by Beth Alvarez
Kytenia leaned forward, her face pleading. “If you know anything that might help us overcome this challenge...”
He resisted the urge to laugh. Before Arrick took the title of Archmage, Eyrion sent a legion of mages up against the Aldaanan, foolishly thinking he could wipe them out. Instead, the army had been devastated by less than a handful of opposing mages. Only one of them had wielded the sort of power they claimed Envesi now had. The college was just as helpless as the rest of them.
“Knowing what I do, I’m afraid your island is as good as lost.”
Kytenia closed her eyes and swallowed the news with only a slight pained expression.
Arrick pitied her. There was little else he could do. “If we had the benefit of the mages of Aldaan at our backs, perhaps things would be different, but they’ve been gone for some time. Mages at the other colleges are beginning to think they no longer exist.”
“And we won’t have time to look.” She pursed her lips and drummed her fingertips atop the table.
“If I may be so bold,” Arrick began, sparing a glance for the other mages, “might I question why this woman wishes to have control of the island?” Revenge was the obvious reason, given their history, but if she’d ventured onto the mainland—where mages were few and her power would be more readily recognized—why return to the heart of her troubles?
Kytenia let her eyes flick to the other mages as well. “I suspect she wishes to use it as a base of operations. We were able to question one of her supporters, but only briefly. She fears the extinction of magic, but...” Her mouth worked without producing words and she squeezed her eyes closed. A moment passed before she forced herself to go on. “Lumia—Firal’s daughter—was born with free magic. Free of corruption, Gifted as I’m told the Aldaanan are. We believe Envesi means to spread the corruption to others in hopes their children, too, will be born as free mages.”
A revolutionary concept. One that elevated the status of mages and ensured their survival, as well. Arrick’s heart leaped at the idea, then plunged to the pit of his stomach. The ideals the Aldaanan upheld, particularly the belief mages should not bear unlimited power, were controversial. That they favored the extinction of magic had led to the last civil war in the Triad. He wasn’t foolish enough to agree with their stance in public, but there was a grain of wisdom in it. The Aldaanan were level-headed, aged and disciplined. Having a new wave of young mages with free magic, combined with a lack of such elders to guide them in its use, could be disastrous.
Yet trying to stop the existence of free magic might as well have been a step against magic itself. They needed the mingling of blood, free mages to restore the strength in lines too far separated from the Aldaanan ancestors who had passed on their Gifts to begin with.
Startled, Arrick shook himself. “How can the queen’s daughter be born a free mage? That would require—”
“A free mage as a parent,” Kytenia interrupted with a nod. “Yes.”
He turned that over in his head for a time and his eyes narrowed to slits. “Perhaps I ought to view your records as well, Archmage Kytenia.”
“Of course,” she said coolly, her face as calm and unmoving as if carved from marble. “But for now, we need to arrange a sitting with King Vicamros.”
“Of course,” Arrick repeated, absently mopping his brow and making a note to never answer his door for a Master again.
2
Allies
When the evening’s insects began to sing and the sun fell below the trees surrounding the manor, the hum of power in the air announced the opening of a Gate outside.
Firal and Rhyllyn had consumed the evening meal in peace, though there was little conversation to be had. Ordin had deemed the meal safe without needing to test her food, a compliment Rhyllyn took to heart. Alira avoided them all, but her sour attitude dampened what might have otherwise been a pleasant evening.
“She’s anxious about the meeting,” Rhyllyn said, assuring Firal it was nothing else.
Truthfully, Firal didn’t mind the quiet. Rhyllyn left her alone after the meal and she wandered the library and offices on the sprawling main floor of the house with Ordin trailing behind her, until the tingling sensation of the Gate spurred her to the front door.
Rhyllyn descended the stairs alone, his brother nowhere in sight. Alira came from the parlor.
“It’s Garam,” Rhyllyn said before he reached the floor.
Firal paused halfway across the foyer. “How can you tell?”
He regarded her with a quizzical frown. “I could see out the window on my way down.”
She flushed and opened the door.
Lord Kaith stood before the manor, watching as a half-dozen white-robed mages stepped from thin air and formed a semicircle around him. Firal had grown so used to seeing anchored Gates that it was strange to see the other end of a free-standing one.
“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t return.” Alira slipped past Firal to meet them and murmured greetings to the mages. One stepped forward to embrace her. Friends from the capital city, it seemed.
“Gaining an audience with the king on such short notice isn’t easy.” Once again, Garam walked with a cane. He leaned on it more now, his other hand against his lower back. “I expected the lot of you would be ready to go when I arrived. We’ll need to be quick.”
Alira took his arm to aid him to the door. “It won’t take us long to prepare, I assure you. Rhyllyn, where is your brother?”
The boy shuffled his feet as he held open the door. “He’s still upstairs. I didn’t take him anything to eat. I hoped he would come down.”
“Well, one of you is going to have to go up and tell him to put on a shirt,” Garam said.
Alira snorted.
Rhyllyn offered a nervous laugh. “I’ll go get him.”
As Firal stepped aside so Garam could come indoors, she turned so the mages couldn’t see her face. After the unexpected reunion with Alira, she didn’t want any more surprises. “Will it be a formal meeting of council, Lord Kaith?”
“Not all the councilors will be present, but that may work in our favor. We were selected for the council due to our differences, after all.” Garam paused in the doorway and jerked his head toward the house.
The mages hurried forward and filed in one at a time. They were all women, which wasn’t uncommon, but they wore such empty expressions that it gave Firal a chill. Were they bored, or were college-trained mages really so different from those in the temple?
She gave them a wide berth, slipped in just ahead of Rhyllyn, and lingered beside the boy while the visitors made themselves comfortable in the parlor. “Should I come with you to fetch your brother?”
“It won’t take long for him to get dressed.” He smiled, evidently trying his best to appear reassuring.
Firal took a small measure of comfort. He was a pleasant youth. Though they’d spent little more than an afternoon together, she already felt a sense of fondness for him.
Rhyllyn bounded up the stairs and disappeared.
Alira emerged from the parlor and went up after him, more sedately, but she turned at the top of the staircase. “Sit with our guests, would you? I’ll just be a moment. I need to fetch my good slippers.”
“Make it fast,” Rune growled from above. He appeared behind Alira and waved her out of the way. He’d changed his blue and silver clothing for black. The color suited him better, and it matched his expression, besides. He’d put aside the crown he’d worn when they arrived, too, which Firal appreciated. Where he’d gotten it or what inspired him to wear it, she didn’t know, but it had been an uncomfortable reminder of the life he’d had before.
And by all rights, Elenhiise should have been his.
His sharp violet eyes turned toward her and Firal dropped her gaze. If she’d thought he’d seemed cold before, the icy emptiness in that stare made his previous behavior friendly by comparison.
Garam gave the couches a wistful glance before he turned back to the foyer. His m
ages sat down without him, awaiting further command. “Vicamros provided mages to take us directly into the council chamber.”
Rune scoffed, stalked down the stairs, and pivoted to face the man the moment his foot touched the floor. “What, does he think I don’t remember what it looks like?”
“It’s been several months since you were in the city for a council meeting,” Garam said. “Besides that, the city doesn’t know you’re still alive. He’s just being cautious. Seems he’s had his hands full the past few days. He doesn’t want to risk anything else going wrong.”
Firal twitched, but forced herself to remain quiet. She doubted anything that could have happened to Vicamros would be worse than the ordeal she faced.
Without a word, Rhyllyn positioned himself beside her. His presence came with a sense of peace, a gentle energy of reassurance. She felt a hint of guilt for her initial assumptions about him. He was so calm and pleasant, cheerful and tranquil. Nothing at all like the man who’d taken him as a brother.
“His concern is unnecessary.” Rune adjusted the cuff of his sleeve, then sighed and rested a hand on the hilt of his sword. The sheath it resided in now was plainer than the one he’d lost in Ilmenhith’s throne room, which made the twisted black hilt look out of place at his hip, for all that it matched his attire. “But since they’re here, we might as well let them work. Rhyllyn, make sure the doors are locked. And get your money.”
The boy’s face lit up. “Am I going with you?”
“Not into the council meeting, but I’m sure you’ll want to shop if we’re going to be in the Royal City.”
Rhyllyn was up the stairs in the blink of an eye.
“You think we’ll be back soon enough for his groceries to keep?” Garam asked.
Rune shrugged. “We can hope.”
There was a difference between the Gates bound mages used and the ones Rune and Rhyllyn opened. Firal didn’t realize it until she passed through the portal Garam’s escort opened to the council chamber in the Triad’s Royal City. She gasped and shuddered as the electric tingle coursed through her.
The sensation was different. The same wild power created both sizzling Gates, energy that didn’t want to be tamed. Normally, it took half a dozen experienced Masters or more to make it obey.
But Rune’s Gates were powerful—more powerful than those she was used to, truthfully—and with his, there was an order to the way the magic flowed. It still sparked and crackled when he opened one, but once open, it was steady, seamless. She would have preferred to travel through one of his.
Now that she thought of it, when Kytenia had looked back after stepping through one of his Gates, it had seemed as if she’d met Rune’s eyes. If it were any normal Gate, she would have emerged as if from thin air on the other side. There would have been nothing to see. Yet as far as Firal understood, having a Gate that worked two ways required energy anchoring it on both sides. How could he possibly manipulate power in another location to achieve something like that? She shivered and tried not to think of it. She’d thought she understood him, once. Now she couldn’t believe how wrong she’d been.
Despite the three decades they’d spent as allies, Firal had never visited the Royal City. When they’d needed to speak face to face, which was a rare event to begin with, she and Vicamros had always met in the Grand College or Kirban Temple. Though recognized as parts of their respective kingdoms, the mages were a faction unto themselves and the schools proved the closest thing to neutral meeting ground the two rulers could manage.
Firal doubted Vicamros gave other allies such dignities, but she held a unique position. Elenhiise was small enough to seem insignificant, but the island’s location had always led trade to thrive. It had provided a point halfway across the sea for merchants from north and south to meet until the permanent Gates were established. That the Triad was linked to Elenhiise by the mages provided an advantage like no other. After the Gates were built, there was no need for merchants to travel from Elenhiise to the north. The seas to the south were filled with ships, and everything passed through Elenhiise and its Gates to their sole ally—the Triad. Merchants, on the other hand, held alliances only to fat purses. The loss of her kingdom’s support could easily spell doom for the Triad.
Ordin positioned himself beside Firal once he was through the Gate, a quiet reminder that she wouldn’t find a moment alone. He’d been kind to give her more space at the manor, but hiding around the next corner meant he was still always there. The Spiral Palace would prove no different.
She’d heard stories about the Spiral Palace and why it had been given that name. From the council chamber they stepped into, she could only imagine what the place actually looked like. The room bore no windows. It was so empty as to seem sterile, hosting only a round table with chairs around it. A throne stood opposite the doorway, which the Gate emptied through, but it wasn’t as ornate or grand as she might have expected. Instead it was barely bigger than the chairs around the table, its polished wood only gilded for accent. The three banners of the Triad hung from the walls—blue for Lore on the left, gold for Aldaan on the right, and the green that represented Roberian behind the throne.
Otherwise, the council chamber stood empty.
The rest of the group filed through the Gate without ceremony. Garam paced halfway around the table, his cane clicking in the silence.
“I shall notify His Majesty of your arrival,” one of the white-robed mages said as she bowed and turned toward the door.
Alira cleared her throat. “If you are going that way, please escort Rhyllyn out of the palace. He will be back to attend us before it is too late, so please ensure he will have an escort upon his return.”
“The sun had just set when we left. How late are the markets here open?” Firal asked in a murmur.
“We’re pretty far west of my estate,” Rune said. “I expect the sun is still up here, if barely.”
“His favorite merchant will stay late for him, besides,” Alira added. “Go on, boy. He’ll only stay if you catch him, after all.”
Rhyllyn flushed and spat hasty goodbyes on his way after the Master mage.
The other five Masters arranged themselves like guards beside the door, as stoic as any soldiers on duty Firal had ever seen.
Alira made her way to the table and pulled out a chair that seemed random, but Firal assumed it was where she was used to sitting. “Before the king arrives, do we know what we want to say?”
“I figured we’d let Firal do the talking.” Rune caught the leg of a chair with his foot and dragged it back from the table. “It’s her problem, after all.”
Indignation made color rise in her cheeks and Firal opened her mouth, but Garam spoke before she could.
“That’s a kind way to speak of your child,” the old man growled. He gripped his cane with one hand and the back of his chair with the other, his knuckles pale.
Rune’s eyes darkened. “I was talking about the island.” He dropped into his chair, ignoring the glowers he got from the other councilors.
“It wouldn’t be a problem if you hadn’t brought me here,” Firal snapped.
Garam grunted. “The alternative wasn’t any better. It’s fairly clear she didn’t mean to let you live.”
The mages shuffled away from the door to let someone in. Firal turned, expecting the king. She was surprised to see another familiar face instead. “Archmage Arrick.”
The Archmage smiled, somewhat nervously, and nodded in greeting. “Your Majesty. Councilors.”
Alira leaned forward, her brow furrowed. “Where are Archmage Kytenia and the others?”
“At the college, sorting through records. They were looking for something in particular.” He gave her a thoughtful look, as if contemplating her existence. Then he shook his head and hurried to his place at the table. “My presence was requested.”
“As was mine,” added an old fellow from the doorway. He looked familiar and had the air of a mage about him, though his curly hair and his lengthy b
eard were the yellowed white of age, not that which came with magic. He wore fine robes and a peculiar close-fitting cap, and Firal was certain she had seen him before.
Rune rose as quickly as he’d sat.
“Ah!” The man opened his arms wide. A grin split his face and the light of joy filled his eyes. “Brant’s mercy, you’re alive!”
“For the moment,” Rune said. For an instant, there was a hint of mirth in his voice. He crossed the room and embraced the man. It struck Firal as odd that all his friends were elderly, but then again, she and Rune were mages. They didn’t age like other people, and it seemed he’d been a part of this world for a long time.
Booted footsteps echoed in the hallway outside and everyone turned to face the soldiers that filed into the council chamber. They parted the crowd for the king.
Vicamros II bore little resemblance to his father, but Firal thought it grew as he aged. He was a fine looking man, less severe than most, with gentle eyes and a stern set to his jaw that always struck her as forced.
She’d had few dealings with him directly and had worked more with his father, who had established their alliance. The man who stood before her had ruled for the better part of the time since the treaty was signed, but it seemed there was always something that kept them apart.
She had been invited to his coronation several decades prior, but hadn’t attended, as Lumia had been ill. Instead she’d sent the finest rubies ever pulled from the mines in Core, including a number of fine asteriated stones—serpent’s tears, as the island knew them—and received a kind letter of thanks, but communication after had always been scarce. She sometimes wondered if it hadn’t started their relationship off on the wrong foot.
“So it’s true,” Vicamros said as he stopped in the doorway. He looked past Firal with the shine of emotion filling his blue eyes.
Rune straightened, released the old councilor, and turned toward the king. He lowered his eyes, pressed a hand to his heart and bowed with more deference than Firal ever would have expected.