Agents of the Crown- The Complete Series

by Lindsay Buroker

  “You’ll see.”

  Jev was tempted to join Rhi in grumbling—and cursing—under his breath. Lornysh did have a tendency toward the taciturn, but he was being more vague than usual. Because he saw Rhi and Zenia as enemies? People whom he shouldn’t speak openly in front of? Understandable, but—

  A strange zing of energy ran all over Jev’s skin, and he halted. “Uh, Lornysh? Was that you?”

  “It was here before I came,” Lornysh called softly back, though he wasn’t visible through the brush. “Likely since before your family claimed this land.”

  “We’ve been here for almost a millennium.”

  “Yes.”

  From the sound of his voice, Lornysh had continued on. Jev followed, and the energy subsided. A gasp came from behind him as Rhi passed through the spot.

  “What was that?” she asked. “Magic?”

  Lornysh didn’t reply.

  “Either that,” Jev said, “or there’s a plant back here with a kick.”

  He remembered the stinging nettles and biting thorns from Taziira. Their touches had tingled painfully but not in an otherworldly way. Not with strange magical energy.

  The silver light grew brighter, and Jev expected to run into Lornysh’s back any second, into that orb floating behind him. But the gully opened up, the brush growing less thick, and he saw that the light came from a structure up ahead. A stone pillar that looked like a mix between a tree trunk and a giant mushroom stem. Four symmetrically placed branches arched out from the top and glowed softly, shedding light on the clearing. A couple of curving stone benches rested to either side, the leaves of vining plants threatening to obscure them from sight.

  Lornysh stood on the opposite side of the stream. He had let his own sphere of light fade.

  “Is this… has this always been here?” Jev asked. “Doing that?”

  It seemed impossible that the foliage would have completely hidden that silver light at night, that nobody would have noticed this over the years.

  “The stone activates when someone of elven blood comes near,” Lornysh said.

  Jev started to ask how he knew that, but a cheerful whistling from the back side of the structure surprised him. He leaned to the side and spotted a familiar figure crouching behind it, making a rubbing of carvings on the pillar.

  “Cutter?” Jev asked.

  “Yup, that’s me.”

  “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  Judging by Lornysh’s unsurprised expression, he had.

  “Or for here to exist,” Jev added, walking toward the structure.

  He didn’t know what it was—he’d never seen anything like it on his family’s land or anywhere else—but he assumed it wouldn’t sling some magical attack at him, not when Cutter was poking and prodding at it like an archeologist. Or a dwarven treasure hunter.

  “I wanted to go looking for you today when I found out you weren’t back from the city,” Cutter said, “but I also wanted to look at this relic when Lornysh told me about it. These warring desires pounded at me like a pickax on stone. Until Lorn said he’d go find you and bring you back.”

  Rustling came from behind Jev as Rhi pushed her way out of the foliage and stopped to stare at the structure. The relic? That didn’t seem the right word for something so large.

  “Body’s back there still,” Cutter added, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Lorn said not to disturb it until you had a look. Not that I make a point of rummaging through bones.”

  “Just stones,” Lornysh murmured.

  “Stones are far more interesting than bones.”

  “Body?” Jev walked in the indicated direction.

  “We thought it might be your missing butler.”

  Lornysh frowned at Cutter. “I was going to let him make his own conclusions.”

  “He can still conclude all he wants.”

  Jev stopped when the remains of a skeleton came into view. A human skeleton. The bones had been gnawed on and pulled apart, with the skull several feet away from the scattered ribs, but he’d seen enough human bones to recognize them. A few shreds of clothing had survived the years—how many years?—along with a single boot, the leather as gnawed as the bones.

  He walked around the remains, careful not to disturb anything. “I have no idea what Corvel would have been wearing or how to identify this… person from what’s here. Nor can I guess what would have led Corvel to this place.”

  “The presence of magic led me.” Lornysh extended a hand toward the glowing structure.

  “Yes, but you can sense magic. Corvel was human, and as you’ve pointed out many times, we humans are as sensitive to magic as moss-covered boulders.”

  “True, but if someone had told him where to look, he could have found the place.”

  “But who would have?” Jev scraped his fingers through his beard, momentarily startled by how little of it remained after his trim the night before. “I didn’t know about this place, and I grew up here.”

  “What is this thing?” Rhi stopped under the structure.

  “A meeting stone,” Lornysh said. “If you touch it, it will rejuvenate you. Early elven explorers left them in places where fresh water could be found, using magic to turn them into a beacon that magical beings could sense.”

  “The interesting part,” Cutter said in a tone that implied none of what Lornysh had said was interesting, “is that there are dwarf carvings on here as well as elven ones. Must have been a dwarf adventurer on that party.”

  “What do they say?” Rhi asked.

  “Oh, I’ve no idea,” Cutter said. “I’m copying them down to show Master Grindmor in the city. Some of those from the older generations can still read Trade Dwarf. Assuming the person who promised to introduce me to the master carver doesn’t get arrested.”

  “I actually met her last night,” Jev said.

  Cutter lurched to his feet. “What? Without me?”

  “You should have allowed yourself to be arrested, then captured by criminals with me. You could have met her too.”

  Cutter stamped around, looking like he genuinely regretted not coming along for the adventure.

  Jev held up his hand. “Don’t worry. I told her about you. She actually has a problem, unless she’s resolving it as we speak, and I told her you’d like to help her.”

  Cutter pressed his hands to his chest. “I’d mine a thousand veins for a chance to assist her. I must prove my worthiness so she’ll one day be willing to teach me.”

  “Almost precisely what I told her.”

  Cutter tried to get more details from him, but Jev said he would explain more later, then knelt by the skull. By Corvel’s skull?

  Unless Jev found more clues, he couldn’t assume that. He couldn’t even guess how long ago this man had died. Four years ago? Forty? Not four hundred, he didn’t think. The bones weren’t yellowed yet.

  Jev turned over the skull, revealing a hole in the back.

  “Now there’s a clue,” he murmured, lifting it to peer inside, expecting an arrowhead to fall out. Had some elf been waiting at this meeting stone to guard it? But why would Corvel have come if he expected an enemy?

  Something small and dark fell through one of the eye holes and clinked against a boulder. Not an arrowhead. A bullet. A wyvern-cutter from an old percussion-cap rifle. He’d loaded bullets exactly like this for the firearm he’d learned to hunt with as a boy. The rifle had been old then, and that had been over twenty years ago.

  “You think this was Corvel? That this happened only a few years ago?” Jev held it up for Lornysh to see.

  “Judging by the weathering to the bones, yes. I know it’s an older bullet than what your army uses now, but I’m sure many of your villagers around here have older rifles hanging over their hearths.”

  “True. And I’m positive you can still buy wyvern-cutters from gunsmiths today.”

  The silver light from above gleamed on the bullet, and Jev imagined he could still see the fallen man’s blood on it. He s
till didn’t know if this had been Corvel, but he felt a sense of loss at the idea. The old butler had been a mainstay in his boyhood, serving the family for as long as Jev could remember. He’d been stately and proper, but he hadn’t been above sharing confidences with ten-year-old boys. And Corvel’s eyes had twinkled as, with the barest tilt of his head, he gave away Vastiun’s hiding spot after Vastiun made off with Jev’s treasured raccoon-skin cap for the dozenth time.

  Whoever had shot Corvel, or whoever the person ended up being, it had happened on Jev’s family’s land, and that filled him with indignation. And a need to get to the bottom of this, to avenge the person.

  What if someone in his family had been involved? No, that couldn’t be. But it could have been someone from one of the villages. Or someone who worked in the castle. Someone who had seen Corvel open that package? And had known it contained something valuable? And had followed him out here to kill Corvel and take the item? The Eye of Truth?

  But why would Corvel have brought such an artifact out here to start with? Why hadn’t he simply left it in Vastiun’s room? How had he even known it was something valuable? Jev hadn’t.

  Jev sighed and stood up, all the questions in his head making it ache. He hadn’t expected to walk out to a crime scene when he’d followed Lornysh off the road.

  “No other clues?” Jev asked. “Nothing to identify this person for certain?”

  It would have been handy to find a leather-bound diary that had fallen out of the man’s pocket.

  “No,” Lornysh said, “but if you agree with my assessment that this man was killed in the last few years, it would coincide with the time period during which your brother’s belongings were returned and the butler disappeared, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “If he realized he had a magical artifact, he may have brought it here to contact someone.”

  Lornysh walked to the structure and pointed out a carving different from most. Jev recognized Taziir runes, even if he couldn’t read the ancient dialect, and knew most of what adorned the pillar was writing. This, however, was a carving of a spread hand.

  “Touch this, and an alert will be sent to all the meeting stones within roughly three hundred miles,” Lornysh said. “If someone is monitoring them, they will know a request for communication has been made. Whether they will travel here depends on factors that I can’t guess at in this circumstance. How important the people living near this stone are, most likely, and what relationships exist between them and those who monitor the other stones.”

  Jev realized he was staring at Lornysh with his jaw dangling open, and he made himself shut it. But the words raised so many questions—so many more questions—and he couldn’t imagine answers that wouldn’t stun him.

  “There are meeting stones like this all over the kingdom that are still monitored by elves?” he asked.

  He knew there were dwarven and elven ruins all over the continent, but he’d always heard, both from history tutors and elves themselves, that the Taziir hadn’t found the warm southern Anchor Sea climate hospitable to them for long-term habitation, that they’d preferred their temperate northern forests. The elves were supposed to be long gone from this area.

  “Likely.” Lornysh twitched a shoulder to suggest he didn’t know. Was that true? He’d been an army scout for the last few years, but before then… who knew what he’d done? Jev did not.

  “And they care what’s going on here? On my family’s land? What do you mean important people? Why would any of us—” Jev touched his chest, then waved in the direction of the castle, “—be considered important to elves?”

  Lornysh lifted a shoulder again. Why did Jev get the feeling he knew far more than he was saying?

  Jev stared down at the bullet, trying to digest all the implications of it and of the body.

  “Just to be clear,” Rhi said into the silence, “the artifact we’re looking for isn’t here, right?”

  “I do not sense it,” Lornysh said.

  “So, if that’s the butler that took it out of the castle, does this mean someone took it from him? After shooting him?” She looked at Jev.

  As if he knew anything. He didn’t even want to accept that this was Corvel’s body. He’d liked Corvel. The idea of him being heartlessly murdered on land where he should have been safe distressed Jev deeply.

  “I suggest,” Jev said, aware of Rhi watching him expectantly, “that we return to the castle and see if Zenia has learned anything.”

  Lornysh’s expression never overflowed with emotion, but it grew even more guarded than usual.

  Later, Jev would take him aside and explain that he trusted Zenia now. Even if he wasn’t positive he should. She had made it clear where her loyalties lay, and even though he didn’t object to the Water Order in general—interrogation sessions notwithstanding—he was skeptical whether they were the rightful keepers of whatever this artifact was. Had it truly been stolen from them? Or were they, like the Fifth Dragon guild, opportunists looking to claim it?

  “Maybe someday somebody will tell me what this thing actually does,” he muttered to himself.

  As Jev headed for the path back, Cutter stood and asked, “Are we going to show him the cairn?”

  “Cairn?” Jev asked.

  Rhi, who had also been turning to leave, paused and lifted her eyebrows.

  Lornysh spread his palm. “There weren’t any identifying markings, and it would be unacceptable to disturb the rocks to seek clues from the bones.”

  “There weren’t any identifying markings here either.” Jev pointed to the skeletal remains, not believing the bullet counted as a marker. “And you didn’t mind me poking through the bones.”

  “That man’s spirit was never properly laid to rest. His ghost may haunt this small glen. Perhaps after your mystery is solved and you can with certainty name the owner of the bones, it would be appropriate to return to inter his remains.”

  “I can do that. But let’s see this cairn, too, before we go.”

  Lornysh hesitated. “It is older than your mystery. There is little point in disturbing it.”

  “I won’t disturb it. I’ll look at it. Is that allowed?”

  “He’s getting in a snit over it because elves laid the rocks,” Cutter said. “He wouldn’t let me touch it either.”

  Lornysh sighed. “Yes, you may look. It’s not hard to find.”

  Rhi looked like she wanted to head back to check on Zenia rather than traipsing farther up the stream, but she followed Jev and the others. He wouldn’t have minded if she left. He had more questions for Lornysh but doubted his friend would speak openly with her around. Among all the other things he was wondering, he now wanted to know why elves had come onto his family’s property and buried someone.

  16

  “Zyndar Prime Dharrow isn’t here?” Zenia asked.

  “That’s right, ma’am, and I don’t have the authority to let you in.” The guard glanced into the courtyard behind him, as if he was hoping someone would come over to back him up—or maybe take over the job of speaking to an inquisitor—but Zenia didn’t see anyone walking through the area at the moment.

  “You don’t have the authority to keep me out, rather,” she said. “I am here in the name of Archmage Sazshen, leader of the Order of the Blue Dragon temple in the capital. I am here to question the Dharrow family and its staff on her behalf.”

  “I…”

  She could tell he didn’t want to let her in but also that he worried about the ramifications of refusing her. Finally, he leaned into the small guard station built into the stone archway and rang a bell.

  “Someone should come to speak with you,” he said.

  Should? They had better.

  “Where is Zyndar Dharrow?” Even though she hadn’t enjoyed chatting with the crusty man the day before—damn, had it only been a day?—he was a likely source of information. With the help of her dragon tear, she ought to be able to pry out his secrets.

  “He was summoned early t
his morning to a meeting at Alderoth Castle and hasn’t returned. Something about the coronation, we figured. Heard a lot of the zyndar primes were called. We expect him back any time though.” The guard looked toward the dark sky. “Rumor has it the new king isn’t much for drinking parties and orgies. I suppose he could grow into them. He’s young, they say. I heard Jev served with him. I can’t wait to talk to him, ask him all about Targyon. The whole castle and all the villagers are downright perplexed about him being named Abdor’s heir.”

  If Zenia had wanted gossip on their new king, this man would have been easy to obtain answers from, even without magical influence, but that wasn’t why she had come.

  A dark-haired woman in her twenties appeared in the courtyard and waved for Zenia to enter. Zenia had seen her the day before. Jev’s cousin, Wyleria. The same cousin Lornysh had apparently spoken with. She ought to be a decent resource and perhaps guide around the castle.

  Zenia briefly reintroduced herself, then said, “What can you tell me of Jev’s mother?”

  She’d planned to ask first about the butler, but maybe she could surprise an answer out of the woman before she realized she was part of the investigation.

  “Er, it’s been a long time since she disappeared. She can’t be suspected of any crime, surely.”

  “No, but your former butler is the last one believed to have seen the artifact stolen from the Water Order Temple.” Zenia hoped it had been stolen. Sazshen had been vague about it. Vague about everything. “He seems to have been loyal to Jev’s mother. Was she your aunt, or were you only related through marriage?”

  A furrow creased Wyleria’s forehead. “Yes, she was my aunt. Or is. We’re not sure what happened to her. She may still be alive. Jev’s mother is my mother’s older sister, one of three. If you want information on her, our grandmother—her mother—might be the person to ask.”

  “Is that Visha?” Zenia remembered the babbling woman who had tried to foist that basket of sweets on Jev. He’d suggested she might be a good resource.