The Black Mage: Candidate
Page 25
“Your highness… Ry? I–I’m so sorry, I didn’t…” My brother’s neck flushed pink as he stammered on. “I–I came to find my sister, a-and I saw the hallway was empty. I was worried and thought to check…” Derrick’s voice trailed off as his eyes darted from one side of the dark chamber to the other, clearly getting an idea for why that was.
“Thanks for checking.” The prince’s gaze assessed my brother with a slight frown. “Wasn’t that door locked?”
Something pricked at the back of my spine.
“It couldn’t have been.” My brother wore an incredulous expression. “How else would I have gotten in?”
My eyes darted to my brother, and he looked away as he added. “There must have been a catch. It swung open a-and then I realized…”
Darren looked away, embarrassed as my brother. The moment couldn’t have been more awkward if he tried.
Derrick ducked his head. “I –I’ll let the two of you alone.”
“Derrick,” I suddenly called, “why were you looking for me?”
His head shot up but he didn’t meet my eyes. “I–I guess I don’t remember.”
The door shut and then it was just Darren and me in the dark. Only this time there were shadows creeping around my thoughts. Unease and fear were pounding at my chest. I pulled myself up off the table.
Darren caught my arm. “You are leaving?” He sounded so confused.
A part of me wanted to stay. To forget everything and recapture that moment, but… “I –Can you find me a replacement, tonight?”
“Of course…” He swallowed. “I’m sorry—I never meant to make you—”
“It wasn’t that!” I cut him off quickly, blushing furiously and grateful for the dark. “I–I just…” Gods help me. “I haven’t taken any of the potions to… help keep away a child… I… I wouldn’t want to until a-after the war.”
“Oh.” The back of his neck was as red as my face, I was sure of it. “I… I, uh, can ask one of the healers to… if you want?”
I was ready to melt into a puddle of humiliation. But there was another part of me that begged not to brush his offer aside. She wouldn’t let me run off in a childish fit; she wanted this. “I –I do.” I squeaked the reply, and then ran from the room—confident my fit of “embarrassment” would be enough to explain my rough exit.
Darren didn’t need to know the real reason was Derrick. To find my brother before he had time to recover. So I could corner him and force him to explain.
Only two guards—me, and a mage named Ike—had a key to the room. Ike took his role as seriously as Paige took hers. I had never seen him so much as yawn on duty once. The only others were the current Council of Magic and the Crown. Derrick was neither.
****
“You stole it from me, didn’t you? That day in practice.” I didn’t wait for a reply as I shoved my brother against the wooded walls, hissing. “That time I thought I lost it. But I didn’t, did I? The next day when you told me you had found it? You had taken it and made a copy!”
“I—” His chest rose and fell as he panted for breath. His arms were twice as wide, his frame easily two heads above my own—but just now he looked small, so much smaller than I.
“Why did you need it?” I rammed his shoulders, my fingers bruising upon impact. “Why? WHY DID YOU NEED IT, DERRICK?” No one else was around. The building was eerily quiet except for the soft crunch of hay and the shifting of hooves.
Everyone else was at dinner. Or abed. Or on duty. The closest guards were a quarter mile away: a couple at the palace gates, the others the barrack walls. It was Derrick’s shift at the stables.
Or it was supposed to be. Except he had been attempting to break into the Council chambers. Under the guise of visiting me.
My brother stopped panting and looked me straight in the eyes. “You know why,” he said softly.
“No! No, I don’t!” My fist hit the wall by his neck. A trickle of blood dribbled down from my knuckles to the floor.
“You do.” Derrick didn’t falter under my gaze.
“No, I…” I did. My legs gave out from under me, and I caught the wall just before I fell. “Oh gods, oh gods, oh…” I slid down until I was sitting in the hay, my knees pulled up to my chest. The name spilled over on my tongue like a disease. “You are a rebel.”
Derrick sat down next to me and said nothing.
“You… you d-didn’t come back for me.” My breath was coming out hard and fast, and I was seconds away from heaving. “You c-came here for them.”
My whole world rose up to meet me. Hot flashes of sweat and my skin became clammy and pale as I dropped on my hands, vomiting into the musty straw, giant swells of dust and dirt clogging my throat.
Derrick held my hair back and waited for me to stop coughing, handing me his water skin until I had washed my mouth out and spat. Then he spoke.
“They aren’t what you think.”
“Cold-blooded murderers?” I choked the words out like fire. “They tried to kill me, Derrick. My first year of the apprenticeship. In Mahj. They tried to kill Darren. They killed Caine, they killed others, they attack our cities, they…” My voice cracked. “They killed Wren.”
“They were after the salt mines, not you or Darren.” His tone was sharp. “If the apprentices hadn’t tried to play the people’s hero their leader would never have attacked. The rebels care about weakening the Jerar coin through its exports, not killing off its youth. Finding out a prince of Jerar was present though…” He paused. “Well, they thought they might kill two birds with one stone. The Crown is our enemy, Ryiah.” He exhaled. “You are just too blind to see it.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about.” I felt sick. Twisted, gutted, like it was all a cruel test of will. Turn my little brother against me. Make him the enemy.
It was the worst kind of test. And one I would fail. I couldn’t make a move to arrest him.
“They tried to recruit both of us, you know.” He sounded pained. “In Ferren’s Keep.” No rebel attacks in the north… I had always wondered why. “When Nyx offered you the position after your apprenticeship, it was because she knew you would be powerful. She sent for Ian the moment you accepted. His parents are rebels—” No. “So was he. He’d been gathering information at Langli, helping her keep track of shipments—but then she asked for him to help watch you. To test you. After your engagement to the prince…” He had been there for me. Darren had been right all along, just not for the reason he thought. “She knew they would have to be careful. So she called on Ian… And then when you continued to mope she decided to recruit me. She brought on Jacob since his father was already one of them.”
They were rebels. All of them. All quietly recruiting the lowborns to fight for their cause. ‘South the Snout?’ It was just another rhyme to turn the northerners against us. Why they had refrained from recruiting highborns. Even Ella hadn’t been offered a position—but Ray, a rank lower, had.
Derrick’s eyes met mine, and they were full of grief. “I didn’t know, Ry. They didn’t tell me anything until that first time you were called away to the palace. Sir Gavin’s unit is where they put all the new recruits. Take them on missions, bond with them. Learn their secrets and if they pass the test—if they choose one another over the Crown in offhanded discussions, she promotes them. And then they tell.” Ray. He was promoted while I was in Devon.
“They didn’t promote me or Ian, of course,” Derrick said. “Nyx needed us to get to you. You weren’t engaged with your unit. You kept training for that blasted Candidacy and defending Darren. You brought the coin, and I thought it would be better—you had passed a test— but then you withdrew again. No one could trust you.” His eyes flared in anger. “I begged and pleaded for Sir Gavin to give you a chance. But Ian wasn’t convinced. He said you were too close to the Crown. That it didn’t matter how much you could bring to our cause, you were too much a risk. That you would betray us to him.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I forced down a deep lungful of air. “Derrick, the Crown doesn’t have enough coin, it can’t possibly support everyone when Caltoth is sending attacks…” My eyes grew wide. “The rebels, Derrick. Are they working with Caltoth?” And why, if he was a rebel, why was he telling me all of this?
Unless he knew I would never report him.
“Ry, Caltoth isn’t the enemy.”
“Then who is?” I spat the words back in his face. “The Crown? King Blayne? Darren? Me?” My eyes were swelling with tears, and I didn’t bother to hide them away. I wanted Derrick to see me. His sister. His own flesh and blood. “TELL ME, DERRICK. WHO IS THE ENEMY?”
I wanted him to face me and say it. Because I was struggling to name my own.
My brother had the decency to look shamed, his cheeks flushing that of a stained rose. “It’s not that easy, I—”
“TELL ME, DERRICK!”
“King Lucius.”
I bit back a laugh. It choked at my lungs with the dust, and I was coughing for close to a minute before it finally stopped. “Is that the best that you can do?” I sneered. “A dead king. My own brother can’t even think of a decent lie. YOUR PEOPLE KILLED HIM NOT TWO MONTHS AGO AND YOU ALREADY FORGOT?” I was hysterical. He was hysterical. My own brother, the world’s worst liar. How had I missed it over the course of a year?
“No.” Derrick squared his shoulders and shook me. “I’m not lying, Ry. King Lucius has been staging this war since the beginning. He had a sister, did you know that?”
I stopped laughing.
“Princess Kyra. She died on Caltothian soil—she was sick, it would have happened regardless. But his parents blamed their neighbor, and why not? Caltoth is the richest nation, you know.” I did. “Lucius told his advisors he wanted to expand two months before his wife’s death.”
“How would you possibly know? It’s just a lie they are saying to get you to join their cause!”
My brother ignored my question. “One of them, Raphael, disagreed. He didn’t speak the truth to his king, but he warned his younger sister in the north. She was a head knight at the time in one of the regiments in Ferren’s Keep. She went by Nyx.”
Commander Nyx?
“They—with the help of their most trusted friends—plotted to kill the king. It was the only way to stop him. They knew Queen Lillian would be a manageable queen and better, she wasn’t aware of her husband’s plans. They never wanted to eliminate the Crown, Ryiah; they just wanted a ruler that wasn’t corrupt and trying to cause a war between nations that would cost thousands of lives. They knew the princes would be better under the mother’s guidance than the father.”
Derrick stirred at the straw. “But Raphael mixed up the wines. Queen Lillian drank from the wrong cup. So King Lucius slaughtered the entire room that night. He probably guessed it was intended for him, after all, and he used the event as the first claim to Caltothian attacks.”
I wanted to argue, to protest… but another part of me wanted to listen. I stayed silent. That part of me that wanted to believe my brother, to know he was not a traitor—it wouldn’t be quieted.
And worst, what he was saying, it made sense.
“Lucius staged the border attacks, Ry. For years. Nyx started to suspect and sent some of her most trusted men to investigate. It was just small ones, innocent ones at first. But they started to grow. And knowing Raphael’s secrets, she knew there was more to it.” He sucked in a breath. “Nyx sent a band of emissaries to Caltoth. She had them petition his court. King Horrace claimed it was a farce. If he had been allowing the attacks he could have just as easily executed her spies, but instead he listened.” My brother paused. “Horrace might have had the coin, but he didn’t have the strength to combat a war. So he’s spent years beseeching King Joren’s favor, preparing him for King Lucius’s claims. Because Lucius was hiring Caltothian fugitives, Ry, fugitives and bandits and assassins. He was paying them to attack his own people.
“NO.” I tried to stand and caught myself against the wall. My limbs were like jelly. “Why would a king stage a war on his own people?”
“What better way to win over his people’s support? What better way to show the other countries Caltoth had broken the Great Compromise?” Derrick paused. “That didn’t mean there weren’t raids from their own. Greedy lords that wanted more. Assassins that thought to pocket Lucius’s coin and use it to their own gain… Like Ferren. Nyx told me you recalled something during the attack.”
I sucked in a breath. “You know the orders as well as I do, Wade, no survivors.” “Not if we don’t tell them.” “Do you really want to take that chance? Two times a traitor would only bring a slow and painful death.”
“Lucius paid Caltothian assassins to attack one of the patrolling regiments during the mock battle. He had never expected his son to be far enough to stop it. You and Darren and the rest of your year were supposed to be in the keep.” Eve. Something tugged at my lungs. She had died not to save us from Caltothian killers—but our own king.
She had died in vain.
“The lives we lost that day, Ryiah. They weren’t because of King Horrace. They were the final proof Lucius needed to convince the others the Great Compromise was broken. From there he just needed to secure the Pythian’s hand.”
I was breaking, and it was all I could do to breathe. And then: Wren. And the others.
“You think the rebels are so noble?” I spat. “But they were willing to kill us in the desert, Derrick! You say that was for control of trade? Well, what about Montfort? What about then?” My voice trembled and caught. “Were you one of them? Did you somehow manage to escape—”
Derrick shook his head vehemently. “That wasn’t us, Ry.”
“You said the Crown is their enemy,” I choked. “And they killed him, Derrick. Lucius is dead. They killed Wren. They tried to kill Blayne. They killed—”
“IT WASN’T US!” Derrick stood and grabbed both my arms, shaking me. “I swear to you, Ry, it wasn’t the rebels. We wanted Lucius dead but it wasn’t us. I was never there, and the rebels they caught, they weren’t us—”
“HOW WOULD YOU EVEN KNOW?” I roared. “You just nod your head at every little thing Commander Nyx tells you! She’s the rebel leader, isn’t she?”
“She is but—”
“But you claim it isn’t you!” I shoved him away. “Lucius was the rebel’s enemy and now he is dead. How convenient. Who were those ‘fake’ rebels, then? Another group of fugitives set against the first? Pythians who were willing to kill their king’s heir to the throne? If the Pythians wanted Jerar they could have just struck an alliance with Caltoth; they needn’t have bothered with the farce of their negotiations! The death of their crown princess!” The words were tearing at my throat. “And the Boreans? They are the weakest country of all! Emperor Liang stands to gain nothing from the attack! The only answer is the rebels or Caltoth!”
I advanced on my brother, anger giving me the strength to stand tall. “Don’t you see, Derrick? You’ve been played. King Horrace played all of you. He got the rebels to do his dirty work while he sat there laughing on his throne, sending his armies to weaken our border. Even if what you said about Lucius was true—which I might believe for some, King Horrace could have taken advantage. Maybe those men weren’t your own rebels in Montfort. Perhaps they were soldiers of Jerar bought by the Caltothians! Did you ever think of that?”
Derrick glowered. “The ambassador shouted, ‘For Caltoth.’ Someone was clearly trying to frame Horrace and the rebels in one.”
“Or perhaps,” I said through clenched teeth, “Horrace really was condoning the attack and didn’t care who knew. Or m
aybe the Caltothians aren’t working with you at all, and Nyx bought off the ambassador!”
“The north can barely afford to outfit its own infantry!” Derrick raged. “You are a mage! You know nothing of what it is like to be a lowborn soldier with nothing to gain. The Crown sends us nothing. Nyx have no idea what it’s like! Nyx would never betray us because she is one of us—unlike you!”
I tried a calming breath to prevent the rage from making me say something I would regret. I didn’t know who the enemy was anymore, but whoever it was they were still out there. And I needed to convince my brother not to play right into the palm of their hand. “The enemy could be anyone, Derrick. Even your own.”
“There is someone you forgot.” My brother turned on me, twin storm clouds thrashing in his eyes. “Someone who was conveniently not injured in the Montfort attack.”
“There were a lot of people not—”
“Someone important.” Derrick took a step forward, backing me against the wall. His whole body was trembling. “Someone who stood to gain everything. Did you ever stop to wonder why?”
“Blayne?” I snorted. “Did you forget? He was poisoned.”
“No.” My brother’s eyes flashed. “Not Blayne. No one knows if King Lucius shared his schemes with his sons. But there is one who stood to gain the most out of the king and his heir’s deaths. Someone who could have decided it was time to take the throne—”
My brother stumbled back as my hand slapped across his face. Tears were stinging my eyes as I advanced on him, screaming, “DARREN WOULD NEVER!”
“Wouldn’t he?” My brother caught my hand before I could hit him again. “You are blinded by love, Ry. Did you forget Alex? Did you forget what you let happen to our own brother because you were too afraid to stand up to the Crown?”
“Darren never wanted that!” I yanked free of his grip. “His father was evil! Darren hated him! You have no idea—”
“Perhaps he killed him over hate.” My brother started to walk away.
“Derrick!” I chased after my brother. “We need to tell them what you told me. Darren and Blayne need to know the truth about their father!”