The Sorcery Code (The Sorcery Code #1)(60)

“Most peasants don’t have a choice,” Maya said. “If a woman is pretty, like you, then she has more options. She can find a wealthy man to take care of her. But if she doesn’t have the looks—or the aptitude for sorcery—then life is hard. Maybe not always as hard as cooking dinner at a public inn, but it’s not fun and pleasant. Childbirth alone is brutal. I’m glad I never had to go through that.”

“Do men have it easier?”

“In some ways,” Maya said as Esther entered the room. “In other ways, it’s more difficult. Most commoners have to work very hard to grow their crops, plow their fields, and take care of their livestock. If a job is too difficult for a woman to do, then she can ask her husband to help her. A man, however, can only rely on himself.”

Gala nodded, feeling her eyelids getting heavy. Maya’s words began to blend together, and she felt a familiar lassitude sweeping over her body. She knew it meant she was falling asleep, and she welcomed the relaxing darkness.



*



Gala’s mind awakened. Or, more precisely, she became self-aware for the first time.

‘I can think’ was her first fully coherent thought. ‘Where is this?’ was the second one.

She somehow knew that places were supposed to be different from where she found herself. She vaguely recalled visions of a place with colors, shapes, tastes, smells, and other fleeting sensations—sensations that were absent in here. There were other things here, however—things she didn’t have names for. The world around her didn’t seem to match her mind’s expectations. The closest she could describe it was as darkness permeated by bright flashes of light and color. Except it wasn’t light and color; it was something else, something she had no equivalent name for.

There were also thoughts out there. Some belonging to her, some to other things—things that were nothing like her. Only one stream of thought was vaguely similar to her own.

She wasn’t sure, but it seemed like that stream of thought was seeking her, trying to reach out to her.

Waking up with a gasp, Gala sat up in bed, looking around the dark room.

“What happened, child?” Esther asked, putting down the book she had been reading by candle light. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“I don’t think so,” Gala said slowly. “I think I was dreaming of a time right before my birth.”

Esther gave her a strange look and returned to her book.

Gala lay back down and tried to calm her racing heartbeat. This was the first time she had dreamed at all—and she wished Blaise was there, so she could talk to him about it. He would find this dream fascinating, since it had been about the Spell Realm.

Closing her eyes, she drifted off again, hoping her next dream would be about Blaise.





Chapter 36: Blaise


The confrontation with Ganir left Blaise feeling strangely unsettled. Had the old man been genuine in offering his help? He’d seemed so shocked when Blaise had told him about the vote that Blaise had almost believed his lies.

The Council didn’t know about Gala—unless Ganir had lied about that too. But if he hadn’t, and if the Council was not involved, then who had been following Blaise that day? Thinking about it, Blaise decided that it could just as easily have been one of Ganir’s spies; the old sorcerer was famous for having his tentacles everywhere.

Ganir clearly had some plans for Gala—that much was obvious to Blaise. The Council Leader was far from a fool; he, more than most, would see the potential in an intelligent magical object that had assumed human shape. Of course, Blaise had no intention of letting Gala become Ganir’s tool. No matter what Blaise himself had intended for her originally, she was a person, and he needed to make sure she was treated as such.

Walking back to his study, he sat down at his desk, trying to figure out what to do next. If the Council didn’t know about Gala, then there was still some time. Somehow Blaise had to get to her without leading Ganir there. His experiments with the Spell Realm were clearly not the answer; it would take too long to perfect something so complicated.

Blaise needed some way to evade whoever was watching his house.

Pondering the problem, he wondered if it would be possible to increase the speed of his chaise. If he could go significantly faster than his pursuer, then he could outrun the spy and collect Gala before anyone caught up to them.

Suddenly, a crazy idea occurred to him. What if, instead of flying, he teleported himself part of the way? If the teleportation was over a sufficiently short distance, it would be significantly safer, reducing the odds of materializing someplace unexpected. In fact, he could always teleport to a spot that he could see with enhanced vision—and from there, he could do it again and again. This would make the trip significantly shorter in length, and make him impossible to track.

The only problem would be the complexity of the code he would need to write—but Blaise was up for the challenge.





Chapter 37: Barson


Walking into Ganir’s chambers, Barson forced himself to keep his face expressionless.

“You summoned me?” He purposefully omitted any honorific due to the head of the Council—a subtle insult that he was sure Ganir would not miss.

“Barson.” Ganir inclined his head, foregoing Barson’s military title as well.