Exile (14 page)

Lady Vera’s greeting was civil. She seemed to have put behind her the bitter jealousy she’d exhibited upon their first meeting, when she had suggestively accused Indigo of taking up all of Serivar’s time. In fact, in a sense, the accusation had been somewhat legitimate before Indigo left for Lyra. Serivar had stayed late nearly every night at the academy training her, but Vera’s tone had implied a far more intimate occupation of their time. With Indigo’s long absence and the other activities keeping her busy since her return, however, the woman’s ill temper toward her appeared to have faded.

Dinner itself was pleasant, the table laid out with an array of savory dishes and fine wines. A far nicer meal then she usually settled for on her own. It reminded her of the luxurious meals she’d enjoyed when living with her Uncle Theron. Those meals were often noisier, given the never-ending teasing between Theron’s sons, but they were always delicious.

As the plates from the final course were taken away, Vera held a hand across the table to Indigo.

“That’s a beautiful ring, my dear. May I take a closer look?”

“Thank you,” Indigo held her hand out to the other woman, fighting the urge to protect the ring from prying eyes. With the expert masking woven into it, no one was going to suspect that it was anything other than an ordinary, if quite lovely, ring.

Vera took her hand and turned it one way then the other, letting the light play upon the center pearl and the diamonds to either side. “Gorgeous,” she commented. “Where did
you
get such a piece?”

“It was my mother’s,” Indigo answered, swallowing bitterness for the insulting way Vera had emphasized
you
as if Indigo were unworthy of such fine jewelry. “My father brought it back from one of his trips to Lyra.”

She released Indigo’s hand. “Probably stole it from some poor noble.” Vera glanced meaningfully at Serivar while Indigo choked on her own fury. Edan looked at Indigo, eyes widening and mouth slightly agape with surprise. Vera went on as though she’d said nothing out of line. “I don’t suppose you have any trips to Lyra planned soon.”

Serivar cleared his throat and chuckled. He eyed Indigo with mock accusation. “See what you started.”

“See how he avoids answering,” Vera countered. There was a hint of tension beneath the teasing tone. Perhaps she noticed the fury burning in Indigo’s face, or perhaps she was merely incensed at her husband’s lack of adequate gifts. “It’s good to see you considering new prospects after your unfortunate experience, Lady Indigo. Lord Edan is a fine young man.”

Indigo flushed, her rage unbalanced by a surge of irrational defensiveness in response to the pleasure in Edan’s sudden smile. It was Serivar who reacted most strongly though, his expression darkening with a sudden scowl. Where he’d not bothered to remark upon his wife’s insulting comment about Indigo’s father, he was more than willing to step in on behalf of her virtue.

“I think you are overstating their relationship, my dear.” The sour look he gave each of them made it apparent that he expected those words to be true.

Edan glanced at Indigo, giving her a fond and somewhat sympathetic smile, in plain defiance of the warning in Serivar’s look. “Training alongside her every day, it is hard not to be captivated by her beauty and wit.”

“You’re too sweet,” Indigo replied, making her tone light in an effort to undermine the sincerity in his.

“Yes, isn’t he,” Serivar grumbled under his breath.

A fleeting smile escaped Indigo, which she wiped away when Serivar turned his fiery gaze on her. She lifted the fine silk linen from her lap and set it on the table. “It has been a pleasure,” she avoided looking at Vera when she said those words, “but I have early plans tomorrow and I should be going home.”

Serivar stood when she did, almost bouncing with relief.

Edan and Vera rose as well.

“Of course, Lady Indigo, you must get your sleep. I’ll show you to the door,” Serivar offered, but Vera caught his arm.

“I’m sure Edan can handle that,” she insisted.

Serivar watched Indigo and Edan leaving the room together with a look that bordered on panic. She was almost surprised when he didn’t come running after them. His desire to control her irritated her to no end and the opportunity to defy him was invigorating, especially after the insult his wife had paid her father. His look of distress was so pleasing it lifted her spirits a touch on the way back out to the courtyard where the carriage waited.

The footman stepped down, opening the door and waiting to assist her.

“Thank you for coming. I do wish you didn’t have to leave so soon.” Edan’s eyes dulled with true disappointment, though his emotions stayed carefully masked, making it hard to determine the depth of his sincerity or his intent. “I apologize for Vera’s cruel comment.”

“She’s not your responsibility. Besides, she’s not the first, nor will she be the last, to think ill of my father.” She kicked back the threatening melancholy. “I’m sorry to leave so soon. Though it’s probably for the best. I think Serivar was getting a bit tense.”

“Yes, he was. It was rather delightful.”

She managed a laugh and he laughed with her, taking a step closer. The small distance between them crackled with anticipation and hope. It would be so easy to step closer still, to surrender to his attentions. His lips would be warm, his arms welcoming.

She touched the ring, a painful twisting in her chest. “Thank you, Lord Edan, for a pleasant evening. Good night.”

She turned before he could say or do anything more and accepted the footman’s assistance into the carriage, unable to relax again until she was back in her residence, well away from the temptation and confusion he inspired. The need to flee from his attentions made it more obvious than ever that she wasn’t ready for a new relationship. Discarding the dress, she pulled the gray cloak around her and lay on her bed. She let her thoughts turn to Yiloch, wondering as the wine helped her drift to sleep if he might be thinking about her too.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Myac watched the retreating carriage. Frustration rushed through him like a potent alcohol, clouding his mind. There simply wasn’t enough time left. Preoccupation with training the Lyran adepts and evening visits from Ferin had diminished Indigo’s loneliness, making her less susceptible to his advances. Still, there was a good chance that the events of this night would push her closer to the breaking point and a little nudge, perhaps with the help of her estranged fiancé, might be enough to drive her into his embrace.

He sensed Serivar walking up behind him.

“She’ll never be yours.”

Myac bristled. “She’s already come quite close to giving in. Whatever is holding her back won’t keep her there forever.” He was silent a moment, basking in the heat of Serivar’s protective anger, then he turned away from those thoughts. It was time now to focus on other things. Always cautious, he constructed a barrier around them to prevent anyone overhearing. “Your assassins are moving in an hour after midnight?”

“Yes.” There was the slightest hint of regret in the whispered word.

Turning, Myac met the Headmaster’s eyes with a calculating stare. Was the man determined enough to see this through? “They won’t mess things up?”

A flash of annoyance, then Serivar nodded. “I trust in them far more than I do in you.”

Myac’s smile was cynical. “Perhaps you’re getting smarter.” He turned back to the street where evening traffic still meandered through, the leisurely milling of people whose evenings were coming to an end or, in some cases, just starting. His was about to start. “The Lyran adepts?”

“I encouraged them to rest early tonight because a rigorous day of working with injuries is planned for tomorrow. I have someone monitoring their quarters to make sure they don’t go anywhere.”

Myac nodded approval. “Good, we can’t afford for them to be seen by anyone tonight.”

He slid a hand into the pocket of his dress jacket and touched the leaf Galyn had mended in training the prior day. Plants were easy subjects for the practice of healing minor cuts and similar wounds. This one now bore Galyn’s ascard signature. One of Serivar’s adepts had considerable skill in a variation of masking with which she could mask her workings with the ascard signature of another. That adept would go with two others, one who specialized in working with fire whose task was to kill the queen and her son, and the third to make them all invisible. She would disguise their work, weaving in a faint trace of Kade’s ascard signature.

Myac would kill the king. It was a prestigious task, the appointing of which belied Serivar’s claimed lack of trust in him. He would weave enough of Galyn’s ascard signature into the king’s body to make appear as if the Lyran adept had tried to mask the working. It would take a strong adept to detect it and there were few adepts with the necessary skill in the King’s Order, none of whom had the ability to dig deep enough to find the real truth behind the deception. Indigo might, but Serivar wouldn’t be using her in the investigation. The headmaster had another role for her to play in all of this.

To make the illusion complete, they would implant false memories of the murder in the minds of Kade and Galyn while they slept tonight for the inquisitors to root out along with a memory of orders from Yiloch to carry out the assassinations. Ferin, because of his years of working with ascard, and Sine, because of her dabbling in mental manipulations, would be too risky to implant with false memories. Once Kade and Galyn were found guilty, however, the other two adept’s guilt would be assumed.

Serivar stepped forward, eyeing him expectantly. Myac smirked. Fear was a savory emotion, exquisitely wild and unrefined. The release of ascard within a person at the moment of death was as sweet and satisfying as sexual climax. Better, perhaps. How fine would the fear and death of a king taste? A shiver of anticipation swept through him. Opening to his inner aspect, he allowed himself to feel the full strength of his connection for a few intoxicating moments. His mind blazed with power, fierce and glorious, feeding his greatest desires.

Serivar, watching the change in his expression, took a step back, a sweet chill of fear breaking away from him like ice splitting from the bank of a thawing river. Myac closed his eyes, struggling for control as the taste of the other man’s distress tempted him.

You need him
, he reminded himself, pulling back from the tempest of power.

He narrowed his eyes at the headmaster and stepped back into the shadows, weaving ascard in the air around himself. The headmaster’s eyes narrowed, straining to see into the darkness as Myac’s illusion hid him from sight. With a malicious smile, he crept up next to the other man, entirely invisible now, and leaned close to his ear.

“Goodnight…” he whispered and Serivar startled away from him, his eyes darting about for anything that might betray Myac’s presence. In a soft, sinister voice, Myac quoted the last few lines of a favorite poem.

“
Goodnight, he whispered as her last breath misted the air.

Goodnight, my love, he whispered, as her gaze became a stare.

Goodnight, and know I do this because to me you have lied.

Goodnight, I shall not mourn you, for by my hand you died.
”

“This isn’t the time for games,” Serivar snapped, rising fear thickening the air around them.

“As you command,” he replied, but he didn’t leave right away. Instead, he stood and watched, pondering, while Serivar hurried into the house and shut the door, the bolt clicking into place.

Would the headmaster turn on him if something went wrong tonight? Did he have the guts to consider it even?

Probably not.

Chuckling to himself, Myac wandered deeper into the palace district. One of their plants within the castle reported that King Jerrin played dice in the barracks twice a week with several of his captains and a few lords. Tonight was one of those nights, but this night, he would never make it back to his chambers.

Stars shimmered, stark and beautiful in a dark sky as Myac made his way unseen into the palace courtyard. Already he could feel the slight tug of weariness from the extensive use of ascard that kept him hidden from sight. Blending with ascard in the air was a complex working, requiring considerable strength and focus. He might have waited to hide himself until he was closer to the palace, but it was safer to ensure that no one saw him anywhere away from Serivar’s house tonight. This night would be monumental in Caithin and Lyran history. Two men, one from each country, would be the unseen masterminds behind a glorious future.

Myac vibrated with pleasant anticipation. Discipline and the understanding that nothing was sure until the end kept him focused and silent. He could use ascard to silence his movement, but he relied on patience and awareness to prevent audible detection instead. Too much power was already going to maintaining invisibility. He needed to have enough strength not only to kill the king, but also to mask the working, plant the evidence, and get out undetected. It was a lot to ask of a single adept.

Sending out a tendril of ascard, he sought out King Jerrin and a bolt of panic shot through him. The king was already heading back toward the palace, probably en route to his chambers, much earlier than usual. He considered trying to warn the others, and then his touch on the king brought back to him a strong sense of arousal. King Jerrin was returning early because he was hungry for a different kind of play this night.

This could be fun
.

Myac grinned. He would let the king walk in on the other adepts as they were killing his wife. The timing should be almost perfect.

To be certain, he sent a tendril out and touched first on the queen resting in their chambers then on to the prince. His power touched the youth’s ascard signature as it flared and went silent in agonizing death. Spreading it through the boy’s chambers, he found the three adepts, all well masked, though not well enough to hide from him. They were leaving the room. The deed might be done before the king arrived, but Myac would still get the satisfaction of letting Jerrin see his wife lying dead before he finished his job.