Magic Claims by Ilona Andrews

There was always a choice. I would’ve fought to the bitter end, past any reasonable point. That’s why a man I respected once told me that I made a terrible leader. I had trouble with trading one life for many.

And now I had both shapeshifters and my father’s former advisers to take care of. I wasn’t suited for the job.

I nodded at the guard tower and the elderly man inside it. “There was a teenage kid here before.”

“Foster. He finished his shift. He’s due to come on in the morning.”

“He keeps running out of the tower. I keep telling him to stay in, and every time I look, he’s out from under that roof on the wall.”

“He’s a kid. Lots of energy.”

“How old is he?”

“Seventeen.” Heather squared her shoulders. “I know what you’re asking. Why put a kid on the wall, right? Let me tell you about Foster. He isn’t stupid or really smart. He’s average. He doesn’t like school. He could get apprenticed to some of the businesses in town and learn a trade, but he doesn’t want to do that either. He’s a crappy hunter, and he doesn’t have the patience for fishing. He has to do something to earn a living. The wall is it. It’s not big money, but it’s a steady paycheck and the benefits are good.”

Right.

“He’s a good guard. He doesn’t play around too much, and if he sees something, he’ll ring that bell. We’re not like you. We’re not soldiers and shapeshifters. We’re just townspeople who made a militia because we had to. Take Ian over there. He’s in his seventies. He worked all his life. Now his knees are worn out, his hands swell up, and his back hurts. He can’t do much of anything anymore, but he still wants to work. It’s not just the money. It’s his way of living.”

Heather frowned. “If you want the truth, neither of those two were supposed to be on the wall when the forest came. I’ve got a better team that I rotate between the gates. But those bastards showed up a month early. If I break the schedule and rotate them out, I’ve got to rotate someone in. Either way, someone’s son, someone’s mother, someone’s spouse ends up on that wall. How do I decide to trade one life for another?”

I had no answers for her.

“I’ll talk to Foster,” she said. “Tell him to stay in the tower. I hope you’re ready for whatever comes because we aren’t.”

She walked away from me.

I watched her go. The house where we were staying was lit up, the windows glowing gently. The shapeshifters had slept and now they were getting ready for a late dinner.

As if on cue, the balcony door swung open. Curran stepped outside. Our stares connected. He smiled and went inside. Checking on me.

I turned back to the forest. Heather was in her twenties, but she seemed older. Putting people in harm’s way tended to age you. I’d meant to ask her why she was the interim chief. Something must’ve happened to the original chief. Oh well. Next time.

If I had to be in charge of choosing people to guard the wall, I’d never sleep, because if a real threat came, it wouldn’t matter which one of them was on the wall. None of them would be able to do much. Not with this enemy. They would die where they stood.

Curran was better than me at that. He had the steel core needed for it. He never wanted to lose anyone, and when he did, it bothered him, but he also accepted it. It punched me harder. A couple of weeks ago Conlan and I were talking about Roland, and he told me that his grandfather had failed as a king because he couldn’t handle not being able to protect everyone. It was a very smart observation.

Perhaps I had inherited more from him than I realized.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure in dark gray clothes drop from the second-floor window of our house. He landed without a sound, ran up the stairs, light on his feet, and slipped past Ian. The old man never sensed he was there.

The figure approached like a shadow. I let him get within fifteen feet.

“Is there something you need, Jushur?”

“Sharratum,” the spymaster said. “Your senses are as sharp as ever.”

He came closer and hopped onto the edge of the wall, dropping to sit, cross-legged, with the agility of a man forty years younger. I had no idea how old he really was. Fifty? Sixty? Eighty?

“I get that your heart is set on helping Rimush with my approval, but pledging yourself to me was a bit much, don’t you think?”

He looked at the forest. “It was not my plan.”

I looked at him. “Then why are you here?”

“We came because this is a turning point for you. As the chroniclers of your journey, we must witness it.”

“A turning point?”

“Surely, you feel it. Even now, when the magic has ebbed.”

Oh, I felt it. It was very weak, but it was still there, shivering between the blades of grass and coating the stones, thin like a spiderweb. And it annoyed me. So much.

“This is the moment you reclaim your heritage.”

“You seem very sure of that.”

Jushur shrugged. “I may be wrong. Alas, I’m not infallible. But should it happen, we must not miss it.”

“Then why not just say that? Why the kneeling and the pledging?”

“I changed my mind.”

“Why?”

Jushur smiled. “Your father gifted me coffee a few times, as a specific reward in appreciation of my service and loyalty. In all of the time I served him, he never personally handed me a drink in the way you offered me coffee.”