don’t understand this one bit. “Every single new ache and pain and cut and bruise. There’s not even a scar or raised mark where my head bled so much, although my earlier scars are still here.” I touch my cheek. “And this.” I roll my sleeve back and show them the brand.
Unhealed.
“Whatever she did, it didn’t touch this. Why?”
Andras sighs. “It’s better not to question the actions of a goddess.”
“I’m not questioning, just wondering,” I tell him. “But Elianna, if you use some of your potion … if you don’t mind using some on me … could you heal this?” My voice is barely a whisper by the end of my request. Inside me, hope wars painfully with the bleak certainty that she can’t do it, that even agoddesscouldn’t—or wouldn’t—heal this ugly mark.
“I’m so sorry, Soli. I would if I could. I hope you know that,” Elianna says, her face set in lines of regret. “But my magic doesn’t touch old scars or burned-on brands. Plus, the Guild has long suspected the Inquisitors of using magic to enchant the iron and make the brand irreversible.”
“Sure. Of course.” I can’t look up. Don’t want to see the pity on their faces. “Just a thought. Not important compared to our quest.”
“I’m sorry, Soli,” the sergeant says kindly. “But you’re right. We need to focus on the quest. Elianna, why didn’t you tell us? I know that at least in the back of my mind, I was counting on you to save the day if circumstances turned dire in the Barrows.”
“Direis an understatement,” I mutter.
“Whydid the king send you to help us find the keys when you’re practically defenseless?” Kaelen demands.
“Because he doesn’t know,” she cries. Then she gulps in a shuddering breath and falls back into her chair. “He doesn’t know. My Guild doesn’t know.Nobodyknows. I tried something I shouldn’t, and it cost me my magic. Worse, it nearly cost me my life.”
Amendment:No sorcerer shall ever attempt the tests that prove mastery of the Pillars of Magic unless in the presence of no fewer than three sovereigns of their Art.
—Declaration of Laws, Sorcerers’ Guild, Fifth Age, amended after the eighth death in the first year of the age
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Nobody knows what to say after Elianna’s revelation. Chitai puts an arm around the sorcerer’s shoulders and gives me a dirty look.
I shrug. We needed to know.
“Maybe you should back up and tell us what happened,” Kaelen says, frowning.
Elianna takes a deep drink of wine and then looks around the table at us. “There’s a procedure by which one rises from apprentice to sorcerer or sorcerer to sovereign. If you survive—pass the test, in most cases, since death is not all that common anymore—then the tattooists ink the marque of your Guild onto your skin in a strictly dictated pattern. We have to prove mastery of the Twelve Pillars of Magic to a panel of at least three examiners.”
“Death is not commonanymore?” I’m appalled.
“The examiners are sovereigns, I’m guessing?” Sergeant Neville asks.
“Yes. And they must be sovereigns in the Art you claim. So, Air Touched for me, Terra, Fire, or Water Touched for others.”
“So far, so good,” I say, impatient. “What happened?”
She examines her empty cup. “I need more wine.”
Chitai slides over her own untouched cup.
Elianna nods her thanks and takes another deep drink. “For the Air Touched, there are actually Thirteen Pillars of Magic. I never passed that final trial before the Council posted me to Pallanhold.Once I arrived in Pyrrh, I spent two years trying to figure out how to do it myself.”
Andras finally stirs from his post by the window and walks over to take a seat across from Elianna. He gives her a hard stare. “What’s involved in these trials?”
