Prince's Fire

by Amy Raby

  “Easiest thing in the world,” said Celeste. “I used suggestions, and she told us everything.”

  He held out a hand to Vitala. “What did she say?”

  Vitala took his hand, hugged him with one arm, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “She really is his wife. They concealed their marriage in order to protect her and the children. We know where the assassins are hiding; it’s an old enclave in the mountains about half a day’s ride from here. Justien and Nalica are assembling a team to head out and make arrests. There are a lot of conspirators—more than twenty—so they need a lot of men.”

  “Are you going with them?”

  Vitala nodded. “I have to. There aren’t many people who can read the old Obsidian Circle’s signs and find the enclave. Without me, they might walk right past it.”

  Lucien placed a hand on her belly and frowned. “I don’t like your being out there. Perhaps if I came with you—”

  “No need for that,” said Vitala. “Justien and his people will be more than adequate protection for me.”

  “I’ll go,” offered Celeste.

  “No,” said Lucien and Vitala in unison.

  Lucien continued. “There’s no sense risking you. You can’t locate the enclave the way Vitala can. And we don’t need your mind magic or your cryptanalysis skills to make arrests.”

  “There might be more coded letters at the enclave—”

  “Justien’s team will recover them and bring them back to you,” said Vitala.

  Celeste nodded. Much as she’d like to take Vitala’s place in this, she couldn’t. Vitala had skills she did not possess.

  “I figure Justien and Nalica won’t be ready to move for at least an hour,” said Lucien. “In the meantime, you two can take lunch with me.”

  Celeste assented, recognizing, now that he mentioned it, the hollow feeling in her stomach. She was feeling better now that the interrogation was over, and breakfast had been a while ago.

  Lucien led the way down the hall. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “I have a guest who’ll be dining with us—a friend I’d like you to meet.”

  “Who?” asked Vitala.

  “You’ll see,” said Lucien. “Is Justien going to confront Bayard about his captured wife and children?”

  “Yes,” said Celeste. “But not right away. He wants to capture the conspirators at the enclave first. He says that once we have all his people in custody, Bayard should break. When he starts cooperating and giving us names, Justien will round up the stragglers.” And she could find out for certain whether Zoe was among the conspirators. Stina had mentioned a Zoe and given a physical description that roughly matched, but there were a lot of blond women in Riorca. She still wasn’t certain it was the same Zoe.

  The guards outside the imperial apartment snapped to attention and opened the door to admit them. Lucien and Vitala’s apartment was larger than Celeste’s and featured an intimate dining room. Places were set for four, and a woman Celeste had never seen before sat at the table, waiting for them. She was an older woman, a little careworn, and probably Riorcan since she was blond. The woman turned anxiously to the group, her hand shaking where it sat on the table.

  Vitala came to a sudden halt. “No.”

  “Dearest—” began Lucien.

  “I told you I wasn’t going to do this.”

  He took her hands in his own. “I have no father anymore. My mother passed away when I was young. I miss her every day.”

  “I don’t miss mine.” Vitala flung his hands back at him and stalked out of the apartment.

  Lucien followed on her heels. “I have no other family. Will you deny me a mother-in-law?”

  His voice faded as he passed out of hearing range. Celeste, standing in the dining chamber and feeling awkward about being caught in the middle of this family drama, met the eyes of the nervous woman sitting at the table. So this was Vitala’s mother. She curtsied. “It’s nice to meet you, Treva Salonius.”

  Vitala’s mother stared at her with a wrinkled brow. Then she said, in Riorcan, “Pardon me. I don’t speak Kjallan.”

  Celeste repeated her greeting in the woman’s own language.

  “Are you a friend of my daughter’s?” asked Treva.

  “I’m her sister-in-law,” said Celeste.

  “My daughter is an extraordinary woman,” said Treva.

  “That she is.”

  “But she will not talk to me.”

  Celeste had little to say about that. She knew as well as anyone that for all Vitala’s good qualities, she wasn’t the most forgiving of individuals. “I’ll just see how things are going outside.”

  She went out into the hallway. Lucien and Vitala were inches from each other’s faces, puffed up like threatened house cats as they exchanged words.

  “You set me up,” said Vitala. “You knew I didn’t want to see her, and you dragged me in there without even a hint of what you had planned—”

  “It’s for your own good,” said Lucien. “It’s time you made peace with her. Shouldn’t my feelings count for something? What if I want to know the woman who birthed and raised the woman I love?”

  “She didn’t raise me; that’s the whole point.”

  “For eight years, she did,” said Lucien.

  “And four hundred tetrals she was paid for it. You want to have lunch with her, go ahead. You’re the gods-cursed emperor of Kjall; I can’t stop you. But don’t drag me into it.” She stormed down the hall.

  Lucien turned apologetically to Celeste. “That didn’t go so well.”

  Celeste only raised her brows. Vitala wasn’t a woman who could be forced into anything; Lucien ought to know that by now.

  The emperor held out his arm. “Shall we?”

  She took it and headed back into the imperial apartment to have lunch with Vitala’s mother.

  • • •

  For the rest of the day, Celeste waited anxiously for news about the assault on the mountain enclave. The team was away all afternoon and all evening, and when Celeste gave up on them and went to bed, they were still out at the enclave, and no word had been received from them in Denmor.

  In the morning, she learned that Justien, Nalica, Vitala, and the others had returned to the Enclave building in the wee hours with a herd of prisoners in tow, so many that Celeste wondered how the Riorcan authorities would manage to house them all.

  A few hours later, Justien came to fetch her. “It’s time,” he said. “We’re going to confront Bayard.”

  She followed him out of her apartment and down the hallway. “Is the empress coming?”

  “She’s already there,” said Justien. “The emperor too.”

  They descended to the underground prison. Vitala and Lucien were standing in the hallway, surrounded by Legaciatti. They turned as Celeste and Justien approached.

  “Are we ready?” asked Lucien.

  “Yes.” Justien gestured to one of his men, who opened a cell door and led out Stina and three young children. The oldest child looked perhaps eight or nine years old; the youngest was a toddler. All but the toddler were shackled.

  “Must we chain the children?” asked Celeste.

  “It’s for effect,” said Lucien. “Lives are at stake here, including perhaps Prince Rayn’s. You don’t want him assassinated, do you?”

  “No.” He was right, of course. And no harm had been done to the children, nor the wife, since Celeste had been able to accomplish the entire interrogation with magical suggestions. Still, she felt uneasy.

  “Here we go,” said Justien. He unlocked the door to Bayard’s cell.

  Bayard, who still possessed his war magic, was shackled tight to his chair. Celeste wondered what they did with him when he wasn’t being interrogated—surely he couldn’t be immobilized all the time. Wouldn’t it do him harm? But he hadn’t been beaten or tortured;
she saw no physical signs of abuse. He just looked sullen and angry, as any prisoner would.

  The cell became crowded as they filed in: first Justien; then Vitala, Lucien, and herself; then Stina and the children, followed by the guards who were escorting them.

  Bayard didn’t react to Justien, Vitala, Lucien, or Celeste, but when his family entered, he sat up straighter in his chair. He swallowed, as if to moisten his tongue, and said, “They have nothing to do with any of this.”

  “On the contrary, Bayard,” said Justien. “The letters we found suggest that your wife, Stina, was heavily involved in the conspiracy. We found references to Zoe, to Frode and Mattias and Sander. Others too.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Stina. “They forced me to talk.”

  Justien gestured to a guard near the back of the cell. “Get the woman and children out, and bring the prisoners from room five.”

  Bayard’s family was escorted out. Shortly afterward, three shackled men entered the room. None were familiar to Celeste.

  “Last night, we assaulted your enclave,” said Justien. “We have twenty-six of your people in custody—I’m showing you just these three. If you don’t believe me, I can show you the rest. It’s over, Bayard. Your organization is destroyed. All that remains is to determine who shall be punished, and in what way.”

  Bayard’s eyes were on his men. He looked grave. “I’ve seen enough. Send them away.”

  Justien nodded to the guard, who escorted the three prisoners out of the cell. He closed the door, sealing those who remained inside. “Well?”

  Bayard licked his lower lip. “Let Stina and the children go.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” said Lucien. “We have unanswered questions about who else might be involved, particularly anyone who might be overseas in Inya. We have concerns about a woman named Zoe. We cannot interrogate you, but we can interrogate the others.”

  “My wife doesn’t know anything beyond the enclave location and some of the people’s names, and you already have those,” said Bayard.

  “We’ll see for ourselves,” said Lucien.

  “No one knows where Zoe is except me,” said Bayard. “If I use my deathstone right now, you’ll never find her.”

  “She’s on the Water Spirit; we already know that,” said Lucien. “Using your deathstone won’t save your family. We’ll interrogate them, using any means necessary. And once we have everything out of them that we can get, we’ll stake them.”

  “For what crime?” snarled Bayard. “The children are guilty of nothing!”

  “Treason,” said Lucien.

  Bayard turned to Vitala. “Do you see? This is what happens when you join forces with the enemy. Simon is but three years old!”

  “Perhaps we could work something out,” said Vitala.

  “I don’t bargain with traitors,” said Lucien.

  “If you were to tell us everything you know,” said Vitala, “we would have no need to interrogate your family or any of your conspirators from the enclave.”

  “You think I’m going to fall for that?” said Bayard.

  “It’s not a trick,” said Vitala. “It’s a bargain. You give us what we need, under truth spell, and we’ll spare your family from any unpleasantness.”

  “Why should I do any of this if you’re just going to stake them anyway?”

  “To save them unnecessary pain,” said Lucien.

  “Perhaps we could spare their lives,” suggested Vitala.

  “Out of the question,” said Lucien.

  “The woman has no riftstone, no magic,” said Vitala. “Neither have the children.”

  “The woman has to die,” said Lucien. “And when she’s gone, and Bayard too, the children will be orphans. There is no one to care for them.”

  “It was the Inyans!” cried Bayard. “They planned everything. They wanted an heir from Rayn, and then they wanted him dead.”

  “Which Inyans?” asked Vitala.

  Bayard said nothing.

  “What are Zoe’s intentions on the Water Spirit and in Inya?” asked Celeste.

  The old battle master shook his head. “I’ve said all I’m going to say. You want more, offer me a deal. One that allows Stina and the children to live free.”

  “You have to tell us everything, under truth spell,” said Vitala.

  “Deal,” said Bayard.

  “And you publicly denounce the Inyans behind all this,” she added.

  “For that, you have to make a better offer.”

  “You publically denounce them,” said Vitala, “and you get to live. You do as you’re told, go where you’re told, and say what we want you to say. In return, you can watch your family grow up. Not as a free man, but as a prisoner below the Imperial Palace in Riat. We’ll relocate your family to Riat, and they can visit you periodically as long as you keep your end of the bargain.”

  Bayard sagged in his chair, though whether it was a gesture of defeat or relief, Celeste could not tell. “It’s a deal.”

  Justien beckoned to Celeste.

  She stepped forward to administer the truth spell.

  20

  Though it was early yet, Celeste crawled exhausted into bed. The interrogation of Bayard had taken all day. Her part in the interrogation had not been difficult—not in and of itself. It was like riding a horse, an undemanding activity unless one had to do it all day long. Then one got tired and sore.

  She’d had to sustain a truth spell on Bayard and report to Justien anytime the man lied or evaded a question. Sustaining magic continuously for hours on end drained her. By lunchtime, she was exhausted, and since there wasn’t another mind mage available whom Lucien trusted, she went back and sustained her spells for another six hours.

  It had been worth it. Justien had pulled many important details out of Bayard. It turned out that Justien and Vitala’s sweep had missed two of the conspirators, both of whom had been away from the enclave at the time of the assault. Bayard gave them the details on who those men were and where to find them, and Justien dispatched his people to intercept them.

  Bayard confessed that about five years ago, Councilor Worryn had approached him and promised aid to his resistance movement in the form of money and gunpowder in exchange for Bayard training an assassin to target Prince Rayn. Later, when the Inyans had learned the chosen assassin was a woman, they’d come up with the idea of having her seduce Rayn first. That way the prince might produce an heir that Councilor Worryn could later use to control the throne.

  Part of that plan had succeeded.

  The Inyans had insisted that the assassination take place outside of their country. This had to do with Inyan laws mandating the use of truth spells on all political officials, including Land Council members, when a public figure was assassinated in Inya. Plans were put in motion to send Rayn to Kjall and assassinate him there.

  Prince Rayn traveled to Kjall as intended. Zoe and three of the war mages on her team went with them, Zoe traveling openly and the others in secret. The assassins found the Imperial Palace impregnable, but when Rayn traveled to Riorca on the Goshawk, they made an assassination attempt there, which failed and resulted in the loss of the war mages. Later, while Zoe was en route to Riorca again, this time on the Soldier’s Sweep, another team of Bayard’s tried to assassinate Rayn—and failed again.

  Now Zoe was on the Water Spirit with Prince Rayn.

  Would she make another attempt on Rayn’s life?

  Yes, Bayard had said, but only if she could get Rayn alone and distracted. Rayn was a fire mage. In a fair fight, he was more than a match for her. She would attempt to seduce him or otherwise throw him off his guard rather than attack him openly.

  This was Celeste’s worst fear. No matter what she did, she could not protect Prince Rayn during his journey on the Water Spirit. All she could do was hope and pray that he didn’t put him
self into a situation where he was alone with Zoe.

  But she could, if Lucien allowed her to take the Soldier’s Sweep, travel to Inya and tell him about the danger when his ship made landfall. Once Rayn arrived on Inya, he might be safe from the assassins if they were unwilling to kill him within his country’s borders. But she was not going to count on that.

  She’d cajoled Lucien, yelled at him, and finally begged, but he’d remained firm. He would send word to Rayn on the post, but he would not chase after the prince with his personal ship, even though they now knew with certainty that Zoe meant to kill him.

  For now, Celeste needed sleep. Tomorrow, she would take matters into her own hands.

  • • •

  Rayn stood in the driving rain, looking southward toward home. Just a few weeks ago, he couldn’t wait to set sail for Inya. Now it was the last place he wanted to go. Once again he’d have to deal with the corrupt Land Council, his addled father, his self-absorbed mother. Once again it would be him and Magister Lornis against the world—and with high stakes, now that he faced a ratification vote.

  Having Celeste at his side would have made all the difference. He could have looked forward to showing her his homeland. Inya was beautiful by anyone’s standard, and he had many favorite spots he wanted to share with her. Without her, he feared they would be empty pleasures.

  He heard footsteps behind him, and Lieutenant Tonas joined him at the rail. “I suggest you go to your cabin, Your Highness,” he said. “The weather’s worsening.”

  Rayn looked up at the nighttime sky. The lieutenant was right; the wind was picking up. The sailors swarmed into the tops to reduce sail. “All right.”

  He headed to his cabin, opened the door, and stepped inside.

  And jumped in surprise. Zoe was sitting on his cot.

  “What are you doing here?” he said. “You’re not to be in my cabin without permission.”

  “You decided not to marry that princess they tried to foist on you,” said Zoe.

  Rayn frowned. “You’ve got your facts twisted up.”

  “So tell me the story. The rain’s going to continue for a while.” She rose to her feet and walked toward him. “We’ll have to stay in our cabins. Why not pass the time in an agreeable way?”