by R. J. Price
“I see your point,” Telm said, shifting her weight. “What does this spell do, then?”
“Do you have several hours for me to explain it to you?” the archivist asked. “I won’t tell you how, only what the spell does.”
Telm looked around for a chair. She found one in the corner, stacked high with historical requests that had been denied. Shifting the papers to the side, she carried the chair back to the archivist and set it down.
“Tell me what the spell actually does,” Telm said.
Chapter Fourteen
Aren followed Rewel into the village, finally feeling more like herself. She had been aware of the throne’s influence while walking with Danya, had noticed the changes in how she thought and looked at the land around her. After some small struggle, she had successfully removed the throne from her mind, locked it out. Her body was her own, her thoughts her own.
She didn’t like Rewel. The man didn’t lie, didn’t try to touch her inappropriately, but there was something about him that she simply did not like.
He tried too hard.
“I don’t know how much Danya told you about our village,” Rewel said once they were standing in an open area between the houses.
A type of common area, the bare ground should have been occupied. By children running and playing, adults talking, women trading, by anything at all. Yet, it was empty. Besides Rewel and Danya, Aren hadn’t seen another person.
She heard them at night. That was how she knew there were others in the village. During the day no one came out of their homes but for Rewel. He and Danya seemed to be the only inhabitants who had what Aren would expect to be normal lives for villagers.
At first she had dismissed the odd behaviour, telling herself that she had never actually been in a village during the day. Daily life could be vastly different from what she expected. The more she noticed the influence of the throne, the more she noticed how strange the village actually was.
Where were the children? The hunters? Why did they stay in an area that was dying, or perhaps already dead?
Danya had explained, after Aren had gorged on stew, that supplies were scarce. The area around the village was no longer abundant in foodstuffs or trees large enough to provide wood. With a scarcity on everything but for water, the village was very careful to ration everything.
“She’s said items are scarce,” was all Aren offered up to Rewel.
Despite being the only two who lived regular lives, Rewel and Danya seemed to have little contact. Danya was a rank, Rewel a commoner. That alone was enough to drive a wedge between the two. Without knowing who was on which side, why there even were sides, Aren would offer up no information that might put Danya in jeopardy. She could not very well turn on the person who risked their own physical wellbeing to heal her. There wasn’t enough food to give Danya something to burn through, her magic not strong enough to heal Aren through that alone.
Aren hadn’t been aware of a way to push beyond the limits of her magic. Clearly Danya had found a way. From what she had seen, the pushing was much like the wasting that overcame weak queens who sat the throne. Once the magic was gone, the body began to melt away, though in those who sat the throne no amount of food would help them.
“That they are,” Rewel said with a nod. “We’ve been applying to the palace for a queen, but we’ve never heard a response back. I have to wonder if the messengers are taking our gold and running.”
“Gold?” Aren pulled to a stop. “You use gold?”
“Well, yes. We’ve no coin to our names. Gold and silver trade just as well out here. If not better. No matter what we pay them in, the messengers never return. No queen comes our way and our land continues to fail.”
“Why do you believe a queen would help?” Aren asked.
“It is quite well known that where a queen lives, there is happiness and the land is bright and fertile,” he said. “You’ve never seen this?”
Aren shook her head. “I’ve spent most of my life quite close to the palace. I suppose the crops never really failed, except the one year some sort of bug ate it all. This is the farthest I’ve ever been.”
She still had no idea where she was, what direction, or how far from the palace. Danya had never been to the palace, therefore she had no point of reference to give Aren. The ride out had been a blur. Aren couldn’t recall how long she had been riding, though she did somewhat remember changing horses somewhere and making a fuss when the stable boy attempted to make off with her bridle.
“Fortunate for you,” Rewel nodded, motioning past the common area of the village. “We’ve even prepared a place for her to reside. Not a house up here, though she might have one if she pleased.”
Finally Aren realized why Rewel was trying too hard. He was hoping that she would remain and be the queen they were looking for, to help rejuvenate the land. The only problem was that Aren was linked to the throne.
She also had no idea how to renew a piece of land. Was it something a queen did instinctively? Or was it something she had to learn?
Either way, Aren wasn’t certain she was capable of performing the duties Rewel would require of her.
“Then where is this place for the queen?” Aren asked, going along with Rewel because she was curious.
She was the one who sat the throne, so Rewel had been trying to contact her specifically. The least she could do was listen to his plea, as she would any other, and then make a judgement. When she returned to the palace she could find a suitable queen, one looking for a new home, and send the woman to Rewel. The village would care for her, apparently, and word might even spread about Aren’s kindness to a village that had once saved her.
“Underground.” Rewel led the way and Aren followed. “It’s strange, I know. We found an underground cave and made it into a ruling place for a queen. Or our parents did, I should say. They had heard stories and knew the history of the enlightened times, knew that it would have to be coming up again soon, enlightenment, that is, and built this place hoping that in my time it could be put to use.”
“That a queen would rule from here in place of the palace?” Aren asked.
“As an ambassador to the palace. Our queen would be linked to the one who sat the throne, creating a net across the lands. Magic would go both ways and more land would be covered by the protection of the palace.”
He stepped around a building and motioned to a door attached to the back. Aren opened the door and found a set of steps leading down. Darkness below, Rewel above. It seemed a little odd.
A little like Worl.
Aren tried not to grimace at the thought of the madman who had attempted to murder her only a month before. If that much even. So much had happened in the space between.
Rewel reached into the darkness and pulled out a sphere of glass. Archaic, the glass was poorly constructed but would serve the same purpose as the lights at the palace. This he handed to Aren with a smile. In her hand the sphere lit up blue.
The colour drew a frown from Rewel. Lights came on white or yellow in colour, if a colour could be identified. Aren was certain the blue had something to do with the cave of queen’s stone she had tumbled into. If only Ervam had been forthcoming with his information, rather than dancing around the point.
“It’s a quirk,” Aren said.
The man nodded slowly. Obviously, he didn’t quite believe her. Perhaps he had experience with queens. If he had enough experience to know that blue light was not a quirk, why had he sent to the palace for a rank?
Aren glanced about them, half expecting to see bodies hanging from the trees outside the building. Instead she saw only bare branches. Grey in colour instead of brown, the trees were not simply bare, but dead. She drew in a breath, recalling her words to Danya on the ice. The throne had spoken those words.
With how the throne had been controlling her the past few days, Aren had to wonder what was waiting in the darkened stairwell. Just because in her past things had been dark, did not mean that the future c
ould not be bright. There were only so many bad people in the world.
Rewel was not Worl. He was not her parents.
Burying her desire to flee, Aren stepped into the darkness. The walls lit up a dull grey as she descended. The blue light shifted to white and the eerie grey remained. A chunk of stone had been carved through. The magic that would have been required to bring out that almost smooth finish was too much to fathom. Yet the steps under Aren’s feet were rough, as if carved after the passage appeared.
At the bottom of the steps was a chamber of dark. Aren frowned at the darkness, shaking the sphere to try and spread its light. Only a small area around her lit, keeping all else hidden.
Aren had heard enough stories to know something was wrong.
She turned on Rewel, meaning to demand an answer, and was struck across the face. Caught off guard, she fell to the floor, pain blooming.
She hurt.
It wasn’t like when Worl chased her, not like when she was training and caught by the stick. Someone had struck her in the face without provocation. Aren clenched her hands into fists as the glass sphere rolled and bounced away, cracking as it went. Blue lit up the chamber as she came up swinging.
She caught Rewel in the jaw, knocking the man backwards even as her own hand exploded in pain. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she ran for the steps. As she hit the first step, Rewel collided with her back, slamming her into the steps. The breath flew out of her. She struggled to gain it back as Rewel pulled her up and dragged her into the chamber.
He threw her against a wall, pushing what breath she managed to catch back out. Aren managed to stay on her feet by leaning and through sheer stubbornness. If she could focus, or get beyond the pain, perhaps she could use her magic to do something besides light the damned glass so she could see where Rewel was.
Seeing him didn’t exactly help her.
Aren dragged in a breath and attempted to centre herself as Rewel fumbled with something. Her magic seemed beyond her, but her hands were right there. Instead of using magic, Aren swung for Rewel again. The man caught her arm, meeting her eyes as he latched something onto her wrist.
Heavy and just tight enough to stay relatively still.
She dared a glance at the metal manacle, then to Rewel. Her anger boiled up, the rage threatening to lash out. Yet nothing happened. The magic should have exploded, something should have happened. Rewel should have been boiled in his skin.
Dead.
That’s what he should have been. Dead—the type of dead that couldn’t come back to life no matter what magic he possessed.
Av would follow shortly after. Teach her to defend herself, isn’t that what he had said? So she had gotten in a few blows, but she was still right where she wasn’t supposed to be. The training she had received did little more than give a few moments to lash out, even that Rewel reacted as if he expected her to move in such a way.
She had wanted to be able to defend against a trained man, that was what she had told him!
Anger and then rage followed, causing a wave of release to as the emotion drained away. When she got her hands on Av he’d have to answer for a great deal, but not before she killed Rewel slowly.
“Don’t bother with raging,” Rewel said, tapping the manacle. “When you rage, this absorbs your magic. Your kind always talks about wanting to sit the throne. Well, this is the next best thing.”
“You cannot keep me here,” Aren said.
Rewel walked to the light, picked it up off the floor and turned it over in his hands. The man smiled at Aren as the colour changed from blue to red and the cracks changed from a true black to an almost red shade.
“Oh, but I can,” Rewel responded, looking down at the light. “I get the feeling you will be here for a very, very long time.”
“They will come looking for me.” Aren didn’t believe the words as she spoke them.
“Even if they did, they would never find you down here, not even if a warrior came looking for you,” Rewel said with a smile.
He turned and left. Aren glared after him, trying to bring her anger under control. She could feel the pull now, between the throne and the manacle. The light disappeared up the steps as Aren struggled for control.
Only the strongest queens in history were capable of splitting their magic between the throne and an inanimate object of their choosing. Those queens had spent years pushing even a small amount of magic into an item. Aren was splitting between two forces, both striving to absorb every drop she had.
On the throne she hadn’t really noticed the sapping. With both her chest felt hollow, her limbs shook as she sank down in the darkness of her prison.
She was going to die.
Aren tried to remain calm, tried to keep control of her emotions. If she let loose, Rewel won. For whatever twisted reason he wanted her magic, he would have it.
Unable to stop the tears, Aren wept and screamed with only the darkness to hear her.
Chapter Fifteen
Laeder attended dinner, aware that there was an unsettling feeling over the whole palace. The wards moved in pairs or trios through the halls, shrieking if a lord came too close. The male servants, even the boys, found a reason to leave palace grounds despite the fresh snow that had fallen. The female servants took their cue from Telm and shooed lords from the wards, but made no attempt to make the males more uncomfortable.
He spotted Telm a few times over the course of the day, never amongst people. She skirted around the groups and gatherings, a silent witness to what was happening. Never intervening, Telm was almost a spirit judging them all. She would motion to a lord who was coming too close to a lady and in the servants would swoop to usher him away on some business.
Never was a word spoken by Telm.
Laeder was tempted to approach a group of wards and see if he could elicit a reaction, to figure out what exactly was going on. As the thought crossed his mind, he looked across the dining hall and made eye contact with Telm, who was standing by the head table. The head of house was about to take her seat and reside over the dinner, as she always did. They locked eyes and Laeder shivered.
No, now was not a good time to try Telm.
The lords were served by silent female servants. They had been placed on one side of the dining hall while the ladies were safely tucked on the other side. The healers who had chosen to winter at the palace were all women and sat between the two groups. Some few of the lords muttered to one another about the healers being there in case a fight broke out.
Laeder knew they were a threat. If the lords attempted to disturb the peace during dinner a healer would dispatch him. The guards were male, and several of them stood sheepishly by the door but would come no farther. Something had made them ashamed of being male. Which was strange because Laeder did not have that inclination. Perhaps it was only the male creature of a certain sexual preference.
He shuddered again at the thought and looked up at Telm. The queen looked out over those dining, eyes darting between the two tables without judgement. Now there was no judgement. What had happened, had happened and passed. Now was the time to settle feathers and calm the women down.
What had happened to Aren? And why couldn’t Laeder feel it?
“If she wanted us dead,” slurred the lord beside Laeder, “she’d just kill us.”
Laeder stiffened, frowned, and turned to the lord ever so slowly. “I beg your pardon?”
An elderly lord across from the one who had obviously gotten into the wine cellar, harrumphed loudly. The drunken one laughed at the sound and downed the last of his cup, apparently having forgotten he had spoken to Laeder in the first place.
“That one’s dangerous,” the elderly lord muttered.
Age had left deep lines on his face, and his hair was a shock of white. Old enough to be Laeder’s grandfather, surely.
“All ranks are dangerous,” Laeder muttered in response, drawing another laugh from the drunk lord.
“When I was young, she was young,�
�� the elder grumbled, reaching across the table to snatch the wineskin from the intoxicated lord when he produced it to refill his cup. The elder sat back down and worked the cork as he spoke. “She was a beauty, she and her daughter.”
Telm never had a daughter. No blood, Laeder couldn’t even find a bloodline to attach to her. The archivist had no record of Telm before thirty years previous. He had claimed there had been a fire which consumed several important documents. Included in these documents were Telm’s records and the papers sent for Mirmae Hue and Ervam Marilton.
“Daughter was as beautiful as the mother?” Laeder asked, without pointing out that the elderly lord was obviously wrong.
“Absolutely. It happens, sometimes. You can look at a woman and tell her daughters will be as beautiful as she is. That Lady Mar is like that. Gorgeous woman, and she’ll make adorable babies who grow into gorgeous women.”
“Telm looks good for being so old,” the drunk lord said before he started laughing again.
The elderly lord managed to pull the cork on the wine. He scowled as he helped himself to the other man’s drink.
“You don’t believe me. No one ever believes me,” the elderly lord grumbled as he handed over the wine to its rightful owner.
“I didn’t say I didn’t believe you,” Laeder said quietly. “Why don’t you tell me what you know?”
At the very least the lord was old enough to recall the time that the archivist had lost in the fire. Even if age had muddled the lord’s memories, he might still retain something that could be useful to Laeder. A bloodline or place where Telm had been born could be buried in that shattered mind.
“She was kidnapped from her village when she was young,” the elderly lord said. “Brought here during the last border skirmishes with the western marshes. Her mother was a westerner, her father a northerner, and the land they lived on was once part of the north.”