Exile (15 page)

He came around the side of the palace near the main barracks and spotted the king with two guards opening a side door into the building. Using a technique he learned from Sine, Myac swapped himself with ascard in the air inside the open doorway, careful to preserve all of his illusions when he arrived in front of them. Stepping out of the way, he let the king and his guards pass by, then crept after them. The transfer drained him more than expected and a moment of dizziness slowed him. When the moment passed, he quickened his steps to keep up, forced to use a touch of ascard to keep from making too much noise.

The trio paused outside one doorway that led into a lush private sitting room furnished in dark wood with rich red and gold accents. It looked warm and inviting. The king stopped to consider the room, his desire losing some of its potency. Myac tapped into his sense of arousal and magnified it incrementally. The heavyset man shifted his stance, a hint of flush coming to his bearded face. Clearing his throat, he turned and headed onward.

Outside the king’s private chambers, the two guards stopped and took up positions to either side of the door. Myac slipped through the door before it closed. Reaching ahead into the bedchamber, his ability met up against a wall of terror, then silence. Seconds later, the king opened the door to the room, an eager grin mostly hidden by his beard. Surprise from the three hidden adepts enveloped Myac and was blasted away seconds later by the mix of horror and anguish from the king when he spotted his wife lying crumpled on the floor.

She might have been asleep, but the smell of burned flesh and the scorch marks around her lips and empty eye sockets left little to the imagination. The adept had burned her to death from the inside. It was a nice touch and Myac nodded appreciation even though no one could see the gesture. He dropped his invisibility as the king turned. Jerrin’s mouth was opening to cry out, but all that emerged when his wide moisture-filled eyes focused on Myac was a strangled croak.

Myac grinned, wishing he could afford to discard the illusion of Edan. Those maskings and illusions weren’t all his own though, and there was little chance that they would be able to rebuild the disguise exactly the same. The tiniest flaw might be enough to catch Indigo’s attention.

The king stepped back from him, unaware of the other adepts waiting in silence throughout the room.

“Why?” Jerrin’s voice was a pained whisper.

“Nothing personal,” Myac replied. “You’re simply in the way.”

The king’s brow furrowed and defiance flickered in his eyes when he realized the answer gave him nothing to bargain with. Jerrin reached for the dagger at his belt, his mouth opening again, perhaps to call for aid. Myac lanced his throat with a slice of power. Blood gushed forth. The king’s mouth worked, making only wet choking sounds. Shock and pain in his eyes faded fast, his life draining away down the front of his fine clothes. For a few seconds, he wavered there, then he sank forward, coming down on his knees where he teetered a moment more before falling forward. Myac stepped out of the way, Lyran reflexes giving the movement a distinct precision and grace.

Blood pooled around the silent figure, darkening the large, decorative carpet that stretched over much of the wood floor around the bed. He watched it spread for a few seconds, appreciating his work, then looked up, his eyes settling on the closest of the hidden adepts.

“Finish your work with the queen,” he said, noting that her body still bore the wrong ascard signature. When the ascard signature in her began to alter with the complex weaving of deception, Myac nodded, recreated the illusion that hid him from sight, and began to do the same with the king’s body.

“Now go,” he muttered when the false signatures were in place.

He could feel them leave. With the masking, their presence was faint, but he was strong enough to probe past it. He was also exhausted. Before leaving, he checked that the other adepts hadn’t left any trace of their presence, cleaning up a bit of sloppy work in the young prince’s room where one of them had used ascard to unbolt the door. By the time he slipped away, dawn was threatening. The bodies would be discovered soon and he was weary to the core, far too tired at this point to risk being caught in the palace after the alarm sounded.

He entered Serivar’s home shrouded in silence less than an hour later and went straight to his room. He had to rest if he were to hold up the subterfuge effectively. Fortunately, Serivar had all the adepts he needed to complete the arrests and start the interrogations that would find the Lyran adepts guilty of this horrific crime.

Myac smiled, a weary satisfaction curving his lips. He had barely enough energy left to undress before falling into bed and the deep, rewarding slumber that soon followed.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Indigo woke with a start. Blinking sleep away.

What had woken her so suddenly?

She was cold, wrapped only in the gray cloak. Perhaps the chill had awakened her. Then a loud knock made her start again. Reaching with ascard, she identified Caplin’s signature outside her door. The emotions pouring from him were so intense and jumbled that she couldn’t quite read any of them.

“One moment.”

She hadn’t lit a night candle, so she was unsure of the hour, but a faint glow coming in the window suggested the approach of dawn. She scurried to find suitable dressing robes, lighting candles with ascard as she went to fight the mournful pallor early light cast over the room.

The knock came again, much more insistent, before she finally made it to the door. It wasn’t like Caplin to be so impatient. Worry wormed its way through her, making her gut ache. She opened the door, stepping back in surprise when he charged in without waiting for her leave to do so. His face was pale and drawn, eyes bloodshot and rimmed in red as if he had been weeping. She shut the door and met those eyes, the worry worm growing to a vast dread beast inside.

“What’s wrong?”

“Jerrin, Livia, and Marich were murdered last night.” His tone wavered on a hysterical edge between rage and misery.

For a moment, she could only stare, feeling as though an icy wind had frozen her to the spot. Goose flesh rose on her arms. She couldn’t have heard him right. “The king’s dead?”

“Yes,” he snarled, rage winning out for an instant, twisting his face into a mask of hatred.

How could that be? What had she been training for as part of the King’s Order if not the protection of King Jerrin? The organization she’d chosen to give her life to, this thing that consumed most of her waking hours, had failed. What point was there to it? Was it nothing but an illusion? A false sense of purpose for a few self-important adepts and creators?

“I don’t understand. How can the king be dead?” She met his eyes, disconcerted, wishing she would wake from the nightmare. “All three of them are dead?”

“All of them, murdered in their rooms,” Caplin confirmed, his voice cracked and tears sprung to his eyes.

She felt a painful twisting in her chest as she watched the battle for control he was waging behind his eyes. He wanted to scream and rage. He wanted to hurt someone, and she wanted to help him, but there was no one to go after yet. No one to hurt. If there were, he wouldn’t be here. One tear escaped, running down his cheek unchecked. When he stomped down the remaining tears with raw will, she took his hand and squeezed it.

“What are you doing here, Caplin? Aren’t you needed elsewhere?”

He hung his head. “I… I am.”

There were no more words. He stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her, clinging like a terrified child as he buried his head in her hair. Startled, she stood stiff a few seconds then, slowly, embraced him. Closing her eyes and stifling her own shock and sense of personal failing, she smoothed his messy hair with one hand and held him. Perhaps it should bother her that he had come to her for comfort rather than to his fiancé, but there would be time later to sort out such things. His tears damped the shoulder of her dressing gown, giving her something physical to distract her from the storm raging within.

Then another thought struck her and she stiffened. Jerrin’s brother, Lord Gavin, would assume the throne now that the king, his wife, and his only heir were dead. That meant Caplin would soon be the crown prince of Caithin. He was a very important person, far too important to be hiding out in the home of a mere healer whose social status was, to put it mildly, in a substantial state of flux. Still, she needed to know a few things before she sent him back to the palace.

She used the minimum force necessary to get him to release her. Ignoring his forlorn look, she took his hand and led him to one of the couches. Gentle pressure was enough to make him sit and she knelt before him, taking both of his hands in hers.

“Dearest Caplin.
Prince
Caplin.” She spoke the title with force and his lips twisted in a pained grimace. He looked down at their joined hands. “Tell me what happened and what’s happening now?” Talking about it would make it more real for him, she knew, and for herself. The acknowledgment of reality was necessary for action.

He swallowed hard a few times before beginning, his voice strained. “Livia and Marich were burned from the inside in their chambers. Jerrin’s throat was cut, but not with a blade. There were traces of ascard in the wound.”

Ascard users had done this. The thought sent a chill through her. “Have they identified the ascard signature of the work?”

“Not yet. The signatures were…” he paused, his eyes meeting hers in questioning.

“Masked?” She offered.

His eyes narrowed with a flash of bitterness that, while not directed specifically at her, made her feel at odds with him. Ascard users were high on his list of least favorite people right now. If he knew all the things she could do with ascard, would he be seeking her company like this?

“Yes, masked was the word the Watchman used. They took the visiting Lyran adepts and Lord Ferin into custody already.”

No
.

Her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. She jerked her hands away. Rising, she walked to a bookshelf and leaned on it, facing away from him while she tried to focus past the frantic pounding of her heart. The room swayed.

Be calm
, she insisted, using ascard to work a mild sedation over herself.

“Indigo?”

She gave the sedation a few seconds to take hold, numbing her emotions, then turned to face him. He was standing now, his brow furrowed with concern, a hint of something else in his eyes. Wariness. Could that be? Was that a spark of mistrust she saw come to light in his eyes? Had she been marked ascard user above friend?

It didn’t matter. She had to defend those she believed in.

“I can’t believe they’re guilty,” she stated. “I’ve spent hours working with all of them. I don’t believe they would do this.”

He looked confused. “You were working with them?”

“Believe it or not, I’m a very accomplished healer.” She gave him a hard look, hoping he would accept her words and move on.

After a few seconds more, he gave a quick nod, letting it go. “Look at the evidence, Indigo. Kade is skilled with fire… Wait.” He held up a hand to halt her building protest and she bit her lip, letting him go on. “Sine does physical and some mental manipulation. Galyn…”

Beautiful, sweet Galyn
.

The Lyran woman’s gentle manner and kind words rushed to the fore. Pain twisted in her chest and Caplin, perhaps seeing some reflection of that pain in her face, paused. Struggling, she got her emotions under control again and met his eyes. He waited a moment longer, his gaze searching, but he finally continued.

“Galyn is adept with illusion. Sine and Galyn could quite easily have gotten the three of them in and out of the palace unseen and Kade…” his voice cracked. He moved on. “We don’t train those skills in Caithin. We smother them. It only makes sense that the assassins would be foreign.”

She started to object and caught herself. They did train such skills in Caithin. He had to know about the King’s Order, didn’t he? Maybe he didn’t know yet. Even considering the adepts of the King’s Order, however, the Lyran adepts were still the more likely culprits, given that the purpose of the King’s Order was to protect the king. Yet, if the Lyran adepts were somehow guilty, did that not also implicate their emperor?

She stepped to the closest chair and dropped into it, suddenly nauseous and dizzy. It didn’t make sense. Even if Yiloch wanted King Jerrin dead, which was certainly plausible, he would never do it so inelegantly. And yet, all evidence did seem to point in that direction. The Watchmen had missed something. They must have.

“They are investigating other possibilities, correct? Someone could be intentionally misleading them.”

“Of course they are. The investigation has barely started. There are adepts trying to tease out the masked ascard signatures in the bodies and others searching for additional clues. There are guardsmen and Ascard Watchmen scouring the entire city for clues. Given the gravity of the situation, the four Lyran adepts have been taken into custody to be questioned and held until proven innocent, though I don’t expect that to happen.”

She gave him a scalding look.

Caplin knelt before her now, sorrow flowing off him in suffocating waves, growing more potent in response to her anger. “I’m sorry, Indigo. I know you’ve been working with them, but you haven’t known them that long. Anyone can be deceived. Even you.”

Not as easily
as most
. She pushed the thought away. Too much faith in her ascard ability could be dangerous. She was still plenty fallible and perhaps gullible, though she wasn’t ready to accept that yet. “They will be treated fairly and given a chance to defend themselves?”

“Of course,” he replied, though his eyes hardened as he said it, telling her the truth as he saw it. Their guilt was certain in his mind and, if that were true for Caplin, who was always so willing to see the good in people, it would be so already for many others.