Breton twisted around to stare down at his foal, who ran his hand through his already rumpled hair. Kalen looked tired and worn, and all of Breton’s protective instincts roused.
Once Princess Tala was dealt with, he’d have to see Captain Silvereye and make certain his foal got the rest he needed.
Lord and Lady Delrose stared at each other before looking at their foals.
“You’re… you’re…
you…
” Princess Tala pointed at the Rift King, her hand shaking, her eyes wide, and her face white.
Breton’s foal rubbed his temple. “It seems I have come at a bad time.”
Unable to resist the urge, Breton smoothed the Rift King’s hair and patted his foal’s back. “She’s taking it better than I thought she would, at least.”
“Thanks for that, old man. I had wanted to see how long it would take her to figure it out. A shame. Anyway, back to you, Lord Delrose. One of Silvereye’s scouts intercepted a Kelshite, a Royal courier, from the looks of it.” With a shrug of his right shoulder and a flourish, the Rift King presented a satchel to his sire. Lord Delrose took it, flipping it open to peer inside.
“You’re identical,” Princess Tala whispered, first pointing at the Rift King before jabbing her finger in Lord Delrose’s direction.
Sire and foal ignored the woman. Before Breton could decide whether or not to stand between Kelsh’s Heir and the Rift King, Lady Delrose waved him off.
“They’re exactly the same. But why? How?” Princess Tala looked at Lady Delrose, who remained stoically silent.
After reading the note, Lord Delrose said, “They’re blaming Danar. This is meant for Rufket, I gather. If King Aelthor sent a missive to Rufket, then he has sent one to the Rift already.”
“Likely.” The Rift King clacked his teeth. “Hellfires. I have no choice now. Breton, I’ll need two wooden plates.”
Breton sighed, fearing he’d be carrying his foal, limp from exhaustion and blood loss, far too soon. “Must you?”
As if hearing his thoughts, acknowledging them, and helplessly unable to do anything about it, his foal echoed Breton’s sigh. “Plates, Breton, not excuses.”
“I’ll get them,” his foal’s dam said, standing. “Tala, you will come with me.”
The Kelshite princess nodded and followed after Lady Delrose. Once they were gone, his foal glared up at him. “Did you really have to tell her?” the Rift King asked in a weak voice. “She’s really going to try to kill me in my sleep now.”
“Foal, the entire camp already knows. It’s only a matter of time before someone slipped and she found out. You should be happy I told her. Imagine if I hadn’t.”
“As if I needed more trouble,” the Rift King complained.
Breton smiled fondly at his foal. “You’ll manage. Think about it this way. She now knows who she needs to surpass. I am at a loss of any other way to groom her into a queen.”
“Kelsh’s?” his foal wrinkled his nose. Welis started giggling, and with the encouragement of the youngest Delrose, the Rift King stuck out his tongue.
“Certainly not yours—not yet, at least.”
Kalen stared down at the two plates with the wary regard he usually reserved for serpents. “I think I’m going to need Verishi and her little dagger for this.”
His other option was to call for Crysallis—if anyone could figure out where she had disappeared to. He hesitated at the thought. While the witch could simplify the process of creating the linked plates, the jeweled dagger offered him extra possibilities, as well as ways to trigger the plate’s powers.
It also seemed fitting to use the Danarite’s magic against them.
~Home?~
the First asked.
Kalen twitched at the creature’s unexpected question. The First had mostly left him alone since the snowstorm. The longing in its voice pained him. Unless something changed, it would be a long time before either one of them returned to the sun-scorched canyons that Kalen considered his home.
“I’ll get her,” Breton said, ducking out of the tent.
Lord Delrose leaned over Kalen’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”
While his dam had retrieved a pair of wooden plates, she had left again, taking most of her foals and Princess Tala with her. Derac, his sire, and Aden remained. Aden proved as curious as Lord Delrose, shuffling closer to watch.
“If I’m going to find out what’s going on, I need to be able to send missives to the Rift. This is how we communicate with everyone so efficiently. Every kingdom has a plate, and the Rift has the partnering plate. When you pay the cost of magic, the partnering plate receives a missive or item. It only works for anything that can fit on the plate, but it is better than sending messengers all of the time,” Kalen replied.
“So you’re going to do magic?” Aden asked.
“It’s a form of blood magic,” he replied with a wince. “That’s why I need Verishi and her dagger.”
“Blood magic? Like the Danarites do?” his sire asked, his tone incredulous.
“Similar, I suppose. I could send a missive to the Rift without the plates, but it’d be a one-way message. If I do that, it’ll be like stirring a nest of serpents with a stick. To do it right, I need to create the linked plates and send one to the Rift, so they have a way of writing back to me.” Kalen sighed, both relieved by and cursing the fact he had learned how to create the plates. While it had been Arik who had hinted to him it that could be done, the memory of how he had learned the skill eluded him.
Judging from the First’s smug satisfaction, the creature was responsible, somehow.
“Can you do a lot of magic?” Aden asked.
Kalen grimaced at the question. If anyone figured out how impotent the Rift Kings actually were, the Council of the Six would dissolve within days. The fear of non-existent power kept the kingdoms and bay, and his breaking of the Covenant wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the truth of the Rift’s true abilities.
Good horses and courageous men weren’t a match for the combined forces of the Outsiders.
~You underestimate yourself~
Satrin informed him, the Yadesh’s mindvoice both amused and scolding.
“Horse Lord?” Verishi staggered into the tent, yawning and rubbing at her eyes. Following in her wake, Breton slipped inside, carefully holding the ritual dagger by its sheath.
“Would you allow me to borrow your dagger, Verishi?” he asked in Danarite.
Stifling another yawn, the little girl turned to Breton, holding her hands out for the blade. His Guardian gingerly handed it to her. The jewels gleamed in the tent’s dim light as the handmaiden offered it to him. “Of course.
She
would be pleased if you were to use it as your own. Do you need help?”
Kalen narrowed his eyes at the dagger, preparing to curl his fingers around the barbed hilt. Before he could second guess himself, he seized the weapon, clenching his teeth as the metal bit into his skin. The pain lasted no more than a breath before warmth spread up his arm. “Yes, you can help, Verishi. Please hold the first plate still for me.”
With a delighted smile, the girl sat down in front of him, seizing the wooden plate by its rim to hold it steady.
The tip of the dagger pierced into the wood with no resistance, and with the same fluid scratches of writing with a quill, Kalen inscribed the sigil of the Rift King along the plate’s edge. The First’s pleasure and satisfaction seeped through him as he worked. One by one, he sliced in the patterns and symbols of the Rift’s full sigil, until it completely circled the plate. In the center, he drew the stylized, winged serpent that matched his brooch.
“The other plate, please,” he said.
Verishi set aside the first and held the second in front of him. Repeating the process, Kalen felt the stares of the Delrose herd and Breton focused on him.
“What sort of writing is that?” Aden asked in a whisper.
“It’s the ancient form of Rifter. It ceased being used about a thousand years ago,” he replied without looking up from his work. “Wisely so, some say.” After examining his work, he looked up at Breton. “A parchment, quill, ink, and a slate, please.”
“I’ve some here,” Lord Delrose replied, heading to a corner of the tent to retrieve a box. Kalen nodded his thanks.
“Are you sure you want to do this now, foal?” his Guardian asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
Unable to help himself, Kalen smiled. “I solemnly swear I will not disgrace myself until I make it back to my tent.” He drew the Rift King’s sigil into the center of the plate.
“I am more concerned you’ll bleed yourself out by being over enthusiastic,” was his Guardian’s less-than-pleased reply.
“Hellfires, Breton. It’s not that bad.”
His Guardian did not look amused. “It’s not?”
“The last time I underestimated how sharp Gorishitorik is,” Kalen replied in as solemn a tone as he could manage. The time before that, which Breton didn’t know about and wouldn’t, if he had anything to do about it, had been even worse.
“Pardon my interruption, but what are you talking about?” his sire asked.
“You’ll see in a moment,” Kalen said, cringing a bit at the plate before turning to Breton. “Try not to tear your hand up too much. Hold this.”
His Guardian muttered something rude under his breath but obeyed, seizing the dagger’s barbed hilt. Bracing for the inevitable pain, Kalen pressed his palm to the edge of the dagger, applying pressure until his blood dripped freely from the cut. Murmuring the writing on the plates, Kalen pressed his hand to the center of each plate. The First’s approval warmed him.
Golden light radiated from the carvings. With a flash of white, the Rift King’s sigil turned black, silver, and gold. As he invoked the final words of the chant, the wood took on a silvery hue.
Slicing open the tip of his finger on Verishi’s dagger, he streaked his blood around the rim of each plate. Flipping the first plate over, he inscribed a temporary sigil to the Rift’s primary plate in his blood and placed the second plate on top of it.
The plate vanished in an aura of golden light.
“Missive, missive,” Kalen muttered, shaking his hand to dispel the tingling the magic caused. After rubbing his bloodied hand against his trousers, he grabbed a sheet of parchment and quill. His sire opened the jar of ink and held it for him.
Ignoring the tired shaking of his hand, Kalen wrote a short letter. It was Breton who flipped the first plate over so he could press the folded parchment against the central seal and press his oozing finger to the rim.
The sheet vanished. With a satisfied nod, Kalen set aside the writing tools and staggered to his feet. After taking the dagger from Breton, he offered it to Verishi, who took it with a smile. “Breton, I’m going to sleep. When they reply, wake me if it’s really important. Otherwise, tell them I’m occupied.”
Sighing his annoyance, his Guardian nodded and picked up the plate. “What’s the price for missives?”
“Any colored stone will do,” Kalen murmured, nodding to the jeweled ritual dagger. “Thanks, Verishi. That helped a lot.”
The girl’s smile was radiant. “Of course, Horse Lord.”
Kalen, with Breton hovering over him and clucking disapproval, somehow managed to find his tent before surrendering to exhaustion.
~~*~~
The Rift King slept in a sprawl, half of him on the cot while the rest of him draped off the side. Breton marveled that his foal hadn’t ended up on the canvas-covered ground.
“How elegant,” Maiten said with laughter in his voice, his friend poking his head into the tent.
“So very dignified indeed,” he murmured in wry agreement.
With a rustle and pop, another parchment appeared on the plate, which Breton added to the ever-growing pile. He scowled at the work, most of which would require his foal’s attention.
“Why don’t I get him situated while you start going through that mess?”
Disgusted, Breton watched three more sheets blink into existence on the plate, and by the time he moved them to the stack, several more appeared. “We’re going to need more than one slate to handle this,” he complained.
It didn’t surprise him. While the Rift often covered for his foal when he left on one of his rides, it had been almost three months since the Rift King had vanished.
“I sent Ceres to find us a table, though I suspect someone could make us one if we asked.”
“I don’t think making a table is that easy, Maiten.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. This company has some really skilled people.”
Breton sat down at the foot of the cot while Maiten tucked a blanket around his foal’s limp form. One by one, he unfolded the parchments and sorted them into piles by importance.
Maiten sat at Breton’s feet, grabbing half of the stack. “This is almost as bad as when he decides he needs fresh air,” his friend grumbled, waving one of the missives in the air. “No, it’s worse. They’re all the important ones, aren’t they?”
“Looks like it. At least the Princesses wrote up a summary of the non-critical issues. Oh, this one’s from Riran,” Breton said, pausing to read the note. “Ah, this is good. She’s started writing up missives declaring that the Rift King has been kidnapped—in my handwriting. She wants approval to send them.”
“I can’t believe we’re going through with that idea. It’s madness. Anything worth waking him over yet?”
“Not yet,” was all he could say, glancing at his sleeping foal. “You’d need vellest to wake him up at this point.”
Maiten winced. “Let’s not even think about it, lest he remembers he can ask for it. It’s been long enough that he probably doesn’t crave it anymore, right?” Throwing down one of the sheets, Maiten snatched up another. “It’s one thing when he’s safely guarded in his study. If he overdoes it, it’s not like we can’t deal with it. But here? The enemies will see it as weakness and our allies won’t understand.”
“What won’t they understand?”
“Vellest.”
“I think you’d be surprised. What we don’t need is him shaking himself to pieces,” Breton replied.
“Think we’ll be able to keep him from using it?”
“Old habits don’t die so easily. I think it’ll depend on the circumstances. Let’s start by going through the notes the Princesses sent first. Maybe no one has noticed he’s left the Rift.” After picking out all of the summaries, he settled down to read. “You know something, Maiten? In a way, I’m relieved he made the plates. It wore him out, but why would the untrue report of his sire’s demise spur him into doing it? He had a reason. He’s up to something.”
While Breton had learned to know when his foal was scheming, he could never guess what the Rift King was planning in advance.
“He’s always up to something. I thought you had figured that out by now. You named him far too well, old friend. Do you know what he wrote?”
Breton shook his head. “He didn’t give me a chance to read it.”
“And thus you believe that he’s up to something? He might just be anxious to return to work. He hasn’t been able to do anything for weeks. You know him, he hates leaving work undone.” Maiten snatched several newly arrived parchments from the plate, skimmed each one, and put them on their appropriate piles. “Think about it this way, at least he’s getting some sleep.”
“So he is. We could all use it, though. I can probably handle this on my own if you want to grab some rest before tonight’s entertainment,” Breton offered without looking up from his reading.
“Entertainment? Oh, you mean the archery lessons?”
“I’m sure I’ll be entertained watching this disaster in the making,” he replied solemnly.
Maiten chuckled. “It’ll be fun watching Princess Tala’s expression when she realizes he can use a bow with one hand. It’ll be even more enjoyable when she realizes he’s not a bad shot, either.”
“I wonder if the plate can handle sending his bow,” Breton asked with a thoughtful hum. He grabbed the box of writing supplies he’d pilfered from Lord Delrose and scratched out a quick note. “They sent a pouch of gems for us. Send that off, would you?”
Maiten dug out a red shard from the black pouch beside the plate and took the parchment. Once the stone touched the plate, the sheet vanished. “That’ll drive a few back home insane, you know. I know a few enjoy watching him with that little bow of his almost as much as they enjoy his singing.”