The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price

by C. L. Schneider

  “Then prove it. Prove your allegiance and kill the witch while he sleeps.”

  I rested a hand on my sword. Malaq seemed to take forever to answer.

  “No,” he said ardently. “No murder, Draken, not for you, not for anyone.”

  “Oh, my dear, brother,” Draken chuckled. “Are those your mother’s delicate Rellan values you inherited? Or perhaps your stepfather’s Kaelish foolishness you borrowed?”

  “I am made of many things, brother,” Malaq responded.

  “We shall see exactly what you are made of soon enough. In the meantime, I suggest you lose your fanciful notions on the journey, or you will find Langor a difficult place indeed.” The water churned and gurgled. When it stilled, and the spell came to an end, Malaq’s shoulders sagged like the strength had gone out of him. He dropped his head in his hands.

  I pushed up from the muddy ground. No longer caring for stealth, I trampled through the stalks of tall grass toward the water’s edge, prompting a startled Malaq to pull his blade.

  Seeing me, he lowered it. “Ian,” he breathed.

  “That was quite an interesting meeting,” I said.

  His posture stiffened considerably. “What did you hear?”

  I stopped beside him. “Enough.”

  “I didn’t call to him. Draken instructed me to come here. His voice came through the damn water in my flask.” He shook his head. “It was unnerving as hell.”

  “He’s pushing you, Malaq. Killing me is a test.”

  “I know.”

  “He’ll ask again.”

  “Then I’ll tell him no, again. No matter how things go I won’t come against you.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  “Damn you, Ian.” Malaq slammed his sword away. “Have I done anything that would make you question my word?”

  “I’ve seen the level of manipulation that Draken’s magic user is capable of. He can make you do things you never intended.”

  “Then protect me from it. Or can’t you defend as well as destroy?”

  I struggled to cage my temper. “I won’t be there to protect you, Malaq. You’re walking right into Draken’s hands and the odds of you surviving are incredibly slim.”

  “Then even them.”

  “How about I just kill Draken instead?”

  “That won’t solve anything.”

  “It’ll solve one thing.”

  “Yes, he’ll be dead. But you’ll only be temporarily ending the conflict. Whereas, I can stop this war and prevent any more from coming after. I can save Langor. Save Rella from a future riddled with the constant threat of attack.”

  “That’s optimistic. And arrogant.”

  “Is it?” Malaq stepped closer. “A true and lasting peace between all the realms…can you imagine it? I know you want to. I know, that despite the Arcana’s claim on you, and your tough talk about how much you hate it…you hate the thought of war even more. But you, and Jarryd, you’re right about one thing. Going to Langor is dangerous. So I need something from you, Ian. I need a way to protect myself.”

  “There’s nothing I can do, Malaq.”

  “Right,” he nodded. “I guess this is the part where you tell me I’m already as good as dead. Or, that my faith in you is sorely misplaced?”

  My jaw clenched. But he was right on both counts. “If I help you, and you die there…”

  “It won’t be your fault.” Earnest persuasion shone in his eyes. “I know what I’m getting into. All I’m asking for is a bit of an edge.”

  “What you’ll need is eyes in the back of your head.”

  “Can you do that?” A spirited grin broke through his grim stare. “Seriously, that would really help. It would look a bit odd though.”

  “Gods,” I grumbled. “Why the hell does Jarryd bother arguing with you?”

  Malaq’s grin became a full-blown smile. “Then you’ll do it?”

  I ran a hand over my face, thinking. “I can write a shield spell. Wrap it around something you own, something you carry with you. Except, if you’re in the keep, surrounded by hornblende…” I trailed off, going over outcomes and options. “I can’t plan for every contingency, Malaq. No matter what, you’ll still be in danger.”

  “Just do your best.”

  “My best won’t be good enough. It won’t be even close.” I started for the trail, needing to leave before temper pushed me to say more.

  “Only one man will die at Darkhorne, Ian,” Malaq said, “and it won’t be me.”

  I stopped and turned around. “So you’re an assassin now are you?”

  “I’m whatever I need to be to get the job done.”

  “Well, if you do—get the job done. If you kill Draken, you damn well better have a plan to get out because his men will track you down. And when they’re done cutting you into tiny pieces, they’ll go to Rella and to Kael and exact revenge for your actions.” I gave him a hard look. “Did you learn nothing from what your mother did to Taiven?’

  Dropping his gaze, Malaq ran both hands back over his hair. It wasn’t his usual careful checking to be sure nothing was out of place. It was an anxious, helpless gesture that I was surprised to see him admit to. “Before I kill my brother, I’m going to convince him to name me his heir.”

  I was back standing in front of him in two strides. “Heir to the throne of Langor? Gods, Malaq, do you even want that?”

  “I’m a prince, Ian. Of course I want to be King.”

  I didn’t believe him. “And what happens when you give up your life to sit on that throne and Langor doesn’t change?”

  “It will change. The mishandling of the realm goes back long before Draken and his father. When Jillyan became Queen all she could do was hold the pieces together. But I’m not like them. I can make a difference.”

  “You don’t belong there.”

  “Then where do I belong? Not in Rella. Certainly, not in Kael.” His gray eyes tightened. “Maybe Langor is where I should have been all along.”

  “Don’t do this, Malaq. You aren’t one of them.”

  He looked at me a moment then pushed past me for the trail. “I am now.”

  TWENTY ONE

  She stood in the open doorway, staring out at the rain. “Walk with me?”

  “Maybe later.” Pulling her back against me, I slid my hands down over her hips and kissed the side of her neck. “I have a better idea.”

  “Maybe later,” she giggled. Wriggling out of my grip, she ran down the porch and out onto the wet grass. Spinning in circles in the rain, damp spots spread across the front of her dress and turned the pale green dark. “What’s the matter, love?” she laughed. “Doesn’t the big hero like to get wet?”

  I grinned, but the expression wavered. I had an odd, nagging feeling that I’d forgotten something important, that something was out of place.

  I couldn’t imagine what; I had everything. Snow covered mountains rose high in the distance. A forest of tall, thick pines ringed the valley. Our house was secluded. It was small but sturdy. Smoke rose from the chimney and I could smell dinner on the fire.

  It was perfect. The girl was perfect, like a dream.

  She walked farther away. The rain fell harder. Mud flew off her bare feet. The hem of her dress was soaked and dirty.

  Slipping on my boots, I grabbed a cloak off the wall. By the time it took me to duck into the house and come back out, my beautiful Arullan girl was no longer alone.

  Whimpering softly, blood oozing from a cut lip, she stood, encircled by two dozen, heavily armed Langorian soldiers.

  Dropping the cloak, I ran down off the porch and into the yard. I went for a weapon that wasn’t there. I glanced at my empty wrist, thinking something should be strapped to it that would help me defeat them.

  “Feeling puzzled, Shinree?” Draken said. “Helpless, perhaps?”

  I wiped the rain from my eyes and looked at him. “Where did you come from?”

  “Gods, but you’ve grown weak.” He threw a glov
ed hand across my face. “Soft and pitiful too,” he said, watching me stumble in the thickening mud.

  Finding purchase, I came up swinging. My fist connected hard with Draken’s jaw, but when I drew back to do it again, his soldiers were on me. Knocking me to the ground, six of them aimed their swords at my throat.

  “Ian,” she said softly.

  I shook the curtain of wet hair from my eyes. The Arullan girl was kneeling beside me. There was so much blood I couldn’t find her face. Then rain rinsed the blood away and I stopped breathing.

  From forehead to chin, her face was in ribbons.

  Draken grabbed a fistful of her long, dark hair. Dragging her toward the house, he shouted at his guards. “Bring him!” Sparing a glance over his shoulder, he flashed me an ominous smile. “It isn’t time to wake up yet.”

  TWENTY TWO

  Cupping my hands under the surface of the water, I drew them up and splashed my face. Icy cold, the shock was bracing, but I wanted the tiny brook to be wider. I wanted it deeper. I wanted to sink down and let the water close over my head for a few, still moments of calm. I longed to feel nothing for a while, to be clean. It seemed like it had been so long since I had that; longer still since I’d slept without dreaming.

  The scary thing was I was getting used to it. I was starting to accept that every time I closed my eyes, Draken and his men would be there. They would torture me. I would watch the Arullan girl suffer and die. I would wake sweat-covered, dry-mouthed, and shaking, as I had for almost a week.

  That was my life now.

  I was stricken with a dream-weave, a type of healing spell typically used to repair a person’s mind after trauma. It wasn’t meant to be violent. It wasn’t normally sophisticated or involved. The dreams didn’t usually occur in rapid, unrelenting succession. One or two were all that were required to fix a patient’s mind. My mind, however, was being steadily destroyed.

  It was twisted, but clever. My Shinree enemy knew I didn’t have the kind of magic to counteract such a spell. He also knew I had no access to anyone that could.

  I had to endure it, which was getting harder to do with every passing moment.

  Day or night now, as soon as I drifted off, the dream kicked in. Every sound, every touch, I experienced in that world (both pleasure and pain) was exaggerated and acute. Many of them lingered, like phantom sensations. So that, even hours after waking, I could still feel the heat of her body pressed up against mine.

  Flinging the water off my hands, I stood up. The sun was high. We should have been off hours ago. But riding hard and wet for days, pushing the horses on washed out trails, cramming ourselves into what leaky cover we could find when it got too dark to see, we were all sorely in need of a little sunshine and solid ground.

  Except, as we slept in and dried out, the people of Rella were dying.

  Scrambling up the steep bank, I reached the top where our horses were tied, lazily eating their fill for the first time in days. Still, it wouldn’t take long to get them going. They were used to the routine, as was Jarryd. Up since dawn, he’d cooked breakfast, broken down the camp, and packed.

  Malaq didn’t share Jarryd’s urgency. Perched on a fallen tree, with bare feet and a bare chest, he was scraping several days’ growth off his face while attempting to carve out a goatee. Apparently, the way he was holding a much too small mirror between his teeth and a much too large knife in his hand, shaving wasn’t one of Malaq’s many skills.

  “Since you’re about to cut your damn throat,” I said lightly, “I’m going to take a wild guess and say someone did this for you back home.”

  Malaq lifted the blade from his skin. He removed the mirror from his mouth and sighed wistfully, “Myra. And let me tell you, that girl looked fantastic in bubbles. I wonder if she would consider moving to Langor.”

  Walking between us, Jarryd threw in a curt, “Not if she’s sane,” and kept going. Reaching his horse, he picked up his saddle and settled it on the animal’s back. “We’re up pretty high. I’m going to see if I can catch sight of Kael’s troops.”

  “You’ll need a spyglass,” I told him.

  “I borrowed Malaq’s.”

  “Help yourself,” Malaq replied dryly. Pausing in his work, he looked at me sideways. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen you regale us with your shaving prowess once since we left Kael, Troy. Don’t tell me you have a spell for grooming.”

  “No,” I chuckled. “No spell, Nef’areen. Shinree just don’t sprout beards as quickly as the rest of you.”

  “Lucky bastard. We Langorians are a decidedly hairy lot. I suppose though,” he said, regretfully, “I’ll have to let it grow some once I reach Langor.”

  “Might help you blend in.”

  “Blend in?” he scoffed. “It’ll keep my face from freezing off. Do you have any idea how bitterly cold those mountains can be?”

  “You need to eat more,” Jarryd offered.

  Malaq blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Add a few dozen rolls to your gut, you’ll blend and you won’t feel the cold.”

  “I won’t see my feet either,” Malaq argued. “And what’s the point of having custom made boots if I can’t see them?”

  “You got me there,” Jarryd laughed. He looked at Malaq over the back of his horse and ran a finger along his own stubbly chin. “Missed a spot.”

  Frowning, Malaq went back to inspecting his face in the glass. Jarryd went back to readying his horse and his light expression gave way to a familiar look of intensity. The way he moved, with purpose and focus holding his face tight and making the red, puckered skin of his scar stand out, told me that his mind was already there. It was at the cliff’s edge, staring down over a sprawl of Kaelish colors, trying to calculate how long before they reach Rella’s shores.

  I wasn’t sure if it was Neela Arcana, a sense of duty, or simply that he’d lived in that one place all his life, but every delay ate at him. For Jarryd, being away from home was like having a piece missing from him. Kabri wasn’t like that for me. No place was, and I envied him.

  “Go then,” I said.

  Jarryd looked skeptical. “Really? That’s it? No dire warnings? No lectures?” He swung up into the saddle. “No list of reasons why I shouldn’t ride off alone?”

  “Told you not to nursemaid him,” Malaq muttered under his breath.

  “Don’t be long though,” I warned Jarryd. “We leave soon.”

  He gestured at Malaq. “You better tell him that.” Urging his mount up the slight incline to the trail, Jarryd rode off and I had to squash the impulse to go after him.

  “Restless, isn’t he?” Malaq said behind me.

  I glanced at him. “Finish up. We need to get going.”

  “It’s a shame. What he’s setting himself up for. But I guess it’s to be expected. Jarryd is Kabrinian, after all. They’ve lived on hope so long it’s in their veins.”

  I didn’t reply. I wasn’t interested in listening to Malaq talk around a subject. Walking past him, I went over to Kya, shook out her blanket, and draped it over her.

  “If Kane finds Kael’s troops dead,” Malaq went on, “or in the hands of our friend Krillos, he isn’t going to let a thing like that go.” Tugging a cloth out of his pack, he wiped his blade and mirror clean. “He isn’t going to listen to reason either.” Putting everything away, he looked at me. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” I picked up my saddle and hoisted it onto Kya’s back. “Knock Jarryd senseless and drag him to Kabri?”

  Malaq hesitated. “That wasn’t the answer I expected.”

  “You want me to go after Krillos? Sorry. I’m not backtracking days out of our way to rescue some old, Kaelish general that wandered too far from home.”

  “Fair enough. How about then, just for argument’s sake, Kael’s soldiers actually reach Rella alive. What happens then?” Tugging a dark green tunic from his pack, Malaq smoothed out the wrinkles and pulled it on over his head. “Even if something remains of Ne
ela’s army, they’ll be outnumbered and overwhelmed. Considering Draken has a Shinree and…well,” he paused to flatten down his hair, “the Kaelish aren’t exactly known for their bravery in battle. But if you joined the fight and helped them…”

  “Magic has no place in war.”

  “That sounds like Aylagar talking.”

  “Maybe. But I’m not fighting in anyone’s army. Not again. I don’t want to be made out to be a champion, or a hero. I couldn’t live up to those names last time and I certainly can’t now. But if I take back the crown maybe that will be enough to cause Draken to retreat. If not, then at least the field will be level.”

  “So then what, the two sides can go about killing each other like old times?”

  “I don’t need to wear a uniform to defend Rella.”

  “No, you need a reason.” His stare had weight to it. “When we first met, I wasn’t sure you had one. But, you do now. In fact, I’m starting to think you’ve had one all along.”

  “I’m too tired for games, Malaq. But if you’re looking for my source of inspiration…there’s only one.”

  “The spell. Right. Sorry,” he sighed. “I don’t believe you.”

  I eyed him as I tightened the girth. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Oh, I’m not saying that whatever spell was put on you to fight for the Arcanas didn’t serve as proper motivation. Or that King Raynan didn’t set out wanting you to be some rabid, mindless cur he could sick on his enemies. But we both know you’re not that. You care about what happens to those people, Ian. You put yourself on the line for them ten years ago, and you’re doing it now. I’ve seen the way you are with Jarryd. I watched you take a beating in Kael when you could have cast to save yourself long before that. Defending a place, preserving a belief or a way of life—maybe you are compelled to do those things. But fighting for it…that’s something altogether different, my friend.”

  Malaq fell quiet. I didn’t care for his uninvited appraisal of my life. But I was still trying to decide if he was right when he threw something else at me.