Page 40 of The Tribes of Magic
“You aren’t one of us!” They’d chanted that over and over again as they carried me away. “You don’t deserve to be here!”
Then they tossed me into the ocean and told me to swim back to Bayshore, my hometown on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
I’d been swimming for over a day when an ugly sea monster with way too many eyes shot toward me like a tentacle tornado and tried to turn me into a deep sea snack.
I woke up screaming and drenched in sweat.
I guess reading weird, mysterious magic books just before bed wasn’t the best idea after all. I’d spent hours hunting down the special magic-boosting spell Mistress Meeta claimed was somewhere in the Paragons’ spellbook. But if it was, I sure hadn’t found it. Granted, there was still so much of the book to read through. The Paragons’ spellbook wasnotlight reading. All the spells were so long, so complex, so full of cryptic diagrams and long-winded descriptions. Each spell took forever to figure out.
“Today, when the Court convenes to debate the future of Gaia, it is Princess Lyssa who will speak for the vampire kingdom.”
The news on the TV played a video of the vampire princess I’d seen at the Summit yesterday. Princess Lyssa gave a graceful little wave to the camera.
Appreciation flashed in Dante’s eyes. “She’s cute.”
“Yeah, if you like the glamorous, gorgeous type,” I sighed.
The vampire princess was my age, but she looked so elegant and perfect in her pretty gown and sparkling crown. And as for me…well, in just two short weeks, I’d already managed toget holes inallof my boring black Apprentice uniforms. In my defense, though, I’d been attacked by a lot of weirdos in those two weeks.
“It is with a heavy heart that I take on my mother’s mantle,” Princess Lyssa declared on the screen. “I will not stop until I expose the villain who murdered Queen Seriana and Prince Fenris. I will not rest until they pay for what they did to my family.”
The reporter turned to face the camera. “Princess Lyssa’s ascension comes at the expense of her older brother Prince Wyxl. No one knows for sure why Prince Wyxl wasn’t chosen, but there are whispers he was passed over for leader due to his unfortunate habit of biting people.”
“These Court people are so weird!” Dante said in delight.
The news switched to an interview with some Gaian Government official.
“Hey, who is that guy?” I asked. “I think I’ve seen him before.”
“Some senator.” Nevada frowned. “Senator Gaines, I think his name is.”
“I did not attend the Summit yesterday,” the senator said on TV. “But I did, of course, hear about the fallout caused by General Lynch’s poor handling of the entire situation. Prince Fenris was right about one thing: Gaia doesn’t have its house in order. And that is entirely thanks to the Iron Wolf.”
“Ooh, I like him!” I turned up the volume on the TV.
“I have been raising the alarm about the General for quite some time, but thus far, I’ve been summarily dismissed,” Senator Gaines continued. “The General has simply been given far too much power. He’s gobbled up all the juiciest morsels. He is in charge of both the Black Obeliskandthe Castle. And why? Because he has friends in high places, including the President himself! But the Gaian Government is not a fraternity, and wedo not rule by nepotism. It is time for a change! The General is incompetent. That should be clear to everyone now. Where were his security forces when two members of the Court were murdered right in front of everyone? If the General had done his job, Queen Seriana and Prince Fenris would still be alive now.”
“Much as I dislike the General, what this guy’s saying isn’t really fair,” I said. “There were vampire guards all around Queen Seriana and Prince Fenris, and they couldn’t stop what happened either.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean the vampires—and the rest of the Court, for that matter—aren’t blaming us for what happened,” Dante said. “According to the Many Realms News Network, this is the first time in forever that Court delegates were murdered during a summit, and it happened here, on our world, while the General was in charge of security.”
Dante was right, of course, but I got the feeling that the senator’s attack was more about politics than about doing the right thing.
“The Court is watching us very closely now, analyzing every move that we make, trying to decide whether we should be invited to join their ranks,” Senator Gaines proclaimed. “We need to send a message. Astrongmessage.”
“Such as?” the interviewer prompted him.
“At the very least, we need to replace him as the head of the Castle, effective immediately. He never should have been given that responsibility in the first place. He has no capacity to handle either magic or children. The Knights don’t trust him. If they did, a bunch of them wouldn’t have rebelled last year. He lost control over those Knights, and now Gaia has fewer heroes to protect us from the Curse.”
“If the General were replaced, who do you suggest as an alternative?”
“Someone who actually knows how to talk to children. Someone who can gain their trust and respect their abilities. Certainly not someone whose picture is used as target practice in the Knights’ rec room.”
“Whoa,” I gasped. “Is that true?”
Dante shrugged. “Beats me. I’ve heard rumors, but that’s all. Apparently, the General’s had the rec room searched dozens of times, but he’s never found a shred of evidence.”
Of course he hadn’t. There were a lot of ways to use magic to hide things. And if you didn’t have any magic yourself, you’d never find them.
