Jenna's eyes flew open. She was laying on a cot. Dalamar was sitting beside her.
"Congratulations, magi," he said gently. "You passed."
"I passed?" she repeated dazedly.
"Yes, and you're Lunitari's."
Jenna attempted to sit up, but Dalamar prevented this with a hand on her shoulder. "Easy, magi. You are not yet recovered. Take a few moments to realize where you are."
Jenna allowed her head to sink back into the pillow and closed her eyes. What was going on? She had been - Dalamar had been about to kill her. She opened her eyes again. The black-robed wizard seemed far less angry than he had...moments before? In fact, he looked pleased with her.
She began to take stock of her surroundings. She was inside a clean, simple room with white-washed walls. The light came from globes containing mage-fire. She realized that she was wearing a long red robe, not the trousers and tunic she had been wearing. She hadn't seen that robe since...since she had taken the Test.
"The Test! That was the Test?"
"Yes, and you did quite well. What can you remember?"
"I - well, you were quite angry with me." Dalamar smiled at that. "I killed men. I took lives." A thought struck her. "But that happened in the Test, which means I don't truly have blood on my conscience, do I?"
"What does your heart tell you?"
Jenna took a deep breath. "That I am a murderer, that I am capable of killing..."
"In service to Wayreth," the wizard added. "We have need of mages such as you. You will learn to live with the guilt in time."
"At least I saved the boy." But as she said that, doubt assailed her, and a dark fear clenched her stomach.
"Did you, now?"
Memories suddenly came flooding back, threatening to overwhelm Jenna. The boy was dead at Dalamar's hand. Jenna had been no more than fifteen herself at the time. She had been in that tavern, but crouched in a corner. She had not taken part in the fight. When Dalamar began to torture the boy, Jenna fled.
She had been to that village before. The massacre of mages had occured, but it was not only Qualinesti who had died.
Katyana. Her own foster-sister had been among the missing. Not only Dalamar, but Dunbar and Jenna's own father had set out to discover what had happened. Jenna had gone out on her own, driven by concern and wilfulness. It was she who had first discovered the severed arm, and her scream that alerted the three wizards. And it had been Jenna, again on her own, who had tracked the murderers to that cursed tavern. But she'd had no powerful spells at her command then, and could not fight the mercenaries. It had been Dalamar who found her and saved her, and Dalamar who had slaughtered those men before her eyes.
It was on that day that the friendship of Justarius and Dalamar died.
It had been a tramatic time for all in Wayreth, but Dalamar and Jenna had borne the brunt of it. Why had the wizard chosed that episode to revisit in her Test? Her right hand strayed to the necklace she wore, Katyana's necklace which had been her coming of age gift from Justarius, and which Dunbar had found amidst the bodies to give to Jenna as a remembrance of her friend.
Dalamar took her left hand in his, and the sorceress noted the unspoken compassion in his eyes. He had suffered as well.
Jenna sat up, and Dalamar rose to allow her to swing her legs over the side of the cot. She still felt quite disoriented, but it was time to face the world.
"About my earlier defiance - " the mage of Lunitari began.
Dalamar waved away her attempted apology. "It was part of the Test. I take no offence. Besides," he continued with a slight smile, "I fared better than I could have. In my own Test, I killed Ladonna."
"You didn't!" said a shocked Jenna.
"Oh, yes. Ladonna was quite amused." He sighed ruefully. "And she never let me live it down."
It was unusual for mages to share details of their Test. Jenna knew that Dalamar had presented her with a rare gift. Who was this man, so capable of compassion and cruelty, wisdom and ruthlessness, who now knew her to the depths of her soul?
At that moment the door opened, and in came her parents. The normally imperturbable Justarius was visibly anxious until he saw Jenna alive and whole.
"She survived, Justarius," Dalamar said quietly. "She is one of us, and confirmed in your order."
With tears in his eyes, the Head of the Conclave opened his arms and the sorceress ran to her father. Though she had always been closer to her mother, Jenna and Justarius now shared a bond that no one who had not been Tested could understand. When she turned to embrace Melora, she was not aware of the new distance between them, or that her mother had always known that once Jenna took the Test, regardless of the outcome, she would be lost to Melora.
Dunbar came in then, and kissed Jenna on both cheeks, congratulating her. "I'll be setting sail from Ergoth in a week's time..."
"Jenna Deleon will need at least a month to recover and is excused from all duties as well as her studies for that time," Dalamar interjected.
"Of course," Dunbar responded curtly. "As I was saying, I set sail in a week, and winter is no time to be learning shipboard life. If it is agreeable to you, apprentice, I'd like to begin your training next spring.
"Yes, of course, Master Dunbar," answered Jenna. "It shall be as you say." Jenna had forgotten that she was an apprentice now. She did not look forward to living aboard Master Dunbar's "Floating Tower," as his boat was called, for two years. However, as she had survived the Test, she knew she could survive anything.
"Do not linger at sea overlong, my friend," Dalamar cautioned Dunbar. "You do not want to risk breaking contract with such a promising apprentice."
"I know my business," growled Dunbar. "And I would remind you, old friend, that is is me to whom this 'promising apprentice' is contracted."
Were the two wizards fighting for the privilege of training her? Well, that was flattering, and it gave the sorceress much to ponder.
But not now. Jenna was extremely fatigued, and felt as if she could barely stand. Her mother saw her wavering and put an arm about her to support her. Jenna gratefully leaned back against Melora.
"Gentlemen," Melora broke in sharply. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take care of my daughter."
"Of course, my lady," answered a contrite Dunbar.
"Forgive me, my lady," Dalamar responded. Looking at Jenna, he said, "I congratulate you again on your success, young magi. Go and celebrate with your family."
"Thank you, my lord," she said, and her gratitude was for far more than his kind words.
Then her parents were ushering her out of the room. She was content to bask in her triumph and allow her parents to take care of her for now. For now.