Theft of Dragons (Princes of Naverstrom) (20 page)

Urgent Request. Full compliment of new vestments needed for the wedding of Princess Sebine to Duke Greerwald's son. Spare no expense. On the order of the King.

—Bishop Rathgor

Chapter Twenty

AFTER DINNER, SEBINE retired to her chambers to free her waist from the constricting corset that choked her breathing. In a more relaxing cerulean blue nightgown, she rested at the reclining sofa and stared outside as the lights of the city danced in the murky haze. The city she once loved as a girl was now tainted by the oppressing hand of the King and his henchmen. The city that he didn't love himself and the city he seemed to torture in his wrath for its lack of accepting him. Ridiculous fool.

Her door flung open, displaying the familiar, fox-and-rat face of King Braxion. He closed the door, a scowl twisting his face into a deeper shade of ugliness. He sniffed and scanned around as he strode the room's perimeter, inspecting the bars on the window, rifling through the notes on the desk, and he narrowed his eyes as he peered into the bathing room.
 

"You smell like a bitch in heat." The King lifted a perfume bottle to his nose and cringed at the smell. "Why do women insist on wearing such strong smelling perfume? Whom are you hoping to attract?"

Sebine stiffened at his words and fixed a sullen stare at the King, imagining his eyeballs exploding in a burst of heat out of his disgusting eye sockets. "Why suitors, of course, Your Majesty."

He chuckled at that, and raised the corner of his wrinkled mouth in a wry smile. "I've found the perfect alliance. To the west, Duke Greerwald wishes to ally his families with ours and strengthen the Kingdom's position against the Malathians. He has a boy—a kind, sweet boy—he wishes to be husband to you. The details are all settled."

Duke Greerwald? His children were very young...his oldest boy couldn't be more than ten. The King couldn't be serious. And yet the certainty and disinterest in his eyes told Sebine he was absolutely serious and any questioning to the contrary might return a brutal answer.

"Is he a handsome boy?" Sebine said, trying to keep her voice soft and engaged. She also knew this would be a slight, as the short, ugly King winced at the handsome men about court, charming and entertaining the ladies.

The King fingered the gold and iron medallion at his chest, then cleared his throat and swallowed. "I'd say he has noble features...sturdy...well-studied, and well, a bit awkward, but I'm sure he'll grow out of it. He needs some good military training and discipline. He'll make a fine husband."

"And if I refuse?"

"I'll have you dragged to the sept to stand and say your words." The King looked almost gleeful, as if waiting for her to say that, and he turned and left the room.

Instead of fury, Sebine laughed so hard in mad disbelief that tears streamed down her face. She was merely a tool to be used by the King. A thing bought or sold to use for his advantage. In his mind the King certainly believed that Sebine was his daughter, but how could a father possibly treat a daughter so cruelly? The rueful thought hit her:
daughters don't matter in this world.
Only her brother mattered to the King, her ugly brute of a brother, and the dragons and war. Only that mattered.

Did she even care about being married to a boy of ten? She'd had freedom for a time, but that wouldn't last. And she'd have to leave the capital. She'd be away from Tael. The truth of her situation hit her with a vicious certainty. Without the light from Tael's eyes filling her with hope, she doubted she'd even had a reason to live anymore. She needed to find some place in this world, a place with solace and freedom and at least a sliver of happy moments. A place far from the mad King Braxion... But would he ever let her go? No, in his mind she was his property, and with his sticky personality and relentlessly obsessive mind he'd never let her go.

Not unless she killed him first.

But they said that the King possessed a power preventing magic from affecting him. And when he fought on the battlefield his blows were always true and his movements blessed by the gods. Some rumored that the King received some blessing or gift from his father, secured from the depths of Naverstrom. How else could he protect himself against the Hakkadians? If she wanted to kill the King she'd have to find a weakness she could exploit.
 

She had to talk to Tael. He had answers about the King and the Hakkadians that he hadn't told her yet. Would she be able to sneak past the guards outside, especially now the King had tripled the soldiers watching her, and invited Yaez to lurk around inside the palace, unseen and unpredictable? She had to get close to the man she impersonated—be a scholar—and visit the library where Emitt Weylor studied each night.

Throwing on her black cloak, Sebine went to the door and slid on her silk shoes. She opened the door and stared at the fearful guard outside who cringed at her inspection.

"Escort me to the Library of Ancient Tomes. I have some research I need to conduct tonight." The guard clicked his boots and tromped off down the torch lit stone corridor, obediently leading her to the library where Emitt studied each night. Sebine had often wondered what the scholar researched there each night for hours on end, especially considering that on the oft chance of visiting the library in the past, she'd found it empty save the sagging head of Emitt pouring over his dusty tomes. Few people in the palace paid much attention to the ancient leather and human-skin bound tomes. And even the librarian was more interested in his catalog of the collection than the books themselves.

As she entered, she turned a placed a palm to stop the guard from entering. "Scholar's sanctuary...you should know better. Your place is to stand guard outside. Now go on, secure the door and leave me in peace. I'll be here until at least another few hours."

She closed the door and grinned to herself, relishing in the shrinking eyes of the young guard. Inside the dimly-lit, cavernous chamber she found a bubble of light surrounding the table where Emitt Weylor read through a candlelit tome. He glanced in her direction at the sound of approaching footsteps and was about to go back to his studies when he noticed her aiming directly towards where he sat.

"Scholar Weylor, I believe?" Sebine gave him a disarming smile and sat at the chair opposite him, turning the tome he was reading around and inspected the title. "The Naverstrom Campaign, by Master Greyth Shalinor." She frowned, recognizing the name as an outlaw of the Kingdom, an old wizard and wise sage of the Arcanum. A man now banned as a heretic by the Calathian Church and deemed traitor to the King... Someone she'd love to meet.

 
Emitt Weylor's eyes looked desperate and filled with dread. Sebine placed a reassuring hand on his. "Don't worry, I won't give up your secret. I enjoy reading banned books myself. Though I am curious as to how you found it, considering the librarian was ordered to purge such books from his catalog."

"He has," Emitt said, his voice uncertain and raspy. "Though he is lazy and has left old copies of the catalog in predictable places. And he's too tired and sleepy to bother hiding or removing such tomes from the library. It's really quite easy to find, if one bothers to look."

"And what does Master Shalinor say about the Naverstrom Campaign?"

"He says a lot of things—"

"Don't be coy... What
interesting
things does he say. And I don't want the official lies from the King's scholars."

Emitt studied her with shocked eyes that held a good amount of awe at her display of power. "Master Shalinor says the old King won an ancient, powerful relic from the defeat of one of the Princes of Naverstrom. He also implies that traitorous events led to the deaths of many of the knights of the Order during the expedition. The old King Salgar asked for help from many of the royal houses, then had each knight slaughtered one by one. The wizard that witnessed much of the campaign was Master Shalinor—who still lives, if you can believe the rumors."

"And you've read all of his books?"

"Read and reread many times over. He hasn't published that many volumes—only seven from what I can find, along with some random letters and essays. Perhaps the libraries in the Arcanum have more, though I doubt it, they've likely been scoured clean. In this library they've practically been forgotten about. It's almost like they don't care anymore. All resistance against the King has fled for many years."

"Why do you care? I'm sure the study of this is nothing in your favor for your career as a scholar. In fact, you're risking your life if someone finds out."

"My parents were poor farmers from the north, murdered while they were mushroom hunting in a cave near the rumored mouth of Naverstrom. We all knew the dire warnings of those caves, but we were poor and the value of those mushrooms was like gold to the local alchemist. That was when I was a boy of seven, and destitute, the same alchemist my parents sold mushrooms to took pity on me and brought me in under his tutelage. When I'd devoured his library and found I was hungry for more, I asked for his help in applying for this position as a scholar and historian. I've never tired in my search since then."

"You're hoping to find something to explain the death of your parents?"

Emitt's face twisted up into a confused and tormented anguish. "I'm trying to give definition to the evil that killed my mum and my pa. They were my whole life, and something, some vile evil force, took them away from me. And in all the years of my secret studying I've gained a clear picture of what that evil is: the Princes of Naverstrom and the Hakkadians, their execution arm." He laughed in disbelief. "I can't believe I'm telling you this, you of all people, the King's daughter."

Sebine winced at his words. "The King and I aren't exactly on good terms. He shares nothing of this to me. I'm just a piece of his property—merely a girl to bargain off to some Duke for a favored alliance. He underestimates me."

"He underestimates the Hakkadians. Without the relic he wears around his neck he would likely be killed by the them." He leaned in close to Sebine, his voice lowering to a whisper. "The Princes of Naverstrom crave dominion over the whole world. They once held this power—in league with the dark elves—but a unified force of humans and high elves chained those Princes deep in the heart of Naverstrom thousands of years ago. It wasn't until the Hakkadians wandered in and explored those caves that the evil that lurks within was woken from the bonds of its slumber."

At his mention of the dark elves Sebine felt a chill run up her spine as memories of her vision flooded her mind.
Kill the King...do my bidding...I am your father.
Dakar claimed he was a servant of the Hakkadians and gave her the Ring of Galdora on behalf of the elves, on behalf of her father. If the Hakkadians were servants of the Princes of Naverstrom, and the Princes were in league with the dark elves, then was her father a dark elf? One of the ancients who conspired with the Princes of Naverstrom to rule the world?

A brutal terror possessed her heart and caused it to thump wildly inside her chest until she stood and fled the room, much to the dismay of Emitt Weylor. He stood as well, panic-stricken and followed her to the door.

"What's wrong? Was it something I said?" His eyes flared in fear. "You won't tell anyone about me, will you?"

Sebine stopped and shook her head, resting a hand on his arm. "Don't worry, you're safe. You have a friend in me, a friend who thanks you dearly for revealing this to me. But I must go."

And with that, as she was about to leave, she stopped herself. "One more thing, Emitt, a request. Return to your studies, and don't look this way until you hear the door closed. Please, as a friend."

He nodded and she observed him return to his tablet and once again his mop of a head tumbled over in his reading of the tome. Sebine quickly cast the spell of illusion, and eyes on Emitt Weylor's unmoving form, left the library.

Chapter Twenty-One

TAEL DROPPED THE letter on the desk and felt a twisting in his stomach that only got worse as the shopkeeper waddled eagerly over to him, his chubby hands holding a plain white gown with a steel thread insignia of the Order of Calathian Knights woven along the chest. Was Sebine already betrothed to be married? He had to see her. The idea of Sebine being married to someone else made him feel angry and vengeful at the same time. Now he had yet another reason to want to kill the King.