Arson of the Heart Read online

  Arson of the Heart

  By Sasha L. Miller

  Published by Less Than Three Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

  Edited by Samantha Derr

  Cover art provided by Megan Derr

  This book is a work of fiction and as such all characters and situations are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is coincidental.

  Electronic edition April 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Sasha L. Miller

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-1-936202-21-8

  Arson of the Heart

  Sasha L. Miller

  Toma hurried through the night, dragging his thick cloak tightly around him as he ducked through the shadows cast by the widely spaced lanterns. He could extinguish them easily, but that would draw too much attention and he was doing his best to be sneaky.

  Not that he thought he was succeeding. Epsen was too smart; no doubt he knew exactly where Toma was and would catch him at the last possible second, to prolong the agony.

  Stifling a hearty sigh, Toma ducked into a dark, smelly alleyway, ignoring thoughts of what might be causing the rank smell. Leaning against the wall, he forced himself to calm down and catch his breath.

  A soft scuff of boot was his only warning, and then heavy hands settled on Toma's shoulders, dragging him away from the wall. Toma yelped, startled at the sudden movement, and barely resisted the impulse to catch the man's clothes on fire.

  It was a good thing he had resisted, because this was not Epsen, who could withstand such an assault.

  "Let go—"

  "Hush, now," the man hissed at him, his voice deep and amused. Toma tried to jerk away, but the man's grip was too strong.

  "Let go," Toma repeated, nailing his assailant with a well-placed kick to the shin. Twisting away, he ran right back into the wall, but he didn't pause, pushing off the brick and ducking towards the opening of the alley. There was a reason you weren't supposed to go down dark, smelly alleys.

  He barely got two steps before he was grabbed again, from behind. The man was much stronger than he was, and Toma didn't even get a chance to yelp again before a broad hand was clamped over his mouth.

  A hand that smelled sweet, clean and flowery…like the standard-issue soap dispensed at the college baths. Toma stopped struggling, confused; if this was one of Epsen's cohorts, why was he not calling out that he'd caught Toma?

  "Gonna stay quiet now?" The man asked, his grip relaxing a little. He had one arm wrapped tightly around Toma's waist, pinning Toma against his broad body. The other arm was draped heavily over Toma's shoulder, hand clamped over Toma's mouth to keep him quiet.

  "Who?" Toma asked as the hand fell away. The man didn't release him though, holding him rather intimately close.

  "A friend," the man said, chuckling softly. "Don't run off now, we've still got to get you those last five blocks to the rendezvous point."

  "How do you know that?" Toma asked suspiciously, wondering if this was another trick of Epsen's.

  "Heard that brat talking about it." The man shrugged, loosening his grip on Toma's waist. "Come on, let's get you there and have done with this nonsense."

  Toma made a protesting noise, struggling out of the lax grip. "It's a requirement—"

  "Oh, it is not," the man dismissed, and Toma gasped as a sudden, sharp chill fell over him. The air around them darkened, and Toma's eyes widened in shock.

  "A shadow mage?" Toma asked weakly—there were only three of them at the college, so that narrowed down the who rather drastically. Especially as the other two shadow mages were female students. Which meant he was currently in the company of none other than Professor Lajos Misyk.

  "I can keep them from seeing us, but not from hearing you," Lajos said with good humor, and Toma flushed deeply, shutting his mouth with a click. "Come on then."

  Toma nodded, ducking his head and letting Lajos lead him from the alleyway. Lajos reached out and grabbed his wrist in a loose grip—more guiding than restraining—and pulled him into the dimly lit street.

  It was odd, looking out from the sphere of darkness. Everything was muted, dimmer, and in the night air, harder to see. Toma stumbled over the uneven pavement more than once as they made their way towards the designated rendezvous point. Lajos seemed to have no trouble, just steadied Toma wordlessly whenever he tripped.

  A few minutes of walking and they were there. The straw dummy was set up in the center of the clearing—but also in the middle of a giant water fountain. Toma's heart sank a little—it was obviously soaked through, which meant it would take no ordinary firespell to set it alight.

  Epsen was waiting. He hadn't seen them yet, lounging unconcernedly at the fountain's edge. He looked bored and a little smug—as well he might be. The dummy Toma was supposed to burn to ash was sopping wet, and in no way fit to be fired.

  It was cheap and it was cheating and Toma was utterly sick to death of such tricks. Epsen and his cohorts were complete and utter bastards, never playing fair and always, always deriding him and thinking less of him because he was from out-country. Scowling, Toma narrowed his eyes and tugged at his wrist where it was still caught in Lajos's grip.

  Lajos didn't let go, and the courtyard was sufficiently bright for Toma to see the frown on his face.

  "Let go," Toma hissed angrily under his breath. What was it with these Marjans and their need to push everyone around?

  "Rigged," Lajos muttered, trying to draw him away. Toma dug in his heels, turning back towards the center of the clearing. Calling up the strongest, hottest fire he could, he flung the flickering, sky-blue flames at the dummy.

  It caught fire and incinerated immediately, a cloud of steam hissing to life as the dummy fell to ash. Epsen didn't even get a chance to turn and look before it was completely destroyed. The shadow spell slipped away from him as Lajos let go of his wrist—leaving Lajos still cloaked—and Toma took advantage of it to turn away from the clearing, fury making his blood run hot and fast.

  Epsen was spluttering behind him, but Toma paid him no mind. He'd met the challenge, he'd played Epsen's little game, and now he was done. Stalking back towards the college, Toma focused on not catching anything on fire accidentally and not at all on Epsen's games or the baffling behavior of one of the senior professors.

  *~*~*

  Letting himself into his room, Toma hissed, frustrated and angry and a little embarrassed. A professor had witnessed that spectacle and how very naïve he was. It didn't take a genius to realize that Epsen didn't like him, but Toma had foolishly thought that by playing his games he could win the other mage over.

  Taking off his cloak with quick, hurried movements, Toma stared around the tiny dormitory room. It didn't hold much, but then, it couldn't fit much. For furniture, there was a narrow bed with a decent mattress shoved into one corner, a desk, and a mostly uncomfortable chair. He had a small closet, only slightly wider than he was himself, with two drawers set into the bottom.

  It wasn't much, but it didn't have to be. Toma hadn't brought a lot with him when he'd come here to learn last year. He was, however, accumulating quite a collection of books. The older books were arrayed beneath his bed, lined up in a neat row. He kept the newer ones stacked up around the room by subject.

  Toma didn't know how he was going to get them all home, but he didn't have to worry about that for another six weeks. And then only if he passed the examinations.

  Scowling, too wound up to sleep, Toma fished out the crystal wand he used for spellcasting—proper fire spells, rather than just conjuring flames. He could do another practice run
on the spell he would showcase for the exams. That would calm him down, or at least run him out of energy so he could sleep.

  The exams consisted of two parts—a written exam and a practical exam. The written exam took five hours and covered everything from magical laws to magical theory to advanced spellcasting techniques. The practical exam was a demonstration of the skills learned during the four-year curriculum at the college, usually through difficult or sustained spellcasting.

  Taking a deep breath, Toma raised his wand and started the slow chant that began the spell. Silly, the chanting, but it was highly frowned upon here to cast without actually saying the spell. Never mind that it was only a tool to focus energy and only the weak minded allowed themselves to be distracted in the middle of a spell.

  A flare of yellow flame burst into existence in the center of the room, growing brighter and twisting itself into a lovely, crackling rosebud. Toma concentrated, speaking slowly to create a handful of yellow roses, then he created a handful of red roses and a handful of orange buds.

  Concentrating fiercely, Toma chanted out the turn of phrase to create stems and leaves, unsurprised when they turned out blue instead of green. Gritting his teeth, Toma fed more energy into the stems, making the flames flicker blue-green before turning a bright, vivid green.

  Smiling victoriously, Toma watched the bouquet burn for a moment before letting it flicker out of life. That was an improvement, but he really needed to make the green appear right away instead of forcing the flame there. Hopefully the practice he did in the next six weeks would get him there.

  Sagging as the flames died out, Toma decided he could sleep now. Creating green flames was no laughing matter—he just wished he could see Epsen's face when he did in front of the examination board. That would keep the bastard from bothering him, except that by then it wouldn't matter because the exams would be over.

  But he didn't really want anyone to know he could create green flames yet. It was bad enough that he could and did call up blue flames on a regular basis. Fire starters were common enough, but most of them could only call up the weakest flames—yellow and orange. More could create red, but blue wasn't common at all, and Toma had only met one other mage who could create green.

  Leaning on the desk chair, Toma tugged off his boots and surveyed the stacks of books awaiting his attention on the desk. Against his common sense, he picked up the topmost one and brought it to bed with him. Conjuring a small, bright flame to cast light on the pages, Toma curled up in bed and read until he fell asleep.

  *~*~*

  Lajos let himself into the lecture hall using the door in the back of the room. Professor Jacia didn't do more than raise an eyebrow at him, continuing to speak on the law code that defined the punishments for using magic in a malicious way.

  It didn't take Lajos long to spot the student he was looking for, his pen flying over his notebook as he took diligent notes. There were two thick books stacked beside him on the desk, and four more sitting on the floor by his chair. A bulging knapsack sat on the other side of his desk, and Lajos stifled a laugh.

  Surely carrying that many books should give Toma more upper arm strength than he displayed last night when he tried to break free of Lajos's grasp.

  The lecture was almost over, so Lajos just leaned against the back wall of the classroom and stayed quiet, to the discomfiture of the students nearest him. He noted they were first year students he had in one of his classes later this afternoon. Lajos just grinned at them whenever they snuck looks back at him.

  The whole situation was curious. Toma was a transfer student from the university in the heart of Kajal, in the last year of his studies before being granted the accolades necessary for him to practice magic. Lajos couldn't come up with a good reason for Toma to transfer when he was nine months and two semesters from graduating.

  Add to that the tangle he'd gotten into with that upstart Epsen, plus the fact that he was taking a double load of courses—a handful of first year courses and a handful of post-graduate courses plus the normal coursework for a final year student—and Lajos was curious.

  He'd heard the other professors talking about Toma, but it hadn't been until last week that he'd been pointed out to Lajos as he lugged an equally daunting load of books around. Lajos had been curious, especially since it seemed most every professor had encountered Toma at some point, and Lajos had had to ask to figure out who he was.

  Jacia dismissed the class, approaching Toma's desk—and really, he didn't understand why the rest of the staff was so amused by his curiosity about Toma. She kept him occupied while the rest of the class filed out. One anxious boy waited by the desk for a long moment, likely with a question for Jacia, but she didn't notice and the boy slipped out of the classroom after a quick, worried look at Lajos.

  Shaking his head ruefully, Lajos weaved his way through the desks to where Toma was scrawling something across the bottom of his notebook in quick, slanted script that was surprisingly neat for how quick he was writing.

  "Thank you, professor," Toma murmured, beginning to pack up his things as Jacia nodded cheerfully, winking briefly at Lajos as she returned to the podium to collect her notes.

  "Good afternoon," Lajos greeted Toma, leaning casually against the next desk over and making it squeak in protest. Toma dropped the book he'd picked up, his head snapping up as his cheeks flushed—in anger or embarrassment, Lajos wasn't sure.

  "Are you busy?" Lajos continued, not giving Toma a chance to do more than frown at him.

  "I have another class," Toma said stiffly, as though Lajos had tried to help Epsen instead of him with the games of intrigue they'd played last night. Toma stood, scooping up his bulging knapsack without hesitation, despite how much it had to weigh. Lajos moved quickly, scooping up the loose books from Toma's desk.

  "I'll escort you," Lajos said, amused at Toma's very evident frustration. He didn't want to talk to Lajos, for whatever reason.

  "It's not far," Toma said, but he shrugged the knapsack higher and moved around his desk with a gracefulness that Lajos hadn't seen last night. It had been rather dark, after all.

  Toma was just barely shorter than he was, but a good deal more lean. Lajos had nearly twice the width Toma did, but the lean, scrawny look fit Toma well. He had long legs and a trim waist, and Lajos really needed to stop ogling him, because he was a student. Never mind that he wasn't Lajos's student or that he had the fatal (for Lajos) combination of sunny blonde hair, pretty green eyes, and hints of a Kajal accent.

  "What do you want?" Toma asked, not quite rude as he opened the classroom door and stepped into the hallway. There were still students hanging around, since the next round of classes wouldn't start for half an hour. That included, Lajos noted, Epsen and a handful of his friends.

  "To talk to you," Lajos answered mildly, raising his eyebrow at the boys when they just stood there staring. "It's not often I run into anyone else from Kajal."

  Toma looked startled, the frown slipping from his face as he turned to look at Lajos properly. "You're from Kajal?"

  "Mm-hmm," Lajos hummed, smiling. "From the Radile sector."

  "You don't have an accent," Toma accused half-heartedly. "But why are you here if you're from Kajal? They only have one shadow mage professor at the university there."

  "Ah, but they didn't have any here," Lajos said, letting his sector accent creep into the words. "Also, I'm doing research on the different methods of spellcasting."

  "Please don't talk like that," Toma said, making a face. Lajos laughed, because of course Toma wouldn't like his sector accent. Toma's accent placed him firmly within the upper class Telior sector.

  "If you insist," Lajos said, grinning and resisting the urge to tease Toma about it.

  "I do," Toma said, wrinkling his nose adorably. "Why did you have to come here for research?" Toma paused, making a face. "I mean, why couldn't you do your research from Kajal's university?"

  "First-hand experience is important," Lajos replied, shrugging. "And surel
y you've noticed how differently they teach people to spellcast here."

  "I hate saying everything," Toma muttered, his steps slowing as they approached another lecture hall. "Are there other differences?"

  "Lots," Lajos confirmed, smiling because he could talk for hours about it, and Toma seemed interested. "Is this you?"

  "Yes," Toma admitted, frowning a little. "Thank you for the escort."

  "My pleasure," Lajos said, winking as he handed Toma the thick books he'd been carrying. "If you're interested in learning more, or just talking to another Kajal—even if I'm from Radile—stop by my office."

  "I…I will," Toma said, finally smiling a little. "I'm curious."

  "It's interesting, I promise," Lajos enticed. "Third floor of the faculty building, it's on the right, the fifth room from the center stairway."

  "I have a lot of classes—" Toma began, but Lajos cut him off.