Free Merchants and Mages (Highmage's Plight Book 2) by D.H. Aire Page B

possible through a gift and through a talisman. For Esperanza, her ability was taught. Her birthright was to have been born an elfblood. Her father’s name or station she never knew. That was often the way of the elves. Unions between humans and elves was fecund, between elves, who lived for centuries siring children was another matter. Birth rates were much lower.
      Once she was recognized as being of elvin blood she was taken from her mother and sent to the Northland Tower to become one of the consecrated. Sworn virgin, taught to use the scrying pool by the Lady Mother herself, her task and those of thirteen others was to probe past the enchantments and see to the defense of the Empire’s Northern border.
      She knelt at the pool, chanting the incantation. The waters rippled, then stilled. The Northland’s were blanketed by gray clouds. She changed the chant and sang of sunlight. The cloud’s briefly cleared as the rays of the sun broke through.
      The clouds closed once more and she turned to write everything she had seen. Another of the consecrated entered. Disrobed and stepped into the pool.
      Esperanza picked up the young elfblooded woman’s robe and held it for her as she dove under the waters, then returned to the edge and climbed out. “Thank you, Es.”
      “You’re welcome, Amira. Did you receive a vision?”
      The brown-haired elvin woman put on her robe. “I’m not sure,” she replied, then chuckled, “I must have been daydreaming.”
      “You?”
      Amira nodded. “It’s not like I’m ever leaving this place, am I?”
      Frowning, Esperanza made a sign of warding, “What did you see?”
      “The impossible.”
      That could only mean one thing. Esperanza’s eyes widened. Amira nodded. She’d seen herself in bed with a man… something that would never be permitted. It would thwart the talisman’s gifts and was flatly impossible.
      That was a vision of betrayal – a betrayal of everything they had been taught to believe. No male had ever been allowed in the Tower. The Empire depended on the scryers network, which could do more than see – they could communicate at great distances.
      Amira glanced at the visions book and did not make an entry. Esperanza threw off her robe and stepped into the talisman pool.
     
    The Lady Mother stared into the small scrying bowl and frowned seeing the two young women beside the pool. “Amira, what did you see?”
      That one’s gift had been a mixed blessing. Like the others, she knew nothing of her lineage. But the Lady Mother did. That lineage had protected her and seen her placed here. She was the last of her line, one that had taken thousands of years to pull down and eradicate from Imperial memory.
      “What are you two up to?” And worse, had they somehow learned the truth?
     
    The direct contact of water was something she did not need to scry. Yet, it was said to be best to invoke the talent in some. She had not done it since she was a girl. She had nearly drowned in vision, literally.
      Amira shouted, “Es, what are you doing?!”
      “What I must!” she said as she dove beneath the waters.
      The waters spouted upward, swallowing her.
      Ogres marched, singly, in pairs, and it what appeared to be families. They crossed leagues to the northeast. They would pause, kneel down and touch the earth as if listening, then nod and intone, “NI––O––TA.” The ogres continued on day and night without pause.
      “NI––O––TA,” she breathed out in bubbles as Amira threw off her robe and dove into the scrying pool.
      Esperanza felt something akin to electricity course through her at the intrusion.
      Amira lay in bed beneath plush thick blankets, lying with – a young man. She kissed
    him as he cried out, “NI––O––TA!”
      Another image assaulted her. An army massed on the plain far below the ancient fastness on the Empire’s edge. An ogre hefted a boulder and dropped it on the soldiers climbing