Chapter 24 Justice
Justice
Stellon—the next day
This day had been one nightmare after another.
First, the troops I’d sent after Pharis and Raewyn had come back empty-handed. The two of them had disappeared again. The only sign of them was his horse Cimmerian, stabled in a small village on the border of Merisola.
I’d ordered my soldiers to continue the search and sent a contingent to Pharis’ castle up north.
Brainwashed by him as she was, Raewyn had probably returned to Stormcrest with him, in spite of what she’d said about being with neither of us. I’d be heading there myself today, as soon as I could get through the roster of subjects insisting on seeing me.
Most of them I would put off actually. A couple of them I simply couldn’t.
Lord Swayne Hyland of Nordica was first. The man was furious I’d replaced his daughter as my bride, notifying her the night before the wedding.
“This cannot stand, Your Majesty,” he said. His face was stiff with outrage, his skin mottled.
“My daughter hasn’t stopped crying since you sent your messenger to tell her. You have humiliated her and insulted my house. And word is the woman you threw her over for isn’t even full Elven. You broke your own law.”
“My father’s law,” I clarified. “Now the law is whatever I say it is, and as King I will marry whomever I choose to marry. But I understand it was bad form to cancel so abruptly, and I am sorry for your daughter’s distress.”
“I’m afraid an apology won’t cover it,” Lord Hyland said.
“What satisfaction can I offer you then?” I asked.
“Marry her, of course. Reschedule the wedding and make Helina Queen of Avrandar, as you promised.”
“That I cannot do. I’m sorry, but I’m in love with someone else, and I intend to marry her as soon as she is returned to Castle Seaspire.”
Lord Hyland was clearly incensed. His fists clenched at his sides, and his eyes narrowed as he spoke.
“You should be careful, my King,” he said. “I am not the first lord you’ve done this to. You’re not as ‘beloved’ in these lands as you think you are.”
He punctuated that bold statement by turning his back to me and storming out of the throne room. I could have had him arrested for it, if I’d wanted to. Even his bitter words of warning were technically a hanging offense.
But I wasn’t my father, who used the most extreme punishments available to deter dissent.
And I couldn’t really blame Lord Hyland for being angry.
He was right—I’d canceled two royal weddings, both times in favor of Raewyn. That probably hadn’t earned me any friends.
Thankfully, I didn’t need friends. All I needed was Raewyn.
Everything would be all right once I got her back and we were married.
My herald announced the next supplicant I couldn’t postpone.
Caitriona, the village mother of Hill Town, the largest human settlement in the Marinus region, had requested an immediate audience, insisting it was urgent.
I’d promised Raewyn that when I was King, I’d do better by the humans than my father had, that I’d listen to their needs and concerns and try to do something about them.
Besides, as all the village mothers were, Caitriona was an Earthwife. It was best to avoid getting on their bad side, if possible, so I’d agreed to see her before riding for Stormcrest.
I made a hand gesture to indicate that she should be admitted, and Caitriona entered the throne room. Unlike Lord Hyland, she gave me a pleasant smile and curtsied when she reached the proper distance from my throne.
“Your Majesty, thank you for agreeing to see me,” she said as she rose.
“What is your petition?” I asked.
“I have come on behalf of my sister Earthwives to ask for the King’s justice, Your Majesty.”
“In what matter?”
“Our sister, Sorcha of Waterdale, was executed on your father’s command.”
My heart skipped a beat. Was this woman here for revenge? Did she have some spell up her sleeve that she meant to cast upon me?
“I remember. She plotted the assassination of the royal family,” I said to the woman calmly. “I’m sorry for your loss, but justice was served.”
“I understand, Your Majesty, and that is not what I am here about. Before she died, Sorcha entered an agreement with a young woman from her village.”
Raewyn. She was talking about Raewyn. My interest in what she had to say increased tenfold.
“Services were rendered, but payment was never delivered,” Caitriona said. “An Earthwife always exacts her price. We village mothers cannot maintain peace and control over our villages if it becomes known that those who strike a bargain can escape making good on their end without repercussion.”
“So exact your price then,” I said in the most apathetic royal tone I could muster. “I don’t see what this Earthwife business has to do with the Crown.”
“I was getting to that part. The young woman disappeared from our awareness some time ago, cloaked by a force our locator spells could not penetrate. And then she reappeared briefly on the day my sister died—here at Castle Seaspire—but by the time we reached the castle, her essence was gone again.”
They’d been tracking Raewyn. My heart began punching the wall of my chest, though outwardly I kept up the farce of disinterest.
“Perhaps she is dead,” I suggested,
“No, Your Majesty. We thought the same. Until two days ago when she reappeared, once more here at Seaspire.” she said.
“A group of us immediately began traveling here to retrieve her, but her spirit-sign has gone dark again. It is impossible in this amount of time that a human girl could travel far enough away from Merisola to be out of reach of our spells. She is being cloaked somehow. We ask that if you are giving her shelter here, that you hand her over so that we may exact our price.”
“Out of curiosity,” I asked, “what is that price?”
“She agreed that if she failed to uphold her end of the bargain, we would take one of her sisters to become our daughter, so that we could train the girl as an Earthwife. But she has hidden her sisters from us, Your Majesty. We haven’t been able to find them.
And so the only other price we can exact is to take her life instead. ”
Well that wasn’t going to happen.
“Thank you for coming to me with your request.” And for cluing me in that you’re after Raewyn.
“I am not sheltering her here, and I have no idea where the young woman is,” I told her honestly. “But I will consider your request for help. I’ll be traveling for the next week or so. When I return, I will give you my answer.”
Caitriona curtsied again and began backing out of the throne room with her head down, following court protocol.
“Thank you, Your Majesty, you are most gracious.”
Before she reached the doors, I called out, “Wait a moment.”
She lifted her head and met my eyes. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Can you tell if someone is under a spell? A love spell for instance?”
Pharis had accused me of being under a spell, which I knew wasn’t the case. What I felt for Raewyn was so real, I simply couldn’t be enchanted.
But perhaps Pharis was.
Perhaps that was why he’d done such shocking and unexplainable things when it had come to Raewyn.
Sorcha had conducted a virginity test on me at my father’s request. Maybe Earthwives could also detect when a person had been spelled.
A knowing smile spread across Caitriona’s face.
“Would His Majesty like for me to test him?”
“Oh no, not me,” I clarified. “Someone else. I may call upon you at a time in the future and ask you to perform such a test.”
“It would be my pleasure. One good turn deserves another after all.”
She dipped her head and continued backing away until she was out of sight through the throne room doors.
I told my herald and the other attendants that would be all for the day and went to my chambers to change into riding gear. Now I had more than one purpose in going to Pharis’ castle.
Not only would I bring Raewyn back, I’d bring him back as well—and have the Earthwife test him.
If it was a love spell that had caused him to betray me, I might be able to have it removed and get my best friend and brother back.
Maybe that way I wouldn’t have to kill him.
After the witches removed the spell from Pharis, perhaps they could give Raewyn something to help her get over her newfound discomfort around me, something that would make her remember how much she loved me and feel that way again.
Now that—would be worth any price.
Arriving at Stormcrest with my personal guard, I encountered the troops I’d sent ahead. They sat on their horses at the end of the carriage path to Pharis’ castle.
“Have you found her?” I asked.
“No, Your Majesty,” the captain answered.
“Well, have you demanded entry into the house? Have you searched it?”
“We haven’t been able to… find it, Your Majesty,” the captain told me.
“What? The castle? You haven’t been able to find an enormous castle?” I asked, incredulous.
He pointed down the lane, where a wall of dark cloud protruded just above the crest of a hill.
“There is some sort of cloaking glamour protecting it, Your Majesty,” the captain explained. “My men keep getting lost in the darkness and wandering in circles.”
The young woman disappeared from our awareness some time ago, cloaked by a force our locator spells could not penetrate.
The witch’s words came back to me in a rush, along with a memory from the arena on the day Pharis and Raewyn both disappeared. A cloud of black smoke shrouding the viewing platform where my family had been sitting.
At the time, I’d naturally assumed it was the result of the dragon’s fire. Now I suspected it had been something else.
Shadow glamour.
That was why the Earthwives hadn’t been able to locate Raewyn with their spells. She’d been hidden by Pharis’ shadow glamour, only reappearing when she wasn’t with him.
And Caitriona said she’d disappeared from their “sights” once again.
Which meant she was in there with him.
“I know where the castle is,” I told my soldiers. “Follow me—and stay close when we get into the fog.”