“Exactly. King Caleth will no doubt have something to say about that.”
“But Princess Anelm has been freed,” Skelton reminded them and shot his brother a glare. “See? I do pay attention.”
“Yes, but at what cost?” Inecha shifted her eyes back to Adonis—the more reasonable of the two brothers. “King Roskelem has contention with Countess Verddra—”
“Let me guess,” Adonis cut her off. “You want us to get Caleth to persuade Roskelem to go against Verddra—all to help Mordora?” He motioned to the princess of Nirrorm. “Don’t you think that’s asking a little much?”
“Roskelem won’t be inclined to help if Caleth doesn’t pressure him.”
“Caleth would probably rather kill him first.” Skelton shook his head as he placed his hands on his hips.
“If we do nothing, Verddra will continue to reign over Nirrorm, and my entire inheritance and all ties to my past will mean nothing!” Mordora made her hands into fists. “And if you don’t want to help, then I shall go by myself.” She began gathering magic around her to magick herself out of Cuskelom to Athorim—something she had never done before, but it came to her as surely as she had called it.
“Wait, Princess,” Adonis lifted a hand to keep her from magicking away. “First of all, you have magic? Impressive. I’ve never heard of anyone in Nirrorm having magic. Secondly, we’ll take you, but stay close and do as we say—no questions. Do you understand?” He looked down at her with a firm and unrelenting stare.
She nodded—feeling very small under his gaze.
“Now...” Adonis stepped back and considered her with a frown. “If you are going to Athorim and possibly fighting, you cannot go dressed like that.” He pointed to the fine royal attire Honroth had lent to her when she arrived in Cuskelom.
Mordora looked down at her clothes and determined the long dress would only hinder her movements. She almost called upon the little training Lorrek had given her on illusion spells, but she still wasn’t used to her powers yet. She looked at the brothers. “So, what am I to do? You expect me to leave and get changed now?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Skelton snapped his fingers, and magic swirled around Mordora, causing her to stiffen and close her eyes.
After a moment, she opened her eyes and looked down and saw the dress had been replaced by trousers, a tunic, boots, and a belt on her hips with a sheathed dagger. Pleased, she nodded to Skelton. “Many thanks.”
“No problem, dearie!” Skelton smirked, pocketing this away as a favor she now owed him if he ever came to collect. He then looked over at Inecha and lifted his brows. “Will you come along?”
Inecha shook her head. “Nay. I must safeguard Cuskelom until the king returns. Mordora, you will be safe with Adonis.” She motioned to the dark-haired brother then a smile tugged at her lips. “Though I cannot say the same about Skelton.”
Adonis elbowed Skelton again just as he was about to protest, and he offered a hand to Mordora and bowed to her. “Shall we be off, Milady?”
“Don’t be fooled by his manners!” Skelton ducked when Adonis tried to whack him over the back of the head again. “See?!”
Sighing, Adonis set his jaw, seized Skelton’s shoulder, took hold of Mordora’s hand then locked eyes with Inecha. “We’re leaving.”
In a swirl of wind, they vanished from the corridors of the palace.
As soon as they were gone, Inecha exhaled a sigh of relief then finally focused on the bond she shared with Erita. Her fellow sorceress had insisted on forging a bond between them soon after arriving in Cuskelom, so she might know when Inecha took a turn for the worse since her health was unstable ever since Jechorm. Though she rarely had any moments of weakness now, Erita simply never removed the bond, and now Erita had been nagging at Inecha’s walled off side of the bond since before Honroth left.
Able to concentrate on it now, Inecha lowered her mental shields to the bond, and Erita materialized before her but transparent, and she looked worried.
“Inecha, why are you blocking the bond? It is very important that I speak with Honroth.” Erita looked around, noting their barren surroundings, lack of guards in the hall, and silence all around. She spread her senses out to identify familiar presences in the palace—Honroth, Vixen, and maybe Therth or Theran, but as her searches returned to her void, she stared at Inecha, dread creeping into her bones. “Where is everyone?”
“Jechorm.” Inecha decided not to inform her that Mordora was in Athorim now because she couldn’t recall if Erita knew that Mordora had come here in the first place.
“Jechorm?” Erita widened her eyes, but then she remembered how the Jechorians threatened to wage war with Cuskelom if they were not given Theran’s handblade. When Honroth sent Heldon and her to Nirrorm, he hadn’t thought there would be a great threat in Nirrorm, but he had been wrong. “When Vixen came back here with Therth, didn’t she tell Honroth that Heldon and I were captured by Verddra?” Her eyes flashed with fury as she set her gaze upon Inecha.
Worn out by the shifts back and forth between detrimental circumstances, Inecha could only sigh. “She also told him that you had switched Therth with Theran, and that Theran had accompanied you back to Nirrorm. Honroth has confidence that his brother will free you.”
While Inecha was yet speaking, Erita began shaking her head then finally let out a sarcastic chuckle and began to pace. “Yet Countess Verddra is craftier than we expected. She had anticipated the switch and captured Theran soon after our reappearance in Nirrorm. I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him since I was sent back to the dungeons, but you must tell Honroth to do something quickly! Because...” She hesitated then lowered her gaze, still feeling guilty for her part in Heldon losing his hand. Shoving this aside, she swallowed and lifted her eyes once more. “Heldon...” She couldn’t voice what she had done. “I fear for Heldon.”
Inecha recognized the fear in Erita’s voice, and she narrowed her eyes. “Erita, what has happened to Heldon?”
That was the very question Erita did not want to answer. She shook her head time and time again as she lifted her hand to cover her mouth and tried not to cry. “He’s alive, but I’m sorry, Inecha. I’m so, so sorry!” Her presence faded.
“Erita!”
But Erita was already gone—back in the dungeon of Nirrorm where she had found a tiny crack in Verddra’s spell. She had hoped to use that opportunity to inform Honroth of his brother’s condition, but even now she wasn’t ready or willing to face the fact that she was to blame for the loss of Heldon’s hand. Doubting he—or Honroth or Theran—would forgive her, Erita drew her knees up to her chest as she sat on the bed and hugged her knees close to her and closed her eyes.
She waited.
4
As soon as Adonis, Skelton, and Mordora appeared in the shade of a tree in the Athorim desert, a net sprung over them, seizing them, yanking them up between the ground and a tree. “Hey!” Skelton tried to magick out of the net but found his powers void. Pushing and clawing at the ropes of the magical net, he growled. “Brilliant, Adonis! Of all the places you could have sent us to, you just had to magick into the middle of a trap!”
“Ugh, get off of me.” Adonis shoved Skelton aside only to hear Mordora’s protest. “My apologies, Princess. Are you well?”
“A foot is in my back!”
“This one?” Skelton asked, jabbing her back with his heel, “Or this one?”
“Ow! Stop it, or I will kill you!”
“I would very much like to see you try.” An unfamiliar voice joined the conversation, and all eyes—faces pressed against the ropes—shifted to the lady before them. Her long dark brown hair was pulled back into a high braid, and her sharp features had the look of a killer. Her dark clothes hugged her body, and Adonis recognized her stance and confidence.
“You’re an assassin of a House, aren’t you?”
She lifted her brows. “Observant—even in your current predicament.”
“Did you do this?” Skel
ton shifted to get the net to twist, so he could get a better view of the woman. “What do you want with us?”
“What indeed?” She began to circle the net, inspecting her catch. “Hmm, you,” she jabbed Skelton in the side, “have an uncontrolled temper.”
“Let me out of here, and I’ll show you just how I use that temper.” Skelton ground his teeth, but she ignored him and walked around to Mordora, tilting her head to better see her in her position.
“And you,” she shook her head, tsking her tongue, “are entirely untrained.”
“Wait!” Skelton tried to look around at Mordora. “You’re a magic user?”
Adonis rolled his eyes at his brother’s obliviousness. “Didn’t you sense it when we first met her?”
Ignoring their bickering, the assassin fixed her eyes on Adonis. “I suppose you will have to do.” With that, she snapped her fingers, and the net opened beneath Adonis, causing him to fall to the ground but closed before Mordora or Skelton fell out.
“Hey!” Skelton clawed at the net. “Let us out!” Narrowing his eyes, he tried to phase through the rope only to hiss when it burned him.
The woman placed a hand on her hip. “The net was woven with binding magic. No magic user can escape it, so I suggest you don’t even try.”
Still sitting on the dusty ground beneath the tree, Adonis looked up at the woman. Now that he was free from the net, he could sense her presence, but what he sensed made him frown. “But you’re not a magic user.” He climbed to his feet, entirely unconcerned by how much of a threat she might be. As long as she lacked magic, he had the upper hand, but still, she had freed him for a purpose, and he wasn’t sure of her intentions yet. “Why are you doing this?”
She gave him an unimpressed look. “Trust me, this was not my idea. Whenever you ask a favor of King Caleth be prepared to do an errand for him in return.”
“Wait, King Caleth made you set this up?” Mordora twisted the net around, so she could see the woman. “But why?”
She shrugged. “Why else? That net only catches magic users.”
Adonis shook his head. “But why would King Caleth want magic users? Athorim is full of them!”
“Tainted magic users.”
“Oh.”
Seeing that he now understood, the assassin nodded. “Now, as pleasant as this chitchat has been, I have actual work to do.” She motioned for Adonis to start walking, but he refused to budge.
Instead he crossed his arms and rooted his feet to the ground. “I’m not leaving without them.” The assassin’s eyes narrowed, and Adonis quickly went on before she had a chance to unsheathe a weapon. “Our purpose for coming here was to meet with King Caleth. Now, release those two, and we will accompany you to the palace where you may brag of capturing the three of us. The king should then fulfill his part of the bargain without question.”
She crossed her arms and tilted her head. “And what favor do you have to ask of King Caleth?”
“Why should you care?” Skelton snapped—his face still pressed against the rope of the net.
Ignoring Skelton, Mordora clung to the ropes for a better view of the assassin. “I am Princess Mordora of Nirrorm, and I seek King Caleth’s help to reclaim my land from Countess Verddra.”
The woman arched a brow. “Are you willing to put your desire for revenge on hold in order to fulfill whatever errand he asks of you? Because, trust me, it will consume your time.”
“We’ll do whatever it takes,” Adonis reassured her.
For a long moment, the assassin stood with arms lightly crossed and stared at her captives in the net, and then she shrugged and snapped her fingers again. The net opened beneath Mordora and Skelton sending them crashing to the hard desert ground. “This will be more interesting.” At another snap of her fingers, the net untangled itself from around the limb of the tree and then fell limp on the ground, and the assassin went to retrieve it.
Groaning and holding his head where he hit the ground, Skelton watched her take the net then frowned. “If you’re not magic, then how in all the kingdoms did you get a magical net?”
With an amused but cold smile, she folded the net neatly, and then opened her hands and it was gone.
Startled, Skelton crawled back on his elbows to get away from her. He looked up at Adonis. “You don’t sense any magic on her, do you?”
Adonis’ eyes never left the woman, but he nodded to Skelton’s question. “If you have no magic, how can you pocket things into another dimension?”
“Because...” She fixed her eyes on Adonis. “My husband is a magic user. He concocted a spell to give me access to a small pocket into another dimension.”
“And he made you that net,” Mordora guessed, and the assassin nodded.
“Who are you?” Skelton jutted his chin at the woman, but he still didn’t feel secure enough to climb to his feet; he wanted to remain as small as possible in case she decided to attack.
A small, sly smile slid across her pale lips. “Nyvera.”
Skelton let out an uneasy laugh then finally noticed Adonis offering him a hand up. Seizing it, he rose to his feet and nodded to the woman. “Suppose it’s a good thing I’ve never heard of an assassin named Nyvera.”
“Perhaps.” She gave a small shrug of her shoulders but then approached Skelton with confident but silent steps. “But then again, my targets never see me coming, and I never leave any witnesses.”
Skelton swallowed hard.
Tired of the exchange, Mordora nodded her thanks to Adonis for helping her to her feet then brushed sand off her clothes. “So now what?” She looked at those around her.
“Now,” Adonis fixed his eyes on Nyvera. “We go to the palace of Athorim. Skelton.” He looked hard at his brother, who threw his hands up in the air and rolled his eyes.
“Do I have to?” Skelton’s whining was only answered by Adonis’ silent glare. With a sigh, Skelton marched up to Nyvera, who took a cautious step back, but he ignored this and gripped her shoulder. “I have half a mind to leave you here.” He turned to Adonis. “Ready when you are.”
Adonis nodded and offered his hand to Mordora. “No one can magick into the palace itself because it is built with pure magic, but we can get as close as possible.”
Understanding, Mordora slipped her hand into his, and a familiar disorienting feeling washed over her as magic wrapped around her body, passed it through time and space—all in a gust of wind.
By the time she regained her senses, she stared at a black wall—a strange sight in the middle of the desert. And then she looked up, up, up and realized the wall surrounded a city. “A black wall?” Focusing on the surface, she saw her face in the polished stone and frowned. Castle walls were always important—their strength had to be maintained at all times in case of an attack, but these walls appeared to have been cared for in a manner foreign to Mordora, as if they were the floors in a king’s palace. “It’s so...clean.” She lifted her hand to touch the stone, imagining it would be hot from the sun scorching it at all hours of the day.
Skelton snagged her wrist and yanked her hand away. His action caused her to spin around to face him, and he saw the surprise in her face. He gave her a hard look. “Its foundation is magic. If you touch it, with all of your magic, it’ll spread a flare through the wall indicating your presence to all in the city, and that of tainted magic. And here and now that wouldn’t be a good thing. Do I make myself clear?” When she gave a jerky nod, he let go of her hand then crinkled his nose as he stepped back.
Gathering a sigh, Adonis motioned toward the entrance of the city. “Shall we enter?”
Mordora gave him an eager smile, and they headed toward the gate. Though her father had had many dealings with Athorim, it was a peaceful kingdom requiring few visits, so Mordora had no memory of the place. Now she was finally able to see it with her own eyes.
In the palace of Athorim, Moren knelt on the polished black stone floor in the center of a huge room with his back facing tall, narrow windows. Knee
ling on both his knees, he hunched over and closed his eyes—brows furrowed in deep concentration.
All around him swirled thin, jagged, metal disks. Suddenly, two of them stopped spinning but hovered in front of his face and then twisted this way and then that way, very carefully and precisely until finally they came together, fitting like pieces of a puzzle. With eyes still closed, Moren smiled at his accomplishment then snatched another disk out of the air to connect them to the hovering puzzle.
Suddenly, Mordora’s presence washed over him, and Moren gasped. “Mordora.” He opened his eyes, sending all the disks clattering to the floor.
Before him, he saw King Caleth mirroring him in the kneeling position. The king’s whitish blond hair framed his ashen features, giving him a haunting look, which terrified Moren at first. However, as he had spent more time with the king of Athorim, who had taken a special interest in his training, Moren realized he was just another man, and one gifted in magic.
Finally, Caleth’s golden eyes opened and landed on the prince of Nirrorm. His expression appeared blank, and Moren had yet to learn how to read him, but at this moment he didn’t care.
“Mordora! My sister—she’s here!” Moren scrambled to his feet but knew better than to race out of Caleth’s presence without permission, so he settled to see what the king would do.
Gathering a breath, Caleth slid his eyes closed once more as if searching and then snapped open his eyes. He nodded at the little prince and rose to his feet with grace. “Indeed she, and she brings visitors. Come. We should not disappoint them.” He held out his hand to Moren.
Excited to finally see his sister since that awful night when Nirrorm fell, Moren gripped Caleth’s pale hand. Together they fell into a brisk pace through the palace, but it felt to Moren as if the floors and walls were whizzing past them on their own accord rather than that he was walking past them quickly. “All is magic here. Never try to understand it. Simply accept,” Caleth’s first lesson resounded in Moren’s mind. The boy still didn’t know what he meant by it, but he did what the king said and didn’t think about it but accepted it.
The Chronicles of Lorrek Box Set Page 43