Marked by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #4)(63)

“Well, I’ve still got my pants,” I told him. “They’re in my cave.”

“Cave?”

I took him up the hillside, through the cave entrance, and down the tunnel leading to Messindor’s underground room. Iannis grumbled a little along the way – fitting through the cave entrance and traversing the tunnel was difficult for a man his size – but the expression of amazement when I finally led him into the room was worth it.

“Astonishing!” He crossed over to the shelf, running his finger along the leather-bound spines. “Some of these magical texts are quite rare.” He carefully extracted a book from the shelf, opened it up, and scanned a page. “I don’t think a copy of this book has been seen for several hundred years.”

“Well, that’s not surprising,” I said, sitting down on the cot. “Messindor’s last journal entry was around three hundred years ago.”

“Messindor?” Iannis asked, frowning.

I explained to him about the diary I’d found, showing him the journal entries, the maps, and the pouch of gold. “The one thing I still haven’t figured out is this damned chest,” I said, jerking my head toward the stubborn chest that defied my attempts to open it. “I have no idea what’s in it.”

Iannis set the book in his hand aside and crouched down to examine the chest. After a few moments, he shook his head, laughing softly as he ran his fingers over the wood.

“What’s so funny?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” he said, pressing his fingers into one of the runes. To my surprise, the carved piece of wood popped out, revealing a tiny knob that held it in place. “You can’t be expected to know about puzzle chests, as they went out of fashion long before your time.”

“Puzzle chests?” I asked, watching him press his fingers against the other runes. The next two did nothing, but the third one popped free as well, and so did the one on the opposite side of the chest.

“Yes,” he said, eyes narrowed as he sat back on his haunches. “They’re rather like a safe combination. You have to find the hidden knobs, and then you have to twist them into the right order.”

He fiddled with the knobs for a few moments, twisting them this way and that. A loud click echoed through the room, and the chest popped open.

“By Magorah!” I exclaimed as I stared at the contents. The chest was filled to the brim with glittering jewels.

“And that,” Iannis said, taking my hand in his and pressing a kiss to my knuckles, “is your engagement present.”





25





By noon, Iannis and I were on the small, but speedy sailboat he’d arrived in, with my gold and jewels safely stowed away next to Messindor’s collection of books. Iannis was fascinated with them, and the diary in particular – he told me that one of the books held a handwritten alternative recipe for recharging gulayas more quickly, with ingredients that were legal and easily obtainable. The texts also contained rare spells for magical defense that were thought to be lost.

On the mainland, a small, private dirigible was waiting already, courtesy of the local government. It took us to the Southlands, the country that took up the southern section of the Northia continent, directly below the Federation. There Iannis took me shopping for more suitable clothing – I was dressed in my torn leather pants and one of his button-up shirts – while the pilot restocked food and drink supplies and the coal needed to heat up the air inside the dirigible.

Once again, Iannis and I had vastly different ideas about what clothing was considered suitable. He wanted me to arrive in mage robes, to pave the way of our engagement announcement, which I adamantly refused. Resinah had said to embrace both halves, not become a mage completely.

Eventually, we compromised, and I boarded the dirigible in a red-and-black dress with three-quarter length sleeves and a skirt that fell just below my knees. My bare feet were properly covered by a pair of cute, low-heeled boots, and I crossed them at the ankles as I settled into my cushy leather seat for take-off.

“So,” I said, once we were in the air, alone in the small, but well-appointed cabin. “We really need to talk.”

“About?”

“Changing the system.”

Iannis nodded slowly. “I agree that the current set-up cannot continue as it was. I had already planned to discuss possible reforms with the Council and Director Chen.”

I arched a brow at that. “You’re all mages. Do you really think you guys are going to be able to come up with anything workable on your own, considering how out of touch most of you are with the shifter and human communities?”

Iannis sighed. “It wasn’t always that way, you know. We used to know more about the people and their political inclinations than they did themselves.”

I blinked. “Is that so?” I couldn’t even imagine such a thing.

Iannis smiled slightly. “I know you don’t fully agree, but we mages are best suited to ruling.” I opened my mouth to argue, but he held up a hand. “Hear me out, Sunaya. The average lifespan of a mage is many times longer than that of the average human, which means we cannot help but amass more knowledge and experience, and take a wider perspective. There is also the fact that through magic, we are able to create wealth without being forced to exploit the workforce. Believe it or not, when mages first came to power, there were various experiments with human self-government. In case you haven’t noticed, we do still allow the humans a certain measure of self-government today, as well as the shifter clans. But giving them too much power has never ended well.”