Chaos magic. Celestial magic. Whatever the hell she wanted to call it, Kommora had known one day it would come back and bite her in the ass. There was too much unknown about it. Nithercott claimed she'd removed all of Harred's ability to harness celestial energy, but how much of that was true? She barely knew anything about chaos magic â much of its true nature was hidden to Loren Rummage, her predecessor. Kommora hadn't felt the tingle of magic when she grabbed Harred afterwards, but just how permanent was the magic removal? Was it like a nullifying rune, operational for as long as the creator intended, or was it permanent like severing a limb?
History had merged hearsay and interpretations with exaggerations and cultural barriers to the point where the original effects and limitations of celestial magic were little more than bedside stories. She didn't even think the original celestial magic existed any more, until the Teirrinese uncovered the burial sites of the original twins about twenty years ago and the Teirrinese mages attempted to revive celestial magic. And succeeded.
A hundred metres away from her, down the corridor, was where history would repeat itself six months ago if they hadn't stopped Harred in time. Karma, destroyed, its citizens sacrificed to propagate the biggest genocidal attempt in history to once again recreate celestial magic. Kommora's finger paused over the spine of one of the tomes, its painted letters gleaming in the filtered light from far above. The restricted library was empty, quiet, just the way Kommora liked it. No screaming children, no whining mages, and nobody talking back. It was bliss. The circular room with its tall, domed ceiling, coloured glass in a circle at its apex, and thousands of ancient tomes had been restricted to king's mages only. With all the tidying that had to be done after the Harred fiasco, Kommora finally had time to sit and rifle through some of these rarely-touched books.
Cronin Sallows's records would be here, amongst all the other classified information of international relationships, secrets, tactics, and military information. Bolliver Woodbead had been through the military section recently, after amalgamating his father's old troops with the new and reorganising after the casualty numbers stabilised. Kommora paused at the 'S' section, glancing at the next bookcase over. There was a whole shelf dedicated to Teirrin.
A gentle squeak of the thick wooden door at the far side alerted her to an unexpected arrival.
"Ah, Kommora." Marya Bonneville spotted her and gave a respecting nod her way before shutting the door with a click. To Kommora's ire, Bonneville strode over to her, likely to instigate polite chat instead of shutting the hell up and letting Kommora do her business. "I haven't seen you since that incident. Should you be out of the hospital so early?"
"Incident is an understatement," Kommora muttered. Every breath she took was a reminder of the trick Harred pulled. Every stab of pain spearing through her chest, every hitched inhalation, every muscle spasm down her spine made her fingers itch to introduce Harred's face to a chair. Repeatedly.
The silence that came gave Kommora too brief a break from unnecessary conversations.
"I take it you've recovered?" Bonneville said casually. Kommora's eyes flicked over to her face. Same white-blonde hair as her sister, swept back into a messy bun. Piercing blue eyes that showed curiosity, without any obvious hidden agenda. None of those ridiculous piercings her sister sported. Her large mouth spread into a faint smile.
"Not as young as I used to be." Kommora's lip twitched, adding the humiliation of the lie onto Harred's tab. "Fancy seeing you here? I thought overlooking magical registrations has kept you locked in your office."
"It has." Bonneville's face turned rueful. "Quality control. Citizen protection. Endless legislations. There's been a lot of civil complaints over the years and I don't think the last lot of king's mages have paid them much attention, so the relationship's soured even more. People need to know their complaints are heard, changes are happening, and past mistakes don't happen again."
Kommora snorted. Placating words. "That fluff. I'd rather eat my chalk and paper."
"I hear you. I'm also a hands-on person, not a desk job one. People have been protesting outside King's Academy of Magic, and a few more extreme ones have even called for magic to be banned and magical training outlawed. Quite a few mages have reported harassment, even threats, from civilians. The students have informed the council â it sounds pretty horrendous, actually! Calling them murderers and enablers, holding up paintings of dead bodies â these are children, for rune's sake! I'll need to discuss this at the next king's mages' meeting. But at the moment, it's just filtering the letters and complaints from both sides." Bonneville shook her head. "Just sitting, writing, reading, talking â runes! I miss doing actual work back in Teirrin and Cliffe. But I have to step up."
Kommora's eyebrow raised. "Ah, of course. You've spent a fair few years there, huh?"
There had been much apprehension about hiring another Bonneville as a king's mage after what went down at the end of last year, but Marya Bonneville came much recommended as a military mage, with a spotless service record during her time in the Teirrin wastelands maintaining the borders there throughout the Benover uprising and massacre. Kommora had endeavoured to keep the activities of king's mages open to the state mages, including all the missions and results involving Marya Bonneville. And so far, Bonneville's behaviour had been exceptional, if a bit boring. Several background checks by independent groups had flagged up nothing that concerned the other four king's mages and, considering the casualty after the Battle of Benover, it wasn't like they were swamped with choices.
"Twelve years, yes. It's basically my home." She gave a small laugh. "Well, I guess Benover is my home now. It's certainly busier and livelier."
"Tell me: with what happened, what happens to the living creatures that are there now?"
"There's nothing there." Bonneville sobered. "All the lakes, rivers, and dams turned into repulsive acid. Waste gases wafting into the air. The ground sinks beneath your feet, eating away at your protective equipment. The few life forms that somehow survived the initial blast are gruesome beyond belief. We try to kill them from afar â we've only had a few incidences when they'd made contact with soldiers based there and they'd ripped them to shreds. There are a few small groups of Teirrinese still living out there. We've offered them protection â against protocol until now, obviously, but what the old king's mages didn't know won't hurt them, and it wasn't like any of them would step foot near Cliffe â but they were too proud, too patriotic. They're still out there, I'm sure, along with all the bodies of the poor people caught up in that sacrifice. They took some runes and equipment, but I don't know how long they'll last there. Nothing living lasts long."
The fate that awaited Karma. Kommora gripped the spine.
"You ever been?"
"What?" The question caught Kommora by surprise.
"Teirrin. Or even Cliffe. Have you been?"
"No. Never." Kommora's stomach clenched. Just hearing the names drained her of any positivity she had at that moment.
"That's a shame. Cliffe has blossomed into quite the cosy little town now. We've kept the diseased land at bay for over a decade, so wildlife has flourished and animals have returned. There's a hunting ground there and I hear deer-stalking has become a good sportâ"
"Let's just say being so near to Teirrin will bring back bad memories," Kommora interrupted, her knuckles white upon the bookshelf.
Frowning, Bonneville glanced at her, then at her hand, spotting the intricate silver ring on her finger, before realisation dawned.
"Oh, Iâ! I'm so sorry, Kommora. That was so tactless of me. Your wife and son â they were...?"
"Yes."
The silence could have been sliced with a knife. The embarrassment radiated off Bonneville in waves. Kommora could almost feel the heat from Bonneville's cheeks, but she felt no sympathy for the woman as she retreated and left Kommora alone again.
Kommora's family had spoken about visiting Teirrin for a while, prior to the celestial sacrifice, but when the time came, Kommora had just been dispatched on an emergency mission, so she hadn't gone on that long-planned trip. It had come as a bitter disappointment to the then-seven-year-old Solmin, despite Bovaria's consolation, but Kommora had cheered up Solmin and made him promise to buy an item for her every time he went to the markets. Ever one to prioritise others' happiness before his, Solmin had agreed.
That was the last conversation Kommora had with them before they became part of the sacrifice of Teirrin to recreate celestial magic, their bodies sunk beneath the toxic soils.
Kommora took in a shuddering breath and pulled out Sallows's records. A few pages in, she could see there was nothing pertinent in there, merely the political state of the Teirrin royal family. The free trade and travel between Karma and Teirrin, introduced thanks to the political marriage of a Teirrinese royal prince to the seventh Miracle monarch, Leora Miracle, before the celestial sacrifice occurred, meant there were mages who lived and worked there. The Teirrinese royal family even had their variant of the king's mages, although ultimately those mages remained under the jurisdiction of Karma's own king's mages. Sallows was one of them.
The old man hadn't been seen in over eight years, presumed dead, but he wasn't one to ever go down without a fight. Kommora skimmed through the records in his neat handwriting. Mundane recordings. Disease outbreak in the eastern Teirrinese territories. Toxic land â initially kept at bay in the southern border of Teirrin â slowly but surely encroaching onto Teirrinese soil. Although the ink words spoke in objective detail about the political events leading up to the great Teirrin sacrifice and land destruction, followed by Sallows's findings being the first to arrive to contain the magic sweeping towards the Karman-Teirrinese border, there was nothing on the celestial magic he'd brought back.
He would have hidden it away from the prying eyes of the king's mages but retained so future generations â especially Kommora â could help themselves. Kommora ran a scanning rune over the paper. A faint hum of magic. She laid the book on the table and fished out some paper. She was in for a long day.
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