Voice of Command (The Spoken Mage Book 2) Read online

  Voice of Command

  The Spoken Mage Book 2

  Melanie Cellier

  Luminant Publications

  VOICE OF COMMAND

  Copyright © 2019 by Melanie Cellier

  The Spoken Mage Book 2

  First edition published in 2019 (v1.0)

  by Luminant Publications

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, stored in, or introduced into a database or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN 978-1-925898-04-0

  Luminant Publications

  PO Box 203

  Glen Osmond, South Australia 5064

  [email protected]

  http://www.melaniecellier.com

  Cover Design by Karri Klawiter

  Editing by Mary Novak

  Map Illustration by Rebecca E Paavo

  For Sebastian Isaac,

  who lights up my heart

  All the waiting was more than worth it

  Contents

  Royal Family and Mage Council

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Note from the Author

  Royal Family and Mage Council

  Map

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Melanie Cellier

  ROYAL FAMILY OF ARDANN

  King Stellan

  Queen Verena

  Crown Princess Lucienne

  Prince Lucas

  MAGE COUNCIL

  Academy Head (black robe) - Duke Lorcan of Callinos

  University Head (black robe) - Duchess Jessamine of Callinos

  Head of Law Enforcement (red robe) - Duke Lennox of Ellington

  Head of the Seekers (gray robe) - Duchess Phyllida of Callinos

  Head of the Healers (purple robe) - Duke Dashiell of Callinos

  Head of the Growers (green robe) - Duchess Annika of Devoras

  Head of the Wind Workers (blue robe) - Duke Magnus of Ellington

  Head of the Creators (orange robe) - Duke Casimir of Stantorn

  Head of the Armed Forces (silver robe) - General Griffith of Devoras

  Head of the Royal Guard (gold robe) - General Thaddeus of Stantorn

  Chapter 1

  “Elena! Elena! The mages are here!”

  My hand spasmed, and I nearly cut off my finger. Putting down the knife I had been using to chop vegetables, I turned to regard my younger sister.

  “Mages?” I tried to hide my consternation. For weeks now I had been so careful, not attempting even the smallest composition. Not giving even the slightest excuse for the Reds to descend on Kingslee. “Are you sure?”

  Clementine rolled her eyes. “Of course I’m sure. I’m ill, not stupid. I know what a mage looks like. And the carriage is too fancy to belong to anyone else, anyway.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’re right, you are ill. So what are you doing dashing around?”

  She sighed. “I already have one mother, Elena. And I get sick of being stuck inside all day.”

  I winced in sympathy. I hadn’t been studying healing for anywhere near long enough to understand why Clementine had been born with such a weak system, but she had always been that way. We had nearly lost her three times in her first year, and even now at twelve years old, she still contracted every tiny ailment that went through our village.

  The winters were always the worst, but she was in the middle of a particularly bad summer cold right now and should have been tucked up in her bed. Every time I looked at her, I ached to try a composition. While I might not be able to heal her properly, I was fairly confident I could heal a simple cold. But her eager, innocent face always stopped me.

  I couldn’t draw on power here. Not in my family’s home. It might not be exactly against the law—I wouldn’t be reading or writing, after all—but I didn’t intend to do anything that could even be looked at askance. I’d already done enough of that in my first year at the Academy—officially the Royal Academy of the Written Word. It was the same reason that I hadn’t read a single word in the weeks I’d been home on summer break.

  Common folk were forbidden to read, and while I had special permission to do so at the Academy, I wasn’t willing to test just how far that permission extended. Only my position as a trainee under the authority of Lorcan, the Academy Head, had kept me alive so far. I had no desire to find out what would happen if someone felt I had transgressed while not under his oversight. I might have chosen to embrace my magehood, but that didn’t mean the rest of the mageborn were ready to see me as one of them. I was a long way from enjoying the same freedoms and privileges they did.

  But given my impeccable behavior all summer, I couldn’t understand why red-robed law enforcement mages would be descending on me now, of all times. Especially when I had heard nothing from the mages since I returned to Kingslee for the second half of the summer. In fact, I would be back in the capital at the Academy in only a week.

  Perhaps I should have known the peace and quiet of the past weeks had been too good to last. Especially given that a person, or persons, unknown had made three separate attempts on my life during first year. Despite the assurances the Academy Head had given me about my safety, I had spent the first two weeks at home in almost constant tension, waiting for some sort of attack. None had come, however.

  “You get back into bed,” I said to Clementine, hurrying toward the door. “I’ll go see what they want.”

  Whatever they had come for, I didn’t want them anywhere near my family. Especially not since I had every intention of defending myself if it came to that. And I didn’t exactly have a great track record of control or finesse in those sorts of situations.

  I hurried outside without waiting to see if my sister would obey me and return to bed. But no carriages waited outside. No one was in sight at all.

  After a brief hesitation, I started down the dirt road toward Kingslee. Law enforcement knew where I lived, as did the gray-robed seekers, whose special role was to seek out any sign of reading or attempted writing among the common folk. Both had visited before. But perhaps it was possible they weren’t in Kingslee for me at all?

  My steps sped up. If someone in the town had been reading, we were all in terrible danger. Any attempt at writing by a commonborn—even a single word—could be enough to explode the entire village. I could only hope Clemmy would be safe enough in our house, given it sat outside the actual town. But both my parents were at work in the family store right in the middle of Kingslee, as they always were at this time of day.

  If things went badly, I thought I could protect them. I hoped so, anyway. I couldn’t do it from out here, though.

  But even as the
road flew past beneath my hurrying feet, I found it hard to believe. Kingslee prided itself on a long history without a single infraction. Even after the town managed to somehow produce me—the first and only Spoken Mage in recorded history—the watchers assigned by the seekers had left after only a few months finding nothing of suspicion.

  I had returned home months after their departure, and yet I still hadn’t heard the last of it. At least half of Kingslee blamed me for bringing the Grays down on them, and the local inhabitants were more vigilant about patrolling themselves than ever before. So how could there be trouble now? At least trouble that didn’t center around me.

  As I passed through the outskirts of town, I heard the distant murmur of a small crowd. It sounded like it was gathered in the square outside my family’s store. I broke into a full run, even as memories washed over me. It had been while confronting an angry mob in front of that store almost a year ago that my powers had first manifested. Somehow I had composed a magical working without using written words. I had done it with a single spoken word, in fact. Even a year later, no one understood how it was possible.

  I had proven myself, though, slowly gaining control of my ability to verbally compose. But now my skills were growing rusty from disuse. A part of me couldn’t wait to get back to the Academy. Back to a world where words held power and unlocked untold mysteries.

  I kept the longing to myself, though. It felt disloyal to my family to think of myself as a mage and to be eager to leave them. Especially to return to the world of the arrogant and entitled.

  But still, I had to admit something more than anxiety lent urgency to my steps. I hardly wanted to acknowledge it, even to myself, but I wanted to see and talk to mages again. Any mages. As long as they weren’t here to arrest me, of course.

  One knot of tension in my chest eased when the crowd came into view. Whatever was happening, they weren’t storming our store like they had been a year ago. The group was a small one, and even as I watched, it ebbed and flowed, some members slipping away while others appeared. This was the natural curiosity of villagers at an unexpected and notable arrival. One made all the more interesting by the fact that few in our village had ever been as far as the capital—despite it being a mere three hours’ walk from Kingslee. While the occasional family went in for the festivals or to sell extra produce at the bigger markets, few villagers had spare goods, spare time, or spare coin that might drive them to seek out an unfamiliar place.

  An expensive looking carriage stood in front of the crowd. My short height meant I couldn’t see past the interested throng to the small open space between the vehicle and our store, so I plunged in, elbowing my way through as needed.

  Several people protested at my passage, but each one fell silent once they turned to see who it was. After weeks of doing nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever, the local children had stopped following me everywhere I went, and the adults had stopped drawing away and muttering at the sight of me. But that didn’t mean the people I had grown up with had become comfortable with my suddenly charged presence. Most of them didn’t know quite what to make of me and vacillated somewhere between fear, pride, and resentment. Not exactly a comfortable combination.

  The last few people fell away, but I faltered as I stepped out from the crowd. The two newcomers who stood beside the carriage were certainly mages. But there wasn’t a dull-red or charcoal-gray robe in sight. Instead they wore the last color I had expected to see—purple. Healers.

  Had they gotten lost and stumbled on Kingslee by accident? It was true that healers were the one discipline whose services were widely available to the common folk, but naturally their services came with a hefty fee. So we were too small and too poor to have ever had a healing clinic here.

  The younger of the two mages looked around at the crowd uneasily, his eyes passing over me without recognition. He looked so young it was hard to believe he could have completed his four years at the Academy and two years at the front lines of our endless war with Kallorway. But if he had joined a discipline and received a colored robe, he must have done so.

  “We should go into the store. Even if it’s not the right one, they can direct us, I’m sure,” he said.

  “No doubt they could,” said the older woman beside him. “But I’m sure one of these fine people could direct us as well. People in villages of this size tend to know one another.”

  Her calm, gentle voice washed over me, and I found myself leaning toward her unconsciously. Somehow she managed to sound wise, trustworthy, and experienced with just a few words. And that despite the weariness that emanated from her.

  The young man looked around, his eyes latching onto me as the closest.

  “You. Girl. We are in need of directions.”

  I stiffened at his arrogant tone. At seventeen I was hardly a girl—at least not to someone who couldn’t be much more than five years my elder. But his next words effectively distracted me from my outrage.

  “We are searching for the family of the Academy trainee, Elena of Kingslee. Can you direct us to their abode?”

  My family. Not me. He claimed they were searching for my family. I had to remind myself these were healers and not Reds before my breath restarted.

  “I apologize for my companion,” said the woman when I didn’t immediately respond. “He is young and lacks finesse. But we would indeed be grateful if you could direct us to Elena.”

  The younger mage flushed at her words and looked mutinous. But if he had objections, he kept them to himself.

  Everything about this woman’s bearing suggested she must be a senior mage, but I had never met one with so much kindness and respect for common folk. Perhaps my friends back at the Academy had been right when they had suggested that healers were a different breed.

  My eyes fell on the man who was now scowling at the crowd. Some healers, anyway. I drew a deep breath.

  “I am Elena. How may I assist you?”

  “Elena herself! How fortunate.” The woman smiled at me. “I am Beatrice, and my companion here is Reese. We’ve come to treat your…sister, I believe it is?”

  I gaped at her, my mouth hanging open, unable to think of anything to say.

  Beatrice frowned at me. “You do have a sister, do you not? An invalid of some sort?”

  “Aye, she’s a sickly one, all right,” said a gruff voice from the crowd before someone else shushed him.

  “Well, then.” Beatrice smiled again. “It seems we’re in the right place, after all.”

  “I…I don’t understand,” I managed to say.

  “Is this indeed your parents’ store?” Beatrice gestured at the building behind her. “Perhaps we might step inside to continue the conversation?”

  I nodded, immediately aware of the interested crowd, and led them through the door. Inside it was cool and a little dark, full of a mix of smells that reminded me forcibly of my childhood.

  My mother bustled forward, bowing to the two healers.

  “My Lady. My Lord. It is an honor. How may I assist you?” Her eyes flickered to me, and I tried to assume a reassuring expression for her benefit.

  “It is us who are here to assist you, I believe,” Beatrice said with a smile.

  “Assist us?” My mother turned openly to look at me, but I just shrugged.

  “I don’t know anything about this. She says they’re here for Clemmy.”

  My mother drew back, sudden alarm on her face, so I hurried to reassure her, kicking myself for my thoughtless wording. I should know better than anyone the power of words and the need to choose them wisely.

  “To heal her, I mean.”

  My mother’s astonished gaze turned back to the healer. “Here to…heal…Clemmy? But we don’t have…” She exchanged a concerned look with my father who had appeared from the back of the store to join us.

  Despite all their hard work and their successful store, my parents had little spare coin. For years now, they had saved everything they could for my older brother, Jasper. They ha
d started as soon as they realized exactly how smart he actually was, only slowed by the arrival of Clemmy and the need to nurse her and purchase what herbal remedies they could find and afford.

  Even then, we might have scraped together the cost of a simple healing. But Clemmy’s problem was complicated and difficult, and we had been told it would be vastly expensive to fix. And with me gone for the last year, unavailable to help with either nursing or the store, it had been an even leaner year than usual.

  They had barely been able to manage the coin for another year’s board for Jasper. He had won a position, along with a scholarship, at the Royal University two years ago—deemed one of the incredibly small number of common folk with memories good enough to keep up with mage students who had the advantage of being able to read and write. But the scholarship only covered tuition, and all the other costs of academic life added up to far more coin than my parents had to spare in any normal year.

  It was part of the reason he wasn’t here with us now despite also being on summer break. He had chosen to remain in the capital both last summer and this one to allow him to continue to study but also to pick up what odd jobs he could find to help raise the necessary funds.

  But no one in the family resented it. Jasper was our family’s hope for a new and better life. Once he graduated, he would have his pick of jobs. With so few commonborn graduates, he would be able to secure a highly paid position, and then we would all move to the capital to join him. And once we were established there, with coin to spare, Clemmy would have access to the healing clinics. Or that had always been the plan.