She took a few steps back toward the doors and felt the cold on her face. Her breath began to mist in the air. Reaching out, she felt her hand pass into warmth again.
Rothen smiled encouragingly and beckoned. Shrugging, she moved back to his side.
The back of the University towered to her left. Looking around, she identified most of the buildings she had seen on Dannyl’s plan. Her eye was drawn to an odd structure on the other side of the courtyard.
“What is that?”
Rothen followed her gaze. “That is the Dome,” he told her. “Centuries ago, before we made the Arena, most training for Warriors was held in there. Unfortunately, the only people who could see what was going on were those inside, so teachers had to be strong enough to protect themselves from any stray magic that might be loosed by their pupils. We don’t use it anymore.”
Sonea stared at the structure. “It looks like a big ball has been sunk into the ground.”
“It has.”
“How do you get in?”
“Through an underground passage. There’s a door like a giant round plug which can only be opened inward. The walls are three paces thick.”
The doors to the Novices’ Quarters opened. Three boys hurried outside, wrapped in cloaks. They moved around the courtyard, tapping the lampposts standing around the edge of the paving. At their touch, the lamps began glowing.
Once all the lamps in the courtyard were alight, the three boys separated and ran in different directions. One headed down the front of the Novices’ Quarters, another disappeared into the gardens on the other side of the University, while the third dashed between the Baths and the Magicians’ Quarters, where a long path curved up into the forest.
Dannyl looked at Rothen questioningly. While the two magicians teased each other like old friends, Sonea had noticed that Dannyl always deferred to his former guardian.
“Where to?”
Rothen nodded toward the forest. “This way.”
Sonea stayed beside Rothen as the magician crossed the pavement and started along the path. The novice, having finished lighting the lamps, hurried back toward the Novices’ Quarters.
As she passed the back of the Magicians’ Quarters, a movement in one of the windows caught her eye. Looking up, she saw a fair-haired magician watching and felt a shock as she recognized him. He quickly withdrew into the darkness. Frowning, she turned her attention back to the path. She had no idea when Fergun would visit again, but when he did, he would want to know if she was going to accept his offer. She needed to come to a decision soon.
Until her talk with Lorlen, she hadn’t discovered whether all of the claims Fergun had made were true. She had been waiting for opportunities to steer her conversations with Rothen to vows and guardians, or Fergun himself, but few had come. Could she ask him directly without raising his suspicions?
While Rothen had told her what a guardian did, he hadn’t mentioned that he intended to be hers. She would not be surprised if he had decided that she did not need to know unless she chose to stay.
Once she had learned Control, she had two choices: return to the slums with her powers blocked, or help Fergun win her guardianship so that she could return with her powers intact.
As they reached the forest, Sonea looked into the maze of trunks. Fergun’s plan made her uneasy. It involved a great deal of deception and risk. She would have to pretend that she wanted to stay, possibly lie to ensure Fergun won her guardianship, make a vow she intended to break, then break that vow—and the Ring’s law—by leaving the Guild.
Had she become so fond of Rothen that the idea of lying to him bothered her? He is a magician, she reminded herself. His loyalties are with the Guild and the King. While she believed that he did not want to lock her away, for instance, he would if ordered to.
Or was it the idea of breaking a vow that worried her? Harrin and his friends cheated and stole all the time, but they regarded the breaking of a vow as an unforgivable offense. To keep their standing with others, they did all they could to avoid making one.
Of course, if a vow could not be avoided, awkward situations could be evaded if it was phrased sloppily ...
“You’re very quiet tonight,” Rothen said suddenly. “No questions?”
Sonea looked up at Rothen and found him regarding her fondly. Seeing his smile, she decided it was time to risk asking a few unprompted questions.
“I was wondering about the vow magicians make.”
To her relief, his brows didn’t lower with suspicion, but rose with surprise. “There are two, actually. The Novices’ Vow and the Magicians’ Vow. One is made when novices enter the Guild, the other made at graduation.”
“What do they swear?”
“Four things.” Rothen held up the fingers of his left hand. “The novices vow to never deliberately harm another man or woman unless in defense of the Allied Lands.” He tapped the first finger, then the others as he continued. “To obey the rules of the Guild, to obey the laws of the King and orders of any magician unless those orders involve breaking a law, and to never use magic unless instructed by a magician.”
Sonea frowned. “Why can’t novices use magic unless a magician tells them to?”
Rothen chuckled. “Plenty of novices have harmed themselves while experimenting without guidance. Magicians still need to take care, however. All teachers know that if they tell a novice to ‘go practice,’ without specifying exactly what they should practice, the novice will interpret the order as ‘go practice anything you wish.’ I can remember using that reasoning to justify spending a day fishing.”
Dannyl snorted. “That’s nothing.”
As the younger magician began telling her of his own exploits as a novice, Sonea considered the Novices’ Vow. It contained nothing she would not have expected. She did not know what all the rules of the Guild were. Perhaps it was time to ask Rothen about them. The last two parts appeared to have been added purely to keep novices in line.
By leaving the Guild with her powers unblocked, she would be breaking the second part of the vow. Strangely, she had felt no reluctance to break a law unless it meant breaking a vow.
When Dannyl finished his anecdote, Rothen continued his explanation. “The first two parts of the Magicians’ Vow are the same,” he told her. “But the third part changes to be a pledge to serve the ruler of one’s own land, and the fourth becomes a promise to never use evil forms of magic.”
Sonea nodded. By letting her escape, Fergun would be breaking a law and the Magicians’ Vow.
“What is the punishment if a magician breaks the Vow?”
Rothen shrugged. “That depends how it was broken, which land the magician lives in, and the judgment of their ruler.”
“What happens if they are Kyralian?”
“The worst penalty is death, which is reserved for murderers. Otherwise, the strongest punishment is exile.”
“You ... block the magician’s powers and send them away.”
“Yes. None of the Allied Lands will accept them. It was part of the agreement.”
She nodded. She couldn’t ask him what Fergun would face if the Guild discovered he had arranged for her to leave with her powers intact. A question like that was sure to make Rothen suspicious.
If she agreed to Fergun’s plan, she would have to hide well, or face similar punishment. The Guild would not offer her another chance to join them. She would have no choice but to rely on a Thief to hide her again—though she was sure Faren would do so eagerly if her powers were unblocked and controllable.
What would they ask her to do in return? She grimaced as she considered the prospect of spending the rest of her life hiding and doing the bidding of a Thief. All she really wanted was to be with her family.
Looking up at the snow covering the ground on either side of the path, she felt a pang of worry as she thought of her aunt and uncle shivering in some tiny room somewhere. This would be a hard time for them. They would have few customers. With Jonna’s baby growing and Ranel’s bad leg stiffening in the cold, how were they getting deliveries done? She should return to help them, not perform magic for a Thief.