because of his magic. But the fact that he only possessed right-handed quills made Evadne wonder if he often tried to write with his weaker hand.
“Very well,” she said, opening the scroll. The parchment was smooth as silk beneath her fingers, blank with possibility. It stirred the awe in her again, and she traced its perfect face before taking a swan quill in her fingers. “This shall be your sorah scroll.”
Sorah. Which was translated as spoken in the God Tongue.
She wrote it in the scroll, a word built from elegant curves and dots.
And then she thought of the other word he had mentioned: charena, which translated as sung.
She became aware of the silence and glanced up to find Damon standing on the other side of the desk, staring down at her handwriting. That one ancient word had him utterly bewitched, the ink still glistening.
“What I would give to be able to write, to see my words shaped perfectly by my own hand, to know they will remain long after I am gone,” he whispered, and then seemed to remember Evadne’s presence, and he flushed, embarrassed.
Evadne decided to also share a confession. “And what I would give to be able to cast magic, to see my words transform into spoken and sung power.”
Damon smiled mournfully. “I suppose this is our fate, then? That the mage will envy the scribe’s power, and the scribe will envy the mage’s?”
She had never thought of it that way. And she began to see the gift she held, this ability to write in beautiful strokes, to write as much as she wanted. There was power within it, a small seed. But how it could grow, should she allow it to.
And she remembered that she did possess a small trace of magic, thanks to Kirkos’s relic. And Damon could write with his right hand, should he truly want to.
“Sorah,” Damon breathed, as if recalling why they were here, and began to pace.
Evadne waited, quill ready.
Soon, he began to voice his spells from memory.
A spell to move a shadow. A spell to extinguish a flame. A spell to mend a garment. A spell to distract another person. A spell to draw light. A spell to call an animal. A spell to make an object move. A spell to unlock a door.
All spoken charms.
Evadne recorded them, word for word. Most of the sorahs were only several words long, easily spoken in one breath. A few progressed to multiple lines, and although they were deemed “simple” by Damon, they were exquisitely worded. Evadne found herself desiring to go back and reread them, to speak them aloud, just to hear how they would sound in her voice.
She realized something, as if she had been struck. And she sat back, hand aching, and laughed.
Damon seemed to jolt at the sound. He frowned.
“What is it, Evadne?”
Her laughter eased, but its buoyancy lingered, lightening her heart. “I now see that I could never have been a mage. I am no poet.”
Damon snorted, the tension leaving his face. “Yes, you could have. Every mage has their own taste in words and rhythm. You would have found your own.”
Suddenly, the door blew open with a bang.
Evadne startled, her quill streaking ink across the scroll. Even Arcalos jumped, raising his head at the intruder, and Evadne was shocked to see it was evening. The daylight had faded, and she and Damon had been completely lost in another world. The oil lamps were the only source of light throughout the room.
Straton stood on the threshold, glaring at both of them.
“Father,” Damon spoke calmly.
“I want to speak with my son, alone,” the commander said to Evadne. His face was guarded, but his eyes were livid, burning a path to Damon.
She stood and swiftly departed, shutting the door behind her.
The corridor was quiet, cloaked in shadows. Fresh night air drifted in from the open window at the end of the hall. And Evadne breathed in that air, wondering if she should descend to the main floor and prepare the family’s wine, even though Damon had told her she was no longer cupbearer. But she chose to remain by the door, pressing her ear to the wood . . .
“You have defied me, Damon,” Straton hissed. “I told you this needed to be approved by me.”
“If I remember correctly, Father . . . you have now passed the mission back to me to fulfill. And that is what I am doing.”
“You cannot take this girl with you!”
“And why not? It seems