Sword of Shadows (14 page)

“My Lord King.” Corey stepped forward, eyes fixed upon the girl, his tone subdued yet assertive. “If you would allow me, I know an invocation that may calm her.”

Akmael nodded his consent. Corey approached the girl, set one palm upon her forehead and murmured a quiet spell. Ghemena ceased thrashing and closed her eyes, legs buckling beneath her. Corey caught the child, removed his cloak, and wrapped it around her slight figure.

“She is overwrought,” he said, “traumatized by whatever has happened and desperate to find the maga. I suggest we ask no more questions of her until she is rested and has had some proper food.”

How long will that be?

Akmael studied the jewel of his mother, cradled in the palm of his hand. He could be with Eolyn in a moment, in the space of a single breath.

“My Lord King, if I may ask,” Corey said quietly. “What is that device?”

“It was crafted by Queen Briana. It can to take me to Eolyn.”

“Just as it took the child?”

“Perhaps she did not invoke the spell correctly.”

“If Maga Eolyn entrusted her with this magic, she must have been certain the child would use it as intended. There is a reason it brought her to us instead, though I hesitate to guess what that reason might be.”

Corey’s voice broke momentarily, an odd contrast to his otherwise imperturbable demeanor. Akmael noted the tension around the mage’s eyes and realized that he, too, feared the worst.

“Until we understand what has befallen Moehn,” Corey said, “it is too great a risk, my Lord King, for you to try to find her alone.”

Sage words, yet unacceptable. Akmael closed a fist around his mother’s heirloom.

A single breath
.
A short spell.

Corey stepped close. “My Lord King, if we are to aid Maga Eolyn, we must first understand what she faces. I will take the girl back to the keep, look after her, and question her when she awakes. By the time you return with the ambassador of Roenfyn, we will have the answers we need in order to act.”

Akmael studied his cousin’s face. Though they were bound by the blood of East Selen, Corey was not what Akmael would call a trustworthy man. The mage was loyal only to his own interests, at times as difficult to decipher as a maga’s heart.

Still, Corey’s assistance had proven invaluable in the defeat of Ernan’s rebellion, and in truth, the mage had not yet failed to put his knowledge to the King’s service. Most importantly, he was the only person among Akmael’s subjects who valued Eolyn’s life above all else. If the girl carried any knowledge pertinent to Eolyn’s whereabouts, Corey would find it.

“Very well,” Akmael decided. “The girl is in your care. Report to me as soon as we arrive at the castle.”

Corey nodded.

Akmael returned to his steed, only to find his Queen doubled over on her brown mare, breath coming in short gasps. He rushed to Taesara’s side and took her hand. Her delicate fingers dug into his gloves like the talons of a hawk.

“Oh, my beloved King.” She sought his eyes, tears spilling onto pallid cheeks. “My Liege…forgive me.”

Eyes rolling back into her head, Taesara slipped from the saddle and fell into his arms.

Chapter Thirteen

Mechnes could not contain his fury
at the child’s escape. He sent immediate word to the San’iloman, still about a day’s march from Moehn with the rest of their army.

Rishona’s arrival could not come soon enough. Mechnes hungered for their untamed nights, the delirium of her passion, the heady aroma of her skin flushed and damp from exertion.

The vision of Rishona naked and ravenous drove the Syrnte prince to such distraction that he spent his need on the servant Pashnari, even as he punished the woman for letting the child run free. It was a satisfying release achieved through vicious blows and brutal thrusts, evoking wails of remorse and pleas for mercy.

When he finished with Pashnari, Mechnes summoned the guards and demanded they bring Mistress Adiana.

After a moment of thought he added, “Fetch one of those waifs that were caught at the school, as well. Whichever one has the sweetest face. Secure her in the usual manner. I want her out of sight, but ready to appear on my signal.”

Mechnes paced the pavilion, restless and impatient. At times even the best of his men seemed slow at their task. When he realized Pashnari had not moved from where he had left her, crumpled and shivering on the floor, he kicked her in the ribs.

“Get up,” he growled. “Make yourself presentable. I may yet have use for you.”

Pashnari struggled to her feet, shoulders bent and eyes downcast. She did her best to smooth her torn robes and disheveled hair.

“Over there,” Mechnes nodded to a nearby corner. “Wait until I call for you.”

Bruised and repentant, Pashnari obeyed in silence.

Still his guards did not return.

Mechnes drummed his fingers against the polished wood table and opened one of several tomes brought by his men from the maga’s
Aekelahr
. It was a heavy volume, beautiful in script and illustrations, written in a language unrecognizable to him. He reached for another, then another, and found they all contained the same mysterious calligraphy.

“Curse it all,” he muttered. “What use are these if we cannot read them?”

At last the guards appeared with the woman, Adiana. Mechnes did not acknowledge her arrival, choosing instead to give the appearance of studying the books with idle patience while he assessed her out of the corner of his eye.

She was a pretty one, this Adiana, though her fair face was swollen and discolored from the admonishment he had given her the previous night. Her body was well-proportioned, her hair as fine as the roots of a Silky Orchid, its shade almost as pale and luminous.

As he watched, she assumed a peculiar stance, setting her feet slightly apart, lowering her head and closing her eyes. She reminded him of the virgin priestesses of Eirayna, attempting their futile communion with the Gods just before his men had taken them all.

The memory brought a smile to his lips.

Mechnes approached the prisoner, keeping his footsteps quiet so as not to disturb her trance. He stopped a couple paces away. The steady rhythm of Adiana shallow breath ignited something unexpected inside of him, a sense of tranquility.

His pulse slowed, his gaze lingered on those dark lashes resting against pale cheeks. Without warning she opened her eyes, blue as the Sea of Rabeln and calm as its most quiet shores. Then the woman focused on him, and dread chased away her composure.

The moment brought Mechnes a familiar surge of satisfaction. “Did you not sleep well last night, Mistress Adiana?”

The woman averted her gaze. He noted the tremor in her hands, and imagined her shivering beneath his weight.

“Or perhaps my company has already bored you? It’s not every day I have a prisoner fall asleep on her feet.”

“I slept well enough, Prince Mechnes,” she murmured. “May I see the children now?”

“No you may not. Though it is a fine coincidence you should mention them. I have brought you here to inform you that they are quite well.”

“Well?” Adiana looked at him. Doubt clouded those striking eyes. “How can they be well when you left them—”

“I made no claims as to the fate of your precious waifs last night, Mistress Adiana. It was you who presumed. Though I confess, I enjoyed playing with your presumption.”

“And you do not play with me now? How am I to know when you tell the truth and when you do not?”

“You cannot know.” He strode back to the table and ran his fingers over the leather bindings of the tomes, enjoying the scent of Adiana’s agitation. “And yet you still face a choice. If I’m lying, the girls are beyond your aid. Nothing you do or say will change that. If I’m telling the truth, then their well-being is in your hands. Your exquisite hands, Mistress Adiana. And that is something for you to keep in mind.”

The woman’s brow furrowed.

“Come.” He beckoned her. “We have much to talk about.”

She glanced around the pavilion, first at his guards, then at Pashnari. When at last she approached, it was with timid steps. He drew her close, one hand upon the small of her back, and opened a tome in front of her.

“What language is this?” he asked.

“It is a sacred script of the Old Orders.”

There was a refreshing aroma about her, a smell of primrose and summer winds. “Can you read it?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Why then do you value it?”

“I…I don’t understand, Prince Mechnes.”

“You chose to save these books from the fire, and perhaps forfeited your own escape because of it. Why?”

“I know what they mean…what they meant to Eolyn.”

As soft as the finest silk, her hair. Like a feather to his touch.

“What do they mean to her?” he asked.

She clenched her jaw and managed an admirable look of defiance. “Why do you want to know?”

“You are not the one to be asking questions. Answer me, Mistress Adiana, and tell me the truth, as I know many ways to make you suffer if you don’t.”

Adiana bit her lip. An image slipped from her mind into his awareness: three girls frightened and alone.

Mechnes drew a quiet breath and stepped closer, seeking to strengthen the connection.

“She valued them because they are all that is left,” Adiana said. “Most of the annals of the magas were burned in the purges under Kedehen. Only three small collections remain, one in the royal library, another in East Selen, and this one that belonged to Eolyn.”

“I see. Can her students read it?”

Adiana shook her head. “Catarina and Tasha joined us last fall. Ghemena has been with us longer, but she is still very young. They were all just learning to read when your men put an end to everything. They might be able to interpret some of it, but it would be risky to have them try.”

“Why?”

“If the spells are pronounced incorrectly or invoked without proper focus, anything could happen.”

Mechnes stood behind her now, close enough to feel the heat rising from her back. He touched her wrist, delighting in her rapid pulse, and let his breath fall upon her ear. “Where is the maga hiding?”

“She’s not hiding.” The calm in Adiana’s voice was unexpected. The tenuous connection he had just forged with her mind snapped. “She is dead. Your men saw to that last night.”

Mechnes withdrew, chuckling to mask his disappointment. “You are a poor liar, Mistress Adiana.”

He circled the table to face her and gestured to a nearby chair. “Do you know this instrument?”

Adiana frowned as her gaze settled on the lute. “Yes.”

“Play it for me.”

She blinked and took a step backwards.

“I would hear your music before we continue our conversation.”

“Why?”

He let go a patient breath. “Play for me. I will not ask again.”

She walked over to the chair, picked up the lute, and ran her hands over its curved back and polished neck.

There was grace in her movement, Mechnes observed. A sense of self-assurance that set her apart from peasants but did not carry the haughty overtones so often found in women of nobility.

A merchant’s daughter
, he concluded.
Or something of that sort.

He wondered how a woman of her station could have succumbed to the fate she confessed last night. It was difficult to imagine this Mistress Adiana as a whore on the piers of Selkynsen, although the thought was not unpleasant.

Adiana settled in the chair, wincing in her shoulder as she found a position to sustain the lute. She reached for the pegs, but the strings were perfectly tuned. Mechnes had seen to that. Indeed, he had chosen a superior instrument for her. The soundboard was of pale spruce polished to a golden sheen, the rose at its center intricately carved. The back was crafted from dark cherry wood and the neck finished with an ebony veneer.

Closing her eyes, Adiana drew a long shallow breath, asking no melody of the lute just yet, but rather playing one note at a time so that the resonance of each was felt.

“It’s a lovely instrument,” she murmured. “Where did you find it?”

It pleased him to hear her say that. “The Syrnte have a great fondness for music. I travel with musicians wherever I go.”

Adiana nodded, and another image slipped into his awareness: a humble room, filled with instruments gathered from many countries. Her place of joy and intimacy, consumed in its entirety by flames.

The vision took him aback. So she had abandoned her own treasures attempting to save the maga’s books. It was the second time in as many meetings this woman’s selflessness had given him pause.

“I’ve worked with Syrnte musicians,” she said. “They were fine artists, flawless in their technique. Among the best I’ve ever played with.”

“Perhaps you will play with them again.”

She let go a harsh laugh. “You’ve toyed with me quite enough, Prince Mechnes. Do not torment me in this.” She lifted her countenance and met his gaze with a fine mix of courage and resignation. “What shall I play for you?”

Mechnes took a seat in front of her and signaled the guards to stand on either side of Adiana. “Whatever your heart desires.”

The woman turned her focus toward the lute. Music rose through her body, emerged upon her fingers, and filled the room with subtle protest.

Mechnes closed his eyes, allowing the melody to carry him on haunting waves. It washed him up on the shores of her resentful heart, where she beat against the walls of an invisible prison, the limitations of her sex, the confines of her vulnerability.

The notes twisted away from each other, then wove back together, tightening their embrace even as they strained to diverge once again, breaking into a sharp crescendo, a dance of war upon the strings, the rhythm against the soundboard like a distant drum, the rumble of thunder from a storm not yet fully manifest.

Three times she took the melody to its summit, three times she descended from that peak, and on the third she let the music fade, fingers trembling as the melody abandoned her, face contorted in anguish, eyes damp with the fear and impending loss.

She faltered on a discordant note and stopped altogether. 

Adiana wrapped her arms around the instrument and clutched it tightly to her chest, as if it were a lost child returned to her. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

Disappointment needled Mechnes’s sense of satisfaction. He saw now that it would not be necessary to mangle those children Rishona so dearly wanted whole. Crippling this woman’s hands would be more than sufficient for his needs.

“Do you also sing, Adiana?”

She wiped away the tears. Her breath came in short shallow gasps. Her cheek was pressed tight against the lute’s dark neck. “I cannot draw enough air. I took a fall last night and my ribs are badly bruised.”

“I see. But you do sing?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I have heard it said that I sing well.”

“What a pity.” He spoke with sincerity. “I would have liked to have heard you sing while playing.”

At Mechnes signal, one of the guards wrested the lute from her embrace.

“No!” she cried and lunged after it, but the other guard caught the woman and immobilized her as Mechnes approached.

The Syrnte commander took one of Adiana’s hands and turned it palm upward. He traced each finger, admiring their length and elegance. “Where is Maga Eolyn?”

“She’s dead.”

“You lie, Mistress Adiana.” Mechnes bent one of her fingers back, just short of the breaking point.

Her cry was loud, satisfactory in its desperation.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

Mechnes struck her full in the face. A sob broke through Adiana’s bloodied lips. He thrust his hand under her chin, putting pressure on her throat until he felt the staccato beat of her terrified pulse. “Do you understand what it is I intend to take from you, Mistress Adiana?”

“I tell you the truth, Prince Mechnes,” she gasped. “I do not know.”

“Pashnari.” He spoke without raising his voice.

In a moment, the servant was at his side, head bowed and contrite.