Alanna The First Adventure - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,48

in your Lightning. Watch him! He has a reputation for slowing down, sometimes stopping the careers of young sorcerers who may turn out to be as good as he is. It’s a warped kind of compliment—you must have him worried enough that he had to check and see if your twin was like you. I think he’s been thrown off the track where it concerns me. I play it stupid here. It would help if you spread the word down there that your twin isn’t too bright. Say I was dropped on my head, or something, when I was little. That’s what my Masters believe, anyway. I know a lot more than they think I know, and I practice at night, when the others are asleep.

Enough bragging. Your friend has secrets, and he has a reputation for being dangerous. The Masters here say he’s the best in the Eastern Lands, and they ought to know. Here’s a piece of City of the Gods gossip you’d better think over. We heard of the Sweating Fever when it was over with, and you wrote some of the details—J wish I could’ve seen it! A fever caused by sorcery that drains and kills healers is a magical working you hear of once in a lifetime. Everyone was, of course, naming all the living sorcerers who could be powerful enough to pull off such a thing. Only three names came up much—your smiling friend’s name was one. True, you say he was in Carthak. But wouldn’t a sorcerer powerful enough to strike down an entire city with a sickness be powerful enough to do it from leagues and leagues away? And who is between him and the throne? I wouldn’t want to be the Prince, not with him for my only heir.

Well, it’s only a theory. Give me a few more years, and we’ll give your smiling friend a run for his money. Till then, speak softly to him and let him think you like him. People who’ve let it be known they don’t like him sometimes disappear—or die of strange diseases.

I’ve tried looking in on you in the fire, but you’re shielded by forces I haven’t encountered before. You aren’t holding out on me, are you? Good luck to you. I expect we’ll be hearing from each other more often now. Take care, and watch the nobleman I mentioned.

Your loving brother,

Thom.

Alanna read the letter three times, then burned it until only fine gray ash was left in her fireplace. Thom had given form to some of her worst suspicions. She wished she could discuss her feelings about Duke Roger with someone, but Jonathan and the boys worshiped him, and Alanna didn’t think she had anything substantial enough to confide to Myles. She sighed and added a log to the fire. Maybe she could say something to George. It was all too complicated for one page to figure out.

As to being shielded by mysterious forces—Thom was being silly. As soon say the gods themselves were looking out for her! If Thom’s mention of guardian forces dovetailed with Mistress Cooper saying the Goddess was interested in the things Alanna did, or Coram’s theory that the gods had protected Alanna through Duke Roger’s questioning—well, that was for Thom, Coram and Mistress Cooper to worry about. Alanna herself had enough problems.

Winter passed quietly. Alanna occupied all her time with lessons, working every extra hour she had so she could be as good as, if not better than, the boys. Her lessons in sorcery went on week after week, with Duke Roger keeping a careful eye on his students’ progress. He was very big on theory, she soon discovered, and would often spend several weeks on the ideas behind a spell before permitting them to try a spell in concrete form. It made for very slow study. Many of the spells Roger chose for them to learn were ones Alanna had already learned from Maude. Keeping Thom’s words in mind, she chose not to tell Roger she already knew these spells, some of them in more advanced forms. Instead she peeked ahead in the scrolls Roger gave them to read and found herself looking at books of magic that she was supposed to leave alone. She suspected that Jonathan was deliberately locking himself into a secluded library at night and practicing more advanced spells from a reader Roger had forbidden them to touch; but Alanna chose to say nothing, either to Roger or to Jonathan. What Jon did