The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price

by C. L. Schneider

  I really didn’t. And that worried me.

  I went over and stood in front of him. Magic clung to his body like a heavy odor. It churned inside him, and watching it move beneath his skin, made my own feel like it was crawling away. Yet, in spite of that, in spite of everything he had done, I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry for both of us. “You didn’t have to kill her,” I said, “my mother.”

  “I told you why.”

  “I was a boy growing up without a father. If you’d come to me and told me who you were, if you asked me to go with you…I think I would have gone.”

  That seemed to throw him, but he shook his head like it didn’t. “That’s of no consequence now.”

  “I heard what you were like. How you tried to help the slaves. Things might have been different if we’d been together. You might have been different.”

  Another head shake; more desperate this time. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “You chose your crusade over your own child. Maybe that doesn’t matter to you. But it fucking matters to me.”

  At the resentment in my voice, a twitch of pain ran across his blemished face. Uncertainty and sorrow glistened in his eyes, making my father look as devastated as I felt. But I had my doubts his sentiment was genuine, and I hated myself for wanting it to be. For thinking he might contest my accusation. That he might apologize with actual sincerity, or offer me a single word of peace. I wanted him to make me understand.

  But that level of kindness just wasn’t in him.

  “It won’t work,” I said then. “Draken will never allow so many Shinree to live outside of his control.”

  “You’re wrong. We will be an asset to Draken’s new realm.”

  “What about the ones whose blood is too diluted? The slaves that have been on Kayn’l for so many generations they don’t know what magic is?”

  “All are given a chance to prove themselves.”

  “Why test them? You already have the records. You know their bloodlines. What are you looking for?”

  “The same thing I’m looking for in you, L’tarian….worth.”

  I glared at him. “And if they don’t pass? Are they still assets? Or dead weight?” His response was a dismissive, callous shrug that got me thinking. “Gods, you’re not killing them, are you? Please tell me you aren’t killing our people.”

  “Don’t be foolish. I’m not killing them. I’m selling them back.”

  “You made them slaves again?’

  “Some considerations must be made to maintain society.”

  “You son of a bitch.” My voice shook. My chest ached that I had come from such a man. “You freed them and then sent them back. Gave them hope and then took it away.” I sympathized completely. “Leaving them ignorant would have been less cruel.”

  “By putting them back on Kayn’l, I spared them the humiliation of knowing how truly useless they are.”

  “Your compassion is staggering.”

  “And yours is?” His tone got ugly. “The fucking gods gave you a chance to stop our suffering. They put the Crown of Stones in your hands and all you did was hide it. You turned your head. Did nothing. Became nothing. You condemn me for leaving you fatherless, but you let our entire race rot. You’re a coward, L’tarian. A disgrace. An embarrassment to our line. Running around with your tail between your legs, bending over at your master’s whim…you, my son, are a castrated dog on the leash of Rella. You’re pitiful. Pathetic. And without me, that is all you’ll ever be.”

  Reth turned away. He put his back to me and I stood, staring at it, shaking with how badly I wanted to strike him. He was crazy. Cruel. Despicable. He meant nothing to me. His remarks should mean far less.

  They didn’t. My father’s brutally honest lashing stung like hell. His words, sharp, merciless, and heavy with disappointment, rang in my ears. His condemnation twisted in my gut. His refusal to look at me made my chest tighten. But what sapped the anger from me and left me feeling like I’d just been pounded on was the glaring truth of his allegations.

  “I can’t deny it,” I said thickly. “When I was young, I paid no attention to the slaves. I didn’t care what happened to them. I was made not to care. Then, after the war, after the Crown of Stones, after…Aylagar, I thought if all Shinree were as dangerous as me, they deserved enslavement. I certainly did. I begged King Raynan to take my freedom away. Begged him,” I said vehemently. “But he wouldn’t. So I convinced myself that it was too easy anyway. That Kayn’l was too easy. That living with what I’d done, facing it every day, was more of a sentence than slavery could ever be.” Sienn’s memories surfaced and my voice fell. “I was wrong. I had no idea what it was truly like. But I do now. And we don’t deserve it. No one deserves it.”

  He was quiet a moment. “Wait here.” Retreating into the darkness at the rear of the chamber, my father’s footsteps grew soft, then loud again as he came back. He had the Crown of Stones in his hand. “It’s yours.”

  Anxiety pulled my muscles tight. “You’re giving me the crown?”

  “I don’t need it.” He tossed the circlet. Catching it, as my skin made contact, I cringed; anticipating an explosion of power that didn’t come.

  Puzzled, I turned the piece over and examined it. Heavy and not quite perfectly symmetrical, the tops of the individual stones were uneven and riddled with flaws. The sides and bottoms were smooth, magically fused, so that each color flowed seamlessly into the other. Where the stone’s edges blended was murky and dingy colored and unpleasant to look at. Just like my father’s skin.

  I glanced at him. Then back at the crown.

  The stones in my hand were dim and cold. The glowing sparks, the auras, I remembered jumping inside of them, were gone. The Crown of Stones was nothing but an empty husk. Its power was in him now.

  “You’re right, L’tarian,” he said boldly, “I did make a choice all those years ago when I killed V’loria. I made the only choice I could. Now, it’s your turn. Will you go, take Neela and run? Or stay and be named Prince of the Shinree? Revel in the blood in your veins. Be the champion of your own people.”

  “Go. Stay.” Hopeless anger darkened my laugh. “You make it sound so simple.”

  “It is simple. You belong with me.”

  “I’m not going. And I’m not staying. There’s a third choice.” I stepped back and put a hand on my sword.

  “Is this why you came here?” he laughed. “To fight me?”

  “I came, goddamn it, hoping I wouldn’t have to. I came hoping there might be something to salvage. That I might see a hint of the man my mother loved. To find out if in some, small way you were capable of caring for your own son. But, whatever you were is gone. You’re a shell of the man that made me. You’re empty. Broken. Just like the Crown of Stones.”

  Reth stared at me, perfectly still. His eyes were full of ire, and a little disillusionment. Like he actually thought I might choose him. “You have no idea what I am, son. But you will.” Eerily calm, my father raised his voice and said sharply, “Bring her!”

  FIFTY ONE

  I couldn’t look down. If I looked at the ground in front of me, where Neela Arcana was naked, bound and bloody, it would undo me. Instead, focusing on something I could handle (the Langorian that put her there), I tightened my grip on the Crown of Stones and belted the grinning, bearded bastard across the face with it. Then I threw down the circlet and started beating him.

  He struggled, but I was in no mood.

  Sidestepping his frantic attempt to block me, I seized one of his beefy arms in mid-swing and snapped it over my knee. The scream he let out as the limb twisted and broke was like oil on a fire. I wanted to hear more.

  Driving him back into the cave wall with an eager growl, I gripped his big head in both hands and bounced it off the rock until blood splattered out the back.

  “L’tarian,” my father said tiredly. “Let him go.”

  “Why?” I shoved an arm under the folds of the man’s neck. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t
stand right here,” pressing in, I cut off his air, “and watch him die.”

  “Because he didn’t hurt her,” Reth replied. “I did.”

  I dropped my arm. The soldier slid from my grip. He landed in a breathless lump on the cave floor, and I backed away.

  “Go,” Reth ordered him crossly. “Spread the word to make ready for an attack. The Rellans believe they have an advantage,” Reth’s smug, colored eyes shifted to me, “now that a proper distraction has arrived.” He looked back at the soldier. “Bring the Queen with you and lock her up. Some place dark and dirty, perhaps?”

  Features twisted in pain, the Langorian put a hand to the back of his dented head. He couldn’t move his other arm. It hung, curved at an unnatural angle as he inched unsteadily up the wall to his feet and took a shaky step toward Neela.

  Before he could take another, my blade was out and buried in his gut.

  Reth groaned as the body fell. “Oh, son, you really are painfully efficient.”

  Ignoring him, I booted the Langorian off my sword. I stomped on him a few times just for fun. Then I put my weapon away and turned to face Neela.

  I didn’t want to—she looked that breakable. Bare shoulders hunched, knees drawn up to her chin, she was sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs and her head dropped forward on her knees. It was unnervingly similar to the position I found her sleeping in at Broc’s house. Only now, finger-like bruises tarnished the smooth skin of her arms and legs. Rope burns ringed her ankles. The red, wet sores were likely left by the same style of heavy binding that was still tying her wrists together.

  I squatted down. She seemed not to notice me. I tried making eye contact, but her braids had come undone and too much tangled hair was in the way.

  She wasn’t moving, wasn’t talking.

  I glared up at Reth. I had two words for him. “Did you?”

  “A small sampling,” he confessed. “I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And, I have to say…it was a bit of a letdown. There is simply no fire in the girl.”

  Closing my eyes, I breathed. He wants this. He wants me to lose control.

  And I was going to. There was no way around it. Seeing Neela beaten and used in the dreams was bad enough. Every time I listened to her scream, every time she placed the blame on me, it tore me apart. But I was accustomed to it. I expected it. The real Neela’s silent suffering, how she sat, withdrawn, unresponsive, and frighteningly calm, was agonizing in a completely different way.

  “Neela?” I said softly. “Neela, can you hear me?” My tender tone getting no response, I got short with her. “Look at me,” I said, and her body uncurled.

  Head lifting, she peered at me through a fall of knotted, dark hair. “Troy?”

  “I’m here.”

  Dazed and shivering, she nodded. Quiet tears fell from her red, swollen eyes. The drops ran over the cuts on her cheeks, across her trembling lips, and down the bruises darkening her jaw. A few slid past the scrapes on her neck and in between the lash marks on her breasts. None made it as far as the burns on her stomach, hips, and thighs.

  My father had been thorough. Yet, I’d seen far worse, far too many times. I knew how to disconnect myself from such appalling atrocities. I’d been trained to get past the outrage, the sympathy, and the anger, and deal with it when the work was done.

  I couldn’t get past this. I didn’t even waste time trying.

  “Hold still.” Pulling the dagger from my boot, I sawed at the ropes on her wrists.

  “I’m sorry,” she whimpered. “I’ve made things worse.”

  My grip on the weapon tightened. “This is his fault, Neela. Not yours.”

  “I tried to run, to fight him, but…”

  “It’s all right. I won’t let him hurt you anymore.”

  From across the cave Reth let out a grumble of impatience. “The stone, L’tarian. Hand it over or she will endure far worse than my attentions.”

  Choking back a reply, as I kept at the rope, I wondered if my father had any idea the mistake he’d made. He put Neela in my head. He made my desire to defend and avenge her exist outside of the dream, in hopes of manipulating and unbalancing me.

  Well, it worked. I was definitely unbalanced. Just not in the way he thought. I wasn’t crumbling. I wasn’t going to fall at his feet and meet his demands. This wasn’t a dream where I was tied and helpless. I was in the room with the cause of her suffering and he was real and mortal, and near enough that I could tear a hole in his throat and smile as the blood drained out of it.

  The rope broke. Carefully, I lifted it away from the lesions underneath and tossed it aside. “Stay down,” I told her. I slid the dagger away and got up. Putting myself in front of Neela, I looked at Reth. “This changes nothing.”

  “Are you sure? Between Sienn’s teachings and the crown, I can heal her. I can take away the memory of her ordeal…if you give me the obsidian.”

  “You want the stone? Then you’ll have to kill me. You’ll have to stare into my eyes as you cast and watch the life you gave me fade away. Can you do that…father?”

  “If you insist. But you might ask her first.” His gaze swung to Neela. “Ask her if she wants to die like her mother.”

  “No. If we do this, Neela leaves.”

  “Neela stays. She moves an inch and I will kill her, and every Rellan child under the age of ten. I will boil the blood right in their tiny, little veins.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  He gave me an ominous grin. “Go ahead, son, ask her. Unless, you’re afraid? Afraid that you’ll kill her even if she begs you not to.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Do you hate me more than you want her? That’s really what it comes down to.”

  “I said, shut up.”

  “This time would be no accident. It would be outright murder. Because you know you have no real chance against me. You’re weak. Your spells are inferior. Neela will die, I will win, and you will be left with nothing—again.”

  “Stop! Just fucking stop!” Shoving my hands in my hair, I started pacing, trying to come up with a solution that wasn’t there. I had no doubt that if I tried to get her out, my father would make good on his murderous threat. The only way to avoid it was to give him what he wanted, to put my desires and her wellbeing above an entire kingdom.

  That is what the dream intended for me all along.

  Yet, while everything (my own life and the lives of everyone I swore to defend) paled where Neela was concerned, my need to retaliate for her pain didn’t.

  I knelt back down. Neela had stopped crying. Her stare was composed and resolved. It reflected the answer to the question I wasn’t brave enough to ask.

  I wasn’t brave enough to hear it yet either. So I kissed her.

  She tasted of tears and blood. I almost stopped. I didn’t want to hurt her. But Neela’s mouth moved on mine as if nothing terrible stood between us. Her hands clutched at me like she needed a moment of pleasure to mask the pain.

  Her last moment, I thought, and drew back. “I can’t. Not again.”

  “You have to, Ian. Rella must go on, even if I don’t.”

  “What if he’s too strong? If you die for this and I fail…”

  “You won’t fail.” Finding my hands, she squeezed them. “You have abilities Reth only dreams of.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You do. There isn’t time to explain. Just know that he cannot be allowed to live. There is too much risk. And I am not that important.”

  I brushed the hair back from her face. “If only that were true.”

  Neela smiled a little and I kissed her again. I soaked up every second, every sensation. Then I left her. I walked over to where my father was standing near the fire. Churning filaments of magic were worming up out of his body, dancing and hovering over his mottled skin like a dark, vaporous rainbow.

  The sight of him was as frightening as it was beautiful. Even his eyes, a swirling, muddy hue, were radiating massive amounts of power. Power he
was about to aim at me.

  Readying myself, I woke the obsidian. I envisioned it as a thick, black shield, shiny and slick; reflective enough to turn aside any direct magical strike. It would only last a couple of hits. It was better than nothing though, so I sacrificed a portion and made one for Neela.

  Next, I roused the stones in the wristlet. Inhibiting the flow to a thin stream, like I practiced, I braced for his attack. Yet apart from Reth beaming at me, nothing happened.

  He’s letting me strike first, I thought. And I knew why. Meeting my spells head on, taking whatever beating I gave him, would prove my incompetence. It would confirm that he was backed by the might of the crown’s power, and I was on my own.

  Only, I wasn’t. Not today. Not anymore.

  Splitting the emerald off, I directed it at the cave wall. I nudged it up, inside the layers of rock, all the way to the ceiling, and then over. Invading, infiltrating every split and fissure I could find, I pushed the aura, spreading it like veins through the dense structure.

  I drilled in deeper. Disturbing the mass, shifting it, minutely at first, I increased and intensified my incursion. I broadened the spell to penetrate the entire area above Reth’s position. Then I gave it one final, mind-jarring thrust. I drove it in hard and a loud, splintering snap ricocheted through the cavern.

  My father looked up for the source. Right as it crashed down on his head.

  The fall was long and deafening. Dirt and rock rained nonstop. It rose back up in dark, billowing clouds that bulged and bloated to swallow the firelight, and foul the air.

  I couldn’t see. Dust filled my lungs. It swept into my nose and mouth. The grit felt like boulders in my eyes. I couldn’t keep it out. Even the shield I’d conjured was useless, as the cave-in wasn’t a magical attack. It was a product of my lack of experience with elemental spells, and a pure lack of forethought.