Crown of Danger (The Hidden Mage Book 2)

by Melanie Cellier

  My father nodded. “Your mother didn’t change our kingdom and end the war with Kallorway by being the same as everyone else. And I truly believe you children have the potential to do even greater things than we did. We brought the beginnings of change, but we were forced into taking small steps by the weight of the past and established opinions. You four are at the center of the next generation—the one growing up in the new world, with a new way of thinking. You’re the ones who will truly live that change.”

  I grimaced, looking down at the plate of roast meat I had just served myself from the platters in the middle of the table. Aunt Lucienne had also talked about my being part of a new generation when she sent me off to Kallorway with the mission to uncover the minds of my year mates—and especially that of the Kallorwegian crown prince. But I couldn’t say I’d seen a great deal of evidence of this new way of thinking that apparently gave my parents so much hope.

  Most of the first years had given every appearance of following obediently in their parents’ political allegiances, and none of them had appeared to give a thought to the commonborns at all. The thought sparked something in my mind, an elusive idea that slipped away before I could grasp hold of it fully, the chatter of my family distracting me from pinning it down.

  Stellan made a quip about my father’s speech, and my mother laughed, sending my father an affectionately mocking look and apparently taking Stellan’s effort as a sign he was willing to let the charged topic of sealing drop. The conversation moved on, and I rejoined it, suddenly remembering that Bryony and I would be leaving in the morning. This was the last time I would hear my family laughing and joking together for nearly a year.

  Although I tried to shake it off, the melancholy lingered with me for the rest of the evening. My mother must have noticed because she gave me an extra long embrace as we all parted for bed.

  “It’s so quiet here when you and your brother are gone,” she said softly.

  I forced myself to smile. “You’re surrounded by an entire palace full of people. It can’t be that quiet.”

  She smoothed back my hair, like she used to do when I was a child. “But they’re not the most important people. I hope you know that your father and I miss you.”

  I buried my face in her shoulder, my arms tightening around her. “I miss you too.”

  When I pulled back with a long sigh, she smiled at me, but it didn’t light up her eyes the way it usually did. I gave her a final goodnight and left for my suite, wondering if she could sense what I had carefully refrained from voicing all summer. The palace at Corrin no longer felt like my only home, and something—or rather someone—called me back to Kallorway.

  Chapter 4

  When our carriage rolled past the stretch of road that had once split the Wall, only the dead land remained as a sign of what had once stood there. The work removing the rocks had finally been completed, or so I had been told.

  I wasn’t alone in the carriage this year, either, the journey enlivened by Bryony’s company. She had been extra bright all the way from Corrin, and from her careful avoidance of any mention of Darius’s name, I could guess why. But she seemed to have finally abandoned her efforts to lighten my mood, falling silent as she watched the countryside pass by the window.

  I stared out the opposite window myself but absorbed nothing of the view. How strange it seemed that I hadn’t seen the Kallorwegian prince for so many weeks. And how much stranger that a year ago I hadn’t even met him. When I pictured his tall form and the hidden spark in his dark eyes, my heart beat faster despite myself, and I willed the horses to hurry.

  But I feared our arrival in almost equal measure. How would he react when he saw me? Would our absence over these summer weeks bring back something of the closeness we had once shared? Or would the chill of our parting still linger?

  My heart wanted to see the fire in his eyes again, but my mind remembered that nothing had changed in those weeks. I still had a strange new power that I couldn’t share with a prince who had dedicated his life to seizing the throne at Kallmon. If I couldn’t share the truth with my own family, I certainly couldn’t share it with Darius who knew just as well as my aunt what it was to hold everything and everyone else secondary to your responsibility to your kingdom.

  But it still felt wrong. He had been the one to rescue me when I had discovered the first part of my ability and had trained with me for weeks. He was a central part of that journey and the world I had lived in last year, and it wasn’t my desire to cut him out now.

  But he would be the first to tell me that royals had a responsibility to their kingdoms and people that came before their own desires. It was the only reason he was scheming for the throne. I just wished I knew which kingdom and which people I could safely entrust my new abilities to. I had hoped the summer and a return to my old home might bring some counsel on the subject, but I was no closer to peace on the matter than I had been when I finished first year. I could not let Darius use me against my mother and my family and the people of Ardann. But neither could I become a tool in the hands of my aunt against the people of either Kallorway or the Sekali Empire.

  Not that I felt any great loyalty to either group of people as a whole. But their representatives burned brightly in my mind—Bryony and Darius. My best friend and the boy who haunted my dreams.

  The carriage rolled on into Bronton and, like the previous year, we stopped for the night, although this time we stayed at the largest of the town’s inns. When we crossed the bridge over the Abneris into Kallorway early the next morning, tension filled me. It wouldn’t be long before I saw Darius again.

  He had been closed off from me when we parted ways, shamed, perhaps, by his father’s role in the attacks against me, and resentful of my continuing suspicion of his brother, Jareth. But he had still entrusted me with a secret message to my aunt, and if he hoped to avoid me completely this year, her reply would foil those plans.

  She had called me in for a private audience as soon as I returned to Corrin for the summer and had listened to the carefully worded request I passed on from Darius. My father had learned to hide his true emotions through the same upbringing as Aunt Lucienne, but she was the greater expert. I could still sense her surprise, however.

  I didn’t know if it was surprise at Darius’s plans, or surprise at the extent of my success. Either way, I could tell she was impressed with my efforts and with the trust I had won from the infamously closed Darius. Once her approbation would have filled me with joy, but now it only sparked feelings of guilt. I had set out a year ago, determined to prove myself to her, and now I was hiding something huge and momentous. I didn’t deserve her approval.

  “So the crown prince intends to seize the throne from his father,” she had said, tapping her lips in thought. “An interesting problem.”

  “King Cassius is destroying Kallorway,” I replied, refraining from mentioning he had also attempted to destroy me. I didn’t want that story getting back to my parents. They might pull me from the Academy altogether. “Darius only wants to save his people.”

  She laughed at that, a short chuckle, although it seemed to hold genuine amusement. “I’m sure we all tell ourselves that. And for some of us perhaps it’s true.”

  I wanted to leap to Darius’s defense but restrained myself. It wouldn’t help his case for my aunt to guess the extent of my partiality for the foreign prince. Instead I gave a more political answer.

  “It seems to me the crucial element is that he has been promised the throne. And soon—not at some distant date upon the death of his father. King Cassius has assured not just Darius but his own supporters that he will step aside in his son’s favor. From what I understand, it’s the whole basis of his current hold on power. Darius merely intends to hold his father to the promises he has made to his kingdom.”

  I held silent for a moment, letting her ponder. As a reigning monarch herself, I could understand why the concept of overthrowing a ruler might make her uncomfortable.

 
“It is true that the prince’s claims align with reports we have heard,” she said at last. “Our intelligencers have long relayed rumors that Cassius promises to step aside for his son. And his efforts to delay the prince’s commencement at the Academy would certainly support this idea. Cassius has held on to his throne by his torn fingernails for more than twenty long years. He is not the sort to cede power willingly.”

  “And he does not have reason to love Ardann.” I chose my words carefully. “During my year in Kallorway, I was left in no doubt that King Cassius’s hatred for us, and for my mother in particular, weighs too strongly with him to allow his forging closer ties with our kingdom. If Ardann wants to build stronger ties with Kallorway, then we would be well served to see Darius on the throne.”

  My aunt weighed me with a piercing gaze. “And you are confident that the son does not share his father’s prejudices?”

  “Entirely,” I said with too much feeling, immediately regretting my eager response when I saw the speculative look that sprang into her eyes.

  “King Cassius and Queen Endellion attended the Midwinter Ball that I hosted at the Academy on Ardann’s behalf,” I said quickly, hoping to cover my lapse. “I had the opportunity to observe the princes with both their parents. There is no love lost between Darius and his father.”

  “And what of Jareth and Cassius?” Aunt Lucienne asked, instantly latching on to another topic I preferred not to discuss.

  I hesitated. “Jareth appeared…changed around his father. Less comfortable than I had seen him previously. But, on the surface at least, he appeared to be on reasonable terms with his father—and even better ones with his grandfather.”

  I didn’t mention that I had spent a significant amount of time suspecting the prince of colluding with his grandfather to seize power from both Cassius and Darius. But it had turned out in the end to be the king, not old General Haddon, who was behind the attacks on me. Attacks that I still believed Jareth had a part in perpetrating.

  “We have certainly always heard that he is the more sociable of the brothers,” my aunt said.

  I barely suppressed a snort. I doubted sociable was a word that anyone had ever thought to apply to Darius.

  “Do you believe Prince Jareth is a contender for the throne?” Aunt Lucienne asked. “I have received no such reports, but then I had also received no reports that Darius was intending an imminent coup.”

  I shifted slightly. “I don’t know that I’d use the word imminent.” I hesitated again. “And I couldn’t state Jareth’s intentions with any certainty. But I know that his brother believes in him implicitly.”

  It was strangely painful to report this weakness in Darius—the blindness with regard to his brother. But if I wasn’t going to tell my aunt the truth of the attacks on me, then I had to find a way to convince her that Jareth was not an option for the throne as far as Ardann was concerned.

  “I do believe that if he ends up on the throne, it would only be through great duplicity,” I continued. “In winning such a place, he would demonstrate he possessed the sort of character Ardann could never rely on. If we wish to see a strong and reliable ruler on the throne in Kallmon, a ruler who will hold his kingdom together and look to Ardann as an ally, then we must back Darius. I truly believe that.”

  I held my breath, waiting for her response. I wanted to believe that everything I had told Darius was true, and that Ardann did want to see a strong ruler in Kallorway. But there was always the possibility that my aunt’s feelings on the matter were not so straightforward. Decades of war had left deeply entrenched mistrust of Kallorway in all layers of Ardannian society.

  Once again, my aunt’s eyes weighed me. I tried to look older and wiser than my actual years.

  “You have impressed me, Verene,” she said after a moment. “You achieved more than I thought probable in a single year. I am surprised that I find myself inclined to trust your judgment in this.” She sighed. “But then perhaps I am merely believing what I wish to be true. It is certainly hard to see how—after more than twenty years—Ardann has any hope of moving forward with either Cassius or old Haddon.”

  “So it is truly a priority for you to see Ardann more closely allied with Kallorway?” I asked tentatively.

  She sighed again. “Weakening Kallorway was a necessity when they were determined to use their strength against us. But in the long run it is in no one’s interests to see the southern kingdoms so divided. Kallorway’s weakness weakens us all.”

  I frowned. It almost sounded as if my aunt had some specific threat in mind. She read my expression easily.

  “You have proven you can be discreet, niece, so I will admit that there are unsettling rumors coming from the north.”

  “From the Sekali Empire?” My brow creased in sudden worry. “Don’t tell me the Emperor has turned against us!” Was this the reason for my aunt’s sudden talk of a marriage alliance for Lucien?

  She shook her head. “Nothing so drastic. But it is my job as ruler to see beyond the immediate problems of today. I must see the dangers waiting to spring at us down the road. And you may call me fanciful, but my instincts tell me it is time for Ardann to mend the breaches with Kallorway.”

  I had never in my life considered my aunt fanciful. And I wasn’t about to do so now. Unease sprouted inside me. The mission I had taken on the year before suddenly assumed new significance in my mind. Ardann had benefited greatly from the borders with the Empire opening, but there was danger to us there too. If unrest was coming to the great northern lands, who knew what might spill over into the south?

  “So what answer shall I take to Darius?” I asked.

  “You may tell him Ardann supports him,” she said, her tone brisk now that her decision was made. “But we will not do so openly until he has earned legitimacy for himself. There will be nothing in writing. You will be my representative in this matter.”

  I drew in a breath. I hadn’t expected her to trust me with so much responsibility.

  There had been further conversations over the course of the summer as she instructed me on what help I might promise or provide Darius in different scenarios, but her basic decision remained unchanged. To aid me in my expanded role, she had even gifted me further communication compositions with a powerful enough range to reach from the Kallorwegian Academy back to the palace.

  “It is a natural enough gift for me to give my niece,” she said. “No one will think it remarkable to hear that her family misses her and wishes for more frequent communication.”

  I frowned down at them, knowing what a composition of such strength cost.

  “It’s true, you know.” Her soft voice made me look up, startled. “Your family did miss you, and your father was more than willing to accede to my request. He considered the occasional day in bed to be a small price.”

  I sighed. I had been careful not to say anything that might push him into expending so much energy on my behalf, especially when I saw the crown already had him working so hard. Now I knew these had been what he was working on all along.

  As a prince, my father wasn’t part of any discipline and was never expected to assist with the sort of commonplace compositions other mages regularly produced. But royal strength was meant for more than just prestige or status. Some compositions required so much strength and control that they could be completed only by the strongest of mages—and even then, a day in bed might be required to regain the energy expended on such an effort. Keeping my parents on hand allowed my aunt to sacrifice fewer of her own days. No monarch wanted to spend even a day weak and vulnerable in bed, their energy entirely depleted.

  “If you need to consult with me on a matter, use one of these,” she said. “I have a trusted clerk standing ready at all times to receive your communication. And I will then reach out to you at the earliest opportunity. Or have your mother do so. Try to make sure you’re alone until you hear back from us.”

  I nodded and carefully tucked the precious compositions away in my most secure poc
ket. These weren’t ones that I needed access to at a moment’s notice, and I wouldn’t risk losing or damaging them.

  Now, as we bumped across the Kallorwegian road, I touched the outside of my robe, over the place where they hid. I would be careful not to use them frivolously, but it still felt reassuring to have the option.

  “We can’t be far,” Bryony said, sliding closer to the window and attempting to peer out at the road ahead. “I thought I just saw a glimpse of the Academy.”

  Sure enough, a lone house appeared outside the window, followed by another.

  “This must be the nearby village.” I moved to the other window. “We should be there within minutes in that case.”

  I caught a glimpse of a rider on a strong chestnut stallion. Captain Layna rode beside the carriage, escorting me back to the Academy as her final duty of the summer. But unlike the first time we had ridden this way together, she had brought only a single mage officer in support. I had spent the entire previous year at the Kallorwegian Academy without a single Ardannian guard, so the entourage that had accompanied me last year was deemed unnecessary.

  I lowered the window and was about to call to her when her mount reared. Layna somehow stayed on his back while still keeping a hand free to thrust inside her robe. I didn’t have a chance to see what composition she was retrieving, however.

  “Attack!” yelled another voice as Bryony scrambled away from her window, almost falling into my lap in her haste.

  “Someone is attacking the carriage,” she gasped.

  Chapter 5

  I moved in the opposite direction, rushing toward the far window to try to catch a glimpse of what was happening. The carriage had come to a shuddering halt, but the view was too limited to tell why. I pushed open the door and jumped down. Bryony followed close behind, recovered from her initial shock.

  I had expected to find us encircled by soldiers or perhaps brigands of some kind—although for either to attack a royal carriage was beyond shocking. I didn’t expect to be greeted with nothing at all. I spun in a circle, trying to find what had so unnerved my companions.