Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set

by Vanessa Nelson

  “Noverian’s guards were high on the stuff, and influenced not to notice he was missing. And the dungeon guard were influenced by something. There is far more mercat about than you realise, mage.”

  “Was missing?” Gilean caught those words.

  “We have him,” Arrow confirmed.

  “That is good to hear.” The mild words were a cover. Gilean slumped back against the bench again, tension fading from his body as he scrubbed his hands across his face, rubbing away dampness.

  Arrow’s anger spiked irrationally. He seemed to believe the worst was over. The shifting tension in the Palace around them, which she could sense as an uneasy drift against her skin, told her otherwise. They could not afford to relax.

  “You were attacked in your rooms. Orlis is worried.” She watched his face tighten, tension returning to his shoulders.

  “Could not be helped.” Gilean’s voice was tight and he would not meet her eyes. “Some damned Erith got right through my wards. I barely got away.”

  “And then hid,” Kallish pointed out.

  “Operational prudence,” the war mage spat back.

  “We have encountered this attacker.” Arrow drew Gilean’s attention away from the scowling warrior. “He keeps trying to kill me.”

  “Shadow-walker. Yes. He would.” Gilean’s mouth twisted in what might have been a smile.

  “Explain.” Silver flared in the small room, Arrow’s wards reacting to her temper. She was in no mind to be patient.

  “You need to work things out for yourself, young thing,” he countered, amber-pointed gaze steady on her face.

  “I have been beaten up, nearly died in Seggerat’s rooms, stabbed with a poisoned blade and attacked without provocation. And no one is willing to answer even the simplest question. I am losing patience.” The silver in Arrow’s eyes grew.

  “Good. Take that temper and use it,” Gilean recommended, a genuine smile on his face. He shoved limp hair back from his face. “There are plenty of secrets to discover.”

  “I am sick of secrets. And deception.”

  “Your feelings are irrelevant,” Gilean answered.

  Arrow’s wards shivered in the gloom. Her feelings had been irrelevant for most of her life, constrained by the Erith’s demands then the oath spells. She was no longer a puppet. She opened her mouth to make a hasty reply, then checked. A war mage she hardly knew was being rude. Deliberately so. He had found a weak spot and was pressing, hard. Trying to make her lose her temper. Trying to make her back away.

  “So what are you hiding?” She murmured, half to herself, and saw the truth of that in Gilean’s response. His head snapped back as though struck, and his eyes dropped from hers.

  “Find out for yourself.”

  “We could ask.” Kallish’s offer was unexpected. She was staring at Gilean with narrowed eyes, considering.

  “He is weak,” Undurat agreed calmly from his post by the door.

  “I am still a war mage,” Gilean hissed.

  “Barely.” Arrow sniffed, catching the game. She folded her arms, a deliberate provocation as it told Gilean she did not see him as a threat, unable to use her hands for spell casting.

  “Barely a challenge,” Kester added, moving oh-so-casually to stand just behind Gilean’s shoulder, within easy reach. They were cousins, Arrow remembered. A long-lived race like the Erith had many, complicated, family ties, and she thought that Gilean and Kester were far more distantly related than Kester had been to Teresea. Still, they were distant family. Gilean shot a sour look at his cousin but his wards stayed dormant.

  The mage glared at Arrow.

  “Find out for yourself.”

  “I am, mage. I am asking you.” She caught his eyes with hers, silver brilliant in the darkened room.

  “The Queen is dying,” he said at length, words slow and reluctant.

  “You said that already,” Kallish pointed out, drawing a short, wicked looking blade from somewhere about her person and beginning to play with it, tossing it in the air and catching it, blade reflecting the silver of Arrow’s magic.

  “No,” Arrow shook her head, “not now. Before. You mean the Queen was dying before. She was already dying. And Noverian knew,” Arrow added, sucking in a much-needed breath, the Consort’s odd persistence in asking after the Queen making sense.

  “Of course he did.” Gilean’s voice was a growl. “They have been inseparable since they met.”

  “Poison or natural?”

  “Impossible to tell.”

  “So that is why you came to see Evellan.”

  “None of the Queen’s ladies seemed worried.”

  “Well, one of them was not surprised this morning,” Arrow countered, brain busy. She had only the faintest idea how Erith monarchs were chosen. There was no line of succession, and the monarchs were notoriously reluctant to nominate heirs or successors while they were alive for fear of a coup attempt.

  “There has been no Challenge,” Kester noted, “so clearly the Court does not suspect.”

  “After this morning, they will.” Gilean was bitter, and grieving. One of the Queen’s favourites, Arrow knew.

  “And there is no heir named,” Kallish added, sheathing her knife.

  “Quite. It will be chaos.” Kester took a step away from Gilean, looking like he wanted to pace but not having room to do so.

  “But the Queen and Consort both knew,” Arrow pressed, “so they have had time to make plans. Perhaps not name an heir, but do something.”

  “They have,” Gilean confirmed, shrugging, “but they have not confided their plans to me.”

  “To anyone else?”

  “Teresea or Seggerat would be the most obvious candidates,” Kallish put in. “The lady had a clear way of seeing, and Seggerat was one of the few Taellan with no ambition for the throne.”

  “Or Eimille vel Falsen.”

  “True,” Kester agreed with Arrow, “but they are not close. Eimille carries out her duties, but prefers to spend time within her House.”

  “We need to speak with Noverian,” Arrow concluded. “Gilean, you will come with us.”

  “Will I?” His brow lifted, humour lighting his face.

  “There is a faceless killer who can break through wards running about the Palace. Yes, you will come with us. If I could figure out that you were in the hall, others will, too.”

  Gilean heaved a sigh worthy of a fifth cycle student asked to repeat his rune work, but he pulled his disguise around him again, gathered a few items from about the room, and they left, sealing the room behind them.

  CHAPTER 19

  The day was still young, Arrow realised, as they made their way through the Palace. Early enough that very few people were about, so there were few witnesses to the odd grouping of warriors, mage and courtier as they headed for the annex.

  They had reached one of the main corridors, walking at a steady pace used by White Guard and servants among the Erith which allowed them to travel quickly but not draw undue attention, everyone in the group silent and focused. With years of practice, Arrow kept pace with the others easily but Gilean was struggling, his breathing harsh and rapid with exertion. Arrow turned her head slightly to make sure his glamour was covering his exhaustion.

  An unseen blow knocked her off her feet, flat onto the thick carpeting, a wave of magic reverberating through her, more powerful than anything she had ever felt. Battle magic. Wards. Ancient spells come to life. All in a maelstrom that swept onward. The thump of magic coursed through the building as a wave, rattling the doors, shaking the floors. In its wake alarms blared, deafening, and magical constructs asleep for centuries now crawled out of their hiding places, down the walls, tails lashing, hissing their fury. Before Arrow had time to raise her wards, a wash of the sweet, unmistakable scent of Erith death followed the wave of magic through the building. Not just any Erith.

  “The Queen is dead.”

  She was not sure who spoke. Or how she had heard it, skull ringing with the alarms. A diss
onant chorus of brass that set her teeth on edge. She managed to get her knees under her, limbs shaking with the aftermath and shock, and looked around.

  Her companions were on their knees as well, expressions pinched with pain and grief, more than a few noses bleeding.

  She drew a deep, harsh breath, heart sore as Erith death coated her lungs again. She would never get used to that scent. The Queen. Dead. All that clever scheming, the warmth that had led an elderly monarch to take time to speak to a young half-breed about her mother, the iron will that had held power for so long. Gone.

  As she gathered herself to stand she was knocked flat again by a wordless shriek that cracked the air, sending amber lightning in great sheets throughout the corridor. The cry drilled through her skull. Eyes blurred. Chest ached. Lungs burned. Agony and fury and grief. Not hers. She clutched her hands to her ears in an effort to block out the noise but it continued, a great wave of anguish that seemed to never end. Pure amber. Bottomless. The heartland, she realised. The land itself was mourning in one unending wail of loss and fury.

  She was shaking with the force of it. No. Not her. Everything. The ground was trembling. The delicately crafted ceiling above, a masterpiece of Erith craftsmanship, was shaking, great cracks appearing. The walls shook, paintings falling to the unsteady ground, tapestries following in piles of richly coloured fabric. Plaster came off the walls, the bricks of the building coming apart, clouds of dust rising.

  Bright lines of spellwork shone through the dust and chaos, the Palace’s ward spells trying to hold the building together and repair the damage even as the heartland tried to tear everything apart. The heartland, the source of the spells’ power, was winning.

  Arrow struggled to one knee, coughing as she breathed in dust. Her hands were shaking as she drew her kri-syang, spilling the necessary drops of blood onto the carpet, setting a connection to the heartland.

  She was immediately blind. All senses gone for a few, terrible heartbeats. No sound. No taste. No sensation against her skin. The heartland was vast, her mind unable to comprehend just how big.

  Then pain. Of course. Lungs burning with effort. Heart thudding. Skin crawling with fine rivers of prickling discomfort. Her whole body straining with effort to hold itself together and obey her will to hold the connection to the heartland.

  Perhaps the most stupid thing she had ever done.

  But.

  There.

  In the blankness. A listening. A feeling of attention directed to her.

  “Stop.” Arrow knew that was her voice as she hurt from the effort of forcing air through her lungs and making her lips move. But it was a bare whisper. “You will kill everyone. Destroy everything.”

  Somehow she was heard. The pressure eased and the next breath hurt less.

  The pressure rose again, holding her down, the heartland’s grief coursing through her with a burn hotter than mage fire. She screamed, no sound emerging, and huddled into herself, waiting for the end. Stupid. To try and communicate with the heartland.

  She was blind, still, but breathing, still. Surprise had her straightening up. Limbs intact. Another surprise. The heartland’s grief was still there, wearing a great hole in her chest. But it was listening.

  “Someone did this.” She felt her lips crack as she spoke. “I will find out who.” The promise was for the heartland, ready to destroy everything as its monarch had died. It was for the elderly Erith who had been clever and kind and cunning and died too soon. And it was for herself. Sick of more death. Sick of Erith politics. She wanted a quiet life. The workspace. The shifkin’s easy requests. The lure of travel to places she wanted to go to but had never seen before.

  There was a pause, Arrow concentrating on breathing, then the pressure eased slightly and a gentle brush, carrying the scent of burnt amber, against her cheek. Offer accepted.

  ~

  The blankness lifted, eyes watering as blinding light stabbed them. For a moment all she could see were shapes that made no sense, colours blurring together, ears assaulted with a cacophony of sound. Training asserted itself, a deep breath drawn in, the basic checks that every Erith would know. Wards. Breath. Sight. Sound.

  The Palace had stopped falling apart. The ground was still. The walls holding, just, exposed bricks held together by spellwork, a sheen of amber coating the damaged areas. Ceiling plaster, centuries of dust normally hidden from view, lay in thick piles across the priceless carpets, daylight shining through new holes in the roof.

  Around her, White Guard were gaining their feet, far more slowly than she had ever seen them move, faces pale and strained, a few with nosebleeds, hands less steady than normal as they checked their weapons. Kester was helping Gilean to kneel, the war mage looking too fragile in the chaos.

  A low growl close enough that she could almost feel the warm breath on her face had her heart racing again. One of the Palace constructs was approaching the group. A great cat, beast made entirely of intricate spellwork that she would have admired in other circumstances. It walked on four giant paws, lengthy claws sliding out and retracting with every pace, leaving no tracks in the dust and chaos of the floor, brilliant, striped amber and black of its hide glinting in the morning light, blazing green eyes assessing its prey as it moved, white teeth bared in a low, menacing snarl, tufted tip of its long tail flicking from side to side.

  Kallish faced it, putting her hand to her chest, where her medallion would sit, and speaking a word. The beast paused, shook its head, and gave another low growl before continuing. Kallish said another word. And another. And the beast kept stalking them.

  “Someone has changed the passwords,” Gilean breathed, his voice faint, a tremor clear to Arrow’s ears. “This is not good.”

  In the distance more screaming started, accompanied by more snarls. Erith screams.

  “Can you stop it?” Kallish asked, eyes flicking towards Arrow but otherwise not moving. The other warriors were also unnaturally still, attention all on the construct.

  “I can try.” Arrow managed to sit up, drawing the beast’s attention. The second world was blinding with the complexity of the construct’s spells, the spells holding the Palace together and the defences of the Palace alight and active. She set her jaw and focused on the construct. Beautifully crafted spellwork, a mastery she knew would take decades to achieve. And a clumsy bit of spellwork tied around the construct’s legs, reminding her of a collar. A later addition that stood out. Not the Palace ward keepers’ work. Too hasty, and far less refined. And unskilled. No master magician had done this, just an apprentice believing his own skills greater than they were.

  It was a matter of moments to rip out the added spells.

  “Try now,” Arrow told Kallish.

  Kallish repeated her password and the beast stopped, settling down, a low purr emerging from its constructed chest.

  “Someone did change the password,” Arrow said grimly, getting to her feet. “It was clumsy work, done singly.”

  “And on more than one,” Kallish said, head tilted to hear better. Around the corner ahead of them were more screams of agony, shouts of pain and anger, the low, tense growl of a construct.

  The warriors had their weapons ready and moved forward without the need for spoken commands, Arrow following, trusting Gilean to manage his own feet.

  They rounded the corner into a scene of carnage. The air was saturated with the scent of Erith death, several bodies lying too still on the priceless Palace carpet amid more ceiling plaster and dust. Blood sprayed the walls and the damaged ceiling, high above, two constructs turning on anything that moved. The few Erith left alive were huddled together, trying to remain as still as possible.

  “Mage,” Kallish ordered. The warriors formed a kneeling wall in front of Arrow, weapons out. There was no time for her to consider the implications. She slid into second sight. The same clumsy spellwork had been used here.

  Before she could act, the construct she had healed sprang over her head in an easy leap, landing on one of the
altered creatures. Even in the second world her ears filled with the quiet, deadly snarls of two predators fighting.

  With no time for finesse she ripped out the spells.

  “Now,” she told Kallish and came back to the first world to see all three constructs crouch down in front of the cadre leader, low purrs acknowledging the correct passwords. Two of the constructs were blood-spattered, the third unscathed.

  The warriors rose to their feet, Arrow’s mouth dry as she considered that, once again, they had put their lives between her and danger, expecting and trusting her to deal with the magical threat. It was how mages and warriors had worked together for years. But it was not something she was used to, feeling the weight of their trust heavy on her shoulders.

  “We need to make a sweep,” Kallish said, grim as she looked around the corridor, took in the damage that the two constructs had done.

  “This is on the way to the library.” Arrow recognised the corridor, some instinct prompting her to move that way. “We should check there first.”

  Kallish gave her a hard look but agreed, sending the constructs out ahead, the small group following. The wounded courtiers pled for aid as they passed.

  “Get to the healers,” Kallish told them, “you can all walk.”

  Arrow had never heard the cadre leader sound so bleak, and wondered if she, too, was fighting the pain of the Queen’s death, the heavy scent of death seeping into every pore, coating her lungs, making it hard to walk forward.

  They left the courtiers huddled in distress. Kallish had been right, though, none were gravely wounded.

  The great doors of the library were torn open, a pair of altered constructs pacing in front of the door, tails lashing, baring their teeth as the group approached.

  Arrow ripped the spells out in a heartbeat or two and the constructs joined their brethren, rubbing faces together, purrs rising in the quiet air.

  Inside the library it seemed still and quiet, somewhat shadowed for morning.

  Kallish gave a series of quiet commands to the constructs, Palace training clearly still fresh in her mind, and the five bounded away, spreading out through the library as the warriors followed. Gilean was just behind Arrow, wearing his own face, which sat oddly above the fine courtier’s clothes. Perhaps he had no energy for the glamour, she wondered, seeing his face hollow again. His breath was still rapid.