Page 45 of Sword & Shadow
“We have no way of knowing. But the ratio for Mages is about one in five thousand. Which means there are a little over three hundred Mages somewhere on the continent. I’d assume the same is true of Warriors.”
Evylin and Thom exchanged a look.
“There are roughly a million people in Ephria,” he said.
Evylin struggled to do the math, but Ilain did it for her. “That would mean there are about two hundred Warriors, give or take a few. And nearly all of them are unknown.”
The number initially felt large, but as Evylin compared it to the overall population, it seemed impossibly small. Only one in five thousand children would be born a Warrior. A sense of isolation crept into her mind before the Day Relic twisted the thought. One in five thousand. Evylin truly was unique.
Cautiously, Ilain added, “It’s what makes finding two Warriors in the same band of soldiers so incredible. Though you share a bloodline, so that makes it less shocking.”
Realizing that she meant her and Hewitt, Evylin perked up. “You mean it’s inherited?”
“It appears that way. While it doesn’t necessarily follow a direct lineage, the odds are greater when one or more members of a family were magical before.” Ilain motioned toward her brother at the front of the line. “Take Auden and me, for example. Our great-great-grandfather on our mother’s side was a Mage too.”
Evylin didn’t know what to think about that. “But Hewitt was my uncle, not my father. It isn’t as though I inherited magic from him.”
“No, but perhaps it came from another ancestor of yours,” Ilain suggested. “Or perhaps it was just a coincidence. Whilemagiccanbe hereditary, it is truly a gift. A higher calling, given by Allore himself.”
Thom narrowed his gaze. “Don’t tell me you’re religious.”
“You already know that I am,” the highlady said. “Over the past thousand years, Auld became polytheistic, regarding the Mages as divine incarnations of the gods themselves. When Ephren drove the Mages into the West, they took the Faith of Eight with them. But there are some of us in Wauld who still worship Allore. Those of us in the Alliance, chief among them.”
“And magic is part of your religion?” Evylin asked.
“It’s the same as your religion,” Ilain replied. “Ephren just twisted it to remove the magical parts.”
Evylin kept the truth of her lackadaisical faith quiet, not wanting to upset the woman. She considered herself an Allorian, but she couldn’t say she practiced her religion. Oh, she’d gone to mass and said grace at dinner, but she’d given up her nightly prayers after Ryen died. It seemed pointless to waste time on vespers when life could be so cruelly fleeting.
Attributing her magic to a divine calling made Evylin uncomfortable. She didn’t want to be some pious priestess dedicated to proclaiming the faith. She wanted to travel and enjoy all that life had to offer, to be free of anything that might inhibit her adventures.
Her gaze drifted toward Deckard, riding at the front with Auden under the emerald green canopy of trees. What would he think about this claim that the Alliance made about their religion? She’d known him to be devout since their first meeting. She could still remember the heartfelt “by your grace” he’d given after her father blessed the meal. And while traveling had precluded any traditional religious observances, she could tell he took his faith far more seriously than she, if only due to his impeccable moral compass.
If he found out that her magic was considered a sign of a “higher vocation,” would he want her to become some grand instrument of the Alliance and the church?
A comforting warmth flowed into Evylin’s hands, and she discovered that she was playing with the Day Relic’s chain.
Quickly, she released it back under her collar. She glanced first at Thom and then Ilain, worried that they’d noticed. She realized they were still bantering about religion, both of their faces set with dry grins. However, as Evylin’s eyes turned to Ilain, the highlady’s keen gaze flicked up and away.
Evylin kept herself from gritting her teeth.
Ilain had noticed. Now, all she could do was hope that the woman had not seen the color of the chain and assumed it’d been the silver necklace Hewitt gave her, rather than the golden links of the Relic.
To distract from her error, Evylin grasped for another question. At the first break in their raillery, she said, “Will I ever meet these Warriors?”
“Yes, of course,” Ilain replied. “I can’t say when, but likely after we’ve completed our mission. We’ll have to return the Relics to the Administration, and there are typically two or three Warriors assigned to them for safety.”
“The Administration?”
“Our governing body at the moment,” Ilain clarified. “Once we have a singular country again, that will change, but for now, there are two groups of Ministers, eight in Wauld and eight in Ephria, and they preside over all the decisions within our organization.”
With little interest in politics, neither Thom nor Evylin pursued the subject. Instead, she returned to the previous question. “And will these Warriors train me?”
Ilain tipped her head to the side, her hood casting deep shadows along the angles of her face. “Whatever training yourequire, yes,” she confirmed. “Though you are already highly skilled.”
Evylin frowned. “But there’s so much I don’t know about being a Warrior.”
“There’s a lot they don’t know either.” Ilain raised her eyebrows. “Missing literature, remember?”
