Adiana settled in the chair, wincing in her shoulder as she found a position to sustain the lute. She reached for the pegs, but the strings were perfectly tuned. Mechnes had seen to that. Indeed, he had chosen a superior instrument for her. The soundboard was of pale spruce polished to a golden sheen, the rose at its center intricately carved. The back was crafted from dark cherry wood and the neck finished with an ebony veneer.
Closing her eyes, Adiana drew a long shallow breath, asking no melody of the lute just yet, but rather playing one note at a time so that the resonance of each was felt.
“It’s a lovely instrument,” she murmured. “Where did you find it?”
It pleased him to hear her say that. “The Syrnte have a great fondness for music. I travel with musicians wherever I go.”
Adiana nodded, and another image slipped into his awareness: a humble room, filled with instruments gathered from many countries. Her place of joy and intimacy, consumed in its entirety by flames.
The vision took him aback. So she had abandoned her own treasures attempting to save the maga’s books. It was the second time in as many meetings this woman’s selflessness had given him pause.
“I’ve worked with Syrnte musicians,” she said. “They were fine artists, flawless in their technique. Among the best I’ve ever played with.”
“Perhaps you will play with them again.”
She let go a harsh laugh. “You’ve toyed with me quite enough, Prince Mechnes. Do not torment me in this.” She lifted her countenance and met his gaze with a fine mix of courage and resignation. “What shall I play for you?”
Mechnes took a seat in front of her and signaled the guards to stand on either side of Adiana. “Whatever your heart desires.”
The woman turned her focus toward the lute. Music rose through her body, emerged upon her fingers, and filled the room with subtle protest.
Mechnes closed his eyes, allowing the melody to carry him on haunting waves. It washed him up on the shores of her resentful heart, where she beat against the walls of an invisible prison, the limitations of her sex, the confines of her vulnerability.
The notes twisted away from each other, then wove back together, tightening their embrace even as they strained to diverge once again, breaking into a sharp crescendo, a dance of war upon the strings, the rhythm against the soundboard like a distant drum, the rumble of thunder from a storm not yet fully manifest.
Three times she took the melody to its summit, three times she descended from that peak, and on the third she let the music fade, fingers trembling as the melody abandoned her, face contorted in anguish, eyes damp with the fear and impending loss.
She faltered on a discordant note and stopped altogether.
Adiana wrapped her arms around the instrument and clutched it tightly to her chest, as if it were a lost child returned to her. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
Disappointment needled Mechnes’s sense of satisfaction. He saw now that it would not be necessary to mangle those children Rishona so dearly wanted whole. Crippling this woman’s hands would be more than sufficient for his needs.
“Do you also sing, Adiana?”
She wiped away the tears. Her breath came in short shallow gasps. Her cheek was pressed tight against the lute’s dark neck. “I cannot draw enough air. I took a fall last night and my ribs are badly bruised.”
“I see. But you do sing?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I have heard it said that I sing well.”
“What a pity.” He spoke with sincerity. “I would have liked to have heard you sing while playing.”
At Mechnes signal, one of the guards wrested the lute from her embrace.
“No!” she cried and lunged after it, but the other guard caught the woman and immobilized her as Mechnes approached.
The Syrnte commander took one of Adiana’s hands and turned it palm upward. He traced each finger, admiring their length and elegance. “Where is Maga Eolyn?”
“She’s dead.”
“You lie, Mistress Adiana.” Mechnes bent one of her fingers back, just short of the breaking point.
Her cry was loud, satisfactory in its desperation.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Mechnes struck her full in the face. A sob broke through Adiana’s bloodied lips. He thrust his hand under her chin, putting pressure on her throat until he felt the staccato beat of her terrified pulse. “Do you understand what it is I intend to take from you, Mistress Adiana?”
“I tell you the truth, Prince Mechnes,” she gasped. “I do not know.”
“Pashnari.” He spoke without raising his voice.
In a moment, the servant was at his side, head bowed and contrite.
Mechnes grasped the woman’s wrist, held her hand in front of Adiana and snapped three fingers in quick succession. Pashnari’s sudden screams were silenced with another blow that sent her to the floor.
Horror contorted Adiana’s face. She struggled against the guard’s firm grip.
Mechnes took her hand in his once again. “Which finger do you value least, Mistress Adiana? Perhaps we should start with the smallest?”
“Don’t do this!” she begged. “Please, it’s all I have! The music—”
“It is not my desire to hurt you, much less put an end to that extraordinary talent of yours. But you have information I need. I would hear it now.”
“I don’t know where she is!”
Mechnes gripped her hand and wrapped his fist around her finger.
Adiana’s body shook and her eyes begged him to stop. In that moment, Mechnes was visited by an unexpected and sickening realization.
I cannot destroy this.
With one brief melody, her music had captivated him. Now he was loath to sacrifice it.
Infuriated, Mechnes struck her again.
He paced in front of Adiana, then nodded to one of the guards. “Bring me the child.”
Rishona would not be pleased to have her toy damaged, but no matter. He would deal with that when the time came.
The girl was delivered, bound hand and foot, dark of hair and with a spray of freckles across her small nose.
“Tasha!” Adiana moaned. The child responded with a muffled whimper, as his men had stuffed a rag in her mouth.
Mechnes ordered the bindings around the girl’s feet cut. Taking the child by a fistful of hair, he dragged her to the table and threw her face down upon it, ripping open the skirt to reveal her pale thighs and frail buttocks.
“Stop!” Adiana wailed. “Oh, for the love of the Gods, stop! I tell you the truth, Prince Mechnes. I don’t know where Eolyn is. I beg you, don’t hurt the child. Ask me something else, anything. I will answer whatever I can.”
The child was immobile beneath Mechnes’s grip, eyes open and alert, like a rabbit in the clutches of a wolf. Mechnes kept his gaze fixed on the girl. The desire to break something burned hard in his loins, and this little one would shatter so easily.
“Where was the maga when we attacked the Aekelahr?” he asked.
“In the South Woods.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
“How many were with her?”
Adiana hesitated. Mechnes grabbed the child by the hair and struck her head against the table, eliciting a cry of horror from Adiana.
“How many?” he repeated.
“Two guards and two students.”
There were more of these young magas, then. That was useful to know.
“What will she do, when she returns?” he asked.
“Do?”
“Will she try to rescue you? The girls?”
Adiana frowned.
“Answer me.”
“I…I’m not certain. I think she would fist try to…”
“Warn the King?”
Adiana looked away. Mechnes abandoned the child, strode back to Adiana, and took her by the throat. “How?”
“I don’t know.” Tears filled her eyes. “She might fly.�
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He caught an image of the maga pacing in agitation, fingers lingering on a jewel around her neck, a silver web with fine crystals suspended on a simple chain.
“That.” Mechnes tightened his grip. “That object. What it is?”
“Object?” Adiana stared at him in confusion.
“The jewel she wears.”
“How did you—?”
“Tell me!”
“It was a gift.” Adiana forced each word through frantic gasps. “A gift from the King.”
“What power does it have?”
“It…binds them somehow. I don’t know. She never told me.”
Mechnes released her. Adiana wilted, coughing and wheezing.
He had recognized that jewel. It matched perfectly the description of the device used by the girl to escape that very morning.
It binds them. The child to the maga, the maga to the King.
“The Mage King has been informed,” he concluded. “Or at least, we must assume that is the case.”
It was disappointing news. Mechnes had planned to move his army as far north as Rhiemsaven before word of their invasion reached the King’s City. That might not be possible now, and Mechnes did not care to get bogged down in a conflict over the Pass of Aerunden.
Still, the advantage remained with the Syrnte, and there was yet time to secure the pass if they moved quickly. He nodded to his men. “Take the girl away, leave the woman with me. Send for my officers and bring me one of the Queen’s messengers.”
The guards shoved Adiana into a chair and departed.
Pashnari remained huddled on the ground, cradling her mutilated hand. Mechnes kicked her again.
“Get out,” he said.
She scurried away like a rat.
The Syrnte prince turned his attention to Adiana, who had curled into herself and was overcome with wretched sobs.
Mechnes drew close, took Adiana’s hands from her face and wiped her tears away. His rage was spent now. Indeed, he was very pleased with how everything had turned out. He had the information he needed, Rishona’s toys could yet be delivered whole, and Adiana’s exceptional music was his to enjoy.
He lifted a cup of wine to her lips. She accepted it with desperate gulps. Her fine golden hair hung ragged over bruised cheeks. The tremble on her bloodied lips was most inviting. Mechnes considered taking her by force in that moment, as had often pleased him, but it occurred to him it might be more entertaining to indulge in a game of seduction with this musician, merchant’s daughter, and whore from Selkynsen.
Adiana sputtered in the middle of a swallow and shoved the cup away. A shudder ran through her shoulders, and she sank into another round of weeping.
“You mustn’t take it so hard, Mistress Adiana,” Mechnes said, brushing a lock of hair from her face and taking her chin in hand. “That is a rare gift, the music that resides in your soul. I am most pleased you did not see fit to surrender it.”
Chapter Fourteen
Loss
A wail rose from the Queen’s chambers, a bitter melody of loss and death that crescendoed then faded, leaving Akmael and the others who kept vigil outside burdened under a heavy silence.
The door to Taesara’s room opened, and High Mage Rezlyn appeared. The physician’s aspect was worn. He had cleaned his hands, but blood stained his sleeves, and a grave mood clouded his aged eyes. He paused and glanced around the room, as if taking stock of those present, Taesara’s ladies and the new ambassador of Roenfyn among them.
Approaching Akmael, Rezlyn bowed and announced in subdued tones, “I believe the worst has passed, my Lord King. The Queen will recover, though she requires much rest. I am most sorry to inform you, however, that it is too late for the child.”
“Too late?” The words felt out of place somehow. Wrong.
“She bled heavily, my Lord King, and no remedy known to me was able to slow the hemorrhaging. The Prince will not be saved.”
Akmael set his jaw, channeling a surge of grief and anger deep into his core.
Rage is not to be directed at the Gods, but held within and used for a greater purpose, Tzeremond had told him once. The Gods take from us to incite our anger. They incite our anger to unleash the our potential.
“The Queen is weak,” continued Rezlyn, “and sick with remorse. She must be confined to her bed for the coming days, until the bleeding stops.”
“And her womb?”
“Intact, thank the Gods. She will bear children again.”
“I would see her at once.”
“As you wish, my Lord King.” Rezlyn stepped to one side.
“King Akmael, if it pleases you, I would also see my niece.” Lord Penamor, the new ambassador from Roenfyn, spoke. A lean man with a long face and sharp eyes, he had in the end been escorted from the piers by High Mage Tzetobar.
Akmael nodded. “I will advise the Queen that you are here.”
“I would prefer to accompany you now.”
Akmael stiffened. It was an impertinent request for a newly arrived guest of his court. “You will see the Queen at her command, Lord Penamor.”
The ambassador’s lips twitched, but he indicated his acquiescence with a respectful bow.
Inside the Queen’s chambers, Lady Sonia attended Taesara, refreshing her pallid face with a damp cloth. Noting the King’s entrance, Sonia threw a fresh coverlet over the Queen’s lap to hide the damp and soiled sheets.
At the foot of the bed, a small table had been set with midnight blue candles and burning sage. The sight brought another surge of grief. Akmael paused over the candles and sang quiet songs of passage, sending what magic he could into the Underworld, that his son’s fragile soul might enter the halls of his ancestors.
Taesara’s remorse hung over the room like a bitter mist, carrying with it the unpleasant smell of blood and salt. She hid her face behind trembling hands and refused to show her countenance even as Akmael took a place at her side. For many moments no words were exchanged between them, the silence of the room broken only by the Queen’s stifled sobs.
“Leave us,” Akmael said to Lady Sonia. The woman cast a nervous glance at the Queen, then curtsied and departed, taking the servants and other ladies with her.
Akmael extracted Taesara’s hands from her face. They were clammy, her grip limp and without strength, her cheeks splotched as if by a fever. She directed her gaze toward some empty place in front of her.
“I am much grieved by this news,” he said.
“Forgive me, my Lord King.” Her voice was surprisingly steady given the tremor in her shoulders.
“There is nothing to forgive. It was I who permitted you to ride. You are not to carry this burden, nor will we speak of it again.”
She blinked and nodded, but did not meet his gaze.
“High Mage Rezlyn has assured me you suffered no injury and will soon be able bear more children.”
“If it please my Lord King.” She bit her lip, choked back a sob. “Then it will be so.”
“It would please me.” Akmael brought her listless fingers to his lips. In truth, he doubted his own words. Taesara’s bed was a place of stark duty and little pleasure. “I cannot linger, my Queen. Moehn may be under siege, and I must speak with Mage Corey to see what else he has learned from the girl.”
Taesara withdrew her hand and looked at him, her expression sad and uncertain. “Stay with me a little while longer.”
“High Mage Rezlyn will see you are well cared for.”
She swallowed, drew an unsteady breath, and took his hand once more. “My Lord King, do you not think it is curious how the girl arrived in that moment and precisely that place?”
Akmael thought this comment puzzling. “We are uncertain how it came about. The device should have taken her to Maga Eolyn.”
“Yet she appeared in front of me and sent my horse, a creature that has always been gentle in nature, into panic.”
Akmael withdrew from Taesara’s touch. “Speak plainly, Taesara. What is your concern?”<
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She pursed her lips and held her silence for a moment. “Forgive me, my Lord King, for what I am about to say. I am a woman of discretion, but I am not without ears. I have heard the rumors of your youth, how you once meant something to that woman, the witch from Moehn.”
“Taesara, it is not your place—”
“I know, my Lord King. I have never questioned the events of the past, nor have I ever doubted your loyalty to me, my house, and my people. But that witch is dangerous. I cannot help but suspect my illness in Moehn was her doing, and the loss of this child as well.”
“Impossible.” Anger marked Akmael’s tone.
“There was witchcraft at work today. I am certain of it.”
“A maga of Moisehén would not put her powers to such foul use.”
“I grew up listening to stories of your magas. They declared war against your father and brought this kingdom to near ruin. It would be a little thing for them to kill a prince.”
Akmael rose, infuriated. “Enough of these accusations.”
“My Lord King, I only want—”
“You want nothing but to deny your own failure, Taesara. I intended to relieve you of the burden of that guilt, as I thought the pain of our loss was punishment enough. But my mercy has been ill-received.”
“Please, my Lord King!” A sob broke through her words. “Do not speak such cruelties. Remember that I bore our first child without difficulty. I am neither weak nor unskilled as a rider. You must at least consider—”
“I will consider none of this foolishness.”
“I speak only out of concern for our future, the future of our sons, of your kingdom!”
He took hold of her arm, his grip so harsh she cried out. “You accuse an innocent woman and a mere child of high treason. Maga Eolyn and her students are faithful servants of the Crown. If you ever utter such lies again, you will suffer far worse than my wrath.”
He released her as suddenly as he had taken hold of her.
Taesara collapsed into a fit of tears, but her distress only magnified his distaste. Without further word, he abandoned her.
In the antechamber, a steward waited with word from Mage Corey, who was requesting an immediate audience. Akmael gave instructions to have the mage wait for him in the Council room, along with Sir Drostan.
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