by Kaylin Lee
Bri looked up from slathering butter on a thick, crusty slice of bread. “I think everyone has heard by now. The gate guards must have leaked the news. It’s all any of the Sentinels and trackers can talk about. But everyone is saying something different.”
“Like that it’s a preventative tonic that stops you from wanting aurae in the first place,” Alba offered. “Or that it stops aurae from having any effect. But I just don’t understand why. Why would the Wolves come all the way here just to help us? Aren’t they … well, I know they’re in charge of the Draician government or something, but mom said the Wolves are pretty bad, right?”
“They came for money, silly.” Bri rolled her eyes. “Not out of the goodness of their hearts. They probably heard how terrible things have gotten here, and they think we’re desperate enough to pay any price for help.”
What if we were? I kept the depressing thought to myself and quietly finished my breakfast instead.
~
The plain, dark-gray dress was common, through and through. I fingered the coarse, unremarkable fabric. Why did it look so familiar? “Prince Estevan sent this?” I glanced at Cole. “Why?”
Cole said nothing but held out a folded slip of paper with one hand.
I took it and opened it.
You offered to be an ally. Listen and observe only. Do NOT draw their attention. —E
“You’re to wear this to the throne room,” Cole said quietly. “And enter with the other members of his staff when Prince Estevan meets with the Wolves. The dress will match the uniforms the other advisors wear.”
I felt my eyebrows creep up. “He’s really letting me attend the meeting?”
Cole didn’t look pleased. “Yes.”
“I get to leave the palace basement for this, don’t I?” I couldn’t help the smile that pulled at my lips.
“You do, my lady.” Cole scowled. “But there will be an armed escort by your side at all times.”
“That’s fine.” My smile spread wider, and though I was exhausted from a sleepless night, the jitters in my stomach made me giddy with excitement. “When do we leave?”
“Now.”
I shut Cole out of the room, threw the dress on, and twisted my hair up as neatly as I could, tucking the frizziest strands tightly into the bun and jabbing them with a few haphazard pins. I stood in front of the mirror for one last confirmation that I looked respectable enough to be a cabinet member. My eyes were bloodshot. My hair was far too unruly. But the plain dress made me look dapper enough to pass for staff, I hoped.
“If only my sisters could see me now, hoping I looked good enough to pass for one of Prince Estevan’s staff. Jade would die laughing.”
I was still smiling at the thought when I left my room and followed Cole through the labyrinth of Sentinels offices, up the stairs, and into the east wing of the palace.
Whatever the meeting with the Wolves would reveal, at least I was out of my room and out of that dark, windowless basement. I would enjoy every glorious second of it.
The throne room was toward the end of the east wing, near the grand public entrance to the palace. Cole and two other Sentinels walked with me to the entrance, where Damon, the Mage Division liaison, waited for me.
“Hello, Lady Belle,” Damon said, offering me a respectful bow and a slightly less honorable, more flirtatious smile.
Beside me, Cole grunted as I smiled in return. “Damon. Very nice to see you again.”
He held out his arm. “Let’s enter now,” he said. “The Wolves will be ushered in shortly, and Prince Estevan not long after that.” He winked. “Depending on how long he decides to make them wait.”
“I hope he lets them simmer for at least a decently uncomfortable time,” I murmured, taking his arm. “It’s his palace, after all.”
Damon laughed. “I knew I liked you.”
The throne room was opulent and imposing, befitting an ancient seat of victory for the battle-scarred leader who’d led the original founding families to victory hundreds of years ago.
I glanced around the room as Damon led me to a seating area where other staff members waited in silence. Tall windows lined one wall. A series of glowing, lavishly-carved luminous chandeliers lit the room from the ceiling—not the extravagant, shimmering chandeliers of the palace ballroom, but bright fixtures with strong lines that lit the room with a nearly over-powering golden light.
The floor was shining, polished wood. The walls were decorated with tapestries of battles won and mages subdued. Along the walls, lines of armed royal guards stood in fine red uniforms, their bodies straight and tall.
Gold hangings and statues set with glittering jewels adorned the royal platform and the wall behind it. The royal throne stood empty at the front and center of the bright, silent room. In stark contrast to the wealth and finery of the rest of the throne room, the throne itself was carved simply and powerfully from ancient wood, with rough, plain lines and an imposing breadth and height.
Legend had it that the city founders had carved the throne for the first king with their own hands and their own knives, a humble act of submission to their new king and a declaration that Asylia’s power rested on victorious Fenra blades, not the magic of Kireth mages.
How far had we drifted from their original vision for the city? Had the founders truly intended to enslave mages for hundreds of years, until the whole city, from the lowest commoner to the most elite Procus lord, was utterly dependent on magic for survival?
I sighed and shook my head slightly as I looked away from the ancient throne. What did it matter? We were here now. And thanks to aurae, we had bigger problems than mages to worry about.
Chairs scraped as Damon and I sat down in the third row of staff sitting behind the throne. Andres waved, and Ferris sent me a solemn nod of acknowledgement. The other staff ignored us. Some tapped pencils on small notepads. Others flicked invisible specks of lint off their neat, common suits. A few looked worried, but the rest gave no hint of their emotions.
What ministries did these calm, stone-faced men and women represent? If I hadn’t known that Damon and his fellow civil servants were passionate and devoted to their jobs, I would have assumed that the whole lot of them were simply bored, plainly-clad courtiers.
But I’d seen Damon, Andres, and Ferris in action, locked in fierce debates with the prince himself, dedicated to furthering their work and developing the city. If they were so devoted, what about these people? Perhaps they were schooling their features to avoid giving the Wolves any advantage in the audience with Estevan.
I squared my shoulders and copied their emotionless, bored expressions. Don’t draw their attention, Estevan had said. I’d do my best to fade into the background and be the asset I’d promised Estevan I would be.
A moment later, a flurry of hard footsteps echoed in the hallway outside, and we stood along with the rest of the staff as the Wolves’ delegation entered the throne room.
Five men shouldered past the palace guards that opened the doors, and their stony expressions didn’t waver when they stopped in front of Estevan’s empty throne.
Each man wore a well-tailored, three-piece suit of thick, black, mage-craft fabric. Their hair was black and slicked back, and they wore barbaric necklaces made of teeth around their necks.
The man at the center of the group scanned the room, his gaze catching on me before moving past, so quickly I could have imagined it. He was older, perhaps Zel’s age, and broad-shouldered, but of average height and slightly paunchy.
Flanking him were two taller, younger men, around Estevan’s age, if I had to guess. Their eyes flicked around the room and they held their bodies with intensity, as though ready for the slightest threat. Another pair of men stood behind the three men in front. One was older, with an easy, arrogant smile, seemingly amused by the empty throne at the center of the room. The other couldn’t have been older than me, his expression blank, his posture neutral, and his body too still to be trusted. I narrowed my eyes. What was he hidi
ng? No one could be so opaque and difficult to read without considerable effort.
Damon nudged me, and then jerked his head toward the man on the other side of the group—the one with the strange smile. The man was watching me with an ugly smirk, and when he met my eyes, he winked before turning his attention back to the throne. I couldn’t help the shiver that rushed down my back.
“You know him from somewhere?” Damon murmured under his breath.
“No,” I whispered, just as quietly. “Never seen him before.”
“Well, he sure seems to know you.” Damon tapped his pencil against his knee and let out a frustrated breath. “You were supposed to avoid their notice. His Majesty won’t be—”
“I know,” I interjected quietly. “Perhaps it’s nothing.”
Damon frowned. “Maybe we should—”
“Ahem …”
We looked up from our hushed argument as Tolos cleared his throat from a single door at the back of the room. “His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Estevan of Asylia.”
I knelt along with the staff, and when Estevan entered and nodded to us, we stood.
The Wolves offered shallow bows, straightening almost as quickly as they’d bent, and the obvious slight made a sick feeling rise in my stomach. If relations were this tense between our cities when we were at peace, how would it be if Asylia and Draicia were in open hostility?
Silence gripped the room, making me afraid to breathe as Estevan took his throne and gestured for his staff to sit. After the scraping of chairs and rustling of thick, common uniform fabrics, Estevan planted his hands on his knees and stared down at the Wolves with an inscrutable expression. “Welcome to our city,” he said, his tone of voice indicating otherwise. “To what do we owe the honor, Praetor Demetrius?”
The older man in the center of the group smiled slightly, a ghost of a movement that disappeared almost immediately. “We have a mutual enemy, Prince Estevan.”
Was it my imagination, or did he place a slight emphasis on the word prince? Estevan’s eyes tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Which enemy do you mean?” The warning tone in Estevan’s voice made me wonder if he, too, was considering whether the Wolves intended Draicia to be our enemy.
“Aurae, young prince.” This time, Praetor Demetrius’s smile was wide, but icy. “The essence has overtaken our city, and yours as well, or so we hear.”
The praetor paused, but Estevan didn’t answer. He only stared down at the man in cold, unreadable silence. The uncomfortable tension in the room made it difficult to breathe.
The Draician leader shifted on his feet but continued, undeterred by Estevan’s silence. “We know many lowborn commoners have suffered in the years since the Western plague reached our cities. They’ve sought solace and escape in aurae, but the essence was not without its own price—the risk of overuse. For years, we sought to curtail aurae’s spread in Draicia, but whatever measures we took to protect the Draician people, aurae always found its way back into the city once again.”
He spoke smoothly, with a deep, confident voice and practiced words, but the youngest man in the group tensed just slightly at his words, making me wonder once again what he was so intent on hiding.
“This year, we adopted a new strategy,” said Praetor Demetrius. “Rather than trying to stop our citizens from losing their lives to aurae, we sought a cure for aurae—a new essence, one with the same effect, but that would be safe and healthy to use, no matter how much one might consume.”
Had they actually managed to create such a thing? How could they, when no one knew who was responsible for creating and selling aurae in the first place?
I glanced at Estevan, but he remained silent.
“We are here because we have succeeded.” The Wolf clan leader jerked his head toward the young man waiting behind him, who walked back to the door and exited the room. When he returned, he was hauling a thin, unkempt man along behind him.
I barely managed to keep from gasping aloud. The newcomer’s skin glowed with a steady silver halo, so bright it was difficult to look at him. As the young Wolf pulled him to the center of the throne room, the air tingled with a sizzling tightness that was painful against my skin.
I couldn’t look away from that silver glow. The same light had shone under Jade’s door the night before my arrest, but this was significantly stronger.
The glowing man was oblivious to the throne room scene. He swayed beside the young Wolf as though in a trance, his expression one of complete calm and peace. The steady acceptance in his countenance made me ill. The Wolves’ puppet was obviously starving, and poorly clothed for winter. Anything that made him happy with his predicament couldn’t be a good thing.
Praetor Demetrius held up a tiny glass vial. “Here it is, Prince Estevan. The cure created by the mages in our clan. It’s stronger than aurae, and yet completely safe to use. Please allow me to demonstrate.” He grabbed the glowing silver man, pulled him to his side, unstopped the vial, and held it right in front of his victim’s face.
The poor man’s face glowed more strongly, and his legs buckled. Only the rough grip of the young Wolf on his other side kept him upright.
If I had thought the aurae user’s face reflected peace before, now it was empty. Blank. Gone. Whatever had been left of the man’s brain had switched off.
The silver light emanating from his skin strengthened until I had to look away. Spots floated before my eyes, and I blinked to clear them. Still, the Wolf leader didn’t move the vial.
Beside me, Damon shifted, obviously uncomfortable.
“What’s he doing?” I whispered.
“He’s giving him a lethal dose,” Damon hissed. “A single breath of aurae is enough to last hours, and he’s been breathing it for at least a minute now.” He clenched his pencil and paper in his fists. “I can’t believe they would—”
“Enough.” Estevan stood up, his features harsh. “You’ve made your point.”
The Wolf leader laughed once as he returned the stopper and dropped the vial back into his coat pocket. He stepped away, allowing the younger Wolf to haul the limp, blank-faced man a few steps back. “Don’t worry, Prince,” he said smoothly. “The man won’t die. He’ll enjoy his blissful state for a few extra days, and when it wears off, he’ll be as healthy and whole as he was when he began.”
I swallowed back bile. Healthy and whole? As healthy as anyone could be after they’d gone several days without food, I was guessing, or even taking care of basic human needs, based on his appearance. This was no kind of solution to the aurae problem.
“Our mages call it questus, Your Highness. And we’d be happy to offer you a special price. Your city is suffering just as ours is, after all, and lives are at stake.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his thick, black mage-craft slacks. “Then again, how can one put a price on the survival of one’s city? The lives of our citizens are truly priceless, wouldn’t you agree?”
Chapter 29
“That went well,” Damon muttered after Estevan left the throne room.
“Indeed. The Wolves are quite generous, are they not?” I couldn’t help staring after the Wolves through the open door as they hauled away the thin, glowing man. He bumped along with limping, shuffling steps, his skinny arm twisted in the young Wolf’s rough grip.
Damon cleared his throat. “We might as well get down to the Sentinels’ offices now. His Highness will want to speak to us soon, I imagine.”
I nodded and followed Damon out the main door. The Wolves were huddled just outside, the youngest one struggling to get the glowing man to stand upright. My steps slowed as Damon headed toward the stairs.
The Wolf with the ugly smile winked at me again. “Lady Belle Argentarius. “Slumming with the little prince,” he said. “I wonder what your father would think of you now.”
I tensed. Damon and Cole were several steps away, their backs turned.
“How did you—”
“Back away.” Cole hurried to my side, his weap
on out, his face set in a menacing glare. “Now.”
“Let’s go, Andrei.” Praetor Demetrius ignored Cole and smiled thinly at me from behind the Wolf who’d approached me. “We have our own business in Asylia.”
Damon came to my other side as the Wolves left us. “You were supposed to avoid—”
“I know! Just drop it, will you?”
Cole frowned at their departing backs. “Do they know who you are?”
I rubbed my arms. I wonder what your father would think of you now. If Estevan knew the Wolves had identified me, he’d never let me try my plan. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
We walked back to the Sentinels’ offices in tense silence as residual guilt soured in my mouth. I hadn’t even hesitated when I lied to Cole. Why would I? There was no guarantee the Wolves would tell my father they’d seen me. They had other business to worry about, didn’t they?
It was worth the risk. Nothing could stop me from getting back to the bank and finding the evidence I’d been hunting for two years.
~
“Our citizens’ lives are invaluable, of course, but—”
“There should be no ‘but’! Hundreds died of aurae yesterday alone, and how many more citizens will we lose if we don’t act now? We must—”
“The Wolves can’t be trusted! They’re little more than common criminals. You saw how they treated that poor man. Whatever they’re offering, it’s not worth the risk—”
“Quiet!” Estevan glared at us from across his desk.
I shut my mouth and leaned back in my chair in Estevan’s office, my heart racing. I couldn’t stop seeing the glowing aurae man being led away by the Wolves as they left the palace.
Damon, Andres, and Ferris sat back as well, looking properly chastised.
“That’s better.” Estevan returned to his seat. “One at a time. Belle, you first.”
I cleared my throat. “Questus is not a solution. It may save lives, but can we really say that living in a numb, silver haze is truly living? Besides, if everyone who tries questus is as far gone as that man, they’ll starve to death. They’ll be helpless, unable to care for themselves or their families, and it will have the same impact on Asylia as regular aurae.” I crossed my arms, suddenly cold. “I don’t know what the Wolves are doing here, but I highly doubt it’s to help us. Because that is not any kind of a solution.”