Cast in Balefire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Mage Craft Series Book 4)

by SM Reine

  The diadem was glowing.

  Shocked, she ripped the diamond free of its velvet case. Its warmth radiated throughout her entire body. With the comfort of that light, she could have survived the bitterest night in the Wilds of the Winter Court.

  She could smell worn leather. It felt like there were hands on her shoulders.

  “Seth?” Marion whispered.

  “Marion?”

  The actual response almost made her bones jump right out of her skin. When she spun, she found part of her floor lifting to reveal a hinged door.

  Another of the Winter Court’s secret passages was opening.

  The broad-shouldered creature who climbed out wasn’t Seth, but not-so-little Ymir. She clapped her hands closed around the diadem to trap its light within her fingers. Ymir glowed faintly in the resulting darkness.

  “It’s the middle of the night,” Marion whispered, nudging her bedroom door shut with her hip. “What are you doing?”

  “I didn’t know when else to come. You’re never alone anymore,” he said. “Sorry.”

  “How did you…?” She nudged the hole with her toe. It was real, even though she couldn’t see the magic that must have made it. Her heart was still pounding. “I thought you were getting too big for the secret passages.”

  “I made new ones,” Ymir said.

  He hunkered down in the corner, back reclining against a tree. Marion’s earlier prediction had already come true. He was now too big to easily sit on the edge of her bed.

  “Where do they lead?” She peered down the passage he’d opened. It curved into darkness.

  “That one goes outside,” Ymir said. “I won’t let anything in. Don’t worry.” As big as he was getting, Marion believed he truly could have beaten back any creature in the Winter Court.

  “Could I go through it?”

  “If you want.” He seemed impatient with the conversation. Ymir’s mind was still that of a child, even as his physical growth accelerated. “But I’m hungry.”

  It hurt to laugh. It felt like Marion hadn’t given a genuine chuckle in weeks. “Yes, I imagine you are.”

  She had to set the diadem down in order to get the box of candy bars from her closet. The crown was no longer glowing. “Here you go,” Marion said. Ymir’s eyes got huge when he realized she was handing the entire box to him. “Eat them slowly, won’t you?”

  “For sure,” he said.

  He leaped down the hole, pulling the door shut behind him. His passage left her rug folded in half.

  Marion kneeled to look at the silver hinges on the door. They were made of glistening living ice much like that on Ymir’s body. As he’d said, he had made that secret passage, reshaping Niflheimr to his will. Ymir had no clue what a very special gift that was.

  Especially because it meant Marion now had a way out of the palace’s wards without being followed by Raven Knights or handmaidens.

  Marion woke a few hours later with tears dried on her cheeks and resolve hardening her heart. The empty water bottle was on her floor. Her diadem no longer glowed. The handmaidens would be waking soon to bathe, and they’d expect her to join them.

  She couldn’t live like this one more day. Not even for one more minute.

  It was an hour earlier than she normally awoke, so she had forty-five minutes before anyone came into her antechamber. If she was fast, she could be gone before they arrived. She flung the rug back and wrenched the door open. The secret passage was still open. Ymir had left it behind for her, as promised.

  Marion slipped past the handmaidens’ bedroom again. All the Raven Knights turned when she opened her hallway door, but only Wintersong looked relieved to see her.

  “Get in here,” Marion said.

  He brushed them aside and entered her room. Marion shut the door behind him.

  “What’s you needing, your liege?” Wintersong asked, dropping into a crooked-shouldered bow.

  She put a finger to her lips, leading him silently back to her room. She shut the door before speaking. “You’re a planeswalker. We’re going to walk planes.” Marion whirled into motion, ripping clothing out of her closet and tossing them onto her bed. “Don’t just stand there, Wintersong. Help me!”

  “You can’t leave.” Ariane had appeared in the opposite doorway. Marion had no clue how she’d gotten there, but it didn’t matter. The woman didn’t seem to think that rules applied to her. She went wherever she wanted.

  “Begone, Mother,” Marion said. “There’s nothing left here for you.”

  Ariane turned to the knight. “Wintersong, please leave us.”

  He didn’t budge.

  “You can’t order my guards,” Marion said. “I may be under Konig, but I’m still above you.”

  Ariane’s jaw flexed as she clenched her teeth. “Speak with me in private before you do something you regret. I won’t stop you if you’ll give me five minutes of your time.”

  “You couldn’t stop me if I didn’t.”

  “Please, my daughter,” Ariane said, switching to French.

  Whether it was the change to Marion’s mother tongue or the gentleness of Ariane’s tone, she finally listened.

  “Give us a moment,” Marion said, and Wintersong left.

  Marion didn’t stop moving once she was alone with her mother. She tore through her closet with increased fervor. Forget about Onoskelis’s labors, forget about the Middle Worlds. She would be free.

  “You can’t leave,” Ariane said.

  “Don’t you realize? I’m powerless here, held hostage by a man who would rather teach me a lesson than save my life—”

  “Your husband. You married him to save the courts. Does that no longer matter?”

  Frustration turned Marion’s motions graceless as she tossed more clothing onto her bed. Even in her anger, she couldn’t bring herself to let things get rumpled. She pulled out the skirts, smoothed them down. “Of course it does. But what about me? Why is the world my responsibility?”

  “You always said you wanted the world to be your responsibility,” Ariane said. “You’ve put yourself into this position.”

  Marion stopped, clutching a fistful of hangers. “I was wrong, Mother. It’s not fair for me to be like this. I’m too young.”

  “Your father approached me when I was a little younger than you are now,” Ariane said. “He asked if I wanted to help him change the world, and I said yes. That was a promise I made to Metaraon. I kept that promise.”

  “Konig hasn’t earned such loyalty.”

  “Forget Konig. You’re keeping your loyalty to your own aspirations of world domination.” Ariane sat on the bed beside Marion’s dresses, picking through them as if looking for something to borrow. “Do you think that I remained with Isaac because I cared about him?”

  Isaac Kavanagh had been Ariane’s first husband. He’d worked as an Inquisitor in Hell, which had allowed him to torture demons professionally. In his free time, he’d often beaten Ariane.

  Ariane had remained with him that entire time.

  “I thought you stayed because you’re stupid,” Marion said.

  Ariane’s eyes were chillingly empty as she ran a fingertip along an embroidered sleeve. “Isaac had been about to kill me when Metaraon killed him. Had your father not interceded, you might have never been born.”

  “You’d have let Isaac kill you?”

  “I needed to be with Isaac in order to support Elise’s mission. I wouldn’t throw away so much hard work because a man hit me,” Ariane said. “Until you start thinking at a higher level, you’ll never achieve what you really want, my sweet.”

  Marion’s throbbing head was filled with that fog again. “I don’t consider subjecting myself to victimization a higher-level strategy. I won’t be imprisoned.”

  “Then don’t be imprisoned,” Ariane said. “You’re Queen of the Unseelie—not the entire universe, but a significant portion of it. Keep what you’ve gained. Don’t toss that control aside.”

  “Konig controls the kingdoms,�
�� Marion said.

  “Then you need to control Konig.”

  Control Konig.

  The frustration drained from Marion. Clarity remained in its place, just like the clarity she had felt when thanking Konig for saving her from the urisk.

  That was the clarity of a survival mechanism. The instincts that had told her that pleasing Konig would keep her alive.

  It was also the feeling that came with realizing she had power.

  “Konig loves you,” Ariane said. “You have everything he wants but doesn’t yet possess. Your heart, your body. Open cracks in your shields to allow Konig inside. Then wrap him in the fibers of your soul and strangle him with them.”

  Marion sat on the other edge of the bed, as far from her mother as possible, with a field of royal dresses between them. “Is that what you did?”

  A smile ghosted over Ariane’s lips. “I outlived Isaac and Metaraon, didn’t I?”

  “Sidhe magic is entirely based on love, and I can’t fake it for Konig. That damned diadem betrays me.”

  “Then we’ll find a way to make it light with magic,” Ariane said. “Or you will have to convince Konig the diadem is broken.”

  Control Konig, control the kingdom.

  Marion kicked the trapdoor shut. The icy hinges shattered.

  “Come in,” Marion said, opening her bedroom’s door. Wintersong was still outside. It didn’t matter how much he had heard. “Put my dresses away. And tell the handmaidens I need to get ready for a date.”

  8

  Konig had scheduled a meeting with his father before Marion was attacked by urisk, hoping to brainstorm ways to retain their recalcitrant army. But an assassination attempt within the Winter Court gave their meeting a more urgent agenda.

  The former king came to the meeting with a pair of commanders from the army. The instant Konig walked into the room, Rage said, “This is Hooch, and this is Nikki.” He looked irritated, as though Konig were late—when Rage had always said that a king could never be late. Everyone else was running on the king’s time.

  Konig was pleased to see the old man feisty, even if he was turning it on his son. This was the first time Rage had left his room since Violet’s death.

  Sidhe who lost their mates often didn’t fare well in the grieving times. Many didn’t survive at all. A former king might have gone down and taken the entire court with him.

  “Hooch and Nikki,” Konig echoed, turning to the commanders.

  It was easy to distinguish one from the other. Hooch was the lumbering man with yellow hair and cruel eyes. They must have had to invent a whole new size of armor to dress him.

  Nikki was a petite girl with a heart-shaped face colorless as marble. Her lips and irises were white too. Her hair was twisted into knots the same ashen shade.

  Both had the bolts of color on their shoulder pads that indicated high status in the army.

  “They believe they’ll be able to eliminate the urisk,” Rage said. “We’d considered culling them last year, so Hooch and Nikki have been working on a plan.”

  “How would you draw them out?” Konig asked.

  “Drawing them out will not be necessary,” Nikki said in a clipped tone. “We’ll exterminate the urisk within their home.” Protections upon dens in the Wilds were rooted deep within the bedrock of the Middle Worlds. It wasn’t disrespectful to violate a den because nobody had ever managed it. It was downright impossible to get in there.

  Everyone must have known something Konig didn’t. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “You’re looking at a prism right here.” Hooch settled a hand on top of Nikki’s head. His voice was as gravelly as Konig would have expected. “She can focus the energy of hundreds of sidhe at a time. She can even neutralize home-territory advantage when she has enough support.”

  “That sounds dangerous.” The courts had minds of their own. Even though Konig had been shaping Myrkheimr and Niflheimr to his will, it was more collaboration than dictation.

  Konig had seen firsthand how the magic of the Middle Worlds revolted when someone violated it. A chasm had opened in the forest to swallow a rogue sorcerer whole, once upon a time.

  If Nikki, a non-royal, imposed her will upon the Wilds, chances were good their paltry army would vanish.

  “I have used my gift to breach buildings warded by the American government,” Nikki said. “I also once used it in the Nether Worlds. Both times, I demonstrated magical skill equivalent to the combined powers of the sidhe I funneled, with no handicap from being outside of the Autumn Court.”

  Sidhe were so closely tied to the magic of the Middle Worlds that leaving weakened them at best and disabled them at worst. If a sidhe could operate with full power on Earth… Oh, the things they could have done.

  A thought struck Konig. “When were you performing maneuvers against the American government?”

  Rage gave him a blank look.

  “You owe me a debriefing, Dad,” Konig muttered.

  “Oh, I’ll debrief you, all right. I’ll talk your ear off. I’ve got opinions about the crap you’ve been doing in court.” His tone suggested they were not nice opinions.

  Gods, it was such a relief to hear Rage talking like a normal person.

  “So Nikki is a prism, and Hooch rallies people behind her,” Konig said. “Am I right? Nikki must be useless without backup. Nobody’s going to willingly listen to that robot.”

  “It ain’t nice, but it’s true,” Hooch said.

  Konig saw Hooch in a new light. Not just a lumbering troll of a sidhe, but one who was well liked among the army.

  Someone with a lot of sway.

  “You’d know who’s been spreading rumors of infidelity on behalf of the queen, then?” Konig asked, circling the commanders. “You’d know who’s organizing treason?”

  Anger darkened Hooch’s eyes, but Rage pulled Konig away before anyone could speak.

  “We’ll be back momentarily,” Rage said.

  He shoved Konig onto the balcony. It was a stormy day in the court. Rain pounded a frothing gray ocean, yet didn’t touch the men when they emerged.

  They assumed their usual positions by habit—Rage with his elbows on one of the brick columns, and Konig on the half-wall a meter away. They’d had thousands of heart-to-hearts in that exact spot, looking out over the ocean so that they could share their ugliest secrets without the pressure of eye contact.

  “You can’t talk to people like that.” The orange-purple light of eternal sunset reflected in Rage’s eyes, in the same way that it reflected on the raven-shaped clasps holding his silk shirt closed. “Don’t you remember anything we taught you?”

  “People have been talking about Marion,” Konig said. “They’re poisoning her name, disrespecting me by association, and risking the integrity of the entire court.”

  “They’re angry because Marion hasn’t shown that she loves you as much as the public does. You’ve got enough fans that you could light a million diadems off their panty juices, so they’re trying to be nice to you by siding against Marion.”

  “Their idea of being nice to me is ruining my goddamn life!” Konig pointed at the ocean. “Do you see that, Dad?”

  Waves slapped the rocky beach mercilessly. Lightning tore the sky.

  “Then stop it,” Rage said.

  “It’s not that easy!”

  “It is. Control yourself. Focus on the love.”

  Konig could focus on many things throughout the kingdom. The coronation had gifted him with vision of everything he controlled between Myrkheimr and Niflheimr, so he could see through the trees, the flowers, and even the rivers of honey that his entire kingdom wasn’t so stormy. A black cloud was centered over him.

  There was no way that the sidhe weren’t noticing the weather. That wouldn’t help the rumors about his relationship, nor would it help his control.

  If only Marion had made that damn diadem glow.

  His will made the wind slow, but lightning continued to flash.

  “I can�
��t,” Konig said in a low voice. “I’m struggling.”

  “Even this storm is better than you deserve. I know what Antonietta needed to do before your wedding,” Rage said.

  Antonietta was one of the court’s healers. Her gift was in swift superficial healing—not the person you’d call to beat cancer, but a sorcerer who could make a car wreck survivor look ready for the catwalk.

  “I didn’t speak to Antonietta,” Konig said, lifting his hands in a defensive gesture.

  “That’s even worse. That means that Marion needed to summon her own healer after you hit her.”

  Konig’s anger had reached a plateau after meeting Hooch. Now it shot into orbit. Thunder boomed directly over the tower, and the mortar trembled. “She struck out at me. Was I not supposed to strike back?”

  “That’s not how we treat people we love. You broke Marion’s bones!”

  Lightning struck the water. Electricity sizzled in the air.

  Konig wasn’t going to fight with his dad over a fight with his wife. It was a private matter, and Rage had no idea the way Marion treated him. She was harder to work with than a lobotomized mule.

  Rage gripped his son’s shoulder. “Look, boy. The army just wants to protect you from an outsider. Like their methods or not, they’re allies, and you need allies. Clean your house. Make nice with your woman.”

  Konig sagged back against the wall, gusting a sigh. “She’s so difficult.”

  “You need Marion. That’s our life as kings in a matriarchy.” Rage wrapped his arm around Konig in the closest thing to a hug that they ever shared. “If you won’t control your temper for her sake, do it for yours. Do it to keep our family where we belong.” He pushed Konig toward the doors. “Now make nice with Hooch and Nikki so they’ll protect your wife.”

  “The bitch can protect herself. She’s a mage.”

  “And you’re still her husband.”

  Konig linked his arm with his father’s. It masked his efforts to help Rage stand upright in a common gesture of affection, and nobody lost face shuffling too slowly across the patio.

  “Are we going to talk about Mom?” Konig finally asked, hesitating in front of the double doors.