Emily watched as Jade strolled forward. He was clearly nervous, but she had a feeling that most of the guests wouldn’t notice. She’d seen him in Martial Magic, after all. His father followed, keeping one step behind his son; Emily glanced over at Galina, sitting in the front row, and felt a moment of sympathy mixed with envy. Galina had no formal role in the ceremony. She could watch without having to take part.
Jade stopped and knelt, two meters from the throne, as Alassa stood to one side. Emily glanced at her friend and blinked in surprise. It was hard to be sure, but Alassa looked terrified. Was something wrong?
She flinched as she heard another snicker. Something was wrong. Something was deeply wrong. It felt almost as if she were in two places at once, standing in front of the altar and watching the ceremony from a distance...
“Jade, Son of Hawker,” King Randor said. “Do you pledge yourself to my daughter? To serve her with your life and soul, your honor and your magic, to be her protector and defender while she lives and the protector, defender and regent of your child if she dies?”
“I do,” Jade said.
Emily sucked in her breath. It was no mere pledge, not when magic was involved. Jade might well have just agreed to a magically-binding contract. Even if it wasn’t, he could only be regent if Alassa died. The king had made that clear earlier, of course, but now he was reminding the entire court of the rules. There would be no shift in the balance of power as long as there was an heir to the throne, even if the heir was underage. The child would have a combat sorcerer as a guardian and regent.
And it’s more than that, she realized. Jade is pledging loyalty to Alassa over anyone else, even her father.
“You may rise,” King Randor said. He lifted his gaze, looking over the audience. “Is there anyone here who would dispute the match?”
There was a chilling pause. Emily wondered, suddenly, just what would happen if a person did stand up and object. It was too late to prevent the marriage; hell, the real marriage had already taken place. The king might ignore the speaker, or Jade might be pushed into a duel, or...there were too many options. Thankfully, no one rose to dispute the match.
“Alassa, Daughter of Randor, Princess of Zangaria, Duchess of Iron, Marchioness of the Midlands and Patron of Steam,” King Randor said. “Do you accept this man’s pledge to you?”
“I do,” Alassa said.
“Take the wand and staff,” Randor said. Two young girls came forward, one carrying a wooden wand and the other carrying a long staff. “They represent your power and your place.”
And remind the watchers that Alassa is a magician, Emily thought. She’s no weak and feeble woman.
“Turn and face the witnesses,” Randor ordered. “Jade, Son of Hawker; Alassa, Daughter of Randor. You...”
Emily staggered as everything snapped into place. Alassa in a white dress, her wedding day and...
...It is Alassa’s wedding day. Blood stains the altar, her white dress is ripped and torn; in one hand, she holds a wand, in the other a staff. And she stares at Emily with accusation in her eyes...
The snicker echoed through her head again, mocking her. She’d been tricked. The demon had shown her Alassa in white, but she’d jumped to the conclusion that it was Alassa’s wedding day, not the formal ceremony after the wedding day. And now Alassa was in the same pose...
“I object,” a voice shouted. Others took up the cry. “Death to the aristos!”
Emily whirled around, too late. A man stood in the middle of the crowd, holding a flintlock pistol. Before she could do anything, he pointed the weapon at Alassa and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening explosion...
...And Alassa cried out as she stumbled backwards, blood staining her white dress.
Chapter Thirty-Five
THE ENTIRE CASTLE ROCKED, VIOLENTLY.
Emily dived to the ground as she heard more shots ringing out behind her; something slammed into King Randor’s armor, knocking him to his knees. Jade hurled a fireball towards the first shooter as Emily crawled towards Alassa, trying to avoid being trampled as aristocrats panicked, running in all directions. They knew how to handle swords or magic, but guns?
“Get down on the ground,” Emily shouted. Her voice was lost in the din. She saw one of the bridesmaids fall, blood spinning from her shoulder, as another gunshot rang out. A pair of guards grabbed the king and started to drag him away from the carnage. “Get down...”
Jade threw a shield around Alassa as he knelt beside her. Emily added one of her own, hardening the air against bullets. Most magicians used wards intended to defend against magic, not physical attack. Bullets would go through them as if they weren’t there. Alassa was breathing heavily, her hands pressed against a bleeding wound in her abdomen. Jade reached forward, ready to cast a healing spell; Emily realized the danger and shouted at him to stop. The bullet might still be lodged in the wound.
They’re using flintlocks, she thought, stunned. There was only one place in the Nameless World where flintlocks were produced. Had someone set up a rival factory in a different kingdom? And how had they gotten them into the castle? We never prepared for guns...
“Don’t try to heal her,” she shouted at Jade. “You can’t!”
“She’ll die,” Jade shouted back at her. His face was pale. “Emily, you can’t let her die!”
“Put her in stasis,” Emily snapped. Panic yammered at the back of her mind, but she forced it down and buried it. Alassa would need a qualified Healer to remove the bullet and mend the damage while keeping her alive. “She needs careful attention, not a battlefield spell!”
Jade didn’t hesitate. Alassa’s face was suddenly wrapped in blue light as he cast the stasis charm, freezing her in a moment in time. Emily looked up; a dozen aristocrats lay dead, while several others were wounded. Caleb was shielding a dozen guests, holding a protective spell in place. One of the gunmen lay on the ground, his upper body charred by Jade’s fireball. It was hard to be sure, but it looked as if he was one of the guests rather than a servant or a guard. He’d definitely been in the thick of the audience when he’d drawn his pistol and opened fire.
“She’s not going to die,” Jade said, holding Alassa close. “She’s not going to...”
The door burst open, revealing three men in the king’s livery. Emily tensed as she realized they were carrying muskets - it was hard to tell if they were friends or foes - then swore as they lifted their weapons and opened fire. Her wards flared around her and the bullets bounced off; the newcomers hastily started to reload, just as Jade threw a cluster of fireballs at them. Emily winced as two died in flames; the third tossed something towards them and ducked back out the door. There was another explosion and the entire room shook, pieces of masonry dropping down from the ceiling. One of them struck Caleb’s shield and shattered to dust.
Jade caught her arm. “What the hell was that?”
“Improvised explosive,” Emily guessed.
It made sense, she thought. She hadn’t sensed any surge of magic, which suggested the attackers weren’t magicians. But then, they had deceived the wards...somehow. Her mind raced as she considered options. Jade was a skilled wardcrafter, but he’d been asked to create wards to cover a wide area, limiting the precautions he could build into their structure. If one of the attackers had been a legitimate guest, he might have been able to bring the others through the wards with him. Quite a few of the guests had brought servants.
She glanced up as a fireball shot towards her and splashed harmlessly against her wards. A young woman stood at the rear of the room, holding a wand in one hand. Emily had barely a moment to recognize that there was something familiar about her before the newcomer started shooting off additional spells, hammering Emily’s wards. The use of the wand would have suggested a weak magician, but there were too many twists to the spells for her to believe it.
“Stay with Alassa,” Emily said. She was damned if she was asking him to leave his wife, not now. Besides, the stasis charm would need to be maintained if it
was to last longer than an hour or two. Caleb could cover the rest of the guests. “I’ll deal with her.”
She rose to her feet and stalked forward, preparing spells of her own. The newcomer smiled, rather coldly; Emily tossed off a fireball of her own, partly to see what would happen. She wasn’t surprised when the newcomer casually deflected it, then hurled a spell Emily didn’t recognize into the ceiling. The room shook; Emily glanced up, alarmed, as pieces of stonework started to fall to the floor.
“Get out of the room!” she shouted. Hundreds of guests were cowering in the pews, keeping their heads down; she hoped, fervently, that they weren’t already dead. “Now!”
The newcomer bowed mockingly, then turned and slipped back through the door. Emily knew it could be a trap, but she ran after the newcomer anyway. Outside, there was no sign of her, save for a giggle hanging in the air. Emily hastily cast a tracking spell and frowned, puzzled, as it pointed upwards. For a moment, she refused to believe what she was seeing; the newcomer had nothing to gain by going up. Unless, of course, she was planning to hide in the castle until the hue and cry died down, which was unlikely. King Randor wouldn’t hesitate to have the entire building searched from top to bottom. But her spell insisted the newcomer had gone up...
Shit, she thought. She could hear the sounds of people fighting in the distance. Suddenly, the enemy plan fell into place. There were so many newcomers among the guards that no one could hope to know them all. The guards will be spending half of their time fighting each other.
She gritted her teeth and ran up the stairs, every sense she had probing ahead of her for flickers of magic that might mark an ambush. And yet, if the enemy was using gunpowder, would she sense it before it was too late? She wrapped other wards around herself as she reached the top of the stairs, then cursed under her breath as she saw three guards lying on the ground, their faces contorted in frozen agony. The newcomer - was it someone she knew? - had used a killing curse and left them to die. Emily checked the bodies anyway, but she knew it was far too late. They were already dead.
Alassa will die too if we can’t save her, she thought, as she hurried down the corridor towards the lower battlements. And if she dies, what happens to the kingdom?
A set of servants appeared, carrying improvised weapons. Emily held up her hands, hoping they’d recognize her, but they merely charged forward, their faces blank and cold. They’d been hexed, she realized; the newcomer, whoever she was, had turned them into her slaves and sent them to delay pursuit. Emily knew several counterspells, but there was no time to use them; she cast a stunning spell ahead of her, sending the puppets tumbling to the ground. They’d have to be checked by another magician later; she made a mental note to see to it. The spell shouldn’t last very long, but it was hard to be sure.
“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly.
She slowed down as she approached the door, probing ahead with her magic. There was someone, a powerful magician, not too far away down the battlements, but there were no sign of any traps. Bracing herself for an explosion, she pushed through the door and winced at the sudden shock of cold air. The castle was perched on top of a small hill, dominating the city below. There didn’t seem to be any sign of trouble within the city itself, as far as she could tell, but the rebels might be waiting to see if they had successfully killed the king as well as his daughter before they made their move.
And Randor might be dead, she thought. His guards might not have managed to get him out before it was too late. Alassa might already be queen.
She heard the sound of clapping and looked along the battlements. The newcomer was perched on the stone, heedless of the drop behind her. She wore a long black dress that was almost as absurd as Emily’s, at least for a duel; her long dark hair spilled down her back, as if she could no longer be bothered keeping it under control. It would have been easy for her to pass for a maid, Emily realized; no one would have paid any attention to yet another servant, perhaps brought in to help cope with the influx of guests moving around the castle.
“Bravo, Emily,” the newcomer said.
“Nanette,” Emily growled, finally recognizing her. “You’re not dead.”
“No,” Nanette agreed. She smirked. “Your grasp of the obvious is as good as ever.”
Emily clenched her fists. Three years ago, Nanette - posing as a transfer student - had nearly killed her, as well as stealing some of her notes; two years ago, she’d helped Aurelius of Mountaintop in his plan to seduce Emily into joining him. And then she’d almost killed Emily a second time...
She kept her distance. Nanette seemed to have backed herself into a corner, but she had to have a plan. Rushing in could be disastrous.
“Your hand appears to have been repaired,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm. Two years ago, Nanette had touched Emily’s familiar and had lost a hand. “I was under the impression that was impossible.”
“I had to have it regrown,” Nanette said, casually. Too casually. “Your...little friend’s lingering poison did a great deal of damage. I needed a powerful sorcerer to cut the rest of the arm off and regrow it from scratch.”
“Lucky you weren’t bitten,” Emily said. She caressed the Death Viper bracelet on her wrist. Nanette had been incredibly lucky to survive. “What is the point of this?”
Nanette raised her eyebrows, mockingly. “Oh, I thought the common folk deserved a chance to strike back against their hated oppressors,” she said. “Don’t you?”
“Bullshit,” Emily said, sharply. The idea of Nanette actually believing in the rebel cause was absurd. She’d always been a magical supremacist. Emily doubted she could truly accept any mundane as her equal. “What are you really doing here?”
“You have enemies, Lady Emily,” Nanette said. “I’m merely doing their work.”
Emily lifted her hand. “You can’t escape,” she said, gritting her teeth. Nanette was unlikely to give her any honest answers to her questions. “You will answer for your crimes.”
“I think not,” Nanette said. She rose, slowly, but made no move towards Emily. “Why are you even here, Lady Emily? You spoke of equality and yet you support your aristocratic friends? Randor is trying to use you in his political games.”
“I know,” Emily said.
Nanette leaned forward, slightly. “So why do you let him?”
She’s stalling, Emily realized, suddenly. Nanette knew her, knew her well; she’d picked her words carefully, knowing they would undermine Emily’s willingness to assist the king, but she also knew Emily wouldn’t abandon Alassa. This wasn’t an attempt to convert Emily to Nanette’s way of thinking. It was an attempt to buy time! But why? What does she want?
“That is none of your concern,” she said. “I beat Master Grey in a fair match. I can beat you.”
Nanette smirked. “The last time we fought, you cheated. I would have won if you hadn’t had a Death Viper for a pet.”
“And I beat Master Grey in a fair match,” Emily repeated. Nanette was not an opponent to take lightly - and besides, she wasn’t trapped in a dueling circle - but she had beaten a more experienced sorcerer. “Come along quietly and...”
“And get tortured to death by King Randor’s interrogators,” Nanette said. “Or are you going to tell the king that he can’t hurt me?”
Emily hesitated.
“Thought not,” Nanette said. “Now...”
She jabbed a finger at Emily. Emily stepped to one side as...something...flashed past her, a deadly curse that made her skin tingle even as it missed her and splashed harmlessly against the stone battlements. Nanette chuckled and threw a second curse; Emily hastily expanded her wards, and threw a hail of fireballs back. She knew Nanette would have no trouble in dodging or deflecting them, but they would keep the older girl busy. Nanette laughed out loud, shaped a spell and threw a giant wave of fire at Emily. Emily swore under her breath as flames licked around her wards and countered with a modified transfiguration spell, sucking the oxygen out of the air. The flame
s flickered and died before they could burn through her wards.
Nanette looked surprised; Emily braced herself, then cast one of the nastier spells she knew at the older girl. Nanette stumbled - just for a second, Emily thought she’d fall off the battlements and die - then collected herself and tossed back a handful of spells of her own. Emily deflected all but one of them; she swore, savagely, as the world went black. She’d forgotten. Using a blinding spell on someone at Whitehall was severely punished, but Mountaintop regarded them as just another prank spell. And Nanette had managed to slip one through her wards.
She channelled her magic through her fingertips and threw it at Nanette, without trying to cast a spell. Nanette would have to take cover, she hoped; a blast of raw magic might kill her or warp her body beyond repair. It gave her a moment to counter the blinding spell; she winced in pain as light stabbed into her head, then gathered herself. Nanette had taken cover behind a stone battlement, instead of either trying to take advantage of Emily’s blindness or making her escape. It made no sense.
She’s still stalling, Emily thought. Nanette could have tried to win the duel or escape; instead, she had the odd feeling that Nanette wasn’t taking the duel seriously, even though she’d flung a dozen deadly spells at Emily. But why? What is she waiting for?
“You’ve changed, Emily,” Nanette said. “Your magic has grown stronger.”
“Strong enough to best you,” Emily growled. Her magic was singing in her veins, even though she knew she should be reaching her limits. It was almost scary. “You are not going to escape.”
“Of course I am,” Nanette said.
“No, you’re not,” Emily said. “You can’t get past me and you can’t teleport out. The wards will stop you.”
“The wards don’t seem to be working very well,” Nanette mocked. “How many spells have I cast in the last ten minutes alone?”
Emily winced. She was right.
Jade wouldn’t have wanted to interfere with the magicians amongst the guests, she thought, grimly. And so he didn’t tune the wards to make it impossible to perform magic, just to alert him when spells were cast.
Wedding Hells (Schooled in Magic Book 8) Page 35
