Blood Over Bright Haven

The epigraph is a verse from the Tiranish holy book, the Tirasid. It describes a mage called Stravos building a barrier around the city.

In the present, Sciona Freynan has a panic attack as she and her cousin Alba take the train into the center of the city. Sciona is the first woman in their generation to be allowed to take the entrance exam for the High Magistry. Alba reassures Sciona that there is no shame in failing, but Sciona rebuts that the Magistry would take it as continued proof that women are not suited to be mages. Alba accuses Sciona of only caring about herself—she doesn’t even acknowledge that the baker brought her breakfast as a gift. Sciona reluctantly acknowledges that much of her motivation is personal.

In the city, they are approached by council member campaigners, including one for the only woman on the council, Nerys. They enter the campus of the University of Magic and Industry, where they find the Magicentre of research and development. Sciona’s mentor, Archmage Derrith Bringham, cheers her on, reminding her that she is more than capable of meeting and exceeding expectations. Sciona feels overwhelmed by the barriers facing her as a woman—including the inherent bias of the Archmages judging the exam—but Bringham reassures her. He invites Alba to watch the exam, despite usual protocol banning women. Sciona points out the Archmages to her cousin. Mages don’t carry staffs; instead, they use machines called spellographs that show energy sources from the Otherrealm to write and program spells.

The exam begins. Mordra the Tenth goes first. Sciona is frustrated, since he shows minimal skill in magic but will gain one of the two available seats merely since his father is on the council. As the prompts get harder, Mordra fails to levitate a brick, due to not understanding how to map sub-spells to create a total command structure. She predicts that his attempt to bisect a granite slab will send the rocks flying and tells Alba to duck just in time, saving them both from injury. Sciona goes last.

The epigraph is a verse from the Tirasid. It forbids changing the mapping of spells from Leon so that Tiran continues to prosper.

The examining mages note that Sciona transferred from a public school to Danworth Academy, a rare occurrence. They tell her to use the Kaedor mapping method to burn twigs slowly, which she accomplishes easily, even though the Kaedor method makes the spellograph screen blurry. Bringham next tells her to bisect a slab of obsidian, which annoys the other mages since Mordra did it poorly; she does it perfectly, creating intense discussion about her skill.

Another mage asks Sciona to perform an alchemy task, which some protest is irrelevant to a mapping specialist; she performs it easily regardless, siphoning carbon and creating a bomb out of it. The mages throw harder prompts at her, but Sciona succeeds. The mage Duris provides the final prompt: to levitate a gigantic, industrial cauldron without using the Reserve, which means calculating the amount of energy required perfectly in one try. The other mages protest that this is dangerous, but Duris counters that they cannot retract the prompt.

Sciona is unable to ascertain the weight of the cauldron before she begins crafting the spell. She programs for 5,000 pounds, but this uses too much power; the cauldron blasts through the ceiling, wrecking a mosaic of the founding mages. As it falls, she figures out its actual weight, and rushes to write the spell correctly, despite Duris shouting at her to stop. Disobeying him, Sciona casts the spell, making the cauldron levitate perfectly.

Worries that her actions have disqualified her, Sciona rushes to the bathroom. Alba comforts her, but it’s no use: Sciona is not the first woman to do amazing things with magic, but others like her had their careers destroyed by husbands, mental illness, or by other men in the industry.

Sciona apologizes to Brigham, but he embraces her and tells her that she passed. Duris’s orders were out of line, since only the Archmage can control the exam. Bringham adds that he put the idea for the cauldron test into Duris’s mind, since he wanted an excuse for Sciona to show off her immense power.

As they celebrate, Bringham says that the city has finally approved the mages’ plan to expand the border. Sciona will be using her new lab to source energy for the complex spellwork. She will have only three months to prove herself. He tells her to always credit herself and to not let anyone convince her she doesn’t deserve her spot as a highmage. Sciona heads home thinking about all the things she will accomplish with her new title and power.

The epigraph is a verse from the Tirasid that commands the mages to use their staffs to conquer the forces of darkness in God’s name.

As Sciona is leaving for work, her Aunt Winny fusses over her appearance in case Sciona meets a suitable man. This disgusts Sciona. Ansel, the baker’s son, congratulates Sciona and gives her muffins. When a young girl asks her to sign her spellbooks, Sciona promises to get an Archmage’s autograph and gives the girl recommendations for better books.

At the Magicentre, Sciona is unable to find her office on the restricted fourth floor, so she asks a Kwen janitor—Thomil—to show her the way.

Sciona soon meets some of the other highmages, including Cleon Renthorn, the son of Archmage Renthorn and another of Bringham’s students. Despite her attempts to befriend Renthorn, he insults her. The other highmages are also dismissive of her. When they see that she hasn’t been assigned an assistant, Renthorn suggests that, since it’d be cruel to make a qualified male mage work under her, they assign her the janitor, whom they call “Tommy.” Sciona decides to save face and accept.

Sciona and Thomil go into her laboratory, which is everything she has ever dreamed of, but she is too upset at her treatment to appreciate it. Thomil wants to go back to his job; he is just as ashamed as she is. She asks him to stay and help her. He argues that she should find someone more qualified, but she says that if he can speak Tiranish and follow directions, she’ll manage the rest. His first task is alphabetizing her bookshelves and eating the muffins.

Sciona is forced to go to the third floor to find a women’s bathroom. She runs into Renthorn on her return. He brags that he has four research assistants doing his work, so he can read at his leisure—a sign of his laziness and self-importance. Sciona reminds him to call her Highmage Freynan, but he retorts that she only got the job by sleeping with Bringham. Furious at his insults, she tells him that in three months, the Archmages will pick one of their plans for expanding the city; this will prove who is the better highmage. He agrees to the challenge, and she stalks back to the lab, ordering Thomil to collaborate with her in earnest.

The epigraph is a verse from the Leonid, the prophecies of Leon. It bans mages from drawing energy from the Forbidden Coordinates, which is blasphemy and will be damned.

Sciona gives Thomil a brief overview of their work and of Tiranish beliefs.

She explains that the city must expand due to overpopulation, but cuts herself off before she blames the Kwen, realizing it sounds unkind. The two barriers around the city—shielding against the Blight and keeping the city warm—use immense amounts of energy, so Sciona must source more.

She also explains that within magic and religion, there are two sects: Leonites, who only hold to the actual writings of Leon, and the more conservative Tirasians, who believe everything Faene the First wrote about Leon’s meaning and intentions as well. Sciona is a Leonite who resents the restrictions of the Tirasian point of view.

Magic draws power from the Otherrealm, which has unlimited energy but finite places to find it. Mapping with spellographs allows mages to glimpse the Otherrealm and target certain areas, which is Sciona’s specialty. She demonstrates how to type action spells into the spellograph. To make a book move, she makes the spell target objects of a certain size and density to rule out other objects. There are two ways to calculate the right amount of spell energy. One is tapping into the Reserve that powers the city, which performs the calculation automatically. However, the Reserve is restricted due to the growing energy needs of all of Tiran. The second way is to manually siphon energy from the Otherrealm, but this can be dangerous: Siphoning too much leads to explosions or other serious accidents. Thomil frostily chimes in that bad mapping like this collapsed a bridge that killed two Kwen people. Sciona hasn’t heard about this, since the paper hid the deaths to protect the former Archmage’s reputation. Sciona reassures Thomil that she cares and will do good magic to prevent accidents like that from happening.

As Sciona leaves, she overhears the other highmages asking Mordra out for drinks, as is tradition for new mages, but they do not include her. Sciona, hurt, returns to the laboratory. Thomil calls her Highmage and asks her to get a drink with him, which touches her. Then, embarrassed by their class difference, Thomil backpedals, but she accepts.

Sciona and Thomil go to a Kwen bar called the Dancing Wolf, popular with poor undergraduates. Sciona leaves her white highmage robes behind. The atmosphere is pleasant; Thomil tells the cheerful Kwen bartender that Sciona is the first female highmage ever, earning Sciona free drinks. The bartender calls her meidra, and Thomil reveals that the Kwen have heard about there being a female highmage.

Sciona gets drunk. Thomil escorts her back to the Magicentre, even though she carries potent spell conduits (ways of casting premade spells) to protect herself in an emergency. She convinces him to call her Freynan instead of Highmage, and he asks her to call him Thomil, since “Tommy” is a Tiranization of his name. They reintroduce themselves to each other.

The epigraph is a verse from the Tirasid. It explains that the Kwen are cursed because they refuse the call of the True God, despite being offered freedom by Leon years before. All Tiranish people are obligated to civilize Kwen if they can.

Sciona wakes up with a blistering headache. She is happy to have made a friend, but going “all the way to the top just to make friends with a janitor” (99) feels ironic. When Thomil arrives, she gives him an assistant’s coat and teaches him how to use a mapping coil to place energy for spellwork. She also shows him the energy map and explains that the circle at the center of the grid is forbidden, as is the rim outside of that forbidden area, which is used for the Reserves. The only person to ever siphon from the center of the grid was Highmage Sabernyn, who was executed for treason. Highmages are immune from the death penalty, but a complete consensus among all 100 practicing highmages can order a traitorous, blasphemous mage to be executed.

Bringham arrives. Thomil freezes. Bringham apologizes for the social difficulties she faces with her fellow highmages and explains that her competence frightens them. Bringham offers to give her a “real” assistant, but Sciona refuses. Bringham autographs the book from the young female student, convinces Sciona to sign it as well, and leaves.

Sciona assures Thomil that she didn’t get her position due to favoritism; he can see that this is true, since she cares more than any other mage he’s observed. Thomil already knows Bringham; Thomil once courted one of the many women who work in Bringham’s textile factories. Thomil calls Sciona a good teacher, and she replies that he is a good listener. He replies that Kwen who can’t listen don’t survive; she laughs, assuming he is being overdramatic. This makes him stiffen up again.