A Binding of Blood Read online

  He paused as if waiting for an answer, but continued when no one spoke. “Through adversity. You are going to learn how to fight with your Will, and once you do, you will compete to see which of you is strongest. The winner will receive fifty University contribution points. Before you lament the unfairness of competing against those with more capacity, let me add that this competition will be broken up into brackets. There will be thirty points for the winners of each of the weaker brackets, for those of you who started out with less experience but have still managed to prove your determination.”

  He opened a cabinet behind his desk and pulled out a box of small tea candles, which he sat on his desk. “You have been practicing a spell to introduce movement to a small metal ball. In this augmented exercise, one of you will attempt to force the ball into motion while your opponent counters you, trying to keep it still.”

  He placed one candle on his desk and touched the edge with the tip of his finger. The wick sprang into flame. “In the real world, when you are casting practically, you may find that you do not have a convenient beast core or bonfire readily available to cast your spell, and yet, you must still cast. If your Will is a pipe, and your goal is to channel enough water through it to wash away a hill of dirt, many people assume the best way to achieve the goal is to increase the amount of water that can be channeled through it at once. They attempt to make the pipe larger. In other words, to increase their Will’s capacity. To be truly powerful, however, the pipeline of your Will must be not only wide, but robust and efficient. A smaller pipe may spew water more quickly than a larger one, if its walls are durable enough to withstand the pressure. At risk of abusing the metaphor, pouring water through the large pipe may result in a deluge that slowly erodes the hill, but the same amount of water forced at speed through a small pipe can create an impact forceful enough to scour the entire hill away, or simply pierce right through it.

  “Efficiency will allow you to use minimal resources to achieve greater effects, and without wasted power spilling everywhere—everywhere except where you actually needed it to go, that is.” He examined their faces, his cynical expression stating quite clearly that he doubted they understood him.

  Being close to the front, Sebastien heard him mutter, “Note: prepare visual aids next year,” to himself before continuing at full volume. “Most sorcerers waste much of the energy they attempt to channel. If you can be efficient, a mere three candles will be more than enough power for most spells you will be able to cast before earning your Apprenticeship.”

  Some of the students looked skeptical.

  The edges of his mouth drew down along with his eyebrows. “For those under one hundred thaums, one candle. Two candles under two hundred thaums. Everyone above that gets three candles. The restriction on power source should force you to focus on the quality of your Will, and not only the strength of it. Make it work. Two glyphs from now on, instead of three.”

  He ignored the groans of the students. “The next few classes will provide time for you to practice against each other. This tournament is your mid-term examination. We’ll start a little early, since it will take more than a single class period, and winners will be decided on the day of this class’s mid-term. For your mid-term score, I will be grading you on all the facets of your Will, not just its capacity. The contribution points you earn can be redeemed immediately, or saved and added to your reserves. If you haven’t already, I suggest you take a stroll through the various rewards available in the Great Hall.”

  That reminder of the prize boosted the students’ excitement, and with a slight loosening of his expression, Lacer waved them all down to his desk to retrieve their candles. “Partner up and start practicing.”

  As soon as Sebastien made it back to her desk, a girl whose name she didn’t know pushed up beside her, holding a single tea candle in one hand and a chair in the other. “May I partner with you, Sebastien?”

  Slightly taken aback by the informality, as well as the fact that she didn’t know the girl’s name, Sebastien nevertheless waved obligingly to her desk. The other girl only had one candle, so Sebastien set two of hers to the side to level the playing field. ‘How fortuitous. One standard-sized candle flame is only about eighty thaums. Hardly enough to strain me.’

  With a wide grin, the pink-cheeked girl pushed the chair she had brought up to the other side of Siobhan’s desk and sat down.

  “Seb—” Ana called, cutting off when she saw the other girl sitting across from Sebastien already.

  “Sebastien is already partnered with me,” the unnamed girl said, her smile growing stiffer. She tossed a look over her shoulder to where a group of young women seemed to be paying a little too much attention to the three of them.

  Ana frowned.

  “I’ll be your partner, Anastasia,” a loud man said. Alec Gervin, with his lack of manners and self-important attitude, threw his arm around her shoulder.

  Ana shook her head, “Oh, thank you, Alec, but I—”

  “It’s no trouble at all, cousin. Besides, you need someone who can serve as an actual challenge to you,” he said loudly, throwing Sebastien a combative look that lacked any subtlety at all.

  “I doubt that person is you,” Sebastien muttered, but she waved her hand uncaringly when both girls looked as if they were about to argue with Alec. “Go ahead.”

  Once Alec had pulled Ana away, Sebastien muttered, “His ass must get jealous of all the shit that comes out of his mouth.”

  The girl across from her almost choked on a surprised laugh, then clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles. “Oh, you are so bad, Sebastien!”

  Alec, not completely oblivious, shot them a suspicious look, but Sebastien was careful to keep her expression innocent.

  ‘At least the Westbay boy has some actual ability to back up his attitude. Gervin…well, I would be surprised if he got into the University without more than a little “help” from his Family.’

  “Do you want to attempt movement, and I’ll attempt to stop you?” Sebastien asked. They would both be competing for control of the same main Circle carved into her desk.

  The girl agreed and drew the glyph for “movement” inside the Circle on her side, then connected it to a smaller component Circle where she drew the glyph for “fire” and placed her candle. “Oh, I wish we could still use three glyphs. Only two is going to make this so much harder, don’t you think, Sebastien? My name is Cynthia, by the way. I don’t know if you…” Cynthia trailed off, flushing again.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Cynthia,” Sebastien said distractedly. “And I don’t mind the restrictions. After all, the point of this class is to teach us to cast without any spell array at all.” After a few seconds to think, she drew a somewhat obscure glyph she had learned recently, “adversity.” She, too, used “fire” in her component Circle, before palming her Conduit, which she noted with a hint of jealousy was of much poorer quality than Cynthia’s.

  She would need to be careful. Spells that directly opposed the Will of another thaumaturge put strain on the Conduit that was greater than the simple measure of how many thaums were being channeled. Meaning the Conduit was more likely to shatter unexpectedly, even at lower levels of energy. She understood the need for the efficiency Professor Lacer had lauded.

  Reaching the danger level on her Conduit might come sooner rather than later, for her, especially if she was pitting her Will against a series of opponents that grew increasingly stronger. Her new main Conduit, the one she’d just bought at an exorbitant price to replace the one that shattered, was rated at only two hundred and twelve thaums. She had another one, her backup Conduit—little more than a cloudy pebble—tucked into her boot, but the capacity of the two Conduits couldn’t be added together. The backup was only meant to keep her alive long enough to redirect the magical energy and safely release a spell if her new Conduit shattered. It was a pity celerium couldn’t be melded together like any other sort of rock and still work as a Conduit. But there was a reason it was special—and so expensive.

  Sure, she could just throw the match to avoid the risk, once things got more difficult, but she didn’t want to. Professor Lacer would be watching and judging them. ‘I have to prove to him that I’m worthy to stay at the University.’

  So as she channeled Will and power into opposing Cynthia’s desire to make the ball move around the edge of the Circle, Sebastien kept an eye on her candle out of the corner of her eye. She had considered keeping a hand cupped around it so she could gauge its heat output, and thus, how strongly she was drawing on its power. This would require putting a piece of herself within the spell Circle, though, which was dangerous. Professor Lacer would surely throw her out of his class for displaying such stupidity in front of him twice. ‘I can learn from my mistakes. I can.’

  So, she gauged the stability of her candle flame visually, putting mental pressure on her Will like a fist squeezing water out of a wet cloth. Tighter, more compact, more directed. Like a housewife squeezing bread dough, she forced her Will into a tighter and tighter mass, till she was gently massaging it, whispering to it and cajoling it to receive her thoughts and desires and needs.

  When the spell array glowed with overspill, it wasn’t because of Sebastien. After Cynthia made a few dozen stymied attempts to get the ball to move, Sebastien suggested they switch. She would move the ball while Cynthia stilled it.

  Again, Cynthia was no match for her.

  Sebastien abruptly and rapidly varied both the amount of power she was putting into creating movement, as well as which direction she was attempting to move the ball, jerking it around despite the pressure of the Will trying to stop her.

  This time, Cynthia had used the glyph for “stillness,” but didn’t seem to have a firm enough grasp on the men
tal aspect of opposing Sebastien, and was easily overcome whenever the force on the ball was anything other than steady pressure in one direction.

  The spell array glowed brighter as the other girl grew tired and frustrated, and her candle flame began to flicker and flutter. “How are you so good at this?” Cynthia whined.

  Sebastien drew back some of her attention from the spell, allowing the ball to stop jerking around spasmodically. “You’re pushing harder, but not exercising enough control. Look at your candle flickering. The spell array’s glow is from inefficiency, too. This is what Professor Lacer was talking about. Even if your Will had a greater maximum energy capacity than mine, I might still be able to beat you if my Will was more powerful than yours in other ways. You may conceptualize it however works best for you, but without a more compressed idea of what exactly you’re attempting to accomplish, you’re wasting too much effort on things that do not directly oppose my Will. Here, I’ll put less energy into it,” she offered, giving herself the chance to take a break. “Rather than continuing to blindly push as much power into the spell as you can manage, put more effort into a clear conceptualization of what you want.”

  “What I…want?” The girl’s attention had completely fallen away from the spell, and she was biting her lower lip as if nervous, looking back at Sebastien with big, limpid eyes.

  ‘Has no one ever explained how spellcasting works to this girl, or is she simply stupid? Either way, I refuse to spend the rest of class explaining the basic concepts. She should not be in this class with such a marked inability to focus,’ Sebastien thought with some distaste. “Yes,” she said aloud. “You want to keep the ball from moving. But specifically, you must want to keep the ball from moving more than I want to move it. You must want it more clearly and purely than I want it. You want me to fail at moving it, because there is no space within the conceptualization of your Will for me to succeed. Smarter, not just harder, as they say.”

  Cynthia was blushing brightly. “You’re so smart, Sebastien. Thank you for helping me.”

  Sebastien noted the bright red of the other girl’s face. ‘I hope she doesn’t believe such an attitude is attractive. Perhaps she has enough sense to be embarrassed to be so openly incompetent that she is seen to need advice from a classmate, especially a no-name like me. But flattery from someone so mediocre is unlikely to gain my favor. If she was going to be so shy and embarrassed, why ask to partner with me? Well, perhaps she was pressured into it by some kind of dare or bullying from her friend group.’ She settled back with a nod, and instead of the scathing, impatient remarks she wanted to make, said, “I’m sure you can do it, Cynthia. Just focus.” Sebastien gave herself a mental pat on the back for her restraint and patience.

  It took Cynthia a few more tries, but she did manage to improve. It still wasn’t enough to best Sebastien.

  Halfway through the class, Professor Lacer called for them to switch partners.

  Ana looked to Sebastien and began to rise, but another girl from Cynthia’s group of friends had lunged forward and slammed her palm on Sebastien’s desk as if it was a race. The loud cracking sound echoed through the classroom, drawing attention. “Are you free?” the new girl asked with a sweet, almost shy voice that belied her earlier zeal.

  “Sure…” she said warily, nodding her head in greeting. “My name is Sebastien Siverling.”

  “Helen Marvin,” the girl replied, flipping shoulder-length hair back with a practiced head toss as she sat down. “Call me Helen.”

  Helen was better than Cynthia had been, and shot the other girl a smug look when Sebastien complimented her control.

  ‘Is there some sort of feud going on between them?’

  However, she was still no match for Sebastien. “I think you might win the whole tournament. Professor Lacer is probably expecting it, and is only putting on this show so that no one can accuse him of favoritism for awarding you points directly,” Helen said.

  Sebastien’s mind blanked out for a second as she tried to figure out which part of the girl’s statement was the most wrong and where to start with her rebuttal.

  Helen didn’t seem to notice, and continued speaking. “What will you buy, if you win?”

  Still trying to figure out how to respond to Helen’s previous statement, Sebastien answered this one. “Well, I haven’t perused what is on offer in the Great Hall, and I’m not sure what fifty points can buy.” Privately, she admitted that she would very much enjoy a more private room or some of the better meal options, which were only purchasable with contribution points.

  “If you add Lacer’s points to whatever you earn at the end of term exhibitions, you’d be able to afford the hairpin carved from live star-maple wood. That hairpin would be the perfect gift for…a girl you wished would take notice of you.” Helen’s smile wasn’t over-wide, and she had looked away as she spoke, not with shyness, but as if to soften the impact of her words with nonchalance.

  Still, Sebastien immediately understood her implication. She thought Sebastien was rich, and for some misguided reason also likely to gain the accolades that would get her contribution points before her fourth term. Helen wanted to attach herself to that success. Specifically, she wanted gifts like a magical hairpin from a wood known for its healing properties, likely meant to make her complexion dewy or her hair lush and shiny.

  Sebastien shook her head decisively. “I’ll do my best in this tournament, but Professor Lacer will give the prize to whoever deserves it most. People seem to have wildly overestimated his regard for me. Also, I don’t plan to participate in the exhibitions.” She paused, debating whether to make a cutting statement about her lack of romantic interest to deter the girl more directly.

  “What? Why would you not enter the exhibitions? Don’t you want future employers to notice you? What about the points? There are a ton of things here that you can’t buy with gold.” Helen’s voice was loud, turning heads around them.

  Sebastien straightened, tamping down her irritation. Her desire to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to herself wasn’t something she could say aloud, or that the other girl would even understand, apparently.

  Professor Lacer coughed pointedly, stopping beside their desk.

  Sebastien jerked, straightening impossibly further. She hadn’t noticed his approach. “Professor,” she said, greeting him with a half-bow from her seat.

  His glare seemed to cast a pall over their immediate surroundings. “Why have you stopped practicing in favor of inane chatter? Is it because you feel you have learned all my class has to offer, or have you simply admitted your own incompetence and decided to give up on self-improvement in favor of flirting?” His words were precise, clipped, and cutting.

  “I apologize, Professor,” Sebastien said. “I was negligent. We will return to practice immediately.”

  Helen nodded quickly, pale and seemingly unable to speak.

  Lacer waited a few agonizing seconds before replying, “See that you do.” He turned and walked away, his trench coat spinning out and slapping the side of Sebastien’s chair as he passed.

  Sebastien spent the remainder of the class in focused spellcasting. None of her fellow students even attempted to speak to her about topics other than the task at hand.

  By the end of class, she felt the boost of artificial energy from the wakefulness brew and adrenaline wearing thin.

  As the students filtered out, she thought she saw Professor Lacer throw her a dark look, but when she turned to meet his gaze head-on, he was facing away.

  Damien Westbay swaggered up beside her as they walked down the hallway. He clicked his tongue like an old matron. “Tch, tch, Siverling. Flirting? I hope you bring more focus to the tournament, or I might end up crushing you without a fight, and that would be disappointing.”