Gathering of Shadows (A Darker Shade of Magic) (21 page)

A chance for Arnes to shine.

A chance for
Rhy
to shine, not only as a jewel, but as a sword. He had always been a symbol of wealth. He wanted to be a symbol of
power.
Magic was power, of course, but it wasn’t the
only
kind. Rhy told himself he could still be strong without it.

His fingers tightened on the balcony’s rail.

The memory of Holland’s gift flickered through his mind. Months ago he had done something foolish—so foolish, it had nearly cost him and his city everything—just to be strong in the way Kell was. His people would never know how close he’d come to failing them. And more than anything else, Rhy Maresh wanted to be what his people needed. For a long time he thought they needed the cheerful, rakish royal. He wasn’t ignorant enough to think that his city was free of suffering, but he used to think—or perhaps he only
wanted
to think—that he could bring a measure of happiness to his people by being happy himself. After all, they loved him. But what befitted a prince would not befit a king.

Don’t be morbid
, he thought. His parents were both in good health. But people lived and died. That was the nature of the world. Or at least, that was how it should be.

The memories rose like bile in his throat. The pain, the blood, the fear, and finally the quiet and the dark. The surrender of letting go, and being dragged back, the force of it like falling, a terrible, jarring pain when he hit the ground. Only he wasn’t falling down. He was falling up. Surging back to the surface of himself, and—

“Prince Rhy.”

He blinked and saw his guard, Tolners, standing in the doorway, tall and stiff and official.

Rhy’s fingers ached as he pried them from the icy railing. He opened his mouth to speak, and tasted blood. He must have bitten his tongue.
Sorry, Kell
, he thought. It was such a peculiar thing, to know your pain was tethered to someone else’s, that every time you hurt, they felt it, and every time they hurt, it was because of you. These days, Rhy always seemed to be the source of Kell’s suffering, while Kell himself walked around as if the world were suddenly made of glass, all because of Rhy. It wasn’t even in the end, wasn’t balanced, wasn’t fair. Rhy held Kell’s
pain
in his hands, while Kell held Rhy’s
life
in his.

“Are you all right?” pressed the guard. “You look pale.”

Rhy took up a glass of tea—now cold—and rinsed the metallic taste from his mouth, setting the cup aside with shaking fingers.

“Tell me, Tolners,” he said, feigning lightness. “Am I in so much danger that I need not one but
two
men guarding my life?” Rhy gestured to the first guard, who still stood pressed against the cold stone exterior. “Or have you come to relieve poor Vis before he faints on us?”

Tolners looked to Vis, and jerked his head. The other guard gratefully ducked back through the patio doors and into the safety of the room. Tolners didn’t take up a spot along the wall, but stood before Rhy at attention. He was dressed, as he always was, in full armor, his red cape billowing behind him in the cold wind, gold helmet tucked under his arm. He looked more like a statue than a man, and in that moment—as in many moments—Rhy missed his old guards, Gen and Parrish. Missed their humor and their casual banter and the way he could make them forget that he was a prince. And sometimes, the way they could make
him
forget, too.

Don’t be contrary
, thought Rhy.
You cannot be the symbol of power and an ordinary man at the same time. You have to choose. Choose right.

The balcony suddenly felt crowded. Rhy freed the blueprints from the table and retreated into the warmth of his chambers. He dumped the papers on a sofa, and he was crossing to the sideboard for a stronger drink when he noticed the letter sitting on the table. How long had it been there?

Rhy’s gaze flicked to his guards. Vis was standing by the dark wood doors, busying himself with a loose thread on his cape. Tolners was still on the balcony, looking down at the tournament construction with a faint crease between his brows.

Rhy took up the paper and unfolded it. The message scrawled in small black script wasn’t in English or Arnesian, but Kas-Avnes, a rare border dialect Rhy had been taught several years before.

He’d always had a way with languages, as long as they belonged to men and not magic.

Rhy smiled at the sight of the dialect. As clever as using code, and far less noticeable.

The note read:

Prince Rhy
,

Your servant, elder, and Aven Essen,
Tieren Serense

Rhy smiled and set the note aside as bells chimed through the city, ringing out from the sanctuary itself across the river.

Maybe the steams will prove clarifying.

Rhy clapped his hands, startling the guards.

“Gentlemen,” he said, taking up a robe. “I think I’m in the mood for a bath.”

II

The world beneath the water was warm and still.

Rhy stayed under as long as he could, until his head swam, and his pulse thudded, and his chest began to ache, and then, and only then, he surfaced, filling his lungs with air.

He loved the royal baths, had spent many languorous afternoons—evenings, mornings—in them, but rarely alone. He was used to the laughter of boisterous company echoing off the stones, the playful embrace of a companion, kisses splashing on skin, but today the baths were silent save for the gentle drip of water. His guards stood on either side of the door, and a pair of attendants perched, waiting with pitchers of soap and oil, brushes, robes, and towels while Rhy strode through the waist-high water of the basin.

It took up half the room, a wide, deep pool of polished black rock, its edges trimmed in glass and gold. Light danced across the arched ceilings and the outer wall broken only by high, thin windows filled with colored glass.

The water around him was still sloshing from his ascent, and he splayed his fingers across the surface, waiting for the ripples to smooth again.

It was a game he used to play when he was young, trying to see if he could still the surface of the water. Not with magic, just with patience. Growing up, he’d been even worse at waiting than he was at summoning elements, but these days, he was getting better. He stood in the very center of the bath and slowed his breathing, watched the water go still and smooth as glass. Soon his reflection resolved in its surface, mirror-clear, and Rhy considered his black hair and amber eyes before his gaze invariably drifted down over his brown shoulders to the mark on his chest.

The circles wound together in a way that was both intuitive and foreign. A symbol of death and life. He focused and became aware of the pulse in his ears, the echo of Kell’s own, both beats growing louder and louder, until Rhy expected the sound to ruin the glassy stillness of the water.

A subtle aura of peace broke the mounting pulse.

“Your Highness,” said Vis from his place at the door. “You have a—”

“Let him pass,” said the prince, his back to the guard. He closed his eyes and listened to the hushed tread of bare feet, the whisper of robes against stone: quiet, and yet loud enough to drown out his brother’s heart.

“Good afternoon, Prince Rhy.” The
Aven Essen’s
voice was a low thrum, softer than the king’s but just as strong. Sonorous.

Rhy turned in a slow circle to face the priest, a smile alighting on his face. “Tieren. What a pleasant surprise.”

The head priest of the London Sanctuary was not a large man, but his white robes hardly swallowed him. If anything, he grew to fill them, the fabric swishing faintly around him, even when he stood still. The air in the room changed with his presence, a calm settling over everything like snow. Which was good, because it counteracted the visible discomfort most seemed to feel around the man himself, shying away as if Tieren could see through them, straight past skin and bone to thought and want and soul. Which was probably why Vis was now studying his boots.

The
Aven Essen
was an intimidating figure to most—much like Kell, Rhy supposed—but to him, Master Serense had always been
Tieren.

“If this is a bad time …” the priest began, folding his hands into his sleeves.

“Not at all,” said Rhy, ascending the glass stairs that lined the bath on every side. He could feel the eyes in the room drift to his chest: not only the symbol seared into the bronze skin, but the scar between his ribs, where his knife—Astrid’s knife—had gone in. But before the cool air could settle or the eyes could linger, an attendant was there, draping him in a plush red robe. “Please leave us,” he said, addressing the rest of the room. The attendants instantly began to withdraw, but the guard lingered. “You too, Vis.”

“Prince Rhy,” he began, “I’m not supposed to …”

“It’s all right,” said Rhy drolly. “I don’t think the
Aven Essen
means me any harm.”

Tieren’s silver brows inched up a fraction. “That remains to be seen,” said the priest evenly.

Vis was halfway through a step back, but stopped again at the words. Rhy sighed. Ever since the Black Night, the royal guards had been given strict instructions when it came to their kingdom’s heir. And its
Antari.
He didn’t know the exact words his father had used, but he was fairly sure they included
don’t let them
and
out of your sight
and possibly
on pain of death.

“Vis,” he said slowly, trying to summon a semblance of his father’s stony command. “You insult me, and the head priest, with your enduring presence. There is one door in and out of this room. Stand on the other side with Tolners, and
guard it
.”

The impression must have been convincing, because Vis nodded and reluctantly withdrew.

Tieren lowered himself onto a broad stone bench against the wall, his white robes pooling around him, and Rhy came to sit beside him, slumping back against the stones.

“Not much humor in this bunch,” said Tieren when they were alone.

“None at all,” complained Rhy, rolling his shoulders. “I swear, sincerity is its own form of punishment.”

“The tournament preparations are coming along?”

“Indeed,” said Rhy. “The arenas are almost ready, and the empire tents are positively decadent. I almost envy the magicians.”

“Please tell me
you’re
not thinking of competing, too.”

“After all the trouble Kell went to, to keep me alive? That would be sore thanks.”

The smallest frown formed between Tieren’s eyes. On anyone else it would have been imperceptible, but on the
Aven Essen’s
calm face, it registered as discontent (though he claimed that Kell and Rhy were the only ones who managed to draw out that particular forehead crease).

“Speaking of Kell …” said Rhy.

Tieren’s gaze sharpened. “Have you reconsidered?”

“Did you really think I would?” “A man can hope.”

Rhy shook his head. “Anything we should be worried about?”

“Besides your own foolish plans? I don’t believe so.”

“And the helmet?”

“It will be ready.” The
Aven Essen
closed his eyes. “I’m getting too old for subterfuge.”

“He needs this, Tieren,” pressed Rhy. And then, with a coy smile, “How old
are
you?”

“Old enough,” answered Tieren. “Why?” One eye opened. “Are my grey hairs showing?”

Rhy smiled. Tieren’s head had been silver for as long as he could remember. Rhy loved the old man, and he suspected that, against Tieren’s better judgment, he loved Rhy, too. As the
Aven Essen
, he was the protector of the city, a gifted healer, and a very close friend to the crown. He’d mentored Kell as he came into his powers, and nursed Rhy back to health whenever he was sick, or when he’d done something foolish and didn’t want to get caught. He and Kell had certainly kept the old man busy over the years.