The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price

by C. L. Schneider

  “She isn’t what you think,” I warned him.

  “Malaq’s right, Ian,” Jarryd said. Coming up beside me, he placed a hand on my sword, wanting me to lower it. “You’ll scare her.”

  I gave him stern eyes. “That’s the point,” I said, and he let go.

  “It’s so nice to have visitors.” Imma sashayed out from behind Malaq. “And such handsome ones at that.” She smiled with the perfect mix of lustful curiosity and shy innocence. “Come in, please.” She gestured at the cabin. “The fire is warm. The table is full of food and drink. You all look so weary. A nice rest would do you good.”

  Mindlessly, Jarryd moved toward the porch.

  I put a hand out to stop him. “I don’t think so.”

  “You think too much,” Imma offered sweetly. “Why don’t you let your body decide what it needs? Take off your boots and sit by the fire. Indulge in a hot bath and a good night’s rest. Surely you’ve earned a little respite.” Slowly, she dragged her fingers across the neckline of her inadequate bodice. “A little pleasure?” She tugged at the bow holding it together and the air grew tense. Suddenly, I could remember the smell of her hair and the feel of her skin with impossible clarity.

  Whatever spell she was using to make her more captivating (and us more compliant), it was working. Only, I’d seen the show before. I was very aware that the skin I remembered touching didn’t actually belong to the woman wearing it.

  “We aren’t staying,” I said, loud and emphatic.

  “Of course we’re staying,” Malaq replied. He hitched himself up on the porch rail. “Look at this place. Look at her. Why would we want to go anywhere else?”

  “We could use a few days’ rest,” Jarryd said then, casually, as if Kabri was no longer a thought in his head. “Unless we’re imposing?” He smiled at Imma.

  “Not at all.” Her eyes shifted from his to mine. She wet her lips. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  TWENTY SIX

  If I still had any dreams of my own, I would think I was having one now. The food, the furnishings, even the girl was flawless and perfect, tasty enough to grace a King’s hall. Unfortunately, we weren’t in a King’s hall. We were in an abandoned, ramshackle cabin in the middle of nowhere. Everything we were seeing, tasting, smelling and touching had been created by an incredible amount of stone magic. Half of it was probably illusion.

  The absurdity of it all was one reason I’d spent the evening helping myself to a seemingly never-ending bottle of wine. Another was being forced to listen to Malaq regale us with tales of his youth while Imma hung on his every word, and his body.

  Mostly, she’d left Jarryd alone. I’d staked my claim pretty quick, sitting him beside me, interfering with every conversation she tried to start with him. I made my intention to protect Jarryd clear, but Imma only needed one of them bent to her will to get me to stay. And she definitely wanted me to stay. Each time our eyes met, she gave me a look that reminded me what I was missing.

  Not that I needed it. A good mix of desire and resentment had been running through me before I even entered the house. Now, after hours of Malaq’s wandering hands and Imma’s lingering stares, only two things were keeping me from throttling them both: the disturbing realization that I had less of a claim to the fake Kaelish girl across from me than I did the fake Arullan girl in my dreams, and the absence of pleasure in Imma’s eyes when Malaq touched her. She didn’t enjoy his attentions. She was faking it, for me.

  Imma was looking for a trigger, a way to spark something; anger, lust, unease. It didn’t matter as long as I gave her something to use.

  So I swallowed the jealousy with my wine and gave her nothing.

  “I didn’t realize Malaq was so charming,” Jarryd said with a yawn.

  I tapped my mug against the bottle on the table. “A little more of this and I’ll be making eyes at him too.” Jarryd laughed long and hard at that. The sound was a welcome one and I nodded at his cup. “More?”

  “No. I’m done.” He pushed his plate away and stood, prompting Imma to shoot to her feet.

  “I’ll make you a place by the fire,” she said kindly. “And a warm cup of tea.”

  Jarryd hovered at the table. “It’s your call, Ian. If you want to go, we go.”

  I looked up at the tired in his eyes. I looked over at the pleading in hers. Malaq’s were half closed as he leaned back in his chair, with his feet on the table and a bunch of grapes in one hand. He popped them into his mouth one by one and sighed contentedly.

  It was late. All three of us were tired and I was drunk. Yet, I was wary to be under the same roof with Sienn. There were just too many things I didn’t know about the woman. And that was exactly why I had to stay. “No sense sleeping on the ground,” I told him. “We’ll head out at first light.”

  Jarryd stepped away. “I’ll get the horses settled.”

  “Why don’t you let Imma take a look at that wound on your face?” I suggested. “Maybe she has something for it.”

  Jarryd hesitated. “I don’t know…”

  “Someone else can handle the horses tonight.” I centered persuasive eyes on Malaq, but he’d moved on from grapes to a crunchy, red apple and didn’t seem to notice I existed. “A little help?” I said to Imma.

  She bent down in front of Malaq and placed her palm against his chest. “The horses need tending, My Lord. After, it will be my pleasure to see to your sore muscles.”

  Straightaway, Malaq set his half-eaten apple down on the table. He swallowed the last of his wine, and stood. “Anything for you, lady.”

  “At least let me help,” Jarryd offered. “With four of them it’ll take you all night.”

  “No need, Messenger.” Gracefully, Malaq swung his cloak about his shoulders. “It just so happens that I am an excellent groomsman.” He snatched a lantern off the wall and bowed to Imma as he went out the door.

  Gods, but she has him, I thought, guilt swaying me back to believing no good could come from staying. But as Imma gave Jarryd a cup of something warm, I tried to overcome my doubts.

  “Drink this,” she said to him. “Settle by the fire and wait for me there.”

  Jarryd sniffed at the mug. Sipping gingerly, he wandered over to the hearth and sat down.

  Imma glanced at me as she collected the plates. “You’re worried.”

  “Shouldn’t I be? You’re toying with them.”

  “If you were more obliging I wouldn’t have to.”

  “If you were less shady I might be more interested in obliging.”

  “Will the truth make you more willing to listen?”

  “Probably not, but it might make me a little less pissed off.”

  With a huff, Imma stormed off into the kitchen, leaving me to wonder, as I had all night, where she was getting the food for her spells. Malaq and Jarryd hadn’t been affected and Imma didn’t appear to have lost a lick of energy either.

  She came back for the cups. I let her have mine, but I put a hand on the bottle and looked up at her. “How much have you cast on me?”

  “Why? Must there be a sinister reason to explain why you’re drawn to me?”

  “I’m drawn to you because you’re dressed in the skin of an attractive woman.”

  “Or.” She leaned down. Her skirt brushed my leg and I came close to grabbing it. “Perhaps you sense what lies beneath my masquerade?”

  Settling the wine on my chest and my feet on the chair across from me, I looked her over, trying to envision Imma as a Shinree. I couldn’t. Her glamour was that complete. “Nope,” I shrugged. “But thanks for this, by the way.” I lifted my wrist with the stones wrapped around it. “I know that night we had in Kael was fun, but you didn’t have to get me a present.”

  She frowned. “We need to talk.”

  “Then talk.”

  “Not here. Outside.”

  “What about Jarryd? Can you help him?”

  “I can speed the natural healing process. Anything more would make him suspicious. And it’s best i
f my identity remains unknown for now.”

  “What did you put in his tea?”

  “I didn’t poison him, if that’s what you think. And there isn’t anything in the wine either.” She scowled at the bottle in my grip. “If there was you would have been dead hours ago.”

  Imma went to the door and walked out. Hauling myself up, I brought the bottle with me and followed her onto the porch. Waiting for me on the bottom step, rubbing her arms to ward off the evening chill, the last slender rays of the sun streamed across Imma’s shoulders. It set the red in her hair on fire and I was tempted to sink my hands down into the flames. As a substitute, I took a drink.

  “I could have killed Jarryd Kane a long time ago,” she said, her thoughtful gaze on the trees. “But I have no designs to harm him, or Malaq.”

  “No designs? What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means they are unimportant.” She crossed the yard and apprehension crept a little deeper into my gut.

  We made our way to the bathhouse. Imma opened the door, we went inside, and right away it was clear that the high-walled, wooden structure was as detailed an illusion as everything else she had created. Stone benches lined the interior walls. Rows of candles graced the corner shelves.

  A large, round, metal cask sat in the center of the room. The rim was low and even with the floor, as if the ground beneath it had been dug out and the tub dropped into the hole. No visible heat source warmed the water, but it was unmistakably hot. Beads of moisture dripped down the walls. Continuous curls of steam rose up from the surface of the tub to escape through a circular opening in the domed ceiling.

  Even with the outlet, the air inside the bathhouse was oppressive. It dampened my hair and stuck my shirt fast to my skin in moments.

  Peeling the moist fabric away from my chest, I moved farther in. I watched Imma carefully as she put her back to me to latch the door; I wasn’t exactly comfortable being locked in with her.

  The bolt fell into place. She paused with her hand on it and her body began to shimmer. It blurred. The space around her clouded and shifted, and for a moment, as the glamour spell fell away, I couldn’t see her at all.

  Then the air cleared. The light returned to normal.

  Imma turned around. She stood in front of me in her true form for the first time. “Do you prefer the barmaid?” she asked, and I knew at once that I didn’t.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  The winegirl had been nothing but sex and curves. The woman standing in front of me now was tall, slender, and draped in a modest gown the color of dry, autumn leaves. She was lithe and graceful, with skin that reminded me of honey. And watching her move toward me was like watching water flow.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” she said, in that same breathy voice that was in my head at the Wounded Owl. Her pale brows arched. “Or maybe you have.”

  I couldn’t deny her insinuation. Saying I preferred Imma would be a boldfaced lie—if I could speak. Which was questionable, seeing how I was awestruck by the look of her, and by how totally ignorant I was as to what pure Shinree blood coursing through a woman’s veins actually looked like. As a child I couldn’t appreciate the rarity of my mother’s appearance, visually or symbolically. Seeing it now though, as a grown man, I was fully aware that I was staring at the past. I was looking at the power and the splendor our people once had. It was stunning.

  She was stunning.

  Her hair, in particular, enthralled me. It wasn’t white so much as it was colorless, to the point of being practically transparent, even crystalline, in appearance. Fine and silky straight, the strands were cut at jagged angles to lay perfectly over her smooth brow and high prominent cheekbones. The tapered ends brushed the base of her neck and curved in at the line of her jaw, framing a heart shaped face that had an interesting, ethereal quality about it; delicate yet impossibly strong at the same time.

  Her whole body was like that, fragile yet firm. Even her hair looked almost breakable, yet with the countless, tiny stones woven into the strands, imposing.

  Pressed into leather thongs and entwined with the multiple, small braids hanging down both sides of her head, a good number of the stones were glowing. Their light created a pulsing, iridescent halo that was breathtaking.

  Donning a slow, languid smile at my reaction, Imma came forward until we were nearly touching. We were close in height. I could see every detail, and she let me. Saying nothing, not moving, she allowed me to study her. And as I did, it came to me that she wasn’t beautiful in the way that Aylagar had been: exotic, confident and aggressive. Neither did she stir in me anything of contentment or blind obsession, as did the Arullan fantasy girl of my dreams. I didn’t even feel overpowered by lust as I had with the Kaelish winegirl.

  In fact, the Shinree woman was affecting me in a far different way than any woman had before. I was mute. Mesmerized. I had the urge to put my hand against her small breasts, simply to feel her chest rise and fall. I was preoccupied with how her skin glowed wet from the heat of the bathhouse. How her hair picked up the colors of the stones and shimmered with light. She met my eyes and the striking rainbow of magic reflected in hers was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It pulled me in and held me captive. So much, that with the soft upturn of her thin, pink lips and the touch of her hand as it brushed my face, I found that all that I was going to say, all that I had planned to accuse her of was gone.

  I cleared my throat. Remembering the bottle in my hand, I took a drink. After another, I found my voice. “I’ve never seen anyone like you.”

  “Pity,” she said.

  “That spell you cast, in the tavern…?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  My interest shrank some at her blithe tone. “A lot of people died that night.”

  Eyeing me, she pulled the wine out of my hand, wrapped her lips around the rim and tipped the bottle high. I watched the muscles of her neck move as she swallowed, and the room suddenly went from hot to unbearable.

  Licking the spill from her mouth, she pressed the bottle back in my hand and her fingers lingered on mine. “I simply did what you would not.”

  “Which was? Cast among innocent people? Use their lives to feed your spells?”

  “Innocent?” Frustration clouded the magic in her eyes. She shook her head, making the braids bounce and the myriad of stones clack together. “How can you care so much about what happens to the other races, yet do nothing to save your own?”

  “You make it sound like I’m happy our people are slaves.”

  “No, you’re apathetic. You see us as deserving of what Fate has decreed.”

  “We earned what Fate decreed. Our ancestors enslaved the Langorians. They terrorized everyone else. They weren’t good people.”

  “Haven’t we suffered enough for their deeds? Isn’t it time for us to be free?”

  “That’s a nice sentiment, but the same problem still stands. Our people need to be controlled. Without Kayn’l, their urges would return. They would crave magic again.”

  “As they should. It is a natural thing.”

  “Natural and deadly. They would use it as they please.”

  “They would learn restraint.”

  “Just like that?”

  “You did.”

  “Do you think it was easy for me? It took being responsible for the deaths of thousands to give me a reason to hold back. All they’ll have is revenge. Like you.”

  “It’s not revenge I seek, Ian. It’s liberation. Something you could have given us a long time ago with the Crown of Stones.”

  “The crown?” My burgeoning anger turned to suspicion. “And how would I have done that exactly? By challenging five hundred years of law single-handed? Or by wiping out everyone that isn’t Shinree?” I stared at her a moment and it became clear. “That’s what you would have done, isn’t it?”

  “I would have done what was necessary. I don’t fear what lies inside me.”

  “Maybe you should.”

>   With a hiss of aggravation, she brushed past me. I half expected Imma’s scent of lavender to follow in her wake, but that was gone. Everything of Imma was gone. The woman who was sitting down and pulling off her boots was nothing like the spirited girl who caught my eye in the tavern. That girl didn’t exist, not anymore at least.

  “Your name isn’t Imma,” I said, staring at the smooth arch of her foot, the graceful bend of her ankle. “Is she dead now? The girl whose essence you stole?”

  Completely ignoring me, the Shinree woman stood and unhooked the chain girdle from her slim waist. It hit the floor with a clank and the gown billowed out away from her body. “My name is Sienn Nam’arelle,” she said proudly. “I am of the Erudite.”

  “Nam’arelle?” I didn’t bother masking my skepticism. The name she claimed was one of the oldest in Shinree history. A family of miners, it was said they were the first to discover our people’s innate talent for stone magic. They wrote the first spells, started the first schools. They created the Ruling House and were one of the most preeminent families in all the history of the empire. For any erudite to have survived its violent fall was hard to imagine. For one of the original and most powerful of our kind to have been allowed to procreate and produce descendants, for centuries after, seemed impossible. “There hasn’t been a teacher born in hundreds of years.

  “I am born,” she said, as if those three words were the answer to everything.

  “Are you the only one?”

  “Are you? Is Ian Troy the only Shinree to have the craft of war?”

  “There are other soldiers among the slaves. But they aren’t like me. They weren’t made from pure Shinree blood on both sides.”

  “You are right in that,” she said, undoing the leather tie on one shoulder of her dress. As the first knot came undone, it became clear that the ties weren’t decorative. They were actually holding the entire garment together. And she was actually going to take a bath in the bathhouse.

  Sienn went for the other shoulder. “Regardless of what you’ve been told, Ian, no lines have died. They have simply been suppressed. I am proof of that.” The tie came loose. As the dress began to fall, I wasn’t sure why, but it unsettled me. As Imma, when she wasted no time disrobing in front of me, I took full advantage of her boldness. Yet, as the cloth fell over Sienn’s body to puddle about her bare feet, her oddly-timed, complete lack of modesty, had me backing away.