Trial of the Thaumaturge (Scions of Nexus Book 3)

by Gregory Mattix

  Ferret had lost sight of her friends in the ensuing tumult following the ceremony and banquet. Toasts were made, hands shaken, praises and claps on the back endured, and the night was stretching on into celebration and dance. Sianna was continually occupied with the other heads of state, along with powerful Llantry nobles, officials, and courtiers the entire night, the latter groups seeking to bend her ear with well-placed compliments. All of them eager to kiss her arse since given the opportunity.

  Iris and Rafe seemed too busy ensuring proceedings went smoothly to be able to celebrate, Iris managing the events and Rafe commanding the guard detail, silent sentinels in their gleaming armor never far away if some danger presented itself.

  She saw Taren from time to time following the banquet, dealing with the praise and smalltalk and endless questions with much more grace than she ever could. But then again, he was the true hero. She’d just been along for the ride the majority of the time.

  A smile came to her lips at the sight of Kulnor and Tilda speaking earnestly at the rear of the hall near where Brom and Selda and the others served refreshments. The dwarves’ body language indicated a mutual attraction.

  Those two will make a good pair.

  Ferret looked around the room for a while longer before she had to stifle a yawn. She felt bloated and sleepy after having eaten way too much. The room also seemed to have grown soft around its edges, a likely effect of imbibing too great a quantity of Brom’s dwarven spirits.

  All in all, the night was spectacular and marvelous, one in which she was totally out of place. One person in particular weighed heavily on her thoughts, someone who would have been just as discomfited by all the grandiose ceremony as she. Damn you for leaving me, Dak.

  The past days had proven trying, for she kept expecting Creel to return, but of course he hadn’t. Nor would he ever. Somewhere deep inside, she’d known he wouldn’t return, for he’d finally discovered his purpose in his long life and was now reunited with his Rada once more.

  The crowds parted momentarily, and Ferret spotted Taren dancing with an impossibly beautiful elven woman—Princess Zylka. The princess moved like flowing water, her large eyes sparkling and a lovely smile on her lips, her silky dress rippling around her slim figure. Taren was trying gamely to keep up with the complex steps, but Ferret could tell he was out of his league. That seemed not to bother the elf, who had a ready smile of encouragement.

  Ferret sighed and headed for the drink table, deciding she could use another one after all. Watching Taren and Zylka made her somewhat jealous, perhaps since it made her more aware of her loneliness, though she wouldn’t admit that to herself.

  “Lady Ferret? Might I have the pleasure of a dance?” A young lordling took her hand before she could react and kissed it lightly. He was handsome, pretty actually, enough so to put many a maiden to shame, with gleaming oiled blond tresses and clean-shaven cheeks. He wore the finest clothes, all lace trimmed with shiny buckles, and his perfume wafted over Ferret. She was reminded of the knight, Sir Edwin, by his looks, and thought the man perhaps a brother or cousin.

  She pulled her hand free and somehow mustered what she hoped was a demure smile and not a grimace. “No thank you, milord. I’m feeling a bit dizzy from the alcohol and could use some air. If you’ll excuse me?” Without waiting for a reply, she pushed past a group of noblewomen clucking like a group of hens and reached Brom and Selda.

  “Ferret, ye look tuckered out,” Selda observed.

  “Aye. Would that I could sneak away and get some fresh air somewhere.” She took the tumbler of spirits Brom offered her and downed it in one swig.

  The dwarf raised a bushy eyebrow at that. “I know how ye feel. Too much finery and arse-kissing for me tastes.” Brom sighed heavily, and his gaze focused on hers. With uncanny perception, he discerned her thoughts. “Try to put him out of yer mind this night, lass. This is for ye—all of ye that took a stand and triumphed over evil. Enjoy it, for ye’ve earned it.” Even though he stood over a foot shorter than she, he still put a brawny arm around Ferret’s shoulders and gave a squeeze. “He’d be proud of ye. As are we all.”

  A servant approached, asking for another tray of wine, and Brom turned away with a sigh.

  Ferret took the opportunity to slip around behind the drink table. A curtain had been erected, screening off one area to conceal the unsightly mess of empty casks and discarded trays of sweets and snacks. She sat on one of the empty casks and pulled off her ridiculously uncomfortable yet stylish shoes. Her feet immediately thanked her, and she massaged them, feeling the blisters coming on. She leaned back and closed her eyes a moment, content to let the music fill her ears. The song changed to something cheerier, and she could almost imagine she was in a country tavern with the music and smells of ale and wine around her. To be able to smell and taste and feel again was a miracle.

  She might have dozed off for a time. Next thing she knew, an elbow jostled her, and she sensed someone sit on the wine cask beside her. She cracked an eyelid and was relieved to see it was Taren.

  “You’ve got the right idea, Ferret.” He pulled off his own uncomfortable-looking shoes and stockings and rubbed his feet, mottled red in places as hers were. “Not enjoying the festivities?”

  “I feel like a goose among swans. You looked to be enjoying your dance with that elf.” She shot him a grin.

  “Ah, Zylka. We know each other from a while back. I think I told you that story.”

  “Just not about how close you two are.”

  Taren flushed. “It’s not like that. Besides…”

  “Our young queen has already captured your heart,” she finished with a smirk.

  “Is it that obvious?” He sighed.

  “Probably not to everyone. You should speak with her. She looks like a prisoner in search of escape, with those advisors and nobles constantly hounding her.”

  “If she wished to speak with me, surely she’d do so. Who am I to barge in there? I’m just another commoner.”

  Ferret lifted the medallion hanging from his neck and let it fall back to his chest. “A commoner who just so happens to be a Defender of the Realm,” she said sarcastically.

  He glanced at Ferret’s matching medallion. “So we are.”

  “Don’t let these dandy gossipmongers convince you that you’re not fit to stand with royalty. You know different. You shouldn’t let her get away from you, Taren.” She held his eyes. “I mean it. You’ll regret it.”

  Taren gave her a wan smile but didn’t reply. They sat there quietly a few moments.

  “Thinking about him?” he asked.

  “Aye. Hard not to, especially with everyone else around, all drunk and happy and celebratory. Feels like he should be here.”

  “So it does. The same with Mira… after all we went through, and then…” He trailed off, his voice thick with emotion.

  Ferret squeezed his hand sympathetically.

  “Well, we shall have to remedy that,” he said after a moment.

  “Remedy what?”

  “Our melancholy.” Taren reached over and rubbed her despised stubble of short, chalk-white hair, as if she were a dog.

  “Oi!” She smacked him on the shoulder, sending him lurching off the cask and nearly falling.

  “Ow.” Taren massaged his shoulder but was grinning impudently at her.

  She immediately felt bad, although he had probably deserved that. “Sorry. Forget my own strength sometimes.”

  “No matter. Come on.” Taren held out a hand.

  She didn’t think to question him or protest, simply content to be in the company of one of her few remaining friends. His hand was warm when she took it. “Where are we going?”

  “To dance, of course.”

  “I don’t know how to dance—and especially not like they are,” she protested. “And my shoes!”

  “Forget them.” He grinned impishly. “Who’s gonna tell the Defenders of the Realm they can’t dance barefoot?”

  “Huh, good point.” S
he was smiling in spite of herself as they pushed through the crowds, hand in hand. Her grin increased at the looks of frank disapproval garnered by their unshod feet. One noblewoman gasped and pointed, and her flock of hens all began clucking frantically.

  Taren signaled the minstrels. After a moment, the current song stopped, and the lutist, who appeared to be the senior minstrel, spoke quickly to the others. A couple seconds later, they launched into a jaunty tune, one Ferret knew well, a simple country song played at midsummer festivals throughout the southlands. It was delightfully out of place in the stuffy confines of the royal hall.

  Frowning nobles cleared off the dance floor, leaving the two of them alone. Perhaps it was due to the drink, but Ferret was feeling a bit ornery and was glad the nobles’ dance had been interrupted, leaving them feeling out of sorts.

  Taren placed one hand on her lower back and kept his grip on her other hand. “It’s quite simple. Follow my lead.”

  Ferret mirrored him, then they were moving to and fro in an easy rhythm matching the music. She picked up the steps quickly, for they weren’t difficult, and before she knew it, the two of them were stepping and twirling across the marble floor, the stone cool under her bare feet as scores of shocked nobles looked on. She put them out of her mind, imagining she was at a country fair on a warm summer eve, and had a heartfelt smile on her face for the first time since the banquet had begun.

  After a few moments, others began to join them, hesitantly at first, then with greater enthusiasm. Someone began clapping in the audience, and after a few moments, others took it up. She glimpsed Sioned’s and Rukk’s dwarves, many of them stomping their feet in time and knocking tankards against the tables. Many of the elves looked on with amusement. A determined Tilda was dragging a distraught-looking Kulnor to the dance floor. Rafe and Iris were there too, their duties momentarily put aside. Ferret glimpsed Queen Sianna on the periphery, clapping along with the others, delighted by their irreverent dance and looking as if she wished she could throw proper courtesies to the wind and join them.

  The room swirled around her, a blur of rainbow finery and the faceless mass of nobility, but she paid little attention to anything other than keeping up the right steps and Taren’s smiling face across from her. The music called to her in a way she’d rarely experienced before—she felt it in her blood. Her medallion smacked her chest lightly as she hopped and stepped, entranced in the music and dance.

  This is the true power of a bard. Relating tales of heroism and inspiring others with music. Turning sorrow to joy, loneliness to belonging.

  Ferret’s earlier sullenness and reluctance to embrace the night slipped away. Something had changed inside—she could feel it. Earlier, she had wished the night over, but now realized she didn’t want it to end, this moment forever etched in her memory.

  This night was a night of change, of new beginnings, and she was ready to take the next step and discover what lay ahead.

  Chapter 60

  The evening was winding down, and Taren felt a deep weariness filling his body. But it was a pleasant kind of weariness as one acquires after performing some rewarding work. Other than having been unable to spend any personal time with Sianna, he felt the night had gone well.

  Most of the elves and nobles had retired for the night. Groups of courtiers and others mingled still, voices loud and slurred by drink. A fair number of people were falling-down drunk, many passed out on benches and in corners, servants beginning to tidy up at the periphery of the remaining revelers. Most of the dwarves were yet drinking, for there was still ale and spirits aplenty. They’d broken out sets of dice and were boisterous in their gambling and jesting and boasting.

  He hadn’t seen Sianna for some time, he realized. Probably in private counsel with her hangers-on.

  Ferret had gone off with Tilda a short time earlier, the two young women bubbly with talk and good cheer. Taren was glad he’d been able to draw Ferret from her melancholy, for he’d been worried about her in the past days, since the loss of Creel.

  Thoughts of that brought back his memory of Mira, and he wished she could have been there. She’d have felt as out of place as Ferret and he did, yet her missing presence was an agonizing loss, a void that could never be filled. During his journey over the past week, he had thought he’d found absolution after her death but realized her memory would always be with him. Some things could never totally be gotten past—one was simply changed irrevocably.

  He knew he was a better man for having had Mira as a friend and companion, and he wouldn’t change that for anything.

  Here I go now, getting depressed, just like Ferret. Perhaps I’d better retire for the night. None can say we didn’t stay for an appropriate amount of time. His feet ached from the shoes he had reluctantly decided to put back on after having his toes inadvertently stomped on earlier.

  “Lord Taren?” The young page girl from earlier was giving him a hesitant smile, looking much like a frightened rabbit that might bolt at a sudden wrong move.

  “I’m no lord, lass. What is it?”

  “I’ve a message for you to see Sir Rafe, my lord.”

  “Rafe? Where is he?” Taren looked around, realizing Rafe, Iris, and everyone he knew had gone.

  “If you’ll follow me, my lord?” At his nod, the page led him out of the great hall and down a hallway. She pointed toward the end, where a flight of stairs led upward. “He’s waiting just down there.”

  “Thank you.” Taren walked down the hallway, feeling a refreshing cool breeze passing through.

  Rafe was leaning against the wall in the shadows, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.

  “Rafe?”

  The big man smiled tiredly. “Taren. I hope you enjoyed the festivities.”

  “Yes, they were quite… festive.”

  Rafe chuckled. “Aye, that they were.” He gripped Taren’s shoulder and leaned in to whisper conspiratorially in his ear. “She’s waiting up there on the balcony. Asked to see you. I’m to let no one else pass unless the kingdom is under dire threat.”

  Taren felt his throat go tight suddenly. He had wanted to see Sianna all night, and now the moment had suddenly arrived. “You shouldn’t let her get away from you, Taren. You’ll regret it.” Ferret’s words earlier had struck close to home.

  His sudden misgivings must have been apparent, for Rafe smiled in sympathy. “I’ve never known her to bite.”

  Taren forced a breath of air into his lungs and relaxed. “You’re right. Thanks, Rafe.”

  He could feel the cold draft intensify as he climbed the staircase. The flight of stairs ended at a large open balcony, about twenty paces across with a view of the castle gardens below. The night was cold but calm, a brilliant banner of shining gems filling the sky above. A low half moon was perched just above the castle walls.

  Sianna stood at the stone balustrade, looking out over the gardens, most of the foliage now barren because of winter. She had let her hair down, and it gleamed in the starlight. A fur cape was draped across her shoulders.

  “Majesty, you called for me?” he asked hesitantly.

  She turned to face him, a bemused look on her face. Her loveliness nearly stole his breath.

  “Not you too, Taren. I’ve had about all the ‘Your Majestys’ I can handle for one night. How about just Sianna for a change?” Her eyes twinkled with amusement. “Careful, lest I order the court to refer to you as ‘Your Highness.’”

  Taren came up to stand beside her at the balustrade, careful to keep his face neutral as he faced his queen. The light of a distant torch moved across the castle wall as a guard walked the ramparts. “I’m not sure what you mean, Sianna.”

  “Come, now. Your heritage isn’t quite so humble as you make it out to be. Taren, Thaumaturge and Prince of Nexus of the Planes should be your proper title. Unless there’s also a surname that I’m missing?”

  He could maintain a straight face no longer, gazing into her eyes as he was, their faces barely more than a foot apart. A smile
stole across his face. “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “A mutual friend of ours sought an audience a few days ago and thought it best to remind me of your not-unremarkable background. Ferret,” she added at his raised eyebrows.

  “Ah.” That explained it then, along with the girl’s earlier hints.

  “She’s quite the storyteller. I expect she’ll make a talented bard. I’ve seen fit to provide tutoring for her so she can better learn her letters and numbers. Also, weapon training if she likes, since a bard’s road often ventures into dangerous territory.”

  Taren didn’t know whether he should feel grateful or embarrassed about Ferret’s intervention on his behalf. “Thank you for that. I feel responsible for her now, as the last remaining original traveling companion she had. I’m sure she’ll be thankful for the opportunity you’re giving her. Anything to take her mind off recent losses.”

  Sianna nodded, turning back to the gardens. “It’s the least I can do. For any of you. If there’s anything you need, then name it, and it’s yours, so long as it’s within my power to grant.”

  There was one thing he wished for more than anything, but he dared not ask it of her, not wanting to ruin the friendship they shared. He leaned on the balustrade beside her, their shoulders barely touching. Past the castle walls, Llantry was a brilliant tapestry of glowing lights.

  “I was a bit disappointed not to see you until the ceremony,” she remarked. “Did your journey turn out all right?”

  “It did. I just arrived back this morning, but the road gave me time to think and make peace with myself. Elyas and Mira were taken care of appropriately.”

  Sianna nodded but didn’t speak for a time.

  Taren didn’t mind. He remained silent, simply content to be in her company.

  “I must say, I was a bit surprised at how you and Ferret commandeered my dance floor earlier.” She regarded him sternly. “That took some stones, I believe is the expression. Not that a proper queen would ever speak thusly.”