“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “We have to ‘keep up appearances’ and remember the dignity of your position.”
“It isn’t about keeping up appearances,” Iannis said. “It’s about learning to rule with a steady hand. You can’t let your feathers get ruffled every time someone makes a snide remark about you, Sunaya. If I did that, I would have blown the palace to smithereens a dozen times by now.”
I scoffed. “Give me a break, Iannis. Nobody makes snide remarks behind your back. All the mages love you.”
Iannis’s eyes narrowed. “Really? You think that all my staff are pictures of adoration at all times? That they never balk at my orders, or give me the side-eye when they think I’m not looking?”
“Maybe they do,” I shot back, “but at least they respect your abilities. They don’t consider you a weakling or a savage, and they certainly don’t think that you don’t belong.”
Iannis sighed. Silence stretched in the carriage, and for a minute, I thought he wasn’t going to respond. But then he said, “I do understand how hard it is for you. I might not have to deal with prejudice now, but I did in my far-off youth, and I didn’t like it any more than you do now.”
“You?” I stared at him. “But you were born into a mage family.”
“Not a pure-bred one,” he reminded me. “The Tua look down on all humans, mage or not. In their eyes, I was a bug not even worthy of being squashed.”
“Oh.” I blinked—Iannis almost never brought up his Tua heritage. The Tua were a mythical, powerful race of beings who existed on another dimension entirely, though they had been known to come to Recca every once in a while, and had inspired many legends. They were so powerful that humans didn’t stand a chance against their magic, and whether an encounter turned out well or badly depended entirely on the Tua’s whim. Manuc, the island country where Iannis had been born, seemed to be their favored spot in our world. But as far as I knew, even there Tua sightings were extremely rare.
“I didn’t realize you interacted with them, other than your mother, I mean.” Iannis’s mother was half-Tua, and the source of his extraordinary purple eyes as well as his unusual magical power and longer than normal lifespan. “Have you ever been to the Tua realm?” According to all the stories I’d ever heard, humans who were carried off to that other dimension didn’t return, at least not in the same century. But then, stories could be misleading, especially since, in this case, there weren’t any first-hand accounts.
“I was taken there once, when I was very small,” Iannis said, surprising me. “I must have been about five or six, and small for my age, as the Tua blood made me slow to mature.”
“What was it like?”
He was silent for a moment, contemplating. “Very strange. For a young child, difficult to take in—everything was so huge, the colors were off, the animals seemed bigger and deadlier. It was both beautiful and terrifying, and gave me nightmares for years after, even though I only stayed for less than a day.”
“What were you doing there?” I couldn’t imagine why any parent would think it was a good idea to take a young child to a different, and not to mention dangerous, dimension.
“My mother went there to present me to our kin, on my grandmother’s orders. But their clan head disapproved, we found, and told Mother to never bring me back. They said that I would not be able to survive the dangers, and they had no desire to be saddled with such a fragile, vulnerable burden.” His expression was rueful, but I could imagine how he must have resented that verdict, even as a young child.
I snorted. “Burden, my ass,” I said. “If only they could see you now.”
Iannis shrugged. “The Tua have very little interest in our governments or countries,” he said. “They would not find me impressive unless I ruled the entire world, and I have no intention of doing so.”
“You better not,” I warned. “I do want to see you sometimes.”
Iannis laughed, kissing my forehead. We sat for a while in companionable silence, but eventually my mind began to drift again. I felt guilty for snapping at Iannis earlier—yes, I had to deal with some ragging, but didn’t everyone when they were the new kid on the block? Once we were married, and my apprenticeship was officially completed, all that would die down. People in powerful positions always had to deal with criticism of some kind or another.
The problem was, I had never aspired to a powerful position or spending time in mage high society. I’d only ever wanted to be an enforcer, to serve justice to those who needed it and protect the less fortunate. That was why reforming the Enforcers Guild was one of the first projects I’d taken on, in addition to helping with the rebuilding and relief efforts after the big quake.
On top of all that, I was still in charge of testing schoolchildren for magical abilities—another round of testing was due in the fall, just a few weeks after the wedding. That was always an emotional time for the families and children concerned. I suspected that by winter we’d need a full school, perhaps a boarding school, for the talents we identified state-wide. Yet another job I’d have to supervise myself if I wanted it done right. It turned out that once I got past the annoyance of having to deal with multiple people, I was good at organizing and directing. At first, the mages who had been assigned to work with me didn’t know how to react, but now that I’d begun to prove myself as a leader, everyone seemed to expect so much of me.
There were times that I wanted to tear off the fancy clothes and howl, to shift and run in my beast form and escape the endless formalities and duties. But I hated the idea of disappointing Iannis, not to mention everyone else who supported me. Shiftertown hailed me as a hero now—something else I was still trying to get used to—and Nelia, my secretary, sorted through endless piles of fan mail that came in from all over the country. I wondered if I would ever get used to all of this, if it would just seamlessly become part of my ever-changing life.
“Is everything all right?” Iannis asked, noticing my pensive mood.
I shook my head. “It’s nothing.”
He slid an arm around me, pulling me tight against him. “It’s more than nothing. You look like you’ve been carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
I laughed a little. “Sometimes I feel like I am.” I nuzzled his neck, taking in a deep breath of his sandalwood and magic scent. “I don’t mean to complain, I really don’t. You deal with ten times the amount of work I do, and you never whine about any of it.”