Them… Mageborn were others to him. Something to be examined, studied, dissected. Chilly fingers of instinct played at the back of her neck. She knew the Maegen, knew it intimately. She remembered the dreams, the light, that shifting light like the reflection of water or the bubbling of lava…
She pushed the thoughts away in case they betrayed her. Hale might not notice her reaction. But others here could.
‘Do you know what killed her? What made those burns?’
But he shook his head. ‘Just that it tore every last scrap of magic from her.’
‘A Leech?’
‘Like no Leech I’ve ever seen. Not even—’ He swallowed the rest of the sentence but glanced over his shoulder. He lifted the sheet back over Losle’s still face, covering her again.
‘Where is the Lord of Thorns?’
Merlyn Hale glanced at her, his eyes very blue beneath the fall of his auburn hair. He chewed on his narrow lower lip for a moment. ‘A word to the wise, Lieutenant. Don’t call him that. He hates it.’
‘And why is that?’
‘It’s not exactly complimentary, is it?’ There had been a Lord of Thorns ever since Lucien Larelwynn’s brother took the title, passed down through the generations. But they never ruled. They were the seneschals of the mageborn and thus mageborn themselves. They all died young, in violence and despair. Being the Lord of Thorns wasn’t so much a title as a curse. ‘Don’t push it, Lieutenant. He isn’t patient.’
‘Well,’ she smiled her blandest smile. ‘I wouldn’t want to upset him, would I?’
Chapter Six
Bastien’s head pounded. Aurelie had thrown a party and insisted he attend. He’d wanted to leave early but the wine had gone to his head and he’d spent a large portion of the remaining time there trying to disentangle himself from her. She loved to flirt, the queen did. And there were not many people she could flirt with comfortably. He had been forced to excuse himself and he knew she’d be pouting for days that he hadn’t stayed. And that half the court would be talking about it. He’d end up the villain in this. She would see to that.
Asher laughed at him when he complained.
‘No one else would turn her down, old friend.’
Maybe not. But she was still the queen. She was Marius’s wife and, at some point, someone would get the wrong idea.
He hadn’t slept well, and couldn’t stop thinking about the boy assassin on the terrace below the balcony from which he’d thrown himself, his blood pooling around him in a glossy sheet. Whether he really had thrown himself off, as the guards swore had happened, or if he’d been helped along the way… well, that was another matter.
Would they lie to him?
It was hard to say. He knew they feared him. But he wasn’t so much of a fool to think there was nothing they feared more. He couldn’t say he was exactly liked either. He had never set out to be liked. It wasn’t something any of the Larelwynns thought much about. And anyway, he was mageborn. Doubly unlikely.
And then there was Marius and his rapidly deteriorating condition. Only a matter of time now. It was going to break his heart to lose him, and to be forced to take his place.
Rathlynn was a dangerous place and the palace the beating heart of that terror if you got on the wrong side of the wrong person. The city was just a microcosm of the country. There were enemies at every turn. The war with Tlachtlya might have ended twenty years ago, but that didn’t mean it was forgotten. Any weakness would be seized upon at any level.
And the weakness now was in the crown itself. In the king.
His cousin was dying and Bastien was the heir presumptive. A mageborn heir. An impossible thing.
People would die to stop him succeeding Marius. People would definitely kill.
Hale had taken the body to try to find out anything of use but Bastien didn’t think there was anything to find. He doubted he himself would find anything either. A fanatic, perhaps a useful pawn in a much larger game. A game of kings and queens, royal dynasties and bloodlines. The boy had no place in it. He’d been doomed from the moment he’d agreed, or been coerced into action.
But who had given him that power? Who had tethered him to a Tide? The process was still dangerous, almost impossible to stabilise. It could kill them both. Bastien knew that. He had created it. And because of that he hadn’t shared it with more than a few people yet. He’d mentioned it to the king. Marius had been… well… appalled didn’t even cover it.
The door to his office opened and he didn’t bother to look up.
‘What is it, Simona?’ he growled.
A discreet cough made him pause and lift his eyes. ‘Simona wasn’t around. I let myself in, your highness.’
The woman from the Healers’ Halls stood there, the one who had tried to save her mageborn friend. The officer from the Academy with the auburn hair like fire and the attitude to match. She stood there, slender and elegant, with a scowl on her face which did nothing to mar the looks she clearly didn’t care to think about. Bastien usually read people with ease. Not this time.
‘It is usual to knock.’
A smile played across her lips and she folded her arms in front of her chest. ‘I knocked a few times. I don’t think you were listening.’
It wasn’t that she was irritating. Although perhaps that was part of it. Distracting. Yes, that was the word. She distracted him. Everything about her. He studied her for a long moment and she didn’t flinch under his dark gaze. She didn’t look away either. Most people couldn’t hold his stare for long. Their attention shifted, darted elsewhere, but she just stared back at him, unrepentant. Intriguing.
‘Perhaps I wasn’t. I lose myself in my work sometimes. What can I do for you, Lieutenant Marchant?’
If it surprised her that he knew her name, she was good enough to keep it hidden. Because why shouldn’t he have learned her name? He hadn’t had anyone stand up to him as completely as she had in years. It didn’t matter that it hadn’t done her any good.
‘I have some questions for you. About a murder. And Merlyn Hale.’
‘I sent him down to have a look.’ Another death so quickly was a concern. Especially as it was a mageborn. Burns to the hands, Hale had said, drained of magic, a hyper-accelerated syphon… worrying signs. Almost as worrying as the boy assassin with magic he shouldn’t have had.
‘Why?’
He smiled, a slow warning smile. ‘Perhaps I wanted to get him out of the Healers’ Halls to see what the real world was like. Or perhaps I thought he could help.’
‘Or perhaps you wanted him to cover your tracks.’
Oh, so that was what she thought. Well, she wouldn’t be the first. As a member of the blood royal, and a mageborn to boot, it was natural that suspicion fell on him. He’d heard such things all his life. Absentmindedly, he reached up and touched the golden torc around his neck. Not a leather collar for him. Oh no.
Lieutenant Marchant’s eyes followed the movement. Of course. She missed nothing, did she? But still, she showed no reaction beyond a very soft intake of breath. Barely more than an average inhalation. Anyone else would have missed it. Interesting.
‘That wouldn’t have been very smart, would it? Given he obviously told you I sent him right away.’
‘And how do you know that?’
‘I told him to.’
‘And has he reported back to you yet?’
Bastien shook his head and stood up. ‘Not more than the basics. He brought the body back here and is examining it now. A Leanese woman, a Zephyr, completely drained of magic.’ He didn’t mention the burn marks. Neither did she.
‘I know. I spoke to him.’ Of course she had. He gazed at her dispassionately. Was she questioning him? Interesting.
‘Do you have any other suspicions? Aside from me, I mean.’
She gave a laugh, a bright sound he hadn’t expected from her. ‘And why would I suspect you, your highness?’
‘Well, you’d be a fool not to. I’m the strongest Leech in the country, among other
things. The mageborn report here, to me, for their day of homage. And any who transgress are sent to me as well. But I hardly need to go sneaking around the docks late at night attacking young Leanese girls and stealing their magic.’
Grace thought about it and then nodded slowly. ‘You have ample opportunities, don’t you? You don’t have to hunt them in the city. They’re brought right to you. There are people missing, you know. People who came to pay their day of homage, and haven’t made it home. Or if they have, it’s days later and they can’t say what happened.’
Bastien frowned, suddenly uncomfortable. That couldn’t be right, could it? He’d have to check with Hale. Something was wrong with that story. ‘I’ll look into that. You have my word.’
She didn’t look convinced. Not that he could blame her. Her reasoning was sound, even if the information leading her to these conclusions was limited. But the accusation stung. She glared at him and somehow he felt the need to explain. He’d never felt that with anyone but Marius and it unnerved him.
‘Do you know how my magic works, Lieutenant? I don’t need to take magic from others. It’s not like a hunger or an addiction. It’s just a thing I can do. I don’t need to do it. Or at least, not physically.’
She tilted her head to one side, considering this.
‘Psychologically?’
It was quite the question.
He fought to suppress his smile. ‘Do I have a psychological need to drain magic from others?’
‘Yes. Kai… my friend, the mageborn you…’ And for the first time her voice shook. She’d tried to stop him, tried to help her friend. She’d been defending him, even though a prince had ordered her out of the way. Had they been more than friends, he wondered. Lovers? They would have made a handsome couple together.
And unexpectedly he felt something he hadn’t felt in years. Something he barely recognised any more. It felt almost like a surge of jealousy.
‘Officer Kai Albren, first class. A Leech. His file was impressive. Everyone spoke highly of him.’
He had made a point of having Albren’s file sent through, of reading all the details. It was a form of self-inflicted torture, Simona said, to dwell on what he’d had to do, but Bastien couldn’t help himself. He needed to know. His marshal might have had his best interests at heart, but he didn’t want to make this easier on himself. Especially when it wasn’t a criminal or a madman. Just a man. A good man, as it turned out. The sort of man a woman like that cared about. Would fight for. A man whose memory was cherished. Albren had offered up multiple days of homage to the crown in the last few months alone. And looking at his service you could argue that his whole life had been one of homage. The ideal mageborn.
She rallied as he watched her. He’d read her file too. Grace Marchant, orphaned after the war, a refugee in the city with no one to stand for her. She’d been brought to the Academy because there was nowhere else for her and had been raised within its walls. It was all she knew. She’d been mageborn, but before she’d arrived on their doorstop had been the victim of a syphon herself. She claimed no memory prior to that. There was a remaining sensitivity, her induction officer’s report said. Perhaps nothing, and nothing had come from it. Good instincts, admired by her peers and respected by her superiors, she had a higher rate of engagements and successful arrests than any other person at her level. They had already tagged her as future command material.
Not that he would let her know that.
But if he needed someone to look into this mystery, someone he could count on not to give up if higher authorities demanded it, he really didn’t have to look any further, did he?
‘You haven’t answered my question, your highness.’
‘Bastien,’ he said.
She frowned, confused by this tack. It shouldn’t have amused him as much as it did. But just to see her wrong-footed, just for a moment, was endearing.
‘Bastien?’
‘My name. Rather than “your highness”. It’s quicker.’ It wasn’t. The way she said it took exactly the same amount of time. But still… the way she frowned made it worthwhile.
She gave a little laugh then, barely more than a breath. ‘I would have thought you would prefer the title. Isn’t it a sign of respect?’
‘That rather depends how you say it, doesn’t it?’
‘Right then, Bastien.’ Oh yes, it entirely depended on how you said it. Marchant raised her eyebrows. And she waited.
It was his turn to laugh. ‘I still haven’t answered your question. When I take magic from another mageborn, I do it to help. Your friend Kai was dying. He would have died screaming in agony. As the power inside him grew wild and ungovernable, it would have tried to… possess him, for want of a better word. And such power is dangerous.’
If Albren hadn’t been strapped down, he would have tried to kill her. Just because she was there. He might have loved her with all his heart and it would still have happened. Because she was right there, right in front of him. Because of the ghost of magic he could sense in her. Bastien had seen it before. But how could he tell her that? She wouldn’t believe him anyway.
‘So you were trying to help him? By stealing his magic and taking his life?’
If only it was as simple as that. If only life was that simple. ‘Have you ever heard of the Hollow King?’
‘It’s a legend. An old story.’ She said it dismissively, impatient to get on with her questions rather than answer his. Of course she’d heard of him. You couldn’t live in Rathlynn without hearing about him. But Bastien wasn’t going to be rushed.
‘It’s so much more than that. He’s the reason why mageborn must swear to serve the crown, and never to aspire to wear it.’
Which left him in a predicament, didn’t it? The torc suddenly felt very heavy. He could feel her eyes on it again.
‘You’re mageborn,’ she said, an accusation with which he was all too familiar.
‘Yes.’ There was no point in denying it. The whole kingdom knew. It was his purpose in life. To be mageborn – and to control the rest of them.
‘And King Marius’s heir.’
‘So they tell me.’
‘Who tells you?’
‘The king. His wife. His ministers. The whole court. Oh, and all the people trying to kill me.’
‘A daily event, is it?’
She had no idea.
‘More or less, my dear lieutenant. One of the perils of life in the court. I’ve lived my whole life with the knowledge of it. The Hollow King devoured the mageborn of this country, plunging them into his madness. Unchecked they would have killed everyone. They say he tore the Maegen itself out of its pool and took it all into himself, gave himself up to the shadows in its depths. If he couldn’t have magic, he took that quintessence that makes us human, that drives life itself. He rampaged through the kingdom and destroyed his own bloodline, consumed by darkest magic. He burned my ancestral home, made desolation out of the valley of the roses and called it Thorndale. My ancestor, Lucien Larelwynn, was the one to finally kill him. He forced him to agree to the pact and then he ran him through. You can’t make a deal like that without blood, after all. There must always be blood. We still have his sword, Godslayer. It hangs over the throne. A cautionary reminder. Do you know the rest of the story?’
She shook her head, not because she didn’t know it. Everyone knew it. But rather because, like everyone else in Rathlynn, Grace Marchant didn’t really believe it. ‘It’s just a story. I’m trying to trace a killer. And the girl wasn’t the first victim either. You know that, don’t you?’
He knew. But he wasn’t finished.
‘The Hollow King cursed us. All of us. He cursed my ancestor, and his family, and all descended from him. The Maegen is fickle, and powerful, and dangerous. We see it as light, but there is darkness as well. Beneath the waters of the pool, the Deep Dark waits for us all. The Hollow King knew that. He used that. That was what destroyed him, after all, and he passed that doom on to us as well. He cursed us with magic
and ensured that for every Larelwynn king there’s a Lord of Thorns. Even if it’s made of gold, it’s still a collar.’
Her gaze flickered down to the torc and then back to his face.
‘And you wear it so you can’t become another Hollow King.’
She was quick.
‘I wear it to remind myself that it’s always a possibility. I have no desire to hunt down unfortunate mageborn who are doing nothing but trying to live their lives. No more than you do, I presume. My role is to help them, guide them and be the touchstone that anchors their power, stops them losing control. Like your friend did. That’s part of what the day of homage is. I bring them balance, and peace. I still the darkness that can rise unbidden through the Maegen and destroy them. I draw it out of them, subdue it if I must, and send them on their way. I work to make that easier for them, to find ways to make the pact easier on us all. My role is to protect them and that is my paramount desire.’
He closed his eyes, breathing out slowly. It was more than he had admitted to anyone in years. When he opened them again Grace was studying him carefully. Waiting. Her patience unnerved him. He’d have to watch that.
Time for honesty then. Not about everything, but about his intentions perhaps. ‘I sent Hale because I thought he could help you. I am willing to come with you, should you so wish. You have no mageborn working with you since Officer Albren’s demise. That puts you at a disadvantage. We should rectify that.’
He couldn’t have put her more off balance if he’d swept her into his arms and kissed her. The temptation to compare the two was unexpectedly strong. He forced himself to shake the thought away.
‘You… want to work with me…’
‘If you will have me, Lieutenant.’
She glared at him, eyes narrow, suspicion in the depths of them as she tried to figure out if he was joking or mocking her. He could hardly blame her.
‘I don’t need you.’
Mageborn: An absolutely gripping fantasy novel (The Hollow King Book 1) Page 9