By Dark Deeds (Blade and Rose Book 2)

by Miranda Honfleur

  Fortunate wasn’t the first word that came to mind.

  Samara’s dark eyes dulled. “Some, like those men, go to far worse places. The gladiator pits. Fighting to the death every day, sold to the highest bidder every night. It is a sad fate.” Her voice died to a whimper.

  A sad fate… one those young men were being sold to?

  “Did you know them well?”

  Samara nodded. “Zayn and Azusa. Zayn worked with me in the apothecary last year.”

  A gleam flashed nearby. The gold of the gates and their ornamental arch, open. Unattended.

  The crowd broke—the Sileni woman darting through. Her dark waves and belt of scarves flew behind her as she raced for the gates. Gasps rippled through the crowd.

  Her bare feet pounded the flagstones, her figure framed by the gates’ arch.

  She froze. Levitated to midair.

  A black-clad guard shouldered by, his hand raised in a clawed pose. A force mage.

  “No,” Samara breathed tremulously next to her.

  The Sileni woman cried, writhed, a red butterfly caught in an invisible spider’s web. A squad of guards rushed past the crowd; Rielle gestured a geomancy spell, an abyss to drop them into, but nothing came.

  No magic. Arcanir bonds.

  She gulped down a breath as the guards closed in. One of them tangled a hand in the Sileni woman’s hair, and the force mage released her from his spell. She dropped to the flagstones, hard, her head yanked back in the guard’s hold.

  Dragged, she thrashed and screamed, one hand grasping her hair and the other clawing at the guard’s arm.

  Rielle stepped toward her, but a hand closed around her wrist. Samara’s.

  “You can’t,” Samara whispered. “There’s nothing you can…”

  One of the guards kicked the Sileni woman, and kicked her, and kicked her until she folded in on herself and stopped struggling.

  Curled, helpless, in the open. Beaten. And no one moved to help. No one dared.

  They dragged her past the crowd and toward the back end of the property.

  A shudder shook Rielle’s body, its ghost lingering. “Where are they taking her?” she asked quietly, her voice breaking. She couldn’t look away from the woman. Wouldn’t.

  Samara sucked in a slow breath. “To the barracks. They’re going to…” Her rasping voice died. “She’ll be given lashes. At least one hundred.”

  Impossible. “One hundred?”

  Samara nodded grimly.

  “No one can survive one hundred lashes.” At the stable, fifty lashes had killed people.

  “Even if she’d made it past the gates, no one in Xir would help, and there’s the Divine Guard and the brand…” Samara swallowed, then rubbed her lips together. “Very rarely, someone survives. But this is the price of attempting escape.”

  In front of them, cautious heads turned to look over shoulders. Samara lowered her gaze. Escape. Even the word instilled fear.

  That poor woman… Her fists tightened.

  But there was nothing she could do. Her fingernails bit into her palms.

  An attempted escape meant abuse at the barracks and one hundred lashes… And a successful escape meant activation of the brand and being hunted down in the city.

  The golden gates shone in the sunlight. In the distance, a woman screamed.

  Drina shut the door to a room at the Verninac Inn in Alcea District, glancing about in the starlight for candles. “Oh fire bright, in dark of night, / Candles burn, wicks ignite.”

  A flame sparked to life on the nightstand, a large candle, and one on the desk. She glanced at the fireplace and spoke another incantation, watching the hearth roar to life. Her anima deteriorated at all the non-innate magic, but if Max awaited at Peletier’s, she would take all the resonance she needed later. For now, she still had more than half.

  She strode to the desk, retrieved some parchment, the quill, and an inkwell from the drawer, and sat. The memory of the parade route still fresh in her mind, she drew its entirety. She worked, filling in every detail she could remember, until no more remained, then grabbed a second sheet and made lists. Lists of everything she could recall from the Master of Ceremonies’ papers. It was all coming together. Finally.

  Her recollection of the Joyeuse Entrée began in the Chardon District, moved through Dandelion, Violette, Alcea, Orchidée, and finally through Azalée. Her list included names—guards, dancers, a company of players, weavers, tailors, writers, musicians, artists, singers, sculptors…

  The Veris Ball. A dance suite of a prelude, quessanade, courante, gavotte, bourrée, furlana, volta, gigue…

  She went over it all, again and again, filling in any details that came to mind until three hours had passed and she could remember no more. All the information put to parchment. She leaned back in the chair and stared at the route, envisioning its path through the city.

  The Joyeuse Entrée would begin through the northern gate, which—as an entry point into Courdeval—would be well guarded. She drew her soulblade and cleaned her nails.

  The route would proceed through Chardon, full of low thatched houses and tight streets, where a cutthroat might ambush the king’s entourage and risk it all for a well-placed blow. But it was risky. Too risky.

  Then would come the massive bazaar of Dandelion. Flat, open, it offered no viable ambush points and no vantage points for a marksman. No opportunities there. She tapped the blade against her fingers.

  Violette District? Middling homes… She sucked a tooth. Perhaps some residences, since the siege, were still unoccupied along the route…

  But the Master of Ceremonies had ordered tapestries and carpets. They’d be hung all along the route. Choosing a site only to have it draped with a tapestry or a carpet would be playing the odds. And who knew when another chance like this would come again?

  Alcea and Orchidée ascended into Azalée, a gradual incline through rich mercantile districts, home to social climbers and nobles who couldn’t afford a villa in Azalée, and then a hill. She closed her eyes, picturing the main thoroughfare… Up the cobblestones among homes and shops, toward the citadel enshrining Azalée and Trèstellan Palace… Under the Triumphal Arch.

  She sat upright in her chair and tapped the blade against her palm.

  The Triumphal Arch.

  It marked the boundary between Alcea and Orchidée, one hundred and fifty feet tall, one hundred and twenty feet wide… and as a monument, it wasn’t guarded.

  No one in his right mind would climb the Triumphal Arch, but a mage… A mage might use a forbidden illusion spell for invisibility, then an aeromancy spell to ascend to the top. And from there, there was a perfect line of sight to the hill in Alcea.

  Her eyes closed, she smiled. The sun high in the sky, the Joyeuse Entrée would proceed up the hill, and when the king crested—

  A perfect line of sight.

  A shot.

  There’d be one chance and one chance only, but with the right equipment and adequate preparation, the odds of success were good. And she had the right equipment buried just outside Courdeval.

  She grinned.

  The king would never see it coming.

  Leigh kept his attention ahead. The Kingsroad had been unusually clear, even for this time of year. At least it wasn’t as boring as the arcanir prison. Ambassador though he was, he needed to ensure as much of the party as possible—and their cargo—made it to Vervewood. Promise of aid wouldn’t mean much if the necessary resources didn’t make it there.

  The Emaurrian humanitarian aid carts slowed the caravan to a crawl. His gray courser gave a bored sniff, his ears uneven, one pointing to the front and one to the back as he plodded along. The light-elven host had traveled to Courdeval on foot, but the king had seen fit to provide them with mounts to hasten their return. Altogether, they numbered about fifty, as paladins, clerks, and linguists also accompanied him and the group of twenty light-elves.

  He shuddered to think how much longer a larger group would have taken to tr
avel. The Frimair frost made the conditions just a touch more bearable than the Trèstellan dungeon. A harsh wind blew by, and he puffed the fur of his hood from his lips.

  Ambriel Sunheart glanced in his direction from atop his horse, golden eyes inquisitive. Tight-lipped, Ambriel had hardly spoken a word since they’d left Courdeval, but with his flawless skin, chiseled features, fair hair, and hardened expression, speaking was entirely optional. Perhaps even unnecessary.

  He could scarcely keep the smile to himself.

  When they reached the Western Road, the Old One that had always stood watch, the figure of a legendary wyvern, was remarkably gone. If the world was to be believed, it had come to life and simply stalked away. The statue had always marked two days’ ride to the capital. He took a deep breath, his lungs tingling at the cold air.

  “Are you all right, Ambassador?” Ambriel Sunheart asked in Old Emaurrian.

  The tight-lipped captain had spoken. Leigh glanced up, but the heavens hadn’t parted. He followed his curiosity and turned to the elf. Ambriel watched him, unwavering.

  “This is not my first winter, Captain.” Explaining the missing statue would have been too lengthy, anyway. When the elf nodded and looked him over, Leigh asked, “I’m not the first of my kind you’ve seen, am I?”

  The day they’d met, the captain’s gaze hadn’t flickered at his whitened hair or eyebrows, the product of his encounter with wild magic.

  “Islanders, Ambassador?” The captain dropped his gaze and looked out at the barren, frozen landscape. The wind whistled its presence.

  Leigh snorted a breath. The Kamerish half of his ancestry had given him the almond-shaped eyes that distinguished him from Emaurrians, but that hadn’t been his implication. The captain continued to watch him, not with the spark of curiosity, but with serenity of knowledge.

  Leigh smiled. “You know what I mean.”

  “Prophet,” Ambriel said. His gaze roved over Leigh’s brow and up to his hairline. “In my time, your kind were most of the mages. Before your kind, humans weren’t born with magic but some with the capacity to attain it.”

  Perhaps one in a hundred people who tried to obtain wild magic came away successful. How many had died in the captain’s day?

  And… “How did they become born into it?”

  Ambriel exhaled a lengthy breath. “Dragons.”

  Stunned, Leigh kept his reaction from his face. Dragons?

  “Dragons were the first shifters of shape among the Immortals. It is said they were born of the Mother’s veins, anima made flesh. They could work magic of all kinds. They were magic. Some took human form. Some never changed back. Some forgot. And over time, their power weakened until their children became human, and only a touch more.”

  All mages descended from dragons?

  Ludicrous.

  Impossible… wasn’t it?

  Leigh eyed him. If the captain felt talkative, then Leigh would not miss the opportunity to glean useful information, ridiculous tales notwithstanding. “There are no mages among your kind?”

  “No.”

  No. Just plain, simple, no. He hesitated, then asked the question on his eager tongue. “And you feel confident in sharing this information?”

  Ambriel laughed, something Leigh had not yet seen. The captain’s smile dazzled with its earnest amusement. “We are allies, are we not?” the captain asked. “You are coming to our land, Ambassador, where you will see much. Why hide anything from you now?”

  Of course, if later they didn’t like what he knew, they could always try to kill him.

  He sighed and mustered his most pleasant smile. “A wonderful attitude, Captain.” He glanced down at the rapier and dagger sheathed at the captain’s side.

  Ambriel faced forward once more, his self-assured profile against the immaculate countryside.

  Just how many humans had the Vervewood light-elves taken to the blade? And how many of them had been prophets? Without knowing the light-elves’ capabilities, he couldn’t evaluate his own considerable power against theirs.

  Well, now he’d have an even better reason to learn all he could about them. Fending off a shiver, he caught the beat of clopping hooves behind him. He’d never been so relieved to have a squad of paladins around. Even if all they could do was delay the inevitable.

  The rest of the day dragged until they made camp near the forest’s edge at dusk, in the shadow of some old ruins Ambriel called Flumentur, which roughly translated to “Riverwatch.” Who had once held Riverwatch, he didn’t say. Leigh had passed by the ruins many times and given them no thought, much less considered them a part of a watchtower. The foundation was large, perhaps two hundred feet in diameter, its tallest section no more than twenty feet high, with many parts absent or no more than three feet tall. A ruined stair, its steps thrice as wide and long as any in an Emaurrian watchtower, went nowhere, four feet high.

  Riverwatch’s stone had graced the fences of nearby farms. How many generations of Emaurrian farmers had scavenged it? How tall had it been? It hadn’t mattered… Not until myth and legend had skipped right into reality. The notion of some massive creatures stomping about somewhere was worth the passing thought.

  He took notes in his journal at the fire while some of the Emaurrian host tried to pantomime to the light-elves how to prepare the food sent from Courdeval, to replicate their work.

  It would be simpler for him to translate. But he shrugged and retired to his tent.

  Sir Marin—one of his paladin guards, a massive man even more massive in arcanir plate—came in to check on him, then left.

  In his bedroll, Leigh lay awake as the night matured. What about the wards?

  Right. There were none. He sighed.

  Not that he needed wards, but they’d become routine. How he missed having an apprentice to do the menial things.

  He rolled to his side. Rielle was still missing. That’s where he should be—on her trail, if there was one. But he’d always been more of a catapult than a hound; once he had a direction, victory was assured. Chasing leads, well, perhaps Jon was right… That rabid hound of a Marcel might be worth something.

  Regardless, Olivia had assured him she was on top of it, and he didn’t doubt it. Olivia, no matter how she looked at the new king—just what was it about the man that his apprentices so fancied?—didn’t have a malicious bone in her body.

  Although—he wiggled his aching toes—when she’d healed him, she’d assured him his toes would feel like they used to, before the torture. A bit of an oversell, Olivia.

  And the werewolf… The fervor with which he’d tortured proved his determination to find Rielle. But just what did a monster like that truly want with her?

  A commotion sounded from outside the tent. Branches breaking. Stone crumbling. Voices calling.

  He sprang to his feet. He tore out of the tent, ignoring the stabbing chill of the night wind. Small fires littered the camp, burning with no kindling.

  Arrows loosed. A roar. Screams.

  He followed the sounds, whispering an incantation. His candlelight spell flew toward the noise.

  He stepped over a tower shield, abandoned on the ground, and looked ahead.

  The slit pupil of a large, marbled yellow eye fixed on the candlelight spell and constricted. The juniper-green scales of its triangular reptilian head flashed against the silvery glow.

  The winged creature opened its maw and spat.

  A twitch of his finger, and the tower shield flew before him, catching the liquid. It ignited.

  Containment. He needed to contain the creature—the wyvern.

  With his fingertips, he rooted his magic in the trees at the fringe of the camp and at the wyvern’s center.

  He threw aside the shield and, as he made a fist, pulled the trees to the center.

  The wyvern flapped its membranous wings, sending tents, men, and all else flying, but the trees converged on its location. Thunderous cracking muffled an ear-piercing screech and shook the ground.

  Spli
nters and shards shot clear. He animated the stones littering the ground of the Riverwatch, pulling them free to orbit the crushing wood.

  A dark liquid seeped from the wooden mass as it compacted. Blood.

  Taking no chances, he pulled the stones in, pulverizing the mass and the wyvern inside, the crunch shaking through his body.

  When it would compact no more, he let it drop with a booming thud.

  Silence blanketed the camp, only the hum of the river Mel breaking its cover. Archers and swordsmen, human and elf alike, stood still, in varying states of dress, some gasping and murmuring about destroyed trees.

  He glanced over the shocked faces, pausing only when he looked upon Ambriel Sunheart. Barefoot in the snow, he wore only pants, the wyvern’s violet blood spattered on his sculpted, alabaster-white body and coating his rapier. The wind stirred his long, fair hair, but he didn’t move. He just stared, appearing like one of the ancient heroes carved of white stone, perfect, chiseled, sculpted by the hand of some god of war or beauty.

  In his golden eyes, the look was unmistakable. Leigh had seen it countless times.

  “As you were.” Leigh pursed his lips, turned, and headed back to his tent. He let himself think of the intensity in the elven captain’s gaze.

  Ambriel Sunheart wasn’t the first to be seduced by his power, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last.

  Chapter 15

  Jon looked out across the twilit horizon.

  They came from the mountains. Rippling from the Marcellan Peaks, they descended in quakes, swaying the snow-capped flame-yellow larches high up and then the white fir spires, an eerie mist of fleeing birds and hushed air rising. The crepuscular rays of the dying sun illumed the disturbed canopy.

  Deafening voices, deep like the giant blowing horns of the monasteries and primal like collapsing earth, called from afar. It wouldn’t be long now.

  “Your Majesty, I must advise you against this course.” Pons peeked over the rammed-earth wall with him, across the river Brise-Lames. More like a trickle, at least in the winter. Since they’d blown out the bridge, the thirty-foot-wide, fifteen-foot-deep river channel offered the only barrier, albeit inadequate.