Rune mage

Chapter 28 waiting

I didn't bother returning to class.

Oddly enough, no one seemed to care. I wasn't hiding or sneaking around. They could have come for me any time.

But they didn't. Maybe they thought, with the tests so close, I would be dealt with in due time. I didn't care.

Instead I spent time creating runes around places that needed help. Wellness runes, nets of protection from leaks and fires and pests...if the rune would help someone, I spent my time putting it down. Day and night. I wanted nothing to do with sleep, when nightmares awaited.

I snuck in to see Lu at night and we worked by the light of a lantern to complete each other's rune tattoos. Sometimes Noav would be there and test out new songs on us. It was almost pleasant, those nights. But it was bound to end.

We finished the designs on the same night. It was just the two of us, despite it being the middle of the night. Noav was working.

"What will you do?" Lu asked softly.

Tests would start next week. In five days. I wasn't even sure I would be allowed to live long enough to compete.

I shrugged. Then I handed him a protection rune. "I'm going to power everything up."

His eyes went wide as he looked at me. He knew how much power I carried. He was probably the one one who knew.

Ever so slowly he leaned in and gently kissed my lips. It was a quick thing, and then he stepped away, turning his back so that we could pretend he wasn't crying.

I left him there, no words to give. I was preparing to live, but understood that the likelihood was I would die.

I handed the same rune to Fredric, and Isa.

Neither one kissed me, though Isa hugged me hard enough that I felt I might break. Fredric blinked hard a few times, and then stoically tilted his head. Sometimes you don't need words.

I Left one for Lee and Fa Mai where they would find it.

I made one for Steph, too. I didn't expect her to be anywhere near the arena on the final day. But she had been kind to me, and the amount of power I was now carrying could level more than the arena.

Not to mention what I would soon be holding when I pulled from the web in the arena. I braided bead after bead into my hair, empty power sources waiting to be filled.  Then I slept for two days straight.

There was little else to be done. I wrote letters to my family, wishing they could be proud of me. I stared blankly at Steph when she pled with me to talk to her.

She sat me down when there was only one night to wait for whatever would come next.

We sat in silence for a while, her staring at me and me at her. Then she unfurled her own very much hidden magic, and instinctively I latched onto it. I didn't suck it down, I simply held it into place. The darkness wanted me to take it for my own now that I knew I could. Instead I let it go.

She took a deep breath and let it go slowly. "Good. You're planning. You're thinking. But Logan? You don't have to do this alone."

So I gave her the protection rune and told her the tavern was runed to withstand the storm I would unleash.

I almost left it at that, but her magic was unusual, and she had hidden it so long.

"What kind of mage are you?" I asked.

"It is a tale. Some of it isn't mine to tell." She reached up and rubbed gently on a braid in my beard. "It's a good look, the Barbadian braids in your beard and hair." She leaned forward. "Tell me how I can help you. You know me. We have worked together for years. I have never betrayed you. I even snuck papers in for projects you told me about. And those weren't easy to forge!"

I paused at that. Maybe all this time I could trust her...

The darkness squeezed in on me. And I closed my eyes.

Too little too late. I was too broken, too ruined.

Only now did I know I could trust her.

I told her that I had stopped attending classes because what could they do to me that hadn't already been done? I told her about Lutsel's forcing me to repeatedly drain my power, about the doubts he planted. She listened quietly, her expression blank.

"I am prepared to kill every mage who faces me, though I have given protection runes to those I care about. I intend to survive through the tests. But if I do not, pass along my belongings and books to Lu. He will need them."

Steph touched my hand. "Logan,"

I waited, eyes empty. I wanted to feel something more than the dark. But it didn't seem possible.

"If you kill them all, the army will see you as a threat."

I bowed my head. "I understand."

"Can you instead...not kill them?"

I laughed. It wasn't a happy laugh.

"These people want me dead. They allowed me to be whipped over good deeds. And as further punishment set me to the ministrations of a man so power hungry that he put me to torture. They sent me trainers who could only tell me that something should be possible but not how, because every rune mage the school has trained has died. This kingdom does not care for me, Steph. Let them come for me. I have found power the likes of which no one else has ever held."

She raised a brow at that. Then waved her hand back and forth, a gesture of neither here nor there. "Some people want you dead, Logan. But others?" She leaned forward, "if you had told me Lutsel was torturing you, I would have arranged for him to be gutted, quietly with no blame cast to you."

I let that sit for a moment.

"I may have killed the air mage who was attacking me," I said. "Certainly the attack did not go unnoticed." I paused. I hadn't seen Lutsel since destroying his office. I suspected he was terrified of me.

"I have the webs designed to slowly drain any mage not protected. The first day is the weaker mages, so their power will be almost left alone, since they will only spend a day in the web. The longer each mage stays, the more of their power I will have. I will go where I am told and use whatever runes I can to stay alive."

Steph rubbed her face. "I was worried you would suicide. Throw yourself on the first opportunity to die. This? You'll end up dead if the army thinks you aren't controllable."

I tried to offer a smile, but the darkness had taken from me the causal smile, leaving only something brittle and threatening.

"I have placed runes all around to protect the vulnerable. I am not a monster."

She sighed. "You don't have to do this alone," she repeated.

I bent my head and closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. I knew I could trust her, had told her everything. But there was nothing more she could do for me. Nothing anyone could do.

Whatever she saw in my expression when I looked up and opened my eyes, made her step closer. She gave me a hug and then stepped away.

"I'll make sure you sleep well, and wake up on time."