SpellBreaker: First Ordinance, Book 4 (34 page)

"She told you, didn't she?" I dabbed my eyes.

"She did, but it was something I'd already guessed. Don't fret, my love. Cayetes will not elude us forever. Janis and the other servants are asking after you," he added. "Janis had to be told twice that you're the Avii Queen—with feathers and everything."

"Can I see her? I wish I could hire her. She's such a wonderful cook," I wiped more tears.

"Zaria tells me that there may be a solution to the poison problem, but she will only discuss it with you," Kaldill smiled.

"I love you so much," I wept.

"And I you." Kaldill lifted my face and kissed away remaining tears.

* * *

Ilya

For thousands upon thousands of years, I wandered Karathia, operating a Blacksmith's shop here and there to buy food and lodging. When the time of my actual birth came and went, I realized that a second version of me was out there, learning from the Falchani and playing at being a warrior.

I won't say I didn't learn things through the years, because I did.

Mostly what I learned was what not to do the next time.

Yes, all it would have taken to prevent so many deaths was to go to Blackmantle Manor myself, place Deris and Daris in restraints—I held sufficient power to do so—then take them to Wylend Arden after he became King. Their fate would likely be the same, but so many people wouldn't have died in the interim.

I'd feel responsible for all those deaths, even if they hadn't been pointed out to me by someone few had ever met.

Sitting at a pub table while the Mighty Heart measured you and found you wanting is far from a comfortable experience.

My punishment was this; she'd left me in the past, to work my way forward in time and learn whatever lessons came my way. By this time, I had a far greater respect for Zaria Keppler than anyone could ever imagine.

I sat in the back row of the upper balcony, watching the proceedings as she leveled accusation after accusation against Wylend Arden. She'd known all along he wasn't innocent, as he'd claimed.

If only I'd followed her lead, I wouldn't have been left to wander aimlessly throughout Karathia for millennia, under an assumed name.

She held the Heir's ring
—all the more reason for me to have followed her lead.

Rafe Blacksmith, people called me through the centuries. Time had weathered my face and callused my hands. My parents would no longer recognize the son they'd raised. They'd be ashamed if they knew what I'd done.

"Time to begin again," Corolan announced. There was a gleam in his eye—I could see it, even as far away as I was from him.

* * *

Zaria

"Q'elindi," Rylend Morphis dipped his head to me as I took my place next to the table I'd brought in. We were done with Wylend Arden. Time to turn to Deris and Daris.

"Terrett," I turned my eyes upward to the balcony where he and his brothers sat. "Will you join me, please?"

Terrett rose and made his way to the steps leading downward to the throne room floor.

"It's time," I smiled at him.

"Time for what?" Rylend asked.

"Time for Terrett to open the coffin," I said.

Chapter 19

Terrett

For decades, I served Vardil Cayetes, before he gave me to Marid of Belancour. Marid knew I was mute. He thought me mostly deaf and stupid as well. He paid it no mind that I was listening on the day he spoke the spelled words to seal the coffin belonging to the twins.

Yes, I knew what they were.

Zaria was asking me to reveal that secret—and the other one I kept as well.

Yes, I'd received a gift from one powerful beyond measure. I would use it now.

"When Marid of Belancour spoke the words of the spell he employed to seal this coffin," I croaked, "He cared not that I was listening. My tongue had been removed, you see, by the one my mother sold me to when I was young. I was passed from one criminal to the next, until Marid died and I was imprisoned. There, the unlikeliest person rescued me." I turned toward Quin.

"Sometime afterward, I was given a great gift and told that I would know when the time was right to employ it. I was given speech, and I am using it now."

Turning toward the coffin, I spoke a child's rhyme from Marid's early years. A gasp went through the crowd when the top half of the coffin rose and moved aside on its own.

There, lying in the bottom half on red satin, lay a book and a ring.

"Recognize those things?" Zaria turned toward Deris and Daris. With a wave of her hand, she released their invisible cages, although their restraints remained intact.

"Where are the bones of our father?" Deris hissed.

"Oh, don't pretend you cared for him or anyone else in your family," Zaria snapped. "That won't play to a Q'elindi. Or a Larentii."

She drew herself up to her full height as the Larentii she could become, while her skin became the blue of a summer sky and her hair turned from black to nearly white.

"I don't give a donkey's shit what you think you are," Deris shouted. "I'm the rightful King, here, and I demand justice."

"Shut up," Zaria said pleasantly. Deris' mouth closed as swiftly as a trap on a hare's leg. The blessing came when he couldn't open it again, no matter how hard he tried.

"This book," Zaria
Pulled
it from the coffin with power, "was written by Helsa, who had no claim to the throne. It is invalid." The book flopped open with a rising of dust upon the table next to Zaria. "This ring," the ring followed the book, settling on the book's open pages, "was designed as a new piece, designating the rightful ruler of Karathia. It was designed by Marid of Belancour and paid for by Hegatt Blackmantle. Helsa was supposed to wear it until Deris reached his majority, at which time she would step aside and allow him to take the throne. Now you may speak," Zaria turned to Deris.

"Give it to me. It's mine," he shouted.

"Shall I give it to you?" Zaria lifted the ring and examined it carefully. "Do you wish to place it upon your finger for all here to see?" Zaria extended the ring on the palm of her hand.

"No," Deris whispered, shaking his head.

"Someone told you what happened to your mother, didn't they?" Zaria accused. "You wouldn't place this ring on your finger if King Rylend offered you the throne in exchange. Would you?" Zaria walked closer, still holding the ring.

"Get it away," Deris whispered. "I won't wear it."

"Then why did you demand it? What about the throne, Deris Arden? If King Rylend rises, will you agree to sit on his chair?"

Deris' restraints kept him from stepping back, otherwise he would have. I didn't understand—what would be the harm in sitting the throne?

"Would you care to enlighten these people here, as to why you refuse to sit on King Rylend's throne?" Zaria as a Larentii stood tall and stern as she studied Deris Arden.

"It will kill all except the rightful ruler," Deris hung his head.

"So, you know that, too, do you? And yet you wish to be King of Karathia?"

"I can get another throne," he said, staring at his shoes.

"Karathia deserves a better King than you can ever imagine yourself to be," Zaria huffed. "King Rylend, I am done with these two. They aren't worth the sand in a fisherman's shoes."

* * *

Zaria

King Rylend rose, then, and walked toward me. "Do I have your blessing, then, to keep the throne?" he asked.

"You don't need my blessing," I said. "That blessing came from another."

"Who?" Rylend asked. He thought he was asking a rhetorical question at the beginning. He was about to learn better.

"Father?" I turned toward the crowd. They'd used many names through the years, most recently Gale and Norn. They came forward, allowing their disguises to fall away.

I was told not to interfere with the coup. I was never told not to hand out advice. Part of that advice was to change Horel and Brill's likeness to resemble Wellend and Warlend when the coup happened. The bodies Hegatt and Helsa burned in the palace courtyard were those of their own loyal servants.

Wellend came to me first; he smiled as his arms folded around me. Warlend beamed as the crowd gasped. Wylend Arden whimpered before disappearing from the throne room. His father never approved of his taking the throne. Wellend, the King, gave permission for his brother to hold it in his stead.

"We have our books," Wellend and Warlend's volumes appeared in their hands. "I abdicate to you, Rylend Morphis. However, I have written in here," Wellend tapped the book he held, "that Zaria will keep the Heir's ring. Should there ever be one given the throne who should not have it, Zaria will assert her claim, as is her right."

* * *

Terrett

I turned toward my brothers, who still sat in the balcony above. Far behind them, I saw a man walk toward the exit before he folded space.

Ilya Ironsmith had been here all along. Turning toward Zaria, I saw her stiffen and pull away from Wellend's embrace.

She knew
.

* * *

Le-Ath Veronis

Lissa

"Where are they now?" I asked Erland.

"At the Queen's Palace—they still own it," Erland shrugged. "I read the book for myself—Wellend was quite thorough when he handed everything to Ry. He can't come back and take the throne from him."

"He wouldn't. Didn't you see the look on his face when he hugged Zaria? He knows what she's capable of. She's the one he'd prefer to see on the throne, but he let her decide."

"I still can't believe all those things about Wylend," he muttered.

"You can't?" I squeaked. "He's my fucking grandfather. I feel like an idiot."

"How would it have been—if Zaria hadn't been caught up in the Lyristolyi drug and Wellend had fathered his child? What would Karathia be like with her sitting the throne?"

"I think the entire court would be afraid to look at her wrong," I said.

For the first time in days, Erland laughed.

* * *

Avii Castle

Quin

"My love," Justis' hand stroked my feathers as I settled my head in a comfortable hollow of his shoulder.

"I missed you so much," I whispered. "So many terrible things happened, and I dreamed about your strong arms and black feathers."

"Black feathers?"

"Justis, that is how I see you in my dreams—with the black feathers you were born with. Red is beautiful, but I fell in love with a man whose black feathers stretched wider than any other's."

"Ah. I understand, now," he said. "Liron changed my feathers, so I'd become King."

"Please, never mention him again," I begged. He was silent for a while. "I hear we still have work to do, tracking Vardil Cayetes," Justis said, breaking the silence.

"We do. Zaria says she'll help, but Vardil has V'ili with him," I yawned.

"You never told me what happened to Deris and Daris—or that infernal coffin," Justis said.

"The twins were stripped of power and sent to the prison planet," I said. "The coffin—Zaria separated its particles. I was glad—if it were kept, I'd always see Barc inside it," I whispered. "That is a terrible memory to have."

"Then go to sleep and have good dreams," Justis soothed. "Tomorrow, we will fly over the tour boats and drop flowers if you want."

"That sounds like fun."

It did.

* * *

Lissa

"These are the ones for Quin," Zaria appeared with a crate in her arms.

"Huh?" I rose from my seat behind the desk in my study as she set the crate on my desk. Inside it, thousands of marble-sized glass spheres were stacked neatly.

"These glass spheres—they don't hold power stored by Liron," she said. "They're safe to use."

"For what?" I still didn't understand.

"These are what the Avii Queen used to keep the poison at bay in Fyris," Zaria shrugged wearily. "If you recall," she went on, "Quin has an uncanny ability to call things to her. Think on that."

"I have questions," I said before she turned away to leave.

"What's that?"

"Vardil Cayetes—and V'ili?"

"I said I'd help Quin hunt them. I intend to keep my word. I doubt Ilya will join us. She'll need another guard if she goes out again." I could tell that Ilya's defection troubled her greatly.

"We still haven't found the kidnap victims," my shoulders sagged in response. "We've shut down several drakus seed farms, but there are still people missing, not to mention the growing concern about the reappearance of the Lyristolyi drug."

"V'ili knew where all the victims were," Zaria sighed. "So he and Cayetes have probably moved them. The drugs—we'll find them." She was resolved—determined on those things. "I take it you got no worthwhile information from Deris and Daris before their sentencing?" she asked. She'd left with Wellend and Warlend before Ry and his Council made those decisions.

"Nothing we could use, as it turns out. Whatever they gave us was no longer any good."

"I thought so. Terrett is V'ili's child—as are Gerrett and Morrett. I saw that in Quin. She recognized the kinship in V'ili. Any similarities end there."

"The N'il Mo'erti?" I asked the question I really wanted answered.

"Oh. They're uh—on Tiralia. Where they originated."

"What happened to these? What made them stop working?" I forged ahead. I could see she was tired and beyond depressed, but I needed answers.

"Hegatt bought the plans from a noble on Hraede," Zaria shrugged. "Hegatt carried them with him, even when he slept. He slept soundly one night."

"You altered them, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I gave the machines a command word. All I had to do was say it and they'd deactivate. They can't reactivate unless I say it again. I will never, ever, say it again."

She disappeared before I could call her back.

* * *

Zaria

"Dearest?" Valegar sat on the sand beside me. I'd chosen the seashore on a deserted world to lie naked and soak up sunlight to feed myself. I hadn't felt like eating normal food since the hearings.