The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “You’ll figure it out,” Jenniline told him. “I know you will,” she said confidently. “And it isn’t much longer to that full moon you’re waiting on for your wand ceremony, is it?” she asked.

  “I have a virgin in mind for you,” she said before he even asked.

  He looked at her with interest. “You do? Good! Who?”

  “It’s me,” she said. “I’m extremely confident that I’ll meet your requirements.” She stood up. “I’ll go back to bed now, and see you in the morning,” she told him, then walked back down the stairs, leaving him alone with the sound of the rainfall.

  He undressed and lay down on his bed, thinking about the upcoming ceremony to establish his wand. He was glad to know that he would perform it with Jenniline; he would be able to trust her through anything that might happen, though he didn’t expect anything like what had happened in Kilau to disrupt the activity.

  His mind slowly swirled as he closed his eyes and thought of the ceremony in Kilau, and the sight of poor Shaylee lying still, knocked unconscious by the discharge of the wand’s powers. His eyes blinked open, as he realized that there was something about that scene that was a clue to what Miriam had told him. Some chord chimed in the recesses of his mind, telling him that at least part of the answer he sought was within reach, if only he could figure out what it was.

  He fell asleep minutes later, lulled by the sound of the rain.

  And he awoke in the morning, as dawn broke over the rainy clouds, when his energy shield finally petered out and rain began to fall on him directly. He sat up in a flash, took moments to understand what was happening, then reinstated the shield above his head. There was no sign of the moon, and no way to contact Brieed that morning. With the moon changing its phases, it made sense to try to switch to sunset and early evening conversations in any event, he concluded.

  He went downstairs and cleaned up, then went to the dining hall, one of the first to brave the weather to start the day. As he sat down and was served his platter of food, a stream of others who he had met at meals or at weaponry practice, or even at his musical engagements, began to come speak to him.

  Prince Inge came and sat down at his table as Grange was finishing his meal, and the two talked about the music at the tavern they had visited.

  “I’ve been told to invite you to an audience with my father,” Inge said, after the musical conversation died down, and just as Jenniline entered the hall.

  “Did our dear father himself propose this?” she asked as she took a seat at their table, wedging herself into a narrow space next to Grange.

  “He did – late last night, following a messenger from the temple of Miriam, incidentally. And also based in part on the recommendation of our brother Halsten,” Inge replied.

  “Halsten and father?” Jenniline looked puzzled.

  “Father wants to know when this strange visitor is going to do something, such as choose a bride or go make peace with the Bloomingians, as he is supposed to,” Inge told the two of them, and the others who were at the table, listening closely.

  “I will complete the ceremony to bind my wand to me in another three days,” Grange said. “After that I will plan my trip to the Bloomingians.”

  “And when will you choose your mate?” Inge asked.

  “I haven’t interviewed all the princesses yet,” Grange equivocated.

  “My understanding is that you’ve talked to every one of them but Hope, and you already know her just as well as you know any of the others, everyone believes,” the prince pressed him.

  “After my wand is finished,” Grange told Inge, “if all goes well, I’ll return to the wilderness and approach the outcasts.”

  “And when will you announce your chosen mate?” Inge pressed. “Not that you need to tell me right now,” he added. “But father will want to know.

  “I’ll let you pronounce your plans to father yourself,” he said.

  Grange nodded silently in acknowledgement. He had already made up his mind, barring something unexpected in his formal interview with Hope, but he still dreamed of miraculously escaping Acton’s requirement that he marry a member of the royal family. And so he simply pushed the decision off into the future.

  “You say Halsten told father to allow Grange to address him?” Jenniline asked, changing the topic.

  “He did,” Inge replied. “He seems to have come to terms with the fact that this is all being dictated by a god – it’s apparent this isn’t Grange’s plan or desire, after all. And he seems to have seen enough and heard enough of your companion to suspend his disbelief.”

  Jenniline sat back, silent with her evident skepticism.

  “Please tell the king that I will appear before him and the court after the full moon,” Grange said. “I think I’ll know more then, and be able to begin to plan how to proceed.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go think about the messages Miriam gave me last night,” he stood up. “And perhaps I’ll see you at the tavern tonight?” he asked Inge with a smile.

  “Undoubtedly,” the prince agreed.

  “But I haven’t even eaten my breakfast yet!” Jenniline protested as she sat with her plate of food in front of her. “You’re going upstairs already?”

  “Just come up whenever you want,” Grange told her. “I’ll be there.”

  He left the dining hall and walked through the rain to the entrance to his tower. When he arrived, he found a folded parchment pinned to the door, with his name scrawled across the front; he took it and carried it upstairs, then opened it up and found a bundle of letters inside, a half dozen or more.

  Puzzled about what the purpose of the letters were, he began to read the first one, then immediately stopped. It was a love note from a man, and it was addressed to Jenniline, he saw.

  He stopped reading and lowered the bundle of papers to his lap, as he let his reactions conflict with one another. He had no real right to read the notes – it would be an intrusion on Jenniline’s private life. He had no right to do that. She had not tried to pry into his past life, setting an example of proper behavior towards a colleague, or perhaps a friend.

  Yet someone had deliberately delivered the letters to him. Someone had a belief that he ought to know something about her. And he needed to know that he could trust her; when the time came to hold the procedure to convert his wand into a finished instrument of power, he would have to rely upon her, he told himself.

  He looked down at the letters in his lap. The one on top was open, and without even meaning to, he could read it clearly. The words sent a chill through him, as he glanced at them; “Last night our time together was a wonderful moment that lasted forever. When you gave yourself to me, I knew that you loved me.”

  Grange averted his eyes, and wrinkled the letter fiercely as he clenched it in his fingers that closed into a fist.

  He didn’t know if he was angry, or confused, or concerned.

  Jenniline had been cold and aloof when they had met in the wilderness, but she had helped rescue him from imprisonment and torture, and since he had chosen her as his counsel – an impulsive decision on his part – she had been hard-working, loyal, and invaluable to a fault.

  Yet the words of the letter implied that she had misled him on the question of her suitability to assist him with his wand. She had to be a virgin, and the letter suggested she wasn’t.

  He held the letters as he stood up, and resolved to return to the meal hall to ask her to explain the truth.

  Chapter 22

  Grange held the bundle of letters as he strode rapidly across the palace grounds, back to the meal hall, where he expected to find Jenniline, although a small part of him hoped that she would be gone, and the potential confrontation could be avoided for at least a little while more.

  He entered the hall and saw her sitting alone at the table he had left her at, while a knot of men, including the detestable Brady – the man he had plastered to the ceiling once – were seated on the opposite side of the hall.<
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  “Jenniline,” he spoke in a serious voice as he walked over and sat down beside her. “When I got to the tower, there was a folded parchment with my name on it, attached to the door,” he told her as he sat down. She stared at him, trying to understand the unusual strain in his voice.

  “When I looked inside, I found these letters – letters addressed to you,” he spread the letters out in front of her on the table.

  She dropped the piece of ham she had been eating and snatched up the pile of papers. “These are the letters that were taken from my room, right after you named me as your counselor!” she exclaimed. “Why would someone try to give them to you?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Did you read them?” there was a note of hardness in her voice, as she moved past her surprise.

  “Only a little; just a couple of sentences on the top page,” he explained. “Not intending to steal your privacy,” he added.

  “But,” he decided to plunge ahead, “whoever wrote this, they made it sound as if you were in love, or had made love, and I have to ask if you truly are a virgin?” he wished he hadn’t asked the question even as the words came out of his mouth.

  He saw the pain in her eyes, and then the hardening anger.

  Jenniline stood up. “I told you the truth,” she hissed. “I had someone I thought I loved, and I pledged my heart to them, and the promise of everything else to come on our wedding night, as he led me to believe we would have.

  “But then I found out he was dishonest and dishonorable, and I ended the relationship. And I’m severely disappointed in you for reading these private letters that you have no right to,” she told him.

  As soon as she said it, a man’s voice somewhere shouted, “Now!” and there was the twang of several bowstrings all being released simultaneously.

  Grange and Jenniline both looked around in surprise. Grange began to call upon the energy instantly, but before he could, a powerful force struck him painfully in the back of his shoulder, driving him forward, so that his face smacked hard against the table’s surface.

  A second arrow struck the table just inches from his face, sending a shower of splinters into his forehead and scalp, while a third arrow whizzed just barely above his head and struck the wall nearby.

  “Shoot again! Shoot to kill!” the man’s voice shouted, and the bow strings snapped again.

  “No!” Jenniline screamed. She dove down onto the table in front of Grange, blocking his view of what was happening. She gave a sudden gasp, and her body jerked, then jerked again. She rolled onto her back, and Grange saw a pair of arrows embedded in her chest.

  “Jenniline!” he bellowed in shocked anger.

  “Energy heal me and protect me! Energy, protect Jenniline – remove the arrows, heal her body, and keep her safely quiet!” he snapped off the commands as he raised himself up.

  He felt the pain in his back abruptly stop, and an aura of blue power surrounded him as he rose to his feet and looked around the hall.

  The knot of men he had noticed when he entered had spread apart, and three of the men held bows. The fourth member of the group, Brady, stood in the direction from which Grange had heard the orders given to shoot the arrows.

  “Energy, press these four against the wall over there,” he pointed to a blank portion of the stone structure above a bank of windows, “And hold them there until I return.”

  The men all shouted as they were suddenly whisked off their feet and slammed against the wall, several feet above the floor.

  Grange didn’t even bother to watch the men fly through the air; as soon as he had given the order he looked down at Jenniline, then gathered her up in his arms, holding her in a tight hug held against his chest. She was pale and still, under the control of the energy he had directed to quiet her.

  Voices came into the hall, calling questions, and Grange was aware of new arrivals in the room, a small flood of people brought by the outburst of shouting, first from the victims and then from the assailants.

  “She’s been hit,” Grange said, looking up at the curious people, “these men shot arrows at her and me.

  “I’ll take her to my tower so that she can heal, then I’ll be back here to deal with them,” he spoke grimly, still glowing with the energy shield he had erected around himself. Without waiting for any reaction, he began walking towards the doors of the hall. “Energy, open the doors,” he commanded, and the double doors flew open, so that he could walk out unimpeded, protected from the rain.

  “Lift me to the roof,” he commanded when he reached the tower, and he felt air beneath his feet as he flew upward to the roof, taking the quickest route he could think of to reach the safety and comfort of his quarters.

  “Listrid!” he called as he touched down on the roof, and began to carry Jenniline downstairs. “Listrid, you need to attend to the princess!” he shouted.

  The serving woman met him as he came down the steps to the floor that she and Jenniline occupied. When she saw him aglow with the energy shield she gave a gasp and stepped away from him.

  Grange dismissed the power. “Your mistress was attacked; I’ve healed her and put her to sleep,” Grange said. “Undress her and put her to bed, so that she can rest, then come tell me when you’re done, so that I can see her.

  “Tell me where to place her,” he commanded.

  “This way,” Listrid directed, going to a door and opening it.

  Inside the room was a bed, and Grange carefully laid Jenniline atop the mattress after pulling the cover back.

  “I’ll take care of her for you, my lord. I won’t let your lady down,” the servant said tenderly, giving Grange a pat on the arm as he left the room.

  He paced back and forth in the main room on the floor, the room where he had stood when he had created the stairs within his quarters upon first arriving there. He looked down and saw that his hand held the crumpled mass of papers that had played a role in the disastrous recent minutes. He angrily threw them to the floor, then pointed a finger at them. “Burn them, energy!” he commanded, and watched as a bright flare of flame incinerated them in a pair of seconds, leaving only a fine gray dust.

  “She’s in bed properly now, my lord,” Listrid spoke from the doorway.

  Grange thanked the woman, then passed her and entered the bedroom, where Jenniline still looked extremely pale as she seemed to blend into the white cotton bedding. He had grown so use to the pale skin tones of Southgar that her usual white skin had come to seem normal to him, he realized, while this grayish pallor looked ghastly by comparison.

  “Energy, allow her to awaken; give her strength,” he commanded gently, then knelt on the floor next to her, and watched.

  Her skin changed shades before his eyes, leaving the gray shades and returning to the slightly pinkish white he expected to see. Her eye lids fluttered, and then opened.

  “Where are we? What happened?” she asked.

  “We were in the dining hall, and Brady and his cronies fired arrows at us,” Grange explained. “I brought you back here.”

  “How did I get undressed? Did you do this?” her eyes narrowed as she looked at him.

  “Now I remember – you were accusing me of sleeping with Brady!” she spoke heatedly.

  “That’s not what I said!” Grange denied.

  “Wait!” he exclaimed. “Are you saying that Brady was the one who wrote those letters to you? You were in love with him?”

  “I was, or I thought I was. I was young, and virtually an outcast, and he showed an interest in me when no one else would hardly talk to me besides Trensen,” Jenniline told him, her head on her pillow, and turned to the side to look at him as he still knelt beside her mattress.

  “I’m sorry about what happened,” Grange began to apologize.

  “It was all Brady!” she said. “He broke into my room and stole those letters, then tried to give them to you to make you jealous, then ambushed us when you came to the dining hall to fight w
ith me!”

  “I didn’t go there to fight,” Grange said. “I just wanted to, ask,” he said lamely.

  “But I can go take care of Brady and his henchmen right now,” he added.

  “I am a virgin, Grange,” Jenniline blurted out. “Don’t doubt me.”

  “I won’t; I’m sorry about questioning you,” he said. He stood up, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. It was something the nuns at the orphanage had done on rare occasions when he had been a little boy growing up in Fortune, and he remembered how special it had felt.

  “I’ll be back,” he told her. “I’m going to go take care of the problem down in the hall.”

  “Don’t go overboard Grange,” Jenniline said as he walked out the door.

  He ran down the stairs of the tower, two at a time, to reach the ground level, then grimly stalked across the grounds once again. When he reached the dining hall he saw that the doors were still open, as he had commanded the energy to arrange, and they glowed with a faint residue of power that continued to hold them open.

  The dining hall was packed with people, all abuzz at the sight of the men who remained pinned to the wall, but upon his entry, the murmurs and conversation abated, and the people grew silent.

  “Bows, arise,” Grange spoke into the silence, and the power lifted the bows that the assassins had used in their attempt to kill him. They rose up and floated from the floor and hovered in place in a line, even with Grange below them and the men on the wall in front of them.

  “Arrows, arise,” Grange was acting purely out of emotion, letting his unchecked feeling dictate his actions and his use of the energy.

  “Arrows,” he called, as they floated next to the bows, “take positions; strings, draw; bows aim as I wish.”

  The crowd began to murmur as Grange’s intentions became obvious.