Betrayed by Magic: A New Adult Fantasy novel (The Baine Chronicles Book 5)

by Jasmine Walt

“Hey!” Fenris snapped, tossing a sheet over his naked body as I stepped inside. To my surprise, he was still abed and looking very scruffy, with bags under his dark eyes and a serious case of bedhead. “You can’t just break into my room like this.”

  “I can damn well do whatever I want,” I told him, kicking the door shut behind me. “After all, you’re too busy moping around in bed to stop me, aren’t you?” I grabbed his desk chair, then flipped it around so I could straddle it.

  “Don’t be so overconfident,” Fenris growled, his dark eyes flashing. “I may not be a full mage anymore, but I can still wipe the floor with you without ever leaving this bed.”

  “Then do it,” I challenged, crossing my arms over the back of the chair and meeting his stare without fear. “But until you either kick my ass, or tell me what the hell is going on with you and Iannis, I’m not leaving this room.”

  Fenris glared at me for a long moment, then sighed and raked a hand over his hair. The sheet dropped, exposing a muscular torso dusted with dark hair. I didn’t know what Polar ar’Tollis had looked like under his state robes, but Iannis had made him damn good looking when he’d transformed him into Fenris. Strange really that I’d never been attracted to him that way—he was more like a brother, or maybe an uncle-type figure, to me. But as I looked at him now, so closed off, I wondered if he felt lonely. He deserved someone to love, and for someone to love him.

  Eventually, he dropped his gaze. “It isn’t what you think,” he finally said, staring down at his dark red bedspread. “Iannis didn’t reproach me for slipping up at the banquet. He came to check on me, and to reassure me that my identity is still secret.”

  “Good.” Relief swept through me at that—I didn’t have to be angry with Iannis after all. “So if that’s the case, then what did the two of you argue about?”

  A look of pain flashed across Fenris’s face, his fists clenching in the sheets. “About my leaving Solantha.”

  “What?” I grabbed the edge of the desk to keep myself from toppling sideways off the chair. “Leave Solantha? What the hell for?”

  Fenris finally met my gaze, and the pain and sadness in his dark eyes nearly stole my breath. “I’m sure you can empathize more than most, Sunaya… but I do not belong. I sit on the sidelines here, in the shadows, watching other mages walk freely in the sunlight, able to practice their magic without fear and pursue their ambitions and dreams. These past few years following my faked execution and transformation into a shifter, I’ve mostly focused on staying alive and out of the spotlight. But I have had no real goals, no ambition, no… direction in my life.” Fenris waved his hand in the air, a frustrated motion. “I am not truly a shifter, as I have no clan and was not raised with their customs, and before you came here, I did my best to avoid real shifters. And I am no longer allowed to be a mage, even though I still retain some power, and all of my knowledge.”

  “Oh, Fenris.” I abandoned the desk chair for his bed, then wrapped my arms around him in a tight hug. “I’m sorry.” A lump began to swell in my throat. “I’m sure this is very hard for you.”

  It was easy to empathize with Fenris—after all, my own hybrid status had made me an outcast, and until Iannis had taken me under his wing, I’d lived every day under the fear that I would be found out and executed. But at least those fears no longer plagued me. I was still learning to integrate myself into mage society, but it was happening. And if my lunch with Aunt Mafiela went well, perhaps I could find my way back into shifter society as well. But Fenris wasn’t able to do either of those things.

  “I know I said to you not so long ago that my place was by Iannis’s side, and by your side,” Fenris said roughly, his arms tightening around me as he returned my hug. “But after nearly exposing my true identity in front of all those mages, I was reminded that my very presence here puts you both in grave danger. If it was ever found out that the two of you were knowingly harboring me here, and that Iannis had used illegal magic to transform me into a shifter, all three of us would be executed. You are my friends, and far too important for me to allow that to happen.”

  “Stop this.” My nails dug into Fenris’s upper arms as I pulled back to glare at him. “Fenris, you stop this bullshit right now. Yes, Iannis and I might be part of the Minister’s task force, but don’t think for one second that you haven’t been instrumental in everything we’ve done so far. You’re important too, Fenris, and I fucking need you. Iannis fucking needs you. The entire Federation needs you, even if they’re too blind and ignorant to know it.” My voice broke a little as anger scalded my chest, and maybe a hint of fear too, at the thought that Fenris might walk out of our lives. “I can’t stand to lose another friend right now, Fenris,” I whispered. “I just can’t.”

  Remorse flashed in Fenris’s dark eyes, and his expression softened. “I understand,” he said quietly. “We’ve been through quite a lot recently, haven’t we?”

  “You could say that,” I said tiredly, running a hand over my face. “I was just getting over Roanas’s death, and now I’m faced with the likelihood of losing Noria. I don’t know what I would do if I found out you were leaving too.”

  “Knowing you, you would probably come up with some harebrained scheme to chase after me, and get yourself into considerable trouble that I would have to help you out of,” Fenris said dryly, a grin tugging at his lips.

  I grinned back. “Well, that is what you’re around for, isn’t it?” I asked, smacking him on the shoulder.

  “It would seem so, at least for now.” Fenris shook his head, his smile fading. “I suppose that so long as there is still need of me, it would be a disservice to you and Iannis for me to disappear,” he said. “I will stay then, and help however I can. But if there is any sign that my presence puts either of you at risk, I will leave, and you must promise not to stop me.” Fenris’s eyes darkened as he locked gazes with me. “Promise me, Sunaya Baine.”

  “I promise,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible as the lump in my throat threatened to resurface. But what else could I say? “Now can you get your ass out of bed and help me get this list of suspects? We don’t have all day.”

  “Yes, but it would help if you gave me some privacy,” Fenris pointed out. “I am far from decent.”

  “What else is new?” I muttered, opening the door and walking out. Shifters didn’t really have a button on nudity, but as Fenris wasn’t born a shifter, I had to forgive him for being a prude. And I didn’t really need the image of his naked ass branded in my mind anyway.

  “By Magorah,” I muttered as Rylan and I trudged back inside. We’d just finished questioning the head gardener, which had turned out to be just as fruitless as all the other interviews. “I’m starting to think you’re wrong, and the spy did flee the Palace.”

  “Nobody ever said I was infallible,” Rylan admitted as we turned right, heading to the east wing. Fenris had taken half the suspects, leaving us with around thirty to question—and we’d just finished number eighteen. “It’s always possible the spy did bolt.”

  “I really hope not,” I said as we headed for the guest bathing rooms. The next suspect on our list was Harun Zuric, one of the Palace’s handymen, and we’d been informed he was currently fixing a leak in one of the showers. “I’d rather not find out we wasted our entire morning on this.”

  “It isn’t a waste,” Rylan pointed out. “Eliminating these suspects is important.”

  I growled under my breath, but said nothing. He was right, but I was impatient to find my would-be killer now. I wanted to look him in the eye myself, dammit.

  The sound of metal clanging against metal caught my ears as we rounded the corner, followed by the scent of sweaty male human. I pushed open the door to the bathroom to find a balding, heavyset man leaning half-in, half-out of the shower. His belt wasn’t doing a great job of holding up his workpants, and I wrinkled my nose at the sight of his hairy crack peeking out from beneath his powder-blue work shirt.

  “Good morning, Mr. Zuric,”
I called, and he shot straight up, banging his head against the metal doorframe.

  “Dammit!” he cried, backing out of the shower stall as he rubbed his head. His eyes were wide as he turned to face us, and the sweaty stench emanating from his body turned sour with fear. “Couldn’t you knock first? You scared the hell out of me!”

  “Is that so?” I smiled, my fingers grazing the crescent knives strapped to my right thigh as I walked toward him. “And what exactly is it that you have to be scared of?”

  “Nothing,” he said quickly, his meaty hand drifting to his tool belt. “You just startled me.”

  “I would think you’d know it’s stupid to lie to a shifter,” I began, and the man let out a battle cry. He charged me with surprising speed for his bulk, pulling a silver knife from his tool belt, and I moved into a fighting stance, ready to take him.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” Rylan pushed me back, then twisted around to Zuric’s side and slammed him against the wall. Several of the blue tiles cracked beneath the force of their bodies, and Zuric cried out as Rylan grabbed his knife arm and twisted it behind his back. The knife clattered to the ground, and Rylan kicked it away as he hiked the spy’s arm up higher.

  “Fuck!” the man screamed as his shoulder popped from his socket.

  “I can do worse if you keep struggling,” Rylan said calmly. “Or you can give up, and let me restrain you.”

  “Never!” Zuric hissed, then screamed louder as Rylan pulled again.

  The sound of heavy footsteps outside the hall drew my attention, and I turned to see three more guards burst through the door. “Is everything all right, Miss?” the first one asked me, his sword already drawn.

  “We’re good,” I said, gesturing to Rylan and Zuric. The spy had stopped struggling. He was sagging against the wall, tears of pain streaming down his ruddy face. “As you can see, my bodyguard has things under control.” I was slightly annoyed that Rylan had gotten to the bastard before I did, but I couldn’t fault him for it—he was my bodyguard. And his reaction time had always been a shade faster than mine. I was going to have to enlist him as my sparring partner—it had been too long since I’d done physical training with any real dedication.

  “Actually, I would appreciate a hand from one or two of you gentlemen,” Rylan said as he restrained Zuric. “This man is a spy and would-be assassin who tried to kill Miss Baine with that bomb just a few days ago.”

  “This is the spy?” one of the guards asked incredulously, looking Zuric up and down. “I never would have guessed.”

  “Well, that’s why I’m her bodyguard and you’re not,” Rylan said with a grin as he spun Zuric around and shoved him into the guards’ waiting hands. “Now, let’s get this fat bastard out of here.”

  “This isn’t over!” Zuric shouted as they led him from the room. “You may have won the battle, but the war is far from over!”

  As we followed him out, listening to his shouted protests all the way, I couldn’t help but fear he might be right.

  26

  Iannis insisted on holding Zuric in the Palace dungeon rather than taking him to the Enforcer’s Guild, intending to interrogate the spy himself. Since Warin Danrian, the bank manager who’d been running the Shifter Royale, had been assassinated in his cell, it seemed better not to send high-risk prisoners there.

  Iannis and I didn’t have another lesson scheduled until dinner, and Fenris had cancelled our Loranian lesson for today. So, with some free time on my hands, I rushed over to the library to see if Janta had made any progress with her investigation into my family tree.

  “Are you nervous about finding out who your father is?” Rylan asked as he lengthened his stride to keep up with me. I’d hurriedly filled him in on the basic details via mindspeak, so no one would overhear, and he looked intrigued. “And what will you do once you know his identity?”

  “Yes, and I don’t know,” I replied as we stopped outside the tall, wooden doors that closed the library off from the rest of the Palace. “I probably won’t be able to make any kind of decision until I do know who he is, and why he abandoned me.”

  “Makes sense,” Rylan said as he pushed open the door, going ahead to make sure there were no assassins lurking on the other side. Despite my suggestion that he do so, Iannis wouldn’t dismiss Rylan as my bodyguard even though we’d captured the spy. He claimed we couldn’t be certain there weren’t more like him skulking about inside the Palace walls, and he wanted Rylan to stick close to me for now.

  I asked the young librarian at the reception desk for Janta, and was told she was meeting with someone but would be available soon. Rylan and I settled down at one of the tables to wait, me with my spellbook primer and Rylan with a history text he’d snagged from one of the shelves. It didn’t take very long at all for Janta to show up.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Baine,” Janta said, giving me a small, but friendly smile. She wore lavender robes today, her silver hair rolled up into a high bun, and a smile lit her eyes. “Thank you for the box of chocolates. They were a most welcome surprise.”

  “Oh, it was the least I could do after all you’ve done to help me. And please, call me Sunaya,” I added with a smile. “Anyway, I was hoping you had some news for me?”

  “Of course. Please come back to my office, ah, Sunaya.” She cleared her throat. “You may also use my first name, if you like.”

  She led us between the shelves and to the back, to her administrative office. It was a comfortable space, with powder-blue curtains, cityscape paintings hanging from the walls, and, of course, book-laden shelves. The shelves were made of birch wood, as were her desk and chairs. She gestured for me to have a seat.

  “Are you certain you wish to have your guard present?” Janta said as she pulled a file from one of her desk drawers. “This is a private matter, after all.”

  “I can wait outside,” Rylan said, bowing to us both. “So long as I can trust you with Miss Baine’s life.”

  “You can,” Janta said, smiling. “We will only be a half hour or so.”

  Rylan disappeared back into the library, shutting the door behind him. I wondered if he would tune out our conversation, or if he would listen in beyond the wall—his shifter hearing would be able to pick up our conversation easily. If I knew him, he would listen in. It didn’t matter either way—we were family, and I trusted him not to use this information to hurt me.

  “So,” I said, settling back into my chair, “what have you found out?”

  Janta opened the file in front of her, revealing a photograph of Coman ar’Daghir, the dark-haired Legal Secretary from Rhodea who shared my hair and eye coloring, and who I’d suspected was related to me in some way.

  “I started by tracing back the lineage of your friend here,” she said, tapping the facsimile of Coman’s slightly hooked nose. “His dark hair and green eyes, which you share, come from his mother’s side of the family, which is far more distinguished than the ar’Darghirs. Something of a misalliance, in fact. His mother is a scion of the noble ar’Rhea family in Castalis.”

  “I see.” Excitement shot through me at the mention of an actual name—we were getting somewhere! Castalis, I dimly remembered from school, was a peninsula at the southwestern edge of the Central Continent. “So this family is well known?” If they were, it might explain why Iannis had suspected my lineage from the get-go.

  “Very,” Janta confirmed. “They are particularly notable for their green eyes, strong magic, and the fact that their lineage boasts a direct descent from the First Mage, Resinah.”

  “Wow.” My eyes widened. “Does that make them more noble than other families? I have to admit I don’t really understand how classes amongst the mages work.”

  “All mages who have the prefix ‘ar’ in their surnames are direct descendants of one of Resinah’s twelve original disciples,” Janta explained, clasping her hands together as she rested them atop the desk. “These are the nobility in our society. There was a time when only mages of noble birth could hold influen
tial positions, but that is not the case today. Our current director of the Mages Guild, Lalia Chen, is a good example of this, as was her predecessor.”

  “Right.” I nodded, recalling that neither Chen nor Chartis had the “ar” in their last names, nor did Minister Graning. “So how is it that the ar’Rhea family is directly descended from Resinah?”

  “Two of Resinah’s children, her son and daughter, were disciples of hers. Her daughter, Miyanta, is the ancestor of the ar’Rhea family.” Janta’s nose twitched ever so slightly in disapproval. “According to history, Miyanta was as gracious and noble as her mother, but the same cannot be said of all her descendants. The families descended from Resinah consider themselves to be superior to all the other noble mages, and the ar’Rhea family is particularly snobbish. The purity of their blood means everything to them.”

  “Great.” I rolled my eyes, trying not to show Janta that, inside, my heart was sinking. If my father was an ar’Rhea, it was no wonder he’d chosen to abandon me. As a shifter-mage hybrid, I had to be even more of an abomination to him than I was to ordinary mages. And considering how I’d been treated when I arrived at Solantha Palace, that was really saying something.

  “Since the ar’Rhea family is so ancient and proud of their heritage, there is plenty of information about them in the historical and contemporary records.” Janta flipped the photo of Coman to the side, revealing a page filled with elegant handwriting—research notes, from what I could read upside down. “I checked the Foreign Mages’ Log to see if anyone from the ar’Rhea family had visited Solantha in the year before your birth.”

  “That’s smart,” I said—I would have done it myself, if I’d known which name to look for. Any foreign mage visiting a Federation state for longer than a month was required to go to the local Mages Guild and fill out a form. My heart rate jumped up a notch, and I had to restrain myself from squirming in my seat like a little kid. “So what name did you find?”