Cephrael's Hand: A Pattern of Shadow & Light Book One

by McPhail, Melissa

  Shades, assassins, fell magic, poisoned daggers and a zanthyr, Franco mused. He spared a glance for Raine, and they exchanged a look. Yes, the Truthreader’s gaze seemed to answer, it is indeed curious news.

  The queen meanwhile arched a brow at Morin but let the matter lie. “And what think you about this zanthyr? Surely you don’t claim Ean made that part up.”

  “A most disturbing development,” Morin agreed. “I assure Your Majesty that we will be looking deeply into it.”

  “You will look into all his statements, outrageous or no.”

  Morin bowed accommodatingly. “Indubitably, Your Majesty.” He clasped hands behind his back and adopted a thoughtful frown. “Much about his report troubles me, in fact. The circumstances of his capture…” Abruptly he looked to her. “I wonder, Your Majesty, do you have one of the prince’s original letters of invitation, those which were sent abroad?”

  Errodan gave him a curious look, but she searched her desk and came up with a tri-folded card, once sealed with dark wax, but since carefully opened so the seal remained intact. She handed it to him.

  Morin looked it over, paying special attention to the signet used in the wax. “This is the prince’s personal seal, I presume.”

  “Yes.”

  “It is…unique.” He handed the invitation back to her.

  “Is it?” Errodan looked at the swirling pattern pressed into the wax and managed a soft smile. “I suppose it is. Ean has been drawing that pattern since he was a child. I’m so used to seeing it…but it is an odd sort of seal for a prince, I’ll admit.”

  Raine interrupted then, “Might I have a look, Your Majesty?”

  Errodan only then seemed to notice Raine and Franco. “Oh, Your Excellency,” she sighed in relief. “Thank you so much for coming. Of course, here you are,” and she handed the invitation to him. While he looked it over, the queen sat down in the chair behind her escritoire. “So, Morin,” she said with a sigh, “what’s the rumor to be this time?”

  “Fortune has graced us that the prince found his way to the Duchess of Aracine,” Morin replied, well prepared. “Already my people are spreading word that Alyneri d’Giverny is the mysterious heiress who refuses to marry Prince Ean—it is just one of many rumors we have long been propagating—and that His Highness has spent the past many days in her company trying to convince her to change her mind.”

  Errodan arched brows. “That actually sounds…plausible.”

  “With any luck, Morwyk will think his plot a complete failure and wonder what became of his men. Epiphany has delivered us a boon, one saving grace to this tragedy.”

  The queen’s expression grew ever more sorrowful. “Ean wrote of Creighton.”

  “Yes. I feel we must assume he has passed on, evidence or no.”

  Errodan sighed again. “Then we are in accord.”

  “A contingent of the King’s Own Guard will depart ere morning to retrieve the prince from Fersthaven. Your Majesty.” Bowing without waiting for her leave, Morin spun on his heel and departed.

  The queen looked back to Raine. “No doubt you’ve surmised that my son has been found, Your Excellency, but I would still implore your assistance. The circumstances are so…well…” she seemed at a loss for words.

  “I’m pleased to be of service in whatever way I am able,” Raine replied with typical diplomacy. He handed the invitation back to her. “Perhaps I might start by reading the prince’s letter?”

  She handed it to him.

  Raine frowned several times as he read the letter. He said as he returned it to her, “I confess, Your Majesty, I’m as confused by the appearance of a Shade as I am by the presence of a zanthyr. The creatures are solitary by nature and typically despise humankind. The very fact that two immortal beings are involved leads me to believe that your son is somehow enmeshed in a much larger conflict.”

  His words both startled and worried the queen, if told from her expression. “I cannot imagine how Ean became embroiled with such creatures, but I’ve no doubt of his innocence! My son is a good man, Your Excellency, I—”

  “I do not mean to imply the prince is complicit in anything unsavory, Your Majesty.”

  She looked relived somewhat. “Would you be willing to speak with him, perhaps? He should be back tomorrow.”

  “Unfortunately, I must travel at once to Illume Belliel,” Raine answered, which was the first Franco had heard of it. It wasn’t a matter of concern to him, for he was certain the Fourth Vestal did not mean to take one Franco Rohre to the sainted cityworld; no doubt Alshiba would send her Espial to fetch him instead. Franco was relieved, actually, for it meant time off from this tormenting manhunt that was rapidly giving him ulcers.

  As if three hundred years of inebriation had nothing to do with the sorry state of your guts.

  Shut up!

  The conversation continued, but Franco felt eyes upon him and shifted his gaze to find the Princess Ysolde watching from a chair by the hearth. For such a striking woman, she had the ability to all but vanish in a room, only gaining notice when she willed it so. Franco caught the come-hither look in her dark eyes and complied without hesitation. He imagined he might be arranging his own sort of rendezvous later that evening, but of a more personal and intimate nature.

  As it happened, the princess did not disappoint.

  ***

  It was well after midnight and the moon was high as Fynnlar val Lorian made his way into a tavern in Calgaryn’s Star Quarter—that section of the sprawling, seaside city which catered to those needing companionship of one sort or another. The tavern was neither full nor empty, but the bar was crowded and the two serving wenches looked overworked as they wove their way between the tables of drinking men.

  Fynn found his way to an empty table near a corner and sat down with his back to the door. He hadn’t been sitting there long when a barmaid showed up toting a tray laden with drinks. “We got wine and we got beer,” she grumbled.

  “What kind of wine?”

  “Dunno. It’s a red. The master uncorked the barrel yesterday.”

  “And the beer?”

  She sighed impatiently. “It’s a black ale from Chesterhouse.”

  “Ale sounds good.”

  She grabbed one of the tankards from her tray and plopped it unceremoniously on the table, spilling a good bit of it. Fynn pulled the tankard in front of him and sipped on it. It was flat.

  Figures. It just wasn’t possible to get a decent drink in the north. Their ale was always either flat, sour, bitter, or unbearably sweet, and they didn’t seem to know that some of the best wines in the world were grown in the neighboring kingdom of Veneisea, preferring instead the syrupy vintages from Dannym’s southeastern provinces. And forget about finding a nice Agasi red, or anything from Agasan’s famous wine-making region of Solvayre. What were common luxuries in the Empire were utterly foreign in the north.

  Not that Fynn was entirely without recourse. His first-cousin-once-removed on his mother’s side was the Agasi Ambassador in Dannym, but Anke van den Berg had grown stingy with her wines—especially the Volgas—and especially of late. She claimed Fynn went through bottles too quickly and had just that afternoon cut him off from her cellars. No amount of shameless begging had changed her mind—the heartless wench. But how much compassion could you honestly expect from a woman who drowned her own husband in his bathtub?

  Fynn sighed and sniffed at his ale. The north was so different from the Empire. Why, just that night Fynn had nearly come to blows with the palace guard about going out into the city. And why? It wasn’t as if his face was unknown to them, or that they had orders to keep him inside the walls—it was more likely they’d have orders to throw him out—but still the soldier held firm that no one came in or out after the hour past midnight. The hour past midnight, of all the arbitrary times to lock the damned gates—the guard might as well have drawn times from a hat as choose one hour past midnight. Why not three hours before dawn? Or the second past luncheon?

&nbs
p; Fynn hated arbitrary rules almost as much as he hated tax collectors. Come to think of it, tax collectors are walking arbitraries, which was probably why he hated them so vehemently—that and the fact they seemed to believe themselves entitled to his hard-wagered money. Moreover, he thought, still fuming over the incident with the guards, what gives them the right to tell me I can’t go wenching and wining if I so choose? It’s my god-given right to be a carousing inebriate!

  Fynn had finally pulled rank on the man and threatened to go to his uncle, the king, with names. The soldier had let him out then, but not without griping all the while about nobility always insisting the rules didn’t apply to them.

  “You afraid that beer’s gonna bite you?” asked a voice from over Fynn’s shoulder. He felt more than saw a man sitting with his back to him at a table kitty-corner to his own, so that their shoulders were nearly touching.

  “For a black, it seems a bit green,” Fynn remarked with a sour expression, staring suspiciously at the stuff.

  Neither man turned to look at the other.

  “I hear your cousin’s been found,” the man said after a moment. “Morin’s people speak of a lover’s tryst, but we know he was missing under suspicious circumstances. Fortune must’ve been with him.”

  “’Twas a zanthyr that was with him, in point of fact.”

  “A zanthyr? Fascinating.”

  Fynn grunted skeptically. “I hate zanthyrs. Insufferable bastards, the lot of them.”

  “But useful in saving princes,” the man noted.

  “Apparently.”

  Silence followed while Fynn thought about sipping his ale again but couldn’t bring himself to suffer the taste of it. “What do you hear?” he asked after a moment’s indecision.

  “The Karakurt is active.”

  Fynn arched brows, but no one noticed, for he was facing the rear wall. “The Karakurt? Here?”

  “She is not unknown to work in the north, but we hear whispers of her name in association with your prince.”

  “What kind of whispers?”

  “Black strokes on white parchment.”

  “What?” Fynn hissed. “Why?”

  “Dunno. Thought you’d want to know.”

  Fynn was stunned. “I do. I do.” He fought the urge to push hands through his dark hair. The Karakurt has a contract on Ean?

  Fynn was starting to get that feeling in the pit of his stomach, the uncannily prescient one that always meant impending danger and warned him to get out of town. The last time the feeling had visited, he’d fled Tregarion in the middle of the night, only to learn that the inn where he’d been staying had been burned to ash that very evening. Another time, the feeling had saved him from a huntsman’s arrow—or so he told others, though he privately suspected it might’ve belonged to Lord Fallowey and had something to do with his wife’s recent infidelity—and in yet a third episode, he’d narrowly escaped capture by the Agasi Imperial Navy, which would’ve meant a fortune in stolen cargo lost to the authorities. His crew had both sworn him born under a lucky sign and cursed him as being in league with the Demon Lord Belloth, but whatever its source, the feeling had never yet led Fynn astray. Unfortunately, this time Fynnlar couldn’t heed its warning to flee.

  He reached into his pocket and retrieved several gold pieces. Lowering his arm, he reached back and let the gold fall into the coat pocket of his informant.

  “Nice doing business with you,” the man said into his wine. “Friends and fellows.”

  “Friends and fellows,” Fynn murmured. He tossed a couple of coins on the table and got up, carefully not looking at the man still seated behind him.

  Out on the street, he called for his horse, but he was immensely troubled now.

  Shade and darkness! What in Tiern’aval has Ean gotten himself into? He would have to do a considerable amount of investigating, which was going to hurt his already spare coffer.

  But first, to find some place in this damnable city that offers a decent bottle of wine.

  A man had to have his priorities.

  Twenty-two

  ‘Veiled women, like zanthyrs and gypsies, cannot be trusted.’

  – Prince Radov abin’Hadorin of M’Nador

  Trell started awake to find Balaji standing over him, and never a more unsettling experience there was. The youth wore his usual sapphire robes, so bright against his flawless caramel skin, and Trell was sure that Balaji’s wheat-gold eyes knew far more than they should—just like his smile. Balaji seemed to hide all the secrets of the universe behind his perfect white teeth.

  “Good morning, Trell of the Tides,” the youth greeted in his amiable way. “Today we part, I am sorry to say. But the Mage has left you some farewell gifts.” He lifted a bundle he was holding and set it down at the foot of the bed. “When you are ready, be pleased to find me outside. No hurry.” With that, he left.

  Feeling on edge, Trell sat up and rubbed his eyes. It was never a pleasant experience to wake only to find an enemy standing over you, to know they had been there while you slept and could have claimed your life at any moment. But Balaji wasn’t an enemy…was he? Trell wondered why Balaji alone made him feel so edgy and uncomfortable when none of his cousins had the same effect.

  The idea of beginning his quest in true soon banished these uneasy thoughts, however, and Trell threw off the sheet and got up to join the day. The bundle Balaji had left for him turned out to be—of all things—the drachwyr uniform: black pants and a quilted vest, and a heavy grey fleece tunic worked all over with elaborate embroidery—perfect for the coming winter if a little showy for his taste. There was also an oiled greatcloak lined in ermine, which would have been a valuable gift on its own, and a thick wool half-cloak lined in suede, both in a deep charcoal grey much the color of his eyes. The garments were made of expensive silks and heavy, soft-spun wools. Though they were of a utilitarian cut, they felt luxurious.

  Trell welcomed the gifts. His dun-colored clothes would stand out once he left the desert kingdoms on his way to…where was he headed?

  The Cairs. The Free Cities of Xanthe seemed as good as any place to start his search for himself, and he’d always wanted to visit them. The stories Graeme had told him about life in the Cairs...

  Trell dressed and then walked to the water pitcher and basin and splashed some water on his face. Looking into the mirror, he pushed wet hands through his perpetually tousled hair in a futile attempt to calm it. Then he gave the room one last look, grabbed his satchel and his sword, and swept aside the drapes, belting on his blade as he said his good-byes to the Mage’s sa’reyth.

  Outside in the bright morning, he looked around for Balaji but found Vaile instead. She was seated with Jaya among a grouping of plush chairs set out beneath a tasseled gazebo. Both women were sipping Khurdish kaffe from little porcelain cups.

  Vaile glanced up when she heard Trell approach, and her elegant features formed into a mysterious sort of smile that both beckoned and simultaneously excluded him. “Good morning, Trell of the Tides.” Her emerald eyes took in his unruly hair. “Rough night?”

  Trell peered up at his hair beneath his brows. He reached a hand to push at a recalcitrant curl that seemed to want to stand up despite his best efforts. “Odd morning,” he replied, still wondering why Balaji unsettled him. He sank down onto a chair next to Vaile. A silver pot of the kaffe and a number of porcelain cups sat on the table before them.

  “Please help yourself,” Jaya offered, eyeing him as she sipped at her drink, her odd tangerine eyes unreadable beneath a headdress of dangling citrine stones. As Trell was pouring the kaffe, Jaya offered, “Balaji walks on clouds. Soundless. Do not let him trouble you.”

  Trell glanced up at her in surprise.

  “He wakes all of us each morning,” she explained in answer to the question in his eyes. “He is the sentry of the dawn.”

  “He Who Walks the Edge of the World,” Trell murmured.

  “Told you his name, I see.” She looked amused. “Ours is an old langua
ge, older than mankind.”

  Trell sipped his drink and watched her over the rim.

  She looked thoughtful and held her cup with both hands. “Much has changed since we lived among the kingdoms of men.”

  “Much has changed even since the wars,” Vaile agreed sadly. “There is little magic left in the southern lands, and less in the north. Only Agasan remembers, and the Empress holds tight reins over the Sormitáge and the Adepts born into her domain.”

  Jaya sighed and nodded. “The Citadel was a great loss. Now all that remain to teach in the east are the scholars from Jeune with only a partial knowledge of their craft.”

  An entering Náiir snorted at that. “Scholars indeed,” he commented as he sat down next to Jaya with a long sigh—too long for so early in the morning. He was once more dressed in his usual loose black robes. He winked at Trell by way of hello then added, “Novices compared to the Adepts of our day.”

  Jaya sighed and shook her head. “As ever, Balance plays its hand. The traitors who survived the wars did not stand with those who might teach them; instead, they cowered in the shadows while the war played out. Now shadows are all that is left for them to learn from.”

  Náiir and Vaile gazed at her with expressions of regret. “It is a tragedy beyond measure that only the cowards were left to carry on,” Náiir observed, “and now the realm suffers their demise. This, my friends, is Malachai’s legacy.”

  Vaile shook her head in sad agreement. “Alorin is out of Balance. And magic is dying.” She lifted her green eyes and caught Trell’s gaze, and her expression softened into a smile. “But this is grim talk for the beginnings of a fair adventure. We have last night still on our minds, Trell of the Tides.”

  Trell nodded in understanding. “How did it end with them?”

  “The only way it could,” Náiir said, sighing. “Ramu gave them their options. Save for a few, the rest chose to fight rather than give their oaths to the First Lord. Ramu let them do their worst—”