Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) (24 page)

The headmistress winced, her
eyes pained. She stepped around her desk, opened a drawer, and
rummaged for a moment. When she returned to Madori, the headmistress
held a ring in her hand; it was shaped as a dragon biting its tail,
its eyes gleaming gemstones. When she placed it on Madori's finger,
the pain of Atratus's lashes faded.

"A ring of healing,"
Madori whispered. "Neekeya will be delighted."

Egeria shook her head. "No,
not a ring of healing, for Atratus would see your wounds healed and
find other ways to punish you. It is a ring to soothe pain."

Madori caressed the silver
dragon.

But
it does not stop the pain inside me,
she wanted to tell the headmistress.
It
does not stop the pain of my mixed blood, my memories, the hatred of
others and my humiliation.

She spoke softly. "I don't
want you to fade, headmistress. I don't want you to stop fighting, to
tell me that I must fight without you. I'm only a child. My friends
are only children." She blinked a little too much. "I've
always depended on my parents, and on you, to guide my way. How can I
face this enemy? I'm not wise. I'm not brave. I'm not strong."

Egeria smiled—a smile of
kindness, warmth, and sadness all at the same time, a smile that lit
her eyes and creased her face. "The greatest heroes are rarely
unusually wise, brave, or strong. They are ordinary people who stand
up and do what's right."

When Madori left the tower, she
kept running her fingers over and over the dragon ring. When she
returned to her chamber, her friends were already asleep, but even
when Madori climbed into her bed, sleep would not find her. She lay
awake, staring at the ceiling, caressing her ring.

 
 
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
POISON AND STEEL

Torin stood on the city walls,
staring down at the sprawling Ardish army.

"Thousands of our finest
men and women," he said, the wind in his hair. "The might
of Arden."

They mustered in the western
fields outside the walls of Kingswall, the ancient capital of the
kingdom. Thousands of horses stood in formations, bedecked in armor.
Riders sat upon the beasts, all in steel, holding the banners of
their kingdom: a black raven upon a golden field. Behind the horses
stood the ground troops: pikemen clad in chain mail, their pole
weapons hooked and glinting in the sun; swordsmen clad in
breastplates, their shields and helms displaying the Ardish raven;
and finally archers in leather armor, one-handed swords hanging from
their belts, their longbows as tall as men. Finally, behind the
warriors, gathered the support troops: engineers, cooks,
washer-women, blacksmiths, arrowsmiths, fletchers, cobblers, jugglers
and singers, and many other tradesmen.

"I don't know if it's
enough," said Cam. "And it pains me to move these men away
from the capital. But Hornsford Bridge is where Serin musters, and
that is the border we must defend."

Torin looked at his friend. To
him, Cam would always be the shepherd's boy from Fairwool-by-Night,
his oldest and dearest friend—a scrawny boy with a ready smile,
bright eyes, and an easy laugh. Yet now on the walls, Torin saw a
leader burdened with worry. Cam had married Queen Linee of House
Solira, and he'd been sitting upon the throne for seventeen years
now, and those years of concern had left their mark upon him. The
first hints of wrinkles spread out from Cam's eyes, and the first
gray hairs had invaded his temples.

Torin placed a hand on his
friend's shoulder. "Are you sure you should ride out with them?"

The wind billowed Cam's hair and
cloak. Looking down at the army, he nodded. "Yes. I will ride
out with them. Linee will stay here upon the throne, and you'll be
here with her. Serin hungers for our kingdom; I don't doubt that.
Mageria has been aching for revenge since our two kingdoms fought a
few decades ago. They conquered this city once; it was King Ceranor
who drove the mages out. They've never forgotten that humiliation,
and Serin will want his revenge, even if he was only a babe during
that war." Cam wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword.
"I will ride to Hornsford. I will stare him in the eyes, and I
will not let him cross that bridge."
Torin stood on the city
walls for a long time, watching as Cam joined the forces, watching as
the thousands rode and marched into the distance, their armor bright
and their banners high.

When he closed his eyes, Torin
saw the war years ago. In his memories, he sailed south along the
Inaro River with Koyee, two youths in a little boat, witnessing the
horror of Mageria's magic: villages burned to the ground; skeletons
of children sprouting two skulls; the charred remains of men and
women, their ribs flipped inside out; gruesome hills of bones and the
scent of death; and everywhere the buffalo of Mageria painted with
blood. He and Koyee had fled the mages in the night city of Sinyong,
and Koyee's arm still bore the scars of dark magic.

The last raven banners were now
flying over the horizon, and the sunlight glinted against the last
troops' armor; it reminded Torin of the strip of dusk back home. He
took out the scroll he kept in his pocket, unrolled it, and read
Koyee's letter for the tenth time since he received it last turn. It
was written in Qaelish, the delicate characters written from top to
bottom in neat columns:

Dear Torin,

I miss you and Billygoat and
think about you every turn. I've been alone many times in my life,
but now the loneliness fills me like icy water invading a cave.

I am frightened. You wrote to
me of a menace, of a great light to sear all in its way, of a sun
eclipsing the moon. This menace has stretched its fingers across all
Timandra; it has reached even our village of Fairwool-by-Night, and
its sigils are drawn upon doors and raised as flags in our fields.

I've been spending more time
in Oshy across the dusk, and I cannot speak to you of our defenses
lest this letter falls into the wrong hands. But I will say this: If
we must fight, we are ready. We stand strong.

I've written to Billygoat,
but I've not heard back, and I worry our letters our being
intercepted on the roads of Mageria. I'm so afraid for her but I know
she's strong. I love you and her and pray to see you again soon.

Your ever-loving wife,

Koyee

Torin rolled up the letter. He
missed his wife, he missed his daughter, and he missed home. He wore
the armor of a lord now—a breastplate sporting a raven sigil,
greaves and vambraces, and a helmet—and a rich cloak hung across his
shoulders. Here in Kingswall he was a knight, a hero, a warden of the
throne. Yet all he wanted to do was wear his old clothes again,
return to his village, and be a gardener and husband and father.

He climbed off the wall, mounted
his new horse—not Hayseed but a swift courser from the queen's
stables—and rode through his capital city. He looked around him at
the city: the narrow brick homes, their roofs tiled red; the
workshops of potters, smiths, tanners, gem-cutters, barbers, and
other tradesmen, their signs swinging in the wind; towering barracks,
most of their soldiers gone to war; and finally the palace, a white
castle rising upon a green hill.

As he looked at the gardens and
towers, he remembered coming here with Bailey years ago, and the pain
of missing her stabbed him.

"Twenty years ago, you and
I first came to this palace, Bailey," he whispered, his eyes
stinging. "We fought against this kingdom, but now I must defend
it. Now I'm here, fighting for Arden lest evil once more corrupts the
lands of light. I wish you were here, Bailey, still fighting with
me."

Almost
two decades,
he thought,
and
I still miss her so badly it hurts. Time heals all wounds; never was
a greater lie spoken.

He let the stable boys take his
horse, and he spent a long time walking through the gardens, thinking
of those old days and old friends.

As flowers bloomed and spring's
leaves rustled outside the window, Madori sat in the classroom,
prepared for her final exam.

The exam paper sat upside down
on her table—printed on real papyrus, a rarity here in the north.
All around the classroom, other students sat before their own exams,
waiting to flip them over. Madori nibbled her lip, trying to bring to
memory all she had learned about Magical Principles—not only the
three basic axioms but the hundreds of theorems structured atop them.
When she glanced to the head of the class, she cursed the sight of
Professor Atratus there. The stooped, hook-nosed man was pacing,
staring at a draining hourglass, and waiting to announce the exam's
beginning.

The
vulture will unnerve me through the exam,
Madori thought.
He's
going to do something to ruin this for me, I know it.

"Good luck, mongrel,"
rose a sweet voice to her side.

Madori glanced to her left, and
her belly tightened further. As if it weren't enough that Atratus was
overseeing this exam, his favorite student—Lari Serin—was sitting
here beside Madori. The girl smiled sweetly, her golden locks tied in
blue ribbons. She sat straight, her hands in her lap, her quills and
inkpot organized like soldiers upon her desk.

Wishing she had been assigned a
different seat, Madori forced herself to stare down at her desk,
trying to banish Atratus and Lari from her thoughts. She stared at
her silver ring which the headmistress had given her, a dragon
chewing its tail.

Bring
me luck, Shenlai,
she thought; it was the name she had given the ring, the name of the
legendary Qaelish dragon her mother had once ridden in battle.

Finally Atratus flipped over the
hourglass.

"Begin!" he barked.

Hundreds of papers rustled as
the students flipped them over and began their exam.

Madori took a deep breath and
quickly scanned the exam. She breathed a shaky breath of relief.
Despite spending most of her time scrubbing dishes rather than
studying, she knew this material. Professor Fen had prepared the
exam, covering all those topics Madori had mastered: application of
the three principles to different states of matter, weaving Herafon's
Law into the Fourth Principle, claiming multiple materials
simultaneously, and other topics Madori had been practicing in lieu
of sleep.

I
already failed Magical History thanks to Atratus,
she thought.
But
I can pass this class.

She began to write furiously,
answering question by question. Thanks to Shenlai, the ring that
dulled feeling in her hand, her wrist didn't even hurt.

". . . through application
of Sheritel's Fifth Principle, we can prove that the links between
particles grow denser in direct proportion to the length of the
claiming . . ." She wiped her brow and kept scribbling. ".
. . thus, as steam does not rise from water heating under a claim, we
demonstrate Karn's Law that changing states of matter requires a new
cycle of principles . . . " She blew out her breath, blasting
back her two strands of hair. " . . .stacking multiple materials
in a forked chain allows us to skip from one to another, stacking
claims simultaneously . . ."

Soon her arm itself was aching
from so much writing, and she wished she had a magical dragon armlet
too.

The hourglass spilled its sand.

An hour went by. Two hours.
Three.

A few students finished their
exams and placed them on Atratus's desk. Madori shook her arm and got
back to writing, putting down the final words.

Perfect,
she thought with a satisfied breath.
This
is one class I don't have to worry about fai—

Something hard hit her leg under
the table, interrupting her thoughts.

She grunted.

The blow struck her again, and
when she looked down, she saw a pulsing funnel of air—magic flowing
from Lari's direction.

Madori growled and snapped her
head toward Lari.

The young Magerian gave her a
wink, then gasped and raised her hand. "Professor Atratus!
Madori is looking at me! She's cheating!"

Madori leaped to her feet,
knocking over her inkpot. "I was not!" She spun toward
Lari, growling. "You're a liar. You're a filthy liar!"

She couldn't stop herself; rage
flooded over Madori, blinding her. She leaped at Lari, knocking her
off her seat. The cousins crashed onto the floor.

"The mongrel is rabid!"
Lari screamed.

Madori
grabbed the girl's hair, tugging and tearing those perfect golden
locks. "I
am
rabid, and I'm going to destroy you, Lari. I'm done with your—"

Her words turned into a scream
as fingers grabbed and twisted her ear.

Professor Atratus dragged her to
her feet; Madori thought he could rip her ear straight off. When she
struggled against him, he grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm
behind her back.

"Professor Atratus, she's
crazy!" Lari said, lying on her back in a puddle of ink. "I
only tried to be a good student, and she just attacked me, and . . .
and . . ." She covered her eyes, giving a rather convincing show
of weeping.

Madori struggled to release
herself as Atratus dragged her to the head of the class.

"Professor, she wasn't
cheating!" Neekeya shouted, leaping to her feet at the back of
the class.

Tam too leaped up. "Professor
Atratus, Lari is lying, she—"

"Silence!" the
professor boomed. "Whoever says the next word fails this class."
He glared at the students. "Everyone, back into your seats. I
will not tolerate impudence." He gave Madori's arm a painful
twist, nearly dislocating it; she yelped. "And I will not
tolerate filthy mongrel scum copying their answers from pure-blooded
Magerians. The half-breed will be punished for this."