Kinshield's Redemption (Book 4) (11 page)

By the time Gavin and his two battler companions finished breaking their fast and started across Ambryce, the sun was fully up. The birds were chattering at each other from the few trees that remained within the city. The cries of merchants gave way to angry shouting and barking dogs as the trio left the market and entered the poor residential district. On the narrow dirt street where the mage lived, people stood in a line that led to the stoop of Jennalia’s small cottage, which wasn’t as ramshackle as Gavin remembered it. Nearly everyone was carrying casseroles, loaves of bread, blocks of cheese, or baskets of fruits and vegetables.

His heart dropped. Had Jennalia died? She’d been an old woman when he met her five or six months earlier, but she’d seemed spry enough, and he hadn’t sensed an illness eating away at her.

“What’s this?” Gavin asked.

“Are you all here to pay your respects?” Daia asked the fellow in the back of the line.

“Just an offering,” one man said. “Miss Jennalia won’t take coins for her spells, so we bring food.”

Gavin smiled, relieved she was well. “How can one tiny, old woman eat so much?”

“She shares with her neighbors, dunce,” shot the next woman in line.

Daia stiffened, but Gavin laughed disarmingly. The woman didn’t know she was addressing the king.

“In turn, they do repairs on her house and run errands for her,” the first man explained. “Who’re we to judge what she does with her payment? We come for her magic, and food’s the only currency she’ll accept.”

“We didn’t count on having to wait in line,” Daia said to him.

“Ever since word spread she enchanted the king’s sword,” the buck said, “everyone comes to beg for enchantments, healing, spells to find love. You name it, they ask for it. She turns away more than she accepts, though.”

“What are you here for?” he asked.

The man held up a gem. Its quality wasn’t nearly as high as the ones in Gavin’s sword, but it might hold a simple spell. “I’m a horse trainer. I’m hoping for a spell to let me talk to the horses in their language.”

“What’re you here for, old man?” the woman asked. “To get your stiffy back?” She cackled.

“That ain’t far from the truth,” he said with a half-snarl. “What about you?”

Her smile vanished behind the shadow that passed over her face. “I been seein’ things lately. Strange images o’ghostly cat people in my room. My grandmother had The Gift, you know. She used to see and talk to the departed. I hope Miss Jennalia can tell me if I have it too.”

Cat people—that sounded like the Elyle. But how could this woman see Elyle? “Tell me about these cat people. When did your visions start?”

“A couple days ago. I only seen ’em twice, but they’re about your height, though more slender, and their skin looks like short fur.” When she saw he was paying close attention and not laughing, she went on, though she leaned in and lowered her voice. “Their faces look like cats, with pointed ears atop their heads, but their eyes are the strangest I ever seen. They change colors.”

Gavin stared at her, both intrigued and alarmed. Her visions of Elyle had started right about the time he removed the Nal Disi from the water. That couldn’t be coincidence.

“Maybe I have The Gift too,” she said, a proud lilt in her voice. “Late bloomer.”

Gavin smiled, though he feared the answer was much more ominous than that.

“Or maybe you’ve got a touch o’madness,” the horse trainer said.

The door to Jennalia’s cottage opened. A woman and child stepped out, smiling and thanking the old mage profusely.

“You are welcome,” Jennalia said in her warbling voice. She was such a tiny thing, no bigger than a six-year-old child, but with a long gray ponytail and eyes that were white with blindness. “Who is next?” She turned directly to Gavin and offered a wide, toothless smile. “Look who is here, and with
vusar
no less. I am honored, my friend. Please come in.”

The people waiting complained loudly that they’d arrived first, but she waved them off. “This is my most important client. He always comes to front of line. Come, come,” Jennalia sang, opening her arms widely and stepping back to let them in.

“Cirang, wait with the horses,” Gavin said.

“Yes, my— my pleasure.”

Gavin didn’t let his and Daia’s disguises fall until Jennalia had closed the door behind them.

Though her eyes were blind, she saw everything well enough with her hidden eye. “Watch out your head,” she said, shuffling past them to the dresser. “Is light bright enough for you?”

The glowing ball of dried grasses wasn’t as bright as the light balls he made, but it was sufficient for such a small cottage. “It’s fine,” he said.

“You are stronger now, more skillful.” She went to the table and sat. “Please sit. I am also glad to see
vusar
return. Perhaps when you are leaving, I will whack your head and steal her for myself.” Jennalia giggled like a child, with her hands covering her nearly toothless mouth.

Gavin laughed politely, as did Daia. “You’d have to stand on a ladder to reach that high,” he said, taking a seat at the table opposite Jennalia.

The old mage cackled. “A ladder. Yes, yes. You tickle my bones. Ah, well, is good to see you again, King. Many changes in you since last time, yes? I am glad for you to follow your path. A ribbon was burned.”

“What does it mean, a ribbon was burned?” Daia asked, taking a seat at the table between Gavin and Jennalia.

“It is means you have paid debt owed by your soul. That is not why you are come. How I can help you today?”

He wasn’t sure he truly believed this business about debts, but she did have one right—his debt to King Arek. It was the only debt of the soul that he knew about, and he’d paid it back by becoming king. “How long have you been using magic?” he asked. “Does it pain you?”

“I’ve been using magic since I was a small child,” Jennalia said. “The cost is quite high, as you can see.”

“I beg your pardon?” Daia asked.

“It’s made you blind?” he asked.

“Yes, and aged. I probably look about one hundred years old to you. That’s what using magic for so long does.”

“Sorry, what was that?” Daia asked. “I can’t understand you.”

“I’ve only had magic power for about a year,” Gavin said. “What’s it going to do to me?”

“Gavin, do you understand her?” Daia asked.

“Yeh,” he said in a questioning drawl. “Didn’t you?”

“Not a word.”

Jennalia giggled. “I was speaking my native language of Farthan. You use magic to understand me.”

“Oh, yeh. My ears tell me you’re speaking in Farthan, but in my head, I understand you as if you’re talking my own language.”

“Forgive me,
vusar
,” she said in the common tongue. “It is work to speak your language. I can explain better his questions in Farthan.”

Daia sighed and crossed her arms. “It’s fine.”

“Having the power to do magic is itself benign,” Jennalia explained, turning back to Gavin. “Using magic has a cost. Magic is fueled by the essence, but essence is like a bucket that must always be full. When you scoop out a cup, it refills itself from the physical body. Your muscles become weakened, your skin shrivels, your eyesight and hearing fade, teeth loosen, bones grow brittle. Magic ages you.”

Gavin nodded and then remembered that she couldn’t see him. “I get a headache and bloody nose from it. The harder the magic is to do, the more it hurts. Sometimes I faint.”

“That’s right. You spend your essence like money for every spell you cast, and it refills itself by drawing from your body. It takes its toll in different ways, depending on the complexity and your skill. Simple spells like the light balls cost very little, but they do have a price. Spells like healing and fighting with magic age you the most. It has taken only thirty years for me to age so many years.”

“You’re only thirty years old?”

“Thirty six. I lost my chance to have a child when I was only seventeen years old, and I wasn’t yet betrothed. As a man, you can continue to father children as you age, but as a woman...” She shook her head regretfully. “I didn’t realize until it was too late. I didn’t have anyone to explain these things to me.”

Gavin let that sink in a moment. He was slowly killing himself with every spell he cast, even the simple ones such as creating light balls and freezing water. “I have something I want you to see.” He shrugged out of his knapsack and pulled out the Nal Disi.

“Goodness! What do you have here?” Jennalia asked. “Something amazing and powerful.”

“Can you see it?” He set it on the table.

“Oh, yes, I see it. It can save you from my fate. You’re fortunate, indeed, King.”

“You mean the aging?” Gavin asked.

“Yes, yes. Now,” Jennalia said, “let me have a look at that beauty.”

Seen with his eyes, it was a plain, white crystal, but to his hidden eye, it glowed brilliantly from within, sparkling in all colors of the rainbow.

The mage put her hands on the crystal, feeling its edges and angles. To his surprise, she didn’t pull back in shock as Daia and Cirang had. “It contains pure, strong essence. It is equal parts zhi and kho. Did you put it in there?”

“No, not really.” He quickly recounted the events of the previous couple days, explaining how he’d pulled the leaking essence back into the gem.

“Where did it come from, this crystal?”

Gavin told her the story of how the two Elyle tried to merge their essence but failed, becoming trapped within the crystal. “I talk to them, ask questions. They help me by telling me what they know.”

“They? It is the essence of more than one being?” Jennalia asked.

“Two o’them. I call them the Guardians.”

“No wonder it is so strong. I wish I’d found this gem myself when I was young. I would still be beautiful and have all the men clamoring for my hand.” She laughed her child-like laugh behind her hands. “Oh, but this is a marvel.”

“Are you saying I can use the essence in this gemstone to cast magic and spare my own?”

“Yes, precisely so. It’s like having free magic.”

“No, Emtor,” the Guardians said, fading into view. “You must not. The essence is ours.”

Jennalia gasped, directing her gaze more or less at the Guardians’ ghostly figures. “The stork’s stolen song! The essence speaks. What do they say?”

“You hear them? They claim the essence as their own.”

“Bah!” she said. “They aren’t alive.”

“That’s true, but they have consciousness, which means they’re not dead either.”

“You harm no one by using their essence. It has no living body from which to replenish itself, and so the essence will gradually diminish as you use it, but it is strong. It is probably enough to use for the rest of your life, depending on how much magic you do, of course. I’ll teach you to use it. It is simple to do.”

“The Guardians forbid me to use it that way,” he told her.

“King, you must remember that they have no further need of it, but it can save you. After so many years without a king, this country deserves to see you live a long and healthy life and father many children to carry on your legacy.”

She had a point. The Guardians had no living flesh to sacrifice. Was it immoral to use the essence of beings that were already dead and buried? The Guardians’ spirits would eventually be freed to pursue their next lives. He would be doing them a service. Still, the notion made him uncomfortable. Until he convinced them to let him use their essence, he had to respect their wishes.

Jennalia’s face opened into an O, and her eyes widened. With one bony hand pressed to her heart, she gasped. “No, it cannot be.” Her white eyes quivered a moment, and she put up both hands, palms out, and pushed.

“What’s wrong?” Gavin asked.

“I refused it. It is gone now.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. Had the Guardians threatened her with illusion? “Refused it? How?”

“The Guardians, as you call them, created an illusion to intimidate me. By refusing it, I canceled its effect.”

“Would you teach me how to refuse their illusions too?” he asked, excited. If they couldn’t frighten him with illusion, they would have no power against him.

Jennalia gave him a gummy smile. “Yes, happily. Then you can use their essence to perform magic without consequence.”

Chapter 13

Feanna Kinshield sighed again as she shifted on the hard, narrow seat of the carriage. She’d ridden on saddles more comfortable than this, and she was the bloody queen. She was supposed to be living a life of luxury, and sitting on a sore arse day after day was a far cry from her due.

“Are we almost there?” she asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lilalian answered, riding beside the carriage. “We’ll reach Saliria in a few hours, and Tern is only another six from there. Do you want to stop for a rest?”

“Heavens no! I’m about to die of boredom. Talk to me, Lila. Tell me about your time with Ravenkind, when you did his bidding.” Feanna plumped the seat cushion under her arse, ready to hear a captivating tale.

“Those were the darkest days of my life, and I’ve tried to put them behind me.”