“Kill it!” the woman yelled. A loud clank of something metal hitting the door followed.
A cat screeched in the same tones as the woman, outrage and fear battling for dominance. If it was like any other cat, outrage would win. It too hit the door, claws scrabbling for a purchase against the wooden surface.
This time both Da and Val backed up, making a warding gesture with their hands.
Lily deferred to their superior experience and skill and followed suit. There wasn’t a lot of room to move on the landing, five stories up in this isolated stone tower. She might escape up or down steep spiral stairs cut into the stonework if she had to give the others more room to work.
Unless she could fly. Which she couldn’t. And neither could the lady held within the tower. Her sister had dreamed of flying with dragons. That was the one experience Val had not shared with her.
The lady had tried to fly, at least twice in the last fifteen years. Fortunately her companions had stopped her in time.
Or was she truly fortunate in continuing to live? Here. A prisoner of her own insanity?
“Da, do you smell that?” Lily asked. Her nose wiggled in search of the almost sweet scent of hot coals merging with the wooden door, followed by the acrid stench of cat urine and fire clashing with the magical wards.
“Aye. Time to intervene I think. Before she kills the cat.”
“This is ridiculous. Can’t anyone see the terror in her mind?” Val demanded, hands on hips, chin thrust out. She stepped forward and passed her open palm across the door in the intricate rune pattern that would release the wards and negate any lingering fire from the coals.
Lillian couldn’t even see the wards, let alone hope to make them obey her. She’d studied the rituals. But she had no talent to make them work.
“We’re coming in, Ariiell,” Val called. She pushed gently against the door. It swung inward about half a hand-width. Out streaked a gold, black, and gray cat, eyes wide, ears laid back, and fluffy tail bristled as wide as the rest of her body.
Lillian caught a whisper of a name. Grilka. She smiled that the cat willingly shared her true name—not the one the cook and servants called her—Grilka. A lovely name for a lovely creature, Lily reassured the cat.
She stepped out of the cat’s way rather than stoop to soothe it. In its current mood, she’d probably walk away with bloody scratches on face and hands. The poor creature disappeared down the stairs, not even trying to quiet its footfalls.
The door opened wider. “I have to kill her. Kill her and that filthy weasel that follows her. They’ll steal my baby. That’s all they ever wanted from me was my baby!” A skinny woman with lank and tangled honey blonde hair appeared, an open warming pan held over her shoulder like an ax, ready to chop something to shreds. She’d been pretty once. Gaunt cheeks, parched skin, wild eyes, and worry lines on her brow, around her eyes, and turning down her mouth had robbed her of her beauty.
“Mistress Ariiell, calm yourself,” Da said gently. “The cat is gone. The weasel with it.”
Ariiell blinked several times. Panic vanished and her pale blue eyes cleared. Understanding dawned in her gaze. Some of her crone ugliness sloughed off. “Excuse me, Lord Jaylor, for my rude inhospitality.” She dropped a light curtsy. The copper warming pan interfered with her hands holding her skirts out. She stared at in incomprehension.
“Here, let me take this from you,” Val said, easing the handle out of Ariiell’s grip. Her eyes looked strained as she focused on the older woman.
Lily rushed to her twin’s side, very familiar with the look of fatigue and headache that followed her magical exertions. A sharp tingle of power repulsed Lily’s hand as she sought to add her strength to her frailer sister.
She looked more closely into Valeria’s eyes. All of her sister’s focus and talent probed Ariiell. For the first time in their lives, Val had no need of Lily’s help and shut her out of her mind.
Something broke inside Lillian. A barrier stood between her and her birth mate. They’d never been separated for more than an hour or two. They shared everything! Lessons, chores, thoughts and dreams: all belonged to both of them together.
Except the dream of flying with dragons.
Lillian looked to their Da for an explanation. Panic and tears threatened to choke her.
“Valeria?” Da asked. “Are you . . . are you in control or her?”
“Of course she doesn’t do anything more than probe me, Lord Jaylor,” Ariiell said. “I am in complete control of my own mind and actions. I just have these spells . . . Sometimes I forget, or remember too much. I’m not exactly sure which. But now that the cat and her weasel companion have been banished to the void where they belong, I am fine.”
She backed away slightly and gestured to a comfortable seating arrangement by an arrow-slit window. The room curved around the full circumference of the tower without walls between sitting, sleeping, and bathing areas. The interior wall around the central stairwell was the only barrier in the room. Three hearths with plastered chimneys protruded inward and warmed the space where thick stone trapped winter’s chill, even on this warm afternoon in early summer.
Valeria stayed two steps behind Ariiell and to her left, her eyes slightly crossed and glazed in a light trance. She was inside the older woman’s mind whether Ariiell admitted it or not.
Lillian began to shake, alone in her mind and not liking it. Not knowing what to do, how to think without Val. They were twins. They’d been inside each other’s thoughts from the moment of birth—and before. She slumped onto a stool beside Da’s big padded chair. It looked like it had been made for his height and solid breadth.
He took Lily’s hand and held it on his thigh while he addressed Ariiell. “My lady, your father, Lord Laislac of Aporia, has requested you return to his household,” he said, making sure each word came out clearly.
“About time the bastard acknowledged me!” Ariiell spat. “Who’s he going to pawn me off on this time? Marriage, I think, is in his plans; safer than trying to control the Coven through me. He’s lucky The Simeon left him alive. He’s got an alliance in mind. Otherwise he’d have no use for me. Just as he’s had no use for me or for my baby these . . . Stargods! How many years have I been locked up here? It seems like . . . like last month at most that I gave my son to a wet nurse.”
“Your son, Mikkette is fifteen now,” Da said gently. “He attends the king at court and is considered a potential heir to the Dragon Crown. His grandmother, Lady Lynetta, has raised him gently and educated him suitably for royal kin. We call him Mikk.”
Ariiell reacted with only a lifted eyebrow and a deep breath. “Fifteen years? I must be getting a bit long in the tooth for an arranged marriage.”
“I do not know your father’s plans, my lady. Do you consent to leave the safety of this tower for your father’s household?”
Valeria blinked. She was tiring and losing focus.
Lillian desperately needed to go to her, brace her; give her the physical strength to continue. She didn’t know what she could do inside Ariiell’s mind to keep her calm, but she had to try.
Her twin held up her hand palm out and shook her head. Valeria had to do this alone.
Alone.
A hole gaped in Lillian’s gut.
“Safety? Didn’t you see the cat I evicted? You call it safe when Rejiia and Krej waltz in here anytime they wish? They are trying to steal my baby, take him back to the Coven. Use him as their next blood sacrifice! If we don’t stop them now they will assassinate the king and take over the government. Then they’ll evict the Council of Provinces and rule Coronnan with every cruel whim they choose. Without resistance.”
“The cat that just left calls herself Grilka and inhabits the pantry, keeping it free of mice,” Lily offered.
Da looked at her with something akin to approval—an emotion missing since he’d discovered she had no talent, and had relied upon Valeria to make it look as if she threw magic. “What color was the cat?” Da asked, blan
dly, as if Ariiell’s near hysteria meant nothing.
This time Ariiell blinked. Val’s eyes took on the glaze of acute concentration.
“She was . . . it was . . . calico.” Ariiell’s chin trembled and her eyes filmed with tears.
“Rejiia’s cat body is all black except for one white ear,” Da reminded her. “It looks akin to her human black hair with a white streak that ran from her right temple all the way to her hips. And there is no sign that her father, Krej, in the body of a tin weasel with flaking gilt paint, was anywhere near the tower.”
“Stargods, what have I done this time?” Ariiell buried her face in her hands and trembled all over.
Val shook herself free of the trance and stepped away from the troubled woman. Only then did Lily realize that her twin had kept a hand on Ariiell’s shoulder the entire time.
“She’ll be okay for a while,” Val said softly and promptly collapsed onto the small, rocking chair on the other side of Da. Her face had leached of color except for the dark circles under her eyes. Her veins pulsed so close to the surface of her nearly translucent skin they looked purple.
Lily took a chance and moved her hand from Da’s grasp to rest it on her twin’s knee. “Don’t,” Da said, reclaiming her hand. “She has to learn to do this on her own.”
Lillian glared at him and yanked her hand free, replacing it on Val’s knee. Concentrating on their blood and mind bonds, she trickled reviving strength into Valeria. Just a little. Enough to keep her from falling into sick exhaustion. “She may not have good control yet, but I do,” she whispered.
Valeria smiled and unlatched the door to her mind. Not a full mingling of their thoughts, but an opening if Lillian needed it.
Having that opening, she found she didn’t need full contact. Just the knowledge that she could have it if needed.
“So, my lady, do you consent to return to your father?” Da asked again, returning his full attention to Ariiell.
“I suppose. At least it will be a change from these same walls all day, every day. When do we leave?”
“You cannot travel alone, my lady.”
“I have a maid.”
“You need a companion.”
“You mean a keeper?”
Da nodded. A dreadful feeling crept out of Lillian’s stomach. This was why Da had brought her and Val with him on this errand.
“Very well. Which of the three healers who regularly visit me is to keep chains on my mind?”
“Someone more gentle. Someone who will help ease you back into a less solitary life.”
Lillian wanted to gag. Even with Val’s help she didn’t think she’d be able to manage Ariiell’s “spells.”
“Which of your two daughters?” Ariiell speared Lillian and Valeria with a penetrating gaze that seemed to reach all the way into the depth of Lillian’s soul. “How old are they? Sixteen? Fifteen? Hardly out of the schoolroom. The same age as my son.”
“How old were you when The Simeon manipulated you into joining the ranks of his Coven?”
“Fifteen,” she sighed. “I’ll forget that, in few hours or days. Just as I forget everything important, or trivial, when I have one of my fits. I hope life treats your girls more gently than The Simeon did me.”
“The Simeon is dead, Ariiell. The Coven is broken. The last remaining members are either dead or transformed into powerless totem animals. We broke the Coven many years ago and I’ve seen no sign of anyone reviving it.”
“Are you certain? I can sense Krej and Rejiia. They are still alive.”
“But no longer in positions of power. You are safe from the Coven. I would know if anyone in Coronnan tried to organize rogue magicians against the University and the Circle of Master Magicians.”
She nodded, then looked at Lillian again. “Not her.” Ariiell shook her head and turned to stare at Val. “That one will do. I find her soothing. She smells of cat. A strong cat. So I presume she is capable of protecting me from Rejiia and Krej.”
“I thought the same as well,” Da said. “Valeria will go with you as companion. I have a separate job for Lillian.”
CHAPTER 2
JAYLOR SETTLED HIS twin daughters into a small bedroom on the third floor of the tower. They at least had a decent sized window overlooking a broad meadow where plow steeds grazed. He felt safe in assuming neither of his girls would attempt to fly out of it. Unlike Ariiell.
This land belonged to Lady Lynetta, the king’s aunt, and her husband Lord Andrall. Close enough to the capital city for quick summoning in an emergency, far enough away to protect troubled Ariiell and her son—until he grew enough to require education with his grandmother. The lord and lady were senior among the twelve provinces, well respected, and strong enough to fend off any interlopers who might try to manipulate an heir to the crown and his mother.
Beyond the next line of rolling hills, Jaylor knew the Coronnan River ran, broad and serene, only a few miles from the delta islands that made up Coronnan City. After three months, the water had settled back into a normal channel. He still had nightmares about the near disastrous damming by a tangle of Krakatrice seeking to turn Coronnan into a desert. When the dragons had broken the obstruction of dirt, felled trees, and other debris, a wall of water seven feet high had rushed seaward, carving new channels, obliterating small islands, and leaving new ones behind.
Jaylor and his son Glenndon . . . stepson . . . now Prince Glenndon . . . had fought the Krakatrice matriarch, while trying to contain an eruption of pure, raw magical energy in the confined courtyard of the royal barracks. They won. Barely. But lost much.
“Da, what does this all mean?” Lily asked. She looked as pale and shaken as her twin. But color and vigor returned to Val’s face, while Lily looked near to fainting. An opposite from their usual reactions.
“We’d best sit for this,” Jaylor said, perching on the side of one of the two cots set up for them. The girls huddled together, arms draped about each other, on the other bed. That was normal: two halves of one whole, one never complete without the other.
Now he had to separate them for their own good. He and their mother, Brevelan, had discussed this for months. They’d sought every possible way to teach the girls how to act independently so that Valeria—never physically strong or healthy until recently—didn’t exhaust herself working magic for both of them. And Lillian had to learn to act on her own, probably without magic.
“I didn’t want to say anything in case Ariiell rejected this plan of her father’s,” he said hesitantly, propping his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees.
“Why not?” both girls asked at the same time.
“Because life is about to change for both of you.”
The girls looked at each other, mingling their thoughts, as they always did.
“You are separating us,” Val said flatly. “I’m to go with the lady upstairs, keep her calm and rational.”
“Your job as a journeyman magician is also to report back to me anything untoward in Lord Laislac’s household,” Jaylor informed them, sitting straighter.
“Journeyman?” both girls gasped.
“Both of you have journeys to take and reports to make. But still, a journey is about learning and problem solving on your own. Reports should be few and far between except in a dire emergency until you arrive at your destinations. We are returning to the old style of politics. Each lord now has a master magician in his retinue who acts as neutral adviser, scribe, and archivist. The bond between lords and their magicians often goes well beyond the political; they become friends, tied to each other and dependent upon each other. The masters are not always neutral. The lords do not know that they each will also have a journeyman infiltrating their household to keep me and the king apprised of what really goes on. What conversations they hold with outsiders, who visits and who doesn’t, who are their friends, and who are their adversaries.”
“How loyal they are to the king,” Lillian said.
“How often do they turn a blind eye
to those who cross the borders of their province,” Valeria completed the thought. Aporia, where she would escort Ariiell, bordered on SeLennica, ancient enemy and sometimes uneasy ally of Coronnan. Two minor and rarely used passes through the mountains opened into Laislac’s lands.
“Exactly,” Jaylor agreed, proud that his girls understood their new roles so well. “Lord Laislac gratefully surrendered custody of Ariiell to the king’s aunt and her husband when her insanity became unmanageable. Now he wants her back. Why?”
“You said both of us,” Valeria offered. “I understand why I am to go to Aporia.”
“Lady Ariiell rejected me,” Lillian added. “I’m not going to Aporia, am I?”
“No, Lily. I have a separate, and possibly more important job, for you.” He took a deep breath, trying to find gentle, unalarming words. “Lady Graciella, Lord Jemmarc’s new bride, is not well. She needs to return to Castle Saria to rest and breathe fresh sea air, away from the demands of the capital. You will go with her as nurse and companion. You know herbal remedies. You demonstrated a degree of healing empathy last spring.”
“Saria,” they both said on a deep exhale. “Lord Krej’s old province.” Valeria took over the thought.
“If Lord Krej and his daughter are still about, even if transformed into their totem animal bodies . . .” Lillian continued and broke off in deep thought.
“Saria is on the coast, with secret landing sites for an invasion,” Valeria continued listing the variables in the situation.
“Why doesn’t Lord Jemmarc return to Castle Saria with Graciella?” Lily asked. “Surely he’d be better company to an ailing wife than a . . . one of us.”
“Lord Jemmarc was deeply involved in the recent rebellion. His son, Lucjemm, was its instigator,” Jaylor reminded them. They’d been there during the battle for power over the Well of Life.
“Lucjemm is in a coma, at the Forest University,” Lillian reminded them.
“We don’t know when or if he will awaken,” Valeria said.
The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 Page 2
