Blood and Prophets Read online

  BLOOD

  AND

  PROPHETS

  ☐

  Elin Macsen

  Contents

  BLOOD AND PROPHETS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For Felice, who is still loved.

  Copyright © by Elin Macsen, 2021

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  BLOOD AND PROPHETS

  A PREQUEL

  THE DIVINE WORLDS

  CHAPTER ONE

  EXPULSION FROM CAMBRIDGE

  The Office of the Vice-Chancellor

  Kingsvale College

  Cambridge, England

  Impera under Imperium

  May 14th, 1943

  As she awaited her sentence in the vestibule adjoining the Vice-Chancellor’s office, Evelyn Gant tried to distract herself. Her fate was now beyond her control. Instead of chastising herself for the obvious breach of restrictions that had been made clear to her time and time again, she mulled the spell that started this mess.

  She frowned. She should have been able to control the spell. Something had happened. She wasn’t precisely sure what caused the fire, but it wasn’t her spell. The real disaster, a tragedy that nearly moved her to tears, was the loss of spellbooks. Some of those destroyed in the fire were so hallowed and rare that she hardly dared to turn their pages. Even now, with her fate in the balance, the loss left her nauseous with grief.

  In any case, she was used to this small chamber and the eagle-eyed secretary who pretended to ignore her. Students were allowed to cast spells on rare occasions and in controlled environments: during exams, in monitored exercises, and only very rarely during class. She and her brother were in trouble nearly as soon as they arrived in Cambridge. All they had done was utter a simple transcription charm for taking notes. As they awaited the Vice-Chancellor’s reprimand, Victor turned to her.

  “You know what this means?”

  “We should go back to the farm, where we might actually learn something?” she glowered.

  “Only if you never want to go anywhere in life. No, Evelyn. We play by their rules, we study in secret, and when we graduate, we will have real opportunities. Not an irrelevant lifetime in the country.”

  “You don’t realize how far we’ll fall behind at this rate.”

  He shrugged. Her brother had a lanky, athletic appearance with broad shoulders forged in pastures and barns. He relished opportunities to work with his hands. He was a natural leader: smart, compelling, and handsome, with a blaze of freckles across his high cheekbones from long hours under the sun. Victor always knew where to draw the line and when to surrender.

  Evelyn, on the other hand, had never met a line that could bind her. Even on the Gant family’s bucolic estate in the picturesque Cumbrian hamlet of West Hall she was always in trouble. She would spend summer afternoons daydreaming and casting amusing bursts of magic in the reeds by the greater pond, oblivious to attempts to find her. At dinner, she often had a book on her lap and picked at her food in lieu of conversation. Victor never seemed to mind. He teased her almost constantly at home for being withdrawn and obsessive.

  Born only ten months apart, they thrived on competition and the shared excitement of learning new spells. Their home was far from the prying eyes of Sentinels or Alliance wards on spellcasting. On their first visit to the Vice-Chancellor’s office, Victor was more serious than she had ever seen him before.

  Both siblings had worked incessantly to gain admittance to the most prestigious school in Impera, but to Evelyn it was all a game. Of course they were good enough to compete at the highest level. That was never the issue. In coming to Kingsvale College, they gained opportunity but gave up freedom. Victor dismissed the tradeoff at once, but it riled her. A harsh rebuke from their History of Magidae professor sent them to Vice-Chancellor Sutton’s office within minutes of their first class.

  “I’m not surprised you’re giving in so easily, I’m just disappointed,” she hissed.

  The secretary glanced at them over thick cat-eye glasses and shook her head. Any student sent to the Vice-Chancellor’s office at 9:05 AM on the first day of classes was likely to be more trouble than they were worth.

  Victor was called into the adjoining office first. When he passed Evelyn upon his return to the antechamber, a dark look of warning strained his features. Ignoring her brother, Evelyn rolled her eyes and went to the door. The Vice-Chancellor, a former director of the International Magidae Alliance and therefore a very prestigious functionary, awaited her at the threshold.

  Abner Sutton was outfitted in finely woven tweed, a burgundy cashmere vest, and a perfectly crisp bowtie. A gold pocket watch glinted at his side, complementing the craftsmanship of delicate gold-rimmed glasses. His thick silver hair and beard framed a severely drawn face.

  “Your brother has assured me that it won’t happen again, Miss...” he checked a note on his desk. “Gant. You are here on bursaries due to your academic potential and... limited resources. We are in the happy position of being able to extend financial support to worthy additions to our rolls. However, with that honor come certain standards, ones you may be unfamiliar with due to your isolated and deprived beginnings.”

  Evelyn stared at the Vice-Chancellor. This was either a test or a dream, she decided. Nobody had thought to offend her so deeply, not even the simpering, condescending admissions board. Sutton’s prodigious eyebrows rose like two clouds over his spectacles. Finally, she choked out a response.

  “Um, certain standards?”

  “You realize that the University of Cambridge, and indeed all of England, has but one school where the study of magic is permitted. The college takes great pride in instilling values in the leaders of our world. Kingsvale graduates have risen to the highest levels within the Alliance. The first lesson we teach, if it was unfortunately neglected in earlier study, is respect for the bounds of magic and the fragility of power in our world. Tread carefully. Your brother promised it was an honest mistake.”

  “We’re here to learn, chancellor.”

  “Good. That is all we ask. For now, a word of advice: pack your wand in its case, take out your pen and inkwell, and work. Theory and science are the cornerstones of magic. A pawn wastes magic. A queen rests—and controls the board.”

  She knew he meant to end the discussion there. However, she had spent her childhood reading an unbroken chain of books on the science and theory of magic. The Gant family kept an impressive library, something Evelyn’s father insisted was complementary to the rural surroundings. From her earliest years she had pursued knowledge with an undaunted hunger.

  There was some truth to what the Vice-Chancellor said: every Magidae citizen of Imperium felt in their bones the well of magic that supplied them.

  As a child, this well was easily drained by a single spell. For years she spent long summers lost in the cattails by the pond or wandering the glades that patterned the far-flung acreage of the grounds, testing this supply of magic. Small spells, piled one on top of the other, built day by day until she could cast dozens at a time without losing her breath. She and Victor spent many an isolated autumn competing to redden the leaves of the oak, yew, and hazel trees foresting the estate.

  Spellcasting was always uncomfortable once they reached the end of their inner reserves. It felt like a bruise against the chest. That was how y
ou expanded the well. Brother and sister spent their winters whispering in awe about their growing magic.

  Nothing increased their ability to cast spells like practice. Now the Vice-Chancellor of Kingsvale College insisted there was no benefit to practice, though it was this practice that granted the siblings the skills required for admission to the eminent institution.

  Evelyn didn’t trust herself to respond. In a mute display of obedience, she nodded and bowed her head.

  “Well, be on your way. I hope we will be reacquainted under better circumstances.”

  She left the office, but it was only a matter of time before she was caught casting spells again and returned to the antechamber to await the Vice-Chancellor’s displeasure. For three years, from seventeen to almost twenty, she danced on the edge of a knife.

  There were consequences for her constant disobedience. Her brother excelled in his study of Economancy and Magical Law, two subjects of pure theory at the undergraduate level. He took the vice-chancellor’s suggestion to pack his wand away quite literally. She, on the other hand, was a frequent visitor to this purgatorial vestibule. Often, Abner Sutton wearily repeated a familiar rebuke. Occasionally, her offense was grave enough that her wand would be confiscated, or her exam scores lowered.

  This vexed the young woman. Her marks should have placed her at the top of her class. Surely no one among the scions of Imperium studied as ardently as she did. Nevertheless, her professors regarded her with suspicion. Her grades were barely high enough to retain the bursaries that funded her studies.

  None of that mattered now. Without graduating from the college, she would not be granted the title of ‘lower mage.’ Without the title, she could not be licensed to use magic. A child might get away with experimental spellwork in the remote wilds of Cumbria, but an adult expelled from Cambridge could hardly expect the same leniency. She would be monitored for life.

  Indeed, it was unusual that even a child could get away with as much as she and Victor had. Evelyn ascribed this to a lack of supervision.

  The siblings’ father, Peter Gant, was a quiet widower who had given his life to toil. He worked among the estate’s Hominidae farmhands from dawn to dusk, tending fields and livestock with the same persistent work ethic that made his children candidates for Kingsvale College. The children were raised by a beloved elderly servant and were mostly left to their own devices.

  The servant Ivar had often warned the young children that ‘It is different here,’ without ever explaining why, as he mended skinned knees and mediated conflicts between the two children.

  It certainly was different there, Evelyn fumed as she watched the secretary pick up the receiver on her desk. Maybe I would be better off on the farm… I’ve barely started on the library and there is so much I could learn if I knew how to conceal my magic…

  “You may go in now,” the secretary simpered.

  Evelyn sighed and rose from her familiar perch. She dusted and straightened the severe black gown worn as her academic dress before knocking on the door.

  “Enter,” came Sutton’s voice. She did so and stood awkwardly before the desk, biting her lip and blushing in a most unbecoming way: partly with fury, partly with despair, but most of all, mourning the loss of the school’s most precious books.

  “Sit down, Miss Gant.”

  Abner Sutton sighed and removed his glasses, bringing a hand to the crease of his brow. He massaged his temples for a moment, then regarded her. A stone weighted her stomach. She already knew the outcome.

  “It has come to a vote. So many have come to Kingsvale College and accepted as necessary, facilitative, and good the restrictions placed prior to graduation. I see you are penitent, in your own way. However, in the end, the vote is thus: you will not be required to compensate the university for the damaged property. I am sure this is a boon to someone of your station. Let it be a comfort that you were admitted at all. A generation ago, women were not accepted by the college. Ah, the relentless drive of progress. Secondly, your studies are suspended. This decision is immediate and final. Your record will not show an expulsion, but effectively, it is so. Do you have any questions?”

  Her face was hot with shame. A tear trembled from her eye.

  “S-some of those books were irreplaceable,” she stuttered at last.

  “Heavens, no. We wouldn’t allow undergraduates near the only extant copy of a manuscript. Well. Is that all? Goodbye, Evelyn. I hope you will take some lesson from this unfortunate outcome.”

  In the weeks that followed, she found she could not recall the moments after she left the Vice-Chancellor’s office. She fled in a numb trance. Any future she might have had was destroyed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BOOKS AND SHADOWS

  The Gant Estate

  West Hall, Brampton

  Cumbria, England

  Impera under Imperium

  June 28th, 1943

  Evelyn’s twentieth birthday was a miserable affair. She picked fights with anyone who came near her, even Victor, and ended the night by throwing herself across her bed and weeping until she felt as cold and dead as a corpse. At midnight, the servant Ivar knocked on her door. She knew him from his heavy footfalls and the light that bloomed from a candle. After a moment, he opened the door.

  She wondered how he could be so bold as her lips contorted in fresh emotional agony. The Hominidae servant couldn’t see anything through the thick cataracts clouding his vision, but, as always, he understood more than he let on.

  “Go away, Ivar,” she said at last. He had seated himself without invitation, knowing she was awake.

  “Miss Evelyn, you must go to your brother’s graduation,” he insisted. His voice was weathered but calm like an ancient oak. The candle flickered with his breath. She was sitting up in bed, her arms crossed, and scowled in response.

  “I can’t go back there,” she said. She meant to sound vicious and definite; she certainly had when she voiced the same sentiment to her father at dinner. Now she sounded desolate and weak, and she knew it. “You have no idea how shameful it is. I’m never going back. I might as well stay here forever.”

  “You’re stronger than that. Stronger than you think. Victor needs you to be there. Besides, you think I don’t know the shame of not having access to magic?” The man looked straight at her as though his vision were clear.

  Evelyn finally felt a wave of something other than self-pity. She regarded the human man with sorrow.

  “You aren’t going to waste away on this farm,” he pressed. “Go to Cambridge. Show them you’re better and smarter than the lot of them.”

  “I’m not. You’re so good and kind, Ivar. I’m certainly not. I loathe how I feel and loathe myself for feeling as I do: full of hate, full of anger, grief, and despair. Everyone tries to be so nice, like it doesn’t matter. Well, my life is ruined, and I’ve disappointed everyone.”

  “You’ve disappointed no one.”

  “It wasn’t even my spell,” she said bitterly. This had hardly mattered to her in Sutton's ofice. Now it was all that seemed to matter. “Anyway, Vic doesn’t need a black cloud on his day. He and dad should enjoy it together. They can celebrate like everything is normal.”

  “You know they won’t. Not without you.”

  “That’s their fault.”

  “Don’t be glib, Miss Gant. You were raised better.”

  Ivar rose and snuffed out the candle as he hobbled to the door. He had brought the light for her benefit, she discerned.

  “You won’t be in West Hall for long, miss, though it would give me so much joy to have a child at home. You aren’t tied to this place like Mr. Peter, whose life is in the soil, nor Mr. Victor, who is as steady with the animals and fields as any farmhand. Remember how hard you worked to leave?”

  “Yes, for Cambridge,” she muttered sardonically.

  “Even when you’re at home you aren’t here. Your mind is in books and shadows and spells. How lucky you are to have that. Sleep well, miss.”


  In the end, she rose at dawn with heavy circles under her eyes and joined her brother and father for the ride to the train station. They avoided nettling her after her disagreeable performance the previous day and mostly talked of sports and markets, soil conditions, and the political gossip of the day. Evelyn would have found the conversation maddening if she paid attention, but her nose was once again buried in a book.

  The only solace in the past month and a half had been the Gant family’s extraordinary library. She laughed when she lifted the traveling case packed by Ivar before dawn and found it half-filled with books. She could barely lift it. After years of scouring the library of Kingsvale College, she had developed a keen eye for rare texts. Even so, many of the volumes in the Gant estate’s library were wildly obscure. There were books in languages she had never heard of.

  Normally, she would have sought them out, but the thought of magic now soured her soul. Currently she was engaged in a history of England before the Great War.

  Life before the war and the necessity of Imperium, a Magidae government that restricted and monitored magic, was so strange it sounded like fiction. In the early twentieth century there was a dawning awareness of the great outflow of magic. It was now established science that some force was leaching magic from the world. Restrictions on the use of magic were not just to protect undermages: they were meant to slow the loss.

  Honoré du Roilibre, the author of A Study of British Magidical Life, 1751-1900, barely mentioned the taxonomy of Hominidae and Magidae, nor the categories of Canidae, Felidae, or Vampirae. He lived among an aristocracy that was nearly extinct even at the time of publication in 1915. On the train to East Anglia, Evelyn found herself in a world filled with magics great and small. One might use a spell for anything from boiling a kettle to opening a doorway to a distant land. It was so frivolous and wasteful, the author intoned with horror, no wonder magic was rapidly dwindling! Magic of either scale was now utterly forbidden.