Crown of Crystal Flame (9 page)

“Thank you, my lord.” The courier tugged the brim of his hat and grinned. Lord Renald was a favorite among the palace servants. He never spoke a harsh word, and always ensured the comfort of those who served him.

Lord Renald carried the precious mail pouch into his office, closed the door, and sat down to personally sort and log its contents. A bell later, he emerged from his office to deliver the post.

A young serving maid entered the now-empty room to collect the tea tray she’d brought to him earlier. Three letters lay under the linen tea cloth—one written in Lord Renald’s hand, the other two sealed and marked with the king’s personal signet. She dropped the letters in her apron pocket, picked up the tray, and headed for the kitchens.

Lord Renald was indeed a man of impeccable character and incorruptible loyalty to the crown, but he was also a devoted husband and the adoring father of three young children. And that was the leverage the Mages had used to claim him.

A knock rapped on the door of an apartment in the courtiers’ wing. “Morning
keflee,
Ser,” the maid called through the door.

A moment later, the door opened to reveal Ser Vale, Queen Annoura’s most favored of her Favorites. “Thank you, my dear.” He stepped aside to let the servant deliver the tray and flashed his famous, dazzling smile at one of Annoura’s other young Dazzles, who was eyeing the
keflee
enviously as he walked by. One of the perks of being a Queen’s Favorite—besides the luxury of claiming a slightly larger room in the palace—was the option of having the palace staff deliver meals to one’s room rather than being required to eat with the other Dazzles in the queen’s breakfast room.

Once the maid had departed and the door to his room was firmly closed behind him, Vale’s smile winked out. The charming, sensual, seductive face of Annoura’s Favorite disappeared. A different man, much colder, much harder, and infinitely more dangerous, emerged in his stead.

Sulimage Kolis Manza, apprentice to the great Vadim Maur, High Mage of Eld, lifted the linen cloth beneath the plate of burberry buns and examined the three letters. The note from Renald was a brief summary of the correspondence from the king to his ministers and from the generals to their staffs. Kolis opened the sheet, scanned its contents quickly, and set it aside.

He poured a cup of
keflee
and held the sealed letter addressed to Queen Annoura over the steam until the wax seal loosened. An adept slice with a letter opener popped it free, then he unfolded the vellum and read the words Dorian X had written to his queen.

The letter contained no Writs of Authority, nothing that needed to be passed on, just a maudlin outpouring that made Kolis’s lip curl. In Eld, the Mages had long ago learned the uses and the limitations of women. They were kept to their place. Baubles to be enjoyed. Tools to be used. Nothing more. For a while, with Jiarine, Kolis had become too attached—and look where that had gotten him. Weeks of torture, terrors that still woke him, gasping and drenched in cold sweat—the punishment he’d earned for failing his master.

He would never fail again.

He tossed Dorian’s note to Annoura into the fire that warmed his spacious apartment. He’d worked too hard to destroy the royal couple’s marriage to risk reconciliation now. The break between Celieria’s royals had been severe, and Kolis meant it to be final.

As Dorian’s romantic outpouring to Annoura burned, Kolis picked up the last letter. He frowned at the name written on the outside of the folded vellum. What on earth could the king have to say to the Queen’s Master of Graces? Kolis loosened and popped the seal and read the contents.

Halfway through, his hand began to shake.

Gaspare Fellows and his pesky little magic-sniffing cat had brought about the demise of Lord Bolor—the man Kolis knew as Primage Gethen Nour. Now Dorian wanted Fellows to spy on the rest of the court to sniff out other agents of Eld and turn them over to the Fey and the King’s justice.

And the first two people the king wanted Fellows to investigate were Jiarine Montevero and the Queen’s Favorite, Ser Vale.

Twenty chimes later, garbed in resplendent, fur-trimmed wool and rich brocades, Ser Vale entered Her Majesty’s apartments and executed a full, flourishing court bow before her.

“Your Majesty. As always, I am dazzled by your radiance.” From another mouth, the outrageous compliment might have sounded laughable and insincere, but Kolis harbored genuine appreciation for the queen’s considerable beauty. What might have seemed insincere from another tongue flowed like a bewitching spell from his.

The queen’s Ladies-in-Waiting sighed. They all liked Ser Vale, lusted for him in fact. But he had always been careful to keep his dalliances to a minimum. It was much easier to keep the queen’s interest if she thought he pined for her in every way.

Of course, it helped that the queen was a celebrated Brilliant in her own right. And today, garbed in shimmering aquamarine, she was the epitome of regal feminine perfection. Her silvery blond hair was piled high atop her head, dusted with iridescent powder, and set with countless pear-shaped diamonds that caught the light and cast dancing rainbows upon the wall with her every move. An enormous diamond pendant hung from a chain of aquamarine-and-diamond flowers encircling her neck.

“I saw the flags go up on the gate announcing word from the king,” Vale said. “I hope, Your Majesty, that he only sent you the best of news.”

He hid a smile as Annoura’s hands tightened into fists in her lap.

A movement at the corner of his eye caught Kolis’s attention. He looked up to see the small, elegant figure of Master Fellows entering the queen’s chamber, the white kitten called Love perched on his shoulder like a sea captain’s bird.

Kolis forced a charming smile when Fellows looked his way, but his mind was busy running through a thousand possible next moves. One thing was certain. Fellows was a problem in need of immediate remedy.

Kolis had no intention of suffering Nour’s fate.

Eld ~ Boura Fell

Melliandra had deliberately stayed away from Lord Death for three days, hoping he’d get over the crackbrained notion that she should risk her life trying to steal his Soul Quest crystal from the High Mage. And what was the first thing he asked when she’d accepted the chore of visiting him again?

Did she have his sorreisu kiyr?

Did she have it! As if she could just trot up to the High Mage’s office and ask for it to be handed over!

Did the dimskull Fey understand what he was asking her to do? Did he have the slightest clue? Melliandra scowled as she stomped back to the kitchens with her tray.

He was punishing her for saving his mate. That’s what this was. Or so she tried to convince herself. Because if he didn’t really mean it, she didn’t really need to risk herself trying to achieve it.

Melliandra accepted her next assignment—cleaning the refuse bins—without complaint, even though she’d done it two days ago and it shouldn’t have been her turn again for at least another five days.

No one really liked pushing the refuse carts. There was never any telling what would end up in them. Noxious poisons, rotting carcasses, and all too often, the bodies of the more unfortunate guests of Boura Fell’s Mages.

An image of Shia flashed in her mind. The torn, blood-drained body. The blind, staring blue eyes.

Melliandra shook her head. No, she would not think of Shia. Especially not while pushing a refuse cart through the Mage Halls.

But Shia was on her mind. Ever since Lord Death had spun that sweet picture of a happy, loving childhood, Melliandra had been thinking of Shia, of the songs Shia had sung as she’d combed a young
umagi’s
hair and given her the first taste of kindness she’d ever known, and the first name she’d ever had: Melliandra.

It was possible the Fey had plucked those memories from her mind when he’d spun that fanciful Fey tale of a wonderful childhood in an effort to manipulate her four days ago. That’s what any Mage would have done. And why she’d let him know it wasn’t working.

Even though it had been.

Melliandra, you are such a dimskull.

She reached the stairs and, despite not wanting to go anywhere near Lord Death again today, headed back down to Boura Fell’s lowest level. The lower floors were usually the most likely to have the most revolting surprises in their bins, so whenever it was her turn to run the refuse carts, she always preferred to start at the bottom and work her way to the top. That way, no matter what retch-inducing foulness she found in the bins, she could tell herself the next floor would be easier.

It wasn’t always true, but at least it gave her something to look forward to.

*   *   *

When Melliandra reached the level of Boura Fell that housed the High Mage’s offices, she pulled the floor’s refuse cart out of its storage closet and rolled it along with an almost light-hearted feeling in her chest. She’d just learned that the High Mage was away from Boura Fell. He’d left a little over a bell ago to visit one of the other Bouras—Koderas and his great new fortress, Toroc Maur, if the rumors she’d overheard in the Mage Halls were correct. Apart from the fact that his absence meant his refuse bins would be empty (which was always a great relief; she hated finding those small, lifeless infants whose blood he used to communicate with his Mages afield) the great, crouching malevolence of his all-seeing presence was gone, too, and with it the probing worms of his consciousness, digging into her soul, rifling through her thoughts, poking, spying. Owning.

Melliandra could not recall a single day of her life when Vadim Maur had not been near. But since he’d incarnated into Master Nour’s younger, much fitter body (and, oh, the cursing and Rages that had erupted in the Mage Halls over that!), he’d become much less reclusive. Much more likely to be found roaming the halls of Boura Fell rather than simply sitting behind his desk or locking himself away in his spell rooms.

When she reached Master Maur’s offices, the guards were standing at their usual posts, but a trio of Primages were arguing beside them. Two of the Primages were attempting to gain entrance to the High Mage’s office on some pretext—fabricated, no doubt—while the third Primage, Master Maur’s assistant, Zev, was steadfastly refusing to admit them.

“My orders are clear,” Zev was saying. “No
umagi
enters unsupervised, and no Mage enters at all until Master Maur returns. If you need something from his office, you may submit your request to me. I will communicate your desire to Master Maur, and if he approves it, I will bring the item to you.”

Outraged and grumbling, the two Primages stalked off.

Primage Zev turned, swift as a tunnel snake, and speared her with a sharp look. “Why are you here,
umagi?”
His will, like a dark, suffocating cloud, pressed down on her, tendrils of command and inquiry prodding at her mind.

Melliandra swiftly shoved every free thought and emotion back into the private space in her mind and slammed the door hard shut. She filled her mind with
umagi
concerns.
She was hungry. She’d have to find someone weaker to sit beside at dinner tonight and steal their portion. Who best to single out?

“Mistress sent me, master.” No need to feign that tremble in her voice. She was really frightened. Zev was no Maur, but he was still a Primage, and still perfectly capable of shredding her body and mind if he discovered even a hint of her desire to kill Vadim Maur.

The tension in her chest didn’t begin to ease until the Primage grunted and turned to face the office doors. A dark glow massed around his hands, a cloud of shadow shot through with slivers of light, like shining threads in a dark cloth. More threads began to glow about the door. She only saw them for an instant. A strange web of light and dark plaited together in a complex and oddly beautiful pattern. Then she blinked, and the vision went away.

The Primage opened the doors to Vadim Maur’s office and motioned her to go inside. “Do what you came for, and be quick about it.”

He followed her in and watched her as she crossed the room to the High Mage’s great desk. She glanced furtively around the office as she went, looking for more threads of shadow and light. She knew she’d just seen magic: the weave this Primage had spun and the weave he’d unraveled to let her pass. She’d actually
seen
it—the individual threads and their pattern, not just the hazy glow visible to anyone when someone wove strong magic. She recognized it because she’d heard the appearance of magic described many times. The novices in the Mage Halls were young and chatty, and not yet learned enough to spin effective privacy weaves.

She couldn’t see any other magic in the room, not even around the door at the back of the office.
Umagi
weren’t allowed across that threshold. So far as she knew, no one was. If there was going to be more magic anywhere in this room, she would have expected it to be there, warding that door. But perhaps wards only showed themselves in the presence of other magic?

Aware of Primage Zev’s eyes upon her, Melliandra empted the waste bin by Vadim Maur’s desk, bobbed a quick bow in the direction of the Primage, and scurried out. She pushed the cart down the hall to the next door, pausing to look back and watch the Primage reseal the wards protecting the High Mage’s room.

There. She could see them again. Those shining threads of magic.

Eld ~ Koderas

Vadim Maur walked beside Primage Grule, the Mage he’d tasked with restoring Koderas to its full, pre-Wars capacity. He’d already visited the enormous forges, where blacksmiths hammered
sel’dor
ingots into swords and armor, and the foundries where molten
sel’dor
was cast into barbed arrowheads, spears, and the like. Now, the two Mages passed through an archway and down a series of railed walkways that overlooked Koderas’s siege workshops and the various machining and assembly rooms where thousands of
umagi
toiled round the clock constructing the massive battering rams and trebuchets that would be used to grind enemy fortresses into dust. No less than three full rooms were dedicated to the manufacture of bowcannon and their massive, tairen-killing bolts made from tree trunks jacketed with barbed
sel’dor
sheaths and razor-sharp spearheads.