A Trial Of Sorcerers

“Minister,” Eira said with a polite nod.“Always so formal.” Fritz rounded the desk with a shake of his head. He scooped upMarcus in a bear hug, even though Marcus was head and shoulders taller. “It’s good tosee you both.”“Good to see you, too, Uncle,” Marcus said.“You saw us two days ago.” Yet Eira relented to her eager uncle, giving him a gentlesqueeze as he crushed her so hard her back popped.“Oh, there you go, I heard that.” Fritz chuckled. “Feel better?”“Yes, actually.” Eira stretched, forward and back.“And just because I saw you two days ago doesn’t mean I don’t miss you. It feels likejust yesterday you two arrived at the Tower, hand in hand, playing in my office—”“Yes, we know, Uncle.” Eira gave him a smile and a pat on the shoulder. “Now, maywe have our assignments?”“Are you running off to meet Alyss?”“If our assignments happen to coincide again,” Eira admitted.“Happen to,” Marcus repeated with a snort and a chuckle.“Here you go.” Fritz handed her a slip of paper and then one to Marcus twice as long.“Now, off with you; it’s getting late already and there’s work to be done.”“Thanks, Uncle.” Marcus gave a playful salute with his paper before heading out thedoor. Leaving Eira in his dust, yet again.“What is it?” Fritz asked thoughtfully.Eira looked down at her list. Five names were penned underneath the words, WestClinic. Her brother had at least ten—no, fifteen.“He has a longer list than me again,” she murmured.“I want to give you time to spend with Alyss.” The words sounded sincere. So why didthey feel like a lie?“I want to do more.”“In time.” He said the two words she hated the most.“When will it be my time?” Eira asked softly. “I want to—”He didn’t give her an opportunity to finish. “Don’t rush. You’re young. There’s plenty oftime to come into your own. It’s best to take things slowly, given how unique your magicis.” Eira pressed her lips into a hard line. When she didn’t say anything, he pressed, “Allright?”“All right,” she echoed, resigned, and slipped away before the conversation couldcontinue. Instead of fighting, she pulled out her book once more, reading over pagesshe’d read so many times she could recite the words from memory.Words of places Eira knew she’d never get the chance to go because she’d be stuckhere her entire life, chaperoned and shepherded.She wound once more down the tower, the whispers filling her ears. As a girl, shehadn’t understood the voices; she’d thought they were imaginary friends. Her parents hadthought the same.Then, her magic had begun to manifest in different ways and it became apparent thatshe was a sorcerer, like her brother and uncle. Eira knew from that day she was destined

for the Tower of Sorcerers in Solarin, capital of the Empire. It was the place all sorcerersin the Empire were sent. She’d hoped that she’d find a solution, or even an explanationfor the voices in the Tower. But she’d yet to have any leads. All she could show for herefforts was learning how to silence the voices—if she focused.She’d arrived six years ago, young for an initiate, but not unheard of. Exceptions couldalso be made for the niece of the Minister of Sorcery a fact her peers rarely let herforget.At the base of the Tower of Sorcerers was the main entry—the only entrance nonsorcerers knew of and could access. There was a waiting area, tables and chairs, andsofas, usually vacant. No one came to visit sorcerers. Emperor Aldrik Solaris and EmpressVhalla Solaris had done a lot to push sorcerers toward being accepted in common society.But hatred and prejudice were self-feeding vines, constantly digging two new tendrils intothe hearts of man for every one that was ripped out.“I was just about to leave without you,” Alyss grumped as she jumped up from theseat she’d been occupying. She sent the clay she’d been magically sculpting back into thepouch on her hip with a thought.“Sorry.”“I saw your brother come by, so I knew you wouldn’t be far behind.”Marcus’s shadow. That was all she ever was. Even Alyss, her best and truest friend,knew it.“I just got delayed with Uncle. What were you making?” Eira quickly changed thetopic.“Nothing, just messing around.” Alyss grinned. Her fingertips were always stained byclay, or stone dust, from whatever project she was “messing around” with. “What youreally should ask me is what I’m reading.”“You find a new book?”“Yes, and it’s a truly scandalous story.” Alyss spoke low and fast. “I found it in theback corner of the used bookstore on Flare Avenue. It has things you wouldn’t believesomeone penned much less committed to print!”“You’re too smart to be filling your head with such things.” Eira rolled her eyes.“And you’re too fun at heart to be so prudish and off-putting all the time.” Alyssbraced her hands on her hips. Dozens of small, long, dark braids Eira had helped weaveinto her hair a week ago slipped over her shoulder. Beads Alyss’s mother had sent fromthe North clanked softly at the ends with every turn of her head.For Eira, a trip home was a hard day’s travel. For Alyss, it was a week to thenorthernmost region of the Solaris Empire.“You know nothing about me.” Eira mirrored her friend’s motion, putting her hands onher hips.“Wh-me? Me? I know nothing about you?” Alyss scoffed loudly, her voice echoingaround the iron chandelier overhead. “I am the only one in this whole Tower who knowsyou.”Eira hummed but said nothing. A grin threatened to split her lips. Alyss dug her elbowinto Eira’s side and freed the expression with a laugh.

“Now, we’re going to the West Clinic today, right?”“Looks like.”Together, they set off into the brisk spring dawn.Ice still clustered around gutters and hung from awnings, sparkling like magic givenform in the early morning light. Alyss’s breath plumed before her like a chimney in thecold. But Eira’s was invisible.Eira closed her eyes, imagining for just a second that she was the spirit of winteritself. She was the crisp air. She lived in the snow banks. Her heart was buried deep,deep in the icy blue of the frost-covered peaks of the mountains that surrounded her.“Spring can’t come fast enough,” Alyss muttered from under her scarf.“Winter can’t hold on long enough.” Eira sighed contentedly, stretching her arms highoverhead.“You’re crazy.”“So they tell me.”“Lucky for you, I like crazy.” Alyss hooked her elbow with Eira’s. “Now, you didn’t tellme.” She held out the book. “Hear anything?”“It’s not something I can command ” Smother at best. “You know that.”“That’s because you don’t try and command it. You just suppress and sink into your‘ocean.’”“Because I’d rather not hear the whispers.” And there was no sound in the bubble ofwater Eira imagined herself within.Alyss sighed dramatically. “You have a gift and you do nothing with it. So it falls onme to encourage you. Just hold the book and see if you can make it talk?” Alyss pressedthe book into Eira’s hands. “Anything?”Eira turned it over and flipped through the pages. Despite Alyss’s enthusiasm, shekept her magic bundled away. “No, it’s quiet.”“Damn.” Alyss took the book back and shoved it into her bag, fitting it amongst thesalves and potions that she was carrying to the clinic. “One day I’ll find something trulyspecial for you to listen to.”“I hope not.”“You have a gift,” she repeated. As if Eira would suddenly agree on the one millionthtime.“I have a curse.”“Stop being so down.” Alyss jostled her lightly. “It’s positively frigid out here. I knowyou can’t scowl when it’s this bloody cold.”Eira cracked a smile. Then, it fell. “There was something, earlier ”“What?” kill the sovereign That was what the voice had said. A voice as cold as winter’smidnight. Eira shook her head.“Nothing.”“I know when it’s something, now tell me.”“I ran into Noelle and Adam by the Waterrunner’s storeroom.” It was at least partiallythe truth.

“Oh, Mother above, no doubt mashing faces.” Alyss scowled, and proceeded to rant onsomething Adam had done during one of her history classes the entire walk to the clinic.The West Clinic was a three-story structure located on what Eira considered to be thecenter level of Solarin. There were two others in the city, but this was the largest andalways the busiest by default. It was where new clerics were trained in the arts of potionsand salves, and Groundbreakers assisted them. It was also where Waterrunners, like her,studied how to use their magic to help the dying transition into the next world.For every five non-magical people flooding in and out of the clinic—Commons, as theywere called in the Tower—Eira saw one sorcerer.Sorcerers were easy to spot for two reasons. The first being that most, like Eira andAlyss, wore black robes of varying styles depending on their rank and type of elementalaffinity. The second being that Commons would take wide steps to avoid being in asorcerer’s path.Eira and Alyss entered through the main lobby, but stopped off in a side room, wherethey prepared for the day. They both tied masks over their faces and covered their handswith thick gloves before bidding each other goodbye. However, before Eira left, shecouldn’t help but notice even Alyss had more people on her list than she did.Sighing, Eira tucked her hair behind her ears and forced herself to focus. She may bethe runt, the outcast, the weird one but these people still needed what comforts shecould bring. She looked at the first name on the list, cross-checked it against a cleric’sledger, and then proceeded to a room in the far back wing where all activity was hushedby the presence of death itself.Eira drifted from room to room, her magic at service to the people of the SolarisEmpire. It had been the idea of the empress, they said, to make sorcerers at the behestof the people. To make use of magic beyond times of war and bring it into the sun fromthe shadowed corners and back alleys sorcerers had been repressed into for as long astime was counted in the Empire.The tools of her trade were simple—a bowl and some wooden tokens. Eira would fillthe bowl with water and then place the token at its center. Using her magic, she couldrecord the words of the sick into the token and turn it into a vessel for his or her family tolisten to later, just in case the worst befell them.When Eira was finished, she returned to the Tower alone. Alyss would take at leastdouble the amount of time. As a Groundbreaker, she was actually trying to heal thepeople. She could do that much. All Eira functioned as was an assistant to a friend sheknew well—death.Eira wandered the empty halls. Classes were in session and the sorcerers who weren’tattending were out in the city. People were tired of being cooped up, and they wereeager for spring. I can’t believe I’ll get him back Prince Baldair is dead Eira paused at the familiar voice. The Tower Library was unassuming in the afternoonsunlight streaming through the back windows. It was completely silent—just her and themurmurs.

“Who are you were you?” Eira whispered, taking a step inside. A tendril of magicreached out through the air without her permission, grasping, searching. Seeking thatfamiliar voice that she’d heard so many times in these halls.For the first time, Eira didn’t try and stop her magic. She dared to let her powerwander, as Alyss would encourage, just to see what it would find. All of this end very soon The voice whispered from somewhere across space andtime.Eira paused by the back windows, looking out over the city.Someone had been here. Someone immensely powerful. Someone with magic strongenough to imprint their words onto the very fibers of the cushions, or the stone of thewalls, without even realizing it. Unintentional vessels, such things were called, and theywere regarded as being highly uncommon.Eira had tried to tell her teacher otherwise once and was reprimanded. Her theory onunintentional vessels being far more common than anyone realized—if you knew how tolisten for them—was of the many things she now kept silent on.“That reminds me ” Eira started back up the Tower, pausing at the storeroom acrossfrom the Waterrunners’ workroom. Instruction echoed out through the cracked door. Sheused one particularly zealous order to hide the soft squeal of the storeroom’s hinges asshe slipped inside.Luckily, Noelle and Adam were off elsewhere. Eira did a quick round of the dustyshelves. A single bulb of glass—a flame magically hovering within—danced with the longshadows cast by Watterunner tools.“All right, Alyss. Fine. Let’s see if you’re right. If this is really a gift.” Eira gathered hercourage and asked the air, “Who were you trying to kill?” just imagine, Emperor Solaris the icy voice from earlier whispered as if in reply.Eira spun, heart racing. She wasn’t used to the voices replying. The traces of magicwere ornery things, difficult to pin down in the best of times. They spoke to her on theirterms, never on hers.Or, maybe Alyss was right. Maybe she’d never really tried.“When?” Silence. “When?” Was there a plot to kill the emperor? Her heart was in herthroat now. Surely no one would—No one knows about this place our secret The voice was fainter, vanishing. Eiracould almost feel the ghost of the woman with the icy tones passing through her andheading no, that couldn’t be right heading to the back corner of the room?Eira scattered the cobwebs and dragged her fingers through years of dust along agroove she had never noticed in the back corner. It was half-hidden by a shelf and abarrel. There, concealed by the shadow of an alcove, was a small handle. She gripped itand tugged. Then pushed.Just when Eira was about to give up, unseen hinges groaned. She pushed harder. Thedoor released at once, swinging open.Eira went head-over heels and toppled into a secret chamber.

2Coughing dust, Eira pushed her hair from her eyes and tried to get her bearings.The storeroom door latch disengaging drew her attention to the room she’d comefrom. Jumping to her feet, Eira grabbed the hidden door and snapped it shut beforeanyone else could see her or her discovery.She leaned against the door, holding her breath and listening. Supplies clanked in theother room as the person rummaged around the Waterrunner supplies. Eira prayed to theMother above that they didn’t notice the door as she had—that she hadn’t left behindsome clue as to its existence. The rummaging stopped and Eira bit her lower lip, bracingherself to hold the door closed if the person tried to open it. There was the rumbling ofthe storeroom door slamming shut and then silence.Eira exhaled slowly and wiped the hair from her face. It fell out of the loose knot she’dtied half of it into. The wispy strands hung limply between her fingers as she tried totame them back into place.Speaking of out of place where was she?Straightening, Eira took in the room for the first time. It reminded her of a Towerapprentice’s dormitory, simple and relatively unadorned. A bed, a desk, a bookshelf withsome crumbling journals stacked on it. The remnants of a pennon clung to the stone wall.The majority of the fibers had long since given up and were now a heap of cotton on thefloor.“Who lived here?” Eira dared to ask—dared the room to answer. I will the best they’ve ever known the siren voice that had guided her in hereanswered.Eira looked to the bookshelf. The voice had come from one of the books on the topshelf. Delicately, she hooked one with her index finger and pulled it down. By somemiracle, it didn’t crumble in her hands.Placing it on the desk, Eira slowly opened what turned out to be a journal. There wasno name on the book; whoever had been its author had taken care not to give anyindication of who they were. Eira could see why within the first five pages.“Vicious,” she whispered, mostly in horror as she lingered on one particularly drawn-

out instruction. But part of her, a dark, cold, and wretched place that she had chosen toignore for the past two years, was impressed.Laid out neatly on the page, void of judgment or emotion, was the start of whatappeared to be clear instructions on how to completely freeze a person solid. SomeWaterrunner had gone to great lengths, or very illegal experimentations—likely both,given the detail—to show how it could be done so that the person was frozen in stasis.They would be neither alive nor dead, completely trapped.“Unless they’re a Firebearer, of course,” Eira mused, and then promptly shook herhead. She shut the book and put her back to it. The deep currents within her stirred atthe writings. Currents she needed to keep still.As Eira worked to void her mind, she noticed the bookcase was slightly ajar. Pressingher face into the sliver of darkness, Eira confirmed her suspicion—fresh air and dampearth lay beyond. Eira pulled, revealing an opening. No, it was more of a crack in the wallthat led into a rough-hewn passage. Eira couldn’t tell how far it went from here. Butjudging from the icy air, it progressed deep within the mountain the city and palace werebuilt on, around, and in.There were many hidden passages in the palace. Eira herself knew of a good fewbeing a part of the Tower of Sorcerers. Most of the entrances and exits to the Tower werehidden in plain sight from the Commons who worked and lived in the palace.But this didn’t look like any of the usual passages. The walls looked like they werenaturally formed. And there were no flame-bulbs illuminating their depths. As such, shecould only see a short distance before the unknown was consumed by the void.“Just who were you?” Eira asked again. But this time, silence was her only reply.She returned to the journal, curiosity daring her to open it once more. Her mindobjected. But her hand disobeyed. She flipped back open to the page on freezing peoplesolid and began reading.The day dragged on and the pages slowly turned a deep orange with the fading light.Eira blinked, rubbed her eyes, and looked out the window. The sun already hung low inthe sky. She was so accustomed to the flame bulbs that lit the majority of the Tower,constantly lending their glow, that the darkening of this forgotten chamber was an oddity.She muttered a curse under her breath. Time never moved faster than when she wasengrossed. Pressing her ear to the door that connected this secret room with theWaterrunner storeroom, Eira listened closely. She heard muffled voices and footsteps.There was a brief thundering of what sounded like a group running by.Running to dinner, likely. Classes for younger apprentices and those not sent out tothe city for the day, like her, would be ending for the afternoon. She needed to slip outnow or risk someone catching her in the workroom while she exited.Gathering her courage, Eira said a prayer and opened the door. She squeezed aroundthe large barrel and pulled the door shut behind her. Scanning the room, Eira looked forsomething else she could use to obscure the opening. Something that people wouldn’tnotice was out of place. Something like a large bag of wooden tokens.Grunting, Eira hefted the bag, placing it on the barrel. It obscured the small openingwhere the handle was hidden. But would it be enough? Now that Eira knew a door was

there, it was all she saw. How had she never noticed it before? Surely, someone wouldnow—The door to the storeroom swung open. “Eira?” Marcus blinked at her. “Did you justget back, too?”“Oh, yes,” she lied to her brother. Something Eira didn’t usually make a habit ofbecause it was dangerously easy. He believed every word that came out of her mouth. “Ifinished earlier, of course, but I took a walk around the city.” As Eira spoke, she placedher bowl and leftover tokens on the shelves.“You do like taking walks on frosty days.” He chuckled and began putting away hisleftover supplies as well. Of course, he had much less than her. Eira watched him fromthe corner of her eye. “What is it?”“Do you notice anything different?” Eira dared to ask. She had to know if the doorwas as obvious to someone else as it was to her.“Different?” Marcus faced her, hands on his hips. “Oh, you took your hair down. I likeit.”“That’s that’s right. Yes.” Eira raked her fingers through her hair, making sure none ofthe dust or cobwebs from the room she’d spent half the day in were caked on her scalp.“In any case, I’m headed to dinner. Want to come with?”“I really should try and catch up with Alyss.” Eira laced her fingers tightly. She had halfa mind to grab some candles and hunker in the room for the rest of the night. There wereat least eight more journals for her to work through. And the tunnel to explore.“Alyss was still at the clinic when I left.”“I didn’t think you were sent to the West Clinic today?”“They called me in last minute to help with pain manageme

Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 . Within was a room as familiar to her as her home back in Oparium. A large desk was situated i