Her eyes widened in response and she lowered her gaze.
“Please, my Lord King,” she said, “I meant no disrespect. If you will not allow me to ride, I would rather wait to receive Lord Penamor here, than be carted down to the river on that accursed litter.”
Akmael placed his fingers beneath Taesara’s chin and brought her gaze back to his. Truly she had a beautiful face, and in the years they had known each other, she had never failed in her obedience.
Perhaps I was wrong to close my heart to her.
“Very well, my Lady Queen. You will ride today to greet your uncle.”
Relief and gratitude brightened her countenance. “Thank you, my Lord King. You are most generous.”
Trumpets sounded as they passed through the castle gates. The procession descended along the single, long road that wound from the Fortress of Vortingen toward the city square. From there, they bore south along a broad promenade toward the banks of the Furma River.
News of the King’s passing rippled before them, carried on the shouts of excited adults and scampering children. The people flocked to witness their progress, crowding the streets and hanging from windows, wishing the King a long life and throwing blossoms in the path of Taesara’s horse.
“A son!” they cried. “Gods grant our beautiful Queen a son.”
Taesara glowed at their attention and reached out to touch the hands of the commoners. In a few short years, she had garnered the love of this city, with her beauty, sweet demeanor, and her gentle attentions to the cause of the poor and the sick.
The horses plodded over cobblestones at a tedious pace, as befit the occasion, taking them slowly along a street that sloped downward and veered right. Rounding a bend, Akmael could see the sparkle of the Furma, its turbid jade waters stretching wide toward the opposite shore.
The fore of Penamor’s barge was just visible beyond the last of the stone buildings, sage-colored flags of Roenfyn fluttering over its wooden deck. Though the ambassador had already docked, protocol obligated him to wait until the King and his entourage arrived before disembarking.
“My Lady,” Akmael turned to his Queen, curious about this uncle she appeared so fond of, “tell me once again how—”
A terrified scream interrupted his question, followed by shouts and the ring of swords pulled from their scabbards.
Gasps pulsed through the crowd. People scattered, crushing hapless onlookers against walls and forcing street urchins up the sides of buildings.
Taesara’s horse reared, eyes wide and nostrils flaring. Coming down on all four hooves, it scuffled backwards until Akmael caught the bridle and forced the animal to be still. The Queen clung breathless to her saddle, face pinched and pale.
“Are you hurt?” Akmael asked.
She shook her head, though her eyes were wide and she trembled like a mouse in wintertime.
“Are you certain?” he insisted.
“Yes, my Lord King, I was just…Kaeva has never…and I thought I saw…” Her words faltered into a startled cry, gaze fixed upon the road just ahead of them.
Akmael turned to see several of his guards had dismounted. Their swords were drawn around a barefoot girl. Her cheeks and sandy brown hair were smudged with soot. Beneath a russet cloak she wore a soiled nightshift. Her lower lip trembled, tears welled in her eyes. She let out long, terrible wail.
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to work!” she cried, looking frantically around her. “Where is she? Where’s Maga Eolyn?”
To his shock, Akmael recognized the child. He dismounted and strode toward her.
“With care, my Lord King,” one of the guards said.
“She’s a child, Galison.”
“Not a child. Some sort of demon, perhaps. Did you not see? She appeared out of thin air.”
Silence had descended upon the crowd. The guards watched Ghemena with wary expressions, as if she were the dead come to walk among them.
“I know this girl,” Akmael said. “She is a student of Maga Eolyn. Lower your swords.”
“But my Lord King—”
“Do as I say.”
The moment they sheathed their weapons, Ghemena bolted.
One of the guards anticipated her impulse and caught her. She kicked and punched and screamed even as he set her in front of the King.
“Ghemena,” Akmael said, but she was too engaged in battle with her captor to pay him heed. “Maga Ghemena!”
At this she quieted, looked around and then up at him with a puzzled expression. “Who are you?”
There was a low chuckle behind him. Akmael glanced back to see Mage Corey, who had dismounted and pushed his way to the front of the column.
“Oh, I remember now,” Ghemena said. “You’re the King. But I wasn’t supposed to come to you. Where’s Maga Eolyn?”
Akmael knelt on one knee. “Ghemena, how did you get here?”
After a moment of hesitation, she held up the silver web crafted by Akmael’s mother. “With this.”
Akmael’s heart turned cold. “How did you come by it? Did you steal it?”
“I’m a maga, not a thief!”
“How did you come by this jewel, Ghemena?”
An agonized expression broke across her face. She stumbled backwards and sank to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest. “She said I could use it to find her, if something bad happened. She said…”
Her small shoulders began to shake.
Akmael drew a sharp breath and asked with forced calm, “Ghemena, what has happened?”
“They burned everything! They attacked the Aekelahr and killed Maga Renate and took Mistress Adiana away. I was going to find Maga Eolyn so she could rescue everyone, but the web didn’t work! She promised it would! She did! Did I do it wrong? Is she dead, too?”
The child succumbed to a fit of weeping.
Akmael stood abruptly. His muscles were taut, his abdomen clenched in a deep and primitive rage. “Who attacked the Aekelahr, Ghemena?”
“I don’t know!” She scrambled to her feet, face puckered and crimson, eyes wild and angry. “But I left Tasha and Catarina alone. I have to go back. I have to go back now!”
She raised the jewel and spun it, but Akmael snatched it out of her hand. With an angry cry, Ghemena sprang upon him, clutching after the silver web, hissing, biting, and spitting like a rabid wolverine.
One of the guards dragged her off the King, but when the man lifted a hand to strike her Akmael stopped him. “She will not be mistreated!”
“My Lord King.” Corey stepped forward, eyes fixed upon the girl, his tone subdued yet assertive. “If you would allow me, I know an invocation that may calm her.”
Akmael nodded his consent. Corey approached the girl, set one palm upon her forehead and murmured a quiet spell. Ghemena ceased thrashing and closed her eyes, legs buckling beneath her. Corey caught the child, removed his cloak, and wrapped it around her slight figure.
“She is overwrought,” he said, “traumatized by whatever has happened and desperate to find the maga. I suggest we ask no more questions of her until she is rested and has had some proper food.”
How long will that be?
Akmael studied the jewel of his mother, cradled in the palm of his hand. He could be with Eolyn in a moment, in the space of a single breath.
“My Lord King, if I may ask,” Corey said quietly. “What is that device?”
“It was crafted by Queen Briana. It can to take me to Eolyn.”
“Just as it took the child?”
“Perhaps she did not invoke the spell correctly.”
“If Maga Eolyn entrusted her with this magic, she must have been certain the child would use it as intended. There is a reason it brought her to us instead, though I hesitate to guess what that reason might be.”
Corey’s voice broke momentarily, an odd contrast to his otherwise imperturbable demeanor. Akmael noted the tension around the mage’s eyes and realized that he, too, feared the worst.
“Until we understan
d what has befallen Moehn,” Corey said, “it is too great a risk, my Lord King, for you to try to find her alone.”
Sage words, yet unacceptable. Akmael closed a fist around his mother’s heirloom.
A single breath. A short spell.
Corey stepped close. “My Lord King, if we are to aid Maga Eolyn, we must first understand what she faces. I will take the girl back to the keep, look after her, and question her when she awakes. By the time you return with the ambassador of Roenfyn, we will have the answers we need in order to act.”
Akmael studied his cousin’s face. Though they were bound by the blood of East Selen, Corey was not what Akmael would call a trustworthy man. The mage was loyal only to his own interests, at times as difficult to decipher as a maga’s heart.
Still, Corey’s assistance had proven invaluable in the defeat of Ernan’s rebellion, and in truth, the mage had not yet failed to put his knowledge to the King’s service. Most importantly, he was the only person among Akmael’s subjects who valued Eolyn’s life above all else. If the girl carried any knowledge pertinent to Eolyn’s whereabouts, Corey would find it.
“Very well,” Akmael decided. “The girl is in your care. Report to me as soon as we arrive at the castle.”
Corey nodded.
Akmael returned to his steed, only to find his Queen doubled over on her brown mare, breath coming in short gasps. He rushed to Taesara’s side and took her hand. Her delicate fingers dug into his gloves like the talons of a hawk.
“Oh, my beloved King.” She sought his eyes, tears spilling onto pallid cheeks. “My Liege…forgive me.”
Eyes rolling back into her head, Taesara slipped from the saddle and fell into his arms.
Chapter Thirteen
Interrogation
Mechnes could not contain his fury at the child’s escape. He sent immediate word to the San’iloman, still about a day’s march from Moehn with the rest of their army.
Rishona’s arrival could not come soon enough. Mechnes hungered for their untamed nights, the delirium of her passion, the heady aroma of her skin flushed and damp from exertion.
The vision of Rishona naked and ravenous drove the Syrnte prince to such distraction that he spent his need on the servant Pashnari, even as he punished the woman for letting the child run free. It was a satisfying release achieved through vicious blows and brutal thrusts, evoking wails of remorse and pleas for mercy.
When he finished with Pashnari, Mechnes summoned the guards and demanded they bring Mistress Adiana.
After a moment of thought he added, “Fetch one of those waifs that were caught at the school, as well. Whichever one has the sweetest face. Secure her in the usual manner. I want her out of sight, but ready to appear on my signal.”
Mechnes paced the pavilion, restless and impatient. At times even the best of his men seemed slow at their task. When he realized Pashnari had not moved from where he had left her, crumpled and shivering on the floor, he kicked her in the ribs.
“Get up,” he growled. “Make yourself presentable. I may yet have use for you.”
Pashnari struggled to her feet, shoulders bent and eyes downcast. She did her best to smooth her torn robes and disheveled hair.
“Over there,” Mechnes nodded to a nearby corner. “Wait until I call for you.”
Bruised and repentant, Pashnari obeyed in silence.
Still his guards did not return.
Mechnes drummed his fingers against the polished wood table and opened one of several tomes brought by his men from the maga’s Aekelahr. It was a heavy volume, beautiful in script and illustrations, written in a language unrecognizable to him. He reached for another, then another, and found they all contained the same mysterious calligraphy.
“Curse it all,” he muttered. “What use are these if we cannot read them?”
At last the guards appeared with the woman, Adiana. Mechnes did not acknowledge her arrival, choosing instead to give the appearance of studying the books with idle patience while he assessed her out of the corner of his eye.
She was a pretty one, this Adiana, though her fair face was swollen and discolored from the admonishment he had given her the previous night. Her body was well-proportioned, her hair as fine as the roots of a Silky Orchid, its shade almost as pale and luminous.
As he watched, she assumed a peculiar stance, setting her feet slightly apart, lowering her head and closing her eyes. She reminded him of the virgin priestesses of Eirayna, attempting their futile communion with the Gods just before his men had taken them all.
The memory brought a smile to his lips.
Mechnes approached the prisoner, keeping his footsteps quiet so as not to disturb her trance. He stopped a couple paces away. The steady rhythm of Adiana shallow breath ignited something unexpected inside of him, a sense of tranquility.
His pulse slowed, his gaze lingered on those dark lashes resting against pale cheeks. Without warning she opened her eyes, blue as the Sea of Rabeln and calm as its most quiet shores. Then the woman focused on him, and dread chased away her composure.
The moment brought Mechnes a familiar surge of satisfaction. “Did you not sleep well last night, Mistress Adiana?”
The woman averted her gaze. He noted the tremor in her hands, and imagined her shivering beneath his weight.
“Or perhaps my company has already bored you? It’s not every day I have a prisoner fall asleep on her feet.”
“I slept well enough, Prince Mechnes,” she murmured. “May I see the children now?”
“No you may not. Though it is a fine coincidence you should mention them. I have brought you here to inform you that they are quite well.”
“Well?” Adiana looked at him. Doubt clouded those striking eyes. “How can they be well when you left them—”
“I made no claims as to the fate of your precious waifs last night, Mistress Adiana. It was you who presumed. Though I confess, I enjoyed playing with your presumption.”
“And you do not play with me now? How am I to know when you tell the truth and when you do not?”
“You cannot know.” He strode back to the table and ran his fingers over the leather bindings of the tomes, enjoying the scent of Adiana’s agitation. “And yet you still face a choice. If I’m lying, the girls are beyond your aid. Nothing you do or say will change that. If I’m telling the truth, then their well-being is in your hands. Your exquisite hands, Mistress Adiana. And that is something for you to keep in mind.”
The woman’s brow furrowed.
“Come.” He beckoned her. “We have much to talk about.”
She glanced around the pavilion, first at his guards, then at Pashnari. When at last she approached, it was with timid steps. He drew her close, one hand upon the small of her back, and opened a tome in front of her.
“What language is this?” he asked.
“It is a sacred script of the Old Orders.”
There was a refreshing aroma about her, a smell of primrose and summer winds. “Can you read it?”
“No, I cannot.”
“Why then do you value it?”
“I…I don’t understand, Prince Mechnes.”
“You chose to save these books from the fire, and perhaps forfeited your own escape because of it. Why?”
“I know what they mean…what they meant to Eolyn.”
As soft as the finest silk, her hair. Like a feather to his touch.
“What do they mean to her?” he asked.
She clenched her jaw and managed an admirable look of defiance. “Why do you want to know?”
“You are not the one to be asking questions. Answer me, Mistress Adiana, and tell me the truth, as I know many ways to make you suffer if you don’t.”
Adiana bit her lip. An image slipped from her mind into his awareness: three girls frightened and alone.
Mechnes drew a quiet breath and stepped closer, seeking to strengthen the connection.
“She valued them because they are all that is left,” Adiana said. “Most of t
he annals of the magas were burned in the purges under Kedehen. Only three small collections remain, one in the royal library, another in East Selen, and this one that belonged to Eolyn.”
“I see. Can her students read it?”
Adiana shook her head. “Catarina and Tasha joined us last fall. Ghemena has been with us longer, but she is still very young. They were all just learning to read when your men put an end to everything. They might be able to interpret some of it, but it would be risky to have them try.”
“Why?”
“If the spells are pronounced incorrectly or invoked without proper focus, anything could happen.”
Mechnes stood behind her now, close enough to feel the heat rising from her back. He touched her wrist, delighting in her rapid pulse, and let his breath fall upon her ear. “Where is the maga hiding?”
“She’s not hiding.” The calm in Adiana’s voice was unexpected. The tenuous connection he had just forged with her mind snapped. “She is dead. Your men saw to that last night.”
Mechnes withdrew, chuckling to mask his disappointment. “You are a poor liar, Mistress Adiana.”
He circled the table to face her and gestured to a nearby chair. “Do you know this instrument?”
Adiana frowned as her gaze settled on the lute. “Yes.”
“Play it for me.”
She blinked and took a step backwards.
“I would hear your music before we continue our conversation.”
“Why?”
He let go a patient breath. “Play for me. I will not ask again.”
She walked over to the chair, picked up the lute, and ran her hands over its curved back and polished neck.
There was grace in her movement, Mechnes observed. A sense of self-assurance that set her apart from peasants but did not carry the haughty overtones so often found in women of nobility.
A merchant’s daughter, he concluded. Or something of that sort.
He wondered how a woman of her station could have succumbed to the fate she confessed last night. It was difficult to imagine this Mistress Adiana as a whore on the piers of Selkynsen, although the thought was not unpleasant.
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