Somewhere below me, Dad heaved a loud sigh. “I should’ve known. For a second there, I thought you needed me.”
“Sure I do!” I yelled from near the ceiling. “I needed a ride to the palace. And the climbing room was locked, remember? Unless you want to give me a key—”
“Commander Mattas!”
I froze. Raven again. Why did she always appear when I was having the most fun?
“What is it?”
I held my breath, but to my surprise, she didn’t even address me.
“The prince has called an emergency meeting. He got word from a contact in Draicia yesterday—something about aurae. The Herald has a reporter there. And they think it’s something to do with that … incident, with your wife at the gate …” She trailed off.
I stayed in position and peered over my shoulder. What incident? My fingertips began to burn from the tension of holding myself in place, but if I climbed down, Dad would probably send me out. I wanted to hear their conversation.
“The magic at the gate?” Dad approached Raven, his tone sober. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t have all the details, but it sure sounds that way. Something’s coming, the prince says. The brief starts in five minutes. Where’s Zel?”
“At the Mage Academy.” Dad ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll have to send a courier for her. Listen, Raven, if it’s related to that magic …” His voice quieted. “Whatever’s coming, it’s going to be bad.”
Raven nodded, subtly straightening her spine. “We’re ready.”
“I have to go, Briar. Not sure when I’ll be back.” Dad peered up at me from the doorway. “You know the way home, right?”
“’Course.” I knew the city like the back of my hand. From the rooftops, at least. My hands and biceps burned as I clung to the wall. “And it’s Bri, Dad.”
He didn’t reply. They’d already left.
I stared at the gray rock in front of my face for a moment, my eyes oddly hot. Then I gauged the distance to the ground, released my grip, and dropped like a stone, landing in a crouch on the padded floor.
My hands ached as I stretched them. I stood and wiped the clammy sweat from my palms onto my pants.
Dad hadn’t said I needed to head home immediately, had he? And I’d been having so much fun climbing.
We’d only been out of Prince Estevan’s protective custody and back in our Mage Division villa for a few days. I’d missed having daily access to the Sentinels’ training rooms in the palace basement. My stepsister Ella’s wedding yesterday had been a fun distraction from our boring, regular life, but family bonding time was nothing compared to this.
I rolled my shoulders, then approached a new section of the rock wall, my steps jerky. There was a dark feeling in the pit of my stomach that hadn’t been there when we’d arrived.
I gripped two starting handholds and ascended the wall, this time lurching upward with uninhibited speed. Speed and strength were all I had going for me, but at least I had something to work with there. Unlike my magic.
As an absorbent mage, I was pathetic. Barely strong enough to cause a mild headache. It was like all the power in my mother’s womb had gone to my twin and none had been left over for me, leaving me a sorry excuse for a mage. I wasn’t absorbent enough for me to be dangerous like Mom or expellant enough to be helpful like Alba. Just absorbent enough to be a tracker—to figure out what other mages were up to as they used their far-greater powers however they liked. Perhaps it would have been better to be born without any mage powers at all.
Tracker. I hated that word. It was drearily passive. If I didn’t make it as a Sentinel, the Mage Division might as well prepare me for a life of boring observation, while the other, more powerful mages had fun and got into trouble.
The only good thing about being a tracker was the fact that it would make it easier to get into the Sentinels. They needed trackers to fight mages, but few mages were up to the physical and mental challenge of becoming a Sentinel.
Meanwhile, for the next five years, I would be forced to follow in the academic footsteps of the gravelly-voiced tracker from the Crimson Blight who’d kidnapped me and Alba to get to our mom. Sometimes I sat at my desk in the Mage Academy, and the wood