Page 82 of Awakened Ash and Alchemy

Interesting?

Everything about Angela was more than interesting. The gowns he’d chosen for her, the first he’d ever chosen for anyone, were stunning on her figure. To see how the fabric moved under the lights when she entered the War Room and met his gaze, as though she refused to be diminished by the room of warriors. The way she asked questions, not to challenge authority, but to understand and learn from the wizards testing her. And how she listened to him on topics he’d never told a soul was deeply comforting. Even when she didn’t say a word, her mere presence brought him a peace he’d never known.

Everything about her was fascinating. From the differing colors of her eyes, the way she’d tuck her hair behind her ears, or press her tongue to the roof of her mouth. Even the peace she showed while asleep stirred a renewed sense of honor and duty that had nothing to do with his responsibilities of being Captain of the Vanguard or the rules of this realm that he’d lived by for centuries.

It would have been simpler if she had been fragile. Or frightened. Or resentful enough to push him away with scorn, like she was at the beginning. Tossing the word prisoner around like a hand grenade, irritated him. But he knew she was doing that to set boundaries.

Good.

But then she started adapting and chose to accept her part in their treaty to help them learn what she is. Yet none of it gave him what they needed—answers, a strategy, or a weapon they could use against Katarra.

Silence settled along the smooth walls, heavier than normal. Not even a page stirred from their Hidden Hall of Histories. They were all listening, both the living and the dead, all trying to find a solution to a problem that none of them had encountered before.

What bothered Zarek most was the growing list of things he hadn’t told Angela.

Such as the Claiming. How she could feel him, like he felt her emotions through walls and across distances—and she’d asked a few times now, while their connection deepened in ways he didn’t fully understand.

He also didn’t know if the Claiming affected his magic in her presence, suppressing it somehow, which might explain why he could touch only her.

Zarek also hadn’t told her about the compulsion he’d witnessed. How she drew secrets from ancient wizards like pulling thread from a spool, all while thinking she’d failed every test.

And there was the cost of bringing her here. Angela knew that Katarra and the Black Cloaks were hunting for the alleged new power. Smuggling her into Paradox first had only bought them time, because if Katarra had known who Angela Duboise was, he’d have taken her aunt already. The patrols watching Claudine confirmed Katarra was still clueless. But that window wouldn’t hold forever. So, returning home like Angela wanted might put her and her aunt in far greater danger.

Then there was keeping her mortal origins a secret that carried its own risk.

If word reached the Continuum Council, they’d demand their own testing on Angela. And the Council’s methods made elderly scholars with bells and smoke look merciful.

Their treaty bought them time. But for what? To unlock her powers to put her into a war where she may get hurt? To break the Claiming before it consumed him entirely, which he hoped wasn’t physically affecting her too? Besides the sharing of emotions, it was the only sign he could see in her.

If they didn’t find answers soon, how long before Angela demanded her freedom that would only put her in danger from an enemy who’d already tried to kill her once?

Grinding his teeth, Zarek balled his hands into fists, because he already knew he wouldn’t have the strength to let her go. Not because he didn’t want her to go home, but because he was no longer certain the Claiming would allow it unless they found a cure.

THIRTY

Angela took the back seat in the long, rectangular classroom, carved from the same dark stone as the rest of the Keep. Here, the walls were lined with symbols that ran around the room in thick lines, like wallpaper.

Only this room was softened by tall windows that allowed afternoon sunlight to spill across the wooden desks worn smooth by generations of hands. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with jars of dried herbs, powders, vials, and bound texts that looked older than most governments.

The students sat in uniforms of slate-gray tunics, belted at the waist. There were no silver threads on their cuffs or any staves marking their sleeves. The only variation lay in the details of the patch embroidered on the upper area of their tunics.

That was where the similarities ended, as some wore wooly undershirts and trousers, different colored sashes, and boots worn thin at the heel carrying dirt from fields, rather than through polished stone corridors.

They ranged from barely adolescent to perhaps eighteen—sorted not by age, but by when their magick showed that they could be schooled, so they told her. They had also explained how those from the outer regions volunteered to come here with dreams shining in their eyes of being part of the Vanguard.

Apparently, the Vanguard was a position of honor within Paradox, that some of the students sat so rigidly, as though they were part of the Vanguard ranks already.

The professor also wore a uniform of sorts. A charcoal-cloak with gray cuffs that also held silver threads in a runic language she had no idea how to read.

But what she knew, from the students’ sneaky side glances, was that she didn’t belong here. And she had never felt so old in her life.

It was ridiculous for her to even be here. Now desperate enough to hitch a ride on the nearest horse and cart, if she had the faintest idea where the exit was. Of course she was no Dorothy, and there was no Tin Man pointing her home, but if she had her mace and her handbag, she’d do what she could to get back to her life instead of being stuck in a magick school full of children.

Come on, she had no magick. Their tests proved that. So why couldn’t she go home already?

Today, the professor droned on about the foundational magical properties of herbs, that Angela followed too easily as it was so familiar.

At times, Aunt Claudine’s voice drifted over the lecture like a second soundtrack. How protection circles were disguised as kitchen floor patterns. Latin phrasing got tucked into gardening advice. The logic of balance hidden in bedtime stories about wayward spirits, stubborn saints, and goddesses worthy of more than one mention.