The Magics of Rei-Een Box Set

by Georgina Makalani

  ‘I would like that,’ Lis said, ‘but who would train me?’

  The empress looked back briefly towards the door. ‘Wei-Song is involved with a group.’

  Lis looked down at her hands. The place Wei-Song had taken her to could be such a place, but was it safe? And would she be able to go and work with others? ‘I can’t leave here,’ she said instead.

  The empress sighed and nodded. ‘The crown prince will not allow such a move, and I don’t think he should know of the others.’

  ‘Should he know about Wei-Song?’

  The empress looked beyond Lis. ‘I don’t know how he would react to such news.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ Lis admitted. ‘How can I train?’ she asked, changing the subject. ‘Mu-Phi will not leave my side. She may know what I am, but I won’t be able to test it or learn more without giving away Wei-Song. I don’t think the crown prince would be interested in encouraging my skills.’

  ‘We have to find a way to keep him and Mu-Phi out of it.’

  Lis stared at her across the table.

  ‘Please, show me something,’ the empress begged.

  ‘I haven’t been able to do anything,’ Lis murmured. Her father had always talked of the first magic she had done as a baby, and it made him smile every time he told the story. Yet there was always a level of fear behind it. It was the moment he had known they could no longer stay on the Palace Isle.

  Lis looked about and noticed a small vase of flowers on the table by the door. She leapt up and examined the arrangement. They were dying, with fraying brown edges on the leaves, but there was one bud that had not opened. She selected it and returned to the table. ‘Could you hold this?’ she asked the empress.

  The empress nodded and took the bud. Lis closed her eyes and reached her hand forward. She could feel very little within it, as though it too was tired and burnt, but she tried to coax it forward. Willing it to show its beauty to the world. As the empress drew in a surprised breath, she opened her eyes and saw the pale flower in full bloom.

  Lis leaned heavily on the table. ‘That was hard,’ she whispered.

  ‘It was amazing. Have you done this before?’

  Lis nodded. ‘I have opened a whole field, and it felt so easy.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it would take you such time to recover from what you did for us in the throne room that night.’

  Lis rubbed a hand over her stomach, wondering if she would ever fully heal from what the prince had done—and from what she had done to herself by preventing the healing from taking hold. She couldn’t tell his mother that he knew what she was and had tried to kill her; he might just do it yet, and she didn’t want to pull the empress between them.

  ‘You worry for the magic you have,’ the empress said kindly, putting the flower down on the table before taking Lis’s hands and drawing them closer to her.

  ‘A worry that the prince may run me through?’ Lis nodded. ‘I worry that I want him to. That I shouldn’t be here, and that I may not be as healed as you would need me to be.’

  ‘Need you to be?’ the empress repeated. ‘That we may need your magic?’

  ‘That you may need me to produce an heir,’ Lis whispered. She tried to pull her hands back from the empress, but the woman held tight.

  ‘What makes you think you couldn’t?’ she asked. ‘Or do you think the prince will not accept you if he discovers your magic?’

  ‘I’m not sure why I have told you,’ Lis admitted. ‘He is a hunter and I am Hidden; it won’t end well.’ Lis stood quickly, feeling the effects of the magic, and she fell to her knees.

  The empress sat down beside her, threw her arms around Lis and pulled her close. ‘You ensured I was saved,’ she said. ‘I would want the same for you. I love you like a daughter.’ She squeezed Lis tight. Lis returned the hold, feeling overwhelmed. ‘To the people you will be my daughter, for I cannot share Wei-Song with them. Not yet.’ She leant back. ‘Perhaps when Remi is Emperor and you are Empress, the world will be a different place.’

  Lis wiped quickly at the tears that wet her cheeks. She felt better supported than she had for some time. Yang had recently admitted he was her friend, and now she had someone who loved her for who she really was. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Perhaps you need some more rest,’ the empress said, helping Lis to her feet and guiding her towards the bed. ‘Although…’

  Lis stopped. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I so want to know how you disappear.’

  Lis laughed. ‘Hide,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been able to hide since that night in the throne room.’ Her hand rested on her stomach again. The empress looked to it, her face clouded.

  ‘Tell me how you do it.’

  ‘I don’t know. I think about hiding, I suppose, and then touch my hands together.’ Lis did that as she spoke, and the empress’s eyes went wide. ‘Am I hidden?’ She felt odd, different from when she’d hidden before.

  The empress shook her head. ‘I can see you, but…’ She reached forward and touched Lis’s shoulder. ‘You are like a shadow.’

  Lis looked over her hands, but she looked just as solid as she had before. She touched her hands together again, and the empress nodded as Lis returned to what she was. Then her knees buckled. The empress was under her arm and assisting her to bed.

  ‘Rest,’ she said. ‘I will watch over you.’

  ‘There are guards to ensure I cannot get away,’ Lis murmured.

  ‘There is no one to watch you sleep, and I know there are many who would insist there be someone by your side at all times. I am content to be that person.’ The empress smiled kindly.

  Lis closed her eyes and allowed the sleep pulling at her to take over. In the black silence that followed, she thought she heard Yang.

  Chapter 4

  Remi marched along the outer wall of the Palace Isle and shook his head.

  ‘She was determined there was something in the wall,’ the soldier with him said.

  ‘Why?’ he asked, stopping abruptly, and the man nearly walked into the back of him.

  ‘She could feel it,’ he said with a shrug. ‘The healer could feel something too.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Remi murmured, starting off again. He had not felt the buzz of background magic as much as he had before the attack that had levelled the royal residence. Had something changed that night? Other than the discovery that his future wife held a magic he could not sense, and very strong magic at that. The healer also worried him, although the man seemed determined that the princess and her health were his only concern.

  He never left her side. Even when Remi visited of a night, the healer remained by the bed. In some ways, Remi wished he had the same loyalty to her, but her magic was so strong. He worried not only what she might do, but who else might hold the same power. Healer Yang may be one of those.

  The soldier had stopped. It took Remi a moment to notice, and then he turned back.

  ‘This is an entrance we have not tried,’ he said.

  Remi looked it over. He wanted to be in the prison, interrogating those with magic. It had been dangerous enough trying to keep them contained. Even separated, they’d still managed to use their magic no matter what the soldiers did, whether they bound their hands or gagged them. Remi was beginning to understand why they had simply killed them all during the war.

  He belted on the door, taking his frustrations out on the greying wood.

  ‘She’s not like the others,’ the man beside him said, and he stopped and turned to him.

  The soldier stared him down as the door finally clicked and squealed open. The soldier on the other side took one look at the prince and bowed.

  Remi pushed him out of the way and stepped inside. There was nothing—no buzz, no hint of magic. He nodded once and headed back out into the sunshine.

  ‘I like her,’ the soldier said as they continued on.

  The city itself was quiet, and Remi wasn’t going to engage the man in conversation. There were guards on the prin
cess and, although he had a hunter nearby, he didn’t want Hui Te-Sze around her. Yet the man made sure he was close. Remi might have been nervous, but he didn’t want him stepping in and killing her just because he thought the prince should.

  ‘Everything she has done is to please you,’ the man continued, and Remi stopped.

  ‘Are you another one of her men?’ he asked, drawing out the last word.

  The guard looked hurt for a moment before his features changed. Remi could feel the anger radiating from him. ‘You don’t listen very well, do you, Your Highness?’ Without looking at the prince, he continued ahead of him.

  Everyone seemed to be drawn to this girl. This woman, he thought as he imagined her slender body getting out of the pool. He stopped himself then, remembering the dark, rotting flesh on her stomach, the black veins spidering out across her skin.

  He had done that to her. He had pushed his hatred on her. And despite his fears, he had wrapped himself around her that night, holding her close and wishing with everything he had that she would recover.

  The soldier glanced back at him and then refocused ahead of him. ‘Where to?’ he asked.

  Remi wanted to go to Lis, to check that she hadn’t fallen back into her stubborn ways. She had eaten breakfast and looked brighter, and he had left very detailed instructions for Mu-Phi to ensure she improved.

  ‘The prison,’ he sighed. ‘I don’t think we will break them, but I’m enjoying trying.’

  The smell of burnt flesh met them as they entered the prison gate, and the soldier ran ahead into the building. Remi looked around the destruction of the prison entrance. Swords and spears lay about, with several badly burnt bodies in the middle of the path. He only guessed they were soldiers from the remains of their armour.

  A groan drew his attention to another soldier, leaning amidst the shadows of the wall. The hunter. His shoulder and neck were badly burned. The armour was peeled away, the gore exposed.

  Remi stepped forward, and the man moaned. He dropped to his knees and pushed his fingers to the other side of the man’s neck. A weak movement pulsed beneath his fingers. ‘We need a healer!’ he cried, but no one came.

  He raced inside the prison to find a similar situation. Men charred and injured. The other guard who had run ahead was moving between bodies and cells.

  ‘What has happened?’ Remi called.

  ‘They are gone,’ the soldier called back. ‘All of them have burned their way out of their cells.’

  Remi ran towards his voice to find the bars bent and broken. The straw that had lined the floor of most of the cells had been burnt to ash. He ran a hand over his face and through his hair, wisps of it falling from his neat bun and brushing against his face.

  ‘We should have killed them,’ the soldier said.

  Remi nodded. He had wanted information. He had wanted answers as to who they were, what had happened to his brother, and why they were still so determined to kill Lis. But he wouldn’t get those answers now, and more men had died.

  ‘Get healers,’ he said and turned on his heel.

  ‘Your Highness,’ the soldier said to Remi’s back. ‘Good luck with the emperor.’

  Remi nodded rather than answered. He was just thankful his father didn’t know the truth about Lis and the others like her. Although, as he headed out past the destruction of the prison, Remi wondered if perhaps he should.

  As Remi ran towards the throne room and his father, his mind racing with what he would say and what he should say, he slowed and then stopped. Moving ahead of him through the crowd was Mu-Phi. She strolled along the street, her hands moving easily at her sides as she looked at the people and stalls around her. She continued on her way, unaware of him watching her.

  He glanced back towards the way she would have come, from Lis’s little palace tucked away in a corner of the island. The hidden princess was meant to be hidden and so no one had questioned her disappearance. Everyone assumed she had resumed her place, particularly after the royal residence was destroyed.

  Remi looked that way, saddened by the gap it had left on the skyline. He returned his gaze to where Mu-Phi was walking to find she had disappeared into the crowd. Why would she leave Lis when he had given her such strict instructions not to?

  He had to talk with the emperor first; then he could check on Lis and ensure nothing was amiss. The healer at least would be with her.

  He leapt up the steps two at a time and pushed into his father’s study despite the guard trying to stand in his way. Two advisors stood before him. Remi slowed but continued walking into the room as they spoke.

  ‘If he has found a way to protect us, then I have no issue with this. And of course, he is to be trusted.’

  ‘But they cannot,’ the other man added. The emperor nodded slowly and then looked up at his son.

  ‘We are in conference,’ he said.

  ‘It is important,’ Remi said, bowing low to the emperor.

  ‘So is this,’ the emperor said, and Remi maintained his lowered position.

  ‘You are keeping those magics in check?’ the first advisor asked, and Remi straightened with a sigh.

  ‘What is it?’ the emperor asked.

  One of the advisors physically paled, and Remi knew he would pay for what he was about to say. ‘There has been an incident at the prison.’

  The emperor waited as one of the advisors let out a squeak.

  ‘They have broken out. The guards have been seriously injured or killed—the prison is a mess.’

  ‘Escaped,’ one breathed.

  ‘How could you let this happen?’ the emperor asked, his voice dangerously level. ‘You spend too much time fussing over the hidden princess when you have work to do. You are distracted.’ He pointed a finger at Remi. ‘You forget what you are.’

  ‘I can’t forget what I am,’ Remi snapped, then bowed before his father with his head to the floor. ‘Please forgive me. I thought I could contain them.’

  ‘And they are now free to wreck destruction on the Empire again. I will have no more of it. Hunter or not, you are the crown prince first. You must focus on the Empire and its needs before anything else.’

  ‘I do,’ Remi started, but the emperor held up his hand.

  ‘No more excuses. The next one we come across with magic, no matter their station or benefit to the empire, or even the information they may be able to impart, is to die.’

  Remi touched his head to the floor again before his father.

  ‘Go.’

  Remi scrambled to his feet and raced from the room. He was fuming. His father wasn’t going to listen to anything he might be able to share. And again, they would learn nothing that could help them in this fight. They would be left surrounded by those with magic they couldn’t sense.

  Perhaps Lis knew more than she had said. Maybe she knew others and… She had been just as shaken at the idea of what had happened and what they’d claimed she was. Or had she lied to him?

  There had to be a way to track them down. He made it to the top of the steps when another advisor raced towards him, arms filled with books and reports.

  ‘Have you set up an office with your father?’ he asked.

  Remi shook his head.

  ‘I need to talk with you on a number of issues.’

  ‘It will have to wait,’ Remi said, starting down the steps.

  ‘Can the people wait?’ the advisor asked.

  Remi stopped and returned to the top of the steps. ‘I have a small palace towards the wall. Walk with me and discuss your issues, and I can tell my man where you can leave your reports.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Highness,’ the advisor said, bowing low and nearly losing half the reports in his arms.

  Remi took some of the top ones from him and led the way. They were all the same sort of report, someone wanting something he either couldn’t give or didn’t think very important. He shuffled what he had in his hand and stopped. This report was from the Imperial Healer, and he flipped it open as they walked. The r
eport mentioned Healer Yang, a young, talented healer who worked beyond his expectations with the hidden princess. Although the Imperial Healer wondered if there was not something unnatural occurring, as she was not recovering.

  Remi stopped reading and turned to the advisor. ‘I want to see the Imperial Healer,’ he said. The man tried not to look frustrated as he pointed them in a different direction. Remi barely paid attention to where they walked as he followed.

  The report then continued in a very different vein; the Imperial Healer was also worried for the empress. A long-term illness had taken its toll on her health, and she hadn’t appeared to be recovering. Then she had started to improve dramatically in line with the destruction of the royal residence. The Imperial Healer wondered at the miracle. He expressed concern again that there was something unnatural working in the palace.

  More likely to be the priestess, Remi thought.

  As they walked through the healer’s workrooms, he was overwhelmed by the spices and herbs that surrounded him. They almost blunted his senses, and he wondered if something could be done to prevent the hunters from hunting.

  He followed the advisor through the main door into a smaller office, although large for the station of a healer. Remi pushed the reports he had in his hand into the already full arms of the advisor.

  The Imperial Healer sat behind the desk, and Healer Yang sat on a stool to the side. Remi stopped and looked at him. ‘What is going on?’ he asked, his frustration preventing any appropriate form of greeting.

  ‘You have received my report,’ the Imperial Healer said, standing and bowing to Remi.

  Remi nodded once.

  ‘Your Highness, it appears that much has changed in the days since I wrote to you. I am assured by the empress that the hidden princess is much better than when I saw her myself. And we work to find a way to treat her better.’ He indicated Yang. ‘We shall work together.’

  ‘Why are you not with the princess?’ Remi asked, hoping his voice didn’t sound as strained as the rest of him felt.