That left, disposing of the shard. With no stones in my possession my enemy would be cut off from my magic. Unfortunately, so would I, which would leave me defenseless when I found him.
The best way to fend him off would be to keep him out entirely. I could craft a barricade or shield of some sort, but he’d likely be expecting that. And depending on what stone he was using, it would be hit or miss whether I could counteract it or not. He was also too cunning to be stymied so easily. To keep him busy I would likely need more than one spell.
Wait, I thought, more than one.
Accessing my abilities, forcing the magic in, shaping it…
I started pacing, thinking. That’s three different types of persuasion, three different spells.
He’d have to cast them separately, in stages. And that means—
I stopped moving. “A lag.”
It would be brief. I’d have less than a handful of moments, the time it would take for him to make clear his intent for one spell and speak the words for the next. But if I could do it, if I could regain control of the aura after he pushed it in me, I could pull the whole damn thing out from under him.
I could limit the loss of life. Show him I’m not as easy to handle as he thought.
Brazenly opposing the man’s plans might also make him angry enough to force a show down. And if I can bring him out of hiding, I can kill him.
Just like that I had a plan. And the first shred of confidence I’d felt in a while.
It put a bit of pep in my step as I whistled for Kya. “Let’s go!” I hollered. After a brief, terse glance, she went back to sniffing the dead woods. “We don’t have time for this.” I lapsed into Shinree and barked firmly at her. “Intae’a!” The old language wasn’t spoken much, having died long before I learned it. Yet there were one or two words that just felt right saying. Like the term of affection I used with Kya. Something about the sound of it guaranteed me attention. And not just with horses.
Sauntering obediently in my direction now, I met the mare halfway. I put a hand on the saddle, and as I swung a leg over, I caught a glimpse of the small, dark crystal peeking out from the neckline of my shirt. Cold and harmless, rundown from whatever spell I just cast, the shard looked nothing at all like a fragment from the deadliest weapon in Shinree history. For that matter, outwardly, the crown itself betrayed nothing of its true nature. Yet, it had crowded my veins with what felt like endless magic, granting me a range of power and abilities far beyond what I was born with, far more than I knew what to do with too, or how to control. A single use of the Crown of Stones and I changed the world.
The only thing that went in my favor that day was that the crown fell into my hands and not the Langorians. If they had gained access to all that magic, they would have painfully persuaded a Shinree to work it for them. The resulting damage would have been infinitely more wide spread. With the crown in their possession, no army could have stopped Langor from dominating Rella, and every other land within reach.
Anyone who wielded it could make themselves King.
A chill took me at the thought.
Another ran up my spine me as I quoted my new enemy. “Anyone with such power as you should be King.”
I thought of Taren then, talking about the circle being broken. How she hinted at wanting the obsidian shard to fix it. Still, if her mission was to retrieve the shard, she had multiple opportunities. Instead, her employer interrogated me. He mocked me, plagued me with questions. He asked about the war, about Aylagar, about the Crown of Stones.
He said I didn’t hide it very well.
Struggling, I tried to recall every word of our conversation. I didn’t remember saying anything that would reveal the location of the crown. But the man hadn’t asked either. He’d focused on getting me to reveal deeper things. Things like what I feared and what I loved. Like where my mind and heart were before, and after, I channeled the crown. He wanted in my head and he got there.
If it was truly the artifact he was after, I’d given him a good place to start looking.
Not only that, I was too far away to stop him.
Far, far away, like Taren said.
I crushed the reins in my hands. I have to go back.
I had to make sure the crown was still where I left it.
Only, what if I had it all wrong? What if I lead him straight to it? Going back to Kabri might be exactly what he wanted. It certainly wasn’t what I wanted.
Ten years had done nothing to diminish the reasons I left.
Situated just off the southern mainland of Rella, the island city of Kabri was the seat of power for the entire realm. It was where I was born and lived as a child. It was where my mother died and where I caught my first real glimpse of the large scale brutality the Langorians were capable of. It was where I surrendered Aylagar’s body to her husband, King Raynan Arcana, and where I hid the Crown of Stones.
I should have left it where I found it. I should have never brought it back.
I’d thought that many times. That I should have buried the accursed thing in the sand and let it return to whatever hell it came from. But I’d needed a way to explain, and to cement my grounds for punishment. Torture, exile, slavery, even execution would have been fair. Instead, I got the King staring at me like he wasn’t surprised, as though he’d always known that one day I would slip and rain destruction down on everyone.
After relieving me of duty, he firmly suggested I leave the city. Tensions among the citizens were high and the King was worried I might be strung up by the families of the men that didn’t come home. It was a purely selfish concern. If I died, Rella would be without the protection of the magic user he had worked so hard to groom.
King Raynan’s last order was that I put the artifact somewhere safe. I argued for destroying it, throwing it in the ocean—anything. But he wanted it available should its power ever be needed again and I was in no position to make demands.
Thinking on it now, I probably misinterpreted his words. He likely hadn’t meant for me to leave the Crown of Stones in the catacombs under his castle, inside Aylagar’s tomb. But at the time, I was the one person the crown needed to be safe from. I found it. I used it. I alone knew the wonders and the dangers, and that was the sole reason I chose the hiding place I did. Because if I were ever tempted to claim the crown’s magic for myself, if I ever thought to use its power again, I would have to go back there, open Aylagar’s crypt and reach my hand in. I would have to touch her dead body, face her and what I did, and no amount of magic was worth that. Not to me anyway.
But to another, lured by the promise of supreme power, it would be a small thing to defile the tomb of a dead, forgotten Queen.
I gave Kya a kick and started her forward. If I was right, and the crown was in danger, forward was the wrong direction. But the kingdom of Rella was weeks away and I was too close to Kael to turn around without checking the Wounded Owl first. It was the last place my Shinree enemy was seen. Someone there might know his identity or his whereabouts.
Pushing the mare, the ground sped by in a blur of stripped, spindly thickets and scattered piles of dead wildlife. Leafless branches hung down over the path as it dipped into little hollows and rose up over gentle sloping mounds of parched, black grass. As the sun set deeper, the path flattened out. As it widened into a genuine road, I hit a straight patch, and up ahead, dust gathered in the waning light. I peered into it and the dark shape of a single horseman took form.
I came to a halt and drew a sword. After Taren, I wasn’t taking any chances.
The man pushed through the cloud and I noticed his approach was fast.
Sword ready, I held position. I assumed the rider would swerve off when he caught sight of me. Instead, releasing a high-pitched cry of panic, he jerked like mad on the reins, bringing his mount to a loud, skidding stop less than a hands length away from Kya’s right flank.
A spray of dead leaves shot up as high as my knee. The dust rose higher.
Coughing on it, I ba
cked up and prepared to lecture the man about looking where he was going, violently. I held off when I saw how badly he was shaking.
Hunched inside a hooded, brown traveling cloak, his white-knuckle grip on the reins loosened slowly. As his slight form uncurled, the edges of his cloak fell away. The hood slipped off, revealing beneath it, not a man, but a boy. No more than fifteen or sixteen years, dressed in garments dyed the colors of my current employer, King Sarin of Kael, his fresh, round (and unmistakably pale) face was not quite old enough to have seen a single shave.
I grunted in surprise. “You’re from the King’s court. What are you doing way out here?”
Forcing away his anxiety, the boy squared his jaw. “Good day to you, My Lord.” He gave me a quick nod and the careless mop of sandy hair on top of his head bounced down over his face. He tossed it back. “I have been sent to escort you to the home of King Sarin.”
“Did you come through the village?”
“Yes, My Lord.”
“Was it intact?” I swallowed, waiting.
“My Lord…?”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Yes, My Lord. Forgive me.”
Licking dry lips, I blew out a breath and tried again. “Did the village look like it does here?”
Lowering his eyes, he shook his head in confusion and the shock of hair fell across his face again. For a moment, I was tempted to pull out a knife and cut it for him.
“Look around you, boy,” I said, close to yelling. “Did the village look like this?”
“I don’t know what you’re asking.” Noticing my sword, he recoiled. “Please…”
I lowered the weapon. “Just calm down, take a look around, and answer me.”
The young Kaelishman’s nervous gaze moved off mine. Leather creaking, he turned in the saddle, right then left. He stared at the lifeless woods, at the ruined ground and the rotting animals, and for a moment, said nothing. Then revulsion claimed his face and turned it an unbecoming shade of green. “You did this,” he whispered. Horror strained his voice. “You did this with magic.”
His tone stung. “Yes. Now, are they safe in the village?”
“Gods,” he gasped. “You killed it all. You killed everything.”
The air went out of me. My eyes fell closed. “Then they’re all dead.”
“Oh—no, My Lord, that’s not…they aren’t…”
My eyes snapped open. “Tell me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” His flustered stare grew huge with embarrassment. “The village is fine. There’s grass,” he glanced over his shoulder. “It’s just a ways back. I can show you.”
“No. No, it’s all right.” Running a hand over my face, I wiped the emotion from it. “I believe you.”
“Good. Then, can we go now?”
I squinted at him in the growing dark. Clearly, the boy had no grasp of the utter panic that had been moving through me only seconds before. Or what it took to put it away. He’d probably never felt anything like it. “I’ve seen you before. You’re not King Sarin’s page. You belong to his son, Guidon.”
His whole body stiffened. “It is my honor to attend Kael’s heir.”
“Is it?” My mood broke some at his well-practiced lie and I grinned. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Liel,” he said, tentatively.
“Well, Liel, forgive me for being cautious, but in the two years that I’ve been tasked with hunting Kael’s outlaws, Sarin has never once sent someone to fetch me.”
“Escort you, My Lord. I’m an escort. Not a…a dog,” he finished boldly.
I laughed at that and he panicked.
“Forgive me, My Lord.” Liel bent his head and a mountain of hair hid the redness creeping over his cheeks. “I should be punished for speaking so.”
“Speak how you like. Just tell me one thing.” I slid my sword away. “How did Prince Guidon know I’d be on this trail, today, right now? Did he pay for a spell to track me?”
“I wouldn’t know, My Lord. I was told only that my duty is to bring you.”
“Then your duty has to wait.”
The boy got brave again. “I’m sorry, but I must insist.”
“And I insist you go back without me. I have business in the city. I’ll come by the castle after, but you better have my pay ready. It’s best if I don’t stick around.”
Politely, he said, “Yes, My Lord.” But I could almost see the risk of Prince Guidon’s displeasure hanging like a shadow over his head.
“Wait.” Twisting around behind me, I took hold of the leather bag tied to my saddle. “Take this.” I pulled a knife and severed the line.
“What is it?” he asked, standing in his stirrups to see.
“Something that might keep you from getting into too much trouble.” As I turned back around and opened the flap, Liel threw a hand over his mouth. “Use it,” I told him.
“As what?” he balked.
“Proof you found me.” I closed the flap and tossed him Taren’s head.
SEVEN
I flipped a handful of coins on the counter. “Another.”
The gangly Kaelishman behind the bar pushed the dirty-water-colored hair out of his eyes and tallied the coins with a sour expression. Slowly, his disagreeable stare lifted. “We don’t serve your kind in here,” he said, taking the coins and slipping them in his pocket.
“Your girls have no trouble serving me,” I reminded him.
“My girls have no wits.”
“I’ve been here before. I’ve had your ale. And your girls.”
“I remember.” His pointed, scruffy jaw went tight. “And I remember how my place looked after you left.”
“Your place is a shithole,” I said plainly, kicking at the dirt floor. “But I paid for those damages. Both times.”
“I’m thinking, this time, you should pay in advance.”
My hand twitched. All night, I’d been trying not to give into my temper. Anger was too closely linked to casting for a Shinree soldier and I was barely ignoring the urge as it was. Even so, I almost hit him and got it over with. But I lost interest as a woman’s arm came around the barkeep’s bony shoulder. She moved out from behind him and shamelessly draped her body over his.
Whispering in his ear, she said, “I’ll take care of this one.”
He gave no argument. The barkeep slipped quietly away into the kitchen with an almost blank expression, leaving the woman to size me up with her pretty blue eyes. They were pale and bottomless, and gave her square face a pleasing, sultry quality.
“What are you drinking, Shinree?” she asked.
The answer was easy. “Whatever you’re pouring.”
“In that case…” Giving me a quick, frisky smile, the winegirl turned to the rows of shelves on the wall behind her. She reached up high for a lone, black jug sitting at the top. “Ever heard of the Wandering Isles?”
“Don’t think so,” I said, enjoying watching her move. Her hair was an avalanche of wide, autumn curls. Her body was healthy, scantily dressed and full of curves, and I liked the way her skirt lifted as she stretched.
“It’s a little group of islands just off the coast of Doratae.” She glanced back. “Some say their spirits are the best ever made.” Making contact with the bottle, she pulled it down, parted a set of lips that were perfect for kissing, and blew the dust off the label. “What do you say, Shinree?” Grinning, she sat the bottle down in front of me. “Are you brave enough to find out?”
“Only if you’re brave enough to join me.”
In reply, she popped the cork, and the man at the bar beside me slurred in a deep voice, “Your presence brings with it a foul odor, witch.”
I turned slightly toward him. He was big for a Kaelishman. He was also considerably drunker than I was. But that didn’t make him wrong.
“I bet it does,” I said, sniffing at the remnants of swamp on my coat.
“Maybe I wasn’t clear,” he said. “You stink.” Teetering, the brute edged closer. The la
yer of ash caked on his hair and skin was thicker than the coating of grime on the tavern windows. Blacksmith, I thought as he leaned in closer. “You don’t belong here.”
“You’re right in that,” I agreed, surveying the room full of shadowy figures hunched over their mugs. Since none of them had given me anything on my elusive, Shinree enemy, I should have left hours ago. Instead, I chanced staying and, feeling sorry for myself, hit the wine. I thought a mug or two might help. Now, after a few more than two, I could comfortably say that I felt far worse than when I walked in. A cold sweat had my shirt clinging to my skin. Small earthquakes were traveling the length of my insides. My head was pounding.
The only thing I’d found worthy of distracting me from my cravings for magic was the girl behind the bar. So I put my back to the unpleasant blacksmith and smiled at her. “Shall we?” I nodded at the jug. She put down two cups and began filling them. The liquid, as it came out, was dark with a pungent, spicy smell. I eyed it warily. “What’s your name, girl?” I asked her.
Her reply was an ornery grin. Selecting one of the cups, she saluted me with it, drained it—and her face immediately contorted in pain. She was coughing and laughing so hard, I could barely understand when she wheezed out, “Imma.”
I wasn’t sure yet about the drink, but I liked her.
I dug in my pocket and put a few more coins on the counter. “You get many Shinree in here, Imma?”
Still wincing, she cleared her throat. “Sometimes the nobles come in with their slaves looking for a discreet place to get their money’s worth. If you know what I mean.”
“Not a slave. I’m looking for someone off Kayn’l. A man.”
“That’s funny. I’m looking for a man too.” Imma leaned toward me over the bar. “And I think you’ll do just fine.” She inclined her body further in my direction and the rounded collar of her bodice gaped invitingly. I caught the faint scent of lavender that clung to her red-brown hair as she plucked my drink off the counter. She held it to my mouth. “I hope you like it hot.”
The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price Page 6
