The Will of the Empress Read Free Page A

teacher. Niko had interacted with Glaki when necessary, but it was Tris and Little Bear who had played with her, washed her, heard her lessons, and borne the results when Glaki’s first magic lessons did not go as planned.
    Tris would have found those adjustments hard enough. She had prepared for them all the way home. What she had not prepared for was the effect of a busy harbor city and a busy temple city on her ability to read images carried on the wind. When she had started out to learn it, Tris had been lucky to see any vision for more than a blink of an eye. In the two years of study she had put into it, Tris had only improved the clarity and duration of the images slightly, averaging one or two images per trial. Over the long weeks of her voyage north, constant practice and fewer images to sort through had left Tris open. A flood of far sharper visions assaulted her as their vessel entered Summersea harbor. She had felt the kiss of the ship against the dock while she vomited over the rail. Glaki and the dog had to help her off. Now Tris walked behind the luggage cart, using it as a wind and image barrier, to keep her unhappy stomach from rebelling anymore.
    Tris did not look like someone who had already mastered magics that had defeated older, more experienced mages. A short, plump redhead, Tris wore a variety of braids coiled in a heavy silk net pinned at the back of her head. Only two thin braids were allowed to swing free, framing a face that was sharp-featured, long-nosed, and obstinate. Next to her hair, her storm gray eyes were her most attractive feature. Today she hid them behind dark blue tinted spectacles that cut the flood of pictures riding every draft. She was pale-skinned and lightly freckled, dressed for summer in a gray gown and dusty, well-worn boots. On her shoulder rode some kind of glass creature that sat on its hind feet, one delicate forepaw clutching one of her braids.
    “Don’t hold on so tight,” Tris told the creature in a whispered croak. Her throat was raw from constant nausea. It had taken her three days in bed to keep her improved magical skill from making her sick. “They’ll love you. Everyone loves you. At least, they’ll love you if you don’t go around eating their expensive powders and things.”
    The glass creature unfolded shimmering wings to balance, revealing itself to be a glass dragon. It voiced a chinking sound like the ring of pure crystal.
    “No, you hardly ever mean it,” replied Tris. While she couldn’t exactly understand the creature she had named Chime, they’d had this conversation before. “But you always eat anything that looks like it might color your flames, and then you vomit most of it up.”
    Though the luggage driver turned the cart through the gate of Number 6, Tris lagged behind, feeling anxious about seeing her sisters again. Just remember all those southern mages who found out I could see a little, or hear a little, on the winds, she reminded herself. How they acted as if I had stolen something from them—as if I would steal! How they kept saying I thought myself better than them, when I was trying not to throw up from the headaches. How they started hiding their notes and closing their doors as I came by. Do I want Sandry and Daja to change like that on me? Do I want them deciding I think I’m better than they are, just because I can do a special trick?
    It wasn’t so bad when I started out, she thought, forcing herself to go through that gate. When people didn’t know. But then it got out that time I knew Glaki had fallen and broken her arm. After that they all decided I was going to lord it over them.
    She looked at the house. Two young women, one black, one white, were coming toward her. One was in a smith’s apron; one was dressed like a noble. Both were wearing smiles as uncertain as the one on Tris’s mouth. Tris halted, frowning. For a moment these two were strangers, smooth and polished creatures who moved as if they were sure of