The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price (2 page)

About halfway down one wall, partially obscured by a layer of dirt, was a curved row of fused, colored stones. Glowing softly in an array of shades, the stones—sapphire, spinel, diamond, ruby, obsidian—were pulsing, emanating a vibration that was definitely magic. Yet, its tone was unfamiliar. It was pungent. So sweet and alluring, that I couldn’t look away.

Sliding one of the swords into the sheath on my back, I scooted closer. The edge of the rift crumbled some at my weight, but I didn’t waver. Buried in this very spot was the once sprawling empire of my Shinree ancestors, a fallen realm, lost and unseen by the world for over five hundred years. Whatever artifact the quake had uncovered was worth the risk.

I reached down inside the hole. My fingers brushed the rounded lip and an immediate, intense current of energy licked my skin. It ran through me and I let out a yelp. It wasn’t from pain though. The jolt was one of pure pleasure. It was raw and acute, and I quickly wrapped my entire hand around the thing and held on.

Nine distinct, magical vibrations were alive inside it. I could feel them all, swirling and overlapping. Each had their own well of energy, but together they formed a compilation of searing, pulsing power that was vast beyond any magic I had ever experienced before. It was massive, concentrated.

Enthralled, I abandoned my other sword and started digging. Loosening the soil, I tugged on the artifact and it didn’t take long for the dirt wall to collapse and my prize to come free. As I lifted it out of the hole, I shook it clean.

Fashioned like a King’s crown, the circlet was pure perfection.

The others, the soldiers around me, wouldn’t see it that way. They couldn’t feel its magic, couldn’t taste it. They had no idea the pleasure it could offer. Yet, simply looking at the stone crown opened a familiar, sinking, wrenching pit of need in my gut.

Sweat beaded then poured off my skin. Tremors erupted deep inside me, rivaling those that split the valley floor. I was suddenly so empty, so hungry.

“Troy!”

I heard my name, but I didn’t turn. It was Aylagar and I didn’t want her to see me like this.

“Troy!” she shouted again.

The urgency in her voice tore at me. Aylagar was Queen. She was my commander and my lover. The ground had settled all across the field. Weary bodies were rising up, raising their weapons to resume the killing. She could be in trouble.

But as I stared at the ring of vibrating, colored stones in my grip, I knew what I had. And I realized I had no choice but to betray her.

The answer is here. It’s in my hand…in this crown of stones.

It’s always been in me. She was just too headstrong to see it.

Once more, Aylagar called to me. This time, I tore my eyes away and found her.

She was close, and fighting her way closer. Trails of blood streaked her skin and clothes, but I could tell by the way she was moving that none of it was hers.

I can’t let this go on. Good men are dying for her stubbornness.

I have to make her understand, convince her that I can end this. Make her see that we’re fighting on borrowed time. That if it wasn’t for me we would have been dead a long time ago.

She’d be furious,
I thought. If I admitted that my spells had been sustaining the men, bolstering their endurance, tightening their aim and heightening
their senses—so long they had no idea of their own limits anymore. She would never forgive me.

But there are so few of us left now. She has to realize that magic is the only way.

Aylagar spun to block an attack from the rear. Pushing the man away, she caught sight of me. She gave me a brief smile. Her eyes were fierce and confident, and for just a moment, I felt better.

Then the sword point burst through her left shoulder. Another pierced her chest. Aylagar went down and anguish consumed the last of my doubt. Pain obliterated the hope she had given me. Consequence and reason bowed in the face of so much fury.

As I looked down at the stone crown in my hand, I had one coherent, desperate thought.
This ends now
.

ONE

S
quatting down in the wet sand, I slid my knife in between her legs. “Hold still.”

“Wait,” she gasped.

I lowered the blade, and my tone. “I won’t hurt you. But I don’t have time to wait.” With a yank, I cut the rope around her ankles. “The bandit that jumped you, was it a man or a woman?” I freed her hands and then did the same for the old man beside her. There were no ropes on his ankles, as he only had one. His left leg was gone from the knee down. “Man or woman?” I said again, more insistent this time.

“Woman,” the old man grunted. “And she was one wily bitch.”

Anticipation tightened my grip on the knife. “Are you sure?”

Thin and raggedy, he squinted at me like I was a hundred miles away. “You saying I don’t know a female when I see one? You think these wrinkles make me daft?”

“That’s not…” I ran an exasperated hand over my face.

“Maybe you’re thinking I’m one of them damn eunuchs,” he went on. “That just ’cause I’m a gimp I don’t have a good working set of—”

“Father, please,” the girl scolded. Shoving a curtain of frizzy brown hair out of her face, she shifted in the dirt to face him. “This man stopped to help us and…you’re angering him,” she whispered.

“I’m not angry,” I assured her. “I just need to know.”

“He ain’t talking to you anyhow, girl,” her father snapped. “Now, fetch me my crutch. It’s in the wagon.”

I offered his daughter a hand up. She gave me a hesitant look. So I made the choice for her, gripped her arm, and pulled her to her feet. “I don’t bite,” I said.

“Of course not,” she said shyly.

I took my hand away. As she rushed the short distance down the road, her father’s squint transferred back to me. “Just so we’re clear…that was no man’s ass bouncin’ on my horse as it rode away. My
stolen
horse,” he groused. “Damn filthy brigands, taking what they please, leaving nothing for the rest of us.” Petulance made his long face even longer. “They make it so a man can’t travel in peace anymore.”

I glanced around at the flat, open, grassland and the sandy, barren road that seemed to go on forever. “You shouldn’t be out here. Remote places like this are a haven for things a lot worse than thieves.”

“Like you?” he said, with a knowing gleam in his eye. “You’re that Shinree. The one with the white hair and the eyes, and the magic.”

“We all have white hair and eyes, old man. And magic.”

“Ha!” He wagged a bowed, shaky finger at me. “But they ain’t all like you.”

“I tell him every day that we should move,” Rosalyn said then, returning with a wooden crutch as worn and craggy as the man that used it. “It isn’t safe, being on our own with no neighbors to speak of.”

“She’s got a point,” I said, putting my knife away. Bending, I bore the man’s slight weight and helped him stand. “King Raynan’s law doesn’t reach these outer regions. And Langor’s border is no more than a day’s ride.”

“A point,” he grumbled. “Rosalyn’s always got a point. But that border’s been nothing but a crooked line on a map for years. The Langorians don’t cross it to bother us. They don’t bother nobody. Not since the war. And you know that,” he said to me, as I took the crutch from Rosalyn and positioned it under his arm. “You
saw
to that.”

Rosalyn shushed him. She turned to me. “I’m sorry. He’s always going on.”

“It’s fine.” I stepped away to my horse. Having wandered off the road, the mare was uprooting great clumps of grass from the pasture, and swallowing
like she knew it wouldn’t last. “I don’t have much food,” I called back to them. “I haven’t seen a village for a while and I’ve been hunting on the road for weeks. But I’ll give you what I can.”

“That’s kind of you,” Rosalyn said, coming over. “But unnecessary.” She lowered her voice. “My father doesn’t mean any harm. You seem to be in a hurry, and…we don’t want any trouble.”

“Your father is trouble,” I grinned.

Rosalyn hid a giggle behind her hand. “I know. I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Your attacker, did she leave you anything?”

“Just the one horse. And the wagon. Really though, we’re all right,” she said firmly. “I appreciate your charity, but we don’t have far to go.”

“It’s not charity.” I pulled out a flask and put it in her hand. “It’s water.”

Rosalyn offered me a grateful smile. Her close-set eyes were ringed and tired, but I saw strength in them, and outright, unremitting endurance. It was a trait I was familiar with. And added to her brown hair, brown eyes, and her normal, every-day features, I was able to say with confidence, “You’re Rellan.”

“I am.” Her stare flitted to my hair. “And you’re Shinree.”

There was something in her voice. “You can’t decide if that should worry you.”

Rosalyn shrugged. “Our village is small. We don’t go into the towns much, so...”

“Am I the first you’ve seen?”

“No, but you’re not like them. You’re not like the slaves I remember.”

“Because he’s not one.” Hobbling closer, her father wormed in between us. He leaned over toward me so far I thought he would fall off his crutch. “Got business out here, do you? Planning on sneaking over and dealing those Langorian fuckers another round? Maybe you ought to shove one of them spells of yours right up Draken’s ass while you’re at it. I’m all for that,” he chuckled slyly, eyes twinkling like we were in on some great conspiracy together.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just passing through.”

“Are you now?” He let out a snort. “Like they just let you Shinree folk run around all wild and free like you please. Only them healers get to do that, or one of them showy, oracle types. And since every oracle I’ve ever met was looser than a bow-legged whore, I’m guessing you’re not that.”

Rosalyn gasped in horror. “Father! How can you say such a thing?”

“It’s okay,” I told her. “He’s right. I’m not an oracle, or a healer.” I glanced at her as I tied my bag shut. “And I’m not bow-legged,” I said, making her blush.

Muttering to himself, her father backed up a step and made no attempt to hide his in-depth study of me. He peered boldly at my swords, my boots, the braces on my arms, even my dusty, leather coat, like they told him everything he needed to know. “Yep,” he said, decisively, “you’re him. You’re that soldier. That, Troy fella, that fought in the war.”

“The war’s been over ten years, old man.”

“You think I don’t know that?” His tone turned serious. “I know what you did.”

My jaw clenched. I looked past him to Rosalyn. Her eyes had fear in them now, but it couldn’t be helped. “Which way did she go?”

“In there.” Rosalyn gave a jerk of her head and I followed it to the large expanse of swamp to the east. Bordering all three kingdoms of Rella, Kael, and Langor, as well as the outskirts of the uninhabited wasteland where the Shinree Empire once stood, the broad swathe of marshland had been aptly and unimaginably named the Northern Borderlands. Encasing near the entire northeast, and a bit of the south, the thick, dark, vast wall of vegetation was topped with an even thicker, darker roof of swollen, gray clouds.

Where the swamp’s edge bled out into the meadow was a good mile away. Yet distance wasn’t doing a damn thing to blunt the sweet fragrance of rot on the wind.

“I hear the place is more foul even than Langor,” Rosalyn said nervously.

“Nothing’s more foul than Langor.” I studied the shadowy clouds gathering over the dense wetlands. “But I’m guessing it’ll be a close second.”

Her father tapped my leg with his crutch. “So what are you now? It ain’t ever easy puttin’ down the sword, so I’m guessing…mercenary? Bounty hunter? Or did she just piss you off?”

“I’ve done both,” I relented. “Mostly bounties for the last couple years though. But, pissed off works too.” Taking the reins in my hands, I stared back into the twisted mess of overgrowth and fog. Tracking through it was going to be difficult.

Not with magic,
I thought, knowing it wouldn’t take much.

A simple tracking spell and I’d have her by nightfall.

The stone on the cord around my neck warmed. My pulse jumped.

Tightening the reins in my hands, I shook off the urge. “When did she leave?”

Rosalyn scanned the sky. “Two or three hours ago?” Her gaze fell to mine. “Who wants her, your lady outlaw?”

“She escaped from the city prison in Kael a couple months back. But from the amount of bodies under her belt, I imagine a lot of people.”

“Well, she’s met her match now,” her father said boldly. “No way some girly with a sword is more dangerous than you, a Shinree soldier. I know what you did,” he said again.

I nodded. “Do we have a problem?”

“I was an army man myself,” he said, completely disregarding my question. “First Lieutenant. King’s Regiment. In fact, the last time I had two good feet under me, I was standing guard at the very gates of the castle. That was,” his eyes wandered, “must be twenty-five, twenty-six years ago. But you were probably too young to remember.”

“Remember what?”

“How it smelled the day King Draken burned Rella’s greatest city to the ground.”

“Kabri,” I said. “I was six. I remember well enough.”

“Things turned straight to shit after that day. Rella issued a formal declaration of war on Langor and I sat around with this one leg,” he slapped it angrily, “growing old and useless while everyone else went off and died defending my home.”

Rosalyn put a hand on his arm. “Father, don’t.”

“Hush, girl.” Craning his neck, he looked around me to the packs on my saddle. “So where is it then, that filthy piece of magic? I’m guessing there’s no way King Raynan let you keep it.”

I pictured the Crown of Stones where I left it ten years ago, in Rella’s capital, on the island city of Kabri, nestled in the folds of Aylagar’s burial robes. “It’s safe.”

He watched me a moment. “You know, I get what it was like. I did my time on the line. Reports would trickle in…the massacres in the villages,
the kidnappings. I can imagine the things you saw, how desperate it was at the end. The bastards were whipping us pretty good those last few months, but…damn, son…there had to be another way.”