A Trial of Sorcerers: Book One Read online

  A Trial of Sorcerers

  Book One

  Elise Kova

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters and events in this book are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Silver Wing Press

  Copyright © 2021 by Elise Kova

  All rights reserved. Neither this book, nor any parts within it may be sold or reproduced in any form without permission.

  Cover Artwork by Marie Magny

  Developmental Editing by Rebecca Faith Editorial

  Line Editing and Proofreading by Melissa Frain

  ISBN (paperback): 978-1-949694-19-2

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-949694-31-4

  eISBN: 978-1-949694-30-7

  Contents

  Also by Elise Kova

  Map of the Solaris Empire

  Map of Meru

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Discover more from Elise Kova

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author: Elise Kova

  Also by Elise Kova

  * * *

  See all of Elise’s books and find where to get them on her website at:

  https://elisekova.com/books/

  * * *

  A Trial of Sorcerers

  A Trial of Sorcerers

  A Hunt of Shadows

  (More to Come)

  Married to Magic

  A Deal with the Elf King

  Married to Magic #2

  (More to come)

  Air Awakens Universe

  Air Awakens Series

  Air Awakens

  Fire Falling

  Earth’s End

  Water’s Wrath

  Crystal Crowned

  Vortex Chronicles

  Vortex Visions

  Chosen Champion

  Failed Future

  Sovereign Sacrifice

  Crystal Caged

  Golden Guard Trilogy

  The Crown’s Dog

  The Prince’s Rogue

  The Farmer’s War

  The Loom Saga

  The Alchemists of Loom

  The Dragons of Nova

  The Rebels of Gold

  Never miss a release.

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  https://elisekova.com/subscribe/

  For the Tower Guard

  The Solaris Empire

  Map of Meru

  1

  The walls could talk, and they had secrets.

  …where…going…

  I don’t…

  …keep this just between us…

  Eira ignored the mutterings, keeping her head down and her nose in her book. The words were nothing more than magically trapped whispers of people who weren’t there—people who might not have been there for hours or even decades. They were her companions and her torturers. Eira fought to suppress and ignore the voices because when she’d tried to talk about them, no one believed her.

  No one else could hear them.

  She ascended the main walkway of the Tower of Sorcerers, a sloping path that wound like a corkscrew between lecture halls and libraries in the center and apprentice dormitory rooms on the outside. People brushed past her, quiet in contrast to the cacophony that threatened to deafen her if she let her magic run awry and unchecked.

  Instead, Eira tried to fill her mind with the words of the book she was reading. They painted pictures of a land far away—the Crescent Continent, Meru. A land filled with magic vastly different than hers, and peoples that seemed as if they were straight out of a folktale. It was easy for her to place herself beyond her body, imagining standing on those distant shores, until a voice said—

  …kill our sovereign…

  She stopped in her tracks. Two apprentices emerged from a storeroom, whispering amongst themselves. The man wore Tower robes like her—no collar, loose sleeves to the elbows, hem falling at the small of his back. The woman’s robes had capped sleeves and a high collar. A Waterrunner and Firebearer, Adam and Noelle, also known as the Tower’s “power couple”—and the last people Eira ever wanted to see.

  “What’re you staring at, freak?” Adam, the Waterrunner, said.

  “I’m sorry, what?” Eira asked calmly, slipping her book into her satchel so they couldn’t turn her reading about Meru—her passion—into more ammunition to be used against her.

  “Is she deaf now? Wasn’t she the one who ‘heard voices’ all the time?” Adam scoffed and looked to Noelle, who gave a snicker and tucked a length of dark tresses behind her ear.

  “Perhaps she was talking to her imaginary friends and couldn’t hear us?” Noelle suggested.

  “That it?” Adam took a step closer to Eira.

  Eira looked at him from toe to head. She stared at the tip of his hooked nose to avoid his dark brown eyes. Just like Alyss had told her to do so she wouldn’t be intimidated. “I thought I heard one of you say something about the emperor.”

  He laughed, a grating and terrible sound. A laugh Eira knew well…a laugh he reserved for at her. “Do I look like someone who would talk politics?”

  “No.” Eira shook her head. “I suppose not. You’d have to have half a brain to have an opinion on politics.” She tore her eyes away and started back up the tower.

  Adam grabbed her elbow, snarling, “What did you say?”

  “Let me go,” Eira said quietly. Her magic swelled at the offending contact; if he held on to her much longer he’d be swept away by it, as helpless as a child in a rip current.

  “You think you can just insult me and walk away?”

  “Come on, Adam.” Noelle grabbed the arm not holding Eira in place.

  “It’s not insulting you if it’s true,” Eira said softly.

  “Say that again!” Tides of magic rolled off of him, uncontrolled, unstoppable. Eira felt like the moon, spinning around him with her words. Pulling him from one direction to the next was all too easy. Making him feel whatever she wanted him to feel—

  Stop.

  Eira closed her eyes and sighed softly, trying to ward off the dark depths she was sinking into. It was a place she could never risk going. “I’m sorry. Now let me go, Adam, please.”

  “I’m not—”

  “She’s not worth it.” Noelle regarded Eira warily from the corner of her eye. “You know what she did three years ago.”

  Because of you. I didn’t mean to. If you hadn’t… The words still bubbled up in her, as horrible and dark as the memory of that day. But Eira was eighteen now. She no longer had to say everything that crossed her mind.

  Silence was often the best path forward in a noisy world. Stasis and quiet and numb.

  “What’s going on here?” a familiar voice interjected. All three of them turned to face the speaker. Adam’s hand quickly fell from Eira’s elbow.

  “Nothing,
Marcus.”

  “It better be,” Marcus said with a note of warning. “Come, Eira, we don’t want to keep the Minister of Sorcery waiting.” Marcus breezed past her and up the Tower. Eira followed dutifully behind.

  “Run along, coward,” Noelle hissed, just loud enough that Eira could be sure it wasn’t a magical whisper from the wall, or door, or floor.

  Eira paused, glancing over her shoulder and meeting Noelle’s black eyes.

  “Isn’t it nice to have Mister Perfect for a brother, who always comes to your defense? Wonder what would’ve happened to you if you didn’t have him to keep you in check and your uncle as the minister. The senate would have eaten you alive.” She sneered, her pretty face twisting into something that more resembled the ugliness in her soul.

  Eira simply stared. She kept her mind vacant—as though she were sinking deeper and deeper into the bitter cold of the ocean that rolled within her. Underneath the water, everything was muted, distant, and dull. Voices couldn’t carry. No one could reach her.

  “Eira?” Marcus called.

  Snapping back to reality, Eira followed swiftly behind, leaving Noelle and Adam standing in the walkway. “I don’t need your help.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Her brother rolled his eyes.

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Well, what do you expect?” He sighed. “I’m not going to just stand by and watch them harass you.”

  Because you’re afraid of what will happen if they push me too far, Eira added mentally. “If you keep standing up for me, they’ll never stop.”

  “That something Alyss told you?” He arched a dark blond eyebrow at her, knowing he had her pegged. Marcus had hair more like their parents—a honey gold, darkened with bronze. Whereas Eira’s hair was a platinum shade, so bright it looked nearly stark white in sunlight.

  “Maybe.” Eira twisted the strap of her bag. “But she’s not wrong.”

  He sighed. “Eira, I told Mom and Dad I would protect and look after you. I promised Uncle Fritz and Uncle Grahm, too.”

  “I just turned eighteen. I don’t think it’s really necessary to protect me anymore.”

  “Yet I always will.” His large palm landed heavily on the top of her head and Marcus shook it back and forth.

  “You’re going to mess up my hair.” She swatted his hand away.

  “How will anyone tell the difference?”

  Eira scowled at him, which only made him laugh.

  “Don’t give me that look. Come on, Eira, smile. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you smile.”

  “Let’s just get our assignments for the day.” Eira crossed to the second-to-last door in the Tower of Sorcerers, nearly at the very top—the office of the Minister of Sorcery. She knocked quickly.

  “Come in.”

  Within was a room as familiar to her as her home back in Oparium.

  A large desk was situated in the center, facing the door. Two chairs were positioned on one side, set up for conversations. Expansive windows provided breathtaking views of the jagged peaks that topped the mountains surrounding the capital of the Solaris Empire. All manner of worktables and storage were crammed around the windows. Something was always bubbling softly on their surfaces.

  Behind the desk was a man with rich blue eyes and hair that matched Marcus’s. He was as much a fixture of this room in Eira’s mind as the beakers or cauldrons.

  “Ah, hello, you two!” Fritz, the Minister of Sorcery, stood.

  “Minister,” Eira said with a polite nod.

  “Always so formal.” Fritz rounded the desk with a shake of his head. He scooped up Marcus in a bear hug, even though Marcus was head and shoulders taller. “It’s good to see you both.”

  “Good to see you, too, Uncle,” Marcus said.

  “You saw us two days ago.” Yet Eira relented to her eager uncle, giving him a gentle squeeze as he crushed her so hard her back popped.

  “Oh, there you go, I heard that.” Fritz chuckled. “Feel better?”

  “Yes, actually.” Eira stretched, forward and back.

  “And just because I saw you two days ago doesn’t mean I don’t miss you. It feels like just yesterday you two arrived at the Tower, hand in hand, playing in my office—”

  “Yes, we know, Uncle.” Eira gave him a smile and a pat on the shoulder. “Now, may we have our assignments?”

  “Are you running off to meet Alyss?”

  “If our assignments happen to coincide again,” Eira admitted.

  “Happen to,” Marcus repeated with a snort and a chuckle.

  “Here you go.” Fritz handed her a slip of paper and then one to Marcus…twice as long. “Now, off with you; it’s getting late already and there’s work to be done.”

  “Thanks, Uncle.” Marcus gave a playful salute with his paper before heading out the door. Leaving Eira in his dust, yet again.

  “What is it?” Fritz asked thoughtfully.

  Eira looked down at her list. Five names were penned underneath the words, West Clinic. Her brother had at least ten—no, fifteen.

  “He has a longer list than me again,” she murmured.

  “I want to give you time to spend with Alyss.” The words sounded sincere. So why did they feel like a lie?

  “I want to do more.”

  “In time.” He said the two words she hated the most.

  “When will it be my time?” Eira asked softly. “I want to—”

  He didn’t give her an opportunity to finish. “Don’t rush. You’re young. There’s plenty of time to come into your own. It’s best to take things slowly, given how unique your magic is.” Eira pressed her lips into a hard line. When she didn’t say anything, he pressed, “All right?”

  “All right,” she echoed, resigned, and slipped away before the conversation could continue. Instead of fighting, she pulled out her book once more, reading over pages she’d read so many times she could recite the words from memory.

  Words of places Eira knew she’d never get the chance to go because she’d be stuck here her entire life, chaperoned and shepherded.

  She wound once more down the tower, the whispers filling her ears. As a girl, she hadn’t understood the voices; she’d thought they were imaginary friends. Her parents had thought the same.

  Then, her magic had begun to manifest in different ways and it became apparent that she was a sorcerer, like her brother and uncle. Eira knew from that day she was destined for the Tower of Sorcerers in Solarin, capital of the Empire. It was the place all sorcerers in the Empire were sent. She’d hoped that she’d find a solution, or even an explanation for the voices in the Tower. But she’d yet to have any leads. All she could show for her efforts was learning how to silence the voices—if she focused.

  She’d arrived six years ago, young for an initiate, but not unheard of. Exceptions could also be made for the niece of the Minister of Sorcery…a fact her peers rarely let her forget.

  At the base of the Tower of Sorcerers was the main entry—the only entrance non-sorcerers knew of and could access. There was a waiting area, tables and chairs, and sofas, usually vacant. No one came to visit sorcerers. Emperor Aldrik Solaris and Empress Vhalla Solaris had done a lot to push sorcerers toward being accepted in common society. But hatred and prejudice were self-feeding vines, constantly digging two new tendrils into the hearts of man for every one that was ripped out.

  “I was just about to leave without you,” Alyss grumped as she jumped up from the seat she’d been occupying. She sent the clay she’d been magically sculpting back into the pouch on her hip with a thought.

  “Sorry.”

  “I saw your brother come by, so I knew you wouldn’t be far behind.”

  Marcus’s shadow. That was all she ever was. Even Alyss, her best and truest friend, knew it.

  “I just got delayed with Uncle. What were you making?” Eira quickly changed the topic.

  “Nothing, just messing around.” Alyss grinned. Her fingertips were always stained by clay, or stone dust, from whatev
er project she was “messing around” with. “What you really should ask me is what I’m reading.”

  “You find a new book?”

  “Yes, and it’s a truly scandalous story.” Alyss spoke low and fast. “I found it in the back corner of the used bookstore on Flare Avenue. It has things you wouldn’t believe someone penned…much less committed to print!”

  “You’re too smart to be filling your head with such things.” Eira rolled her eyes.

  “And you’re too fun at heart to be so prudish and off-putting all the time.” Alyss braced her hands on her hips. Dozens of small, long, dark braids Eira had helped weave into her hair a week ago slipped over her shoulder. Beads Alyss’s mother had sent from the North clanked softly at the ends with every turn of her head.

  For Eira, a trip home was a hard day’s travel. For Alyss, it was a week to the northernmost region of the Solaris Empire.

  “You know nothing about me.” Eira mirrored her friend’s motion, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Wh-me? Me? I know nothing about you?” Alyss scoffed loudly, her voice echoing around the iron chandelier overhead. “I am the only one in this whole Tower who knows you.”

  Eira hummed but said nothing. A grin threatened to split her lips. Alyss dug her elbow into Eira’s side and freed the expression with a laugh.