Because one day, Aven was to be king. And kings weren’t supposed to have magic. In fact, most people in Akaria pretended to have no magic at all. He suspected this was not entirely the truth because, well, there could be many like him with this inconvenient gift, but successful at controlling or hiding it. Still others, he heard, chose not to and instead hid themselves in remote towns and farmsteads. For the most part, those folks were left alone.

That didn’t mean anyone wanted a mage to be king, but no one had given Aven much say in the matter. The crown prince was who he was, and magic was what he’d been given, so he could only do his best to hide it. What were the gods up to, putting him in such a situation? The wind swirling around him picked up, whipping at his hair playfully. Anara mocks me, he thought.

He often tried to wait and hope it settled down, but when that didn’t work, he had one other tool in his chest. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused his mind on the Great Stone of Estun. Behind the head table in the banquet hall was a magnificent rock that had been hewn in half. Its outer shell was ordinary, but the inside was encrusted with great purple crystals both large and small. The stone loomed above onlookers at the height of seven men; it had been discovered when Estun was first dug from the mountain. It filled the great hall and scattered the candlelight during many an evening meal with its quiet sparkle. The banquet hall was also one of the only rooms that had windows, and sometimes early in the morning, the light reached the Great Stone and danced across the crystals in the most peculiar way. It was something he loved to see. But enough thinking about light—he needed to think about darkness, about the stone. The stone repressed magic in general and his air magic in particular. That was part of why his parents had brought him here and chosen to live in Estun—the hope that his magic would fade away.

It hadn’t worked.

Another breath, then another. He focused on the Great Stone, the heart of the mountain. Finally, the air around him was still.

He tried to shake off the sudden outbreak, but it made him nervous. What if it acted up again when he arrived to see their visitor? What if someone noticed? He’d gotten away with it this long, but how long could he continue successfully hiding his magic? Then again, what other choice did he have?

He straightened himself and headed toward the throne room to meet his potential wife.

Daes heaved open the heavy chamber doors himself, knocking the incompetent guards aside and striding into his receiving hall. Seulka jumped and straightened herself in her seat.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

She scowled at him. Not a sign of that noble breeding to be found, some days. And yet many considered her a noble of the highest caste and he only a pretender to nobility, all because her parents had been married and his had not. Their mothers had been sisters, which made them cousins, but she made very sure never to call him that. The king, on the other hand, was such a close relation, even though they were both related to him through the same incompetent and powerless great-uncle.

“Did you give her the orders?” he said.

“Yes. She has begun,” Seulka said. “She may be a rebellious sort, but she has the mind of a spy—willing or not.”

“Her will doesn’t matter. It’s our will that matters.” He flopped down into the armchair he’d insisted on installing behind the banquet table and kicked up his black boots on the footstool. Black cloak, black tunic, black belt—even his chair was black. A clean, strong color. It was good to be home. There was a reason they called him the Dark Master.

He had missed all of this while visiting the Devoted elders in Takar—far too much garish gold and orange for his taste. The Devoted were powerful allies of Kavanar in general and the Masters in particular, so it was good to speak with them, but also good to leave.

“Of course, Daes. Our will and the king’s, of course.”

He snorted. Was she being sarcastic or just poking a finger in a wound? “The king wouldn’t even have gone along with my plan to start this war if we hadn’t appealed to his foolish desire for revenge.”

“Our plan, you mean.”

“Fine, our plan. He’s the king. He should be estimating the Akarian threat, as I am. He should be planning the attack of his enemies at all times. We should not need to lead him to it. He’s a horse, and we’re holding the carrot of vengeance for a century-old wrong.”

“Perhaps he estimates the threat as greater than you think.”

“He’s a coward.”

She glared at him, finally sick of his hyperbole if he had to guess. “Forcing the Akarians to attack us on our lands is a strategically superior plan. You agreed so yourself.”

He scowled back. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

The kidnapping attempt was part of a larger plan of intrigue that Kavanar would use to force the Akarian hand. It had been the only way Daes had been able to convince the king and the three other Masters to agree to war at all. The Fat Master had wanted to be left alone, content to supervise the running of Mage Hall and no more. The Mistress—Seulka—was still certain Daes was a paranoid lunatic to be worried about Akaria at all. And the Tall Master was so focused on enslaving mages that he barely gave a thought to anything beyond his own smithy, let alone about the wider world and their place in it. The monarch and his advisers knew of the sleeping danger that lay in their enemy to the east, but they chose to ignore it, to hope it was someone else’s problem.

Daes was not one to ignore things. It could become their problem at any time. He had worked too hard to earn this position in spite of their insipid desire to focus on the nature of his birth. He would not let the lands and holds he had worked so hard to control be pissed away and left defenseless by some ivory-tower fools.

No, Akaria must be dealt with. It had taken a lot of arguing, but he’d convinced them.

And so they all assumed this mage of theirs would fail spectacularly, if they thought of it at all. Secretly, though, Daes hoped for more. Much as he resented her rebellious nature, he could not deny the skill she was proving to have, and he hated the thought that they were wasting such a talent on a suicide mission. In his hands, she was becoming a powerful weapon. One of the best in his arsenal at this point, although still a bit virginal at some of the more dangerous duties of a spy.

Perhaps she would live, although he doubted it. She had never once failed them yet, but her usual marks had all been fine artifacts, not men. Scrolls, daggers, and jewels were more easily subdued than Akarian warriors. But she had a fire in her spirit, the same fire that sparked in her eyes when he gave her orders. Perhaps it would help her achieve the impossible.