Court of Shadows

by Miranda Honfleur

  He could have. Once they’d gotten Katia, it had been instinct to destroy everything.

  “—but I’m so glad you didn’t.”

  Ambriel had been teaching him about the forests, and the trees, and their spirits, and perhaps he wouldn't have cared a few months ago, but he cared now.

  “I didn't expect her to be so angry,” Katia said in Old Emaurrian. “We expected her to be more like the forest, serene, but with a depth of blackness. Power.”

  Leigh quirked a brow. “You speak Old Emaurrian?”

  “Most of my family does.” She kicked a pebble in the street. “How else would you read the old texts?”

  Well, the Covens certainly weren't as strict with knowledge as the Divinity was. “What were you thinking?”

  She shrugged, eyeing the domed crown of a nearby horse-chestnut tree. “My family are all smiths—transmutors, and actual blacksmiths—and I'm a geomancer. Is it so terrible that I wanted to find greater meaning in the natural world? I know everyone is afraid of the Rift, but when I heard about it, all I could think about were all of the wondrous possibilities that had become reality. When I heard rumors of what this new Trien Coven was trying to do—I… I mean, who could imagine a dryad? A real dryad? Talking to the heart of a forest?”

  “So it was curiosity, then?” Curiosity could be dangerous enough without the addition of magic. “And it didn't occur to you that your precious dryad might be like one of the countless horrors that Emaurria has faced since the Rift?”

  She lowered her gaze and wrapped her brown cloak about herself.

  “Dryads are the forest’s power incarnate,” Ambriel said quietly. “If they slumber, let them slumber. They wake when they are needed.”

  She nodded solemnly. “I know that now. But it’s too late. Everyone is dead. All of them."

  As a geomancer, she had felt out of place with her family of smiths all her life. She looked for meaning in life where there was none. And how many more curious, naïve witches would repeat her idiocy?

  He’d had his own bout, acting on blind determination instead of knowledge, and now the world suffered the Rift. So many horrors had emerged from it, and how many more witches and mages would proceed blindly and only wreak greater havoc?

  "Where are you taking me, anyway?" she asked.

  If she'd grown up in a Coven, she knew the answer to that. He had to take her to the local Coven’s Archon.

  "You know where I'm taking you,” Leigh said.

  “The Archon will just send me back to my father, won't he?" The question was lifeless, dejected.

  What had she expected? To flout Gustave Tremblay and, with her fellow rebels, usurp his Coven? And when she failed, to get away with it? To be embraced?

  "You are alive," Leigh said. “Don’t ignore that gift. Find another purpose. A better purpose. And don’t shit on the Tremblays’ territory unless you want to start an inter-Coven war.”

  Her shoulders curled inward. Her older brother, Blaise, didn’t have a slumping bone in his body. Leigh shook his head. A couple of years ago, he’d met with Joel Forgeron to discuss subversion strategies, and who had been at Joel’s side but his eldest son and heir to the Coven leadership, twenty-nine-year-old, stone-faced, gray-eyed, red-haired, marble-sculpture-made-flesh Blaise? Stiff-lipped, Blaise had said nothing during the meeting, simply taking in his father’s process, but Divine’s tits did he have a mouth on him later that night.

  Blaise didn’t have a slumping bone in his body, but Katia had left behind the safety and status of her family, the support of her Coven—all to pursue her own dreams. That took courage, something she shared with her brother. Courage would take her to high, powerful places, but only if she learned measure first. Maybe tonight’s bloodbath would be the first of many lighter lessons to take her there.

  Finally, they arrived at Tremblay’s home, an upscale mansion among more modest homes, guarded by two witches.

  “Why are we not meeting him at the apothecary?” Ambriel whispered in his ear.

  “Because that would mean waiting until tomorrow, and I’m not keen on babysitting all night—are you?”

  Katia shot him a scowl, while Ambriel fought a smile and looked away.

  “This is not a man you approach unannounced,” Ambriel said.

  “Don’t worry,” Leigh said, waving at the witches. “They’ll announce me.”

  One of the witches, a young blond man, approached. “What business do you have here, mage?”

  Leigh cleared his throat. “Gustave knows what business. Fetch him.”

  The witch looked him, Ambriel, and Katia over with narrowing eyes. “He does not come when you call.”

  “Do you know who I am?” With a whirl of his fingers, Leigh spelled a force ball in his hand, dense and translucent, which he spun nonchalantly, while the witch stiffened. “It’s dark, so you might not.”

  The witch blinked, giving him a once-over that stopped at his hair. His platinum-white, wild-mage hair. “L-leigh Galvan.”

  Leigh grinned. He’d worked very hard to make sure his reputation preceded him. His reputation for impatience, importance, and violence. Extreme violence. “He will come when I call. Now run along, lackey.”

  The witch’s face contorted in a snarl, and he looked back to his partner, the tall, rake-thin one from the cellar, who nodded.

  Well, well. Stupidity was treatable after all.

  The blond witch clenched a fist.

  He would do as bidden. Any further posturing would lead somewhere unfortunate. Unfortunate for the lackey. And the other lackey. And the District.

  The blond witch backed up, jogged up the drive, and entered the mansion.

  “You are well-known in this city,” Ambriel observed.

  “My dear, I am well-known in this kingdom. Make sure you write that down in your witness diary.” Although well-known wouldn’t precisely be the term he’d use. Notorious, perhaps. Infamous, maybe.

  “Witness diary?” Ambriel repeated, arching a brow, and Leigh shrugged.

  “You can even jot down our names and draw a heart around them. It’s this human practice—”

  “Dreshan, if you don’t want that second ‘walnut loaf’ you bought to mysteriously get lost, you’ll stop now.”

  Was Ambriel blushing? It was too dark to tell. Maybe with a little more prodding… But he didn’t want to risk the walnut loaf.

  “You two have walnut loaf?” Katia whispered. “Can I have some?”

  That was a definite no.

  Within moments, two figures exited the mansion, one of which was a very frowny Gustave Tremblay in an unbuttoned overcoat. Hastily thrown on, probably. He walked halfway down the drive, then beckoned.

  Good enough. Leigh strode to meet him, Ambriel and Katia in his wake, gravel crunching beneath their feet.

  “So that’s a no, then,” Katia said from behind him.

  Leigh cleared his throat. “I would have sprung for cobblestone,” he called to Gustave.

  “I try not to garner too much attention,” Gustave grumbled.

  Leigh smirked. “That explains the mansion and guards.”

  With a grimace, Gustave led them into the grass, walking the grounds. “Report.”

  Leigh cleared his throat. “Well, as you can see, I have one gray-eyed, red-haired Forgeron in tow.”

  With a glance at Katia, Gustave paused and inclined his head. “A pleasure. If only we’d met under better circumstances, Mademoiselle.”

  Katia shrank deeper into her cloak and inclined her head—lower. “The fault is all mine, Archon Tremblay. I searched for a sense of belonging in the wrong place, and I apologize. I beg your forgiveness.”

  Well said. She was a proper Forgeron after all.

  A lengthy pause lingered before Gustave nodded. “My Coven has shared a long alliance with the Forgerons that should remain intact.”

  Mercy, and a subtle warning. As expected. “Wonderful,” Leigh said, stepping out in front of Gustave. “Now, the upstarts are all dead, yo
u have a dryad in your forest, Katia is—as you can see—quite alive, so I believe that concludes my part of the bargain?”

  Gustave bit his thumb and held out his hand in the vowing clasp—sangremancy the Covens still used. “As long as you safely return Katia to her Coven, I pledge my loyalty and that of my Coven to the Crown.”

  Leigh cocked his head. “Returning the girl wasn’t part of the bargain.”

  “It is now,” Gustave said, eyeing the girl. “I’m not about to trust her return, given what’s now out there, to anyone else.”

  Leigh heaved a sigh. So much for not babysitting tonight. He glanced at Ambriel and raised an inquisitive brow.

  Ambriel hesitated, then nodded.

  Leigh bit his thumb and clasped Gustave’s arm, each imprinting blood on the other’s skin. “As we agree, so let it be,” he said in unison with Gustave three times, and the imprints seared into their skin.

  Exactly what he wanted. A damn thumbprint branded on his arm. He sighed.

  “That concludes our dealings. Goodnight, Galvan.” Gustave nodded to him, Katia, and Ambriel before turning back to his mansion.

  “He could’ve invited us to stay for the night,” Leigh grumbled.

  “Well,” Katia ventured, “he did say he was trying not to garner attention. And, well, you’re you.”

  There had been something he’d liked about this girl since the moment he’d met her. “Good point.”

  A night at the palace before heading out on the road again would serve just fine.

  Chapter 15

  On the Aurora’s weather deck, Jon gripped the railing, watching the chop of the Shining Sea’s turquoise waves in the late-afternoon sun. They’d been sailing for nearly two weeks, but it felt like forever. In all his twenty-seven years, he’d never passed beyond the borders of Emaurria, except maybe in some skirmishes with Skaddish warbands in the North.

  Now, here he was, on a ship, crossing the sea. It had been quiet so far. Captain Bittencourt had kept them clear of pirates, and other than wayward Immortals, that was the only concern on these waters. The fact that they’d had to hire a Broadsteel warship instead of taking an Emaurrian Royal Navy ship would have been laughable if it weren’t so grave. Any ship “suitably secure to transport a king,” as the Grands had put it, was still months from being completed.

  He didn't need a special ship, but the replenishment of Emaurria's navy was yet another deficit he had to shore up.

  He closed his eyes. Out here, he didn’t feel the same. The constant familiarity at his back—the land—was fading. On shore, if he wished, he could melt into it easily, tap into that connection. The Aurora had kept within sight of the Emaurrian shore whenever possible, but the farther they sailed, the more remote that constant familiarity became.

  “What are you thinking about?” Olivia’s voice. She rested her hands on the railing next to his, shrugging in her brown leather coat.

  A sword hung at her side. The Queen’s Blade.

  “You’re wearing it?”

  She glanced down at the hilt, then up at him and smiled a little. “Why not? You’re giving it away to the Grand Divinus. I just… thought I’d see what it felt like.”

  What it felt like… to wear a sword? Or what it felt like… to be queen?

  He’d been catching glimpses of it lately in her gaze—lingering a little longer, resting on him more often than not—and he’d seen it his fair share as a paladin. Women who’d looked, who’d liked what they saw. Women he’d been able to dismiss, because he’d had his duties and they’d been strangers.

  He was king and she was one of his Grands. They both had their duties, but Olivia was no stranger. No woman he could pass by and ignore. In truth, she’d become his closest friend, his most trusted adviser, and the guiding star he turned to when the woods of his life became too dark and deep.

  She was beautiful—gorgeous, even, and he could understand why many men’s gazes swept to her, why they pursued her, courted her. But from the moment he’d met her, he’d seen her as someone else. A beautiful woman, yes, but a friend. A friend and no more.

  Perhaps he’d been too open, too close, and had given her some sign of his romantic interest. It was completely possible he’d erred in some way.

  If she was attracted to him, he had to do his best not to give her the wrong signals, not to lead her on and disrespect her.

  “If you want me to, I’ll take it off,” she said, taking a step back.

  He’d been staring. Intensely.

  He cleared his throat and looked back out to sea. It shouldn’t disturb him. He’d never have a queen, but if he could have…

  He’d made a promise once, on the bank of the Propré River, that he’d go somewhere with her, just the two of them, to a winter cottage, where they’d enjoy each other’s company, where he’d teach her the sword, where she’d teach him magic, and they’d make love until they forgot their names—

  No.

  He slammed a palm against the railing, clenched so hard the wood bit into his palm. Just another dream. And he was done with those.

  He had an entire kingdom to set right.

  If all went well in Magehold, he’d soon bring the Tower into the Crown’s fold. And then the Order of Terra in Emaurria. With both powers firmly in hand, he’d strengthen the kingdom. Emaurria would finally have the tools it needed to survive the Rift.

  He’d do it.

  He’d do it, or he’d die trying. And it’d be worth it.

  “Jon?” Olivia nudged his hand.

  Less than a cable length away, something burst from the water, massive, blacking out the sun—a serpent.

  The ship rocked, teetering erratically. Jon clenched the railing tight with one hand, thrust out his arm and swept Olivia behind him as she locked her arms around his waist.

  Crewmen slid across the deck while Olivia chanted a hydromancy incantation.

  He gestured a repulsion shield before him while shouted orders rang out, and slowly, with Olivia’s chanting, the waters stabilized.

  Its massive maw open and gleaming with spine-like sharp teeth, an enormous serpent leaped from the water, arcing over them from port to starboard. Blinding sunlight glinted off its lengthy serpentine body scaled in iridescent light blue.

  Jon moved the repulsion shield along, keeping it between the serpent and him and Olivia.

  Royal Guards and Broadsteel mercenaries drew bows—the guards had arcanir arrows.

  A large, fin-like tail passed over them and into the water on the starboard side. Olivia kept up the incantation.

  “What was that?” he hissed.

  “Water dragon,” she blurted between incantations.

  He and Olivia were the only mages aboard. How would a healer, a novice force mage, and bows defeat a serpent this size?

  His gaze darted around them. Nothing but open sea. And far on the horizon, another ship. On an intercept course.

  It, too, would fall prey.

  The constant hum. The Earthbinding. “How far into the sea does Emaurria extend?"

  “I don't know,” she shouted. “Twelve nautical miles? Why?”

  “Hold the incantation, Olivia.” Jon closed his eyes, took a deep breath, pictured Olivia with her arms locked around him, his hand on the railing, the deck, the ship, the Shining Sea around them… Shimmering waves like shifting glass, reflecting the bright sunlight across a neverending surface. There was a flow there, brilliant with life, wind blowing across an incalculable vastness, pushing water into waves, and as he focused harder, his consciousness tapped into it, pushed, pushed, harnessed that energy, collected it, flowed it into a massive force.

  Distant shouts disturbed the water, and something massive broke the surface, less than a cable length away--the water dragon--sending energy swelling against his and breaking, falling apart.

  His consciousness crashed against the water dragon with the force of a thousand waves, crushing it against the shifting sea—

  Lightning broke through him like a blade,
and the water twisted. His consciousness fell back across the surface of the water, across the flow and the mirrored sunlight on turquoise waves to the prow of the schooner, and railing, and Olivia’s arms, and he opened his eyes.

  Pain needled his chest as his heart thudded wildly. His head pulsed as he stared through a blurry white haze, doubling over as another searing bolt ripped through him.

  He reached for his heart, and a hand was on his chest, Olivia’s hand, glowing white and warm while she chanted, keeping the water stable, and cold streaked over his lips, down his neck, and into his shirt, and dripped on the deck.

  Blood. He reached around for support and grabbed a handle—a hilt—and there was a soft swish…

  He blinked as the blurry haze grew, and he hit the deck.

  * * *

  Samara leaned against the wall, observing as the ship’s physician treated a boy perhaps a couple of years older than she, maybe seventeen or eighteen. He had a thief’s build—compact but muscular, a few inches under six feet, and wore an eye patch over his left eye, his long, back hair secured in a tail. She’d watched for his type in the souk all her life, wary of those sticky fingers that could earn her lashes.

  But perhaps he wasn’t here to steal anything. He’d claimed to be the carpenter’s apprentice, and the physician, a balding man with a skeptical gaze, didn’t question him.

  “Undress to the waist, Zero,” the physician said.

  The boy—Zero—smirked as he untied his shirt and slipped it off his shoulders. “There’s a lady present, Doc. Have a care for her virgin eyes, eh?”

  Virgin eyes? She’d grown up in a pleasure house. Her eyes had seen things he’d only dreamed of. And then some.

  The physician grabbed Zero by the shoulders. “That lady is an apothecary. Her interest is academic.”

  Zero slid a look her way from beneath a stray lock of thick, black hair falling over his eyes. “What’s your name, academic?”

  “Shh,” Doc chided, then gently shook Zero by the shoulders, while applying his ear directly to Zero’s chest. “I’m attempting to determine the presence of thoracic empyema.”