by R. J. Price
Sit Pretty
A Seat of Magic Novel
By RJ Price
Other Books by RJ Price:
Seat of Magic Novels
Trouble
Copyright 2015 RJ Price
All Rights Reserved
Ebook Cover Design by www.ebooklaunch.com
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter One
Av held Aren as she screamed, having never heard anything like it before. Then as abruptly as the screams had begun, they stopped. Silence came over the throne room, a silence that seemed deathly to Av.
He watched Aren’s chest, eyes darting over her shoulders and to her throat. The barest movement of her chest rising in breath was the only indication that she was still alive. There was a fluttering to her hand, which sat against his leg, and then she was still once more.
The training clothing Aren wore made her look like a common servant. Av tried to open his senses, to feel her as he had once felt his mother, but his senses were overwhelmed by Telm’s emotions.
The head of house stared down at Aren, surprise playing over her features. One hand gripped at her neck, as if she thought she was wearing an amulet and grasped at it for comfort in a trying time. Telm shuddered, the motion rolling through her, from head, to toe, and came back to herself. She met Av’s eyes slowly.
“Seen it, I don’t know how many times, but still it hurts,” Telm said.
The lights flickered overhead. Both Telm and Av looked up. Light always went to the throne room, first and foremost. The room dimmed to almost nothing.
Av sat in the darkness, holding Aren. He stretched his senses across the room and felt another person, there behind the throne. The lights came up and Av set Aren down ever so gently, his senses telling him that the person was still there, crouched down and hiding.
Telm gave Av a questioning look, but he gave no indication of what he was doing. Moving around the platform that the throne stood upon, Av expected to see a spy, a snoop, a servant. Perhaps a lord waiting for a private audience with one of the ladies.
There was nothing there. The door behind the throne room was sealed from the other side and when unlocked took some time to swing closed. From Av’s senses it seemed the person hadn’t moved, they were still crouched down behind the throne. Peering out at Aren.
“Calm yourself,” Telm said.
“I thought there was someone here,” Av responded, walking back to Telm and Aren. “I wanted to catch them.”
“You didn’t feel them before,” Telm told him sternly. “Which means you don’t go chasing invisible people now.”
“Have you heard of invisible people?” Av asked, jabbing a finger to the throne and chuckling desperately. “Wouldn’t that make them a spirit?”
Telm stared up at Av, silent for too long before she said, “Don’t go chasing invisible people, Lord Av.”
Av frowned at Telm, but didn’t ask what was going on. He would allow the woman to have her secret. Partly because he didn’t want to try her temper, and partly because he was afraid of what she would tell him. Perhaps Em would haunt Aren for the duration of her reign. Or someone else had died violently while on the throne and their spirit was the cause of the short-lived queens. There were a great many possible reasons for there to be invisible bodies in the throne room.
Not one of them explained why the shape Av had been approaching had been male.
Av knelt at Aren’s side and picked the unconscious woman up as gently as he could.
“It’s because you are linked to her,” Telm said, standing as she spoke. “And she to you. The mate to the throne often sees things that others do not, which even the one sitting the throne might miss. These invisible things have never interfered with court life and are relatively harmless.”
“Relatively harmless?” Av asked.
“They may push things off shelves or topple over chairs when a queen is raging. You’ll see them do it, is how you’ll know the difference.”
“But I’m not mate to the throne,” Av said.
He stood, surprised at how little Aren seemed to weigh. She wasn’t a large woman, but she wasn’t small either. Aren did not have the stick-like figure he recalled her mother having, nor did she have the rounded features her father had. She seemed to have fallen in between the two, a little of each.
“You may not be mated to her, but I highly doubt there will be another to sit beside her,” Telm said. “As such, you must act as the mate to the throne would. There are many things which must be dealt with before she awakes. The most important being your brother.”
“My brother?” Av asked.
He walked to the throne room door, meaning to move Aren before the court came looking for her. Telm would lead the way once she knew what he was doing. She would show him to a set of rooms that Aren could occupy while the queen’s rooms were stripped and cleaned.
“He’s taken the life of the one who sat the throne, Lord Av,” Telm called after him. “What will you do about him?”
Av turned to Telm, motioning to the throne room doors as he did so. She marched past him and opened the door. Av nodded his thanks and stepped out. Telm led the way to Aren’s old set of rooms. Still empty, but also clean and orderly.
“We’re overpopulated, so how is this room empty?” Av asked Telm.
“The same way Aren managed a room to herself in the first place,” Telm said, closing the door firmly behind her. “The one before your mother was slaughtered in here and the other ladies believe her spirit still haunts the room.”
“You’re joking, right?” Av asked.
“No. Your father had her mate executed for murdering the one who sat the throne. Now, Lord Av, what would you have done about your brother? He has just done the same, though I suspect a great deal neater.”
Av walked to the bed and set Aren on it gently. He pushed a stray hair out of her face, watching the young woman rest in peace. There was much before her, much struggle.
She was going to be angry when she awoke. Very, very, angry. Av grimaced and pulled his hand away at the thought. Aren would be angry and she would take it out on him even though he wasn’t the one who had taken Em’s life, and he wasn’t the one who forced her onto the throne. He had simply been a witness on the sidelines.
“I think with how Em was becoming, Jer still did her a mercy,” Av said. “I will not pursue other action.”
“Then you need to make that clear,” Telm said. When Av didn’t move, she added. “Make it clear now, Lord Av.”
“I’m just to leave her here?” Av asked, motioning around the room. “This isn’t even near the inner palace; someone could come in here and do her harm.”
“While she is on the throne, she is hardly in trouble. The entire court would be alerted to her state and go running to find her, even if they had yet to be told Aren had rank,” Telm said. “Your brother, on the other hand, no longer has the protection of the throne and is currently with his dead mate’s body. The court may not know that Aren now sits the throne, but they will flock to the queen’s rooms to find out what is going on. If they find him with her, with blood on his hands? No amount of logic or reason will stop them from stringing him from a tree.”
Av moved away from Aren reluctantly. “You will stay here and watch
over her.”
“I will do just that, until these events with Jer are settled at the least,” Telm said.
“Until she awakes,” Av said sternly.
“I am not going to sit by a woman’s side until she awakes simply because you said so,” Telm growled at Av. “I am not a warrior, I am not a commoner. I am a queen. And if I want to wander my home while the one who sits the throne sleeps deeply, I will do as much. If you’ve such a problem with that, post guards at the doors.”
“That is a brilliant idea,” Av said.
“Except it will tell every lord and lady who sleeps in this room and then she’ll never hear the end of it,” Telm responded. “I will stay with her until I am needed elsewhere. When my task is done, I will return here, but do not think to give me commands, Av. I answer only to the throne, not the chit you’ve put on it. The throne.”
“I suppose that means I’ll just have to take an axe to it, if you do something I think is stupid,” Av said.
Telm stared back at Av. A frown very slowly creased the brow of the older woman.
“You are aware that the throne is not that chair sitting in the throne room, aren’t you, Av? The throne hasn’t been inside any one piece of furniture in almost two thousand years. It’s simply…” the head of house struggled for a moment, “what we call the pinnacle that our queens are dragged to.”
“Then where is the real throne?” Av asked.
“That’s a little difficult to say,” Telm responded. “Though it does make it impossible to destroy the throne, at least through the conventional means. And yes, people have tried as much in the past, thinking that the piece of polished wood queens sit on in the throne room is a magical item. Why would we simply leave a magic item lying about without a lock, or guards, or spells?”
“We’d lose the key, the guards would be bought, and we’d first have to learn to create spells,” Av said. “From what my mother told me, one can only learn how to create spells from one who already knows the way of it.”
“True,” Telm said. “However, you cannot destroy my employer.”
“I won’t try, if you make certain nothing happens to my employer,” Av said.
“’Lover,’ Av,” Telm corrected. “Claim her and do so quickly. Make absolutely certain no one puts platonic terms to your relationship with Aren.”
Av nodded slowly. “I will consider your advice. Right now, I need to see my brother.”
He left Aren’s rooms and glanced about him. No one was near the set of rooms. Wandering through the palace, he tried to look as if he hadn’t anywhere important to be. To keep others from following him. Outside the queen’s rooms he paused to look around once more. The lords and ladies had yet to figure out where Em had died. If they knew at all. Some couldn’t be felt taking the throne.
Av slipped into the queen’s rooms and locked the door behind him.
He walked around the bed, which was mussed up and most of the bedding dragged off, and stopped beside his brother, holding Em’s head in his lap.
Just her head.
Em’s body was a little to the side, blood pooling out and staining the rich rugs she had covered her rooms with. In the time since Av had last seen Em, the woman had wasted away to nothing. The thin look Em had taken on over the weeks had become sickly. Skin on an elbow had simply given up and torn open, revealing dead flesh.
She must have been in a great deal of pain. That pain would have driven her on, allowed her to last longer. Murder or not, Av could not argue for Jer’s execution when this was the state he found the one who had sat the throne.
Turning his full attention to Jer, Av was aware that the most difficult task for him that day was convincing his brother to give up his dead mate. Crouching by Jer, Av looked over his younger brother, searching for any sign of acknowledgement.
“Jer?” Av asked quietly.
Jer dropped the head with a sickening thump. “I can’t do it.” Jer shook his head, “I can’t do it, Av.”
“Do what?” Av asked, careful to keep his tone calm.
“I can’t give her last rites,” Jer said.
“I can do it, I will see to it,” Av said, reaching out to touch Jer and make the contact which would draw Jer back to the present.
“Who took the throne?” Jer asked.
“Aren,” Av said.
Jer nodded.
“When she went off like that, her magic,” Jer shook his head. “I knew. Is that crazy?”
“We live in a world where an inanimate object tells us what to do and stone can infect a person with illness,” Av said. “No, it is not crazy that you simply knew.”
“We, uh, we need the guard,” Jer said, obviously searching his own memories for the information. “To search for holes. And need someone to give her the first rite. Not you. Em spent her entire life trying to sleep with you, her spirit’s probably,”—a finger twirled to indicate the air around them—“floating about just hoping you’ll strip her down and wash her.”
“We can find someone else to wash your spirit-borne mate,” Av said.
“Telm will help with the rest. Where is she?”
“With Aren, who is sleeping at the moment,” Av said.
“Good, that gives us time to collect the holes before Aren awakes,” Jer said with a grimace. “I’d rather not have her run into one of them in the hallway. Em did once, it was a terrible mess.”
“What is a hole?” Av asked.
“It’s difficult to describe, but you’ll know it when you see it.” Jer glanced at Av, frowned, and focused his entire attention on the older man. “Or you won’t, will you? Av—you’re a hole.”
Chapter Two
Mar stood at the writing desk, hand pressed over her chest. Her eyes were closed tight against the setting sun, tears threatening to spill over. She felt her mother's death keenly, stronger than she thought possible. She still remembered when the previous queen had passed. Life had not hurt then. Breathing had not seemed an impossible feat.
“It will take some setting up. My brother will send us the supplies for winter. Come summer we will plant and grow, get our hands dirty. All I promised you we would. Mar?”
She tightened her hand around the missive, clenching the thick paper until it crumpled. Perlon, her mate, hadn't felt the shift. Either the land was too far from the palace, or Perlon was what Jer, her mother's mate, called a hole. Unable to feel the newly ascended queen, holes couldn't be affected by the moods of the one sitting the throne. It was up to each to decide what to do with the holes who were discovered at court.
“Aren has ascended,” Mar said to the writing desk.
“Is that what that was?” Perlon asked, trying to sound wry, but something about his tone made Mar wonder if Perlon had ever felt the throne's influence.
“She's my friend,” Mar said.
“What was the missive?” Perlon asked Mar, reaching out to tap the back of her hand.
Mar released the unopened message, moving away from her mate. “Doesn't matter now, it's from my mother.”
Perlon opened and read it to himself, then chuckled. “She discovered Aren was a queen and planned to have her executed. Suppose we know how that went, don't we?”
“We need to return to the palace,” Mar said quickly, walking across the living area, to the chests not yet unpacked.
They had arrived after the messenger. There had been no time to unpack, or for Mar to explore the two-level, six-bedroom home Perlon called quaint. Larger than she expected, Mar had been excited to see the size of the building. She looked forward to settling in.
A moment was all she had had, just long enough to walk to the writing desk, meaning to place the missive there for later reading.
“Mar, if we return now we may have to winter there,” Perlon protested, following her from the chests, to the front door. “I don't like court life. There's a reason I avoided it for years. There's also a reason I walked away from my father's estates and stepped down as lord. This—this is what I want. Nice,
quiet.”
Mar turned to Perlon, folding her arms as she scowled at him. “If I tried to boil you in your skin right now, would you even become warm?”
“I don't know, can you actually boil me in my own skin?” Perlon asked. “And if you can, why wait until now to threaten me with it?”
“I find I enjoy the shape of your face,” Mar said. “But my mother no longer sits the throne. Aren is my friend and she sits the throne.”
“My bloodline,” Perlon sighed, stepping up to Mar and setting a hand on her shoulder, “are the same as me. Queens come and queens go. We claimed these lands because they're far enough from the palace for us not to be noticed but close enough that we can visit, should we feel the desire. The throne doesn't affect us, but yes, magic does.”
“Which is why you avoid court?” Mar asked, and then watched her as mate nodded once. “Do Av and Jer know?”
“No, yet another reason to avoid court,” Perlon said. “There's no need for us to go, Mar.”
“I am a queen,” Mar said, letting loose her anger.
For the first time in her life, Mar felt anger the way it was supposed to be felt. Magic boiled into existence around her, soaked into her flesh and left her fingers tingling in delight.
While her mother had been alive, Mar lived in constant fear of drawing too much attention. Every fit of anger, every stubbed toe, was accompanied by a stern letter from her mother, lecturing her on better control. Mar had never been in control of her magic, or her life.
Her mother had mated her off the first day of her eighteenth year, the earliest time an arranged mating could be made. Em hadn't cared who Mar was mated to, as long as the lord kept Mar out of court. Jer and Av brought Perlon to court, made the arrangement for him to mate Mar. The possibility of escaping her mother's grasp had been the only reason Mar hadn't gone to the steward and begged for sanctuary.
Perlon was a good man.
That thought calmed Mar's mood.