First Apprentice

Chapter 4 Part 2

As I stepped forward, fingers wrapped around my wrist like a steel band and tugged. I lurched sideways, colliding with a strong chest. An arm wrapped around me, trapping my arms against my sides. Snarling, I squirmed, trying to loosen his grip and escape. Failed.

"Alannah!" Grandfather's voice cut through the haze of instinct. I stilled. My heart pounded in my chest. A crisp scent like freshly fallen snow flooded my sinuses. I opened my mouth and inhaled more of the scent, letting it calm me. A heart beat thudded under my ear. I froze.

Freshly fallen snow, a scent I always associated with Grandfather and Uncle Manfred, indicated a mature Marstow. Grandfather's arthritis made simple tasks like walking down stairs and holding a pen difficult, if not impossible. He couldn't move quickly enough to grab me. Uncle Manfred could, but he'd never use a simple hold I could break in a second. He also came up to my nose.

"Breathe," Joel's chest rumbled against my ear. "In. Two. Three. Out. Two. Three. Calm yourself." My face warmed when I realized what happened. I lost control, again. Inhaling deeply, I coiled my magic back around me, forcing it back inside its cage. "Don't," he whispered. "Suppressing yourself is half the problem."

I stopped. "And the other half?" I asked as I let my magic flow around me, pulsing gently in time with my heart beat. The coiled spring inside me eased, but the dull headache I'd lived with for the past six months remained.

"I forgot David needs a muzzle." Laughing despite myself, I relaxed. His grip slackened, but his hand still encircled my wrist. "May I?" he asked, toying with the button on the cuff of my sleeve.

I bit my lip and glanced at Grandfather, who was watching us with an odd expression on his face. Half pleased, half furious. When he noticed me looking at him, Grandfather nodded once. "Yes," I whispered.

Deftly, Joel unbuttoned my left cuff and pushed the sleeve up. His fingers lingered on my bracelet, rubbing the seals and prodding them with his magic. "We'll discuss this later," he whispered as he tripped the hidden spring, unfastening the clasp. With my bracelet dangling from his fingers, he extended his left wrist beside mine. Three navy blue stripes encircled his wrist just like the three black stripes around mine.

"Apprentice," Joel said, laying his fourth finger over the mark closest to my wrist bone. His magic seeped into the mark, sending a shiver down my spine. "Journeyman," his middle finger rubbed the second stripe, "as I recall, it took you fifty years to acquire this mark, David. Even with the best and harshest instruction Asha could devise, Mitchel took ten. That's not counting either of your years in the academy." Then he pressed his glowing index finger onto the third mark. Golden runes encircled our hands. "Master. The Seven are the highest rated sealers in the Border Guard, correct?"

"Yes, sir," David said.

"We have two master sealers, myself and Terry. In my three thousand years before the Gates, I have only encountered twelve others. Four were already guardians. Two became one. Alannah is another. Master sealers are almost as rare as ferepris. It is a rank granted by the Gates themselves, not some pathetic test. You can't memorize the answers. You earn it by rending soul from flesh and serving it up to your chosen gate like a trussed pig. You are delusional if you believe you were an experiment or that she would've stopped. Had I arrived a minute later or she lost control of her magic, you would've died."

"Yet another reason they'll have our heads. Soul seals are proscribed and have been for thousands of years. I taught her for three years. She was my prize student!" David threw his hands up in the air. "They will never believe I didn't know about this. Knowing my luck, they'll probably think I trained her. Rainer's bones!" I startled. Director Nease didn't curse. Ever. "I helped shelter a Dracon ferepris. They'll draw and quarter me then feed me to the Gates. It doesn't matter how skilled she is. If anything, that makes this entire situation worse. Ferepris must be reported. Clan or Border Guard, the law is the same. To not do so is treason."

Back to that argument. He wasn't entirely wrong. However, the law was written after my kind slipped into myth. We weren't named because we didn't exist this side of the Ancient Gate.

A sneaking suspicion entered my mind. After his retirement, Grandfather retreated to Vinetta. He wrote Joel, but hadn't seen him in eighty years. Uncle tried explaining why once. He said life bonds were both a blessing and a curse. Joel was ageless. Having to watch his brother age and die by choice was too painful. For whom, I wondered. Joel or Grandfather? Grandfather kept the entire Seven at arms length. To suddenly reverse his stance, he must need Joel for something. I wasn't sure what, but Joel was the lynch pin.

Donovan's Gambit with information in place of messengers. Except Joel wasn't on my side yet. I needed to get him alone, cut a deal, and then flip Grandfather's ambush back on him. Capture Joel's interest then retreat. Let him come to me. A simple plan, but fleeing went against every instinct I had. It was necessary. Grandfather disliked simple stratagems. He preferred layers of increasingly convoluted plots that gave his enemies headaches, heartburn, and nightmares before he permanently separated their heads from their shoulders. Beating him required changing the game.

"Then it's a good thing I'm not a ferepris," I said. Stunned silence fell over the room. David stared at me like I'd grown a second head. A myriad of emotions flashed through his aura before he settled on fear. Was he afraid of me personally or my rank?

"Black as a moonless night, might makes right," Joel whispered the old saying under his breath. His fingers clenched around my wrist before he released me and stepped away. Aura flashing with yellows and spring greens – excited and amused. Mostly excited. Definitely not afraid.

"Precisely," I said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Grandfather's deep purple aura turn orange. Feigned disappointment. In his opinion, aura reading was a potential weakness and one he never hesitated to exploit. He only broadcast his emotions when he wanted someone to read them. I rolled my eyes. "Stop acting so disappointed, Grandfather. This is what you wanted, isn't it? Why else would he," I nodded to Joel, "be here? Vinetta is beneath his notice unless you invited him."

"Lured," Joel supplied helpfully.

So I wasn't the only one Grandfather tricked. "Tell me, Grandfather. Did you want Director Nease dead?"