The Fire Mages' Daughter Read Online Free

me search, or keeping the tutors occupied to give me more time. I suspected that one or two of the other tutors were furtively assisting me, too, when they could, by distracting Magister Abranda , or, once, actually pointing to one of the volumes lurking on a low shelf. It would have been an easy task if I could have searched the room at other times, or taken the books away to read, but perhaps that would also have spoiled the fun somewhat.
    I don’t suppose Magister Abranda intended it that way, but setting me such a challenge was exactly the right way to help me settle in. If I hadn’t burned with the desire to win the game, I would have been desperately unhappy for those first few moons at Kingswell. I’d never been so far from home before, or away for so long, and I missed my family with a passion. I even thought fondly of Markell and Sallorna, which shows how bad things were. Mother and Cal both wrote to me regularly, and several of Cal’s family, too, and I wrote back, filling sheet after sheet with trivial details that must have cost a fortune to send.
    Vhar-zhin was my saviour, a friend who listened uncomplainingly to every whiny rant of mine, and there were a lot of rants. She explained Keep customs to me, showed me the secret ways to get about or to hide, taught me how to manage the supercilious servants and often crept into my bed at night and hugged me when I cried myself to sleep. I don’t know what I’d have done without her.
    ~~~~~
    It was well into autumn when I finished reading the final volume. I went triumphantly to Magister Abranda. The whole room fell silent, a score of faces turned to watch, like sunroses following the sun.
    “And how many volumes did you find?” she asked sweetly.
    An easy question. “Nineteen, Magister.”
    “I think you will find that there are twenty volumes in the set, Lady Axandrina.”
    “That is correct, but the volume on languages and scripts is missing.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “If it is missing, how do you know what is in it?”
    “It is referenced more than once in the two volumes on societies and customs.”
    “Well, then, you still have one more book to read, I believe.”
    “But it is not in this room, Magister, and you only said that I had to read every volume that was in this room.”
    “How dare you answer back!” She caught her temper quickly, and gave me a sickly smile. “But I suppose we must make allowances for one with your background. The matter is closed. When you have read all twenty volumes, you may raise this subject again.”
    With a look of exultation, she turned away.
    I could hardly breathe. It was so unfair! But she was not likely to be swayed by tears or pleading. Perhaps there was another way?
    I cleared my throat, and said loudly, “I wish to appeal to a higher authority.”
    She turned back to me with a face like a storm-cloud. “Only criminals have that right.”
    “And petitioners, Magister. I am a petitioner whose petition has been denied. I claim the right of appeal to a higher authority.”
    “I believe that I am the highest authority there is, Lady Axandrina.”
    “Higher than the Drashona?”
    She laughed harshly, like a frog croaking. “You may appeal to the Drashona, for all the good it will do you.”
    So I decided I would do just that.
    All six of the Drashona’s legal children spent an hour with her most suns, after her afternoon duties were over and before she dashed off to prepare for some grand banquet or ceremony or other. She was always busy, but for that hour she made it seem as if she had all the time in the world for us.
    She would settle the three babies first, getting down on the floor to show them a game, or cuddling the littlest one on her knee. Then she would ask the three eldest what we’d been doing. We were almost the same age, the three of us, and had the same father, but we could hardly have been more different.
    Zandara, the Drashona’s own daughter, was always quick to recite a list of her