Aria just nodded listlessly. Jezebel feigned embarrassment, looking away from the woman as she continued, “I hate to even bring this up to you, I feel so awful, like putting salt in your wounds, but I thought it was only fair to tell you as you’ve been so kind to me…” she trailed off as if she was really hesitant to tell her the news. She peeked over at the girl and barely held back a smile in time that the girl’s forehead was creased in curious concern, and her dull eyes had turned to actually look at Jezebel for the first time. Jezebel stole a moment to pity the fact that the girl had let herself go as she had. Granted her father had been murdered and all, but no reason to not make yourself presentable to those that had to be around you.
“What do you mean?” she asked, and Jezebel bit her lip to control her expression.
“Well,” she started and then forced herself to pause again before spilling out the rest. “I heard Layna talking about how your father was ignoring all her complaints against me and how she couldn’t allow him to convince the rest of the council…I don’t want to get anyone in trouble…but I think…”
“Yes?”
“I think she may have had something to do with, you know,” she bobbed her head a bit as if searching for a polite way to mention the murder, “the incident.”
Aria’s brow was outright furrowed now. “Layna wouldn’t…” she began, but Jezebel saw the doubt behind her eyes, the tiny waver in her voice that betrayed the lack of conviction behind the words. Jezebel jumped at her chance.
“I’m not making any accusations,” she hurried to point out, holding out her hands in front of her in an open gesture, “but, wasn’t she with you the afternoon that it happened? Was there not a time that you left her alone, with direct access to your father’s office? Again, I don’t want to accuse anyone of anything, but…” she moved her outstretched hands into a more questioning pose and shrugged her shoulders before letting them fall, “she’s a very righteous girl. If she thought it was for the greater good…”
Aria was giving her a hard look, her lips drawn tightly together. At least the flush of emotion was bringing some color back into her cheeks, it was some improvement to look at. “I didn’t want to get her in undue trouble by bringing my concerns to the council, but he was your father, you should know the truth. I know how I felt when I heard the news about my father,” she added for effect, “if he had been murdered, I would have gone to great lengths to find out by whom.” She pretended to look thoughtful, as if just coming up with this next part. “She really wasn’t very social while she was here, I believe that you were the only one she spent any time with outside of those she traveled here with. It’s curious that you were the only one among all of the fine ladies here that she would befriend, unless she was trying to use you to get to someone else…”
Tears were welling up in Aria’s eyes and threatening to start rolling down her face so Jezebel quickly wrapped it up before the little thing couldn’t hold herself together any longer.
“Oh, I’m so sorry dear, I’ve upset you,” she laid a hand on Aria’s clenched ones in her lap. The girl’s eyes followed her movement. Jezebel patted the hands and withdrew her own. Then she leaned in as if sharing something she didn’t want overheard.
“I’m not saying you should, but my attendant said that he noticed in his observations that there’s a man in town next to the butcher who claims to sell potions, and who will also sell you truth serum for the right price.” She leaned back. “Normally I wouldn’t condone any kind of coerced information gathering,” Jezebel laughed inwardly, “but in this case…” She sat for a moment in silence and poured the tea that she had left forgotten in her excitement to carry out this part of the plan.
She handed a cup to Aria who barely took it, Jezebel was afraid it might slip right through her limp fingers. “Well, anyway there it is. I’m sorry for even mentioning it, we should definitely leave it in the capable hands of the palace investigators. I’m sure that even without truth serum he can bring your father’s murderer to justice. Cake?” She held out a piece towards her.
Aria turned her now glassy eyes towards her and shook her head negatively. “I’m sorry Lady Jezebel, I-“
“Shh,” Jezebel shushed her, “I understand, go.”
Aria gave her a small curtsy and left. Devon emerged from the adjoining room and nodded to Jezebel before following the girl out.
Jezebel got up and started pacing the room, impatient to hear the results of this scheme. She hoped that Aria would take the bait. She had a little surprise for her if she did.
She wandered to the desk looking for something to distract her to help the time go by faster while she waited. She picked up a letter from the King and reread it again. Since the night he’d left her abruptly after waking her in the middle of the night, he hadn’t asked for any more reports through the mirror, but she’d just gotten a letter that had been sent on horseback. It gave no indication of why he was no longer using their previous mode of communication, and the note sounded - different. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it didn’t sound like the same arrogant man she was used to.
She pondered this for a while, but coming up with no solution soon grew bored with it. Instead she poured herself a glass of wine and sat back to fantasize about how the girl Layna might die.
*
The King sat patiently while the two men debated his fate. The outcome of their discussion was no longer of any concern for him ever since that delightful creature Katya had freed him.
He had a momentary twinge of regret for having let her out of his sight after she had so fortuitously stumbled upon him, but it was necessary. After performing the spell with her to rid him of the collar, he found it likely that he’d be able to find her again no matter where she was. He felt an even greater connection to her now that they had met in the flesh. She surely was meant to be his.
The info he’d been able to gather about his captors was sparse, but disturbing. His earlier conclusions about the Order had obviously been far too shallow. The parts of the organization that he’d witnessed only scratched the surface of the real power behind their actions. The rest was hidden beneath the murky waters of closed-door politics.
Nathair let his mage sight wash over the two men. One of them shrugged a shoulder as if dislodging a nuisance fly, but other than this neither gave any outward sign that they noticed his probe. He’d found that when he concentrated very hard, and knew where they were, he could detect the slightest whisper of their presence. Not much, but it gave Nathair thrills of joy to have broken through and determine that they were after all mere men. They seemed to be partially impervious to magic, though their actual talents were substantially less than he would have expected - at least he thought they were - but he was still wary of any who had managed to get the better of him, and supposed that this could be misleading as well.
They kept talking about a ‘she’ - I should have known there’d be a woman behind this - and no sooner than this thought had entered his mind, she mysteriously appeared.
Nathair quickly retreated behind his carefully erected barriers and refortified his layers of thoughts to mask his more lucid presence.
“Is it true then?” she asked, her voice heavy with an accent Nathair couldn’t place.
She strode over to him from the place she had appeared out of thin air. She stood before him in three steps and reached down to draw aside his robe. She probed at the stone embedded in his chest.
“We’ve tried everything to get it out,” supplied one of the men.
“Believe me, they mean everything,” Nathair commented a trifle bitterly.
The woman looked at him as if realizing he was there for the first time. Her lack of interest in him led him to a bolder statement.
“You do know I’m the King? You won’t get away with this.”
“Get away with what, my dear?”
“Kidnapping the King,” he clipped short an irritated response.
“Why, I don’t know what y
ou’re talking about,” she said sweetly, “the King is safely on his throne carrying on business as usual.”
“Or perhaps better than usual,” added one of the men, snickering to himself.
Nathair felt a flare of anger within him at the slight and he bit it down. The woman was watching him, and he quickly clamped down on the emotion. She narrowed her eyes.
Nathair felt the bonds around him tighten, but his own spells deflected them easily, and he decided against further prodding. Besides, that one statement had told him much. So, they had an imposter in his place. And obviously he as a person was not valuable to them, but rather their only interest in him lay in the stone embedded in his chest. He wondered how long it would take them to decide that it would be easier to have him dead.
“Why don’t we just kill him?” asked one of the men, mirroring his own thought, “It would be a lot less effort.”
The woman barely acknowledged the question, but she did answer, and negatively which further boosted Nathair’s mood. Not that he believed that they could succeed in killing him, but he didn’t feel like wasting the energy it would take to stop them. And they had surprised him once after all - yes, it’s better that they want me alive.
Nathair’s keeper did not look nearly as pleased by this answer as he himself was. Too bad. Perhaps I’ll have to extend him the same sympathy when I leave.
“No,” the woman was murmuring as she leaned so close to Nathair that he could feel her breath on his chest. She narrowed her eyes at the stone and poked at it with a dainty finger. Nathair smiled and was about to comment that he hadn’t realized they were on such good terms when she continued. “He’s already chosen this host. If we kill it, there’s no telling what he’ll do. He’s already stirring. At least at the moment he’s bound by this host’s limited abilities. We don’t want him to wake before we are ready. We need to find the one strong enough to harness it.”
Again Nathair bristled at yet another stab at his dignity. Although speaking of his abilities in such terms did speak volumes about what the stone was capable of. And as soon as he accessed it, what he would be capable of. This further fueled his resolve to find a way to wake the powers within it and make them his own. These people may fear the stone - he could practically taste it on them, but he knew there was nothing he could not control. He had the blood of a god running through his veins after all. And look how easily he had reversed the roles here. Who was using whom now?
*
Katya fell easily into her new disguise, carefully adjusting her accent to match those of the people around her. She had arrived in Endlyfta several days earlier, and spent a great deal of time observing their ways before deciding that she was safe to enter their midst. She had decided on the guise of a serving girl rather than a noble as it would be easier to contrive excuses to be skulking around. Coming up with the required documents to get into the palace was harder, but once there she was pretty well free to come and go as she pleased.
The staff was much better treated here than in Gelendan, and though Katya approved of this fact, it did make it much harder to go unnoticed when the nobles treated you like a person and not a piece of furniture. She found herself doing a lot of running around, but even in this she was able to gather a lot of information. Apparently, one of their council members - and even worse, one of the Triumvirate - had recently been murdered. As far as Katya could ascertain, no suspects had been named yet, but of course with the border newly opened, it was causing concern among the courtiers.
That snake of a woman Jezebel was busy spreading rumors about Layna and Gryffon secretly plotting together to take over the council’s opinion by killing off the opposition, but Katya could see that most of the people she spoke to were just as suspicious of her. As was Katya. No doubt she was indeed behind this somehow. She hadn’t figured out what she would have gained from it yet, but she was acting much too smug to have things not going her way.
As for Layna, Katya’s assumption that the two of them would show up in the capital to report their intelligence was correct and she spent a fair amount of time observing her. During her long trek here, Katya had spent countless hours on the project of trying to uncover the secret of the package which had been entrusted her to give to this girl. Gerald hadn’t told her not to look at it herself, and Katya didn’t see how making the girl wait a few extra days while she figured it out was going to hurt anything. Not to mention that in giving it to her, Katya would also have to deliver the news that her parents were dead. And quite possibly because of Katya. Though the woman’s last comment had been unnerving…
Her encounter with the King was also foremost in her mind. So it had been he that was involved in the thwarting of the assassin. But why? Could he really not have known that someone was using the slave bracers on his army? And who had his captors been? Things were getting very complicated.
She wandered to the temple at the edge of the Great River and inquired about the Oracle there. Apparently, when there was a question of great importance, the Oracle was consulted and she passed on the Word of the Three as an answer. Katya had been surprised to learn that this service was not reserved only for the higher class or just the Triumvirate but that anyone could pose a question. An answer was not always received but Katya had time on her hands and was curious as well. Her only real hesitation was in choosing which question.
She padded her way through the temple doors, removing her shoes at the entrance and donning the white cloak that one of the Oracle’s priestesses handed her. The woman led her down the stone pathway through the archway held up by ornately carved columns towering above them on either side. Katya was surprised when after several hundred yards the stone walls between them disappeared and the temple opened up. Fresh smelling air blew in at them, rustling Katya’s hair as they stepped into the airy section and the path suddenly widened, curving around in a huge circle and expanding out over the water. In the middle sat a white-clad figure, dipping her fingertips into the pool of water beneath her which Katya saw opened straight down into the Great River.
The priestess led her towards the woman - the Oracle - and left without a word. The Oracle looked up at Katya and smiled.
“Welcome,” she said in a resonating voice, “what can I do for you?”
Katya had hoped that the question she most wanted answered would magically spring to mind when she was finally here, but she found it still eluded her and she opened her mouth to say so when the Oracle’s voice suddenly cut her off.
“Your soul is marred by many evils. The path to becoming whole once more will not be an easy one. Until such time as you are reunited with your missing half, those you cherish most will be fated to suffer.” The woman’s eyes had rolled back into her head, but she turned towards Katya as though she could still see through them which had an unnerving effect. “There is light within you yet. Follow it, and all will be well. Your fate is tied with the world’s. Save it, and you save yourself. Only then will you discover who you truly are.”
Katya stared at her in disbelief. This was the type of guidance the gods had for her? Save the world if you want your answers? That was no small hurdle.
The Oracle blinked a few times after reciting the Word and looked up at Katya as if nothing had happened, “Did you have a question?” She took in Katya’s dumbfounded expression. “Or perhaps you have already been given your answer?” She looked down at the river and trailed her fingertips along its surface reverently.
Katya turned on her heel and marched off without looking back.
*
Layna knocked softly on Aria’s door. She had been surprised by the girl’s request of her company. Though they’d spent a fair amount of time together the past few weeks, they were hardly what you’d call close, and Layna would have expected her to have surrounded herself with friends and family in her time of grief.
The door opened and a red-faced Aria ushered her inside. Layna entered silently, watching the girl worriedly.
“Please, sit,”
Aria gestured to the two armchairs and she and Layna each took one. Aria started pouring the tea but was shaking so badly that the teacup rattled against its saucer in her hand. Layna reached out and took it from her gently, pouring the rest of the tea into it, and placing it before her before pouring her own.
Aria gave her a nod of thanks and sat there watching her. Layna took a sip of tea to cover her discomfort. Aria’s eyes looked so dull; her father’s death was taking its toll on her. Aria still said nothing so Layna cleared her throat and asked tentatively, “How are you doing?” then took another sip of tea.
“How am I doing?” Aria echoed lifelessly, “Well, someone just murdered my father and there’s the chance that it was someone pretending to be my friend.”
“Oh no,” Layna said sympathetically, setting the cup down. The tea seemed to be giving her a stomach ache, or perhaps it was the stress of the situation. “Have the investigators found something?”
Aria looked disgusted. “They won’t even use all the resources available to them even for his murder. After everything he did.”
Layna’s stomach was starting to feel very uncomfortable and she shifted in her chair.
Aria went on, “But I’m not afraid to do what I have to in order to avenge him.” She paused and cocked her head to the side, examining the effects the tea was having on Layna. “What’s the matter Layna? You’re looking rather uncomfortable.”
Layna’s stomach was in agony now, and it was spreading, and to make matters worse, Aria was working herself up into a tirade that appeared to be inexplicably aimed at her.
She continued, obviously angry now and Layna was dumbfounded as she spat, “Is that perhaps because you‘re feeling guilty? Hmm? Guilty for killing my father?”
Layna tried to get her lips to move, but she couldn’t concentrate on them long enough to make any sound.
“You can’t even deny it, can you? That’s because I made sure you can’t lie! How could you do such a thing? I trusted you!” Aria had jumped to her feet and she stood over Layna now, pointing in her face.
Those Who Fear the Darkness (BloodRunes: Book 2) Page 18
