Court of Shadows

by Miranda Honfleur

  “And if you’re disarmed?”

  She held up her thumb with the arcanir ring.

  “If you’re close enough to a conjured golem to touch a ring to it, you’re probably dead,” Luca said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  He had a point.

  “Well, if it’s Ariana and she blinds me, I have earthsight to see her with, then one spellcasting hand and either the ring or Thorn,” she said. “And if it’s Mac Carra…” She frowned. “Well, my legs will still work.”

  “Your grand plan is to run?” Luca asked with a scoff.

  “Excuse me,” she insisted, “evade.”

  She’d never lost a proper duel in all her time as a mage, but… these trials made it harder to place all her faith in instinct.

  “I think the Grand Divinus has it out for you.” Luca leaned against the headboard, his whisky-brown eyes deathly serious.

  “I know.”

  “And not just you.” He held up a hand. “You publicly humiliated the Divinity by failing to perform the Moonlit Rite—” He lowered a finger.

  “That wasn’t even mine to perform to begin with!” she objected, but he did, annoyingly, have a point. She’d taken it upon herself and failed to complete it in time.

  “And then Orsa has been falling all over herself to glean even a tidbit about the Immortals, completely ignoring orders”—he lowered another finger—“and then there’s me… When I don’t have orders, I’m selling my services to the highest bidder… even the Order.”

  Yes, that certainly wouldn’t win him any points with the Grand Divinus.

  “There was talk of Sen marrying into a Kamerish Coven.” Another lowered finger. “And Tariq made a political play for Proctor in Sonbahar before the Tower there got orders to cut him down to size.” He sighed. “And Telva foretold the fall of the Divinity, and it got out in Ferrante.”

  Rielle propped up on an elbow. “The fall of the Divinity?”

  A loud cracking, and she turned to Marfa gnawing on the ham bone. She continued a while longer before meeting her eyes, smiling, and setting it down on her tray… and taking a bite of the crusty boule that was bigger than her head.

  Luca covered his mouth with a palm, his eyes curving into half-moons, and looked away.

  At least she had an appetite.

  “Don’t you think it’s odd,” Luca began, “that Mac Carra came to the second trial with a blade?”

  She shrugged. “So did I. So did you.”

  “I always carry my knives,” he said, “and have since I was a brat in Suguz.” He tipped his head to her. “And you—well, you got a basilisk scale, and couldn’t use magic on it anyway. And it helps you have a king madly in love with you.”

  She frowned and looked away. “He is not ‘madly in love’ with me.” Once, yes, but he was with Olivia now, and hadn’t said or done anything to suggest he was still interested.

  And if he had, she’d only have to cut him to size for a wandering eye while he had the attention of her one-in-a-million best friend.

  Besides, she loved Brennan, and although they weren’t currently on speaking terms, she still wanted to be with him, if they could work out a way they’d both be happy with.

  But Luca only pinned her with a knowing look.

  “What?” she said with a shrug of her shoulder. “He’s not, okay? He’s just a close friend.”

  “A close friend who gives you an expensive sword?” He crossed his arms.

  “He happened to have it and wanted me to win the trial, and—”

  “And whose ring you wear?”

  She held up her thumb. “This is strictly for dispelling magic, all right? It’s not—”

  “Who bet his entire kingdom on your performance at the trials… in front of the whole world?” Luca held her gaze and sighed.

  “That—” she stammered, and swallowed. That was far more complicated than just his faith in her. If he’d turned down the Grand Divinus’s offer, it would have seemed like he’d only been all too willing to betray the Divinity and ally with the Covens. He had to make a good faith effort for the sake of appearances.

  But Luca didn’t know that.

  Marfa nodded to the door. “Archmage,” she said.

  A soft knock rapped. “Rielle? Are you in there?”

  “Olivia,” she said, sitting up. “Come in.”

  “Not the greatest security at this inn, eh?” Luca remarked, crossing his lanky legs.

  The door opened, and Olivia walked in, cloaked in soft pink, a gray brocade dress peeking out from beneath. Her red braided hair was elaborately coiled around her head, with shimmering pearl earrings adorning her ears.

  She’d always been glamorous, with a taste for the finer things. With Jon, she’d have them—he’d give and give and give, as long as it made her smile, she was certain of it.

  Jon would make Olivia happy, in any way he could.

  There was a discordant twinge that came with the acknowledgment of that thought, but she shoved it down. She’d get over it someday. She had to—she had no plans to stop seeing Olivia, who would be closer with Jon as time went on.

  Olivia fixed narrowed emerald eyes on Luca. “What are you doing here?”

  He smiled sweetly. “Oh, me? I was just telling your friend just how much—”

  Rielle shot up off the bed and blocked Olivia’s sight of him. “Just how much it’ll take to win the trials!” She laughed nervously, getting a peripheral look from Olivia.

  The last thing she’d ever want to do would be to tell Olivia about her stupid lingering feelings—feeling, singular, really, since it was just one tiny little feeling, not a big, huge, overwhelming bunch or anything—and diminish any of her happiness with Jon. They didn’t need any of that.

  Olivia angled around her. “I really do want to talk to my friend in private, Master Iagar,” she said. “Although I’d love to talk healing magic with you sometime soon.”

  With a sigh, he rose. “It would be my pleasure, Your Majesty,” he said, slanting a look Rielle’s way as he headed out the door. Olivia’s glare traced his exit.

  Well, that was awkward. She cleared her throat.

  Olivia glanced at Marfa, who’d eaten through most of the boule.

  “Oh, she can stay,” Rielle said, and gestured to the bed.

  Olivia removed her cloak, set it by the desk on the rickety cane-backed chair, right next to the window that led out to the roof, and then gracefully lowered to the bed with a sprawl of her voluminous gray skirts. She had a small satchel she placed between them as Rielle sat.

  “I can preserve blood,” she said, “but first, what in the Divine’s name happened between you and Brennan?”

  Chapter 51

  Rielle waited for Olivia to say something, but she only sat collapsed against the pillows and headboard, staring into space.

  Only the soft crunching of Marfa eating hazelnuts filled the silence.

  It was a lot to take in.

  Brennan was generous and kind, passionate, good.

  And jealous. Hopelessly, endlessly, suffocatingly jealous. You’re going to him, aren’t you? he’d asked, with the most contemptuous edge she’d ever heard.

  She hadn’t betrayed him. Hadn’t so much as kissed another man. Her heart ached that he would think it.

  Are you really going to allow an innocent child to suffer so that you can keep indulging your grief? His question needled her heart, and not because it hid a darker motive, but because it wasn’t so easily answered. There was time, a decade and a half surely, before it became imperative, but even then… What if she never recovered from losing Sylvie? What if the edges remained sharp and jagged for the rest of her life?

  She wouldn’t let Kehani’s child—Brennan’s—suffer, but did it have to be now? Did it have to be this year, or next year, or some definite time in the near future?

  And had he needed to say it right now, hot on the heels of this news from Kehani?

  Circumstances have changed, he’d said.

&nbs
p; Yes, they had. Perhaps he didn’t realize it, but this had forced her hand.She no longer could choose a life without trying to have another baby—someday, she’d have to. No matter what happened between them, she wouldn’t let an innocent child suffer.

  She’d been willing to accept this news, work out a different vision of the future, but… he’d immediately wanted more. So much more than she’d been prepared to think about now, and without even a thought to what she’d be setting aside.

  Taking a deep breath, she shook Olivia’s knee lightly. “Well?”

  Olivia blinked a while before glancing back at her with a shake of her head. “After telling you he’s having a child with another woman, I wouldn’t expect his next words to be ‘So have my curse-breaking baby soon.’ I’d expect maybe… ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘Can we work this out?’ but not… that.”

  Rielle chewed her lip. “It took me by surprise, too.”

  She hadn’t seen him nor heard from him since the day before yesterday, and despite the harsh words they’d exchanged, that hurt. Didn’t he care? Didn’t he look at the pillow beside him, too, and feel the lack of her there as she did? Didn’t he wonder what she was doing, want to tell her all about his day, want to touch her, hold her, just as she wanted to do with him?

  That hurt—all of it.

  But she could’ve gone back to the mansion, too, and hadn’t. Hadn’t been able to. Would coming back have been admitting she’d been wrong? Some kind of sign that what he’d demanded had been in any way acceptable?

  In this, he’d have to bend first. He’d have to admit he’d been wrong to accuse her of wanting to run to Jon, wrong to try to force her to acquiesce to his demands before she was ready.

  Magic was her life. Since her éveil, since the attack on Laurentine, it had become an inexorable part of her. It had forged her into the person she was now, strong, but still that girl outside of Laurentine, brought out of fureur by her master and wishing someone had saved her family.

  She was that someone. For other families out there, when they needed saving, she had magic, she had training, and she saw her own family in every other one that needed help.

  That perspective… wasn’t so easily set aside.

  She loved Brennan, wanted to spend her life with him, but if it was meant to be, they’d have to compromise. She’d have to agree to eventually acquiesce to his desire for a family, and he… he would have to acquiesce to her desire to use her magic to save others, as she’d once been unable to do for her own family.

  Time—she needed time to mourn Sylvie, to come to terms with having another child, and time to devote herself completely to field operations before distancing herself from that guiding star, just enough to make Brennan happy, so she could be happy with him.

  Five years? Three—?

  Perhaps the time apart had been for the best, time to weigh the decision in the back of her mind while she’d researched and trained.

  And yesterday… Yesterday, if he’d shown up, she might have screamed at him until her vocal cords exploded.

  Marfa had occasionally peered out the window and narrowed her eyes. Maybe he’d come to check up on her, or sent someone. If it had been an enemy, she would have spoken up.

  “And you want to preserve your blood?” Olivia asked carefully, pulling the satchel closer.

  She nodded. “He depends on it every month. I don’t know how it works, or whether it would work if I—” She lowered her gaze. “I’m going to do my all to win, but if I don’t—”

  Olivia reached out for her, resting a hand on hers. “If you think you might not come out of this—and you have good reason to think so—then maybe you should consider withdrawing, Rielle. Is this worth your life?”

  “If these trials have proven one thing, it’s that the Divinity has lots of power but has lost sight of the greater good,” she said firmly. “But it’s just a system. People are how it changes. Maybe right now, the wrong people are in positions of power, or making the wrong decisions. If anything’s going to change, then it has to start with me, and others willing to do difficult things and take risks for the greater good.”

  Olivia frowned. “You want to fight to change a system that would destroy you?”

  “As things are now, the system invites young talent and ambition, only to abuse it and discard it when expedient. But someone has to get through,” she said, curling a fist. “I’ve come this far, so I have to try.”

  If it meant preventing needless deaths driven by greed for promising young novices, and stopping bloodthirsty power grabs, and putting a halt to the sen’a trade that claimed so many lives… then someone had to get through. Her family had paid the price, and they deserved justice. As did Jon’s, and every other victim of the Divinity’s lust for control.

  But Luca hadn’t been wrong. Perhaps Mac Carra had some assistance, and she couldn’t predict what that would be.

  It didn’t hurt to plan for every eventuality. “So… I don’t know if the blood will actually help if things go poorly, but it’s something. And I can’t just leave him with nothing if—”

  Olivia nodded and opened the satchel. “I understand.”

  They moved over the washbasin, and with a cut, a vial, and a healing rune, she had a preserved vial of blood.

  As Olivia healed her cut, Rielle asked, “Can I leave it with you?” When Olivia raised a brow, she added, “If things go wrong, you can tell him. But I don’t want to give him reason to worry unnecessarily.”

  Marfa watched from the corner, arms crossed, shaking her head.

  “For Brennan,” Rielle said, indicating the vial.

  Marfa nodded. “Per controllu di a luna Chjave.”

  It sounded close enough to Sileni. “Yes, I think. To control the moon Change.”

  “Moon Change,” Marfa repeated, drawing her black eyebrows together and saying the words over and over. “For Brennan.”

  With a smile, Rielle nodded. Over the past couple of days, Marfa had picked up some Emaurrian, at least the things they’d been able to connect between the old language and the new.

  A cheer rose up from downstairs, and then Luca threw the door open. “You’ll never believe who’s here.”

  Brennan? Had he finally come to see her? Maybe he wasn’t that angry after all. Maybe he’d come to apologize—

  “Do you knock?” Olivia demanded, hands on her hips.

  Luca huffed an amused breath. “Not when it’s important.”

  He left the door open, then his footsteps pounded down the stairs.

  Her finger healed, Rielle beckoned to both Marfa and Olivia. “Let’s go see what the fuss is about, and then I’m back to training.”

  Olivia took her cloak and followed, eyes narrowed. “If it’s Brennan saying anything other than ‘I’m sorry,’ let’s make a rug out of him.”

  “How sweet of you.” She nudged Olivia. But as she headed toward the stairs, she really did hope it was him. She’d gone too long without seeing his face, hearing his voice, feeling his arms around her… and there had to be a way to live a life together that they both wanted.

  But as she set foot on the landing, a black-cloaked man with straight blue-black hair and broad shoulders turned around, and as soon as his bronze eyes met hers, she started.

  “Daturian,” she breathed, while his arms wrapped her tight, lifting her off the floor while everyone in the tavern gawked and laughed. He smelled of horse and smoke, and must have been traveling for some time.

  “Been a while, Spitfire,” he teased, and set her down.

  He’d called her that since the mission she’d gone on with him, when they’d had to guard Princess Bianca Ermacora on a ship from Courdeval to Bellanzole two years ago. Back then, he’d been practically insufferable, teasing her mercilessly—the entire Divinity knew him for a womanizer.

  When she’d met him, he’d felt immediately familiar, and told her his father and Leigh’s had been in business together since Pryndon and had moved to Ren together. They’d practically grown
up as brothers, except that Daturian was six years younger. Leigh was turning thirty-four in three months, which put Daturian at twenty-seven this year.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, brushing a spike of his blue-black hair from his eyes. He was still wearing the bracelet with the recondite bead that disguised his wild-mage white hair.

  “I invited him,” Olivia said, stepping next to her. “Thank you for coming to witness the trials, Magister Trey.” She held out a hand, and Daturian kissed it.

  “How do we not know each other, Archmage Sabeyon?”

  With a twist of her lips, Olivia pulled her hand away. “I know you, of course, by reputation.”

  Daturian’s eyes gleamed as his mouth curved in a smile. He looked over at Marfa. “And you are?”

  Expressionless, Marfa only stared at him, arms crossed. “Marfa,” she said, then narrowed her eyes.

  “She doesn’t trust mages easily,” Rielle offered, with Marfa still unwavering beside her. Eerily.

  “She shouldn’t,” he answered, glancing back at Rielle. “Especially considering what Archmage Sabeyon here wrote to me. Not only did I not know you were competing, I also wasn’t aware there were Magister Trials right now.”

  Shouldn’t the world know? “How is that possible?”

  Perhaps the Grand Divinus hadn’t publicized it as much as they’d all assumed. So much of the Magister Trials’ circumstances had been kept secret, revealed only with each new trial. What they were, where they were, constraints. No rules. Even killing being allowed.

  Perhaps fewer neutral and skeptical parties had been allowed to witness them. Intentionally.

  Olivia raised an eyebrow, then lowered her gaze and was quiet awhile. “Well, then. Now that you’re here, you’ll make sure everyone knows, won’t you?”

  She and Daturian shared a knowing look.

  “There won’t be a corner of the world that won’t know,” he said. “Especially if this is worth killing and dying over.”

  Daturian never could let a wrong transpire without getting involved. Sometimes it got him in trouble, but then, she’d never known him to have a problem handling trouble either.