The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price

by C. L. Schneider

  “Malaq,” I said.

  “That’s him.” I could hear the approval in her voice. “He thought I could help with your recovery.” Gently, she traced the layer of bandages on my chest. “I’m all yours till morning, Shinree. And I’ve been paid enough to buy anything you want.”

  My mind started working. “Anything?”

  “Use me as you wish. That is…if you’re up for it.” Imma pressed her body closer. Feeling me harden against her, she lifted her lively, blue eyes. “And you most definitely are.” She played at kissing me a moment; drifting her mouth over mine. Then, giggling, she wriggled out of my grip and twirled away toward the bed.

  “Things got pretty messy the other night,” I said, going after her.

  “So I heard.” Absently, she played with the laces on the front of her dress.

  “I’m glad you got out.”

  “Uh-huh.” Imma pulled at the bow. The loops slid apart. The bodice gaped. “You can keep talking, if you like.” Leisurely, she reached down and grabbed the hem of her skirt. Bunching up the fabric between her legs, she lifted it to her thighs. “I can start without you.” Imma spread her legs wider. Her fingers disappeared beneath the skirt.

  She threw her head back and let out a low, aching moan.

  “Wait,” I said. I went over to the door, kicked it shut and locked it. By the time I double-checked the lock and turned around, Imma’s dress was on the floor.

  SEVENTEEN

  Running the brush across Kya’s flank, I stopped to stare at the leather wristlet tied around the outside of the brace on my right arm.

  Diamond. Emerald. Garnet. Kyanite. Citrine. Fire agate. Hematite.

  Good choices, all of them, I thought, fingering the row of gemstones pressed into the braided leather. It had been three days since we left the city. Three days since I woke from my night with Imma to find her gone, my wounds healed, and the trinket on her empty pillow. Since then, I hadn’t been able to stop toying with it, or trying to figure out what it meant.

  Evidently, the shapely, Kaelish winegirl I’d spent half a day and a night with, wasn’t a winegirl at all, or even Kaelish. Because while I slept beside her, she’d been awake, erasing all remaining physical traces of my scuffle with the eldring.

  My best guess? Imma and the Shinree woman who attacked the Wounded Owl were one and the same. She used a glamour spell to disguise herself as the winegirl, infiltrated the castle, healed me, left the gift of stones like a calling card, and vanished.

  It was a bit of a kick in the teeth, but not entirely unexpected. The attraction I felt toward Imma at the tavern hadn’t been normal. Yet, my suspicion of her unnatural allure had inexplicably disappeared when she did. And I didn’t remember it at all when she was taking her clothes off in my room. Still, if Imma were working with Danyon and Lareth as part of the ambush, then her earnest attempt to get me out of the tavern didn’t fit. Neither did her covert mission to the castle to heal me.

  What I really didn’t like was her insinuation of a connection to Malaq. Was that done only to gain my trust? Or was there more to it?

  Who is she?

  Deep in thought, as Malaq slammed his spyglass shut, I looked up. “Anything?”

  Standing high atop a boulder perched at the threshold of a steep cliff, he shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Damn it.” I threw down the brush and stood. “He should be back by now.”

  “Relax, Ian. Give the kid some rope.”

  “It’s getting dark, Malaq. Jarryd doesn’t know these mountains.” I looked at the empty trail. “I should have gone with him.”

  Malaq jumped down and came away from the edge of the bluff. Standing over me, he picked a burr from Kya’s mane and tossed it. “You do realize that Jarryd survived Draken’s raid on Kabri? That he fled Rella with Langorians on his trail for days, and still made it out alive? All of which tells me he can manage to skewer a rabbit or two for dinner without perishing. And, even if those furry bastards band together to mount a resistance, I believe he is more than capable of deflecting their wrath. Without you.”

  “Fuck off, Malaq. He’s Rellan. That makes him my responsibility.”

  “I see. So this guard-dog role you appear to have taken on is only a result of your forced service to Rella? It has nothing to do with you actually being fond of Jarryd? Because the gods know there’s nothing likeable about the kid. He’s lazy, doesn’t pull his weight. Always yammering on about something. And his jokes are terrible.”

  “Are we talking about Jarryd…or you?”

  He grinned. “Face it, Ian, Jarryd Kane isn’t like us. His blood isn’t a stigma. He’s never been ostracized. Made to feel ill at ease in his own skin. To doubt his place. He doesn’t know what it’s like to have this kernel of discontent always in the back of his mind, telling him that with all the tribulation surrounding his existence that it has to mean something. That he was born for a reason. And finding that reason…that’s what keeps us going. Not him though,” he shrugged. “That boy felt his reason from day one.”

  Malaq’s lecture was long-winded, but dead on. “Rella,” I said.

  “He loves that land. He carries it with him. Her people. Her Queen. What do you think gets him up before dawn every damn morning? Not that I mind having breakfast ready when I wake, but it would be nice if I didn’t have to eat it with him hovering over me, harping about how it’s time to get on the road.”

  I snatched up the brush and put it away. Sliding a hand down Kya’s front, left leg, I lifted it and checked the grooves of her hoof for debris. “I’ll be honest, Malaq.” I put her leg down and glanced at him before I picked up another. “It’s hard for me to accept you as feeling out of place or ill at ease with anything.”

  “Have you ever had half a barrel of fish stuffed down your trousers?”

  I blurted a laugh. “Can’t say that I have.”

  “I was a half-Langorian boy growing up in a Kaelish fishing village, Ian. I wasn’t exactly well received.” Malaq wandered away. He went over to our small fire and sat down. I finished Kya’s last two hooves, gave her one of the carrots Liel snuck out of the kitchen for me before we left the castle, and then joined him.

  “Pig slop,” I said, throwing myself down.

  “What?”

  “I had a bucket of it dumped over my head once. I was living in this little, Rellan farm town on the mainland. It’s called Ula?” He shook his head like he hadn’t heard of it. “The locals didn’t like me talking to their girls. There was this one…” I smiled. “Anyway, it’s not fish but, I still chased the little bastards down and made them eat it.”

  “How old were you?” he chuckled.

  “Thirteen, I think.”

  “So, you were always this charming, then?” Still chuckling, Malaq shook his head. “What about the girl?”

  “Katrine? We got pretty close. As far as I know she’s still there.” I pictured her the day I left for war; curly red hair spread out in the hay; brown eyes going closed as I slid my hand under her dress. “I haven’t been back in a while.”

  “From that expression on your face it seems she might be worth a visit.”

  My smile grew faint. “I tried, after the crown, but…I was in a bad way. I was dangerous. I am dangerous,” I said plainly. I gave him a sober look and said what I’d been thinking for days. “Malaq, if I was made to cast right now, sitting here with you…”

  “You’d have time to put distance between us.”

  “We don’t know that. Not for sure.”

  “It’s a risk,” he conceded. “But so is that soup our absent friend keeps making for dinner. The way I see it, his bad cooking will do me in before one of your spells.”

  Malaq held his flask out and I took it without hesitation. After a long drink of the sweet, warm wine, I looked at him. His features were relaxed. His posture was loose. It was clear: Malaq didn’t see me for what I was. He was too busy thinking he’d found some kind of kindred spirit. But he was wrong. I hadn’t spent my life se
arching for the reason I existed. I’d been trying to run away from it, and failing miserably.

  He doesn’t get it. How easy it would be for me to slip up. How much it takes for me to sit here with these stones on my wrist, with the shard touching my skin.

  To not think about how it would feel to let it sink in.

  I took another drink to quell my thoughts. “You should pack up and head home.”

  “Home?” There was a touch of surprise in his voice. “Where exactly is that?”

  “You know what I mean. Go back to your stepfather. To the life you made with him. This isn’t for you.”

  “What isn’t? Curling up on the cold ground, careening through forests, climbing mountains for hours on end—by myself, since Kane’s always riding ahead fretting over the distance and you’re always a mile back, sleeping off your last spell in the saddle. I couldn’t imagine a better time. Besides.” He leaned back and stretched his long legs out across the ground. “If I wasn’t here, you’d miss me.”

  I tipped the flask at him. “We don’t have enough wine for me to admit that.” I took another mouthful and passed it back. “That night at the Owl, what were you really doing there? It’s not exactly a place for royalty.”

  “Didn’t we cover this? I was looking for you.”

  “And you found me how?”

  “A Shinree riding through the city streets like he’s on fire…it wasn’t that hard.”

  “What about Imma?”

  “Imma?” Malaq tilted his head, thinking, and I recalled the morning we left Kael. At seeing my lack of bandages and watching me take to the saddle without issue, Jarryd had given me a point-blank, what-the-hell stare for at least a minute. On the other hand, Malaq had shown no shock, concern or even a smidge of curiosity. Not that I could condemn him for that. Malaq was naturally nonchalant. And if he had truly paid for Imma’s services, I would have heard about the depth of his generosity ten times by now.

  Since I hadn’t, I wanted to believe that meant he was innocent. That he had nothing to do with the Shinree woman who played me. But I’d been forced to make assumptions about his character from the beginning, taking him as he presented himself, honest and reliable. I’d accepted him at face value because I’d been drawn in, swayed by whatever indefinable element Malaq Roarke possessed that earned him devotion so easily. I’d let my guard down.

  I couldn’t remember when that had ever served me well.

  “Did you send her?” I asked abruptly.

  A dent formed in his brow. “Send whom where?”

  “The Kaelish girl that isn’t Kaelish. Did you send her to me?”

  “I…” The dent deepened. He looked at me over the rim of his flask. As he tipped it, I searched for trickery or deceit in his eyes, but as usual, they were veiled and discreet, and incredibly controlled. “No…?” he said at last.

  “You didn’t pay her? She said you sought her out and paid her.”

  “Did I?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You do realize that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Forget it.”

  Malaq closed the flask and tucked it in his pocket. “How about a couple of questions for you, my friend? Questions that actually make sense.”

  A noise disrupted the quiet of the forest. It repeated and I shot to my feet.

  Gripping my sword, I moved to investigate, but Malaq intercepted. Putting himself in the way, he said forcefully, “Why is it that one day you can barely move and the next you’re fit to ride in the saddle longer than we are? Or maybe I just imagined you being turned on a spit of eldring claws?”

  The sound continued; faint pops and cracks of twigs underfoot.

  I glanced in the direction of it. “You’re seriously doing this now?”

  “At first, I thought you paid Jillyan for another session with her healer. But I know how you feel about Langorian women.”

  The footfall grew louder. I pulled out of his hold and stepped toward it.

  “I’d love to hear where that pretty, new bracelet of yours came from, too,” he said, and I stopped. I looked down at the wristlet. Running a finger over the stones, I wondered if Malaq was asking (days later) because he realized I suspected him. Or was it simply that he did everything in his own time?

  “So it’s silence, then?” he said. “That’s what I get? Why am I not surprised?”

  Jarryd broke through the trees. Bow in one hand, a rabbit and two squirrels in the other, he walked between us, oblivious to the friction. “Hungry?”

  Malaq looked at me with genuine irritation. “Put down the pot, Kane. It’s Troy’s turn to cook.”

  Stumbling on the uneven ground, Kya bumped into me from behind. She nudged my back with her nose and I picked up the pace, pulling her faster down the hill.

  I was doing my best to focus on the terrain, to keep Malaq and Jarryd in my sight and not fall behind. But my mind kept drifting, spinning with a myriad of concerns that, since we left Kael, had grown to preoccupy me, day and night.

  I couldn’t sleep with the thought of Draken’s army inflicting suffering while I was too far away to stop him. His alliance with my Shinree enemy confounded me. As did Imma and her motives, and Guidon’s desire to get in bed with the Langorians (literally). His bride’s uncharacteristic generosity to someone she had every reason to hate was just as baffling.

  The moment when I was being cast on through the eldring, ate at me as well. It was a gap that no matter how I tried, I couldn’t fill. Pain had made the whole thing a blur, and it was maddening. I couldn’t recall the words of the spell. I had no idea if I killed the eldring before it was completed, or if my enemy finished his conjuring. If he did, something was coming. And when it hit, I was going to get blindsided hard.

  It was also weighing on me how swiftly my appetite for magic was increasing. When we first left the city I could tolerate the symptoms for a while. Now, going long stretches without casting shredded my nerves down to nothing. The harsh fact that replenishing them put my companions in jeopardy wasn’t helping either.

  I did try to be cautious. When I had to cast, I used Imma’s gift so I didn’t wake the crown. I channeled only what was necessary to refocus me, and only when I couldn’t stand the feel of myself—which was pretty much all the time.

  They aren’t safe with me, I thought. I should leave. Veer off the trail and go.

  I don’t need them. They’re a distraction, a hindrance. It’s better if I sever our connection now, before they become too reliant on me.

  Before I have to watch them die.

  Malaq slowed his pace. Atop his mount, he halted and waited for me. When I caught up, he started moving again and I walked Kya beside him on the trail.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Something’s been bothering me,” he said, glancing down. “I can’t figure why a Shinree would support Draken at all, let alone help make him High King.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been going over that one myself.”

  “Langorians care nothing for the slave laws. They raise your people like cattle. Work them to death in the mines. Atrocities rarely breed allies, Ian, and even if they did, with a magic user this powerful, what could Draken, or any Langorian, offer the man that he couldn’t just take for himself?”

  “What about protection?” Jarryd called back. He turned in his saddle. Seeing our blank-faced reactions, he brought his horse around and came back up the hill. “The day Kael was attacked, Ian—” he gestured at me, “said something about the ancient Shinree, about how they bound themselves together. Maybe that’s what our magic user did. He agreed to help Draken in exchange for protection. He could do a lot worse than having a Langorian as a permanent guard.”

  “None of my kind would ever bind with a Langorian like that,” I said, shooting him down quickly. “The process is too complex, too sacred.”

  “It could explain the man’s relationship with Langor,” Jarryd offered.

  “No, you don’t understand,” I tol
d him. “You aren’t talking about a partnership or a treaty. Or even the blood oath you took to serve your King.”

  “Then what am I talking about, Ian?” Jarryd’s blue eyes were crisp and challenging. “You said it yourself. Channeling the crown makes him vulnerable. So vulnerable, that Malaq had a good chance of finding the man in Kael. But he didn’t. Maybe, that’s because someone had a deeply personal interest in getting Draken’s magic user to safety. A selfish interest. Like being magically bound together.” Jarryd shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but selfish sounds like a Langorian to me.”

  “It does. But this kind of magic, taking on another self…it’s no light matter. Memories, abilities, feelings; a part of each person goes into the other. And it’s for life. Once the link is established it’s permanent. The two parties can communicate sensations. Feel each other’s emotions and pain.”

  Jarryd frowned at my explanation. “Why would anyone want that?”

  “Look past the obvious,” I said, and he frowned harder. “You take away the need for words between two men in battle, give them access to each other’s skills and experiences, and they move as one. Eventually, over time, everything—every move, every sword strike, every need—becomes something far beyond instinct.”

  “And the Shinree had an entire army like that?” Malaq whistled, imagining the possibilities. “What of you, Troy? You carry a soldier’s blood. Did you ever have a…what did you call it?”

  “Nef’taali,” I said. “It means my other, or other half, other soul. There is no direct translation. And no, I told you, it isn’t done anymore.” I gave Kya’s reins a tug and started down the hill. “There’s a stream not far ahead. We can stop and refill.”

  I had no doubt Malaq took offense to my gruff tone, but after a moment I heard him prod his mount forward. “Anyone up for fish?” he asked, coming up behind me. “You did mention a stream.”

  Taking up the rear, Jarryd grunted. “Prince Malaq Roarke is going to catch fish from a stream? This I have to see.”

  “I’ll have you know, Kane, that I am an excellent fisherman,” Malaq replied. “One of the advantages to being banished to a tiny village on Kael’s southern shore is that there’s little to do but fish. And there are no finer waters.”