Agents of the Crown- The Complete Series

by Lindsay Buroker

  Jev released Zenia and stepped up to Lornysh’s side. “I’m glad you remember who I am, my friend. Earlier, you were calling me some woman’s name.”

  Lornysh sighed, his eyes barely open. “Amuzhara. She no longer lives.”

  “I’m glad I’m not her then.”

  “For a moment, I thought I might be going to join her in the Eternal Garden.”

  “You’re too young and surly to take up an afterlife of gardening.” Jev dragged over a stool and sat on it.

  “Surly?”

  “The healer assured me of it.”

  “Mm.”

  “Want some pain potion? The healer said you could have another glug.”

  Lornysh’s lips twisted. “Is that why my head is fuzzy?”

  “Maybe. Or it could be that you lost a couple of gallons of blood on the floor.”

  “There is no need to be melodramatic. The average elven body contains only approximately five-point-three liters of blood in its entirety.”

  Zenia thought about slipping out and leaving the men to their banter, but Jev smiled over at her, rolled his eyes, and mouthed, “Surly.”

  “Your female is here,” Lornysh said. “I sense her dragon tear.”

  “Yes, she is,” Jev said. “If she and her dragon tear hadn’t helped, we might both be dead.”

  “I know.”

  Jev raised his eyebrows, as if he expected Lornysh to say something else, but he fell silent.

  “That was Elvish,” Jev told her. “It translates to he appreciates your help and he’s relieved you’re in my life.”

  “Ah,” she said. “That’s good to know since I don’t speak Elvish.”

  “I’m a good translator. Have no fear.” Jev looked at Lornysh, as if he hoped his friend would crack a smile.

  Zenia hadn’t seen him smile yet, whether he was injured or not, so it would have surprised her.

  “Amuzhara was the love of my life,” Lornysh said, his eyes closed.

  Jev’s eyebrows flew up. Zenia assumed that meant this was new information to him. Or perhaps that it was shocking that Lornysh was sharing it.

  “She was also Vornzylar’s twin sister,” Lornysh said. “They were very close.”

  Jev digested that a moment before asking, “What happened?”

  “There was a fire. The tree in which her house was built burned down, and she didn’t get out in time. She died.”

  “That’s awful,” Zenia whispered, then clasped a hand over her mouth. She hadn’t meant to butt into their conversation.

  “Vornzylar believes I did it. I did not. I adored her, even after she rejected me. I investigated all around the tree and questioned everyone, in case it wasn’t an accident. But several people saw the lightning strike that started the fire. It seems it was a freak accident of nature. Or, for some unfathomable reason, the will of the gods.”

  The Taziir, Zenia recalled, believed in gods that lived in the natural world and dismissed the dragon founders as mere dragons that had died long ago.

  “Why did she reject you?” Jev asked.

  “For the same reason they all did.”

  Jev looked toward the bottle of painkiller, maybe wondering if another slug of the stuff would make his friend more likely to keep sharing. Zenia suspected the initial dose was the reason he was speaking now. Maybe he would have shared with Jev anyway, but she had a hard time believing Lornysh would, in his typical mind state, reveal anything of his past in front of her.

  “Princess Yesleva is my half-sister,” Lornysh said.

  Zenia frowned at the change in topic.

  Jev’s eyebrows flew up again. “Yesleva is King Yvelon’s daughter.”

  “Yes. And I am his son.”

  Jev’s jaw dropped.

  Lornysh opened his eyes, but not to look at either of them. He gazed at the ceiling and continued on in the tone one might use to recite a passage from a book. Or perhaps to recite a piece of history.

  “He was only Crown Prince Yvelon at the time I was born. After his wife died, he abandoned his duties for a time to mourn her. He walked the forests of Taziira for years and eventually crossed the sea and found one of the colonies of elves in Shangdalor, one believed to have been lost, but its inhabitants had merely chosen to adopt an insular existence and work on their art away from the politics of the Taziir nation.

  “There, on a small wooded island with a single mountain at its core, he found love again in the arms of an elf female. He talked her into returning to the mainland with him. Historians there researched her lineage and discovered she was a descendant of Simora, the bard and great warrior of our third century after founding. Simora was the firstborn to Emperor Hy-marishon, back when we were an empire and the rest of the races were little more than clans of people living in hide huts. The descendants of Hy-marishon were all thought to be long dead, so when it was learned that this woman—my mother—was of that line, our people decided that any offspring born to her and my father would have a greater right to rule than those born earlier to my father and his first wife. She had been his loyal love but had also been the equivalent of a commoner in your land.”

  Zenia listened intently, almost wishing she had her notepad with her. She knew little of elven history and was hearing many of these names for the first time.

  “I can’t imagine the king’s firstborn liked being replaced as heir,” Jev said.

  “Not his firstborn, second born, or third born, no,” Lornysh said, his gaze still toward the ceiling, a distant and unfocused aspect to his silver eyes. “It was actually his third born who thought to do some more research on my mother and see if it was possible the genealogists had been mistaken. By this time, I was a grown elf in training to become a warden and your people had sent their first armies to our southern shores.

  “Since my father, the king, was a mere four hundred years old, I didn’t expect to become king any time soon, nor did I even want to be his heir. I’d always thought rule should be decided based on a person’s merit and aptitude rather than blood, in a similar manner as to how the dwarves do it, but nobody cared much what I thought. At the least, few in my family listened except for my mother. My half-brothers and half-sisters were grown and traveling the world when I was a youth, so I barely knew them, but I knew they all resented me. Even my sisters, who would never have become rulers, resented that my father had taken another woman after their mother passed.”

  “So, you and Princess Yesleva aren’t close,” Jev said.

  “No. She occasionally deigned to speak with me when we crossed paths when I was young, but that was infrequent.”

  “All this means you’re a lot younger than I realized,” Jev said. “I always thought you were one of those crusty old elves of at least five hundred.”

  Lornysh snorted softly.

  “I had no idea you were a prince—the crown prince? Should I be kneeling to you? Arranging a better healing spot for you than the bed in my room?” Jev was smiling and joking, but his eyes seemed troubled when he looked over at Zenia. Maybe even bewildered. This was definitely new news to him.

  “I am nothing now.” Lornysh closed his eyes again.

  “Because you attacked your own people during the war?” Jev asked.

  Lornysh was silent again, and Zenia feared he would stop talking. Now that he’d started, she wanted to hear the whole story.

  “That came after they drove me out,” he finally said.

  “Your people kicked you out?” Jev asked. “Because of the fire?”

  “Because of what my half-brother dug up. My mother is indeed a descendant of Emperor Hy-marishon, but she is also the descendant of a half-elf traveler who visited the colony in her grandmother’s day.”

  Jev leaned back on the stool and twitched when he realized his seat didn’t have a back. “You’re part human?” he asked when he recovered.

  “My mother is one-eighth human. I am one-sixteenth.”

  “One sixteenth. Lornysh, who could possibly care about such minor dilution
?”

  “My people. And you know the word they use for it.” Lornysh met Jev’s eyes. “It’s not dilution.”

  Jev grimaced. “Sythok.” Jev looked at Zenia. “Somewhere between infection, parasite, and taint. It’s not literal. Elves like to take poetic license.”

  “The revelation made for quite an outcry, and my father was horrified. He looked at me as if he’d discovered I were three-quarters orc. My mother, the last I heard, fled back to her colony and isn’t speaking to my father. The Council of Elders revoked my right to be my father’s heir and asked me to leave.”

  “Because you’re one-sixteenth human,” Jev said, disbelief in his tone.

  “Because they deemed me unclean. You are aware that those of mixed blood are not welcome in Taziira. They are permitted to travel through the forests, as humans were before the war, but they may not live in our cities and become subjects of the king. They have no rights to inherit belongings or dwellings or hereditary positions.”

  “I knew half-elves weren’t allowed, but I didn’t realize… by the founders, Lornysh. One-sixteenth. Do you even have any human traits? I’ve certainly never noticed any.”

  “Thank you.” Lornysh sounded genuinely pleased, though it was short-lived. He closed his eyes again. “I was angry and felt it unjust. I didn’t care about being the king’s heir—I was even relieved when that announcement was made.”

  “I can imagine,” Jev murmured, and Zenia knew he was thinking of his own situation.

  “But when they ordered me to leave by the end of the year, I knew it would mean leaving Amuzhara. Her work was there, all her business, her gallery. I asked if she would consider giving it up and moving with me, but she said no.” Thus far, Lornysh had been delivering the story in a matter-of-fact, even grudgingly accepting, way, but bitterness crept into his tone now. “I believed—she’d led me to believe—that we would wed. But as soon as she learned about my unclean state, she began distancing herself from me. Looking back, I should have realized that it was over before I even suggested moving. But I wasn’t that wise then.

  “I left in anger with red hazing my vision, and when I stumbled across your army—fell into the hands of your scouts, as you’ll recall—I was still furious. I wanted to hurt my people. The people who were no longer my people. I was happy to be your king’s assassin.”

  “Actions which turned you from an exile to a hated enemy,” Jev said quietly, certainly.

  “Yes.”

  “And Vornzylar wants to kill you to punish you and avenge those you killed.”

  “And because he believes I, in my anger, burned Amuzhara’s home. The three of us had been close once. He taught some of my classes when I was training to be a warden.”

  “That’s why you can’t kill him,” Jev said.

  “That is why.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean I can’t kill him.”

  Lornysh turned his head away. “I am tired, Jevlain. I do not want to see him killed, but I also do not want to fight him anymore. I never wanted to fight him.”

  “You won’t have to. You just stay in the castle and rest.” Jev touched his shoulder, then stood up. “Healer Neena has already decided you should get my room. I’d have a guard push the armoire in front of the window, if I were you. Castle windows are like catnip to elves, apparently.”

  Zenia thought that might evoke a hint of a smile from Lornysh, but he only stared at the far wall, as if he hadn’t heard.

  Jev patted his shoulder again, moved the pain potion closer to him, and headed to the door. Zenia followed him out. Once they were out of even elven earshot, he stopped and faced her.

  “Can you use your dragon tear to track down Vornzylar?” he asked intently.

  “I…” Could she? She hadn’t considered it, but those elves all carried magical swords and her dragon tear could sense other sources of magic. Could it do so across many miles?

  “He’s the one who attacked us in the library. Your dragon tear will be familiar with his sword, and I’m sure that wherever it is, he is.”

  Zenia clasped her dragon tear and closed her eyes, formulating the request through thoughts rather than words. She hadn’t gotten a good look at the elf’s face, but she could envision the glowing silver sword well enough. She imagined racing through the streets of the city with a leashed dog, on the trail of the elf and his magical blade.

  The dragon tear imparted a somewhat different image to her.

  She was running along the highway east of the city, miles away from Korvann and the castle, and instead of a dog, she was accompanied by a magnificent green dragon flapping its wings as it flew over her head on the trail of the elf. A wistful sense of longing accompanied the vision, and she didn’t quite grasp what the dragon tear meant. Did it feel it couldn’t quite track the elf? Or maybe it wanted to be in dragon form and out there flying free?

  The equivalent of a nod of agreement came to her.

  Before she could formulate a response in her thoughts, elves came into view in the vision. Four of them rode on horses headed away from the city. Vornzylar, a bloody bandage wrapping under his armpit and over his shoulder, led the way. His sword was sheathed, but the pommel glowed its distinctive silver. He glanced over his shoulder and squinted straight at Zenia, as if he could somehow sense her watching him through these magical means.

  She shrank back, and the vision faded.

  “He’s heading away from the city, following the coastal highway,” she said, growing aware again of Jev. He was still watching her intently. “To the east.”

  “Toward Dharrow land?”

  “That direction, but I have no way to know his final destination. I think I can check again, but I better wait. He seemed to sense me.”

  “Understood. Thank you. I’ll tell Targyon and find out if he’s sent word to the archmages yet. We’re going to need magical help if we’re going to take on those elves.”

  “I agree.”

  Zenia thought of how her dragon tear hadn’t been enough tonight even though it was the most powerful one she’d encountered in the city. Even if Targyon could convince the Temple leaders to send mages, would it be enough?

  13

  Shortly before dawn, Jev watched from the castle courtyard as Captain Krox, the current garrison commander for the troops that had stayed on full-time after returning from the war, marched a platoon through the gate. Jev tried to look attentive, and grateful that help was coming, but he had only slept a few hours, and he kept yawning.

  “Platoon, halt,” Krox called after the fifty-odd men had entered. “Form it up!”

  They hustled to divide themselves into four squads facing him. Jev recognized some of the men and was glad Krox had brought veterans to help with the elves. He would be even more glad if Targyon was able to convince the archmages to send trained mages with dragon tears. It seemed unfair that they needed such forces to go after four elves, but four elves with magic almost equaled the might of a dragon.

  Expecting Zenia at any moment, Jev kept glancing over his shoulder as Krox barked orders at his men, running them through push-ups and other calisthenics while they waited. The exercises were awkward since the soldiers all wore short swords or daggers at their waists and had rifles and packs strapped to their backs.

  Someone jogged out the side door of the castle nearest the Crown Agents’ office, but it wasn’t Zenia. Their new secretary, Sevy, hurried toward Jev, her dark hair clasped behind her neck and a set of fat books under her arm.

  “Zyndar Jev,” she blurted. “Captain Cham is having a—a—I’m not sure. She gripped her desk, and her eyes are all glazed as if she’s in a trance. We’d been talking about the new batch of reports, and she went rigid in the middle of a sentence. Uhm, her dragon tear is glowing through her shirt.”

  Jev cursed, barked a, “Thanks,” and rushed for the door.

  He almost crashed into Zyndar Garlok, who was heading up the walkway with his mug and satchel.

  “You need help finding the office, Dha
rrow?” he asked, deliberately planting himself in Jev’s path. “It’s in the basement in case you’ve forgotten because you’re never there.”

  Jev, remembering Hydal’s words that Garlok had been behind at least some of the rumors circulated about him and Zenia, stopped long enough to punch him in the nose. Garlok reeled back, dropping his mug and satchel.

  “You’re fired, jackass,” Jev growled, then raced around him and toward the door.

  “I was appointed by Targyon,” Garlok snarled after him. “You can’t fire me.”

  “I just did. Go gossip about it to your cronies.”

  Jev ran inside, not waiting for a response, and sprinted down to the office. Numerous lamps burned on walls and desks, but nobody was in there except—

  “Zenia!” Jev yelled, spotting her kneeling on the floor between their desks, clenching the edge of the closest. Her other hand gripped her dragon tear, and a sickly bluish-green light leaked between her fingers. “Zenia, what happened?”

  He cracked his hip on a desk as he ran down the center aisle, but he didn’t slow down. He dropped to his knees in front of her and gripped her shoulders.

  Zenia’s eyes were open, but she didn’t react.

  “Is it the elves?” Jev whispered. “Some attack? Or is it your gem?”

  She didn’t seem to see or hear him, or even be aware that he was in front of her.

  “Dragon tear, let her go,” Jev ordered, though he had no idea if the thing could understand.

  He gently gripped her hand and tried to peel her fingers away from the gem. Maybe if he could break her contact with it…

  A magical wall slammed into him, knocking him away with such force that he skidded on his ass along the tiles until his back cracked into one of the desks. Papers and knickknacks rained down on him.

  “Jev?” Zenia asked uncertainly, her voice weak.

  He rushed back to her side, dropping to his knees, but he hesitated to touch her again. “Zenia? What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I—” She swallowed and looked down at her chest. The dragon tear had gone dark. “Nothing. Just a dream.”

  “People don’t dream with their eyes open. Sevy said you fell into a trance.”