Air Awakens Book One (2 page)

“Vhalla.”

She missed the master’s weathered voice while running through more titles in her head. There was one missing, there had to be. Was it in mysteries?

“Vhalla.”

The prince’s life could slip between their fingers due to missing only one line of text. Vhalla ran the back of her hand over her forehead, sweat or water rolled down her neck.

“Vhalla!”

“What?” she replied sharply, staring at Mohned. Vhalla instantly realized her disrespectful tone.

The master let it slide. “That’s enough; we have enough. Help us research, write down anything you find of use.”

Master Mohned motioned to the floor, and Vhalla took her place between Roan and Sareem. The library staff ignored all rules and decorum as they grabbed from a communal pile of quills, ink pots, and parchment in the middle of their circle.

Vhalla pulled the first book into her lap. “Master.” She raised her head, turning away from the pages sandwiched between her trembling fingers. The sage looked at her through his spectacles. “Who’s sick?”

“The prince.”

Those two words were all the master needed to speak for Vhalla’s throat to feel drier than the Western Waste. She wished she had been wrong.

He was in the palace, somewhere beyond her reach. He needed help, and she was no one. Vhalla was barely above the servants who swept the halls and mucked the toilets as punishment for petty crimes. But maybe her years of reading could pay off and she could actually do something.

Vhalla grabbed another piece of parchment. Her quill roughly marred its blank surface with streaks of ink. This was all she could do. It was all she was ever good at. She could read and perhaps pass on some knowledge to a cleric who would save a man she hardly even knew.

Snapping a quill, Vhalla cursed and threw the broken tool aside before reaching for another. Sareem shot a curious look towards her, but the brown-haired girl was a world away. The more Vhalla wrote, the calmer she felt. The pen was like an extension of her being and she forged the ink to her will as if she were under the spell of the words.

Slowly, the books began to grow in a new stack. Each had a note behind the cover, listing information she had found that she thought may be helpful. Vhalla hardly noticed her vertical workload diminishing as soldiers began to carry books out armfuls at a time. She also did not turn to say goodbye as her friends wearily departed throughout the night.

Though her energy was fading, the more books that left the room, the more she was compelled to read. Gradually, warmth budded within her. Slowly at first, then growing with each passing hour until it flourished into a blazing heat.

The sound of the last book closing woke her from her trance. Vhalla blinked at her empty ink-stained hands. In the sunlight, she turned her eyes toward the heavens, and she stared tiredly at the magnificent rainbow of colored glass that ran the length of the ceiling. Dawn had arrived, and she could not even remember the night. Two hands clasped themselves tightly around her swaying shoulders.

Blinking the haze from her eyes, Vhalla looked at the man who appeared suddenly before her. An unfamiliar face stared back. He was a Southern man with icy blue eyes, goatee, and short blonde hair. While he wasn’t menacing, she was certain that he was no one she had ever seen.

“This is the one?” He spoke to someone else, though his eyes were fixed on her.

“It is, minister,” another unfamiliar voice replied.

“Thank you. You are dismissed,” the Southern man ordered. Footsteps faded away with the sound of clinking armor.

“Who are you?” Vhalla’s tongue found life again, the daze of feverish heat fading. She tried to make sense of who this man was and why he was touching her. Her eyes settled upon a crisp black jacket. It contrasted starkly to the morning light. No one in the palace wore black.

She felt dizzy.
Almost
no one wore black. “Wait, you’re a—”

“No questions here.” A large hand, clammy and cold, clasped over her mouth. “Don’t be afraid; I’m here to help you. But you need to come with me.”

Vhalla looked up at the man with wide eyes. She breathed sharply through her nose and shook her head in protest against the silencing palm.

“I must speak with you privately, but the Master of Tome will return soon. So, come with me.” He slowly peeled his hand from her face.

“No.” She almost fell backwards. “I won’t go with you! You shouldn’t be here, I won’t go there.” Her mind was jumbled from panic heightened by the night’s exertion.

The man grabbed her once more with an annoyed look and a glance over his shoulder.

Vhalla opened her mouth to call out for help, but all she inhaled was a strong herbal scent from the cloth that was suddenly pressed against her face. Right before she lost her struggle with consciousness, Vhalla saw the symbol embroidered on the man’s jacket as he leaned forward to pick her up. Stitched over his left breast was a silver moon with a dragon curling around its center; split in two, each half was off-set from the other. She had never seen it with her own eyes, but she knew what that ominous image meant: a sorcerer.

I
T FELT AS
though someone had taken an axe to the back of her head, split it open, and allowed her brain to leak out upon the unfamiliar pillow. Vhalla groaned and cracked her eyes. Her face felt hot, and not from the sunlight that streamed through—in Vhalla’s opinion—an enormous window.

The previous day came back to her in a rush. She sat and grabbed her temples as a chill raced through her. The prince’s return, finding every book she could think of, practically passing out while reading, and the man and his strange black jacket—it all came back with sickening speed.

Vhalla looked around the room cautiously, as though a specter may lurk in any shadow. The walls were the palace’s stonework, fitted and mortared. A decorative edge ran around the top of the room, unlike her own unadorned chambers. Sculpted dragons danced around moons.

Her eyes finally settled upon a small glass jar hanging from an iron hook bolted into the wall. Flickering within was a tongue of fire. There was no oil or wax to fuel it, no source for the flame. It simply hovered within its container.

She scrambled to her feet, bolting for the door. Her hands closed around the metal handle, and she tugged vigorously. The sound of iron on iron filled the room as the lock engaged and the door refused to budge. It was louder than the panicked scream stuck in her throat. The memory of the black-coated man flashed before her eyes; Vhalla blinked it away.

Taking a step back from the locked door, she frantically looked around the room. There was a bed, a small table, and a chamber pot. She ran to the window, throwing open the glass and looking downward. It was a dizzyingly straight drop to the ground far below.

The sound of the door latch disengaging brought her attention back within the room, and Vhalla plastered herself against the far wall. A sorcerer had taken her, and she did not want to believe where. The door swung open and a vaguely familiar pair of icy eyes met hers.

“Good to see you’re awake,” the man smiled cordially. “How do you feel?”

“Who are you?” Vhalla plastered herself to the wall, so close that it would be impossible to fit even a piece of parchment between her back and the stone. She eyed the man warily. He wore different clothes today; long robes atop a tunic and trousers. Over his left breast was a patch that reaffirmed her panic: a black swatch with a broken moon.

“Do not be afraid.” The man raised his hands unthreateningly. “No one will hurt you.”

“Who are you?” Vhalla repeated. She knew by his floor-length robes and belled sleeves that the man was of higher rank than her, as almost everyone in the palace was. Vhalla struggled to keep her voice as calm and respectful as possible. She failed.

“Wouldn’t you like to sit down?” He continued to ignore her question.

“I’d like to know who you are,” Vhalla repeated slowly, her eyes glued to his left breast. A nail chipped as she dug her fingers into the stone. “Why did you take me?”

“My name is Victor Anzbel,” the man finally revealed with a small sigh. “I am the Minister of Sorcery, and you are in the Tower of Sorcerers. I took you because I need to speak with you, and doing so upon the library floor was not an option. Forgive me, but it was already dawn, and we didn’t have time for relaxed introductions there.”

“Wh-what could you possibly need to speak with me about?” Vhalla stuttered, leaning against the wall for a wholly different reason. She was in the Tower of Sorcerers speaking to the Minister of Sorcery. She must be dreaming.

“Please, come.” He motioned to the door. “I do not wish to discuss this across a room.”

Without waiting for her response the man walked away, leaving the door open behind him. Vhalla heard his boots upon the stone floor in the unknown beyond. She didn’t want to leave her wall. Her wall was safe and stable.

Sorcerers were odd, they were dangerous; they kept to themselves and left normal people alone. That was why they had their own Tower, so they kept out of sight and mind. Everyone in the South had always told her so. It was the last place
she
belonged.

“Would you like black or herbal tea?” the minister called nonchalantly from the other room.

Vhalla swallowed. Perhaps if she stayed still long enough she could become part of the wall and vanish from the world.

“I have cream and sugar also.”

Vhalla weighed her options, ignoring the odd fact that he actually had cream and sugar at his disposal and would offer some to someone like her. There were two ways out: the window or the door. The former involved a long fall to certain death. The later involved facing the sorcerer who had kidnapped her. She didn’t like either of her options.

Vhalla inched forward toward the open door, wringing her hands into the sleeping gown she still wore. She didn’t care if it was against Southern fashions, she’d give anything for a pair of trousers.

The minister was busy at a far counter in the connected room. A kettle sat over another unnatural flame as the man fumbled with jars of dried herbs and mugs. It was a workroom of sorts with a table, more beds, and bandages. Vhalla recognized some clerical salves and her eyes fell on a row of knives. Was she to be part of some living experiment?

“Ah, there you are. Please, take a seat.” The man half turned, motioning to the table. His eyes held a youthful spark that Vhalla was unaccustomed to. She had always thought palace officials were ancient, like Master Mohned, but this man couldn’t be more than ten years her senior.

Vhalla slunk along the far wall, careful not to bump into anything. She almost jumped out of her skin when her feet fell on something soft. Nothing more than a rug accounted for the plushness beneath her. Vhalla blinked at it. It was far nicer than what decorated the library. She curled her toes into the soft fibers.

“So then, black or herbal tea?” the man persisted, as though nothing about their situation was strange in the slightest. His hand hovered over the kettle, one mug already steaming.

“Neither.” Vhalla had not forgotten the cloth he used to make her unconscious.

“Are you hungry, perhaps some food?” He accepted her refusal with grace, but left an empty mug on the countertop where he worked.

“No.” Vhalla studied him carefully as he sat in the chair opposite her. The minister curled his fingers around his mug with an annoyingly relaxed little smile.

“If you change your mind you only have to say the word,” he offered.

Vhalla’s throat felt too gummy to do little more than nod. Tea would be nice, but the Mother Goddess in all her shining glory would cease to rise for dawn before she accepted anything from this man.

“What’s your name?”

Vhalla bit her lower lip, torn between respecting the official sitting before her and the fear that threatened to set her balled hands to shaking. He could easily find out her name, she reasoned. Though forcing it between her lips was harder than confessing her darkest secret. “Vhalla,” she answered. Perhaps if she obliged him he would let her go. “Vhalla Yarl.”

“Vhalla, it is a pleasure to meet you.” He smiled over his tea.

She tried to keep her face blank, something she was never really good at.

“I know you have many questions, so I will try to explain things as simply as possible. First, allow me to commend you on your efforts on our prince’s behalf.”

Vhalla nodded mutely. The library seemed like a different world. The only reminder that it was real was her clothing and the fever heat still radiating throughout her body.

“Last night, I was summoned by the clerics to inspect the prince’s magical Channels,” he continued. “As a Waterrunner, they needed my knowledge.”

“Prince Baldair doesn’t have magic,” Vhalla interrupted. She didn’t understand the strange squint to his eyes.

The minister stroked his goatee, sitting back in his chair. “Prince Baldair is still at the front,” he said finally.

Vhalla could not stop her mouth from falling open. If Prince Baldair wasn’t in the palace then that meant the prince she saved was...