Adrienne
Page 28
Caradoc nearly jumped out of his skin when a woman separated from the shadows of the woods that surrounded his house. Tight black clothing swathed her entire body and a mask covered her face. All he could see were her brown eyes. He sensed no magicks on the woman but somehow she had kept her presence hidden from him. Every alarm bell in his mind screamed assassin. Assassins were notorious for their ability to get close to and kill anyone—even mages on constant guard.
He stammered out, “Who are you?”
“My name doesn’t concern you. Where is she?” the woman demanded.
Adele peeked out of the cottage at Caradoc. She had come to his cottage at his request. It was early in the morning, but she hadn’t minded. Sleep eluded her as memories of her near miss with Oringo continued to plague her. Going to Caradoc’s cottage to muddle through her memory loss was just the distraction she needed.
Caradoc said he had seen something after her attack and wished to study it more. Once she arrived, he did nothing to study her; he only looked out his window. After a while, he left the cottage altogether.
When she heard voices, Adele decided to come out and see who had come.
She asked, “Is someone here, Master Caradoc?” She looked at the black-clad woman with interest.
The woman smiled. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t Queen Adrienne.” She gave a mock bow and sneered, “Your Majesty.”
Adele frowned in total confusion. She tried to make sense of the woman’s words. This only brought on a headache. The headache grew steadily worse and she dropped to her knees with the pain of it.
The woman “tsked” as she drew closer. She asked, “Does your head hurt, dear? Maybe this will help.” The woman snapped a mage metal collar around Adele’s neck. Once the collar was secured, the woman removed an orb from her clothing and said to it, “Release.”
The headache disappeared. Adrienne’s memories came crashing back into place. She also retained the memories of everything that happened to her over the past twelve days. What confused her was how the spell that surrounded her had vanished.
The woman explained, “Your memories are back because I have cancelled the confusion spell placed on you. The party interested in you supplied me with the orb that contained the spell. I also bound your powers under mage metal.” The woman grabbed Adrienne’s arm and hauled her to her feet. “Move,” she barked.
As the women passed Caradoc, the assassin tossed a small sack to him. He threw up his hands and made a shield. The sack hit the ground with the jingle of coins knocking together. He realized it was his payment.
He looked at the sack on the ground then back at the departing women. Once they were out of sight, he bent down to open the bag. Five thousand in gold coins minted in Kontar stared back at him. Was that the worth of his soul? When he reported to Malik, he would find out.
Caradoc made ready to journey to Ulan.
Malik closed the portal behind him. He took his time to get settled on his throne then smiled at the men who waited for him. The Primaries had retrieved Sabri, and Travers had seen fit to tag along. Both chancellors being present would mean Sabri wouldn’t be on his guard. That would make what Malik planned to do that much easier.
Travers spoke upon Malik’s entrance, “You called for us, Majesty?”
Malik laid a lazy hand on Feyr’s head. No one noticed the mage metal orb Feyr carried in his mouth. The same mage metal orb Sabri had used to incapacitate Feyr the day Adrienne was kidnapped. Malik palmed it while he stroked Feyr’s head.
“One of my operatives in Kakra has located Adrienne. I need a pass of peace from Hollace to retrieve her without bloodshed or hassle,” Malik said nonchalantly.
“That is wonderful, Majesty. Is there any news of how she came to be there?” Travers gushed.
Malik flicked his wrist. The mage metal orb disappeared and reappeared behind Sabri’s head. Malik smiled at Travers. He said, “No, there is not. But perhaps you can shed some light on that particular subject, Sabri.”
Sabri sputtered, “Whatever does Your Majesty mean? I am just as in the dark about all of this as everyone else.”
“Funny you should mention dark, Sabri. It was in darkness that Adrienne’s maid heard you conversing with a personage from Kontar about the retrieval of my wife. Care to tell me the identity of said personage?” Malik again flicked his wrist. The mage metal hit Sabri seconds before the man pulled an orb out of his robes.
Sabri screamed as the mage metal entered his body. The orb he had hidden in his robes dropped to the floor and rolled away. His eyes blazed as he looked up at Malik. He spat, “You’ll never make me talk. You can do nothing to me with this mage metal embedded in my body. If you take it out, you’ll have to fight me on equal footing. I don’t fear you, Malik. I endured worse pain in preparation for infiltrating your kingdom as one of your chancellors than you could ever summon up.”
Malik descended the stairs. He pointed out with a shrug of indifference, “Ah, but you do not know all of my secrets, Sabri. If you did, you would look upon me with fear, because what I am about to do to you will far surpass any tortures your training might have introduced you to.”
A black orb appeared in Malik’s hand. He held it out to Sabri. “This orb has never been marketed. It is one of Ulan’s greatest secrets, and Ulan has many. A majority of those secrets originated with me.” His hand caressed the orb lovingly. He smiled as Sabri winced in pain but still stared at him in defiance.
“If that is all that little black ball can do, you have failed before you have started, Malik,” Sabri sneered.
Before Malik could say more, a knock sounded on the throne room doors. Flavian entered and went to one knee. He announced, “A mage from Kakra has come bearing news of the queen.”
“Enter, then,” Malik commanded impatiently. His attention turned to the mage who entered his throne room. “Who are you?”
“I am Caradoc, Your Majesty. I am palace mage to King Hollace.”
“You have news of my wife?”
Caradoc nodded. He threw the bag of money he had acquired only moments before in front of him. “An assassin retrieved her from my home to take her to Kontar, Your Majesty. I was paid handsomely for not interfering.”
Malik’s anger grew. “You obviously knew her identity, why did you not contact me?”
“I thought,” Caradoc started softly, “you would rather know the kidnapper’s identity so you could exact your own revenge and retrieve your wife personally.”
“Your logic is flawed, old mage. I want my wife in the safety of my palace,” Malik snapped.
“True, true. But she would have killed me and possibly retrieved your wife personally if I had contacted you before Nadid contacted me. Queen Adrienne would still be gone and you would have remained ignorant of whom to blame.”
Travers spoke in disbelief, “Nadid? The Queen of Kontar?”
“The very same,” Caradoc affirmed.
Malik—forgetting Sabri—walked over to Caradoc. He said in a low, lethal voice, “How do you know it was Nadid? You are hefting a serious charge against a woman who is third in ranking of the Mage Guild’s masters.”
“I know my accusation is steep, Your Majesty. That does not change the fact that I saw her ring. I studied in Kontar for a short time in my early years. I had an opportunity to meet Nadid. She was a little older than you are now and had not yet become queen. The woman who contacted me about Queen Adrienne stayed in the shadows, but she made the mistake of putting her hand in the light. It held the crest of Kontar. Only Nadid—and the other Kontarian rulers before her—wear such a ring.”
Malik turned back to Sabri. His gaze held death as he held out the black orb. This time he gripped the orb tightly. Sabri arched off the ground with a bloodcurdling scream. Malik enjoyed the sound for three breaths before he let off the pressure.
Sabri sagged to the ground. His eyes, once they had cleared, showed disbelief. “What…” was all he could manage before his throat closed and he coughed.
He crouched down in front of Sabri. His smile was something only the devil himself would wear. He said in a low, husky voice, “You will tell me why Nadid wants my wife. You will tell me about all who have helped you up until this point. You will tell me many, many things, Sabri—” he paused and retrieved a white orb from the air, “—or I will keep giving you life simply so I can rip it away again.”
Sabri looked at him with fear. On the dais, Feyr mirrored his master’s smile.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hollace stared at Khursid and Qamar with humor. His guards had captured them a few minutes ago. They were stupid enough to think they could move around his palace freely.
Once the guards roused Hollace from his sleep to confront Khursid and Qamar, the two immediately told him who they were and why they were there. Hollace couldn’t believe it. He’d had the Queen of Ulan, Malik’s queen, in his clutches all this time and didn’t even know it. And now she was gone. A maid in the kitchen reported seeing Adele leave the palace for Caradoc’s cottage. Hollace had sent his soldiers to arrest her, but they returned with news of her and Caradoc’s absence.
Hollace had nothing but questions for his captives. Questions they would answer upon threat of torture. He asked, “How did you come to be in my palace?”
Khursid and Qamar went to one knee with their heads bowed. Hollace looked at them with amusement. They showed homage to him. He started to gloat when his smile froze.
A portal opened two feet in front of the kneeling guards and Malik stepped through. The portal closed. Malik signaled to Khursid and Qamar and they rose to stand at attention behind him.
Hollace came off his throne in a rage. He roared, “How dare you, Malik. You shouldn’t be able to get into my palace.”
Malik looked around himself in amusement. “You mean that flimsy piece of nothing you call a barrier?” He laughed. “I broke through stronger when I was twelve. I let you think you were safe behind this barrier, but I could always come and go as I pleased.” A gasp drew his eyes to Tacita. He inclined his head at Hollace’s queen. She took a defensive step back.
“What do you want? Your queen isn’t here,” Hollace said quickly. He was thankful he had not called for Oringo. Hollace didn’t care if he died so long as his son survived to keep Kakra out of Malik’s hands.
“I know that. She is in Kontar…now a guest of Nadid.”
Hollace looked incredulous. “Nadid? What would the Queen of Kontar want with your wife, Malik?”
“We Kings of Ulan do not think our queens are useless like you Kakrans do. They are equal in rule, in wisdom and in power. My queen is very powerful, indeed. She wove an erasure spell around herself to fend off the effects of a confusion spell…all unconsciously,” Malik said in a proud voice. “If I have my facts right, she even disrupted a portal and landed directly on your lap, Hollace. How is that for power?”
Hollace turned a sickly shade of white. He sank back onto his throne.
Tacita sat heavily on the floor, not having a throne of her own on which to sit. She stared at Malik and asked, “Adele was that powerful and I couldn’t even feel it?”
Malik frowned. He asked, “Who is Adele?”
“I gave her that name when she couldn’t remember her own.”
“Her name is Adrienne, Queen Tacita. And what do you mean ‘sense’?”
“I am a child of Kontar. My father was a powerful noble, and high ranking in the branches of the Mage Guild. Hollace conditioned that I should never use my powers again when I became his bride. I had to renounce my powers by wearing this—” she fingered the mage metal chain around her waist, “—leash. But I cannot forget years of training because of my husband’s biases and fears. I remove the chain from time to time. I did so once to see if I could ascertain Adele…Adrienne’s true identity and proper place.”
“You sensed no power in Adrienne?”
“I sensed the magnitude of the spell that bound her mind, and a second spell that I couldn’t identify—”
“The confusion spell,” Malik supplied.
“Yes. But nothing in me sensed the erasure spell came from her,” she said in wonder. An admiring quality came to Tacita’s voice. “It was flawless. The silver marriage cord and the scar of the blood binding spell were absent. I suppose that is why you didn’t know she was here—you couldn’t track her.”
Malik shook his head. The discussion had gone off course. “Yes, the spell was powerful, but we waste time. Nadid has my wife. She means to siphon Adrienne’s magicks in order to make herself more powerful. With that power she intends to assassinate the current Mage Guild head, take his place, and then level both Ulan and Kakra to take as her own.”
“The hell you say,” Hollace yelled, coming back from the shocks Malik and Tacita had given him. He was beaten and betrayed all in the same breath. He thought himself clever to bind his wife’s powers with a mage metal chain. A chain she took off whenever she pleased and as often as she pleased, it seemed. His anger at her defiance and at Nadid’s audacity merged. “That woman couldn’t make Nadid that much more powerful.”
Malik said in a conspiratorial voice, “Nadid is third ranking in the Mage Guild. My wife…my Adrienne is an equal to my power. I walked into your palace as though your barrier did not exist, Hollace. A barrier, I am sure, your mages informed you was powerful enough to stop even the strongest Guild member.”
“You are that strong?” Hollace asked, disbelieving.
“The measurement for my power is off the Guild charts. Believe me when I say, if Nadid is able to harness my wife’s powers, neither Ulan nor Kakra will survive her attack.” He clenched his fists at his side. “We need to join forces and stop Nadid now, before it is too late.”
“You’re so damn powerful that you can fight Nadid on your own. Why should I help to save your wife? You may have married her but she has not begotten your heir yet. If she dies and you are killed trying to save her, I get your kingdom,” Hollace sneered.
“You truly are scared of magicks,” Malik observed with a nod. “That is why I came to you, actually.”
“What do you mean?” Hollace asked in a guarded voice.
Malik opened a portal in the floor. It overlooked a room, somewhere in the bowels of Hollace’s palace, that was full of mage metal orbs. He pointed out, “That same fear caused you to stockpile mage metal. You have the biggest cache in the world. It is the only reason I have never attacked you. I may have power, but that much mage metal would daunt even me.” Malik closed the portal. “That much mage metal would also stop Nadid and save my wife. The siphon will kill her.”
Hollace laughed at Malik’s words. “Tell me more good news.”
“I could simply tie Oringo’s life to that of my wife’s. The minute she breathed her last, so too would he,” Malik suggested. He raised his hand to do just that. “With the spell binding Tacita’s reproductive abilities, you cannot have anymore heirs and Chandra cannot inherit. I would win.”
“Spell? What spell?” Tacita asked in confusion. “You are mistaken, Malik. I had a difficult birth with Oringo. It rendered me unable to bear more children.”
“Because Hollace would not allow mages in his palace to ensure the safe delivery of his heir?” Malik asked.
Tacita nodded.
Malik arched an eyebrow at Hollace. “You are an idiot, cousin. There are mages aplenty in your palace. A reliable source informed me of the spies. One such spy attended Oringo’s birth to make it more difficult and thus hide the placement of a binding spell on Tacita’s womb.”
“I feel no magicks,” Tacita said. She threw the mage metal chain away. Her hands splayed in front of her belly, she tried to sense the spell Malik mentioned.
“You did not take off your shackle nearly enough if you cannot sense such a simple spell, Tacita,” Malik said. He made a beckoning motion with his hand. A light surrounded Tacita then shrank to focus on her belly; it whizzed down to Malik’s waiting hand. “This spell is from Kontar, Tacita. It is from Nadid’s father. He placed it on you so no other male heir would be born to take Oringo’s place if he died.” He crushed the ball of light and the magicks dissipated.
“That is no simple spell,” Tacita said. “Only a Mage Guild master could cast such a spell.”
“It is simple to me,” Malik said without a hint of bravado. He turned his attention back to Hollace. “Tell me, cousin. If one of us fails in Derex’s stipulations, what happens?”
“Then the other gains his kingdom.”
“Once the two kingdoms are rejoined, what happens if there is no male blood heir to inherit?”
Hollace answered in a quiet voice, “Kontar gains both kingdoms.”
“At some point, they became ambitious. Kontar does not want to see Ulan and Kakra joined unless it is under Kontar’s rule.” In a pain-filled voice, he said, “The spell they put on Tacita did not work on my mother; she sensed it. Instead, they killed her and blamed you. My father was killed so he would not find another bride. As a child I posed no threat and Kontar thought to control me through the Mage Guild. I quit to learn and control the magicks on my own, and it made me more powerful.”
Malik met Hollace’s eyes. “Do you understand what I am telling you, Hollace? Kontar has fueled the feud, not us. Kontar ordered the assassinations—all of them—and has done so for many generations. This was a plan long in the making. With the aid of my wife’s powers, Nadid will see the plan to its fruition.”
Hollace looked at his wife. Tacita remained stunned she had not felt the magicks that bound her womb. Hollace descended the throne dais and held out his hand to Malik. He said, “I don’t much hold with mages and their practices, but I know a blood oath is binding. A blood oath to prove what you say is true.”
Malik drew his dagger. He sliced his hand and then Hollace’s. He grabbed Hollace’s hand. Their blood meshed and intermingled. He said, “The blood will reveal all. Let the blame fall on whom it truly belongs.”