As she had done the last few days, Vashodia strolled beside her. The mierothi had surprising stamina for one with such short legs. Though summer approached, the rising elevation, and the fact that they marched farther north every day, dictated continued wearing of their cloaks. Gusts of wind spattered them with hints of frost and pine.
A chill surged up from Jasside’s toes, rolling through her body and making her shudder. It reminded her of the frozen heart of the small figure at her side and the private task she’d taken on to thaw it.
It would not be easy.
How do you change the soul of someone almost two thousand years old?
Just thinking of the vast stretch of centuries made her head spin. She must seem a fly to her mistress. Here one day, gone the next. She wondered what the mierothi even saw in her, and—perhaps more vitally—what she ultimately wanted from an apprentice. To unfreeze Vashodia’s heart, Jasside had to be able to grasp it without turning to ice herself.
But first, she needed to understand it.
Of course, such things could not be done directly. Most people didn’t tolerate overt probings of their souls. Jasside knew she would have to be subtle, but she wasn’t worried. I’m learning from the best, after all.
“So,” Jasside said, “what are we about on this little trip?”
“Nothing much,” Vashodia replied. “Just bringing a nation to heel.”
“Another one?”
“Worry not. I promise I’ll actually help you this time.”
“I’m not worried. This place, at least, doesn’t have a crippling fear of the metaphysical to complicate things.”
“What makes you think that?”
Jasside shrugged. “The Weskarans kept harping on about how they’re a haven against the ‘foul misuse of sorcery.’ And they didn’t exactly have anything nice to say about their neighbors to the north. It stands to reason that the Sceptrines do not share the same aversions.”
“Oh, that sounds quite reasonable. Quite reasonable indeed.”
“But?”
“But things are never as simple as they seem.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the relationship Sceptre has with magic has always been strained, and recently, it has become more so. Much more.”
“How would you . . . ?” Jasside’s eyes widened with realization. “You’ve been here before.”
“An excellent deduction, my apprentice. And it’s even correct this time, too.”
How? When? Why? These questions nearly burst forth of their own accord. Jasside clamped her lips shut, though. Vashodia had a familiar look in her eye that told Jasside that her mistress would say no more on the subject. Still, she couldn’t help but speculate, and the places her logic led drove cold spikes of dread into her bones.
You’re planning something big, aren’t you? Big enough to make what we accomplished with the revolution seem a mere footnote in the annals of history. A history you’ll write no matter the cost.
Even if the price is countless souls.
Jasside twisted her lips. She needed time to sort her thoughts and feelings and decided to walk in silence. It wasn’t long, however, before she noticed how quiet the woods around them had become.
Too quiet.
She energized and sent a pulse outwards, checking for signs of life. She found none. Not even a squirrel or a sparrow. That shouldn’t be possible.
Furrowing her brow, she altered the shape of her energy and detected something faint, neatly hidden on the edges of perception. Another spell, masking the heartbeats of everything in the vicinity. She followed the trail back to the caster and discovered him two hundred paces away to their front.
With a few flicks of her fingers, she dissolved the energy strands, feeling the other caster stagger. Then she counted the heartbeats that did not belong to her party.
She froze in her steps.
“Halt!” she called.
The daeloth guards obeyed, pulling swords from their scabbards.
“Something the matter?” Vashodia said.
Jasside shook her head. “I just want to avoid any . . . misunderstandings.”
“Ah. In that case, why don’t you introduce us?”
“Gladly.”
Pulling in more energy, Jasside formed a cone of excited air in front of her to amplify her voice. “Soldiers of Sceptre,” she began, “we are representatives of the sovereign nation of the mierothi. We come in peace.”
She modified the casting, forming a dome of silence encompassing her party. “Sheathe your weapons,” she ordered to the twenty-three daeloth. “But keep your shields ready.”
As they obliged, she removed the dome, resuming her announcement. “Take this as a gesture of good faith. I ask that you show yourselves so we may converse in a civilized manner.”
For a mark, nothing happened. Then, slowly, figures began emerging from the mist between the trees. Three hundred, all told, dressed in camouflage patterns that blended seamlessly with the surrounding foliage. A longbow was in each hand, arrows fitted to strings. Thankfully, they were not drawn, but the men holding them looked as if they could release before she could blink. What little she could see of their faces revealed rough, muddy skin, wide cheekbones, and narrow brown eyes. Black hair peeked out from every hood.
Still, no one came forward to speak. She reversed her spell so she could receive sounds, and began roving it around. After a few beats, she heard voices whispering. One, breathless and near to panic, she knew to be the Sceptrine sorcerer by his position.
“—you cannot!” he was saying. “Every one of those soldiers is a caster ten times as strong as I. And the two in the middle?” She heard him shudder. “Those two can tear down mountains.”
A sigh sounded, close to the first man. “I fear no caster,” said a second man, whose voice betrayed weariness yet still maintained a resolute quality she could admire.
“They aren’t even normal casters, though. Their power is strange, born of darkness. I’ve never seen the like.”
“Well, we’re not exactly allies with the light right now, are we?”
“But we don’t know what they intend.”
“That is why I must speak with them. Stay behind me. If it goes to the abyss, run and tell my brother—”
“My lord, I beg you!”
“Enough!”
Jasside withdrew her eavesdropping spell as a lone figure emerged onto the path ahead of her. She glanced down at her mistress. “Ready to meet their leader?”
“Of course.” Vashodia smirked. “But is he ready to meet us?”
They sauntered forward together, emerging outside the encircled daeloth and marching another score paces to meet with the man in a spot of relative privacy. She studied him as they approached. He stood taller than any of his soldiers, the bulk of his armor protruding from beneath his woodland cloak. A greatsword rested in a half scabbard on his back, the hilt peeking up over his right shoulder. His helmet was a steel mask in the shape of a scowling skull, with horns sweeping forward past the jaw. He stopped five paces away and reached to remove the headpiece.
“I am Daye Harkun, Prince of Sceptre,” he said. “Or, at least, the closest thing to a prince we can manage these days.”
A shock of chestnut hair tumbled out as he pulled off the helmet. The skin beneath was travel-worn but otherwise fair. Blue eyes gleamed as they studied her. He didn’t appear anything like his fellows. In fact, he looked . . .
“You’re Weskaran,” Jasside blurted.
He smiled. “Aye, by birth I am. But I’ve long called Sceptre my home.”
Jasside felt a spot of heat rising to her cheeks. “Apologies for my rudeness. It was surprising, is all.”
“You’re not the first to think that.”
She cleared her throat. “Yes, well then. I am Jasside A
nglasco. I’m human, as you may tell,” well, mostly, “but I’m here on behalf of the mierothi nation, newly settled in the mountains south of here.” She turned. “This is my mistress—”
“Mistress! But she’s just a little girl. What kind of sick people are you?”
Jasside stifled a laugh, however, with little success. “Ah, sorry. I’m using the word as a feminine version of master. Not . . . that other way.”
He jerked his head back. “Now you have me even more confused.”
Vashodia, at last, stepped forward, exhaling with a high, keening noise somewhere between a sigh and a patronizing laugh. “What she means is that I let her make the introductions. It helps smooth over any . . . unfortunate reactions.”
She flipped her hood down, revealing her face.
To his credit, the prince did not flinch or reach for his weapon. His eyes, however, made a thorough study of Vashodia, taking in all the differences—or malformations, as he more likely thought—in only a few beats.
“She called it the mierothi nation,” Daye said, “I take it that’s what you are?”
“I am.”
“You’re not as young as you look.”
Vashodia laughed again. “My, aren’t you a sharp one.”
His hand cut the air. “My brother got all the brains in the family, not me. Tell me why you’re here.”
“Straight to business, then? I like it,” Vashodia said. She waved a palm towards Jasside.
Jasside stared hard into the prince’s eyes. “Some of our people were hunting to the south of here a week ago and came under attack. It is our understanding that this land is unclaimed by any nation. Was unclaimed, I should say. The mierothi sovereignty has chosen to call it theirs.”
“Your point being?”
“You owe us an apology.”
He shrugged. “How were we supposed to know? I don’t see any of your flags planted in the soil.”
“Is that what you want? Eight hundred of my mistress’s kin, and nearly ten thousand daeloth stand ready to erect fortresses and stand watch along the border we now claim.”
“Daeloth?”
“Sorry.” Jasside gestured towards the darkwatch behind her. “Half-breeds.”
Daye’s eyes widened. “Ten thousand you said?”
“Yes.”
He sighed, sagging, a simple deflation that made him instantly seem a lesser man. The weariness she’d first heard in him as she stole in on his conversation with the sorcerer now suffused his entire body. A wild, desperate look entered his eyes.
“If it’s an apology you want, then you’ll have it.” He drew up with obvious effort. “On behalf of the people of Sceptre, I, Prince Daye Harkun, express my sincerest remorse for any injury our ignorance may have caused you. I am . . . sorry.”
Jasside could tell how much the statement had wounded his pride, yet still he barely hesitated. Here was a man burdened with duty and wracked by sorrows she could not even name. She felt sick with herself for forcing an apology from him.
She cast a dome of silence around her and Vashodia, then turned to her mistress. “Why are you doing this? Can’t you see that it’s destroying him?”
Vashodia’s face remained neutral. “A man must be broken down to nothing before he can be rebuilt. As the man, so too the nation.”
“Rebuilt into what?”
“What else?” Vashodia said, shrugging. “A weapon.”
“Why do we need a—?”
Jasside spasmed as her spell vanished, the energy lancing back into her like lightning. She pivoted to see the prince step through the place it had been, dread knowledge filling her.
You’re a void!
On instinct, she began weaving the spell that crippled Hardohl, threading it towards him a beat later. Her second surprise came when it vanished as well. She shook her head, shivering. Of course it doesn’t work. He doesn’t have any blessings to act as a buffer. We’re completely helpless.
He stepped closer, an arm’s reach away now. She felt her heart begin to race.
The prince stopped, shaking his head as if saddened by her attempts to subdue him with magic. “Please,” he said. “I must know if you accept our apology.”
Jasside backed up, dropping her hands to her sides. She felt for the small knife sheathed at her hip.
Vashodia, seemingly unperturbed, smiled up at the man. “No.”
His fists clenched at his sides. “Why not?”
“Because I only accept apologies from those who are actually in power.”
His brow scrunched up. “I don’t understand. I am a prince—”
“A prince in charge of only three hundred men? A prince relegated to the farthest corner of his country? A prince scrounging outside his borders for scraps?” Vashodia shook her head. “That doesn’t sound like someone who has any real authority to me.”
Jasside steeled herself for the violent outburst she was sure would come, but it never did. Her mistress’s words only deflated him further than before. She even thought she saw a hint of fluid start to brim in the prince’s eyes.
“We are at war,” he said, each word falling like a hammer. “Not all is as it once was. Not all is right anymore.” He shifted his eyes back and forth between them for several silent beats.
War changes everything and everyone it touches. Just not always in the same way. She’d managed to come out of it stronger than ever but could tell his story would read far differently than hers. And what was worse, it was still being written.
“Fine, then,” Daye said at last, as if pronouncing a death sentence. “I will take you to my brother.”
Steam rose from the fountain as Arivana tiptoed along its edge. Her bare arms remained clasped behind her back as she darted glances at the figures standing in ankle-deep water. Twelve in all, boys about her age, wearing nothing but tight swimming breeches. They came tall or short, muscular or lean, with skin, hair, and eyes every possible combination of hues. One thing they had in common, though, was that they were all breathtakingly gorgeous.
She twisted her head towards Tior as he pushed aside a palm branch hanging down over the path. “I don’t understand, Minister. What are they here for?”
Tior pulled his gaze from a family of cockatiels singing in a nearby tree. He smiled down at her. “They are here for you, my queen.”
“Yes, but what for?”
“For your entertainment, of course.”
She arched an eyebrow. “What? Do they sing or something?”
“Why not? They will do whatever you wish. You can make them dance or wrestle, leap from the boulders above the waterfall, paint you a picture, feed you sliced fruit, or shower you with praise and affection. Whatever your imagination can conjure. Their only desire will be to fulfill all of yours.”
Heat that had little to do with the sorcerous constructs spewing steam around the expansive, jungle-like room rose into her cheeks. The plunging neckline and soaring hem of her swimming gown suddenly didn’t seem so innocent.
She swept her eyes across the boys again, noticing, this time, many peeking her way with smiling faces. A few even stared openly. “That seems like it might be . . . awkward. I don’t even know the first thing about them.”
“Oh, you’ll have plenty of time to learn. They will be here, day and night, whenever you have need of them.”
“They’ll be living here?”
Tior nodded. “As is tradition. You have many floors of your tower devoted to leisurely pursuits, one typically for each member of the royal family above courting age. It’s about time they were put to use again.”
Courting. The very mention of the word stirred up bile in the bottom of her throat.
“Surely this isn’t necessary, Tior. I appreciate your efforts, truly, but I don’t need to be kept in a constant state of distraction.”
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br /> “Is that what you think this is about?”
She stopped, peering up into his face. “Isn’t it?”
Tior sighed. “You are a woman, yes? Physically, I mean.”
Arivana squirmed inside at the thought of talking about her monthly cycle with him. “Yes,” she said curtly.
“And you are the last surviving member of the royal line, correct?”
The blood drained from her face as she realized where the conversation was headed. “Yes.”
“Then it’s high time we changed that.”
She twisted her lips. “You seek to make one of them my king.”
“Yes, your majesty. The attempt on your life made it very clear, to all the nation, that such things cannot be postponed until they are . . . convenient.”
“Until I’m in love, you mean.”
“Oh, my queen. You are so young. Please do not let the ignorance of youth obstruct the way of your duty.”
“Funny. Claris said something similar not long before she tried to kill me.”
Tior’s body went rigid. He lowered his chin, and said through gritted teeth, “Do not speak to me of Claris. By letting her live, you failed in your responsibility, Arivana. You made us all look like fools.”
She hung her head, making herself as still and small as she could. An instinct she’d been obeying her whole life. Today, though, something made her lift her eyes once more. Some part of her, deep inside, that was tired of being knocked down and trampled on every beat of her life.
“I did what I thought was right,” she said. “Is that not what a queen should do? What she should always do?”
“Yes,” Tior said. “So long as it falls within the law.”
“And did the law say I had to put her to death?”
“Not . . . specifically,” Tior said through gritted teeth. “It seems you’ve been doing some reading.”
It had actually been a wild stab in the abyss, but Arivana couldn’t let him know that. Though if I can discover interesting bits like that, reading might be an excellent hobby to pursue. She masked her giddy surprise by turning to face the twelve boys, still lined up patiently. “I am trying, Tior. Really I am. But how can I take responsibility for anything if you won’t trust me to learn from my mistakes?”
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