A/N2: Thank you so so much to Ro for editing and supporting me through all the things.
A/N3: Originally posted as a drabble on Tumblr, below is the prologue, reworked a touch and actually edited this time around.
A/N4: Yes. ANOTHER WIP from me. If you've followed me, you understand. This is something I do.
A/N5: Also, the premise of this is heavily influenced/inspired by Uprooted by Naomi Novik.
Warnings: angst, language, violence, sex, magic, drug use
Pairings: 6x3 is the main pairing. Will update side pairings as needed.
Chosen
Prologue
It wasn't quite a sacrifice; it wasn't even really an offering.
It was... a trade.
A bargain between the guild and the all-powerful war mage who kept the port city of Mercansia safe from pirates and invading lords.
The mage could, and frequently did, take what he wanted. Who he wanted.
But, there were some needs that had to be anticipated, some needs that the guild met out of necessity, rather than the whim of the mage.
Mercansia was far to the north, so far north that the Royal Court hadn't bothered to progress through the territory in decades, and even emissaries were rare. So far north that Lord Khushrenada could and did rule with the full authority of a man who knew his liege would never bother to inspect the lands he had been charged with protecting.
So far north that most of the wealthy merchants and minor gentry spent their winters in the south, or sent their children off to be educated and married to southerners as soon as they could walk.
Mercansia was a harsh land, with harsh weather, harsh laws, and harsh bargains.
The guild was small, the archmage old, nearly spell-blind and dry, and the small contingent of masters who lived in the guild hall were no better.
None of the guild mages had fought in epic battles, none had saved King or Queen or kingdom. It was likely none had even seen the southern sea.
Whenever an apprentice or journeyman showed any inkling of talent, of power at all, they usually bargained their way into the retinue of a visiting lord or merchant and fled Mercansia and the crumbling guild hall.
No mage worth his salt - and Mercansia, at the very least, knew well the value of salt - would stay in such a barren land.
Coaxing magic from the frozen earth was as impossible as coaxing a virgin outside for a midnight fuck in the winter.
It was a favorite curse of the master mages, an excuse for why their craft was nearly dead, the reason why their workings flickered like embers on their last breath.
It was why the war mage was able to take what he wanted.
Why the bargain existed in the first place.
Mercansia needed him, and the war mage...
Need wasn't the right word. Wanted. He wanted his due.
Any mage worth his salt fled Mercansia. Not just to learn and thrive and find magic, but because any mage worth their salt was given to the war mage.
Apprentices as young as six - still lisping through their first workings - were handed over if they showed even the whisper of ability to do more than standard wards or cantrips.
It was rare, though, that any apprentice or journeyman had enough power to interest the war mage.
It had been fifteen years since he had last taken someone, a witch of fierce anger who had been able to melt the show with merely a glance.
And in fifteen years, no one had heard of her or from her or seen her again.
She, like all of the rest, had vanished.
He eats them - drinks their blood,steals their core. The rumors in the guild hall were wild, twisted by centuries of fear.
No one knew why the war mage took them, and no one knew what he did with his... offerings.
But every year the harbor ice crumbled and allowed in spring trading, and every year the late fall winds prevented raiders from reaching Mercansia, and no plague had ever ravaged their lands, no armies had ever scaled the eastern pass.
So what the war mage wanted, he got.
Until now.
Until Trowa Barton, the sneering son of Mercansia's richest merchant, twenty-five and and finally invited to endure the trials to become a journeyman.
Until he stepped into the fiery blue ring of magic that seemed to drain the life from the archmage as he cast it, until Trowa Barton bent the flame around his fingers and the winds called out his name.
Everyone knew, in that moment, that the war mage would want him. The war mage would know. Would feel the stirring of power.
And the whispered winds would carry his name to the coastal fortress where the war mage resided.
Trowa, the winds would whisper. Take him. He is yours.
Except.
Except that very night, drunk with power and his own self-importance and too many glasses of hard cider, Trowa Barton had decided to bury his fear of the next day - his terror at the unknown life, or death, that the war mage would offer when he came to fetch the new journeyman.
And he had chosen the wrong ground to dig in.
Nanashi, the gardener's apprentice, the boy who never spoke, who never met the eyes of the mages who ordered him about and whose scarred hands and face made him both abhorrent and fascinating.
Trowa had attempted to woo the boy, had sent him gifts purchased with his family's coin and flicked illusions of clouds and spring breezes at him.
Nanashi had remained immune, uninterested, untouchable.
And Trowa... Trowa had discovered his strength in the ring of fire, and was now doomed to a fate literally unimaginable.
Nanashi remained unmoved, remained silent and unyielding when Trowa reached for him, when Trowa sobbed out the misery of his fate. Nanashi shoved away his groping his hands, scowled at his desperate pleas for solace. When Trowa threatened, when he crowded the slight boy against his pallet and jerked at his worn clothing, Nanashi's face went still and dead.
Fear, desperation - rage - welled up inside Trowa and poured out, flames licking his skin and illuminating the scars on Nanashi's face, usually so well-hidden by the fall of his hair.
And Nanashi - he stared at the fire dancing over Trowa and he refused to be impressed, refused to be intimidated.
He reached out, flicked one long, scarred finger against Trowa's palm, as if he were lighting a match, and Trowa was consumed.
The archmage and his favorite apprentice, a beautiful boy who could manage no more than a burst of growth magic before collapsing, found Trowa as they wandered the empty halls hours later.
The war mage was already in the guild hall, the wind-whispered name of Trowa Barton flowing from his cruel lips, and his gloved hands impatiently curling in a summoning spell that failed.
The war mage crackled with fury, his moon-gold hair lifting and twirling about him in his rage, held down only by the silver hood he wore, and the archmage could only stutter, could only see the imminent disaster of the war mage abandoning Mercansia to the forces of man, nature and magic and-
Nanashi stepped forward, Trowa Barton's fur-trimmed cloak around his shoulders, and glared up at the war mage.
"I am Trowa Barton."
The lie was unbelievably bold.
The war mage's lips curled into a sneer, but Nanashi didn't wilt, didn't lower his gaze or his chin.
"Then you are mine," the war mage snarled. He thrust a hand into the space between them, gloved fingers calling on the icy magic beneath their feet.
Nanashi bowed his head over the hand, pressed his lips to the covered flesh, and bit down.
The war mage roared, shocked and furious, and grabbed Nanashi by the back of his head.
"You insolent fool!"
He dragged Nanashi from the guild hall, into the snow, and threw him to the ground.
The archmage stumbled out to watch.
He saw the war mage clutch his wounded hand to his chest and the raise the other.
A whirlwind of snow and ice surrounded first the war mage and then Nanashi, growing higher and fiercer and whistling with force until-
It faded away, leaving nothing behind but an icy gust. Not even the footprints of the war mage or Nanashi remained.
The archmage tottered back into the hall, allowed his favorite apprentice to lead him to a chair, and he wondered just how long it would be before the war mage sought vengeance for the terrible trick of fate that Nanashi had wrought.
-o-