Star Mage

by R. K. Thorne

  Daes felt his heart skip a beat. “Marielle—no,” he said without thinking. She didn’t turn toward him, but her shoulders straightened, pushed back slightly, her chin raised. She was set upon this, he could see. But why? “Think about what you’re doing. Don’t do this to yourself.”

  Now she finally glanced at him, but her look told him nothing. She turned back to the Akarian, waiting.

  Why would she—oh.

  He finally had a definitive answer, didn’t he? If she really felt anything for him. If she’d only wanted her husband offed, or if she’d actually wanted him. Here was his answer. Was it the one that he wanted?

  “I’ll think about it,” growled the Akarian. “Later.”

  The two of them walked out, leaving Daes and Marielle alone in this part of the dungeon. The very minute they were gone, he set upon her.

  “How can you do this?” he demanded. “You have your whole life ahead of you.”

  “A life of what? I have spent my whole life alone. I have searched, I have talked, I’ve rolled between the sheets of both highborn and low. And yet never have I found anyone loyal. No one who treated me as a friend.”

  He said nothing for a moment, thinking. Highborn and low? He’d have to ask about that—some other time. If such a time ever occurred. Had her days truly been so uniformly lonely?

  “Until I met you,” she said, “I’d gone from loneliness to horror to torture to apathy, then back around the meadow for another tour of pain.”

  “But I’ve failed, Marielle. I’ve failed at that as completely as I possibly could have. You’re not safe, and how can you be happy? Why they haven’t killed me, I’ll never know. I’ve got half a mind to try to hang myself from these bars.”

  Even as he said it, though, the burning in his hand told him that doing so was not truly an option. But she didn’t need to know that.

  “Please don’t,” she said, the perfectly soft command of a true queen.

  “I don’t know why you are doing this, Marielle.”

  “Why? Have you even tried to see this from my point of view? I know you cared much about Kavanar, and this war. I have cared for none of it but you.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but faltered.

  She shrugged. “If the choice is between safe agony and happy death, I choose death.”

  He reeled back an inch at the bluntness of her words, at the sincerity creasing her brow, at the entreaty in her frown. “I don’t want you to choose death,” he said numbly, for once letting his guard fall away. “I have destroyed nearly everything I ever fought so hard to have. I will not destroy you too.”

  “It is not your choice,” she said gently. “And besides, you aren’t destroying me. I don’t think they are going to kill us.”

  He scowled bitterly. “They are most likely waiting to publicly execute us in the most horrifying way they can think of. And they need time to think of it.”

  She shook her head, smiling. “Then we’ll die together.”

  “Yes,” he said simply. “Yes, I suppose we will. I hope you don’t live to regret this.”

  “Who doesn’t have regrets? But if we live, I do not think you will be one of them.”

  Niat wasn’t sure anything could have been stranger than arriving back in Panar with Thel at her side. They’d left under duress, sneering enemies, and had returned… something much more. People who had spent long nights huddled together for warmth—and for the joy of it—kissing sweetly until sunrise some days it seemed, but never any further. People who had once argued bitterly now discussing all manner of science and history as they walked and rode their way back south.

  People who had stalled an army together.

  And to think, all along, she had been so afraid to love him. But following her temple, her governess, their teachings—it had all gotten her nothing. Less than nothing, in fact. It had destroyed her faith in other people.

  Instead, following her heart had gotten her everything. Was it her heart she’d followed? Some keen sense of intuition? Her mind, even? It had always known better than anyone that Thel had offered the best chance of survival all along. Could it have been something deeper? The voice of the goddess herself? Perhaps there was no difference between that holy voice and the voice of her own heart, speaking one and the same.

  Whatever the source of inner wisdom, however long she’d fought it, she was glad she’d succumbed.

  The two of them walked through the rock-strewn streets. Whole buildings lay as piles of rubble, and large boulders sat in the streets. People were quietly buzzing around them, beginning the repairs, looking for any dead, but the damage to the city was shocking. Niat had never seen anything like this.

  They arrived on foot to the gates of Ranok, and when the first guards spotted Thel, he ran out, shouting, “Fetch the king! Get King Aven! Prince Thel has returned!”

  “King Aven?” Thel mumbled behind her. “That’s new.”

  Niat was glad that it was actually Queen Elise that appeared first. That whole horrible vote was like something from another lifetime—something she wanted to forget.

  Elise flung herself wildly at Thel, a wild storm of laughter and tears and hugs. Niat smiled as she dismounted, although inside there was always that slight ache, that knowledge that something had stolen her mother from her. Not Niat, whatever her father thought, but something. Ah, well… She was glad to see Thel happy.

  “I missed you, too, Mother,” he said, laughing. “But is there any sign of Father?”

  Elise stopped short, frozen. “Oh. I forgot you didn’t know. He’s… yes, Miara rescued him from the hands of Kavanarian mage slaves. But he hasn’t recovered. We can’t seem to heal him. I’ve spent days trying to heal him, this way and that, fighting it. But I think it’s a losing battle, Thel.”

  Thel only stared, as if such a development was impossible, inconceivable.

  “Aven has been made king, for this whole time you’ve been gone,” Elise muttered.

  “Can we see him?” said Niat, stepping up to Thel now and eying him with concern. She took his arm, as she had a dozen times on their journey back.

  Thel nodded numbly. “Yes—yes, can we?”

  Elise’s eyebrow rose, her eyes flicking to their interlocked arms, but she said nothing of it. “Come. This way.”

  Thel rushed to Samul’s side, but Niat stopped cold in the doorway, the vision flashing back through her mind. The poisoner, the arrows, the man riding, the woman tending him. Gods… she’d seen all this before.

  She knew the antidote to anfi, too. The hard part was determining if it was anfi at all, and the vision had handled that.

  She seized a nearby servant’s arm. “Get me eight selnoetia branches, three apples, a handful of sage, three drams of maple sap, a walnut, and a mortar and pestle. Can you do that?”

  “What is it?” said Thel, approaching. “Everything okay?”

  “I had a vision of him, Thel. I saw the poison they put on the arrows.” She was probably saying that with entirely too much joviality.

  Elise darted forward. “What does that mean?”

  “I can cure him.”

  Aven sighed, eying Jaena and Miara talking by the fire. He sat behind his desk in his rooms, waiting for Marielle to be brought in. He’d consented to her request to discuss her plea once again only because he still didn’t know what to do with Daes. Killing the man seemed both unjust, as he was now utterly defenseless, and also not nearly enough punishment for someone who had made so many suffer for so long. But if he was going to talk to the Kavanarian queen, he wanted Miara and Jaena present. Those he’d made suffer personally, beyond Aven, would be his advisers.

  “Good evening, Your Highness,” said Marielle as she arrived, curtsying low.

  “What did you want to speak to me about, my lady?” he said, trying not to snap at her. Different nations had different courtly standards, but he had little patience for pomp and spectacle.

  Fortunately, Marielle cut to the chase. “I think he’s a good
man, you know.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “A good man who’s willing to kidnap his enemies from their homes, when they haven’t done anything against him? Who’s willing to kill anyone who might endanger his power?”

  “Are you not doing the same thing?”

  “No. We were at peace with Kavanar.”

  She sighed. “I know, I know.”

  “What about a man who forces hundreds to work against their will, without pay, for their lifetimes, under threat of torture and worse? All for his own selfish needs?”

  “Truth be told, sire, I don’t believe they were for his selfish needs. Not in his mind, anyway. But I know it is unconscionable. I have always known, and turned an eye away.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was kind to me,” she said simply.

  Aven blinked. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it hadn’t been that. There was a tenderness to her voice, a real concern. He had assumed it had all been a plot for mutually greater power, but… was it? “And what about your former husband? Quite convenient I facilitated him falling out of that window.”

  “I imagine without your assistance, we’d have had a much harder time. You certainly made things easier for us.” She stopped and smiled slightly. “Bet you didn’t count on that.”

  He snorted. “No. I didn’t.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What makes a good man? I have endured many unkindnesses, but none from Daes. My husband was… Let’s just say I feel I no guilt for what we did. The world is better off without him.”

  From his encounters with Demikin, Aven did not find that particularly surprising. But he said nothing.

  “Let me ask you, my lord—what do you think Daes’s life would have been like if he’d been born in Akaria?”

  Aven scowled at her, silent. He wasn’t sure that was a question he wanted to answer.

  “Daes is quite possibly the first person ever to be kind to me.”

  Aven leaned back in his chair and propped a boot up beside him, putting his elbow to his knee. “Not without gain for himself.”

  “You would think that, but I believe he would have preferred not to take the risk. Perhaps I am the fool.” She looked thoughtful. “But I think not.”

  “What do you want, Marielle?”

  “I want you not to execute him, of course.”

  “Can you truly tell me the world will be better with him in it?”

  “My world will be.”

  “What about everyone else’s?” He glanced at Jaena and Miara by the fire. They were rapt, faces sad.

  Marielle sighed. “Perhaps not. But I have had enough life without purpose. Without kindness. Without love, to be frank. I don’t care to continue without it.”

  He said nothing to the threat.

  “I came to ask.” She paused. Again, he sat in only stony silence. “Or to barter or negotiate, if possible.” She stepped forward, closer. “I have little left. Is there something… I could offer you?” She swallowed and raised her chin, threw her shoulders back, whether to draw attention to her fragile, exposed neck or to cling to her pride, he wasn’t sure. “In exchange for his life, I would do a great deal, as much as he’d prefer I wouldn’t.”

  He shook his head, just staring, tired, exhausted. But mostly surprised. Surprised that she had actually swayed his opinion with such an argument. Surprised that someone like Daes had attracted anyone who loved him, let alone someone logical and well-spoken. And self-sacrificing.

  “Perhaps it is true even the most evil have their reasons to sin,” he said softly. “I know I do.”

  She swallowed. Was she shaking? He frowned. Ah, she thought he meant the price was steeper than it truly was. “Is there something I can offer, sire? Only in exchange for his life.”

  “Yes, there’s something,” he said, not disabusing her of her fear just yet. “But what about his freedom?”

  “How could you trust such a thing? I don’t see how you could grant any such request.”

  “That is very wise of you. But you’re sure you would join him? In imprisonment? In relative poverty to what you’ve known?”

  “Do you mean to starve us in the dungeon for the rest of our days, sire?”

  “I don’t know what I plan to do with you yet.”

  Her face fell further. “So… you do mean to keep me? Us?”

  He looked to Miara and Jaena again, standing arm in arm by the fire. Miara gave him a subtle nod, and although Jaena frowned, she gave him a slight nod too.

  He must never go free, said Miara silently. And we must give him something awful to do.

  Aven snorted, trying not to reveal the silent exchange. I have enough coal mines to keep him busy till the end of his days.

  Are they very dark and dirty? Awful places?

  Yes, quite.

  Then that sounds excellent.

  “Yes. You’ve convinced me. But in exchange, you’ll live in confinement, under guard. And you’ll promise me you and your husband— You do intend to marry him, do you not?”

  Relief washed over Marielle mixed with shock. “Yes, my lord. That had already been the plan.”

  “You must promise me you’ll find some way to make the world a better place, on top of your assigned work.” Her eyes widened as he spoke. “For mages,” he added harshly.

  She stared, unsure now.

  “Now go. I’ll send you off to work soon, but I will return to check in on your progress.”

  She turned and was led out by the remaining guards, still looking stunned.

  He got up and strode to the fire beside them. “Odd, wasn’t it?”

  They both nodded.

  “Do you think we should have killed him?”

  Miara shrugged. “What does the law decree?”

  “Wise woman. But for war criminals, death or imprisonment indefinitely are both just punishments.”

  “He deserves to rot in seven thousand hells,” said Jaena, glaring at the fire. “But killing him? Then I won’t get to see him suffer in any hells at all.” She gave them a stern look that faded into a smile. “Just promise me you’ll find some way to make him work for his livelihood, Aven. He shouldn’t get to lie around plowing her all day. That’s no punishment.”

  Miara burst out laughing. “At the very least, snow shoveling in the streets right away, eh?”

  “I know, manure shoveling in the spring,” said Jaena, still smiling.

  “I’m thinking the family coal mines,” Aven said, shrugging. “Or all of the above. But trust me, the frustration and humiliation of slavery will be its own punishment for him. That said, he can also help clean up this mess he made. Rebuild the city. He’ll help us dismantle Mage Hall, find the slaves new homes, livelihoods, food. It’s going to be a lot of work.”

  “Good thing you have some unpaid labor on hand to make up for it.” Jaena’s eyes twinkled.

  “What about Lord Sven?” asked Miara. “What’s to become of him?”

  “I’ve sent Dyon and a regiment to drag him out of his hole. He’ll answer for his crimes. I thought perhaps Niat could take over his Assemblyship for him.”

  Jaena gaped. “The priestess who voted against you? His daughter?”

  “Thel has had some… very positive things to say about her.”

  Miara suppressed a giggle.

  “There’s the Devoted too,” he added. “We’ll rout them out of Akaria, and Kavanar too. Then we’ll see what we can do about their monastery in Takar.”

  Jaena’s eyes widened. “The work will never end. Miara, wasn’t there someone else you ran into? Some evil noble or something?”

  “A petty constable. Paid him a visit while you were busy negotiating the Reilins out of our harbor.” She smiled. “He won’t be pushing people around again anytime soon. Being turned into a rat will do that to you.”

  “A rat?” Aven raised his eyebrows.

  “Just temporarily. To make an example.” Miara grinned.

  “What a wicked queen,” Jaena said, laughing. “Fea
r your rat-transforming wrath.”

  Now Miara really did giggle. “Gods, it really is over, isn’t it?”

  Aven reached out, slipped his arm around her waist, and pulled her close. “It sure is, my love. It sure is.”

  When they rode over the crest of the last mountain pass, Niat caught her breath, slowing her horse. It had been a long, slow ride—she wasn’t used to riding horses, and her companions hadn’t pushed her. She was as eager to arrive at their destination as anyone, except maybe Thel.

  But as the pale stone bridge stretched out before her, her memory swirled, and she found herself dismounting.

  “Niat?” The clink of metal and leather told her he was dismounting too, as of course he would. He already had. She already knew he would. “Is everything all right?”

  She took a few stiff steps forward. The gray fortress was nestled into the mountain before her, a fearsome combination of sternness and safety, and the broad doors were just slowly heaving open. The watch towers had signaled their arrival.

  Something in her stirred, danced, laughed, a whirlpool of visions twisting just below the surface of her mind. Much waited for her here. And whoever or whatever granted her the visions didn’t quite want to spoil it. For now, the future didn’t intrude.

  He stepped up beside her, and she turned, smiling radiantly. “Everything is fine.”

  Thel smiled back, a little uneasily, his eyes searching her face. Then he held out a palm. “Estun. My home.”

  A home that was nothing like a temple, that was a lifetime away from the sea. A home where rock and earth surrounded all. There would be books, too, that he wanted to show her, and roaring fires and long talks and swords and brandy and laughter and children and—

  The whirlpool swelled almost to overflowing—giddy, almost drunk. She fought the future and leapt into the present, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.

  She was still smiling when the kiss faded, and the whirlpool with it.

  “And now my home as well,” she said, turning to face it.