Royal flameblasted seahag. “Are you blind? Elena, you grew up with me. You spent summers here for as long as I can remember. You know I'm not any kind of mage. I never had—”
“Lies.” She calmly tapped slender fingers against her glass. “Well, all right, Alex, maybe not lies. Denial perhaps. I remember some rather strange incidents when we were children,” she added smoothly, slanting a furtive look at Jules as she took another dainty sip of Marain wine. “Apparently, so does the Port Alain council of mages.”
A knot formed in the pit of my stomach at the thought of the local council. “I remember, too.” My face flushed scarlet in betrayal. “Whatever I managed to do was a childish trick. I had no control over anything. Water, air, fire, earth. Not over any of them. You should remember very well.”
“Alex—”
“You pushed me to keep trying until Jules…” I looked down at my hands, unwilling to pursue this conversation. “Forget it.”
“How can I forget it,” Elena’s voice softened, “when you've never quite forgiven me for that incident?”
I looked up. “Jules could have been seriously hurt.”
“But he wasn't.”
“He was lucky.”
“And you were scared.” The softness vanished, her expression now cool and unreadable. “You were frightened then, and you're frightened now.”
“Damn you, Elena. I wasn't a mage then, and I'm not a mage now.” I faced her stubbornly across my tiny cluttered room, feeling claustrophobic. “I'm not.” After an uncomfortable silence in which neither of them offered sympathy, I grumbled, “And even if I were, which I'm not, and I don’t know how to convince you, what does that have to do with Jules' trouble?”
After eying Elena's composed face, Jules drained his cup and set it down on the table. “If I'm plotting treachery with the Crownmage and the Meravan government, the Crown Council in Ardenna will have our local Port Alain council of mages keep an eye on me. Since they're watching you, too, I thought—” Jules flushed scarlet.
“We both thought,” Elena added quietly, taking pity on him, “if you'd been developing any mage talent, you know, Alex, on your own without telling anyone, you might be able to help.”
I sat in rigid silence.
“But as you haven't...” Jules shrugged uneasily, his expression letting me know he was still unconvinced. “I'd just be grateful if you kept your eyes and ears open without getting into any trouble with the council. I need proof of my innocence, any way I can get it, or the Crown Council of Mages will all too happily hang me.”
“Maybe they should,” I said in retribution for the wound he ripped open and the dreams I knew would return the moment I fell asleep.
“Alex, please—” Elena's plea cut through my bitter thoughts.
Lords of the sea, it was the middle of the night, and I was never any good at thinking with a muddled head.
“How do they imagine your treachery, Jules? Rather, your alleged treachery,” I amended dryly at Elena's sharp glance. “Let me make an intelligent guess. Meravan raiders start creating diversions and trouble, possibly even using their own mage talent, for poor, insecure, newly crowned Elena, who has no choice but to turn to the Crown Council of Mages for help.” When neither of them said a word, I continued, “Then the legendary Crownmage comes out of hiding and, on behalf of Jules' claim to the throne, offers formal Mage Challenge to Elena's mage of choice because the traitorous duke has been secretly conspiring with the Crownmage.”
“Now listen—”
“Am I supposed to be the liaison between you and the Crownmage?” I ignored Jules' murderous expression, knowing it would only get worse. “Here’s the part I don’t quite understand. What’s your motive for wanting to take the crown from Elena? Oh, wait,” I slapped my head, “how could I forget? It’s so simple, even your twin boys could unravel this puzzle. Vengeance for a love gone wrong, but not quite forgotten, isn’t that right? You’ve always wanted Elena to step beyond friendship, and you still do. But she wasn’t interested, Jules,” I said, adding cruelly, “and still isn’t. So I presume that’s why you’re allegedly seeking vengeance.”
I refused to soften my words. They didn’t bother to soften theirs.
“Am I right?”
“That's not…” Jules' started to protest, but his words trailed off in embarrassment as he turned away from me and Elena. She had been grief-stricken at causing him pain when she rejected what he offered a lifetime ago.
“That's what my sources are reporting,” Elena answered calmly for Jules, though her cheeks were flushed as she glanced at his averted face. “Apparently, it wasn’t as much a secret as we’d hoped.”
“Too bad. It’s not something you’d want your enemies to know,” I murmured. “Not when they can use it against you.”
“Too late for that,” she said regretfully. “There’s more, Alex. There's already been trouble along the Belbridge coast. That’s why you—”
“Tell me something, Elena. What's my motive in this sordid affair? Am I siding with Jules because he's convinced me over the years you're not fit for the throne? Am I jealous?” The specter of an orphan child reared her ugly head in my mind, though I tried to banish her. “Power hungry? Or maybe I’m just a spineless coward, lacking the guts to go after power of my own—”
Elena raised a hand to stop my fevered words. “I don't know, but with Jules under suspicion, and perhaps you, too, I'm pressed to keep a balance in how I deal with both of you. With Brendan squiring here at Port Alain, I have to make it appear our relations are somewhat normal.”
I laughed, not bothering to hide my bitterness.
“But I'm forced to show some distance between us if I'm to trap whoever's behind the rumors. I don't trust any of the four mages on the Crown Council. Please understand, Alex.” She was practically pleading again.
“That you're in a very uncomfortable position? Comes with being queen,” I said wryly. “But for you and Jules, and maybe myself, well, damnation, you know I'd do anything to help you.” Caught between laughing and crying, I added, “Almost anything. So if you want my help, and I can't think what help a schoolmistress can give, well, all right.” I stared at them, all traces of my humor vanished. “But I don't trust either of you. You're the dearest people in the world to me, but that won't matter.”
Elena’s flush deepened, staining her cheeks. “How can you say that?”
“Because you're holding something back from me. Or maybe you're both just a little mad. I don't know, too much Marain wine maybe.”
“Alex—”
“If I get caught in the middle of some nightmare you've kept hidden from me, I'll hound you both until the end of your days. I promise you.”
Chapter Two
The nightmare returned to haunt me as soon as my head touched the pillow and I fell into an uneasy sleep. Fire and ice once again. Meaningless swirls of black and red, spiraling wildly. Enfolding me, spinning me around. Pressure. Intense pain. Always intense pain. Fire and flames, and a cold blast of wind slapping my exposed nerves like a wall of ice, numbing every last pitiful inch of me.
It always ended with a scream of heartbreaking anguish and despair. The scream lingered on, echoing in my head long after it forced me awake.
I woke trembling, drenched in sweat, and furious. I tried to convince myself a long time ago the dreams had vanished. Not very flameblasted likely after Elena prodded the old guilt and pain awake, and yes, the fear. I was never free of the dreams, but there were some few blessed moments when I could pretend I was. I muttered a string of rather imaginative oaths about the royal idiot and her lovesick duke, both of whom, most likely, slept without any trouble. Exhausted, I flung the few blankets I hadn't discarded during sleep from my shivering body.
Sleep? Barely two hours, and I knew it was useless to try again.
Squinting tired, aching eyes against the sunrise, I shook myself free of the lingering nightmare, cursed Jules and Elena again, and puttered around like the village i
diot until it was time for the children's lesson up on the Hill.
* * * *
“Alex was very sleepy today.”
Coming toward the schoolroom along the path that connected the small building to the manor, Lauryn Barlow, Jules’ wife, shot me a look filled with sincere apology at her five-year-old's brash comment.
“Maybe Alex was up all night with nightmares, worried she'd have to see you and your brother so early today,” she suggested mildly to Carey. “Especially since you're the only two who ever cause her any problems.”
Hunter, inseparable from his twin, sighed in absolute disbelief. “Alex loves to teach us.”
“Indeed,” she murmured, ruffling her hands through identical curly hair. “Now the truth.” Lauryn turned gentle light blue eyes to me. “How unruly were they?”
The twins lunged for me, each possessively grabbing one of my hands and holding on as though a ravenous seabeast had caught their scent. “Alex!”
I hid my grin behind a cough. “Remember our agreement,” I whispered, tugging at their arms. As they nodded solemnly, I winked at Lauryn, who matched my tone with a stern expression. “They were your children today. Perfectly behaved. Not at all like Jules.”
“Then I trust they'll continue their good behavior for Brendan.” She nodded in the direction of Elena's younger brother, coming to capture the twins and whisk them down to the stable.
“They wouldn't dare behave otherwise.” Brendan came down the path, his smile so like Elena's, still fresh in my mind from last night's uncivilized visit. “They know I'll simply call the queen's guards.” He stood ramrod straight and cast a stern look at the twins. “I have a fair amount of influence with the queen.”
Lauryn smiled gratefully at Brendan before turning back to me. “Jules said a courier arrived from Ardenna late last night.”
“A courier?” I asked unwittingly, catching the barest flicker in Brendan's dark blue eyes before he gathered up the protesting twins and led them away, not looking at either of us, particularly me.
But Lauryn must have noticed his expression, too. “Odd he left so fast.”
“If the courier had nothing for him, Brendan wouldn’t interfere in our conversation,” I said swiftly, trying to control the rising panic in my head. What was Jules thinking, not to tell his wife Elena came in person? “Brendan was brought up with manners. What news did the courier bring?”
“Elena fears some Meravan trouble is brewing and wants us to watch the coastline for raiders.”
“As though we don't.” I rubbed my eyes, gritty from lack of a decent night's sleep and sighed. “Port Alain, if our revered monarch minded her school studies, is strategically located at the point of land closest to Meravan across the Skandar Sea. We'd be idiots not to watch the coastline.”
“Stop sounding like a schoolmistress.” Lauryn's eyes took on a mischievous glint as she unknowingly repeated Elena’s words. “She meant for us to watch closer than we do now.”
“I see.”
Did I, really? Lords of the sea, what were they plotting? Was Brendan the only one who knew his sister visited in the middle of the night? Why didn’t Jules tell Lauryn?
“Alex—”
At Lauryn's swift, insistent pressure on my arm, I looked up barely in time to find the intricately carved gate leading to the manor's main entrance mere inches from my face.
“You are tired.” Lauryn frowned in maternal concern, though she was no older than me. Like a sentinel, she stood in my path as I turned to face her sheepishly. “Are you ill?”
“No.” I shrugged moodily. “Trouble sleeping.”
“You'd better not tell Jules. He'll start nagging you again to find a husband. As though that would solve your restlessness.”
“A dull man just might put me to sleep.” I pushed an escaped strand of curls behind my ear. “But I won't tell him. I'd like at least one peaceful week without his annoying comments.”
“He forgets to mind his own business. But he means well,” she said quietly, searching my face for reassurance. “I'm sorry he's such a nuisance.”
I shook her arm playfully. “I'm entirely used to his interference. Besides,” I added breezily, as she started to walk away. “You know I usually ignore him.”
But not this time, damn him. Jules’ clandestine midnight visit with Elena started the dreams again. What I needed was a sensible talk with the only other sensible person in Port Alain besides Lauryn.
Rubbing my eyes wearily once again, I stared at the manor house before stepping inside. It had been my home from the day I was born. Warm and familiar and spacious in the eyes of a child with a hundred thousand secret places to idle away the hours. Either alone with my dreams or heartaches, or hiding with Jules or his sister, Khrista. The best was hiding with Elena from both of them on hot, drowsy summer afternoons.
Before the dreams started.
I sighed heavily, with no small amount of trepidation. Scanning the length of the three-storied manor house, I ran my hand with affection along the rough stone. Admiring its modest grandeur, my roving eye rested on the corner turret with its balcony overlooking not the bobbing masts in the Port Alain harbor, but its owner's precious gardens. That turret, and the apartment within, meant home and comfort to me years and years past. With a last lingering look at the house I'd chosen to leave for the privacy of the cottage, I stepped inside, up the elegantly carved stairway, and headed for the turret and its guardian oak door.
“You look as though you tossed and turned in your sheets all night.” A suggestive twinkle appeared, out of place on the plump face appraising me from the other side of the oak door. “I hope whoever kept you wide awake was worth all the trouble.”
I grumbled an unintelligible greeting as Rosanna Barlow waved me into her bright, sun-warmed sitting room.
“That should stop my son from pestering you about a husband.”
I sank onto a pile of embroidered cushions she kept piled on the floor especially for me. “No one kept me awake.”
“Too bad.” Jules' mother studied me for a long, appraising moment as she stood motionless by the door.
Instinctively, I dropped my gaze and toyed absently with my comfortable, worn leather boots.
“The dreams are back again, aren't they?”
My head snapped up so fast my neck hurt. “How did you know?”
Rosanna’s smile was gentle, soothing, a trace mischievous, well, more than a trace, as she shrugged. “I can always tell with you. Don't ask me how, because I don't know. But you're troubled again. It's fairly obvious.”
“Your idiot son is troubling me.” I smacked my fist against my boot heel. “He thinks I'm keeping secrets from him.”
“Friends shouldn't keep secrets from each other, is that it?” She settled herself in the rocking chair by the window overlooking her beloved garden. As Rosanna’s silk gown rustled, old familiar memories crept in uninvited.
“Certain friends shouldn't keep certain secrets from Jules that Jules feels he should know about,” I corrected sourly, pushing the memories away.
“He is duke of Port Alain,” she teased, though turned serious at my frown. “What on earth does he think you're hiding?”
I tugged off my boots, tossing them in a corner. “Mage talent,” I nearly spat out the words. “So does Elena.” Plumping some well-worn pillows behind me, I settled back opposite Rosanna.
“Are you?”
“You, too?”
“No,” she said reasonably, reaching over to pour us both some cool Marain wine. “Have a sip. It might help your crankiness. Now, I wasn't implying I think you're doing what Jules thinks you're doing. I was just asking for the truth. In case,” she added slyly, “you don't want to admit to him you really are doing what he thinks you're doing.”
“Beastly old witch.” I took a lingering sip of the fruity wine. “No wonder your son is so treacherous. Listen, I'm not hiding anything. Jules knows better. Having mage talent in my bloodline is no guarantee I'll have it.”
/>
“I distinctly remember an incident—”
“Yes, the day Jules aggravated me so badly I tried to turn his wooden chair to sawdust, with him in it, and managed to turn it into a puddle of muddy water instead.”
“That’s the one.”
I took another sip, inhaling the rich fruit, remembering the bottle Elena brought, and the dream; and that day so long ago. “Then Elena wouldn't leave me alone until I tried again. Somehow, I changed wood to fire and almost burned Jules to death.”
“You could have refused.”
“I didn't want to disappoint Elena. I wanted her to be my friend.”
Rosanna sighed. “She was your friend long before then—”
“They know I couldn't control a damn thing.” I rolled over her words, trying to banish the uncomfortable thoughts accompanying them. “If I were really a mage, I'd have succeeded in controlling whatever element was in my bloodline, which should have logically been water, as my mother was a seamage. But I couldn’t do it then. And I can't now,” I whispered, turning away from her all-too-knowing eyes.
“Have you tried recently?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know you can’t?”
I slammed the delicate glass down on the floor by my bare feet, surprised it didn’t break. “Has Jules been talking about me?”
“No. I'm just speaking the truth.” She raised a hand at my growing indignation. “You know in your heart if you'd only take the time to look and,” she said evenly, not the least bit fazed, “be honest with yourself.”
“I came here for sympathy.”
“Which you always get when you're not feeling sorry for yourself,” she scolded, smoothing the sleeve of her silk gown as though she hadn't inserted a dagger in my heart.
“Is that what I'm doing?”
Rosanna suddenly smiled with the warm affection that was my earliest memory and reached over to pat my cheek. “I'm never exactly sure what you're doing. But at times like this, when you're so very stubborn and willful—”
Mage Confusion (Book 1) Page 2