The Master Magician (29 page)

Inside my little sanctuary, I stretched out on my bed and selected one of three books I had borrowed from Mrs. Thornes, my teacher, which she had borrowed from a scholar in a neighboring village. To me old tongues seemed like secrets—secrets very few people in the world knew, let alone knew well. The book in my hands was written in Hraric, the language of Zareed and the Southlands, where I believed the sun never set, men built their homes on heaps of golden sand, and children ran about naked to escape the heat—with their parents hardly clothed more than that. I had studied some Hraric two years ago. I didn’t consider myself fluent, but as I browsed through this particular book of plays, I could understand the main points of the stories. Southlander tales were far darker and more grotesque than the ones we studied in school, and I soon found myself so absorbed that I hardly heard the scooting of chairs in the kitchen and Mordan’s goodbyes as he went to complete his deliveries. However, I did take special note of the time, and as the sun sank lower and lower in the sky, casting violet and carmine light over Euwan, I smiled smartly to myself, imagining Mordan standing alone on that dock long into the night, his only company the proposal I would never allow him to utter.

While I wish I could say otherwise, my conscience did not bother me that night, and I had no trouble sleeping. Had I known the consequence of my actions, I would never have closed my eyes. I slept late, as there were no requests upon my responsibility on sixth-days. I woke to bright morning sun, dressed, and brushed one hundred strokes into my hair before deciding I ought to have a bath. Spying Marrine in the front room, I asked her to fill the tub for me.

She looked up from her sketch paper and frowned. “No!”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to carry the water.”

“I’ll give you a taffy. Honey taffy, with cinnamon.”

She considered this for a moment, but ultimately shook her head and returned to refining her mediocre talents as an artist. With
a sigh I stepped outside into the warming spring air and trudged to the barn to retrieve the washbasin myself. On the far end of the barn where we took our baths, there was an empty stall, which was mostly free of horse-smell. Despite my best efforts, I could not convince my father to let me bathe in my room, so it was an inconvenience I had learned to endure.

I set the tub in the stall and retrieved the pail for carrying water. As I turned to exit the barn, I shrieked and dropped the bucket, my heart lodging in the base of my throat. Mordan watched me from the open door. I had hoped his shame would keep him at bay for at least a month. Why couldn’t he tuck his tail like any other dog and leave me be?

“Mordan!” I exclaimed, seizing the pail from the hay-littered floor. I gritted my teeth to still my face. “What are you doing here? And with me about to bathe!”

“I apologize,” he said, somewhat genuinely, but there was an unusual hardness to his eyes and his voice. “I need to speak with you.”

“I’m a little—”

“Please,” he said, firm.

I let out a loud sigh for his benefit, letting him know my displeasure at his interruption, but I hung up the pail and followed him out into the yard. I folded my arms tightly to show my disapproval, all while hiding my surprise that he had come to see me so soon after my blatant disregard for him and his intentions. He had not been the first man I had left waiting for me—I suppose it gave me a sense of power, even amusement, to push would-be lovers about as though they were nothing more than checkers on a board. But Mordan
was
the first who had dared confront me afterward. Still, his backbone shocked me.

He didn’t stop in the yard, but rather led me across a back road and into the sparse willow-wacks behind my house, on the other side of which sat the Hutches’ home. He stopped somewhere in the
center, where there were enough trees that I couldn’t quite see my house or the Hutches’.

He eyed me sternly, though a glint of hope still lingered in his gaze. “I waited for you at the dock until midnight, Smitha,” he said. “What happened?”

I kept my arms firmly folded. I preferred subtlety when breaking people, but if this was what it took to sever whatever obligation Mordan thought I had to him, then so be it. “Nothing happened,” I said. “I didn’t want to go.”

He jerked back, a wounded animal, but then his expression darkened. “Then why agree? I don’t understand. I had—”

“You’re dense as unbaked bread, Mordan!” I exclaimed, flinging my hands into the air. “Do you think me stupid enough not to read your intentions? Not to notice that pathetic way you look at me when you think my back is turned?”

His eyes widened, and his face flushed, though from anger or embarrassment, I couldn’t be sure.

“I don’t know if my father has given you the wrong impression,” I continued, the words spilling from my lips, “but I do not give you the slightest thought.”

Mordan turned from red to white, and his eyebrows shifted in such a way that he resembled a starving hound. I should have left it at that, but my knack for the dramatic and my fury at the situation fueled me.

“Surely a toad could hold my interest longer, and be more pleasant to look at!” My cheeks burned. “We live on different levels of life, Mordan Alteraz, mine far higher than yours. The sooner you realize that, the better off you will be. I do not care one ounce for you, and I never will.
That
is why I didn’t go to the dock, and why no sensible woman ever would!”

I found myself oddly breathless. Mordan had gone to stone before me, and I admit that a twinge of fear vibrated through me,
rather than the sense of sweet victory I had expected. Never had someone looked at me so grimly.

He laughed—no, growled. The noise that escaped his lips sounded more animal than human. He stepped forward, and I stepped back, my back hitting the trunk of a green-needle pine.

“And to think I felt anything for a woman like you,” he whispered, his face contorting into a snarl. “How blind I have been. Your heart is ice.”

I opened my mouth for a retort, but his hand came down hard on the trunk beside my head. I winced. He leaned in close, a malicious smile on his face.

“If only you knew who I was,” he said, even quieter now. Gooseflesh rose unbidden on my arms. “Now I can see the soul that lies hidden behind your beauty. You are a horrid, selfish woman, Smitha.”

I slapped him hard across his cheek, putting my full weight into the blow. It turned his head, but his hand did not budge from its place on the tree beside me.

He licked his lips, smearing blood along the corner of his mouth. Straightening, he studied me up and down, his expression covered in shadow.

“I came here to get away from it, to leave it all behind,” he growled. “But I have enough left for you.”

“Enough
wha
—” I asked, but his other hand came down on my throat, cutting off my last word. I clung to his wrist and dug my nails into his skin, but he didn’t so much as flinch. He stared hard into my eyes, and my fear ignited so abruptly I felt I would turn to ash in his hold.

“
Vladanium curso, en nadia tren’al,
” he murmured. “I curse you, Smitha Ronson, to be as cold as your heart.”

His fingers turned to ice around my neck, and I shivered as the cold traced its way down my skin and beneath my clothes, branching out to my arms and legs, my fingers and the tip of each toe. It rushed
up my neck and over my head. The chill gushed into my mouth and nostrils, washed down my throat, and crept into my stomach and bowels. It opened my insides like a newly sharpened knife, cutting down to my very bones.

“May winter follow you wherever you go,” he said, “and with the cold, death.”

Mordan did not move, but some force punched me, and my entire body caved in on itself. The breath left my lungs, and a chill colder than any I had ever experienced filled my core and shot through my veins. My arms and legs went rigid, and every hair on my body stood on end. My very heart slowed. The sun vanished from my face, hidden by a thick, white sheet of clouds. A bitter wind blew over me, tousling my hair.

Mordan released me with a sneer and vanished, the air behind him swallowing him whole.

Charlie N. Holmberg’s
FOLLOWED
BY
FROST
is available Fall 2015 from 47North.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

Dear God/the Big Man/Heavenly Father/Creator of All:

Seriously, this has been awesome. I am utterly floored that I’ve been able to make it to a third book, that people are reading this third book (though likely skipping the acknowledgments), and that the road hasn’t ended yet. I can never thank You enough for the outpouring of blessings I’ve received.

I should let You know that my alpha readers did a great job in helping me get this story in shape, namely Andrew, Hayley, Laura, and Juliana. On the other side of the fence, as always, are Marlene, Jason, Angela, and the 47North team. Slip them a little something special if You get a chance, please.

Thank You so much for my sweet baby girl, whose birth somehow got me to finish this book faster.

Thank You for my dear husband, who continues to read all my crappy writing and manages not to entirely glaze over when I need help brainstorming.

Really, You’ve been great. Not that I expected You not to be. Just . . . thanks. A lot.

Best wishes,

Charlie N. Holmberg

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Photo © 2013 Kyndall Elliott

Homegrown in Salt Lake City, Charlie N. Holmberg was raised a Trekkie with three sisters who also have boy names. She’s a proud BYU alumna, plays the ukulele, and owns too many pairs of glasses. Charlie currently resides in Utah with her family.