The Complete Enslaved Chronicles

by R. K. Thorne

  She considered his answer. Aven took a deep breath, waiting. Starlight glittered off a circlet of diamonds in her dark hair and tiny jewels on her navy gown.

  “You love this place, don’t you?” she said.

  Had he passed her test? The queen smiled down, a twinkle in her eye. “This balcony?”

  “Yes.”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Why do you think we built this terrace?”

  “Everyone says it was for the extra food source, the vegetable garden. Plus it is beautiful.”

  She smiled. “You know the official story, but your heart knows that there’s more. You don’t even grow vegetables there anymore. Why is it that you love it, Sky King?”

  He hesitated. “The sunlight.”

  She grinned. “Yes. The sunlight.” She paused, strolling toward the cherry sapling. “I ordered this terrace built. You know, our line has always included men of the earth. Mages of stone. Of diamonds. But every once in a while, there are others. Others who are strange and different and powerful. Once in many generations, we are foretold of greatness.”

  Aven shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “We were foretold of you.”

  Aven frowned. “But what— Why—”

  “I built this terrace for you.”

  “Thank you,” he said. It might have been the truest thanks he’d ever given. “But why?”

  Queen Tena just smiled. “Knowing the future is not good for mages. Knowing the future has only driven men mad. So I will tell you a little, just as I was told only a little, for the sake of our sanity. Instead, look up.”

  Aven obeyed. The moon faded to darkness as he looked up, and the stars shone brighter. For a moment his heart ached at the familiarity of it, and he longed to be back home.

  Tena approached, took his hand, and pulled him to his feet. She pointed into the sky. There, in the south, one familiar star seemed to twinkle especially brightly.

  “Do you see that star?” she whispered. “That is the star of your rule.”

  He shivered. Her words echoed the Takaran’s.

  “Casel.”

  She nodded. “The freedom star.”

  “So… I will rule someday?” Aven said, looking from the star to his great-grandmother’s eyes. They were the same gray as his own.

  “We are a line of kings. We serve our people, whether on the throne or not. We help our people, and all those who suffer oppression, on the throne or not. I do not know your future any more than you do. I only know that the star Casel calls out to you. And that there is war on your horizon.”

  War. The word rang true in his heart. Some part of him had known it was coming.

  “My brothers?”

  “They have their own beacons, in the earth, that can only be told to them.”

  Aven looked back into the sky. Casel twinkled.

  “Go now, Aven, and rest. Let the history and power of your ancestors bolster you.”

  Aven smiled and bowed to the queen even as she and the terrace faded into darkness.

  He opened his eyes. He didn’t even remember falling asleep, but he lay on his back in the inn, the fire dwindling. Mara slept beside him, breathing slowly. She lay on her side, the shoulder with the brand on it facing up. Did it hurt? Did she lie on her side so as not to aggravate it?

  She had not used the saddle chain to fix him to the bed. He glanced at the windows, hoping for a real glimpse of the stars. They, too, were webbed shut. He wouldn’t see Casel again tonight, aside from more dreams.

  The star map. Could it possibly have survived all this? His hands were free to find out. He slipped his hand down and into his pocket, and—it was there! It was crumpled and a little sweaty, but it was there. He unfolded it gingerly and studied it in the dim firelight, careful not to make a sound. Was Casel on the map?

  She was there, toward the bottom. He could not make out the notes nearby, though. One particularly clear inscription was at the top of the map near Anefin. He squinted and studied it for a while in the dimness, trying to make out the ancient, twisted Serabain. The odd little hooks, the sharp, angular glyphs. He studied it for a long while. Mages were rumored to have used Serabain in the olden days. They’d seen the same language in the temple earlier, and it was still used in some nations across the southern sea. He knew a little, but few of these words looked familiar. Many looked incomplete, as if only part of the word was there. Some letters, too, looked broken and not fully formed.

  He puzzled through it for a while until his eyes began to ache and his vision blur. He could hardly decipher it if he wasn’t alert enough to read it—and the dimness didn’t help. He’d have to keep looking for chances to study it.

  He wouldn’t show it to Mara just yet.

  He folded it back up neatly, slipped it into his pocket, and listened to her breathe. He thought of the dream. Tena’s words stuck with him—a king is a king even if he doesn’t sit on a throne. A Lanuken was always a Lanuken. He could help people and serve Akaria even if he was in shackles. He’d felt all along that he could probably do more good in these shackles than he had been able to in Estun. But the question remained—how could he best help anyone?

  His thoughts became less solid and less serious as sleep approached. He listened to the crackle of the fire and felt its warmth. Soon winter would be here; Emie would be happy about that. By the time winter came, he would likely know what lay in store for him. Questions would be answered, good or bad. The darkness of the room and the warmth of the fire reminded him of home. He missed the snowy peaks of Estun now. But even if he never returned, soon the whole world would have its coating of snow, just for Emie. He sighed and drifted off to sleep, thinking of the drifting flakes falling on the windy road that led home.

  Miara awoke with a start, the sharp and sudden knowledge that they had traveled two days from Estun at the front of her mind. That meant they were a two-day ride from home.

  Halfway. Already.

  She glanced over at Aven, closer to her than she’d expected. He was still asleep, his head resting against her shoulder softly, his body warm and close. Two day’s ride from servitude—or likely worse. The Masters couldn’t mean the same thing for him that they meant for just any other mage.

  Did they know he was a mage? She wouldn’t be the one to tell them unless they forced it out of her. Still, she had to wonder. Was she really on some kind of mission to save the world from itself, helping them hunt down all these mages in the world—no matter how powerful they were—and keep them from getting out of control? If magic really were evil, wasn’t someone like Aven exactly the last person you’d want to have a good command of it?

  She sighed, shaking her head. She couldn’t believe that even if she tried. Those bastards had no right, and that was that.

  Her eye caught on the window; the light coming in was strangely bright. She got up and brushed aside the cobwebs delicately woven over the glass. The white glare stung her eyes… snow!

  Snow? In the middle of autumn? Not unthinkable, but after all of Emie’s talk of it last night, it would be quite a coincidence. Or was it actually something else? Her eyes shot to Aven again. He was sleeping soundly. Could he have… ? Was he capable in his sleep? Of course he was capable.

  She should probably stop teaching him. She could be underestimating how quickly an adult mage could come into his powers.

  She reached over and shook him awake. His gray-green eyes grimaced, squinted, and then finally looked at her, revealing that lovely, heavenly green. She said nothing for a moment, just staring into them. Then she remembered herself abruptly.

  “Get up.”

  Ignoring her gruffness, he stretched and yawned, like it was any other morning. “I was having the strangest dream!” he said. “Several, actually. I was trudging through a snowstorm.”

  “I don’t think you know the half of it,” she said, standing up and striding over to the window for a better look. A little bit of shifting energy about, and he’s manipulating
the weather in his sleep? Gods. He was either lying or very powerful.

  Frowning, he got up and came to her side. His mouth fell open in shock.

  Emie was already outside, shaping a mound of heavy, wet snow into a heap. Three other children had joined her and were lobbing snowballs at each other’s heads. So much for caution. It might have been the loveliest snow Miara had ever seen with fat, heavy flakes swirling whimsically in a gentle wind.

  “I—I feel cold,” he stammered. “In fact, I feel freezing. Did I… ?”

  She shrugged, not completely sure.

  “Could I have? Can an air mage… ?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  He stood staring, mouth open, a twist of a smile creeping into the corner of his mouth and breaking into a grin. Looking farther, she could see that the snow hadn’t fallen everywhere; it ended a little way up the road. The coverage centered around the inn. Around Emie.

  She didn’t know whether to be frightened or awed at the sweetness of the gesture. “You better hope they don’t suspect us for this,” she muttered, halfheartedly threatening.

  He just gave her a sideways glance and an even bigger grin. He wasn’t falling for her tough act in the slightest, at least not in this moment.

  What on earth had she started? Did it really matter? Did she care? They’d be back to the Masters in a day or two, and it would all be over. How much trouble could they get into before then?

  Wouldn’t it be delightful to find out?

  Miara sat and studied her maps as they ate some porridge near the inn’s roaring hearth. The road back was disgustingly straightforward—a little to the west and a lot more to the south, and they’d be back. She hated the thought; no part of her wanted this trip to end.

  Her shoulder stabbed at her angrily. She tried to brush it off.

  Deep breath. In and out, in and out. She surveyed the room, memorizing every detail of the moment. This mission was different. This was more of an illusion of freedom than she’d had in a long time. And then there was Aven. When they arrived at Mage Hall, she’d know exactly the magnitude of what she had been forced to do. There was no point in dwelling on that now, but she was still filled with dread.

  For now, she sipped some steaming tea and watched him eat his porridge, trying not to be too obvious about it. She felt a strange, quiet peace and contentment. It couldn’t last forever, but for now she’d try to bottle it up in her mind to open up on another day, a rainier day, just to take a sniff of a memory and remember that there was at least this much good and peace in the world, that she had gotten a tiny slice of it in the midst of her pain.

  Before breakfast, she had sorted out the details of a new saddle and some items for Aven with the innkeeper. All that was left to do was ready the horses and leave. She hoped the temperature hadn’t dropped too much with Aven’s snow because she wasn’t prepared well for deep winter travel. But perhaps she should hope for the opposite, or the snow would be that much more suspicious—and melted before they were even out of town, perhaps. They finished eating and headed out to get on the road.

  As soon as she turned the corner and got a whiff of Kres, she knew something was wrong—or more specifically, Kres knew something was wrong that she didn’t. Cora, too, was shifting, antsy, nervous. In alarm, she sent her mind out in all directions just in time to feel a man running up behind her.

  But not in enough time for her to turn around before the cloth was over her mouth, his arm circling her neck, her sight fading from the white of the cloud-covered sky to darkness.

  Chapter 8

  Devotion

  When Aven came to, for a few minutes, all he could really perceive was a splitting pain in his head, a sickening rocking motion, and an awful, dry, vinegar-tasting fabric in his mouth. He wanted to groan but felt too terrible to bother. He lay on his side. His hands were bound behind him. His body was pressed between something hard behind him and something soft and warm in front of him. After a while, the pain lessened, and he felt less dizzy, so he opened his eyes.

  A few inches from his face was Mara’s. Her mouth was also bound, but her dark eyes were already open. She met his gaze. She nodded calmly to him as if to say, good, you’re awake, we can start figuring out how to get out of this mess.

  He glanced around at their surroundings, trying to distract himself from the beauty of her eyes and what he now realized was the continuous pressing of her body against his. They appeared to be in the bed of a narrow wagon meant for seating men on each side. The sides were wood, and some canvas hung over the top for shelter—or secrecy, perhaps.

  He listened as he studied their bumping, swaying prison. Mostly he could only hear horse’s hooves, but there were two men talking. At first he couldn’t make them out, then he realized—they were Takaran.

  Why would a group of Takarans kidnap two strange travelers? What could they want? Or could it have been two mages they’d been kidnapping?

  Perhaps they hadn’t heard the last of that stupid drunk yet.

  He turned his eyes back to Mara. She had shut hers. Perhaps she was resting. Her red hair was tousled. He could feel her breath hit him evenly. Was it his imagination, or could he smell the faintest jasmine or lavender on her skin? Curves pressed against him drew his thoughts… but that was not helpful. He needed to focus on something that would get them out of this, not embarrass him for all time.

  What were they saying?

  He could only catch snippets of words, and none of them were particularly useful: horse, north, grain, fifty coins, river. He glanced down toward their feet but couldn’t see much. He closed his eyes again and just listened for a while.

  Minutes or hours could have passed, or he could have fallen asleep. He wasn’t really sure. His head hurt less after a while. Little else changed.

  Do you understand anything they’re saying? she spoke into his thoughts after a while.

  He sat still, confused for a moment at how to respond.

  Air mages can’t speak like this. Only creature mages can. Just think and I’ll hear you.

  Can you always hear any of my thoughts? he tried to, well, think back at her.

  Yes. If I’m listening. But it’s not that simple. Especially if you aren’t trying to tell me something, it’s hard to sort out the thought from the noise. It can drive a mage to madness. We don’t do it without need.

  Well, no matter. He had nothing to hide.

  Everyone has something to hide.

  Oh. He hadn’t realized she would hear that. A smile crept to his lips in spite of himself. This could get interesting. I can understand some of what they’re saying, but not much. Nothing useful. Any idea who they are? he thought, perhaps to himself.

  But she was indeed listening. No. I could get us out of these bindings by shifting us, but we’d be jumping out of the wagon into who knows what. Not sure how prepared they are or if they know we’re mages or not. Could be folks from the last village told them to pursue us. But if they don’t know we’re mages, we don’t want to reveal it.

  He gritted his teeth into the gag at the thought. How could things like this go on in a civilized land? If he ever made it to the throne, he would find a way to crush these kinds of criminals.

  You are an interesting fellow.

  That thought wasn’t for you.

  It wasn’t hidden from me, either. I thought you had nothing to hide.

  He shook his head. What are we going to do? I wish I could see into your head like this. Talk about someone with something to hide.

  I never claimed to be telling you everything. What kind of kidnapper would that make me?

  Well, he thought it might make her an honest one. The thought jumped into his mind before he could stop it, and he immediately regretted it.

  Honest, perhaps. Not a very good one, though, I think.

  Thank goodness she didn’t seem offended. I’ll give you that. Kidnapping is not a talent I ever contemplated deeply. Perhaps he should have, though. He’d have to give more thought to the training o
f spies and assassins in his employ, given the latest events. Ack, military forces and their training were not the wisest things to be thinking about, that was for sure.

  I’m always the very best at whatever I do. You can be sure of it.

  There was an oddness to the words, a silly, jiggling, shaking feeling, like a thought in his own head that he thought was funny. Not laughter, not like the tone of voice she would have spoken with, but more purely that the thought shook with her amusement.

  Yes, speaking this way can be very strange. Sorry to introduce you to it now. I don’t think we should do anything yet. Let’s see where they take us. In the night, we’ll have a better chance of escape.

  He opened his eyes, and she opened hers in return. He nodded to her. She nodded gravely back.

  For now, let’s rest as best we can in this stupid contraption.

  He shut his eyes again and tried to resign himself to sleep. It was hard, with her body pressing so close to his. He didn’t want to sleep—he wanted to think about something far more interesting. He had seen the scar on her shoulder, but he’d also seen the smooth skin of her neck, her back… He longed to know its touch against his lips, to feel her hair on his face, her hands against his hands, her skin against his skin.

  But getting all amorous for her was a truly terrible idea, given their close proximity and complete lack of privacy at this point. The Code had no rules for this particular situation, but if it did, he figured the guidance would be to think about something else. And who knew when she might choose to dip into his thoughts for some idle conversation? No, it was best to keep from thinking about her neck at all costs.

  Easier said than done.

  Resting did not work. They’d gotten a decent amount of sleep, but even if they’d been exhausted, Miara wasn’t sure the damn wagon would let someone sleep in the bottom of it. It bumped and rocked her bones against the wood, and just when she thought she’d found a rhythm she could sleep to, it would lurch nauseatingly just to keep her on her toes. The arm she was lying on had long since fallen asleep and was now numb.