For all of the people who like to leave guesses with me: quite a few of you have been right all along, and this chapter moves into proving it.

Next chapter: Animal

The Emperor's Mage
Chapter Twenty-nine: Classic

Daine could feel the last of Alanna's spell fading, but she didn't say anything. The rest of the Tortallan delegation was listening to the proclamation from some judge that Ozorne had trotted out, and Alanna was already tense enough from the effort of not helping someone what deserved it. It went against every last part of Alanna's nature, and maybe that strain made it even easier for the Champion's spell to fade away. Some lasting piece might have helped her keep the cold numbness, where she barely felt anything and nothing of it burned like rage, but that was all for the best. She wasn't going to watch the execution and didn't care at all that it felt like the coward's way out.

Their ship was close, at least. She hadn't heard the particulars on just how quickly they all were leaving when the execution was over, but the second mate on their ship had a very cheerful parrot that was completely oblivious to the solemn birds near the amphitheater. Her mood was probably affecting the drab little ones that were disappointed to find nobody with snacks to drop on the ground, but that didn't explain that plover.

It was the same one that had been her room, she was sure, the blocky-bodied thing that didn't at all look like Ragi. The markings looked even less close to natural in the sunlight, and something about him just looked odd. She couldn't even see the copper fire in him, and she'd gotten practice enough to find the copper threads in the oatworms that the aviary birds loved as treats.

Daine frowned, narrowing her eyes as she concentrated. There wasn't a bit of copper at all in the bird, and his thoughts were much, much quieter than most birds would make them. What little parts she did hear sounded almost familiar, like she knew the voice but was hearing a different version of it.

If you listen hard and long, you can hear any of us, call any of us, that you want, Badger had told her once.

It wasn't supposed to matter if her eyes were open, and Alanna and Lindhall and even Jon had told her about not needing to close her eyes to do the stronger magics, but sometimes Daine liked to forget what the rest of the world was going to see. Her magic always seemed to do things that left Alanna and Lindhall and Jon at a loss, though, so she didn't know why they were so certain about the way that wild magic would work out.

With her eyes closed, she let little tendrils of copper spread out, all of them so thin and fine that they'd make a spider's thinnest silk look like yarn. Several found the little birds, one found a lizard contentedly dozing in the sunlight, one found a cat squirming indignantly as its person gripped its ruff too hard...and one found that plover, which wasn't a plover at all.

Daine felt the tiniest beginnings of a smile as she listened in on the plover's thoughts. It was fair rude to eavesdrop, of course, but she wasn't doing it to be nosy. She was waiting so that she wouldn't interrupt anything, and from the little display earlier and his hints before the judge and emperor started droning on, he'd expected her to realize what nobody else in Carthak would.

She heard the execution without opening her eyes. It would bother her if she saw her friend dead, by whatever means it was that the emperor had picked out. When she was picturing the world through her magic, with the murmurs of the People running through her, it was easy to ignore Ozorne's smug monologue. She felt the small pressure of claws as a very solid bird landed on her leg. She steadied him with her arms, unsurprised to feel the plover's exhaustion, and opened her eyes only when Alanna tapped her on the shoulder.

No one was at all surprised when Daine scooped a very docile plover up under her arm as she left. She looked to the center of the arena just once, and blanched at the sheer amount of blood. It wasn't a pleasant sight, at all, but it left her expression just right for when the Tortallan delegation had to stop. Ozorne had come to say farewell.