When the occasional child was enslaved beyond the age of seven or eight, their unchecked powers could wreak havoc until they learned to control them. The havoc was likely what had brought them to Mage Hall in the first place. Luha had not been like that. She’d always had a masterful command of her powers but had simply gotten caught using them. Miara wondered suddenly how Luha was doing in her absence. How were her horses? Her father? Sefim? Depressing as Mage Hall was, she missed their faces.

“I’m making more sense of this now. Sometimes young mages do this. I’ve never known any as old as you are without training, so it didn’t occur to me. You’re also stronger now than if you were a little one, so it’s not the same.”

He nodded. Was he blushing? “So what you’re saying is I’m a child. Magically, at least.”

“Well… I wasn’t going to put it that way.”

He shook his head and laughed.

“Now, I’m not sure about this, but… chances are that you are calling the wind, but you’re just not very conscious of doing so. Maybe if you become more familiar with how to call, you will be able to sense when you are doing it and stop or avoid doing it at all. There are also the ebbs and flows of energy. You are expending energy each time. Do you feel any sensation like that?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, maybe we can start there. We’ve got a ways to ride before a break and some food, but when we do stop, we’ll try something.”

He only nodded, a small smile touching his lips that lasted up and down the next several hills. For a man who’d been kidnapped, he seemed very content.

She must just be an excellent captor. The Masters could learn a thing or two from her.

He was downright antsy by the time they stopped the horses for a small break and a bite to eat.

Thank the gods for that stupid drunken man. He wouldn’t have convinced Mara of this need otherwise. To think, of all the years he’d spent in safety with his parents, now that he was being dragged across Akaria against his will, he would finally be free to learn some magic.

He could not deny how thrilled he felt. What was the prospect of ruling a kingdom compared to blowing a twig twenty feet in the air! Damn, he was stupid. But ruling Akaria was never something he’d been asked if he wanted to do, just as he’d never been asked if he wanted to learn about his own magic. Really, nothing about his life had been up to him. His parents were kind, and Akarians were deserving, so he had gone along. What else would he do anyway? And he had a responsibility, just as his father before him. So he’d never put much thought into not doing what was expected of him.

But now he faced the very real possibility that he would not become king. Current kidnapping predicament aside, his magic was not going anywhere, and they couldn’t keep it a secret forever. Beyond that, he was indeed in quite a predicament. Add to that fact that he certainly hadn’t seen the slightest opportunity to escape from Mara yet, his chances of returning and taking the throne grew weaker with each horse’s hoof beat.

He knew somewhere in his mind that this could not end well. The despair in her eyes the night before when he’d tried to bargain with her—there was something cold and dark at the end of this road. But some part of him insisted on being irrational. In this moment, the sun warmed his skin, broken by streaked shadows of tree branches overhead, and the forest air smelled amazing in his lungs. A clearly smart, fierce woman rode by his side, and soon he would be learning magic from her. What did he have to complain about?

As the sun approached its zenith, they reached a small bridge shaded by tall oaks, and she decided it was time to stop. She took some bread and cheese from the saddlebags and handed it to him, and then she led the horses down to the river to drink. She didn’t watch him; he didn’t try to run. Why should he? Certainly, she could stop him easily, and beyond that, he had less reason to than ever. She offered him something he’d been searching for in Estun but could not find there. Should he run back to be a bad potential king instead? He felt a moment of guilt. Perhaps this was just an excuse to shirk his duty. But no. With no control of his magic, he was basically unfit for everything. Long overdue to change that.

Also, if he escaped, that would mean never seeing her again. And… he wasn’t ready for that just yet.

The horses were drinking. She strode uphill from the riverbank to where he sat, back against a tree trunk. Her strong, lithe frame tempted his eyes; he tried to keep them fixed on her face or the horses.

“Ready?” she said, arriving at the tree with a boyish, mischievous grin.

“For what, exactly?” Saying yes would be too easy.

“For your first lesson. I will drain some energy from you—a great deal, quickly—to give you the feeling of it, make it obvious. So. Ready?” She sat down beside him as she spoke.

He nodded.

“Close your eyes,” she said, stern but smiling. He did.

Then it was quiet. He could feel the bark against his back, the roots and dirt under him, pressing into him. A breeze floated in off the river, and the sunlight danced warmly on his skin, making some small part of him vibrate with joy.

And then, abruptly, that part of him fell out from under him, like a cave collapsing in his chest. At his center, growing outward, cold spread like snow tumbling down the mountain, growing in speed and devastation. Out from his chest to his shoulders, his arms, his toes. Like waking up in Estun in the dead of winter when the fire had burned down and only darkness wrapped around you. The top of his head tingled, and fatigue crashed over him. His whole self, every finger, was a dead weight, turned to stone like Estun itself.

He thought of the Great Stone, shining in the hall. On a smaller scale, this was the way it made him feel. That was no coincidence, was it?

“Open your eyes,” she murmured.

He struggled to. Her eyes were twinkling and locked on his.

“How does it feel?”

He grunted, barely able to keep his eyes open.

“As a mage, you want to keep yourself from getting to this point unless it’s an emergency, because as you can see, you are nearly incapacitated. Only rest or more energy from another source can restore you. Try it—try to feel the energy around you and pull it in.”

“How?”

“Well, you’ve got to pick something and send your mind toward it. Hear its song, know its whisper, understand its being, its very essence. Honor it deep in your soul. Feel its energy. Like this!” She pointed at a small mushroom growing beside him.