Shadow Assassins (The Second Realm Trilogy) by Melissa Vazquez Page B

people were in fact nobles or that those dressed in rags were beggars. Everyone milled around, seemingly equal. There were even children in the same mix of clothes, playing with each other. Women sat around the fire, cooking over large, metal pots. Horses were tied to a sort of stable-area, with a trough of water below them. Each structure looked temporary, as if it was meant to be torn down and re-built at a moment’s notice. This was not a permanent settlement, she realized, but a band of nomads.
    The question was, where was she? This certainly didn’t look like a school or even a place of education to her. There were no studying children or scholarly looking people, just those who looked like they worked hard throughout the day, without break or time to study at all.
    “Ah, she awakens.”
    She peered up at the woman who was staring at her, realizing that this woman was the first voice she had heard speaking.
    “Don’t be afraid, child. Come out.”
    Encouraged by the oddly foreign form of English they were speaking, she stood up and out of the tent.
    “Do you understand me?”
    “Yes,” she said. At least, that’s what she heard herself say. The woman in the patchwork dress jerked back, startled, as if Kaydee had sprouted another head.
    “Mage speak!” the woman cried.
    There was a flurry of activity as other men and women surrounded her. There were all sorts of confusing questions and the magic translating the foreign tongues couldn’t keep up at first, giving Kaydee a confusing mix of foreign tongue and familiar words. Finally what emerged were repeated questions of, “Where did you come from, mage? Who is your teacher?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she cried. “Let me go!”
    She burst forth from the crowd of people and stumbled into a stand full of glass bottles and wooden trinkets. She recognized one of the bottles as what Dirk had held – a glass vial full of potion. Was this where he had gotten the potion from?
    “Mage!” a man shouted at her, as if that was her proper name.
    “What do you want from me?” she said, hating how weak her voice sounded.
    “Where do you come from, mage? Do you reside in a nearby village?”
    “N-no, I don’t, I’m not from around here!”
    She was hoping that the sudden outburst would get the people to back off from her, for them to realize that they were doing nothing more than scare her. She backed up against the stand of potions and trinkets once more, the glass bottles tinkering as she hit them, as if in protest. The men and women weren’t backing off from her as she had hoped. Instead, a few men pulled swords from their sides, the shiny metal glimmering in the campfire.
    Panic settled into Kaydee. She had never been the one to fight, leaving the three other Assassins to fight while she lagged behind, healing those who needed it. She wasn’t a great fighter but she could feel her own magic building. These people already suspected she had magic. She didn’t know what would happen if she used it, if they would fear her for it or attack her, but there was only one way to find out.
    Her concentration dipped down below her feet, to the ground below. She sifted through the dirt with her magic, looking for seedlings of life. Her magic influenced those seedlings to grow at an alarming rate, sprouting up out of the ground to form a wall of vines and ivy plant that separated her from the people threatening her.
    “Earth mage! This one is an earth mage!” the first woman she had heard shouted.
    The second woman she had shouted joined in the fray. “Sell her to Govoyan traders! She’ll be worth much more now!”
    Kaydee had no idea of what would happen if she was sold to a trader, but she didn’t want to stick around and find out. Her powers lashed out again, making the vines and ivy grow taller. If she had to destroy this entire campground to protect herself, she would do it. She heard the men on the opposite side of the wall trying to