by Rachel Aaron
“All this time you’ve been hiding in the king’s deer park?” She was almost laughing now. “You’re putting me on. I had Eril search this area days ago.”
“Spirits don’t see everything,” Eli said. “Besides, I had some excellent camouflage.” He tilted his head back. “Ladies?”
The pleasant purr of his spirit voice reverberated through her. High overhead, a chorus of sighs answered, “Eli!”
Miranda took a step back as the trees behind the cabin, a clump of young hardwoods taking advantage of the tiny clearing’s sunlight, shook themselves to life. They bent down, giggling like geese, and surrounded Eli in a nest of branches. He said something low, and they giggled harder before lifting away and settling lightly over the ruined roof. They rustled madly, fluffing their broad leaves over the gaping holes and forming a sort of net over the fire hole to diffuse the smoke. When they stopped moving at last, Miranda’s eyes widened. The young trees covered the hut perfectly. In fact, had she not seen them move, she would have sworn that the hovel was just another rocky outcropping, and that the trees had always been that way.
“Welcome,” Eli said, slipping between the branches with practiced ease and opening the rickety wooden door. Josef followed him, clutching his injured chest and grumbling under his breath the whole way. Nico went into the hut last, pulling her coat tight around her and her hat down over her eyes as she squeezed between the branches. Only when they were all inside and she saw the first sparks of a fire being struck did Miranda begin to untie her own bag from Gin’s back.
King Henrith had just made it to the ground. He looked at the hut with no small amount of panic in his eyes. “What should I do?”
“For now, go in,” Miranda said, struggling with the leather straps. “We have a deal, and I don’t think he’ll go back on it. After all, you’re no profit to him now.”
The king grimaced. “That’s supposed to be comforting?”
“With a thief like him, it’s the most comforting thing you’ll hear. Go in, I’ll follow in a moment.”
The king hovered a moment longer and then timidly made his way into the hut.
“Can’t really blame him,” Miranda said as the king’s shadow joined the others’ around the infant fire. “It’s not exactly a place of pleasant memories, considering what he’s been through.”
Gin snorted, sending a wave of dead leaves scurrying across the grass. “What kind of wizard starts a fire with rocks?”
“The same kind who flirts with trees, apparently.” Miranda worked the pack free at last and set it on the ground beside her. “No wonder he was so hard to track. Half the spirits in this clearing are in love with him. It’s like that stupid door all over again.”
Gin rolled his eyes, but stayed oddly silent. Miranda walked over to his head and began to scratch his ears. “How does he do it?” she murmured. “How does he get them to just, I don’t know”—she shrugged—“do what he says?”
“There’s something about him,” the ghosthound said quietly. “He’s got a sort of brightness.”
Miranda kept scratching, listening carefully. Spirits, even talkative ones like Gin, almost never talked about the spirit world. She’d tried to cajole information out of him on uncountable occasions, but every time he refused, saying it would be too difficult, like trying to describe the color red to a blind child. Some things, he would growl, you just had to see for yourself.
When he didn’t continue on his own, she tried a delicate prompt. “Brightness? Like sunlight?”
“No,” Gin said, “not like light through the eyes. Bright, like something beautiful.” He shook himself and stood up. “Leave off, I’m no good at this. He’s just got a light around him, all right? And spirits are attracted to light. Interpret as you will. I’m going to get some food. Be back in a few hours.”
Then he was gone. It happened so quickly, she barely felt his fur slip between her fingers before he vanished into the night. Miranda stood for a long while where he had left her, looking up at the full moon with her eyes closed tightly, trying to imagine what light not like light through the eyes looked like. Only when Eli yelled something about dinner did she finally go into the cabin.
“All right,” Eli said, rubbing his hands together. “What’s the plan?”
They were seated in two factions on either side of the fire, Miranda and the king against one wall, Eli against the other. Josef was lying flat on his back in the far corner, gripping the hilt of his iron sword while Nico hovered over him, treating the nasty gash in his chest. She had finished cleaning the glass sand out of it by the time Miranda entered and was now stitching the skin back together. From Josef’s bored expression, she might as well have been doing needlepoint next to him rather than in him, and Miranda was impressed in spite of herself.
Eli’s question seemed aimed at no one in particular, but when no one answered, Miranda took it upon herself. “A frontal assault is out of the question,” she said. “Renaud will be on high alert. He also has a master swordsman, as we saw, so there’s that to think about.” She nodded slightly at Josef, who either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “I just wish we knew what other enslaved spirits he had.”
Eli shrugged. “Well, he can’t have too many enormous, mad spirits just lying around.”
“We can’t count on that,” Josef said. “I’m not a wizard, but even I can tell the man’s obviously powerful. I mean, no offense, Miss Spiritualist, but he had you squirming in the sand the minute he got serious.”
Miranda blushed scarlet. “Do not postulate where you do not understand, swordsman,” she snapped.
Josef looked at Eli, who was doing his best not to laugh. “Don’t be prickly, Miranda,” Eli said. “He didn’t mean anything by it. Do you want to tell him, or should I?”
Miranda looked away, fuming. “I don’t see why it needs to be explained at all. He won’t understand it.”
Josef’s glare matched her own. “Try me.”
Miranda tugged a hand through her hair. “Fine,” she growled. “It’s not exactly a secret.” She held up her hand so that her rings glittered in the shaky firelight. “Wizards can impose their will over spirits. That’s one of the basic principles behind magic. The other, of course, is that our control does not extend over other human souls. That’s why most people feel only a slightly uncomfortable pressure when a wizard opens their spirit, no matter how strong the wizard is. Spiritualists, however, are different, because we maintain a constant bond through our rings with our servant spirits. Each of my spirits siphons off a small, steady stream of energy from my soul as per our agreement when they became my servants.”
“Power for service,” Eli said, with mock seriousness. “Strength for obedience.”
Miranda ignored him. “Most of the time, this connection is one way. But sometimes, for example, when a powerful wizard opens his spirit full tilt right in front of them, my servant spirits are affected like any other spirit, and that can cause feedback through our connection.”
“So what does that mean?” Josef said.
Eli beat Miranda to it. “It means normal humans may feel a bit queasy when a wizard’s open soul is pressing against them, but it can’t hurt us, so we don’t go all weak at the knees about it. Spiritualists, however, are tied into their pet spirits waking and sleeping, and when those spirits are squashed under a strong wizard’s will, like Renaud’s, the Spiritualist,” he said and made a squishing motion with his hands, “goes right down with them.”
Miranda shook her head, but Josef nodded. “Hell of a weakness. How does the Spirit Court fight an enslaver, then?”
“A strong, loyal fire spirit is usually enough,” Miranda said. “They’re so chaotic that most enslavers can’t get control before they’re burned. My Kirik would have been perfect had someone ”—she glared murderously at Eli— “not doused him.”
“How was I supposed to know he’d go out so quickly?”
Josef shook his head. “Well, that’s out. Is there any other way around
the problem?”
“No,” said Miranda.
“Yes,” said Eli.
She whirled to face him. “What do you mean?”
Eli shrugged. “Your rings are what give you trouble, right? So take them off. Seems simple to me.”
“Take them off? ” Miranda looked incredulous. “I can’t just take them off!”
“Well, how else do you think you’re going to be able to come into the castle with us?” Eli said.
“Maybe you can get by sweet-talking trees and doors,” she huffed, “but I’m not leaving my spirits. I’ll be defenseless!”
“Can’t be worse than what happened before,” Josef said. “I’m sure your wiggling on the ground really intimidated Renaud. Might and majesty of the Spirit Court and all that.”
“There’s no other way, Miranda,” Eli cut in. “We need your help in this, and we can’t go in if we can’t count on you not to fall over when things get sticky.”
Miranda looked at the king, who looked thoroughly lost in all this spirit talk. When he saw her looking, he smiled trustingly, and she heaved a long sigh. With great difficulty, she reached down and pulled off her rings one by one, laying them gently on the ground in front of her. She pulled Eril’s pendant over her head and added him to the pile. Lastly, she slipped the Spirit Court signet off her left ring finger and laid it reverently beside the others, the heavy gold glowing warmly in the firelight.
Next, she dug around in her knapsack for the doeskin bag all Spiritualists kept for just this purpose. Her fingers felt uncomfortably light and naked as she dropped her rings one at a time into the soft leather pouch. It was a tight fit—no Spiritualist expects to have to remove all of their rings at once—but after a few tries she managed to wedge everything in and knot the bag closed with a red silk cord. Out of the glittering pile of rings, she’d kept only one. A small opal band, almost like a child’s promise ring, remained on her left pinky. Her glare dared anyone to comment as she tucked the bulging doeskin bag back into her knapsack.
“Okay,” Eli said, rubbing his hands together as Miranda settled back into her spot by the fire. “Now that we’re serious, here’s the real plan.”
CHAPTER
16
The throne room of castle Allaze was as dark and forbidding as its prisons. The sun had set hours ago, but the lamps were still not lit. No one had let the servants in to light them. At the base of the dais stairs, below the empty throne, the masters of Mellinor stood in a loose circle around a balding man whose dust-streaked armor matched his tear-stained face.
“Friends,” Master Oban said, his strong voice wavering, “as many times as you have me tell it, the story won’t change. I saw with my own two eyes the Spiritualist’s lightning strike our king. I watched him fall!”
“I thought the lightning was pointed at the thief?” an official in the back called out, sparking a new torrent of comments.
“Impossible!”
“Master Oban, are you sure you saw—”
“The real issue here—”
“—waited far too long—”
“—always said it was a trap—”
“—greatest tragedy of our times, that’s what they’ll say, and on our watch—”
“Enough,” said the old Master of the Courts. “Leave Master Oban be.”
The masters’ chatter stopped immediately, and the dark room fell silent as the elderly master motioned for Oban to step aside. The Master of Security made way immediately, and the Master of the Courts took his place at the center of the circle. “We can’t deny it any longer,” the Master of the Courts said. “We have to accept that the Spiritualist used us. Perhaps it is as Lord Renaud theorized and she was in league with the thief from the very beginning, or perhaps not. Whatever the circumstances, we are to blame.”
“It was awful convenient, her showing up not an hour after the king’s disappearance,” said a young, minor official, elbowing his way forward. “I for one always believed she was up to something. Why would a wizard come to Mellinor, except to cause trouble?” He glared at the old men. “The only wizard we can trust is Lord Renaud. Even banished, he tried his best to save his brother!”
“But where is the body?” another official shouted back. “Where is our king?”
This raised a new round of shouting, and it was several minutes before the Master of the Courts regained control. “Silence,” he growled, staring down the younger members who were still miming punches at each other. He looked pointedly at Master Oban, who nodded, then at Master Litell, the thin Master of the Exchequer, who looked away. Satisfied, he spoke the words they’d all been waiting for. “In the four hundred years since her founding, Mellinor’s succession has never once been compromised. After hearing your opinions, divided as they may be, I think we can all agree on one point: If tradition must change, it will not be with us.”
The masters began to murmur again, but the Master of the Courts silenced them with a wave of his hand. “The discussion is over, send him in.”
A young official broke from the circle and ran to the side parlor. His knuckles had barely touched the wooden door before Renaud flung it open. He was already clothed from chin to toes in mourning black, and his pale face seemed to float through the darkened hall of its own accord. The circle opened up as he approached, until only the Master of the Courts stood between him and the empty throne.
The Master of the Courts watched Renaud warily. For a moment, he seemed on the verge of sending the prince away again, but in the end, the Master bowed his head.
“Prince Renaud,” he said, “it is with a heavy heart that we call you here, but in times of uncertainty the kingdom must not be even one day without its ruler. Therefore, it is the agreement of this emergency council that the crown should pass from father to son, brother to brother, as it has always been.”
Renaud bowed solemnly, but there was a twinkle of delight hidden in his blue eyes. When he stepped forward, however, the Master of the Courts held up his hand.
“Yet,” the master said, and Renaud’s eyes darkened, “in the absence of King Henrith’s body, you must understand our predicament. Should, by some miracle, King Henrith be found alive, all titles will revert immediately to him, as is his right.”
“I would expect nothing more,” Renaud said, laying his hand gently on the old man’s shoulder. “Henrith was my brother and my king as well, as dear to me as my own flesh, even in my exile. Still”—his eyes moved gravely across the circle of faces—“we must not let false hope take root. Miranda Lyonette is a powerful Spiritualist, and the Spirit Court is not an organization to leave such things to chance. I have long speculated that her initial goal was to kill King Henrith in the hopes of bringing me to the throne. She, no doubt, believed that a fellow wizard would be more sympathetic to the Spirit Court’s demands. Only when I rebuked her for the cruel murder of my kinsman did she realize her mistake. Now, I fear she may try to conjure up a phantom of my brother to trick you and turn us against each other, throwing Mellinor into confusion so that the Spirit Court’s agents can sneak in.”
Master Oban went pale. “You mean, it’s not a story? Wizards can really do that? Create apparitions?”
Renaud nodded gravely. “False images, but real enough to touch.” He grabbed the Master of Security’s shoulder with his other hand, and the older man shrank away, shivering. “Our only defense is watchfulness,” he continued, looking each master in the eyes in turn. “I have sent word to the outposts, but I am sure she will try to strike at the castle, where she’s had success before. If you or any of the people below you see anyone resembling the late king, he must be brought to me immediately. The Spiritualist must not be allowed to spread fear and uncertainty among us.”
The officials mumbled to each other, sometimes agreement, sometimes displeasure, but no one dared speak up. Renaud silenced them with a look. “We begin the seven days of mourning at sunrise. Go and make your preparations.”
The circle scattered, but as they walked
away, Renaud added. “Master Litell, another moment, if you please.”
The elderly Master of the Exchequer froze and looked timidly over his shoulder. Renaud beckoned, and Litell returned without further protest. A few of the younger officials hung back, trying for a few words with their new king, but he waved them away, and they left the throne room like rejected puppies. When the last one shuffled through the great, golden doors, Renaud turned and gave the Master of the Exchequer his most pleasant smile.
“I need you to let me into the treasury.”
“Now?” Litell rubbed his hands together nervously. “If my lord wishes to review the books, I have the country’s balances in my office. I can wake my assistant—”
“I trust your accounts,” Renaud said. “But what I need to see can be found only in the treasury. You have the key, do you not?”
“Entrusted to me by your father,” Litell said, clutching the heavy chain at his neck. “But I’ll have to call someone to help with the doors …”
“Do it,” Renaud said. “There is something I need to confirm as soon as possible.”
Master Litell jumped at his sudden sharpness, but did as he was told. Renaud followed him out of the throne room and down the steep stairs that led to the oldest part of the castle. Neither man noticed the shadow that followed silently behind them.
It took half an hour and twenty guardsmen to get the treasury open. Master Litell spent the entire time apologizing.
“I am so dreadfully sorry for the delay,” he puffed, standing back as the soldiers heaved again. “That door hasn’t been opened in thirty years at least, not since your mother’s dower was added. Your father and brother never cared much for the historical pieces.”
They were standing in a long hall deep beneath what was now the prison, but once, hundreds of years ago, had been the heart of the palace Allaze, built by Gregorn himself. The smoke-stained walls were still covered in undulating mosaics that, in the unsteady light of the guards’ lamps, seemed to rise and swell like black waves on an underground sea. Renaud, however, saw nothing except the solid slab of iron as wide as the hall itself, set flush against the bare stone. The great treasury door was triple barred, each man-sized lock marked with the deep graven seal of Mellinor.