"Why did they jump out like that?" Sebine was curious and studied her friend's nipples, peering in to see them close.
"I don't know...lately they get that way sometimes when I bathe and wash myself. It feels strange, but stronger when you touched me." Even in the darkness, it seemed like her friend was blushing. "It felt good..."
Sebine pondered her words for a moment and remembered back to spying on lovers in the city's rose garden who at twilight kissed and touched each other when they thought no one was looking. But those were men and women...how could a woman make another woman feel that way? She studied Eloise's dilated pupils.
"How are we supposed to learn how to kiss?" Sebine let the question linger in the humid air and enjoyed Eloise's nervous laughter.
"I already know how to kiss a boy." Eloise's delighted expression at Sebine's surprise infuriated her. When did this happen? They used to tell each other everything. "An older boy...a bard...he played me a stupid song that made me laugh and the next thing you know I found myself kissing him. He was sweet and said I was too young for him. I hated him for that and stormed out of the room. But you know, before, when we were kissing, he stuck his tongue into my mouth and I thought it was gross."
"He what?" Sebine found herself giggling in pleasurable guilt. "Show me! You have to show me how. I don't want to make a fool out of myself when I first kiss a boy. You just have to."
Eloise had an indifferent expression of haughty power on her face and she leaned in towards Sebine and pressed her lips over hers and opened her mouth and slipped her tongue inside. They laughed together at the ridiculousness of it all and Eloise shrugged her shoulders and said that that was how the boy did it.
"Maybe we should do it longer...I saw people kissing in the gardens forever, and they were both touching each other."
"You're weird. But if you want...why not?" Eloise retrieved a bottle from her bag. "Look what I found in my mother's pantry." She made an amused expression with her face and took a drink, then handed it to Sebine. The liquor burned as it went down her throat and she coughed and laughed with Eloise who took another drink, then leaned in towards her and pressed her lips again on Sebine's, allowing the liquid to seep inside her mouth.
That had made Sebine feel something warm between her legs spread down her thighs and sent tingling down her arms. Eloise tried kissing her again—deeply now with her tongue, and instead of feeling giddy she felt good...really good. They took turns kissing and drinking and soon the world spun in a tangle of hands and feet and tongues.
When Eloise's mother discovered them there the next morning, they were banned from alcohol and forbidden from sleeping together. It was a bland proclamation to the King and Queen: the girls have grown past such childishness.
But tonight, Eloise was cold and almost angry, liked she sensed something different in Sebine. When she finished her cleansing ritual the maid combed her long hair and her eyes commented on Sebine.
"What happened to you? The guards searched for you for over an hour. You were found missing in your bed, and the guard claims the torch light went out and you were gone." Eloise frowned at Sebine. "They said you were found sleepwalking...but I don't believe it...you never sleepwalk."
"I don't remember what happened, other than I did have the strangest dreams." Sebine kept her face coy but that enraged Eloise even more, to Sebine's delight. "I'm simply famished. Dress me, I feel the need to walk to the kitchens and find some food."
"Fine...be that way." Eloise's eyes narrowed. "The Queen is dining in the library. She asked me to tell you to join her if you wake." She strode off to fetch some clothes, and returned to display two of Sebine's most despised dresses—all given to her by the King. "You never wear them."
Sebine scoffed and gave Eloise a challenging scowl. "Don't test me. I'd rather go there naked then wear those hideous things."
Eloise dropped the dresses on the floor and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Sebine raged at the insult and picked up the clothes and threw them into the pool. In a fit she cast the spell of heat and stepping far away, caused the water to boil so vigorously steam filled the room and poured out of the open window. She released the spell and smiled in satisfaction that the silk dresses had melted under her fury.
In her dressing room she selected the same dress she wore the night of the Festival and let it drape down over her naked skin, pretending the feeling of it was Tael's hands on her body. She left her room and gave the guard outside her door a withering glare that reduced the man to barely a shred of confidence left. She ignored him and strode down to Mother's library, where she found the Queen dining with the Earl of Narling.
"Daughter...you've finally awoken." The Queen removed her hand from the Earl's, but unblushing, continued. "The Earl was comforting me in my worry for you, my dear. You gave us a terrible fright."
Sebine gave the Earl a wry smile and sat in the chair always reserved for the King. It was a slight and Sebine relished in the offense. "I feeling strangely refreshed. Perhaps all I needed was sleep. I dreamed of the King off on his campaign. To the west this time? More substantial spoils of war to adorn your neck." How Sebine spoke the words were meant to inflame the Queen's feeling of enslavement. She meant to be cruel.
The Earl opened his mouth to speak but the Queen interrupted him with a flourish of her wrist. "If sleep suits you, sleepwalking most definitely does not. To prevent future lapses we've asked your guard to follow you everywhere in the palace. A temporary ailment, I'm sure, but necessary for your protection. Wouldn't want you sleepwalking out of the palace, now would we? The Earl thinks some charm or curse has befallen you. He says the whole affair smells of magic. For the ridiculous amounts of gold we pay those Hakkadians, you'd think we would all be safe, now shouldn't we?"
A manservant placed wine, a bowl of cold tomato soup, cheeses, and a small loaf of bread at Sebine's table. The Princess slurped annoyingly at the soup and ate her bread, thinking of a retort. "Maybe that is what I need...a cure from the Hakkadians. What an interesting suggestion, Mother."
The Queen studied Sebine's practiced look of honesty and concern, and sniffed, apparently appeased at her suggestion. "Then eat your food and go to them...under guard the entire way. If there is some foul spell at play they will uncover it."
With a raised glass of wine Sebine bowed her head to the Queen, and finished her food without comment. She left, ignoring their odd stares, and took the well-worn way down to the Hakkadian lair. She told the guard to wait outside, and when he at first refused, she reminded him just exactly who were inside. Did he want to meet the sorcerers? The guard gave in and she entered and closed the door behind her.
"You waited a long time to return to us." Master Vhelan spoke in a tired, uncertain voice as she entered the chamber. "Some of our members suspected you were angry and perhaps fearful of interacting with us. This couldn't be truth, now could it?"
She smiled deviously at her master and strode down the staircase to the studying eyes of the sorcerers. "I was ill, actually. Due to my over eagerness I seemed to have depleted my magical power. Two days of sleep and some very odd dreams seemed to have cured me. In fact, I feel stronger than ever."
Her master paused in contemplation of her words and Sebine felt a wave of energy course through her at his examination. He nodded in satisfaction. "It seems as if you've learn a bit about the rules of magic and the limitations of spells...is this not so?"
"Indeed I have. I found holding an illusion for extended periods of time to be very draining. I also discovered I have a kernel of stored power inside my stomach." Sebine aimed a palm at Master Vhelan. "And I found out that trying to move very heavy things pushed me away from them."
The old sorcerer nodded, unsurprised. "You need to anchor the push against something heavier than the thing you intend on pushing. All you've done is anchor books and small items against your own weight—and this was all possible. But try moving a heavy stone or even a person and you'll be in serious trouble."
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His words made perfect sense, and while he was speaking, Sebine felt like she was listening to her science tutor speak of physics. Were there concepts similar to chemistry that applied to magic as well? Of course, the spell of boiling blood and liquids. Did the same rules of science apply here?
"Tell me, why were you over eager in your casting?" Master Vhelan gave her a long, uncomfortable stare and she felt the workings of magic pore over her head. She emptied her mind of thoughts and relaxed, confident that they couldn't read her memories. "I've heard rumors running around the palace. The Captain of the Guard out on an odd visit into the city in the middle of the night. And a certain Princess leaving her room at a similar time. The guard standing watch at her door claims the torchlight went out and the next thing he knew you were gone."
Master Vhelan chuckled with relaxed ease. "Then you were found sleepwalking and returned to your room. The same guard also claims you returned very late earlier that night, acting a bit drunk and giddy, and, in our observation, returned from the festival after meeting a very handsome and dangerous boy."
"You've been following me?" Sebine raged, and felt the hairs along her spine itch with irritation and anger.
"Of course we have—you are one of us, now. You're our investment."
When Sebine went to raise a finger to the sorcerer, she found an invisible weight forcing her hands to her side, as if being embraced by a giant. She gave in, but fumed on the inside. Why was she so foolish in first coming here unguarded and without a plan? Was she forever at their mercy?
"And then strangely it seems you left the palace again, disguising yourself as the Captain of the Guard?" A puzzled expression crossed the sorcerer's face. "Why bother? You had a riotous and amorous night out at the festival, met a boy, and went home. Why return and stay out so long that you deplete all your magical reserves?"
She couldn't tell them the truth. They still worked for the King and were likely to try and kill Tael. A lie...but it had to be a lie that they would believe. "I went back out to meet him. When I first left the palace I was disguised as Emitt Weylor, but then I suppose you know that already. He has a constant habit of leaving the palace by two o'clock in the morning. So I had to return before then to eliminate suspicion and the possibility of discovery. But I told the boy I would return and meet him near the winemaker's shop. He never showed up."
Master Vhelan relaxed at her words and shrugged encouragingly. "Young boys are foolish. But in a way you were lucky you didn't meet him. I'd advise you to be more careful next time..."
"Yes, I will." Sebine gave the man a half-hearted bow of her head.
"Well, enough of that. We've little time left our as our dragon-master brethren have informed us that the King is returning today in a foul mood after a sour skirmish with the Malathians. Now about your ring. When you are weak and depleted of magical resources, the ring is there for you to draw on a quick burst of power. The ring has many other uses but now is not the time for me to teach you those other uses."
Sebine raised her hand and inspected the runes etched on the Ring of Galdora, and with an inhalation felt a surge of power flow into her stomach from the ring. Her vision went black as the depths of a dungeon. Three faces appeared to her—elfish faces, one a man beautiful and cruel, and the other two women dangerous and conniving. He opened his jaw and revealed a gaping maw of horror, and he issued forth words without moving his mouth. Sebine understood the words—strangely—for she knew not the sound of the Elven language.
I am your father, child. Find blessings in my gift to you. Wear the Ring of Galdora and with its power aid me.
Her father's eyes burned as a coal ignited and raging. He spoke again.
Do my bidding and kill the King.
Chapter Nineteen
THE AFTERNOON RAYS of sunlight poured over the river's rippling surface, mesmerizing Tael with their undulating, ceaseless rhythms. An agitation filled his heart from the strange serenity in the city: boats docked, workers drank apple tea and whispered, slept, or stared at the river. The never-ending river. He pondered this simple fact and let his mind wander freely, connecting memories and sights and vivid feelings.
This isn't where I ought to be, Tael thought, and believed himself foolish for leaving the safety of the mountains despite his grandfather's warnings. An echoing, vast reverie filled him, spurned on by the old healer's words this morning that his grandfather might still be alive. He's afflicted, she had said. His grandfather had been struck by a curse dealt by Hakkadian assassins and was out west, deep in the Malathian Kingdom seeking a cure. Or he could be dead.
"I doubt the old crow is gone," the healer had cackled. "You can't kill a bird like him that easily. Besides, when I close my eyes at night and stretch out my spirit like the shivering hands of a beggar, I can feel him—right here in my stomach—I can feel he's still alive."
Alive. The word still reverberated in him like a mantra. For all his differences and disputes with his grandfather, he still loved him and hoped he was alive. He was his only connection to his family and his past. And there was so much his grandfather had refused to tell him, things that he promised to explain someday when he was a man. Like why his grandfather always told him how important it was for Tael to stay alive...
The boar figurehead of a galley came into view along the southern stretch of the river, slipping through the white walled river gate and under the iron portcullis waiting to close for the day. The ship was proud and determined, but her crew was languid and lazy and shuffled about uninterestedly as they docked. Tael realized the ship was emptied of goods and held few passengers. Likely returning from an unprosperous trading trip to the southern Islands of Marr.
He was about to look away from the vessel when he caught sight of a familiar face filtering through the crew as they debarked. "Grandfather!" he found himself saying. And with joy and surprise he darted down the stone steps and ran to the docks.
At the sight of the worn, haggard expression on his grandfather's once fierce and powerful face, Tael took pause and found his feet had refused to move. His grandfather's tired, defeated eyes lifted and turned puzzled, staring at Tael as if he were a hallucination, and those eyes seemed habitually vague and undetermined as if the world itself had fallen into unrealities. His mouth dropped open in surprise and Tael moved towards him in the hope of reassuring his grandfather that he was real. When Tael was about to embrace his grandfather, the old man raised a hand to stop him.
"Why the hell are you here?" Grandfather's once aged face seemed to quickly melt away into a powerful, dogged kind of alertness. The transformation shattered Tael's pity for the old man's now disappeared frailty. His shock of long, white hair and white beard seemed to add to the ferocity of his power. But his gold-flecked grey eyes pierced Tael with a look of utter disappointment.
"What happened just now?" Tael took a step away from him. "Once moment you were decrepit and ragged and the next you're back to your old, crazy self."
"In Trikar—the lair, the viper's pit"—the wizard leaned in close, his face a growl—"the convocation of our enemies. Do you value your life so little?"
Tael exhaled, trying to suppress his irritation. "It's been over a year now that I haven't seen you. I thought you were dead or imprisoned." He glanced back at the healer's stone house. "Let's talk someplace else."
"At that stone house?" His grandfather raised an eyebrow and paused, exhaling forcefully, then walked in resignation with him. "Why would you choose there in particular?"
"It's a long story...but I awoke just now from my recovery."
"Recovery?" The wizard stopped in his ascent of the stairs to look Tael over. "You were attacked, weren't you?"
At the top of the stairs Tael motioned towards the healer's door. "You'll find answers inside."
"Answers that I already know I won't like," muttered his grandfather, but he opened the door and stepped into the healer's home.
"I'm not dead yet," he announced to the healer's room as he glanced around
. "Where is that old bat, anyway? Last time she nearly killed me with some gods-awful brew she mixed for my curse. The only thing it did was to make me shit out a year's worth of meat stuck in my intestines. How is cleansing the system supposed to help with an ancient curse?"
Tael closed the door. "And just how did you get afflicted with this curse?"
His grandfather took off his sun-stained travel cape and placed it on a bronze coat-rack with twisted, gnarled fingers rising towards the ceiling. He leaned back and sat with a sigh, a contented expression warming his face.
"It feels good to be home." His grandfather winked at him, a mysterious twinkle in his eyes.
"This is your home?" Tael's puzzled face caused a wave of chuckles to release from his grandfather's mouth.
"Perfect, right? The heart of our enemies...but an ideal location at the docks, in the house of the healer loved across the city for her kindness and compassion in treating all who need. Deflects all suspicion when a visitor such as myself arrives." His grandfather flourished a hand and instantly his face returned to the frail, old man Tael had seen at the docks. "Poor aged man needs another potion...fixed him up over a few days. Who would ever suspect she was my wife?"
Wife? But Tael's grandmother had died years ago...before he was born.
"Yes, believe it or not, old men can remarry." A hint of lasciviousness flashed in his grandfather's eyes. "Keeps a man young and hopeful."
Tael forced himself from laughing out loud at the image of his grandfather with the healer. Strange as it was, he guessed it made sense, especially considering he and his grandfather were all that was left of their family. He took a seat at a leather chair and began telling him the story of all that had transpired on his trip, though he left out the details of meeting Princess Sebine. The entire time his grandfather listened patiently—retrieving his ornate, ivory pipe and puffing thoughtfully on the sweet smoke. When Tael finished his story, his grandfather sniffed and wagged his head from side to side.
Theft of Dragons (Princes of Naverstrom) Page 13