Deceptions (Ascendant Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  “Uh huh.” Cully knew there had to be much more to that story. “Did you hear they found your horse?”

  “Yes,” Koren brightened. Paedris had received word that Thunderbolt, having run away from the dwarves, had been located in Winterthur province and was now on his way to Linden with a Royal Army escort. From the tone of the message, the soldiers escorting Thunderbolt would be heartily glad to turn over care of the troublesome horse to Koren. Thinking about his horse made him laugh. “I wonder what adventures Thunderbolt got up to? I couldn’t take him into the mountains,” he shuddered thinking about the flimsy-looking rope bridges there.

  “So, you’re not a wizard. Have you thought about what you’ll do now?”

  It struck Koren right then that he had not thought of the future beyond riding back to Tarador. “I don’t know,” he said unhappily. “I don’t suppose I can go back to being a servant for Paed- for Lord Salva.”

  Cully saw the lost and sad expression on his friend’s face. “I’m a proper knight now,” he announced as he grabbed his horse’s mane again to steady himself from falling to the ground. “You can be my squire, if you like,” he joked with a wink.

  “Aye, I can teach you how to ride a horse,” Koren snorted.

  “And to hold a sword,” Cully admitted. “The royal weapons master says I am hopeless. Well, here’s the princess,” he pulled his horse to a halt.

  Koren slowed his own horse, until he came to a stop in front of the princess. It was awkward meeting her again, more awkward with the two of them on horseback, and especially awkward being surrounded by soldiers, wizards and courtiers. “Your Highness,” he began stiffly. “I am sorry, I thought ill of you, and I was wrong.”

  “I thought ill of myself, and I was right,” Ariana replied with vehemence. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to fling her arms around the young man, and the irritated glare she gave to the courtiers made them pull their horses away discretely. “You were never treated fairly, you were treated horribly. I was part of that. Please forgiv-”

  “Peadr- that is, Lord Salva explained to me why he couldn’t tell me the truth. He was right, Highness. I understand that now.”

  “Koren, please call me Ariana. I can call you Lord Bladewell if you prefer, but,” her eyes pleaded as she spoke.

  “No. Please, I can’t be Lord anything. Did you hear, I’m not a wizard? I lost it all, all my power.”

  “Well, then, there is no reason I can’t grant you a knighthood, is there?”

  “Er-”

  Ariana reached for a sword, then remembered she wasn’t carrying one. “Do you mind waiting? I nearly chopped off Cully’s ear when I knighted him,” she laughed and Koren had to laugh also, then Koren’s expression darkened.

  “I should have congratulated you, I heard you are engaged to be married?”

  “Oh, to Kyre Falco? No!, No, not anymore. His father committed treason, so the Falcos are no longer a royal family. That makes our engagement contract void, I am told.”

  “Oh. Were you also engaged to some prince from Indus?” Koren was not sure that rumor was true. It did seem like a lot of engagements for one young woman.

  “That was my mother’s doing,” Ariana was still angry with her mother about that. “The Regency Council declared that contract invalid.”

  “That must have made the Raj unhappy.”

  “He was, especially about the money he loaned to Tarador. But, he sent his soldiers here to fight with us anyway,” she looked to the north where a hundred soldiers of Indus had accompanied the royal party into Acedor. Grand General Magrane would not be happy until the last foreign soldier returned to their homelands. “We will pay the money back to the Raj quickly. Besides, we heard the prince is already engaged to someone else now.”

  “Kyre is not a duke now?” Koren asked, confused.

  “No, the Falco dynasty ended when his father joined the enemy,” she explained. After examining the duke’s body, Madame Chu had detected the man was tainted by subtle yet powerful dark magic. Ariana had almost felt sorry for Regin Falco, until Madame Chu stated not even the dark magic of a demon could make someone act completely against their will. Regin Falco had fallen victim to the enemy’s influence because he had wanted to, he wanted something he thought the demon could give him. He had been wrong, and he paid for it with his life and the disgrace of his family.

  “What about Kyre?”

  “Kyre proved his loyalty, several times. He saved my life. As Burwyck province lacks a ruling duke, I have appointed Kyre as my royal factor there. Once I am queen, I can name a new duke, and that might be Kyre, if he behaves himself,” she announced with a wink.

  “You trust him?” Koren asked with skepticism.

  “I do,” the princess nodded vigorously, “and you should also. He has changed.”

  “We all have,” without thinking, Koren opened his right palm, where no flame appeared, or ever would again.

  Ariana saw and understood the gesture. Impulsively, she reached out to put his hand in hers. His hand was warm and rough and the touch sent a thrill up her arm and down inside her. “Koren, I’m sorry. For everything.”

  Koren knew he should pull his hand away, that it was not proper for a princess to be holding hands with a boy. “Ariana-”

  “Koren-” They spoke at the same time. “Please, what were you going to say?”

  “No. No, please, you first.”

  She had rehearsed what she would say at that moment, and at that moment, words failed her. Instead, she spoke from her heart. “Would you, would please you come to live in the palace? Please? There are so many books in the royal library we, I mean you, have not even seen yet.”

  Koren lowered his eyes and smiled, a smile that made Ariana’s heart melt. “Do knights need to read a lot?”

  Ariana said a silent prayer of thanks. “Oh, yes, they read a frightful lot. All day, really, when they are not doing,” she waved a hand, “knight things.”

  “Then,” he risked moving his thumb to trace a line along her fingers. “I would like that very much.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  “Your Majesty,” Raddick bowed to his queen as he came up on deck. “Sir Bladewell,” he also bowed to the former boy wizard, now a knight of the realm and, according to strongly-held rumor, soon to be officially engaged to the recently-crowned queen Ariana Trehayme.

  “General Raddick,” Ariana acknowledged her new commander of the Royal Army. “A fine day, is it not?” She held her face to the wind, inhaling the clean sea breeze, feeling the warm air caressing her face. Since leaving port, the winds had been steady and fair, speeding the ship along under sunny skies.

  “A fine day indeed, Your Majesty. Though I wonder how much of this fine weather might be the work of our wizards,” he discretely glanced aft to where Lords Salva and Mwazo were gathered with Madame Chu and a half dozen other wizards.

  “I am sure it is,” Ariana smiled before remembering the subject of wizardry was an unpleasant reminder of misfortune for Koren. “No matter,” she added hurriedly, “are you enjoying this sea voyage?” She asked to change the subject.

  “Yes, thank you,” Raddick replied while avoiding Koren’s eyes, aware he should not have mentioned wizardry or magic around the young knight. “This is not my first time at sea, but it has been many years since I last felt a deck rolling beneath my feet. The first days are the most difficult,” he said as small talk, knowing anyone suffering seasickness needed only to ask a wizard for a potion.

  “Yes,” Ariana could not help looking back to where the wizards were gathered. This would be, Paedris had told her, the last time many of them were gathered, as after the voyage and ceremony, many of the wizards intended to take a rest from their long labors. Lord Mwazo would be going back to his homeland, which he had not seen for nearly a century of hard struggle against the forces of Acedor. Paedris and Wing would also be leaving, taking a Royal Navy ship gratefully provided by Ariana, going first to Paedris’ home village in Stade,
then on to Ching-Do with a stop in Indus. With them on that ship would be the retired General Magrane, now an official envoy of Tarador. Magrane and his wife had wanted to travel, to see the world, and Ariana was only too happy to oblige. When she asked him to consider being her official envoy, he had protested, but she knew Magrane could not simply be idle, and the old warhorse would enjoy the fruits of his retirement. Paedris and Wing, it was hinted, intended to marry when they reached Ching-Do, with the court wizard of Tarador warning Ariana it might be many years before he returned to Linden.

  No matter, Ariana told herself as she pushed out of her mind sad thoughts of parting with friends, and looked down through the open hatch to the cargo hold of the good ship Sir Bjorn Jihnsson. Down in the hold, covered with an oilcloth tarp, was the ancient Cornerstone of Acedor. Admiral Reed and his fine crew were bringing the Cornerstone to the former pirate harbor of Tokmanto, now renamed Talannon, where the massive block of stone would be transferred to a barge for the trip upriver. At the chosen destination, atop a hill only a few miles from the tainted land where the original castle had stood, the Cornerstone would be set in place, as the first stone of a new castle to be built as a symbol of the newly reunited land.

  Seeing his queen was lost in thought, Grand General Raddick bowed silently and strode off toward the bow. Ariana sighed and leaned toward Koren, he put an arm around her. “I so very much want the Cornerstone restored to its rightful place, and to build a castle there, but there are so many questions I must answer, so many problems to be solved,” she complained to the only person she could tell her most secret thoughts to. The people of Acedor, freed from enthrallment by the demon, were now mostly peaceful, seeking only to provide for themselves and their families, and secure a better future. Those former enemies who could not find it within themselves to fully throw off their enthrallment, or who could never be trusted, had been pursued by the Royal Army and either chased out of Acedor into the hostile wild lands beyond the borders, or had fallen in bitterly contested battles. The people of Acedor were still not capable of feeding themselves, Paedris had warned it might be ten or more years before the poisoned land recovered to point where healthy crops could be grown. Even without the problem of feeding the inhabitants, there was the question of how to administer the lands now added to the realm of Tarador. Ariana needed to appoint dukes and duchesses to the provinces established in what used to be Acedor, and of course so many people were competing for those coveted positions! “Have you thought about what I asked? Who I should appoint to the new provinces?”

  “Yes,” Koren smiled outwardly while groaning inwardly. “I have thought about it, and my thought is I have no business being involved in decisions like that. I am a peasant farm boy, I know nothing of royal succession and things like that.”

  “You are not a peasant, Sir Bladewell,” Ariana hated to hear her beloved talking that way about himself. Koren had vehemently refused the title of Lord Bladewell, arguing his total loss of magical ability meant he no longer qualified for such an honorific, and besides, he did not care about titles. “If you would allow me to make you a duke, you could take over one of these bothersome new provinces, and make my life so much easier.”

  “No, hon-” he lowered his voice, having almost called the queen ‘honey’ in public, “Ariana. I don’t want to be a duke, I would not have the first idea of what to do-”

  “But I could send Chancellor Kallron to instruct you!”

  “No,” Koren shook his head gently, and looked deeply into her eyes. “I am not cut out to be a duke, I have enough honors already.”

  “That is not true! You killed a demon and saved us all!”

  “Bjorn killed the demon, I only robbed it of most of its power.”

  “You know what I mean,” Ariana slapped Koren playfully. “Darling,” she whispered, “why will you not allow me the pleasure of making you a duke?”

  “Because,” Koren said with a wry smile and a wink, “there might be slight complication.”

  He held out his right hand, where danced a tiny glow of magical flame.

  THE END

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