Crown of Danger (The Hidden Mage Book 2)

by Melanie Cellier

  We were still in the midst of the village, but the streets were deserted, and everything was quiet—strangely so. But an unnatural stillness wouldn’t have made Layna’s horse rear or sent Bryony leaping away from the window.

  “What happ—”

  I didn’t get the chance to finish the question. A shadow moved between two of the houses followed immediately by a rush of power that surged in our direction. My hand dived for my most accessible pocket before I registered the feel of a bubble of power already around us. One of our two guards had long since shielded us.

  I dropped my hand as the power that had been lobbed at us broke against the barrier of our shield. For a moment the shield held before dissolving, all sensation of power leaving the air around us.

  Another shield sprang to life before I could even think about going for one of my own. It had most likely come from Layna, although my view of her was now blocked by the carriage.

  Bryony grabbed at my arm. “What’s going on?”

  I swallowed. “That was a powerful attack. It took out our shield.”

  “What?” Bryony gasped.

  “One of the guards released another one,” I reassured her quickly.

  “Still,” she said uneasily. “Are we going to have enough?”

  “I’m sure Layna is well supplied.” I tried to inject more confidence into my words than I felt. If someone was fool enough to attack a royal carriage, they would presumably have come with significant attack power. Who knew how long they had been preparing for this?

  “There!” Bryony pointed to another building further up the street.

  A man darted out onto the street, narrowing his eyes as he looked back at us. He didn’t wear a robe, or any other identifiable clothing, but he held a stack of parchment in his hands.

  A clattering behind us made me whirl, but it was only our second guard, Lieutenant Beckett, climbing onto the roof of the carriage.

  “In front,” he called. “And behind.”

  My captain appeared, on foot now, her face grim.

  “Who are they?” I asked. “What do they want?”

  “You, I assume,” she said in a harsh voice. “I should have asked for more guards.”

  I shook my head. “Who could guess something like this would happen? No one has dared attack a royal carriage in…” My voice trailed off as I tried to think if it had happened even once since the end of the war.

  The man ahead of us ripped one of his compositions. A rolling bank of smoke appeared, racing down the street to engulf us.

  Layna’s hands flashed, and a wind sprang up, sending the smoke writhing and twirling into eddies and streams as it was pushed back. But somewhere behind the darkness, flickers of red flame had appeared.

  Thunder cracked overhead and rain began to fall, instantly drenching us. I tried to peer through the rain and smoke but could no longer see our attacker or even the buildings lining the street.

  “Verene.” Bryony sounded nervous.

  I glanced at her and saw her attention focused back down the road behind us. I remembered Beckett had said we had attackers on both sides and whirled to peer just as fruitlessly in that direction.

  The sound of tearing parchment above our heads preceded a second wind which drove a funnel of clear air down the street. For a moment I got a hazy view of a second attacker, this one a woman.

  “Can you feel her?” Bryony asked quietly.

  For a moment I thought she was asking whether any power was rushing toward us. But as soon as I properly focused my senses, I understood her reference.

  When my new abilities first appeared, the constant sensation of the energy of everyone around me had been overwhelming. But I had become so used to it now, that I barely noticed the energy of others. However, I had acquired enough subtlety for Bryony to teach me to recognize a particular marker—the slight difference in the energy of another energy mage.

  “Are we shielded for energy?” she asked me.

  I glanced back at Layna, still locked in battle with the man further up the street. “I don’t know.”

  “Then do something,” she hissed, as the woman, who was once again disappearing within the smoke, tore a composition.

  “Take control,” I whispered, nearly tripping over the words in my haste.

  I could already feel the snaking energy coming for us. As soon as I finished the words, the full awareness of it washed over me, nearly making me reel at its strength. It latched on to first Bryony and then me, tugging at our inner reserves, trying to drain away our life force.

  “Reverse,” I muttered, fear making me act without thinking.

  Immediately the thread of energy connecting us changed course, draining in the other direction and flooding into me instead of our attacker.

  I gasped as the energy hit me. A feeling of momentary discomfort—familiar from my training with Bryony—turned quickly into a euphoric buoyancy.

  The energy continued to flood toward me, my attacker draining shockingly fast. A moment later I realized my mistake. She had been draining both Bryony and me, which meant she was now losing energy to us both. My friend was actually bouncing up and down from the unexpected influx.

  Another ripping sound from above released a wave of pure power that spread around us in every direction, dissipating the smoke wherever it came into contact. As the air finally cleared, the woman appeared, now lying collapsed on the ground, her face ashen.

  “Cut,” I whispered, and the flow of energy stopped. Her chest rose and fell in a shallow breath.

  A warning shout from the front of the carriage made me glance backward as another wave of power slammed against our shield, bursting it with the strength of the attack.

  Simultaneous ripping sounds from above and behind encased us in further layers of shielding, even as Lieutenant Beckett above us grunted and fell. He slid off the roof of the carriage, plummeting toward the ground.

  Bryony reacted almost impossibly fast, racing past me to cushion his fall. The two of them collapsed to the ground in a tangled pile before Bryony sprang back up, reaching down to help the larger man to his feet.

  “Something got through that time,” he said unnecessarily. “Maybe you should get back in the carriage, Your Highness.” But he sounded uncertain, as if he wasn’t sure if I was safer out here where they could see me or tucked away behind walls of wood.

  I nodded absently, not really following his words. It was hard to focus with the buzz of energy inside me.

  At first it had seemed just like the familiar feeling of excess from Bryony’s compositions to gift energy. But the more seconds ticked by, the stranger it felt. This energy fought against combining with my own. It twisted, pulling away from me before springing reluctantly back, making me rock every time.

  Beckett frowned at me. “Are you all right, Princess?”

  I nodded, panting slightly. “I’m fine.”

  I hoped my words were true. What was happening to me?

  “We have to help Captain Layna,” I said. “Are there more of them?”

  As if in answer to my question, an even stronger wave of power hit us from the side, emerging from between two buildings. It broke through the first of our shields before fizzling out against the second.

  Beckett already had a parchment in his hands, tearing it to once again give us a double layer of shielding.

  “How many more of those do you have?” I asked, keeping my voice level with difficulty. The energy still fought inside me, the buzzed feeling of its presence at odds with my natural fear and the strange nausea produced by its attempts to escape from my skin.

  “More,” the lieutenant said. “But whether we have enough depends on their number and how well-equipped they are.”

  I appreciated that he didn’t offer me platitudes or empty reassurances.

  “We need to get moving,” he said. “See if we can outrun them. Or at least get out into the open. If we could make it to the Academy…”

  I glanced up at the carriage driver
who was shaking in fright, even as he attempted to control his even more terrified horses. The thunder and rain had stopped, but the animals could sense something unnatural was going on.

  “That’s not going to be easy,” Bryony said.

  I led the way toward the front of the carriage, where Layna still stood with her back to us, the ground around her now littered with torn scraps of parchment.

  “One of them is down,” Beckett told her. “Although it must have been the princess who did it. It wasn’t one of my compositions.”

  Layna nodded without taking her eyes off her opponent. “How many of them did you spot from up there?”

  “At least three,” he said. “But my visibility was limited by the buildings. There could be more.”

  Lightning arced through the sky, cracking against our shield and setting the carriage horses to rearing again. For the first time true fear shook me. With the energy mage disabled, we were safe enough behind our shields. But for how long?

  I had still seen no sign of any locals, and the residents of the village were all commonborns anyway. They could do little to help us against such an attack—assuming they didn’t side with our attackers.

  A shout and the sound of running feet made us all flinch. My attempted control over my roiling insides faltered, and this time when our attacker’s energy pulled away, it snapped free, disappearing instead of springing back toward me.

  A heavy weight pressed me into the ground for a moment before my sense of self equalized. I wasn’t exhausted, this was my normal level of energy. It had just felt like weakness for a few seconds after the loss of the unnatural strength.

  Gold robes appeared in the street, accompanied by the red and gold uniforms of commonborn guards. I instinctively relaxed, but Layna remained taut, her attention sliding between her opponent and the new arrivals.

  I recognized the man leading them, and my own wariness reasserted itself. Vincent, the captain of the Academy Guard, had been appointed directly by the king—a man I knew wanted me dead.

  But Captain Vincent took one look at the situation and began barking orders to his team. The guards ran forward, swords outstretched toward the man standing openly in the street.

  He cursed and tore several more parchments, fresh power springing to life around him. But the guards didn’t hesitate, hammering away at his shield with their weapons, slowly draining it.

  After a moment, I realized they were doing more than that. Working in coordination, they used their attacks to drive him back, herding him away from us and toward one of their two mage lieutenants.

  “There’s another between those buildings,” Beckett called, pointing to the relevant gap.

  The second Kallorwegian lieutenant took off running in that direction, a small stream of red and gold guards following.

  “And one behind,” Layna barked to Captain Vincent. “Incapacitated.”

  I glanced back behind the carriage. The street was empty.

  I bit my lip. “She’s gone. I’m sorry, I should have stopped to bind her.”

  Layna frowned at me. “That’s not your job, Princess. And if we’d had more people, one of us would have done it. But we rightly had to keep our focus on current threats.”

  “Are there any more?” Captain Vincent asked.

  Beckett shrugged. “Not that we know of. But they were hiding between the buildings, so it’s possible.”

  The Kallorwegian captain frowned around at the empty streets. “This village is close enough to the Academy that I’ve interviewed every one of the inhabitants myself. I don’t believe they would be part of any such attack.”

  “You’re worried they’re not just hiding in fear?” Layna asked. “You think the attackers might have dealt with them first?”

  I gasped, the thought not having occurred to me.

  “It’s a possibility.” Captain Vincent sounded genuinely concerned, and I warmed to him.

  The lieutenant who had gone chasing off between the buildings reappeared, his breathing slightly labored. He stopped in front of us, saluting his captain.

  “I’m afraid he got away, Sir. He was already running when we started the chase. We lost sight of him, and not even our compositions could pick up his track.” He frowned. “It was like he disappeared. He must have had some highly effective cloaking compositions to hide his path.”

  “Did you see any of the people?” I asked. “The locals?”

  “We’re here.” A grizzled, older man appeared, limping slightly as he exited a door of one of the larger buildings. “Sheltering out of sight.”

  He bowed in our direction. “We would have helped, but we have no mages of our own. And most of our able-bodied are lending Zora a hand up at the Academy. She often has a few days’ extra work for locals like us, cleaning the place top to bottom in preparation for the return of the trainees.” He nodded respectfully at the white robes worn by Bryony and me.

  Layna glanced at Captain Vincent, and he nodded his agreement. “That’s true enough. Although there would have been plenty still here—especially children and elderly.”

  His earlier concern now made even more sense, but the villager in front of us didn’t look especially distressed.

  “Those brigands sent an unnatural smoke straight up the center of the street shortly before you all arrived,” he said. “We knew well enough to get out of the way at that point.”

  Layna regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Was it you who called the warning?”

  He nodded. “Couldn’t bear to see innocent folk ambushed like that. Even if you was better equipped to defend yourself than us. We don’t want any trouble here. We’ve had trouble enough for several lifetimes being so close to the border.”

  “You did the right thing,” Captain Vincent said. “You sent for me. I’m just sorry we couldn’t get here sooner. But there isn’t room at the Academy to be keeping horses for all of my guards. And when the request for help arrived, there was no mention of you, Your Highness.” He bowed slightly in my direction.

  “We sent young Eamon off before the carriage arrived,” the village elder said. “We could tell they weren’t ordinary brigands from the start—never minding we don’t tend to get those out this way in the first place.”

  “No, they certainly weren’t brigands,” Captain Vincent said in a hard voice. He straightened suddenly, calling out a barked order.

  We all turned to follow his gaze in time to see his second lieutenant kneeling over a body lying flat on the ground. The young man in the gold robe looked across at his captain.

  “We had nearly worn down his shield when he just collapsed.”

  Bryony and I exchanged a glance. We had known there was an energy mage involved, one who could drain someone’s energy. Maybe if I’d been paying more attention, I would have felt when she drained her companion’s energy. But it hadn’t occurred to me to worry about such a thing, and I’d been distracted by the conversation.

  “We lost all three of them, then,” Layna said, and I winced.

  We were all alive, but if I hadn’t made so many mistakes, maybe we would have one or two of the attackers to question.

  “I don’t suppose you recognized any of them?” Captain Vincent’s tone didn’t sound very hopeful.

  Layna bristled. “Of course I didn’t. I hope you don’t mean to suggest you think those mages were Ardannian.”

  “I’m just considering every possibility,” he said. “Which is my job. We’re near enough to the border.”

  Layna relaxed slightly. “I suppose you’re right. But no, I didn’t recognize them. And we’ve had no hints of any threats against the princess the whole summer. I can’t imagine an Ardannian adversary would have waited for us to cross the border before attacking.”

  The Kallorwegian captain nodded, accepting her words before asking his next question. “Do we even know they were mages?”

  “That one isn’t marked at throat or wrists.” The lieutenant who had been examining the dead man joined us. “So he’s n
o sealed commonborn.”

  “They were mighty familiar with their compositions,” Beckett added.

  “And that one visibly responded a couple of times before my composition hit him.” Layna nodded at the body in the street. “I’d be willing to bet good gold he could feel power.”

  Captain Vincent nodded again. “I’ll leave a couple of guards to interview the villagers, but I doubt we’ll learn anything of interest at this stage. And if our tracking compositions aren’t working, then I don’t have the men to perform a foot search of the entire region. Which means, for now at least, our focus must be on getting the princess safely behind the Academy walls.”

  He turned to survey our carriage with a critical eye. “Is your vehicle still functional?”

  Layna nodded. “They didn’t attack it directly.”

  The carriage driver, having finally regained control of the horses, nodded his agreement. “She’ll get us there, right enough.”

  I could see from the slight shake in his hands that he would be glad himself to be behind the Academy’s high walls as fast as possible.

  “Very well then.” Captain Vincent turned to the village elder, but the man had already foreseen his request.

  He waved forward a young girl and boy, each leading a saddled horse. They regarded us all with wide eyes, not speaking as they handed the reins to Captain Vincent.

  The captain nodded his thanks and gestured for one of his lieutenants to join him. “We’ll ride beside you. It’s not far on horseback. The rest of my guards will follow on foot.”

  Within moments, Bryony and I had been ushered back into the carriage, and we were moving once again.

  “What just happened?” Bryony asked in an undertone as soon as we were alone. “I thought Darius said his father wouldn’t attack you again.”

  “So did I.” I rubbed at the side of my head. “Maybe this attack wasn’t the king?”

  My friend regarded me with wide eyes. “How many people are trying to kill you?”

  “Too many, apparently.” I grimaced. “Did you feel how strange that energy was? It was like it was fighting me.”