by Cara Coe
Talon finally broke the silence and their eye contact by walking into the line of sight and saying, “Well, I knew his Highness was good for something.” The men resumed their laughter as they broke off to set up camp. Talon shot Seth a knowing look. Seth huffed a breath and set his face to mask the warmth and tightness in his chest.
“Shall I secure her to the tree?” Talon asked quietly.
Seth nodded. “Please. And anchor yourself to her tonight. I’m going to take a walk.”
* * *
The news of Rankor reached Talon’s ears as he secured provisions in a nearby village the next morning. Seth saw him hurrying his horse back into camp as the soldiers packed. He interrupted his own efforts in his packing camp to meet him on the edge of the clearing, away from Amelie’s ears.
“Trouble?” he asked as Talon dismounted.
Talon gave a quick nod in response. “One of the missing mages has returned. An old woman with a loose tongue in the medicine shop let the information slip. Only, he’s no longer a mage. And he’s mute. I don’t know if by choice or because of Rankor. The gossip was toying with both ideas.”
Seth chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Our window is short.”
“Yes. We’ve never actually found a missing mage before. I was not wearing my tunic, but I had my weapons. My side sword and my bow are too nice for the village. The shopkeeper was quick to hiss her quiet. The mage may not remain in the village by the time we return to these parts from the palace.”
Seth motioned his head towards Amelie. “I can’t leave her here.”
“No.”
“I suppose I could entrust you get the information we need.”
“I came here because the information stopped flowing,” Talon disagreed. His eyes shone. “Bring her.”
“Talon.”
“She wants to catch Rankor just as we do. She may be able to get the information.”
“She’s a spy.”
Talon simply looked at him and even Seth had to admit he couldn’t muster much of an argument behind that last statement. He sighed.
“Very well. Tell the others to hold camp. Ready four horses.”
Seth turned and started towards Amelie. She appeared to be busy weaving strands of wheat flowers into a bracelet but he knew her attention was capturing details in her peripheral. Her ears were sharp and waiting, her eyes didn’t see the foliage working in her hands. To her credit, her focus didn’t snap to him as he approached. She continued weaving. He made no pretenses.
“You are aware there’s a situation, but you don’t know what it is yet.”
Amelie finally stopped and looked at him. “Talon wears his troubles on his face.”
“Talon mastered subtlety long before I. He trusts you, therefore has no need to hide the concerns of this camp.”
“Trust a spy, does he?” Amelie asked, her eyes trained on the archer who was carrying out Seth’s orders, saddling four horses. Though her words bit with contempt, her eyes held a softness as she watched him that didn’t match her tone.
“He does. He has a good sense of people and can usually sort them out before any of us.” Seth paused. “There is a mage in the village. We think he was abducted by Rankor. And he’s just returned but he’s not talking. At all.”
“What does Rankor want with your villagers?” Amelie demanded. He could see her forehead wrinkle in confusion as if this account conflicted with her past dealings with Rankor.
“That’s what we’re hoping you can find out,” Seth answered.
It was the wrong thing to say. Amelie’s face hardened and her gaze landed somewhere on his forehead. She didn’t quite meet his eye. “I have a talent for making men speak,” she agreed.
Seth lay a soft hand on her shoulder. “I am under the impression we may be looking for the same thing. This is not a demand, simply an invitation. Which you may decline if you choose.”
He stood and started back toward Talon, his mind working on ways to secure her without being left in the presence of his men. Her voice stopped him.
“I will come.”
He looked back and nodded once. “Thank you.”
Chapter 15
Amelie
The village was quaint and reminded Amelie a lot like home. She didn’t venture into her own villages often. But she did once in a while when a mission took longer than the provisions she and Millie left with or the girls simply wanted to see something other than trees and dirt roads. Amelie’s many years out of the public eye meant she could move around her people safely but she still kept her visits to a minimum.
Draeden’s village filled her senses with smells from bakeries, sounds of children laughing and puddles splashing, and sights of colorful cloths hung out of windows to dry and cobbled pathways leading to wood-built establishments. The small party the prince assembled rounded out their number to four with Derrick and Talon. Enough to handle a small gang of trouble but not to draw too much attention. The men had shed their giveaway tunics for common wear and there was an absence of weapons if one didn’t count the knives sheathed in the sleeves of her companions.
They stopped in front of an herbal store. Talon glided off his horse and secured it to a railing.
“I’d better take a walk while you’re here,” he said to the group. “I was already here this morning and they’d be none too happy for a repeat visit. I’ll keep my ears open. Maybe buy the lot of you some lunch.”
“Chicken livers,” Derrick immediately requested, also securing his horse. “You can cook, but you butcher that dish every time.”
“Chocolate,” Amelie said softly then started when she realized she spoke it aloud. It’d been some time since she’d had any – the nuns rarely stocked it – and she hadn’t even realized she’d been craving it. But sugar was a luxury in travel and that’s all she’d been doing for the past few weeks.
Talon cleared his throat. “That kind of expensive purchase would draw talk,” he said apologetically.
“Just purchase a small amount for one,” Prince Seth instructed. “Let’s go.”
He moved the group inside before Amelie had time to protest this accommodation.
The medicine shop smelled of lemon and mint, strong flavors often employed to disguise the bitterness of the helpful herbs. Amelie slipped some silver root into her mouth and worked it into a small pulp with her back teeth. Talon had looked at her with a puzzled expression when she had requested it.
“Just a myth among mages,” he’d argued but she’d insisted and he’d procured it for her.
She pulsed her influence from her pores as she ran a hand over the glass jars, pretending to be interested in the wares. The prince threw her a sharp look when he felt her magic but no one else paid her attention. She took her browsing to the wall where he stood.
“Join Talon on his quest for lunch,” she murmured. His eyebrows raised in question. She answered it quietly. “You are blocking my magic.”
Understanding seeped into his features but his forehead still creased in worry. “I’ll move away two buildings. That should be enough I think. Call out if you need help. Scream if need be. I will come.”
Amelie looked him squarely in the eye and she could see the memory of Lord Lennox in his concerned gaze. She turned away and resumed her inspection of the jarred ingredients. She didn’t look at him again but knew he was gone once the shopkeeper started tracking her movements. She turned her face toward his and beamed. His return smile was lazy and lopsided.
The silver root she chewed on was potent.
Her hands found the way to the keeper’s counter, before lightly tracing circles on his knuckles. Her eyes slid over to Derrick quickly. His face was confused and he looked like he was at war with himself. Amelie sighed.
“Derrick, love, be a dear and see what’s taking lunch so long,” she sang sweetly. “I’d like a moment alone with this one.”
Derrick, though he knew he wasn’t supposed to, did her bidding. The pull she had on him was strong. She’d have to
apologize to him later.
Less than five minutes with the shopkeeper revealed that the missing mage was indeed in this village and in fact hiding in the room upstairs. His nephew. On alert from the royal guard. Amelie made her way up the creaky staircase. It narrowed at she ascended with room for only one person to squeeze through at the top. It opened up onto a small landing with a single door thick and closed in front of her. Even through its depth, she could hear the heavy breathing of the man on the other side. Her influence had wafted up here apparently. She knocked tentatively.
“I want to meet you,” she purred.
The door swung open and a young man no older than she stared at her widely. His eyes held recognition.
Amelie tried not to let her smile falter. “May I come in?”
He wore a wary expression, but he stepped aside to allow her entrance. His hair was a tangled bush of blond curls and the color was high in his cheeks.
Amelie took stock of the room. It was bare, the floor was in need of repair. A round window too high to use as a view sent in a draft by the ceiling rafters. A single straw bed and a short stool with a water can sat in the corner of the room.
He was standing just inside the doorway, his body angled towards her. She had him. He’d taken no time at all. She’d had him as soon as the prince left the building. His mind was broken. She gazed into his sad eyes.
“Who did this to you?”
His answer was to take her arms roughly in his hands and bend his head towards her. She averted him and shook free. She stopped pulsing her magic.
“Who did this to you?” she repeated again quietly. She sensed a desperate hollowness in him. His eyes watered but he said nothing. He could speak. She was sure of it.
“Rankor?” she guessed. The name caused him to squeeze his eyes in pain. He grabbed at her again. She ducked out of the way and stabbed her elbow between his shoulder blades. He fell to his knees with a grimace contorting his face. “Play nice,” she demanded, some of the pity ebbing to make way for self-defense.
She spit out the silver root and tried to subdue her magic. Whatever he’d been through left him weak of thought and he was more than susceptible to her influences. He craved them like a starved man. He cried silently. A line of saliva dripped from his mouth and touched the floor. Amelie felt helpless as she watched him heave with silent sobs. Nothing made sense. She’d been sent to intercept messages and spies from Rankor to noblemen throughout Candor and Draeden in an effort to uncover a conspiracy that threatened the monarch. Nowhere in her work did she come across instances like these. Mages left mute and broken with loss.
“He took it,” his voice rasped. Amelie started in surprise. “He drained it out.” Lack of use made his voice gravelly and hard to hear. She ducked down and grabbed his shoulders.
“Who took it? Took what?”
“I feel like I’m suffocating. Always. There’s a nothingness in me.” He growled deep in his throat. “You fill it up with your magic.” He grabbed again and this time he caught her, surprisingly strong for his thin limbs. “You make it better.”
His hand moved to the fastening on his belt and Amelie kicked him in the groin and shoved his wailing form away from her. She stood over him, one boot on his chest.
“Calm yourself or you will keep collecting bruises,” she ordered.
Prince Seth burst through the door at that point, his knife drawn. Talon pushed in past him, drawing up the mage in one movement and pinning him to the wall. Amelie pulled at his arm but it held like it was stone.
“Leave him,” she ordered. “He’s innocent.”
Talon did not obey her but looked to Prince Seth instead who lowered his knife and nodded. Talon released him but only backed away slightly.
“He was kidnapped by Rankor,” Amelie continued. “He spoke very little, but he did speak. I think Rankor did something to him. Or to his magic.” She eyed Talon’s knife which was still raised. “His actions against me were my own doing,” she said steadily. “More magic. More influence. He’s been through enough.”
This time Talon looked at her before placing his knife in his belt and nodded quickly. With a firm hand, he helped up the mage who had slowly melted to the floor against the wall once Talon had released him. With Prince Seth’s presence stifling her magic, his eyes cleared again and he kept them downcast to the floor.
“What is your name?” Prince Seth asked.
The mage said nothing.
“I am Prince Seth of Draeden. You’re expected to answer to the ruling family.” Prince Seth took some of the command out of his voice. “I am not interested in upholding the ban on magic. I want to get to the man who did this to you.”
“He’s no man,” the mage quietly croaked but said nothing more. Not even when Talon redrew his knife to Amelie’s frustration.
“Are you really going to cut him with that thing?” she demanded in exasperation going to the door. “From what I know of you, you won’t. So quit putting on theatrics and leave this man in peace. These tactics would work better on his uncle downstairs.”
Amelie stomped down the stairs and out into the shop to find one of Derrick’s thick hands wrapped around the shopkeeper’s throat.
“Derrick?” Amelie asked.
“He threw a punch at me. I’m ensuring he doesn’t do it again.”
“He’s protecting his nephew,” Amelie said, taking a second look around the shop. Nothing was out of place or sinister. No sign of Sleeping Annie, either, the poison Lord Lennox apparently used on her. From the look of things they were fellow victims instead of cohorts. Still, all that she was learning may be useful to Sir Duncan whenever she was able to return to Candor. If she was able to return. She glanced at Prince Seth and Talon as they trudged down the stairs. The prince was rubbing his temple.
“Was your nephew always like this?” he asked, coming around the shop counter.
The owner shook his head and Derrick loosened his hold. “He was fine before he left. He could…he could move objects with his mind. Small objects. Now he can’t. He can’t do anything. Can’t sleep. Cries in the night. Doesn’t make a sound otherwise.” He paused to take a breath. “I’m the only support for him and his sister and her kids. If the royals imprisoned us for magic-”
“I have no interest in that,” Prince Seth cut off. “Mages are my responsibility too and too many have gone missing. I don’t want them ending up like your nephew and I can’t help your nephew without information. You have nothing to fear from me.”
“What of her?” the owner demanded, pointing a stubby finger at Amelie. “She bewitched me!”
“She’s a prisoner,” the prince answered. “She tricked me and my men into leaving her alone in the shop. We’ll take care of it. Don’t worry about her.”
Amelie started to protest, but Derrick quickly pulled her out of the shop.
From his horse he pulled off the ankle chain and bound them together. The shopkeeper peered at them through the window as Prince Seth and Talon exited.
“It’s ok,” Talon said quickly, lifting her onto Derrick’s horse. “Prince Seth is making the fastest exit he can with the fewest waves. If the locals spread the word that the royals were using magic, it could get back to the king and then none of them are safe. Not if King Armiss can’t pretend to continue on in blissful ignorance.”
The four of them rode out of the village with Prince Seth leading Amelie’s empty horse behind him.
Chapter 16
Seth
They stopped at a stream to eat the sausage links Talon had found for them while Amelie seduced the shop keeper and his nephew. Seth barely touched his food. He felt nauseated at what he’d asked her to do and vowed never to exploit her magic again, even if she volunteered. He recalled the sudden absence of it from where he stood in the blacksmith’s work area, pretending to be interested in an axe. One moment he felt it pouring out of her, oozing into the spaces around the medicine shop with great intensity, even as he walked away to allow space for the mag
ic to work. He felt it tickle his neck as the blacksmith hammered at a strip of metal, sending orange glowing sparks in all directions. And he remembered when it just ceased.
He bolted from his stance and raced to the herbal shop with Talon and Derrick close behind in confused surprise. Finding her there, angry with Seth and his men at their rescue attempt and defending the mage was a shock until he saw the regret in her eyes for having manipulated his mind.
“He’s been through enough,” she’d said.
He wondered what life must be like for her. Fending off groping fools of her creation and then having to pity the very men who tried to take her. She’d been cool to the touch as he’d helped her off Derrick’s horse a ways into the forest and there was dark color under her eyes. She now sat, staring emptily at nothing in the distance as she chewed the sausage, only moving to adjust the chain linking her to Derrick. She rubbed at her ankle where it sat. Her eyes were devoid of the usual calculations he normally saw flashing through them.
The meat took on an ashy taste in his mouth. He gulped his canteen and swiped his sleeve across his mouth.
“My mother despised magic,” Seth said abruptly, breaking the silence. Curiosity was restored to Amelie’s eyes as she looked his way. “She wanted all humans to be on equal footing. She forbade anyone with mage abilities to use it and imprisoned or severely fined those that did. As such, mages learned to suppress their magic or live in secrecy. Kernan and I don’t agree with this.” Seth took a moment to take a deep breath, surprised at his admission. “I’ve never spoken that sentiment out loud,” he murmured. He shook his head as if to clear it. “Nonetheless, that’s how we feel.
“Our father was affected deeply by her death. He loved her and carries a hollow place in his heart where she used to be. We all felt her death. Like preserving the room of one who’s since passed, he’s preserving the kingdom as she wanted it. We tried to broach him about lifting the ban and were nearly run through with his sword. Kernan is not king yet, so the ban holds. The king agrees to look the other way when we go on these missions but he’ll tolerate no more than that. If he finds out we conspired with a mage…” Seth looked Amelie in the eye. “I apologize for what I said in the shop, but if my father heard of it, it would put all mages in jeopardy. He wouldn’t be able to afford a blind eye.”