Algardis Series Boxed Set

by Terah Edun

  “Still it could happen,” Richard said.

  Mae shook her head. He was bringing up what was almost an urban legend at this point. A great family that had once been so close to the royal family that they holidayed together and intermarried their own children. All was blissful and well until eighty years ago when it became public knowledge that the heads of that family had hired mages to do nefarious things. Things no good citizen would do. Despite their high rank at court and throughout the kingdom, they had been stripped of their holdings and then in the dead of night wiped out.

  So people were justifiably hesitant to even bring their name up, let alone be accused of doing thing as egregious as the Hollis family had.

  Mae signed and wiped her hand over her face.

  “I don’t agree with you,” Mae said. “You don’t agree with me.”

  “Yeah, that’s about the only thing we agree on,” Richard said without a hint of humor.

  She rolled her eyes and said. “What if we could have a tiebreaker?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

  “Someone we both trusted as wise,” she ventured while tapping her finger on her nose in thought. “Someone who is from our bloodline. Someone who can wade in whether breaking this curse is a foolish proposition for the well-being of the family as a whole or will have no negligible effects at all?”

  “Alright,” Richard said slowly. “I’m listening. You have a mythical candidate in mind?”

  “I do,” Mae slowly with a smug smile. “You might even think they’re the best choice to go to with all of this.”

  Richard gave her a suspicious look.

  “Who?” he asked.

  She told him. When Richard heard the name he rocked back on his heels with a surprised look on his face.

  “Alright, that could work,” he said after some thought.

  “Glad you agree because there’s no one else,” she said flatly. “No one else that I trust and no one else whose word I think you would be willing to take.”

  Richard nodded and they shook on it.

  “Shall we go?” Mae asked dryly.

  “After you,” her cousin said gallantly.

  She walked around him feeling more tired than she ever had before. But she didn’t have a choice. She had to play this game. For the good of them all.

  23

  They got their answer. Richard didn’t like it but he hadn’t had a choice in the matter once the ruling came down in her favor. Mae had chosen carefully too. A family mage who had as much to lose as she did if the incantation didn’t work. She’d also been careful to be circumspect about the fact that foreigners would be performing the ritual…today.

  The woman, a distant cousin who lived in one of the smallest wings, had thought they were talking theory. And as she had already buried three children, she was eager not to lose anymore. Not that Richard would know that. He was a man and he barely kept tabs on family births and deaths as it is, putting a heartbroken mother’s face together with the names of children who had died over ten years ago was too much to ask.

  As they left with her victory in hand, Mae’s stomach briefly turned as they finally entered the sickroom with casting page in hand and she wondered if the almost deception was worth it. She hadn’t lied to Richard but she hadn’t given him the total truth either.

  She guessed they would both just have to live with that and if the ritual was successful, even laugh about it one day.

  Still that didn’t alleviate Mae’s pure nerve-wracking guilt at the moment.

  What if this doesn’t work? She thought to herself as she wrung her hands.

  She tried to project the most confidence possible in front of Richard but now that the moment was here, she could feel small bits of doubt seeding themselves in her mind.

  What if I was wrong all along? was another of her favorite concerns at the moment alongside What if the foreign woman can’t do it?

  Until now it hadn’t even occurred to Mae that the three mages she was relying on to make this work, herself included, could possibly be unsuited to the task.

  But there was nothing she could do about that but make the attempt and try.

  It either works or it doesn’t, she thought to herself firmly as Richard cleared his throat behind her and called her attention to himself once again.

  Practically ready to claw her own eyes out, Mae turned while half-in and half-out of the doorway and gave him a tired look.

  “What is it?” Mae asked, no longer having it in her to be polite. Their argument and this whole fiasco had worn her out. In the past day she’d lied, stolen, been beaten, and had to run for her life numerous times.

  As of now she didn’t think anything could faze her but she desperately wanted to get this done.

  “I…,” Richard said one word uncomfortably and then stopped.

  Before she could ask him to hurry and speak up, he pushed on.

  “We may have our disagreements Mae,” Richard put some effort in saying. “But I’m for this family always.”

  Mae turned to look at him with sad smile on her face.

  “So am I,” she said wondering where this was going.

  He briefly grimaced but then admitted, “I won’t say a word to the foreigners against it or you once the casting’s started. It wouldn’t be right.”

  Mae nodded and gave him what she hoped was a grateful look.

  “Fine, I appreciate that,” she said. “Division doesn’t help our cause and when this ritual begins no doubt can be sowed.”

  Richard nodded then hesitated.

  “What?” Mae spat out exasperated.

  He gave her a hard look of his own before saying, “I’ll do this much as long as you take the same leadership when we must go before the Council of Elders and claim responsibility for this when an atrocity inevitably results.”

  Mae shot him a cutting look.

  “If one such occurs, I’ll happily do so,” Mae snarled. “And if you put one foot out of place in the next hour, I’ll know exactly who to blame when my siblings lie dying on the sickroom platform with an illness that we all could have cured with a little courage.”

  His faced waned, either at the vehemence in her voice or the visual it conjured; she wasn’t sure which.

  But it was effective because he nodded and whispered solemnly, “This is your command.”

  They were old words of dominance and submission they had learned at the feet of their grandfathers’ during the winter fires. Almost never used and references to the days in the long past when her once-great family had done more than harvest land in the kingdom’s name. They had been explorers and fighters with legions under their command. Family unit and hierarchy then as now had not only been pervasive it had been absolutely necessary.

  Now that hierarchy was most often regularly represented in the rulings of the Council of Elders but once in a while you got the occasional moment when they all harked back to a time when a solitary leader had been the face and judgement of the Darnes clan.

  A mantle of solemnity settled on Mae’s shoulders as she realized that in this small moment and in this small room, that authority would be ceded to her. Because this was her call. This ritual was her decision and coming out about as the fruition of her work.

  She just hoped all this effort, this strife, this pain, was worth it.

  Because she didn’t have a backup scenario. There was no other plan to turn to except letting the malaise spread over her siblings until it not only stole their lives but also the hearts of all the inhabitants of the surrounding greater holding around them. Even the ones of the perpetrators who were doing the siblings so wrong.

  Taking the incantation page out of her breast band, Mae wondered at the best way to begin.

  She’d been fighting and scheming for this for so long that it didn’t seem like it was really happening anymore.

  Hands shaking she moved over to the sickroom platform where the best daylight was streaming in through the nearby door.

&nb
sp; Placing the worn pages on the cool stone as she tried to ignore the slight tremble in her own hands, Mae’s eyes alit on the curling script that was nothing but a jumbled mess without the guidance of someone with the gift to unlock it.

  She looked impatiently back over at Richard who was currently standing as far across the room as he could get without actually being outside the door. For a full fifteen seconds she looked directly at him and he stared right back at her impassively.

  “Are you really going to make me ask?” Mae snapped.

  “Every step of the way,” Richard said with a little smugness. “I said I’d follow your commands but I won’t help you just because I feel like it. This is my way of registering silent disapproval.”

  “For gods’ sake Richard!” Mae cried at him. “How childish can you get?”

  He still made no attempt to head toward her and she briefly closed her eyes at the headache forming at his obstinate nature. Resuming her correct posture she elected to not let this ruin her moment even as she wondered for once when those volatile gifts Rivan had hinted at would kick in because she would love to burn a certain someone from clear across the room right now.

  Of course sulking and glaring at someone didn’t do anything, so Mae reluctantly opened her mouth and formally asked, “Could you come over here please? I need whatever makes you so special so I can unlock this dratted text.”

  Richard didn’t smirk but he also didn’t run as he came at her request and with no fanfare plopped his big hand down on the edge of the paper. What had been illegible immediately became discernible.

  “Thank you,” Mae breathed as her entire attention was immediately taken up by what was unveiled on the text.

  She began to slowly trail her finger over the incantation and the ingredients required. It seemed simple enough and they had already stored everything that was necessary in the sickroom. Mae may have been flying off the handle in all directions but she was at least prepared.

  Lips pressed together in a thin smile as she reviewed the casting ritual, Mae knew she just needed one more thing.

  Magic.

  Or more specifically, a mage capable of running this ritual to perfection.

  “Where is Donna Marie?” Mae muttered to herself like a nut.

  As if magically summoned by her name, a voice cut through the distraction of Mae’s thoughts and brought clarity.

  “Are you ready?” asked Donna Marie.

  “I’ve been ready all morning,” Mae confirmed with a warm smile as she looked up to see Rivan, Donna Marie, and the two guards standing before the sickroom platform. All of them with some form of nervous expressions on their faces.

  “What’s wrong?” Mae asked as she quickly caught on to the worry in at least Rivan’s eyes.

  Even Richard came over to see what was going on.

  “Nothing,” Donna Marie assured. “We’ve just been preparing for the ritual. It takes a certain amount of introspection to unlock our cores for a joint ritual.”

  “Oh,” Mae commented softly. “Well, thank you…for getting ready.”

  At least there was someone she could count on to be all-in for this ritual.

  Uncomfortably, Mae asked “So what will be doing first?”

  Donna Marie raised an eyebrow. “Well, if you hand over the that incantation and let me get a look at it, I could tell you.”

  “Of course,” Mae said with a smile as she secretly thought the foreign woman wasn’t hiding her interest as well as she imagined.

  Donna Marie may have driven a hard bargain all throughout her requests but she was just as eager to perform this ritual as Mae was. Perhaps even more so, seeing as her eyes glimmered with barely hidden excitement.

  Eagerness was written all over Donna Marie’s face and Mae had to wonder if mages got some sort of thrill from performing complex magic. The more difficult it was perceived to be, perhaps the more bragging rights they got with themselves and with outsiders.

  Donna Marie actually twitched her fingers in anticipation of the page being in her grasp and Mae hurried to push it over before she changed her mind.

  Just as it was about to exchange hands, Richard came up behind her with a warning in his tone, as he said one word.

  “Mae,” Richard said in a strained voice.

  He couldn’t say much more because he had promised not to be difficult in front of their foreign guests. Still Mae squirmed as she saw four sets of outsiders’ eyes immediately narrow as they picked up on the tension between them.

  “Richard,” Mae said in a flat voice. It was as single warning as much as his one word was a single plea.

  He stepped back and fell silent, Mae handed over the page, and smiled at her benefactors.

  All was well as Donna Marie smiled back graciously.

  “Don’t you need someone from my bloodline to read it?” Mae asked curiously.

  “Oh yes,” Donna Marie cooed. “I was just admiring the workmanship in the mage craft adhered to this page. Extraordinary work.”

  If you say so, Mae thought privately.

  To her it looked as if Donna Marie was eyeing the page in her hand as if it was what she had wanted most in the world and had no hope that she would actually obtain it until now.

  Taking a deep breath Mae looked over at her shoulder and gave a smile of bared teeth at Richard.

  “Cousin,” Mae said sweetly. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”

  Richard’s face showed distaste but to her relief he didn’t argue or protest. He just nodded. The platform was built to accommodate human bodies of various sizes and as such was too wide for him to reach across comfortably and touch the text again. So with reluctance written in every line of his body, Richard went over to the foreigners’ side to stand next to Donna Marie and lend the gift of his bloodline.

  With a muttered “Thank you” Donna Marie accepted his aid and kept studying the deciphered text.

  Before long she was finished and Mae made an anxious face as she waited for Donna Marie to make her pronouncement.

  Looking up after a minute or two, the foreign woman gave the entire table a satisfied smile.

  “I have what I need,” Donna Marie proclaimed grandly.

  Mae couldn’t have been more relieved.

  It was going forward, everything she had hoped and dreamed and schemed for.

  24

  Rivan coughed across the table, Mae thought to get her attention but when she looked over his way, he wouldn’t even meet her eyes. Mae also thought she saw lines of strain around his mouth but he was turned away from her and she couldn’t be sure.

  Besides if he was worried, it obviously had to do with the fact that they were so close to being through! She thought to herself with glee.

  The curse would be broken within the next hour and she couldn’t be happier about it.

  Focusing on the task at hand though, Mae asked “You’ll be able to perform the ritual cleansing now?”

  “Immediately so,” Donna Marie confirmed her eyes sparkling. “And I can unlock your gifts while I’m doing it.”

  “While?” Mae said nearly choking on the words.

  “Well yes,” Donna Marie said smoothly. “This is a far simpler ritual than I was led to believe, so performing two at once won’t be an issue.”

  Lead to believe by whom? Mae had the presence of mind to wonder in confusion.

  But she had more important things to worry about at the moment.

  “Alright well if you think it can be done,” Mae said stumbling through her words. “What do you need from me?”

  Donna Marie smiled broadly as she said, “As I stated before just your full and willing cooperation. It’s more important than ever that you give your wholehearted approval before I start the procedure because once it is begun it can’t be stopped.”

  “Okay,” Mae stammered as Donna Marie went over the steps she would be proceeding with.

  Mae listened as her gaze slipped over the faces of the five people staring at her with varying levels o
f approval although only Richard looked miserable.

  He was looking over at her as if he didn’t even know her. Though to be fair Mae recognized that he may not have been aware that she was planning to let Donna Marie unlock her family heritage in this scheme.

  Still Mae shook off his censure. It was her body and she could do what she wanted with it. She kept repeating that line so she didn’t allow his negative mood to affect her eagerness to proceed. Although when he occasionally caught her eye, she had to wonder if perhaps he was right. That they were rushing into this without proper examination, even though they had gone to someone else first to confirm. He had been there then and as he promised he would have to stand by silently now as a witness.

  If it had to be now though, why was she feeling like she was rushing to dive off into an abyss that she couldn’t climb out of?

  For a moment Mae’s heart was beating so wildly Mae wondered if she had gotten in over her head.

  Apparently seeing her discomfort, Donna Marie quickly rushed across to the other side of the platform and put a quietly soothing arm around Mae’s shoulders.

  “Don’t worry,” Donna Marie soothed. “I know exactly what I’m doing with these two castings and quite frankly they’ll be easier to cast to together seeing as both of the enchantments are heavily reliant on intricate factors dealing with your bloodline.”

  Mae shifted nervously. “That…makes sense.”

  It didn’t. At all to her but she was too far gone to protest and she desperately wanted this to work and someone explaining more magical theories to her just wasn’t going to help that.

  “Listen,” Donna Marie said quietly as she squeezed Mae’s shoulder. “It may seem like everything is going so fast but you have been working toward this since the moment I met you. Striving for nothing else. Never giving up.”

  Mae nodded fervently. She was right. She had.

  “Good, remember that,” Donna Marie coached. “This is your moment; you just need to summon the strength to push through to the end.”

  Mae swallowed heavily as she tried to push her nervousness down so far in her gut, she couldn’t feel it anymore.