I could see the exact makings of the composition, as well as its purpose. It had been formed and shaped to pull all the air from my lungs, and that was the task the power dedicated itself to achieving.
Instinctively I knew it wouldn’t work to simply cut it off. The power had to go somewhere, and it wanted to interact with my lungs. So I gave it a twist, choking out the single word, “Fill.”
Instantly air flooded into me, filling my chest before rushing out again in a mighty bellow, far louder than I could ordinarily manage.
“Darius! Darius! Attack!”
The assassin fell back, fear in his eyes now rather than rage.
“Impossible,” he breathed.
I stooped to retrieve my sword, fury giving my limbs strength. How dare this stranger attack me in my bed!
He fumbled for another composition, ripping it as he stumbled backward toward the door.
But this time I was ready. I had finally realized my misunderstanding about my ability, and as the power raced toward me, I snarled, “You are mine.”
As soon as I spoke the words, I could sense the shape and form of the working, just like the last time. It was a binding composition, meant to hold me long enough for the assassin to escape. A smile spread over my lips.
“Turn it back,” I said.
The power sprang away from me, racing back to catch the wide-eyed assassin off guard. His arms and legs sprang together, and he crashed forward to land flat, his face against the floor.
The door behind him crashed open, and Darius lunged into the room, his sword raised, and his eyes burning with fury. He nearly tripped over the man lying prone on the floor, his eyes darting from my attacker to the scattered pieces of ripped parchment, and finally to me, standing there in my nightgown, my sword still raised in front of me.
He sagged slightly.
“You’re all right. I was afraid…”
I nodded and then sank onto the floor, my legs no longer able to support me now that the danger was past.
Darius stepped forward, his free hand reaching for me. “You are all right?”
I swallowed. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I just need a minute.” I drew several panting breaths. “He tried to suffocate me in my sleep. It was such a primitive method, and yet it nearly succeeded.”
“Thank goodness you had both your sword and your defensive compositions to hand.” He reached down to help me gently back to my feet.
He looked again at the scraps of paper on the floor. “Or were those his?”
“They were…” I hesitated, “…both.” It was true enough.
He nodded, accepting the comment at face value, and no doubt assuming I had shielded myself. I longed to pour out the whole story to him, already missing the days when we worked together, but I forced myself to stay strong.
“Bryony!” I stiffened and lunged for my sitting room. In the panic of the moment, I had forgotten she now slept outside my bedchamber door.
If the assassin had merely snuck past her, she should have been well and truly roused by all our noise. I pushed past the screens and found her lying rigid on her bed.
I drew a shuddering breath, falling back against Darius’s chest and letting myself enjoy his solid strength for one moment. Her eyes were moving, straining toward me and screaming the fury her mouth obviously couldn’t. He had used a full binding composition on her, but she was alive.
I opened my mouth, intending to take control of the composition, but snapped it shut again, thinking better of it. Darius still stood behind me, and what would I do with the power?
I turned to him. “Could you…?”
He nodded, already drawing a composition from an internal pocket. He ripped it, and Bryony sprang to her feet looking ready to spit fire.
“Where is he?” she asked. “Where is that no-good—”
“Bound,” I said, cutting her off. “But I don’t know for how long, so we should probably deal with him.”
“I will deal with him,” Darius said in an implacable voice. “I’ve been waiting a long time to have a few words with whoever is behind these attacks.”
“I suspect he isn’t the instigator,” I said. “He didn’t seem smart enough for that.”
“Then he can tell me who is,” Darius said, unperturbed.
Bryony looked at him a little doubtfully, but I nodded agreement, feeling only relief. Darius was the expert in law enforcement. They had compositions that could reveal the truth and compositions that could compel a man to talk. Darius would be far more effective than Bryony or I could hope to be.
I sank into the closest chair to hand—the one in front of my desk.
“I just don’t understand how he got in,” I said. “My doors are protected with a highly complex composition, and I should have had a warn…”
The word trailed off as I stared at what lay under my hand. A stack of parchments. But not blank ones as I had supposed. Bryony must have shuffled everything around at some point during our practices. These were the compositions from the drawer, the remaining ones from the supply Layna had given me for my door.
And Jareth had stood here only yesterday, flipping through them, reading all the limitations she had built into them. For a whole year, everyone had felt the power on my door, unable to probe its complexity, and I had been safe inside my rooms. And then the very day after Jareth saw the true scope of my protections, I was attacked in my bed.
“Jareth,” I breathed. “It was Jareth.”
Darius sighed. “Please, not this again. We’ll have the truth soon enough.”
I held up the stack of parchments, waving it at them both. “Jareth read these yesterday. He was standing right here, Darius. You saw him. These are the locks for my door. This is how he got his man past them.”
Darius frowned. “I don’t remember him reading your compositions.”
“I didn’t even realize it at the time myself. And now that I think about it, you weren’t looking at him when he was at the desk. It was driving him crazy that he couldn’t capture your attention.”
“So you admit you didn’t see him reading them?” Darius sounded frustrated. “Why are you so determined to believe he’s the villain here? This man could have got in through a window, for all we know.”
“A window? We’re several floors up, remember.”
Darius strode away from me, returning to my bedchamber and grasping the bound man by the material of his shirt. He dragged him unceremoniously behind him, hauling him through to my sitting room.
“Jareth is my brother.” Each word fell like a shard of ice. “He is not trying to kill you. Mistrusting him is the same as mistrusting me.”
Neither Bryony nor I said anything, and after a final charged moment, Darius dragged the man away toward his own rooms.
Chapter 28
After the door closed, silence reigned for a long moment.
“Thank goodness I didn’t tell Jareth the extent of my abilities,” I said. “Or that man wouldn’t have tried to use power compositions on me.”
“So you still think it’s Jareth?” Bryony asked, glancing uneasily at the tapestry.
I sighed. “I don’t know who else could have gotten through the shields on my door. I suppose we’ll know the truth soon enough, one way or the other.”
“But you used your abilities?” she asked. “To defend yourself?”
I nodded. “We’ve been misunderstanding them all along. I thought I was claiming the energy and the shield for myself, but that wasn’t really what was happening. And since I didn’t understand what I was trying to do, it only worked when I recreated the exact situation I had stumbled onto before. I’ve been bumbling along, waiting to accidentally trigger the right combination.”
“So what should you have been doing?” Bryony asked, looking confused.
“I wasn’t claiming the energy for my own, or the shield,” I said. “I was claiming the composition itself. I was taking control of it and then twisting it. I couldn’t give your energy to Darius
before when we tried because I skipped the step of claiming it myself and tried to send it straight to him. If we tried it right now, I could do it easily.”
Bryony looked at the tapestry again. “So you’ve told him then? That you can take control of power compositions as well?”
I shook my head. “No. And I’m not going to. I said if we tried, not that we should.”
“And you’re sure…” She looked at me, worry clear in her eyes.
I nodded. “I can’t tell Darius for the same reasons I can’t tell my family. Not yet, at any rate. And especially not now that I realize just how powerful I’ve suddenly become.”
The power I had always thought would bring me joy sat like a rock in my gut.
“I’m sorry, Verene,” Bryony said quietly. “And I’m sorry I was no use to you in there.”
I shook my head quickly. “I’m just relieved you’re all right. That’s all that matters. The assassin must have been forbidden to harm any other trainees.” I bit my lip. “I suppose we should try to sleep. I don’t know how long…” My voice trailed away, and we both looked toward the tapestry this time.
“I don’t know about you,” Bryony said, “but I was never very good at waiting.”
Her words snapped something in me. “Personally, I’m sick of waiting. Waiting to turn sixteen, just in case I developed some sort of power, after all. Waiting for someone to find a way I could still be of use anyway. Waiting for the other trainees to accept me. Come on, Bree. We should be part of this.”
I strode over to the tapestry and wrenched it aside. It came slightly loose from the wall. I didn’t bother to knock, pushing the door open and stepping into Darius’s sitting room for the first time, dragging Bryony through behind me.
A similar space to my own greeted my eyes, although it was decorated in a deep burgundy rather than soft green. Darius stood in the middle of the room, his back turned to us, but he swung around at the unexpected intrusion, his eyes widening.
It occurred to me for the first time that Darius had shields on his door. Shields that apparently were specifically crafted to allow me through. I had told him once that I would visit him, but I had never actually done so. Apparently he had prepared for the possibility. I pushed away the thought of what that meant before it could cause my heart any more pain.
“We want to be here for the interrogation,” I said, a hint of defiance in my voice.
“Certainly.” Darius stepped slightly to the side, allowing me a full view of the assassin, who sat on the floor, his back propped against one of the sofas.
The man met my eyes, but his gaze was missing the anger or resentment I had expected. Instead I could see only fear.
“What have you done to him?” I asked.
Darius raised an eyebrow. “I have worked a composition that compels him to answer my questions, and another that reveals the truth.”
He gestured at a ball of light that hovered near him. I had seen the occasional truth composition and knew it would go black if the man spoke a lie.
“And what has he revealed?” Bryony asked.
“Nothing yet.” Darius looked at me. “You’re the one he attacked. Perhaps you’d like to ask the questions.”
I swallowed and licked my suddenly dry lips. Would Darius ever forgive me when I exposed his brother as a traitor?
I started with an easy question.
“Were you sent to kill me?”
The man ground his teeth together, eventually opening his mouth as if forced to do so.
“Yes.”
The light of the truth composition didn’t waver.
I took a deep breath. “Who sent you?”
The man’s eyes rolled frantically in his head as he fought to keep his mouth closed. But eventually he could resist the power that surged around him no longer.
“Cassius,” he gasped out, and I fell back a step.
“Cassius? As in, King Cassius?”
“No.” The man answered more quickly this time. “Not the king.”
I frowned, glancing across at Bryony. There was some other Cassius who had reason to want me dead?
But Darius stepped forward, his posture rigid. “You mean my father?”
The man nodded.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Darius kept his gaze on the assassin and the bright light of his truth composition.
“You weren’t hired by the king, but by Cassius the man?”
My attacker gulped before nodding.
“Speak aloud,” Darius barked, and the man reluctantly confirmed his nod.
Something slammed shut across Darius’s face, surrounding him with the ice he usually shielded himself in. My limbs trembled as I tried to process what the confession meant. It was the king’s faction who had warmed to me, so how could it be the king behind the attacks? I had become so certain it must be someone who supported General Haddon. Someone like Jareth…
Bryony sidled up beside me. “What’s happening to him?”
“Who? Darius?” I whispered back.
“No, the assassin.”
I frowned from the cowering man to my friend.
“What do you mean?”
“Can’t you feel it? Where’s his energy going?”
I spun around to examine the man again. He wasn’t cowering, I realized, so much as slumping, his core of energy growing dimmer by the moment. I concentrated and felt the trail of it trickling away.
I took an urgent step forward.
“Who else has been helping the king?” I asked. “Has Prince Jareth been—"
But the man’s eyes bulged, and he toppled sideways before I could even finish the question. My hand flew to my mouth, and it was all I could do to stop myself from retching.
Darius whirled on me.
“What was that?”
“His energy,” Bryony explained. “It all got taken. It was happening so slowly we didn’t even realize until the last moment.”
Darius knelt beside him, feeling for a pulse at his neck. “Is he…?”
“He’s dead,” I said in a shaky voice. “His energy is gone. It’s all just dissipated away. If he was still alive, it would be straining to return to him.”
No wonder he had looked so afraid. His fear hadn’t been for us but for the composition he must have known already bound him. Had it triggered when he named Cassius? A built-in safety mechanism to ensure the assassin could never be used as evidence against the king?
“I still don’t really understand,” Bryony said hesitantly.
“I can explain,” said Darius.
I pulled back at the formal note in his voice and the empty look in his eyes.
“I promised you it was not my family behind these attacks, but I have failed you. I thought I had little trust in my father’s judgment, but apparently I still had too much. Even after all these years, he clings to his resentment. He will never forgive your mother for defeating him, or Ardann for forcing him to seal his power.”
His words fell heavily between us. “He could not act as the king, not when his actions betrayed those who still follow him. If he had been willing to do it openly, with the weight of the throne behind him, it would not have taken him a year to get this far. But he sought to take his revenge in secret.”
“So what happens now?” Bryony asked. “Our witness is dead.”
“It is no matter.” Darius’s flat voice sent chills up and down my spine. “There will be no public trial. I will deal with this matter myself. I can assure you, Your Highness, that my father will offer no threat against your life again. He may seek to control me, but I promise you I have influence enough for this.”
He was every inch the prince I had first met, and I couldn’t doubt his ability to keep his promise.
“You need not concern yourself about this matter any longer,” he said. “And since you still seem to doubt, please accept my assurances that there is no possible reason for my brother to have been involved. We have our culprit, and he will not harm
you again. I ask only that you not spread this story further than this room but trust me to deal with it.”
“Of course,” I said. “And thank you.”
He bowed. “It is I who must thank you for your forbearance. You would be well within your rights to withdraw from Kallorway immediately and revoke any question of an alliance.”
I blinked at him. “I will still take your request to my aunt, if that is your concern. You are not responsible for this, and if anything, it only proves the validity of your case.”
He bowed again. “You are most gracious.”
“Darius.” I reached out a hand, taking a single step toward him, but he pulled back, stepping away from me, and I let the hand drop.
“If you will excuse me,” he said. “There is still much I must do. Your Highness. Bryony.” He nodded in the direction of the still open door back to my suite.
I hurriedly stepped back through it, nearly colliding with Bryony. She closed the door gently behind us, and for a long moment I couldn’t seem to move. Darius’s ice had invaded my heart, and now it was splintering in deep, rending cracks.
I had pushed too far. He had said that to mistrust his brother was to mistrust him. And yet I had pressed the assassin about Jareth anyway. Perhaps if I had been less desperate to accuse the prince, I might even have managed to act quickly enough to save the assassin’s life. But I had spoken without thought, and now I might have driven Darius so far away there was no coming back.
Exams were held four days later. I had thrown myself into study in the meantime, hiding in my books and avoiding private conversation with anyone. Bryony seemed to understand, giving me as much space as she could without actually leaving me alone. And although I could often feel Darius’s eyes burning through me, he didn’t approach me in class or reappear in my sitting room.
Bryony told me he was giving me space to study, obviously thinking I was concerned about his absence. But in truth, I was relieved. Just the sight of him brought me pain, but I had realized the situation was for the best.
It was possible I might be able to talk him around, to apologize and bring his fire back. But if I was going to keep the scope of my abilities from him, then we couldn’t possibly go on the way we had been before. This distance between us was necessary. So I hid in my books to try to distract myself from the pain.
Crown of Secrets (The Hidden Mage Book 1) Page 25