The Mindmage's Wrath: A Book of Underrealm (The Academy Journals 2) (14 page)

She still looked at him askance, clearly unsure, and likely now worried that his thoughts were addled. He gave her the most reassuring smile he could muster, and once more took her arm. “Come,” he said, pulling her along. “Tell me more of your trip. I want to hear everything.”

fourteen

THEY WALKED IN THE GARDEN and spoke until Albi said she was too cold, and then they sat together and spoke near a hearth inside the manor. And as before, Albi spoke mostly of herself, and all that she had done since last she saw Ebon, and some things she had done before, and whenever Ebon spoke of himself she barely nodded before relating it to another of her stories. Soon he stopped trying, and simply listened. Despite the dark cloud that had been cast over his thoughts, it
was
good to hear what Albi had been up to in his absence.

At last Albi yawned and said she might nap, for they had traveled long to get here, and had only arrived the night before. The afternoon was now winding on, and the faint glow of the sun through the clouds was edging towards the western horizon.

They stood together, and Ebon gave her one last hug. “I cannot tell you how glad my heart has been to see you again, dearest Albi.”

“And you, Ebon.” She gave him a gentle slap on the arm, not nearly so hard as before. “But if you ever forget to write me again, I will return to the Seat with an army of sellswords.”

“I will remember.”

She made for her bedchamber, and Ebon for the storeroom where his Academy robes waited. He found them neatly folded and stacked. Perhaps Liya had done it, in some sort of apology for her earlier conduct. Or mayhap it had been another passing servant. It did not much matter, he supposed.

His Academy robes felt much more comfortable, and he sighed with relief once changed. He had no wish to stay for another encounter with the servants, so he went downstairs and to the front door—but there he found Mako waiting, leaning on the wall and picking at his nails with his long, silver knife.

“Greetings, young lord,” said Mako, with a curious amount of courtesy. “Might I walk you back to the Academy—at least for part of the way?”

“Certainly,” said Ebon, and gestured for Mako to join him. He said it lightly enough, but in truth his mind was already racing. Mako never spoke privately for idle purpose.

The streets were soft and muted about them, and there were no passers-by. But still Mako waited until they were a long way removed from the Drayden manor before he spoke his mind. He looked both ways cautiously, and stepped closer so that Ebon could hear his growling murmur. “Did you notice that your uncle did not seem pleased to see you?”

“I did. But if he is my father’s brother, I count it as no great surprise.”

“Yet his scorn for you was not the only strange thing. Did you note his response when you asked questions about the manor being redecorated?”

“I did, and I thought it odd,” said Ebon carefully. “It does not seem my uncle has any great affection for me. What did you make of his mood?”

Mako did not answer directly, but chuckled and said, “His ire should strike you as nothing new, when your father has hated you all your life.”

Despite himself, Ebon felt his ears burning. His jaw spasmed, but he forced himself to speak anyway. “Do you bring up his odd behavior for a reason, or not? You already told me that our family had nothing to do with the attack upon the Seat.”

Mako seized Ebon’s throat in an iron grip and dragged him from the street into an alleyway. There he shoved him against the stone wall of a building, bringing his own face to within an inch of Ebon’s. His breath smelled of something rancid, though it was hidden by mint.

“Still your witless tongue in the streets, you goldshitting little fool.”

Ebon glared over Mako’s hand. But he knew the bodyguard was right, and that he had been foolhardy to speak so openly. Anger had provoked him. And now it made him drag Mako’s hand away from his mouth so that he could whisper, “Mayhap if you ceased playing games and said what you meant to say in the first place, I would not be so tempted to speak out of turn.”

Mako did not glare at him, but neither did he wear his usual self-effacing smirk. His eyes were pits of ice, and that ice penetrated Ebon’s soul, such that fear seeped in at the frayed edges of his anger. Though he could not see it, he was well aware of Mako’s hand hovering at the hilt of his long, cruel dagger. The white of his scars fairly glowed against his dark olive skin.

But when Mako spoke, it bore none of the frigid tone that his look promised. “I did not tell you the family was blameless in the attack on the Seat. I told you I did not
learn
of the attack from a Drayden.”

His hand left Ebon’s throat, and Ebon slumped back against the wall. Though he hated to look weak, he reached up and rubbed his neck ruefully, for he thought a bruise might form. “I do not understand the difference you mean to imply.”

“Mayhap Matami indeed had something to do with the attack, and your father as well. Mayhap they kept the truth from me. I assumed they would not—after all, they could hardly ask for a better agent to help with such a plan. But then, long has your father been uncomfortable with the favor I have shown you; and that favor comes because Halab does the same, which he also resents.”

Ebon released a sigh, and it crystallized to mist in the frigid air. “You mean they may not have told you because they feared you would warn me.”

Mako nodded. “Just as I did, the moment I learned.”

A long silence followed, while Ebon stared at his shoes and tried to wrestle the feelings battling in his breast. This day was one for hard truths, and each had struck him like a blow: first, that his father would not even come and see him on the Seat, so ashamed was he of Ebon’s enrollment in the Academy; second, that he had been robbed of his inheritance, which would now pass to Albi; and finally, now, the possibility that his death had been planned by his father all along, mere collateral damage in the wake of some grand scheme that spanned all of Underrealm.

But one thing troubled him. Shay was not the master of the family Drayden. “Halab directs our family, not my father. She would never have had anything to do with the vile treason of Dulmun.”

“Certainly not,” said Mako. “That is plain, if for no other reason than that you were left here on the Seat. Halab has always loved you better than Shay has.”

“And because it would be the very highest of crimes against the High King.”

Mako raised one eyebrow and shrugged. “As you say. But if what we have begun to guess at is correct, I believe we are looking at a plot by Shay, and possibly Matami, operating without the knowledge of Halab.”

Ebon quailed at the thought of him and his friends slipping through the Academy grounds at night, and what they had planned for this Sunday. “So Lilith is innocent?”

“Impossible.” Mako shook his head and turned to pace back and forth. But he stopped himself almost immediately, and went to the mouth of the alley to lean against the brick wall opposite Ebon. “Yes, impossible. Or so I think. Shay and Matami could never concoct such a scheme on their own. They would need help within the Academy. They might have thought to use Cyrus, but he was always an untrustworthy sort.”

That made Ebon’s heart skip a beat. He licked his lips. “Was? You speak as though you are certain he is dead.”

Slowly, Mako’s eyes turned to him, and once more they were pits of ice. “Are you not certain yourself?”

Ebon was glad he had put his hands in his pockets, for they were shaking like an old man’s. “He might have fled the Seat. That is what some say.”

“Some say foolish things.” Mako spat, the phlegm sinking into a wet hole in the snow. “In any case, Shay and Matami would not have brought him into their conspiracy, for he would certainly have told Halab. They must have seduced Lilith instead—or, mayhap, they are working with higher contacts in Yerrin, and Lilith is in the employ of those contacts.”

He pushed off from the brick wall. Again he paced, now holding a clenched fist to his chin, tugging on it as though he pulled an invisible beard. “Yes. Yes, that would make sense. They think to make a play for greater power. By this temporary alliance with Yerrin, they think to increase their own standing.”

Ebon was still shaking from the dark truths Mako had hinted at before. Could the bodyguard possibly know what had transpired between Ebon and Cyrus when the Seat was attacked? It seemed impossible. But in any case, the best thing was to draw the man’s mind elsewhere. “Why? For what ultimate end? We have never had love for Yerrin.”

Mako met his gaze. “To take Halab’s place at the head of the Drayden family. In exchange for Yerrin’s help to get there, Shay and Matami will promise more favorable relations with Yerrin once in power.”

“But ...” Ebon shook his head, unwilling to believe it. “But what would happen to Halab?”

The bodyguard’s nose flared slightly. “Nothing that I would allow, I promise you that.”

Still Ebon did not want to think it could be true. “But this would not help the family. Already we are stronger than Yerrin. It would weaken us, and strengthen them.”

“Yes, it would weaken Drayden—but it would strengthen Shay and Matami in the process,” said Mako. “They would sacrifice the family’s power to enhance their own. It is the opposite of what Halab would do. And that is why they think she must be removed.”

His voice rang with finality. Ebon squared his shoulders. “You are certain of this, then?”

“Rarely am I certain of anything, nor should you be. Yet it seems the likeliest thing.”

“We must catch them.”

“I shall work on that. You must focus on Lilith.” Mako put a firm hand on Ebon’s shoulder. “Catch her in the act, Ebon. Have her dragged before the King’s justice and put to the question. She will expose those in her family giving the orders. They in turn will expose Shay and Matami, if indeed they are involved in this plot.”

“Then I will expose her,” said Ebon.

“Good.” And just like that, as though he were done casting a spell, the ice faded from Mako’s face, and his sardonic smile flew in to replace it. “I think you and I shall form a fine team, little goldshitter.”

Ebon smiled grimly. “I think I prefer goldbag.”

“I knew you would say so. Until we meet again, then. Good fortune this Sunday.”

He stepped around the alley’s corner, and when Ebon stepped around to follow him, Mako was gone. But then Ebon heard a scrape from up above, and he looked up in time to see a leather boot vanish over the edge of the tile roof.

At last I have caught him in the act
.
Not a spell after all.

It was only then that he realized Mako had wished him good fortune on Sunday, though he had never mentioned the plan to break into the vaults. Ebon’s gaze jerked back towards the sky, where the bodyguard’s boot had vanished.

fifteen

Ebon returned to the Academy just before the end of the afternoon’s study. Quickly he made his way to the third-floor alcove, where Kalem and Theren listened with rapt attention to his account of the afternoon’s doings—including his conversation with Mako.

“You told him about our plan?” said Kalem, voice edging towards panic.

“I did not,” said Ebon. “He has ... ways of learning such things. I long ago gave up trying to understand it.”

“I think you should try again,” Kalem shrilled. He must have realized how loud he sounded, for he looked anxiously over his shoulder before going on. “One whisper of our plot in the wrong ear, and we could all be thrown out of the Academy for good.”

“He means us no ill will,” said Ebon.

“Not that you know of.”

“I know it.”

Theren slapped her hand against the table. “Enough of this. There is nothing we can do about it now. But I have had an idea—one I think may be more important, and a relief to you besides, Ebon.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You think Shay and Matami may have had something to do with Lilith’s scheming because they stand before your naked eyes,” she said, speaking quickly in her excitement. “Yet I have another idea. One that would make more sense, if you would rather not believe your own father has turned kinslayer. What if the Drayden helping Lilith has been someone else entirely?”

Ebon and Kalem exchanged an uncertain glance. “Well, spit it out,” said Ebon. “Though I do not see how you could know my family better than Mako and I.”

Her grin widened. “You do not see it, do you? And that is why it is the perfect deception. It is not your father, or your uncle. It is Cyrus.”

Kalem’s eyes widened in recognition. But Ebon felt a void open in the pit of his stomach, a void that sucked in his fears and anxieties and anger and spit them back up as raw, red shame that burned its way to his heart.

What could he say? How could he refute her idea, which he knew for a fact to be wrong, without confessing his crime? Ebon had had his doubts when Adara insisted that he must keep Cyrus’ death a secret. But whether or not he could have told them before, he certainly could not do so now.

“I ... I find that hard to believe.”

“That is what makes it so perfect,” said Theren, smiling in triumph. “We know he hated you. And we know that, at the end, he blamed your family for cutting him out of their plots and schemes. He fled the Academy in terror, and knew that if he returned, he would be tried and found guilty under the King’s law, then to die a slow death under the knives of Mystics. So instead, he thinks to amass power for himself by collecting artifacts from the vaults of the Academy. He knows them better than any. And he might have enlisted the help of the family Yerrin, for certainly he would not have gone to his kin, who he thinks betrayed him.”

“This does make sense, Ebon,” said Kalem. “I might never have thought of it, but Theren is right–that is what makes it such a devious scheme.”

“He was scum, Ebon.” Theren’s cheeks spasmed as she bit them, her lip curling in a snarl. “You know that better than most.”

At last Ebon saw why Theren had seized upon this idea, and why she believed it so strongly. Cyrus had attacked Ebon upon the Academy’s grounds, and she had watched, afraid to intervene. Still she blamed herself for the beating Ebon had taken, and now she thought she saw a chance, however small, at redemption.