The Complete Enslaved Chronicles

by R. K. Thorne

  They turned a corner. She opened her mouth to say something else but stopped. Both their eyes caught on Derk, one of Wunik’s apprentices.

  “Ho! Miara, Prince Aven.” Derk trotted over to them. “Old Wunik’s banished us from his company again. Siliana and I are going for a ride. Would you care to join us?”

  He phrased his words as though addressing both of them, but he gazed only at Miara. Aven narrowed his eyes at the mage.

  “A ride does sound wonderful—” Miara started. Aven’s glare snapped toward her—did she really prefer a ride with this dolt to lunch with him? Her voice sounded sincere.

  “So dark down here, like a dungeon, by the gods.” Derk finally condescended to acknowledge Aven for a brief moment. “I don’t know how you stand it, really. I’m going mad.”

  “—but unfortunately, mundane duties keep us,” Miara finished.

  Us. You hear that, you cocky bastard? She said us, and she meant me and her, not you.

  What had gotten into him? Of course, the fact that he couldn’t assert any relationship between them with a clasped hand or arm around her waist didn’t help.

  “Ah, well, I am sure there will be more opportunities to take a ride in the saddle.” Derk gave her a wink. Aven barely stifled the need to throw him down the nearby stairs. If anyone were taking any saddle rides, it would not be this ignorant lout. “And perhaps if we ride too long, one of us will be in need of your services, my sweet healer, and we’ll come looking.”

  Miara did not return his warmth now. Her lips were pursed and brows drawn, cold as stone, but the mage didn’t seem to notice. Or perhaps he just didn’t care. Or was it that not everyone could read Miara as well as Aven could? “Siliana is quite accomplished,” she said. “A journeyman, isn’t she? Doesn’t that mean she’s more experienced than you?”

  Derk frowned in response.

  “I’m sure she’ll have no need of me. And if you’re nice to her, then perhaps you won’t have a problem.” Because you won’t be getting any healing from me, her words implied.

  Derk shrugged. “Next time, my friends.” And he sauntered off down the hallway.

  Aven rolled his eyes as they strode away. Gods, he knew that type. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. No matter what someone said, he’d ignore it and try to get his way. Such men made him glad he knew his way around a sword. Or mace or polearm or warhammer, if necessary.

  Both of them shaking their heads, they continued toward the library. At least Miara had been straight with him. That kind only used politeness against you. But had she really wanted to go on a ride with him?

  He didn’t have time to decide or sort through the implications before they reached the library. Wunik waited, hovering impatiently around the center of the room.

  “Thank the gods you’re here. I’d nearly decided to devour this without you. I only have so much restraint, you know.” Wunik spread his hands wide over a low table that held many diverse, tiny plates. Dumplings of every kind: meat, cheese, jam, potato, and onion. Breads, cakes, butters, a steaming roast. Urns of roasted carrots and pears poached in something sweet. Olives, dried fruits, dates. Wunik turned a raised eyebrow and a grin on Aven. “You mean to spoil me rotten, I think.”

  Aven smiled back. “Or tempt you to not go back into hiding. Or possibly my mother hopes to fatten us all so that we are too rotund to ever leave.” They tucked into a few of the delicacies. Libraries were not made for eating, and so he sat on the floor, legs crisscrossed in front of the low table. And with only a minute or two of hesitation, Miara followed and knelt at one end, by the array of dumplings.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t do more for your family last night, Miara.” Wunik settled himself as well.

  Her face had lit up at the inspection of the treasures on the table, but now it fell ever so slightly. Would Wunik even be able to tell, or was it just something that Aven could see? “It’s… all right. We did our best.”

  “Still. We’ll try again tonight with the starlight.”

  “Of course. We saw Derk on the way here.” Miara popped a dumpling in her mouth. Eager to change the subject? “He wanted us to go with them out for a ride. You didn’t want them here?”

  Wunik frowned. “No. I didn’t. Not until I’ve seen this map. Derk is young. Ambitious. Siliana is too, honestly, and I’m glad of it at times. But she’s older, wiser. She’s seen more of the world. This map… It could be very dangerous.”

  “We didn’t tell him we were coming here,” she said. “I didn’t say where we were going, just that we were occupied with ‘mundane duties.’ ”

  Wunik nodded. “Just as well. I won’t discuss this with them either.”

  Aven hunted down a napkin and cleaned the food off his fingers. “Well, let’s get to it then.” He cleared a place on a higher table next to Wunik’s armchair. This table was desk-height and well lit by the nearby hearth and candelabras and yet wasn’t too close to any of those sources of flame. He probably ought to make a mundane copy of the thing soon. Although, perhaps he should understand it better before he divulged its secrets into plain ink and vellum.

  Aven took the star map from a pocket and unfolded it carefully. “This—do you recognize this?”

  “Is this it? The map of the stars? The one they spoke of?”

  “Yes.” Aven blinked, simply admiring it for a moment. Such a strange and subtle gift from the past.

  “Sweet goddesses. This is what you used?”

  “Indeed. Here is Casel. I already knew the stars and some of these meanings, but they are written here in the old language. But others I can’t translate. And many of the characters are missing—they appear only in starlight.”

  “Yes, I see. There are actually two forms of Serabain here. An ancient version and a more modern one. Modern for an ancient language, that is. I doubt I can read the oldest, even if the missing pieces were here. You see this character? That one? Telltale signs of the older tongue. We’d need quite an expert in ancient languages to read these. But there is plenty to look at otherwise. Here she is—freedom. And joy. Intellect. Passion. Courage. Ferocity. And—” Suddenly the old man stopped short.

  “What is it?” Miara got up and joined them, leaning over the back of Wunik’s chair.

  “This is one of Zaera’s maps. Or it contains the same information.”

  “What do you mean?” Aven studied Wunik’s frown.

  “This is very dangerous indeed, my friends,” he breathed.

  “What does it say, Wunik?” Miara stepped closer.

  “Here. This one.” He pointed at a star Aven hadn’t been able to translate on the opposite side of the map of Casel. “I know the language well enough to guess what the letters would be. We can check it in starlight, perhaps, although we must do it discreetly.”

  “Why?”

  “This one says ‘slavery.’ ”

  Miara took an involuntary step back. By the gods.

  “What do you mean, slavery?” Aven asked.

  “Just as you used star magic to free Miara, they used it to enslave in the first place.” Wunik’s voice seemed far away, underwater, under glass, as if she’d fallen out of the conversation and was simply watching Aven and Wunik from somewhere else. If this map could do what she thought it could… “This map contains clues to both. It means someone could use this map to control the minds of others, if they knew the right spell. This map tells us which stars control which energies, although not the appropriate spells. Starlight could reveal that.”

  “But how could one enslave another with just a star?” Aven said slowly. The question brought Miara back to reality, and she stepped closer to them again. Any steps down this road must be stopped.

  “How did you free them with just a star? But more importantly, do you really want to know the answer to that question?” Wunik squinted hard at Aven, indicating his opinion on the matter.

  “Well… no.”

  “You’re damn right, you don’t. It’s dangerous enough to have the knowledge, but for a
king to have the knowledge—”

  “A prince—”

  “A crown prince who will someday be king, if we get our way. You want a kingdom ruled by laws? You want people who follow you happily and willingly? You cannot be tempted with this evil. You cannot have your political enemies know this evil even exists, to accuse you of it.”

  But Aven was not easily deterred. “But to free Miara, I imitated a healing spell. Systems seek to return to their natural state. How… What would possibly be the opposite of that?”

  She grimaced. “You can do a spell of injury. But it’s repulsive.”

  Wunik nodded in agreement. “Few mages even speak of such things, let alone teach them. Hideous.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Aven.

  “It is possible for a creature mage to learn to rend flesh apart the same way they learn to mend it back together,” Wunik explained.

  “Like maggots? Or something?” Aven looked thoughtful. Why had he said that?

  “Or a knife. But I can’t imagine working such a spell.”

  “Why did you ask that?” Miara cut in. “About maggots.”

  “The brand—that was how the energy felt to me. Fire too, but a lot like maggots. Did it feel like that to you?”

  Miara frowned. “It was twenty years ago. I don’t really remember it.”

  “A spell of injury would be physically painful to the caster, nauseating, and deeply against the Balance. It might even induce madness, although we’re not quite sure; it may simply be that mages who have chosen to cast such an awful spell were already mad. Also, we know a lot more energy-efficient ways to hurt someone, if that’s your goal. In a way, that is a blessing. The spell is rarely taught because for a creature mage, it’s much easier to charm an animal or grow your own claws than to rend another human’s flesh with your magic. But it is possible.”

  “The Dark Days were deeply wrong, though, weren’t they?” said Aven.

  “Well, there’s wrong and then there’s wrong,” muttered Wunik.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Miara said.

  “We all generally agree that to kill a man is wrong.” Wunik straightened from looking at the table and leaned back in his chair. “But what about when that man is holding a knife to a child’s throat? Suddenly things get a lot more complicated.”

  “Then is it more wrong to kill him or not to kill him?” she muttered.

  Aven squinted at the map, almost glaring at it. “What are we going to do with this?”

  Was he dodging her? “You didn’t answer my question.”

  She must have surprised him with her insistence. He straightened with a blink and regarded her levelly. “I would kill him, and I wouldn’t think twice about it. You always defend a child.”

  “Because of your Code?” she asked.

  “But what if the child—” Wunik started.

  Aven eyed him sidelong into silence, and the old man stopped, laughing a little at their seriousness. “A child has more of a chance to change,” Aven said in a hard voice. “The man has had more of a chance to become wise. There is always a way to turn a situation this way or that. You act as well as you can with as much information as you can get, and you don’t look back and worry on it.”

  Miara found herself smiling at that.

  “But yes, the Code says that too.” Why did he seem to admit that grudgingly? Frustrated with his Code these days?

  “Why did you say that just now, though? About more than one type of wrong,” Aven asked Wunik.

  “I have heard many stories of the Dark Days, some of them quite questionable tales. I thought this sort of thing was one of them.” He gestured at the map. “But some of the stories give the mages who created the tools for the Masters good reasons for doing so.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” Miara cut in. But then again… what mage would want to do this? Perhaps they had been under duress? If someone ordered her to make a brand or they would kill Aven… she would probably do it. The first action could—hopefully—be reversed, while a death couldn’t. Gods, what a thought.

  “So back to… what are we going to do with this?” Aven said.

  Wunik jumped in. “I’ll tell you, I don’t want Derk looking at this, to be frank. This knowledge must be carefully guarded, if we distribute it at all. It might be better to put it back in that book and back on the high shelf where it had been hiding for so many years. You know the spell now. You know the star you need. You teach it to me. Perhaps we don’t even need the map.”

  “We could destroy it,” she said slowly. “No one should have the power to enslave another.”

  “True,” Aven said. “But destroying this map won’t guarantee we’ve destroyed the power to enslave. There could be other maps, other brands, other people who have this knowledge. We don’t know if this is the only way to enslave someone—perhaps there is another way. We can’t even translate all of these. If we can find someone versed in ancient languages—”

  “Holy languages, in particular,” Wunik cut in, eying the map again.

  “—then we will at least know what we are dealing with.”

  Miara nodded. “As much as I want to stop it all… it’s best to know your enemy well. Any information about them is valuable.”

  They all nodded. Wunik leaned forward and plucked a dried cherry from a delicate bowl. “I don’t see much else here I can translate. We need to find someone who knows ancient Serabain dialects. We can see what we see in the starlight. But doing that while avoiding my apprentices in this cave of a hold will not be easy.”

  “And possibly not worth the risk,” Miara added.

  “All right. Let’s not share it with the gathering tonight. I’ll keep it with me until we can figure out somewhere to lock it up or hide it.” Aven tucked it in his leather jerkin and the gray tunic beneath. “You mentioned Derk… Anyone else we should be very careful to keep it away from that either of you can think of?”

  “Alikar, obviously,” Miara said. “I know he was against you, but he also had the scent of magic on him. Sorry I didn’t mention it earlier. Someone around him is a mage, even if he doesn’t know it.”

  “And someone sent him that letter from Kavanar,” Aven agreed.

  “None of your lords should see this,” Wunik said. “Or even know of it. You should not tempt them with the knowledge that this evil exists. Many a man or woman would long to use it to take the throne. If it could happen to the old king of Kavanar, it could happen to you or your father. Or they could accuse you of using it, even if you haven’t. You don’t want anyone to have even the option of being like those Kavanarian bastards. We don’t need to tempt people.”

  Aven scowled and popped an olive in his mouth. “Indeed.”

  “Now, are you ready for some lessons?”

  “You don’t need me, do you?” she asked. In some ways she wanted to stay and watch. Aven’s exuberance in every small discovery was rejuvenating to say the least. But she also longed for more of her newfound freedom. She could find Dom and ask about his pup, or she could simply sit in her room and do nothing.

  The choice was hers. It was delightful. And also a little frightening.

  “Not if you have other things to attend to,” said Aven.

  “Just enjoying this new thing called ‘being able to do whatever the hell I want.’ Come and get me for the mage gathering? Or dinner before?”

  They nodded and set to work, and she wandered out into the hallway, leaving them to their practice. A few feet later, she stopped. Decision time. Out of all her dozens of options, she needed to choose one. Or at the very least, she needed to choose a direction to start walking while she considered her options.

  The library door opened behind her, and Aven’s boots came thudding out. “Your rooms are down there. Proving Grounds, kitchens, that way. Terrace to the left down that hall, another small library to the right of that one. You’ll learn it eventually, I’ve had years.”

  “I know,” she said with a smile. “I keep tr
ack of these things when I can.”

  “I should have guessed.” He smiled back and hesitated for a moment as if unsure if he should go back inside. She had a feeling these directions were just an excuse to follow for a moment anyway. She glanced around. The hallways were empty and silent at the moment, as if nothing lived for miles around, as if they were quite alone.

  “Thank you, though,” she said. She stepped toward him and took his face in her hands, that shaggy brown hair brushing her fingers. She missed the feel of the stubble on his jaw, though she did not mind the addition of the musky smell of Estun’s soap. She leaned forward and pressed a long kiss to his lips. He reached for her, reached for more, but she pulled away. “Later,” she whispered. “Right? Later?” He gave her a chagrined, crooked smile.

  There. Perhaps that would help him remember not to pass out tonight. Of course, she still had no idea how they would get a few moments alone even if he did manage to stay conscious. Or if sleeping beside him all night was an entirely ridiculous and impossible goal, at least for now. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it.

  She turned away, striding down the hallway toward the Proving Grounds with a spring in her step. Maybe instead she would find Devol. Or go to the other library and read a book.

  The choice was hers.

  Twilight had fallen, and the air had started to cool when Jaena began to dig her way out. Since she couldn’t see who might be nearby, she started out gradually, slowly moving the earth back to where it had been before she’d built this fortress of dirt around her. Then she paused and waited for some exclamation, some expression of concern. But nothing came. She’d cleared about half the dirt, nearly enough for her to crawl out, when footsteps approached.

  Should she tunnel herself back in? It was probably too late for that. She could simply stay still and quiet. The sky was darkening. No one would spot her here under the bridge.