The Black Mage: Candidate (15 page)

“I am.” I grabbed my scabbard and swung open the door. “If Darren asks, tell him I am outside the soldiers barracks. But tell him I want to be alone.”

****

Paige found me an hour later drilling myself in the soldier’s arena to the east of the palace wall. I was fighting the flurry of cold with my blade, cutting a swathe through falling snow and pretending it was the Pythians instead. My breath came out staggered and hot, but I kept swinging and swinging until she finally dragged me away.

My guard pried the blade right out of my hands and tossed it to the frozen ground, handing me her flask. I took a long swig while she waited. And then another. I drank the entire container without even emitting a gasp as the searing contents tore a hole through my chest. Blood started to move and my fingers burned as they tingled, the warmth slowly working itself back to my limbs.

Paige studied my hands. “You should have worn gloves, my lady.”

“Did Darren send you?”

“He did.”

“Do you know what it is like to feel powerless?”

She didn’t bother to reply.

“I’m powerless. They summoned me here to help win the Pythians’ favor. Me. A lowborn.” I hacked back a cough. “Lowborns can’t lie. Did you know that?”

“I’m a lowborn,” the knight scoffed. “I can lie.”

“Well I can’t. I mean…I can lie. But not well. Duke Cassius told me he could read the truth all over my face. I’m a truth-teller.” I wobbled and then acquiesced as Paige led me back to lean against the barracks’ fence. “And I couldn’t lie and tell him to pick Blayne. He wanted me to give him a reason and I couldn’t. He-he hurt Ella. And—and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.”

“You don’t trust the crown prince. So why are you trying to defend him?” Paige gave me a hard look. “Clearly the Pythian duke knows you are lying. You should try a different angle.”

“Like pleading for our country? Begging for our people?” I choked back a laugh. “He doesn’t care. They are toying with us, Paige.”

She chewed her lip. I suspected she and the rest of the palace staff had already heard the rumors.

“They play to win.”

“Perhaps you need to show them what they’ll lose.”

“How is that any different? They lose what cannot be won.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Caltoth can give them more than Jerar ever could.” I let her lead me back toward the palace, anger fading to cold. I was shivering and hot. I needed another searing bath, and then the chill of my bed. I needed everything and I needed nothing. I felt despair seeping its way back into the pit of my stomach.

“Thank you, Paige,” I mumbled.

She clapped my back as she handed me off to Sofia and Gemma.

There was nothing else to be said.

****

The final evening of the Pythians and my visit was spent in a somber silence.

Our attempt at negotiation had failed. Darren and Blayne no longer feigned pleasantries as the night dragged on. The king didn’t bother to eat the meal in front of him—his white beard was stained coppery red along the rim, and with every wine that was brought his eyes grew the icy blue of a storm. I kept waiting for the royal family to break, but the king and his two sons were well trained in the art of restraint.

Much more than I.

The Crown’s advisors chattered the longest, but I could feel them growing quieter and quieter as the evening wore on. I was pushing mutton around on my plate, unable to stomach another bite with the knowledge that this man could reap the best of our harvest, drink our wine, and enjoy our hospitality all the while knowing he was sentencing the people he saw—and their kinsmen—to death. For the price of wealth. For the price of Caltothian rubies.

For a couple of sparkling red gems he was willing to watch us burn.

The Pythians were monsters.

“Well, hasn’t this been just pleasant.” The duke cleared his throat loudly, and held his goblet to toast the king with his other in flourish. “A shame, truly, that we couldn’t—”

An unsuspecting maid scurried past the ambassador and caught her sleeve against his hand. Giant clumps of gravy coated his chair.

“Lucius, are your servants truly this daft?”

As the girl scrambled to apologize the duke began to tirade over the cost of his Borean silk and the incompetence of servants. His complaint was met with an outbreak of service. Servants scrambled to blot out the gravy as the maid fled the room.

I watched the whole scene play out with an invisible grip on my throat. I wanted to say something,
anything,
but it wasn’t my place. The king hadn’t even allowed my presence during the week’s talks. “
You are ornamental, nothing more
.” The tutors had repeated the reminder to me endlessly. “
Your role is to smile at your betrothed and give the Pythians a reason to believe in happy endings. Convince them their crown princess can have the same with Prince Blayne.”
I was no one and it was taking every bit of resolve to keep the other Ryiah—the restless, reckless Ryiah—away.

I willed myself to take a deep, steadying breath. Beside me Darren was gripping his goblet so tightly I half-expected it to break. I wanted to reach out and take his hand but his expression was foreboding. Directly across from him, Blayne was fighting to maintain an air of indifference as he ushered simpering apologies for the girl. If I hadn’t heard him the night before I would have easily believed his performance now. There was only the barest lilt of anger, and given the context, it could have easily been directed at the servant.

The king, in this round, resembled his youngest. His eyes were like ice. The man did not bother with condolences. He hated the duke. But like the rest of the kingdom, he had to retain peace for as long as he could. So he said nothing.

I frowned. We, the people of Jerar, were so eager to appease. So eager to beg and plead and give the Pythians whatever they wanted. It was a paradox: we had the greatest army in the realm, but we would lose the war.

The Pythians couldn’t be bought. We would never be enough.

“Desperation and fear will never win a Pythian’s favor,”
the duke had said.

I studied the wet splotches of silk, watching the man twist and squirm in his chair. Duke Cassius was too big for his seat.

“Perhaps you need to show them what they’ll lose.”

Maybe Paige was right. It was reckless. But we had tried safe. And if we were truly going to lose the war, then my actions wouldn’t matter much longer anyway. We didn’t have the Pythians’ favor.

We had nothing left to lose.

I pushed back my chair; it made a loud grating screech as it went. I pretended not to notice, wiping my sweaty palms across my skirts. My heart skipped a beat.

I didn’t look to my betrothed or his brother. I definitely didn’t look to my left at their father. I had the eyes of the room but mine were fixated solely on the duke.

At worst they could blame my words on a headstrong lowborn. At best… I didn’t bother hoping for the latter.

“Your grace, for the past six evenings you’ve regaled us with tales of Pythian grandeur. You tell us there is no greater fleet than your ships, and no prouder king than your Joren.”
Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop
. “You tell us that a Pythian never loses, but you are wrong.” I took a quick breath and let out my words in a rush. “If you choose Caltoth, the wealth their king promises you will be lost to war.”

Silence.

I could feel King Lucius’s gaze burning a hole through the back of my skull. Sharp intakes of breath and the duke’s lips were parted in shock.

My legs started to tremble, and I clenched and unclenched my fists at my sides. “B-because…” This was the hard part. The one I could live to regret. “Because…”

Darren’s hand grazed the side of my wrist. He threaded his fingers through mine and abruptly shoved back his chair to join.

“Because we will destroy
everything
.” Darren’s voice rang out clear across the room. “Every village, every crop, every homestead. We will set the whole of Caltoth aflame.” His grip on my hand tightened. I could hear all the frustration and rage from the past week seeping back into his speech. Darren wasn’t his brother; his strength lied in passion, not policy. “We will destroy its ruby mines and melt them right into the earth. We will plunder and pillage until nothing is left.”

The room was so quiet at this point a pin could have dropped and I would have heard it. Every single set of eyes was fixed upon us—the king, his eldest, the Crown advisors, the Pythians… even the servants had stopped serving.

This was the moment.

I swallowed and made myself finish. Because even Darren couldn’t anticipate where I was about to lead next. “In short, your grace, we will lose the war. Without Pythus we will lose. But we won’t be the only ones losing.”
Now
.
The final threat.
“Because
we
will also light
our
fields on fire.
We
will destroy every last inch of
our
lands.
We
will do this so that when the Caltothians acquire their victory with you by their side there will be nothing left to take.”

My words grew bolder:

“Do you know the difference between a nation of merchants and a nation of warriors?” I followed through without waiting for a reply. “Only one of them is prepared to fall on its blade. King Horrace might promise you the world but in the end you will reap the greater loss.”

Absolute silence. Not a breath, not a cough, not a whisper. Nothing.

I forced myself to exhale, slowly, and then the duke started to clap.

And then he started to laugh.

“Well, well,” the man finally said, “just when I thought negotiations had run their course.”

I froze and Darren’s grip tightened on my own, tugging me gently back into my chair. Everyone was waiting for Duke Cassius to continue, to decide whether or not to condemn my actions.

I willed myself to breathe.

The large man leaned forward so that his elbows hit the table, jostling his goblet of wine. His gaze was fixated on Darren’s father.

“Now tell me,” Duke Cassius drawled, “why is it that the best argument I’ve heard all week came from a little girl?”

The king opened his mouth and shut it tightly.

“I do believe your stuffy board of advisors were a large waste of my time, Lucius.”

“My apologies.” The king’s reply was forced. “It appears I have misjudged my men.” The steel in his tone promised quick recourse. There was a hushed panic at the other side of the table as my victory turned sour.

Recklessness had a price.
Always.

“I suppose I must send word to my brother.” The duke stood abruptly, thrusting his goblet into the arms of a scrawny man that had been attempting to squeeze past, unnoticed.

“Are you not leaving in the morning, your grace?” Blayne’s question was full of nonchalance. “Surely your news can wait until then… unless perhaps your visit is being extended?”

The duke waved an irate hand. “Don’t play the fool, young prince, it doesn’t suit you.”

The king cleared his throat. “This is wonderful news, Cassius—”

The duke turned sharply around. “Wonderful it may be, but we still have much to discuss. A decision such as this will require great examination. I expect it to take no less than a month to find terms my brother will agree to.”

“Whatever it takes.” King Lucius did not bat an eye.

****

“We should stay.” Paige sat down on my bed with a thump as I finished gathering the last of my belongings. She was rapping her fingers against the bedframe loudly. Every tap came harder than the last. “Now that the Pythians…”

“Paige.” I looked up from my packing with an exasperated groan. “You know that isn’t necessary.” King Lucius had only ordered my presence as part of decorum—even with my feat the night before I was still excluded from the negotiations themselves. True, the Pythians were extending their visit for the time being, but only the Crown and its board of advisors could partake in meetings. Since I was neither, there was no point to prolonging my stay.

Well, there was Darren…I bit my lip in frustration. I would miss him; I missed him already—even now while we were still in the same city, the same residence. In the two short weeks since I’d arrived I had spent perhaps three hours in his company, and each time we had been in the midst of crowding nobility. Yes, we’d had a short exception in the library, but even Blayne had managed to interrupt
that
.

We might have been in the same place at the same time, but for all the actual time we had spent together we might as well have been miles and miles apart.

Once the alliance is forged it will only be a matter of time before you return to the palace anyway, as his wife.
My annoyance began to fade. The two of us would have more time then. Without the stress of Pythian negotiations, Darren would be dismissed from most of the less pertinent Crown affairs, and the two of us would be able to serve together on the King’s Regiment.

I wondered if the king would consider granting Darren and me service in the Crown’s Army among its patrols. Once Blayne and his new princess secured an heir, surely Darren would be granted more freedom than before. Anything was possible.

In the meantime, I would return to Ferren’s Keep. Crown politics took precedence here. Even Darren had fallen behind in his training, and the Candidacy was only six short months away.

I needed every advantage I could get.

“Ryiah…”

My guard ducked out of the room just as the younger prince appeared at its entrance, looking unusually out of sorts. Darren’s hair was all over the place, as if he had run his hand through it one too many times and then given up completely. He studied the door for a moment and then heaved a great sigh and shut it behind him.

“If your father’s advisors find out we are alone in my chamber they will flay us both alive.” It was supposed to be teasing, but the comment came out a little more breathless than I would have liked.