“I want to stop.”

  It seemed so reminiscent of the start of his previous conversation that Will almost replied with ‘Are you pregnant?’ He held his tongue, though. After a second, he asked, “You’re referring to the third compression?” Seth nodded, so Will asked, “Why?”

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  “It’s just a feeling. Getting through the second one was hard, and I still don’t feel quite like I should.”

  “But you’re sleeping soundly through the night, and your overall turyn levels have returned to normal,” Will reminded him.

  Seth nodded. “Yeah, technically that’s true, but something feels off.”

  “You adjusted almost as quickly as the others and well within the time-frame that means it should be safe for you.”

  “I don’t think I have what it takes.” Seth stared at the floor. “I’m scared.”

  “So?”

  Seth glanced up. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m afraid. I’m a coward Will. I’m not like you. I think I’m fine with just second-order.”

  Speaking frankly, Will responded, “I’m scared all the time, Seth, every day in fact. Don’t let that stop you.”

  His friend seemed incredulous. “Afraid of what?”

  Will shrugged. “For starters, the king wants me dead, but if you look back, there hasn’t been a day in years where I didn’t have something crazy going on. I’ve been afraid of a lot of things through it all.”

  “I don’t think there’s anyone left that can really threaten you, even the king.”

  “One on one? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s not the point. Being powerful isn’t enough to make me safe, much less those around me. And there are a thousand different types of fear. I’m afraid of failing as a teacher, as a husband, as a friend. I’m afraid that the path I’m heading down will bring you and everyone else I care about to a bad end. And I haven’t even mentioned the things I’m an outright failure at, like being a duke. Sometimes I’m simply afraid that everyone is laughing at me behind my back, even though I know it’s a silly thing to worry about.”

  Seth seemed shocked. “Who would dare laugh at you?”

  Will’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “My friends, hopefully.”

  “You’re the most confident person I know. It’s hard to believe you’re scared of anything.”

  “Everyone is scared,” declared Will, putting his palm on his friend’s chest. “What’s important is how you deal with it. Don’t let it stop you.”

  Seth stared into his eyes, and Will saw a faint tremor pass over the young man’s features, but then his jaw firmed. “You’re right.”

  “You’re going to go for it?” asked Will.

  Seth nodded. “Yes.”

  Will smiled. “Good. We’re almost late. Let’s go.”

  A few minutes later, they were outside. Seth joined the others while Will and Selene stood together. Selene often skipped the sessions since they usually just involved forcing the students to exercise when they would rather do absolutely anything else. It was always worst when they were fresh off a new compression. At those times their bodies were continually exhausted, starved for the energy needed to function normally.

  The first compression had been the worst, when the students had had to learn how to maintain the compression of their source to avoid literally burning themselves alive from the inside out. The second had been easier, but it still made them tired to the point of wanting to sleep almost continually for several weeks. Will hoped the third compression would be similar.

  Technically the third compression was the most dangerous, but they hadn’t lost anyone yet, and the student wizards had all recovered within the time period that Arrogan had indicated was probably safe for them to continue. Selene was present because she knew that today Will would adjust the spell-cage that limited the amount of internal turyn they could hold.

  Will studied the line. His cousin Sammy stood at one end with Emory Tallowen next, casting occasional glances in her direction, a fact that mildly annoyed Will for reasons he barely understood. Next was Seth, his old roommate, followed by Matthew Holmgren and Shawn Campbell. Matthew and Shawn were both from Will’s class at Wurthaven, and though he had never been particularly close to them, he had nothing bad to say either. Both had been solid students, and they had performed well during the recent war with Darrow.

  As expected, Janice was absent, along with Tabitha, who had left the previous week. Laina was also missing, which came as a surprise. “Where’s Laina?” Will asked, turning to Selene.

  “I’ll explain after the class,” she replied.

  Will frowned. “If something happened, you should have told me beforehand.”

  “I tried, but you were busy with Janice and the door was shut. Anything I should know about?”

  He gave her a grumpy look before responding, “I’ll explain after class.” With that, he started the preliminary spell diagnostic before proceeding. As Sammy was the only girl remaining it only took him a moment to make sure she wasn’t pregnant. He’d felt safe in assuming she wouldn’t be, but Janice’s revelation had shaken him.

  Knowing that Emory was smitten with his cousin, Will gave the young nobleman a hard stare as he performed the spell. Emory shrugged innocently while Sammy frowned at Will in annoyance.

  Since there weren’t any surprises, they proceeded with adjusting the source-cages within each of the students. Will did the first few and Selene did the rest, perfectly replicating what she had seen him do. The effect wasn’t instantaneous, but the students were soon looking uncomfortable as they began compressing their sources. The resulting paucity of turyn made their faces pale, and fatigue became apparent in their features.

  “Does anyone have any questions before you return to your rooms to rest?” asked Will.

  Emory responded, “Where’s Janice and Laina?”

  “Janice won’t be continuing for reasons of her own,” said Will. “As to Laina”—he glanced at Selene—“I don’t—” His sentence cut off as Seth suddenly vomited onto the grass.

  Everyone took a step back, and then Shawn, who had a sensitive stomach, began retching in response to Seth’s expulsion. The next few minutes were chaotic. Will sent the others back to their rooms while he and Selene helped the two nauseous men. Seth’s stomach quieted down after a few minutes while Shawn’s got better as soon as he was away from the noxious sights and smells.

  It was almost a full hour before Selene and Will were alone. She looked at him and gave him a rueful grin. “Shawn wouldn’t last long if he had to tend patients.”

  Will chuckled and nodded. “I would have reconsidered including him if I’d known he was so sensitive.”

  “He’s a wizard, though, not a doctor.”

  “How would he react to seeing someone’s brains splattered against a wall?” pondered Will.

  “I said wizard, not soldier,” corrected Selene. After a brief moment, she added, “Is that what you think of your role these days?”

  He winced. It wasn’t long since he’d been proclaiming the opposite to Blake. With a sigh he answered, “It seems as though violence has become the foundation of my life. I can’t help but think that our students will face the same thing, even though I keep arguing the reverse.”

  Her features softened. “That’s how it should be.”

  “But it isn’t.”

  “It will be, once you take the crown.”

  “Once you take the crown,” Will corrected. “I’ll do the bloody part, but I’m not fit to rule.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You honestly think I’m better suited than you?”

  Selene said nothing for several seconds, then answered, “No, but you don’t give yourself enough credit. Together it hardly matters, for I’d be there to advise you, but even if I wasn’t around, you would make an admirable monarch. You have good instincts, and you’ve learned to be ruthless when necessary. Putting all that aside, you have the most important attribute—you care about the citizens more than your own pride or power.”

  “None of that makes either of us necessarily better than Lognion,” he observed. “Your father may be arrogant, but he’s an effective ruler.”

  “He’s cruel.”

  “To you, to us, to those who are his tools and to those who get in his way, but for the kingdom as a whole—has Terabinia ever had a more successful king, or been more prosperous?” asked Will.

  “Part of the capital was razed to the ground last year,” Selene observed.

  “Due to an attack he had nothing to do with, and most of the destruction was caused by Ethelgren. I’m responsible for that.”

  “You were a student, yet you found the power to master an ancient artifact and rescue the city from an undead invasion. In the end, you saved the king himself from that master vampire.”

  “Which led to a war.”

  “That you won.”

  “Because your father appointed me to lead it. Isn’t that a king’s job, making smart decisions?”

  She sighed. “He was hoping you’d die or at the least be discredited.”

  “In the worst case, the kingdom would have been the same, possibly even stronger. Certainly, it was bad for us, but for Terabinia? Our nation was bound to be better for it no matter how things turned out,” argued Will, shaking his head.

  She frowned. “The war precipitated the demon crisis. That might have been the end of everyone.”

  “That was a mistake on Grim Talek’s part. You can’t assign blame for that to Lognion.”

  “Well then, I suppose we should just sit and wait for him to eliminate you,” said Selene sourly. “Is that your argument?”

  Will grimaced. “No, I’m just not sure we’re any better than him.”

  “He’s a monster.” Selene’s tone was hard.

  “As a person, yes,” Will admitted, spreading his hands out. “But as a ruler? Look, I’m not saying we should do anything different. I just don’t think we should fool ourselves by pretending we’re better for the country than him. What we’re doing is personal. It’s him or us, and that’s as much his fault as anyone’s.”

  The expression on his wife’s face was that of barely suppressed anger. She took a breath, and it vanished a second later. Will admired her self-control, the product of a childhood he could barely conceive. “You’re wrong,” she said finally. “But I’m not going to argue with you when you’re obviously just looking for reasons to beat yourself up. Laina went back to Cerria.”

  He blinked, trying to process the abrupt change of topics. “She snuck away?”

  “It was her idea. I helped her pack.”

  Will’s mood went from defeated to angry, but he tried to emulate his wife’s previous example. Closing his eyes, he took a slow breath, then tried to object reasonably. “She was supposed to undergo the third compression today. Do you think there’s going to be another opportunity later?”

  “She’d already done it to herself when she came to me.”

  “What?” The answer surprised him so much that Will almost shouted. “By herself?”

  Selene nodded. “She was able to get through the first two compressions even though she was already a spell caster and without needing the compulsion of the heart-stone enchantment. Is it really that surprising? You know how strong her determination is.”

  “When it’s Laina you call it determination, but when I’m the subject you call it stubbornness,” said Will wryly.

  She chuckled. “Whatever it’s called, it seems to run in the family. You’re both mule-headed.”

  “I just can’t believe she managed it. I didn’t think it was possible to do alone. I couldn’t have done that.”

  “You were a complete novice. She’s been using magic for years,” she remarked.

  “Which is supposed to be a drawback.”

  She shook her head. “Not for her, maybe not for you, if you were in the same circumstances. After all, at some point in history there had to have been a first wizard, right? Someone able to use spells, or at the very least wild magic, someone who managed to be the first to compress their own source without help or guidance.”

  Will went to the side table and retrieved a bottle of wine. “I need a drink. You?” When she nodded, he deftly uncorked the bottle and poured a glass for each of them. After he had handed one over to his wife, he returned to the subject at hand. “You shouldn’t have let her go. Even if she managed it by herself, she must still have been exhausted. Traveling could be dangerous.”

  “If it was you, do you think I could have stopped you?”

  “If I was tired and exhausted, definitely.”

  She sighed. “You always assume everything is about fighting head-to-head. Certainly, I could have locked her up, but she would have escaped one way or another. Besides, she was acting in the best interest of everyone concerned.”

  He knew what she meant. It went without saying that Laina was acting to help her sister, or perhaps to protect Will and Selene. After a second, he made an addition, “Except her own.”

  Selene took a slow sip, then responded by lifting her glass as if to toast him. “Pot. Kettle.”

  Chapter 6

  Will woke briefly in the middle of the night. His eyes slid open groggily. There was no sense of urgency or alarm, but he wasn’t sure what had wakened him. Adjusting his vision to the darkness automatically, he soon spotted a grey lump on the bedcovers close to his feet. It took a moment to realize what it was, but when two green-gold eyes appeared, he was certain. The stray cat had found her way into the bedroom and made herself a comfy spot near the foot of the bed.

  He and the cat stared at each other in the dim light for a long moment, then the cat closed her eyes with a sense of finality. “Suit yourself,” Will mumbled and did the same.

  When he opened them again, Selene was rising and putting on her dressing gown. Rubbing at the matter in his eyes, he glanced around. The cat was nowhere to be seen. “Did you let the cat in last night?”

  She raised one brow. “What cat?”

  “There’s a stray that’s been hanging around the house. She snuck in during the night and made herself at home on the bed.”

  “You were dreaming.” Selene pointed at the door, then the window—both were closed. “Unless the cat can manage doors or shutters.”

  “Huh.” It hadn’t felt like a dream. Shaking his head, he rose and used the basin on the other side of the room to wash his face before beginning to dress as well. Despite Selene’s head start, Will was ready to go downstairs a few minutes before she was, but he was happy to wait, content to watch as she skillfully wove a ribbon in and out of a long braid that artfully decorated her tresses.

  They didn’t speak. Although some would have been nervous, or simply annoyed by such long, silent stares, Selene was unbothered. Whether it was her upbringing or simply her innate confidence, she accepted his watching gaze as a natural consequence of their relationship. When she finished with her hair, she stood and smirked. “Entertained?”

  Will grinned. “Enthralled.”

  Stretching up on her toes, she kissed him quickly on the cheek. “Let’s eat.”

  A few minutes later, they were downstairs in the dining hall. Breakfast was usually informal, without a firm insistence on punctuality or waiting on everyone to appear, but even so, Jeremy only kept the kitchen open for a short period of time. Lunch was a bigger meal, and he couldn’t afford to waste half the morning serving everyone at different times when the noon meal would require hours of preparation. As a consequence, everyone knew when to show up at the right time if they didn’t want to wait until noon to eat.

  Seth was absent.

  Will gestured to the empty seat. “Did he eat already?”

  Shawn Campbell shared the room with Seth. Exhausted from the third compression, he looked up with a haggard expression. “I could barely drag myself down the stairs this morning. Seth is still sleeping.” He bit into another sausage and chewed without enthusiasm. A second later he added, “I think he made the right choice. I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  One of Jeremy’s kitchen assistants, a young woman named Kara, brought two plates out and set them on the table in front of Will and Selene’s customary seats. She’d probably been watching for their arrival. Will gave her a grateful smile and took his seat. Before he took his first bite, a thought occurred to him. “Did you talk to him?” he asked Shawn.

  Shawn shook his head, answering around yet another mouthful. “No. Didn’t want to wake him.”

  Will frowned. After each compression, it was usually difficult to sleep. While awake it was easy to maintain the control required, but generally it took several weeks for the body to develop the ability to maintain the appropriate turyn production during sleep. Rising from his chair, he stepped back from the table. Touching Selene on the shoulder, he said, “I’m going to go check on him.”

  She nodded, seeing the worry in his eyes, though she kept her features calm. Shawn piped up again, “It won’t hurt him to miss a meal.”

  Suppressing his irritation at that remark, Will left. His anxiety grew with each step, and by the time he reached the stairs, he was jogging. He took the steps two at a time and didn’t slow down until he had reached Seth’s door. One deep breath and he went inside.

  Seth appeared completely at rest, but Will’s senses registered the awful truth immediately. There was no turyn evident around his old roommate, and a faint smell in the air was probably the result of loose bowels. No more than two steps in and he was certain of the awful truth.

  Seth was dead.

  Moving to the bedside, Will took note of the grimace on Seth’s face; the muscles had already tightened. The skin was pale but still soft to the touch, and underneath the body had turned a dark pink as the blood had pooled there under the influence of gravity. His friend had died hours ago, possibly right after going to bed.

  “You were right,” said Will to the empty room, knowing he was truly alone. “I should have listened.” The turmoil inside his heart was such that he couldn’t have said what he was feeling, but it robbed him of any desire to move, so instead he sat, leaning his back against the side of Seth’s bed. This could have happened to Selene. It might still happen to Laina, or Sammy. His face tightened with guilt, not just because it was his fault, but also because he was glad it hadn’t been one of them.