The Sorcery Code (The Sorcery Code #1)(5)
This little rebellion, like so many others in the past couple of years, was no doubt motivated by the drought. It was an unfortunate occurrence, and Augusta could understand the peasants’ unhappiness with ruined crops and high food prices—but that didn’t make it acceptable for them to march on Turingrad like Ganir claimed they were doing.
The north of Koldun—where these rebels were coming from—was particularly hard-hit. Augusta’s own territory was further south, but even her subjects were grumbling about the lack of food. They wouldn’t dare do any rioting, of course, but Augusta was not oblivious to the fact that they were unhappy. For almost two years, the rain had been sparse, and grain was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Augusta did her best to purchase whatever grain was available and send it to her people, but the ungrateful wretches still complained.
“Who’s ruling over the territory of the rebels? Is it Jandison or Moriner?” she asked, wondering which sorcerer couldn’t control his own peasants.
“Jandison.”
Jandison. Well, that explained it, Augusta thought. Despite his advanced age and position on the Council, Jandison was considered to be something of a weakling. He was good at teleportation (admittedly, a useful skill) and not much else. How he had ended up on the Council—a ruling body consisting of the most powerful sorcerers—Augusta would never understand.
“Some of his peasants ran off to the mountains,” Barson said, looking annoyed with the situation. “And some decided to riot. It’s a mess over there.”
“To the mountains?” Augusta couldn’t suppress her shock. The mountains surrounded the land of Koldun, serving as a natural barrier against the fierce storms that raged beyond them. Only the most intrepid explorers ever ventured out there, given the unpredictable weather and proximity to the dangerous ocean. And these peasants actually went there?
“Yes,” Barson confirmed. “At least twenty of them from Jandison’s northernmost village fled there.”
“They must be suicidal,” Augusta said, shaking her head. “Who in their right mind would do something like that?”
“Someone desperate and hungry, I would imagine.” Her lover gave her an ironic look. “You don’t know hunger, do you?”
“No,” Augusta admitted. Most sorcerers only ate for pleasure; spells to sustain the body’s energy were simple to do—and were one of the first things parents taught their children. Augusta had mastered those spells at the age of three, and she’d never felt hungry since.
Barson smiled in response and reached over to squeeze her knee with his large callused hand.
Chapter 3: Gala
Gala stared at the tall, broad-shouldered man who was her creator, trying to figure out the best way to answer his question. She found it difficult to focus, her senses overwhelmed by being here, in this place Blaise called the Physical Realm. Her body was reacting to the different stimuli in strange and unpredictable ways, her mind attempting to process all the images, sounds, and smells so she could understand everything.
One particularly strong distraction was Blaise himself. She couldn’t stop looking at him because he was unlike anything she had seen before. Something about the angular symmetry of his face appealed to her, resonating with her in a way she didn’t fully comprehend. She liked everything about it, from the blue color of his eyes to the darkness of the stubble shadowing his firm jaw. She wondered if it would be acceptable to reach out and touch his hair—those short, almost-black locks that looked so different from her own pale strands.
First, though, she wanted to answer his question. Concentrating, she thought back to before, to what had happened prior to her experiencing reality for the first time. “I remember realizing that I exist,” she said slowly, trying to put into words the strange sensations at the beginning.
“You mean you existed for a time without realizing it?” he asked, his dark eyebrows coming together slightly. Gala thought that expression likely meant confusion because her own eyebrows did the same thing when she didn’t understand something.
“It’s like there were two ways I existed,” she tried to explain. “One way would just happen. This went on longer. When I say I realized that I exist—that’s when this other part of me first realized that I am me. These parts are not separate; in fact, they are the same thing. There is a strange looping arrangement between the two parts that I don’t fully understand and don’t know how to put into words—”
“I think I do understand,” he said, leaning forward and staring at her intently. “You became self-aware. At first, you existed on a subconscious level, and then, at some critical threshold, you achieved a conscious state of being.” He appeared excited, Gala thought, somehow finding the right word to describe her creator’s emotional state.
“What is the difference between a conscious and a subconscious state?” she asked, hungering for more information.
“In a human being, the subconscious parts of the mind are in charge of things like breathing or the heart beating,” he said, his eyes gleaming brightly. “When I run, my subconscious figures out the complex trajectories of how my limbs move. Some sorcerers also think dreams form in that part of our minds.”
“I am not a human being,” Gala said, looking at him. That much she knew now. She was something different, and she needed to learn what that something was.