In Wycke’s experience, “coincidences” usually required careful planning.
“Your sister keeps secrets, or perhaps she might not have known. Or only knew me in another form. I have several.” Chynne inclined its head. “Besides, Lady Gimitri” —the cat spat the name— “wasn’t one to take others into her confidence. Most importantly, no oneownsme. Ever.”
“Umm… can you put me down, please?”
Chynne blinked. Wycke fell, managing a quick magical save to keep from smashing into the marble floor. That would definitely have hurt. He rolled into a sitting position, glaring at the familiar and tugging the silver band back onto his wrist. Please let Broen’s sorcerer not have felt the magical jolt coming from this room.
His or the cat’s.
“You’re not very skilled at hiding your true nature, despite the suppression spell woven into the band you wear,” Chynne said. It cocked his head to the side in a thoughtful gesture. “Lady Nyanda’s craft, I believe.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.” Damnation. Wycke so didn’t need a familiar to deal with. He’d a portal to make—the one piece of his magic he trusted.
“Sooner or later, you’ll have to address the fact that your power has grown too considerable to be contained,” Chynne scolded.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Someone stronger will come along and drain me.”
Chynne sniffed, nose lifted into the air. “I fear you’ll be the one doing the draining.”
“What do you mean? Why would I drain someone?”
“Some of the vilest conjurers in our history wanted power for themselves. Shared with no one. Why do you think bonding ceremonies test compatible magic, though the magic found is minimal these days?”
“I thought it was so the couple might produce powerful children.”
Chynne shook his head. “No. Great power needs balance. Without the temperance of balance, the magic consumes the wielder. At least in humans, who have the ridiculous desire for more, regardless of whether they can control what they gain. They’re never content with what the gods gave them.”
Hate humans much?“Don’t all beings want everything they can get?”
Again, Chynne shook his head. “No other race reaches above themselves. Elves fine-tune their abilities with intensive training. The most adept of their kind seek out nonmagical mates. Temperance. Balance.” He put his front paws together and folded them open, like a book. “Ogres prefer the work of their hands over magic. The merfolk? They keep themselves so isolated, they don’t even realize they have abilities others don’t.”
Interesting that Chynne left out his own kind. “What about familiars?
Chynne paced the bed, Wycke flinching each time its tiny little toe daggers dug into the silk cover. “Familiars do not steal power; ours grows from the day we’re born. In another two hundred summers or so, I’ll need a mate of my own. However, our abilities can increase faster if we have a symbiotic bond with those we willingly choose to aid.”
“Serve, you mean?” Having a familiar might be advantageous. Then again, if they were all as judgmental as this one… Nope...
Chynne rolled its dark eyes. “Why do humans insist they own or control another? My kind are curious, drawn to those they can learn from. Nyanda ensorcelled me, forcing me into servitude.
“Now, as I was saying, if a relationship exists between a sorcerer and familiar, rather than drain the magic like some humans would, the familiar acts as a focus to return the power from where it came upon the human’s death.”
“Where is that?”
Chynne stopped mid-pace of the bed. “Has anyone ever mentioned you ask more questions than a fledgling? Now is not the time.”
Not only did Wycke find himself conversing with a talking cat, he spoke with a smug talking cat. Chynne wrapped its tail around its body, swiveling its ears back and staring down its nose in apparent derision.
A lying cat. “Sorcerers have to be very powerful to gain a familiar.” Or so everyone said.
“They don’t form friendships with benefits as you imply.” What did this creature hope to gain? Of course, given how easily it trapped Wycke against the ceiling, if it wanted Wycke dead, there’d be one dead prince lying on the floor.
Chynne snorted. Cats snorted? “Enslave a familiar, you mean. Lady Gimitri breathed power and ambition. No less than fifty dead mages don’t lie.”
Fifty? She’d stolen the power of fifty mages to add to her own? “If she was so powerful, how did we lose the battle? Why did my father lose his life?” Wycke knew the tales of how the last great battle laid waste to his father’s kingdom. But who could’ve possibly suppressed Nyanda’s power?
“After she sent me on an errand, I believe another sorcerer blocked me from returning. She expended much power trying to bring me back in dragon form.” Chynne added in bland tones, “I might not have hurried.”
“Dra… dragon form?” As a child, Wycke had loved stories of dragons, fascinated by the majestic creatures. However, no one he talked to had seen one firsthand in many seasons. Hadn’t Saris said Sorceress Nyanda called dragons?
