Voice of Life (The Spoken Mage Book 4) Read online

  Voice of Life

  The Spoken Mage Book 4

  Melanie Cellier

  Luminant Publications

  VOICE OF LIFE

  Copyright © 2019 by Melanie Cellier

  The Spoken Mage Book 4

  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 978-1-925898-08-8

  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

  Proofreading by Deborah Grace White

  Map Illustration by Rebecca E Paavo

  For my brothers, James and Stephen,

  who help me define family

  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

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  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

  The gentle swell of music and bright colors of robes and gowns filled the room. I told myself I had no reason to feel out of place, but I didn’t seem to be listening.

  “It’s not too late to turn around,” Finnian said behind me.

  “Don’t sound so hopeful,” I muttered.

  He chuckled. “You know Coralie insisted I look after you while she’s in Abalene. There’s no way I’d be here otherwise. Not if I could possibly avoid it.”

  “That’s funny,” I said. “I could have sworn you’ve been talking about the Devoras chef for days.”

  “Well, your new father does have the best food at his parties, and I have to find the silver lining somewhere.” His eyes wandered over to the long table covered in delicacies.

  I winced. “Don’t call him that.”

  Finnian grinned. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Your new, dear Papa.”

  I sighed. General Griffith, my new adoptive father, had visited the Academy in person to tell me he expected his children to grace his soiree with their presence. Since the twins were happily spending the summer between their family’s estate and their Corrin mansion, I was no doubt the only recalcitrant one.

  I hadn’t turned up to any of the other parties and events he had hosted over the summer, and I had known my avoidance was too good to last. The general hadn’t invited me into his family so I could hide away and shun them all. He wanted to show me off—or show off our new connection at least.

  The press of people made my stomach roil, and a sudden headache sprang up behind my temples. The Academy was almost deserted over the summer break, and I wasn’t used to such a crowd.

  When I rubbed at my head, Finnian glanced at me, his expression changing to one of concern.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice low.

  “There’s just so many people.” I straightened my back. “But I’ll get used to it. I have to.”

  Like all mages, I could sense the presence of power. It swirled around many of the guests—the people, as well as the building itself, cloaked in a dizzying number of unidentified compositions. But I was used to that. The headache came from an entirely new awareness. One I didn’t share with other mages.

  Ever since I had reached out and ripped energy from Lucas and Araminta during the Battle of Abneris, I had been able to sense the energy inside every person. It pulsed at their life core, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, depending on their level of exhaustion. My awareness of the energy in those around me had sharpened and honed itself in the weeks since the battle. I had even grown used to it.

  But I had also been hiding away in the Academy, avoiding large crowds. And now people pressed at me on every side. Even the commonborn servants who moved around the party carried energy in their center. And their energy felt exactly the same as what filled the mageborn, although the commonborn only burned their energy through regular exertion. Any drain to their energy from accessing power would be irrelevant—wiped out in the fiery death that would result from their lack of control.

  The energy filled my mind, a discordant note that rang against the sense of power twining through the room. It called to me, reminding me how easily I could suck it into myself. But the thought always brought another hard on its heels. Thirty-nine hearts ceasing to beat at my command. My stomach heaved again.

  I pushed the thought aside. Their deaths had not been the result of my new energy ability, and I had seen first-hand that it could be used to bring life as well as death. And in this moment, I didn’t intend to take any energy at all. I just needed to find a way to push my awareness of it to the back of my mind—something I would never do without exposure to crowds. I sighed again.

  “Come on then,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

  Finnian kept pace beside me as we walked into the room, both of us nodding politely at any familiar faces in the crowd. Finnian nodded a lot more than I did.

  I had asked him to accompany me for that exact reason. He had grown up in this world, son of the Head of the Healers. He had attended so many parties like this one that they seemed commonplace and boring to him.

  “Daughter.” General Griffith approached me, his arms held wide in a welcoming gesture.

  I pasted a smile on my face.

  “Sir.”

  “And Finnian, good to see you’re back in Corrin already.” He nodded at my companion. Apparently Duke Dashiell’s so
n met with his approval as an escort.

  “I came back early this year,” Finnian said easily. “I wouldn’t want to miss all the social events of the season.”

  He didn’t mention the real reason he had come back early: to see Coralie before she left to spend a few weeks with her family in Abalene, and to keep me company once she was gone.

  “How goes it at the front?” I asked the general.

  “Quiet enough to permit my absence,” Griffith replied, his expression suggesting he found the lull in hostilities unnerving rather than relieving.

  I began to ask another question, but he cut me off.

  “I have several people I’d like you to meet.” He turned to my companion. “If you don’t mind excusing us, Finnian?”

  Apparently the war wasn’t an approved topic for an event like this. I filed the information away, and when Finnian headed in the direction of the food, I took a fortifying breath and followed in my new father’s steps.

  He introduced me to a parade of Devoras members, many of them senior in one of the ten disciplines. I would have been completely lost if the general hadn’t given me a family catalog of sorts shortly after my official entry to the family. I had memorized it with some reluctance at the time, but I praised my foresight now.

  The guests greeted me with varying levels of interest, some surveying me with obvious disapproval and others with equally apparent disappointment. I felt like apologizing to them all for being so obviously below expectation, but I doubted they would appreciate my attempt at humor. Finnian had already warned me to tread gently, at least with the older ones.

  But others wore pleased, almost greedy, expressions as they surveyed me.

  “We’re delighted to have the hero of Abneris among our number,” a man a couple decades my senior assured me.

  From the general’s introduction he was a wind worker. Thanks to my efforts with the family catalog, I knew him to be a distant cousin but a strong mage, rising rapidly through the ranks of his discipline.

  I cast an uncomfortable glance at the general who knew more of my actions in the battle than most—although even he didn’t know the full story.

  “I didn’t win that battle myself, whatever the rumors say,” I told the wind worker.

  The man shrugged. “The truth is hardly important in such a matter, now is it? It’s the perception that matters. Between you and the general, Devoras is in high favor at court, thanks to that battle.”

  I blinked. “Oh. I suppose…”

  Someone called for the general, and I took his departure as an opportunity to escape from the conversation.

  “Regretting signing those papers yet?” asked Finnian, appearing beside me and offering a plate of food.

  “I’m not saying I actually want to be related to any of these people,” I murmured, “but…”

  “Well?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “But?”

  “Every one of those people just looked me in the eye and talked to me. And when they had questions about my studies or the battle, they asked me. Even the ones who obviously don’t approve of me.”

  “Were you expecting them to hold back?” Finnian sounded confused.

  “You probably never saw it—or maybe you never noticed—but it used to be that senior mages rarely asked me questions. If I was with someone like the general and they had a question about me, or about something I witnessed, they would have asked him. But every single one of them looked me in the eye and directed their questions at me.”

  I shook my head. “I had to fight for that respect at the Academy. And even with the general. And now, with a stroke of the pen, I have that respect from everyone. I might not like the reason why, but I was never going to be able to win over everyone individually.” I looked at Finnian. “Is it weakness that I’m glad not to have to fight to be seen as a person anymore?”

  “You have a voice that needs to be heard, Elena. It helps if people are listening.”

  A stirring near the door drew both of our attention as yet more mages I didn’t recognize entered the large reception room. When I looked questioningly at Finnian, he said nothing, his brow furrowed as he watched them.

  “Who are they?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t recognize them.”

  I stared back at the new arrivals. Finnian knew everybody. Either these newcomers came from a minor family who rarely attended court—an unlikely possibility given their invitation to this event—or they weren’t Ardannian mages at all.

  I examined them more closely. They all had similar golden skin and black hair to Finnian’s northern family, and they all wore robes. As the crowd moved slightly, giving me a clearer view, I noted the differences in their robes compared to the familiar Ardannian ones. High-collared, the garments bore golden embroidery that wound around their throats and the cuffs of their long sleeves. The sides bore long slits which opened as they walked, revealing loose trousers underneath.

  The foreign mages stood close together, the almost solid knot of their energy combining with their excessive layers of compositions to press against me in the already crowded room. I swayed slightly and put a hand to the side of my head. My senses felt indistinct and confused.

  A moment later my eyes fell on someone else who had slipped into the room in the wake of the unfamiliar newcomers. My surroundings slowed and then disappeared before reappearing in crystal clarity. Lucas.

  I stared at him, unable for a brief moment to move. I wanted to run across the room and throw myself into his arms, but I knew better than to do anything so foolish. The sight of his tall form and familiar dark hair and green eyes brought a rush of homesickness greater than any I had felt before. I missed him. Had it really been so many weeks since I felt the warm grip of his hand or the strength of his embrace?

  But at the same time, it had been forever. I hadn’t seen him since our dramatic kiss in the entranceway of the Academy on our return from the front lines. He had been called to the palace after that, and the summer weeks had dragged on without his presence. I woke every morning to a disorienting feeling that something was missing. I told myself it was the chatter of a building full of students, but I knew it was only one voice I missed.

  His family needed him at the palace was the official word—after his long absence at the front he had many official duties. But I understood what lay behind that—the immense pressure they were bringing to bear on him to marry a Sekali princess and save us all. A sacrifice he would probably have made gladly if it wasn’t for me.

  He had promised me he would fight for us. That he would not let anyone rip us apart. I could only imagine how that was tearing him apart now, the broken promise eating him up inside. But how could he let countless more die just so we could be together?

  Staring hungrily at him now, I could read fatigue hiding behind his usual court facade. If only we could have an uninhibited chance to talk.

  Slowly my feet carried me in Lucas’s direction, Finnian forgotten behind me. I had nearly reached him before he turned in my direction and saw me. For a brief moment his face lit up, and then his mask slammed back into place.

  I flinched slightly but continued until I stood before him.

  “Lucas.”

  “Elena.”

  There was too much to be said between us. My mind went blank.

  “I’ve missed you,” I managed to blurt out.

  His eyes softened slightly, but they looked more hurt than pleased.

  “I’ve missed you too.” His voice was a bare whisper.

  His eyes flickered around the room, and then he spoke in a more normal volume.

  “I heard you’ve remained at the Academy for the summer. You didn’t feel inclined to move in with your new family?”

  A hint of humor sounded in his words, so I managed a small smile.

  “Strangely enough, I did not. The Academy is my home for now.”

  He nodded, and I tried to read the thoughts behind his eyes. Did he approve of my becoming a Devoras? I wanted to b
lurt out that I had done it for us, but people surrounded us on all sides, and I kept my words inside.

  “Jasper graduated, and my…other family have moved here to Corrin,” I said instead. I had wanted to say true family but remembered who might overhear us just in time.

  He nodded. “I heard.”

  I glanced away. Of course he had heard. No doubt the royal family kept track of everyone connected with the Spoken Mage—hope of Ardann, hero of the Battle of Abneris. Had Lucas told them of my new ability?

  But as I looked back into his eyes, I knew he hadn’t. He was the one who had sworn all of us present to secrecy even before the thought had occurred to me. He might be forced by circumstance to sacrifice our relationship, but he would never betray me.

  “I hope they’re enjoying the city,” he said, and it took me a moment to remember we were speaking of my family. How strange it felt to be exchanging trivial news as if we were merely year mates meeting again after the summer break.

  “Clemmy loves it,” I said. “They’ve found a tiny apartment, but we’re hoping they’ll be able to move to something bigger in a while.”

  I didn’t mention that my allowance from the general was funding their new home. The sale from their Kingslee store had not been enough to cover the cost of a new shop in Corrin without an additional loan, and Jasper’s steady salary as a palace official was required to help cover the repayments.