Apprentice (The Black Mage, #2)(39)

"You and Ian are a great couple." Alex was studying my face. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes." I took a shaky breath and reminded myself that wanting anyone else was a farce. I just needed more time. "Yes, it is."





****





Several hours had passed and I was forced to remove my chainmail, no longer cold but pouring with sweat and heat from an endless cycle of carrying large rocks from one side of the bluff to our post. This is useless, I grumbled, the rocks are only good if the mentees actually attack our post… If they attack someone else's we are going to have to leave them behind! And that will be four hours of wasted effort.

What was Darren thinking?

A slow fog had started to roll into the cove. I could barely make out the houses lining its shore, let alone the waters below us.

I called to my brother. "Can you see anything?" Alex was currently stationed as guard while Barrett and I collected the rock. At first I hadn't thought anything of the damp air, but now I was starting to feel drowsy...

I was beginning to suspect the Combat mentees had cast their first weather assault laced with some sort of sleeping draft that the Alchemy apprentices might have brewed up.

My brother yawned. "No there isn't any – wait! Ryiah, Barrett, one of the others just lit their signal!"

I dropped what I was holding and rushed over to the cliff's ledge. Just as Alex had said, there was a blaze of orange and red in one of the eastern towers. It was harder to see in the fog but it was definitely a fire.

"They must have spotted the mentees' warship!"

The three of us took off for the beacon, sprinting down the winding trail as fast as our legs could carry us. We had almost five miles before we would reach the fire's location. Most of the others would already be done casting by the time we arrived.

About twenty minutes into our run I saw Ella, waving frantically for us to stop. She was one station away from the beach and two more from the fire's lookout.

"We have to keep going!" Barrett panted. "We'll have to leave her behind!"

"You go right on ahead," Alex told the two of us, "I'm going to see what she needs-"

"Ryiah!" Ella shouted. "I need Ryiah!"

"Go!" I told my twin. I didn't want to think about what Darren would do if he found out I was defying orders, but I told myself it would only take a minute to find out what was wrong. Had Ella seen the fire? She must have, or at least guessed it when she saw us.

I caught up to my friend. "Ella, what's wrong? We saw the beacon down by the beach!"

Her eyes were wide. "I saw it too but then I saw something else. My partners wouldn't listen but it doesn't matter, I need someone from Combat…" She grabbed my arm and pulled me to her tower's lookout, pointing to something below in the waters. It was too hard to discern with the fog, just a cluster of darkness in the shadow below.

"I think the mentees are using a longboat," she whispered. "It's fast. It's small. It could easily approach the shore without anyone realizing!"

"But the others lit the signal fire," I protested. "Why would they light it…?" I stared down at the eastern waters. I could see a large barge approaching the shores. "See, Ella, there's the mentees' warship."

"It could be a trap."

"Ella, that's just a shadow – we have to-"

"Why would this fog be laced with a casting for sleep?" She threw her hands up in the air. "Why is it only extending as far as this side of the coast? Why would the mentees try to shield the shore from sight?"

She had a point – and she'd assumed the same as I about the casting. The fog was tainted.

"What should we do? Should we light another fire? It would only confuse everyone. No one is going to come here when there is a barge on the other side of the bluffs."

Ella studied the ledge. "We do this on our own, Ryiah. I don't want Darren blaming us if we are wrong and there really are mentees on that barge."

"So how do we get down there to the longboat?"

"Do you remember Priscilla and your mentee Merrick bragging about all the secret caverns along the coast?"

How could I forget? Priscilla and her vile cousin Merrick, who had just joined the apprentice ranks this summer, had done nothing but praise their family's township since they arrived. Port Langli, or as I liked to call it, Port of the Langli Cousins: each more loathsome than the last.

"Well, I am pretty sure I spotted a vertical opening to one of those sea caves while I was gathering rock for the catapult," she said. "It doesn't look like you can climb down… but it was an opening and the bottom was filled with water. We could jump in, find the exit, and then surprise the mentees from behind while they are attempting to scale the beach."

"But what if there is no exit? What if the tide changes?" I didn't know much about the sea but one hole in the rock wasn't enough to guarantee another, and if we became trapped…

"We can always cast our way free. You haven't used any of your magic yet, right?"

"Well, no…" I still wasn't sure.

"Then we should be able to cast enough force to break the cave walls. No, you can, Ry. If you and Darren could hold off Caine in that mock battle last year then you can do this. We probably won't even have to."