The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

Nimbulan.
    “It’s a special secret.” Kalen lisped the esses, not badly, but enough to hint at why she shied away from others.
    “Special, yes. I can make fire, too. Does that make me as special as you?” Ackerly snapped his fingers and blinked. A tiny flame appeared on the end of his finger. Quickly he damped it and shook his hand as if the witchlight had burned him. Then he sucked the finger, making a rueful face.
    Kalen giggled. “I don’t burn myssself,” she announced proudly and imitated the trick, holding the flame much longer than Ackerly did.
    He watched her face for signs of fatigue. Her gray eyes remained calm and shining long after he would have collapsed from sustaining the spell.
    “That’s a very nice fire, Kalen. Can you do anything else?”
    “Sieur Moncriith says I mustn’t. He says the Stargods won’t like it if demons find me cause I can work magic.”
    Curse the wandering misfit. This wasn’t the first potential apprentice who’d had magic scared out of them by the wandering preacher. Ackerly had sympathized with Moncriith when it cost him nothing and gained him an ally. But now the Bloodmage stood between him and gold.
    “The Stargods only get angry if you use your magic for bad things, like hurting a pet cat or making your brothers look like fools. Surely it wouldn’t hurt if you showed me your special secret.” Ackerly opened his eyes wide, willing the child to trust him.
    “But it’s a secret,” she protested, looking up at her mother. The woman caressed the girl’s hair soothingly. The father glared hard at her, lifting his upper lip in an almost sneer.
    “Then perhaps you can show me if we go out into the corridor where no one else can see?” Ackerly held out his hand to her.
    Her mother prodded the girl’s back with an open hand. “It’s all right, Kalen. He won’t hurt you, and we won’t tell Sieur Moncriith when we see him.”
    Shyly, Kalen put her tiny hand into Ackerly’s pudgy one. Ackerly stood up stiffly and walked her through the open doorway of his office. A few weeks ago this large room had been Nimbulan’s private study. Only one of many things Ackerly had claimed as his inheritance from his former master.
    Now he was Master of the School for Magicians. He knew how to run a school that earned money instead of draining it from Nimbulan’s purse. Acquiring a truly talented child could fill his coffers faster.
    In the long echoing hallway, Ackerly sat on the empty bench where supplicants usually waited for him. Kalen’s family was the last of the day’s applicants. No one else lingered within sight.
    Kalen climbed up beside him. She sat with her hands in her lap and her feet swinging above the floor. She looked out the narrow window to the central courtyard rather than at Ackerly.
    “Now will you show me what you can do, Kalen?”
    Every door along the corridor slammed shut, loudly and without the aid of human hands.
    Ackerly jumped at the sudden noise. “Very good, Kalen. Can you open them, too?”
    She nodded as each door in turn creaked open, one right after the other, starting at the far end and progressing to his own office. A tiny smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. “Want to see what else?” She didn’t lisp now.
    Ackerly nodded, trying not to show how impressed he was by the strength of her talent, nor question the sudden confidence in her demeanor. Telekinesis and fire before the age of ten! She’d match Nimbulan in power, if she took to disciplined training.
    Kalen closed her eyes in concentration. Ackerly watched her small face scrunch up. Her skin turned pale beneath her muddy brown braids and the spray of freckles across her nose. Was that a touch of auburn in her hair? Red hair usually accompanied a magical talent inherited from the Stargods. Neither of her parents showed a trace of red in their hair.
    Suddenly he lost touch with the Kardia. Vertigo sent his vision whirling. His stomach dropped into his feet. The distress passed quickly and he looked down. The bench floated an arm’s length above the stone floor. Slowly, Kalen turned the bench, with them on it, around and gently set them back down.
    “Very good, Kalen. I think we’ve found a place for you here in the school.” Ackerly jumped off the bench before she sent him flying again.
    If her communication spells developed as easily, she could keep him in contact with the far corners of Coronnan and beyond.
    Visions of gold piling up as he controlled a network of