“If neither yields?” When she didn't answer, I set my glass down and joined Elena at the window, staring out at Rosanna's winter-bare gardens. “Then how does it end?”
Elena turned miserable blue eyes to face me. “If neither yields, the Challenge ends when one mage dies.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught Lauryn's sudden movement and Rosanna's answering handclasp. I'd known it in my heart. Maybe it was why I never asked, not that it would've changed my decision.
“I'd understand if you refused.” Elena's eyes strayed to the scar at my neck once again, her expression filled with misplaced guilt.
“Don’t insult me.”
“If it's a risk you're not prepared to take, I can't accept your participation. Brendan's quite capable of sitting on the throne should I forfeit this challenge.” She flashed him an adoring smile. “I'm prepared to do that, Alex, before all these witnesses. And I'll still be prepared to do it in Tucker's Meadow.”
“Anders?” My gaze remained locked on Elena's deep blue eyes as I crossed my arms and leaned against the chilled window ledge. “Did you know this?”
“Yes.”
“Oh hell, Elena, I suppose I knew it, too. I just kept avoiding the issue.”
Elena placed a hand on my arm, squeezing it. “I told you I'd understand if you withdrew your help.”
“And I told you I'd do this for you.”
“You don't have to prove anything, not to me.”
“I gave my word as your friend.” I dared her to contradict me. “And that means more to me than an impersonal oath of fealty. I'm not doing this to prove anything. I'm doing this because it's right. Ask Rosanna or Anders. Either one of them will tell you I've no choice here because of my own damned conscience. But I'll tell you this,” I grinned, to take the sting from my words, “when this nightmare is over, I expect a decent supply of Marain wine.”
Clutching my hands in both of hers, she laughed, her grasp shaky. “I'll make very certain you have all the Marain wine you'll ever want.”
Chapter Thirty-One
The nightmare turned truly frightening some weeks later.
Anders jumped to his feet when I entered the cottage. “What happened?” He took my face in his hands, examining me for bruises other than the one I felt on my left cheek and the bump at the back of my head.
I shrugged, trembling still, as I had all the way up the cold, dark road. “I don't know.”
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” He started to cleanse the dirt from my cheek, stopping as I winced in pain.
I shook my head, confused. “Only that—and a bump on the back of my head. I must have hit the ground when I fell. I was pushed, Anders, and robbed.” I heard the panic in my voice, unable to hold back the hysteria which had threatened all the way home in the dark.
“Hush.” He wrapped his warm arms around me as I sagged against his chest. “So they've taken whatever coins you carried. As long as you're all right. I'll take you down to the healer in Port Alain. It doesn't matter what they took.”
“Yes, it does. They took Mother's pendant,” I mumbled, shamed, into his chest as Anders tensed against me. Pushing free of his arms, I stepped away, looking anywhere except at him.
“I'll send word to Jules to have his troops search the woods. Whoever did this, Alex—”
“Is long gone. When the thief realizes what he's taken, he won't wait for an angry mage to come looking for him.”
“It's useless to whoever stole it. Let me at least warn Jules.”
“No.” I held him back, hands caught in his tunic, as he went toward the door. “If you do, he'll tell Elena, and she'll be frantic with worry.”
“We'll make him promise not to tell her.”
“Much as I love Jules dearly, he'd feel obligated to tell Elena. No. No, please. What if Seamage Brandt was behind this?”
“How could he know? We’ve been so careful.”
“Maybe someone watched us in secret.” I started to tremble, sick at heart, ill at the thought of what it would mean for Elena. “Anders?”He drew me closer, careful of my aches. “If the Port Alain council has the pendant they'll suspect the truth and warn Firemage Ravess.”
“It won't matter whether or not Neal Brandt or Charlton Ravess know the truth. And if they do, they’ll believe you a seamage.”
I didn't answer, couldn’t find comfort in his words.
* * * *
“You're trying much too hard,” Anders said the next afternoon, lifting me with gentle strength from the ground and leading me to a chair by the fireplace in my parlor.
“I have no choice.” Leaning back against the pillows he settled behind me, I closed my eyes.
“If you push yourself so hard,” a familiar voice scolded, “you won't do Elena the slightest bit of good.”
My eyes flew open. “Rosanna!”
“Anders let me in while you were, ah, experimenting. You were trying so hard you didn't hear me.”
“You told her?” I said, not bothering to disguise the accusation in my voice, particularly when Anders avoided my eyes, busying himself by pouring some hot cinnamon tea.
“Not willingly,” Rosanna answered in his stead. “When I arrived just now, poor Anders had no choice but to explain what happened.”
“He chose not to respect my privacy.”
“Your face was scarlet from trying too hard, and you have a bruise on your cheek. I'm sure I would have noted there was a problem and forced him to tell me.” She hastened to add, “I've no intention of lecturing.” She accepted a cup of tea from Anders and handed it to me instead. “The last time I saw you was the day Elena arrived. You flee the Hill the moment the children's lessons are over.” She accepted another cup for herself. “I was worried about you.”
“Now you can return home even more worried.”
“Shouldn't Elena be told?”
Anders shook his gray-streaked head, an unreadable expression in his eyes. “It wouldn't matter. Not unless Alex forfeits.”
“Why not?” Rosanna asked, puzzled. “Surely someone can take Alex's place if she can't control her mage talent.”
“Once Elena declared she has a Champion, which she did a week ago, no one other than me,” I said in a quiet voice, “can act as Challenged. If I forfeit, then Elena loses without a fight.”
“I was under the impression Elena didn't have to reveal the name of her champion.”
“She doesn't, and didn't,” I murmured. “It's a matter of honor,” I said hotly when Rosanna opened her mouth to protest. “I can't let her down. And I won’t.”
“You won't be letting her down if someone else steps in.”
“You've been telling me all along to help her.”
Rosanna flushed and looked to Anders, floundering.
“Shouldn't it be Elena's decision?” He knelt at my feet.
“No.” I shook my head, feeling stubborn and defiant. “Not yet.” When he looked about to protest, too, I shook my head again. “Not yet. I haven’t given up.”
* * * *
But we'd run out of time.
Jules sent two spirited horses that carried us to the Hill, where Elena's personal guard waited to escort us to Tucker's Meadow. Khrista and Kerrie, along with Jules and Brendan, traveled with us. Rosanna stayed behind with Lauryn and the twins to keep watch over Port Alain in Jules' absence. I dismounted at the manor's main entrance, where Lauryn waited with Rosanna, the twins wide-eyed between them. Lauryn's clear blue eyes watched me with a fair bit of anxiety before she caught me in a fierce hug. Releasing me, she stepped back, started to speak, and crossed her arms instead.
Carey edged closer to me, Hunter, of course, at his heels, both of them acting very unsure of me as I crouched down to their height. Carey was unusually serious as he craned his neck in Jules' direction. When his father nodded solemnly, Carey focused huge serious eyes on my face.
“Father said you're going to fight the firemage for the queen's honor.”
“That's what he told me,
too,” I tried hard not to laugh at the unusually quiet, somber-faced boy. “So, I guess I'd better do my best.”
“Even though you're a mage,” he whispered, stumbling on the word with a frightened expression in his eyes, “you're still Alex, aren't you?”
Lords of the sea, I never expected the children to be frightened. “Of course, I am.” I hugged him tight as he wrapped small, shaking arms round my neck. “And I expect you to have your lessons ready for me the very moment I get back, or I'll throw you into Shad's Bay for whales to nibble at your toes. Or turn you into a horned wild hog or something ugly and gruesome. Like your father,” I added, with a wink in Lauryn's direction.
Carey laughed in relief, nudging his twin in the ribs. “I told you she'd still be Alex.” He turned back to me. “Father said you're going to thrash the firemage.”
“Thrash?” I arched a skeptical brow at Jules, and then at Lauryn, finally coaxing a reluctant smile from her tense expression. Hunter nodded solemnly, and elbowed his brother aside to be included in my hug. I ruffled both curly heads, hugged them once more close to my chest. I leaned on their heads as I stood upright to make them laugh again. Selfishly, I craved their laughter, a sound I needed to hear; a sound I wanted so desperately to come home to.
As though she knew this, and probably did, Lauryn grabbed my arm as I stood and spun me around to face her once again. “I don't intend to keep teaching the children in your place, so you'd better come back in one piece. And don't try to be a heroine, either. I also don't intend to recount your reckless deeds to future generations.”
I stared her down, waited a moment. “Anything else you don't intend to do, Lady Barlow?” When she flushed and shook her head, I laughed and hugged her again, turning to find Rosanna eying me.
“Lady Barlow Senior,” I graced her with a bow, “I will try my best to, ah, thrash my adversary to uphold the honor of Port Alain and the Barlow name.”
“Whatever you do is more than enough to honor our name, and the Keltie name,” she met my raised brow without flinching, “because it's the best you have to offer. And you know in your heart you have much to offer.” She blinked away a tear as Lauryn rested a hand on her shoulder. “Remember your heritage, Alex, all of it. You'll need it.” Before I could protest, the old seawitch hugged me close. “Now go and thrash the wretched traitor and get this ordeal over with so I can have my schoolmistress and gardener back from Tucker’s Meadow.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tucker’s Meadow, along the Kieren River, was in the heart of the Marain vineyards. We reached it after a day's steady ride, a long day during which I kept to myself. No one troubled me. Even Anders kept his distance, though I knew he'd jump to my side in a heartbeat if I needed him. Pavilions were set up around a larger central one, flying Elena's Dunneal gold crown in a ring of sapphires. Guards circled her spacious tent, ramrod straight, alert for trouble. As we approached the royal pavilion, people parted to let us pass, curious eyes tracking our progress. The flap of Elena's tent slid open as she stepped into the bright sunlight, dark hair blowing lightly in the riverside breeze.
Elena hid her impatience as we dismounted. She hustled us inside the privacy of her pavilion, greeting each one of my companions, and leaving me for last. Dark blue eyes searched me with unusual intensity, sensing my turbulent frame of mind before too many moments passed.
“What's wrong, Alex?”
I walked away from Elena's keen gaze and wandered the confines of her sparsely furnished tent, which, unfortunately, didn't take very long.
“Elena…” I stopped, confronting her troubled expression, unable to admit my failure and my fears.
Anders came to my side and spoke softly for my hearing alone. “Do you want me to tell her?”
I'd have done anything to avoid Elena's disappointment. Ironic, when I fought so bitterly against helping her. I shook my head. “It's my responsibility and my failure.” I touched his arm and held him back as he started to step aside, cool sea-gray eyes resting on mine. “But thank you.”
He leaned closer to kiss my forehead.
I took a deep breath and turned my back on Anders, meeting Elena's dark appraisal. “I haven't been able to control the talent. Some thief whacked me on the head and robbed my mother's seamage pendant. Maybe the Port Alain mages. I don't know. I've…” I took another deep breath, ignoring the appalled look on Jules' face. “I've never been able to control what happens without using it. I know I should have warned you, but I kept hoping that maybe…” I crossed my arms to hide my shaking hands. “Oh hell, Elena, I'm sorry.”
She listened dispassionately and met Anders' eyes as he stood beside me.
“I'll take her place. No one need know the truth,” he said in a quiet voice.
“No,” I blurted. “I—”
Elena’s voice was steady, no recrimination or judgment in her eyes for either of us. “Thank you, Anders, but it won’t be necessary to endanger you, either. Ravess is a vile man and capable of treachery. I'll forfeit at first light tomorrow morning. I'll make sure Brendan's ready to replace me.”
“No,” I repeated.
“I can't have you risk yourself in a fight where you haven't a chance, Alex. That was never my intent. I meant every word I said back in Port Alain.”
“I didn't say I haven't a chance.” I leaned against Anders' warmth as he crept behind me, grateful for the touch of his arms as they rested on my shoulders. “I gave you my word to do what I could. I have to try. If I don't, I'll never forgive myself. Or respect myself. Can't you see?”
“I don't want you hurt.” Elena traced a finger along my neck. “This scar should never have happened. I won't stand by and see it happen again. I want your word now you'll yield if you think it's hopeless. Promise me,” she repeated, searching my eyes for the answer she demanded, “or I'll forfeit the Challenge myself if I see you're in danger. And if you don’t wipe that stubborn expression off your face, I'll forfeit now before it even begins.”
I nodded in reluctant agreement as she placed her hands on Anders', still resting on my shoulders.
“Go and get some sleep.”
* * * *
As though I could sleep.
“I'm sorry,” I mumbled into Anders' shoulder, as I tossed for the hundred thousandth time in the uncomfortable camp bed. “I'm keeping you awake.”
Turning around to face me in the dim light of the lamp we'd kept burning, he tugged at a lock of my tangled hair. “I hadn't noticed.”
“Liar.”
He leaned closer to kiss the tip of my nose.
“Anders?”
“Hmm.” He moved his lips from my nose to my mouth, holding me close.
“Since I can't sleep,” I said between kisses that lasted longer, “and you can't sleep,” I caught a quick breath, “because I can't sleep,” and another, “perhaps, maybe…”
“Good idea,” he murmured, running his hands playfully through my hair.
“It might even help,” I teased, enjoying the feel of his hands on my neck, waiting impatiently for them to wander.
“Well, then, not that I needed a reason, but if you think it might help you sleep, who am I to be inconsiderate?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I hope it helped,” Anders whispered close behind me as we stepped from the spacious tent. I squinted against the bright sunshine, staying well under the overhanging flap until my eyes adjusted.
“Even if it didn't, you know it wasn't wasted.” I craned my neck around to meet his eyes. “Though it was pretty impressive for an old wretched seamage. One would never guess how decrepit you truly are.”
“I try very hard to impress you, Alex, even if it means my brittle bones will ache for days afterward.”
“Then let's get this over and done and thrash the arrogant traitor so Rosanna can have her faithful servants back.”
Anders touched my cheek before we left the shelter of the tent's overhang. “May the lords of the sea guide and protect you.” He hesitate
d, taking his hand away, and tucking it in his pocket. “And damnation, be careful.”
“I will.”
We walked in silence toward Elena's central pavilion where she waited, eyes controlled and calm. The dukes and barons of the assembled duchies and territories of Tuldamoran gathered around her like ravenous vultures, waiting to pounce.
Not if I could help it.
Banners snapped in the strong morning breeze to either side of the royal Dunneal standard, Port Alain immediately to the right of the Crown, then Marain Valley, Belbridge Cliff, Thornmarsh, Barrows Pass, Ardsbrook, Bitterhill, Brodie Flats, and the linked tokens of the Ardenna Crown Council representing the four mage talents. Ironic I'd notice the absence of the Glynnswood banner when I'd barely noticed the absence of Sernyn Keltie in my life.
“Who's that?” I whispered to Anders, distracted by the sight of a tall, blond, bearded man, standing a few feet from Elena. “He's watching our monarch with more than a polite interest.”
As we edged closer, my adversary, Charlton Ravess, appeared at the entrance to the Crown Council tent. He chose to dress in black leather like myself. The firemage exchanged an inscrutable look with the blond man near Elena. Instinct burning, I turned my face to keep my identity hidden from Ravess until the last moment. He may have heard I’d ridden into camp yesterday, but I prayed to the lords of the sea he assumed Anders was the queen’s mage.
Face still hidden behind my hair I knelt with formal respect at Elena's feet. “Your majesty.”
“Mage.”
Without looking up, I listened as the regal tone of authority Elena practiced on Jules and me as children carried over the heads of her audience. She lowered her voice for my hearing only. “Master Perrin looks as though he didn't sleep a wink all night. I hope you kept him awake for good reason.”
“Of course.” I glanced up at the unconcerned playfulness of Elena's dark blue eyes, set in a solemn face. “Since neither of us could sleep, we kept each other awake. By the way, he's quite impressive for an old man. I might just keep him.”
Mage Confusion (Book 1) Page 22