Excerpt from CIRCLE OF MAGIC: TRIS'S BOOK

TRIS'S BOOK US hc Note to reader: Winding Circle temple city is under pirate attack. The raiders have been throwing a strange new weapon over the walls, round balls which explode when they hit, blowing holes wherever they fall. While Winding Circle's mages are doing their best to keep the stones from dropping into the city, they can't catch every one. Now Tris, Briar, Sandry, Daja, their dog Little Bear, and an orphaned starling chick wait on the grounds near their home, keeping busy while their teachers--Lark, Rosethorn, Frostpine and Niko--help rescue people from a burning building.

Throughout this book Tris's weather-magic has broken out of her control time after time. Now she is growing lightning in her hair, everyone wants her to get a grip on it, before something bad happens....

Three more boom-stones exploded overhead. Tris flinched at each one; her hair began to rise and crackle. She tucked her hand into her pocket, and rubbed Aymery's earring.

They had to distract Tris, before something else happened, thought Daja. "What if you tried your lightning on that?" She pointed to the heap of black powder that lay forgotten in the path.

Tris stared at it. "I--I don't know," she said, her voice trembling.

"Well?" Sandry nudged.

"What lightning?" Briar demanded, sarcastic. "She's just got the worst case of Runog's Fire I've ever seen, is all."

Daja knew the pale fire that played on ship masts and tower roofs in storms as well as he did. "What she's got is seed lightning," she retorted. "It's not the same. Show him, Tris."

Another boom-stone exploded over the Hub. "I c-c-can't," Tris replied, shivering with fright. What did they want from her? Couldn't they see that each explosion felt like a sharp blow to her? Her muscles were clenched, awaiting the next strike, and her neck and back were aching.

"Don't you have to learn control?" Sandry asked. "No matter what else is going on? Maybe this is a good time to practice."

Tris glared at the other three, hating them for bothering her. She just wanted to run inside and hide under a bed.

"Ahhh, I knew it," Briar remarked scornfully. "It's just Runog's Fire."

Furious, Tris pointed to the heap of powder a foot away. Lightning jumped from her finger. There was a clap: dirt and smoke sprayed everywhere, blackening them and turning the observing Little Bear gray. The dog yipped, and fled into Discipline. The four looked at each other, eyes wide in soot-streaked faces. There was now a hole in the path.

"You see?" Briar said at last. "You just have to know what to say to her."

"You--" Tris snapped, and pointed at him without thinking what might result.

Briar grabbed her arms, hard, shaking her as lightning-sparks raced over his hands. "Don't you ever do that," he whispered, his eyes burning into hers. "Don't you ever. If your pointing is a weapon, then don't you point 'less you're ready to kill with it. You understand, you witless bleater?" He was so frightened he didn't know where his trembling ended and hers began. "Niko's right." He let her go and pushed her away from him. "We got to learn control, and you most of all."

"I'm sorry." Tris's eyes were spilling over, but she made herself look Briar in the face. "I'm sorry. I didn't--I wouldn't ever--"

Sandry put her arms around Tris's shoulders. "We can't just act without thinking any more, Tris. They've been trying to teach us that all along. I guess if we're mages, we can't exactly be kids, can we?" she asked the other two. They shook their heads. "Briar knows you would have been sorry after."

"After I was a nice crispy roast just off the spit," the boy said cruelly.

Tris hid her face in her hands.

"Enough," Daja said. "She got the point. Don't bully her."

I'm a scared bully, thought Briar, stuffing his hands into his pockets. And I want to be sure she's scared, scared enough to think next time.

Tris yanked out of Sandry's hold and ran up to her room.

Briar went to examine the miniature pine tree that sat on his window-ledge, letting the shakkan's years and plant-calm steady his nerves. Checking the dirt in its shallow basin, he decided it was a bit dry, and went inside for water.

Daja and Sandry stayed where they were, staring at the hole in the ground.

"What do you suppose her reach is, with lightning?" Daja inquired. "Could she hit a boom-stone?"

Sandry tugged one of her braids. "I don't know. Remember the day we all first met? Lightning struck a tree outside Administration when we were there. I think that was her--she was angry; I could tell the moment I laid eyes on her. And she wasn't excited by lightning hitting so close to her. But it was stormy that morning. This lightning just seems to cling to her--it's not part of a storm. It might not reach as far."

"But when she holds onto it, it grows. Remember? It starts as a spark. Then she holds it, and it grows into a strip." Daja scuffed at the dirt around the hole.

"I think we should find out how far she can send it." Sandry bent down and petted Little Bear, who had crept out of the house again.

"I think you're right," said Daja.

The safest place appeared to be the lee of the northern wall beside Discipline. There was a broad strip of grass with no other plants growing there--Briar had refused to allow an experiment anywhere in Rosethorn's garden. Only the sentries could see them, but for the most part they were looking out to the north, or to the south, where the burning buildings were. By now the word had come up the road: a boom-stone had gotten through the magical barriers, exploding in one of the large buildings that housed Winding Circle's carpentry shops. There were dead and wounded, and people trapped inside. It would be a while before their teachers could be spared from rescue work.

Once Briar had been converted to the idea of lightning experiments, he made some reed circles for use as targets. Sandry dug in Lark's scrap bag, and brought out a number of cloth patches which she placed in different spots. Daja's assignment was to get Tris to go along.

"I think this is stupid," Tris informed them when Daja brought her to the spot they'd prepared. "I can only do it when I'm upset."

"It's magic, it's there all the time," Briar told her impatiently. "Stop it with the lady-like whining. 'Oh, I can't, I have to be scared.'"

Tris glared at him. "Why can't you let me alone?"

"Because I'm tired of living with a merchant sniffer!" he told her. "Rosethorn's out there putting healing in potions, and she's been doing it every since the quake--"

Tris pointed at a swatch of cloth two feet away. Lightning stretched across the gap between her and the patch, but didn't touch it.

"You need me to go on carping?" Briar asked. "I've got plenty more to say--"

"You aren't always fun to live with, either, you know!" Tris snapped. She called the lightning back. For a moment she stood very still, eyes closed, breathing deep. She pointed again.

The bolt left a scorch mark on the cloth.

"Got to do better than that," said Daja, shaking her head.

"I'd like to see you try," muttered Tris. She wrapped her free hand around Aymery's earring, and pointed. The patch evaporated in a plume of smoke.

"I shouldn't have used silk," whispered Sandry. "It goes up so fast."

Tris pointed to the wall, five feet in front of her, where another patch was fastened to a chink in the mortar with a thorn. Lightning stretched across the distance, but only halfway.

"Something closer," said Daja. She tossed a cloth patch several inches beyond where the first had been.

An hour later there were scorch marks on the wall, and Tris had to feed her nestling. When she returned, she brought him with her, and gave his nest to Sandry to hold. "He's supposed to be kept quiet," she said. "I guess there's no chance of that now." The boom-stones had been exploding overhead off and on all afternoon.

Sandry peeked at the bird, and stopped Little Bear from trying the same thing. "He looks all right," she told Tris. "He's not shaking. I keep meaning to ask, what have you got in your pocket? You keep fiddling with something."

Grimly Tris held up Aymery's earring. "It helps me concentrate."

Sandry turned her head to order Little Bear to stop chewing on grass and stopped. Light flickered at the corner of her eye, light that was not one of the other children. "That earring is magicked," she said, shocked. "And what's that thread coming out of it?"

Tris looked sidelong at it. "You're right about the magic. Aymery told me the pirate mage created it, as a bond to enslave him. I don't see a thread, though."

"It's there, heading off"--Sandry pointed due south--"that way."

Daja squinted at the earring. "I see a ghost of a wire," she admitted. "But I never noticed it before. Just that blasted flickering."

"Blame Niko," protested Tris. "I never thought that seeing-spell would cross between us like it does."

"I bet the thread is the magical bond. It goes to that mage--Enahar? Stupid name," said Briar. "Too bad we couldn't send him a little lightning, by way of it."

"It would have to go through buildings and the wall," Daja pointed out. "I don't believe it would get there."

"Let's try something more fun," Briar said, holding up a reed circle. "Tris, get one of these while they're in the air."

"You've got to be joking." Tris planted her feet wide apart, to give her the best possible stance. As she gripped Aymery's earring, sparks began to glimmer in her tumbling curls. "All right, Briar, but I still don't think I can do it."

Briar tossed a reed circle into the air. Tris pointed, but the lightning on her fingertip tangled, and writhed around her hand like knotted string. Briar threw again, lower. This time the lightning missed by a hair. He threw a third time, and Little Bear jumped, grabbing the circle in his teeth. Tris burned a streak on the wall keeping the lightning away from the pup.

"I can't do this!" she cried, out of patience. "It's like playing with poison! It--"

Daja gasped, pointing at the sky. High overhead, a small, round shape had begun to fall toward them.

A blazing strip of white heat roared past them. It struck the boom-stone, blowing it to pieces two hundred feet overhead. The children hid their faces as soot and pottery fragments rained down on them.

Tris wobbled. Her knees gave, and she sat down hard. Little Bear came to lick her cheek. The other three children turned to stare at her.

"I guess we just need to make it worth your while," remarked Daja.