The Tethered Mage by Melissa Caruso

Author:Melissa Caruso
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Fantasy / Epic, Fiction / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Coming Of Age
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2017-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

Unease grew in my gut as the miles opened between me and Raverra, exacerbated by the bouncing of the coach. The flat, sunny fields and tile-roofed farmhouses around us had never seen the sea. It was an open country, empty of secrets, every surface kissed with light. I yearned to be back in my shadow-hoarding maze of brick and water, perhaps bent over wire and books and crystals with Istrella, or attempting to unravel the Ardentine kidnapping mystery with Marcello from safely outside city-destroying distance.

Marcello. He’d hardly said a word to me since the Council session last night, and those few words had been stiff and formal, the necessary business of our trip. He rode alongside the coach on a blood bay mare, supervising the small detachment of soldiers sent to guard us on our journey, but he avoided my window as if looking on it would burn him.

I knew I needed to talk to him. But what could I say? I’m sorry for the cruel things I said, but they’re effectively true?

I didn’t know how to tell him we couldn’t court anymore when we’d never been courting in the first place.

Istrella rode by his side, chattering and pointing at things, occasionally lowering the artifice glasses that sat on her forehead to peer at some object or bird through them. Zaira’s voice drifted down from the coachman’s bench, barely audible over the rumble of wheels and the clatter of hooves, chatting with the driver; she’d asked to sit up beside him, and they seemed to be entertaining each other immensely. It should have been a cheerful journey. But every time I thought about the purpose of our trip, a sickening gulf opened in my chest.

I’d always expected to return to Ardence someday, but not like this.

It occurred to me, as I glanced at the man seated opposite me in the carriage, that he might well be thinking the exact same thing.

Maybe we could distract each other. “Uncle Ignazio?”

He looked up from his lap, his brooding expression easing. “Yes, Amalia?”

“This must be difficult for you, returning to Ardence so soon. I’m sorry.”

He laughed shortly. “It’s more awkward for Lady Terringer than it is for me. It may look to some as if the doge is sending me to clean up her mess.”

“Is she likely to be resentful?” That could be a problem, given I would need to work with her. I couldn’t imagine she’d be pleased to find her predecessor watching over her shoulder.

Ignazio shrugged. “I’ll stay out of her way. I’ll be so quiet she’ll hardly notice I’m in Ardence. And if she’s bothered anyway, well, it would be foolish of her to let it affect her dealings with you. You’ll be giving her orders someday, after all … in the event my cousin ever takes it into her head to retire.”

“I’ll die of old age first.” It was my best hope.

Zaira’s raucous laugh sounded above the creaks and rumble of the coach. Ignazio frowned. “She’s rather exposed up in the coachman’s box.

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