Courtly Masquerade

by Terry Spear

  “Carissa,” she said to me.

  “I thank you for the lovely gown, Carissa. It has aided me already.”

  “She’s shadow walking,” a mage said.

  “Our queen’s returned,” another added.

  Without any uniformity, the male mages began to bow and the few females curtsied.

  “We should have given you our best magical artifacts,” Benjorian lamented.

  “But we didn’t want to lose you,” Neverat said.

  “We will give you everything you need, only come back to us,” another mage promised.

  “Thank you, Carissa,” I whispered in her ear. I couldn’t stand hearing all of the things the mages were going to do for me, but hadn’t when I might have needed them. I didn’t feel comfortable about returning either. What if they tried to keep me locked up again?

  “You’re welcome, my lady. Come back to see us when you can. And be safe,” Carissa whispered back.

  Everyone strained to hear her words. I imagined several were upset that they hadn’t earned my favor by giving me something like she had done.

  Then I shadow walked away.

  I don’t know what draws me from place to place, but all at once I was pulled back to our campsite.

  The Dark One observed our campsite as Basil remained on guard duty. Zars stood beyond my magical shield spell. Did it keep him out? Or was he afraid of entering—of facing me?

  I had to laugh at myself over that ridiculous notion. I still couldn’t fathom how rumor and speculation could make people believe the most absurd notions.

  The Dark One’s eyes focused on the tent where Moravia and I slept. Worried that he could some how break through my magical shield, I conjured up Basil’s meal on hoofs and sent him crashing through the woods in the Dark One’s direction.

  Zars instantly struck the wild boar with a lightning bolt spell, then mounted his black horse that I hadn’t even seen, as he blended with the dark. Smoke and the smell of grilled flesh filled the air. At the same time, Zars rode off at a gallop.

  Basil had already jumped to his feet as Conlan and Larson scrambled out of their tent.

  Moravia soon emerged.

  “Arabella, is she all right?” Conlan asked, heading for our tent.

  “She’s dead to this world,” Moravia said.

  Those were the last words I heard before I drifted off to sleep with a niggling in my mind...where would I end up shadow walking next?

  CHAPTER 17

  Early the next morning wild boar bacon and ham scented the air with a mouth-watering fragrance. When I dressed in the ecru gown, it turned white. I furrowed my brow, figuring that I would have a time keeping it clean more so than even the ecru gown.

  But when I stepped outside of the tent, I found the land surrounding us blanketed in white. Conlan hurried to lay a blanket over a log for me. “Good morning, Arabella,” he said. His smile couldn’t have stretched any further. Then he raised his brows to see the white gown.

  “Morning,” I said, smiling back. I motioned to the snow. “I blend in better, don’t you think?”

  Basil raised a chunk of ham to me as he sat cooking it on the other side of the fire. “You sent us wild boar.”

  Moravia studied me closely. “I’ve never seen anyone sleep so soundly as you do, especially when there was so much commotion in camp last night.”

  “There was?” I asked, and took my seat by the fire.

  Larson threw another log on the burning timber. “Yeah, a lightning bolt came out of nowhere and struck the pig down. We thought you said you only would conjure him up, and we had to do the rest of the work.”

  I tilted my chin up and opened my mouth to speak, then clamped it shut. They thought I had killed the beast, not even realizing the Dark One had been so nearby.

  Moravia’s eyes slimmed. “Did you shadow walk last night?”

  “Yes.” I was sure now my uncle hadn’t planned on using the Dark One for his own purposes. But the notion still nagged me that Conlan had said he thought he did. Would he believe me even if I said what I thought?

  “Where did you shadow walk?” Moravia asked, and handed me a hot cup of tea.

  “The village of Valdune. The mages said they set your army free.”

  “Good.” Conlan sat next to me. It didn’t seem to matter that there was barely any room for me let alone another body to sit on the log.

  I looked up to see Basil grinning, then turn away.

  “Anything else happen?” Maldovia asked.

  “Prince Sumaria’s men had Princess Lynet forcibly detained at his castle.”

  Moravia looked at Conlan, but he kept his eyes on me.

  “Why?” he asked.

  I grinned. “He still thought it was she who had visited him and was ill. He thinks she’s still delirious.”

  Conlan and Moravia laughed.

  I sipped my tea, enjoying the sweet flavor as it warmed my insides. “She was pretty incensed about my taking her purse, however. I had to stop her when she tried to strike a servant.”

  “You can do things like that when you shadow walk?” Conlan asked. He sounded amazed.

  “I didn’t know I could. I had to stop her. So I grabbed her arm and who would have thought it? She fainted.”

  Laughter filled the cool, crisp air.

  “About the wild boar...” Moravia’s words trailed off as if she expected me to finish them for her.

  “Yes, well, as Moravia suspects, I conjured the wild boar.”

  “But you didn’t kill it.”

  “No. Truthfully, I don’t think I can unless I’m protecting someone’s life. Or perhaps if we were starving. I don’t know.”

  Moravia frowned. “Then...”

  “Zars killed the boar.”

  “He was here?” Conlan asked. “But why didn’t you warn us? Why didn’t you—”

  “As soon as the wild boar attacked him, he killed it, but I believe he knew I’d sent it after him. He rode off and I must have slipped back into my own dreams. I don’t remember anything else after that.”

  After we finished eating and had packed, Conlan asked, “Will your protection spell work as we ride?”

  I shook my head. “I know none that would protect us while moving...only the one when we’re stopped at night at a campsite. I’m not sure how far I can extend it either, like whether a castle would be too large an area or not. But when we reach Crondor, I’ll try it.”

  “In two more days, we should reach Crondor.”

  “If I can assimilate the information from the spell books by touching them and your library has some new books I have not seen, perhaps I will learn some new spells that will aid us.”

  Conlan leaned over and kissed my cheek, forcing a blush into them. “My most fervent mission was to find you and train you to fight the Dark One. But now, Arabella—”

  “Help me up,” I said quickly, not wanting him to get dreamy-eyed over me, like the lords did with the ladies at Foxmoor Castle. We had a job to do, get me to Crondor safely. I had to remind myself, Conlan saw me as a means to an end. Nothing more. He even said himself he would marry for power. And what would I be to him? Someone who could make him more powerful than anyone in the realm?

  Maybe he had not had his favorite lady’s company in a while and I was the next best thing. But all I had to do was remember how he wished to wring my neck...

  He grinned when my face grew hot. “We will speak of this further, my lady.” He boosted me into my saddle. “Of that you can be assured.”

  A threat or a promise?

  About midday with the sun shining down on me, though the air remained frosty cold and the snow still cloaked the surrounding firs and road in white, I grew sleepy. Between the lulling rocking of the horse’s gait as she clopped along the snow cushioned path and the musical melody of birds singing in the treetops, my mind drifted.

  Suddenly, Conlan grabbed my arm as I nearly slipped off my horse. “We stop.”

  I must have drifted off to sleep. “No,
no, I can ride further.” I didn’t want to delay us, endangering our small party.

  Moravia leaned over and patted my shoulder. “I think you’re not getting enough sleep because of your shadow walking.”

  “Maybe.”

  It was true I had visited three places during the evening. Though it didn’t seem like I’d done so for very long, it might have been for hours.

  “I wonder, too,” Conlan said, “if creating the shield spell taxed you.”

  “Maybe.” I guessed I was more tired than I thought. I certainly couldn’t seem to hold much of a conversation.

  Conlan helped me down from my horse as Basil pulled a tent from his.

  “No,” I objected. “I’ll just lie down on my bedroll. We can leave more quickly that way after I’ve rested.”

  Conlan rolled out my bedding and I soon lay down next to the spot where Basil and Larson were building a campfire.

  “What about the protection spell?” Moravia whispered to Conlan as she prepared a kettle of tea.

  “What if it wears her out too much? We are all awake. It’s light out. And I’m sure she won’t need to sleep for long.”

  Those were the last words I heard Conlan speak, with compassion and concern. I wished...how I wished I’d encouraged him to kiss me, like I know he desired to. Because when I woke I was no longer in the clean, cold woods, but a dark, dank dungeon that smelled of mildew as icy water dripped from the ceiling.

  Even the faintest kiss from Conlan’s lips warming my own might have sustained me now as a fit of despair filled me with panic.

  CHAPTER 18

  Though I didn’t remember anything that led up to my being thrown into a dungeon, my head throbbed with gusto. I touched my forehead and found a tender, swollen lump and a sticky wetness. Blood?

  All I could imagine was I had been shadow walking when I should have been sleeping and someone with a greater force had overwhelmed our small party.

  Had Conlan, Moravia, Basil, and Larson been locked away in cells, too? Were they injured, or safe?

  I closed my eyes to try and block out the pain. How could I aid Neda while she gave birth to her son, but couldn’t ease my own suffering?

  Words whispered across the hall from my cell forced me to rise from the metal-framed rack, covered by a thin straw mattress. My white gown had turned into threadbare brown wool.

  I wanted it to be thicker, but nothing happened. What good was a magical dress if it served no useful purpose when I needed it to?

  I peeked through the grill covering the small window in the cell’s wooden door. “Hello?” I called out, hoping someone could tell me where I was being held.

  “Who be you?” a crackly male voice asked.

  “I can’t remember. Someone hit me in the head, hard.” I didn’t think another prisoner needed to know who I was, especially if he was not really a prisoner.

  “Peterusk, be me. Why are you in here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Stole a piece of bread, I did.”

  “Where are we?” I gritted my teeth as the pain in my head grew so fierce, white lights flashed in front of my eyes.

  “Why Ro Castle, of course.”

  “Ro?” I knew not an inch of Ro, except for the brief stay in the one bedchamber. But who had brought me here? Duke Yalovon? And here I thought I was to serve as his twin daughters’ governess.

  “Do you know how long I’ve been here?”

  “Two days.”

  I groaned. “Who brought me here?”

  “Guards.”

  I knew that, but... “Duke Yalovon?”

  “Never seen him down here.”

  “Peterusk, how long have you been down here?”

  “A couple of days.” He paused then added, “A woman sees to you.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know her name.”

  Voices approached...a woman’s and a man’s.

  “Honestly, Holten, the Dark One doesn’t want her dead.”

  “Calla, your uncle had not left orders for me to allow you to see the princess like this.”

  Princess? I wish they would get it right. Had they meant to abduct Princess Lynet?

  “I say again, Holten, Lord Yalovon works for the Dark One. If the princess dies, it will be your head.”

  Why would the Dark One want Princess Lynet? Unless he thought she was the one with the abilities, who stole his magical artifacts.

  The bolt slid across the door. I scrambled to get back in bed. Best to feign weakness. Though in truth, as much as my head was splitting and my stomach rolled with nausea, I wasn’t ready to wage war.

  “Leave us,” Calla snapped.

  “Your uncle wouldn’t want me to—”

  “Do you want me to tell my uncle how you kissed his wife?”

  The man grumbled something under his breath, then shuffled away.

  Calla entered the cell, her ash blond hair still coiled high on her head, then stared at me with washed out gray eyes. “I’m sorry about his. Really I am.”

  “Whose side are you on?” I asked, hoping she’d aid me further.

  “I want to be the royal female mage who destroys the Dark One. Don’t you see? I want the fame and the adulation you are already receiving.”

  That was all?

  “You had me imprisoned?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been feeding you whenever you’ve been conscious enough. When you’re well enough, I’ll set you free.”

  “What about your uncle?”

  Calla sighed deeply and folded her arms. “He thinks capturing you will improve his standing with the Dark One.”

  My thoughts were as scrambled as my mind. I tried to focus on what she said earlier about wishing she were the royal female mage.

  “You’re a mage?”

  “Yes, but not a royal. Though my uncle is a duke, he only earned the title from battle. My mother, his sister, was a commoner, just like he was. So, alas, I am only a female mage.”

  I smiled thinking how important any female mage would be to the male mages of Valdune. Calla probably had never left her castle and didn’t know how grateful the mages would be to have another female join them.

  “The village of Valdune would welcome you with open arms,” I said, trying to smile, though every movement sent powerful streaks of pain through my skull. “There’s a shortage of female mages in the village. A severe shortage.”

  Calla’s lips turned up as her gray eyes brightened. “I can see why the people are so taken with you. All I could think of was fighting the Dark One for recognition, and you’ve given me a different way of becoming wanted. Will you take me there?”

  “Yes, but where are the others that I rode with?”

  “I don’t know. When they brought you in, I heard right away. But you were the only one they brought here. You appeared more dead than alive and one of the guards said the Dark One ordered that if they found you, to knock you out good. That way you couldn’t use your powerful spells. I’ve been giving you broth and stews that are not drugged. But my uncle has ordered any meal you receive to be heavily medicated.”

  “Has word been sent—”

  “Right away a messenger took a letter to the Dark One. But even so, it’ll be another couple of days before he would receive the message and will be able to return here.” Calla smiled. “They didn’t want to transport you for fear you would escape again, like you have done so often.”

  “Calla, how come I can’t see you’re a mage?” I asked, suddenly realizing Calla gave off no colorful mage aura.

  She smiled and pulled a necklace hidden by her high-necked gown. It looked almost identical to mine—the gold leaf one I stole from Zars. “It keeps mages from knowing I’m one.”

  “Where did you get it from?”

  “A mage merchant passed through here two years ago. He saw I was a mage. Believing I might be you as I was the niece to Duke Yalovon and therefore the mage thought I was royal, he gave it to me for protection. He said when I
came of age, which was two days ago, he’d come for me.”

  “His name?”

  “Benjorian. But he never came back. I supposed it was because he discovered I was not you. You can’t imagine how disappointed I was.”

  Footsteps suddenly approached. Calla’s eyes widened. “Pretend you are—”

  “Calla,” a woman snapped. “What are you doing down here?”

  I recognized the woman’s voice before I even saw her—the Baroness DeChamplainet. My insides wizened up to think she could have been involved in turning me over to the Dark One. But then I considered the fact only she and my parents had known I was a mage...a royal female mage.

  “Baroness,” Calla said, then glanced back at me and winked. She hurried out of the cell, and I realized the only one on my side was leaving.

  My heart sank as the baroness stalked into the cell. Her black hair was piled high on her head and her black eyes sharpened as she considered me. She folded her arms and glowered at me, as if I were all of a sudden the most hated woman in the world. What had brought this about? Power?

  I’d never acted any way toward the woman but with kindness.

  “You have no idea how much trouble I’ve had to go through to get you here.”

  “What do you get out of it, Baroness?”

  The baroness smiled. “I was your lady-in-waiting, nothing more. Now I will be the duke’s wife—a duchess. He said he’d marry me if I could ensure you came to work for him, though he planned to hand you over to the Dark One as soon as he could.”

  She smoothed out her dark blue gown, then crossed her arms. “Of course, I hadn’t planned on Princess Lynet’s attempt to sell you to slavers. So I had to act quickly. Originally, I had intended to send you here, based on the fact you didn’t want to be wed to Duke Farthington, under the pretense you would work as governess for Duke Yalovon. I assumed you’d go along with it.”

  “Duke Yalovon has a wife.”

  “She conveniently died a few minutes ago.” The baroness’s lips turned into a sickly grin.

  My stomach clenched. No one could be trusted. Could Calla? I thought so, despite this nasty turn of events with the baroness. “So how long ago did you decide you needed to get rid of me?”