The tower. The proposal. He regretted it.
“I understand,” she said. “You didn’t mean any of it.”
“No! I mean … yes. But no.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that … you were right. The whole thing was about me, not you, and if I were going to do something like that, it should have been about you. Right?”
“Uh …”
“What I’m trying to say is that I was selfish, and I hurt you. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you, and I know there’s nothing I can do to take that back. And I know I have no right to ask, but please, will you forgive me?”
He was apologizing to her. That was what was so important he ignored an entire force of mages come to kill him.
“Xan, I appreciate what you’re doing, but is this really the best time? This thing … it’s serious.”
“Oh, believe me, I understand.” He winked at her. Winked. Not cocky, though. Not blind arrogance. Confident. “It’s okay. I’ll deal with it. What’s important is you forgiving me. Do you?”
Tasia grinned. At the very least, she meant enough to him that putting things right with her took precedence over everything. “I do.”
Behind him, Brant grasped the hilt of his sword, clearly agitated. “Okay, you’ve had your moment.”
Xan smiled at her before turning. “You’re right. I have. Thank you.”
“Are you coming with me peaceful-like,” Brant said, “or do we have to do this the hard way?”
“Now!” Xan yelled.
Brant’s eyebrows furrowed. He relaxed them before they crinkled again. Reactions from the other mages, including Lainey and Ashley, were the same. They were blocked.
Tasia drew life magic and eased it into her horse. Of the entire group, she was the only one free. The only one he trusted.
Xan glanced back at her and winked again.
81.
Xan kept his expression serious.
Not long ago, he would have gloated about getting one up on his friend, regardless of the circumstances, but that would only make Brant feel like he’d lost. The goal wasn’t for anyone to lose. An alliance gave them all a chance of winning.
“Everyone keep calm,” Xan said. “You’re in no danger, and if you cooperate, you’ll remain unrestrained.”
“Xan …” Lainey said.
“I’m sorry. You’ll always be my sister, but that order has to include you, too. Anyone who resists … I can’t promise the experience will be a pleasant one.” Xan turned to Brant. “Your move. Want to risk your people getting hurt?”
Brant flexed his hands on the hilt of his sword.
“Well?” Xan tensed. He’d hate to hurt anyone, least of all one of his friends, but he wasn’t an apothecary in a small town, anymore. Leaders had responsibilities.
Brant’s shoulders slumped. “No one move!”
“Thank you.”
“I am not surrendering,” Brant said. “You can’t keep blocking me forever.”
“I’m not blocking you, any of you.” Xan launched himself into the air and hovered, making red, blue, and yellow lights streak across the sky. Sound magic added explosions, and a grove of trees on the other side of the lake burst into flame. “All my powers are available. Of course, those are just the ones that are easy to see. Do you want me to demonstrate the others? Blighting is something to behold.”
Okay, he was showing off, but it was hard not to. His friends were finally with him. His sister. Tasia was in Eye Lake! He hadn’t felt so good in a long time. Since …
Xan lowered himself back to the ground.
“Report now if you aren’t blocked!” Brant yelled.
No one spoke, not even Tasia. Xan grinned. He knew he could trust her.
“Did you know,” Xan said, “that if you’re a powerful enough mage, you can sense potential even at a great distance?”
“Actually,” Brant said, “I did know that.”
“Really, then why in the world did you come with so few mages?”
Brant sputtered out something about time.
Ahh. He’d only found out it could be done, not how to do it.
“Well then,” Xan said, “you should understand why I’ve been able to recruit so many. Think about it. I hover over a village, use my life sense or heat or whatever to pinpoint every person in town. In minutes, I determine if there are any mages. Then it’s simply gather them up and take them to Eye Lake for training.”
Brant’s eyes widened. He looked around.
“Yep. You just marched into a trap, my friend. I’ve got over a hundred and fifty mages now, and that doesn’t even count me. More than enough to keep all of you blocked in shifts.”
“What are you going to do, Xan? Keep us locked up? Kill us?”
“Keeping you blocked seems like such a bother, though. I’m leaning towards execution. That’s what you came here to do to me, isn’t it?”
Lainey rolled her eyes. Even Dylan tilted his head.
“Okay, so maybe I can’t just kill you, but can’t you see it makes no sense for us to be fighting in the first place? Who knows when Dastanar will be ready? And who knows how many mages they have. Even if we combined forces, I don’t know if we have enough.”
“It won’t be,” Brant said. “They have over twelve hundred on their roles, and our best guess is that they’ll attack within the month.”
Xan faltered in midair and had to keep himself from falling. Things were worse than he’d thought.
82.
Xan paced around the Gryphon throne.
“I don’t understand, my lord wizard,” Gregg said, “how you can let them roam free?”
“Only my friends,” Xan said. “The rest are secure.”
“But—”
“Even if they all combined against just me, I’d win.” Though Xan could count on Tasia, at least, not to fight him. He hoped, anyway. “And they’re ridiculously outnumbered here in the castle.”
“It’s a bad idea, my lord wizard. They’re the enemy.”
“That’s the problem, right there,” Xan said. “They are not the enemy. Dastanar is. And treating them as if they’re adversaries just makes it more likely for them actually to become adversaries.”
“Still …”
“It’s the correct call,” Robyn said. “Lady Ashley’s biggest concern, as a representative of Queen Anna, is that the lord wizard has turned into a mad tyrant. The worst thing he can do is act like just that.”
“Are we agreed, then?” Xan said.
Tina nodded reluctantly, and with everyone else against him, Gregg finally did as well.
“Great. Next item on the agenda?”
“The meeting with Sir Reed and his associates, my lord wizard,” Robyn said. “He’s requested to bring six representatives with him.”
“Seven total? Who’s the last?”
“A Dastanarian death mage, my lord wizard. Lucan.”
Made sense. Besides the girl acting like his handmaid, no one knew more about Barius’ forces. “Works. We’ll meet here in a few hours. Next?”
Tina and Gregg looked at each other.
“What?” Xan said.
“If they’re bringing seven to the meeting, my lord wizard,” Gregg said, “we should bring at least eight. Ten would be preferable.”
“No,” Xan said.
“But my lord wizard?” Tina said.
“I refuse to act like the blasted nobles and endlessly analyze every little thing that anyone does to see who got the upper hand,” Xan said. “It’s petty. It’s gamesmanship. We will rise above such idiocy.”
Gregg sighed. “Very well, my lord wizard.”
The meeting continued on to more mundane and less contentious matters until a page interrupted, a girl whose name Xan couldn’t bear to learn. He’d wanted someone as different from Marco as possible to serve as the primary throne room attendant, and a teenage girl fit that bill perfectly.
“Sir Brant Reed, Marshal of the Mages to Duke A
sher; Lady Ashley Asher, niskma of Vierna; Lady Anastasia Knox; and four associates have arrived, my lord wizard.”
Xan grinned. He was pretty sure Tasia would have gone apoplectic at hearing herself so described. “Invite them in, please.”
They’d set up a table in the throne room, and Xan sat at the head of it, his only concession to the visage of power. His friends entered, and he greeted them one by one with Brant supplying the name of the little Dastanarian mage. Xan introduced his advisors in turn.
Brant took the seat at the opposite end and, ever ready to spring into action, he launched into speaking the second his butt hit the upholstery. “We’ve whittled down Dastanar’s mages with the thirty I killed at Asherton and the hundred you killed here, but they still have over five times as many as we can put into the field.”
“Agreed.” Xan said.
“Even if we combine forces, we have little chance,” Brant said. “Separately, we definitely have none.”
“Agreed again.”
Brant crossed and uncrossed his arms, stretching his muscles like he was about to enter the ring for sparring. “I’m under direct orders from both Duke Asher and from the queen herself to kill you and take command of your mages.”
“I’d hate to be you, then.” Xan couldn’t help but smile.
“There’s got to be a way for us to get rid of you,” Brant said. “A duel?”
Xan snorted. “You’d trounce me with any weapon, and I’d return the favor if we fought with magic. That makes no sense for either of us.”
“We could slip poison into your food,” Ashley said sweetly.
“It’s already been tried,” Xan said. “Didn’t take. Hard to kill a death mage.”
She leaned forward, letting her dress gap in front. “I could slip into your quarters and … distract … you somehow. Apply the poison to a blade. Stick you in the gut while blocking your life magic.”
“Still wouldn’t work.” He looked pointedly at Tasia, who blushed.
Ashley’s face clouded. “Don’t be so sure about that.”
Brant gestured at the Gryphon Throne. “Your head has gotten so big, I’m surprised you can get through the mountain pass.”
“I fly over it.”
“Look,” Brant said, grinning, “I haven’t forgotten that we’re friends, but we’re at a standoff. I’m not leaving here until our two forces are united, and I must follow my orders.”
Lainey cleared her throat, and everyone looked at her.
“This is silly,” she said. “We all want to work together. How can we make that happen?”
“I’ve only ever asked to be recognized as an equal,” Xan said.
“But that’s the sticking point,” Ashley said. “The queen can’t put herself on equal footing with a commoner. You have to see that the dukes will rebel if she does that.”
“And you have to see that I have over a thousand people depending on me,” Xan said. “I can’t just blindly agree with whatever someone orders me to do. Having a say in all matters is the only way I can live up to my responsibilities.”
Ashley sighed. “Queen Anna will never go for that. I can get her to show you respect, but …”
“Then I guess we’re wasting our time.”
“My fair prince Xan?”
For an instant, he was transported back to that meadow, where he was a lovestruck boy and Ashley was as perfect as anyone he’d ever met. But only for an instant. He was no longer that person, and he wasn’t sure she ever was.
“Sorry, not this time.”
“Dastanar will strike Asherton first. My city. My father. He’s nearly as stubborn as you are. He’ll stand on that wall in the face of death because he considers it the honorable thing to do.”
“Ashley …”
“You are my only chance of saving him.” She rose from her chair and walked toward him.
Xan grimaced. Again, she’d throw herself at him, offer her body for his help. He hated that Tasia had to see that.
Instead, she went to her knees before him, her hands clasped together in supplication. “My lord wizard, please, I beg you, save Asherton.”
That was the girl he’d first fell in love with, the one whose spirit so captivated him. The one who was willing to talk to an awkward, gangly kid. Who was as beautiful on the inside as the out. Who wasn’t so afraid to let people know she cared.
Which made what he was about to say so much harder.
“Ashley, I am your friend. I will always be your friend. But I have my own city and my own people to consider. I can’t just throw away their lives when I have no hope of winning.”
“You’re the smartest man I know. You will come up with a plan, just like you broke me out of that manor. Just like you did in Asherton.”
Xan could not be weighed down by a promise to fight if the forces against him were overwhelming. And he had to have a say—a very big say—in the planning. His people deserved that.
But … Ashley. His first love. The girl he spent all those nights with in the meadow. She needed him. Could he sit by and let her father die?
Xan met Tasia’s eyes. She nodded.
“Fine,” he said. “No promises, but I’ll do what I can.”
Helping a friend was always the right thing to do. Hopefully. He’d figure out a way to defeat Dastanar. That was what he did—figure things out. And it wasn’t like he had a choice.
“A truce until then?” Xan said.
“Truce,” Brant said. “I’ll write out letters to the queen and to Duke Asher and send them via kineticist. We should have an answer in a few days.”
83.
Xan adjourned the meeting.
He hadn’t seen his friends in months and was curious what had happened to each of them. Marisol traveled with Dylan, and she wore a ring. Good that he had found what happiness he could, at least. And Brant had to be satisfied with being elevated to a new position. Even Lainey looked better. Hopefully, she’d been able to get over having to kill that guardsman.
There was one person who drew Xan’s interest more than the others, though, so he wasn’t too disappointed when, save only Ashley and Tasia, they filed quickly out of the room. He wiped sweaty palms on his pants.
Ashley glared at Tasia. Tasia glared at Ashley. Neither budged.
Only an idiot would step between two angry women.
“Ashley?” he said, wondering what his decision to speak revealed about his intelligence.
She turned to him, reluctantly removing herself from the staring contest. “Yes?”
“You know how I just agreed, at the potential of great personal cost, to do you a huge favor?”
Her eyes narrowed at him.
“Do you think you could, maybe …” He hunched his shoulders. “Maybe come back later to discuss whatever it is you wanted to talk about?”
She stiffened.
“It would really help me out,” he said, “and I’d really appreciate it?”
Ashley looked at Tasia and back at him. “Fine, for now. But this isn’t over.” She spun and practically ran from the room.
“Is it okay if I stay behind?” Tasia said. “To … um, explore your throne room? This artistry is amazing.”
“Uh … yeah, sure. Let me show you around.” Xan glanced back at his team, his heart pounding. “Don’t you three have somewhere else to be?”
“My lord wizard,” Gregg said, “It is neither safe nor proper for you to be alone with an enemy mage.”
“Enemy?” Xan said.
“The papers have yet to be drawn up and signed, my lord wizard,” Gregg said. “Until that time—”
Robyn and Tina each grabbed one of Gregg’s arms.
“Don’t worry about it, my lord wizard,” Tina said.
Robyn grinned. “Have fun, my lord wizard. You won’t be disturbed.”
“But … but …” Gregg continued to sputter as the girls dragged him through the exit.
While Xan had dealt with his suddenly way-too-proper general, Tasia had walk
ed to a far corner of the room and stood with her face concealed by a tapestry. Probably laughing at him for not being able to control his people.
Laughing was better than being mad, right?
As he started toward her, his legs trembled, a sure sign he was about to experience the onset of a wave of withdrawal symptoms. Oh man, what if he threw up?
He glanced at the exit. So tempting to make a run for it, but what would Tasia think of that? It might ruin things forever.
But so would her finding out about the seeds.
Xan stood there, frozen, breathing in and out and pouring life magic into himself. But that wasn’t enough, and he couldn’t keep it up without giving himself away. The moment she looked at him, she’d see the glow. He already had no idea how he’d explain his constant manipulation of light.
His only option was to rest his body, but it’d look weird if he plopped down in a chair. She’d know something was wrong.
Hmm. He lifted himself kinetically off the floor. Perfect. No toll on his legs, and he’d look like he was too important to bother with walking.
He flew to her, cape whipping behind him.
At the motion, she turned to him, her face concerned. “Xan … or should I call you ‘my lord wizard,’ now?”
“No. Good grief, no.”
“I’m sorry I’m not dressed more appropriately. I mean, I don’t want you to think that I didn’t think you were important enough to … I mean, we were traveling … and conditions … Ashley, she …”
“What?”
She turned from him again as if that tapestry was the most interesting thing in the three kingdoms. “We haven’t seen each other in a long time. I wanted to be … you know … pretty. Or at least, as much as I could be. Compared to Ashley—”
Xan grabbed her shoulder and spun her toward him. He met her eyes. “There is absolutely no comparison between you and Ashley. You’re beautiful. She’s … she’s …” If only there were words adequate enough to explain. But if those existed, he wasn’t finding them. “She’s not you.”
Her face lit up as she smiled. She looked up at him.
Gryphon (Rise of the Mages Book 2) Page 44
