“Keros! It is good to see you!”
He returned the hug. She was warm, like she’d been sitting beside a fire. He pushed her away and frowned. “You’ve lost weight. A lot of it.” Lucy had always had a rounded face and a plump body, but now her cheeks were almost hollow and he could feel her ribs beneath his hands.
She made a face. “I’m fine. I haven’t been eating all that well.”
Something in her voice made Keros stiffen. Lucy was one of the most powerful majicars in the world. Before Fairlie and Shaye had pulled down the Kalpestrine, he would have said she was the most powerful majicar. Little frightened her. But she was scared; he could hear it. “What’s going on?”
She took his hand and led him over to the relative protection made by a tall rock and a cluster of wind-tossed pines. She pulled him under, close to the trunk of one, where the wind and the rain could not easily reach.
“I don’t like the beard,” she said, reaching up and pushing his unkempt curls out of his face. “You look like a stray dog.”
She was stalling. He caught her hand and held it, his thumb rubbing lightly over the back of it, like he had a right. Reluctantly he let go. “Where’s Marten?” he asked.
Marten had been Keros’s best friend, before Lucy came along. He was a sea captain and had hired Keros to sail with his crew. He’d known Keros was a majicar and had protected his secret. He’d also been a gambler, and when his debts had become too much, he’d been paid to trick Lucy into breaking the law. The result had got them both sent to the Bramble with all the other convicted criminals of the year. They were to be exposed to the Chance storms. But the sylveth had turned Lucy into a powerful majicar and Marten into—
Keros still wasn’t sure what Marten was. A son of the sea god Bracken, perhaps. He could manipulate the waves and the storms, and every creature in the sea seemed to answer his call. He was also Lucy’s husband.
Keros smothered the hot spike of jealousy that stabbed through his chest. Lucy had never known how he’d felt about her, and she loved Marten deeply. If the truth was told, Keros was jealous of their bond as much as anything else. They were his best friends—his only friends, except for Margaret, but he rarely saw them or heard from them anymore.
At the mention of Marten’s name, Lucy’s mouth hardened. “He’s exploring the Kalpestrine, again.”
“Why?”
“Something’s wrong. Majick isn’t working the way it’s supposed to.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“No, you don’t. Keros. There’s less sylveth in the sea than there used to be. And”—her mouth pulled tight and her voice dropped—“the Pale could fail.”
He rocked back as if struck, his mouth falling open. “Fail?”
She nodded somberly. “I’ve done all I can to strengthen it, but I can’t find what’s draining it.” She shrugged. “I’m going back to the Bramble. Errol Cipher hid his library there and maybe I can find something in his books.”
Errol Cipher had been one of the founders of Crosspointe. He was the most powerful majicar in Crosspointe’s history. Lucy had discovered his library when she and Marten had been exiled on the Bramble. They were the only records he’d left behind. Majicars had been searching for them for years, hoping to discover the key to so many lost spells—like the one that created the Pale.
She drew a breath and blew it out sharply. “You need to warn my cousins that the Pale could fall. And that I will not answer their calls until I sort this thing out.”
Lucy was a Rampling—a member of the royal family. The cousins she was referring to were the princes Ryland and Vaughn and Princess Margaret. The other two, Prince Perry and Princess Ivy, were somewhere in Glacerie making a royal visit to shore up relations. Ryland, whom Keros had agreed to serve as a private majicar—was serving as prelate. He was, ostensibly, supposed to have equal power to the regent until a new king or queen could be elected from the ranks of the royal family. Vaughn, who had the support of the Merchants’ Commission and the Majicar Guild, was expected to win that election. But Regent Truehelm wasn’t willing to let go of his newfound power, and had been hunting down every Rampling and Rampling ally he could find and selling them into slavery.
Keros’s mouth twisted. Slavery enraged and disgusted him. Ryland tied his hands most of the time refusing to do much about it, or to let Keros do anything. Ryland provided safety for those who could find him, and at first there had been quite a few, but he wasn’t ready yet to free those bound in chains. It was too risky for the fledgling resistance. They needed time to build strength first. Keros understood the argument, but he burned in the caldron of his helplessness.
Part of the problem was that, for years, an angry sentiment had been growing against the Rampling family—fostered by a powerful coterie of merchants like the powerful Nicholas Weverton. Many people now believed that it was time to be done with royalty, and so chose to toss in their lot behind the regent. Keros shook his head. At least the Ramplings cared about what happened to Crosspointe and her people. Geoffrey Truehelm only cared about money and power. He had an unquenchable thirst for both—and as regent, he was in a position to get them.
“Vaughn has gone to Brampton, a village south of Wexstead along the coast. They have begun staging their army there. Ryland continues to try to stir up support against the regent among merchants and majicars, and Margaret—” He broke off with a shake of his head and wry smile. “Margaret does what she does.”
Lucy’s brows rose. “What is that?”
“Needles her brothers relentlessly, for one. She disagrees with much of what they do.”
“And they don’t listen to her.”
“No.”
“Is she right?”
“Probably.” He shrugged. “But neither prince listens. They don’t really understand what she is.”
“And you do?” Her head tilted and brows arched.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “She and I recognize each other. She’s no more the pampered princess than you are, despite the fact that she grew up in the castle. She’s a weapon and a spy, and she’s brilliant.”
Lucy looked surprised and Keros knew why. Margaret was a small, delicate thing. She looked fragile—the kind of woman you might keep locked away from the world for fear she’d break. But she had nerves of iron and a will of ice. She could fit in among both the worst criminals and most elite rulers. She was, in a word, dangerous. She also had a tongue like a razor, and Keros liked her very much.
“I always thought she was . . .” Lucy waved a hand. “Soft, maybe. Frail.”
“You were meant to, I think.”
She shook her head. “So much happened in the castle that I never began to understand. And with cousin William dead, I wonder how much has been lost that we desperately need to know? He played his cards so close to his chest. He had to, of course. What he was doing was too dangerous not to.”
Keros nodded. Like Lucy, he’d been appointed to the king’s Chosen Circle of advisors, much to his own chagrin. That meant he knew as much as anyone did about the king’s plots, and it wasn’t much. “Margaret is intent on discovering his secrets. She’s been sneaking about inside the castle, much to Ryland’s horror. He’s ordered her not to, but . . .”
Keros shrugged. Ordering Margaret was like ordering a cat. If she wanted to obey she would; if not, she would do as she pleased, and to the depths with the consequences.
“Tell her to be careful.”
“I will.”
Suddenly Lucy twisted and pushed out from their shelter. Keros followed hard on her heels. Rising out of the surf was a naked man. His skin was pale white, his long hair dark brown. Silver scales spangled his cheeks and trailed down his neck, chest, and thighs, finally condensing into a silver net around his feet. But more unsettling were his eyes. They were midnight black from corner to corner, making him look inhuman. Spawn. But then, all three of them were.
Marten paced up over the rocky shingle without a hint of embarrassment at his
nudity, nor did he seem to feel the sharpness of the ground beneath his feet. He put an arm around Lucy as if he couldn’t resist touching her, and stretched out the other to Keros.
“It’s been too long, my friend,” he said.
“And whose fault is that? You have need of neither ship nor Pilot to travel across the sea. One would think you’d visit more often.”
Marten grinned, looking almost like his old, pre-spawn self. “Lucy has been very busy on the Root. I could not get her to leave.”
And he would never leave her alone. That went without saying and Keros understood. Marten had betrayed her terribly once, and he now lived his life entirely devoted to her. The Root was a massive complex of mountain ridges twisting into the sea like the roots of an old tree. It was north of Crosspointe and believed to be a haven for spawn. King William had asked Lucy to establish another Pale there so he could build his own fleet of armed ships to battle the Jutras when they invaded. He was also cultivating alliances with the wild spawn who lived there.
“What about the Kalpestrine?” she asked Marten.
He brushed wet hair from his face. “There is sylveth there.”
“Still? I thought it would be gone by now,” she said.
Worked sylveth was a hardened form of the majickal substance that ran throughout the Inland Sea. It was used to both amplify and anchor spells and only master-level majicars had the power to harden it. Once worked, it was safe for anyone to touch. But when it fell into the sea, it seemed to summon raw sylveth to it, and the encounter always returned the worked sylveth to its original form. Once that happened, it drifted back out into the sea on the tides. The sea always took back what it gave.
Marten frowned. “There is a sylveth ball there. It’s the size of a ship and it simply hangs there, deep down—nearly forty fathoms below the surface of the sea. It is not quite liquid and not quite hardened.”
“But that is impossible,” Lucy said. “Sylveth flows—it moves through the water. It doesn’t pool or make a ball.”
“This is.”
She nodded, her face turning harsh. “We need to get to the Bramble. Do you need to rest?”
Keros’s eyes narrowed. Marten never needed to rest, not after swimming in the sea. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Marten said, his chin jutting like an ax blade.
“Crack that. I’m not stupid, whatever you may think.”
Lucy looked down at the ground, saying nothing for so long Keros gave up on an answer. Anger heated his gut and he clenched his hands on his cloak.
“The sea is sick. It’s hurting Marten,” she said softly.
He looked at Marten, scanning him up and down. “You don’t look sick,” he said, but fear prickled across his skin.
“Lucy exaggerates,” Marten said with a dismissive shrug. “I simply get more tired than I used to. But it very well may be my nature now. I have not been spawn long—less than half a season.” An edged smile curved his lips. “Perhaps I am with child.”
Keros stared, uncertain if it was a joke or a real possibility.
“Don’t be an ass,” Lucy said, trying to pull away. Marten only snugged her closer. “It’s more than tired.” She looked at Keros, grooves cutting sharply into the skin around her mouth and nose. “The waves don’t answer to him the way they used to—they are sluggish. And he hasn’t been coming to Crosspointe because the journey is almost more than he can manage. Whatever is wrong with the majick, is also wrong with the sea and with Marten. If we don’t fix it—” She broke off, swallowing hard and clutching Marten’s hand tightly.
“What can I do?” Keros asked, cold wriggling deep inside him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be warm again.
She bit her lips and shivered. “Just—Make sure my family is safe. My mother is in hiding and should be all right, but my brother Jack and my other brothers’ wives—Sissy and Caroline . . . They are all I have left. Don’t let the regent find them. Please.”
“Of course,” he said, tasting ash. When Marten and Lucy had been sent to the Bramble, her father, two older brothers, and a number of her friends and servants had been convicted of treason and sent with her. Only her mother, Jack, Sissy, and Caroline had escaped. But the ship had dropped Marten and Lucy on the Bramble; the others had been taken to Bokal- dur in Jutras territory to be sold. Keros didn’t dare think of what might have become of them. Making matters more painful, King William had forbidden Lucy or Marten to seek them out, saying she was needed in Crosspointe. With her mother pleading for her to obey the king, Lucy had acquiesced. Duty to Crosspointe always came before anything else—a loyalty carved into the soul of every Rampling. She could not refuse it.
“What else?” Keros asked. “How can I help you?”
Lucy shook her head, then gave a little nod. “If you can, feed the Wall tree. It needs blood for strength. The tree anchors the Pale. The stronger it is, the better.” She swallowed hard. “If anything happens to the grove on the Bramble, that one will be the only one left. Don’t let anyone see you. If the regent or the Majicar Guild should find out there’s a blood oak tree right here on Crosspointe, they’d cut it down for sure. It’s worth too much money and its magic is too powerful—but that would snap the Pale. Be very careful,” she urged. “I would do it, but I must get to the Bramble as soon as possible.”
The Wall tree was hidden inside a black granite triangular tower on the castle grounds. The Rampling family tree was inscribed on the outer walls of the tower and included every living legitimate heir. From that diagram, a new king or queen should be chosen to rule. For that alone, Keros was surprised that the regent hadn’t had the tower knocked down. Lucy had discovered the existence of the blood oak hidden within less than a year ago, and only a handful of people knew of its existence. Luckily the regent was not among those privileged few. King William had never trusted Truehelm, and had been maneuvered into making him regent.
How Keros was going to feed the damned thing, he had no idea. First he’d have to get inside the castle walls, and then get to the tree itself. There was no entrance in its protective tower. The only way to feed it was to dig down to a root and pour blood on the wood—it was not called blood oak for its color alone. All that while Crown Shields marched around the battlements.
It was a nearly impossible task. “I’ll do it,” he said.
“Then we must go. I’ll get word to you when I can. But be careful. I am not certain how safe it is to use majick.” She pulled away from Marten and hugged Keros fiercely. “Take care of yourself.”
He hugged her back. “I always do.”
She stepped back and Marten reached out a hand. Keros clasped his forearm hard.
“One other thing,” Lucy said slowly. “If the Pale on the Root fails, they’ll have to come here. Everybody—including our spawn allies. You should warn Ryland and Vaughn. An immigration of spawn could be more damaging than if the Pale snaps.”
Keros repressed a shudder and shook his head. “Any more good news you want to share? Maybe the sky will fall and the sun stop shining?”
Neither of his companions smiled and he felt fear dragging skeletal fingers through his entrails. He was just an unregistered majicar; he wasn’t meant for politics. He looked at Lucy. “Good luck.”
He wanted to hug her again, wanted to pull them both close and not let them go. Instead he stood and watched as they walked to the shore and into the water. A small skiff appeared in the water, conjured by Lucy. It looked faintly wrong somehow, though Keros couldn’t place why. She and Marten clambered inside. After a long moment, a thick wave rose behind and it started to move away, slowly speeding up until Lucy and Marten disappeared around the promontory.
Keros turned to retrace his steps, dread weighting him like an anchor. He stiffened his spine and defiantly thrust out his chest. Lucy would prevail, and he would make sure that when she wanted to come home, Crosspointe would be waiting, safe and sound. But even as he promised himself, he knew it was empty. He was a master majicar, but L
ucy was practically a god. If she could not stop whatever was tainting the sea and majick, then no one could.
Bile filled his mouth and he spat. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try.
Chapter 3
Nicholas Weverton was at his wit’s end. Impotent fury wrapped him in iron bands.
“Damn him and damn me,” he muttered as he paced before the tall windows in his spacious office. His secluded manor house was situated above Sylmont, north of the castle. On a clear day he could see all of Blackwater Bay, and from his south tower, he had an unobstructed view of the castle. He liked to think that it allowed him to simultaneously keep an eye on both his business empire and the idiot Crown—or these days, the regent, formerly lord chancellor, who was proving to be far worse than any Rampling had ever been.
He dragged his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. He’d always been well aware that Geoffrey Truehelm could not be trusted. The bastard was a necessary evil, however. If not for his taking the regency, the election for a new queen or king would have already taken place. The interregnum offered a small window to change Crosspointe’s charter and be rid of the Crown forever.
The trouble was that getting rid of Geoffrey might prove equally difficult. Nicholas had expected him to assassinate the king once the new Edict of Regency had been added to the Charter, and Geoffrey had promptly done so. He had been biding his time for many years, waiting for the opportunity to snatch up real power. This was his opportunity and he wasn’t going let it go without a fight.
Nicholas had underestimated the man’s lust for power and the viciousness he was willing to employ to gain his ends. Within sennights of ordering the king’s assassination, the lord chancellor had firmly ensconced himself in the castle as regent and denounced all Ramplings as traitors and criminals. In another month he’d managed to put hundreds of Ramplings and their most influential supporters into iron collars, seizing everything they owned. Astonishingly, the people of Crosspointe seemed to accept his actions with little protest. Or rather, Geoffrey used the vast wealth he snatched to reward his supporters for their unflinching loyalty. He lavished them with houses, land, jewels, art, ships, and slaves—in return they quashed any objections, hunted down Ramplings, and loudly proclaimed that Regent Geoffrey Truehelm was the only salvation of Crosspointe in this time of terrible crisis.
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