“I… I can understand that. The biggest problem is reacting in time to use the speed,” Anara said, straightening slowly. “A lot of times I’m just acting on your training, not because I can control it properly.”
“That’s why you train, Anara. Making conscious decisions can be good, but you need to engrave the motions into your body, to drill yourself until you could defend yourself in your sleep. Only then will I be truly satisfied with your progress,” Essryl agreed, walking toward Lissa. There was a pensive look on the young woman’s face, she noted, but she continued without commenting on it. “I do have another technique to assist with your perception of time, but that technique is much trickier to wield, so it’ll have to wait until you’ve gotten full control of your current one. Using both at once will be even harder, but I have faith that you’ll manage it. Eventually.”
“Oh. Well… I guess I’ll just have to do that, Mistress Essryl,” Anara agreed, looking a bit disappointed. “I do wonder what’ll happen if Ruethwyn does manage to rescue us, though.”
“If she rescues you, then it’s going to be your problem to figure out, Anara,” Essryl replied with a grin, picking up the hourglass and flipping it over again to watch the sand flow. “I’m teaching you because you’re one of my charges, and I enjoy it. If you’re rescued, the former will no longer be true, and you’ll have to make your own way in life. You won’t be my problem anymore.”
“Your problem?” Lissa asked, blinking. “Is that how you think of her?”
“Mm… not precisely. At times, the duties I have are enjoyable, but almost as often, they are somewhat tedious. These sparring sessions are far more enjoyable than the music lessons, for instance,” Essryl said, setting the glass down again as she looked over Lissa, then Anara. The two were markedly different in her eyes. “If you think that the Illisyr bother with such an enormous variety of instruments, especially bulky ones like a piano, you’d be wrong.”
“Ah, that does make sense,” Lissa said, nodding in understanding.
Lissa did look better than she had when Essryl had first kidnapped her. Eventually, she’d gotten over some of her shyness, mostly due to the lack of any other option, and she’d joined enough of the classes for the girls that she wasn’t as soft, either. The brunette had nowhere near the beauty or grace that Anara did, but her skill with magic was so unimaginably better than Anara’s that it made up for that and then some. That said, with the speed Anara could call on for martial arts, if they started within a dozen paces of one another, Lissa wouldn’t have time to cast a spell, so there were always tradeoffs.
“Um, I did wonder… do you have any idea if Ruethwyn is doing anything?” Anara asked, her voice nervous.
“I’m afraid not,” Essryl told her, shrugging slightly. “I know Hekara, the fire demon I’ve mentioned, had a grudge against her and went off to attempt to kill Ruethwyn, but I haven’t heard anything about the results yet. I doubt she’ll succeed, considering what I know of Ruethwyn… but she could surprise me. I do have a meeting with My Lord later to discuss the situation, though.”
“Wait, the fire demon lady?” Lissa asked, blinking, and Essryl could practically see her expression clear. “That explains it!”
“Explains what?” Anara asked curiously, fortunately removing the need for Essryl to inquire herself.
“Oh, well, I summoned her, as much as I may have disliked meeting her,” Lissa explained, shrugging uncomfortably. “The thing is, I have a bit of a connection to any elemental I summon. I can’t really feel it most of the time, but when they go back to their home plane, I get a… sensation. Sort of like when your ears pop, if you know what I mean? I got one late last night, and was wondering what did it since I haven’t summoned anything that stuck around recently. She must have gone back home last night.”
Lissa frowned suddenly, then spoke in worry. “I do hope Ruethwyn is okay… aside from being a bit distant after I summoned Venmar, she was nice to me. When we talked, anyway.”
“Interesting… I suppose we’ll have to check in on things to find out what happened,” Essryl murmured, smiling a little more. “I sincerely doubt she’d have gone home of her own volition so soon, so I suspect that Hekara was… violently persuaded to leave.”
“You seem happy about that. I mean, I’m happy if she didn’t manage to hurt Ruethwyn, but it always seems odd to see you happy about it,” Anara said, frowning slightly.
Essryl shrugged in return, not worried as she looked back at the young woman. “I didn’t much like Hekara to begin with, and I do like Ruethwyn. Don’t worry, if I catch her in the palace, it’s been made clear that My Lord would like her captured alive. As such matches my own preferences, I’m quite happy with those instructions.”
The two young women exchanged worried looks, and Essryl suppressed the urge to laugh. It was entertaining when the girls thought they were being so sneaky.
She really didn’t object to them making plans for their escape, or how Lissa had almost worked out how to remove the enchanted collars. Those were Resvarygrath’s measures, after all, not her own. If they could successfully escape, she would be quite impressed.
“I do hope I’ve made myself clear, Captain Gardner,” Resvarygrath rumbled, sitting back in his chair as he looked at the human coldly. Essryl took a certain amount of pleasure in watching the man shift in his seat.
She was in the room with Resvarygrath, the captain, and both Minerva and Sinera. Sinera had seemed quite alert through everything, but Minerva had been looking far less interested in the discussion and was instead focused on Essryl most of the time. For her part, Essryl had ignored her attention. Sinera spent enough time practicing that if she had been interested in Essryl, and not bedding Her Lord, Essryl might have been interested. Someone as lax as Minerva simply didn’t intrigue her at all.
“Of course, Your Excellency. You wish for me to ensure that if these intruders are spotted, they are not detained or accosted by the guard, and that any information about them is passed to the palace immediately,” Captain Gardner said, taking a deep breath, then asking, “May I at least have detailed descriptions of what this… Ruethwyn’s allies look like as well? She’s quite distinctive, obviously. I may be leery of allowing anyone to infiltrate the Dominion freely, but I understand that this is a special case.”
“I would suggest keeping an eye out for both her original appearance and her new one,” Essryl interjected calmly. “Ruethwyn is intelligent enough to realize that trying to get here without changing her appearance is a poor idea.”
“Agreed,” Sinera said, nodding firmly. “It might take her a little while, since she can forget such things at times, but she always tried to plan ahead.”
“Right, which means I’ll need that appearance, too.” Captain Gardner hastily nodded and smiled at the dragon nervously.
“I’ll have to trouble Sinera to give a description of Ruethwyn before she was injured, and Essryl can give descriptions of her allies after the meeting,” Resvarygrath said, gesturing slightly dismissively as he focused on Essryl. “Now, this part is for both the Shadowguard and for you, Essryl. If Ruethwyn is encountered in the palace, she is to be captured at all costs. If you have no choice but to kill her, so be it, but do as little damage as possible so she may be revived.”
“I’d be very upset if my student was permanently slain,” Sinera added, her tone flat. “In fact, I’d prefer she was brought to me whole of body and mind.”
“Of course. I’ll be certain to give instructions to that effect,” the captain said, adding a note to the slate he’d brought to the meeting. “I’ll do my best to ensure that it’s done.”
“As for me… I intended to take her alive to begin with. Fortunately, Ruethwyn is utterly abysmal at close combat, and she hasn’t had time to make up for that deficiency,” Essryl replied casually, smiling as she did so. “It’s a pity, but something that many magi seem to neglect.”
“I believe the idea is that you should block attacks with your magic or hav
e allies to help,” Sinera said, smiling slightly. “She hadn’t gotten to the point that she could summon allies more temporarily to help with that, alas. Unless that’s changed?”
“Not to my knowledge. At least she knows how to run properly, as that’s something anyone needs to know,” Essryl said, shrugging.
“Even you?” Captain Gardner asked, a slight edge to his voice.
“Especially me. I may be powerful, but I’m not a fool, Captain,” Essryl replied mildly. “If I choose to make another pilgrimage to the World Tree in my lifetime, I’ll have little choice but to tread carefully. There are a great many beings that can defeat me there, and the region is so infested with creatures that even if I defeat some of them, others which have even greater power may choose to finish the job… or I might be dragged down by sheer numbers. Knowing when to retreat, and having the ability to do so, is an important thing.”
“Hmph. True, even if I don’t like it,” Resvarygrath agreed, tapping a finger on his chair slowly. “It doesn’t help that we don’t have any idea how things will result with Hekara. If Ruethwyn is killed, it will make this pointless.”
“Ah, that reminds me. Lissa sensed a summon returning to its home plane early this morning, and Hekara is the only candidate she could think of,” Essryl said, deciding this was a convenient point to speak of it. “I don’t believe that Hekara would have returned willingly, not this soon, so I suspect she failed. Still, it might be good to contact the spies in Selwyn to find out what happened.”
“That might have been useful to know earlier,” Sinera said, then paused before shaking her head. “No, no… we couldn’t have done much with it in any case. What makes you think that Hekara wouldn’t go back quickly?”
Ignoring the woman’s slight complaint, Essryl explained her reasoning. “When Ruethwyn first encountered Hekara, she was trying to abduct students from Tyrness Academy to drag back to her home plane. I can’t imagine that after spending all this time on revenge, Hekara would just go back. I’d expect her to hunt down magi to take back with her, much as she was trying to do before.”
“Ah, that would change things, yes,” Sinera murmured, nodding.
“Indeed. Captain, ensure that you look over any reports from the spies about things that would have occurred this morning as well. I don’t want to spend all this time on something that isn’t going to happen,” Resvarygrath said, scowling slightly. “If she has fallen, I need you to acquire her corpse, Essryl. I’ll deal with retrieving her soul. It won’t pass from this world in a handful of days, but the sooner I act the easier it will be.”
“Of course, My Lord. If such is necessary, I will act immediately,” Essryl said, nodding respectfully.
“Excellent. Now, other matters need to be addressed as well. I noticed that taxes have been less plentiful this year and want to know why,” Resvarygrath said, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table.
“I thought you might be wondering, My Lord, and I looked into it,” Captain Gardner told the dragon, lowering his gaze. “It appears that trade has been curtailed, even the unofficial trade, after the attack on Mellesyn. I took the liberty of having your treasurer prepare a report and wait outside. Would you like to have him come in?”
“Yes,” Resvarygrath said, sounding somewhat mollified.
Essryl resisted an urge to sigh. She’d far rather not be present for a discussion of the realm’s economics, but Resvarygrath hadn’t dismissed her yet. That being the case, she had little choice but to sit and wait for things to be done.
“Pardon me, Essryl,” Minerva interrupted just as Essryl was going to leave the meeting room, and Essryl paused, turning to the elven woman. Most of the others had already left, and Sinera was making some notes at the table.
“Yes? Is there something I can help you with, Lady Kor?” Essryl asked, looking back steadily. She didn’t trust the look in Minerva’s eyes, and it didn’t help that she’d noticed the general attitude of both Minerva and Sinera slowly changing over the last few weeks.
It might not have been as noticeable if she’d interacted with them daily, but their encounters were spread out enough that she’d noticed that they were each growing less… pleasant. She hesitated to say they were growing cruel, but certainly more apathetic about the opinions or safety of others. The only real exception was Ruethwyn, and that was mostly restricted to Sinera, who all but obsessed over getting her student back.
“Well, after that incredibly long, boring meeting, I thought it was time to relax for a bit. I have a few nice bottles of wine in my quarters, and I wanted to invite you to come sample them with me,” Minerva explained, the redhead smiling warmly, yet with a predatory look in her eyes as she continued. “It would also give us a chance to… get to know one another better, which I think would be pleasant.”
“I see,” Essryl replied, unsurprised by the request. Minerva’s advances were steadily growing more forward, and she wished the woman would cease trying entirely. Essryl simply wasn’t interested in her. Still, her reply was polite. “I’m afraid that I’ll have to decline, Lady Kor. I have other things which I’d like to take care of, especially should I need to go in search of Ruethwyn’s body.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed Minerva’s face, and it took a moment before she spoke again, her tone slightly harsher. “Truly? May I ask why you are always putting me off, then? I see you dote on the captive girls, yet you never have time to pay attention to me, and I want that attention.”
Essryl let out a soft breath at the response. She’d hoped to put this off longer, but she wasn’t going to lie to the woman. She considered trying to be polite again, but decided it wasn’t worth it. It was better to make things clear.
“I’m putting you off because I’ve been trying to politely reject your attention, Lady Kor,” Essryl said, crossing her arms as she stared the elf in the eyes. “You’re beautiful, that much I readily admit, but that isn’t enough for me. The only people who have a chance at gaining my attention are those who are strong, and whose mental strength and drive are powerful. You don’t qualify, as you have talent yet choose to do little with it. That being the case, I would rather spend my time on the duties I’ve been entrusted with.”
“You…” Minerva’s eyes widened with shock, then narrowed. Essryl could see her anger as the elf clenched her fists. For a long moment, Essryl wondered what Minerva was going to do or say, though she was ready to defend herself if necessary.
She was a little shocked when instead of saying anything, Minerva harrumphed and stormed out of the room, all but slamming the door behind her. Essryl watched her go, considering the situation for a moment, then shrugged.
“Oh dear. You did upset Minerva, didn’t you?” Sinera said, looking up from her notes impassively, then smiled. “She’s used to being flattered, not having someone criticize her.”
“It was nothing but the truth. Unlike you, she doesn’t practice or strive to improve herself. She’s had dressmakers coming into the palace to fit her for new clothing almost half the time since she woke up, which is something of a waste,” Essryl said, sniffing derisively. “I’ve been trying to be polite, and you’re quite aware of that.”
“Indeed. You’re also perfectly right about her squandering her talent,” Sinera agreed, her smile widening. “I’ve told her that she should give it the attention it deserves for years, but she refuses to listen to me.”
“I’m not surprised. Still, perhaps that will keep her from taking up my time for a while,” Essryl said, shaking her head. “If only she was more like Ruethwyn.”
“That would be nice. Alas, my sister isn’t the type to focus on her studies, or what she should be studying,” Sinera said, stoppering the inkwell she’d been using and scattering a pinch of powder across the page to dry her ink. “I look forward to having Ruethwyn back. I have so many things I need to share with her.”
“What if she doesn’t want to stay?” Essryl asked curiously. “I was originally going to capture her and put her with the
other girls, but then you changed things.”
“That… is a good question,” Sinera paused, considering, then her eyes darkened. “While I hate to do it, I believe that your solution is a good one. If she doesn’t understand why I need her to stay and learn from me, I’ll just have to force her to understand. She’s a smart girl, she’ll come around eventually.”
“I’m sure she will,” Essryl agreed, though the look in Sinera’s eyes caused her some discomfort. “Good day, Lady Kor.”
“And good day to you, Essryl,” Sinera said, rising smoothly from her chair.
Essryl left the room, and as she went, she thought back on the look in Sinera’s eyes, and on what Resvarygrath had done. She’d met demons before, a great number of them that weren’t fire demons like Hekara. Shadow demons were common, and the darkness she’d seen in Sinera’s eyes, as well as Minerva’s, had reminded her of them.
“Lord Resvarygrath… I wonder if you truly knew what you were doing when you used the bodies of elementals to revive those two?” Essryl murmured softly, walking down the hallway at her normal, brisk pace. After a moment, she shrugged, though. “Well, it’s your choice. I’ll just have to take measures to protect myself and the girls.”
She quickened her pace slightly, intent on getting back to the west wing. Essryl hadn’t been lying about preparing, and with the additional task she’d just given herself she was going to be even busier than she’d planned. Fortunately, she was confident that Hekara had failed.
Though Essryl did have to ask herself why the thought of Ruethwyn having been killed made her feel so… irritable.
Chapter 29
“You’d best be safe, all of you. Don’t you dare take unnecessary risks,” Rithara said, her eyes glittering with unshed tears.
“Dear, they’re planning to delve into a dragon’s lair,” Cerid pointed out gently.
The Obsidian Palace (Through the Fire Book 3) Page 26