39. Patterns in History
Chapter thirty-nine
Patterns in History
T he prince and the commander ate in silence, working their way through a goat’s cheese salad with beetroot and honey-soaked red onions. A main course of roasted lamb with a rosemary mint crust. Alongside roasted garlic and clementine carrots, zesty greens, and a red wine gravy with crusty ale risen bread to the side. Dessert was a liquor drenched orange tart topped with light as air chocolate cream. All washed down with fruity wine for the prince and more ale for the commander.
Wrenn was the first to break the silence that had surrounded them. “If I was out of line earlier, I apologise.” she wiped her mouth with one of the silk napkins. “But you asked me to come here, to keep you in check, and honestly, I’m concerned.”
“About?” Emmerich said without looking up.
“The way she looks at you.”
“Like she wants to watch my blood swim at her feet?”
“No.” Wrenn laughed, “far from it, like she wants to devour you whole. And you the same.”
“There is nothing going on between me and the princess.”
“Not yet perhaps,” Wrenn shrugged, “but I worry that the more time you spend together, the more likely you are to lose focus on the real reason we’re here.”
“And you haven’t?” Emmerich fired back, “I’ll stay away from the princess as soon as you stop risking Teris’s cover!”
“Teris is my wife,” Wrenn seethed. “My wife. Emmerich. That princess is your enemy, our enemy. Stay away from her.”
“You forget your place,” Emmerich launched to his feet, “you don’t give me orders, commander, you follow mine. When I need your advice, I will ask for it.”
Wrenn swallowed, biting back a knee jerk retort, “whatever you say, Your Highness.”
They sat on opposite ends of the room, tension thick in the air as they poured over the book and the princess’s notes, late into the evening. So late that the winds battering the castle had finally died down.
The princess’s handwriting was barely legible, her notes vague. From what the prince could decipher, she had spent more time researching the origins of her own power than anything else. She’d created a list of all previously recorded uses of hydromancy, healing, wave bending, drinking water supply, rainmaker. The list went on and on with no mention of hers. She was searching for evidence of someone else having used hydromancy in the way she had, and either they’d stopped her mid-search, or she had failed to find it.
“You find anything?” he asked as he flicked through the notes, freezing when he reached the last page. Wrenn was talking, but he wasn’t listening, too busy trying to understand what he was reading.
“Emmerich? Hey, snap out of it!” Wrenn clapped her hands, trying to catch his attention.
“Sorry what?”
“I said this book is a history of illustrious magic users across the years, nothing of much importance.”
“Say that again,” Emmerich said slowly, his eyes drifting from the list toward Wrenn.
“It’s just a history of powerful elementals, Emmerich.”
“I think our favourite princess was working on a theory.”
Wrenn’s eyes narrowed. “What did the notes say?” Emmerich crossed the room, gripping the pertinent sheet tightly.
“Most of it was notes on hydromancy, but on the last page, it’s a list of names.”
“Okay?” Wrenn hedged.
“A list of families who have had members die, and a list of magically weakened families.”
“And?”
“There’s no crossover.”
“Say that again,” Wrenn parroted Emmerich’s earlier words.
“The weakened families. Their names don’t appear on the list of the dead and vice versa.”
“Read me some.”
“Sellen,”
“Not here,”
“Teria,”
“Yep, they’re here,” Wrenn muttered, flipping through the book.
“What does it say?”
“Powerful in hydromancy and Aire Wending, the ancestors could manipulate both.”
“Vieret.”
“Grand masters of pyromancy, ancestors hailed from Estrellyn.”
“Whitlock,”
“Em…” Wrenn’s eyes flew up.
“Just check,” he insisted.
Wrenn sighed, shaking her head as she flipped through the book again. “Powerful across all elements, ancestors once thought to have mouldable magic.” She closed the book in her lap. “So, what’s the connection?”
“They’re dying.”
“What?”
“All the powerful families on this list and in the book are dying.”
“And the weakening ones?”
“Just loss of power, no gruesome deaths,”
“So, either we’re looking at the same culprit with two different side effects, or two different ones.”
“What’s more likely?”
“Just one,” Wrenn muttered.
Emmerich nodded, rubbing his face, legs bouncing nervously. “We need to find a way into old Ezekiel’s hidden library.”
“You’re fucking with me,” Wrenn sputtered. Emmerich merely stared at her. “Shit.”
“Prince Malik was on to something,” Emmerich insisted, “what we hold here is a history of known powerful families. Malik was after the connection to The Oracle. He was searching for something and we’re going to find out what.”
“Or die trying,” Wrenn muttered.
“Something like that.”