"No." Jurasel surged to his feet, eyes alight. "Not full circle. There was no free magic in that place, but our fed enchantments didn't lapse. And the outer shield is the weaker. Our fists will do us some good, so long as we pack them beforehand."
"Even so." Aristide's attention was on Chenar, who had gone shockingly white as he stared from Jurasel to Aristide. "Suldar cannot be maintaining the outer shield, which suggests it is a more traditional enchantment with either a large and well-hidden power store, or some kind of feeding mechanism. If we prepare sufficient shields, scries, dispells and demolitions, we may be able to force our way beyond the corridor."
"And where's the rub?" Captain Djol was ever-focused. "You were telling us we're out of time."
"Yes. The question of why you were brought here has always been a pivotal one. Even with all our strength combined, we are no match for Suldar. It is possible that the power born of the deaths of so many true-mages might be enough to overwhelm her, but if that was the case surely our stay here would have been a very short one."
"Cheerful." Seylon was dry. "I've had a few ideas on that count. Do you suppose the Fair don't live in your Darest because when they do they find themselves casting spells quite without meaning to?"
"Very likely. I suspect that when she lived Dawn possessed, if not Crown-bond, then something very similar. She has a link to the land itself, and it is that which allows her reach beyond her prison to touch any of her...parent race. But Telsandar has become Darest, overrun by a people who Dawn could not affect. Darest also currently possesses very few true-mages, which no doubt made a boat full of them a gift of fortune. Her power is limited without physical form, and she cannot be entirely certain that she will succeed against Suldar. So she has taken the opportunity to adapt to changing conditions." His mouth flattened. "Even if we succeed in leaving today, Darest may have become unliveable for true-mages."
The last couple of days of black emptiness became suddenly explicable. Disaster for Darest, and exile for this man who lived and breathed his kingdom. Because It had found a key to controlling human true-mages, and the door was already unlocked. They had moved too slow.
"But we can leave." Prince Chenar didn't care about Darest's future. He was transformed, lit from within. "Now." It was a demand. Rydan followed him to his feet, looking near to tears with relief.
"We cannot be certain this new gate will return us to the corridor." This was Aurak Bes, who would always see the weakness in any rash plan. "Let alone be sure of breaking through the second shield. Blast our way through a shield buried beneath a mountain? This seems to me a most risky idea, especially when we will only be able to rely on what we prepare. We will not be able to adjust to the conditions we face."
"We can't just wait here, Sir," Seylon pointed out. "And, after all, if the attempt fails the first gate should allow us to return to the valley. We can rest and try again tomorrow. Find something that will work."
Jurasel, watching Chenar with leonine indulgence, added: "But time's running out," and smiled to himself before looking back at Aristide. "What did you mean by that? Why do we need to leave today, now?"
"Before our experiments interrupted her, Dawn was becoming more and more adept at making use of us, better able to overcome the resistance of even the most naturally shielded. From what I could see this morning, she has nearly completed that adaptation, which makes our presence useful mainly as battle pawns. Today is our last chance to leave. Tomorrow she will usurp more than our powers."
"No-one's suggesting we stay another moment, Couerveur." Chenar's impatience was tangible, his sudden energy making him as vivid a creature as Jurasel. "When do we start?"
Aristide's eyes narrowed, but before he could speak Rydan flung up a hand, staring down at himself.
"No! Not now!"
But the trickle of power could not be denied, growing rapidly to a flood. Casting. All of them were casting. Even Princess Aloren. Even Kassen. Only Gentian and Aristide had escaped, and the princeling, Chiall, who was too young to be capable. The rest were pouring out power at an extraordinary rate, their faces tensing with shock and effort.
"You were expecting this!" Chenar spat the accusation between gasps. The power output of this casting was so far above previous efforts he had little breath left to spare.
Aristide looked at him, then crossed wordlessly to Kassen, drawing shield over the girl. Hurting and indignant, she flinched away, but then seemed to realise what he was doing and held still as power coruscated around her, the outflow choked by the shield.
"What's the intent?" Seylon asked brusquely, and grimaced as Prince Chiall, arms about Kestia's neck, began to wail from fright. "Aristide..."
"There is none." With immense concentration, Aristide succeeded in perfecting the shield around Kassen. Her outflow cut off immediately and she fell limp. "It's preparation for tomorrow. A power store."
"Gods."
Aristide turned away to construct a new shield about Desseron, and again began methodically choking off the casting. It was a performance Gentian couldn't match even at full health, so she went instead to Princess Kestia. Chiall's panic was growing, the infant flailing and clutching by turns, and the Cyan princess was barely able to keep upright.
"Highness. Do you want me to hold him?"
Kestia could not hide the flash of suspicion and affront, but she followed it with a glance at Desseron, standing white-faced but upright within a halo of flashes and sparks. Whatever Gentian's role in all this, Dariens were not quite enemies. "Take care," she said, stiffly.
With arms full of a now screaming and kicking child, Gentian staggered across to Kassen: "Sit down with me." She moved a few more steps away, then sank to her knees in the grass.
Kassen was slow to follow, but she did, brusquely detaching Chiall from Gentian and hugging and bouncing him while he howled louder still. In a few moments Desseron joined them and wrapped her arms about both of her siblings, which at least had the effect of muffling the noise.
"Can you stop this?" she asked over Kassen's shoulder.
"I wish I could." Inadequate words, feeble in the face of the accusation in the girl's voice. Gentian struggled with the mounting wave of responsibility. None of them would be here, if not for her. Their lives would not be at risk, and the disaster looming over Darest would not happen. "There's never been anything I could do."
"Then what were you going to suggest? Under the Aurak's precepts?"
"I don't think that will make any difference now."
Understanding rose in the girl's eyes, but Gentian looked away from it. She hadn't known what coming home would mean, but she'd been aware almost from the start that she was the cause of this mess. If putting herself out of reach had indeed been an option she'd left it too late, had done nothing since she got here except sit between disquiet and hope. Become senserel by behaving like one.
The casting stopped. Not all at once. Jurasel, Aurak Bes and Aloren lasted longest, slumping back drained and gasping almost at the same time. Even those shielded by Aristide were shaken, and the rest had collapsed one by one, most into brief unconsciousness. It had been a fast, furious vomiting of power and when it was done they were left to look up at a perfect globe of raw magic, sitting directly above the remains of the statue Gentian had just destroyed. It was scarcely visible, an ominous ripple in the sky.
Aloren laughed. She had subsided into a tangle of long limbs and elaborate gown, her hair streaming over a face shining with sweat. But she retained her magnificence all the same, and her eyes were glorious and alive.
"It would, after all, be a tremendous anti-climax if we left at anything but the last moment," she said, her voice rich with appreciation. "I trust you plan to bundle us out of this place a scarce moment before dawn?" Her heavy lids lowered. "I will at least give you the credit of assuming you would have spared us that if you could."
"It would certainly have been easier," Aristide said, without humour. "We will leave as soon as you are able." He glanced a
round the circle of royalty, most of whom were in no condition to argue, let alone get to the valley wall and try to blast their way through shields. "Midnight?"
"We were discussing risk." Lines of exhaustion and anger made Kestia more human, but no less absolute. "Before we rush to try this escape, I would like to hear just how dangerous it is." When he hesitated she added flatly, "Guess."
Aristide lifted one hand, then let it drop, suggesting a magnitude beyond measure. "Very," he said baldly. "Extremely. We cannot wait to fully recover your strength, and the spells we prepare might not be everything we need to break through. While the external shield is the weaker, it must still be immense. We will not be able to bolster our own shields against backlash in a confined space, and cannot guarantee our return here. I would not give us a more than even chance of survival."
"And if we simply stay here?"
"Rather less."
ooOoo
Gentian watched Aristide tidying up. Explaining patiently to Chenar that they were unlikely to have recovered sufficient strength before midnight, then checking over Captain Djol as he belatedly revived, and consigning him to the care of Aspen. Conferring with Seylon, who had rounded up his Cyan charges with an air of long practice.
Wondering once again if it were true that Seylon had been involved in an attempt on King Aluster's life, Gentian turned her attention to Suldar's building. The globe of raw magic distorted the lines of the architrave, but the music flowed on regardless. Gentian could not feel this was a good thing: if there was a way out of this valley, surely the Fae would be encouraging them toward it.
Or was it simply too late for Suldar as well? Having had her defences breached, she might not care about the fate of Its tools. Gentian had to admit she was herself less concerned with imminent death than the consequences of Darest being unliveable for true-mages. Her parents. Goldenrod. They would not be able to stand leaving it. And Aristide, of course. Aristide Couerveur, exiled from Darest? No wonder he'd been devastated.
"How are you feeling?"
Her turn to be tidied away. With no intention of being sent to her room, Gentian looked into the eclipse and wondered if she had imagined yesterday's defeat. She felt oddly inspired to hit him for recovering so quickly while she floundered in the same place.
"No longer perpetually exhausted," she said, as briskly as she could manage. "If we breach the outer shield, It will be free in Darest."
"But without Suldar's strength."
She was on the verge on asking him more when he cut her off, holding out his hand.
"There is something I wish to show you."
Gentian blinked, then took his hand. He immediately drew power: true-magic flight, lifting them both from the ground and straight up toward the false sky. She jerked in surprise, then adjusted to the sudden weightlessness, and gazed out at the counterfeit Darest appearing over the rim of the valley.
"Stop a moment."
He paused obediently, hovering near the apex of the dome, and she stared north over the shoulder of an illusory mountain to a dip of valley before some low, distant hills. "If that were real, we would be able to just make out Goldenrod," she said. She had very much wanted to see her home.
Aristide didn't respond, starting them moving again, heading directly for the obelisk that had been their door. He set them down on the walkway and let go her hand, glancing back down into the valley before gesturing to the right.
"This is the house Princess Desseron spoke of, which had visitors after the disaster," he said.
Beginning to feel curious, Gentian followed him, wondering what discovery he had made and why it was important now they were on the verge of leaving. It was one of the larger estates, the grounds separated from the walkway by a tall fence, with a sprawling building some distance in, overlooking a sharp drop. Aristide led her to a doorway through a high stone wall.
She was immediately distracted by the garden. The boundary was very distinct, and the place settled around her like a warm cloak, reminding her painfully of Goldenrod. This had been someone's haven, a retreat, and they had loved and been loved by it. Everywhere she looked her eye was delighted by the natural and the exquisite. A pale stone bench gleaming in an ivy-dark nook. A single crimson highlight against a riot of interesting foliage. A bright corner, illusory sunlight warming a patch of grass surrounded by flowering annuals, with a stone railing and overhanging branches forming a window over the valley. Espaliered cherry trees made geometry against the high wall in an echo of the square frames of the glass-filled door leading into the house. It was graceful and full of joy and she let it draw her into its tiny rooms, each a different note in a glorious whole.
She drank it all in, feeling much revived, then remembered Aristide and said: "I'm sorry, what was it that you wanted to show me?"
"The garden. It seemed to me one you would like."
Gentian looked at him. He did not smile, or offer meaningful glances, or do anything but meet her eyes directly. And when he saw that she had understood, he turned away.
Aspen would tell her to shout with joy. Or throw herself on this Diamond Couerveur, who had gone out of his way to show her a garden. A man of rigid priorities, telling her there was a conversation he had chosen to postpone. Gentian gripped the balustrade, then said:
"Why doesn't Suldar kill us?"
He considered the question, setting aside his reasons for taking her to this garden, as they had to be set aside while he balanced the tempers of the heirs of the West.
"While the shields appear to block our attempts to reach the Gods, a true-mage death is a source of enormous power. Most likely Suldar dare not risk killing any of us, particularly you or I with our links to the land itself, in case the shields are pierced. The attack with the swordsman certainly suggests that our deaths constitute a danger, although not the primary aim of our antagonist.
"The question I have been asking myself is why Suldar did not place us all under the Preservation she held on the valley. Unfortunately there was little opportunity to study the mechanism of that casting."
"Similar to Castrem's Restraint," Gentian said, remembering the lizard. "Time slowed immensely, but still progressing. That wouldn't have stopped It from touching me – I remember a string of related experiments around the time I was six. The Restraint would hold me still and unaware, but when they released me I suffered all the physical consequences at once, and the after-effects lasted longer."
He considered this, then nodded. "I suspect the moment we entered this valley, Dawn had her victory. We cannot be sufficiently shielded to prevent the manipulations made through you, and death is, as ever, only a matter of time. Suldar is unquestionably charged with keeping her sister in check, and I cannot be certain she will not attempt to prevent our departure. I gamble on the possibility that the destruction of the outer shield will be, to her, the lesser of two evils."
"I'm beginning to see why she shuts us out. We are instruments of ruin."
Too far away to hear Suldar's music, Gentian gazed down at the centre of the valley. Did the ancient Fae feel nothing but defeat, or did the prospect of the end of her long imprisonment make her heart beat a fraction faster?
Gentian dare not allow her own hopes rise too high. Thoughts of what would come after escape needed to wait until that escape had been achieved.
Chapter Nineteen
"Sleep and eat, sleep and eat. We have returned to our infancy."
Aspen, driven from his bed by hunger, made an effort to focus on a tall figure by the stair. Rua.
"Most infants don't feel quite so sat upon."
"It is to be hoped."
"Want me to fix something for you too?" He held up a peach.
She laughed. "You truly have found a calling, eager boy. Does it please you so to feed us?"
He shrugged. "Can't just sit around looking decorative. Feed the troops, my contribution to our adventures."
"A very necessary thing. And why I am here as well. Where shall we start?"
&nb
sp; Aspen handed her a basket, and led the way outside, pondering a note of reservation in her voice. Rua must have opinions about being useful as well, or possibly living up to the strengths you'd been born with. But Aspen knew well enough his abilities, and tasty afternoon breakfasts were more than he'd originally expected to bring to this little jaunt.
His stomach complained, so he munched on the peach as he worked with Rua to put something more substantial together. He should have eaten before he slept, but it'd been enough to get Leton inside and then decorously stumble off to his own room. Fatigue and hunger would compete for their attention for hours yet, and he–
He stopped, then forced himself to think it through. They had been wrung dry. And in less than half a day they were supposed to crack open a shield big enough to hide a mountain.
Would they be recovered enough by midnight? Aspen had over-extended his casting a couple of times in the past, and knew this deep-seated exhaustion wouldn't be erased simply by a long rest. It would be days before he'd be at full strength.
"All in the timing," he muttered, and caught the faint nod Rua gave in response.
"To go into battle under strength is to gamble your life," she said. "But there are times when it is necessary."
"Saving yourself from the wolf by jumping off the cliff." Aspen sighed, and began to dish out.
With impeccable timing Hapt-lo Dest loomed in the doorway, and Rua sent him upstairs with trays for the Aurak and the Divine Aloren, following with a second. Aspen, aware that the saecstra was not anywhere nearby, covered plates with handy bowls, and then took a tray into a sunny room featuring a Phoenix sprawled on a day bed.
Setting the tray on a sideboard, he took his own plate and sat down to enjoy a survey of ambition, only to discover ambition regarding him narrowly between cracked eyelids.
"What was cast?" Leton asked, his voice rough from sleep.
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