The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price

by C. L. Schneider

  Taren sighed. Her nails pressed into my chest. She was ready to go—right up until the moment she realized I was free.

  Stiffening, Taren’s eyes flew open. She tried to pull back, but I held on; pressing my knees in tighter, my fingers in harder, my mouth more firmly against hers. She pushed at me, crying out a garbled objection against my lips that I paid absolutely no mind to.

  When I was done, I pulled back and smiled. “So that’s what fool tastes like.” Twisting my lower body, I threw her off me and she landed face first in the muck.

  Floundering, Taren lifted her head and I shoved her back down.

  “What’s it going to be?” Leaning over, I started fishing around for her dagger. “Are you going to give me that ring, or do I have to cut off your finger?”

  Mud sputtered from her lips. “I’m going to fucking cut off your—”

  “Wrong answer.” I pushed her under again. As she came back up, Taren swung her legs into mine. The strike, on solid ground, would have gotten her nowhere. But she unbalanced me just enough that one of my boots slid into a hole the size of my horse, and I ended up next to her on the ground.

  Climbing on me, putting her weight forward, Taren held my head under the bog and punched it. I reached a hand up and locked it about her throat, but she was unrelenting. Her ring tore into my scalp. Bits of leaves, chunks of mud and other vile things filled my mouth and nose. Swamp slid down my throat, foul and thick.

  As the air stopped reaching my lungs, I released her throat and groped at her legs. Going on the fact that I’d never met an assassin that wasn’t prepared, I slid my hands down her thighs and into the cuffs of her boots, looking for a second dagger.

  When I found it, I pulled it out and jammed the blade into her thigh.

  Screaming, Taren started sliding off. Throwing her the rest of the way, I hauled my head up out of the swamp with a gasping roar and a rain of wet earth.

  Sludge dripped from my clothes as I got up. More spewed from my mouth as I tried to breathe. Spitting it out, gagging at the taste, I wiped the slime and silt from my face. It was in my coat, in my nose, down my pants. It stunk, and so did I.

  Shoving my dripping hair back off my face, I took a few, wobbly steps over to Taren. A steady stream of blood was burbling out from around the blade in her leg and without any preamble whatsoever, I bent down and yanked it out.

  Her responding shriek bounced against the insides of my aching skull.

  “Shut up!” I kicked her other leg and she fell quiet. Sliding her dagger into my belt, I crouched down and lifted her right hand up out of the water. It was covered in so much mud that her skin was barely visible. The red crystal, however, was glowing brightly.

  “He lied,” Taren groaned. “He promised it would keep me going. Said I wouldn’t have to eat or sleep for days. He told me you couldn’t catch me, couldn’t hurt me.” She tilted her head back and yelled at no one. “Damn, filthy, lying prick! It doesn’t work!”

  I pulled the ring off her finger and a hot tingle ran across my skin. “The stone works. It’s the spell that’s expired.” I glanced at her. “Guess he doesn’t care about keeping you alive after all.” Straightening, I stared at the ring. “It takes guidance to learn how to spell an object like this.” I frowned, thinking. “There was that group of runaways that use to stir up trouble a while back. It could be he’s one of their descendants, raised free like me.”

  “Are you talking about the rebel cast-offs?” Taren let out a stilted, breathy laugh. “You must be desperate, Troy, if you’re laying blame on a bunch of magically impotent half-breeds. They’re so powerless no one even bothers rounding them up anymore.”

  “You’re right. The spells your employer is pulling off are too complex. He couldn’t have mastered them without training. And overlapping them the way he is, I don’t know who could do that, short of an erudite.”

  “Never heard of it,” she said casually, busy inspecting the wound in her leg.

  “Erudite isn’t an ‘it’, Taren. It’s a title. One that doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “So now your suspect doesn’t exist? I must have hit you real hard.”

  “Erudite were the best of us, an elite bloodline, more wise and powerful than all the rest. Back when the Shinree Empire was strong, they were our teachers, our leaders.”

  “Gods, there are more types of you people than there are notches on my bedpost.”

  “I doubt that. Doesn’t matter though,” I said, paying no attention to the face she was giving me. “There hasn’t been an erudite alive in hundreds of years.”

  “Like I said…it’s a mystery.”

  I stared hard into her eyes, trying to find an answer that wasn’t there. “Who is he, Taren? Why is he interested in me? What is he doing while you keep me here?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, and I almost believed her. “But he’s a filthy liar.”

  “You didn’t have to take the job.”

  “Don’t pretend you haven’t been desperate, Troy. That there weren’t times you would have killed your own mother for enough coin.”

  “I did kill her.”

  “Really?” Delight infected Taren’s shocked laugh.

  “But it had nothing to do with money.” It was magic, I thought; always believing it was my fault, my stray child’s wish that ended her days. I’d never truly known though. I just woke up one morning and she didn’t.

  My first victim…

  Sighing, I rubbed at the incessant throbbing in my head. My palm burned where I held the ring but it felt good compared to the rest of me. It felt real good, and the notion hit me that I should throw it away—now. I knew better than to touch a stone that came from the Shinree mines.

  Why then was I recklessly and deliberately resting one against my skin? I was allowing the garnet’s pulsing energy to dance across my nerves and it was just plain stupid.

  Worse, I didn’t care. I had no desire to squash the shiver of anticipation growing inside me. There was a particular kind of pleasure that came from letting it build, to teetering so close to satisfaction you could taste it.

  What’s one more spell? The damage is already done.

  My hands started shaking. My pulse quickened. Knots of anticipation formed in my stomach. They burrowed in, and the urgency grew.

  It can’t hurt anything. There’s no one out here.

  I stopped before. I can stop again.

  I can handle it.

  Just one more...

  I closed my eyes and let go. Power fell into me. Sweeping hot beneath my skin, it soared through my body and the pain in my head disappeared. The weariness faded. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. I wasn’t angry. Even the rancid taste of swamp was gone from my mouth. Magic ran with the blood in my veins and I felt wonderful.

  I smiled and breathed deep, savoring the sensations. Then I opened my eyes and lost the smile; shimmering dark and red, the garnet was undulating as if it were fluid.

  The stone looked like blood.

  Disgusted, I closed my hand over the ring. I squeezed until the metal prongs dug in. I watched the blood drip out from between my fingers and thought, Aylagar.

  That’s all it took. That’s all it ever took to make her face emerge like a ghost in my mind, dark, beautiful and fierce. Next, was the sting of how she trusted me and I betrayed her. I topped that off with the feel of her dead body in my arms, withered, gray and unbelievably cold. The entire battlefield was dead and cold. The only warmth to be had was emanating from the pulsing stones of the crown.

  I hated remembering it. But guilt and pain were the only effective way to suffocate the cravings. And when the guilt became too much, I suffocated that with wine.

  At least I used to. I had the sinking feeling that, soon, neither would do the job.

  “What’s wrong, witch?” Taren’s question startled me. “Feeling poorly?”

  I tossed the ring on the ground. Slogging through the muck, in four strides I was standing over her, bending down, grabbing a handfu
l of her shirt and drawing back my fist. The urge to cast pain on Taren Roe like she’d never felt before—to make her spit out the truth until she begged to die—was overwhelming.

  But her eyes were red again. And the man’s voice was in her, saying, “Tell me. Tell me how it feels to kill your Queen…your lover,” with so much persuasion, that I hesitated. My arm dropped. My grip eased on her shirt. Out of nowhere my anger faded. “Tell me,” he said again. And I understood.

  “You have another stone.”

  Satisfaction slithered across Taren’s muddy face. “There’s no point in resisting. The more I speak the more compelled you are to answer.”

  “Where is it?” I started searching her pockets. “Where’s the stone?”

  “Inside her,” he whispered. “Would you like to know how much coin it takes for a Kaelish tramp to let you cut into her skin?”

  Revolted, I shoved Taren’s body away. “What do you want from me?”

  “At the moment? Conversation.”

  “Buy me a mug of ale the next time you’re at the Wounded Owl and we’ll talk.”

  “Did you really think using the Crown of Stones would bring peace of any kind?”

  “Go to hell.”

  “How did it feel to be the sole survivor on a field of thousands, surrounded by all those sightless, staring eyes, all those rigid, soulless bodies?”

  His spell pulled at me to answer. “They…” I tried to resist. It pried into me, dragging the words out. “They were…they were everywhere. Their skin was pale and gray. Thin—like parchment. Their bodies were caved and sunken. Everything inside them had dried up. The grass was gone. The trees were dust. The smell was,” I drew a breath and shook my head, “indescribable.”

  “I have no doubt. Your attack on King Draken was most impressive as well. Infiltrating the mind of your enemy’s ruler and condemning him to a life of madness. I imagine making the catalyst of Rella’s suffering endure such torment was incredibly gratifying.”

  “It was.”

  “Any Shinree capable of such power as you should be King.”

  “King? Why the hell would I want that?”

  “It might have made your mother proud.”

  The mud-dried hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “My mother died a long time ago.”

  “Apparently, she died without instructing you how emotion can pervert the outcome of your spell. That the larger and darker the working the more energy it needs. The more life it takes.” A sudden spout of anger tightened his voice. “Did she prepare you at all? Or was your mother remiss in teaching you the very basic rules of magic?”

  “My mother was remiss in a lot of things.”

  “Then you have no respect for the woman that gave you life? V’loria Troy was a gifted healer. She held an esteemed title.”

  “V’loria Troy cast on King Raynan’s whim. Taking life from one man and using it to heal another that the he deemed more deserving. How can I respect that?”

  “She was a King’s Healer.”

  “She was a King’s whore.”

  Taren stood. She came at me through the muddy water with strides too quick and sure for someone with a hole in their leg. “Did you love her?”

  “Who? My mother?”

  He grunted like I was stupid. “Aylagar.”

  I clamped my mouth shut and ground my teeth on the answer. I wasn’t about to let him pull the past out of me like it meant nothing, like I hadn’t spent years trying to hold it in.

  “Well?” he goaded me.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “To find out what kind of man you are.”

  “I’m going to smile when I cut you. Does that tell you anything?”

  He heaved Taren’s body in a great sigh. “I need to know if you’re capable of crawling out from inside that grave of self-inflicted pity you’ve buried yourself in long enough to be useful. Or, are you nothing more than a disgraceful waste of my time?” He gave me no chance to reply. “You’ve lied to yourself so long, Troy, you’ve forgotten the truth. You didn’t care about her. You were last in a long line of playthings for a privileged, lonely Queen. You knew that. And that’s why you drained the life out of her body and never looked back. Because she was nothing more than a soft, warm place for you to—”

  “Yes,” I growled, cutting him off. “Yes, I loved her…you fucking bastard.”

  “Nice,” he purred happily. “You loved her and you killed her anyway.”

  I closed my eyes against the look on Taren’s face. But I couldn’t block out the slow, satisfied laugh the man was pushing out of her throat. The sound was an unmistakable show of approval, a genuine release of pleasure at my expense. It felt like the point of a sword pushing into my skin. And the harder the laugh came, the further the sword pushed in; twisting and turning, digging at old wounds and making them new again, stripping away the layers and leaving me with only the raw, ugly memories.

  His unrelenting, cruel amusement did something else as well. It kindled an unintentional fire deep within me. The flames burned hot and fast. Igniting the very things his spell had worked so hard to dampen, wrath came around again. Aggression was set loose.

  I felt a crack as his spell on me shattered.

  No longer restrained, emotion and intent moved through me like blood flowing to a sleeping limb and I launched myself forward, striking Taren hard across the jaw. I hit her twice more, driving her down into the mire. “How many pieces do I have to cut her in before you shut up? How many?” I yanked her up.

  Taren’s head whipped around. She licked her torn lip and her red eyes glowed. “Kill the bitch if you like. But it changes nothing—nothing!” he cried out. “You will turn the ground red with blood again, Troy. I promise you. It’s what we are.”

  Taking the dagger from my belt, I grabbed a handful of Taren’s muddy hair. I shoved the blade under her chin and ripped it across her throat. “It’s not what I am.”

  SIX

  The grass crunched with my every step. It was an odd noise, out of place. It wouldn’t be in another month. Cold came early to the mountains.

  Yet the black, dry condition of the woods had nothing to do with winter, or the rapidly approaching night. The bare, lifeless branches, the curled, brittle underbrush and numerous carcasses of birds and other small creatures littering the forest floor weren’t made by natural means. They were dead because of me.

  I wasn’t shocked. Losing his vessel in Taren’s death had done nothing whatsoever to hold my Shinree enemy at bay. He’d seized my magic three more times before I found my way out of the swamps, and again shortly after I crossed over into Kael. Since then, as I traveled the mountain paths and moved deeper into the kingdom, his intrusions had grown farther apart.

  I would have been grateful for that, except as the time between spells lengthened, the more my appetite for them grew. So far, I’d been able to resist casting on my own. But fighting the urge was getting painfully hard. When it became impossible and I couldn’t hold out anymore, I wouldn’t be able to shift the blame to my enemy. Whatever was drained, whatever died when I cast, it would be entirely on my shoulders.

  It is now, I thought soberly, looking at the death and desolation that surrounded me. The spell may not have been my doing, but it was mine. I was the reason that Kya was the only other living thing in the woods besides me. It was my fault she was wandering alongside the trail, nose to the ground, searching for something edible that wasn’t here.

  I’d killed breakfast. Again.

  It was her only concern, the lack of green vegetation, and I wished I could be like her. I wished that the forest that died to feed my spell meant nothing. That my stomach didn’t turn at the sight of so many tiny, desiccated bodies at my feet, at the hordes of industrious insects and worms feasting on their shriveled remains. It would be simpler if I could ride on without caring that there was a village nearby.

  Because riding on meant finding out what I might have done to them.

  There are chi
ldren there, I thought, imagining their little forms bent and shrunken, their skin thinned and wrinkled like fruit left too long in the sun.

  If I killed children I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t live with not knowing either. I certainly couldn’t go on like I was, leaving a trail of death behind me while some rampant Shinree helped himself to my magic. I had to stop him.

  How exactly, I wasn’t sure. I had nothing to go on but a vague description and a voice I didn’t know. Neither would get me even a halfway decent tracking spell. The only workable lead I had was the tavern where Taren was hired. I knew the place. I knew the kind that went there. They responded to money and fists, and I was glad to give them both if it got me answers.

  It wasn’t without risk though. The Wounded Owl was in a city of thousands. If I was forced to let loose a spell while I was there, the worms would be gorging on much larger meals than squirrels and mice.

  The only way it could work was if I got in and out quick, between spells. Yet, betting lives on my enemy sticking to his recent pattern didn’t sit well. Finding a way to deflect or resist him would make going into the city a little less hazardous, but I hadn’t managed it yet. I’d thought about it. Each time I was forced to cast I burned with the urge to defy him. Since I hadn’t—not once—I’d come to the painful conclusion that I didn’t want to. Having magic in me again felt too damn good.

  Ashamed, I started revisiting the few options I had for fighting back. I wasn’t fond of any of them.

  Ingesting Kayn’l was the most obvious. It would completely impede my ability to cast (unwillingly or otherwise), yet it had side effects I couldn’t afford. Mainly, if I wanted to actually find and stop my attacker, it would help if I was coherent.

  Regularly channeling the obsidian on my own would keep the stone depleted, thereby, lowering his opportunity to use it. Keeping the workings small would lessen the harm to others, too. But the harm caused to me, by indulging so frequently, would be immeasurable. I was already sinking into a hole I might never get out of again. Deliberately throwing myself in deeper wasn’t smart.