Exile (18 page)

Indigo stood a few steps behind the headmaster. She looked beautiful, even in her sedate attire, though her eyes were tired and troubled, rimmed in red. Three braids in her hair were part of Caithin mourning custom and he recognized the deep shade of her blue dress as a mourning color. Over that, she wore the gray cloak he had given her and the ring he’d sent rested on one delicate finger.

Serivar bowed and Indigo curtsied as Yiloch rose and inclined his head in an appropriate show of respect for their comparative ranks. He nodded to Ian and the creator closed the doors before coming to stand to one side of the room as a precaution. Indigo’s expression, more sorrowful than anything, added to his sense of apprehension, making him glad he had the youth with him.

“Lord Serivar. Lady Indigo. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Indigo’s jaw tightened and she took a several steps, stopping within arm’s length of him. Ian shifted his feet, but stayed where he was. He could react to a threat regardless of distance, though, if Indigo posed a threat, they were both in trouble. Yet, how could she. The scent of her, warm spring and roses, was the same as when they first met, when they had first made love. How he yearned to touch her.

She lifted her chin with an endearing hint of that stubborn determination he admired. “I have a missive for you from the king.” She drew a sealed scroll from within the cloak and held it out to him. “We may speak after you have read it.”

Yiloch hesitated, remembering another scroll in the hands of a man he’d though he could trust. A scroll that left him imprisoned for seven months.

“You will be thrice betrayed.”

But this was Indigo. She had helped free him from that prison and fought at his side to win him his throne.

Puzzled by her conduct, Yiloch reached for the scroll, searching her eyes for some hint of their purpose. Those eyes were as beautiful as he remembered. There was a flicker of pain in them when she met his inquiring gaze. He yearned to reach out to her, to know what loss she had suffered and console her. Unfortunately, political affairs had to come first.

He hesitated at the last moment, glancing at Ian. The creator nodded, indicating that the scroll was safe. The moment his fingers touched the scroll, Serivar’s hand came up and rested on Indigo’s shoulder. A gesture of support, or something else?

Her deep blue eyes narrowed, a chill rising in them.

He realized his error a second too late.

Trust. He had learned not to fully trust any man, because every man had his price. Why hadn’t he learned to apply that lesson to women as well? The agony of her betrayal turned to burning rage when familiar pressure closed in around him, making it hard to breathe.

I will not be imprisoned again.

Yiloch reached for his sword as the three of them reappeared on a long sandy beach and the pressure went away. Then he realized that he hadn’t donned the weapon before coming to meet them. An uncharacteristic oversight, but he would not have expected to need it, not with her. The created prison already suppressed his ability to use ascard as the previous one had, leaving him relatively defenseless. An unpleasantly familiar set of circumstances.

Another man appeared next to Indigo and took hold of her arm. The two vanished, leaving him alone with Lord Serivar.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Yiloch snarled.

“You’ve been accused of ordering the assassination of King Jerrin and his family,” Serivar stated as though reading from a script. “You will be held and tried under Caithin law.”

This was news. He didn’t recall ordering the assassination of the Caithin royal family, though he’d certainly thought about it more than once. “King Jerrin is dead?”

Serivar was silent, a certain smugness in his stance.

“This is absurd,” Yiloch countered.

Serivar smiled a slow, sinister smile. A smile that landed like a stone in Yiloch’s gut.

“You already know I didn’t do it.”

“You will never prove that,” Serivar replied, then he too vanished.

Not again. How could he be such a fool?

Yiloch stared at the place Indigo had been seconds before. The emotions he experienced, cutting him apart like wheat before a scythe, were entirely new. This was what betrayal felt like when it came from someone he had trusted implicitly, enough to let her into the one place he tried so hard to guard, his heart. The suac had been right. That implied many things that Yiloch was not at all happy to consider. Had he truly doomed his kingdom by turning away the arrogant Kudaness priest? Not a comforting thought, especially while trapped in another Serroc prison where he was helpless to do anything to correct that mistake.  

He began to pace the long beach, examining the perimeters with what little ascard he could draw upon. The setting was beautiful, complete with a brilliant false sunset over the created illusion of the ocean and a shelter in the middle of a small stretch of fruit trees standing opposite the water. Better, in many respects, than the volcanic landscape riddled with mutant beasts that his father had left him in for those seven months. There was little else to this prison. It was much smaller than the former prison, if considerably more hospitable, not that it made him any happier to be here. The construction of this prison was also better than the last one. It suppressed his ability so thoroughly that he doubted he had the strength to find faults in its makeup like the one that had allowed him to escape the last prison. There was no obvious gateway to try to exploit either.

Captain Renkle had done the same thing, handing him a missive that transported him into his father’s prison. This time it had been the woman he loved who betrayed him, and this betrayal was far more painful than the other had been. His first act upon escaping the last prison was to kill Renkle. There was only one way to handle a traitor.

Could he kill Indigo?

Yiloch stopped pacing, reached into his shirt, and pulled out the chain with her ring hanging on it. Carefully removing it, he stared at the beautiful little circlet resting heavy in his palm. He had taken it from her, without her knowing, when she helped him escape the last prison. When she later told him to keep it, he’d been more than happy to do so, wearing it against his skin every day since. The anguish he felt looking at it now only fueled his rage. He turned his hand over, letting the ring fall in the sand.

Yes, for this, he could kill her.

The ache in his chest defied his words. He resumed pacing, stepping on the ring with each pass to drive it deeper into the sand as he started counting strides.

At least it’s a long beach
.

Someone would come to speak to him eventually and he would find a way out. Serivar would pay, all of Caithin would pay, and Indigo…

He clenched his hands into fists and stopped pacing. The pacing only fed his rage and wasted energy. He sat near where they had appeared in the prison and faced out over the water, watching the play of light on the false horizon. Heartache filled his eyes with moisture, but no tears fell. She didn’t deserve his tears.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The surge of hurt and fury she’d last felt from Yiloch tore through Indigo over and over again, like a scream for help that brought no aid.

“You can’t steal an Emperor,” she raged.

With all the conflicting thoughts running through her mind, she wasn’t sure why she settled on that particular one to scream at Serivar when he appeared in the training room at the Healers Academy seconds behind them. The fact that they had used her to entrap Yiloch, telling her to give him the scroll without telling her what it was really for, left her feeling betrayed and furious. What she had done to Yiloch and how he must feel toward her because of it made her heartsick. She wanted to lash out at anyone she could reach and make them feel her pain. Serivar and Edan were in range and they deserved her anger.

“We just did,” Serivar replied, calmly setting a small stone next to several others sitting in a neat line on a shelf between some books.

Indigo touched on the stones with her power. They were key stones, she realized, recognizing something in the working reminiscent of the prison she had been in briefly with Yiloch before, the one she had helped him escape so long ago. The prisons existed outside of understood reality and the key stones were their anchor to the normal world, allowing them to return to Caithin through the prison. Two of the stones glowed, including the one Serivar had touched. The other three were dark, lifeless rocks. Why were they dark? There were five prisoners now, weren’t there?

“Lyra will retaliate.”

“A message was left behind to explain why he was taken,” Serivar stated, still in that aggravatingly calm tone, as though he explained something to a child. “They will not act against us rashly without their emperor, especially given the gravity of the accusations against him.”

“We don’t even know that he’s guilty.”

“Actually…” Edan started, trailing off when she turned a cold glare on him.

She resented him for taking her away from Yiloch before she could say anything. They hadn’t even let her speak to him.

Edan shifted, uncomfortable before her bitter gaze, but continued. “Galyn and Kade both confessed their involvement. Sine tried to deny it, but she finally relented when the other two implicated her. Ferin’s involvement is still unclear, but Kade admitted that his orders came from Emperor Yiloch himself.”

Indigo shuddered, a wave of nausea leaving her shaken and unsteady on her feet. Her anger with Yiloch for his probable guilt still wasn’t as strong as what she felt toward them for using her. Even now, some part of her refused to believe that he and his adepts had anything to do with the assassinations, despite this new proof to the contrary.

“What will happen to them?” she asked, making a futile effort to keep the concern from her voice.

He turned a dispassionate gaze to the key stones. “Galyn, Kade, and Sine have already been put to death for their crimes.”

Cold despair expanded within her, bringing goose flesh to her arms. Now she understood why three of the stones were inactive. There was no one in those prisons anymore.

“Lord Ferin and Emperor Yiloch will be questioned and dealt with appropriately as well.”

His words, and the hint of satisfaction in his tone, made her feel nauseous again. Did Ferin know Galyn was dead? She could see the three adepts clearly in her mind, all no older than she was and so hungry to learn. She wavered on her feet and Edan stepped forward to offer a steadying hand. She stepped back from him so fast she almost fell, catching herself with a hand on the table.

“I’m sorry. I suddenly don’t feel so well.”

“Perhaps you should get some rest,” Serivar offered and she yearned to claw the calm from his eyes. “It has been a stressful few days and there’s no need for you to worry yourself further with this matter.”

She nodded. Yes, let them think it was stress that afflicted her rather than horror at the death of the adepts and the betrayal she had committed against the man she loved. Whether or not he was guilty, what she had done was wrong. The fact that they had tricked her into it was little consolation. After his seven-month imprisonment by his father, he wasn’t going to take kindly to this experience, especially through her deception, as it probably appeared. She touched the stones with ascard again, yearning to go back into the prison and speak to him. The effort would be pointless. It might assuage her guilt, but it wouldn’t help him any.

“I can summon a carriage,” the headmaster offered.

“No, thank you. The fresh air may help.”

Edan took another step closer. “Shall I walk you home?”

She gave him a warning glare and he took a quick step back. Before she could reject his offer, Serivar shook his head. “You’re needed here, Edan.” He turned to Indigo. “We can find someone else to walk with you if you like.”

She shook her head. Why did he need Edan and not her? Whatever the reason, it wasn’t important right now. What was important was fixing this, and she knew just who to talk to about it. “No, I’ll be fine.”

It took an act of will not to run from the room. Stepping out into the academy grounds to see students walking about on their usual business in the afternoon sun, their lives unchanged beyond the mourning attire most wore, it was hard to believe she had been in the imperial palace in Lyra only a short time ago. Her mind reeled. This couldn’t be happening.

Quickening her stride as if to outrun the horror, she thought about where Caplin would be at this hour. His family would have moved into the palace by now, so she headed that direction, reaching as far as she could with her ability to find him. As she neared the inner wall, she could sense him within the palace. She tried to summon him, something she had never tried with someone who had no real ascard ability, and felt him respond with surprise.

The gate guard stopped her outside the palace courtyard, his expression dark and suspicious after the recent tragedy.

“What business in the palace?” he barked.

“Prince Caplin is expecting me,” she stated, confident that her longtime friend would still welcome her despite all that had come between them. “Lady Indigo Milan.”

He turned to one of the other guards. There were five more than usual, she noted. Not a surprise.

“Check to see if Prince Caplin is expecting the Lady Indigo Milan.”

She felt Caplin’s approach and turned to the main doors. He looked mildly surprised to see her, perhaps doubting the summons she had given as a figment of an overstressed mind. If so, he didn’t doubt it now. Gratitude filled her at his willingness to come, a precious instant of happiness nudging through her misery.

“She may enter,” he called and the guards turned, dropping into quick bows when they saw him.

The guard who had stopped her now gestured for her to pass. She walked up to Caplin and they stood a moment, regarding each other. He looked weary, almost as weary as she felt. He searched her face for several seconds then offered her his arm. She placed her hand in the crook of his elbow and let him escort her back into the palace. He led her to a quiet sitting room off the main hall, unaware of the barriers she was erecting against eavesdropping of any kind. Neither of them sat.