Forsaken Kingdom (The Last Prince Book 1)

by J. R. Rasmussen

  Erietta frowned down at it. “Where did you get it? Did he give it to you?”

  “He got it from some men at an inn in the southern moorlands. They were trying to capture him for the reward. I watched the whole thing.” His lips twitched. “Saved his life, I might add.”

  “That could have been staged.”

  The mirth left Arun’s face as quickly as it had come. “That and every soldier and bounty hunter we passed on the way here? Because there were a lot of them. Bramwell is sparing no expense to find his wayward Rath.”

  “There you have it.” Wardin gestured at Arun, then looked at Erietta, half smiling, as though he knew he’d won.

  “It could be a ruse, to gain our trust,” she said with a sniff. “To make us think you’re on our side. They’d believe it of a Rath. Or at least, of most Raths. We know some of you aren’t made of quite the same stuff as your grandfather, don’t we? Some Raths are only loyal to themselves. They’re famous for it, in fact.”

  The look that crossed Wardin’s face then—not only outrage, although that was written plainly, but confusion, bewilderment—gave her pause. He looked so lost. As if her words pained him terribly, but he wasn’t quite sure why.

  Erietta’s stomach twisted. It had been an unworthy blow, in any case. Typical of a contriver, some would have said. Particularly when she was one of the few people in Eyrdon who knew the truth of what his father had done for the magistery, in the end.

  Arun tightened the hand that rested on the notice into a fist, and reinforced her shame with a slow shake of his head. “For someone as fond of calling me a fool as you are, Etta, you’re certainly acting like one yourself. That would be an awfully expensive ruse, not to mention a risky one. The soldiers may work for the king, but the bounty hunters do not. What would happen to this grand scheme if one of them were to catch Wardin? Some of the ones I met were quite enthusiastic. I’m not at all sure they’d have been able to resist killing him.”

  She lifted her chin. “You believe him because you want it to be true.”

  Her brother’s laugh was uncharacteristically cruel. “And you don’t believe him because you want it to be a lie! From the moment I told you he was traveling south, you’ve insisted on thinking the worst.”

  His words hit hard, not least because he so rarely spoke with such rancor. Erietta glanced at Wardin, then downward, feeling flushed and suddenly exhausted.

  Perhaps Arun was right. Perhaps she’d become a cynical, suspicious shrew. Everything she knew told her that the sort of trick they proposed was impossible, but she couldn’t pretend that all she knew was all there was. Perhaps she was overlooking something.

  She swallowed, though it did nothing to ease her burning throat. It didn’t matter. As it happened, being cynical and suspicious—if not, perhaps, shrewish—was her duty. She was charged with protecting the last magistery. That mattered more than whether she was being fair to Wardin or Arun, more than any of their feelings or desires or needs. It mattered more than anything.

  Erietta straightened in her chair, folding her hands in front of her, and regarded Arun steadily. “Even if you’re right, even if he’s an innocent lamb who needs protection from the Lancet wolf, it was still foolish to bring him here. Perhaps even more so.”

  Wardin looked at Arun, and his eyes widened when he saw her brother shift uncomfortably. On this, Arun knew she was right. But Wardin didn’t seem to grasp it—or was pretending not to.

  Arun sighed and said, “I told you yesterday, War. The reasons you left. They haven’t changed.”

  “In fact, they’re more compelling than ever, if you’re to be believed.” Erietta gestured at the notice, though she kept her eyes on Wardin’s. “If the king really does want you this badly, if he’s got all of Cairdarin salivating over this reward, if he’s determined to stop at nothing to find you … do you really think Pendralyn is safe with you here?”

  His sharp intake of breath was almost comical, and she couldn’t help but smile, though there was no joy in it. “Hadn’t thought of that? Now, that’s definitely not the Wardin I know. You once sacrificed everything to protect this place.” She cleared her throat and once again dropped her gaze. “Now that job has fallen to me, so you’ll pardon me if courtesy and trust aren’t luxuries I can afford.”

  Wardin glanced over his shoulder, as if he expected to see Tobin’s men charging through the door. If he was acting, he was doing a good job of it, she would give him that much. The haunted look in his eyes, the tightly controlled fear she knew he would never admit to, the determination.

  She’d seen all of it before. Which was why what he said next came as no surprise.

  “I should go.” He looked at Arun. “I thank you for your assistance, but—”

  “You will go nowhere,” Erietta interrupted.

  He scowled at her. “Am I to be your prisoner?”

  She kept her own face devoid of emotion, although her cheeks still felt hot enough to betray her agitation. “If need be. As I’ve said, my brother should not have brought you here. But now that he has, it can’t be undone. You know where we are. You know how to get in. Even if you really had forgotten those things, you know them now.”

  “So what do you mean to do?” Arun sounded as tired as she felt.

  Erietta sighed. “We won’t be able to keep his being here a secret for long.” Nor should they. She’d kept Arun’s journey from the other magisters for too long already, wanting to find out just what the situation was before she presented it to them. Now it seemed they would have to puzzle it out together.

  “He’ll stay in the manor tonight, with two hounds outside his door. He’s not to set foot inside the keep, or anywhere else.” She pointed at her brother. “And as he is your guest, you can bring him something to eat first thing in the morning, and then bring him to the old hall. I’ll gather the others.”

  She looked back at Wardin, and saw her own coldness reflected back at her. “You are not leaving Pendralyn, Highness, until we are fully satisfied as to where your loyalties lie.”

  13

  Wardin

  Everything, it seemed, was sweeter here. The bitter morning tea Wardin was accustomed to had been replaced by cool, crisp cider. Instead of a roll, a small, round honey cake bursting with currants and coppernuts and something else, a flavor Wardin couldn’t identify but that inexplicably brought him back to the warmth and safety of a childhood he could not remember. And now, the mountain air seemed cleaner and sweeter inside this ring of mountains than any he’d smelled before, even in the village directly outside it.

  Unfortunately for him, he had little hope that the coming confrontation would follow the same pattern.

  “Stop looking so glum.” Arun elbowed his ribs as they cut across the grounds, toward the craggy wall of rock west of the waterfall. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I think your sister might disagree with you.” Wardin winced at the memory of Erietta’s voice the night before, so heavy with disappointment and suspicion. Much like Jasper’s stony gaze, it was everything he’d feared his reception would be. “When she wasn’t accusing me of purposefully destroying this place, she was accusing me of doing it accidentally, by my very presence here.”

  Arun chuckled. “Yes, well, she’s the archmagister. It’s her duty to worry. Preparing for the worst, and all that.”

  As they approached what Wardin had taken to be an oddly-shaped outcropping, he saw that it was actually a building, jutting out from the mountain. Rounded walls of gray stone came to a point at the top, somewhat like a roof, before the structure was swallowed by the slope of rock behind it. The moss and vines covering its face nearly hid a weathered wooden door.

  “This was the original hall,” Arun said. “Many centuries ago, when the valley was home to a stronghold instead of a magistery.”

  “Whose stronghold?”

  “History doesn’t say. Although there are always the imaginative few who will tell you it was Eyrdri herself, back when the deities
still walked among us. Nowadays, the magisters like to use the old hall to lend an air of gravity when they want to be pompous.” Arun grinned as he grasped the door’s long handle. “Ready to face your death, then?”

  “Oh, my death, is it?” Wardin met his friend’s smile, though his chest was tight. “You just said there was nothing to worry about.”

  “Yes, well, that was just to keep you from running off. It’s too early for a chase.”

  Wardin snickered. “You couldn’t catch me at any hour.”

  “Caught you on the moors.”

  “Only because I got stuck.”

  “All right, enough stalling.” Judging by the strain on Arun’s face as he pulled it open, the door was heavy. “In you go.”

  It took several seconds for Wardin’s eyes to adjust to the poor light, after the sunshine outside. Torches lined the walls of the long, narrow room, and a thin shaft of mellow light came from somewhere high above them.

  Two dozen or so men and women sat in the rows of benches that stretched forward to meet four chairs at the front. Erietta occupied one of these, a woman to her left and two men to her right. She’d had on a dress the night before, but today she wore a simple tunic and trousers, as did most of the women in the hall. Her blackhound lay close with two others at her feet. Several more of the dogs were stretched out along the edges of the room.

  Keeping his face set despite his hammering heart, Wardin followed Arun up the aisle, nodding whenever he caught someone’s eye. Most of them nodded in return, and he was gratified to see that their expressions were curious, even friendly, rather than hostile. “Are these all the magisters?” he whispered.

  “Not all, no. Some of them are minding the students.” Arun slid into the first row, which was otherwise unoccupied. Wardin sat beside him.

  “Wardin.” Erietta’s voice was once again cold. Had Arun not told him that the three of them had been inseparable as children, Wardin would never have believed it. Smart—and, he admitted to himself, lovely—though she was, he couldn’t imagine he’d ever much liked her. His friendship with Arun had already solidly reformed, falling back into easy patterns. But when he looked at Erietta, all he felt was the weight of her resentment.

  He inclined his head, and spoke as she had, loudly enough to carry through the room. “Archmagister.”

  “Wardin Rath,” said the woman beside Erietta, in a much more cordial voice. She was both larger and older than the archmagister, with cropped gray hair and a lively gaze. “Even grown up, I recognize you. It’s those Rath eyes.”

  “This is Magister Alaide, headmagister of battlemagic,” Erietta said, then gestured at the men on the other side of her. “Magister Bartley, headmagister of contrivance, and Magister Eldon, of sagacity.”

  Wardin nodded at both men. Like Alaide, they were quite a bit older than himself—and than Erietta. He wondered how it sat with them, to answer to such a young woman. How had she been chosen? Was any of her icy demeanor the result of insecurity?

  “Most of our other magisters are gathered behind you.” Erietta said with a sweep of her arm. “You’ll meet many of them in time, I’m sure.”

  “Ah, right, you claim to have forgotten all of us,” Bartley said. “The archmagister has already told us your story.” The subtle emphasis on the words claim and story made Wardin dislike the weak-chinned, wiry man instantly. The low, flickering torchlight made him look a bit like a gargoyle.

  “He has forgotten all of you,” Arun said.

  Though he appreciated his friend trying to defend him, Wardin wished he wouldn’t. It would make him look weak, to let someone else speak for him. He met Bartley’s challenging stare with a flinty one of his own. “It seems I’ve been under a contriver’s trick. Memories of my true self are returning slowly. But I’m afraid I don’t know any of you.”

  “We knew you as a boy,” Alaide said. “Bart and Eldon were magisters then, and I was your headmagister. You lived in my hall.” One corner of her mouth quirked up. “And occasionally bore the brunt of my punishments. Though I suspect you and our twins here got into a great deal more mischief than you were ever caught at.”

  Erietta looked irritated by this reminder of her untamed youth, but Arun chuckled under his breath. Wardin smiled at the older woman. “And was I as good at battlemagic as I was at getting into trouble?”

  Alaide cocked her head to one side, taking the question seriously. “You showed some promise. You didn’t have the same raw talent as Erietta and Arun, but then few do. I think you would have been quite skilled, had you completed your studies.”

  “You’re speaking to him as though he really doesn’t remember,” said Bartley. “But I believe part of the reason for this meeting was to determine whether his claims can be trusted.”

  Judging by the snatches of whispers Wardin could catch, the rumble that went through the crowd was mostly agreement.

  “I believe him.” Arun crossed his arms. “In fact, I have no doubt whatsoever. Surely my word counts for something.”

  “Something,” Eldon agreed, but judging from his expression, it was a very meager something. Arun’s face showed equal distaste for his superior.

  “I would think the word of a contriver would count for a bit more,” Bartley said with another sneer. “Neither Erietta nor I has ever heard of a trick that can do what Wardin claims.”

  Wardin gripped the edges of the bench, but kept his silence. He had nothing to add when it came to the intricacies of contrivance, and he would not be baited into begging to be believed.

  Arun, of course, was not so content to merely observe. “Well, if you’ve never heard of it, it must be impossible then, mustn’t it?”

  “Arun,” said Erietta in a warning tone.

  Bartley narrowed his eyes. “I’ll thank you to show your sister proper respect, at least, if you can’t bring yourself to give me that courtesy. She’s the best contriver we’ve seen in an age.”

  “Be that as it may.” Arun spread his hands. “We don’t know how the trick was done. There are no doubt missing pieces. Potions, perhaps, or an enchanted object.”

  “Bramwell has no enchanted objects at his disposal,” said Eldon.

  “That’s not true,” Wardin said. “He had at least one, an inkwell that belonged to my grandfather. It is now in my possession.”

  “Actually, it’s in my possession, for the moment,” said Arun. “Wardin’s let me borrow it to examine. I haven’t had the chance yet, but I can tell you for certain that it is enchanted.”

  “I would like to study it for myself,” Eldon said.

  Arun stiffened, but said nothing.

  Bartley began to speak again, insisting that the inkwell was irrelevant, and that they ought to get back to the matter at hand, though he showed no inclination to follow his own advice. Mostly he seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice.

  Wardin cleared his throat and stood, cutting off Bartley mid-sentence. “If I may have a moment, I believe I can save us all some time and irritation.”

  He turned sideways, to address the magisters on the benches as well as the headmagisters at the front. “I don’t know which of you believe my story, and which think I might be here for some other nefarious purpose. Erietta is afraid I’m spying for Bramwell, infiltrating you for some reason, although why a Lancet king wouldn’t simply destroy any magistery he was aware of, I couldn’t say.”

  “He may—” Erietta began.

  “In any case, it doesn’t matter who thinks what.” Wardin spoke over the archmagister as rudely as he had Bartley, and the rising flush in her cheeks showed that she took offense to it. He looked away from her. “It’s enough to know that you don’t all trust me unanimously. Your first duty is to protect this magistery, and I respect that. So perhaps rather than argue about it, we should discuss how to resolve it. What, exactly, is required for me to earn your trust?”

  The headmagisters looked taken aback by the question, as though they hadn’t considered it at all. Arun snickered. “Didn’t expect
a direct approach, did you?”

  He leaned toward Wardin as the latter resumed his seat and whispered, “They’re used to listening to themselves talk for at least an hour before they make any decisions.”

  “I, for one, appreciate the straightforwardness.” Alaide gave Wardin a thin smile. “I’ll add that I don’t doubt your word. But you’re right: the magisters should be united in this. And I agree with the archmagister that you should not be allowed to leave Pendralyn until we’re all satisfied.”

  This was answered by another general murmur of support from the onlookers on the benches.

  Wardin clenched his teeth. “So I’m your prisoner.”

  “Our guest,” Alaide countered. “You can have a room in the battlemage hall. You were my charge once. I’d be happy to have you again.”

  “Having him will mean watching him,” Erietta warned. “Until we’re on more certain terms, I can’t have him learning any of our secrets. He can move freely about, take his meals in the keep, socialize with whomever he likes. But no instruction or practice, and no access to our books.”

  Alaide responded with a curt nod.

  “And what do we tell the students, when they notice him?” asked one of the magisters.

  “Simply that he’s a visitor,” said Erietta. “Let’s not complicate matters by giving them any gossip to send home to their families. The fact of his being here should be kept within this valley, for now.”

  She looked at Wardin. “We have adult guests from time to time, so there isn’t likely to be an inordinate amount of curiosity. If any of the students ask, you’re to tell them you’re here to conduct some research. If they’re rude enough to press for details, rebuff them.”

  Wardin crossed his arms. “Fine, but once again I must ask, to what end? You say I’m to stay until you’re satisfied, as though you have some plan to reach that satisfaction. But I have yet to hear what it is.”

  The slightest of smiles tugged at her lips. “Yes, well, there’s a good reason for that. We don’t know what our plan is yet.” She raised her chin to address the entire hall. “I will speak with the other contrivers to see if we can think of a way to test this trick. Perhaps we can find some residue of it, the way you can tell an object has been enchanted.”