She had to kill the High Mage.
The man who had stood in the square and spoken her mother's "Lira" name aloud, and watched while the stones were thrown, and lit her on fire, was the one who had started everything.
Xenge had only been his hand.
The High Mage was the arm, the shoulder, the whole body.
He was said to hold the second-greatest power in the kingdom, below the king alone, and he was the strongest mage in the realm when it came to raw magic.
He lived behind the palace walls and rarely stepped outside them.
He came when he chose to come: for a royal ceremony, for a calamity that no one else could solve, for an enemy at the border, and then he vanished again until the next time he was wanted.
Tomorrow he would be wanted.
The spell competition was the one day each year when the academy opened its doors to the entire kingdom.
The students showed what they could do.
