The Queen of Mages (61 page)

When that was done, they got Edon on his
feet and marched him to the castle’s front door. The mage and
Warden who had come through earlier waited near the gate with a
dozen other knights and soldiers. Amira saw no one who looked like
a mage, aside from the one man. She nodded to Liam, who lifted the
sack off Edon’s head.

“Your king is our prisoner,” she shouted.
“We will not harm him so long as you all leave Elland and return to
Callaston.” She gestured to Liam, and he replaced the sack.

“You expect us to simply surrender?” the
mage below called out. “We outnumber you a dozen to one!”

“I’ve spent months wanting this monster
dead,” Amira nearly screamed. “You will leave, or I will get my
wish!”

“How are we to know you would not kill him
anyway?” the mage said.

She ground her teeth. They’d won! Why should
this part be so difficult?

Before she could speak, Dardan stepped
forward and shouted. “I swear on the name of House Tarian of
Hedenham County, King Edon will remain unharmed so long as all his
forces leave the city and march for Callaston at once. After you
are gone, his majesty will be released safely.”

“Why should we trust you, traitor?”

This seemed to affront Dardan. He drew
himself up. “House Tarian has ruled Hedenham County justly and
fairly for centuries. Until his majesty decided to attack us
unprovoked, we had never once entertained any thought of rebellion.
Our honor is unsullied.” He raised his sword to Edon’s neck. “And
besides, you have no choice.”

The idea of letting Edon go turned Amira’s
stomach. But she could not see another way to save the city. She
hoped Razh was alive to appreciate the sacrifice.

The mage down below conferred quietly with
the Warden, and then they both turned and strode over to the other
knights waiting beyond. Some intense discussion followed. After a
minute or two they returned, having somehow become the emissaries
of Edon’s army. “We will leave if the king so orders it.”

Amira had been holding Edon’s arm, and she
felt him tense suddenly. The air was still; she could hear him
breathing under the sack. She went up on tiptoes and whispered to
him. “The city might burn, but you would certainly die.”

She felt him turn a little, and saw his
silver light flash by as he did. He grunted, unable to speak behind
the gag. Amira reached up under the sack and loosened the cloth.
“Go,” he shouted. “Return to Callaston.”

———

It took two days for the army to completely
withdraw. They had to collect all their living and their dead, and
deal with roving parties of townsfolk who, on a few occasions,
started fights with the royal soldiers.

The townsfolk had started to emerge from
their homes and shops when all had been quiet for a few hours, as
the news spread that the battle was over and that Edon’s army had
been repulsed. Teams of men were drafted into clearing rubble from
the streets and at the wall where Edon’s mages had breached it.

Razh, Francine, and Jeffrey had survived the
fighting in the castle, along with a few of the mundane defenders.
Once Edon had been taken and the terms negotiated, Amira and Mason
marched him through the castle, calling out that they’d captured
Edon and for the other mages and Wardens remaining to surrender. It
turned out only six of them were still alive; Francine had killed
three of the search parties by herself, and Razh another. Jeffrey,
while dueling another mage, had demolished a twenty-foot section of
exterior wall; they were lucky the whole castle hadn’t come
down.

Edon was kept bound and gagged and
blindfolded, seated between two female mages at all times. At
first, that meant Amira and Francine, and Amira felt a growing
sense of revulsion at spending so much time in close proximity to
the man.

If he’d ever tried to summon a bead, either
of them could have snuffed it out at once, but he never did. The
castle had old, rarely-used dungeons, and it was here they kept
him. Edon was not stupid, but still Amira reminded him that using
his power would likely result in him being buried under tons of
rock. He said nothing.

By the end of that day, Cora and Sophie
turned up, mostly unharmed. They took a turn watching the king,
giving Amira a chance to rest, if only for a short while. She had
her wounds cleaned, compresses applied, bandages wrapped. Someone
handed her a mirror, and after a calming breath she looked into it.
The gash on her cheek would certainly scar, and could not be easily
hidden with powder or color. She gave the mirror away
hurriedly.

The roster of the dead came as well. More
than half the students at her school had been killed. Vincent.
Emma. Benton. Edith. Garen. A dozen others. A few of the castle
servants had gotten caught out; but mostly they’d hidden in the
cellars, as instructed. Patric had kept them safe, a shepherd
watching his flock.

The cellars also held the answer to another
mystery, Amira learned, when Mason came into the formal dining room
where she sat sipping cold broth. Evening had fallen; this brutal
day was finally nearing its end. The Warden came to attention a few
feet away. He’d put his armor on again, she saw.

“Please, sit.”

“I prefer to stand, m’lady.”

“Sit. Down.”

Mason met her eyes for a moment, then looked
away. He circled the table and sat opposite her.

“What happened to you?”

“After we… spoke… I thought to leave the
city, but instead I wanted solitude, to pray. I left my belongings
here and went to a temple a few streets away. I prayed for hours,
then spent the night in a borrowed cell there.”

“And what did you learn from your prayers?”
Amira interrupted.

Mason chewed on his lip for a moment, but
ignored the question and went on. “The steward awoke me this
morning with the news that the city was besieged. He’d only just
heard, as he hadn’t gone out the previous day at all, and no one
had come by to tell him. I came back to the castle to get my armor
and sword. I went to the top of the keep and could see forces
approaching the castle. I could have gone out to meet them, but
there was no one to protect the servants here.”

“Gone out to meet which group?” Amira
asked.

Mason winced a little. “I… I don’t know what
I would have done if I’d gone outside, m’lady. But I didn’t. I
stayed here. I started gathering the servants down to the cellars,
and a little while later Count Razh’s
valo
came to help. He
told me you’d returned. I came back up and watched from the
servants’ stair; I saw Edon and his mages and my brother Wardens
enter. I could not make myself go to them. I hid, and realized my
armor would slow me down and protect me not at all against mages.
So I took it off. Then a pair of Edon’s men found me, and I led
them on a chase. I suppose it is a miracle I was not killed.”

“The Caretaker had a purpose for you,” Amira
said quietly.

Mason glanced away again, his fingers
tapping on the table. “I lost my initial pursuers, but then came
across Edon and the two… women,” he said, quietly, “in the great
hall. I fled from them, through the entry, but then I heard Edon
call to you. I circled around, and… you saw the rest.”

“You saved me.”

Mason did not dissemble or explain. “What
Edon… I… what he did…” He shook his head, agitated. “I betrayed
him.”

“He betrayed the realm first. Thank you for
doing what was right.”

His head came up, and Amira saw a fire
blazing in his eyes. “Right?
Right?
” Mason shot to his feet.
“M’lady, forgive me, but you are as monstrous as Edon.” He shoved
the chair aside and stormed from the room. Amira saw only then that
his pauldrons no longer bore the device of the Wardens of Aendavar.
The balance scales had been hacked off, leaving only a tangle of
scarred black iron.

She did not see Mason again. Razh’s house
major informed her within the hour that the Warden had collected
his things and ridden away.

———

Katin reappeared the day after the battle.
She’d found shelter in a temple, of all places, down near the
docks. She’d seen neither mages nor soldiers, and listened in rapt
horror as Amira described the battle. Amira could feel only a
little relief that Katin, and the growing life within her belly,
had come out entirely unscathed.

Edon’s army was soon gone over the horizon.
Razh had sent riders to shadow them and confirm that the army
showed no signs of turning back. After a few days they returned,
but Amira still waited three days longer before releasing the king.
A small honor guard, half a dozen men—with no mages among them—had
been left behind to escort Edon home. Their captain came to Tal
Vieran each morning to complain to Amira that Edon was still held
captive despite the army’s departure.

“I said I would release him after the army
was gone, Captain,” she reminded him. “I did not say how long
after.” The man sighed and bowed, and went away grumbling.

When they finally did release Edon, Amira
had him brought out of the dungeon and put in the back of a cart,
the potato sack still over his head, and driven to the west gate.
Dardan, Liam, Katin, Razh, and all of Amira’s remaining mages
attended. Finally they removed the sack and untied him. His golden
armor was returned to him, but he would not take it, giving no
explanation.

Amira felt an urge to simply kill him now,
but Dardan had given his word, and she would not betray that. She
held his left hand. His right was maimed; his little finger had
been shortened by one knuckle, and his ring finger by two, by
Penrose’s strike. Still he wore his plain gold wedding ring on the
stump of the finger.

Penrose had not been seen since that fight.
He had probably fled the city and was already on his way back to
Callaston. Somehow, that distant threat loomed over her more than
Edon, who stood not five yards before her.

Surrounded by hostile mages, he was
harmless. He glared at Amira again. A week of confinement under
that hood had not dimmed his haughtiness. A light beard had begun
to grow in, everywhere except on the shiny patch on his cheek.
Paired scars.
She’d looked at hers again when a few days had
passed. It did not look like his; hers was a cut, not a burn, but
it was an obvious vee-shaped mark that she would bear the rest of
her life.

His eyes lingered on it. She expected him to
say something, to threaten her again and promise retribution, but
after a few seconds he swung up onto his horse and rode away.

Hundreds of eyes watched him go. City folk
had crowded onto the wall over the gate. When Edon and his men
disappeared behind a stand of trees, Amira felt all those eyes fall
to her. For once she did not appreciate the attention. She tugged
on Dardan’s hand and led him into the city.

They had horses to bear them back to the
castle. The city would be in repairs for weeks at least; the wall
needed to be rebuilt, many of the roads repaved. Jeffrey beamed
with pride every time they passed a section of road he’d torn
up.

“Our time in Elland is coming to an end,”
she said to Dardan as they rode.

“You knew we’d never be able to stay here
forever.”

She nodded. “It is a hard thing to admit.”
She looked at the faces of the townsfolk she passed. They watched
her with some combination of fear and awe. It should have inspired
her, but it only made her feel grief for all the lives lost. “I do
not want to seem bloodthirsty, but I wish there had been a way to
honorably kill Edon.”

“Killing Edon would likely have spilled a
great deal less blood than what is to come, even if he had burned
the city. But I swore an oath.”

What is to come.
They would need to
gather support. Dukes, counts, barons. They would probably be able
to turn some of the royal garrisons to their cause. The news that
King Edon had attacked and invaded a city of his own realm would
earn him the enmity of many of his subjects. Would it be enough?
Could they defeat him? Would civil war sweep the realm, just to
serve the ambitions and pride of a few mages?

Amira realized that she had long been
looking forward to a return to Callaston. She had thought that all
their adventures were merely a series of detours before she could
go back to her manse and resume the life she’d been living. No, of
course not; she was married now, she was a mage now, a leader, a
warrior. Men had died and would continue to die at her word. When
had she gained such power, such responsibility?

She felt the enormity of it all crashing
down upon her. The spire of Tal Vieran came into view around a bend
in the road as Countess Amira Tarian began to weep.

The scent of flowers in deep bloom wafted
through the open doors. King Edon Relindos glared out at the
morning sky from the desk in his private office. He could see the
tops of the trees in the royal preserve from here, white oaks and
poplars reaching high for the sun.

It was not enough to mask the stench of
failure that had followed him since Elland. He had hoped his men
would stop just out of Elland’s reach, so he could catch them and
turn back to attack the city once more, and capture that blasted
woman. She was the key; she would be his. He would break her.

But she’d kept him in the dungeon too long.
His army had gone straight on to Callaston, them and their honor.
He hadn’t caught up to them until he’d passed Hedenham Town, and by
then the prospect of marching all the way back to Elland did not
please even him. He arrived in Callaston at the head of a spent
army. Only one out of every three mages he’d taken with him had
returned.

He could have stopped in Hedenham, burned it
down, taken revenge on that traitor Tarian. Killed his family, his
people. Taught him a lesson. But it seemed a petty thing, him
surrounded by half a dozen tired soldiers who just wanted to get
home to their families. No. He would bide his time, return with a
proper army, and make Tarian pay.

For now, he was stuck managing affairs in
Callaston. By the time he returned to the city, a month had gone
by, and of course in his absence the dukes on the Grand Council had
let their myopia and selfishness run wild. Why couldn’t they obey?
Why couldn’t they act as proper stewards to the realm and the
people? Why did he have to do everything himself?

He went out on the balcony and took several
deep breaths. Each morning he took some time to relax, to bring
himself calm. Ruling Garova meant a constant series of meetings,
discussions, appointments, letters, papers, dealing with the
treasury, the army, the guilds, everyone who wanted something from
him. If they waited, they’d get their due. Why couldn’t they
wait?

A knock came from within. “Enter,” he called
out, stepping back through the balcony doors.

The visitor was his sister Taya. Today the
princess wore a low-necked gown of spring green with an emerald
choker to match her eyes. “Your majesty,” she said, dipping her
head only slightly. She came without her
vala
, that
poisonous girl. He knew Taya shared her bed with the
vala
.
It was wretched, but beneath his notice.

And he was less than pleased by her insolent
excuse for a bow.
Does she forget am I her king as well as her
brother? She should show proper deference.
He held that thought
in check. For now. “What do you want?”

Taya smiled faintly. “Are you well?”

“Do I not look well?”

“You have been brooding a great deal since
your return. Men speak of it. They also speak of Elland.”

“They will hold their tongues if they know
what’s good for them.” He glanced down at his marriage rings: an
amethyst in gold on the left, a sapphire in silver on the right.
Purple and blue. His wife, Queen Cheraline, was likely still in
their chambers. She did not rise early, as he did. “I had her.
I
had her.
And yet somehow she defeated me. Treason. Treachery.
How does she inspire it?” Mason Iris, that cursed traitor. Would
that he’d seen the man’s weakness in Vasland and left him
there.

Taya shrugged. “You’ve seen her. She can
inspire men to many things on her beauty alone. And with this power
you share… The world has only begun to change, brother. Do not let
one failure guide you.”

“Who are you to mock my failure, you who let
that stupid
vala
sneak out from under your nose?”

“I told you, that was a ruse. That girl was
canny; and besides, she had help from Count Tarian’s
valo
.”
She waved a hand absently. “They are irrelevant. Countess Amira is
the prize, is she not?”

“Yes,” Edon admitted. “And I will deal with
her.” He shifted in his chair, considering his sister. So far she
had not been of much help to him, despite her insistence that she
cared as much for the security of House Relindos as he did. Perhaps
she needed a specific task. “What I need from you is to manage
affairs here. Politics. The dukes are all cravens. I cannot again
go into the field for a month and return to a Greater Council that
has wasted that whole time with greedy bickering.”

Taya had frozen for a moment, then settled
back casually into her chair, her usual smile resuming its place on
her lips.
What was that about?
Edon wondered.

His sister shrugged faintly. “Well. I
suppose. I cannot openly join the Greater Council, of course, so my
methods will have to be somewhat more subtle. But I shall let it be
known—quietly, of course—that I bear your will in these
matters.”

The offhanded way she spoke unsettled him.
“Do not think to turn this to your own advantage. I will not have
you
after my throne as well!”

Taya laughed. “Fear not, brother. I could
never rule the kingdom. They are not prepared for a true
queen.”

You are wrong,
something inside him
screamed.
They are being prepared for a queen of mages.

———

He could have won. He could have taken all
his mages to Elland.

But he’d left too many of them here in
Callaston, thinking that half his mages would be more than
sufficient for his purposes. His recruiting parties had done well,
scouring the countryside for those with the power. The process went
even faster once he had a few mages of his own, who could tell
another mage just by looking.

Their ranks had swelled. He had housed them
in the palace at first, and then had a barracks erected for them at
the edge of the royal preserve. It would not do to put them in the
city itself; the people might panic, and of course the mages
themselves were dangerous.

He’d wanted to guard against some sort of
coup while he was gone. He’d left Lady Helena in charge of the
academy, to see to their training and keep them out of trouble
while he went to Elland.

There was no denying that he’d made a
tactical error in bringing mostly male mages. He had thought that
breaching the wall of Elland would be the hard part, but that had
turned out to be surprisingly easy. Until his men had rushed
through the breach in the wall, he’d lost only three or four
soldiers, mostly to arrows. His mages had been more than equal to
the task of suppressing Amira’s mages.

But once they’d gotten inside the city, the
men had become less useful. Suddenly the city itself had become a
weapon used against them, the streets turned to obstacles, ambushes
set upon the roofs, stone façades toppled upon them as they passed.
And then the castle. Using mindfire in close quarters was something
only suited for women. They had all the luck, didn’t they? Women
could use it to kill, as men could, but they could also use it to
mend, create, warm. All he could do was destroy.
Is that not
enough for a warrior king?

The memory of Warden Iris’s betrayal—of the
deaths of the women who had fought beside Edon—drove him to a
near-fury, ruining whatever further comfort he might take in his
solitude. After Taya left, he went out into the anteroom. Alice sat
there, flaxen-haired and bored. She was his bodyguard today. Since
returning to the city, he’d tasked the female mages with taking
turns as his guard, for the same reason that women would have been
more useful in Elland: they could kill cleanly and silently,
without destroying everything around them.

The girl smiled as he emerged. “Your
majesty,” she bowed, her neckline drooping to show excellent
cleavage.

Edon had resisted for an entire week before
going to her bedchamber in the middle of the night and taking his
pleasure with her. He’d tried to promise himself that he’d keep
faith with his wife until he’d gotten her with child. It was
important that he sire no bastards while king, or at least none
older than his legitimate firstborn. Which he was certain would be
a son.

Cheraline was a good wife. Obedient, quiet.
She did her duty, lying still until he finished, only rejecting him
when her moon blood was upon her. Soon, she would catch. And if
not, well, it was hardly an onerous duty for him.

He led Alice out of his chambers and into
the halls of Elibarran. He silently reminded himself, again and
again, not to stare at her. Palace guards saluted him as he
descended out of the residential halls toward the parts of the
palace where work was done.

He was on a staircase when footsteps echoed
up toward him. His secretary, whose name he had never bothered to
learn, jerked to a halt. “Your majesty, good morning,” the man
said, bowing so low that he almost hit his head on the step before
him.

Edon barely slowed to nod at the man, who
scurried after him, clutching at a leather folder. “The Greater
Council has sent a report about the, er, readiness of your army. It
seems…”

The man droned on while Edon made his way to
the royal dining room, a private chamber meant for meals with his
family. No one else was present, and Edon did not feel like sending
for them. He ate luncheon alone, save for the secretary, who
continued babbling about Edon’s schedule, and Alice, who sat in a
chair by the door, smiling unchastely at Edon.

The Greater Council met that afternoon. Edon
sat in attendance. In some strange way, watching the dukes from the
vantage of the throne appealed to him in a way that the council
meetings never had as a prince. The dukes chattered nervously, as
they had every day since his return. They had all clamored to agree
with his plan to take Amira, as soon as he had revealed it. Not one
of them had spoken a word of caution or worry. Did Edon inspire so
much fear? When had he ever punished men for speaking truth?

His thoughts drifted as the dukes debated
how much another deployment of the army would cost the royal
treasury. He had made mistakes, it could not be denied, but they
were not his fault. No, he had been misled. Misled… by the
Caretaker himself.

Edon had heard the spirit of the Caretaker
speaking to him through the spark in his mind. In his bedchamber in
Gravensford, he’d dreamed of the Caretaker, a blazing figure with a
face of pure light, his hand outstretched to guide Edon to his
destiny. And he knew that Amira was tied to that destiny; he dreamt
of her as well, her beautiful face, her golden hair floating in a
halo around her as she knelt before Edon and surrendered her will
to him.

He had been at a loss when the dreams began.
What had they meant? After his return to Callaston, he’d sought
counsel from Aerandin himself, the most exalted priest of the
Niderium. The wizened old fool had spoken of prophetic dreams had
by old kings.

The priests of the Niderium knew nothing.
Their Aspects gave them comfort, but what good were comforting lies
to a king? The Caretaker had tried to teach him to shepherd his
people, to protect them. But that was not his place. Edon had to
lead, not shepherd. A shepherd followed from the rear, driving the
flock before him. A true leader went in the van, with his people at
his back.

A bolt struck him, as sharp as any
thunderclap he’d ever made with his power. He instantly understood
with perfect clarity that the temples of the Niderium were
spreading heresies. Something had to be done.

He rose and said, “I must go.” The dukes
stopped their blathering and watched him with jaws open as he left.
But they were the furthest thing from his mind. “Where is my
brother?” he asked his secretary, who had been hovering at the
margins.

“Um, in the library, I suppose, sire,” he
said. “I can send for him…”

“No. Send for my mages. All of them, even
the greenest recruits,” he said, flush with excitement. “Bring them
to the throne room.”

Edon did indeed find little Luka in the
library, sitting on a thick tome to boost his height. He looked up
from a dusty pile of parchment, and grinned at Edon.
At least he
seems to know I still protect this family.
Luka had never known
their father as anything more than an old man who wore a crown, and
he did not seem to miss Viktor.

“Good morning, your majesty!” the boy said
brightly. His tutor, the old scholar Warwick, bowed to his king
from his perch atop a nearby stool. Luka needed little instruction,
but it was good having someone to keep an eye on him.

“Good morning, Luka,” Edon said, feeling
truly cheered for the first time that day. “I have a task for
you.”

Luka wrinkled his nose. “I don’t have to go
riding, do I?”

“No, nothing like that. I need a word.”

Luka’s eyebrows went up. “Huh?”

“You’ve studied old Elibander, yes? What is
the word for ‘fire’?”

The little boy thought for a moment, his
face scrunching up. His dark brown hair was getting long again.
Didn’t their mother ever tend to the boy? She had to come out of
her chambers sometimes. Luka was only nine. “I think…” He hopped
down from his seat, but halfway to a shelf he stopped and whirled
about. “No, I’ve got it. I think. Wait, I should look it up.”

“Just tell me,” Edon said, “and look it up
later.”

“Oh. Okay. The word is…
zhar
, that’s
it.”

“And how would you say ‘heart of fire’?”

“Um…
zharran
! Just like how
‘Elibarran’ means ‘heart of Eliband.’” Luka grinned, excited, but
then his smile became a little uncertain. “Is this about your…”
Luka’s hand came up to his temple.

“Perhaps. How would you say ‘little
fire’?”

“That’s easy.
Senzhar
.”

Edon smiled. “Thank you for your help, Luka.
Now back to your studies.”
Zharranai.
It was perfect.