Royal Outlaw: (Royal Outlaw, Book 1) (23 page)

Mariel had always believed she had been a mistake created out of young lust and no forethought. But now it was clear to her that Princess Carolina had intentionally conceived Mariel. The pregnancy triggered the king’s anger and he disowned and exiled his only child to a remote fief to live. Princess Carolina had sought freedom the only way she knew how.

Princess Carolina had been in the same situation as Mariel: unwillingly bound to the throne, fated to marry a man of King Vincent’s choosing. Her mother had found a way out, could Mariel? Mariel had no desire to ever marry or have children, but if having a child meant escape from Natric’s monarchs, she would do it. Glancing at James, who was currently in a glaring match with Dreyfuss, Mariel had no doubt that he would be a willing accomplice.

She began to formulate a plan, excited that she had found a way out of her dilemma, nervous about what the means of escape entailed. The rough sketches of her plot to escape were coming together when she noticed a massive flaw. Mariel knew that if she had been born a boy she would have been named heir to the Natrician throne the same day of her birth. If she had a male child, the same would happen to him and she could not bear to bring such a fate upon anyone.

But that was not where the real problem lay. What made the plan completely unfeasible was that when she was born there was still a possibility Queen Meredith might produce a male heir. When that possibility disappeared, the monarchs had looked to their only living descendent:
her
. It did not matter if she followed in her mother’s footsteps and had a child out of wedlock by someone without noble blood. The king was too desperate for an heir to care.

She had behaved abominably her first several weeks at this finishing school, but the king had not disowned her, and no matter what she did, he never would. He would never exile her. Not because he loved her more, she knew he did not care for her at all, but because he needed her.

Tears sprung to her eyes again and she rapidly blinked them away, hoping that neither of the men noticed.

“We shall soon see as to whether the princess has been ruined yet or not. I will ask a priestess to investigate her. If she is indeed unsullied, then her price will be much higher.”

“I am not a trinket to be sold at market,” Mariel reminded Dreyfuss, not appreciating the fact that he had a habit of talking about her as though she was not in the room.

“So you say, your Highness. But now I wish to know where you acquired that unicorn. And do not try to fool me,” Dreyfuss held up his hand to stop her flow of words. “I know what she is. I have studied magic for many years. High Priestess Sonja specifically told me the time at which the attack in the temple happened, as well as the peculiar information that a white
horse
broke down the temple door. The time the high priestess gives for the attack, and the time that you,” he pointed to James, “arrived at the City of the Gods do not match. It is a full day’s ride from here to the City, but you made it in a couple of hours. Only by riding a unicorn is such a feat possible.”

Mariel felt thoroughly annoyed with the obviously intelligent archmagician. She had always believed that facing a clever adversary kept her sharp and the task more entertaining, but Dreyfuss was fraying her nerves.

James appeared to be feeling the same way. “Iyela is Mariel’s friend. She helps her of her own free will. The unicorn has no love for me, and she certainly has never had a problem showing that. The other night we temporarily put aside our differences to save our mutual friend. Iyela answers to no one. So if you plan on taking her for your own use, let me know, I could use a bit of entertainment when you try to ride her.”

James smiled broadly, his amber eyes dancing in the light provided by the candelabra. Mariel thought that James’s behavior today might warrant the prize of a peck on the cheek, but she would have to give that a lot of thought.

“I have no intention of capturing the unicorn,” Dreyfuss retorted sharply. “She is obviously a protector of the princess, who evidently needs all the protection she can get . . .”

“I do not!” Mariel protested, wincing as pain left her breathless. “I can take care of myself!”

“Which explains why you are lying on a bed severely injured,” the archmagician pointed out. “If it weren’t for my remarkable skills as a magician you would be dead now. And you do not even
remember
who the assassin was!”

Mariel seethed quietly. The fact that James did not dispute Dreyfuss’s words only made her angrier because it meant he agreed with the archmagician that she was incompetent.

“You require protection, your Highness,” Dreyfuss continued. “I had not thought anyone would bother to try to kill you until after King Vincent officially made you his heir. I will remain here with other magicians and soldiers until you are healed enough for travel and then we will move you to the City of the Gods where you will be under tight surveillance until I personally deem you healed. When you move to Fintel permanently, your personal guards will be waiting.”

“Many people are unhappy that the next heir to the throne is a girl, not to mention that she is Darren Brightsword’s daughter. You may assign guards to protect her, but that doesn’t mean they will do it,” James said, the anger evident in his voice.

Dreyfuss turned toward the serpentramel who had been a wanted outlaw for many years. Mariel could see the reluctance on the archmagician’s face, although she did not understand it. He took a deep breath and looked to the heavens.

“Valmir, may I be doing the right thing,” he prayed and then looked at James again. “Although I am loathe to agree, your reasoning is sound. I have considered the problem of guards being disloyal to the princess and unwilling to protect her. On our ride from the City of the Gods, I contemplated a solution to the dilemma, as much as I hate to admit it. The men in her guard will be carefully selected, and you, Mr.
Alecsson
will be the captain.”

“
What?
” Mariel cried in astonishment. “But he’s an outlaw. He’s serpentramel!”

Dreyfuss winced noticeably at the mention of the race of people that had once ruled Natric and were now being hunted to extinction by the monarchy. “We shall keep that last bit of information to ourselves.”

“But how do you know you can trust him? He is of the viper breed, he could kill me faster than I could move and his skills with weapons are sharp.”

Dreyfuss guffawed. “You are blind to the obvious, your Highness.”

What did that mean? Mariel did not appreciate the comment, but she also did not want to ask him what he meant by it. She was blind? To what?

She glanced at her friend, but he did not seem to be listening to anything she was saying. His face was still a mask of shock. The astonishment faded, and he narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What if I refuse the post?”

“You will face the punishment of being drawn and quartered. You are trapped here. There is no possibility of escape. I give you two choices. Death. Or serving and protecting your darling princess.”

“You aren’t giving him much of a choice,” she said angrily. “Just like you never gave me a choice about becoming princess.”

Dreyfuss smiled nastily. “I find that the only choices I should give people are the ones in which I like the outcomes.”

Mariel watched James’s expression. She thought a slight smile creased is face, but then again it could just be a trick of the light. With the lightning speed Mariel had come to know, James reached out and plucked the vial of amber liquid from Dreyfuss’s unsuspecting hand.

“I don’t think you will need this anymore, Archmagician. After all, it is the personal possession of
Princess
Mariel, who is in a higher social rank than you.” He handed the vial to the bedridden girl. “Since it appears that Mariel will be in your—supposedly capable—magical hands for the next several weeks, there is someplace I must go until you are of need of me to serve my princess.”

Why is he leaving?
Mariel wondered. The very idea of being left alone with Dieter Dreyfuss made her unhappy, especially when she could not simply walk out of the room and her pain medications were at his disposal. James had faithfully stood by her for the last several months, keeping her sane, and now he was leaving?

“Where are you going?” Mariel asked.

James’s eyes bored into hers, for a moment he said nothing. She saw that emotion deep in his eyes, the one that she could not figure out. He seemed to be trying to tell her something, but she did not know what it was. What she did know was she did not want him to go. But she would not dare to tell him that, he might get the wrong idea.

“
There are friends I need to speak with
,” he said.

Mariel was suspicious. Why was it so important for him to speak to people before he began working for the Natrician government? Before now he had refused to leave the convent for even a day, but today he planned to leave and not return for weeks. Had he in fact, truly been spying on her for months and needed to make a report in person to whoever it was that he worked for?

Mariel was almost certain this was the reason he was leaving until she realized he had spoken in Zreshlan. He was going to see friends, but they were not just his friends, they were hers as well. He was going to Parloipae. He was going to the zreshlans. But why?

She could ask in the same language, but she did not want to give James the enjoyment of sparking her curiosity. Besides, she did not think he would tell her anyway.

“
Tell them hello. May the seÿas be favorable.
” 

James nodded and smiled broadly. “Don’t get into too much trouble while I’m gone, Green-Eyes. Knowing you, you’ll manage to end up in some scrape even when you can’t move from your bed.”

Mariel scowled darkly, which only made him laugh.

James pushed passed Dreyfuss and strode to the door, but as he touched the latch he paused as though he had suddenly thought of something. Turning his head over his shoulder, he spoke directly to the archmagician. “If protection for the princess is what you desire, I suggest making Cara Cramell of Stonewell one of her lady’s maids. She loves Mariel, and may be shy, but she is loyal and we have been teaching her to fight.”

James winked at Mariel, opened the door and strode out into the corridor, leaving Mariel alone with the archmagician of Natric wondering who had tried to kill her and what James knew that he was not telling her. She knew that he knew more than he let on, she just hoped he was not involved in some way.

“If you want to be good, you have to learn to use a sword in both hands. This is an old trick of the Versati Corps.” 

Mariel shifted her wooden practice sword into her left hand and took the ready stance.

Her papa laughed. “It’s not that easy, my little fairy. If you have to use the other hand, it’s probably because your sword arm is wounded.” 

He stepped forward and tightly bound Mariel’s arm to her body in a painful position. 

“That hurts!” she whined, as she moved and pain shot up her arm.

“So does a broken or wounded arm. You have to learn to ignore the pain and become good with the other hand. You’ll practice this way until I say your left hand is as good as your right.”

The girl groaned. 

Mariel felt a sharp pain in her stomach that had nothing to do with her mostly healed wounds and she shook her head trying to stop the flow of the memory from the days when Darren had trained her.

Mariel absently rubbed her left arm and felt the tightly wound bandage beneath her thin nightdress. The pain had lessened considerably over the last month and the flesh had come back. She sighed and picked up Aracklin with her right hand, wishing she was nine and being trained by her papa once more and the reason she could not exercise with her left arm was because it was bound to her side, but, alas, true injury was the culprit of her temporary handicap and she had to make do with what she had.

Settling into a fighting stance, Mariel let all thoughts and feelings slip from her mind as she moved into one of her fighting patterns. Aracklin sliced through the air as Mariel silently danced across the thick, exotic rugs covering the floor of the royal suite in the Citadel in the City of the Gods. She exalted in the loosening of her muscles and the feel of sweat as she began to move into a more complex pattern.

Reality pulled Mariel back long before she was ready. The muscles that had been used little over the last month screamed in protest at the movements. Panting, she collapsed into one of the puffy chairs. She tried to convince herself that the drops of liquid running down her cheeks near her eyes were beads of sweat, but she knew that they were tears of frustration.

After spending two weeks on mandatory bed rest and the following two weeks only walking, Mariel had lost the strong muscles she had so carefully maintained most of her life. She did not remember being this out of shape since she had been six and lived as an exiled illegitimate princess with her mother at Remel.

Mariel launched from the chair. Dizziness from fatigue struck and she wobbled a moment before regaining her balance. Lurching toward the water pitcher on the stand on the far wall of the room, she took several large gulps of water directly from it and then poured the rest over her face and head, destroying all evidence of tears. 

Shivers began to wrack her weak body and Mariel decided that standing in the middle of the cold room, wearing nothing but a sweat- and water-soaked nightdress would not help her situation. Stripping off her wet nightclothes, Mariel pulled a chemise out of the armoire and wriggled into it. For good measure, she threw a cloak around her shoulders and hugged it to her.

Despite her protesting muscles and the dull ache in her left arm, she could not sit still. With the negative after-effects of the workout abating, Mariel felt restless and wanted to do more, even though her body screamed at her not to.

Walking briskly to the window, Mariel looked out at the dark sky. The bright pinpricks of light in the heavens were just beginning to fade as the black transformed into a deep blue hue. A yawn overcame her, and she knew she should crawl back into bed and let her body rest, but she was unwilling to give into what she deemed a weakness.

After shooting a glare at the main door leading into her suite, she grabbed her pouch of lock picks from a pocket in her cloak. She had asked Cara to hide the lock picks before the younger girl had departed for the City of the Gods with the other students weeks ago. Having only arrived the evening before and been promptly escorted to this suite and locked inside, Mariel had not had the opportunity to see Cara. She needed to find her old roommate because Cara was in possession of all of Mariel’s weapons other than her sword. Worried that her knives would be confiscated, Mariel had asked Cara to take them and keep them safe. Cara had done just that, but now that Mariel was in the City and she was capable of moving around on her own, she felt vulnerable without the familiar weight of hidden weapons on her body.

Mariel walked through a series of rooms that were connected to her suite before she reached a room with a large oak desk. Only the royal family ever used these rooms, which was why they had been given to Mariel.

Carefully selecting four different picks, Mariel crouched near the door to the study and inserted the first tool. Because these were rooms reserved for royalty, the lock was more complicated than most, but in the end it was no match for a skilled thief and spy. When the mechanism finally gave out, Mariel could not restrain a smile of satisfaction as she tucked her picks back into place and rolled up the pouch before tucking it into a pocket of her cloak.

She opened the door a crack and peered out. The corridor was dark, but that did not mean it was empty. Straining to hear even the slightest noise, Mariel held her breath as she crouched behind the door.

Funny
, Mariel thought.
I’m usually trying to break into one of these wealthy rooms, not out of them.

Deciding that the coast was clear, Mariel slipped out into the corridor and gently closed the door behind her. She did not need a light or a map to guide her steps. The City of the Gods was where Mariel had spent most of her time on reconnaissance missions. Darren and many of the other key people in the Resistance considered Mariel an expert on the City. She had always enjoyed wreaking havoc here and slipping in and out of a city filled with magicians and numerous amounts of nobility. Although not known throughout the Eastern Lands like the name Brightsword, in the City of the Gods, Mariel Quickwit was infamous.

As Mariel glided down the familiar halls of the Citadel, she enjoyed remembering her five separate escapes from the City Prison. Twice she had willingly been arrested because she wanted a challenge to escape, but the other three times were true arrests. On one occasion, she had escaped just in the nick of time as Dreyfuss was brought into the prison to see that the soldiers had finally caught the mischievous Quickwit. Briefly, Mariel wondered if Dreyfuss had known that the wanted outlaw was also the princess, and if he had gone to the prison in hopes of retrieving her then and handing her the crown.

Her good mood dimmed. She disliked the thought of being forced into this wretched life even earlier than she had. To cheer herself, Mariel turned and walked toward the front entrance to the suite. She paused and peered around the corner of the corridor where the main double door was and grinned broadly as she observed the soldiers who were supposed to be guarding her suite busy playing dice and drinking spirits, unaware that she was no longer in the room.

Turning her back to the soldiers, Mariel practically skipped along the corridor, her energy and good humor returning. She nearly started singing in glee at the taste of freedom, but she restrained herself to a quiet hum.

The darkness of the familiar corridors wrapped around Mariel like a comforting blanket. The chemise whispered about her legs and the stone floor was cold on her bare feet, but she still felt freer than she had in months. She wore no corset, and she was not confined to a rural convent.

Trying to ignore her body’s fatigue and the knowledge of what had caused her to become weak, Mariel forced herself to think of other things. She ran through a list of contacts she wanted to meet with. But the reason she wanted to speak with them and pump them for information circled around to the assassination attempt.

She had faced death many times in her life, but she had almost always known who or what wanted her dead. Ogres, provost guards, soldiers, other outlaws . . . the list was long, but every time she faced death, death had a face and a purpose she could understand. The Assassin was something else altogether. He was a powerful magician, elusive and cunning. He wanted her dead, which was not unusual, but what set him apart from the others was that he had wanted her dead since she was an innocent, unthreatening, spoiled six-year old. Why? It was the question constantly in Mariel’s mind, and it was one that she could not answer. But why he wanted her dead was not the question that disturbed her most. No, the question she dreaded was, why could she not remember either of the times he had directly attacked her?

“Because you fear remembering.” The voice that spoke out of the darkness sounded ethereal.

Mariel yipped and leapt sideways in surprise, colliding with a wall. Berating herself for her moment of weakness, she turned and glared at the figment of her imagination that spoke in her mind and appeared in her sight.

“I don’t fear anything,” she said to no one in particular, least of all the strange, glowing black vixen that had appeared in the deserted corridor. Mariel started walking again, refusing to acknowledge the vision her overactive imagination had created.

“You fear many things,” the vixen whispered in her mind. “You fear spiders, you fear becoming a corrupted noble, you fear death, you fear believing in gods, and you fear remembering your mother’s murder and the assassin that stalks you.”

I have gone absolutely mad,
Mariel thought to herself.
At least James isn’t here. He would never let me live this down.

“You are not crazy, you are simply in denial.”

Mariel snorted in disbelief and refrained from snapping a sharp retort at the embodiment of her insanity. With the assassination attempt, her mind had finally broken under the strain of being an unwilling princess.

Ducking into a storage room, she found a pair of breeches and a shirt that would fit.

“You know who I am—you are just unwilling to admit it. High Priestess Sonja knows too, but you refuse to listen to her.”

Trying to ignore the annoying, but insistent voice in her head, Mariel pulled on the breeches beneath her chemise.

“You
must remember, Mariel, it is important that you face your fears and the horrors of the attacks.”

“The Assassin must have done something to me so that I can’t remember, this has nothing to do with fears,” Mariel shot back, and then cringed, realizing her retort had meant that she admitted the fox was actually there, which it was not. She peeled off the white chemise and angrily smoothed out the bandages she had wrapped around her breasts to keep them flat and provide support.

“You
must be strong enough, for my protection can only stretch so far, especially if I do not wish to draw the attention of my brother.”

Determined to escape the fox, Mariel tugged the shirt over her head so quickly she tore one of the sleeves. Forgetting the desire to be quiet, she cried out in frustration and ripped the shirt off again. Tossing it to the floor she returned to the piles of clothes and hunted for another shirt small enough to fit her.

“You need to remember.”

Mariel grinned triumphantly upon finding another small shirt and was more careful this time when she pulled it on. The fox continued to talk, but Mariel was determined to ignore her. She busied herself with pinning up her hair with her lock picks and stashing her chemise. After, throwing her cloak over her shoulders and pulling a hat over her head, she turned and raced from the room, running to escape the voice.

Her feet pounded across the stone corridors, seemingly turning in the correct directions of their own accord. A glance to the side informed Mariel that the vixen loped easily beside her. Mariel picked up the pace. She burst out into the open grounds of the Citadel. Inhaling the sweet, cool September morning air, she did not slow her pace as she raced to the exercise and training grounds of the guards for the Citadel.

The sky had lightened to a dim grey color, foreshadowing the coming of the sun. The hard earth beneath her feet prompted Mariel to run faster and she tossed her cloak over the low wooden fence of the training yard as she jumped it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the darkness of the fox within the glowing light leap over the fence in one stride. But she no longer cared about the vixen, not when she ran.

The cool air caressed her skin. A curl that had fallen loose from her lock picks, tickled her cheek. Her legs pumped and her arms swung. Her muscles rejoiced in the movement and Mariel savored the sweet taste of freedom. Not caring if any guards were awake to hear in the rows of barracks bordering the training yard, Mariel shouted a joyous “Whoop!”

It was not until her tenth lap around the yard that Mariel realized she had the energy and strength that she normally did. She had not felt this good physically since before the assassination attempt. The sword exercises not more than half an hour ago had left her weak and dizzy, although she had done far fewer patterns than she normally did. Now she ran laps without feeling any trace of pain or weakness.

Not slowing her pace, she glanced down at her body and noticed a faint light dancing across her skin and clothes. It was the same type of light that emanated from the black fox.

“What are you doing?” Mariel demanded.

“Helping,” the vixen replied simply.