Balancer (Advent Mage Cycle) (28 page)

Nolan frowned slightly for a moment, and sadly shook his head. “No.”

That seemed very odd to Trev’nor. “But , everyone’s already
had
babies!”

“Yeah,” Nolan agreed.

“And aren’t queens supposed to have kids too?”

“I think so,” Nolan confirmed with an appraising look. “And she doesn’t. Maybe she doesn’t want any?”

Trev’nor found that notion really hard to believe. Especially seeing how Queen Chaelane doted on Nolan. “Let’s ask her,” he suggested.

Nolan nodded in quick agreement.

Both boys took off in a quick sprint to reach the Queen’s side. Hearing the rapid approach of their footsteps, she lowered her book and looked up. “And how is my garden doing, boys?”

“Good,” Trev’nor assured her. He liked being in the garden. Garth had said it was probably his earth sense that made living things so comforting to be around.

“We have a question,” Nolan told her. The expression on his face stated plainly that it was important, and he wasn’t going to be sidetracked until he got an answer.

Queen Chaelane blinked at him. “And what is your question?”

“Why don’t you have any kids?”

A sad, wistful look passed briefly over her face. “I don’t know, Nolan. I wish I had them.”

A light dawned in Nolan’s mind, and shone through on his innocent face. Trev’nor could practically see the glow from it. He gave his friend a suspicious look, sure that somewhere in his friend’s mind, Nolan was plotting at high speeds. Trev’nor really wanted to know what that something might be, and he wanted to be part of it.

“I’m sure you will someday,” Nolan promised her earnestly. He leaned over, planted a kiss on her cheek, and then took off running in the opposite direction.

Still confused, Trev’nor took off in hot pursuit, steadily closing the gap. Nolan was almost out of the garden before Trev’nor managed to finally catch up. “Where are we going?” he demanded.

“To Cora,” Nolan explained over his shoulder, as if that should explain everything, still running at top speed.

“Why?”

“Because I have an idea.”

 ~*~

They found Cora at the Academy of All Magic, as usual. For once, she wasn’t at the stables, but high up in the uppermost part of the Academy in the Aerial Tower, attending to several injured birds. They had to wait, with the impatience of small boys, for her to finish before they could launch into their questions.

Cora listened with a surprised and bemused look on her face as Nolan pelted her with questions on just how people had children. Why this particular topic had occurred to him, she had no idea. It took a few minutes before Nolan wound down enough for her to get a word in edgewise. She was grateful for that, too—it gave her time to think of a simple and gentle way to answer those questions of his.

Cora somehow found herself explaining the miracle of life to two very attentive six year olds. How this discussion had fallen to her, she had no idea. “Lucky me” she thought, struggling for the right words.

Still, she managed to explain everything, without going into an embarrassing amount of detail. Half of it, she suspected, had sailed straight over Trev’nor’s head. From the expression on his face, Nolan seemed to follow it pretty well. With his Life Mage insight, she wasn’t surprised. They both went away happy, discussing something between themselves in low confidential voices.

Cora frowned for a moment, considering the ramifications, as she watched their retreating backs. This wasn’t going to be a repeat of the Meuritta Incident all over again, was it? Although how they would manage to stir up trouble by understanding the reproductive process of human beings was beyond her imagination.

Shrugging it off, she went back to her duties.

 ~*~

Nolan and Trev’nor schemed and considered and planned for the rest of the morning, before coming up with the perfect approach. Nolan knew much more about how life started than he had before talking with Cora, but he wasn’t sure if this was a problem that he could fix. And he didn’t want to disappoint his foster mother by getting her hopes up only to be proven wrong later. After all, wouldn’t Cora have already helped, if there was something that needed to be done? So he had to be sneaky.

Fortunately, this wasn’t difficult for a six year old boy to do.

He waited for the right opportunity. Queen Chaelane had the habit of reading to him in the afternoons, and these reading sessions always involved them snuggling close together. This was perfect, as Nolan had to be in close contact to discover what was wrong and to change anything. He waited for that afternoon story time, and then subtly started reaching out with his senses, while Chaelane read the book.

He missed about half the story doing that, as he couldn’t pay attention to both at once. Still, by the time the story ended, Chaelane was practically glowing with an inner vibrancy. Nolan felt certain that he had succeeded in finding out what was wrong, and fixing it. She would be able to have children now, just like everyone else. Satisfied, he headed off to his studies at her direction, smiling broadly as he went.

 ~*~

Nolan ran downstairs the next morning, anxious to see if his efforts of the day before had been successful. The Queen and King were in their private rooms, sitting down at breakfast, as was their normal routine at this hour of the morning. Nolan was barely inside the doorway when he could see the effect of their time together yesterday.

“YES!” he crowed, punching the air with one fist.

“Nolan, what has gotten into you?” Guin asked in surprise.

Nolan ignored him and ran toward his foster mother, with his arms wide open. “Mama Chaelane, you’re going to have babies!”

“What?” she spluttered, with a strangled cough. Catching him by the shoulders, looking searchingly into his green eyes, she demanded, “What do you mean, Nolan?”

“I can see them,” he explained, feeling like his face would split in half with the force of his smile. He couldn’t help it, though, he just felt so incredibly happy that he had to grin or explode. “You’ve got two babies in your tummy.” Lowering his voice, he confided, “I can’t tell if they’re boys or girls yet.”

Chaelane stared at him for a long moment, eyes growing wide. “You…can…see them? Nolan, are you sure?”

“Yup, I’m sure.” He put his hand directly over the right spot. “They’re right here.”

Chaelane looked at her husband with a stunned expression. “Guin…”

To her surprise, there were tears standing in his eyes. “Finally, Chael. Finally.” Laughing, he swooped in on her and scooped her up into his arms, hugging her hard to his chest. She hugged him back just as fiercely. When she eventually regained her feet, she reached out with one arm, dragging Nolan into their embrace.

Nolan put his arms around them both, beaming with satisfaction. He’d done well.

Chapter
Twenty: Responsibility

Being a sensible man that well understood how strong a woman’s maternal drive could be, I chose to call by mirror the night before to alert Guin of Vonlorisen’s command to bring his grandson home. He took the news rather well, and promised to break it to his wife. I also alerted him that Vonlorisen had given me an impossible task.

So when I went onto the earth path that morning, I had every expectation of a smooth trip to Del’Hain. When the mirror started buzzing in my pocket, it surprised me more than it usually would as I didn’t expect anyone to call me. I dug it out of my pocket, praying fervently that this wasn’t an emergency. “Hello?”

“
Garth
,” it was Kartal and for once he wasn’t being demanding.
“King Guin wants to talk to you.”

That could be good…and that could also mean a lot more work. Knowing my luck, it was probably the latter. I sighed, resigned, and nodded. “Understood. Anything else?”

“
Yes, will you stop scurrying all over the place? Every time someone wants you, they make me track you down.”

Apparently there was nothing else. I shoved the mirror back in my pocket, dropped back into the earth and shot off toward Del’Hain. I popped up in the main courtyard mostly because people were rather used to me appearing there by now. As I walked into the palace, I tried to mentally ascertain where Guin would be at this time of day. I was really hoping that he was in his study, as I had no wish to track the man down through the seemingly endless hallways of the Palace.

As I went from one hallway to another, people spotted me and stopped me with the exciting news that Queen Chaelane was finally pregnant. I smiled the first dozen times I heard it, then I had to struggle to not laugh. Yes, the Queen had struggled to produce an heir for nearly five years now, but with the way people were carrying on you’d think she was an old maid that was well past child-bearing years or something.

Fortunately for me, he was obviously expecting me as I’d barely knocked when he opened the doors and waved me inside.

“You made good time,” he greeted me.

The moment that I stepped into Guin’s study I knew that something important was up. My King’s expression was bordering on an anticipatory smirk, as if he were a youngster that was just about to pull off a marvelous prank. I stopped in the doorway, hovering, wary about what that expression might mean for me in particular. Perhaps I could still make a break for it.

“Come in, Garth, come in,” he encouraged, smiling in genteel welcome.

You don’t disobey a King’s invitation. I really,
really
wanted to, though. Resigned to whatever mischief he was brewing for me, I stepped inside, shutting the door. Still wary, I kept an eye on him as I came to rest uneasily in the chair he gestured me to.

“I have good news,” Guin started, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth to hide, I’m sure, an unsettling smile. “My wife is expecting.”

Ah, that was it. I clamped down on a smile before it escaped. “Yes, Sire, I heard on the way in.”

The man actually pouted at me. “You’ve already heard? Everyone already knows before I can even get to them.
I
wanted to tell somebody.”

It was close, but I managed not to roll my eyes. “Did you call me in to tell me that?”

He glared at me for another moment before sighing. “No, actually I wanted to tell you that Nolan won’t be ready to leave until this afternoon. Chaelane insists on having a few more hours with him. You mentioned last night that Vonlorisen gave you an impossible task. What was it?”

I filled him in on the events of the previous night, in more detail this time.

“He is planning to build a magic academy in Chahir,” Guin repeated, tone gleeful. “And
you’re
going to be the Dean.”

I should have known that he’d like this idea. I just groaned, slumping in to my chair. “Why me?!”

“Probably because he likes you; moreover, he trusts you.”

I didn’t buy that for one second. “Seriously, why me?”

Guin shook his head, wryly. “Garth, that probably is half the reason, alright? Don’t underestimate the power of connections. The other half is this—we’ve actually been in correspondence over this idea for the past month or so. Vonlorisen requested that I give him magicians to be instructors in his new school. I couldn’t, of course. I barely have enough magicians to keep track of
my
country, much less Chahir. What I can do is this—I can release all of the magicians from Chahir to go back and act as instructors. If you’re the Dean of this new academy, a good majority of the Chahiran magicians will follow you back there.”

I thought about that for a long moment. I’d seen for myself how strong the ties of loyalty and friendship ran between me and the other Chahiran magicians. Our bonds had been forged in the fires of the struggle between life and death. I couldn’t refute their logic. I was sure there were quite a few magicians that would follow me back into Chahir. Would there be enough to run a school though? That part I wasn’t sure about. Both Monarchs were basing all of their plans on a big assumption that I’d be willing to set up and run an academy.

Well, okay, maybe that wasn’t too much of a leap for their imaginations. I didn’t think it was a secret that I was by my nature a homebody, even if circumstances didn’t allow for much of that. If I could stay in one spot, safe and secure to work magic, with my family nearby, life would be perfect. I’d never thought I’d find a way to do it, though, not with the way my magic worked. The very nature of it dictated that I would be required to travel constantly to where my magical talent was most needed. The only thing that made that cold fact bearable was that Chatta would always be with me, as my balance and my partner.

I tried to picture myself, all of eighteen years old and with only two years of magical experience under my belt, founding an academy. It seemed like an impossible task. “Shouldn’t someone with more experience do this?”

Guin shook a finger at me. “You shall not wriggle out of this. You are the founding Regent and Dean. Get used to it.”

Shrieking hinges…I blew out a resigned breath. “I think you’re both insane to make me of all people do this, but…alright. I’ll go to Vonlorisen and begin hammering out some of the fine details. So who is going to talk to all the Chahiran magicians about going back?”

Guin looked at me expectantly, like that was a silly question.

“Wait, not me!” I protested in panic. “I’m terrible at public speaking.”

“I’m not looking for a Master Orator,” Guin responded patiently.

“That’s what it will take to convince many of them to go back,” I argued in quiet desperation, feeling the tide turning against me. “Considering some of the conditions we found them in, they have every right to not want to return to Chahir, ever!”

“Yes, but if
you
ask them—”

I impatiently cut him off. “You’re banking too much on that. These people don’t owe me anything, I helped them reach Hain safely, their lives are their own from here on out.”

“You rescued them from Chahir, you risked your life to go after them.”

“Because you assigned me to!” I felt a headache brewing and repressed the urge to message my fingers against my temples. “And I certainly wasn’t the only one that did so. Your Majesty, I will grant you that I’ve become friends with many of the Chahiran magicians, but they’re not going to go blindly into possible danger on just my say-so.”