Rewritten Volume I Ending

Chapter 39: The Cotter Farm

Liv found the blood monster in the fields of a particularly dilapidated farm, just as the first stars were peaking out of the purple eastern sky, at the edge of the stormclouds.  She was thankful that the last few years of riding practice had finally been enough to make her feel comfortable in the saddle, because she ended up having to go off the road and even jump a drainage ditch before she made it to the family.  They were gathered around a singular oak tree, on a rise between fields, which had grown to a height of thirty feet.  Liv knew that trees like these were sometimes used as markers on Baron Henry’s surveys of the land.

She reined in, slid down out of her saddle, and tied Ember up to a low hanging branch.  To Liv’s surprise, she recognized the head of the family by the light of the sunset.  “Big Whit Cotter,” she called, ducking under the branches.

“I’m surprised you know my name, m’lady,” the large man said, making an awkward bow that the rest of his family mimicked.  There were four of them, all dressed in worn old clothing that had been patched and repaired too many times: a middle aged woman who must have been Whit’s wife, and Little Whit, a man now in his prime.  Liv guessed the woman he had an arm around was probably his wife, not a sister. 

“You used to win the bare knuckle fights at every fair day when I was little,” Liv explained.  “No one could beat you.”

Big Whit grinned.  “That was when I was younger!” he said.  “Even so, if this thing was just some jumped up field mouse, or even a fox, I might’ve given it a smack.  As it is,” he waved an arm helplessly at the carnage in his field.  “You see.  I don’t know what we could even do.”

It was lucky there was still enough light to see by; the sun had not entirely passed beneath the mountains to the west of the valley, and while rain threatened, it hadn’t yet begun to fall.  The orb of blood, looking just like the one Liv and Matthew had fought at the Laughing Carp, had clearly got in among the chickens, because there were feathers everywhere by the coop.  The corpse of one old milk-cow lay in the field, desiccated and shrunken, and not far away the monster was currently engaged in draining the blood from a pig, with no less than four whips of gore wrapped around its victim.

“It started over at the Hardwick’s place,” Little Whit spoke up, pointing past the fields to where another farmhouse could be glimpsed in the distance.  “We’re not sure if they got out alright.”  Liv didn’t see any lights in the windows, but she kept her doubts to herself.

“It’ll make things easier if you all stay out of sight,” Liv told them.  She’d been chewing jerky the whole way over, but she still didn’t figure she was holding as much mana as she could.  Maybe fourteen or fifteen rings, if she had to guess.  In any case, she didn’t want to have to protect the Cotter family at the same time as she was dealing with the monster.  They really needed to come up with a name for these things.

Once the family had descended the hill, putting it between them and the field where Liv intended to fight, she got to work.  This was the first time that she’d even been sent to solve a problem like this entirely on her own, and Liv didn’t intend to make a mess of it.  That meant she wanted to first keep the monster from fleeing, and then dispose of it.  Who knew how big it would get if it continued rampaging across the countryside.

Liv momentarily considered, then discarded, the idea of using her Grasping Ice spell.  If the blood-monster had been more solid, she might have tried it, but she figured it would probably just ooze past the pillars.  She only had a little time before it finished with the pig; when that happened, it would either notice her, and close distance, or it would wander off searching for some other victim.  It was that thought that gave her an idea.  

“Celet Manis,” Liv intoned, lifting her staff and pointing it at a patch of earth just in front of the feeding orb.  She built the sculpture just like she did when providing targets for Matthew to cut in the practice yard, a man of ice with a sword raised, as if charging in to fight.  She took her time with it; this part didn’t have to be quick, it only needed to draw attention.

A lash of viscera flung out from the orb, wrapping around the legs of the statue.  Tossing the pig aside, the mass of blood closed on Liv’s decoy, throwing out the rest of its whips to bind a new target.  It was smart enough to keep its prey from escaping, apparently, but it hadn’t yet realized what she was doing.  Even touching the ice would start to congeal the blood, but Liv didn’t give the monster a chance to pull back.  “Celent’he Aiveh Encve Næv’belim’o’Manis,” she continued her chanting, before the sigils blazing on her staff had a chance to even dim.

Spears of ice shot out of the decoy, piercing the orb of blood and two of its lashes.  The monster shook, trying to pull itself back off the frozen spikes it was impaled on, but Liv didn’t let up.  “Celet Aiveh Næv’belium Ractae,” she finished, then lowered her staff to watch the results.

The spears that pierced the monster of blood radiated cold, chilling and freezing everything they touched.  Frost spidered out from each spear, encasing the monster until it stopped moving entirely.  Only when the lashes crumbled and the frozen orb fell to the ground, shattering into scores of icy pink chunks, did Liv relax.  It had been a more complicated sequence of casting then she had ever used in an actual fight before, but it had worked, and left her with a sliver of mana.  With the emergency power stored in her ring, she might even be able to get off a single spell, if she needed to.

“By the trinity,” Little Whit’s wife gasped.  “Did you see that?”

Liv turned, and saw that the entire family had crept over the rise of the hill, on their bellies, to watch what she’d done.  With a sigh, she trudged back through the gathering darkness toward the tree, where Master Grenfell’s gelding was waiting.  There was no way she was going to walk back to Castle Whitehill after that.

☙

Baron Henry’s men found Liv half a mile from the west gate of Whitehill; it had begun to drizzle, and the rumble of thunder was nearly constant.  She was well on her way to soaked through, and couldn’t help shivering.

“They need you down at the stockyard!” Piers shouted, pulling his horse around to ride beside her.  “Master Grenfell’s already gone to help, but it’s all Lady Julianne can do to keep the monsters contained!”  Another four men moved to surround her and act as an escort.

Another stroke of lightning fell onto the south end of the city, and Liv flinched at the light.  “Let’s go then,” she said, and kicked the horse forward.  

Piers and the other guards cleared the way through the city streets for their ride, though in truth it seemed like most people were taking shelter inside their homes.  Whether it was the thunderstorm, or the monsters, Liv couldn’t be certain.  How quickly would word have travelled?  Would such strange events be believed, or would the threat have to be seen before people took it seriously?  This was nothing like an eruption, when most of the mana-beasts were killed before they ever reached the town.

The stockyard was in the Lower Banks, next to the butcher’s shop.  It was a large, fenced pen where cattle, pigs, or sheep could be stored before being slaughtered.  The area was surrounded by the shambles, a section of close streets with open air slaughtering areas where the animals could be hung and drained of blood before being carved by the butchers.

In other words, it was a part of town where the very business of the day was blood.

When they came in sight of the shambles, and the stockyard beyond, Liv could see that the streets ahead were lit by the ruddy glow of fire.  “Over here, Liv!” Master Grenfell called from above, and Liv looked up to see that her teacher was clinging to the roof of a nearby house.  The building was two stories, with exposed beams and plastered walls between them, and he’d gotten a ladder somewhere, which was still leaning there for him to get down again.

Liv slipped down from the saddle, dashed over to the ladder, and awkwardly made her way up.  It was a tricky thing, with her staff clenched in her left hand, and there were a few times the ladder swayed precariously in the wind.  The rungs were wet from the drizzle, and every crack of thunder made her flinch.  Piers and one of the other men dismounted, set their boots on the base of the ladder, and held it steady for her, and that made the ascent easier.

By the time Liv had gotten up onto the roof, she no longer had any doubt about where the lightning and the storm were coming from.  Lady Julianne, her long hair storm tossed on the wind, stood on the roof with Master Grenfell, a pale wand in her hand.  The words of her incantations were lost in the tempest, but with every stroke of her wand, a bolt of lightning flashed down into the stockyard.  Liv had heard enough stories to recognize the royal word of power.

“I’ve laid down lines of powdered mana-stone,” Master Grenfell shouted to Liv, as he grasped her by the arm and pulled her over to a place away from the edge.  “They make a good base for walls of fire,” he pointed out.  

Liv looked down, and saw that every street leading away from the stockyard had been blocked off by a curtain of flame that stretched higher than a man’s head.  How long they would burn for, she couldn’t guess, but she imagined the mana-stone was the reason they hadn’t been extinguished by the rain already.

Thunder cracked, and down in the stockyard a monster of blood was struck by a blast of lightning.  Unlike the ones Liv had faced at the Laughing Carp and the Cotter Farm, this one was enormous.  The center remained a sort of blob or pulsing orb of blood, but eight distinct tendrils stretched out from it, each extending two or three horse-lengths from the main body.  A tripod of three such lashes, thicker than the others, supported the orb as it moved across the muddy ground, while the other five lashes cast about violently.

“It consumed everything in the stockyard,” Julianne shouted, motioning down at the fire-lit yard with her wand.  Liv peered over the edge of the roof, and counted a score or more carcasses heaped about, ranging from great bulls with their horns, to boars and rams.  “By the time I got here, it was already too big to do more than contain it.  The lightning hurts it, I think, but doesn’t kill it.”

“And it’s afraid of the fire for now,” Grenfell said.  “But if it was smart enough to just charge through, the flames wouldn’t actually stop it.”

“What are we going to do?” Liv asked.

“Hit it with everything we can, all at once,” Julianne responded.  “Kazimir, hold its attention for a moment.  I’m nearly spent.”  She pulled Liv over to the side of the chimney, which provided at least a bit of shelter from the wind.  There, Master Grenfell had placed the great, rough mana-stone which he usually kept in his study.  Julianne put her hand to it.  “Take what you need,” she told Liv. 

Liv set her right hand against the stone: she’d used nearly the entirety of her mana at the farm, against a monster less than half the size of the thing below.  Wisps of blue and gold light lifted off the surface of the stone and coiled about her palm, sinking into her skin.  Slowly, Liv felt her reserves of magic once again grow full.

“I thought the royal word was one of the most powerful,” she said, and took her hands away from the stone.

“It’s very powerful,” Julianne told her.  “But like every other word, it has its limitations.  Lightning kills by stopping the heart from beating, or burning out internal organs.  That thing down there has neither, and it the blood doesn’t put up much resistance, so the lightning goes straight through it to the ground.”

“Ice seemed to work pretty well,” Liv remarked, as they got back to the edge of the roof.

“Good,” Grenfell said.  “You freeze the bottom, while I boil away as much of the top as I can.”  Liv nodded.  “On my count,” the master mage said.  “Three.  Two.”  Liv gripped her staff, pointing it down at the monster in the stockyard below.  “One!”

Three incantations echoed from the rooftop, but Liv focused on her own.  “Celet Aiveh Ractae!” she cried, thrusting the staff down at an angle to direct her spell at the tendrils of blood which supported the orb.  Frost began to crack across the viscous mass, a gout of flame from Master Grenfell scorched the main part of its body, and another bolt of lightning fell down from the dark clouds above.

From the way the monster’s body moved, rearing back in pain, Liv would have expected it to roar, shriek, or cry out in some way.  Without a mouth, it was eerily silent: only the rumble of thunder, the crackle of flames, and the chanting of the three mages carried on the wind.

The orb of blood rushed toward the home on which they were perched, it’s tendrils pulling it forward like the legs of some enormous spider.  Where Liv had frozen the lower tendrils, the motion caused an outer crust of ice to break and crumble away, leaving a detritus of pink ice on the ground of the stockyard.  

Two massive tendrils of blood reared up into the sky, above even the roof, and Liv threw herself backward just before they came down, her spell forgotten in blind panic.  The roof caved in under the titanic blow, and then more tendrils fastened on the chimney, the beams, pulling and crushing.  Liv scrambled for the ladder, but the entire house dropped away beneath her in only a moment.

“Celet Aiveh Aimac Belia o’Mae!” Liv screamed as she fell, clutching her staff tight to her body.  She slammed into the chute of ice only a heartbeat after forming it beneath her, and shot off down at an angle, out of the collapsing debris and rising cloud of dust, using her intent to form the slide into a curve that carried her wide past the monster and dumped her out onto the bare earth of the stockyard.  

Liv shot out of the end of the chute moving faster than she’d expected, and it was all she could do to tuck her arms in close and let herself roll across the ground until she came to a halt.  She gasped, bruised and battered all over her body, and rolled to her feet.

The entire house had collapsed into nothing more than a pile of rubble, and Liv couldn’t see either Master Grenfell, nor Lady Julianne anywhere.  For a moment, her mind was filled with images of their broken bodies, trapped under the rubble, crushed by stone and lumber, faces marked with blood and eyes open, staring.

No, she decided, they had to be alive, and she wouldn’t allow herself to think otherwise.  In the meanwhile, she was trapped in the stockyard with an enormous monster, every way out blocked by walls of fire.  If Liv was going to survive this, she was going to have to find a way to win – and she only had a few moments to think while the monstrous mass of blood finished its rampage through what was left of someone’s home.

She’d filled herself with mana on top of the roof, but the two spells she’d already cast had eaten into those reserves.  Liv had gotten a pretty good sense for her own capacity, and estimated she had about nine rings of mana left to work with.  That worked out to between two and three spells to end the threat, while nothing she’d done to that point seemed to have phased the thing.

The blood monster shifted, its tendrils whipping around out of the rubble as it seemed to almost rotate in place.  Though it had no face to speak of, Liv could feel the moment it focused on her - probably because she was the closest remaining source of blood.  

The enormous, glistening mass of viscera, borne on its wet lower tendrils, came about and moved toward Liv.  She took a deep breath to calm herself, and set the butt of her staff in the ground before her.  The monster loomed above, nearly the size of a building itself, and the upper tendrils drew back, like mountain snakes about to strike.

Chapter 40: The Stockyards

“Celevet Aen Kveis!” Liv shouted, gripping her staff with both hands.  Bursts of gold and blue light erupted from the sigils that ran the length of the aspen-wood shaft, and a wall of ice built up between Liv and the oncoming blood monster.  

Just like the day Master Grenfell had tested her in the courtyard, using his fire magic, Liv touched the top of her staff to the wall as it grew in front of her, leaning forward to shelter behind the structure.  

A tendril of blood dropped down onto the wall from above, slamming into the ice with the force of a runaway wagon and sending frozen chips flying in every direction.  A crack ran through the ice in front of Liv’s face, but for the moment, the barrier held.

Only half a moment after the first lash hit, the main body of the creature followed.  Liv did her best to curve the wall out to her sides and above her head, focusing her intent not on a flat plane of a wall, but something that could cradle and protect her.  It wasn’t enough.

The whips of glistening blood snaked around the wall and came at Liv from behind.  “Celet’he Aen Sekis,” she gasped, releasing her staff with her right hand, and a blade of ice extended out from her clenched fingers, solid as a rapier in the practice yard and as sharp as the one Matthew carried.  Rather than lunge, she slashed with that edge, cutting the first tendril that grasped at her so that the end fell off and dropped onto the packed earth of the stockyard.  There, it lashed about like a wounded serpent in the dust.

Liv scrambled away from it, putting her back to the wall of ice, with the staff in one hand and the sword freezing her palm in the other.  Already, she couldn’t feel her fingers.  Another arm of liquid viscera lashed around the barrier she’d raised, and she cut at this one as well, but it jerked back before she could sever a piece of the monster.

Then, a great weight crashed down on the wall of ice from above, where Liv had tried to shape it into a gentle curve that could protect her.  The first time the creature had thrown itself against her wall, the ice had held, albeit with a few cracks.  This time, she wasn’t so lucky.  Liv dove to the side, rolling across the dusty ground as the wall came down, breaking apart into dozens of pieces, all borne onto the dirt and ground to frozen dust beneath the weight of the monster.

Lashes shot forward like crossbow bolts, and Liv realized she couldn’t move fast enough to avoid them.  She lashed out with the blade of ice in her right hand, but the a flare of brilliant light made her squint her eyes.  

When Liv could see again, a ring of lightning had surrounded the monster, sparking and flashing, reaching out tendrils of light that reminded her of the roots of trees.  Liv pushed herself back across the dirt, unwilling to lower her sword.

“This won’t hold for more than a moment,” Lady Julianne shouted, her wand extended in one delicate hand.  She was covered in dust, and blood matted her hair, but she was alive, and she was holding the horrible thing of blood back from Liv.

“Master Grenfell?” Liv shouted.  The air tasted odd, like a thunderstorm, and the fine hairs on her arms stood on end.

“Alive,” Julianne said.  “But we need to finish this thing.”  She raised her wand, brought it down, and with a world-shattering boom light filled Liv’s world.  

She squeezed her eyes closed, rubbing the forearm of her sword hand across her face to try to get her vision back.  When Liv tried to look again, her vision was hazy, filled with black spots that made it difficult for her to see.  One thing was plain: the monster was still there.  Just as Julianne had said on the roof, while lightning seemed to cause it pain, another kind of magic would be required to kill it.

The orb of blood burst through the ring of lightning, lashing out with its remaining tendrils to grab both women.  When one of the lashes stretched toward Julianne, a burst of lightning erupted from her body like a spash of water from a thrown rock.  Liv guessed that she was seeing a spell that used the active future tense, but she didn’t have time to think about it any further, because one of the lashes wrapped around her torso and lifted her up into the air.

Before she could react, the ground was dizzyingly far beneath her, and Liv found herself level with the roofs of the buildings surrounding the stockyard once again.  She hacked at the tendril with her sword, but she didn’t have the raw physical strength that someone like Matthew did, and her attacks proved ineffectual.  Then, she tried to let the handle of ice go, but found it had become stuck to her skin.

That left her with the choice of either releasing her staff, and letting it fall to the ground, or finding some other way to fight.  Liv had only three rings of mana left: enough for a single remaining spell.  A frozen shard wasn’t going to stop this monstrosity, that was clear.  She thought back to the incantation she’d used in the Laughing Carp.  It seemed a small thing, compared to such a giant enemy, but it was all that she had.

“Celet Aiveh Ractae!” Liv screamed, touching her staff to the tendril that held her.  Once again, a wave of frost spread out along the tendril of stinking liquid, cracking as it expanded downward toward the main body of the beast.  This time, however, the monster that Liv faced was several times larger than what had rampaged through the common room of the inn.  She could already tell that she didn’t have enough mana to freeze the entire creature.

“Aluthet o’Mae Æn'Ea!” Master Grenfell shouted from somewhere below, and Liv felt a rush of power enter her.  A haze of blue light surrounded her, striated with sparks of gold, and she was no longer suffering from any lack of mana.  With a wordless scream, she poured every bit of the mana that flooded her body into the spell, channeling it out through her staff into the half-frozen limb of gore that held her up.  

The wave of cold, which had slowed almost to a standstill, accelerated once again, racing down the tendril to the undulating orb that served as the monster’s body.  Liv no longer swayed in the air, but hung still from a column of pink ice.  The flow of mana into her slackened, just as the monster’s center of mass began to frost over, but then Lady Julianne shouted an identical incantation, and a second flood of mana hit Liv.

She kept pushing, focusing on the intent of her spell, until the entire body of the monster was utterly still and dead, nothing more than a massive statue at the center of the stockyard.  Finally, there was nothing left moving, and not a hint of mana left in Liv’s body to be used.

“You did it, Liv,” Julianne exclaimed, falling to her knees in obvious exhaustion.

“Can one of you get me down?” Liv shouted back.  “I’m stuck!”  Something about it was hilariously funny, and she could help but break into a fit of laughter.

☙

By the time the three of them had returned to the castle, the moon was up, and the courtyard torches had been lit.  Liv found that Gretta and her mother had cooked up two massive pheasants, from the shoals of Bald Peak, with mushrooms and onions in a wine sauce.  Still half frozen, Liv first warmed her hands by the hearth, then settled in next to Lady Julianne and Master Grenfell.  Once they were seated, they all helped themselves to large servings of meat.  Who knew what further attacks might happen in the night?

“The monster in the stockyard is dealt with,” Lady Julianne declared, in between bites.

“Good,” Baron Henry said.  “That’s the last we have word of, but I want someone headed south tomorrow to check on Fairford, and then the pass.”

“I can do that,” his wife offered.  “I want to speak to Aunt Rhea, in any case, before we leave.”

“Which means that I should go north,” Master Grenfell spoke up.  “To see whether the miners at Bald Peak came under attack.”

“What do you want me to do?” Liv asked, then took a large gulp of watered wine.

“First,” Lady Julianne said, “I want you checked over by Mistress Trafford.  You’ve been in three fights today, and I want to be absolutely certain you’re in good condition to travel.  You can go up to her chambers once you’ve had something to eat; she’s already wrapped my son’s wounds and put him to bed.”

Liv grimaced, but didn’t object.  She wasn’t as comfortable with Amelia Trafford as she had been with Master Cushing, but she didn’t have any real objection to the woman.  “I’ll do that,” she said.  “Travel?  Do we need to check in with Al'Fenthia?”  It was a lot sooner than she’d planned on seeing Airis Ka Reimis again, but it would make a certain amount of sense to send her, out of anyone.

“No,” Julianne said, shaking her head.  “The Eld are more than capable of taking care of themselves.  My father will be summoning a great council.”

“The king can’t possibly have sent a messenger yet,” Liv objected.  Nevermind that both she and Julianne had only just returned.  “It’s only been hours.  Even pigeons take days.”

Lady Julianne grinned.  “My father did not send me so far away without making certain we had a means to communicate.  You had word through the mirror, Henry?”

The Baron nodded.  “Not an hour ago; he was quite concerned about you.  In any event,” Henry continued, “while King Roland is still gathering information, he did tell me that there were attacks at the capital, and at Coral Bay, as well.  At this point, we must act under the assumption that this event encompassed much of the kingdom.  Master Grenfell, between the five of us, I presume it should be possible to use the Waystone at Bald Peak?”

Liv’s teacher nodded his head.  “With the burden spread among so many, I foresee no difficulty.”

“Three days should give us time to scour the valley for any more of these things,” the baron said.  “I’ll have each knight take a team at first light.  Until my wife and Master Grenfell have returned, Apprentice, I will need you to be available here.  You will be the first one I send after anything they find.”

“What about Matthew?” Liv asked.  It was clear to everyone why Baron Henry couldn’t go.

“Unlike my son, you’ve already shown you can defeat these enemies,” Henry told her.  “This stubbornness about his magic has gone on too long.  I don’t care whether he likes fencing better, it's foolishness to put aside a tool that has use.”

Lady Julianne reached a hand over and rested it on her husband’s arm.  “The College will set him right,” she said.  “Set it aside for now, Henry.  Liv, see the steward about making certain your things are packed.”

“It sounds like I have a list of things to do before I can sleep,” Liv said, pushing her plate aside and standing.  “If you’ll excuse me, then, m’lord, m’lady.”

“My Lord,” Julianne corrected her.  “It may not matter here, but it will at court.  Talk like a peasant and you’ll be treated like one.”

“Yes, My Lady,” Liv said.  She curtsied, grabbed her staff, and headed upstairs to find Mistress Trafford.  When she knocked on the door to the chirurgeon’s chambers, there was only a brief pause before a woman’s voice from within called for her to enter.  Liv slipped inside, then closed the door behind her.  The room felt warmer than it had in the past, and there was a new, plush carpet on the floor.

Amelia Trafford was sitting at her desk, reading through a sheaf of notes, a quill in hand and a pot of ink at her elbow.  A set of spectacles perched on her nose, which she adjusted with one finger.  “Good, Apprentice Brodbeck,” she said.  “Have a seat on the table.  I was just reviewing Master Cushing’s notes on you.”

Liv set her staff against the wall in the corner of the room, then climbed up.  “Is there something I should be worrying about?” she asked.

“Not as such,” Mistress Trafford said.  She removed her spectacles, rose from her desk, and approached.  “But you are something of a special case.  Thankfully, Master Cushing kept meticulous records.  Any wounds?”

Liv shook her head.  “No.  Well, just my hand.  We had to melt off a bit of ice.”  

“Did you take any falls?” Trafford asked her.

“I rolled across a table and jumped out a window at the inn,” Liv said.  “And then a building sort of collapsed on us at the stockyards.”

“I want to check your legs, then,” the chirurgeon told her.  “For any fractures.”  She knelt on the floor in front of Liv and began running her hands up her calves, squeezing gently as she moved upward.  “Tell me if there’s any pain.”

“I haven’t broken a bone for years,” Liv protested.  “Since my arm in the courtyard.”

“That’s because you’ve been careful,” the chirurgeon pointed out.  “Today, you weren’t being careful.  Sometimes, soldiers don’t even realize they’re wounded until after a battle is over.  Given your history with fractures and breaks, we can’t be too cautious.  Nothing?”

Liv shook her head.  “I feel fine.  Just tired.”

Mistress Trafford nodded.  “You can go, then.  It’s going to be a busy few days, so be sure to get a good night’s sleep,” she said, standing up and turning back toward her desk.

“Can you tell Lady Julianne that I’m ready to go to Coral Bay?” Liv said, before she could think better of it.

The chirurgeon turned back to her.  “I would think that is a question you should be asking Master Grenfell,” she said.

Liv shook her head.  “It isn’t about magic,” she said.  “I’m better at magic than Matthew.  A lot better,” she admitted.  “I’ve had more time and training than probably anyone else going there this year, but they won’t let me go because they say I’m not old enough.”

Mistress Trafford walked back over to her desk, and consulted her notes.  “Master Cushing estimated that you were maturing at half the speed of a human,” she said.  “And everything I have seen, whether in these records, or since I’ve come here, supports that.  How old were you when you bled for the first time?”

“Twenty-four,” Liv answered.  “It was the year you came here.”

“Twelve years old would be consistent with the growth of a human girl,” Amelia Trafford said.  “It’s been six years since then, which would make you about fifteen, physically.  Your growth has slowed, but you still added half an inch since last winter.  You’re skinny, you haven’t filled out yet.  Every piece of evidence I have, every measurement, even just glancing at your face, Liv, tells me that you aren't an adult yet.  Close, maybe, but not there.  We don’t send children to Coral Bay, we send people who have reached the age of majority.”

“But I’m older than any of them!” Liv complained.  “This is ridiculous.  I’m better at magic than they are.  Anyone I go to school with will be half my age.  I don’t see what waiting another six years will do for me.  If I went now, I could at least go with someone I know.  A friend.”

“I can understand why you would want that,” the chirurgeon said.  “And I sympathize Liv, I really do.”

“Don’t you dare say you understand me,” Liv shot back, suddenly furious.  “You didn’t have to grow up different than everyone else.  Emma was younger than me, and now she’s talking about getting married, and I’m still treated like a child.  Matthew was a baby, and now he’s allowed to go to college before me?  It isn’t fair!”

Mistress Trafford waited a long moment before she responded.  “If we send you to Coral Bay now, we are telling everyone that you are available for marriage.  Half the reason the aristocracy sends their children there is to make matches.  You are not ready for that.”

“I don’t care about finding a husband!” Liv shouted.  “I just want to go with a single friend, instead of all by myself.”

“Your body isn’t the only thing that needs to finish growing,” the chirugeon said, crossing the room and tapping her finger against Liv’s forehead.  “This.  Right here.  Your mind isn’t ready.  You know why we start children learning Vædic so young?  You learn language easier as a child, rather than as an adult.  There’s something in our heads, in our brains, that goes away as we get older, or at least changes.  And you, right now?  You’re acting exactly like what you are, which is a fifteen year old girl.  You get angry, you get frustrated, and that’s normal, Liv.  You think I don’t remember what it was like to be that age?  Half the time I wanted to scream at my mother, the other half I wanted to lock myself in my room and cry, and whichever I was feeling I was probably mooning over some stupid boy at the same time.”

“I’m not you,” Liv said, glaring at her.

“No, you aren’t,” Trafford said.  “You’re a girl who doesn’t fit in anywhere.  I’m sorry, but I can’t fix that for you.  When we do let you go to Coral Bay, in some ways, you’re going to be smarter than everyone there.  You’re right, no one else will have twenty years of training in magic like you will.  But that doesn’t mean you’re ready.  I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to just be patient and trust us.”

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” Liv complained, pushing herself off the table and striding over to the wall, where she took her staff back.

“No,” Mistress Trafford said.  “You do not.  I’m sorry Liv, but that’s all there is to it.  Try to get yourself a good night’s sleep; I have a feeling it’s going to be quite busy around here over the next few days.”

Without another word, Liv stormed out the door, slammed it, and set off down the hall to her room.

Chapter 41: Fire in the Sky

When Liv’s mother finally found her, she was up on the north parapet of Castle Whitehill’s curtain walls.  While crashing doors closed had been satisfying for a brief moment, her own room had felt like a prison cell.  It wasn’t until she was out under the stars, watching the light of the great ring in the sky illuminate the slopes of the mountains, that she finally began to calm down.

“I heard you had a bit of an argument with Mistress Trafford,” Mama said, settling in to Liv’s left.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire castle heard it,” Liv groaned.  “I feel like an idiot.  I meant to be so smart, and convince her I deserved to go to Coral Bay, and instead I just threw a fit like a little girl.  Why am I like this, Mama?”

“Oh, dove,” Margaret Brodbeck said.  “Like what?  You’re exactly how you were meant to be.  A smart, kind, talented girl.”

“I’m thirty years old,” Liv pointed out.  “I should be married with children of my own now, and you should be a grandmother.  Instead I can’t even be trusted to go off to school - with people half my age.”

“Maybe don’t remind me of the grandmother thing,” Mama told her, and wrapped an arm around Liv to pull her close.  “I’d like to think I’m not quite that old yet.”

“You know what I mean, though,” Liv grumped, even as she relaxed into her mother’s embrace.

“I do.”  There was a long moment of silence and stillness before Margaret Brodbeck spoke again. “I didn’t really understand what life would be like for you, my love, when you were born.  There were strange things, even then, but I put them out of my mind.  Plenty of children come later, after all.  But then, when you did come, you were so small - more like a babe come early.”

“When did you finally realize?” Liv asked.

“Not all at once, but by fits and starts,” her mother explained.  “We’ve all heard the Eld live forever, after all - but no one really thinks about it all that much.  I suppose if we did, most people would picture your father’s people growing up the same as us, and then just - stopping.  It took you longer to do everything.  To sit up, to crawl, to speak.  It was Master Cushing who finally broke it to me; I think he expected I’d be upset, but it was actually a kind of relief.”

“How was that?” 

“I’d worried there was something wrong with you,” Mama said.  “That maybe you’d never learn to walk.  That you’d never be able to do the things that normal children did.  I knew I’d love you anyway - you can’t help that, once you hold a child in your arms the first time.  But I was terrified for you, dove.  That you’d never be able to have a family of your own, or be happy.”

“I don’t know if I will,” Liv admitted.  “It certainly doesn’t seem like it.  There’s plenty of girls chasing Matthew around, but no one seems to have the slightest interest in me.”  Something touched her leg, and Liv jumped.  “Charlie!” she exclaimed, shrugging out of her mother’s arms and reaching down to scoop the mouser up.  “How did you get all the way up here?”  The black cat settled in against her shoulder and began to purr loudly.

“Maybe he knew you needed him,” her mother said.  “You don’t want to find a man here, anyway, dove.  You won’t be happy with a butcher or a blacksmith.”

“It’s not even that I need a husband,” Liv said.  “But it would be nice to have a friend, at least.  Emma’s moving on, and the day’s going to come we have nothing in common.  I can already see it.”

“Have you considered you may meet people in Freeport?” Mama reached over to stroke the cat’s back, and he arched and purred in Liv’s arms.  “With so many barons going to the council, you can be sure they’ll bring along their wives and children.  Some of those children will be your age.”

Liv raised her eyebrows and gave her mother a look.

“Alright, not your age, precisely,” Mama said.  “But at the same point in life as you are.  Your father wasn’t my age, but it felt like he was.  That’s what you need to look for, I think.”

“They’re all going to be nobles,” Liv protested.  “It’ll be just like Mirabel and Griselda, or worse.  Miserable, stuck up -”

“Try not to judge them before you even meet them,” her mother said.  “You might be surprised by what you find.  And has it occurred to you, dove, that you may fit in better with them now than you used to?”

Liv frowned.  “Because I have a word of power?  You really think it will make that much difference?”

“I think it will, but not just that,” Mama said.  “You’ve spent years getting the same education as Matthew.  Sometimes I’m not certain you even realize how much you’ve changed.  Put on the right dress, and I think most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference between you and a baron’s daughter.  In fact, I suspect that people are going to assume you’re Matthew’s little sister.  And when the time does come to go to Coral Bay, perhaps some of the children you meet now will be there?”

“Maybe,” Liv said.  “I can hope so, I suppose.”

“You know what you have to do now, don’t you?” Liv’s mother asked her.

Liv sighed.  “Apologize to Mistress Trafford?”

“I think you should.”

“I’d like to make her something, then,” Liv said, after thinking a moment.  “Maybe some tarts, or a cake.  Apologies always go over better when they come with a present, don’t they?  And something sweet to eat is the best kind of present.”

“You know where the recipe book is,” Mama said, and patted Liv on her shoulder with one hand.  “Don’t stay up here too long, love.”

☙

Liv decided to go with something simple: a cake made from a pound each of flower, butter, eggs and sugar, with a bit of vanilla from Lendh ka Dakruim mixed into the batter, and then a mix of wild-picked raspberry and strawberry preserves, cooked down with a bit of sugar and then drizzled in layers through the batter.  She began in the morning, after breakfast had been made and served, when she wouldn’t be too much in the way.  By the time it was done she was quite proud of it, and whatever nerves Liv felt bringing her present up to Mistress Trafford’s rooms came from her own behavior, not fear of the cake’s reception.

She took a deep breath, knocked on the door, and then waited in the hall with the serving tray, cake knife, and a few small plates all piled up in her arms.  Liv was impressed with herself she’d managed to do the knocking without dropping anything: scullions didn’t serve at table in the great hall, and she’d never acquired the footmen’s knack for juggling an armful of dishes elegantly.

“Yes?” Amelia Trafford opened the door, then blinked in surprise.  Her hair was down and uncovered, and beyond her Liv could see that her sitting room was a whirlwind of packing, with clothing thrown all about the chairs and tables, and an open trunk placed right on top of the table used for examinations.  “Oh, Liv,” she said.  “I didn’t expect you.  Come on in.”

“I wanted to apologize,” Liv said.  “For the way I acted before.  I don’t know what I was thinking, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“Did you make that yourself?” the chirurgeon asked.  “I said come in - let me find a place for you to set that down.  Clear a place, more like it.”  She went over to the examination table and hefted her half-filled trunk up, then set it down on the floor.  “Over here.”

Liv obediently brought the cake over, then set it down.  “I did,” she said, suddenly not certain what to do with her hands now they were empty.  “I didn’t want to come and make an apology empty handed.”

Amelia Trafford smiled.  “You’re a sweet girl, you know that, Liv?  I forgive you, and I hope it helps you to feel a bit better.  I remember what it was like to be a girl your age.  Yes, yes, I know age isn’t quite the right word, but - let’s just cut the cake, shall we?  It looks wonderful.”

They dragged two chairs over, and when Liv took a bit of her slice, she was pleased to find that it tasted just as good as it looked.

“Mmmm, this is decadent,” the chirurgeon groaned, in between bites.  “I’m going to have to share some of this with Master Grenfell, Liv, I hope you don’t mind.  Otherwise I’ll end up plump as a partridge.”

“It’s yours to do with as you like,” Liv assured her, with a grin.  “You’re really not angry with me?”

The chirurgeon shook her head.  “I’m glad you’ve had a chance to calm down, and that you showed enough courtesy to come and see me.  No, I’m not angry.  You’re in a tough place, Liv.  I don’t envy you.  But you are going to find friends, I’m certain of it.  I know it's hard to be patient, believe me.  But you will find your people.  It just takes time.”

“Mama said something similar,” Liv admitted, then took another bite of her cake.  “Do you need help packing?” she asked, once her mouth was no longer stuffed full.

“As long as you aren’t doing it out of misplaced guilt, I would love help,” Mistress Trafford said.  “I’ve got to bring everything I might need to patch up any wounds that happen while we’re in Freeport.  I know I can buy some things there, but I want to bring as much as I can.  Here, why don’t you help me sort out portions of willow bark tea and jar them up.

Liv spent the rest of the afternoon helping the chirurgeon, with a break for luncheon in the great hall.  By the end, they’d not only gotten Master Grenfell’s opinion on the cake - wonderful, he’d said, and his eyes had practically rolled back in his head - but Liv had also managed to put aside her lingering feelings of guilt and frustration.  Hard work had a way of helping with that, she’d always found.

☙

After the evening meal, Liv borrowed one of the horses from the stable and rode out to say goodbye to the mountains.  Not Master Grenfell’s, this time, but a gentle mare named Daisy who’d been used to teach both Matthew and Liv to ride years before.  Now, she was getting on in years, but Liv took it easy on her and brought a bag full of carrots from the kitchen to have on hand as treats.

She didn’t go up Deer Peak: that was too close to town.  Liv also didn’t want to ride all the way to Bald Peak, or to chance getting close to the shoals there by herself, so she struck out northwest, past the fields that surrounded Whitehill, and took a leisurely time making her way up the slopes of Emerald Mountain - so named for the beautiful green of the forested summit in summer.

As she rode, the words of her mother came back to Liv.  A scullion, a cook’s bastard, wouldn’t have been permitted to borrow a horse from the stables, she knew.  And a girl without magic wouldn’t have been safe to ride out alone at night.  Not that the Aspen Valley was rife with dangerous men, or anything - she couldn’t remember the last time there’d been talk of bandits so far north - but there were bears, and wolves, and that sort of thing.

Compared to a colony of enormous stone-bats, or some sort of crazed, magical blood monster wrecking its way through the stockyards, a bear just didn’t frighten her like it used to.  Liv had her staff strapped across the back of her saddle, and if it came to it she was certain that she could defeat any natural animal that crossed her path.  In fact, she’d probably just try to frighten a bear off, rather than kill it.  What did that say about her?

Was that a normal sort of power for an apprentice, she wondered?  Matthew was junk at magic, which meant the only other people she had to compare herself to were adults.  Master Grenfell and Lady Julianne seemed to think that she was talented, but it was hard to know.

Liv pulled herself out of her own head long enough to find a place where the trees were thin, and a great boulder jutted out from the mountain.  She slipped down out of her saddle and tied the mare’s reins to a low-hanging tree branch.  After feeding the horse a few carrots, Liv climbed up onto the boulder and wedged herself in, doing her best to get comfortable.

Beneath, rocky earth dropped away at a dizzying speed, making it clear just how high up Liv had come.  The setting sun painted the valley in shades of scarlet, orange, and gold, where the shadows of the mountains hadn’t yet thrown the land into darkness.  To the east, past the valley, the peaks on the opposite side were lit, picked out against the dark sky, where the first and brightest stars were just beginning to be visible.

Liv stayed there, wrapped in her cloak and wedged into the crevices of the boulder, until the sun had passed away into the west completely, and the sky was lit only by stars and the great, brilliant ring that divided the night into two halves, overhead.

 Gretta’s stories said that the Vædim had put the ring in the sky, the same way that the old gods had created human and Eld alike.  Liv had a difficult time even conceiving of magic like that - it seemed impossible, the same as telling someone you’d made the moon yourself.

At the thought of the old gods, Cel stirred in the back of her mind.  Safely away from anyone she could possibly hurt, Liv allowed the word of power to rise to the surface of her thoughts, and traced a finger on the stone of the boulder, leaving trails of frost behind.

Overhead, there was motion, and she looked up.

Streaks of light, scattered across the night sky, moved from what seemed to be a single point, down and to the west.  Liv couldn’t help but smile.  She’d heard of meteor showers before - Master Grenfell had talked about them at length, in one of his lessons.  Rocks that fell down from somewhere beyond the world, burning their way through the sky.  Some of them even lasted long enough to land, making great craters.  Blacksmiths, the court mage had said, prized meteorites for the iron they carried.  Some people swore they made better swords than iron dug from the ground.

Liv wondered whether they were magic.  The falling stars certainly looked like it.

She stayed up there until who knew how late, watching the stars fall, the sky traced with streaks of fire.  “Thank you,” Liv said to the mountains, though she knew they couldn’t hear her, or understand.

Tomorrow, there would be packing to do, and the bustle and urgency of a baron’s court preparing to travel.

But for just a little while, Liv let herself soak in the quiet and peace of a mountain night.