by Becky James
“Ellesmere,” Luc said slowly, with that nasty smile. “Well met.”
“Luc.” She looked up at me. Real fear tinged her beautiful blue eyes.
“Your Majesty. I’m ready to report,” I said quickly.
“You can call her Aunty,” Luc said.
Ellesmere let go and backed away from me. I shot a glare at Luc. Slowly, because it hurt, and using the chair back as leverage to help, I got down on one knee. “Your Majesty. I’m ready to report.” I willed her to see the sincerity in my eyes.
I felt her brush my mind and she relaxed, her relieved smile lifting my heart. “Go ahead, Shardsson dear.” She took my hand to help me stand, but I had to let go to pull myself up on the chair. “Sit, please. You’re hurt again. What happened?”
Forcing myself to stillness, inside and out, I began my report. “Aubin has Evyn. He seemed to be coming back to himself and Tuniel Journey Mage took the chains off him. I should have anticipated that, and I’m sorry. Tuniel is unconscious in her rooms. She needs attention—”
“She has been found, and she has since woken. Please go on.”
I hesitated. “Is she alright? The blow to her head looked serious.”
Ellesmere’s eyes danced. “She is hale and well. We will see her shortly. She is out on the search for you and will return now that I’ve informed her you are here.”
“She is? Well.” I quickly moved on. “Aubin took Evyn hostage and attempted to coerce her to create a portal to Earth. I tried to neutralise him.” Ellesmere’s lips thinned, and I stared over her head, my stomach twisting with regret. “Evyn didn’t like that, so she pinged them through. I followed, but the portal happened to be in the path of a car beast. I got hit.”
“And James was the first responder to the incident,” Luc said smoothly, turning from the window and locking his hands behind his back. “How lucky for us all. Earthian analgesics do not mesh well with Oberrotian physiology.”
“They decided to take me to their home and question me.” I glanced at Luc. “I think I managed to hold my own, right?”
“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m impressed,” he said with a neutral expression.
That would have to do. “I want Luc to take me to the ping-through place on Earth for the MasterMage’s Palais. That has to be where Aubin is headed.”
Ellesmere regarded me sadly. “We are not ready to confront Waker yet. I need to destabilise Torgund further. He is hiding behind Rogan, telling the lords that I am seeking power for myself. As I am a mage, there are questions surrounding my loyalty that have never properly been voiced while I stood at Gough’s side. Alone, it seems, I am suspect.” She smoothed her skirts, her hand trembling. “Torgund is keeping a firm grasp on Special Forces as well. There are enough men there swayed by his claim to prevent the others from rebelling to follow me, and so far, any rebels have been dealt with harshly. I do not want to lose more loyal men and women.”
I gripped that fancy chairback, the only thing keeping me upright. “Who have we lost?” I croaked.
Ellesmere hesitated, then went to the desk, opening a drawer and removing thick parchment with a rustle. My chest hurt. It sounded like a large sheet, and it was, when Ellesmere held it out to me. I scanned the names, words leaping and letters hiding just as they always had, but the main identification dots were also listed. Feverishly I took in all the names of men and women I would never see again – Lori amongst them, much to the sinking of my heart – the litany of names too long, too painful. Missing were Aleric and Gavain’s designations, so that salved the pain somewhat at least.
I bowed my head. “Shortly, Aubin is going to deliver Evyn to Waker. I can’t allow that. Waker hates her. We can’t afford to wait or expect any kind of negotiation. Waker will kill her.” My heart hammered in my chest, my hands feeling the wood give.
Ellesmere touched my hand, and with an effort I eased back from strangling the wood into submission. She spoke quietly. “You will have to intercept Aubin on his way to the Palais. Tuniel is the Finder in their pair, and she has expressed that she would recover Aubin before he reaches the Palais as well.”
Ellesmere turned to Luc. “And what is your part in this?”
Luc studied her. “I am a doorman, it seems. Shardsson believes travelling via Earth is quicker than Oberrot.”
“And you would do that for him?”
He smiled. “Not for free.” I hoped I didn’t look like that when I smiled. My stomach churned at the thought of the blood tie we shared. “Upon meeting Shardsson here, Waker made the connection between us. She will be curious; it would not benefit you if I involved myself directly. However, she has clearly attacked the royal family. I wanted to know what you were proposing to do about that.”
Ellesmere inclined her head. “Rogan and I separately would petition her for the release of the king. If that does not succeed, then I will have to take him back by force and supplant Waker.”
“A new Master of all Mages and Mancers?” Luc tapped his lip.
Recalling the other group we had met in the dreamlands, I remembered that a Luc MasterMancer had stepped in as their nightmarish creation. In their alt-history, he was a fearsome figure.
He had also probably killed their Waker to get to his position.
“If you were going to kill Waker, how would you do it?” I asked him. “Just as a thought exercise.”
Luc raised an eyebrow. “And become MasterMancer? Absolutely not.”
Ellesmere placed her hands on the desk, setting out the facts slowly. “Waker has attacked the royals and broken the Accords because she wanted Rose, and it may be that Waker wants the secrets for how to get to Earth. Rose is probably under extreme duress; if she gets those secrets, Waker could take the mancers and mages and invade.”
“And they would have the whole of Earth enslaved by the end of the turn.” Luc’s eyes flashed. Ellesmere slowly nodded. “Mm. Then it seems our interests are aligned.” Luc snapped his fingers. “Come along. Thorrn, was it? Let’s pick up your inamarata and go kill a MasterMage.”
“Who – Tuniel?” I spluttered. “She’s not my, I mean, she’s a mage! I can’t have a mage that close to my Earthian soul!”
Luc sneered. “Right. Of course. Because young love is sensible like that.”
“It is when it’s of dire importance, as in, fatal!” I growled. “And it’s Shardsson. Thorrn Shardsson.”
Luc smiled. “Yes. I know.”
Tuniel arrived back just as I was getting healed up by Ellesmere’s medimancers. The Journey Mage of Stone harangued them, asking what was taking so long, then dragged me to one side to fire questions at me about where Aubin went, how he got to Earth and what he did. I preferred Luc and James’s attempt at interrogation rather than the steel grey sharpness of her eyes.
She scowled when I admitted I had attempted to neutralise Aubin. “He’s not himself! How could you?”
“Because he’s not himself. He seemed to be getting back to us, but he tricked us. He’s clearly not on our side anymore. Waker has snared him deep with this mind-bending. He might never find his way back out of it. Meanwhile he had my soul, and he drew blood.” Looking away at the corridor I said, “It’s not as if I wanted to. I would have hated to do it.”
That admission seemed to flummox her. I ventured to glance at her. Her stance still bristled, but her stone eyes studied mine.
She spoke quietly. “I saw it too, of course. Aubin’s memories of you, when he was forced to treat the symptoms rather than the root of your malaise.”
My stomach clenched, remembering the small boy sobbing on his bunk. Of course Evyn and Tuniel saw it too, and Ellesmere as well! Locking my gaze back at the wall I muttered, “It was a long time ago, I was a boy, and I… I am a swordsman now and I can do what must be done.” My skin heated, boiling with shame, the tattoos burning on my flesh. “I swore to the tenets and I uphold them, even when it costs me.”
Tuniel turned her head slightly. “Is that why you are here now rather than obediently
following Torgund?”
The surge of warmth from my skin flooded to my face.
I had sworn to the core tenets – to obey to live, to live to obey – but I searched my heart. All I could be sure of was when I had sworn to the core tenet, to obey the royal family at the cost of my code and with my very life, my heart had sworn to the underlying justice and fairness they represented, not solely the royal family.
Torgund did not represent that for me. I could break the first tenet, and I knew that to be right in my heart.
Tuniel’s voice was so gentle I had to look up to confirm it was her I still faced. “And I know, and Aubin knows, that you hold to not killing unless you have to.”
Her eyes were unfathomable but less stony, less hard.
“Sometimes… I have to,” I whispered. “Tuniel, he hurt you. It is anathema to hurt your own soul—”
She snorted. “Mages and mancers do it.”
“They just kill them the once and have done with it, they don’t batter them. How is your head, by the way?”
She touched the side of her face, healed now but for the memories. “It’s fine. I’m fine. I need to get my soul back.” She bit her lip, and it was her turn to look away. “You understand.”
I nodded. “We are going to get them back. And I will do everything I can to help Aubin come back to you, for yours and my soul’s sake. But if it looks like he’ll hurt Evyn, then I will have no choice.”
“It won’t come to that.” She folded her arms tightly around her chest. “I know him better than he knows himself. He won’t be able to hurt her or even deliver her to Waker. He knows that will be death for her, or as near enough to make no difference. He will not go through with it.” She fixed me with a glare.
Every beat of my heart rocked me. She had better be right. She knew her soul companion best, after all, but he was so twisted and changed…
She took a step toward me into my guard. Reflexively I put my hand on my sword, finding nothing, but it was so like my dream that for precious heartbeats I was frozen, staring at her parting lips.
“You swore not to kill,” she breathed, and the soft words unravelled me.
“I… when I was younger. When I was untried and untested, unable to see the world as it was and what was needed to protect people.” I dug my nails into my palms. “Later on, I reconciled to the fact that… that violence was needed to prevent other violence, but… I…” I bit my tongue to stop my babbling, because this skirted close to the edge of what I had sworn in my heart and what I had said, the words that I promised to myself and promised aloud, and they were different. “Back then… when I was younger, fresh from waking up to a harsh reality, I swore it to myself and I meant it. I modified it when I got older but… every time I take a life, part of me feels like I am breaking my code,” I admitted quietly to her.
It was the small part of me, the boy curled up on the bed, unable to believe the harsh reality of life, but still a driving part of me. I had to balance what I felt I could do with what I felt needed to be done. I had not even said as much to Evyn.
Her eyes hardened. “So, you decided to be like all the other brutish oafs,” she snapped.
I took a step away, pulling back as her words rang and echoed around us in the corridor. Swallowing hard, flexing my hands, I gave her a curt nod.
She frowned as if expecting more argument from me, but then looked angry, as if not arguing was somehow my fault as well. “Now.” Her voice was soft again, but I had learnt not to trust that. “What is your current thinking on how to go about this?”
“We can follow them to Earth. There’s a… I guess you could say, a relative of mine,” I said, the words monotone.
She looked between my eyes, her brow furrowed. My scalp prickled, warm. Her eyes softened, and she opened her mouth to speak.
“Shardsson. Are you ready yet?” Luc approached.
Tuniel looked back and forth between us, eyes widening. Luc inclined his head and made a hand gesture, and Tuniel returned a different one. “Journey Mage of Stone. Well met,” Luc said.
“Well met, mancer,” she replied coolly back.
“I will retrieve my sword. I’ll return momentarily.” Turning smartly, I left them to talk, reeling as much from my own revelation as the conversation.
I patted my right forearm, above the tattoos, where what I had sworn was etched on my skin as much as it was etched onto my heart. Breaking one of my codes felt like tearing a tattoo off. Worse, perhaps.
How could the others in Special Forces bear it? How could they break their code? Or did they even have a code like mine? Perhaps I was too soft-hearted, and I was the only one with a code not to kill unless I had to. We discussed our code with the captain and second-in-command, not necessarily our contingent as we all muddled through it. Gavain and Aleric knew my code, as I knew theirs, and Shard had helped us hone them. Special Forces had to swear to put all our myriad codes aside when the king ordered it.
It didn’t matter what I had sworn to do personally. If Gough ordered it, I would have to gainsay myself. But had I known what that would feel like before? Properly?
Maybe it was easier for me to break the first tenet; I felt I broke my code whenever I took a life, whether I believed it was necessary or not.
Head whirling, I went to our rooms. Ellesmere was waiting there, and I rapped off a salute. She smiled at me. “Go well, Thorrn. Bring Evyn back to us, but avoid Waker if you can. We will deal with her quickly to get Gough and Rose back, but now is not the time. I want Special Forces wholeheartedly behind me to face her.”
Hands grasping the familiar shape and weight, I buckled my father’s sword back into place, nodding to confirm orders. “You have me, Your Majesty, for all time. I live to serve you and Gough.” I saluted again, and I meant every word.
Smiling, she hugged me around the waist. I let my hand drop from above my heart to touch her shoulder gently. “You know,” she said in my mind, “if you wanted family, I would be happy to call you nephew in private.”
“I have a family, Your Majesty,” I returned, “although I appreciate the sentiment.”
“I’m very proud of you, Thorrn. I know Gough and your father would say the same.”
My heart swelled. “Thank you. That’s … a high honour.”
She gave me a squeeze. “Go well.” Eyes sparkling with tears, she smiled as we parted, and I wiped my own eyes before rejoining the magic users.
Tuniel, Luc and I pinged through onto Earth with no complications except Luc’s long wait before he would deign to open the way. Lurking to one side of the pavement was the car beast that Luc had piloted when they first scraped me off the road, James within its belly. He waved when he saw Luc and stared at Tuniel.
“Hi. So, what’s the story?” James said, opening doors for us to get in.
“We are going to Cambridge,” Luc said. “I have a MasterMage to deal with.”
I had to cut him off at the pass. “Ellesmere said not to get into an engagement with her yet.”
“She meant you. I am a rogue mancer, I can do what I like.”
My stomach rolled. Corralling a rogue mancer? I did not need that added to my plate.
“And… the girl?” James asked tentatively.
I opened the back door for Tuniel and gestured for her to sit. Gathering up her skirts, she settled herself. “You are addressing Tuniel Journey Mage,” I informed James as I moved around the back of the car beast, wary of it kicking me.
“Well met,” she greeted them. I sat next to her from the other side. She looked at me askance, and I shrugged. There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go.
“Oh. Good.” James cleared his throat. “So, seatbelts on, everyone.”
“What are those?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s these straps here that go across your body there—”
I slapped his hand away. “Are these restraints? Are you trying to manacle me again?”
“Again?” Tuniel asked suspiciously.
“T
hey’re for safety. You can get them off again by pushing this button.” James pointed to the red depression in the side of the mechanism. “Look, I’m a paramedic. I see enough RTAs that we are not going anywhere unless everyone’s got their seatbelts on.” He folded his arms firmly.
“Better listen to him,” Luc said smoothly. He sat himself in the seat in front of me with a circle protruding into his space.
“Fine. But if this is a trap—” I began loudly.
“Thorrn, it’s a small piece of metal. I can deal with metal,” Tuniel assured me. I desisted, allowing James to strap me in.
Testing the limits of the restraint I was jerked to a halt, brought up short. “I cannot move around.”
James’ eyebrows lifted. “You’re not supposed to, in a car,” he said with a sigh.
I bristled. How was I to know? “Then what are we to do?”
“Read. Look out the window.”
“Listen to music.” Luc directed a device in his hands. All of a sudden, a cacophony of noise rang out around us.
“What is this?”
“Swedish House Mafia,” Luc said over the noise. He held onto the wheel in front of him, moved some levers, and we roared away.
Tuniel slowly put her hands over her ears. Meanwhile, I could imagine training to music like this. Watching the red brick buildings slide by, tracing raindrops on the window as they tracked their way down the pane, I rested my head on the back of the seat, closing my eyes for only a heartbeat.
I jumped up, hearing her screaming. Running down the corridors, sword in hand, I shouted, “Evyn! Evyn where are you?”
“Thorrn, I’m here! Help me!”
“I’m coming!” I skidded to a halt outside a door where her hands reached through the grate. Pulling the door open, my soul companion fell into my arms. “Evyn! Are you well, what’s happening?”
“I’m fine for now, but Waker has me.” My stomach plummeted. “You’re too late. You took too long, where were you?”
“Evyn, I’m so sorry. I got hit by a car beast, and…” I paused, looking carefully at my soul’s forearms. They were bare and pale in the flickering dungeon light. “A car beast, and I was knocked out.” My stomach twisted with disgust.