She rubbed her fingers together, recalling the feel of his skin beneath her touch.
Her chest tightened.
The vivid, happy memory was too stark a contrast to reality; if she lost herself in it now, she’d lose her nerve and die in this sand pit.
No, there’d be no sweet surrender to the depths of memory; she had to focus on now, on these oppressive circumstances, these innumerable reasons why the only option was to never give up. Shaking her head, she studied her surroundings, the people beside her, the guards—anything to supplant the precious, unbearable memory.
Ihsan healed the next person’s feet. A small mercy compared to the immense cruelty. Of course forcing the slaves to suffer through the walk was more cost-effective than procuring additional camels. However, if they lost the ability to continue, the entire purpose of Ihsan’s sojourn to the auction would be frustrated. So, healing magic.
Finally Ihsan paused before her—a numbing spell, then a probe, then healing. Strange. At home, they began with the probe spell.
“Speak, Thahab,” Ihsan said in High Nad’i, continuing her work.
After a moment’s hesitation, Rielle replied, “I noticed that you did not begin with a probe, Zahibi.”
A small smile curled Ihsan’s lips. “Pain is often used in the North as a diagnostic criterion to reduce the scope of a probing and, thus, its anima cost to the healer. Barbaric. Here, it is customary for healers to relieve pain first and then do a thorough, if costlier, probing to detect the abnormalities that would cause pain. It is a courtesy for the patients.”
Barbaric? Courtesy? To say that about healing and yet drag slaves across a desert—it didn’t—couldn’t be reconciled.
She bowed her head. “How wise, Zahibi, though it is not my place to say so.”
Ihsan’s small smile faded. “You know a bit about magic.”
How much will remain a mystery to you. For now. She kept her face expressionless. Had she just tipped her hand? The less her masters knew about the extent of her magical abilities, the better. “As much as any person who has been healed, Zahibi.”
Ihsan moved on to the boy. She examined him, frowning. “How long has he been like this?”
“A couple hours, Zahibi. I thought it was due to exhaustion.”
Ihsan numbed him and began the magical probe at his feet. “It is,” she said with a sigh, then muttered a string of curse words under her breath in High Nad’i. Something about “…should have sold me the elephants.”
When all the guards and Ihsan had camels, what use would she have had for elephants? “You didn’t intend for us to walk, Zahibi?”
Ihsan glared at her. “Of course not,” she snapped, giving her a stern look before returning her attention to the boy. “The merchant was being ridiculous. I mentioned that I’d need elephants with gear capable of holding eleven people, but when he realized it was for the slaves, he refused. He said he needed to save his beasts of burden for carrying people of worth—as though hundreds of shafi or nawi will show up in Harifa, requiring camels and elephants.” She grunted. “Had he been of honor, he would have admitted it was because I was representing House Hazael here in my brother’s stead.”
House Hazael. That was the destination, then. One of the Houses of Sonbahar… It likely meant housework or farming.
At least it wasn’t a mine. Sonbahar’s mines—of arcanir and many other precious materials—were infamous.
And the day’s events made a lot more sense: why the negotiation at the tent had taken so long, why Ihsan had appeared so angry. But how to reconcile merciful intentions with the purchase of people? It was impossible.
“Why did you choose me, Zahibi?” The question had been hiding in the dark corners of her mind, where hope didn’t dare stray. Yet, after all that she had been through, the penalty for impudence here could be no worse than what she’d already survived.
Done healing the boy, Ihsan sighed and folded her hands together. “I needed a scribe. It was obvious you were a Northerner, and when you also understood and spoke High Nad’i, I knew you were learned enough to do the work I needed done.” At that, Ihsan departed.
She’d been chosen merely for her knowledge of the language? So simple?
Ihsan stopped to talk to a guard, one of the younger, handsomer men of the group, and disappeared with him into her tent.
Still chained, Rielle lay on her back and took what rest she could. A scribe. At least as a scribe, she wouldn’t be under heavy guard like a miner or laborer. With a little luck, she could have access to outgoing correspondence… to Jon. A better chance than what had awaited her at the stable. Arrival at House Hazael would mean no more desert, too.
Just like every night aboard the ship, she looked up at the myriad stars, where the sages of old had looked for their fates. Perhaps House Hazael would be her way home. Was that part of the fate the stars held for her? Her arcanir cuffs clinked together behind her head. She would have to look beyond her magic to make it there, use what strengths she could muster.
When the enemy takes your sword, you must draw your dagger. Jon’s voice, deep and firm, swept around her like warmth radiating from a fire.
Somewhere out there, Jon was looking at the same night sky, and across deserts, cities, the bay, and all that stood between them, they were in some small way together. It was a comfort now to think of sharing anything with him, no matter how remote.
He was coming for her. He wouldn’t abandon her. Not Jon. Never Jon.
She would see him again.
Her eyelids grew heavy, the image of him cast against their darkness.
Chapter 10
Jon paced his study. Olivia had returned from Kirn and sent a message promising to discuss the result of her investigation tonight.
The investigation. If she’d found the criminal, she would have come running, wouldn’t she? The news had to be disappointing, but it had been too much to hope that a courier would be the bloodied sword they’d needed to find.
He’d worked on those repulsion shields for the nearly two weeks she’d been gone… to no effect. After spending the past decade of his life trying to suppress his magic, perhaps now it demanded some price for his rebuff.
He stood at the window, hands resting on the cold sill, looking out beyond the snow-capped villas and homes to the endless dark of the Bay of Amar.
A knock. “The Archmage, Your Majesty,” Raoul called.
“Send her in.”
Footsteps clicked from afar, and then the door creaked open behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Olivia walking in, a book tucked under her gray-velvet-clad arm.
She offered him a soft smile that faded. “I’m afraid I have some… unfortunate news.”
“I assumed.” He rounded the desk, sat in an armchair by the fire, and gestured for her to do the same.
“We tracked the courier to his usual tavern, Pierre’s, and to his usual boarding house, an apartment above Kirn’s carriage house. The coachman’s wife said he usually took the route toward Chevrefeuils, but last time, probably after the siege, he took the route toward Partage.” She sat in the other armchair.
No one had wanted to travel near Courdeval after the siege. The courier’s master must have lived somewhere he could travel to by way of Chevrefeuils… which was much of the kingdom. Too much.
“And on the way back to Courdeval, we checked with the coachman at Chevrefeuils, who said the man traveled by a nondescript private coach from there to an unknown destination.” She sighed.
“It wouldn’t be too far, unless they were willing to change horses.”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t want to leave a paper trail.”
“Both Sauveterre and Monas Tainn are nearby.” A march and a monastery. Marquis Sébastien Duclos Auvray of Sauveterre, Duchess Madeleine Duclos Auvray’s son, ruled Sauveterre. His mother certainly had the funds to pay for a regicide, but why would she? What would she have to gain? She hadn’t even been considered to rule the kingdom.
> The regicide—but for Jon himself—might have led to Duke Faolan Auvray Marcel, the duchess’s sister’s son, becoming king, and Brennan a prince. Duke Faolan would have broken the betrothal, something the duchess wouldn’t have wanted.
It was unlikely Marquis Sauveterre was the courier’s master.
And Tor had sworn it wasn’t Duke Faolan. He knew his own brother, had investigated, and found no evidence. And Tor’s word was iron. If not by reputation or devotion, then by relationship. After all the years they’d spent together, so much like brothers, maybe even father and son, Tor wouldn’t lie to help someone trying to kill him.
Which left the monastery, Monas Tainn, managed by High Priest Maxime Vignon Aldair. He’d been to Monas Tainn, and it wasn’t much different than Monas Ver. A private coach would have been a strange sight. And how would the High Priest have funded the regicide, unless with the Order of Terra’s coin?
But if the Order of Terra was responsible, the bloodied sword would drip first in Monas Tainn. He’d have to send a trusted friend to make inquiries. A trusted friend like Valen.
“Your Majesty?” Olivia blinked.
He sighed. “Sorry. Thinking.” He leaned back in the armchair. “I’ll take it from here. I’ll let you know what I find.”
She nodded, her gaze falling to his hands. The Sodalis ring. “Any word of Rielle?”
“No.” And without further word from Brennan, there was nothing to do but perform his duties as king.
“She’ll return to us soon. Rielle’s strong. A survivor. We’ll see her again.”
He took a deep breath. “I know we will.”
Her gaze descended to the Laurentine signet ring hanging from the chain around his neck, usually hidden in his shirt.
Although she sat nearby, she looked distant—a world away—biting her lip contemplatively. Firelight reflected in her eyes. “When did you know,” she began to ask, her eyes fixed upon the signet ring, “that you loved Rielle? Was it when you first met?”
These days, he tried not to think about that, about her—it opened the door to a useless part of him, who could be neither king nor man, but mere worry personified. A liability.
But he allowed himself to open that door for a moment, just a crack. He closed his eyes. A halo of fire, wild wisps of golden hair, narrowed eyes. A captor. A conqueror. A savior. Determined and powerful, a woman who could challenge a man to be stronger. To be better.
“There was something about her from the moment I saw her, no matter how much I wanted to deny it.” He vividly remembered looking up at her from the abyss she’d created on the Tower grounds. Her expressionless face had given nothing away, but the ice in her eyes had said she wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. In his life, he’d never seen anything like it.
But when was it he’d fallen for her?
“There was this moment when we escaped some crumbling ruins—she healed me before herself. I’d misjudged her, and that had created distance. But right then, I knew she was good. That she cared. And then that distance disappeared.” He shook his head. “I think I knew it then.” He smiled. “But I am certain of one thing—whether we had met one another at the Tower, here in the palace, or even passing each other by chance in the street, my heart would have always, always known hers and responded.”
Olivia looked up from the signet ring. “She is a blessed woman indeed to inspire such devotion.” She glanced at him. “I’m finding the world a darker place. Colder alone.”
Unsure of what to say, he bowed his head and twirled his Sodalis ring.
“Your father meant a lot to me,” she said softly, “and I lost him. I’m not going to lose my best friend, too.”
On that they agreed. “I wish I had some indication—any—that she’s all right.”
“Indication…” She leaned back, a contemplative frown on her face. “Indication…” She sighed. “The new Proctor all but laughed in my face when I requested a spiritualist, saying ‘none could be spared.’ ”
“I know.” A spiritualist was capable of doing just what he needed, but he’d gotten the same message. Although what it really said was that the Tower—and perhaps the Divinity—was uninterested in helping him.
And outside the Tower, there were hedge witches who didn’t want to come forward for fear of persecution, and a sen’a baron he’d thrashed. “When we were on our way to Monas Amar and Courdeval, Rielle went to a spiritualist in Bournand to confirm whether you were alive.”
Olivia tilted her head. “Not Feliciano?”
He clenched a fist. “The very same.”
With a grimace, Olivia looked away. No doubt she shared a similar opinion of Feliciano Donati. “In any case,” she said, “I think he could be compelled to help, if it’s for her. He wouldn’t turn down a quaternary elementalist owing him a favor.”
After that altercation in Bournand, not a chance. And he couldn’t promise himself he wouldn’t finish the flogging he’d begun in Bournand. “Are there no other spiritualists in Emaurria?”
With a shrug, Olivia leaned back in the armchair and stared into the fire with lifeless eyes. “Spiritualists are rare. Aside from Feliciano, I only know of suitable ones at the Tower.”
“Suitable?” They didn’t need suitable—anyone who could even attempt the spell was worth a try.
She blinked, frowning, then shot up. “Wait. Unsuitable, yes, but there is one. A child, a novice, fresh off his éveil. In Courdeval.”
A child? “Could he perform the necessary spell?”
“I think so, yes,” she said. “I know his tutor. I’ll talk to her, see if the boy’s parents will agree. If so, we could have our answer very soon.”
“Do it.”
“This could be what we’ve been hoping for.”
He wanted to jump from his skin, but it would do no good. Nothing would be negotiated with the boy’s parents tonight.
A knock on the door.
“Enter,” Jon called.
Raoul entered and saluted. “Your clerk, Your Majesty.”
“Send him in.” Jon rose.
Eloi Charbonnau mustered a brisk walk, came to an abrupt stop, and bowed deeply, his blond curls flopping over his face. “Your Majesty,” he greeted, out of breath.
“What is it?”
Eloi rose from his bow, sparing a brief glimpse at Olivia before nodding to Jon. “An ambassador, Your Majesty.”
Every country in the region had already sent diplomats. “From?”
Eloi breathed unevenly. “Forgive me, but I don’t know, Your Majesty. The most learned among the party spoke Old Emaurrian. One of the paladins—a scholar’s son—recognized it but could understand no more than that they desired to meet with our king. None of the Trèstellan translators speak it, as it is a dead language.”
Dead language? An Immortal race, perhaps?
An ambassador… That meant potential allies. But what use was that when no one spoke Old Emaurrian?
Olivia stood. “Both Leigh and I are fluent… but I’ve never heard it spoken before. The accents, dialects—”
Jon turned to her. “Come. Let us meet this ambassador.” He strode past Olivia and Eloi, and they followed. Friend or foe, he couldn’t decide, but he resisted the urge to believe that what the kingdom needed most had just arrived.
At the heart of Trèstellan Palace, Jon sat high on the throne upon the dais, twelve steps above the rest of the room. Around him, a squad of sixteen paladins stood in perfect formation, and off to his side, Olivia posed in her impeccable emerald-green Archmage’s robes, leaning in to whisper her suspicions about the visitors from time to time. A ruse. A trap. An illusion. And then genuine belief.
Another squad of paladins escorted in a group of twenty strangers, all wearing brown cloaks and light armor of what looked like wood. Beneath their helmets, only small portions of their fair skin, blond hair, and golden eyes were visible. At their sides, they wore rapiers similar to the dueling swords that nobles favored.
The paladins stopped just short
of the steps, and the foreigners smoothly took the cue and halted. One of them, an individual at the front of the procession with a sunburst pin, descended to one knee and bowed his head. His entire group followed suit.
“Terra’s blessings upon you,” Jon greeted, Olivia translating his words into the foreign tongue. Did these strangers believe in the Goddess as he did?
“And upon you, Your Majesty.”
“Please rise.” As Olivia conveyed his words, they rose. “I am King Jonathan Dominic Armel Faralle of Emaurria,” he said with a confidence he didn’t feel. “I welcome you here.”
The leader removed his helmet and so did his group. The stern-faced strangers’ skin was unblemished to the last, with no facial hair but for their eyebrows and eyelashes. Some wore their fair hair braided, others knotted, and a few left their subtly pointed ears visible. None looked older than three decades. The leader was the only man among them.
Light-elves. Some believed them myth, some legend, but here they stood. Derric had told him stories of the light-elves that worshipped the light and the dark-elves that worshipped the dark, wars that had raged for millennia, and a fantastical feud with the first witches. Tales. Tales that now stood before him.
He exchanged a look with Olivia before the leader spoke again.
“My name is Ambriel Sunheart, envoy of our queen, Narenian Sunheart of the Vervewood. I have come seeking the ruler of this land, so that we might nurture an alliance that may benefit both of our nations. Our situation is dire. We have awoken to a world different than what we remembered.” He hesitated and dulled his tone. “We can provide a number of soldiers and crafters, but we are in need of food, supplies, and knowledge, and we have no allies to turn to. Without supplies, we will be as leaves to the frost.
By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2) Page 10
