The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price

by C. L. Schneider

  Alarms went off in my head. I turned to look, but I didn’t need to. Like Danyon, I knew the accent coming out of the man. It wasn’t Langorian though. It was measured and exotic. It was Aylagar’s.

  “You’re a long way from home, Arullan,” I said, watching him descend the stairs.

  “Eight months by ship,” he confirmed. “But you are worth it.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  His boots hit the floor and he paused. “Don’t be.”

  Crossing the tavern, the Arullan halted in front of me and I was suddenly all out of glib comments, because the man didn’t just share a homeland with Aylagar. He shared her blood. There was no mistaking it. Set within a masculine face that was all angles and lines, were her crescent eyes and expressive mouth. On a taller, wider frame was her perfect symmetry of elegance and lean muscle. He had Aylagar’s skin too, dark as midnight and flawless. His hair was the same jet-black strands that hung twisted and gnarled all the way to the small of his back.

  I cleared the shock from my throat. “You’re a warrior, in the Arullan Guard,” I said, gesturing at his breeches and sleeveless shirt. They bore no markings of rank, but the supple material was crafted with an intricate, symbolic stitching I recognized. “Your countrymen aided Rella in the fight against Langor. They were brave beyond words.”

  “It is our nature. Your nature however…” Smiling slightly, the Arullan’s somber, brown eyes searched mine. “My people say there is little that separates bravery from insanity. Even less lies between penance and acceptance.” His smile thinned. “I believe you, Shinree, live somewhere in between.”

  “It’s been a long day, Arullan. Why don’t we just stick with who you are and what you want?”

  “My name is Lareth.” He bowed slightly. “What I want is your head.”

  I blew out a breath. “Is that all?”

  Beside him, Danyon laughed. “Polite, Arullan. Why ask when you can take?”

  Lareth didn’t even look at him. “Your opinion means less to me than his, Langorian. I suggest you don’t offer it again.”

  As Danyon sulked away, I nodded after him. “You two make an unusual couple.”

  “Not for much longer.” Lareth smiled again. The expression came nowhere near reaching his eyes and I didn’t trust it one bit. “I have no wish to hurt you, Shinree. Submit yourself for execution and you will feel no pain.”

  “You do this now? After ten years?”

  “Grief is patient. It waits for justice…while governments change and kings fall.”

  “I fought alongside your people, Lareth. I watched them die defending a realm that wasn’t even theirs. I bled with them, befriended them.”

  “Killed them?” His perfect jaw twitched. “Aylagar was my cousin.”

  “She was my commander. I felt her loss too.”

  “She was a Princess of Arulla. A daughter of my King’s house.”

  “And I honored her for that.”

  “You defiled her. Murdered her.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Yes,” he broke in. “You did.”

  Nodding, I ran a shaky hand over my face. “I never meant to hurt her. I never meant to hurt any of your kind.”

  “Perhaps not. But the mind cannot always know what the soul intends.” He went still a moment. “I sense honor in you, Shinree. You would prefer no one see it. You want us all to revile you, to hate you, as that gives you leave to hate yourself. But I am not here out of loathing. I feel no more animosity toward you than I would a starving wolf caught consuming my flock for sustenance. You are what you are, just as the wolf is. But when the beast can no longer be trusted to curb his hunger, when he crosses the line, he must be destroyed.”

  I held his gaze. “If it would bring her back, I would give you what you ask, without question. I swear it.”

  “I believe you.” But I could tell by the look in his eyes that it wasn’t enough.

  Danyon moved forward. He bellowed at his mob, “Rip the witch to pieces! An extra bag of coin goes to the one that gets that rock off his neck!”

  The Kaelish tossed their hostages to the floor and formed a line in front of me. Shouting obscenities and brandishing weapons, as they worked themselves into a frenzy, I pulled the two small throwing knives hidden in the braces that covered my forearms. Then I beckoned to the obsidian. I didn’t think. I didn’t agonize over how I was willingly channeling magic again, or risking lives. After all, the Wounded Owl was a den for outlaws and thieves. If King Raynan Arcana was truly dead and the Crown of Stones was compromised, there was a lot more at risk than a few delinquent tavern-dwellers.

  I have to protect Rella. I can’t die here.

  I opened myself up to the stone’s aura. I swallowed everything it had and a wave of heat layered my skin. A stream of piercing cold pumped through my veins. Vibrations stroked my nerves. Choosing a spell that wouldn’t sap me too much, I uttered the words, and hurled the power out.

  Born out of necessity, urgency, and desperation, casting battle spells was a naturally swift process. More so than any other kind of Shinree magic. Even so, it had been a long time since I’d used one in a fight, and as euphoria masked the remaining pain of my injuries, the stone’s aura blinded me, and my energy level dipped—all blindingly fast— the sudden barrage of overlapping sensations left me teetering.

  A breath later, the spell sought out the strength it needed to be born and a body or two went down. As my vision cleared, I didn’t look to see who it was that fell, or exactly how many. I’d cast on myself to keep the price to others low. And looking wouldn’t keep them from dying anyway.

  “What’s the matter, boys?” I said, watching the gang of men waver at the sight of me. The fear on their faces was plain. “Is this is a little more than you signed up for?”

  “You won’t cast here,” Danyon said with confidence. “What the Arullan said is true. You consider yourself an honorable witch.”

  “Maybe. But right now I’m an angry one.”

  “Angry enough to kill all these people to save yourself?”

  “You involved them, not me. Tell you what, though, Danyon. You clear the place out and I’ll put the spell away. You and I can go blade to blade. It’s what you really want anyway. Just let everyone go. We…” the words jammed up in my throat. My breath did too. I couldn’t move, couldn’t understand what was happening as, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a fresh wave of magic was rushing into me.

  Caressing my nerves, blindingly fast and hot enough to make me flinch, at first I thought my friend from the swamps was at it again. The feel was definitely obsidian in nature. But the shard around my neck was a dry, vacant husk. I’d already taken everything it had. And there was a slight variation in the stream, like the power wasn’t originating in the shard. It was flowing through it.

  The spill quickened. The vibrations magnified. They turned fierce and forceful. The pressure in my veins, one current riding atop the other, brought such sweet agony.

  More assaulted me. A stampede of blended auras; piling in, accelerating, intensifying. I was a barely contained explosion. The sensations, the power, were almost too much to comprehend. It was a kind of terrifying splendor that I had encountered only once before in my life. An experience in pleasure I would never forget.

  “No,” I gasped. “It can’t be.”

  It’s hundreds of miles away. This isn’t possible.

  How is it in me?

  But how didn’t really matter. The power of the Crown of Stones was surging through my body and there was no way it was coincidence. Being Shinree, I didn’t believe in such things. I put no faith in luck either, good or bad. Fate had his dirty, little hands in everything. So there had to be a reason that the first time I willingly channeled the shard, I got the crown too. Unfortunately, there was only one that made sense. Somehow, the crown and the shard were connected.

  If that were true, then when King Raynan chipped the slender piece of obsidian off the Crown of Stones, he broke the piece fro
m the whole physically, but not magically. Whatever held the crown together, whatever formed the artifact in the first place was a link too strong to be broken by crude tools, or apparently, separated by kingdoms.

  All this time…all these years...

  I’d worn the shard every day. I’d considered it a symbol for the embodiment of all that was wrong with my people. I saw it as a temptation to overcome. Evidently, it was much more. And my Shinree enemy from the swamps knew it. He knew pushing the shard’s magic into me wasn’t enough to reach the crown. He ignited my addiction then sat and waited for me to cast on my own, using the only stone I had in my possession.

  I should have known. I should have at least considered the possibility of a link.

  I’d been a shortsighted fool and now I was paying for it. The crown’s magic was burrowing straight to the very heart of me. I could feel it, just like last time, heightening my aggression, toying with my anger, accentuating my hostility. Soon, nothing would be in me but the need to do violence and the desire to remind the world what I was capable of. Already, the thoughts were churning in me. The notion of what I could do with so much magic at my fingertips. I can wipe out the Arullan and the Langorian, the entire tavern—the whole of Sarin’s kingdom.

  All I had to do was let go.

  I can’t. Not here.

  Not again.

  Grinding my teeth on a scream, I fought like hell. I pushed against the overwhelming power amassing inside me, and it was like holding back a raging river with my hands. It was ferocious. Willful. It didn’t want to go. It liked where it was. It wanted to make me great, to quench my thirst—if I would just give in.

  They have no idea how powerful I am. They trifle with me, taunt me.

  No one here cares if I live….why should I spare them?

  I envisioned the city afterwards, how it would look; brittle bodies strewn, ash blowing over the silent, empty streets. I imagined the stink of thousands of moldy corpses roasting in the late summer sun, and the idea excited me. It filled me with such a rush of eager satisfaction, such sick, exhilaration, that those drinks I’d so hastily consumed, nearly came back up.

  And I dug deeper. Repulsed by my own desires, I resisted with everything I had. I clung to the disgust, to the fear that I wasn’t strong enough—that I didn’t want to be. I shoved, pushing at the excess magic, forcing it out, forcing myself to be stronger, until at last, the crown’s hold gave way and its magic began to recede. As it left, awareness returned. I became conscious of myself again, and realized I was on the floor, on my back, with Danyon’s boot ramming into me.

  I had no idea how long I’d been indisposed, struggling against the crown, but every part of me hurt and his axe was raised high above my head for a killing blow.

  “Your time is at an end Shinree,” he grinned. “This is the Age of Langor.” His weapon came down. I rolled to the side and the edge bit into the floor less than an inch from my head. Seeing the throwing knives still in my grip, as Danyon yanked his axe free, I lifted up and thrust the slender blades into his gut.

  Howling, he lurched and brought his weapon to bear again. It came toward me. I twisted, grabbed the shaft with both hands and jabbed the butt end back up into his face.

  From my position, the blow lacked force. Yet it startled him. Enough that, while he stumbled, I was able to twist away, snatch up a broken chair leg off the floor, lean up, and whack him across the jaw with it.

  Danyon collapsed. I felt like joining him. But a dozen men still blocked the front door. Lareth was advancing. And Danyon was already struggling to get up; shaking his dazed head and pulling out the knives like they were splinters.

  Lareth was closest. Feeling the spell I’d conjured with the obsidian still active inside me, I faced him. I held up my right hand and the air in front of it shifted. One last time, I tried. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “Do what you must, Shinree,” he said bravely. “If I die, I die for her.”

  “I’ve been dying for Aylagar for over ten years. It isn’t that great.”

  “Then let me end your pain.” Lareth drew his sword. He ran at me like a charging bull and I released the magic. Rippling out from the center of my palm, translucent waves, pulsing black from the obsidian, spread out between us.

  Lareth didn’t even blink. He met them at full speed, and was shot backwards.

  His feet left the floor. He hit the far wall and I spun to find Danyon.

  I was poised to send the same surge of power in his direction, but the hulking Langorian wasn’t attacking. He wasn’t even standing. He was face down, on the dirt floor, silent and unmoving. His giant axe was beside him and the blade of a fancy, Kaelish long knife was buried in the center of his back.

  It was odd, but I couldn’t spare the time to wonder on it.

  About to aim my magic at Danyon’s men, I lifted my hand, and at that moment everything caught up to me: the beating, the drink, the energy I’d given to make the spell. I couldn’t focus. Their faces blurred. The tavern revolved. It started spinning so rapidly around me, that as a pair of men’s polished, black, Rellan riding boots moved in to straddle Danyon’s body, I thought I was hallucinating.

  The owner of the boots bent down to retrieve his knife from Danyon’s back. Straightening, he stared at me. I got a good, long look at him. And then I was absolutely certain something vital had been knocked loose in my head.

  NINE

  I blinked a few times, but the face didn’t change. The man was still Langorian, and he was still alive when he shouldn’t be.

  Like Danyon, he was of the right age to be dead. Considering that during the war Draken had ordered all able-bodied men conscripted into his army. There had been no exceptions to his decree and no escape from my spell. Or, so I believed. Yet here they were; two able-bodied exceptions in a run-down tavern on the edge of Kael.

  Exactly why they were here, I was a little fuzzy on. But one thing was clear. Whatever hole the two of them had crawled out of, they didn’t crawl out of it together.

  Danyon, as most of his ilk, was massive and ogre-like, keen for little more than food, women, wine, and a good dose of carnage now and then. In contrast, Danyon’s killer belonged to a more atypical class of Langorians, a caste whose education, form, and behavior set them apart from the common stock. They were the decision makers, the privileged, and the rich. They were also the minority in the realm, yet they still managed to hold onto all the power.

  Draken was one of them. If I didn’t know that pure evil wafted off the man, by sight alone I would label him refined and debonair. He was the only person I’d ever seen who could wade across a battlefield knee-deep in bodies and still look striking and cultured by the time he reached the other side—until now.

  Exuding that same highborn quality, the man in front of me had eliminated Danyon as smooth and effortlessly as he likely did everything else. However, there was nothing cold or cautious in the way he carried himself. There was no evidence to mark him a killer by trade, or even a soldier. Neither was there a whiff of the customary condescension or cruelty that clung to his kind. To the contrary, as he swaggered in my direction, his movements were neither heartless nor arrogant. They were pure confidence, in a fluid, careless way that was very un-Langorian like.

  His features were out of the ordinary as well. Though possessing the deep-set eyes, sharp nose, and large build common for his kind, he wore them better than any man of Langor I had ever seen. Because he isn’t one, I thought, at least not entirely.

  He was a half-breed, but the man was no mutt. He was a distinct blend of superior blood, with notable, diverse influences. Instead of the classic Langorian girth, he was tall and unmistakably muscular beneath fine Kaelish garb. His dark gray breeches and carefully matched tunic were cut from such expensive cloth the fabric didn’t billow or crinkle in the least as he walked. It fit over his form like a second skin, which was a noticeably lighter shade than the usual dusky brown. His eyes, as he trained them on me, were a conspicuous granit
e color. His hair was dark, but it lacked the extra intensity I despised. Even more remarkable, he wore it cut high in a straight, distinguished style that most Langorians would never care to maintain.

  Abruptly, the man paused in his approach. Reaching inside his leather cloak, he pulled out a small cloth and started wiping down his knife. He didn’t miss a spot. Not seeming to notice, or care, that the entire tavern was watching, he went on, meticulously tending his weapon, and I didn’t know whether to be angry or amused. Such blatant, self-absorption was a clear act of cold, arrogant pretense. Yet, somehow, he came across as regal and intelligent as he cleaned Danyon’s insides off his blade.

  Finally returning the knife to an embroidered sheath fastened to the outside of his leg, the man flashed me a roguishly charming smile. “Sorry I’m late,” he said in a fine, Kaelish lilt—the absolute last thing I expected to hear. “I see you started without me.” He tossed the bloody rag at Danyon’s back. “I’m Malaq.” He was poised to say more, but I interrupted.

  “Call off your friends.”

  Malaq raised a single, tidy, dark eyebrow. “Friends?” As if mulling over the meaning of the word, he began scanning the room. Taking in the details of the ambush as methodically as he cleaned his knife, Malaq looked at each of Danyon’s men in turn, then made note of the patrons and tavern workers. It was apparent that he was in no hurry. And while I was itching to interrupt his painstaking inspection, I kept my mouth shut. Because whatever Malaq was doing, measuring the odds, sizing up weapons, ogling the barmaids, it was working. As wherever his gaze fell in the Wounded Owl, movement stopped.

  At last he looked back at me. A slow grin emerged from beneath his barely-there mustache. “I usually drink with a man before I call him friend. And I don’t recall drinking with any of these…gentlemen,” he said kindly. “I could be wrong, of course. But that doesn’t happen often.” His gray eyes slid to the side. “Behind you,” he said, so careless that I didn’t even catch his meaning until the blade was against my back.