Charmed Destinies

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I guessed. Didn’t you?”

  She had, she admitted to herself. Throughout the night she had wondered if she weren’t dreaming alone, if her fantasy was merely part of reality. His hand squeezed hers, drawing her gaze back to his.

  “Where do we go now?” he asked quietly.

  And there it lay. The question she could no longer avoid. Was that the key, that she must give life to save life? Would he? Could she?

  Her heart knew the answers that her mind could not. Her hand closed around his.

  “How about breakfast?” she asked.

  “Breakfast?”

  She smiled. “I thought you’d like to meet my dad.”

  C ATHERINE A SARO

  M OONGLOW

  To Mary Jo Putney, with gratitude,

  for welcoming me to this genre

  Dear Reader,

  I’ve always loved fantasy worlds and romances. When I combined that with my appreciation for the beauty of tessellated mosaics, the land of Aronsdale came to exist. Through the magic of shapes and colors, the mages of Aronsdale, mostly women, are able to bring light and healing into the lives of their people.

  The kings of Aronsdale have always married the most powerful mages. I found myself wondering what would happen if a young woman didn’t realize that custom would include her—and if her groom is the long-lost heir, a tormented prince who needs a healing greater than anything she could have imagined. She feels her love growing, if only she can reach through his barriers.

  I’ve enjoyed the company of Iris and Jarid on their journeys of self-discovery and romance. I hope you enjoy their story also. I would love to hear from you over e-mail at asaro@sff.net. Or you can visit my Web site at www.catherineasaro.net.

  Best regards,

  Catherine Asaro

  P ROLOGUE

  Jarid jolted awake when his mother cried out. Their carriage was lurching through the night much too fast. His mother held him close, shielding him with her embrace. In his six years of life, he had never felt such fear from her. It terrified him. Across the carriage, in the darkness, his father—Prince Aron—was half out of his seat, a dagger clenched in his hand as he yanked aside the curtains on the small window.

  Yells erupted outside, chilling and wild. Jarid buried his head against his mother’s side and squeezed his eyes shut. The carriage suddenly reared as if it were an enraged beast. Perhaps it was angry; made as a perfect sphere, the enchanted carriage focused the mage power of Jarid’s mother.

  “Mama!” He gripped her arm. “Papa!”

  His mother thrust a large glass orb into his hands. She spoke urgently, but he couldn’t hear over all the noise. The carriage jerked again, and then they were tumbling, over and over, slamming from side to side in the darkness.

  A horse screamed, its frenzied cry splitting the air. Jarid gasped as he was thrown across the carriage. His head hit a hard surface and he groaned, clutching the glass ball in his arms. His mother caught him, holding him so tightly he could barely breathe. With his cheek pressed against her shoulder, he heard her speaking an orb-spell. She curled her body and her spell around him, cocooning him in a protective sphere of life.

  With a roar, the world exploded. Jarid hurtled through the air with his mother and they landed hard, slamming the air out of his lungs. Debris rained everywhere, splintering and furious. A shower of pebbles clattered from the sky, and a rock rolled against Jarid’s leg.

  Then everything became still.

  Jarid huddled against his mother. “Mama?” he whispered. “Papa?” He clenched his small hands around the glass ball. “C-can we go home now?”

  No answer.

  Shaking, he lifted his head and peered into the night. Wreckage lay everywhere, scattered at the bottom of a cliff as if a great hand had flung it there. A chill wind blew his hair, making him shake.

  Somehow, incredibly, his mother still held him. Only she didn’t move or speak. She didn’t even seem to breathe, but surely that had to be wrong. It had to be wrong.

  His voice caught. “Mama?”

  Words carried to him through the night. Jarid froze, desperate for help but afraid of who might be coming. Even the stars had deserted him, hidden behind clouds.

  The voices came nearer, resolving into an argument. Two men on horses made black silhouettes against a charcoal-gray sky.

  “Damn it all, it wasn’t supposed to crash.” That came from the man on the larger horse. “You swore we wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  A deep voice answered. “This makes our job easier.”

  “Easier?” The first man let out an explosive breath. “Gods, Murk, I never agreed to murder anyone.”

  “The highway doesn’t come with guarantees.” The other man, Murk apparently, stopped his horse near the wreckage. “You know the risks you take.”

  “ You take them.” The first man swung off his horse. “I won’t be doing this again.”

  Murk jumped down beside him. “I never knew you for a coward.”

  The first man ignored him, the way stone paid no heed to insults. Jarid immediately thought of him as Stone. While Stone approached the ruined carriage, Jarid huddled by his mother, hiding in the shadows, clutching the glass ball. He didn’t understand much of what the men said, but one thing was obvious: they believed they had killed his parents. He wasn’t sure what it meant to die, but when it had happened to Grandmother, she had gone to sleep and never woken up. Tears welled in his eyes. Surely Mother and Father hadn’t done the same.

  Stone suddenly swore. “It was an orb-carriage.”

  “Who cares about its shape?” Murk muttered. “Don’t start on me with that blather about spells. Shape-mages are fakes, lording their supposed powers over the rest of us.”

  “The two soldiers we knocked out must have been their honor guard.”

  Murk stayed by his horse. “If people in this carriage were mages, why did they have such a small honor guard?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  Jarid could have told them; their carriage and the two guards had been cut off from the rest when an old bridge collapsed back at the river. So the driver had been taking them on to the next bridge. Father had said it would be no trouble.

  For the first time in his life, Jarid understood that his father could be wrong.

  Stone knelt by the body of Prince Aron. “Maybe he was the mage.”

  “None of them were mages.” Murk crossed his arms. “Mages don’t exist.”

  Stone looked around. “How many bodies do you see?”

  Still refusing to come closer, Murk motioned at the rubble. “Two over there and the driver beyond.”

  Holding his breath, Jarid tried to vanish. He wasn’t certain how he had survived the crash, but he remembered what his mother had taught him about shape-mages: Your power is as strong as a life. One life, no more. The power of a life. It couldn’t be. His mother couldn’t have used all her power to protect him. Surely she could h
ave saved herself and his father. She couldn’t be dead. He wanted to cry, but he bit the inside of his mouth to stop himself.

  Stone looked up, frowning. Then he rose and came over to where Jarid huddled. When the highwayman went down on one knee, Jarid cringed against his mother.

  “Saints almighty,” Stone said. “It’s a little boy.”

  “What?” Murk finally came forward, stepping carefully through the wreckage. For all that he denied mages existed, his apprehension rolled over Jarid like clammy fog. Murk’s bravado disguised a soul-parching envy and fear of shape-mages that Jarid barely understood.

  Jarid thrust out his chin, trying to be strong. “Go away!”

  Stone laid his hand on Jarid’s arm. “It’s all right.”

  “Tell the brat to shut up,” Murk said. Unease oozed from his mind.

  “Let him be.” Stone gently freed Jarid from his mother’s lifeless grip, which remained strong even now.

  “Leave me alone!” Jarid wrapped his arms around his glass ball. “My grandfather is coming!”

  “Your grandfather,” Murk snorted. “Sure, and don’t old men scare me.”

  Jarid wanted to shout that Grandfather was strong and fierce, that he had many shape-soldiers, that he was king in this land. But no words came. Instead, tears ran down his face.

  “Hai,” Stone murmured. “I am so very sorry.”

  “Don’t bother,” Murk said. “He’s going to join his parents soon.” Crouching down, he poked in the rubble until he dug up Prince Aron’s gem-encrusted dagger, which he thrust into the sack he carried. “Take care of the boy. Fast. We have to get out of here.”

  Stone jerked up his head. “Are you crazy? I’m not going to kill a child.”

  I will run, Jarid thought, though he could barely move, he hurt so much from the crash.

  Then Murk rolled over the body of Jarid’s father and began ripping jewels off his tunic.

  “Stop!” Jarid cried, trying to scramble to his feet. He made it to his knees before his legs crumpled and he collapsed. He was gripping the glass ball so hard, his arms ached.

  Stone lifted Jarid into his arms and stood up, cradling him with unexpected tenderness. “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.” He touched a place on Jarid’s neck that felt wet. “We can stitch this up.”

  “No!” Jarid fought hard, holding his ball with one arm while he flailed at Stone with a small fist.

  Stone caught his hand. “I’ll take you to a safe place.”

  Murk looked up from his looting. “We can’t let him live. He’s seen us.”

  Jarid froze, finally understanding. He could tell people what they had done, and he could describe them. They would kill him because he could see, hear and talk.

  “No.” Tears ran down Jarid’s face. “Please.”

  “Shhhh,” Stone said. “Don’t listen to him. We won’t hurt you.”

  “Damn it.” Murk jumped to his feet. “We have to get rid of him.”

  Stone tightened his hold on Jarid. “I won’t do it.”

  Jarid pressed against Stone’s chest, trying to hide. “I won’t tell anything,” he promised Murk, his voice shaking. “I’ll never, never tell. I promise. ”

  “Murk, listen,” Stone said. “I’ll keep him with me. You know where I live. Way out there, up in the mountains, he’ll never see anyone, never have a chance to tell what happened. Hell, I’ve gone for years at a time without visitors.” Under his breath, he added, “I should have stayed up there.”

  Murk scowled, fierce as he came over to them. “We have to get rid of him and get out of here before those guards wake up.” He grasped the ball Jarid carried.

  “No!” Jarid jerked back. “It’s mine!”

  Murk’s fury sparked, so sharp that Jarid saw it in the air. “I’ll take care of you myself, you little swamp wart.” He wrested the ball away from Jarid.

  “Don’t hurt it, please.” More tears ran down Jarid’s face. Mage power saturated the night, straining to change Murk’s cruelty, straining so hard that the spell distorted and the sphere began to glow.

  “What the hell? ” Murk hurled the ball away and it sailed through the night in an arc of violet light. Jarid felt power reaching, focusing through the perfect shape, the power of a shape-mage, of a sphere-mage, the highest form, the power of a life. Even now, the spell sought to help him, as if it knew his terror that Murk would kill him, all because Jarid could tell what he had seen and heard tonight.

  As the ball hit the ground with a terrible crash, its distorted spell made one last attempt to save Jarid. Violet light flared—and when it died, it took with it Jarid’s sight, his hearing and his voice.

  1

  The Hollow

  Iris Larkspur walked down the grassy hill, savoring the warm day. The sky arched above, as blue as glazed china. In a valley to the west, the village of Crofts Vale and its surrounding farmlands slumbered in the morning sun. Even after having been at Castle Suncroft for a year, since her eighteenth birthday, she marveled at this mild climate. Spring came earlier here than in the rugged mountains of her home. These hills had already turned green and were bursting with new life.

  Yet all this serenity couldn’t heal her loneliness.

  “Iris!” The sharp call came from behind her.

  Startled, she spun around. Far up the hill, Della No-Cozen, the Shape-Mage Mistress of Suncroft, stood with her hands on her ample hips, her gray curls fluttering in the breeze. Even from this far away, her frown was obvious.

  “Aye, well, I’m in trouble again,” Iris muttered, aware of the lilting accent that marked her as a stranger in this land, a commoner from the north. She hurried up the hill. In the distance, cresting a taller hill, Castle Suncroft glimmered in the sunlight, gold and bright, its crenellated towers topped by spires.

  Seeing her wayward student returning, Della returned to the cottage behind her on the hill. Iris sighed. A pretty cottage it was, but she felt suffocated inside. She missed her home, a tiny village in the Tallwalk Mountains. She had little to go back to, though. Her foster family had been relieved when she left; it meant they no longer had to feed or to house her. Her mother had abandoned Iris with them just days after Iris’s birth, an unpromising start for what, until last year, had been an unpromising life. Although her foster parents hadn’t ill-treated her, neither had they given any affection. They tolerated her.

  Della had discovered Iris during the mistress’s travels through Aronsdale. Each year Della went on a tour in search of village girls with mage talent. But Iris had never really felt accepted here, either, and Prince Muller had no reason to continue providing her room and board at the cottage if Iris never progressed in her mage studies with Della.

  Pah. As if Muller would care. Although his behavior was impeccable, she knew he loathed his duties. Regardless, he had to become king of Aronsdale; the true heir, Prince Aron, had died fourteen years ago in a carriage accident, along with his wife and son Jarid. Prince Aron’s father, King Daron, had grieved for years. Iris thought it heartbreaking; a parent shouldn’t outlive his children. Yet Daron had survived them by
fourteen years. Now the old king had passed away and Muller, his nephew, would soon wear the crown.

  As Iris neared the cottage, she saw a young woman in its doorway. Iris inwardly groaned. Well then, and here it was her bad luck to study today with Chime Headwind. Iris supposed she should be honored. Sure it was true, Chime would marry Prince Muller and be queen. By law, Chime had to marry him; she was the most powerful shape-mage among her generation in Aronsdale. Iris thanked the fates it was Chime and not her. She had no wish for the weight of such responsibilities, and the prospect of marrying Muller would have sent her fleeing to the hills.

  Chime and Muller had a lot in common, both of them overly aware of their importance. Yet Iris wondered if their pride served as bravado to disguise their fears about becoming king and queen. Away from the royal court, they were an amiable couple. Given a choice, she thought they probably would have settled in the country as farmers. Many people might covet royal titles, but Muller and Chime weren’t among them.

  Right now, Chime was standing in the doorway, fixing her hair, carefully arranging the glossy locks. Her appraising gaze made Iris flush. She would never measure up to Chime’s impossible ideals. The future queen seemed to care only about appearance. Iris told herself she didn’t mind, that it only mattered what a person had inside, but it was hard to remember that when the rest of the world so greatly prized Chime’s beauty. Iris’s wild mane of chestnut curls would never tame into the sleek fall of Chime’s golden hair; her full, curvy figure would never have Chime’s willowy elegance; her face would never approach Chime’s angelic perfection.

  As Iris reached the door, Chime gave her a cool smile. “You look lively today.”

  Iris blinked. “Lively?”

  “Wind-blown.” Chime hesitated. “Your hair is a mess.”

  “I don’t mind.” Iris enjoyed the breezes.