Call of Brindelier (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 3)
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Authors: Missy Sheldrake
CALL OF BRINDELIER
Keepers of the Wellsprings
Book Three
By Missy Sheldrake
COPYRIGHT 2016
First published by Missy Sheldrake exclusively for Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing June 2016
Call of Brindelier
©2016 Missy Sheldrake
All rights reserved,
Including the right of reproduction
In whole or in part in any form.
Illustrations, Design, and Cover Art ©2016 by Missy Sheldrake
All Rights Reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Illustrations for this novel were created using the Procreate iPad App on iPad Pro
Illustrations and other artwork cannot be shared, duplicated, or otherwise used without express permission from the artist.
Map of The Hammerfel Residence
Map of His Majesty’s Elite Guild Hall
Chapter One: The Sorcerers’ Lair
Chapter Five: Whisperings of Warning
Chapter Eight: Unsavory Orders
Chapter Nine: The Princess’s Tale
Chapter Twelve: A Rare Purpose
Chapter Thirteen: Doorway to Cerion
Chapter Seventeen: Palace of the Dawn
Chapter Nineteen: Champions of Light
Chapter Twenty-One: Sails and Pearls
Chapter Twenty-Two: Secrets Squandered
Chapter Twenty-Three: Confrontations
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Letter
Chapter Twenty-Five: Sons of the Prince
Chapter Twenty-Six: Triumphant Return
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Sword of Light
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Failure and Regret
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Appealing to the King
Chapter Thirty-One: Margy’s Gift
Chapter Thirty-Two: Allies in Dreaming
Chapter Thirty-Three: Palace Shadows
Chapter Thirty-Four: Unspeakable Magic
Chapter Thirty-Six: Dining Hall
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Thief
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Dusk Encroaching
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Sun Guzzler
Chapter Forty: Kythshire’s Offering
Chapter Forty-Two: Sped Summoning
Chapter Forty-Three: Knowledge of the Wellspring
Chapter Forty-Four: Consequences
Chapter Forty-Five: Kythshire’s Gift
Chapter Forty-Six: Reinforcements
Chapter Forty-Seven: Sparks and Pebbles
Chapter Forty-Eight: To the Victors…
Chapter Forty-Nine: Margy’s Choice
Chapter Fifty: Dawn Versus Dusk
Celli
I lie still, too afraid to open my eyes as the Sorceress finishes her spell. I can feel the heat from her hands as they hover over my face. Her bracelets jingle softly as she moves. I don’t have a lot of time to take stock of things. She knows I’m awake. My breathing is too fast. My heart is racing. Still, I pretend to be asleep.
“Take your time,” the woman soothes. Her voice is deep and unfamiliar. The power behind it makes my skin prickle.
Her soft footsteps leave the bedside, but her scent lingers behind: roses, spice, and incense. Carefully, quietly, I let my fingers graze the bed. It’s cloud-soft. Silky, like a fine gown. Not like my pallet at home, where straw and feathers poke through the rough burlap. I want to burrow into it and forget my whole life until now, or at least forget how I failed.
That island boy was so weak. I don’t care if he was a Mage. I shouldn’t have let Tib interrupt me or distract me. I should have just taken the satchel and ran with it like I was supposed to, but I was afraid of the spells. I knew he’d do it if he had to, that satchel boy. He’d cast something on me.
“I should have just killed him,” I whisper.
The Sorceress jingles closer. Her hand scoops mine gently from the bed.
Stupid, Celli
. I tell myself.
Be quiet.
I squeeze my eyes shut even tighter. I don’t know how I got here, or why. I don’t know who this woman is. I don’t want to give her a reason to hurt me.
“First blood, though thrilling, is not to be taken lightly,” she murmurs. Something traces along my palm, tickling my skin. I remember the swirls there from whatever was in that satchel. Mage Mark, but red. The pain is gone now. I wonder whether the Mark is, too, but I don’t dare look. If I keep quiet and still enough, maybe she can forgive me. Maybe they’ll go easy on me for failing the task. It seemed like such a simple job at the time, to steal a satchel from a boy.
Thieving has always come easy to me. It started when I was much younger and things were different in Cerion. Everyone was cheerful then, always smiling. Da had regular work then, and he’d come home tired from a long day with a sack full from the market. A toy for me and my brother, Hew. A flower for Mum. He’d kiss her and whisper into her soft golden hair and her cheeks would go rosy as the soft petals brushed her nose.
I used to go out even then, into the city. It was so crowded that it was easy to take a coin from a belt or two and never be noticed. I didn’t need it. We weren’t starved or anything. I did it for the thrill. I would pick out the richest looking ones. Lords and ladies in finery. People who wouldn’t miss a silver or two. Some of them even had guards with them. Those were the most challenging. I tried to best my take every day. Sometimes, my own purse would be so heavy with coin that I’d have to go home and empty it by midday.
I got a reputation. The boys on the street noticed. They started trying to steal my earnings. That’s when I had to learn how to fight. The younger ones started following along so I taught them how to steal and fight, too. Among the kids in Redstone Row, I was either looked up to or feared. That was fine by me. I mostly stashed the coin I stole, but I’d always come home with something for Hew.
The Sorceress lowers my hand to the bed and jingles away again. She doesn’t say anything more to me, but I can hear her quill scratching across the parchment as she makes notes nearby. I swallow the lump that forms in my throat when I think about my brother. His adorable drooling smile swims in my memory, but then his face changes. Blue. Blotched. His tiny bundled body on the mattress nestled between me and Mum, unmoving. My eyes fly open with my mother’s screams still ringing in my ears. That’s the only way I can remember him anymore. Stiff. Lifeless.
I look around, trying desperately to push the image out of my mind. The first thing I notice is all of the red. Red canopy and curtains on the bed, red silk coverlet, red tapestries. Even the Sorceress at the desk across the room is draped in the color, like camouflage.
I’ve never seen a place so rich before. The furniture is carved and polished to a high shine. A table at the bedside holds a silver pitcher and a goblet that sparkle in the sunlight beaming through the high windows. The glass is stained with colorful pictures of men and women in strange poses with their robes fluttering around them.
“Are we in the palace?” I ask. As soon as the words leave my lips I feel foolish.
Of course we’re not in the palace, stupid,
I think to myself.
She doesn’t answer. Maybe she knows I feel ashamed for asking. I imagine they can tell those sort of things. Anyway, she keeps writing. I glance at the pitcher and goblet again. I’m so thirsty, but whatever’s inside could be anything. A potion, maybe, put there to kill me. I close my eyes again and see my brother’s face lingering, leering at me.
Da started drinking after the baby died. Mum was never the same, either. When the work stopped coming, things got much worse. I spent all my stashed coin on food, and when that was gone I stole to eat. The thrill made me want to steal more, so I just kept doing it. Coin, trinkets, food, fighting. What did it matter, when Da was barely able to get up most days and Mum was too sick with grief to notice me anymore? Maybe if they’d paid better attention, I wouldn’t be stuck here now. Or maybe they noticed I’m gone. Maybe they’re worried about me. I wonder how long I was out. A sleep spell can go on for days. The ones they put on prisoners in Cerion can stay on for months.
“Am I a prisoner?” I ask the woman across the room.
“Do you feel like one?” she replies without even looking up from her desk.
I run my hand over the soft bed covers and think about it. They’re so rich and fine, like the robes of the man whose purse I tried to slip a coin from just days ago. Or maybe it was longer. I’m not sure.
He was just standing there at Cerion’s harbor wall, tucked to the side near the Academy. I knew he was a Mage right away. The robes were a dead giveaway.
I had been less interested in the coin than the challenge. Mages are tricky to pick from. They have too many protections. But, stupid Celli, I keep trying to figure out a way. Just to see if I can do it. Being able to steal from a Mage could make me famous, I had thought. I imagined there were people out there who’d pay heaps to have something filched from one of them. So I kept trying.
I almost did it, too. I had the coin in my hand. It was a strange one. Silver, with little prongs around the outside. One side was smooth, and the flip side had clouds on it. He probably wouldn’t have caught me if I wasn’t dumb enough to stand there in the open gaping at it, but the next thing I knew, his gloved hand was clamped around my wrist and I was being pulled into an alley.
As soon as I looked into his face, I knew my mistake. Even through the black veil I could see the blue-black Mark curling over his cheeks and nose. Nobody is Marked in Cerion. The Mages here are all too careful. Too good. If they end up with the Mark, they work hard to make it fade. If not, they face getting stripped of their magic. This man was no Mage. He hadn’t been for a long time, judging by the amount of skin the Mark covered. No, he was a Sorcerer.
“Yes, you see now,” he said. I can still see his grin beneath the cover and his cold, dark eyes like they’ve been imprinted on my soul. “Clever girl.”
I remember feeling anything but clever in that moment. Terror, shame, and a strong desire to run, maybe. Not clever at all.
“What will you do to me?” I whispered as his spell shimmered around us, concealing us from those walking in the street nearby.
His eyes bored into me. He looked at me for so long that I finally had to look away.
“You need not fear me,” he said. His voice was gentle and smooth. It made my heart race. I looked back into his face. He was handsome, I could tell, underneath the veil. The Mark gave him an air of mystery and danger that made me want to please him. “I shall forgive this transgression. Look there.” His hand on my shoulder sent a warmth spreading through me as he turned me toward the street. “Do you see that boy in the yellow?”
The memory fades away, snuffed out by the lingering weight of my failure. I sigh and prop myself on my elbows cautiously. The Sorceress doesn’t say anything. I wonder if he’s here; the Sorcerer who pulled me into the shadows, who let me keep the strange coin in exchange for the satchel I promised to get for him. I wonder if he knows I failed yet.
The thought of failing him sends me to a dark and desperate place. I don’t know why. I don’t even know his name. I try to remember what happened after I touched the thing in the satchel, but there’s nothing but pain and darkness.
“Where are we? What is this place?” I ask as the woman at the desk blots her writing and sets down her quill. She’s very pretty, with long, wavy brown hair and deep brown eyes. Her Mark is not as prominent as the Sorcerer’s. The blue-black swirls of it have only begin to curl up to her chin.
“Far from any place you’ve been, girl,” she drawls, like she’s already growing bored of me.
Her words and her tone draw out my anger and make it bubble inside of me. I want to argue that I’m not just a girl. A child. I want to shout at her for assuming I haven’t been anywhere, even though it’s true. She crosses to me again, and the soft jingling and the swish of her gown soothe me. I’m entranced by the Mark that curls across her elegant neck and up behind her ear.
When I was very young, I longed to be a Mage, but our family could never afford it. Instead, my mum taught me a healthy fear of the Arcane, just like every dutiful mother in Cerion does. It’s forbidden to even try to dabble in magic without proper instruction. We’re taught early that a Mark is treason and wickedness. It shows the greed for power plain on your skin, for all to see. Watching this Sorceress as she nears me, though, makes me curious. Envious. I want to look like her. I want to be powerful, like she is.
She comes to sit beside me and takes my red-Marked hand again.
“What matters more than where you are is where you’re going,” she says. “Quenson has seen promise in you. Even though you failed him, he wishes to speak with you.”
“Quenson? Is that his name?” I blush, remembering the Sorcerer’s handsome face. He sees something in me. The thought makes me grin. Nobody’s said that about me before, especially not someone like him.
“It is,” she smiles knowingly. “And I am Sybel. I’m to look after you while you’re here.” Her eyes drift to my hand in hers. From the way she fixates on it and how much she’s been writing, I figure she’s more interested in the red Mark than anything else.
“What is it?” I ask, turning my hand over to look at it. Some of the curls are already fading.
“Inquisitive,” she says, but doesn’t bother to answer my question. “We must make you presentable. Come, stand up.”
I slide from the bed with her help. I’m still a little dizzy from the sleep spell. She circles around me, looking me up and down. After a moment she points at my feet and they start to tingle. I fight the urge to scream and run as her spell creeps over me. It weaves through the fibers in my clothing, changing them slowly. The spell changes me, too, a little. It gives me courage.
“There,” she says when her work is through. “You shall not forget this small kindness, nor shall you forget it is my spell which afforded it to you.”
I look down at myself in disbelief at the change. When I do, my usually stringy, sticky hair slinks forward freely. I turn my head and it swings and bounces perfectly. My skin is clean and soft. Even my knuckles are free of the ever-present bruises and scrapes from fighting with my fists. The old Celli is gone. I feel like a noble.
My clothes have changed, too. Soft gray suede trimmed in red and silver. The new tunic and leggings are finer than anything I’ve owned in my life. They cling to me and move with me as comfortably as a second skin. A rich black cloak drapes my shoulders, mocking the summer heat. It drifts behind me like a veil. I can feel the magic in it. When Sybel flicks a finger and the hood settles on my slicked-back hair, I feel the same shift I felt when Quenson concealed us in the alley.
“If you prove yourself,” Sybel rests her hands on my shoulders and whispers, “Quenson will offer you more than this in exchange for your allegiance. But should anything happen to me, you shall lose my gifts.”
“Why would something happen to you? Is he your enemy?” I whisper, pushing my hood back.
“My dear girl,” she chuckles, “among our group, allies and enemies are one and the same. You would do well to remember that. Come.”
I’ve never been inside of a palace before. If this isn’t one, I can’t imagine what it is. Even in the corridors the ceilings are so high they disappear into darkness. There are so many details that if I wasn’t concentrating so hard on following Sybel I’d probably get lost just from fixating on them.
Da was a stone carver before the king stopped ordering work and the drink ruined him. I’ve spent long afternoons outside of the conclave and other buildings around Cerion admiring his craftsmanship. None of it can compare to this, though. Patterns and mazes and swirls and filigree cover every surface. I’m so busy taking it all in that I forget to pay attention to where we’ve been and how we got there.
When Sybel leaves me to wait alone in a circular room, I suddenly realize that was probably the whole point of all of those patterns. To distract me from knowing where I was. The realization makes me feel angry and foolish all over again.