A Trial of Sorcerers: Book One by Kova, Elise (universal ebook reader .txt) 📕

going to kill me now?” Eira asked as she brought herself back to the present.

“Kill you? Why would I do that?” Deneya approached slowly.

“Because I might be Adela’s child.”

“And thank goodness that neither Solaris or Meru punishes children for the crimes of their parents if that is the case. I apologize for threatening you out the gate. It has nothing to do with your potential parentage; I merely thought you might have been one of her crew. And Adela’s crew tends to be a fight first, ask questions later sort of bunch.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, that’s apparent. Your magic resembles hers, hence my initial suspicion; but I now believe it’s because you’ve been reading her journals.”

Relief washed over Eira, followed quickly by dread. The notion of her not being Adela’s offspring allowed her to take a breath with a chest less tight than it had been in days. But there was a sickening sense of dread and fear that followed the relief.

If Adela wasn’t her birth mother, and neither was Reona, then a whole component of her history was a dark void that suddenly wanted to swallow her whole. It also meant that her magic, every strange and wonderful aspect of it, was of unknown origin, too. And…it meant that she likely wasn’t part elfin. There was no real connection between her and Meru, after all. Which meant she and Ferro didn’t have some kind of fated link between them.

“You don’t look happy.” Deneya came to a stop before Eira, inspecting her. “Most would be pleased not to be the offspring of the Pirate Queen.”

“I would be happiest to have all the pieces of who I am.”

“Did you know who you were before all this?”

“I thought I did,” Eira murmured. She didn’t know how the conversation got to this point. She certainly hadn’t expected opening up to Deneya.

Four people—excluding her family—now knew of Eira’s potential parentage. Her parents’ disembodied disappointment took up residence in her, scolding her for sharing it with so many so quickly. But Eira fought the notion. It was her secret to tell. At least telling it with the people she wanted, for whatever reason she wanted, gave her some control over it.

“If you knew who you were before, then you still know who you are now.”

“But… This… I look in the mirror and I don’t see my face anymore. I don’t know whose face I see. There’s this hole in me that I can’t describe. Like a piece is missing in the picture of who I am.”

Deneya sighed softly. A gentle smile crossed her lips. The woman went from warrior to sagely aunt in the span of a moment. “Listen, Eira, if there was never a hole to begin with, there’s not one now. It may be hard to see that. But eventually you will. Everything you need to be your complete self is already in your possession.”

“What do you know about being abandoned?”

“Most of the Court of Shadows are orphans. Most never found a loving family to raise and cherish them as you did.”

Eira ignored the guilt that the remark seeded in her. Instead, saying, “Then it’s true, you’re part of the Court of Shadows?”

Deneya smirked. “That perked you up.”

“You still haven’t said yes or no.”

“How about this…” Deneya made a show of thinking, but Eira suspected she was a woman who made up her mind long before she even opened her mouth. “I will tell you, if you can break my shield.”

“Break your shield?”

Deneya held up her palm and uttered, “Mysst xieh.”

That’s how those words are supposed to sound, Eira thought. They were pure elegance on Deneya’s tongue. They were made for her as much as ice and water were made to be Eira’s playthings.

A dot of golden light appeared in Deneya’s palm that spun outward into the shape of a disk. Unlike the dagger, the glyph didn’t harden into anything solid. It remained a faintly glowing light, slowly spinning through the air.

“Lightspinning,” Eira whispered in awe.

“You knew these words. Now break them.”

“But—”

“However you see fit. Break my shield.” Deneya grinned.

Eira tentatively reached out a hand. Deneya didn’t move. Her fingertips lightly brushed against the surface of the glyph. It felt smooth, almost glass-like underneath her palm. Eira’s fingers splayed against the light, inches from Deneya’s, against the barrier.

“Why?”

“You want to know about the Court of Shadows, don’t you? Break it.”

Eira pulled back her hand and balled it into a fist. A thick coating of ice covered her hand, nearly up to her elbow. She punched forward and the impact shot through her arm, condensing every joint, up into her shoulder, her neck, and straight into her teeth. Punching one of the stone walls of the palace would be softer.

She stepped back, rubbing and rotating her shoulder. “Mother above,” Eira murmured. “That’s…solid.”

“Yes, it is.” Deneya chuckled. “Now that we know punching it isn’t going to work, let’s try for something with a bit more…finesse, shall we?”

Eira stepped back and closed her hand around a dagger of ice that formed from her palm. She struck it across the surface in a slashing movement. The strands of light seemed to writhe around the shallow cut. But they quickly wove themselves back together.

“You can do better than that,” Deneya both challenged and encouraged.

She twisted the dagger in her hand and it grew into a short sword. Eira charged again.

Attack after attack, the shield stayed in place. Eira lobbed everything she could think of at the disk—from spears of ice to jets of water. But as dawn bled across the horizon, she was still no closer to destroying it.

Deneya lowered her hands and the glyph unraveled. Cursed thing. It had been the bane of Eira’s existence all evening, impervious to every attack, and then just faded away as though it had never existed at all.

“You should go back to your bed. Don’t want them to find you here.”

“I don’t have anything to do,” Eira said, breathless. “I can keep trying.”

“As fun as it is to watch you attack me with