Sun's Heart

Chapter 12 - The White Circle

June dropped the book into her lap and kneaded her forehead for the dozenth time since she sat down to read Violet Passion. The commons room was quiet with concentration and peace, its other occupants as intent on their own studies as she was. Well, not that she was studying, exactly.

Violet Passion was too good a book to pass up for boring herself to tears. She'd started it the day before, and already she couldn't wait to see what Amelline would do about melting her icy Lord Dawisen. Her fingers tightened on their ministrations to her skull, and she smiled to herself. Jilene Claridev was a masterful writer, and her steamy romance series had nearly a dozen books in it already.

June might not have had much romance in her life, and if she were honest with herself she'd admit there was none, but Amelline's hunger for love and propensity for meeting the heated looks of any man who laid eyes on her filled June with secret wondering. What would it be like to have every man look at her that way?

Oh, now you're being silly.

She'd convinced Meri to let her borrow the raunchy romance disguised as a research journal. If Lady Quotl found out about Meri's secret stash of "forbidden goods," the boys and girls who read them would be severely punished.

The only problem was, she'd promised to return the book later that day, when she was done reading it. But her head had been killing her since the Trials.

"You alright?" Col asked from the other side of the couch. The third-year was frowning worriedly at her. His parchment had a casting circle meticulously drawn upon it in black ink, every angle and curve positioned just so. For an instant, the outermost circle blinked a blinding white, before returning to the same black it had been.

She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples a bit more vigorously while trying to ignore the white after-image of the circle against the backs of her eyelids. "Yeah. I'm fine. Just have a headache."

"Best thing for those is willow-bark tea," Setta said without looking up from her notes. She was another of the third-years who decided to join her for studying in Lady Q's dormitories. Apparently, they were Dain's old classmates, but June didn't know much else.

Adan, on his way through the commons room to head outside, flashed a look of disgust. "Gross."

"It works, though," Setta called after him before the front door swung shut. The girl looked at June, circles of white ringing her irises as the candlelight struck them. "I have some willow in my dorm."

"No, thanks," she said quickly. She was inclined to agree with Adan. Its taste was less than favorable, in her experience. "The headache's not that bad."

Col bent back to his notes, and the commons room grew still again, except for the scritch-scritch of quills upon parchment. June sighed, settled back into the couch she shared with Col, and returned to her reading with the ever-persistent ache behind her eyes.

She blinked in disbelief as her gaze landed on the pages.

There weren't any words.

Where neat arrangements of words had been, the pages were blank. Marking her place with one finger, she thumbed through the rest of the book and saw the same thing. No words. No sign any had been there in the first place.

Am I going insane? She glanced over at Col's parchment.

His quill moved across the paper. The tip had ink inside, making contact with the surface. But there was no writing on the paper. The casting circle he'd so carefully drawn was nowhere to be seen.