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Thoughts tumbled through my muddled brain. Paid for. Same mistake. My eyes locked on my mother, who was staring pointedly at the altar.
The hole that existed inside me, the one I patched over with smiles from Danny and jokes from Archer, with reading and wildflowers and the smell of fresh herbs or the warmth of sunshine on a crisp morning, tore open, and every hope I’d harbored that my mother would choose today to reveal her well-hidden love for me crashed to the stone floor.
I pressed my hands against my middle and willed the ache inside me to dissolve.
“Well?” the mage barked, shaking the ring at me.
A dog, purchased to breed little fire-wreathed pups for this man, that’s what I was. My mother had sold me.
Sold me.
I stared at the outstretched ring, seeking to find the heat in the atmosphere that I could call down as fire—as the training had indicated. Fire mages could manipulate heat in precise ways, but only if they could feel it. I felt nothing but the damp air of the small room.
The man huffed and turned toward my mother and the woman hovering close behind him. “She can’t, can she?”
I wasn’t sure which hurt worse: the disappointment on my mother’s face or the knowledge that I couldn’t do the one thing that would give me a place in society. I cleared my throat, drawing the man’s attention once more.
With every ounce of my concentration, I screamed inside my head for the stupid ring to catch fire.
Nothing.
If he lit it on fire, I’d feel those flames catching in my hair and then the end would come. I couldn’t do it. In a single breath, my hope died and I spewed out the one thing that I could think of that would be my ticket out of this room.
“My grandmother was a—”
“Hush your mouth,” Mother snapped.
“—mind mage,” I finished over my mother’s reprimand.
The man’s lined face curled into a feral snarl. “A what?”
Fabric rustled and the other woman stepped forward. “If this woman is a mind mage, it’s possible she manipulated her mother, and you, sir, into this deal.”
My jaw fell open, and I lifted my shoulders to my full height, which was still shorter than everyone else in the room. “I am a quarter mage. I don’t have enough control for something like that. I don’t even know if I have mind magic.” My pulse trilled in my ears and my heart felt like it was throwing punches against my ribs.
“She’s using it on us now, to make us believe her,” the woman said.
An angry scream tore from my lips. My mother’s eyes grew wide and burned with sharp reproof. I lunged for the door, feeling trapped in this tiny space, but the large woman blocked my exit.
A flame flickered before my face, and I stopped cold, terrified by how close the fire ring hovered before my nose. It didn’t smell like normal fire with its comforting wood-smoke aroma. This fire smelled acrid, like it was stealing something for fuel that was not supposed to burn.
“You will cease your magic and tell me the truth,” the man said as he held out the flaming ring. “Are you capable of bearing my children?”
A shudder coursed through me. Keeping my eyes on the flame, I spoke through gritted teeth. “I am no fire mage.”
The flame flickered out, and a breath escaped my lungs.
“Then I have no need of you.”
The moment I stepped toward the door, the woman’s hand grabbed my arm—hard.
“If you are not a fire mage, then the only other magic in you is illegal.”
Cold fear lanced through my veins, mixing with hot anger.
A quick gasp from my mother stole the single moment I had to escape. As I took my next breath, something strange descended over me—a feeling of ease, to the point of stupor. I was unable to remember why I wanted so badly to walk out the narrow wooden door, although a part of my mind was aware that I should leave.
The fire mage, whose name I still didn’t know, stormed out of the room demanding his money back. My mother clasped a hand over her mouth and slumped against the stone wall, deflated. I’d never seen her look so disappointed in her life.
