Hadrian stopped along the path and knelt near the house. He ran his hands over a patch of earth covered in leafy weeds. Dorian recognized a few leaves of sunbell but they were mostly stunted by the choking vines growing around them.
“Doesn’t look like enough for tea,” Dorian said, looking around. Now that he really looked, there didn’t look to be enough of anything here for them to eat. The vegetables would be out of season, and the fields hadn’t been tended in far too long to find anything useful. There may be late crops in there somewhere, but it would be hard to find.
Hadrian sighed and placed his hand on the ground near the small sunbell leaves. “If you could not tell anyone about this,” he muttered. “I’d appreciate it.” The tops of his ears had gone red.
“What—”
Suddenly the sunbell leaves shook, then spread up, overtaking the weeds. The glossy golden leaves that had been stunted and withered fanned out, fat and healthy. In minutes there was lush sunbell spreading two feet down the path.
“How did you do that?” Dorian asked in wonder.
Hadrian flinched at the question. “Magic. It’s like healing. Sort of. The roots are there. The memory of what was cultivated once. I just… I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I just reach out and put it back the way it was supposed to be. I can feel them—the plants, the growing things. Even if I can’t see them. It doesn’t take much magic really. Less than healing a person. I’m not supposed to do it though. I’m not even supposed to know how to,” he ended sadly.
“But why?”
“Because it’s not helpful.”
“How is this not helpful?” Dorian asked. “It’s amazing. I had no idea magic could do anything like this.”
Hadrian shook his head. “It’s not helpful to the war. The farms of the capital grow enough food for everyone, so it’s not a useful skill. We’re not supposed to use magic—practice magic—that’s not useful for the war.” He looked up at Dorian with sad eyes, and Dorian’s heart broke for him. Hadrian may have beenraised in a clean, modern city with parents and stability, but he’d had as much taken from him as Dorian ever had.
“Can you do that with apples?” Dorian asked.
“Apples? I…” Hadrian smiled. “Yes. I could probably get us a few apples.”
6
Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Dorian under a small apple tree barely wide enough to support them, eating sweet yellow apples straight from the branches he had just made flower, Hadrian realized he felt the closest to peace he had since he was a child playing in the city gardens. Perhaps even more, because there was no need to hide here. No need to make himself less. Dorian had seen his forbidden magic and only asked for more.
He watched Dorian now and thought maybe he was feeling something similar. He tore into his third apple with a small smile on his face as he looked out over the fields beyond the house. His skin glowed in the afternoon sun, and his dark eyes looked relaxed. His long legs stretched out before him were shown off wonderfully in Hadrian’s too-tight breeches. Hadrian had to admit he was having a hard time not staring at the man. He was having a hard time finding reasons not to stare. He felt freer than he ever had and maybe a little giddy, which was ridiculous given their circumstances.
“What else do you think they grew here?” Hadrian asked just to say something.
“Hmm.” Dorian looked across the farm as he chewed. “Probably basic crop in the summer. Corn, wheat, the vegetables you found. I think those vines on the inner fences might be royal berries. They would have had fall crop too. Not enough apple trees for real farming, but you can see the east field is overrunwith gourd vines, so they definitely had those. They will choke out anything if left unchecked.”
“How do you know all that?”
“How do you not?”
“I just make things grow that are already there,” Hadrian laughed. “I don’t know much about how they got there.”
“My parents had a farm,” Dorian said. His smile faded. “Just a small one. Wheat and apples.” He was still looking out over the fields, but he wasn’t focused on them anymore. “They didn’t want to be in a war, but we lived on one side of the valley and not the other, so the choice was made for them. They tried to make the best of it, but they died when I was small. Too small to tend a farm. I was taken in by the army and trained to fight. The farm was given to another family.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Fever,” Dorian said quietly. “They died of fever.”
“No healers could fix it?”
“Our healers… they are not like you. Do you think you could have saved them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Probably. There is little I can not heal.” Hadrian leaned his head back against the thin trunk of the tree. “It is just another thing this war has taken. Good people die for no reason but our pride. For our stupidity.”
“It is not only the mages. My people would sacrifice themselves for ideals no one even remembers. They would make orphans before admitting their own shortcomings.”
“My parents were both magic users,” Hadrian said. “Gone fighting more often than not. They were so proud when my healing manifested that they convinced the army to take me early. There was nothing they wanted more than a son who was good at war.” Tears stung his eyes. Not for what he had lost, but for what he’d never had. “It was the only thing I ever did thatmade them proud. They died in battle before I could disappoint them too much.”
“What you can do is amazing,” Dorian said. “What you are is…good. They should have been proud.”
