The Black Mage: Complete Series

by Rachel E. Carter

I started to sprint toward the stables where the regiment had boarded up our horses for the ceremony.

  “Ryiah!” Paige chased after me. “Not you too! You don’t even know where—”

  I turned sharply to stop her. “No. You stay. Just this once, Paige. Let me do this on my own. Please.”

  Her brown eyes narrowed to mine. She sighed loudly, muttering a curse. “Fine. Two hours. You have two hours to find him.”

  “But—”

  “A minute longer and I’ll send out a search party. The two of you might be the best mages in the realm, but you aren’t invincible.”

  I started forward. “Thank—”

  “Time started five seconds ago.” She raised a brow. “I suggest you get going.”

  I tore out of the stable at a gallop. I took the empty backstreets to the plains just outside the capital; I knew Darren would’ve done the same.

  As soon as I made it out of the city, I came to a stop. Every direction the King’s Road took was overflowing with passersby and caravans on every branch of the trail. Everyone had come to pay respect to their new king, or to peddle their wares during the height of an opportunity. The air was thick with incense and chatter.

  I veered off the main path to the north. It was a different route from the one that wove around the mountain range to Montfort, and I could see recent hoof prints marring the grass headed east. It led to a dead end—the very back of the palace was actually situated over a cliff that ran along for a couple of miles in either direction, but I knew it would be the one he’d take.

  For a half-hour, I rode in silence. The last rays of the sun cut a somewhat swath across heavy forest foliage. Bright flashes of gold mixed in with green, creating something beautiful and remote. The air was sweeter here, too.

  I could hear the steady trickle of a stream as I drew closer to the clearing. When I finally cut across to the granite edge, I found him standing there, with Wolf at his feet, overlooking the ledge. A stream snaked down its end; the soft hush of water against rock could be heard much further below.

  The sky was now teeming with stars.

  The sound of hoof beats alerted him of my approach.

  The non-heir—or perhaps that title doesn’t fit anymore—spun around, tottering. It was then I noticed the flask in his hand.

  I dismounted, tying up my mare next to his own, and started forward. “Darren—”

  He held out a hand to stop me, and I noticed he was shaking, violently. “I don’t want you to see me like this, Ryiah.” He slurred the words as he spoke. “Go home.”

  I stopped walking but made no move to turn around. My voice was gentle. “It’s okay to be sad. He was your father.”

  The prince threw back his head and laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world. But the movement shifted his balance.

  Darren started to slip.

  My hand shot out without a moment’s thought.

  A blast of magic was all that saved Darren from the rocky abyss below. He collapsed onto jagged granite as I struggled to breathe, wind rattling my lungs. A part of me was furious it could’ve even happened. The other part was terrified he might’ve let it.

  And then I ran forward to drag him away from the ledge. There were cuts marring his hands, but he didn’t seem to care. He didn’t care at all. As I heaved one arm over my shoulder, he was still laughing, madly. “Can you really call a man like him ‘father’?”

  I didn’t know how to reply. So I remained silent and just kept moving him toward a boulder he could lean against a couple more yards toward the clearing, away from the drop. He was in no position to stand.

  “All these years…” His words faded. “All this time, I hated him. When I… So many times I wondered what it would be like…” His head fell forward as I helped him sit. “I envied you, you know. Your family, your brothers and your parents… You always looked so… happy.”

  A part of me crumbled. The little boy saving his brother, wishing for a different life.

  “I never loved him… I tried, but what… what he did to us...” Pain lanced Darren’s voice. “Blayne was never strong, not like me. Maybe that was why...”

  “Why?”

  “The moment Blayne collapsed… I knew. I knew I should’ve gone to him… I’m the Black Mage.” His eyes met mine, and suddenly I knew. “It was my job to protect him… But I chose my brother.”

  “You didn’t know—”

  “I suspected.” Bitterness flowed through his words. “And I didn’t do a thing. Could have had you watch Blayne, but… but I thought maybe it was better. So I didn’t do anything.” His whole body was shuddering. “I didn’t speak a word.”

  I leaned against the granite so that my shoulders lined up with his. A slight puff of dirt settled as I shifted in my seat.

  “If you were smart—” Darren drew in a sharp breath. “—you’d run away and never look back.” He exhaled. “I’m poison, Ryiah.” The last words tore at my lungs. “Just like my father.”

  I clutched his bloodied fingers in my own, but he pulled away even as I spoke. “You are nothing like him!”

  “Aren’t I?” His laugh was low. “He wasn’t always a bad man. He was never kind, but he wasn’t always cruel. The servants, they say he changed after my mother died.” Darren met my eyes. “Sometimes I wonder if that was who my father was always destined to be, and my mother just saved him from himself…” Garnet turned to black. “Or his love for her made him become it.”

  My heart slammed against my ribs.

  His voice was so quiet. “I’m afraid of what my love for you will make me.”

  “Darren…” Now it was my turn to crack. “I…” I didn’t know what to say. My palms trembled; I pressed them against the sand and rocks to hide their tremor.

  “Sometimes I wish I was never a prince.” His eyes clouded. “And I wonder what it would be like… if I were just a boy, and you just a girl—without all of this.”

  I let my fingers slide to his. “It would’ve made everything a lot easier.”

  For a while, there was just silence. The heavy rise and fall of his chest next to mine, the quiet in and out of our breath.

  Then he shut his eyes. “We should be them, someday.”

  “We will.” My grip tightened on his hand. Whatever he thought, he wasn’t poison.

  Darren wasn’t darkness, and I wasn’t his light.

  The prince had proven time and time again he was more than his father’s son, more than an arrogant prodigy who thought only of himself. And now I wanted to show Darren what he looked like to me.

  I needed to show him he was fire. My fire. Something filled with light. Something good. Someone just like me but wrapped up so tightly in his own barrier of darkness it could burn. Unless you knew how to unravel him.

  And so I kissed him. Tugging his face to mine, I held his jaw in the palm of my hands and kissed his mouth. Just once. Pressing my lips to his, I shut my eyes and channeled my one single promise.

  I will never give up on you.

  A spark seemed to light me up from the inside. Like tinder, my body shot to flames. And his did the same in return. We were two coals burning in the dark.

  When I pulled back, his eyes were stars.

  “Promise me, Ryiah, when this war is over, we leave this all behind. Promise we will be them.”

  “I promise.”

  THE WEEKS FOLLOWING King Lucius’s funeral brought with them a wave of change. Some good, some bad… well, they were primarily bad.

  The entire castle was in mourning. It was a three-month duration in which we were required to dress in somber colors and postpone the Crown’s weekly entertainment for the nobility at court to honor our late king in longstanding tradition. Unfortunately, it also meant our wedding was postponed.

  “Which is just as well because we don’t have Emperor Liang’s backing until we get King Joren to stop dragging his feet,” Blayne had been quick to point out. “Until he acknowledges our claim, we’ve no reason to forsake tradition a
nd expedite a wedding.”

  One of the other things to go from bad to worse, the Pythian king was now stating that he’d received correspondence from King Horrace that stated his ambassador acted without orders. Tyrus’s call “For Caltoth” could’ve been a “ploy” from Jerar to extract sympathies for a call to war. The letter even went so far as to claim the attackers were executed before a panel of unbiased parties could question them. In other words, the Caltothians were blaming Jerar.

  What surprised me most was that King Joren was even listening to their claims. After all, his own brother had watched his daughter get murdered before his very eyes.

  How a king could just put aside the loss of his daughter and ignore the facts was beyond suspicious. A king so willing to listen to the man who’d had his daughter slaughtered for show? There had to be more. Even to a girl like me with no knowledge of this sort of thing, something else was afoot; I just didn’t know what.

  Were the Pythians working with the Caltothians? But then why go through all the false efforts to negotiate? Why marry a daughter when she could’ve been sent to marry the other king’s son in the first place? Why pick the losing side?

  Were they working with the rebels? But that didn’t make sense either. Caltoth was the one who’d been raiding and attacking our border for years.

  Or was King Joren so shrewd that he could sit upon his throne and deliberate? Would he ignore the facts and pick apart meaningless details to postpone promised aid after our call to war? Did he claim he sought the truth when he really just sought an escape from our treaty?

  Blayne sent two ambassadors to Pythus to plead our case. They would remain in his court as a constant reminder until he honored the New Alliance. An envoy traveled back and forth by ship, carrying a new message with updates on our progress every month to give us hope. Sooner or later, Jerar would receive its promised aid.

  That wasn’t the only change to pass.

  Mage Mira was promoted to lead mage in the King’s Regiment. Much to my chagrin, she was my direct command. I had only just come into my new role, and thanks to the Montfort attack, she refused to even send me outside the palace gates. My new service was limited to guarding the Council of Magic’s official chamber.

  Four of the seven days each week, I spent dawn until dusk securing its entrance, growing more restless with each passing hour. The longer I spent watching Darren and the other two Colored Robes, Karina for Restoration and Yves for Alchemy, come and go for their meetings with Blayne and his new circle of advisors, the more I grew to resent my role, and, in some ways, myself.

  He’s better. It was the first thought that came to mind when I woke. And it was the last before I went to bed. I hated myself for even thinking it, but every time I grew restless, every time Mira barked at me to stop my complaints, it was there.

  If I were just a boy, and you were just a girl… If that were true, I wouldn’t be trapped in the palace. I wouldn’t be “too valuable to send out on missions,” as Mira had sneered. I wouldn’t be serving as a sentry; I would be out doing things and making a difference. Blayne had promised me as soon as we went to war I’d be able to take on a more active duty, and he’d made an effort to include me in his war council meetings on my days off now… but it wasn’t enough.

  In all fairness, the whole of Jerar had grown silent as a front. Rebel attacks had ceased in the south and no more border raids to the north. There wasn’t action to be had, anywhere. Every pair of eyes was trained on Caltoth as we waited for good news from King Joren of Pythus.

  A rampant hate was spreading across the countryside like a plague. Our king had been cut down in cold blood. Just a year before, our stronghold had been attacked. The Caltothians were ruthless, relentless in their pursuit of our land.

  Any reluctance to war had disappeared under the latest attack.

  Darren was at its head. Following his father’s funeral, the prince had channeled his grief into rage—rage that boiled over into his work. I hardly ever saw him outside the Council doors. Every waking moment was spent at his brother’s side, daring the rebels of Jerar to try an attempt again, daring Caltoth to send its army now. His mother and father had been murdered, and his brother barely survived. The Black Mage of Jerar was ready to lead us to war, and I was ready to serve.

  Our enemies—those heartless, faceless others who’d stolen so much—had to pay. It was a fire consuming the dark, fanning us with its flames and searing a brand right across our hearts.

  Perhaps that was why I didn’t notice when one walked right through the palace doors.

  16

  “Derrick?” I stopped dead in my tracks. Paige’s blunt practice sword hit me across the stomach, hard. I barely noticed.

  My little brother stood behind the spectator glass of the palace’s indoor training courts.

  “Surprise, big sister.” He gave me a small smile and my heart did a flip. “Did you miss me?”

  My casted polearm vanished, and I all but slipped across the marble floor as I ran to meet my brother in the stands. No one else was present except my knight, who’d returned to her own warm-ups now that I’d stopped our practice. The rest of the court was still asleep. I would’ve been too, if I’d been able. Unfortunately, my many late hours of restless duty had left me unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

  “What are you doing here?” I threw my arms around him, for a moment forgetting that I was covered in sweat. “Why aren’t you in Ferren?”

  “I felt terrible after I left Montfort.” His voice was muffled. “After what happened, I realized the person I was really mad at was myself. I… I was punishing you for something that wasn’t your fault.”

  “Derrick.” I pulled back. “I’m so sorry about Alex. I never—”

  “I know.” He cut me off. “I knew then, too, but I was so angry, I just didn’t care… After I returned to the keep, I started to think about that night. Nine people were murdered, and my own sister could’ve been one of them. I wouldn’t have been there to save you because I was too busy sulking like a child.” Derrick drew a sharp breath. “I would’ve never forgiven myself. So I wrote Darren and begged a position on the palace regiment.”

  “You did?” Darren hadn’t mentioned it.

  Derrick nodded, his arms tightening around my waist. “I couldn’t let anything happen to my sister. He understood and I-I think he wanted you to have some family here, so you wouldn’t feel so alone. He mentioned you’d had a hard time adjusting to the palace.” My lungs constricted, just a little. Darren had noticed. All this time I’d been envying his role, and he’d been worrying over me. “I now serve with you on the King’s Regiment. I’ve a cot in the barracks outside. I reported to their lead soldier last night. I was so tired, it took me until this morning to come find you. I checked your chamber first, but the guards told me you were in the practice court with her.” His grin turned teasing. “Neither of you has changed one bit.”

  “Neither have you.” I stepped back with an embarrassed laugh. His freshly pressed clothes were now damp with my perspiration. I pointed to his tunic. “Sorry, that wasn’t my smartest moment.”

  “You couldn’t contain your excitement to see me again.” His eyes crinkled. “I’ll take that as a compliment, even if it does smell like an army of men rotting at sea.”

  I shoved him away and made a face. “I don’t smell nearly as bad as the men we trained with in Ferren. And I wash regularly, unlike the others.”

  “Well, why don’t you wash up again? And then give me a tour of this palace? It’s your day off, the guards said, no?”

  “It is.” I waved at Paige to let her know I was done for the morning. I could make up our practice later on my own. Or maybe Derrick could join me. “When do you start service?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  EVERYTHING WAS BETTER NOW that Derrick and I’d made up from our fight in Montfort. Better even, because Darren was right. I had been suffering from loneliness since our return. I hadn’t grown up highborn. I h
adn’t spent endless summers in the palace. I didn’t have friends among the court. I’d tried with some of the regiment’s mages, but most of them preferred silence in duty, and the nobility were too eager to strike up a friendship with the Crown’s future princess. I’d been wary of all but Paige, and now that Derrick was here, I had another to turn to, someone to confide my thoughts to so I wouldn’t have to burden Darren with my jealousy and resentment.

  Someone who—unlike Paige—could share in my opinion. The knight would never dare open her feelings up to the world, even if she were formerly lowborn and now placed in a position of power. She preferred to stick to the task at hand, and that was the end. Derrick was like me. He’d chased power, pursued Combat even, and then turned to the Cavalry when his first dream got pushed aside.

  “I was jealous of you and Alex,” he admitted, one afternoon while we were drilling in the soldier’s training court outside. “But especially of you, because you had it all. The faction, the apprenticeship, you even made a name for yourself with Sir Piers and the Black Mage. You convinced a prince to call off his engagement. Our parents were so proud. They would talk about Alex, but it always came back to you. Every letter.”

  I swallowed as I blocked his blade with my own. “I had no idea.”

  He shook his head, tufts of blond, curling locks clearing his bright blue eyes. “And I didn’t want you to. I was proud of you… Just, even if I was happy, it hurt. For years. It wasn’t until Commander Nyx promoted me to her keep’s regiment it finally started to fade. Until I started to make a name for myself.”

  I fell back and Derrick took another swipe and kick at my shins. I twisted and parried his cut with ease. Hearing my brother confess to his own insecurity, his own jealousy, made it easier to breathe. What I was feeling was normal.

  “Did you… did you ever start to believe you were a terrible person?”

  “Every day. I would try to stay positive in our letters. It was easy because of the distance, and I really did miss you, but every time we were together and I watched you smile, talking about your new life, I hated you. And I hated myself even more for thinking it.”