With those words, the men were taken over their respective histories. Assassinations, sneak attacks and plots of generations past were all laid bare for the other to see. And what they saw was the betrayal of a father’s trust.
“Our ancestors didn’t care anymore. But Kontar needed them fighting, needed the feud to remain fresh,” Hollace said once the spell finished. It felt like years had passed but the spell had done its job in mere seconds.
All heard and understood the implications of his words.
“I propose an end to it. No more blood. No more wasted life. Let us be joined as family, as Derex always meant us to be, instead of forever fighting. Help me save my wife and your kingdom will have a new ally, Hollace.”
Hollace gripped Malik’s blood-soaked hand. “Done…Cousin.”
* * *
Juven pushed Adrienne to the ground in front of the throne dais of Kontar. Offhandedly, Adrienne wondered if a kingdom existed that didn’t have its throne on a dais. She looked up at the woman who stared down at her.
Adrienne could see some of Malik and Hollace in the woman. She had black hair and slanted eyes like Malik, but her eyes were the same deep brown as Hollace’s. Unlike Malik and Hollace, Nadid was white. Literally. The woman looked like a corpse.
Nadid was swathed in the ceremonial robes of her station as third ranking in the Mage Guild, but the robes didn’t hide her curvaceous figure. She also had the height and the look of arrogance that seemed to be a family trademark. Adrienne had gotten sick of seeing it, to be perfectly honest. All this fighting and killing was all about family. Being married to Malik made Adrienne more family than she wanted to be, at the moment.
Nadid stood and walked down the dais steps. The lights in the flickering orbs that floated around the room made shadows and highlights play off Nadid’s jet-black, silky-straight hair. Her Guild robes, a deep royal purple, rolled and convulsed around her feet.
Nadid reached towards Adrienne but pulled back when Adrienne snapped at her hand.
“Little she-devil, aren’t you, Your Majesty?” Nadid asked. “It only makes sense. Malik wouldn’t have married you if you weren’t equal to him in attitude.”
The glimmer that shone in Nadid’s eyes gave Adrienne just enough time to brace herself before Nadid’s open hand made contact with her cheek. The woman put her full weight behind the blow. Adrienne’s head snapped to the side but her eyes stayed on Nadid. She hoped the hatred she felt showed in her eyes. Adrienne could feel heat of it just beneath her skin. She knew the mage metal collar was all that kept her from turning Nadid into a writhing ball of flames.
“Let that be a warning to you, Queen Adrienne. I don’t care that you are a queen. I don’t care that you are Malik’s bride. I am Nadid, Queen of Kontar and third elder of the Mage Guild. Once I have your power, I will be so much more.”
Adrienne faced her fully to ask, “What do you mean? What do you want with me?”
Nadid turned away from Adrienne. She pulled a small sack from her robes and held it out to Juven. She said, “I know this is not what you are normally paid for, Assassin. But you did your job well.”
Juven bowed before she took the money. She said with a smile, “Call me back when you want her dead. I would be more than happy to do it for free.”
“I have no need of you to kill the likes of her. You may go,” Nadid said. She didn’t wait to see if Juven left or not. She turned her attention back to Adrienne. Signaling two waiting acolytes, she started out of the room. They hauled Adrienne to her feet and pushed her to follow Nadid.
Juven taunted after Adrienne, “Die knowing I will return to my previous assignment of comforting your husband, Queen Adrienne.” She laughed when Adrienne tried to look back at her but the acolytes shoved Adrienne to keep her moving.
The sack of gold jingled as Juven tested its weight. She said in satisfaction, “One thousand pieces.” She gave another bow in the direction Nadid had taken. “A pleasure to be in your service, Your Majesty.”
She headed out of the throne room. As she walked, she pulled out an orb and concentrated. A tiny flash later and the pre-made transportation spell placed Juven directly in front of her horse. She’d left it at Caradoc’s cottage and used her orb to get Adrienne to Nadid quickly.
Retrieving and dropping off Adrienne had taken Juven less than an hour. She had enough time to do another job that had come her way before Sabri contacted her.
Juven grabbed her horse’s saddle and had readied to pull herself up when she jumped back instead. The horse gave a scared whinny and ran. Juven clutched her arm, blood seeping through her fingers. She glared at the lance embedded in the ground a few feet away.
Hani stepped out of the shadows. She said, “You’re getting sloppy, Juven. You should have had your horse meet you, not leave it where anyone could see and wait for you to come back for it.”
“Hani,” Juven hissed. She released her wound and crouched at the ready. “What do you want? Have the elders decided to test us again?”
“No. This is work,” Hani answered. She smiled with her normal good-natured manner. “It is funny to think we served in the same palace for well over a year and never knew the other was there. Maybe I’m getting sloppy, as well.”
“What?”
Hani pulled her dagger and her smile vanished. Her eyes narrowed and her voice dropped to one degree below freezing when she said, “Malik doesn’t appreciate you handing his wife over to Nadid.” That was all the warning she gave before she attacked.
Juven’s dagger met Hani’s a few inches from her throat. The blades threw off sparks when they clashed. Both women stared at each other.
“Haven’t we done this once already? It ended in a draw. This is pointless,” Juven said.
“It was a draw because a title wasn’t a good enough reason to kill you.” Hani added her weight and pressed her dagger closer to Juven’s neck.
“Your mistake. And not your only one, Hani.” Juven squeezed the orb in her hand. She disappeared and reappeared behind Hani.
Before the woman could react, Juven buried her dagger in Hani’s back. She smiled at the resulting scream.
Nadid and Adrienne walked down several corridors in silence. Finally they came to a door with a shield embossed on the outside. The shield showed a bird of prey looking down from a tree branch at a serpent coiled around a flaming battle-axe. Adrienne recognized the serpent; it was Malik’s family crest. She had a seen a flaming battle-axe all over Hollace’s palace—Kakra’s crest. It would seem the bird of prey portrayed Kontar in the role of watcher over the two intertangled kingdoms of Ulan and Kakra.
“Your curiosity is for the family crest, is it not, Queen Adrienne?” Nadid asked. “Kontar has always been the watchdog of Ulan and Kakra. But no more.” She waved her hand over the shield. The image changed—the bird of prey now stood on a broken battle-axe and had the serpent caught in its beak. “Soon, Kontar will take its rightful place as the leader of Bron. It will rise from the ashes of Kakra and Ulan’s destruction.”
“You’re no phoenix, Nadid,” Adrienne whispered.
Nadid turned to face Adrienne. Behind her, the door creaked open and revealed stairs that led into an unbroken darkness. Nadid said, “It’s funny you would liken me to a phoenix, Adrienne—since you have dropped my title, I shall do the same for you. For, Kontar, before Derex, had a flaming bird for its crest. That symbol changed when my ancestress, Derex’s daughter, became queen. Soon it will change back.”
She turned to descend the stairs. The acolytes and Adrienne followed.
“You are probably wondering why I wanted you so badly, Adrienne.”
“I’m Malik’s wife.”
“True, you are. But, even if you hadn’t married Malik, I would have wanted you,” Nadid corrected. She paused to smile back at Adrienne. Again, she reached out to touch Adrienne’s face. This time the acolytes held her head in place and her mouth firmly shut. Nadid’s fingers caressed up and down Adrienne’s cheek. She purred, “You
are from the Earth dimension. We have waited for someone from the Earth dimension, male or female, to come back to Bron for a very long time.”
Nadid turned to continue down the stairs. As they descended, torches flamed to life.
Adrienne asked, “So what if I’m from Earth? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“My great-grandfather, King Andsaca, met a woman from the Earth dimension once. She was a powerful mage—far beyond any on Bron. Possibly even Malik. My great-grandfather told me she immobilized the entire Mage Guild council with a mere gesture of her hand. Through sheer force of will, she gathered enough magicks around herself to tear open dimensional space and go home. She did not use a portal or transportation spell.”
The stairs emptied into a small circular room made of black marble. It had no windows. Torches adorned the walls. In the middle of the floor, someone had drawn a giant circle with rune-like symbols written along the outside. Each rune had a line drawn from it to the middle of the circle, and the circle segments contained even more symbols.
Nadid continued happily, “The woman impressed King Andsaca very much. He decided she—or someone like her—would be the key to fulfilling Selene’s greatest wish. Selene was Ulan and Kakra’s younger sister.”
“I know that,” Adrienne said through her teeth.
“Good. Then you know her brothers and father treated Selene like dirt. She did not signify until Kakra and Ulan needed a keeper. Even then, Derex didn’t trust her to see the job done. He entrusted the job to the man he married Selene off to.”
Nadid’s features twisted in anger. She clawed her hands in front of her then fisted them.
Adrienne paid no attention to Nadid’s antics. She had eyes only for the circle painted on the black marble floor. Thanks to the knowledge Malik had given her, she could read the runes etched around the border of the circle. It was a spell to transfer power.
“You’ve gone mad,” Adrienne said when she could finally speak.
Nadid came back to herself. Her anger dissipated and she smiled again. She said, “That’s where you’re wrong, Adrienne. I am quite sane, like all of my line before me. Selene wanted to repay her father and brothers for their treatment of her. When Ulan and Kakra started to grow content with their kingdoms, she had Kakra killed. Kakra’s sons killed Ulan and his wife in immediate retaliation. That wasn’t enough. Their kingdoms still stood. Selene wanted them to suffer and she charged her descendants to find a way to enact the ultimate revenge.
“That revenge will be realized through you, Adrienne. You are from the Earth dimension, like the other woman. Your magicks added to my own, just as my great-grandfather wished, will make me powerful enough to level both Ulan and Kakra without ever stepping foot out of Kontar,” she boasted. “Once they are gone and Selene’s soul is finally at peace, I will make all of Bron bow at my feet.”
“I may not know much about Bron, but I do know magicks are like blood—if you try to take my power, your body will reject it.”
“This spell—” she gestured to the circle, “—will siphon your powers.” She pointed to the runes around the perimeter, “And those runes will purify the siphoned power and enable me to feed on it just as I would my evening meal. Like my evening meal, I will feel no ill effects, and my hunger for revenge will be sated.”
She swept her hand towards the circle. Adrienne was ripped out of the hands of the acolytes and went flying. She landed in the middle of the circle with a thud and a cry of pain.
Nadid smiled at Adrienne’s glare. She offered, “Be angry, Adrienne. I don’t mind. For, once the siphon is finished, you will be dead. Regrettably so, for your only crime is being of the Earth dimension.”
Adrienne felt the heat beneath her skin and embraced it. She was an innocent in all this, except for her dimension of origin, which made her the perfect weapon for Nadid. Yet again, someone used Adrienne for their purposes and to hell with how she felt about it. As of this moment, she was sick of kingdoms and royalty and everything in between.
The collar around Adrienne’s neck cracked. The snap resounded throughout the room. Nadid jumped visibly. The collar clattered to the floor.
Adrienne glowed with her anger. Heat rose off the floor around her in waves. Beside Nadid, one of the acolytes screamed in pain and fell to the ground.
Flames erupted around Adrienne and rushed at the fallen woman like a ravenous wolf. In seconds, the acolyte was ash. The flames started towards Nadid.
She raised a barrier around herself, all the while staring at Adrienne in amazement. She murmured an incantation and slowly balled her outstretched hand into a tight fist.
Adrienne felt justified when the flames killed the acolyte. She’d wanted Nadid, but the acolyte was just as guilty. Adrienne started to correct her aim.
Her body slammed into the ground and she watched in horror as the flames died around her.
“You are amazing, Adrienne. I have never seen anyone throw off a mage metal collar before. And, even unschooled, you called up hellion flame,” Nadid complimented with genuine awe. “You truly are everything my great-grandfather said you would be.”
Adrienne struggled against the spell that held her to the floor. She heard footsteps rushing towards her. Now what? Wasn’t her imminent death enough to worry about?
Another acolyte—male this time—rushed into the room. He skidded to a halt. The edge of his shoe stopped right before the outer edge of the circle.
Nadid lashed out at him. She threw an arc of power at the man that smashed him against the far wall away from the circle. She screamed, “Watch your step, you fool. You nearly made yourself part of the siphon spell and killed us all. Why are you disturbing me?”
The man took several deep breaths before he said, “Ulan’s and Kakra’s armies are headed this way, Your Majesty.”
“Both?” Nadid asked in disbelief.
The man gave a curt nod.
“Together?”
“Yes, sire. They crossed the border only half an hour ago.”
Nadid growled out her frustration. “Why haven’t the mages taken care of them? Even Malik and his lack-wits can’t withstand the might of the Guild’s strongest.”
“Mage metal, sire,” the man answered. “Malik is using mage metal to incapacitate any who step forward. The rumor is the mage metal came from Hollace’s stockpile. They have teamed together, sire, and their destination is clearly the palace.” Fear made the man’s voice change octaves several times over his recital.
Nadid gnashed her teeth. Malik must have found her spy and thus realized the identity of his wife’s kidnapper. In all Nadid’s planning, she had never thought Malik would seek Hollace’s aid in retrieving Adrienne.
“Malik has sent back Lord Sabri, sire.”
“Sabri,” Adrienne gasped. “What do you mean ‘sent back’?”
“My spies are many in the palaces of Ulan and Kakra, Adrienne,” Nadid replied. “Sabri is merely one of them.” She turned to the man. “Where is he, then? I shall torture the fool for revealing my secrets to Malik.”
The man held out the orb in his hand. He pointed it towards the ground in front of him. Sabri’s body appeared. His face was frozen in a mask of pain: he’d clenched his jaw enough to crack his teeth and his eyes bugged out of his head. The man said, “That won’t be necessary, sire. Malik has already done it.”
Nadid’s curiosity turned to horror as she studied the body.
She curled her fingers towards herself. A mage metal orb rolled out of Sabri’s prone body. She stared at the orb. “A mage metal orb embedded in Sabri’s body did not stay Malik’s magicks? How?”
“I do not know, sire, but Malik sends a message with it,” the man replied. He waited for Nadid to look at him. When she did, he continued, “His message orb said, ‘You are next’.”
“Get out,” Nadid screamed. She watched the man flee, then looked down at Sabri’s body. Her hand glided in the air above the twisted remains and they were gone. Next, she turned to Adrienne.
“It would seem your husband does not want you dead, Adrienne.”
Nadid faced her palm towards Adrienne and barked out an incantation.
Adrienne screamed. She wanted to squirm, wanted to claw the floor, but she couldn’t move. It felt like someone dragged nails down every inch of her body.
“I am sorry I can’t accommodate him. Malik’s arrival in Kontar has only sped up the time of your death, I’m afraid,” Nadid said in feigned concern. She said another incantation. Adrienne’s screams grew. Nadid began to glow. She whispered, “I had thought to take my time; however, I haven’t that luxury anymore.”
She said the final incantation. Adrienne’s powers started the transfer to Nadid.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Malik halted. All of his troops stopped with him. Hollace looked back then wheeled his horse around. “What is it, Malik? You’re pale. Don’t tell me this little bit of fighting has gotten you tired already?” Hollace joked.
Malik’s eyes were only for the palace. He rasped, “Nadid has started the transfer. Adrienne is in pain…terrible pain.”
Hollace followed Malik’s gaze to the palace ahead of them. “Damn it, then, open one of your blasted portals. The scare tactic has worked too well.”
“Do you not think if I could portal to Adrienne’s side, I would have by now, you idiot?” Malik snapped. “Siphon spells are dangerous, as are portals. Mixing the two could make one or both unstable.”
“Meaning?” Hollace asked in a peevish tone. He understood Malik’s anger but he didn’t want it taken out on him.
“Meaning, Adrienne could be killed and the resulting backlash would take the entire Kontar palace and most of the countryside with her in the explosion.” He spurred his horse forward. By his side, Feyr ran with unnatural speed. Malik looked down at him. He yelled, “You can travel faster than I, old friend. Get there. Help her.”
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