Chapter One #2
Cormal was trying to do everything in his power to protect the inhabitants of the castle and the country.
That was all he’d ever tried to do. And yet even Delana—his only friend, it seemed—did nothing but scold him these days.
He’d been sure he could fix everything, that he could make the castle safe once more for everyone, and instead, everyone was angry and antagonistic, and Cormal was more alone than he’d ever been.
His hands were shaking again.
He stalked through the castle and headed for one of his father’s old offices and work rooms. Brannal hadn’t liked the space, preferring a much airier office on the third floor.
He’d said Tramad’s old office always felt a bit like a prison.
It was above the dungeon level, of course, but it did, perhaps, have some resemblance to the stone below it. And it had one very useful feature.
As soon as Cormal closed the door safely behind him, his hands were wreathed in flames, and he lobbed fireball after fireball at the stone wall that his father had reinforced and ensured could withstand the heat.
Sometimes, Cormal simply had to get the fire out before it burned him up from the inside. He was yelling, he realized, screaming incoherently as he hurled fire at the wall, so much fury built up inside him that he had to let it out somehow.
All he’d ever wanted was to protect the royal family and serve his country.
Why did he get treated like this?
Cormal felt a bit feverish in the morning, waking bleary-eyed from a restless sleep, plagued by strange dreams he could no longer remember.
But at least he felt a bit more as though the fire was once again settled beneath his skin.
No matter how annoying Delana was, she wasn’t entirely wrong in everything she’d said last night. He did need to get control of himself.
He needed to prove he could do this job as well as his father and Brannal had. He grimaced. No, he needed to prove he could do the job well. He was neither Brannal nor his father, but he could be Summus. He would show them that he could do this, that the Queen had made a wise choice.
For some reason, people were less likely to listen if you threw fireballs when you were annoyed.
Why was fire so vilified? If someone dropped water on your head when they were upset, that was fine.
Wind whipping around a room, earth cracked beneath your feet?
Those things were apparently bound to occur.
But a fireball? As soon as you lobbed a fireball, you were an out-of-control lunatic who’d better control his temper or else.
He and Brannal used to joke about that, how they just needed to find someone who appreciated fire as much as they did…
Cormal’s breath caught in his throat. Instead, Brannal was with a carnalion, who was more susceptible to fire than any other element. And Cormal was all alone.
Cormal had a mug of strong tea with his breakfast and tried to convince himself that today was going to be a better day than yesterday.
Since there were no celebrations in honor of the Princess’s thirteenth birthday, this actually seemed like a distinct possibility.
There were fewer chances that he was going to encounter her, and if he didn’t encounter the Princess, he didn’t have to put up with her behavior.
It was report day, which should be much quieter, so he just had to put up with his… other challenge.
There was a knock at the door. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Molun limped in, hand curled around the cane that supported his healing left leg. The bone had mostly mended, but it wasn’t as strong as it used to be, and the damage to the skin and muscle had been severe. Molun wasn’t the quick, agile Warrior he had once been.
“Summus,” Molun greeted him.
It was astonishing, Cormal had discovered, how someone could say Summus but could mean asshole. Cormal could hear it Every. Single. Time.
Not everyone, of course. There were those who believed, as he did, that he’d done the right thing, or who seemed to be at least neutral.
The Queen had, after all, named him Summus, and that meant he was the head of the Mage Warriors.
While there hadn’t been outright rebellion—nothing that he could reprimand or censure—he still felt the disapproval from so many.
Cormal had discovered that a carnalion was living in the castle, was tricking them, was seducing them and stealing their life energy. He’d exposed this demon, doing exactly what a Mage Warrior was sworn to do, and that should have been the end of it.
Instead, it had been only the beginning of what had become the disaster he was now living. Things had not gone back to how they were before. They’d lost Brannal, and resentment festered in so many interactions, leaving him floundering in a position he’d never asked for.
He’d genuinely thought he’d made the smart decision when he’d chosen Brannal’s Tertius to be his own Secundus.
Left to his own devices, he would have chosen Delana, but he’d made her Tertius instead and elevated Molun.
He was a strong Mage, and the only one in the castle now who could control more than one element.
He and Cormal had always managed to get along well enough in their previous positions, though they were certainly not fast friends.
Cormal had been trying to show there were no hard feelings, uniting Cormal and those who’d been closest to Brannal.
And he’d thought the other man might be a little bit grateful, getting the position.
No. As it turned out, the answer to all of those things was “no.”
Molun looked at him as though he thought Cormal wasn’t worth the dirt beneath his feet.
He didn’t say anything that Cormal could take exception to.
Molun had actually been much quieter than normal since everything that had happened.
He’d been badly injured, of course, and had nearly died. He’d been laid up for weeks.
Cormal hadn’t thought that he would ever miss the man’s lighthearted irreverence.
“Good morning,” Cormal said.
Molun limped over and slowly lowered himself into the chair in front of Bra—Cormal’s desk, a flicker of pain crossing his face as he did so.
“Morning,” Molun said flatly.
“I hope you slept all right.”
Molun shot him a look and said stiffly, “I don’t believe my sleeping habits are any of your business.”
Cormal could have screamed. Come on, all he’d been trying to do was be polite, and he knew that Molun knew that.
But ever since Cormal had become Summus, Molun had gone out of his way to keep everything strictly professional between them, to make it clear that there were absolutely no personal ties.
Cormal wasn’t here to make friends, but he’d kind of thought they were at least a step up from acquaintances. Not like him and Brannal, but…
Brannal’s words echoed in his head.
“There is nothing that explains that adequately to me, Cormal. Just in the nick of time, I pulled my half-strangled, nearly smothered and burned, traumatized lover out of a burning house that you are responsible for him being in. The only reason that you are still breathing is because he is.”
Cormal hadn’t intended any of that. Of course he hadn’t! He’d only tried to get Perian out of the castle, away from its vulnerable population. He hadn’t known that Venoran or Fomadin were hiding out, hadn’t realized what they would try to do…
Cormal had tried to explain. He’d been so sure that he could make Brannal see the truth, that revealing the deception would allow him to fix everything.
Instead, it had all broken apart in his hands, and nothing that Cormal did to try to mend it seemed to make it better.
“Of course,” Cormal said, striving for a matter-of-fact tone, like absolute formality with his Secundus was exactly what he was hoping to achieve in life. “I trust that the Princess’s birthday celebration continued in my absence. Thank you for attending.”
Molun’s bright blue eyes caught his. “I believe Renny loathed every minute of it, actually.”
Because the one thing she’d wanted was the one thing that Cormal and the Queen had ensured she couldn’t have: Perian in attendance.
Several people had taken the time to point that out to Cormal.
Incensed, he snapped, “Everyone in the castle was in danger! I was protecting us, which is a Mage Warrior’s sworn duty!”
Molun stiffened, a wince flickering across his face, which meant he’d strained his leg again.
“Would you like to read reports, or would you like us to destroy the office?” he asked coldly.
Cormal sucked in a sharp breath and made himself let it out slowly. “Let’s look at the reports.”
Molun nodded sharply, and that was the end of that.
There was nothing particularly unusual, which was a good thing, really. The last thing he wanted was for them to be overrun by demons. But Cormal still felt like there was something missing, like there was a huge piece of what he should be doing that was just… absent.
People, some quiet part of him tried to point out.
It was people that were missing. He pushed that thought away as hard as he could, stuffing it into a dark corner of his mind.
Because he couldn’t help that. He couldn’t control what Brannal had chosen to do, nor the fractures that had resulted in the Mage Warrior team.
Except that he was Summus now, and he was supposed to be in charge of bringing them all together. It felt a little more useless than Cormal had expected. Like he was powerless and alone when he should have had the full force of the Mage Warriors behind him.
They finished the reports, marking their progress and sightings on the map Brannal had designed.