Lament (Scars of the Sundering Book 2) (11 page)

“That is most improper.”

“The drak has not passed the
Initiate Trials.”

“Even the Archmage has not the
authority to advance prospective students past the ranks of initiate and
novice.”

Vilkan held up his hand and
scowled. “Fine! I don’t have time for this squabbling right now. Enter her into
the rolls as an initiate.”

The Violet Wizard tilted his head
toward Delilah. “What is your name, Drak?”

Delilah opened her mouth to
reply, but she was interrupted when Archmage Vilkan held up his hand. “She has
no name here. She is ‘Drak’ until she passes the Initiate Trials. Arrange for
her quarters and her beige robes.”

“It shall be done.” The Violet
Wizard bowed his head.

“Be gone, Drak. Your instruction
will begin tomorrow.”

Delilah stared at the three
wizards, her mouth moving in silent protest.
I could do it. I could destroy
them all
. In the periphery of her vision, she saw the eyes of the lizard
skull topping her staff glow blue, and she tensed her legs.

Then, she relaxed. Her shoulders
slumped. Delilah released the well of arcane energy she gathered, spun on her
heels, and ran out of the Court of Wizardry. She ran past the old seneschal and
into the courtyard. Pancras and the Golden Slayer stood beneath the Blood Oak.

“He made me an initiate,
Pancras!” Delilah spat the words, as if expelling them from her body would undo
the archmage’s decree. “Me? An initiate? It’s an outrage!”

Pancras rubbed his forehead. “She
should go with me, you know. She and her brother. We left from Drak-Anor
together, and we should stay together.”

The Golden Slayer touched
Pancras’s arm and looked up at him. “She can’t. If she leaves now, she’ll be
branded a renegade.”

Delilah wanted to blast all of
them into oblivion. She refrained from flinging her staff into the grass, but
the throbbing in her head made her want to break something, anything. “I didn’t
ask for this. I learned my magic on my own. I don’t need you. I don’t need him!
I know more than most of the people in this damned school.”

“Delilah—” Pancras reached for
her.

The drak sorceress batted his
hand away. “I’m talking about her, the golden smoothskin, and that bastard in
there. Not you, Pancras.” She dropped her staff and hugged his leg.

Pancras pulled her away, kneeling
to return her hug. “We’ll figure something out.”

The human cleared her throat.
“There is a solution, if you’re patient.”

Delilah didn’t want to hear from
the Golden Slayer.

“I don’t think she’ll want to
suffer his instruction long enough to earn autonomy.”

“Not that. You are the defenses
master at the Arcane University in Vlorey. You can request her as your
apprentice. Or as your assistant. Anything, really. She surely will have passed
the Initiate Trials by the time we reach Vlorey, Possibly even the Novice
Trials.”

“That’s great.”

Delilah pulled herself away from
Pancras and turned her head toward the tall human. “It can’t be that easy.”

The Golden Slayer knelt to bring
herself closer to Delilah’s eye level. “As I said, it requires patience.
Pancras cannot make such a request until he has taken up his office.”

“Hey do dilly, a minotaur and a
drak! Can it be? Might it be the mages are under attack?” A human with skin
like a moonless night danced by, untold dangling bells jingling.

Not a human… a fiendling.
Delilah
glowered at the annoying creature as she danced around the Golden Slayer.

“What say you, Slayer? Doth this
pair need slaying?”

“Not now, Qaliah.” Gisella glared
at the fiendling.

“Oh, shhh.” The fiendling
crouched down. “Serious business. Look, am I getting paid so I can leave this
hellhole?”

Gisella swallowed, closed her
eyes for a moment, and then smiled. “Yes, Qaliah. Probably tomorrow. You, of
all people, should know no one can force the archmage to do anything. Now,
please.”

“I know you forced him once.”
Qaliah laid her finger alongside her nose and winked. “Or should I say, kept
him from forcing you, eh?” The fiendling giggled, leapt up, and danced off to
annoy a passing group of older students.

Delilah retrieved her staff. “Can
I blast her? I’m pretty sure I can make it look like an accident.”

“We’re staying at the Granite
Anvil. Her brother is there, as are a few of our friends. May we go put our
affairs in order?” Pancras stood, brushing the dirt off his robes.

“Certainly. Someone will be along
with instructions for the drak. Delilah, right?”

Delilah snorted. “Not according
to Manless. He’s calling me ‘Drak’ until I pass the Initiate Trials.”

Pancras chuckled. “I remember
those. Don’t worry. You can do those in your sleep.”

The Golden Slayer remained at
Delilah’s level. “I will give you some advice regarding Archmage Vilkan: don’t
be too eager to please him. He will take advantage of it, but neither should
you ignore him or argue with his requests. He’s busy and will likely not notice
if you take your time to do things properly. Also, do not call him Manless. If
he hears you…” Gisella drew her finger across her throat.

Delilah’s lips curled, and she
tugged on Pancras’s sleeve. “Let’s go. We need to come up with a plan.” She
wasn’t going to stand for this. Between her and Pancras, they would figure out
a solution and flee Muncifer—never to return.

* * *

Gisella returned to her quarters
after seeing the minotaur and drak to the Arcane University’s gate. She
shuffled though the papers on her desk, reports from various messengers. Up
north from Maritropa and Celtangate, they submitted similar tales: dread omens,
restless dead, and a sense of foreboding. She found it curious the dead didn’t
attack anyone in the same cities in which they had been buried, but rather,
they arose and left their eternal resting places, as if they decided they no
longer wanted to be buried there.

Most narratives did not specify
in which direction the dead marched, but those that did all pointed to the same
location: Badon Hill, the site of the last and final defeat of the Lich Queen.

Gisella sat back in her chair and
sighed. She needed to investigate things in Vlorey for herself. She smiled.
Archmage Vilkan had just given her the perfect excuse to leave Muncifer and
travel there. The minotaur’s reaction to the archmage’s spell was odd. He
seemed injured by it, and that was not normal.
You want a slayer to ensure a
geas works on this minotaur? I thought you’d never ask
.

Archmage Vilkan rarely allowed
Gisella to venture far from Muncifer. He strongly believed in keeping those
close who, at some point, had opposed him. Gisella’s reasons for wanting to go to
Vlorey to investigate these Lich Queen rumors were personal and unrelated to
her slayer duties.
Although, if the Lich Queen has returned, she will be a
renegade by default.

She straightened the stack of
reports and grabbed her spear. If her timing was right, she would catch the
Court of Wizardry before it adjourned for the morning. She turned into the
courtyard and dashed toward the court building. Spotting Qaliah as she pestered
some novices, Gisella tilted her head toward the walkway and hoped the fiendling
wouldn’t notice her. She didn’t dislike Qaliah, but it was not her
responsibility to solve an indentured servant’s problems for her.

Dolios is with me.
The
archmage and the two high wizards were still in session. Seneschal Lyov shook
his head as she passed. “They’re adjourned. They’re not going to like this.”

Gisella grinned as she threw open
the door. “It’s their fault for not leaving immediately.”

She let the door shut before
crossing the room to stand before Archmage Vilkan. The drawn lips and steel
gaze were enough to make his feelings on last-minute business obvious. “I found
a slayer to accompany the minotaur Pancras to Vlorey.”

He lifted his hand, palm up. “So?
Assign them.”

Gisella allowed a slight smile to
crease her lips. “The Golden Slayer will accompany him.”

Archmage Vilkan’s face fell.
“What?”

“I have business in Vlorey.
Slayer business. It doesn’t concern the university.”

The Orange and Violet Wizards
regarded each other.

“Unusual.”

“All slayer business is
university business.”

Gisella held up her stack of
reports. “According to the Covenant of the Slain—”

The archmage waved his hand.
“Yes, yes. I’m sure you have everything figured out. However, I forbid it. You
serve me… us. This branch of the Arcane University.”

“Slayers are not bound to
specific branches, only the guild itself.” Gisella cocked her head. “You lack
the authority to keep me here if I have legitimate business elsewhere.”

Archmage Vilkan stood, his lip
quivering. “I am the archmage. I have the ultimate authority in all guild
matters.”

“Archmage authority cannot
supersede the Covenant of the Slain.”

“Archmage duties with respect to
slayers are clearly defined in the
Rose Concordat
.”

The two high wizards eyed
Archmage Vilkan and spoke as one. “She is correct. You do not have the
authority to keep her here.”

“Fine!” The archmage stepped down
from the dais and pushed past Gisella. “Be gone then. Leave with the
necromancer. I will be glad to finally be rid of you.”

He slammed the door, leaving Gisella
alone with the two high wizards. They studied her face.

“He can assign you permanent
duties here.” The Orange Wizard cocked her head.

“But we are not obliged to
indulge his power plays.” The Violet Wizard bowed to her.

“I’ll keep the council informed
of what I find, of course.” Gisella smiled and bowed to the two high wizards.
She hadn’t expected them to take her side, but there were many who felt
Archmage Vilkan was a powder keg and wanted him gone. Helping her leave was a
passive-aggressive show of rebellion she supposed, but she took it. Until his
tirade, she considered passing on the messenger’s report regarding the
archduke’s emissaries. Now, however, she would just pen a quick note to the
Archduke and leave Vilkan out of it.

* * *

“You’re staying?” Kale didn’t
believe his ears. He came close to dropping the puzzle box, so he placed it on
the table and sat on the bed. Delilah leaned on her staff, her tail thrashing
in frustration.

“I don’t have much of a choice,
Kale. They’ll hunt me down if I leave, and I’m not going to be able to get much
of a head start on them.”

When Kale heard the news that
Pancras had to go to Vlorey, he assumed they would all go together.
But if
Deli’s staying here—

The choice was simple in Kale’s
mind. “Then I’m staying too.”

Relief was evident in Delilah’s
slumped shoulders. She pulled her brother into a hug. “I knew you would.”

“You’ll have to be okay with Kali
staying, too, Deli.” Kale pulled away from his sister’s embrace. He gritted his
teeth. Delivering news Delilah didn’t want to hear was always nerve-racking,
and what he was about to say next would likely set her off.

“Fine, whatever, as long as…”
Delilah narrowed her eyes and sniffed the air. “Something’s… different. What is
that?”

Kale swallowed. The butterflies
in his stomach threatened to escape and bring his breakfast with them. “Kali is
my mate, Deli.”

Delilah clutched for the bedpost
as she found the edge of the mattress before crashing to the floor. “What? When
did—?” Her eyes blinked several times in succession, and her breathing became
fast and ragged.

“Last night… well, this morning?”
In Kale’s defense, it was dark and he wasn’t really looking at the stars to
determine what the time was.

Delilah pushed him away and
stood. She threw up her hands, pacing the room. “I’m standing before the
executioner, and meanwhile, my brother’s mounting this—”

“Don’t say anything you’ll
regret, Deli.” Kale grabbed his sister. “She’s family now.” Delilah was always
jealous when anyone paid the least bit of attention to anyone other than her.
He loved his sister, but he wasn’t going to let her bad-mouth his mate.

“Great.” Delilah raised her hand
and then let it drop. “So you’ll be brooding a clutch of eggs while I’m
scrubbing this human’s floor like a beggar desperate for coin. I should’ve
stayed in Drak-Anor.”

Kale wasn’t privy to what
transpired at the Arcane University, but he was familiar with his sister’s
propensity for exaggeration. “Deli, we’ll be here to help you. So what if we
have a clutch of eggs? You know I’ll never abandon you.”

It was true. Kale would give his
life for his sister. He just hoped she would not ask him to choose between her
and Kali. At that moment, Kali entered the room. Delilah’s eyes narrowed, and
Kale detected smoldering she normally reserved for enemies she was about to
destroy. It was a fleeting moment, gone as quickly as it appeared.