Enchanter's Echo

by Anise Rae

  “Crappy laws on my scrolls.” The crone drummed her fingers against her chin, a parody of thoughtfulness. “A problem. And a discussion for another time. Reserve your strength for our most pressing predicament. The weak could not endure what is ahead.” The High Councilor’s voice flattened. “Can you endure, Edmund?”

  “I will do whatever is necessary for the good of Rallis.” Rallis first. Rallis above all.

  At the edge of the deck, the silent crew cast off the ropes. The boat rocked back and forth as it shimmied away from its moorings. An unnatural shove of vibes pushed it to the center of the Scioto River. The sails snapped, powered by spells.

  “And what about you, enchantress? Are you honed to endure?” The High Councilor turned her sightless gaze to Aurora.

  The apprentice snorted. “Enchanter mages do not endure life. They celebrate it.”

  “She does not endure, correct.” The crone nodded. “But neither does she celebrate. Did her time in Noble do this to her?”

  Noble. What the vibing hells had they done to her?

  The apprentice stamped her foot but stumbled as the boat dipped and then rose again. “Noble is a fine territory, too much riddled and disparaged by Rallis and even the Council.”

  The High Councilor, her mouth tight, faced her successor. “You, girl, have yet to let go of your birth territory in your heart. You cannot rule the Republic until it rules you.” The sharp words stabbed with power.

  The apprentice bore her mistress’s unseeing stare for longer than Edmund would have thought. Finally, she dropped her eyes and simpered. “You’re right, my lady.” She stepped toward Aurora, holding out her arms. She smiled, so fake Edmund couldn’t contain his grimace. “An embrace of peace, enchantress, from Noble to Rallis,” the girl said.

  “No.” Edmund stepped in front of Aurora. The ceremonial embrace was traditionally offered from one territory’s family to another. “She’s not vowed to the family.” For the first time, he was glad about that. He didn’t want this girl touching her either. “She can’t stand for us.” Not today.

  The apprentice’s smile turned meek and she tilted her head. “But she does stand for you. I can see it in your heart.” She giggled as if he were foolish. “Are you refusing an embrace from Noble to one of your own? Are you declaring war then?”

  Aurora stepped around. The threat of war ensured her cooperation. “It’s all right, Edmund.”

  It wasn’t. He wanted to yank her out of here, tuck her behind Rallis’s gates and keep her safe. He glared at the apprentice, but the girl merely preened. She held out her arms for the embrace. Aurora slowly leaned in, holding her torso away. The apprentice jerked her close. Her mouth hovered over Aurora’s shoulder, exposed from the wide neckline of the gown. With her gaze on Edmund, she bared her teeth, as if she might bite down and suck out his sweet girl’s glitter.

  He started forward, ready to wrench Aurora to safety, but the apprentice lifted her hand and patted Aurora’s naked skin instead. His enchantress jumped back like she’d been pinched. She flexed her shoulders, shaking off the girl’s touch.

  “Peace to you, Rallis,” the girl said with a wicked smile, looking Aurora in the eye.

  “Peace to you, Noble,” Aurora stated in return, finishing the short ritual with a tepid tone.

  The girl simpered and tried to skip back behind her mistress, but her legs foundered as the boat dipped and swayed down the river. Landlocked Noble Territory did not produce seaworthy mages. Maybe she’d fall overboard and the boat would sail on without her.

  The High Councilor frowned at the girl as if annoyed. Perhaps he should offer to push the apprentice overboard.

  “You already fixed one fissure,” the crone said, finally getting down to business. “Risky, that, Edmund. She wasn’t vowed to secrecy. There was nothing to stop her from shouting to the world that you damaged your territory and the Republic.”

  “Yes, there is,” Aurora blurted. “Because that would be a lie. He didn’t create that spot.”

  “Interesting. How do you know? Even I don’t know that for sure.” That was a rare admission from the High Councilor, and a fact that Edmund had wondered about ever since the old woman had contacted him. Why hadn’t she sent an energy reader mage? Analyzing the surrounding vibes might have offered a clue about their culprit.

  The apprentice shuffled forward. “Never admit what you don’t know.” The apprentice’s haughty stare targeted the High Councilor in a silent reprimand.

  “Garner the trust of your peasants by making them feel needed and important,” the crone retorted. “Enchantress, if you’re sure it wasn’t Edmund, perhaps you know who it was?”

  “You’re accusing me of treason?” Aurora asked. His girl was smart. Hiding those who caused harm to the Republic was treason of high order.

  The crone shrugged and spouted yet another maxim. “Threaten them with their lives to keep them obedient.”

  Enough. He spouted his own truth…actually it was Aurora’s. “Ask nicely when you need someone’s help.”

  “Ask?” the old woman scoffed. “There’s one other fissure in the territory’s bond. Tell me you know where it is,” she demanded.

  “I know.” He planted his feet wide and drew himself tall, balanced despite the boat’s rocking.

  “Excellent. I can’t sense exactly where they are. You, big boy, are the only one who can find the damn things. Like calls to like. Here’s the plan. The destruere finds the fissures, the enchantress fixes them. Together you track down the culprit.

  “Be quick about it. You have each other and that is all. Enchanter and Destroyer.” She focused her blind gaze over the rippled surface of the river. “The unbound land is the greatest threat to the stability of the Republic ever. If you fail, the Senate will blame Edmund because we know of no one else who could do this. If the bond breaks, thousands of mages will die of sense sickness.”

  “Someone wants Rallis destroyed,” the apprentice said with a giggle. She stumbled as the boat dipped again.

  The High Councilor continued, ignoring her. “At worst…war. To crumble the most powerful family in the Republic would bring about no less.” Her voice faded along with the color in her wrinkled face. “Do not fail me.”

  Chapter 7

  With her feet glued to the road’s pavement, Aurora stood outside the carriage’s door. Ahead, the horses stamped their hooves. They knew the time to ride was nigh, and they were impatient with the hold up.

  The driver, dressed in the unmistakable black of the army, reined them in. Another man sat beside him on the high bench. Two more warrior mages bracketed the open door. All were alert, on guard, and waiting on her.

  “I’m done riding in vehicles that are out of my control,” she whispered to Edmund. “Why don’t you take the carriage and I’ll walk?” She glanced over her shoulder to check for eavesdroppers, specifically the High Councilor. Though the crowd still watched, the Christopher Columbus statue stood empty. The crone and her retinue had disappeared into the portal.

  A portal. They were supposed to be impossible.

  “Princesses don’t walk.”

  “I’m done playing princess.”

  His eyes softened. “The High C’s part in this show is over. I promise.” He lifted his gaze to the men on the seat. “Straight to the junkyard, please, Gregor.”

  “Of course, Lord Rallis.” The blond man holding the reins gave her a smile.

  She didn’t budge, but leaned in closer to Edmund. “How did these men get here?”

  “You think she spelled four mice into men?” he whispered back. “She didn’t, though I wouldn’t put it past her. I summoned sentries from Rallis Hall when I saw the carriage, but Vincent must have intercepted it. These are his men. Now hop in. Otherwise it will take us an hour to walk back. That’s one long spectacle to smile and wave through, plenty of time for the reporters to get their fill.”

  As if on cue, the click and flash of an image spell popped
in the air beside them. A reporter stood on the sidewalk.

  The guards stiffened. “Sir,” the driver stated, both a warning and a plea in the single word.

  “Don’t be a publicity hog, princess.” Edmund reached one arm around her waist and took her hand with his other, pushing her up the little stairs. She plopped down in a puff of skirts. He climbed in after her.

  The guards closed the doors and the coach wobbled as they took their stations on the back of the carriage. Beside her, Edmund sprawled in the seat as if he regularly rode in golden coaches. He still wore the tights. Long lines of muscles stretched beneath their length from his calves to his thighs to his....

  She raised her gaze to find him staring at her. His blue eyes were bright, his smile knowing. She’d run a gamut of negative emotions this morning—shock, anger, horrible fear. At this spark of pleasure, she could have leaned her head against his shoulder to find comfort, but she scooted away. “Why didn’t you tell me where we were going when we were in the truck?”

  His smile faded. “She wouldn’t let me.”

  Then she couldn’t fault him for his silence. That woman was scary. The High Councilor was an oracle, like all rulers in the Republic’s history, with the powers of a mind mage as well apparently. And yet, she hadn’t sensed her apprentice’s spell in her hair. Aurora wasn’t sure which person she feared more. She wanted to shed their touches from her skin. “Can you change my clothes?” Probably not a wise question to ask him, but she needed as much normal as she could get.

  He pulled two charms from his sleeve, Clothe stamped on both.

  “I ought to call you Charming.” His supply of charms seemed endless. Not even the Nobles could afford this many on a regular basis.

  Energy stirred around her, tingling against her skin. Her navy pea coat returned. Her cargo pants were pressed and wrinkle-free. A ultra-soft scarlet and gray scarf knotted around her neck. Cashmere. That was new. And conveniently in Rallis colors.

  Edmund’s hose disappeared, morphing into heavy, brown work pants. A black wool coat, missing a button and with a moth-eaten hole in the collar graced his form. Battered boots replaced the pointed slippers. She raised a brow at the boots’ blue soles, recognizing the imbedded sound-muffling spell that Drainpipers used when they worked in light sections of the city. A knitted cap—also scarlet—lay in his lap. The heir had disappeared and a Piper sat in his place.

  He put the now tarnished charms on the seat between them.

  “You look like one of the gang,” she said as she pulled her hair from the knot the High Councilor’s spell had created. “All you’re missing are the slashes on your temple.”

  “Can’t fake those. They’d scent me as easily as the High C could sniff your thoughts from the top of your mind.”

  “How can you be so relaxed about all this?” Glitter puffed in the air around her as she spoke, as if her nerves had given way at last. She batted at it like a pesky fly.

  He eyed the sparkles. “It’s my job to deal with this. And besides, I have you. You make me more powerful than ever.”

  “My mage power is not a weapon to add to your arsenal.” Another puff of glitter. She was leaking like a spell pot left over the fire too long, boiling over with an excess of emotion after her meeting with ruler of the Republic.

  “Ror, every joule of mage power in this territory can be conscripted as a weapon for Rallis. That’s how life is anywhere in the Republic. The High Councilor could have taken you for herself.”

  “So I’m stuck in the middle of mage politics.” After Noble, she’d promised herself she’d never let that happen again.

  “We’re both stuck. We either solve this problem or we’re all dead along with everyone else in the territory. You and I would be among the first to go.”

  Powerful mages were more prone to sense sickness and the resulting war would take care of the rest. She dropped her head against his shoulder, needing some comfort after all. “I’ve gone from hiding in the Pipe to saving Rallis and preventing a war. How did this happen in forty-eight hours?”

  He leaned his head on top of hers. “No, you’ve gone from avoiding a death sentence thanks to your knight in shining, albeit black armor, and then to being the unofficial princess of Rallis, duty-bound to save her people.”

  Save her people...exactly what she was trying to do.

  She lifted her head and stared through the window. The clouds hung heavy and still. What she’d give to feel the sun, the moon, the soft twinkle of a thousand stars touch her skin with their light of hope and promise instead of the constant press of the gray clouds.

  “There’s something I don’t understand.” She looked over at him. “If this mage is the same type as you, why can he...or she...stop his spells when you can’t? Maybe he’s something different.”

  “His spells didn’t stop. They just expand at a much slower rate than my casts do. And I know it’s a destruere mage because the Rallis bond is totally gone at the fissures, as if the bond never existed there. If any other type of mage breaks a spell, remnants of it still exist. It’s cracked like an egg or smashed like a bug, but evidence of its creation remains. The fissures contain nothing of the original claim. It’s like the founders hopped off the Mayflower and wobbled around the New World on sea legs binding the land, too unsteady to do a thorough job, and they ended up leaving blank spots.” He shrugged. “I can only guess that he—”

  “Or she.”

  He shook his head. “No. Just like enchantresses are always women, destruere mages are always men. At least the only two destrueres known to have existed were men, myself and one other. Though, now there are three. I think this mage’s spells grow so slowly because he’s not as strong as I am. A blessing.”

  “You can’t draw the conclusion that destrueres are always men from a sample of two.”

  “Powers that have opposites, like enchantress and destruere, always fall along gender lines. That’s a well known fact that’s withstood centuries of examination.”

  She nodded, acknowledging that truth.

  “There’s something I don’t understand either,” he continued. “Why did you vow loyalty to the Nobles?” He blurted the question as if he could no longer contain it.

  She sat back in her seat and looked out the window again. She gathered her answer, though she’d thought about this many times. Looking back, the reasons were obvious. “I was too stupid to know better. My father had kicked me out. I needed some place to go. And there was a man...”

  * * * *

  Of course there was a man, damn it.

  She shrugged. “I didn’t research the family enough or ask the right questions about the vow. But I know now that founding families are not for me. I learned that within one week at the Noble seat. They use people, from their own family members to the lowest mage in their territory…even the Nons. They win at any cost. I promised myself never to vow to another family.”

  “You were inexperienced, Ror. Not stupid.” He wanted details, but they’d likely vowed her to silence. He refused to tempt her to that painful precipice of speaking past the vow’s boundaries. “Holding an enchantress’s loyalty is quite a coup for any founding family. If you were ours, I’d shout it to the world.” With the P.U.R.E. ball, he’d come as close to doing so as possible without having the actual vow.

  “It was one of my stipulations. I didn’t want anyone to know who or what I was. Officially, I was the junior assistant to Senator Noble’s junior assistant. I didn’t want questions about where I’d come from, why my father didn’t proclaim what he’d been given. I didn’t want the Republic staring at him through all their newspapers. They would have made him look crazy and angry.”

  The man had been exactly that.

  She turned away, facing the window. “It was a long seven years.”

  Seven? He forced his shock back, hiding it away while she wasn’t looking. “A long time for such a vow.” Smooth words concealed his fury. The bastards had taken
advantage of her naivety.

  “I know that now. I didn’t then.”

  “It’s thought to be dangerous to hold an enchantress in…unhappy circumstances.” As a prisoner in a dungeon—that was the legend, but many assumed it was broader than that. Enchantresses were prone to die of unhappiness if captured or forced to enchant against their will, or so the stories went.

  “I think the Nobles subscribe to that theory, too.” She shifted toward him, though she didn’t meet his eyes. “They gave me some freedom.”

  “Who was he?”

  She smiled, joy coating her distant gaze.

  He clenched his fists.

  “An amazing man. I’ve never met anyone like him. Smart, kind and, oddly charming when he wanted to be.”

  I’m charming all the damn time.

  “So this paragon of men kept your power a secret? He wasn’t motivated to shout to the world that he had the love of a beautiful enchantress?”

  “He doesn’t play games. Thank the Goddess for him. He kept me distracted, occupied.”

  “I bet.” He couldn’t hold back the growled words.

  Her lips curved higher. Was that a smirk? His enchantress was enjoying his jealousy. That could only mean one thing.

  She liked him.

  His chest puffed with pride. Whoever this asshole was, she hadn’t stayed with him after the vow expired. She’d come home.

  High-pitched cheers and shouts reached inside the carriage. Aurora looked out the window and waved to a group of children on the sidewalk. As the carriage passed by, her smile for them faded. “Why someone would want to destroy the Rallis bond? Who would dare? After all, your brother is the head of the army. The army...that lives on your land.”

  He loved the sound of her voice. Their weekend together, he’d spent every chance he got listening to her, prodding her to speak her sweet, soft words. “Rallis has a number of enemies, both within and without.”