Daughter of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 4) (16 page)

Neekeya too fumed. Her eyes were
wide with rage, her teeth bared. "My father might not have
donated to Teel, but he's a mighty lord and warrior, and his magic is
far more powerful than Atratus's. He gave me a magical quill that can
write curses to hurt anyone. I'm going to write a curse to knock
Atratus's damn hands off!" She took the quill from her pocket
and her expression became woeful. "I only need to learn how to
use it. I think I might have broken it."

Madori
doubted the "magical artifacts" Neekeya had received from
her father—the quill, the ring, the sword, and dozens of others—had
any magic at all. But at least Madori now knew:
I
have magic within me.
Her hand still throbbed, and the humiliation still burned through
her, but a hesitant smile tingled upon her lips.

I
used magic. I defeated Lari.

As they walked down the hall,
Madori raised her chin, letting that pride swell her chest. She knew
she would face Lari again, and Madori vowed to study hard, to become
stronger and stronger.

I
came to Teel to learn healing,
Madori thought,
but
you, Lari, you will force me to become a warrior too. And you will
rue your choice to make me an enemy.

It took a while, but after
exploring several corridors and chambers and making a few wrong
turns, Madori's Motley finally found their next classroom—a sterile
little chamber high up in Ostirina, the northwestern of Teel's four
towers.

As Madori stepped inside with
her friends, she breathed in deeply and her smile widened. It was
finally time for the class she had awaited—Magical Healing.

A dozen other students were
already here, seated at pale stone tables. Madori was relieved to see
that Sunlit Purity was not attending this class. Of course Lari and
her friends would have no use for healing magic; they seemed to care
only for destruction. Madori sat down with her quartet at the last
free table, opened her book, and caught a glimpse of her wounded
hand. The welts were ugly and red and still hurt. Between them spread
the faded scars from the iron wishbone.

"Students! Students, settle
down."

The high, wavering voice drifted
from the doorway. An instant later, Professor Yovan stepped into the
chamber—the same professor who had supervised the battle with the
wishbones, sending Torin a roast ham to atone for Madori's ruined
hand. The elderly man's long, white beard rolled down to his feet,
and his tufted eyebrows thrust out like the brims of hats. He seemed
well into his eighties—even older than the bald, mustached Professor
Fen, the teacher of Basic Principles. The greybeard reminded Madori
of old Mayor Kerof, her great-grandfather, who had rocked her on his
knee when she had been a girl. Dear old Grand Grand, as Madori called
Kerof, had passed several years ago; old Professor Yovan, with his
flowing beard and long, thin fingers, gave her the same sense of
elder wisdom and grandfatherly love.

The
students, already rather settled, turned their eyes toward the aged
professor. Yovan made his way to his desk, slapped a hand against it,
and announced, "Healing! Yes. Healing. Healing, healing healing
. . .
Magical
healing, to be exact." He stroked his beard. "Magical
Healing is about using magic to, well . . . heal." He cleared
his throat. "And that is what I shall teach you!"

The students stared at him
silently.

Seeming uncomfortable with the
attention, Professor Yovan fumbled with the books, scrolls, and
potions on his desk. "Who can tell me," he said, "how
to heal the body using magic?"

It was nice, Madori thought, not
to have Lari around to thrust up her hand at once. Hesitantly,
glancing at her friends for encouragement, Madori raised her hand.

"Ah, yes!" said
Professor Yovan. "You, little boy. What is your name?"

A few students giggled across
the class.

Madori placed down her hand. "My
name is Madori Greenmoat. And I'm a girl. Remember me from the Trial
of Will?" She freed her two strands of long hair from behind her
ears, letting them frame her face. With the rest of her hair cropped
short and her body scrawny, she was often mistaken for a boy. "And
. . . I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it has to do with the Three
Basic Principles. Choosing your material—choosing the wound.
Claiming your material—gaining control of the broken bone, injured
flesh, or diseased tissue. And finally, changing the
material—mending the wound."

Professor Yovan clapped his
hands together, his face brightening. "Precisely, little boy!"

"Girl," she said.

He nodded emphatically. "You
are most correct. However, reality of course is more complex. Any
brute can magically shatter flesh. But to heal, ah! That requires the
most innate, pure understanding of the body's structures. To injure
is as easy as shattering a statue. To heal . . . that is to sculpt."
He winked. "I use that metaphor every year. Rather proud of it."

The professor unrolled scrolls
of human anatomy and launched into a lecture, describing the basic
humors and energies that flowed throughout all living things. Madori
found that, unlike with Professor Atratus, she could actually
understand most of these words. Here was real magic, she thought—a
force for goodness. Here was why she had come to Teel.

"Now,"
said Professor Yovan after an hour of speaking, "you will of
course not be able to heal wounds for many months, maybe not for
years. The effects of a mistake with such magic can be disastrous.
When attempting to mend a bone, you could accidentally shatter every
bone in the body. When attempting to withdraw poison from a wound,
you could accidentally send the poison into the patient's heart. Many
of you, throughout your studies at Teel, will learn to
harm
.
Only the brightest among you will learn to
heal
.
And so I demand from you, students: Do not attempt healing magic
until your fourth year!"

But Madori was already summoning
that power inside her—the power that had let her claim the smoky
tendrils, let her change them to attack Lari.

"Madori, what are you
doing?" Jitomi whispered at her side. He nudged her with his
elbow. "You're not allowed to use magic."

But she ignored him. She closed
her eyes and her lips whispered. Her nostrils flared as she claimed
her material—not the welts upon her palm but the uninjured skin
around them. Warmth filled her and tingled across her body as she
changed her material—allowing her skin to push forward, erasing the
wounds, pulling the injured flesh deep into her.

Gasps sounded around her.

Madori opened her eyes and
stared at her hand.

The welts from Atratus's ruler
were gone, leaving only pale scars.

Professor Yovan rushed over,
eyes so wide Madori saw the white all around his irises.

"Little boy!" he said.
"I told you! You may not practice healing magic. You— Oh my."
He took her palm in his and examined the scars. "How old are
these scars?"

"About ten seconds,"
she replied. "Professor Atratus struck me with his ruler only
this morning. And I'm a girl."

Neekeya twisted in her seat, her
necklace of crocodile teeth chinking. "It's true! Madori has
magic—real magic!" She rummaged through her pocket and pulled
out a lock of hair tied with a ribbon. "I have a magical lock of
Healing Hair, and I tried to use it on Madori, but I think it only
works on us Daenorians."

Professor Yovan clucked his
tongue and patted Madori's hand. "Little boy—I mean, girl—you
must obey me next time, and you must not heal without my
permission—not even your own wounds. But . . ." His eyes
watered and suddenly he was embracing her. "It's a delight to
see such a naturally gifted healer. For sixty years I've been
teaching here at Teel, and I've never seen a first year student heal
a wound—let alone on her first day! You are a wonder."

Madori lowered her eyes.

"Thank you," she
whispered. She could not speak any louder, and suddenly tears filled
her eyes. For the first time in many turns, they were not tears of
pain but of joy. Somebody appreciated her. Somebody thought she was a
wonder. Perhaps Teel University was not the nightmare it had seemed
but a place where she could learn, grow, become the woman she dreamed
of being. Neekeya saw her tears and pulled Madori into an embrace,
and Tam patted her healed hand.

After Magical Healing came Basic
Principles again, followed by Magical History, then finally Magic and
Sound—a class Madori had eagerly signed up for, teaching students to
produce magical music. When the Teel Bells finally rang the end of
the turn, Madori rubbed her shoulders, eager to return to her chamber
for a solid sleep. Yet she sighed to remember Professor Atratus's
punishment.

"I still have to report to
the kitchens," she said to her friends. "Got to scrub some
pots."

Tam sighed. "At least eat
dinner with us first." He cringed. "We have to eat in the
dining hall with hundreds of other students. Idar's beard, I'm not
looking forward to that. Madori's Motley will stick out like monkeys
at a banquet."

She smiled wanly. "I'm
almost glad for my punishment. I think I prefer laboring in the
kitchens than sitting in the dining hall. It's like polishing the
armor instead of fighting in the battle." She bit her lip. "I'll
grab some food to eat while I work, and I'll meet you back at our
chamber."

Leaving her companions, she made
her way south of the library and cloister, down a path, and toward
the dining hall. The building rose from a grassy sward, its walls
columned, stairs leading up to its gates; it seemed a building as
fine as the library or towers, topped with statues of birds and
beasts. Students were gathering in a courtyard, lining up to enter
and eat. Madori spotted Lari standing at their lead, holding a Radian
flag; others of her order gathered around her.

Feeling relief that she had an
excuse to skip dinner—her punishment was probably kinder than the
meal—Madori skirted the building, leaving the main gates and heading
toward a back door. No students stood in this little corner, and only
a few geese ambled between the birches.

A sudden memory flashed through
Madori: her mother standing in the window of their cottage at home,
calling Madori home for dinner. Madori would be playing outside with
Fairwool-by-Night's animals—a few stray dogs, geese like the ones
here, maybe a duckling or two—covered in mud, her elbows scraped.
Animals had always been her only friends. At first Madori would
ignore her mother, but then the smell of the woman's cooking would
waft on the wind, filling her nostrils: stewed chanterelle mushrooms,
fried lanternfish, and spicy matsutake mushroom cakes—Elorian food,
the food Madori loved.

I
miss you so much, Mother,
she thought, heading toward the kitchens.
I
wish I could be eating with you now at home.

She opened the back door and
stepped into the kitchens. She found a hallway lined with several
doorways. Through one doorway she saw a chamber full of cooking
fires, and the scents of meats, stews, breads, and pies filled her
nostrils. Her mouth watered. Cooks dressed in white tended to the
meals—mixing stews that bubbled in cauldrons, turning spits of
roasting pigs, and pulling bread rolls from ovens. Reluctantly,
Madori kept walking until she reached the dish washing room and
stepped inside.

Three walls here were built of
bricks. Instead of a fourth wall rose many shelves like oversized
window shutters, each shelf topped high with dirty dishes. Between
the shelves, Madori could peer into the dining hall where a thousand
students were eating. Every moment another student, belly full,
stepped forward to place a dirty plate and cutlery upon a shelf. A
stone aqueduct ran through the chamber, flowing with water; it was
about the size of a horse's trough. Several students stood around the
canal, scrubbing dishes. All seemed dejected, and all bore welts upon
their palms—other victims of Atratus's wrath.

"Another prisoner!"
announced one of the workers, a tall boy with a thick Verilish
accent. Madori had seen Verilish traders before—burly men from the
northern pine forests, thick of beards, clad in fur pelts, warriors
who prided themselves on strength. She guessed that for a son of
Verilon, scrubbing dishes like a woman was the ultimate insult.

Madori nodded. "Let's get
this over with. I'm tired and want to go back to my chamber."

Another washer—this one a
petite girl with black hair—laughed. She spoke with the accent of
Eseer, a desert kingdom far in the south. "There are hundreds of
plates still to wash, and hundreds of students are still eating.
We'll be lucky to leave before next turn."

Sighing, Madori turned to look
at the shelves of plates. Indeed, students kept walking by, adding
more dishes to the piles; it looks like many hours of work. When she
returned her eyes to the aqueduct, she realized that all the
scrubbers—punished students—were foreigners. It seemed Atratus was
loath to punish his fellow Magerians.

Madori bit her lip and got to
work.

She dunked dish after dish into
the flowing water, scrubbing it with a rag and soap. But soon the
shelves threatened to collapse; at first only the fastest eaters had
left their plates to clean, but now hundreds of plates were rising in
a sticky, dirty mess.

"If we break one, Atratus
will know," said the tall boy. "He's got magical eyes all
over the place. My brother broke a dish here last year; Atratus
nearly tore off his hand, he beat him so hard with his ruler."

Madori winced, scanning the
chamber for magical eyes, imagining eyeballs moving in the walls
themselves. She saw nothing but she wouldn't put such magic past
Atratus; she winced to remember how his smoky ropes had bound her.
She scrubbed faster, rushing back and forth between the shelves and
the water. Before long, with hundreds of students placing down their
dishes, Madori no longer bothered scrubbing one at a time. She rushed
back and forth, towers of dishes in her arms, placing the clean ones
upon trays for another student to whisk outside.