Chasing Bloodlines (Book 4) (4 page)

The tent was lavishly furnished with ornate rugs, animal pelts, large cushions, and tables strewn with lanterns and food. More than one woman garbed in precious little sat on the pillows. Several had silken white skin. They looked up when he walked in, and one of them mouthed ‘Head Mage’ with a face of relief.

A man seated at a desk ignored them as he plotted points on a map and made notations in a leather-bound book. He was garbed in the usual yellow uniform, but he bore at least a dozen red stripes up his arms marking him a high-ranking officer. Four men stood around him with slashes of white, red, blue and green on their chests. Six Mages against Gabriel’s five.

“A moment,” the man said with a thick accent, continuing to scribble.

“I did not come all this way to wait on you,” Gabriel interjected. He knew when he was being insulted.

The man looked up. “Ah, Head Mage. You are younger than I expected.” He closed his book and stood. He barked something at one of the girls who stood and slipped out. “I am Great General Ykaza, of His Excellence Emperor Kaishen’s magnificent armada.” His Mages dispersed to the tent poles as he spoke. “I was told you would come to me. I am sorry for your lands that it took you so long.”

“I received no request for my presence, and these are not my lands, nor my people. You have done Queen Robyn of Anatoly a great disservice by sacking her cities and enslaving her people. You wanted me here. Here I am.”

“Yes, yes, very good of you.” The woman returned with a tray of small steaming cups. “Please, have a seat and some tea.” He gestured to two chairs, and his Mages set them before the desk. Gabriel cautiously kicked the back of his cloak and took a seat with Lael. Neither took the tea. Ykaza paid no mind and raised a cup to his lips.

“You are going to gather your men together, and I am going to return you to Shalaban within the hour. You will leave the prisoners and plunder you have taken and go without question.”

The General chuckled. “I will do no such thing.”

“Then why are you here?”

Lael reached a finger out and snapped his fingers by Gabriel’s knee, a signal they had worked out long ago. Gabriel snapped his fingers and formed a single flame that Lael hid in his palm.

“I am here for you, Head Mage. I want you to return to Shalaban with me.” He reached into his coat and pulled out two cloth wrapped items, handing them to the Spirit and Water Mages.

“
I
will do no such thing.” Gabriel exclaimed.

“His Excellence requires your strength in his Empire.”

“Whatever for?”

Ykaza shrugged. “For whatever he pleases.”

Mikelle was the first to strike, seeing something Gabriel did not. A Fire Mage fell to the ground with a coil of ice wrapped around his neck. Gabriel and Lael stood swiftly, and a dozen more Mages flooded in with raised hands. Most of them were Water Mages, and they attacked in unison, all at Gabriel.

Dagan ripped the earth beneath them, throwing some to the side and others straight into the canopy. Lewis blinded others advancing. The Water Mages flung ice patterns at Gabriel in unison. He had a fraction of a breath to raise a shield, but the shield expanded from his arm too late. Frozen ice encased his feet while another beam clipped the side of his head. His balance compromised, he fell, his shield slipping loose.

Lael stepped between him and the Water Mages with a ring of fire around him. The Water Mages rushed, and many fell scorched to the burning circle. But they were too many, and encased Lael’s hand in ice.

“Misery!” Mikelle suddenly shouted. She scrabbled at Gabriel’s coat to get him up, “They’ve got the rest of the silver Castrofax!”

Gabriel snapped fire into his hands and shucked the ice from his legs as Mikelle pulled him up. She fell halfway in, sending both of them back to the ground. This time she did not rise. Dagan tried to raise a guardian-pattern of earth around Gabriel but was thrown back against a tent poll. His arms and chest frozen to it.

Ice flew down around Gabriel even as he raised a fire pattern to melt it. Hot sprays of water sprinkled over him, instantly freezing as it touched his skin. He shot a ball of fire into the canopy, and his attackers backed away a step as he got his feet underneath him. Gabriel encircled himself in a ring of ice and shot it at the imposing Water Mages. Some fell back, but most flung more ice patterns at him. He felt one catch his left hand and encompass a block around it as another struck his shoulder.

Lael lay where he had fallen, pinned down by two Mages. One had their hands around his neck. Lewis stepped in with a pinch-pattern, sending the man into fits of screaming. He threw back two others who tried to intervene.

Something silver flashed in Gabriel’s vision. A Water Mage held an icing pattern in one hand, and lunged forward with a slender silver wristlet in his other. Two more Mages backed him, and one struck Gabriel in the stomach while the other reached out for his wrist.

Gabriel seized Void.

The Mages paused to the frightening change, and Gabriel set a warp-and-weft pattern to the Mage with the Castrofax. His gray outline moved left as he lunged, so Gabriel leaned right and smashed the man on the back of the head with his elbow. As the man fell, Gabriel seized the wristlet and gripped it tightly.

Something hard suddenly struck him in the back of the head so hard he fell dazed, but his cloak prevented him from blacking out. Two bolts of ice fell on his hands, and others pelted him, freezing him to the ground.

“Gabriel,
GO
!” Dagan screamed a moment before something cold wrapped around Gabriel’s neck. He panicked, and without thinking, laid the shift-pattern with his mind.

He shot out of the tent. But something felt
wrong
inside him, as if his organs moved incorrectly. Pain pinged him, and he trembled in horror as he touched his neck. It was not a Castrofax, not exactly.

He stopped the shift and came to rest on solid earth. The ice broke off him as he pushed himself up on his knees. A solid coil of thick ice rested around his neck, and as he reached up to feel it, something hard brushed his fingers protruding from the back.

As chilled as he was, he shivered all the more when he saw the silver neckpiece in his fist. They had come within inches of getting it around his neck.
‘Who threw the ice blast that prevented it?’

“Oh, stars, Mikelle,” he whispered and stood, pocketing the silver pieces. His breathing felt labored and harsh, but his Council was still back there.

He shifted back and dropped himself in the tent, taking in the scene for only a second. He spared no one.

Pinch-pattern, buckle, cross-hatch-ash, death-toss, and a Lannon-seep pattern all sprung from his hands as he doubled up with light-shards and Harlon-shots. Mages fell as they shot ice at him, but he could not feel. He did not care. In less than a minute, every Shalabane Mage was dead around him, leaving only Ykaza left.

“You will surrender your prisoners and plunder, pay them for what you destroyed, and you will leave.”

“That was not part of the bargain.” Ykaza mumbled.

“Which bargain?” Gabriel snapped.

“The Arch Mage’s.”

“I knew it,” Lael said quietly behind him, getting to his feet.

“You are going to march your army to the coast without stopping, or I will kill every single soldier here.” Ykaza opened his mouth to argue. “I would not challenge me. This would not be the first army I destroyed.”

“If you would allow us to keep our prisoners and plunder…”

“You may keep your lives.”

“The Emperor will have me beheaded if I do not bring you to him.”

“Then you have a lot to worry about.”

The General slammed his hand down on the table. “I will not be undermined by a boy! I have run this army for thirty years, and I have killed for such insolence. I am going to march my army to Shalaban, and you will accompany us. That is final.”

Gabriel folded his arms. “Come with me a moment, General,” he said and motioned outside. Quite the crowd had gathered at the sound of battle and a burning tent. The General and the Council followed him outside. Still in Void, Gabriel laid sleepers-patterns. To any non-Mage it would appear to be pinch-patterns. He fired them into the crowd.

Men dropped where they stood, fast asleep. Others ran and a few drew their weapons. Gabriel continued quickly.

“Would you like to reconsider my generous offer?” he asked, dropping ten men in one swipe. The General said nothing. “Very well.” Gabriel unbuckled his cloak and coat, handing them to Lael. He rolled up his sleeves and set the sleepers-patterns in both hands. He was just about to unleash, but a desire whispered him to lay two more threads. He followed his instinct and fueled the patterns.

The west side of the camp rained with sounds of dropping bodies. Gabriel turned north and made the same sounds. He paused, turning east and repeated his actions, slowly turning south.

“Stop!” General Ykaza shouted. “Please stop!”

“You will return to Shalaban.”

“Yes!”

“You will repay the damages, free the prisoners, release the plunder.”

“Yes, yes.”

“And you will do it now.”

“Right now.”

Gabriel nodded and raised his hands, lifting the sleepers-patterns from the army. The soldiers rose to their feet bewildered with shaking heads. The General stood stunned, duped, and grew angry. He turned and marched into his tent, barking orders at the soldiers rising.

“How did you do that?” Lael whispered.

“I—” Gabriel began but dissolved into fits of coughing. He brought his fist away slick with blood.

“Did they get you?” Mikelle gasped.

He shook his head and wiped blood from his lips. Moving his hand in a circular motion, he signaled for them to join up, and he shifted them west to the Anatoly army camp. It took him several minutes to explain the orders to escort the Shalabane from Anatoly, and the entire camp cheered.

He was dazed as he walked back to his Council giving instruction. “Let’s make this fast,” he said and laid the shift.

“Take us to the infirmary,” Lewis said quietly. “You are whiter than a specter.”

The shift took about a minute, and in that minute Gabriel’s legs lost all strength. By the time they arrived in the castle, his breathing came in ragged gasps, and he could feel blood bubbling in his throat. His mouth was coated with it, but he could not bear to swallow.

He cut the shift in the infirmary and closed his eyes. Dagan caught him as he went limp. Lewis gave calm orders to lay him down and get supplies.

“Stars, he’s so pale,” Mikelle whispered as they set him on a cold steel table.

“Can you tell me what hurts, Head Mage?” Lewis asked quietly.

Gabriel put a hand on his stomach and drew it to his chest. Opening his mouth to reply, he coughed. Someone put a cloth over his mouth, and two people rolled him to his side as blood came up.

“Can he delve himself?” Mikelle asked.

“No,” Lewis replied. “Oh my blessed stars.
What
happened to you?”

The coughing subsided, and they rolled him to his back. “Bad shift,” he whispered. “What’s wrong with me?”

“You are…broken inside. Severed.”

“Where?”

Lewis delved in various places across his stomach. “Lungs, liver…few places in the gut.”

“Just heal me and be done with it.”

“I cannot. You are already healed.”

Gabriel opened his pained eyes for explanation.

“You were severed and put back together without injury…mostly. There are a few places I can adjust,” he said and set healing patterns deep into Gabriel’s gut. The pain slowly abated. “Someone cut your chest as well. I can mend that. Ah, yes, you bled internally a bit, leaked acid here and there. You will be in discomfort until your body can flush it out.”

“Why are his lungs bleeding?” Mikelle asked.

“It feels as though the bottom tips of the lungs were severed, moved about an inch, and then healed, but since the vessels and alveoli did not line up perfectly, he is slowly bleeding.”

“Can you cauterize it?” Gabriel whispered.

“I could not handle something like that, no.”

“Someone take my cloak off.”

He closed his eyes as his cloak unbuckled and slipped off him. Pain flitted through his chest as he breathed, but it slowly abated as Lewis worked.

“Go,” Gabriel whispered to his Council. “And speak of this to no one. I can’t have word getting to the Arch Mages.”

“Of course, Head Mage,” Dagan replied and left with Lael, but Mikelle stayed behind to hold his hand.

“How bad is it?” she asked Lewis.

Lewis sighed and was silent for a while. “You will need to find someone stronger to heal you, or your battle with the Arch Mages will be very short.”

Chapter 3

Nolen could still feel the searing hot pain of fire on his palms though they had been mostly healed. Evony had also touched a boil-ward to him. His hands broke out in welts only giving the illusion of injury. But they still hurt.

It had been his idea, and one that Ryker approved of, but one that could be incredibly dangerous. The plan was to steal into Kilkiny Palace under the guise of a burned servant. Queen Robyn had not returned to her palace, but the Head Mage had set new wards around her rooms. Shifting in was no longer an option. To attack, he would need to sneak inside.

Maxine held his hands with a frown as she looked at the fresh wounds. “Can I not heal these just a touch?”

“No, they need to look real.”

“They
do
because they
are
.” She touched his cheek. “Please do not let them mar this as well.”

“I must.”

She pinched her lips together. “If you are discovered, you could be in grave jeopardy without the use of your hands.”

“I can use them.” The plan was for Maxine to visit him every night in the servant’s quarters and heal him before his body scarred.

“You ready, boy?” Evony asked as she laid a red fire pattern. He nodded and closed his eyes. She raised a hand his face. The pain seared across his cheek, down his jaw, over the rest of his face. He could not stop the scream that parted his teeth.

“That is
not
attractive,” Maxine sighed and mended around the edges to give the illusion that it happened days before. Nolen shook with the pain. “Can you do something with the hair? It is iconic.”

“I can cut it.” Evony replied.

“Go on,” Nolen growled and felt Evony’s hands pull his tie free and slice his curls with abandon. She added a singed place near his forehead for good measure.

“It suits you,” Maxine said, raising his chin to get a better look. “Stand and I will sort out your garb.”

As soon as he was on his feet, Maxine tugged at his clothing with a Spirit pattern. They altered into peasants’ garb of simple brown trousers and a tan tunic loose around the shoulders. Evony touched a boil-ward to his exposed collar without warning, making him howl.

“No more!” he shouted.

“I will flay you if I like,” Evony replied with a glare. Maxine reached over his shoulder to mend the burn, striking her fingers across his neck teasingly. She grabbed a wrap of gauze and tied it around his eyes, extending around his head and down his cheek. Through it he could see, but no one could tell. She wrapped his hands for good measure.

Ryker watched from his position against the wall. “He’ll need canvas shoes, ne fancy boots.”

Nolen stooped to unlace them, finding the dexterity in his hands slightly diminished. Maxine formed him new ones.

“Y’ have the poison?” Ryker asked.

“I do.” Nolen had acquired quite a lot of it. It had been called black cauldron’s power, philosopher’s bane, sleeping death, and warfmans’ relief, but Nolen had always heard it called bloodroot. Just a little in Robyn’s food would never be noticed, but as it accumulated in the body, she would begin to feel tired, worn, and start sleeping through the day. Then she would die.

“Right, lad. Y’ have the ring?” Ryker asked. Nolen held up a hand. They had burned it into him. “Y’ get stuck, y’ summon Maxine. She will visit every night t’ mend y’, but y’ keep the gauze on the whole time.”

“I will.”

Maxine hefted a satchel of clothes and supplies over his shoulder. “Do
not
get caught,” she whispered harshly. “You are my favorite pet.”

“Be safe, lad,” Ryker nodded.

Maxine put up the hood on her yellow cloak and tied her hair back. She shifted both of them to Anatoly City. She had scoped out the proper place to deposit him legitimately: the kitchens.

She cut the shift a little way off. She pushed Nolen as they went through cavernous halls, guiding him around the people. He walked with his head down. He was not used to lowering his head for any man, and the gesture made his whole body react by slumping his shoulders. His fingers gripped the strap of the satchel unconfidently.

Maxine stopped a few times to ask for assistance and finally steered him to a door. She rapped on it and waited for admittance. A woman called, and Maxine pushed him into the doorframe.

Mistress of the Kitchens Marya sat behind a squat desk in the slender room packed with goods and books of recipes. She stood as they came in.

“Greetings m’lady, sir. What can I do for you?” she asked in her boisterous voice, her cheeks perpetually rosy.

“I have a servant I no longer have a use for,” Maxine replied, stripping her voice of its accent in an attempt to mimic Nolen’s. “Kilkiny is good to its servants.”

Marya rounded the desk. “What happened to this one?”

“Fire in the kitchen. Burning oil exploded. He should see again in time, but he needs a dark environment to heal. He knows his way around a kitchen doing prep work, but my house needs someone faster.”

Marya stood before him as he stared at her shoes. “He’s a pretty one, what a frame.”

“Oh, yes, he can serve more than one purpose,” Maxine said and gave him a solid slap on the behind.

“Can you lift?”

“Quite a lot, m’lady.” Nolen threw his voice, making it a touch deeper and laced with a backwoods accent.

She pinched his arm in a few places, making him feel like some degraded animal. “I’ll take him. Will you want him back? I may not let you have him.”

“He is yours.”

Marya gave a chuckle. “I’ve got a room for you. Not much, but you won’t see for a bit, so it doesn’t matter.” She slapped his shoulder a few times. “Derise! Lovely, be a good lass and show our new friend to a room. Oh, what is your name, lad?”

“Coltin.”

“Right you are, Coltin. Derise, once he’s settled put him in prep, will you lass?”

Maxine gave him one last slap on his rump as he turned to leave, and Marya chuckled with her.

Derise, a short, plump thing looked up at him and squinted. “Are you blind?”

“For the time being.”

She took his arm and led him through the halls, cutting down a loud corridor and into another one slender with dozens of doors. Rapping on one, she let themselves in. It was a small room with enough space for a cot, chair and little table. It had no window, but a small iron stove with a lantern sat in one corner next to cob-webbed firewood.

He scanned the room through his gauze, not missing the girl’s eyes locked. “It’s a right shame we don’t have any more Spirit Mages here, for your eyes and all.”

That was news. “None at all?”

“None that we know of.”

“I thought the Queen’s advisor was a Mage.”

“Oh, she is, but she is rarely seen these days. Folks say she spends most time in Castle Jaden.” Derise’s gaze slowly wound its way down him, so he dropped his satchel on the bed to divert her attention. “Oh! Ready I suppose?” She looped her arm through his and led him out the door, nattering on about how many doors he would have to count to get to his room.

She set him up at a station, giving him an apron and a knife. She set a bowl of onions before him. “Just skin these and I’ll chop.” She continued to explain how things worked and what the massive kitchen looked like, but Nolen was already scanning the room for familiar faces. He recognized a few; mostly of girls he’d taken his pleasure with, but no one important.

He peeled onions and potatoes like a common servant for the rest of the day, catching a bowl of stew for supper. Standing on his feet all day was hard work. Marya stopped by his station with a lavender poultice for his burns, but she really stopped to swipe his backside with her spoon.

As he and Maxine had agreed, he sent her a summons with his ring when he locked himself safely within his room. He took off his bandages as he waited, and she arrived not long after.

“Stars, Evony did a number on your face,” she said and took it in her hands, healing the edges. She mended his collar and hands, just enough to make it believable. “Did you learn anything today?” She deposited herself in his lap and twined her hands through his shorter hair.

“Robyn is still absent, as is Lady Aisling, and I assume Cordis. The rumor going through the kitchens is all the Battle Mages were killed in a battle with Shalaban, but if I know the army, they kept at
least
one behind for the soldiers here.”

She stroked his jaw with a finger. “Good pet. Do you deserve a reward?”

“After standing in a kitchen all day, I certainly think so.”

Gabriel woke each morning coughing up residual blood his lungs accumulated each night. Thankfully, Robyn had moved into her quarters and was not there to watch him double over the sink. It was infuriating. He ran over the shift that sliced him a hundred times. He laid a Void pattern with his mind, and Maxine warned him against it. He could only blame himself.

Shalaban made it to their ships after relinquishing all things taken. They set sail with the tide. Gabriel oversaw the voyage from the beach, offering an extra kick from the waves to get them on their way. He shifted to the Queen’s Wing, to the Ellonine where General Calsifer held. The few ships in the river turned and set their course back to Shalaban after Gabriel explained they had lost. He still had to sink one of their smaller vessels to make a point.

Together he returned the entire Wing to Anatoly City and left them to celebrate as he shifted home to Jaden. Balien had already returned to the City a few days before, still a little weak from blood loss but held strong against infection. He claimed it was his many herbal oils. The silver Castrofax, Lady Misery, was now stashed away in its entirety. No one but Gabriel knew their location, and no one wanted to know. Mikelle
had
been the one to throw an ice pattern around his neck to protect him though she claimed she was aiming for his head. He said they were now even, but she only gave him a skeptical look. He had died in her place after all. No one ever discovered who threw the spear that killed him, and no one knew where it was—except for Gabriel and Mikelle. She kept it wrapped in her rooms as a testament to loyalty and sacrifice.

Every day he trained with Mage Malain and wondered if there was a way to get Ryker through Anabel. He returned to Malain’s home searching for a part of her. There wasn’t any hair in her comb, and the children had already cleaned every place Gabriel could think to look. When he was not training with Malain, he sparred with a new Mage every day, sometimes two. It was easy to learn someone’s tactics and favorite patterns, so new Mages kept him sharp and observant.

Gabriel had set the Secondhand’s ring in his loft since Lael did not want it. Someone found a sketch of Dorian in a scroll, a handsome, square-jawed blond man, but no one knew what Evony looked like, or if she was already in the castle, or alive at all. He spent many nights worrying about Arch Mages already in his castle.

If the worst should happen and Jaden infiltrated, Gabriel would need a way out. In his loft Gabriel found blueprints of every extension of the castle. He spent hours poring over them searching for hiding places. There were some, mostly hidden in the apartments of noble Mage families with strong bloodlines. There were even unfinished rooms carved into the mountain that had been closed off Ages ago. Eventually, Gabriel found what he was looking for.

Someone had built a tunnel through the Greynadaltynes. Not just a simple two-abreast tunnel, but a full-fledged, ride two carts piled with hay under the entire mountain range, type of tunnel. It went straight through the mountain in a southwest angle. It started just outside Castle Jaden and ended in a kingdom called Viatova. A road led straight through and into a massive kingdom called Tintagaelsing.

Gabriel found it himself one night. Its entrance was hidden by several large stones rolled over the face. The air was stale and damp, but the tunnel was warm. It was blessedly quiet, so he walked with his hands clasped behind him lost in his memories. A faint ball of blue light hovered above him.

His feet splashed in puddles as his eyes cast down in the dark stone. He could feel the faint energy of water moving as he stepped through it, relishing in the fact that here there was very little energy to brush against his senses. Energy was perpetually around him. It drove him mad once. He slit his wrist when he was younger in hopes of ending the constant flood of energy. But here water was the only thing that moved. This deep in the mountain, nothing grew. No kinetic energy stirred his chest.

He stopped suddenly aware. Kinetic energy brushed his senses. He had stepped out of Castle Jaden’s wards and was vulnerable to attack. It alarmed him for a moment, but he had Void at his fingertips. He turned and put his back to a wall and opened the dark Element. Perhaps there was an animal down here.

A woman stepped from the darkness. She was tall, slender as a reed, and moved with perfect grace as she slowly walked towards him. Her skin was as pale as if it had never been sun kissed, and her long wavy red hair fell in ripples cascading down her back. Pinpricks of glittering stars twinkled around the crown of her head and wove in with her hair. Her eyes were pale and bright, though wise and old.