by Lisa Shearin
“Do Mother and Father know how high you’ve risen in the foreign service?” he asked his sister.
The calm and cool elf diplomat gave way to a guilty daughter. “Not exactly.”
Oh boy.
Chapter 8
The Red Hawk had anchored next to the Fortune—or as close as two warships could be and not bump each other to bits when the tide changed. The wakes of other ships passing in the harbor wouldn’t be an issue for either vessel—no captains in their right minds would go anywhere near the twin flagships of the Benares fleet.
Mychael took Isibel to the citadel via Kalinpar, and Vegard and I took a launch the short distance from the Fortune to the Red Hawk. It’d be Isibel’s first ride on a sky dragon. I hoped hers would go better than mine had.
Mychael had had his family reunion.
Now it was my turn.
I had just started up the wood and rope boarding ladder when a familiar voice boomed down from the deck above our heads.
“About time. We thought we weren’t going to get a decent welcome.”
I looked up and it was as if the clouds parted, the sun came out, and choirs of angels sang.
Garadin Wyne. My mother’s closest friend and my godfather.
And standing next to him was Tarsilia Rivalin. Former landlady, forever friend, and stand-in mom.
My day instantly went from total crap to absolutely perfect.
Garadin didn’t wait for me to reach the top of the ladder. He reached down and hauled me over the top and into his arms. Tears filled my eyes and I squealed in pure joy. Until that moment, it didn’t truly set in how badly I’d missed my godfather. I wrapped my arms around his neck, returning the bone-crushing hug I was presently receiving. I knew he’d have come to Mid in an instant if I’d asked him to. I’d only considered it once, then permanently put it out of my mind.
It’d been too dangerous.
I’d been too dangerous.
And you still might be, my little voice whispered.
I pushed that thought out of my head and slammed the door in its face.
No. The Saghred was gone, and so was the danger.
As long as I’d been linked to the Saghred, the men and women who wanted the stone’s power hadn’t hesitated to threaten those I loved, to force me to hand myself over to them. I wouldn’t have brought Garadin and Tarsilia into that regardless of how badly I’d wanted them here with me. I’d endangered enough people, and had refused to add Garadin and Tarsilia to the already too long list.
Garadin was tall and distinguished looking, his eyes intense blue, his short hair ginger, and his beard and mustache immaculately trimmed. That was where immaculate ended. His dark homespun robes swept in virtual tatters behind him. Garadin dressed for himself and comfort, and that was all. None of that had changed since I’d last seen him.
My former landlady cleared her throat loudly. “Leave something for me to hug. You’re about to squeeze her stuffing out.”
Garadin reluctantly set my feet on the deck. I paused briefly to shout and wave at Uncle Ryn, and then with another squeal, I launched myself at Tarsilia.
Tarsilia was slender, fine-boned, with leaf-green eyes and barely any wrinkles visible in a still flawless complexion. She must have been drop-dead gorgeous in her younger days. She still turned heads of all ages. Her silvery hair swung in a practical braid down the length of her back. Tarsilia had a Conclave background, and she’d spent her younger days on the Isle of Mid. She didn’t talk about it, but I knew she didn’t learn to fight behind an apothecary’s counter.
I knew I was amusing the heck out of Vegard and Uncle Ryn’s crew, but I couldn’t have cared less.
At least, the crew would have been amused if they hadn’t been so busy hauling luggage on deck. I recognized the trunks as Tarsilia’s and one as Garadin’s. My godfather didn’t care at all for fashion, and even though he’d once been a Conclave mage, he didn’t have the richly embroidered silk and velvet robes that nearly always went along with the position. When a crewman added four worn duffel bags on top of Garadin’s trunk, I knew there was something I didn’t know.
I indicated what amounted to all of my godfather’s worldly goods. “That’s not luggage for a week.” The crew brought another trunk up from below and put it with Tarsilia’s luggage. My eyes widened. “For either one of you.”
They glanced at each other and I knew something was definitely up.
Something potentially wonderful.
I grinned, seriously on the verge of another squeal. “You’re staying?”
“For a while,” Garadin said.
“Possibly quite a while,” Tarsilia added.
“You don’t look all that happy about it,” I noted. “I’m thrilled, but you’re apparently not.”
“A favor to an old friend,” Tarsilia said.
I knew who that old friend had to be.
Justinius Valerian.
Garadin snorted. “I’ve only met the man once. I have no idea how I ended up on his short list.”
Now I did grin. Things were about to get a lot more sane around here.
“The Seat of Twelve?” I asked, on the verge of jumping up and down.
“You may be looking at two of the new Twelve,” Tarsilia said without enthusiasm.
“I didn’t think it was possible for me to be any more glad to see you, but I am.” I paused and gave them both a sly grin. “Being on the Seat of Twelve’s not a full-time job, right?”
“Thankfully no,” Tarsilia said.
“In that case, when things calm down a little around here, I have an idea that I’d like to run by the two of you.”
Vegard stepped up beside me. His grin was nearly as big as mine. No surprise there. The job of the Guardians was to protect the Conclave, the Seat of Twelve, and the archmagus. A majority of the Seat of Twelve had nearly voted me and Mychael to the execution block and their leader into Justinius’s office. The leader was dead, his cronies arrested, and more of those might find themselves without a job if Justinius’s investigation into their extracurricular activities bore additional fruit. With the Isle of Mid still under martial law, Justinius had told me he was going to dispense with the usual election process. Now I could see that his appointees to the Seat of Twelve were going to be people who were good at their jobs, not at buying votes.
For the past several years, Vegard and his brother Guardians had been charged with protecting individuals who didn’t deserve protecting. While martial law was still in place, Justinius was taking full advantage of the suspension of laws that benefited only the mages who had written them.
The old man was cleaning house with a vengeance.
“Vegard, allow me to introduce Garadin Wyne, retired Conclave mage—”
“Retired. Smart man,” Vegard noted.
“And now I’m back, so how smart am I really?”
“And my godfather,” I finished.
Vegard shook Garadin’s hand. “That’s one hell of a job you have, sir.”
“From what I hear, you’re my goddaughter’s bodyguard. I’m a fool and you’re a poor, brave bastard. We’re quite a pair.”
Vegard laughed. “When you get settled we’ll have to drown our sorrows and commiserate over a few pints.”
“I’d like that. Is the Thirsty Scholar still in business?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bruce Shurik still running it?”
My bodyguard smiled. “They’ll have to roll him out in a barrel. We’ll start there. Though we’ll have to start later. From here, we’re supposed to take you to the citadel.”
“Justin doesn’t want us running loose,” Tarsilia said.
Vegard raised a brow. The Guardians knew their ultimate boss by any number of names, many not repeatable—though always meant with affection—but “Justin” wasn’t one of them.
“We know each other,” Tarsilia told him.
“Yes, ma’am.” The very picture of discretion was my Guardian bodyguard.
Tarsili
a stuck out her hand. “Tarsilia Rivalin, young man.”
“I was about to introduce you,” I said.
“I know you were, dear. Just making things easier for you.”
“Rivalin?” Vegard asked.
“Piaras’s grandmother,” I clarified. “Before he came here, he’d been apprenticing with Tarsilia as an apothecary. I lived in the apartment upstairs. Garadin was Piaras’s first spellsinging teacher.” I paused. “Piaras’s big-boy voice came in the first summer after I moved in.”
Vegard gave a long whistle.
“Yes, it was fun for the entire neighborhood,” Tarsilia agreed.
“No doubt,” Vegard said. “I take it you heard what he did his first day here?”
“Oh, yes. The boy’s always been an overachiever.”
“Since putting half the citadel to sleep and making the Saghred go nighty-night, Piaras has conjured bukas, stopped Magh’Sceadu in their tracks, then he and ‘Justin’ took down a horde of demons fresh out of Hell.” I stopped and thought. “And I’ve left a lot out. Your grandson’s had a busy couple of months. Does he know you’ll be here for a while?”
“I’m having dinner with him tonight; I’ll be telling him then.”
Tarsilia wasn’t the only one with a surprise to share, though I didn’t know if Piaras planned to tell her about Katelyn yet. I didn’t think he knew about his grandmother and Justinius.
Two Rivalins romantically involved with two Valerians. The grandchildren now and the grandparents previously. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the old man had ideas of rekindling some embers.
Tarsilia and Garadin knew what all had happened to me and Piaras since we’d come to Mid—after the fact, of course. If they’d found out any earlier, they would have been on the first ship here. That would have put them in too much danger. Yes, they’d been pissed and told us in no uncertain terms that they could have taken care of themselves, but too many people had suffered for merely knowing us. I had no doubt that Tarsilia would find out everything that had happened from Piaras himself. She was relentless. Unfortunately the cadets didn’t begin learning interrogation resistance until next semester.
There was a commotion over by the ladder and Phaelan’s dark head appeared above the railing. He swung his legs smoothly over the side, grinning like a man about to bust with a secret.
Phaelan’s show ’n tell came over the side right behind him.
Piaras.
Now it was Tarsilia’s turn to squeal. Then she took in the sight of him in his formal Guardian cadet uniform, and her hand flew to her mouth. The squeal stopped and the waterworks started as she closed the distance between her and her only grandchild, enfolding him in a fierce embrace.
The waterworks were contagious.
Tarsilia knew that Piaras had been admitted into the Guardians’ cadet corps, but it was one thing to hear about it and quite another to see Piaras standing there, broad-shouldered and proud, in his uniform.
Phaelan, Garadin, Vegard, and I moved away a little to give them as much privacy as we could on the crowded deck of a ship. My cousin looked pleased with himself—and misty.
“The kid was pacing the docks like a lost puppy waiting for her,” he said. “So I had him brought over.”
“That’s a big puppy,” Garadin noted.
I wiped my eyes. “He’s grown a lot since you saw him last.”
“In more ways than he should’ve had to, and it looks—”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And it was my fau—”
My godfather’s blue eyes flashed. “It was not your fault. Piaras has wanted to be a Guardian all his life. I was going to say that it looks good on him. From what I understand, the boy’s made one hell of an impression around here.”
“That’s an understatement, sir,” Vegard told him. “It may have taken my brothers a little time to come around to admitting that it was a good impression, but it’s not every day they run across a young man who’ll probably end up being written into the Guardian histories as a legend.” He lowered his voice further. “Don’t tell him I said that.”
Garadin smiled slightly. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Sometimes young men need their confidence boosted, but never their egos.”
Chapter 9
I rode with Garadin and Tarsilia back to the citadel in the carriage Justinius had sent for them. Vegard and Piaras rode with the Guardian escort.
Once there, I got news that had me dashing up the stairs to Justinius’s guest rooms.
Markus Sevelien was sitting up in bed. Dalis was by his side, Brina Daesage hovering protectively nearby.
His color was much better. The gray he’d been when Mychael had dragged him out of that mirror was a good color—for a living goblin. For an elf, it meant you were dead.
Fortunately for us, but especially for him, Markus hadn’t stayed that way. Mychael reviving him didn’t change the fact that he’d been murdered. That said loud and clear that the traitors who’d been caught last month—both elven and goblin—had been merely the tips of some nasty icebergs. There were probably plenty more out there where those had come from. Markus knew it and had been following the bribery and blackmail trail from Mid back to Silvanlar, right up to the day he’d been attacked. The search that had begun in Mid had borne plenty of rotten fruit in the elven capital and beyond.
Maybe one of those bad apples had arranged for Markus’s monster spider traveling companion.
Anyone who had been in that mirror room at intelligence headquarters would have been Markus’s most trusted. The mage who had prepared that mirror would have been above reproach.
Yet even if the Khrynsani were behind the attack, they would have needed to know the exact moment Markus would step through that mirror in Silvanlar. The Rak’kari hadn’t attacked Brina Daesage; it’d come after Markus. For security reasons, Markus’s travel schedules—mirror and otherwise—had always been a closely guarded secret. That meant whoever had betrayed Markus had been close to him. Very close. It would have been like Vegard trying to kill me. I would have been devastated. Being the director of elven intelligence, Markus had probably had more than his share of betrayals. In his position, trust had to be nearly impossible to come by.
I wouldn’t want to live like that, never knowing who you could truly rely on. Markus Sevelien had never married. I’d always thought it was because he didn’t want to endanger someone he loved. It’d never occurred to me that he simply never knew who he could trust, that the person sharing your bed could be a deep undercover assassin tasked with getting close to you and then killing you in your sleep.
That had to be so lonely.
Yet one more reason why I was so lucky—no, blessed—to have found Mychael. Besides rest, all I’d ever gotten from Mychael while asleep had been holding and healing.
It was beyond sad that Markus Sevelien believed—and perhaps rightfully so—that he could never have that. I guess that was what it meant when people said they were married to their work.
Brina Daesage was now a security team of one. Neither she nor Dalis had budged from Markus’s side.
Justinius’s apartment guards were keeping a very close eye on the elf security captain.
Maybe for good reason.
She’d tapped out a code on the crystal next to the mirror that it was safe for Markus to come through. A crystal that’d been destroyed along with the mirror.
Maybe that wasn’t all that she’d signaled.
Markus didn’t look uneasy having her sitting that close to him, so he trusted her.
I should trust her, but until I knew more, I couldn’t do that, at least not entirely.
Brina looked a little on edge. That was understandable whether or not she was a traitor. I would’ve been jumpy, too if I’d been locked in a tower guarded by elite, magically and militarily talented knights. Brina didn’t know these men, and they didn’t know her. Not to mention, she had a new job and her charge had been murdered before he’d even arrived at his destination.
The distru
st was so thick in here you could’ve cut it with a dull knife.
And I’d just added a layer of my own.
Brina was probably just what she said she was—Markus’s security chief—and nothing else.
But during the past few months, paranoia and I had become fast friends. More than once, I’d had my new best buddy to thank for my continued survival. I wasn’t about to give her the heave-ho now.
I know the Guardians would’ve preferred to be guarding only Markus. Not him plus a heavily armed and obviously dangerous elven woman. Though after having me around, these guys probably had a whole new definition of “armed and dangerous.”
Markus saw me and smiled.
I returned it as best I could. “So, do you keep track of how many times you’ve dodged death?”
“Stopped doing that long ago. Though Brina tells me that I dodged a little too slowly this time and that I have you and Mychael to thank.”
“Me? Mychael was the one who brought you back, not—”
“Brina tells me that thing had me and Mychael. You made it let go.”
Me and my new color-coded magic.
“Do you remember anything after you stepped through the mirror in Silvanlar?” I asked.
Markus’s brow creased as he tried to recall, or merely process what I’d said. “Absolutely nothing.”
There were ways to get around that, but Markus wasn’t strong enough yet for any of them. Either Mychael or Justinius could magically take a look through his memories in the last few minutes before he stepped into that mirror, and the time he’d spent in between.
His eyes tried to focus on the room behind us. “Where—”
“Justinius Valerian’s apartment. You’re in the guest room. It’s the safest place on the island that’s not a vault.”
Markus nodded weakly in approval. “Brina?”
The bodyguard immediately came to Markus’s bedside, Dalis or no Dalis. “I’m here, sir.”
“Tellan Bain?”
