“Any other braids I ought to know about?” Keth wanted to know, smiling indulgently.
“Oh, there’s a few wind ones in there, some heat ones. No rain, sadly. It makes me go all frizzy. Then power starts leaking out through the loose hairs. It’s hard enough keeping everything smooth with lightning in my braids as is.” Tris spoke in her most matter-of-fact voice. He probably thinks Niko won’t ruin the joke about weather in my hair by telling the truth, she thought. That’s all right. If I have to teach him — and I do know how few lightning mages there are — it won’t go well if he’s afraid of me.
She glanced at Jumshida and her heart sank.
Their hostess was ashy under her bronze skin. “Well,” Jumshida said. “One assumes the Initiate Council of Winding Circle knew what it was doing.”
“There were unusual circumstances,” Niko explained. He had not told Jumshida, or anyone, of the extent of Tris’s skills. Tris had asked him not to unless it was necessary. She had seen Jumshida’s shock — or worse, jealousy, dislike, even hate — directed at her and her friends over their last year at Winding Circle, never mind that they had not chosen to be what they were.
“Events made Tris combine her power with that of her foster-brother and sisters,” Niko went on. “As a result, they expanded and structured their original abilities. Later events made them separate their magics again, but they kept certain abilities from each other. The result, and the work they put in afterwards, brought their control over their magics to the level of an accredited, adult mage.”
Jumshida shook her head. “I did not receive my credential until I was twenty-eight.”
Tris knew what the woman thought, what other mages thought, when they knew what she had achieved. It was too much power, too much accomplishment, for a mere girl of thirteen or fourteen. They saw only the awe of it, the ability to move hurricanes and earthquakes, the ability to do complex workings alone and without sleep, because she could borrow strength from currents in the air, in the ground, and in the water. Others dreamed that with Tris’s power and control they could live in grand palaces, dress in silks and be given all they could wish for by the rulers they served.
They didn’t understand that she meditated every day to control her emotions. Without a grip on her temper, Tris didn’t just hurt someone’s feelings or start a fight. When she lost control, she destroyed property; she sank ships.
They didn’t understand that she had yet to find a way to earn a living. Rain-making was chancy. She always had to be sure that if she moved one storm, she would not upset weather patterns for kilometres, creating floods or droughts. She was best suited for battle magic, but her dreams of the floating dead after her first battle still left her screaming in the night. She wanted to be a healer, but even now her control wasn’t tight enough, unless people wanted her to do surgery with a mallet.
And she hated the palaces and courts she and Niko had visited on their way south to Tharios. They all seemed wasteful.
“We didn’t ask to be singled out,” Tris told her, silently begging the woman to think Tris’s situation through. Jumshida had been friendly since she and Niko had arrived. Tris wanted that back. “We didn’t ask the Initiate Council for the medallion.” She stuffed it back into her dress and jumped down from the table. When she sat on a chair, Chime curled up in her lap.
Niko told Jumshida, “The Initiate Council felt Tris, Briar, Sandry and Daja should be sworn to a code of conduct, to the rules of the mage community, in case they were tempted to use their power unwisely. As the council saw it, the choice was to grant the four the medallion and its responsibilities, or bind their magics until the council felt they were old enough to know what they held.” Niko smiled. “Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. They were given the medallions.”
At the thought that anyone might try to restrict her ability to get at her magic, Tris drew herself up, grey eyes flashing. “They could try to bind my power,” she snapped. This was the first she had heard of that debate.
“Spoken very like Sandry,” Niko teased gently.
Tris looked down. Her foster-sister was a noble who forgot her rank until anyone questioned her