Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Command Centre.
Selene Borealis
If he wasn’t careful, my father’s new favourite enchanter would find himself disembowelled.
“…and so you see ─”
“What I am understanding is that you don’t have any answers for me,” I interrupted the bumbling fool.
“Well, ah, yes,” he answered, not at all apologetic enough.
“These matters, they are not well known, it’s so fleetingly rare to meet a bonded soul and all the sources of the Guild are near-enough archaic,” he spluttered his explanation as if I was unaware of the rarity of my situation, or of the class of magic I was requesting.
“Are you not the kingdom expert of The Measurable Effects of Enchantments on Soul Bonds and Uncovering the Facts Behind the Green Knight's Tale?” I questioned. I had been near enough delighted when I learned that Father’s new Royal Enchanter was one Dennis Aqua.
The Dennis Aqua, who was apparently the most knowledgeable on all things enchantments and soul bonds, whose work I had just referenced and had thoroughly researched a year prior.
It felt like proof of the Gods that just the enchanter I required was already under my father’s commission.
However, it appeared that perhaps the Gods were less in the giving of favours mood, as Dennis Aqua was surely some practical joke, a punishment for the crime of disbelief, or perhaps they wanted the entertainment of watching me tear the pompous, useless fool apart.
The males of the witching covens usually weren’t as annoying as most other men.
Unfortunately, Dennis had the ego of a man far more talented and physically commanding than he himself was.
I awoke unable to feel Percy through our bond, despite every attempt, and I had panicked that it might have meant the maze had taken her from me.
Then I learned that she had escaped the maze unharmed, Ardens’ servants having witnessed her and two others fleeing into the hillside.
If my enchantments were enough to disrupt Percy’s experience of the bond, enchantments could surely be disrupting my experience also.
As a soul matched pair, I had hoped it might be possible to extinguish whatever interference was taking place between us.
“I am, yes. There is no one better,” he boasted. The audacity of such a statement, when he had proven himself less than useful to aid me in the exact field of enchantment magic, which he claimed to be an expert in, angered me further.
I stepped towards him, enjoying the way he stepped back.
“Tell me how it is possible that one could kill me through my soul match link using magic, but you cannot so much as tell me if enchantments are to blame for this silence, never mind counteract such enchantments if they were present?” I asked as I backed the short, squirming man into the corner of his study.
He wasn’t much older than me, but there was a frailty about him that made him appear older, like the character of a man three or four times his age had been dumped into a younger man’s body.
It was unsettling. I wanted to rip his throat out if only to permanently escape the disturbing way he made me feel.
“Using soul bonds to harm has been the majority of any magical works actually practised on soul bonds in all known accounts for nearly a millennium. What you are asking is new works. Before your account of the effects of your own privacy enchantments on the soul bond, we did not know that such enchantments had any impact. We will continue to try new approaches,” he replied.
He attempted to straighten his back as if to be taller. Pathetic. He was about as tall as Percy.
Percy.
Why couldn’t I feel her?
“Tomorrow, we will make a new attempt. I will research tonight, and we will go again. Sometimes enchantments must be repeated; the effects layer upon each other, becoming stronger. Additionally, sometimes enchantments take time to take effect; not everything is instant gratification.”
I growled. At least he wasn’t the giving-up type. Neither was I.
“Very well. Tomorrow morning, at first light. I have a tight schedule to keep,” I told him, controlling myself from snarling in anger. He set my nerves on edge.
I left his office; the space was cramped, unkempt, dishevelled like the man himself.
I wanted to speak with General Creel; he had promised me a full debriefing on The New Foundation, which, according to Rylan and Sasha’s reports, was present and trying to abduct Percy during the attack on the Ardens Estate. They were the group who held captive what was mine.
The corridors of the castle bustled. There was no peace within the stone walls.
Not now. The Royal Conference would soon be in full swing.
Lords and Ladies from nearly every House had been arriving over the last few days.
The most noble of the Houses were invited to reside within the King’s abode.
Their servants were arriving ahead of them to make preparations.
I despised the chaos that the Royal Conference descended upon the castle and grounds.
This conference was ready to be one of the largest in history.
My father’s attempted assassination, the betrayal of House Halvorsen, the attack on House Ardens, the various factional rebel groups in the north of the Kingdom and The New Foundation of the south were beginning to have major ripples through the Houses.
It was a season of alliance-building, foe-destroying and power-grabbing.
What better stage to lay your claims than the Royal Conference, where everyone is watching?
Venom poisoning. I was ashamed of myself; that one such as Lydia’s venom had taken me down. I had been bed-bound, lost in delirium, and fever-spurred dreams for three days. When I awoke, my dreams had become reality — Percy was gone, taken. For a second time.
At this rate, when I had her back, I was going to collar and leash my pet, keeping her chained to me and within my line of sight at all times.
I had forgotten my own words of caution to her.
Nowhere is safe. I had allowed her to be unguarded within the walls of the Ardens estate, and her capture was my own doing.
My lack of caution, my own feelings of safety within my mother's ancestral home, had been the greatest risk to my Percy.
I had thought Ardens would be our sanctuary — a place where we could be free.
Where Percy could be safe and happy, the northern rebel groups were nothing new; they had existed in some form for over a generation, starting with the swallowing of House Petra into Ardens.
But they had never cooperated with each other before.
The northern rebel groups were nothing more than a buzzing insect, annoying and greedy for sweet treats, but easily swatted.
Now they had morphed into some semblance of something more, something close to a swarm that descended upon Ardens Estate that day.
And somehow, within that swarm, a much older yet newer incantation of a centuries-old enemy had crept in and stolen that which was worth more than any land, House or crown. They had taken a part of me.
I felt it. Heavy in my chest. As if the venom had never ceased.
As if internally, my most crucial organs were fighting against paralysis, against being turned to stone.
For my heart and lungs felt somehow hollow and endless, heavy like a physical burden.
It almost felt impossible, and yet I swear in the absence of my pet, it hurt to so much as breathe, and worryingly, I had not been able to keep down any blood that I had consumed since waking.
It was as if my body was refusing to function without her. Every moment was a struggle.
And I did not struggle.
I was heir to the throne.
I was of the strongest of bloodlines.
I was to be feared and respected in equal measure.
And still, everything I felt was so precariously breakable without her.
The New Foundation was the body of the snake, and I would find and cut off its head.
It had taken my heart, part of my soul, but I would not be like Orpheus for his Eurydice.
Charm was reserved for those who held power over that which you desired.
I would storm the underworld and retrieve what was mine.
General Creel’s laughter was heard before I had even entered the corridor of the General’s command rooms.
“And then he said —” General Creel stopped mid-flow, of whatever tale he was regaling his subordinates with, as I entered the room. “My Royal Highness, it’s a pleasure to see you looking so well,” he greeted, standing from his chair and wiping crumbs from his lunch out of his thick red beard.
When we had spoken the previous day, I was still weak and recovering. I was nearly bed-bound, exhausted from simply walking around my room. I was almost tempted to offer the Gods praise when I awoke in the morning, far from feeling at my full strength, but no longer one notch above an invalid.
“I am well,” I told him.
“Of course, and why wouldn’t you be?” he said enthusiastically, “Our future queen is immune to poisons and toxins,” he praised, and his captains and soldiers cheered.
The noise was a nuisance, the praise was unnecessary, and it was a distraction from my purpose.
I was hardly immune; my pet had saved me twice.
First by being one of the few people alive who knew of and were capable of obtaining the cure I required for Hades’ Delight, and secondly because I desired to return to her so desperately, through nothing more than stubborn willpower, my body had held off succumbing to the effects of Lydia’s venom poisoning long enough to be seen as some sort of immunity. Ridiculous.
“That’s enough,” I said, trying not to appear as impatient as I was. Having soldiers who respected you, who cheered for your apparent physical accomplishments, was good. It inspired loyalty. I would get Percy back. And there would be a future in which we may need loyal soldiers.