First Apprentice

Chapter 6

The next two days passed in a flurry of law books, old notes, and teleporting between my study and the Conservatory's library. I was fifteen the first time I researched the relevant laws. Still reeling from my first kill, Grandfather suggested I read up on clan guardianship laws. It was both a distraction and his way of saying Martha couldn't legally control me outside Vinetta. Instead of reassuring me, it confirmed something I always suspected. Grandfather didn't actually have my guardianship.

On the surface, it looked like he did. A cursory examination of my familial bonds and the family tree he cobbled together would satisfy most people. Clan elders were not most people. To them, I was the ultimate weapon. They would dig into my past and discover Grandfather's paperwork was forged. Carefully crafted with all the proper signets, but still fakes. We were related. Go back down my actual family tree about five centuries or so, and one of my ancestor's was Grandfather's eldest brother's several greats grandson. Maybe if we were members of the same clan they'd overlook it. We weren't.

No, they would first look to a chosen parent. My sole parent of sorts was Endellion. The legal restrictions imposed by the guardian laws turned her into a commodity. Legally speaking, a guardian was a thing, not a person. They would no more grant her custody than they would a tea cup. The same applied to Uncle Manfred. If anyone challenged Grandfather's guardianship, he would lose and then they do what they always did with orphaned daes: turn them over to their clan council and forget about them.

I knew exactly what the Dracon did with their women. I also knew why there were no more dae dracons. Grandfather may have sheltered me from that reality, but Selim pounded it into my head complete with stolen memories. A proper Dracon female was mated at the council's whims. With her magic permanently suppressed by age eight, she was sweet and demure. She existed to serve her mate and raise children. In the last five centuries, only two daes survived their first year. The first was three when the council discovered him. They executed him, his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, every member of his family down to a third cousin twice removed. I was the second.

However, the Dracon were also power hungry. They believed they were the strongest clan and should rule. They were partially right.

Although they proudly claimed they'd thrown off tyranny and freed themselves from dae oppression, it wasn't exactly true. Based solely on magical power, dracon lords can match most daes. They simply breed out the wraith form that separates daes from lords. The Dracon Clan also outnumbers the next most populous clan by more than three to one. Even without fielding their females, which all the other clans did, they reported having 1.4 sealers per thirty people. Those are licensed, working sealers. However, the Border Guard's academy system reported training 4.8 and that wasn't including anyone trained privately.

But their numbers were only an advantage under select circumstances. If they took the field against Terry or Joel, they'd die. Every time.

A group of sealers can generally accomplish the same seals a more magically powerful one can. However, it takes hours – sometimes days – to sync their magic. Since everyone's magic is unique and even identical twins don't have exactly the same amount, simultaneous seals are always unstable. That's fine for civilian use. During a battle, you counter quickly or die.

Clan magics require stability. The slightest fluctuation and Joel's illusions will shatter like a crystal goblet thrown against a stone wall. Aes is worse. Even if a counter exists – doubtful for clan magics – simultaneous casting is impossible. The few who've tried it turned themselves into red smears and are remembered by countless school children as fools.

During the second war, armies died trapped inside Joel's illusions. They walked off cliffs, died from thirst while camped beside a river because they simply forgot to drink, and murdered their comrades thinking they were enemy soldiers. When they assassinated Terry's mate, he turned ten thousand men into icicles, shifted into a Dracon, and rampaged through their ranks, turning them into bloody ice shards.

The only way to counter a ferepris is with another ferepris. You set them on the outskirts and have your army give them a wide berth. Otherwise, they are the army. I wasn't entirely sure how that applied to me, but I imagined it was a similar idea. Given the tensions between the Border Guard and the Dracon, the Dracon might keep me alive and magically whole as a deterrent. Still, not a life I wanted. I didn't want the one Grandfather planned either.

That left the apprenticeship.

Assuming I passed Terry's test, Proclamation 2306 emancipated any apprentice who had not yet obtained their first transformation. Selim said his grandfather Rainer passed the law because they planned to start Selim's apprenticeship before his transformation and had concerns about possible conflicts between Rainer and Selim's parents, Rainer's first and sixth. Then Selim transformed early. Rainer shoved the proclamation into a drawer where it lay forgotten until Haydn used it to tweak the Marstow's collective noses.

The clan, the academy, or ten years as Terry's apprentice? Easy choice.

Sighing, I flicked my hand at the pile of books. My notes packed themselves away as the books flew back to the shelves. A finger twitch disabled the ever-flow seal etched on the underside of my dip pen nib and cleaned it. I glanced around my study once more. After ensuring no ink stains remained on my sealing table, and that any miscellaneous scraps that might cause an experimental seal to blow up in my face were properly disposed of, I exited my study and went in search of Joel.