The Rebel Assassin

Chapter 30: The Making of Legends

Magali stood at the ramparts and tried to even out her breathing. It was a clear day with just enough coolness to truly be called autumn; the sky was a light, bright blue that glowed through her closed eyelids. A touch of wind skittered across the castle's roof, lifting the wisps that escaped her severe braid for just a moment before it was gone.

Her hands gripped the stone wall tight enough to be painful, but no one would know by looking at the Queen of Solangia how much it hurt her. Her face was perfectly calm.

Aiden watched her with a guarded expression, not daring to speak first. He'd acted far more subdued toward her ever since their first meeting ended, and she was pleased by the change. The stress of staging the deaths of Dahra and those guards had been worth it, if only to teach her new Advisor of Magic a lesson in respect.

When she felt ready, she opened her eyes. It had been a hard morning. No one understood yet exactly how she wanted to rule; she had to teach them all from scratch. Meanwhile nobles scrabbled for her favor and her father's advisors struggled to adapt to the change.

At this point in her reign, she would settle for getting them to understand that the day to day issues a ruler would settle could still go to her father. It was anything important, and most especially anything to do with the rebels or the Guardians, that came to her.

Everyone seemed to want to do it the other way around — to ask her to settle the question of whether to accept Englescroft's newest pick of ambassador, or which holidays the castle would hold public feasts for, while asking her father what to do about the newest rebel attack or news of whether they'd returned from Emorial. So again and again she rudely pushed irrelevant question to her father, who sat, much subdued, at her side during council meetings, and turned a cold glare to any nobles who tried to address important matters to him instead of her. Slowly they were coming to realize that it was the new queen who decided which of them could ask favors of the crown, and that she did not look kindly at anyone who did not take her seriously.

But the change would not happen overnight. She understood that well enough, it was just frustrating to work through. Hence the walk on the ramparts to clear her head. There was also the added benefit of meeting with Aiden away from the rest of the castle to minimize the chances of eavesdropping. Having Caer for a friend made one particularly suspicious of eavesdroppers.

She'd given Aiden Tobias's old rooms — including the Sage's study and everything in it — but the former rebel knew he was not to socialize with the inhabitants of the castle as if he belonged there. Having Tobias's rooms was a simple necessity so he could access the Sage's old notes from when the two had worked together, years ago, on ways to enhance or minimize Guardian magic, and use it to continue his own work on the fire glass.

"Well?" she asked, finally moving from her position. She noticed the texture of the rough granite wall pressed into her skin as she crossed her arms. "What progress have you made?"

"My Queen, I don't think it's possible to make a long distance weapon out of the fire glass. Remember, at the most basic level my design is just a modification of an identification orb, which recognizes a person's magic by comparing the magic in the person with the sample embedded in the orb. And identification orbs have never been made to work without physically touching a person's skin."

She eyed him with displeasure. "Aren't you mages always talking about how anything's possible with enough belief in the concept?"

He tried, but mostly failed, to hide his pained expression. "It is the prevailing theory of modern mages that the human's race's perception of how magic should work defines how it works in reality. The theory does explain why magic workings definitively recorded in history no longer work, and even the minor differences in how magic is practiced across the continent. However, one must always keep in mind that without extremely detailed records of magic, which do not exist from before about two hundred years ago, the theory cannot be proved. Furthermore, the theory demands in the first place that a very large population share a perception before magic as an entity will bend to—"