by J. A. Comley
“Take that one,” the magmus hissed, flicking its tail in Starla's direction. The drodemions were moving forward before it had finished.
“Now, wait a minute,” a grobbler grumbled uneasily, the keys to the cage in one hand and his small club in the other. “What about our payment?”
One part of Starla's mind noted that it was the same grobbler who had tricked her into coming here, the other watched in helpless horror as the drodemions didn't stop, moving forward until they were right outside the cage. The tallest raised its hands mechanically and placed them across the bars of the cage. Instantly the metal glowed red, then, more slowly, began to melt away.
“And now, Kyron will have everything he needs. Unbeatable, unstoppable, for all time,” Gaby moaned, her voice breaking in disbelief and horror. She gripped her white curls as if about to rip them from her head.
“Enough!” Starla yelled. She strained away from the drodemion as it reached into the cage. It ignored her, merely touching the floor of the cage where her chains were connected. “Gaby! Gaby, look at me!” Starla growled.
Gaby didn't raise her head. Starla's chain snapped up from the floor of the cage and flew behind the drodemion, which rose slowly and turned away, moving back to the magmus. Starla gasped as she saw that the chain had melded itself seamlessly into the drodemion's back.
In a last ditch effort, Starla rolled on to her knees, using the brief slack on her bonds to toss the Star to Gaby before she was dragged out behind the drodemion shaman.
The drodemion froze, then turned back to the cage. “Amulet,” it rattled, pointing at Gaby's feet.
“Pick it up,” hissed the magmus, its hot breath burning as it lowered its great head to Starla's face.
“No,” Starla spat defiantly, even as she cringed away from the blistering breath. She remembered what she had read in that book in Larkel's office. No one else could touch the amulet. She was sure the book had been right. The Sacrileons hadn't when she had first met them, Larkel hadn't, only handling the chain, or using magic, and Gaby just stared at it, lying at her feet, touching her chains.
The magmus snapped its jaws an inch from her face, each of its yellowed fangs as long as her arm. Starla couldn't help the gasp of terror that slid through her clenched teeth.
Without another word, the magmus shifted its fiery gaze back to the fire. Flek burst into red flames as Starla watched, helplessly.
“No! Stop! Please, no!” Gaby shrieked, snapping out of her stupor, tears suddenly running thick down her face.
“Pick it up,” the magmus repeated.
Starla deliberated for one horror-struck moment, Gaby's earlier words in her head, “This is a war. There is no time for friendship, no place for love.”
Starla felt her teeth snap together. She turned back and scooped up the amulet.
If she let Kyron destroy her friendships and eliminate love, then he would have already won.
Gaby was rocking gently on her heels, shaking her head in denial. Whether it was denial over Flek's fate, or over her choice, Starla didn't know. She turned back to face the magmus, with hate-filled eyes.
“Put it on,” it commanded, its gaze releasing Flek.
Starla slid the chain over her neck and tucked the Star under her dress, looking back at Flek as she did so. The spindler was a whimpering heap on the ground, his blue feather charred down to the stub, his fur smouldering.
But alive. He's alive.
Starla's hand lingered over the Star, wishing that Larkel could get here in time to help her friends, at least. She would try to protect the Star when there was no one around for the magmus to torture. Please help them, she thought.
“Let's go,” the magmus hissed at the drodemions, who began moving forward at a slow, but relentless pace, dragging Starla behind them.
“Wait! We want our reward! Our payment!” grunted the club-wielding grobbler, indignantly.
A low growl slid out through the magmus's teeth, making Starla recoil instinctively, even though its gaze was trained on the grobbler. “The fact that you get to keep your worthless lives is reward enough,” it hissed.
“Well, I don't—” The grobbler's protest was cut short as the magmus swung its tail around, sending the grobbler flying across the clearing. He landed, skewered to a tree branch, several meters off the ground.
“W… w… what about the others?” a nervous grobbler stammered as the magmus opened its black wings.
“Kill them,” it hissed, taking flight.
“No!” Starla screamed. “Gaby! Gaby, snap out of it!” But Gaby remained crouched over her chains, rocking back and forth.
Starla thought desperately for a solution, for a way to stall the grobblers, to give Larkel time to arrive. She kept shouting at Gaby, begging her to fight, to delay, to live, until the drodemions dragged her into the forest and the trees blocked the camp from view.
Starla continued to fight against her bonds, tripping often as she continued to look behind her.
Every time she did, the drodemion shaman would simply drag her along the rough ground until she managed to find her feet, not even pausing for a moment.
A high-pitched scream filled with agony tore through the night air and pierced Starla's heart.
“Gaby!” Starla shrieked, her throat a little raw. “No, no, no—” Her sobs choked her off.
Suddenly, she felt the air whirl past her and knew they had moved by magic.
Starla stumbled again, hearing her dress rip, as the drodemions dragged her relentlessly onward. Through tear-filled eyes, Starla looked beyond her captors and saw an abrupt end to the softly-glowing wood. Ahead lay a mass of impenetrable, solid black.
***
The excitement in the High Lord's heart had turned to dust when he had arrived back at the garden with the King and Commander and found Starla gone.
“That bastard!” he accused, instantly. “He took her! The Baron, he took her!”
The King and High Commander had both shown their hesitancy to act on Larkel's belief alone but agreed that the Baron's house would be among the first searched if, and only if, Larkel agreed to go back to the throne room and wait.
He had begged to do an aura Trace, but the King refused, claiming that Larkel was too personally involved and that another Makhi should do it.
After many protests, the Baron had agreed to have his house searched by Captain Trent. As Larkel had suspected, the Captain came back empty-handed.
Now, in the throne room of the palace, tensions were reaching a fever pitch. Commander D'Ordeley was out with her soldiers as they did a sweep of the city, looking for Starla.
Larkel smiled ruefully as he remembered the King cautioning him to be silent, to not throw wild accusations around. He sat beside his sister as they awaited Medara's return.
“I don't understand, Naleiya,” Larkel said, for the tenth time. “I could feel her emotions, see her thoughts. She was going to wait. She would not have left without a good reason and not without telling me, first. Why?” he turned his agonised eyes to his sister. “Why would she leave without saying anything, even goodbye?”
He let out a strange laugh as he realised that those were almost the exact same questions Starla imagined Raoul would have asked himself when she had disappeared from Earth.
Naleiya opened her mouth to comfort him again but stopped herself as her wife raced into the room. A clamour of panicked screams grew louder in the brief period that the big doors opened, but continued to beat against the room's windows. A roar of fear further drove up the tensions of the room.
“What is going on out there?” demanded the King as soon as the Commander reached him.
The High Commander kept her voice low so the lesser nobles clustered at the back couldn't hear her. “I don't know how it happened, my King, but the citizens have been made aware of the disappearance of our Inagium Queen.”
Naleiya sucked in a sharp breath and looked between her wife and brother in disbelief.
Larkel briefly sent her th
e relevant memories. To her credit, she resumed a calm expression and managed to still the fear in her mind. He turned his thoughts back to Starla.
“Have you followed protocol?” the King demanded, grief tightening his voice.
“Yes, my King. The Guard is out restoring order as we speak.” She cast a quick glance at her brother-in-law, who didn't appear to be listening. “I have also passed a message on to the Makhi's Council of Elders. They should be out in the city keeping things from escalating into violence.”
“They are,” Naleiya said, eyes out of focus as she covered for Larkel, too. “Many of them wish to speak to you, sire.”
“Of course. I will address the people as soon as our meeting here is adjourned. Spread the word.”
“Yes, my King,” Naleiya said as Larkel fidgeted with something in his cape pocket, oblivious to anything but his worry over Starla. “The people are responding. They are moving calmly to the square. The panic is abating, slowly. It seems trust in their King remains.”
The King nodded, his face grim.
Prince Niden drew in a steadying breath. “Did you find out anything about Starla?” he asked, shooting a glance at Larkel's tortured expression.
Medara nodded grimly, then continued in a more normal voice. “Starla appears to have left through a magical anomaly in the outer wall that leads to the north eastern part of Rainbow Wood. A piece of her dress was found just in front of the wall.” She held up a scrap of midnight-blue cloth, cleanly severed by magic.
“Who is in pursuit?” Larkel asked, jumping to his feet and snatching the scrap of cloth. “I must go after them, after her. I can track her aura and—”
His suggestion was fiercely drowned out by all present. A tumult of voices assailed him, reminding him of his duties. Protect the city, lead the Makhi, maintain the shield, act as a deterrent against further panic.
But Larkel only heard the Commander's voice. “No one was sent in pursuit.”
The King called the room to order. As Naleiya watched her brother's face crumple in pain, she asked the question the High Lord should have asked.
“What caused the magical anomaly, Commander? Did the Makhi with you recognise it?” Using her wife's title helped to keep things distant.
“Magmus fire,” she whispered. “It was too dangerous to continue on after her,” she added for Larkel's benefit.
Larkel collapsed back onto the steps, his staff clattering down beside him.
All his worry over whether her Soreiaphin Amulet would take her life and now it seemed Kyron was going to get there first.
As the King tried to quell the new source of terror in the room, the Baron stepped lithely from the shadows.
“I tried to warn you. All of you.” The Baron's face fell into shadows as the chandeliers flickered overhead. “I told you not to set her free, that she had Larkel bewitched. Now look at the panic.”
“Starla is missing!” Larkel growled, his temper barely contained. “How can you accuse her of this when she isn't even here?”
The Baron raised an eyebrow and then smiled condescendingly. “Of course she wouldn't stay in the city!” he spat, his voice full of disdain. “Or … no, did you really believe that she would stay for you?”
Larkel was on his feet again, his staff clutched in his white-knuckled hand, his indigo eyes terrifying as they darkened with anger.
The Baron nodded once. A look of fake disappointment crossed his face. “I thought as much. But why would she? After all, she already got everything she wanted from you. Or will you lie about the fact that you told her everything? All about our Queen's misfortune, the Sacred Stones and your Shield? About the Soreiaphin research you took over from Queen Astria when she went missing?”
A gasp of horror escaped some of the nobles at the mention of the Queen but the High Commander quickly silenced them, offering them the promise of the King's address after business here was concluded.
The King and the others who already knew these secrets turned to Larkel, disbelief in their eyes.
“I do not deny it.” Larkel's voice fell flat, cold and hard as stone. “But she would never—”
Larkel's explanation was cut short as he fell to his knees, clutching his head, a muffled scream escaping his lips.
“Larkel!” Naleiya screamed, reaching for her brother at the same time that an emergency message reverberated against her mind. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Darling, what happened?” Medara asked, forgetting formalities for a moment as she held her wife steady.
She just kept shaking her head while the High Lord clutched at his, moaning, tears escaping his eyes.
“I order you to give me an explanation,” said the King as the panic outside seemed to redouble and the tensions inside seemed about to snap.
Naleiya raised her eyes to the King but before she could speak, a wild-eyed Makhi, Argor Ditte, burst through the throne room doors.
“He's dead! They're gone and he's dead!” Ditte yelled, panic in every syllable as he skidded to a halt before the throne. His fevered eyes flicked between the King and the High Lord, who was now slowly rising to his feet again, eyes haunted.
“Calm down, Makhi Ditte!” ordered the Baron sternly. “Now, tell us what has happened.”
Ditte bobbed his head in a panicked nod. “Redkin Gullit is dead … murdered.”
Larkel felt his limbs go numb and was only very vaguely aware of the Commander and Prince reaching out to support him. Redkin, dead. His mentor was dead. His mind recoiled from the possibility, even as he knew it was true.
“And the Stones,” Ditte continued, more coherent, but no less panicky, “the Sacred Stones are gone. Stolen. The Shield,” he glanced warily at the High Lord, “has fallen.”
“Larkel?” the King asked, barely managing to keep his voice level.
A clamour of anger, disbelief and fear erupted in the room as Larkel nodded weakly to the King. “Yes.” His link to the Stones had snapped back against his mind like a whip.
He had felt it, felt the Shield being ripped from him, but, like at the square when the King arrived, when Starla arrived, he hadn't felt any interference with the Stones' connectors. Only then, no one had removed them, no one had tried to break through his protective spells locking them above the towers, so the control remained his. Not any more.
Impossible, he thought sluggishly, his brain still reeling from the added blow of Redkin's death, no one should be able to get past the protection spells.
The Baron's rusted voice cut through the din. “Now will you believe me, my King? This stranger that you set free has not only spread panic, but removed from us our one and only defence and killed, murdered, one of the Order's strongest Makhi.”
“Enough!” Larkel said, moving to within inches of the Baron. The High Lord felt his rage bursting through his careful control but he didn't care. Grief over his mentor's death and hatred for the Baron's continuous campaign against Starla fuelled his less rational side. “Your accusations make no sense. How could Starla have ki—” He stopped, unable to say the word. “And how could she have removed the Stones? How could she have broken through the protection spells unaided?”
The Prince shifted uneasily. The look on his friend's face was terrifying. The rage rolled off him in waves, electrifying the air, his midnight hair seeming to be caught in a wind. Everyone but the Baron had shied a few steps away from the High Lord.
“I didn't say that she was unaided,” whispered the Baron into the silence, his cold, grey eyes locked fearlessly with Larkel's. “You, High Lord, are the only one who knew how or, indeed, is powerful enough, to disable the protection spells. You have already confessed to telling her things you had sworn to keep secret.” He sighed in mock defeat. “You let your desire hand our city over to a murderous b—”
A blue beam shot out from the High Lord's black staff, hitting the Baron squarely in the chest and silencing the rest of his sentence.
“Larkel!” the High Commander said, placing
a firm hand on the High Lord's shoulder, even as the Baron collapsed, writhing in silent agony.
“High Lord, remember yourself!” the King commanded, his voice still strong and filled with authority as those in the Hall saw their terror of the High Lord confirmed.
The blue beam vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The Baron staggered slowly to his feet with the help of Makhi Ditte. The King's four personal Makhi eyed the High Lord warily. The palpable power diminished slightly, his hair falling limp once more.
Larkel shut his eyes and concentrated on breathing deeply, trying to contain the sudden flow of violent emotions. Using magic against a citizen of Galatia is strictly forbidden unless they are proven to be guilty. He had to maintain composure, or his case to help Starla would be lost.
Starla, stay safe, please.
“Baron,” the Prince began, a clear note of disapproval in his voice, “you cannot continue to throw allegations around. You can state facts aided by evidence but you cannot just accuse our High Lor—”
“Forgive me, my Prince, but you cannot allow your past friendship with this man to cloud your judgement,” the Baron said, with a winning show of humility and loyalty. He rubbed his chest and stepped away from Ditte. “The evidence has just kept on mounting and I can keep silent no longer.”
“Then speak only of this evidence,” the King ordered, “with no final judgement passed on anyone.”
Larkel opened his mouth to protest, but fell silent as the King shot him a pointed look. He knew that he should be in cuffs right now for attacking the Baron. Larkel bit his tongue, aching to be free, to go after Starla.
The Baron took a deep breath, as if afraid of the gravity of his next words. “The first time my suspicions were raised,” he began in a compelling, yet still, somehow, pleading tone, “was when Larkel claimed to have checked the … Starla for Lord Kyron's interference in the dungeons, instead of following protocol and performing such an act before the King, within the Hall of Justice and linked to another Makhi. It is no more than our law decrees, no more than I, or any citizen of Galatia should expect from their appointed High Lord. I could not understand why he did not wait, until, that is, I saw how vehemently he defended her at the hearing. A stranger, unknown to all of us, and yet he defended her over and over again, blindly.”