War of Shadows: Book Three of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Can you tell if the working did any damage?” Kestel barely controlled her anger. She’s angriest when she’s frightened, he thought.

  “We’ll know soon enough, when he wakes up,” Rikard replied.

  Blaine opened his mouth to say something in response, but all he managed was a groan. Opening his eyes was a struggle, but he managed to get them half-lidded, enough to see. He was back in his room at Glenreith, in the new mansion. Kestel paced the floor at the foot of his bed. Rikard stood on the other side, arms crossed, looking much less sure of himself than the last time Blaine had seen him. Lowrey watched from the other side of the room. Artan, Nemus, and Leiv were not present.

  Kestel stopped pacing and turned to look at him. Her expression made it clear that if he did not recover, Rikard probably would not remain in good health. She took Blaine’s hand. “He’s warming up,” she said, although Blaine himself still felt thoroughly chilled. “Heartbeat is steady,” she added, pressing her fingers into the groove in Blaine’s wrist. “Breathing isn’t as shallow.”

  “I don’t understand,” Rikard muttered, and from the way he said it, Blaine bet that this was not the first time. “Five of us tried that null charm personally, in the same warded circle, under the same room protections.”

  “None of you were a Lord of the Blood, or were anchoring all the magic of the Continent,” Kestel snapped. “That might account for the difference.”

  Rikard shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe. But we have no better way to test the artifacts, and at least we ruled out several much more dangerous approaches before Lord McFadden could get hurt.”

  “ ‘More dangerous’?” Kestel’s voice was strained. “His heart stopped. How does it get more dangerous?”

  “The bickering can wait,” Rikard chastised. “What matters is that he’s stable, and getting stronger.” He sighed. “The magic that holds the anchoring is back. For an instant, in the circle, it was gone. Now I can feel the magic flowing through him.

  “And that’s what I think caused the problem,” Rikard went on. “For that instant, all that power, the wild visithara magic, was anchorless again, and then it surged to root itself, and the shock of it caused the reaction.”

  “Whatever caused it, we still don’t have an answer, and Blaine can’t go on like this forever,” Kestel replied through gritted teeth. “So we need a different answer, and we need it fast.”

  “I know, I know.” Rikard actually sounded contrite. “I was just so sure…” He shook his head. “I’ll go back and have another look at the null charm, and then the manuscripts. We might have had the right idea, just not gotten the right charm or the best conditions.” He gathered his cloak and opened the door to the hallway. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

  It‘s so much easier to listen than to speak, Blaine thought. But once Rikard left, Kestel turned her full attention to him.

  “That didn’t go well.” His voice was scratchy, and his mouth was dry, but he managed to get the words out.

  Kestel laid a hand on his shoulder. “You didn’t die. It could have gone worse.”

  “Where’s Zaryae?” Blaine asked.

  “In her room, resting,” Kestel replied. “She said she didn’t feel well. And she said to tell you she thinks the charm became corrupted.” She sighed. “Zaryae’s blaming herself. At the last minute, she had a vision of danger, but it was too late to stop what was happening.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Rikard, but tomorrow, I want her to take a look at that charm. I’d like to see what she can read from it.”

  Kestel let her fingers drift across his cheek. “Judith and Mari were in to see you,” she said.

  “I don’t remember,” Blaine murmured.

  “Mari said that Dawe needs to talk to you, once you’re up to it,” Kestel added. “There’s another big storm coming.” She stood and stretched. “Zaryae is going to help the mages cast preservation spells on the provisions.”

  Blaine groaned as he shifted position, and Kestel looked concerned. “How do you feel?”

  “Awful.”

  Kestel chuckled. “You keep giving us a scare.”

  “Me, too.”

  The door to the hallway opened and Niklas peered in. “Kestel, can I see you for a moment?”

  She squeezed Blaine’s hand. “I won’t be long.” She gave him a worried look. “Dolan had better be right about Mirdalur, and Rikard needs to figure out the magic, because things can’t go on like this,” Kestel fretted, and left with Niklas.

  “It won’t,” Blaine replied, slipping back toward sleep. It can’t. Because we’ll either fix it or I’ll die.

  Blaine was half-asleep when he heard the click of the bolt thrown in the lock. He was groggy, and in the lee of the botched magic, it was hard to think clearly. Dimly, he remembered that Kestel was gone, but he strained in the gloom to make out the figure that stood near the door.

  “Don’t fight the magic,” Lowrey said quietly. “You’ll sleep soon enough.”

  “Not… going… to sleep,” Blaine managed.

  Lowrey gave him an unsettling smile. “Yes, you are,” he said. “Don’t blame Rikard for what happened. I changed the charm he gave you. It was supposed to kill you.” He shrugged. “But since it didn’t, here we are.”

  “Why?” Blaine asked hoarsely. He felt as if he were struggling through a haze.

  “Vigus has no need for you since Dolan stole the artifacts and the attempts to kidnap you failed,” Lowrey said, moving toward him. “He’d rather see you dead, and the magic gone wild again, than lose control of the anchor.”

  Lowrey pulled a long, thin knife from his robe. “Since magic alone didn’t work the last time, we’ll do this the old-fashioned way.”

  Blaine struggled to rise, but invisible hands pushed him back. His confusion was not lost on Lowrey. “You didn’t think I had it in me, did you?” Lowrey mocked. “None of you. Not even Penhallow, I wager.”

  His expression turned ugly. “Lowrey, the lackey. Lowrey, the joke. You don’t know how many times I wanted to show all of you what I could really do.”

  “You… Quintrel… all along,” Blaine whispered.

  “Very good,” Lowrey sneered. “You’re smarter than you look. Took you long enough. Vigus said it would.”

  Blaine threw himself to one side, managing to fall off the bed on the side opposite Lowrey. Lowrey swore at the inconvenience. “You don’t have to suffer. I just want to finish what I started. When your heart stops, you’ll barely feel it.”

  Blaine struggled against the magic that held him. Lowrey had increased the strength of the invisible bonds, so that even rolling was beyond what Blaine could manage now. Lowrey reached the bed, and circled it. A few more steps, and it would be over.

  The door to Blaine’s room blew apart, sending a hail of splinters flying. Zaryae and Rikard stood outside, with Kestel a step behind and Niklas running to catch up.

  “What in the name of the gods?” Lowrey blustered.

  Kestel’s hand flicked, and two daggers embedded themselves into Lowrey’s chest.

  Lowrey snarled and sent a blast of power toward the spot where Kestel had been standing. Zaryae and Rikard blocked the strike. Kestel was gone, moving in a blur as she dove and rolled, coming up behind Lowrey and sinking a shiv deep into his back. Her right hand moved too fast to follow, drawing a blade across Lowrey’s throat. She jerked her shiv free and pushed Lowrey forward. His head lolled to one side, and his body collapsed to the floor in a pool of blood.

  Rikard raised his hand, and an arc of power struck Lowrey’s body, causing it to shrivel and blacken as if burning on a pyre. “That’s for Artan,” he muttered.

  Kestel crossed to the empty bed and circled it. “Blaine’s alive! He’s over here, on the floor.”

  Free of Lowrey’s geas, Blaine was struggling to his feet as Kestel bent to help him up. Niklas and Rikard reached him seconds later. “You all right?” Niklas asked, looking him up and down for signs of bloo
d.

  “Almost wasn’t,” Blaine rasped. Lowrey’s magic no longer constrained him, but he felt the rough power of the botched working in every muscle and sinew.

  He dropped heavily into the bed as the world around him spun. “How did you know?” he asked.

  Bloodied to her elbows, Kestel sauntered over to Lowrey’s cloak near the door and wiped her blades clean. Then she walked over to the washstand and calmly rinsed the blood from her arms.

  “Thank Zaryae,” she said. “Niklas came to get me because he thought Judith was calling for me. But when we got to the kitchen, Judith said she wasn’t. That’s when Zaryae came looking for us because she had a premonition, and we found the door to your room was locked from inside.”

  “Quintrel sent him,” Blaine said, closing his eyes. “If Quintrel couldn’t own the anchor, he wanted to destroy it.”

  “Figures,” Niklas muttered. He glanced toward Kestel. “So all those stories I heard, about Falke the Assassin, they were true.”

  Kestel’s lips quirked in a smile. “You bet. And the best stories never got told.”

  “I’m really, really glad you’re watching his back,” Niklas said. “But to spare you some of the trouble, I’ll post two guards at all times outside the room.”

  “I’m not leaving here without Mick,” Kestel said, flopping down on the other side of the bed.

  “We’ll make sure the room is warded—properly, this time,” Rikard added. “And now that we know Lowrey tampered with the null charm, we’ll start again. I do think it will work—when we don’t have someone working against us.”

  “Thank you,” Blaine whispered, too tired to keep his eyes open. “I didn’t think I was going to make it out of that one.” Kestel might have responded, but by then, Blaine was asleep.

  Blaine insisted on sitting up the next day, and forced himself to eat the food Judith sent for him. Dawe Killick came in on the heels of the servant who took away the breakfast dishes.

  “Good to see you awake and breathing,” Dawe said with a grin. Tall and lanky with dark hair and a lopsided grin, Dawe had been one of Blaine’s inner circle in Velant and as a colonist in Edgeland.

  “Good to be awake and breathing,” Blaine replied. His voice had lost its scratchiness, and the all-over achiness had faded, but Zaryae had cautioned him to rest, and for once, he did not feel like arguing.

  “I’ll make it easy on you,” Dawe offered. “You sit there while I talk. Nod if you like it, shake your head if you don’t. That way Kestel can’t have my head for bothering you on your sickbed.”

  Blaine chuckled. “Go ahead.”

  “Whenever I haven’t been in the forge, I’ve been working with Edward and one of Niklas’s lieutenants on getting provisions,” Dawe said. “We’ve sent teams of soldiers to gather whatever seed, tools, livestock, and food was left behind. And when I’m not forging weapons, I’ve been working on hoes, plows, and the other tools we’ll need to get crops in the ground and tend them till harvest.”

  “Thank Charrot,” Blaine said. I’m the lord of the manor, but I’ve been so busy with war, I haven’t been here long enough to see to the things that need to be done so we can eat, Blaine thought.

  “I’m much more useful here at Glenreith in the forge making swords than out on the field swinging one around,” Dawe said. “I have no illusions about my skill as a warrior.” Dawe grinned. “But I’m getting better at brewing whiskey, which Mari and I have been working on.” Dawe sat back in his chair. “It’s going to be a while before we see good wine again, considering what the Great Fire and all the fighting did to the vineyards. But Mari’s been helping Edward and some of the servants with plans to make wine out of whatever fruit and berries we can grow or gather, come harvest.

  “We haven’t had a lot of grain to spare for ale, but with luck, a good harvest will fix that,” Dawe continued. “But we did scavenge beets and potatoes and we’ve managed to brew up some drinkable liquor.

  “If we can keep it up, we’ll not only have wine, ale, and liquor for our own use, but it’s something we can trade for anything we can’t make.” He sighed. “Until the crops are in and producing, we don’t have much to barter with.”

  “What about the forge?” Blaine asked.

  Dawe grinned. “Niklas’s lieutenant found some soldiers with blacksmithing experience. He sends them up to me here a few days a week to help forge weapons and tools, and I go down to the camp the other days to help the farrier shoe the horses.”

  Blaine nodded to keep up his side of the conversation, moving gingerly to keep his headache from getting worse.

  “We’re not the only ones trying to get crops in the field and rebuild,” Dawe went on. “We’ve been sending soldiers out to the villages and farms on your lands, to warn them and help them prepare for the storms. If their crops and livestock get destroyed, we won’t be able to grow enough on the manor’s fields to supply the household, the army, and the surrounding villages, too.

  “Been shoring up our own barns, too. Have to, with how bad the storms are, and how often they come. I sure hope you can fix that somehow, Mick,” Dawe added, “because it’s bad, and it’s getting worse.” He brightened. “And then there are the plans for the wedding, but Kestel and Judith swore me to secrecy.”

  “Everything set?” Blaine asked.

  Dawe nodded. “Everything’s ready. Now we just need to get the groom back on his feet.” Dawe sobered. “One thing you should know, Mick. Carr’s back. Just got in last night, looking like he’d been dragged by a wagon, but he’s here. He’s acting cagey, but I don’t think Niklas knows where he is.”

  He looked worried. “Be careful. Even Judith’s nervous, although she won’t send him away. Kestel’s not letting him out of her sight. Even so, watch your back around him, Mick.”

  “Thanks for the warning. I’ll watch out.”

  “I know he’s your brother, but I wouldn’t count on that if I were you,” Dawe cautioned.

  I don’t, for anything but trouble, Blaine thought.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  IF I DON’T COME BACK, KILL THEM.” VEDRAN POLLARD glanced at the hostages, and then at the two soldiers he had brought with him to the meeting. Two bound men knelt on the exposed stone of what had once been a granary threshing floor. Roden Holcumb was Torinth Rostivan’s second-in-command, and Nias Dovar was Karstan Lysander’s right-hand man. Both had been given as sureties for the negotiation that was about to begin. And both men stood a good chance of dying if the meeting did not go as planned. It was a simple and ruthless way to assure that none of the participants tried to eliminate the others while they were all gathered together.

  “Don’t take too long. I get bored easily,” Piet replied. Pollard glared at him.

  Pollard had given up Nilo Jansen and Larska Hennoch as his hostages for this meeting, and while he was ambivalent about Hennoch, he would hate to lose Nilo. Rostivan had also given one hostage to Pollard and one to Lysander, so that all three of the warlords had a pressing reason to act in good faith.

  “Right now, their safety is our ticket out of here, so I expect them to be completely undamaged unless things go badly wrong,” Pollard said, the warning clear in his voice.

  Rieulf and Piet, two of Pollard’s best soldiers, were part of the small personal security contingent permitted by the terms of the meeting rules. They bound the hostages and removed their weapons, then gestured for them to sit, and took up places on either side of the men.

  “It could be a trap,” Rieulf said.

  The thought had occurred to Pollard numerous times on the journey. “It could,” he allowed. “Which is why I suspect all three of us have mages watching with far-sight, and sharpshooters on the perimeter. I’d wager that trust isn’t big for any of us,” Pollard replied.

  He pulled his cloak around him and looked across the open plain. It was flat and featureless for as far as the eye could see. In the distance, Pollard could make out a gray line around the outskirts of the meeting
area, out of archer range. Those were the backup troops, in case something went wrong. He assumed that the other warlords had armed their men to the teeth as he had done, and he further assumed that the other two would cheat, as he had also done. He hoped the reinforcements were not necessary. Things could get messy.

  Long ago, a large granary had stood on this ground. Large stone slabs were now all that remained of the storage barns and threshing floors. Everything else was long gone. The land was situated close to the boundaries of all three of the represented warlords, a wasteland of little economic or strategic importance, and hence sparsely populated and unfortified. It was as close to neutral ground as could be found in Donderath.

  Karstan Lysander stood in the center of the cordoned-off area, large and imposing. He was not a handsome man by any stretch of the imagination, nor could even vast sums of money make him so. To Pollard’s eye, he guessed that he and Lysander were close to the same age, old enough to be very dangerous. Lysander stood half a head taller than Pollard and twice as broad, a bull of a man, who looked like he was accustomed to getting his way through size and sheer will.

  Torinth Rostivan was just a bit shorter than Lysander, though likely a decade younger. He was built solidly, with intelligent dark eyes and short, graying brown hair. He was pox-scarred, and missing part of his left ear, and he wore the disfigurement like a mark of valor. Rostivan was reputed to have be a successful smuggler before the Meroven War, and looked the part.

  “We’re here,” Pollard said, lifting his chin. He met Lysander’s gaze and then looked to Rostivan. “And we’re freezing our asses off in this wind. Let’s make this quick.”

  “I want the Arkala twins dead,” Lysander said.

  “So, kill them.” Rostivan shrugged. Kaleb and Johan Arkala had carved out a piece of northern Donderath south of the Riven Mountains and north of what had been the kingdom’s major east-west trade route. Before the Cataclysm, that land would have been valuable for the traders and caravans that traveled its boundaries and for the mines in the foothills of the tall mountains. Now its chief value lay in the fact that it had been secured out of the area otherwise controlled by the three warlords.