rainbow snippets: the beginning of a sequel

It’s Rainbow Snippets time! In celebration of this last week’s release of Apprentice’s Luck, I thought I might give you the opening scene of…the sequel! Yep, there’ll be another one – Jer and Talis needed at least one more story!

For some background, Apprentice’s Luck is a new story in the Middle Lands (the Magician universe, which along with Magician includes “Sorceress” and “The Twelfth Enchantment”), but it should stand alone fine if you’ve not read the others. Talis and Jer are so much fun to write – my flirtatious, sarcastic, complicated apprentice magician and his honorable opera-loving king’s guard…

Buy it at JMS Books here!

or Amazon here!

(In case you’re not familiar with #RainbowSnippets, check out their Facebook Group – new posts every Saturday (depending on time zones). The weekly pinned post will collect comments from authors linking to their six-line Rainbow Snippet post for the week.)

…and here’s the opening of the sequel!

~

“So,” Jeryn’s best friend said, wandering into Jer’s still-new Captain’s office at the back of the Royal Guard training ground, “you coming, or have we lost you to paperwork?”

Jer, mid-sentence—a requisition about cold-weather gear for the northern patrols, for the scouts—stopped with pen in hand. Stared at Teague, baffled.

“You know,” Teague said helpfully. “Jade’s birthday.” He had a cheerful face under a mop of dark hair, and was nearly as good as Jer with a short sword, and had once upon a time taken a very young country farm boy to a library, and an opera, and an all-night drinking round at multiple taverns. Jer to this day couldn’t recall exactly how many.

He put down the pen. Ran a hand through his hair. Realized he had ink on his hand, which probably now meant he had ink in his hair, black against pale blond. “Is that today?”

“I think it’s tonight, already.” Teague leaned a shoulder against the door-frame, propping it up. “Busy, are you?”

“I have…” He waved at his desk. Papers, neatly stacked, waved back: his own inventory, his recommendations for promotions, the question about why the king’s guard paid for three stables’ worth of horses when they only had enough mounts to fill one… “I think Captain Tremaine thought we were an army. Or he wanted us to be. I’m finding enough weapons requisitions to conquer the Mountain Marches with halberds and pikes, assuming Amet had ever approved any of them—”

“Which he didn’t, because he’s not a conquering sort of king.”

“Thank Her for that. And why do we have a store-room full of ornamental helmets with expensive plumes? Was he planning a parade? Am I supposed to organize a king’s guard parade?”

“I think I’m not paid enough for this.” Teague held up both hands. “Your job now, Captain. Is your adorable scary magician joining us?”

Talis. Talisman Morning, the love of Jer’s life. He knew his face had probably become softer, smiling, fond; he did not care.

Talis had been his luck, his joy, for the last month. Since a chance meeting in a tavern, and Jer’s decision to ask an apprentice magician for help uncovering a palace plot. And Talis had wanted to help, had tried to, even while possessing no real confidence in himself or his abilities.

But that was the sort of person Talis was: someone who knew about the dirt and scars and wounds of city streets, someone who’d never known his parents but who loved the street musician who’d raised him, someone who hummed with magic like a beehive but grew flippant and self-deprecating when told he’d be the next great magician of the age.

Talis had touched him, a hand on his arm, that first night. Jer had found himself walking up to the School, breathless, the next day.

He’d told himself he wanted Talis’s help. That had been true. Another truth had been the way his arm remembered that touch. A glittering shining awareness. A generous heart and astonishing shortness and glorious autumn hues, red hair curling in the rain, eyes like copper and bronze and wet brown leaves.

“You’re so in love it’s ridiculous,” Teague said comfortably. “I’m glad I don’t do any of that, if it would make my face look that way. Are we seeing him tonight?” Talis and Jer’s scouts—his former unit, before his shiny new title and insignia—had bonded over late tavern nights, a love of risqué ballads, and affection teasing regarding Jer’s tendency to buy new books without any consideration of shelf space or, in fact, arm-carrying capacity. A few of the histories had made it to this office, mostly because Jer was out of room at home and also because they might be useful.

He said, “I think so,” and got up from the desk. “He’s been busy, too. But he sent me a message this morning saying he’d be there.”

The message had been perfectly ordinary, delivered by the courier who sometimes brought communications between the King of Averene and the magicians up on the hill in their walls of white marble. Talis had written, in careful practiced printing, I love you and I’ll see you tonight. Don’t bother to send a reply, we’ll be up at the stone groves.

He’d meant the standing-stones, the older ring behind the School, places that might connect more clearly to his particular magic; a messenger would not necessarily dare to find the magicians there.

The lines of ink had twisted Jer’s heart for a moment. He knew that his other half had not grown up literate, on the back streets and in the less reputable inns and taverns of the Isle of Averene; he knew Talis had learned to read and write because it was useful, because eventually Talis’s adoptive father had thought that might be a good idea.

Jer found his cloak, found his keys, nudged Teague out of his doorway. “Move or be locked in.”

“So serious, you are. With the new rank and all.” An odd emotion laced Teague’s voice, for a second. It wasn’t envy; he’d never been ambitious. “Is anyone else coming?”

“I don’t know,” Jer said, surprised. The weather had become spring, over this past month, but a damp version of spring; the practice yard shone wet as they went out. The cobbled streets and slanted rooftops of the city dripped, though the rain had paused to take its turn in listening. “You, me, Goose and Elodie, Jade and her girl of the week, Talis. Should there be anyone else?”

“No.” Teague dodged a small waterfall from a building’s eave, a downspout. The usual tavern lay just round the corner. “Or maybe. I don’t know. Have you talked to the home guard division, much, lately? Or the river wardens?”

“I mean,” Jer said. “Of course I have. I’ve met with their lieutenants, to find out what they might need, what I can do for them, as captain—” He looked sideways at Teague’s face. “That’s not what you meant.”

“You’re going to a birthday celebration,” Teague said, “with all your old unit, Captain. And no one else. And you’re in a relationship with a magician, and you got the post because that magician said you deserved it.”

Jer, several steps from the tavern door, stopped walking. A drop of rain slid down behind his collar, cold.

Teague waved a hand. “It’s probably me exaggerating.”

“Probably?”

“Well…no one’s saying you shouldn’t have friends. Or fuck an absolutely beautiful tiny and powerful magician.”

“You don’t even do sex.”

“I’ve got eyes and aesthetic appreciation. Look, it’s not a problem.”

“Yet,” Jer said, standing in stray flecks of rain. “It’s not a problem yet.”

“Yep.”

“All right. What do I do?”

“No idea. That’s why you got promoted and the rest of us are happily at your service.”

“Speaking of,” Jer said, “I have something for you, and it’s also very shiny, and it’s called a lieutenant’s badge—” And in the next breath he wondered whether that would also look like favoritism, to place his own best friend—aside from Talis—in charge of the scouts. But he couldn’t in good conscience choose anyone else; Teague had the seniority and the skill, and it was the right choice.

“Oh no,” Teague said, “that’s not fair, come on—I’ll have to do monthly reports, and you’ll have to read my spelling—” and then waved as Jade and this week’s companion came up around the corner. This young woman had jet-black hair and smooth dark skin and an artist’s paintbox under one arm, and looked at Jade as if prepared to worship at the altar of swordswoman arms and the most accurate knife-throwing aim Jer knew.

“You’re late,” Jade said, “it’s my birthday, first round’s on you, Captain—second round’s his—”

“You were late too,” Teague protested.

“Yes, but it’s my birthday.” She grinned; the dimples flashed, in tanned brown skin. “And I’ve got a good reason. Miko was…painting me. Or at least a brush was involved. Jer, will there be singing? By which I mean are you singing?”

“Well,” Jer said, “let me think about it; would you like classical opera, or something more recent, like the midnight lovers’ meeting from Gregorii’s Snow Queen—” His scouts groaned as one. Jade punched him in the arm.

He gave in. “Pick a ballad. Whatever you want.”

“Filthiest one I can think of,” Jade said cheerfully, “just for you,” and bounded inside, drawing everyone else in her wake.

Jer watched for a moment, at the threshold, not entirely stepping into ale-scented genial noise and tavern chatter. Talis hadn’t arrived yet; he wanted those falling-leaf eyes, that kindness, at his side. He knew his magician would look at him and immediately offer to help, whatever might be wrong.

He knew Talis would be tired. He tried not to worry too much. That was difficult.

He sometimes still woke from a dream in which Talis did not wake, did not recover, did not open those beautiful eyes and breathe Jer’s name. He sometimes stayed awake to watch Talis sleep, a petite sprawl of power and possibilities, breathing evenly, safe and secure and trusting and real and tangible.

He wondered whether Talis, who had the sort of magic that knew things, knew that.