The Draykon Series (1-3)

Lokant: Chapter Twelve

If the child had been better dressed, she could have passed for a miniature version of Eva herself.

The girl was ten years old and her hair was snow-white. She was quietly thoughtful, slightly diffident in manner, and the only one of Angstrun's sorcery students who had shown any ability at summoning.

Lord Angstrun himself stood, toweringly tall and as craggy as a corven, regarding the girl with crossed arms and lowered brow.

'So she's good at control, but otherwise she lacks the full spectrum.'

Eva nodded slowly, speaking to Angstrun in a low tone. 'I've rarely seen a child of this age with so much ability to control a beast, but her communication skills are minimal at best. And her methods are unusual. Most summoners are less... direct. They feel the beast's needs and impressions and behave accordingly. It's manipulative. Susa's approach is pure domination.'

The girl, Susa, looked back at Eva placidly. She was diffident under Angstrun's heavy stare, but her demeanour hid a surprisingly firm will. When she had turned it on the tiny wood meerel Eva had provided for her, the timid creature had capitulated instantly. Susa had made the little furred beast walk, sit and jump according to her command, and apparently without it costing her much effort at all.

'What I don't understand,' Eva continued, 'is how she came to be sent to your department at all. With manipulation that strong, she should be in summoner training.'

Angstrun shook his head, apparently oblivious to Susa's discomfort. 'Early summoner testing focuses on beast empathy, doesn't it? She failed completely at that. And her sorcery is excellent.'

'True.' Eva was silent for a moment, still thinking. It made little sense for a summoner to be so successful at animal control, but to entirely lack the rest of the skillset. But none of her personal teaching and encouragement had awakened any ability in Susa save her frightening domination.

Eva, however, could detect the meerel's feelings about Susa. Opening her mind to the tiny beast, she sensed none of the fear or resentment she might have expected at the girl's manner of control. On the contrary, the meerel had developed a virtually instant devotion to Susa and refused to be parted from her. Susa's influence over it was practically mesmeric.

'Interesting,' Angstrun murmured, and she could only agree.

'Keep an eye on this one, Angstrun,' she said. 'Get her trained in beast control as well as sorcery. And there might be more like her.' She paused. 'Get all the white-haired children tested.'

He raised his heavy black brows at her. '"All"? There might be as many as three true white-hairs in the whole realm.'

'Then find all three.'

Later, after Susa and her new friend had been dismissed, Eva sat comfortably in Angstrun's chair with her feet up on his personal footstool. Rikbeek lay against her neck, shivering. She was cold, too. Didn't Angstrun use heating? Her gaze rested sightlessly at some spot on the spotless ceiling as she considered.

She was remembering her encounter with the two uncanny sorcerer-summoners in the Lowers. The specific aberrations among their abilities had included a degree of beast control that was normally impossible. Ana was a strong summoner, but still it shouldn't have been feasible for her to reliably control a whurthag taken from the wild. Those creatures - dark as night, fiercely violent and chillingly ice-eyed - had been banned generations ago for their untameable ferociousness.

And as for her husband, Griel, he was a sorcerer. Yet he, too, had manipulated whurthags with ease, especially when he was in the Lowers.

Both had the same rare, natural white hair as Susa. The same colour that Eva herself shared. And she, too, had brought a whurthag under her control when she'd had to. When Griel's pet had threatened Tren, she had protected him by dominating the creature herself.