“How hard is it to get in?”
“I won’t lie to you. It isn’t easy. Plenty who started training for it far younger than you don’t make the grade.” By the look on Val’s face, if he’d punched the boy in the stomach, he couldn’t have knocked the wind out of his sails so well. “That’s not to say you won’t succeed. And you’ll need a patron to pay for it, since you’re not wealthy. It’ll all be hard, have no doubt of that. But with a lot of work, and a little talent, it’s achievable.” Val stared dead ahead with the expression of one whose dreams had just been shattered.
“I’ll make sure you’re as well prepared as you can be,” Gill said. “I promise. There was a time when people considered me to be rather good.”
“I know how to work hard,” Val said. “And I know what’s waiting for me if I don’t. It’s not a mansion and a farm and a title.”
“We’ll get you there,” Gill said. “After all, how many applicants can write down on their admission form that they’ve slain a dragon?” That finally elicited a smile.
“That’s another thing you’ll have to show me,” Val said.
“What?”
“How to write.”
Guillot spent the greater part of the morning’s ride trying to come up with a name for the ability the Cup gave him to sense the presence of dragons. He had already come to think of the general benefits the ritual conferred to be the “boon,” but he felt that he needed another word for the power to tell when he was in proximity to dragons. It felt as though someone took hold of his insides and then pulled on them, as if his entire body was being urged in a specific direction. Unless, of course, he sensed more than one dragon, in which case the feeling was more of a confusing tussle. For want of anything better, the “pull” seemed to be the term he was settling on.
He could feel three distinct pulls that morning; one strong, the other two much weaker. The weaker ones were enough to muddy the water, so he had only the most superficial belief that he and Val were riding in the correct direction. He wondered if, with time, he would indeed be able to refine this ability into a useful tool, though he very much hoped that wouldn’t be necessary. Still, it occurred to him that two drops from the Cup, rather than one, might help. It also occurred to him that that was a slippery slope, and most likely the reason the Imperial mages had never trusted full possession of the Cup to the Silver Circle.
He pushed the thought from his head, and tried to concentrate on the strongest sensation. It was growing more forceful, bolstering his confidence that they were headed toward it. One of the other pulls was confusing, though. If he hadn’t known better, he would have said it was following them, but the sky was clear, and there was nothing to be seen—no dragon swooping down on them from behind. He focussed ahead, wishing the countryside they rode through was open pastureland, rather than a landscape pocked with intermittent forests and escarpments. It was the type of place that could hide an army of ten thousand men, lulling an enemy into thinking they were in peaceful, safe countryside.
A single dragon was a lot more easily concealed than an army, and Guillot couldn’t tell when he was growing close, only when he was about to trip over the thing. He realised in that moment he hated this job. He was tense and his heart was racing. He had been like that ever since leaving Venne, and it was a puzzle to him why anyone would have willingly signed up for this back in the early days. Even a real battle had been easier to deal with. War was terrifying, yes, but you were facing other men, something you’d trained for and were prepared to deal with. Now, the unknowns gnawed at his confidence like hungry rats, giving fright to the butterflies that were scrambling the insides of his stomach.
He had no idea how big or fast this dragon would be, how aggressive, what it looked like, if it would breathe fire. The one they had just killed had not.
That question seemed to answer itself. A mile or so up the valley, on the far side of a stand of trees that concealed what was actually happening, a dark tendril of smoke crawled skyward.
CHAPTER 25
“The use of magic in this land goes back far longer than the Empire’s control of it,” the Prince Bishop said.
Solène tried to stay calm and appear unworried, all the while fearing he was lulling her into a false sense of security before having her flung into the dungeons.
“I’ve found some tantalising clues as to where it might have all begun—where Amatus discovered the spark of magical enlightenment and brought it back for the benefit of all humankind. I believe it was somewhere in Mirabay. I need your help to find it.”
“Why me? Surely you’ve got enough people with the talent to seek out what you need?”
Amaury wasn’t going to tell her the real reason—that she was the only person he knew who didn’t need the power the temple might offer, who wouldn’t be tempted to take it for themselves. “The fewer people who know about it, the better. It’s a tense time. Something as potentially powerful as this will tempt some with more ambition than sense, and that’s a situation that’s easier to avoid than to clean up.”
“You trust me?” Solène said.
The Prince Bishop laughed. “Of course not, but you have the magical talent to do the work of dozens of Order initiates. You can bring me what I need quickly, with only one person knowing about it.”
She did her best not to swallow hard. The threat was unmistakable—if she turned on him, she would be easier to kill than an entire faction of the Order.
“What am I looking for?” she said.
“Once there was a temple or shrine, somewhere in Mirabaya, used by a people called ‘the enlightened.’ This was apparently where Amatus learned to use magic. I believe it’s where he found the Cup you mentioned to me a while back. I think it was key to his gaining so much skill and power. I want you to find out who these people—these ‘enlightened’—were, and where their temple was. Along with whatever you can find out about the Cup. What it is, how it’s used. I believe the Cup and the temple to be intrinsically linked.”
It was the first time he had said anything about the Cup to her, so she waited, hoping he would say more. He merely looked at her intently, and there was only so long she could bear the silence.
“You think the answer is in the archive?” she said.
“Perhaps. That’s where I found first mention of the enlightened, but perhaps not. I expect we’ll have to get out into the country and search for it. Still, your ability to comb through the material is far greater than mine, so I’m hopeful you’ll be able to turn up something where I could not. Sift it for whatever information you can find, and we’ll go from there.”
“I understand. I’ll do my best.”
“This needs to stay between us,” the Prince Bishop said. “If anyone asks what I have you doing, make something up. Tell them I have you coaching me in magic if you like. Anything but the truth. This stays between us.”
“What does he want you to do?” dal Drezony said, pushing her way into Solène’s apartment.
Solène hadn’t been back long, and was tired. When the Prince Bishop made a request, he expected it to be acted on immediately, and she had spent an unfruitful day in his secret archive as a result.
“Just to do some research for him,” she said. “He seems to think that only someone with my magical power will understand some old documents he turned up. I don’t think he’s right, but I can hardly say no.”
Dal Drezony scrutinised her. “That’s all?”