At the risk of making Varice unpopular all over again: Daine and Arram are not close to beginning a physical relationship or to falling in love. She is sixteen. He's thirty, and is in a relationship with Varice Kingsford, however casual it may be. Daine hasn't even known him for a month yet. Do they have a future possibility? Maybe, but there won't be any romantic fluff between them any time soon.

Next chapter: Guess

The Emperor's Mage
Chapter Fifteen: Quake

Daine was practically bouncing as she made her way to the aviary. Badger was always cryptic and foreboding and worried, so there was no use getting worked up about the latest warning. All of his previous advice had worked out just fine, and telling Alanna and Onua about the madness was far worse than getting Arram to answer just one question. She could see the copper threading through every animal she passed, and when she walked through the aviary's doors her mood spread to the birds nearly instantly.

They sang all at once as they flew around and around her, and she finally had to shoo away her brightly-colored cyclone of birds so that she'd be able to move without hitting someone. Ragi was there, looking very defiant as he pulled a few of her curls out of place.

Daine rolled her eyes as she stroked the nuisance's neck. He was a very fetching bird, with all of the gray and white and black plumage, but he was far too bulky to perch properly on her shoulder. "I'll visit with you tomorrow, silly bird." She could speak to him with just her mind, but it seemed rude when Arram was just ten feet away. "Thank you for coming to say hello."

Ragi drew himself up proudly and tugged at a curl one last time before flying for the window.

"I can still see the wild magic, Arram!" Daine had almost expected him to say hello first, but maybe he was just waiting for her to be done speaking with all the birds. He was polite like that. "You were right about the sleeping, though. I haven't been under that deep for a while."

She didn't realize that her hand automatically went to the badger claw that always hung around her neck, attached to a silver chain by wire fastenings secured by magic.

He was still struggling for a reply when she sidled over, stopping only when she was close enough to find the shadows under his eyes. "You're upset over something," Daine said quietly, regretting her rather exuberant welcome. "I'm much better with animal emotions than with two-leggers."

"It's nothing." That was clearly a lie, with the way that his mouth thinned to a line, but she waited. "I don't know what shape I am in to give a lesson."

Badger had said to get one question answered. She wouldn't waste it on silly details, when there were so many things that she wanted to know. "You don't need to be giving a full lesson like that every time," Daine said. He was so tense that the decision was made for her. She took his elbow, just like she was leading some silly Rider trainee that was scared of horses, and led him to the bench they'd used before. "We can just talk. That'll be easier on you, I'd think."

"Perhaps."

Daine thought he probably needed hugging more than anything, but most folk in Carthak had far too much dignity for that much honest emotion in one display. She'd been pushing enough by taking his elbow, but he'd sat with her and not fussed. "Sometimes it's better to have folk ask a question, when you don't know what to say. I know there are hundreds of things that I want to ask you."

Just as she thought, that made him sit a little taller, and even brought a little light back into his eyes. He was like Lindhall and Myles, then, and any hint of a puzzle or a debate would draw them out of any funk. "Ask away, then."

She could ask about her father, but it almost seemed selfish with so much else going on in the world. She hadn't been misleading when she said there were hundreds of things that she wanted to learn from this man, but dozens of them came back to one point. "Do you understand why I have this wild magic? I've never met anybody else with the same kind. Stefan at home can talk to horses a bit, but it's like... it's like they understand a little bit about what he says, but they don't say much at all back to him."

Arram nodded slowly. "Yes, I do, but it's... it is something that you should hear from a friend."

"You are a friend, Arram," she corrected with a smile. Carthaki folk really needn't be so formal, even if it was adorable when a simple declaration could make them look so shocked.

He nodded again, but after staring at her like he expected her to take it back. "Very well. There are some tribes that have strains of wild magic within them, such as the K'Mir and the Banjiku. There are the occasional people born with an unexpected strong bit of wild magic, or there are times when it will appear without contribution from either parent. I've seen all of those varieties before, and all of them together might have the wild magic within your left hand—every tribe, every practitioner, every talisman that they can link into the wild magic." He hadn't stood, but from the way he kept moving his feet it looked as if he wanted to pace.

He had a story-teller's voice, she thought absently, good enough that George would be jealous. George Cooper was the only other man that could raise the small hairs on the back of her neck with only words and stories that had to be about somebody else. The king hadn't gotten that reaction from her in a full year.

"Have you ever learned who your father was, Daine?"

She shook her head mutely. Every single little hair on the back of her neck was up, and gooseflesh ran down her arms at the power under Arram's words. She didn't see any of his magic, but she knew without asking that his emotions were strong enough to make it bubble over into everything.

"Your mother would have met him on a feast-day of some kind—probably Beltane, that's when he's strongest."

Daine's eyes widened. She knew that fewer people than she had fingers knew that story, and none of them were the type to talk. "But—the only folk stronger on Beltane would be a..."

He waited, as if to let her finish, but the word had caught in her throat. He said it plainly, as if he were telling her just why the sky appeared blue to the eyes of so many animals, even when the single syllable shook everything that she had known. "God," he finished quietly. "I knew you were godborn from the instant that I saw you speak with a bird. You have more wild magic than any mortal on record, Daine."

Daine felt faint, and might have fallen right off of her lovely bench if his hands hadn't caught her shoulders. He wasn't dressed as plain as he usually was, for coming to the aviary, but he didn't have any rings on the fingers that had strong grips on her shoulders. He was wearing all black again, but he had some kind of brocaded vest-like thing that seemed to have chips of opal for the buttons.

It felt like only seconds passed, in a way, but she had watched the time passing as she tried to reconcile this new piece of information. "My da's a god?"

"Yes. Yes, he is, and he's both the protector and hunter of animals."

"Goddess," Daine whispered. "Little wonder I've always been good with a longbow, then, and that I could pick up a sling and hit most anything just days on." She rested one of her hands on Arram's wrist. He was still holding her shoulders, and she didn't want to lose the support just yet.

"I... had a dream," Arram said quietly. "I hate portents and fortunetelling, and the palace soothsayers gave up on me years ago, but I dreamed of a badger two nights ago. He said that you had a silver claw of his."

Daine obligingly tugged it from under her shirt, blushing that her charm to prevent pregnancy dangled just above it, but Arram didn't seem to notice the rune that sparked with Alanna's power.

"You're Weiryn's daughter."

Arram looked just as surprised as she was, which seemed odd, but she was studying the claw all over again. It would make sense, that a hunter-god would have a badger minding her, even if... well, maybe gods could only come around Beltane, and only then if he was looking for a pretty woman to bed. Her ma had watched her for thirteen years, and that was better than some would get. When she dropped the claw back behind her shirt, he dropped his arms to his sides.

"The badger came to me last night, as he's been minding me for the last three years. He meant to come earlier than three years back, but the Mortal Realms move much faster." Daine felt too calm, she thought, but it would help if she could fuss over all the new parts of her life later. "He said that I was to ask you a question, and that he couldn't tell me who my da was. It was supposed to be a lesson. I didn't think it'd end in me being a... Odd's bobs, I don't even know the word for it."

Daine thought that he might have some response, but Arram looked rather dangerously gray-tinged as stared into nothing. "Arram?" She shook his shoulder when he didn't respond, and the birds took up warning cries at her nervousness. "Arram!"

He looked at her, as if he hadn't been staring off to the distance for far too long, and somehow he looked calmer than before. He looked like he'd made some kind of decision. "You had me fair worried," she chided gently. "Are you alright?"

"Fine. Just... thinking, I suppose, about whether one good deed can undo previous damage. The likeliest term is 'demigod,' but 'demigoddess' may be more specific.'"

"I suspect you're not giving yourself enough credit, milord mage." She stood and gripped his forearm in both hands. She tugged him to his feet, managing only because he had cooperated. He probably was as tall as Sarge, even if he wasn't nearly so muscly. "You've done good things, too, and the animals like you. Just spend some time with them if people are really starting to get down on you, and start taking credit for all the things folk don't notice."

Something clicked, then, and his expression shifted. Daine smiled to herself when he stepped away, immediately starting to pace. She knew that look. It was when Roald mastered the new knife trick that George had been showing him, or when Myles found the tiny flaw in a report that could pull an entire conspiracy out of hiding by the hair. It was the way Alanna looked when she worked out some new twist on a spell, or Thayet when had a particularly neat bit of diplomacy to use, or when Sarge watched one of his trainees finally understand how to work with their horse during a trot.

Arram had an Idea, and nothing was going to distract him. Not even a demigoddess, she thought, and just the words made her feel queasy and unsteady.

"Thank you, Arram," she said, because her ma and Alanna always valued manners.

"You're quite welcome, Miss Sarrasri," he answered, without breaking stride.

Daine chuckled to herself as she left the aviary, but her good mood evaporated rather quickly. Her da was a god. Her da had sent some badger with silver claws to watch her while he hunted animals or protected them or whatever else it was that he did besides coming to see his daughter.

Her da was a god. Alanna had her ember to see magics, and George had the strongest Sight anybody'd heard tell of before.

She thought of the gardens, and the wide open spaces in the museum, and even of storming to Lindhall's room or Alanna's suite demanding answers. Instead, she quietly let herself into her room, and found Ragi waiting for her on the windowsill. She gathered the plover into her arms and let him tell her about flying. He was too big to perch comfortably on her shoulder, maybe, but he was just right when she needed somebody to hold onto.