The Rage of Princes: A Portal Fantasy Adventure (The Chronicles of Otherwhere Book 2)

by Cassia Meare

  "Using it has been forbidden," Serle insisted.

  What a hypocrite, Ty thought mildly. As if he didn't know that Ahn is always flirting with magic. That she was once Mother's apprentice.

  "Do you think cutting off Earth, or the Shadow World, if you prefer, is like cutting a rope?" Nemours asked. "That world is bound to ours by magic. It's pulling on ours — or we are pulling on it. It’s not a physical thing. It's a thing of energy."

  The mortals now exchanged uneasy looks, or some of them did.

  "Can we do nothing else?" Nyree asked. Perhaps she had the most cause to fear the backlash of magic, being closest to Deep Realm.

  "I think the Shadow World caused this," said Serle, probably echoing Ahn. "They must have done. I hear the exaggeration in everything — the waste there ..."

  The Lord Protector cut him short. "This is how the matter stands: Two worlds are ending, and whether we want to preserve both or sever one, the solution is the same. We need to find the Knowledge. It's the collection of all magic powers, hidden by Aya in the Shadow World. The ultimate power at the end of this quest is called the Key. I believe it is the only thing which will allow us to save anything."

  "But your lady sisters are also after the Knowledge," Serle said smoothly. "And once they have it, they shall use it for the most expedient end. Saving us. Can you say, lord, that you would not hesitate—"

  Nemours froze Serle with a stare. The man had the sense to remove his thumbs from his belt and look at the ground. It wasn’t easy to defy Nemours to his face; it would take more than Thil Serle.

  "As you all know," Nemours said, ignoring Serle’s question, "the Lady Ahn moved against my person. I bear my sister great love, but I cannot allow her to do this with impunity. I have called you here to know where you'll cast your banners. If you support me, she will either help me in my search or get out of my way. If we are divided, so will the division in our world continue." He looked around at the six lords and ladies before adding, "Whichever happens, I shall not change my course."

  As their voices rose above a murmur, Nemours added, "Send me your banners, or send them to Crystal Hold. I expect you to cast for one or another of us within the week. You may go."

  Not even Tayne made any attempt to speak again or remonstrate. Dismissed, the lords and ladies bowed and left.

  "Hate. That. Wanker," Delian said in English between his teeth when the doors closed behind them. "That freaking Lord of Mist, who the hell does he think he is?"

  Ty grimaced. "Ahn's protégé?"

  "You should have let me go down there to slap his face," Delian continued, addressing Nemours. "Seriously, does immortality lead to this? Us living long enough to be insulted in our own home? I was cutting the wings off dragons before this idiot was even a glitch—"

  "He dares because our family is divided," Nemours said. "He will claim he has always been a vassal of Crystal Hold and that his hands are tied."

  Delian flipped a finger at the door. "My hands could be tied, and I'd still kick the shit out of him."

  "The Anvil and Lockland unequivocally for us," Ty said, descending to the map and walking over it as he spoke. "Mistkeep and Rosy Marsh for Ahn, and I believe she'll take the Midlands too, when it comes down to it."

  "So it's all in the hands of Tayne. As we thought," Nemours said.

  "When did we think that?" Delian asked.

  "With Tayne on our side, we'll have the greatest force." Ty agreed. "He has influence over Allseas Port. Between that and Tinash controlling Lockland Port, Mistkeep's navy would become useless. Serle would never dare try sailing past Serpent Bend, so the south is impossible for his ships. And his army wouldn't get over the mountains if they had to come on foot."

  "Neither would the Midlands’," Delian said. "And Taletha would be no match for Tayne."

  "If she gets the pirates and sellswords of The Echo," Ty said, walking over the west coast on the map, "they could take Last Port, and that's a jaunt up the coast to High Hall."

  "The pirates don’t like us," Nemours remarked. "We killed their occupation."

  "Then Stonemount decides everything," Ty repeated, tapping his foot on the stretch of agate.

  "Delian, go and kindly ask Lord Tayne to stay," Nemours ordered. "I must speak to him alone."

  Delian frowned. "I'm not your servant, Nemours." Nemours sent a look his way, and he started moving as he grumbled, "You have freaking pages ... guards ... messengers ... Why I have to ..."

  "I suspect Tayne would rather deal with you than with Ahn," Ty said pensively once Delian had left. "But he doesn't like the idea of gambling with the world. He's a conservative, and Earth is nothing to him."

  "I know what means something to him, though," Nemours said softly, as he crossed the room to stand at the window.

  "What?"

  Nemours gave a mirthless smile. "Family."

  5

  "Nemours, you are a beast!"

  Of course Lamia would walk in first, long brown legs in display as a short, shimmering dress hugged her sinuous form and her high heels clacked on stone.

  She was the icebreaker, like Delian. The one who would never ignore whatever unspeakable monster was in the room. Like Delian, she never thought anything too difficult to talk about. She advanced, arms outstretched, to embrace her brothers.

  "Deely!" she cried, pulling back to look at him. "You're back. Can you believe I was bewitched to forget you? Nemours, you don't play with a sister's feelings!" She combed Delian's hair with her fingers. "And by Aya, your disguise was so horrendous, every time that duplicate of yours scried for us, I had to look somewhere else. No, no, you shouldn’t forgive Nemours, if only for that!"

  The whole affair and all its details would come tripping out of her mouth, Ty thought, suppressing a laugh — until he was also engulfed in her perfumed arms. "And you, darling. My adored little darling!" Several resounding kisses later, still holding on to Ty, Lamia turned to Nemours. "You're just awful."

  Nemours seemed amused, if anything — at least until Ahn glided in.

  She would never have let Lamia burst in through the doors first during a normal occasion. Unless, of course, she wanted time to get her bearings. It wasn't a ploy worthy of Ahn's intelligence because it wasn't worthy of Nemours'.

  And judging by her glance at him, she realized that he had realized it.

  Ty repressed a sigh. Was that how it would go?

  Would she apologize for breaching every spoken and unspoken agreement by having him bound?

  Would Nemours tell her about Stonemount and what he had promised so as to get the banners? That promise breached some unspoken agreements as well.

  Would they agree to agree, finally?

  The worst part was Ahn being ashamed of herself. That was not a good thing — not for that meeting.

  But she looked stately in her yellow and white dress, precious black diamonds shining at her throat and shoulders. She also moved toward Delian, to kiss him and caress his cheek, and then plucked Ty from Lamia's arms, holding him for a moment. Her beautiful face and dark eyes said she was heartbroken at ever having forgotten him, and that she resented Nemours at least a little for it.

  Oblivion wasn't one of the major hekas — it was a spell designed not to last for long. It would have been Abuse to permanently control others' minds, their memories and their perception of reality. That Ty and Delian had agreed to forget and be forgotten for a while perhaps hurt Ahn most of all.

  They had all chosen sides.

  Sefira crossed the threshold into the chamber, dragging her boots and throwing sullen looks everywhere, especially at Delian. "You're back," was all she said in a monotone.

  She was dressed, as usual, in breeches and leather vest, her coat of arms prominent on the front and back: a burning heart crossed by three swords. Permanent heartburn, Delian called it.

  "And there you are," Delian replied with no greater enthusiasm.

  She had something of a smile for her youngest brother. "Hello, Ty."


  "Sefira. How have you been?"

  Shrugging, she sent a baleful glance at Nemours.

  "So," Lamia asked, "where is the wine? Let's drink and agree on things, and then have some music. I didn't let my boring husband come so we could have family time."

  Her proposal was met with silence as Ahn and Nemours locked stares, each waiting for the other to begin. Lamia widened her eyes at her younger brothers and made a grimace.

  "May we speak alone?" Ahn finally asked Nemours.

  "As you wish," he said with far too much politeness.

  Even as Ahn began to turn toward the others, Lamia was already shooing them out. "Let's go! All fun to be had in the balcony."

  Ty and Delian walked out, and Sefira moved away to avoid Lamia, but relented and left when Ahn nodded at her.

  Lamia pulled her brothers to a large divan outside, where she plopped down with Ty at her side and Delian facing her.

  "Deely, please," she said, shaking her shoes at him. "Massage?"

  He took the shoes off and pulled at her toes.

  "But don't tickle," she cried.

  The loud sound of scoffing made them turn to find Sefira sneering at them.

  "I wish a wind would go by and glue that look to your face forever," Lamia said.

  "What are you talking about?" Delian asked, also scoffing. "That look is her face."

  He and Lamia laughed loudly, and Sefira turned as red as her hair.

  "At least I'm not a coward," she said, taking a step toward Delian.

  "Oh, no!" Ty groaned. "Can we please—?"

  Delian cut him short, addressing Sefira. "Say what, now?" He cupped his ear as if he hadn't heard her properly.

  The sneer on Sefira's face grew. "You almost fainted when you saw me walk into that tavern. Ha! Probably praying that I was going after Nemours, and I was. Good for you, huh?"

  "Yeah, except that it wasn't me," Delian pointed out. "And except that you took a beating from Nemours, got charred by a human girl and splashed yourself against a moving train like a moron."

  She flushed a darker red. "It was you sitting there, looking even uglier than now. Same fear on your face."

  As Delian tried to move, Lamia pinned him against the cushions by pressing on his chest with her feet. "Now, Delian, don't even listen. Stay here, I want to talk to you."

  "Can't we ever just have a normal conversation?" Ty wondered aloud.

  "You need normal people for that," Delian said. "Psychos aren't normal."

  "Stupid shadowtalk!" Sefira cried. "That's right, you keep going to that world, because we're destroying it, and then you can die as well. You like it over there, huh? Think you're a god or something, when you're just a coward."

  Lamia's legs flew aside as Delian lunged for Sefira, who dealt him a blow to the jaw with her fist, which he was quick to retaliate with a kick to her hip. Daggers hissed as they were drawn. Ty leapt to his feet, but Lamia, turning full-sized serpent, was already between the opponents, striking toward Sefira with her fangs as her tail surrounded Delian to keep him still.

  Sefira only pretended to strike back with her dagger — Lamia's fangs, when she was roused, were no joke. They would at least cause severe pain. And despite her bravado, Sefira wasn't willing to get into a real fight with her sister. Tears of rage brimming in her eyes, she spat, "All right — you keep each other company, then. You don't want me here and I don't want to be here!"

  She turned and left the balcony, crossing the antechamber to kick the door open. A dark-haired woman in light armor broke away from a group of female guards who had arrived with the sisters; she joined Sefira, who shook her head violently and kept walking. The woman threw an angry look inside before the door was closed by the pages.

  Ty sat down as Sefira’s steps receded, and Lamia, back to her own form, let Delian go and slinked to the divan, resuming her place.

  "Oh, the drama of that girl all the time!"

  "Great play, bringing the psycho to a meeting that's already tense," Delian remarked.

  "Stop it," Lamia said. "You know we can't leave her behind. But it's true she doesn't know how to relax. Speaking of relaxing, where's the wine?"

  Delian's face brightened and he walked out for a second, announcing happily as he returned, "All the pages were in the corridor to spy on the family fight, so wine's on its way."

  As he sat across from her again, Lamia pouted at him. "Now, Deely, you're not to say anything is tense. They're in there talking. Everything will be fine. If it were you and Sefira having to agree"—she stopped to give a loud laugh—"we would be profoundly screwed."

  "Yes, because if it were you and Sefira ..." Delian said wryly.

  "I'd have her paralyzed by poison or something," Lamia said. "And kept in Deep Realm, or somewhere equally far away. Silverburn, maybe, with those hairy savages." She looked from one of her brothers to the other and leaned in close, lowering her voice. "It's that group of hers, I swear."

  Delian laughed. "You mean the Virgin Knights?"

  "To start with," Lamia said, shaking her head with eyes popping out in incredulity, "what virgin? She’s not. And if her friends are, what a bunch of freaks!"

  Her back found the pillow behind her again as she made faces of horror and Delian laughed.

  "Worst idea of all time!" Lamia pronounced.

  "No wonder they’re always in a bad mood," Delian said, wiping tears of amusement from his eyes.

  Ty frowned. "Leave them be."

  Not Lamia. "I really thought — in fact hoped — it was a woman-on-woman thing, but—"

  "Ah, why did you just make my mind go there with my sister involved?" Delian cried in distress.

  "—but it’s more of a zealot thing." Again, Lamia’s long legs swung up onto the couch. Her eyes got lost for a second and then she continued, "Ahn says the group, and especially that Tubby character, that impertinent girl there who was staring inside, do Sefira a world of good, and they are inseparable. But all they do is train at weapons. I mean, if you're training at weapons it's because you'd love a war, right?"

  Delian closed one eye as he thought about it. "Not necessarily. Maybe just some raids in the mountains. There's always something to kill there."

  "In any case, what a bore. We can't have a war," Lamia pronounced. "I think it's very bad of Nemours to even call the banners."

  "He was bound," Delian pointed out. "You plotted against him."

  "Darling, everyone plots!" Lamia protested. "What else is there to do for eternity? And if Nemours had stayed bound, then Ahn would find the Knowledge and save the world. Instead, now they have to get in each other's ways and whatnot."

  Ty looked behind them, at the closed doors beyond which Ahn and Nemours were deciding the fate of two worlds. He didn't like how things might escalate between Originals like Nemours and Ahn.

  He has patience until he loses it. She has pride, more than we think.

  "I trust them not to fly off the handle," Delian said, noticing Ty's preoccupation. "They're smart."

  "The history of the worlds is full of smart people causing havoc," Ty pointed out. "I don't want us to fight. It was enough, what once happened. It should never happen again."

  "No one is like Virso anymore," Delian insisted. He touched the back of his head with two fingers to ward off bad luck. He always did it when he mentioned Virso or Aya. "Or even like Mother." He touched his nape again.

  "Nemours and Ahn are the undiluted creation of those two," Lamia observed, suddenly somber.

  "I've never seen them act disproportionately," Ty said. But then something tiny hurtles out of control and drags everything along, and no one can stop disaster anymore.

  Lamia hugged her knees and shook her shoulders as if she were shuddering. "You should talk to him. Really, boys, I like the Shadow World as much as you do. All those square-jawed primitives to be had. You know I don't count making love over there as adultery, it's another dimension or time or place or something."

  "You don't count anything as adultery," Delia
n said.

  "But still," she continued, undisturbed, "it's not wise to dawdle or even contemplate the possibility of letting those delightful monkeys live instead of us!" Again, she looked from one to the other. "I mean, are you mad? And Nemours — bless him when he gets all fierce and authoritarian and sends me into a positive excess of fantasies — he has bad ideas sometimes. The whole Lord Protector thing. We have to be careful what we call people."

  "Like snake?"

  "Now you're being rude, Delian," she said sternly. "You know that wasn't my fault. And it was for vanity, not for treachery that I was turned into a snake. As if you hadn't looked at your reflection on every surface a hundred times since we got here."

  "The thing is," Delian said with something like earnestness, "that loving myself as I do, I can still give a bit of a crap about others."

  "I do too," Lamia said. "I care about you. Don't tell me you care for other people more than for yourself or your family, I won't believe that."

  Delian nodded. "For some. And apart from liking the Shadow World and having more fun there, I also think that those billions of people ought not all to go through horrific deaths if we can help it."

  "What if we can't?" Lamia turned to Ty. "Do you think we can help it? You know everything."

  "I think the world might not have been created without the possibility of continuing elsewhere," Ty said slowly. "And Mother saw it beginning to happen before she disappeared. The worlds must also have contained the possibility of their own destruction. And therefore, I think that the Knowledge must contain the way to save ... everything."

  Her eyes lost again, this time in a contemplation that wasn't happy, Lamia said, "Where the hell is that wine? You should really whip your servants, I swear."

  The subject, at least among them, was closed.

  6

  "What I hope, Nemours, is that you understand I didn't bind you simply to win."

  Nemours and Ahn had chosen to walk in the hanging garden outside his room. It was a private space, and they could not be seen or heard by anyone at High Hall. No one but Azure, who had stepped out ahead of them, displaying less courtesy than her master.