Wedding Hells (Schooled in Magic Book 8)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I still can’t stay,” Emily said. She shook her head, slowly. Bryon would make a good baron himself, but King Randor would never approve him as a potential candidate. He didn’t have a drop of aristocratic blood in his body. “Thank you for your service - and the support you provided. Please make sure the castle is ready to be handed over to my successor.”

  She took a breath. “Have everyone in the castle given a final payment from the baronial accounts,” she added. She hoped - she prayed - that Alassa ensured Imaiqah got the job. “And if they want to apply to work at the Bank of Silence, tell them I will be happy to write a recommendation.”

  “If that is what you command, then it shall be done,” Bryon said.

  Emily nodded, curtly.

  Frieda hurried back downstairs, carrying a trunk under one arm. Emily picked up her own trunk - the maids had been warned not to touch it - and carried it towards the door. Her staff - her former staff - lined up in the courtyard, many of them looking unhappy to see her go. Emily felt another stab of guilt - she’d improved their lives during her time as baroness - and fought hard to suppress it. She couldn’t compromise herself just to serve a king who was starting to become a tyrant.

  He was always a tyrant, Emily thought, remembering how King Randor had forced his younger brother to answer his questions. Randor had been far more genial when they’d first met, but it had been a mask. No king in this world can survive without autocratic instincts.

  She silently prepared the spell as they walked through the courtyard and out of the gates, then turned to look at the castle. It was hard to believe that it had been hers, once upon a time; she’d never really grasped, at an emotional level, just how much King Randor had put into her hands. No wonder he’d expected her to serve him - and no wonder he’d been astonished when she’d walked away. She’d been the second or third highest-ranking person in Zangaria. And, in terms of raw wealth, she’d been richer than Alassa.

  At least I put half of the money into the bank, she thought, feeling a flicker of amusement. He will be surprised if he expects me to be penniless.

  “Take my hand,” she ordered, “and hold the trunk in the other.”

  Frieda took her hand and squeezed it, gently. If she had any doubts over Emily’s ability to perform the spell, she kept them to herself. Emily was silently grateful for Frieda’s faith in her as she looked up at the looming castle. She had to know that teleporting wasn’t an easy spell to perform, even for a full sorcerer.

  Score one for Nanette, she thought. She teleported while flying through the air.

  “Goodbye,” Emily said, quietly.

  She triggered the spell. Moments later, they were standing outside the gates of her house in Dragon’s Den. Oddly, she realized as she reached out to touch the wards, it felt very different from the castle.

  It felt almost as if she’d come home.

  Chapter Forty

  “WELL,” EMILY SAID, AS SHE INSPECTED the parchment she’d recovered from the letter box. “that’s me told.”

  Frieda looked up from the breakfast table. “What does it say?”

  Emily shrugged. “Stripped of the various fancy words, it boils down to a flat ban on entering Zangaria on pain of a most painful death,” she said. She’d known it was coming - Alassa had warned her via the chat parchment, while Emily and Frieda had been exploring the continent - but it was still a shock. “I don’t think Randor likes me very much anymore.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going to worry about it,” she added, as she put the parchment down on the table. Imaiqah had been appointed Custodian of Cockatrice, at least until King Randor saw fit to allow her to return. “Alassa thinks the situation will stabilize soon enough.”

  Frieda frowned. “Is she right?”

  “I wish I knew,” Emily said. Her friends were far too close to a king who was teetering on the brink of madness. Alassa wouldn’t abandon her kingdom, but Emily hoped she’d have the wisdom to handle her father - and abandon him, if the worst came to worst. “It may be a long time before anyone trusts Randor enough to let him make them promises again.”

  She looked up as someone touched her wards, lightly. “One moment,” she said, rising. “We have a visitor.”

  Her eyes narrowed as she tasted Void’s magical signature, waiting patiently by the gates. He could have come into the garden - she’d granted him access rights - but instead he just waited. Emily opened the door, walked down the garden path and opened the gates manually. Void stood there, wrapped in a glamor. She wouldn’t have been able to tell it was him if he hadn’t brushed the wards.

  “It’s good to see you again,” she said, feeling an odd surge of warmth. “Are you coming in?”

  “I don’t have long,” Void said, as he stepped through the gates. “I just wanted to congratulate you.”

  Emily lifted her eyebrows. “For what?”

  “For abandoning Zangaria,” Void said, simply. “That kingdom was a millstone around your neck.”

  “My friends are there,” Emily reminded him. “Alassa...”

  “Alassa is a strong magician,” Void said. “If she has the strength of will to do what must be done, that kingdom will be saved.”

  “And if she doesn’t,” Emily said, “Zangaria dies?”

  “Precisely,” Void said. He gave her a long, considering look. “King Randor grasped, I think, that power and will must be precisely matched. His daughter will need to come to the same realization on her own.”

  “That doesn’t help her father,” Emily pointed out.

  “You could have killed him and taken the throne for yourself,” Void said. “Would you want it?”

  Emily shook her head. Cockatrice had been bad enough - and Bryon’s last words to her a haunting reminder that she might never have been able to let go, if she’d been a different person or stayed longer in the kingdom.

  “True power isn’t about ruling millions of faceless people,” Void said. He clenched his left fist, then opened it slowly. A small flower rested on his palm. “True power lies in magic - and developing one’s self to channel power.”

  “Not everyone has magic,” Emily said.

  “And those who do shouldn’t be wasting it,” Void countered. He closed his fist; the flower evaporated into brightly-colored mist that slowly faded away into nothingness. “Cockatrice would have dragged you down once you graduated, just as Zangaria will drag Alassa and Imaiqah down. They will never be able to develop themselves because they will always be occupied in tending to the kingdom.”

  “And surviving a mad king,” Emily muttered. She cleared her throat. “Has there been any sign of Nanette?”

  “My...contacts in the White City report that no one has picked up her trail,” Void told her, bluntly. “She’s smart. She’ll be able to hide herself for years if she wishes.”

  He shrugged. “Still, her crimes will never be forgotten. She’ll be punished once they catch her.”

  And hope to hell she takes Paren’s secrets to the grave, Emily thought. She didn’t dare tell anyone, not now. It isn’t as if ruining Imaiqah would benefit her.

  She looked down at her hands. And she might not be able to prove it, either, she told herself, hoping it wasn’t just wishful thinking. Randor didn’t manage to dig up any proof that Paren was anything more than an innocent dupe.

  “I hope so,” she said.

  “We shall see,” Void said. He shrugged. “I hope the pair of you had a good tour.”

  “We’re going off on another one tomorrow,” Emily said. “We won’t be back until just before we return to Whitehall.”

  “Watch your back,” Void advised. “There’s no shortage of idiots out there who would be happy to try to claim your head and take it to King Randor. And Nanette is still out there.”

  Emily nodded. She had a feeling she’d face Nanette again, one final time. Lady Danielle had offered private training, after all; it would be a good idea to start training as soon as possible, if Sergeant Miles was unwilling to t
ake her on. Or Lady Barb might be willing to teach her, despite her personal feelings.

  Void started to turn, but stopped himself. “And congratulations on teleporting out of a warded castle,” he added. “That could have ended very badly.”

  Emily swallowed. If the wards had been stronger, if Jade hadn’t granted her blanket permission to use magic, if...she could have scattered her atoms over the entire world. But she’d escaped and now she had a new trick up her sleeve. Teleporting might be tiring, yet it was far better than riding around in a rickety carriage.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She watched him vanish the moment he stepped outside the gate, turned, and walked back into the house. Frieda looked up at her from where she was reading the broadsheet, sounding out some of the more complex words with her tongue. The front cover was filled with a drawing of Emily that made her look to be a strange cross between an angel and a devil. She wouldn’t have recognized herself if her name hadn’t been written under the drawing. The artist had probably had only a third or a fourth-hand description of her.

  “According to this,” Frieda said, “you turned the king into a slug.”

  Emily shook her head in wry amusement. The Nameless World had no laws against libel or slander, certainly not in print. Broadsheet writers tended to be long on florid descriptions and short on accuracy. It would be a long time before anyone came up with a reputable newspaper. Hell, Earth’s worst tabloids were cleaner than half the broadsheets in Zangaria alone.

  “I’m sure King Randor will want a few words with the editors,” she said, as she poured herself a mug of Kava. “Have you finished packing?”

  She broke off as she felt the wards shiver, again. “What now?”

  “Lady Barb,” Frieda said.

  Emily lifted an eyebrow in surprise as she checked the wards, then nodded. Frieda shouldn’t have been able to interrogate them, not as long as Emily was alive. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t actually hard to guess who might have come calling. Most of Emily’s friends were in Zangaria, while Caleb couldn’t visit her without compromising himself. He would have made arrangements with her first.

  She opened the door. Lady Barb stood there, scowling.

  “Emily,” she said. Her voice was very grim. “I’m afraid I have bad news. It’s about the new Grandmaster.”

  Epilogue

  “WELCOME HOME,” THE SHADOWY FIGURE SAID.

  “Thank you, Master,” Nanette said, as she knelt in front of him. “The mission was completed as you ordered. Paren did not survive to take command of the rebels.”

  She allowed herself a tight smile as she rose and sat down at the table. Her master - it galled her, at times, that she didn’t know his name - had saved her life and her arm, then offered her a job so she could repay her debt. Joining the rebels had been simple, compared to the first and second tasks he’d set her; misleading them into believing she was as committed as they were had caused her only a minor twinge of guilt. They were, after all, nothing more than mundanes.

  “Good,” her master said. “And Zangaria?”

  “In political chaos,” Nanette confirmed. “King Randor’s throne is wobbly, his daughter looks at him with wary eyes and his most powerful supporter has fled. The rebels are disunited, slow to trust their fellows; the aristocrats are torn between crushing the rebels and trying to come to terms with them. It will be years before the situation improves.”

  “Good,” her master said, again. “And Lady Emily?”

  Nanette winced as she felt a flicker of pain in her new hand. “She is darker now, more ruthless. She killed Lord Hans without a second thought.”

  “One can hardly blame her,” her master observed.

  “She also kept the secret of Paren’s treachery,” Nanette added. “We can use it against her.”

  “In time,” her master said. “That is a card best kept for the right moment, I think. We will play it when it best suits us to play it.”

  “Yes, Master,” Nanette said.

  “For the moment, you have done well,” her master added. “The bounty on your head is inconvenient, of course, but we can hide you. A new name and face will obscure you from their watching eyes.”

  There was a hint of a smile in his tone. Nanette nodded in relief. She wanted - needed - approval. She’d depended on Aurelius and served him willingly, right up until the moment he’d replaced her with someone more remarkable. But Emily had killed Aurelius, she thought; even if Emily hadn’t killed him personally, she’d certainly been responsible for his death.

  And she will pay, she thought.

  “And now we wait,” her master said. He clapped his hands. A pair of thralls appeared, carrying trays of food. “And see where the pieces fall.”

  End of the First Arc

  Emily Will Return In:

  Infinite Regress

  Coming Soon!

  Appendix I: A Note on Royal Marriages

  You can’t marry a man you just met!

  -Elsa, Frozen

  A common complaint about Frozen is that the true villain of the film, Prince Hans, is barely foreshadowed prior to the reveal. That may or may not be true, but there is a moment - fairly early on - when Hans’ true nature is neatly outlined for everyone to see. The irony, however, is that while Elsa doesn’t miss it, most of the modern-day viewers do. And that is when Hans proposes to Anna.

  To us, that seems typical for a Disney film. To anyone born during that era, however, Hans would be sending up red flags. A courtship between a princess (who was heir to the throne) and anyone would have implications far beyond the mere act of true love. Hans should have approached Elsa (or Anna’s parents, before they died) for permission to court Anna (Elsa, as the older sister, was Anna’s guardian) and their courtship would take place under the supervision of both sets of parents. His failure to do so was a very real sign that something was badly out of kilter. If things hadn’t gone so spectacularly wrong at the coronation, Hans would have had to do some pretty quick dancing to clear up the matter.

  Why?

  Anna was the heir. If she married Hans, he would be the highest-ranking male in the kingdom and the father of the next monarch (assuming Elsa didn’t have children herself) and making sure of his character before he married into the Royal Family was vital. Historically, kings tended to rule alone (even if their wives were of strong character) but queens were expected to defer to their husbands even if it was the queen who was the heir to the throne. In Britain, for example, Mary Tudor’s marriage to Philip of Spain was hedged around with all sorts of parliamentary precautions (Spain being one of Britain’s great enemies), while Mary of Scotland’s marriage turned into a disaster (her husband didn’t appreciate that his wife held the power) and Elizabeth I never married at all.

  Bad husbands weren’t the only problem. Henry VIII attempted to marry Mary of Scotland to his son (the Rough Wooing) because it would unite the crowns of Scotland and England. The match between Mary and Philip embroiled England in Spain’s wars, which proved disastrous for England. Marriage links between Russia and Germany caused other problems in the march to the First World War.

  Queen Elizabeth I had other problems. Her refusal to marry might have preserved some degree of political stability, but it caused long-term problems as there was no clear heir to the throne. (Mary of Scotland was pretty much the closest candidate and that caused no end of sleepless nights for Elizabeth’s counsellors.) Elizabeth reacted sharply against any marriage combination that could create potential heirs, denying permission to wed on a whim and jailing any of her aristocratic subjects who dared to marry without her permission.

  In many ways, Elizabeth was being dangerously selfish. On one hand, having spent her early life being dominated by her father, younger brother and older sister, she probably didn’t want anyone else bossing her around. (And what happened to Mary proved this was a very valid fear.) On the other hand, denying the kingdom a clear heir was an open invitation to assassination. Elizabeth’s deat
h would have unleashed a wave of political chaos. Mary might have seemed the strongest candidate, but many Englishmen would have reacted in horror at the thought of making her their ruler (to the point where several of them plotted to murder Mary while she was held prisoner, if she outlasted Elizabeth.)

  Marriage among royalty and the upper levels of the aristocracy, in short, is never just about sex and love.

  The problems facing King Randor, as outlined in the novel, are largely alien to most of my readers.

  He needs to ensure that Alassa marries a suitable candidate, someone who is capable of serving as her strong right hand, but at the same time not someone who would attempt to usurp power for himself. Ideally, he also has to be without foreign entanglements that will complicate Alassa’s life when she assumes the throne. Jade is the ideal candidate on both counts, although he’s very low-ranking. Perversely, this works in his favor. None of the barons will feel they’ve been slighted, while they won’t see Jade as a potential threat.

  His treatment of Emily, though, may strike some readers as very odd. What possible right does he have to dictate her relationship with anyone? But Emily, as a powerful aristocrat, is part of the kingdom’s power structure. The person she marries will have to be fitted in too, somewhere. In his view, he has the right to approve or disapprove of any relationship, particularly one that may well end in marriage. Emily, of course, disagrees. She was raised in a very different culture.

  Caleb, though, is largely harmless. If Emily had proposed marrying Lord Hans, however, she would be in a position to unite Cockatrice and Swanhaven. That would create a major power bloc that would threaten Randor’s position. Furthermore, as Hans would be assumed to be the dominant partner in the match, Emily might not be a restraining influence on him. (Part of the reason Randor decided against Hans was that his bid for Frieda risked upsetting the balance of power, although Hans didn’t know that.) He used the same logic in marrying Alicia to Lord Barrows and insisting that Lady Regina find a husband who met with his approval.