Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  It took Axel a moment to reply, and she wondered if he would deny the power of the stones.

  “Lynxie,” he said in an amused voice, “where was the guard car on the train?”

  “At the back. Why?” she asked, bristling at his patronizing tone and smile.

  “Nothing can enhance human hearing enough to discern Bear whispering to you through a steel dining car, a steel salon, and half a dozen steel sleeper cars on a moving steam train.”

  That sounded logical. No wonder he was mocking her. A blush scorched her face. “I knew that.”

  Axel laughed, and he reached up to cup her cheek. “Sure you did.”

  Remembering his girlfriend, Lynx pulled away.

  Axel didn’t stop her. “You—and the rest of the world—think all technology was lost in the Burning.”

  “It was. And the vile stuff that survived was destroyed as part of The Treaty of Hope.”

  People still spoke about some of those technological horrors, but the stories were always so embellished and far-fetched, Lynx didn’t know what was myth and what was truth.

  “You’re wrong, my Lynxie. While he was signing the Treaty of Hope, Thurban’s scientists were searching for manuscripts and weaponry. A lot of them didn’t survive the aftermath of the Burning, but enough returned to Cian with incredible treasures. Since then, my family have built on that technology—all for a very specific purpose.” Serious eyes locked on her face. “Does the Dmitri Curse mean anything to you?”

  Those machines had almost destroyed the planet, yet the Avanovs had salvaged them? Still owned them?

  “No. Never. What is it? A weapon from before?”

  He sniggered. “Hardly. But I guess you could still call it a weapon—of sorts.” He cleared his throat. “What I’m going to tell you never leaves this room. Got that?”

  Got that? Poor Axel! Those words didn’t even form a promise, let alone an oath. She nodded. “Of course.”

  “Thurban had a brother—Dmitri—who was a seer of some kind.”

  Lynx raised her eyebrows skeptically.

  “Yes, weird as that sounds, he could see the future.”

  “Handy,” Lynx said, wondering what all of this had to do with gemstones and electricity.

  “Trust me, it didn’t turn out so well for Dmitri. Thurban flayed him after the invasion of Norin.”

  Lynx’s voice was brittle as she asked, “And why would he do that?”

  “Dmitri tricked him into signing the Unity with Norin—and then proceeded to curse the Avanov line. He prophesied that a crown prince would marry a Norin princess who would deliver a son to destroy his father and the Chenayan empire. Or that’s what every Avanov is told, virtually from birth. Since then, every crown prince has done everything possible to convince the family he would never destroy the empire. That includes trying to wriggle out of marrying his Norin betrothed. Every one of them failed in the marriage department. Dmitri said that if the Avanovs destroyed Norin or reneged on the Unity, then the Free Nations would muster an army to slaughter us. No one has dared taken Dmitri up on that, so, the curse has some bite.” Axel brushed her face with a gentle hand. “It’s why the Avanovs don’t like you Norin much. We can’t get rid of you, but we can’t bear to keep you alive, either.”

  Lynx’s breath stuttered. That explained so much. And it opened so many possibilities. If true, could she be the woman prophesied about? The idea sent a thrill coursing through her.

  Then, it struck her that Axel may not fancy having his empire destroyed.

  It was time to rein in her emotions. She dropped what she hoped was a neutral expression over her face. “Does that include you?”

  Axel’s face hardened to granite. “I didn’t support sending fifteen guardsmen into Norin.”

  Lynx wanted to believe him, but the pain of loss was still too raw. Voice icy, she asked, “How does this all fit in with gemstones and electricity?”

  Disappointment flickered across Axel’s face—could he have expected anything else? His face cleared, and his voice became businesslike. “In a quest to prevent that Norin princess and her son from ever rallying an army, my family have used that technology to create the finest military surveillance system in the world. It keeps the conquered at our feet.”

  Lynx bristled. “That is precisely what the Treaty of Hope was supposed to prevent.”

  “Foul play, I know, but that’s how it is.” Axel hopped up and strode across the darkened room to his cloak, hanging over the sconce. He pulled a second sconce, identical to the one on her wall, from a pocket inside the lining and tossed it to her.

  She caught it in midair.

  “Have a good look at that and tell me what you see.”

  Holding it in the faint candlelight, Lynx turned it over in her hands, studying every angle. She looked up at him and shrugged. “Can’t see anything.”

  “Maybe some light would help.” Again, his hand vanished into his cloak, this time appearing with a black metal tube. He tossed that to her, too. “Hold it and see what happens.”

  It fit in her palm, and as her fingers closed over it, a beam of brilliant white light burst from the front. Lynx gasped, dropping it as if it had burned her. It hadn’t, but she’d never seen anything so incredible. Or unbelievable. The light vanished. She looked at Axel.

  “It uses the heat from your body to create light, but it won’t hurt you, I promise.” Kneeling in front of her, he picked up the tube and wedged it in her hand. She closed her fingers over it, and the beam flared once more.

  “This is amazing, Axel,” she whispered in awe.

  “I rather like it, too. See, not everything from before the Burning is bad.”

  She looked up at his face, just inches from hers. They smiled, locked together in the wonder of her discovery.

  “Now look at the sconce again,” he said.

  With more confidence, she held the sconce under the beam, noticing the tiniest flare of light reflecting back at her. She leaned in closer for a better look. “Is that . . . glass?”

  “Ice crystal. That’s what the emeralds, sapphires, jasper, and the moonstones are made from.” He touched the ruby next to his eye. “This is real. And so are the diamonds. Everyone else? They wear ice crystal embedded with tiny—” he paused, scratching the stubble on his chin, “brains. Well, not really, but . . . okay, it’s like a . . . man-made intelligence powered by body heat.”

  Even though Lynx was finally getting her answers, they made no sense to her. They would mean nothing to her father, either. She looked at Axel blankly.

  He sighed with frustration.

  Lynx figured that, for him, it must be similar to communicating with someone who spoke a foreign language. She gave him what she hoped was an understanding smile.

  He responded by stroking her face with a gentle finger. “Look, you’ve already come a long way from candles to—”

  “I’m not a child!” Lynx swatted his hand away. Difficult as this was, she had to grasp it all.

  Axel rocked back on his heels. “I know! But how do you explain this,” he jabbed a finger at the tube, “to someone who learned the word electricity a couple of hours ago?”

  Lynx had no answer for that. She pointed at the sconce. “So what does the ice crystal in this do?”

  “It, um—” He sucked his lips. “Takes pictures, like paintings, but not really, because they move.” At her dumbfounded expression, he added lamely, “It also listens and plays back what people are saying.”

  “And what makes it work? Body heat?”

  “No, of course not. These use electricity. The palace has its own coal-driven power station, similar to the technology on a steam train, only this one generates electricity. We would like to use ice crystal, but supplies are scarce—hence the war in Treven. They have the biggest ice crystal deposits in the world.”

  Lynx folded her arms. “I always believed I was vaguely intelligent, but this is all beyond me.”

  Axel looked stumped for a moment, and then he
fumbled in his pocket. “Maybe this will help.” He pulled out a large, black button. “We call these informas. They come in any shape or size but always something commonplace, something that wouldn’t be questioned on a desk or in a pocket.”

  Shoulder to shoulder next to her on her cushion, Axel held the button in front of them. A burst of light shot from the top. Unbelievably, he clasped one corner of the beam and pulled it up as if it were a silk scarf. As it opened, a static image of Lynx, her uncle, and Axel, sharpening his weapons in the dining car on the train, blossomed before her.

  Lynx gasped, then buried her face in his arm. Breathing deeply, she anchored herself in his clean smell of grass, wind, and wild places—normality—while waiting for her heart to stop pounding. Finally, she looked up, putting a tentative finger forward to touch the picture. It passed straight through.

  “It’s just light, Lynxie, projected onto the air molecules.”

  Lynx didn’t pretend to understand what that meant. “You said it moved.”

  He nodded. “Now you’re ready.”

  A finger flick, and the image danced, showing Lynx in secret conversation with Uncle Bear. What was worse—or more amazing, Lynx couldn’t decide—was the clarity with which she heard her doppelganger whisper, “I recently killed a guardsman and prized the jasper out of his face, but it told me nothing.”

  If that wasn’t damning enough, her uncle replied, “It’s that kind of stomach which makes you so ideal for this job. You will need to be more subtle in Cian, though. Even admitting to killing guardsmen will earn you a swift execution. So, I will help you spy. Together, we will unravel this secret.”

  “Someone I trust translated it for me,” Axel said. “Bear was agreeing to help you spy on us to find out about the gemstones, right? You also admitted to killing a guardsman.”

  Lynx made a gagging sound and covered her face with her hands. There had been no more private communication with her uncle since then, but would that matter? She doubted it. At last, she whispered from behind her fingers. “A translator? Who else has seen that?”

  “Stefan and I edited it out of the sequence sent to my father.”

  She had no idea what that meant.

  He pried her hands away from her face. “No one knows, except Stefan, me, and my translator friend, and we intend to keep it that way.”

  Lynx closed her eyes, still not wanting to see the reality of this life-threatening gaffe for both her and her uncle. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  Axel slid his arm around her shoulder. “We—I—like you.”

  She should have shrugged his arm off, but she didn’t have the energy. “Enough to sit back and watch me and my son destroy all that power you were telling me about while we were dancing?”

  Axel’s fingers tapped out a rhythm on her upper arm. “That’s never going to happen, Lynx.”

  Lynx pulled out of his embrace. “Are you saying you don’t believe in the Dmitri Curse? Or is that you don’t believe I could be the one?”

  “Oh, I believe, have no doubt about that.”

  She wasn’t sure just what he was admitting to.

  Before she could ask, he said, “We all do. Or why else would we have created an army of soldiers who experience no fear when placed in harm’s way?” He touched his ruby. “That’s what the jasper ice crystal does. It interferes with normal brain waves, programming loyalty to the crown and immunity to fear. Moving faster and shooting straight are just side benefits. We even control the high-born. Their green and blue ice crystals show up on a reader in my father’s lair. It tells him the location of every high-born in the palace, at any time, day or night.”

  Lynx’s body tensed, and her eyes narrowed, as they always did when calculating how best to take down an enemy. “How do you plan to stop me from passing this information on to my father? Is this when you slit my throat?”

  “What?” Axel spluttered. “You think I’ve shown you all this so I can hurt you?”

  Lynx wished she believed him, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Her fingers felt for the heavy brass candlestick next to her. But would she have time to get in a killing blow if Axel was enhanced to move faster?

  And then what? Stuck in the Avanov palace in the middle of the Heartland, there was no escape. How would she ever explain Axel’s demise to the emperor?

  She had her answers to the gemstones, but what good were they? Whichever way she looked, death seemed to stare back at her.

  “Answer me, Lynx.” Axel sounded aggrieved. “Do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

  “Then how do you intend to stop me from using this information to destroy your empire?”

  “You’re very confident you’re the chosen one.”

  Lynx shrugged, unwilling to admit he echoed her doubts. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  Axel’s face softened. “The answer is straightforward, Lynx. I’ve already told you—you’re wasted on Lukan.”

  Lynx clicked her tongue. “What’s that even supposed to mean?”

  “It means I want you, and I suspect you want me, too.” He looked at her hand resting on the candlestick. “That is, when you’re not scheming to beat my brains out.”

  She didn’t move her hand away. In fact, the urge to hit him was stronger than ever. “And how does your girlfriend feel about that?”

  Axel sat back with a start. “My girlfriend?” The wicked smile invaded his face. “You find me conveniently between lovers.”

  “Are you saying you don’t have a girlfriend?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Then who was the girl with the dark hair?” Lynx snapped, angry with herself for even caring.

  Axel’s hand trailed to his tussled hair. “Could you be more specific? Last time I looked, just about everyone in Chenaya had hair in different shades of dark.”

  “The one you were dancing with,” Lynx snapped.

  Understanding dawned in Axel’s eyes, and he smiled. “Now, about that friend you’re looking for. I have the perfect candidate. Her name is Malika, and she’d make you a great friend.”

  Lynx narrowed her eyes, blasting him with her coldest expression—the one Clay always joked would stop the wind blowing.

  Axel brushed her face with his hand. “Oh, lighten up, Princess. Malika’s my sister, and she wants to help you settle in here.”

  “Your sister?” Lynx swallowed a gulp of humiliation. “Come on, Axel. I’ve two brothers whom I love, but I don’t spend the night dancing with them at parties.”

  Lynx’s stomach knotted with longing for Clay and Wolf. Clay would be doing his final preparations for his egg raid. What did that matter now if Mott killed them all?

  “It wasn’t the whole night. It was only part of it. The rest I spent watching you.” When she looked unconvinced, Axel added, “My sister has just come out of a nasty relationship. I’m now steering her in the direction of Stefan. I’d appreciate it if you also brought your influence to bear. Malika will listen to you.”

  The conversation had gone a long way from plotting to kill Axel. Bemused, Lynx asked, “Why would she listen to me? I’m the enemy.”

  “Not everyone divides the world into friend and foe, Lynx. Some of us just judge as we find. My sister thinks you have amazing taste in clothing.” He brushed her bare knee, sending a shiver of want through her. “And I told her you’re special. To me.” He paused, his face devoid of his usual jeer. “I’d like us to become lovers.”

  A cloud of butterflies swooped through her stomach. She quelled them with a glare, partly for him for suggesting something so radical—when he knew her parents’ lives were at stake—and partly for herself for craving him so much.

  Still, that didn’t stop her from releasing the candlestick and putting her hand in her lap. “We haven’t solved the basic problem here, Axel.”

  “Yes, we have.” Axel leaned in and brushed Lynx’s lips with his.

  A small moan escaped her before she stopped it. He slid his hand around h
er neck and kissed her again. His mouth was firm, warm, and demanding. Instead of pushing him away, her traitorous lips parted, allowing his tongue to slide into her mouth.

  He tasted sweet . . . and hungry, for her.

  It brought her to her senses, and she jerked away. “This is crazy. I’m marrying Lukan . . . in . . . in too few days to mention.”

  Axel rested his forehead on hers. “I like you. You like me.” He grazed a kiss across her lips. “I want you. You want me. What’s so crazy about that?”

  “I made my father an oath,” Lynx croaked, “that I would marry Lukan in exchange for letting my brother raid again. I’ve told you before, I don’t break my word.”

  Axel frowned. He had no clue of what she was talking about, but then, how could he? He wouldn’t have known about Clay’s failed raid.

  She added something he would appreciate, “And what about Lukan and Mott?”

  “Leave my uncle and cousin to me. I promise, when I’ve finished, Lukan won’t touch you with a ten foot pole.”

  “He doesn’t want to touch me now,” Lynx pointed out. “And that’s a serious problem.”

  Axel burst into laughter. “Oh, he wants you. The lust is destroying him. But the Dmitri Curse probably looms large in his world. The idea of his wife bearing a son who could kill him must put him off his stride.” Axel’s voice hardened. “But I’m working on him. He’s so weak, it doesn’t take much to manipulate him.”

  After seeing Lukan and Axel together, Lynx didn’t doubt his words. “And Mott? What about him?”

  “More difficult,” Axel conceded. “But I have some ideas.” He ran his fingers over her mouth. “Just trust me, Lynx, and it will all work out.”

  “What about my oath to my father?” His fingers fluttered against her mouth as she spoke.

  “Things have changed. Surely pragmatism is also part of the Norin code?” Finger still brushing her mouth, he cocked his head to the side, studying her with a quizzical eye.

  She pulled her face away from his mind-shattering caresses. “You don’t understand. It would take more than pragmatism to change an oath. We live and die by honor, Axel, and nothing destroys one’s honor quicker than breaking an oath. I don’t think I would survive it.”