“You do not know how good it feels to be back, Diamond,” Beck admitted honestly.
“Oh, I think I do,” she replied knowingly.
He turned to Kiernan. “I am going to the Academy to check on things. Why don’t you see if you can get some rest before we leave?”
His wife offered him a tired grin. “I will do that.”
Beck turned Chasin onto the western boulevard and as he rode alone, he suddenly realized what was out of place. His personal guard, Roman Traynor, was not by his side. Roman was a member of the troop of Sabers that left a week ago to be in position to meet up with them at the grate in Kondor. Although still not in support of the constant shadowing, Beck liked to think that he and Roman had become friends since the Saber’s appointment. As friendly as their statuses allowed anyway. Protocol was very strictly enforced in Iserlohn and, if not always by the nobles, by the people themselves. To their way of thinking, the rigid hierarchy was in place to provide for their well-being and protection, and any breakdown in those traditional roles left them feeling vulnerable and afraid. That is why it was so devastating that Lord Etin misplaced the people’s trust the way he did.
Beck shook his thoughts away. Feeling at peace for the first time in a week, he decided to enjoy this solitary ride to the Academy. Making his way along the street, it made him smile to see earthshifters using their magic openly to assist in the beautification of the city. Large, muscled men moved enormous boulders as if they were pebbles while others waved their hands over the dirt to open up furrows for planting.
Beck involuntarily ducked when an airstream passed by overhead, and a bodyshifter came out of the sky and shifted out of his hawk form on the run and dashed into a building built for this purpose to cover his nakedness. He emerged a moment later dressed and with several rolled parchments clutched in his hand to deliver to their intended recipients. The bodyshifters had become indispensible in recent years in relaying messages between folks from all over Iserlohn, and he could easily see their services expanding to the other lands in the future.
Inside the open doors of a forge, a fireshifter assisted one of the blacksmiths in keeping his hearth hot with summoned fire.
Magic.
Wherever one looked.
Bardot was an enchanting way of life and left him feeling that all things were possible.
In the training field, a block before the Academy, Beck noticed three young earthshifters practicing their craft, their over-developed chests gleaming with sweat. When they saw him, they waved him over. “Prince Beck!”
He rode over to the trio whose names escaped him. Over the past year, he had to abdicate more and more of his teaching duties to other instructors due to his royal commitments in Nysa, and he did not know the students as well as he used to.
“Working hard, boys?” Beck asked, leaning from the saddle.
“Yes, Your Grace,” said the boy in the middle. “We were just running through some defensive moves, but need somebody to practice on. Would you care to give it a go?”
Beck noticed the young man elbow the friend next to him. Was there a hint of a challenge here? Beck shook his head. “Wish I could, fellows, but I really can’t. Another time?”
The shifter in the middle nodded, but as soon as he turned Chasin around, Beck heard him say under his breath, “I think his royal duties are making him soft.”
“Or maybe he is just getting too old for his sort of thing,” another whisperer suggested.
Beck stopped.
Too old? The young men were only a few years younger than him.
He turned back to the trio and dismounted, leading Chasin to the fence surrounding the field and tied the reins to a post. “You know, maybe I do have a few moments after all.” He vaulted the fence. “What are you boys working on?”
“Thinking up the best way to disable a bad guy, but it really wouldn’t take much for shifters like us,” the middle boy declared smugly.
“Just one bad guy? Against the three of you?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Why don’t we say you are the three bad guys and I am the one good guy?”
One of the boys laughed derisively. “That wouldn’t be fair.”
“For you or for me?”
“You can fight three shifters at once?”
“Sure. I once fought one hundred sorceresses at the same time.” It was more like twenty and he did not even come close to winning that one, but he did not tell the boys that. He was trying to make a point after all. “So, you agree that you are the bad guys?”
“If you’re sure,” the middle boy stated, the tone in his voice suggesting that Beck better think twice about it.
Beck walked a few paces from the boys and then turned to face them. “Give me your best shot.”
Immediately, a good-sized ball of dirt erupted from the earth in front of the middle boy, and it whirled toward Beck’s face. Beck overrode the summons with a flick of his hand and sent the ball crashing harmlessly to the side. Undaunted, the boy shifted an earthen suit of armor and a cloud of dust misted the air as the dirt and stones on the ground rolled up and over his body until he had a thick protective layer covering him.
He rushed toward Beck.
With no time for armor, Beck reached down, summoned a fist of stone from the earth, and cuffed the boy as soon as he closed, sending him sprawling. With a wave of Beck’s hand, the tree behind another boy groaned as it reached down and sucked the youngster up into its boughs, holding his struggling body fast and silencing his shouts in a leafy cocoon. The last boy standing screamed out when the earth pulled at his boots, and he started to sink into the ground.
“Keep yelling,” Beck told the boy as he walked away. “Someone will hear you and dig you out.” He jumped over the fence and remounted Chasin. “Don’t forget, gentlemen! The good guys always win!”
CHAPTER 3
Another Star Fades
When Beck arrived at the Academy, no one approached to take his horse and this pleased him immensely. He took a few moments to rub down Chasin and provide him with feed and then left the stables and headed for the entrance to the Academy.
Larger and more imposing than the royal palace he shared with Kiernan, the building was an extensive mélange of fanciful stonework and brick. Tall and graceful twin towers graced the east and west ends of the Academy, and the pennants mounted on the peaks with the imprint of House Everard’s Golden Lions flapped in the wind.
He strode underneath the open-arched wall surrounding the courtyard. Students of all ages were hurrying to and from classes, and he smiled at them as he made his way to his study on the second floor. When he arrived at his office, he shut the door quickly behind him to forestall any interruptions, anxious to spend the hour before his trip studying The Protetor, the last recording of Mage wisdoms. The book was bequeathed to him by his very great grandfather, Galen Starr, on his deathbed with the intention that Beck study to become a Mage. Today, none existed on the island and, due to the devastation caused by Adrian Ravener six years ago and the Mage War before that, this was thought to be a very good thing by most people. Including his wife. In fact, she became unreasonably angry any time he brought it up, so he had learned not to broach the subject with her.
Beck felt differently. He knew that there was much to be learned in sorcery and was eager to explore its secrets. The Gems, phenomenal sorceresses though they were, were limited in their powers to the energy harnessed from their gemstones. A Mage’s powers had no limits.
The hour went by quickly and after reading the last page, he shut the book with a frown.
“Your wife would not be pleased to find you reading that.”
Beck looked up. Gemini Starr was standing in his doorway with a smile on her face.
He set the book down and walked around his desk. “Gemini. I did not hear you come in.”
“Obviously,” she said dryly.
She strode past him to the desk and picked up The Protetor. “Can you really read anything
in this book?”
He nodded. The book was bespelled so only his eyes could see the contents.
“Like I said, your wife would not be pleased. Nor would most people on this island. The time of the Mage is past, Beck.”
“And, how do you feel, Gemini? You know what can be accomplished with a Mage’s knowledge.”
“You sound suspiciously like your great grandfather.”
“Is that such a bad thing? He was a great man.”
“Yes, and you saw where that got him.”
Beck decided not to pursue the matter further and plucked the book from her fingers. “There is nothing more I can do in any case. The last instruction is a cryptic passage that I have no ability to decipher, so you will have your wish. It is done, for now.”
“It is for the best, Beck.”
“So, I keep hearing. Now, I am sure you did not come here to talk about Mage business.”
“No, I came to tell you that I have decided to go back to Maximus this evening after my visit here. I do not like the thought of him without a close advisor at hand. He may need me.”
“I am sure he does,” Beck said with a wink and then ducked her swat. “Kidding aside, I know I will sleep much better knowing you are there. Are you sure you have the time?”
She nodded. “Sapphire is seeing to the administration of the coven in my absence.”
Beck looked at the sky outside through the window. “And, I have to leave myself. But, make yourself at home,” he said, gesturing around the room. “Do you need an escort back to Nysa?”
She reached up to pat his face tenderly. “No, I will be fine. Be careful on your trip, Beck.”
“I will.” He embraced her one last time and then headed for the door.
“B…Beck?”
Her small gasp behind him caused him to turn back. “What is it?” he asked, suddenly concerned. Her face was lined with a fear that was not there a few seconds ago, and she was gripping the desk so hard her knuckles were white.
“I…I am not sure. I just had the strangest feeling overcome me.” He started to approach, but she waved him away with an embarrassed chuckle. “It is gone now. Please accept my apology, Beck. Just an old woman’s superstitious mind is all. Go on or you will be late.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes. I am fine. Honestly.”
Beck nodded but was still reluctant to leave her. “Are you…”
“Beck, go!”
He held his hands up in surrender and walked out of his office, but a disquieting feeling that he should be doing something more followed closely on his heels.
When Beck left, Gemini regained her composure. Whatever premonition had caused her to react in terror had disappeared before she had time to examine it more closely. And, this was not the first time.
Still uneasy, she went to the window to peer down at the busy streets of Bardot. Oh, how she loved this magical city. Unheard of only a few years ago, here magic shifting was out in the open where it belonged.
She told Beck that the time of the Mage was past, but maybe the same could be said for the sorceress. Every day, more of her precious Gems were leaving sorcery to study shifting. It would not be long before their numbers dwindled to almost nothing.
She really should put more thought into moving the rest of the coven from Elloree here to Bardot so that the Gems would still be unified no matter which course of study they chose. At her urging, Diamond already relocated here to watch over the Gems enrolled at the Academy.
A move would also allow her to be closer to Beck, Kiernan, Kenley, and, of course, Maximus. They needed her. And, if she was honest with herself, she needed them as well. They were her family now.
Despite all of the reasons for moving to Bardot, one urged her more than all of the others. Every sorcerous sense in her body warned her that danger was near, that an ominous threat hovered over those she loved most. Whatever evil was on the horizon, she wanted to be in a position to protect her family and she could not do that from Elloree.
Out of habit, she reached behind her head and brought forward the thick, gray plait of her hair. Whenever she was troubled, it helped calm her nerves to stroke her braid—the sign of her sisterhood.
Lost in her thoughts, she did not hear the soft footsteps until they were upon her and was startled by a vicious, sharp impact to her back. “What..?”
A strong arm whipped out and gripped her around the throat. “King Maximus will not need your assistance in Nysa after all, High Priestess,” a sinister voice whispered in her ear.
Instinctively, she twisted her body to get a look at her assailant.
“You!”
Gemini snarled, but the spell she was ready to cast fell flat on her tongue and no sound issued. Instead, a paralyzing heaviness flowed through her body that began in her lower back and then traveled up to her chest and then to her head.
No longer able to stand on her own two feet, she slid down the wall beneath the window in Beck’s office and was dead before her body hit the floor.
The dungeons of the royal palace, located two stories below the ground, were dank and musty and the stench of urine permeated the air. The only sounds in the oppressive silence were the skittering of tiny feet in and out of the cell and the mournful sob of one of the other prisoners.
Suddenly feeling claustrophobic, Davad Etin shot up out of his cot and banged on the cell door. “Guards! Where is my meal? I requested food hours ago!”
There was no answer from the guards, only the contemptuous laughs from his neighbors.
Idiots.
He really was not even remotely hungry, but felt like he needed to do something or he would go crazy. He returned to his cot and sat with his head in his hands. It was still unconceivable to him that his own flesh and blood—his own brother—was responsible for derailing his plans. He had not even been aware that Kenith had been anywhere near his surreptitious conversations. He could hardly imagine that his brother betrayed him out of a singular concern for the people of Iserlohn, but then again maybe he did. He always did take after their mother with that soft heart of his. Regardless, after years of suffering under the rule of Maximus Everard, Davad was ready to make his move, and he would not be thwarted by his little brother or this cell. The Court was split and his army was at that very moment on the march toward Nysa.
He heard the door to the guardroom one story above clang open and footsteps descended the short set of steps to the cells.
He stood imperiously. “About time…”
But, it was not the guards. It was Lord Abram Winslow, and he was alone.
The ancient and angry face stared at him through the bars of the cell. “How did you let this happen, Davad? You assured me that matters were well in hand.”
Davad smiled disarmingly. “Minor setback, Abram. I assure you…”
“Minor setback! You are accused of treason against the Crown!”
Davad glowered at him. “I am well aware of the charge, Abram. The important discussion point is what you are going to do to get me out of here!”
The old man shook his head. “There is nothing I can do, Davad. There are guards and Sabers everywhere.”
“You must.”
“It is impossible.”
“Only impossible if you care nothing for the life of your grandson, Abram.”
The Lord’s lined face turned so red that Davad thought he was going to fall dead onto the stone floor.
“Don’t worry,” Davad said hastily, “he is unharmed. As promised, the boy will be returned to you as soon as the crown is mine.”
Abram’s head hung between his shoulder blades. “Don’t hurt him, Davad. I have done everything you have asked these past months. For Highworld’s sake, please don’t hurt him.”
Davad cocked his head. “Well, now, his well-being is entirely in your hands now, isn’t it, Abram?”
“I will see what I can do,” he said in a resigned whisper. “It cannot be accomplished without bloodshed.”
The Lord gave him a long withering look and then turned on his heel and walked away. Davad went back to his cot, feeling more confident. Abram would get him out of here soon, he was sure of it. He seemed to be very fond of that grandson of his. In the meantime, there was nothing else for it but to be patient.
The guardroom door opened a second time and another set of footsteps moved down the stairs and approached. A very large guard stopped in front of his cell door.
Surprised gasps came from the other prisoners and furious whispering filled the air.
“What is it?” Davad demanded.
The guard was silent as he inserted a key into the door of his cell.
“Am I to be freed then? Already?” Davad stood and dusted off his jacket, anxious to leave the foul-smelling cell.
“Turn around,” the guard commanded with a leer.
The confusion must have showed on his face because the guard reached out and grasped a fistful of his jacket at the shoulder to spin him around.
“Put your hands against the wall.”
“What is this? Let go of me this instant!” He tried to turn, but the man, easily twice his size, leaned his full weight into his back.
The mutterings of the prisoners were getting louder.
When the guard reached around and unfastened Davad’s trousers, yanking them to his knees, the cold realization hit him.
“Stop! Guards!”
The guard’s fist lashed out and struck him in the side of the head. “Be quiet.”
The force was so powerful that it scrambled his senses and he almost fell to the ground. “The King would never approve of this,” he said groggily. “You will be executed when he finds out.”
The guard laughed. “The King will not find out, my Lord. I do not expect that you will ever tell anyone about this.”
When the assault began, something inside of Davad’s mind snapped. He tried to formulate a more effective protest, but he could not string the words together to do so. With the grunts of the guard filling his ear, it was not only his mind that was lost in that moment—it was also a piece of his soul.
Island Shifters: Book 02 - An Oath of the Mage Page 3
