Chapter 4 #2
This would not go over well. Rotten Rupert might get to celebrate Sebastien’s execution after all.
He tried subtly posing the question to Ali and Dianna over tea the following afternoon, after offering them iced cakes he’d filched from a more popular princess’s cart while flirting with her maidservant.
“Do you think it’s possible for a person to have a special way with animals?
” he asked nonchalantly. “Delicious tea cakes, aren’t they? ”
They were too sharp for such nonsense, exchanging looks. And frowns. “I’ve worried about this,” Ali said, not at all happy. “Who else knows?”
“I don’t even know,” Sebastien protested. “I just … wondered.”
“It would be most unfortunate if your special way with animals is actual sorcery, Sebby,” Dianna added severely.
“It would explain what’s going on with Nina and Nonna.” Ali pointed a finger at the two hounds, sitting at exquisite attention, as always.
“And the cats,” Dianna added. “We haven’t glimpsed so much as a mouse dropping in years.”
“The possibility of magic explains far too much.” With a sigh of disapproval, Ali had gotten up and retrieved a book from their shelves.
An Encyclopedia of Sorcery, Magical Specializations, and Practical Arcania.
She flipped to the index as she sat, ran a finger down it, then turned just a few pages back.
“Zoopathy,” she read, lifting her gaze to Sebastien and raising her brows, then continued to read the section aloud.
The art of communicating with and commanding animals.
May take the form of psychic magic, typically in the former case, or more traditional sorcery in the latter.
In most cases, the magic-worker talented in the psychic realm of zoopathy is confined to working with all lower forms of life and cannot apply their skills to human beings.
Also, plant life is exempted (see phytomancy, phytognomy, and Druidic lore).
A sorcerer, however, may enjoy abilities in zoomancy as a subset of larger and greater abilities in transformational magic and biomancy.
All of these are rare abilities and are typically pursued by practitioners at the hobbyist level.
Only three academies offer coursework in zoopathy specifically at the time of printing.
They sat in silence a moment. Dianna turned to Sebastien, giving him a fierce glare from under her straight black brows. “Is this what you’re doing, darling—commanding and controlling animals?”
It sounded so bad put that way and Sebastien stroked Nina’s head.
She leaned into the caress, gazing up at him with worshipful brown eyes while Nonna laid her chin on his knee, patiently waiting her turn.
“I don’t think so?” Sebastien said, regretting he’d brought it up.
He’d lived this long with the secret. He should have continued to keep his mouth shut.
“I hear them talk to me, sometimes, but mostly they just seem to know what I want. It’s not like I’m controlling or manipulating them. It doesn’t feel like magic.”
We love you, Nina said.
We just want you to be happy, Nonna said.
Both wagged their tails with politely enthusiastic thumps. It made Sebastien feel vaguely ill to contemplate that they might not truly love him as he’d thought, but that he’d been using some sort of magical coercion to force them into being adoring slaves.
Never, Nonna said.
Adore you, Nina said.
He petted both their heads, grateful for the reassurance—even as he wondered if he’d somehow induced them to say so. Kismet, however, often spontaneously shared gossip about the other horses in the royal stables, which Sebastien was certain he had never wanted.
“What does working magic feel like, though?” Ali asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“This could be very bad,” Dianna put in darkly.
“I don’t think it matters,” Sebastien offered. “No one has ever guessed. I’ll just be careful how I use it. After all, there’s nothing wrong with faithful, loyal, well-behaved dogs and helpful cats.”
“You’re not thinking this through, Sebastien,” Ali said, closing and setting the book down with a thump.
“What is the worldwide, cardinal rule for all magic-workers?” Dianna asked him, continuing Ali’s thought, as the close sisters so often did.
“The blood geas,” Ali answered.
“The blood geas,” Dianna added darkly. “Every child found to have magical ability must be bound by it.”
“I’m not a child,” Sebastien pointed out in relief. “I’m a grown man of twenty.”
Dianna shook her head in slow disappointment.
“That’s not the point, darling,” Ali said.
“The point is,” Dianna continued, “your magical gift should have been identified before this.”
“He should have been bound then,” Ali agreed.
“He must have manifested late.”
“After the last round of testing and no one thought to test him again.”
“Why would they? No one in our family has ever manifested magical ability.”
“His mother.” Ali’s face took on a particular mix of inspiration and grief.
“Ah, yes. Lovely, sweet Este. May she rest in peace.” Dianna laid a hand over her heart briefly.
“My mother was a sorcerer?” Sebastien finally broke in to ask.
“Not that we know of,” Dianna answered.
“Not obviously so, or Soren would never have bedded her,” Ali added.
“But she was always a fey one.”
“And the animals loved her.”
They turned to look at Sebastien as one. “What will you do?” Dianna asked.
“Do?” he echoed, still trying to grapple with all of this turnabout. He stroked Nonna’s silky ears. “What should I do?”
“If you’re found out—” Ali began.
“When you’re found out,” Dianna interrupted. “We’ve only been lucky so far.”
“True,” Ali agreed thoughtfully. “It’s only a matter of time until one of our sorcerers or a visitor senses the magic in him.”
“He’s been dead lucky so far,” Dianna repeated, “that he hasn’t been found out and executed for concealing illegal sorcery.”
“Wouldn’t Rotten Rupert just love that?” Ali muttered, putting a finger to her temple.
“But I didn’t know I was until just this moment.” Sebastien grasped at that bobbing log like a drowning man. “It wasn’t deliberate or malicious.”
“That’s your only hope of salvation,” Ali said. “You cannot keep this secret any longer.”
“Especially since we now know, too,” Dianna pointed out.
Feeling ever more ill, Sebastien nodded in misery. He’d doomed his sisters without meaning to. Careless and foolish of him. “What should I do?”
“Go to Soren. Request a private audience as his son,” Ali answered immediately. “Soren admires people who take responsibility for their mistakes.”
“Besides, he’s always had a soft spot for you,” Dianna added with an encouraging smile.
“He loved Este, don’t you think?” Ali asked her.
“I do. He was happy when she was here.”
“What do I tell my father?” Sebastien asked.
They both looked at him, a bit blankly. “Exactly this,” Ali said.
“We’ll bear witness for you,” Dianna said, “if it will help.”
“Unlikely,” Ali countered, “as he has only hard spots for us.”
“Well, our mother did not make Soren happy.”
Ali chortled. “No, she did not.”
“Oil and water.”
“More like oil and fire!”
“Dianna, Ali,” Sebastien broke in, trying to be patient. “You know I love you, but—”
Love you, Nonna said.
Love you, Nina said.
“But,” Sebastien persisted, “why won’t our father simply have me executed?”
“You are his son,” Dianna pointed out gently. “There’s a reason Rotten Rupert has had to resort to creating accidents, since Soren hasn’t agreed to execute any of his children. Yet.”
“And you’re Este’s son,” Ali said with raised brows, “which matters even more.”
“Agree to submit to the blood geas, go away to school—”
“To one of the three academies teaching zoopathy,” Ali said with excitement, opening the encyclopedia again.
“At the time of printing,” Dianna cautioned. “That could have changed.”
“We should see what we can find out.”
“Write some letters.”
Sebastien left them to their amiable bickering, figuring the best way to show his earnest remorse for his inadvertent crime was to act on the knowledge immediately.
With Nina and Nonna flanking him, Prince Sebastien went—for the first time in his two decades of life—to request a private audience with his father.
King Soren stroked his long, red beard and frowned at Sebastien in silence. “How is it possible,” he finally said, “that one of my children is an unbound magic-worker, which puts me in violation of my own laws?”
Sebastien squirmed with guilt, already tremendously uncomfortable beneath the scrutiny of the man who’d always more or less ignored him, aside from occasional gifts, like a jeweled belt buckle Sebastien had unfortunately lost, Kismet, and the equivalent of a pat on the head now and then.
“I guess it can happen? They test us when we’re young, but sometimes a late bloomer slips through, especially since they didn’t expect to find the talent in Your Majesty’s progeny.
And my ability is very weak. Practically nonexistent. ”
“Yes. It is so unlikely as to test the bounds of credulity. Fortunately this works to our favor.”
Startled by this switch, Sebastien nearly asked how, but summoned the wit and discretion from somewhere to only nod in sage agreement.
Soren, no more fooled than his clever daughters, beetled his brows at his empty-headed son. “In the wake of Uhtric’s untimely demise early in the summer,” he clarified, “followed by the wasting sickness of his only declared heir.”