To Play the Lady

by Naomi Lane

  Peter sighed. “Scandal? I’m just glad you’re alive. When I first saw you in the Tower I thought you were dead. You were barely breathing. I still don’t understand how the high mage could put you in danger. And why didn’t you tell me about this mage before?”

  Jenna knew her brother was concerned, but was surprised by his anger. “I’m fine. Don’t be so upset with Lord Harcourt. I knew it was dangerous, but I agreed. I don’t know why I never told you about the Dark Mage. I guess I just thought Harcourt would handle it himself, so there was no need to worry you.” Peter still scowled. “Look, you know with my self-healing ability how strong I am, though I would appreciate understanding more about the healing magic.” Jenna had tried to pry more information from her brother, but he was being especially stubborn. Sebastian’s constant presence didn’t help much either.

  “We are not discussing that now. You need to rest.”

  “But, Peter—”

  “Forget it.”

  “Fine.” She took an abrupt turn.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the stables. Kedar is still worried.”

  “Kedar?”

  “Yes.” Peter rolled his eyes, but followed his sister to see her horse, who was still inside his stall. Durand was with him. “Master Durand!” exclaimed Jenna.

  “Hello, Miss Mallory, Mr. Mallory.” He nodded. “I have taken the liberty of attempting to keep Kedar calm. He has been restless since your… accident. I assume you’re well now?”

  “Oh, yes,” Jenna replied. “I’m much better. I just wanted to reassure Kedar.” She came up to her horse and gave him a pet on his forehead. She sensed him beginning to calm, but then he surprised her by showing her a picture of the Dark Mage being struck down and trampled under his hooves. She smiled. “I don’t like him either,” she muttered under her breath, then returned her attention to her riding instructor. “I do hope we can continue the lessons in show jumping.”

  “Lessons in show jumping?” asked Peter, confused.

  “Yes,” said Jenna. “You didn’t hear? Durand is instructing me and Kedar.”

  Her brother sighed, but Durand smiled. “Yes,” he said. “The Crown Prince agrees with me that Kedar needs to be fully trained. I would like to continue to have regular lessons. Perhaps you could convince Lord Harcourt to make your magic lesson earlier. That way we can just have one extended riding lesson.”

  Jenna nodded. “I’ll ask him.”

  “Excellent. Barrett has allowed your tack to be stored here permanently to save time. I will also arrange to have the proper apparatus moved to the east training paddock. That way we will avoid any future… entanglements.” Jenna knew he referred to Lord Nigen. She was just as happy not to be near him.

  Her head was beginning to ache slightly, so she quickly said goodbye to Kedar and Durand and once again began to walk back to the East Wing to get some more rest. Once outside the stables Peter said, “I saw some of the showdown between Durand and Nigen.”

  “Really?” said Jenna.

  “I don’t know how Durand kept his cool. I would have socked Nigen in the face. I can understand why he left his position.”

  “Who left what position?” Jenna was confused.

  “Durand used to train the knights to ride. When Nigen showed up, Durand left the position because he couldn’t stand being around a Tenarran.”

  “Oh right.” She remembered Aurelia telling her something similar.

  “You should be careful though.”

  “About what?”

  “I mean…” Peter seemed flustered. “I know you like Durand. I like him too, it’s just… he’s been outspoken about disliking Tenarrans. Rumors even say he wanted the rebellion to succeed. I know Father is sensitive about similar things being said about our family.”

  “Oh. Right, of course. I’ll try to be careful.”

  Peter nodded. Soon she reached her dormitory and was once again grateful for the Queen’s healing magic. As the tonic quickly helped her headache, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter 22

  When Jenna heard Sebastian’s and Peter’s voices, she urged Bree to trot faster through the woods. Next to a month had passed since her confrontation with the Dark Mage, but it was the first time since that day that she would be able to see Sebastian for more than a few moments. Weather and bad luck had kept them physically apart, though she enjoyed speaking with him through their mind-link in the evenings. Finally, sufficient time had passed since a major snow storm that the ground had thawed enough for combat training.

  She eagerly hopped off her horse to greet the young men. They all smiled at her and were ready to begin, except this time was different. Eamon was there with wooden training swords ready. “Hello,” she said. “Swordplay today?”

  Eamon smiled. “Why not? It’s still a little cold, but your leather riding gloves should serve well.” He turned toward Jenna’s brother. “Peter, why don’t you go practice with Sebastian for awhile? I would like to teach your sister some of the basics.”

  “Sure,” replied Peter. Sebastian gave her a bit of a lingering look while he crossed the meadow. Jenna was sorry to miss practicing with him, but excited about learning swordplay. Her archery lessons had continued, and she was making progress, but she was always eager to learn new things. As she stared at the wooden rods, her hands itched to hold them.

  Eamon chuckled. “I can see you’re eager, but I’d like to begin with footwork.”

  “Oh,” said Jenna as she looked up at the Prince.

  “People assume that swordplay is all about the upper body, but footwork is equally as important. Now stand feet shoulder-width apart.” Jenna complied. “Are you right-handed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then point your right toe out away from your body, perpendicular to your other foot. Now, to keep your feet nimble, bend your knees until you feel your leg muscles begin to support your weight.” Again, Jenna complied. Eamon circled her. “Looks good. I won’t go through all the footwork moves, but watch me.” Eamon assumed his own stance. Jenna admired his physique as he did so, but quickly turned her attention to his feet. “Use your left foot to propel you forward. Take small steps like so.” She imitated the step and continued moving forward a few paces. “Good. Now back.” Jenna watched as he reversed the step and continued back a few steps. “A little faster.” Jenna followed. Eventually Eamon stopped and turned to watch her. “Excellent.”

  Jenna paused. “I have a feeling my acrobatic training will come in handy. It helps with hand-to-hand combat too of course.”

  Eamon’s eyes went wide. “You’re an acrobat, Lady Jenna?”

  She blushed. “Well… I did that mainly when I was little. Once I started serious riding lessons, my father asked me to give it up.”

  “Ah. Well you are correct that a limber swordsman, or swordswoman, is more difficult to defeat.” He grabbed one of the wooden rods and threw it over to her. She caught it easily. “The sword also requires a certain amount of finesse. These rods are weighted to mimic rapiers. We’ll do our best to grip them so. Use your index finger and thumb to do most of the work.” Jenna followed his example once again. “All right, resume the stance and bring your sword arm up. Let’s practice the lunge now.”

  He assumed the stance to show her. “Lead with the sword. Point straight out then extend, using your whole body.” He showed her the full movement. Jenna took a deep breath and then mimicked the Prince. “Good.” She practiced going forward and back with lunges in between for several minutes. Then Eamon showed her a basic sidestep. Eventually, she was quite out of breath. “You’ll want to practice that footwork frequently. Your goal will be to practice enough to make all the moves you learn automatic. Most sword fights last mere seconds. If you have to think about the body movement, you’re already too late in most cases.”

  Jenna nodded, slightly sobered at the thought of the importance of the training. “What next?”

  Eamon smiled. “We can review the most basic par
ry positions. Remember, for every parry the goal is to protect your body. You want to avoid extraneous movement and keep the blade in close. Third position: you block on your left side. Fourth position: you block on your right. Fifth: bring the ‘blade’ up horizontal to block a strike from above.” Jenna did her best to mimic his movements. The Prince inspected her wrist to make sure she was doing it correctly. She then practiced blocking the Prince’s strikes. He went slow and steady. “My goal in these strikes is to use the weight of the rod as much as possible. When the blades are sharp, it won’t take much to wound your opponent. Now you strike, I’ll block.”

  Jenna did her best to follow the Prince’s instruction, and she felt the movement come more smoothly as time went on. Eventually, she saw Peter and Sebastian watching them. Peter looked amused, but Sebastian frowned slightly. “How is my sister doing?” Peter asked.

  Eamon halted the lesson and turned to face them. “Very well. I wish every knight-in-training had the same attention to detail.”

  Jenna bowed. “Well, it’s easier with such good instruction.”

  Eamon chuckled.

  “We’d best be getting back,” said Sebastian, still looking unhappy.

  “So we should,” replied Eamon.

  Jenna sighed. “I just hope the weather holds for next week,” she said, while they went to fetch their horses.

  “As do I,” said Eamon, looking up at the clouds.

  “Take heart you aren’t still at the northern border, Brother,” said Sebastian. “It would be worse there.”

  “Too true.”

  Sebastian’s words made Jenna think of the northern rebellion. It reminded her of something she had meant to ask but forgotten about. “I once heard of the ‘infamous northern shadow mages’ or something like that. What does that mean? Who were they talking about?”

  All three of the others paused in their step. Sebastian looked toward his brother. “Well, you may as well answer, Eamon, since you actually fought one.”

  Eamon looked down. “It wasn’t easy. I couldn’t even be sure he was one, but he did fit the description, what little we know anyway.”

  “Which is?” Jenna asked even more confused.

  “A group of assassins is credited with killing most of the Tenarran nobility, quite a feat considering how strong Tenarran fire magic is. The rumor is they are mages themselves.”

  Jenna remembered reading about the fire magic in one of the histories Sebastian recommended. Tenarrans had found a way to make it both consistently stronger and easier to pass on to children. Even their women all normally carried it. “How did you recognize him?” she asked the older Prince.

  “It’s said they mask themselves. This man was masked, and dressed in black from head to toe. And he was fast. He wounded our cousin, Lord Martis, quite easily before I took him on.” Eamon got a far-away look on his face. “It took all my strength, training, and magic to defend against him. I got a small hit on his shoulder, but he disappeared somehow soon afterward. It was uncanny. I don’t know if it was magic or not. Whoever or whatever that man was, I would not wish to face him again.”

  Jenna pondered the Prince’s words as they came upon the horses. She grabbed Bree and then caught Sebastian’s eye. She smiled at him, but grew somewhat wistful that they couldn’t spend more time together. Then he did something odd. He ran his hand through his hair, and she realized he was signaling. He wanted to meet her at the stables after prayers. She made sure her brother’s back was turned before she responded that she understood.

  Soon they all mounted up. “Don’t worry about fighting shadow mages, Lady Jenna,” said Eamon. “We can provide easier tasks as you start your training.”

  She laughed and bade the group farewell as she rode back to the palace, hoping prayers would not take long that day.

  As luck would have it, Jenna got her wish. It was not long after she had left the Prince in the forest that she found herself striding quickly to meet him inside the West Wing stables. Sebastian had not indicated they would ride, so she still wore her dress, but she told the proctors she wanted to spend some time with Kedar and then in the library. She expected they would end up there anyway.

  As she opened the door to the Crown’s stables, it was easy to spot Sebastian at his horse’s stall. Since she sensed no one else there, she went directly toward him. “Hello,” she said, smiling.

  He smiled back and looked around.

  “It’s okay,” she said as she faced him. “No one is here.”

  He took her hand and kissed her on the cheek. “Good to see you.”

  “Finally!”

  “I know. How much time do we have?”

  “A couple of hours, I suppose.”

  “Good.” He gave his horse one last pat and led Jenna away toward the door. “Can I count on your magic to make sure we aren’t seen?”

  “Yes, but where are we going?”

  He looked at her and smiled. “The secret passages.”

  “Oh,” said Jenna.

  “That is if you want to, of course.” He paused in his walk and looked at her, his cheeks slightly flushed.

  She bit her lip, but grinned. What he asked did seem scandalous, but also fun. “I’m game.”

  “We need to get inside the West Wing to an entry point. Can we make it to the northwest stair?” They paused outside the stable exit. She began reaching out with her magic, using a technique Lord Harcourt had shown her to sense another’s presence with her mind-linking skills.

  “It’s clear, but we should move fast.”

  “Take my arm. If we get caught, I’ll pretend to be escorting you to the library.”

  They began to walk at a quick pace. When they found the staircase, they did not proceed up it. Instead, Sebastian placed his palm on the wall underneath, and his hand glowed, causing a piece of the wall to swing outward. He grabbed her hand again. “Let’s go.” They quickly ducked inside. “Still all clear?”

  Jenna checked through the passageway. “Yes.”

  “Good,” he replied, as he lifted his left arm up. White mage lights sprang from his palm and illuminated the way forward. They began to stride down the corridor.

  “So you really do know these passages well?”

  “Yes, actually. When I was a young boy, I would try to map them out. It was like a game. My parents thought I was a bit crazy, but I discovered some entrances people had forgotten about. I’ll try to go slow so you can start to learn your way around.”

  They deliberately made their way through the West Wing. Sebastian paused at various points to show her guiding features and various exits. Eventually, they made their way toward the central courtyard. “I was here before,” Jenna said. “I remember that grate.”

  “Right, decent viewing of the ball, but what I really want to show you is down here.” He pointed to a spiral stair leading down. “It takes us underneath the courtyard. Watch your step. This staircase hasn’t been repaired in too long.” She was glad of the advice. Her foot hit loose stone on more than one step. Once at the bottom, they reached a kind of antechamber. In front of them was a doorway, but it was shut.

  “What do we do? It looks like solid stone.”

  “Just hold on for a second. This takes a bit of effort.” He stood before the doorway and closed his eyes. Jenna felt magic prickle her skin as slowly the Prince brought his arms out and touched his palms to the door. She then saw strange patterns around it start to glow. It reminded her of the magic mirror in the Tower. Then Jenna heard a loud noise and the Prince abruptly pulled his arms back as the stone blocking the doorway rolled aside.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  He smiled. “Sure.” Then he stepped through the doorway, except all of sudden Jenna couldn’t see him anymore. It reminded her of the Tower when she had first entered it, the same inky blackness. But she didn’t know if she should walk through this doorway.

  “Uh, Sebastian… I can’t see you.”

  Then his arm reached through the darkness and
brought her inside. As the magic of the door ward rippled along her skin, Jenna thought it would test her, but once it made contact with her own magic, it seemed to be accepting.

  The room she entered was much larger than the antechamber and appeared to be circular, but in the darkness it was difficult to see. Not even Sebastian’s mage lights seemed to be able to light it properly. “It’s a bit dim,” she remarked.

  “Hold on,” Sebastian replied. Hands in front of his face, palms up, Jenna saw five more mage lights appear to match the other two. They formed a circle around the Prince’s head before six flew to the walls of the chamber and settled inside wall sconces, while the last one, slightly larger than the others, settled inside a metal fixture in the ceiling. Now that the chamber was properly lit, Jenna could finally get a good look at it. It was hexagonal, not circular, with walls, floor, and ceiling of stone masonry that Jenna was used to seeing in the Central Tower. Jenna looked down at her feet and saw that carved into the stone floor was a six-pointed star with a circle in the center.

  “Sebastian, what is this place?” she asked, now suitably impressed.

  “It is called the Arcanum. It was used for magical workings eons ago. No one uses it now, but people guess it’s even older than Harcourt Tower.”

  “What kind of magical workings?”

  “No one knows for certain. My guess is all kinds of group workings. It remains a bit of a mystery because before my magic was able to open the door, it had remained sealed for many decades.”

  Jenna moved closer to the walls and saw they were not bare either, but had symbols carved into them. She began tracing one with her finger, but regretted it when she saw the dirt on her hand. “What are these patterns?”

  “Watch this.” Sebastian moved into the circle at the center of the chamber. He knelt, placing both hands on the floor before closing his eyes. Then Jenna watched white light flow in streaks along the star pattern. She stepped aside as not to interfere. Once the light reached the walls, the patterns began to glow, and Jenna counted three on each wall and three more on the ceiling. Then all of a sudden they flashed brightly before settling back to a white glimmer.