Bright Familiar by Jeffe Kennedy

~ 3 ~

She was ridiculously happy.

And it felt strange. She’d been miserable for so long. Grieving, really, ever since that black day she’d received her final MP scores that finalized the dreaded truth that she’d be forever relegated to being a familiar and never a wizard in her own right. Yes, she’d been determined to control whatever she could of her future, but those years had been powered by bitterness, anger, and a fair amount of dread over what sort of wizard would end up in possession of her. Then there’d been the last few weeks of storm-tossed ups and downs—the terror of flight, loneliness of leaving everyone behind, the chill of fear from her pursuers.

Then dealing with Gabriel himself, which was never straightforward. He made her laugh and want to weep. The way he made love to her had rattled her on a deep level, the intimacy of his regard shattering her careful poise. With a look, he could see right through her, never fooled by her cool posturing. She so desperately wanted to make him happy that a single sincere smile from her brooding wizard made her feel like the sun had burst out from behind clouds.

Worse, she didn’t even mind what that meant for her. The Fascination had been powerful enough that she hadn’t been able to face parting from him again once he’d found her in Wartson. With the bonding duly sealed, she felt finally settled and at peace. It was as if a low-level illness had finally relinquished its grip, leaving her filled with vitality and fresh with well-being.

She should probably fret about what this portended for her lack of autonomy, but she was too content. The old Nic had been so fretful and angry, exhausting herself while fighting the bonds of her fate. It was lovely and restful to give up that fruitless struggle.

Plus, starting the day ravishing Gabriel’s glorious physique would be enough to put even the dourest person in a perky mood. If she were a familiar from the romantic novels, songbirds would be circling her head, tweeting giddily. Lyndella had been like that when the wizard Sylus finally overcame her resistance and bonded her. She’d danced and sung around his castle, bringing him endless joy. Of course, Lyndella had been astonishingly beautiful, with a golden throat and a dancer’s body. If Nic were to emulate Lyndella, she’d only bring Gabriel wincing dismay with her lumbering and croaking. The mental image of him trying to come up with something kind to say had her choking back a laugh.

“It is a bit musty,” Gabriel said in an apologetic tone, opening the double doors at the end of a hallway on the main level.

She stepped in and surveyed the decidedly musty library. No bits about it. A grand room once upon a time, one large enough to hold several seating areas for reading and conversation, it was sadly lacking grandeur now. The seating areas gaped like missing teeth, the previous furniture no doubt ruined by long submersion. Alcoves set into generous bay window spaces likely once held cozy cushions for curling up on, but now the seats were only warped and peeling wood. The windows themselves had been boarded up with fresher-looking wood, rendering the room dim and the air quite stale. In the shadows, built-in shelves rose from floor to ceiling, holding thousands of books. Ladders made of brass gleamed dully, perched on wheels to be moved into position to access even the highest shelves.

A lone desk sat on a raised area near the one window that hadn’t been boarded over, the new-looking glass letting in welcome sunlight, though it didn’t penetrate far. Several ledgers sat atop the desk, accompanied by a quill and inkwell.

Gabriel stood back, an odd expression on his arresting face, hands tucked in his pockets as he watched her assessment.

“The books on the lower shelves were ruined?” she asked, noting how the bottom two shelves all around the room stood starkly empty.

“Yes. The house didn’t entirely sink,” he answered, raising one dark brow at her. “At least, this main section didn’t,” he amended. “But those books had rotted. Though I dried them out as carefully as I knew how, they simply crumbled to dust. And mold,” he added with a grimace.

She nodded, unsurprised. Truly, it was miraculous that he’d saved any of the books, let alone so many. Wandering to the lone glassed-in window, she tapped the low-quality glass and peered out at the view of the river, the same as from their room, which must be directly above. “And glass in only one window out of economy?”

“Glass is expensive,” he acknowledged ruefully, “and I prioritized having glass in our room, as I thought you’d be happier that way.”

Glancing at him in some bemusement, Nic considered again all the trouble he’d gone to in order to welcome the bride he’d imagined to be so willing. “How did you know I like to be able to see out?”

“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I just thought that if I’d been locked in a tower for several months with those metal shutters blocking the windows, I’d feel better having an unobstructed view.”

“Can’t have your valuable familiars flinging themselves to certain death,” she commented wryly. She had hated those shutters. Just another example of his uncanny ability to see through her that he’d noted it. “I suppose you purchased the glass from merchants?”

“Where else?”

“We’ll get a far better price negotiating directly with House Byssan.” She added setting up an account with them to her mental list. “Buying from a merchant easily doubles the cost, maybe more, way out here. Besides, Quinn Byssan is a good friend from my academy days.”

Gabriel looked interested at that. “Wizard?”

“Another familiar.” Not many of her friends who’d manifested as wizards had remained friendly after her final status had been announced. She understood. Wizards didn’t consort with familiars not their own outside of intimate family circles. It was considered bad form, as the taint lingered from the bad old days when wizards seduced away and even abducted attractively potent familiars. Showing too much interest in another wizard’s familiar led to tension between wizards, and tension between wizards led to apocalyptic battles that left only scorched earth behind. Hesitating, she glanced at Gabriel, who was studying her thoughtfully. “I’d like to invite Quinn to the wedding, if you don’t mind.”

His expression darkened. “What do I have to do to get you to stop asking permission from me like I’m your keeper?”

With a mental sigh, she refrained from reminding him that he was her actual keeper. “You could make it an order,” she suggested sweetly.

“Not funny, Nic.”

“Fine, then. I have a number of friends I plan to invite to the wedding, and I hope they eat you out of house and home.”

“Eat us out of house and home,” he corrected, smiling slightly. “And I think that would be wonderful. I look forward to meeting your friends.”

She winced at the prospect of Gabriel being his earnest self, chatting up her familiar friends like they were people and pissing off every wizard master in attendance. She would have to discuss etiquette with him, which could wait. Going to the desk, she opened the top ledger, peering at the carefully penned entries. A schoolboy’s handwriting, a clear indication of exactly where Gabriel’s rural education had ended. For some reason, the sight of it made her heart melt, imagining younger Gabriel determinedly taking on the duties of the lord of a house. To defuse the sentiment, she flicked the ink pot with a dubious finger, giving Gabriel a deliberately arch look. “I suppose there’s not an actual stylus to be had in all of Meresin?”

“Let me guess,” he replied. “House El-Adrel produces magical quills that don’t need to be dipped in ink.”

It was a good guess, despite the sarcasm. Gabriel possessed a sharp mind, more than making up for his lack of education and experience. “Close. Except that House Calliope holds a special exemption license for the production and sale of the Calliope Stylus, which is self-contained, writes like a dream, and requires no external ink.”

“House Calliope prints books, I understood,” he said, looking intrigued.

“More than books. It was, oh, at least a century and a half ago that they successfully argued that any device for setting words to paper fell under their aegis.”

“A broad interpretation.”

“Yes, and good for us because I intend to use that precedent for House Phel’s product line. El-Adrel will lay claim to the license on any magically created device or artifact if we don’t fight back. Your ever-replenishing water flask will be our test case. I’m going to apply for the trademark on that first, arguing that the water is the key magic involved, not the container. We’ll make a fortune on that alone.”

Canting his head, he gave her a knowing smile. “I thought you didn’t want to fight the Convocation.”

“Not the entire Convocation, and not on a question of morality, but another house’s license for trade on a product that falls under the aegis of House Phel and that could turn us a tidy profit? Absolutely I will. I’ll win, too, or I’m not the first daughter of House Elal.” If nothing else, Papa had taught her very well how to consolidate wealth. She would put those skills to good use for House Phel and Meresin. For all those children consigned to rural educations and a lifetime of using magic simply to keep their houses dry. They deserved better, and she aimed to deliver it. “Besides,” she added, savoring the incipient victory over the arrogant and greedy tightwads at El-Adrel, “this is about business. That’s entirely different.”

Gabriel shook his head, laughing softly, though in admiration, she thought, not disdain. “I knew marrying an Elal would be good for our fortunes, but I had truly not expected a warrior of trade.”

Something about the words caught her attention. She looked up from puzzling over an entry in the ledger. “Do you mind?”

“No,” he answered, sounding completely sincere. “I think you’re amazing. I’ll just stay out of your way and write my letters.”

She glanced around at the ghostly room, absent of any other furniture. “This is your desk, though. I can’t take that.”

“You’ll need to spread out those ledgers.” He tipped his head at the miserly surface. “I can work elsewhere.”

“Where?” she asked bluntly. It wasn’t as if the decrepit manor had a plethora of dry rooms.

“All I need is a table,” he replied. “Writing a few letters doesn’t require a dedicated space like an arcanium. There’s some paper in the drawer there, if you’ll give me a stack, and a spare quill and ink pot.”

She slid open the drawer and found the paper, low grade and not nearly adequate for formal missives from Lord Phel. They seriously needed supplies. Perhaps negotiating with House Calliope’s subsidiary, House Salis, for better-quality paper should go to the top of her list. There were a number of pressing issues jostling for that position. She was also reconsidering the wisdom of Gabriel penning his own letters. The houses would react to his handwriting the same way she had—and she couldn’t bear for them to have another reason to snicker at his provinciality.

“I have a better idea,” she said. “Have the servants bring in one of your tables, and we can both work in here. I can advise you on drafting the letters.”

He raised a brow. “That would be helpful, to have your advice, but who are these servants you’re expecting?”

She gazed at him in consternation. “This is a massive house, even if three quarters of it is still sunk in a swamp, and we plan to remedy that soon enough. How do you plan to run a place of this size without servants or household imps?” She folded her arms. “I might have to serve you in any way you please, but if you make me do housework, I swear to make your life miserable.”

Face creasing in irritation, he glowered. “You do not have to serve me, so stop poking at me about it. Everyone here pitches in.”

She threw up her hands. “Then order up some brawn to pitch in and bring a table in here.”

“I can carry a table, Nic.”

“You’re still healing from the battle with the hunters,” she retorted. “Besides which, the lord of a High House doesn’t move his own furniture. You need to start acting the part. If you’ll round up some workers, you can also ask them to take a few boards off these windows so we’ll have more light.”

“And when it rains?”

“Is that an inevitability?”

“It rains pretty much every day here, depending.”

“Then the workers can put the boards back up again. There’s plenty for them to do in the meantime. We’ll need an army to clean up this house.”

“They’ll be out in the cotton fields and orchards this time of day,” Gabriel said. “I can hardly ask them to drop those tasks. Which reminds me, I should get out there myself. Remember from yesterday? Mom wanted me to look at the levee that leaked and flooded the orchard. We’ve been concentrating on produce,” he explained, reacting to some expression on her face. “It’s one of our strengths, and you’re the one all fired up to increase our income.”

She attempted to smooth away her exasperation. Seating herself at his desk, she leaned her forearms on it and regarded him seriously. “Gabriel, my only love, I want you to listen closely. You are no longer a farmer.”

He gave her a long look, silver intensity swirling enticingly around him. For some reason, it annoyed him when she called him her only love, so she shouldn’t persist in it. Something in her, however, took a perverse delight in needling him, in provoking a rise from her brooding wizard. “You’re mistaken, my sweet familiar. I am a farmer, first and foremost. There’s no shame in it.”

“Wrong.” She slapped a hand on the desk. “The day you wished for rain and drowned your fields in an unstoppable deluge with your nascent wizardry is the day you stopped being a farmer. You are a wizard, Gabriel. First, foremost, and forever. That’s not a choice. It’s who you are now, like it or not. What’s more,” she continued, raising that hand again to stop the protest she saw boiling up in him, “you are Lord Phel. You did have a choice there. You could’ve chosen to wile your wizardry away as a landless rogue, but no. You just had to apply to the Convocation to restore House Phel.”

“I have a right to restore my family’s house and honor,” he bit out, reaching the desk and slamming his own hands on it and looming over her. “You have no idea what it’s like to grow up under the shadow of coming from a fallen house, from a family that lost its magic. House Fell. I hear them make the joke. I’m not that naïve.”

“You are if you think you can keep being a farmer.”

“What do you call what we’re doing with those fields out there?” he demanded, waving a hand at the lands beyond the walls.

Levering up, she leaned on the desk, too, meeting him loom for loom. “I call it your lands being farmed by your people while you act as lord of House Phel.”

His eyes glittered, lowered to her mouth. Before she could wonder what he intended, he caught her by the back of the neck and pulled her in for a kiss. For once, he forgot to moderate his strength, kissing her hard, almost bruising, the force of years of struggling with his unwanted destiny in it. She returned it in kind, meeting his disappointed hopes with her own. When he finally broke off the kiss, he leaned his forehead against hers, still gripping the back of her neck. “Our house. Our people. Lady Phel,” he said quietly.

“Do you see me out there picking cotton?” she asked lightly, though her voice shook a bit from the rush of passion.

He breathed a laugh. “I assume that falls in the same category as asking you to do housework, which will result in vague but dire vengeance.”

She wrapped a hand around his wrist, not pulling away but solidifying the contact. “I didn’t mean it. You know I’ll do whatever is necessary to rebuild House Phel. I was trying to make a point, and I lost my temper.”

Tilting his head, he kissed her again, this time tenderly. “As did I. And I’m not even sure what we were arguing about.”

“Let’s try this again,” she said, easing out of his grip and coming around the desk. Hitching herself up, she sat on it beside him, absently rubbing the back of her neck, which throbbed distractingly.

“I hurt you. Nic, I’m so sorry.” Gabriel looked stricken.

“Only a little, and in the best possible way.” She pursed her lips in an air kiss. “Next time, try bending me over the desk while you hold me down by the back of the neck and toss up my skirts. That will shut me up longer.”

“What?” His face contorted in shock. “No! That’s not why I—”

“Gabriel, I’m kidding. Well, not entirely, because it would work, and we’d both likely enjoy that method, but I know that’s not why you did it.”

“Do tell,” he ground out, folding his arms. It was ridiculous how the more worked up he got, the more she wanted to climb that big body and rub herself all over him. Or kneel at his feet. Did all familiars plagued by the Fascination feel this way? Probably. The novels didn’t capture even half of the true potency of the bonding.

Tempting as it was to fall to her knees and relieve his tension in the most primitive way possible, she patted the desk next to her, waiting for him to sit. “You bonded me only last night and—”

“We bonded each other,” he interrupted with an obstinate shake of his head.

“And that’s a potent connection,” she continued. “It will take a while for us to get used to it. A normal wizard would have me restrained in the arcanium, bleeding me for every drop of magic they could wring from me.”

He wasn’t amused. “We both know I’m not a normal wizard.”

“True,” she agreed without rancor. “Most wizards have extensive plans laid for the incantations they want to work once they have a familiar. Projects that needed the power boost only a familiar can provide. You, being you, have barely even drawn on my magic.”

“I haven’t needed to.”

“You think you don’t need to, but that’s your rational brain talking. Your wizard nature isn’t a rational creature any more than my familiar nature is.”

He considered that, canting his head as he studied her face. “Surely you don’t believe that.”

“I do believe it. Maman once told me the predator desires the prey—he can’t have any mercy in his heart for it.”

His expression contorted. “That’s revolting.”

“That’s reality,” she replied in exasperation. “There are aspects to our magical natures that are beyond our intellectual control. I know you think the Convocation Academy filled my head with propaganda and misguided convictions of how the world really is, but I’m speaking from experience here. I was sure Fascination was a myth, a romantic idea to persuade familiars that becoming a wizard’s slave would be pleasant. Until I met you.”

He made an incoherent sound of dismay, and she put a hand on his muscled thigh, enjoying the heated strength there while giving him a bit of comfort. “I’m not saying this by way of recrimination. I’m trying to explain that something beyond my control kicked into force. I think you’ll concede that I’m reasonably strong-willed.” She cocked a brow at him, then shook her head. “I could not will this away. Much as I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Couldn’t stop wanting you.” Wanting to give everything to you, though she managed not to say that part aloud.

Covering her hand with his, he nodded. “I felt—feel—the same.”

“You don’t have to look so grim about it,” she teased, but he didn’t smile.

Instead, he pulled his hand away, knotting his fingers together to rest on his muscular thigh. “I told you from the beginning, Nic: I don’t want you unwilling.”

She swallowed her immediate retort that she could hardly be any more willing. When she’d attempted to escape him, she’d put that doubt in his mind forever. She’d be forever paying the price of that. “Are you unwilling?” she countered.

He frowned. “You know I’m not.”

“Be honest,” she pressed. “You’re not battling any desires when it comes to me? Not even one or two illicit cravings?”

Guilt flickered in his eyes, along with a flare of dark yearning—quickly followed by shame.

She lowered her voice. “I saw how you looked at the silver bed in the arcanium.”

Jerking his gaze from hers, he stared fixedly at his hands, swallowing hard.

“I bet fantasies have occurred to you,” she mused. “Things you could do to me.”

“Stop.” He barely voiced the word, still avoiding her eyes.

“Tell me, are you battling something that feels like hunger? In the arcanium last night, when I asked you if there is any aspect of my magic that makes you feel like you want to consume it, you compared it to red wine, and that sometimes you want nothing more than to drink me up.”

“Red wine infused with roses,” he corrected hoarsely. “It’s specific to you and unlike anything else in the world.”

“And you want to drink me up.” It pleased her, in truth, that he perceived her that way, and it matched her sense of herself, which somehow shored up some of the confidence she’d lost when she found out she’d only be a familiar. She would never be a wizard, but her magic was an indelible part of her being.

“Something in me does,” he admitted, almost without sound, knuckles white. “Which makes no rational sense.”

She laid her hand over his clenched ones. “That’s my point. This is about aspects of our magical natures that make no rational sense. But Gabriel?” She paused, waiting for him to look at her. When he did, she met his gaze steadily. “No matter what’s gone before this, regardless of how we got here, I’m wholly yours now. There is nothing you can do that would make me want to leave you.”

“I’m not sure that’s reassuring,” he replied grimly.

“It should be, because that’s a foundation you can rely on. I embrace who you are. There’s nothing you could do that would shock me. You and I are in this together. I know you never wanted to be a wizard, that you didn’t truly want to become lord of House Phel, but you are both of those things. And I am your familiar, your partner in all of that. That’s a good thing to have. I think maybe you’ve been very alone all this time, a lone wizard amid a nonmagical family.”

A flurry of naked emotions crossed his face as he searched hers. Finally unknotting his clenched hands, he interlaced his fingers with hers. “You have an uncanny ability to see through me.”

She nearly snorted, except that this unexpected vulnerability in him had her feeling surprisingly tender. “I often feel the same,” she confessed.

He smiled, squeezing her hand. “This is not how I envisioned our marriage.” With his free hand, he waved at the dank and musty library. “Though I guess I didn’t expect this to magically transform into your Elal castle.”

She did snort then. “Well, as you’ve pointed out, we’re not technically married yet, and we’ve yet to work that transformative magic. This manse will be a showplace by the time I’m done with it. But you must embrace the role of Lord Phel.”

“How about a compromise?” he suggested, lifting her hand to kiss it. “I’ll rally the troops to engage in the battle of Castle Phel, if you won’t begrudge me time with the levees. It’s water wizardry, and no one else can do it. Surely you agree with diversifying our product line.”

“Aha. Someone’s been listening. And I do agree, but if you’re doing wizardry, you should have me with you.”

His brows lowered. “It doesn’t require that much magic to—”

“Practice,” she interrupted, emphasizing the word. “You and I need to learn to work together. You, in particular, need to get over these foolish scruples about using me. It’s my reason for being.”

“I thought your reason for being was to whip me into acting like a normal wizard and a proper Lord Phel, along with turning House Phel into a thriving business enterprise.”

“That too. It’s a good thing I’m multi-talented,” she conceded with a smirk. “We need a schedule. How about business in the mornings, work on the house and grounds in the afternoons, arcanium practice in the evenings?”

“Arcanium practice?” he echoed dubiously.

“Gabriel,” she replied very seriously. “There is a high probability that House Phel is going to end up at war with one or more other houses, if not the entire Convocation if you have your way. You need to be ready. We need to be ready.”

With a sigh, he nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m going to suggest something else you won’t like.”

He visibly braced himself, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand, a sure sign of agitation. “You might as well hit me with it all at once.”

“You should learn to draw Seliah’s magic, too.” She squeezed his hand when he looked aghast. “It doesn’t have to be a sexual connection. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a monster.”

“Sorry,” he replied with chagrin. “Are you sure it’s necessary?”

“Yes. Especially if you don’t want to send her to Convocation Academy yet.”

“Ever,” he corrected firmly.

“I can teach you to drain her magic, which will make her mind less like a swamp,” she told him sweetly, laughing when he gave her a dry look. “Think of it as a levee against the muck threatening your sister’s sanity, saving the blossoms on her orange trees.”

Shaking his head, he breathed a laugh. “A valiant effort, but your farming analogies need work.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “I feel quite certain I could live a long and fulfilling life without acquiring that particular skill. Regardless, it would be good to sit down with Seliah and talk. As a first step.”

“The first step would be locating her,” Gabriel corrected. “She tends to run wild in the marshes.”

Probably being away from people helped Seliah’s peace of mind, Nic guessed. But that wouldn’t save her from the eroding influence of her own untapped magic. “Can you find her?”

“I’ll put out word,” Gabriel replied with a sigh. “We’ll find her. I’ve been thinking about Selly, though, and aspects of wizardry you explained to me on the barge. I didn’t manifest as a wizard until I was twenty-two.”

“She’s already twenty-four.”

“She could be still maturing,” he argued. “Maybe she will—”

“Gabriel,” Nic broke in, her heart aching for him and for herself, for the painful hope and the agonizing shattering of it. “She’s a familiar. She’ll never be a wizard. That’s why her mental health is so poor and degrading over time. The magic is building up in her with no outlet. It will only get worse.”

“I had no outlet for my magic until the deluge,” he pointed out stubbornly.

“But it also didn’t build up in you. There’s a reason the Convocation scoring system measures magical potential. In wizards, the ability is all in the potential to wield magic. In familiars, it’s the potential to store it. I don’t know why it is, but familiars are also different from wizards in that we gather magic. Or we generate it. There are two different schools of thought on that. It’s ironic in a way, but even the weakest familiar has more magic than the most powerful wizard—we just can’t use it.”

“Where I do get my magic, then?” he asked, intrigued despite himself.

“Every wizard is different, and some of what makes a wizard weak or powerful is their ability to draw magic on their own. The most commonly accepted theory is that you pull it to you from the sources you have affinity for, water and the moon, in your case. And now, from your familiar.” She fluttered her lashes.

“I begin to understand why wizards want familiars so badly,” he admitted grudgingly.

“You understood this before, or you wouldn’t have applied for me.”

He gave her a wry look. “I was just blundering along, grabbing onto any signpost that would guide me. ‘You’ll need a familiar,’ they told me and put me on the subscription list for the Convocation circulars on available familiars.” He blew out a long breath, searching her face. “Believe me, if I’d realized… If I’d had any idea what—”

She flicked her index finger against the tip of his nose, making him blink in surprise. “Bad wizard.”

“Ow,” he complained, rubbing his nose.

“It didn’t hurt that much. Enough with the guilt. It’s unproductive and holding you back. What’s done is done. Let it go.”

He eyed her warily. “You did warn me about your practical nature.”

“Exactly. And my practical nature is itching to organize my seemingly endless roster of tasks. Go enlist your troops. I have lists to make. I’ll also need a complete tour of the house so I can assess what work needs to be done and order supplies accordingly.”

“Should I be afraid?”

“Of drowning in the tidal wave of profits to come? Absolutely. As for the house repairs, if you don’t want to squander my dowry on your passion projects, I intend to invest it in making this house livable.”

Cupping her cheek, he kissed her. Softly and lingeringly. “When I say this isn’t the marriage I expected, I should tell you that it’s even better.”

She raised her brows, surprised—and surprisingly moved. “I told you before, you don’t need to tell me pretty lies.”

“Strange, terrifying, upsetting, frustrating, enlightening, and oddly twisted,” he qualified, lips twitching at what he saw in her face before he kissed her again, “and better than anything I could’ve imagined.” He hopped off the desk and saluted her. “I shall return with brawn.”

“You forgot one thing,” she called after him. “Expensive!”

He laughed and kept going.