CHAPTER FIFTEEN #2
Master Maur was growing impatient to have Celieria firmly under Mage control.
He’d sent a special envoy with an offer to end all hostilities if Annoura agreed to terminate the Fey-Celierian alliance and send what was left of her armies against the dahl’reisen, who had been hiding in the Verlaine Forest and using it as a base to attack Eld and murder Celierians along the border who opposed them.
Despite a firm push or two from Kolis, Annoura had as yet refused to agree, and it now fell to Kolis to ensure she woke in a more malleable frame of mind.
He stood in the darkened dressing chamber until he heard Annoura settle into bed, then waited for her breathing to assume the steady rhythm of sleep before he slipped into the room and padded silently across the floor to her side.
He blew a puff of somulus powder in her face even though he doubted it was necessary. Annoura wanted to believe. She wanted to think Dorian had really returned to her, that it was truly he holding her in his arms each night, making love to her.
He began to spin the Spirit weave of Dorian, returning to his love, but as he reached for the tie of her nightgown and sent the first, faint pulse of masked Azrahn into her body, he froze.
His nostrils flared, and in a sudden motion, he snatched the wavy-edged sel’dor dagger from the sheath at his waist and plunged it into Annoura’s chest.
The queen’s expression didn’t change, and her breathing continued uninterrupted. But the area of her chest around Kolis’s dagger spat small showers of lavender sparks.
“I told you a Spirit weave wouldn’t fool him for long.”
The voice came from an empty part of the room. Kolis leapt to his feet, Mage Fire blooming in his hands just as five-fold weaves and several red Fey’cha flew from the empty room around him. His Mage Fire dissolved, and he staggered as the blades sank into his chest.
Five Fey and a mortal materialized inside the room.
“You!” he exclaimed, staring in disbelief at the mortal’s face. “But you’re…” His words slurred as the tairen venom raced through his body. His eyes rolled back and his body collapsed.
Prince Dorian—the new King Dorian XI—eyed the twitching corpse coldly. “Dead?” he finished. “So they tell me.” He flicked a glance at the Fey. “Get this piece of krekk out of my palace.”
Leaving the Fey to dispose of the body, Dorian exited his father’s bedchamber and strode down the hallway to a warded room where Gaspare Fellows and the dahl’reisen sent by Dorian’s father were watching over his unconscious mother, the queen.
The dahl’reisen looked up when he entered. The spiral of shadowy Azrahn in his palm winked out, and he nodded. “It worked, Your Majesty. The Marks are gone.”
Dorian closed his eyes and bowed his head in weary relief and murmured a brief prayer of thanks that at least he’d been able to save one person he loved. He sat on the edge of the bed beside his mother and took her hand as the dahl’reisen removed the weave keeping her unconscious.
His mother’s lashes fluttered, then slowly lifted. Her delicate silver brows drew together in hazy confusion when she saw him. “Dori?”
Tears sprang to his eyes. “Yes.” He pressed a kiss to her hand. “It’s me.”
“You’re alive!” She sat up, flinging her arms around him. “Thank the gods. They said your ship went down.”
“It did, Mama. The Danae saved me. The Tairen Soul’s trip to Elvia brought us the allies we needed to defeat the enemy at Great Bay.”
“Oh, Dori!” Abruptly, tears filled Annoura’s eyes, and her features twisted with a mix of elation and grief. “Dori… oh, Dori, he’s gone. He’s gone.”
“I know, Mama.” Dorian put his face against his mother’s neck as he hadn’t done since childhood. They both wept, mourning the loss of the husband and father who’d been the center of their lives.
Eld ~ Boura Fell 9th day of Seledos
Damn them! Damn them! Damn them for their incompetence!
Vadim Maur snatched the silverglass mirror off his bedchamber wall and smashed it against the stone.
It exploded with a satisfying crash, sending shards and splinters of glass flying in all directions.
He grabbed the carved chaise in the corner of the room and slammed it into the wall until it broke into kindling.
The small private desk and chair suffered a similar fate a few chimes later.
Vadim stood in the center of the wreckage, panting with exertion and trembling with rage.
Did he have to do everything by himself?
Kolis Manza was dead. Prince Dorian—the new king—was not.
Annoura and the unborn child who were to have been Vadim’s power in Celieria were lost to him.
And working in league with the dahl’reisen, the new King Dorian had instantly begun a purge of not only his court but the entire city.
Centuries of planning and careful cultivation were unraveling with increasing speed.
And to top it all off, Ellysetta Baristani had escaped capture. Again.
Of all the bitter disappointments—of all the gross ineptitudes—that was the worst.
His Mages had failed him. All of them. Nour had failed. Manza had failed. Keldo had failed. Dur and the Mharog had failed. Every Primage and Sulimage he’d entrusted to bring his great plan to fruition had failed.
“Damn them!” If they weren’t already dead, he’d kill them himself for their bungling.
Throughout history, High Mages of Eld had held their Dark throne through a combination of strength, cunning, and ruthlessness.
But no amount of cunning or strength could disguise the string of failures that had dogged his footsteps from the moment he’d fixed his eye upon Ellysetta Baristani.
Or keep the whispers already circulating in the Mage Halls from gaining strength and credence.
Primages who had been waiting for him to falter would seize upon the survival of Prince Dorian, the loss of Celieria’s throne, and not one but two failed attempts to capture the Tairen Soul and his mate as proof that Vadim Maur no longer enjoyed Seledorn’s Dark favor.
He needed a decisive victory—fast. And this time he had no intention of sending a lesser Mage to bungle the job. He would oversee the next stage of this battle himself.
Vadim released the privacy wards sealing his room and summoned a trusted umagi to clean up the mess while he returned to the war room.
Vargus and the other Primages were still there, several of them talking in quiet whispers.
They fell silent when he entered. Vargus watched him with trepidation, the others with carefully constructed blankness.
“Vargus, pack your bags. You and I will be heading to Boura Dor tomorrow to oversee the next phase of our attack from there. And Garok?” Vadim turned to the Primage he suspected of leading the rumblings against him in the Mage Council.
“You, Fursk, and Mahl are coming too.” He named the other two Primages who were most loyal to Garok.
“I have an important job in need of your great talents.”
To his credit, Primage Garok’s expression never changed. “Of course, Most High.” He executed a smooth bow. “It is our honor to serve.”
Vadim hid his satisfaction behind a cold mask. When he achieved his great victory, he would be on hand to take the credit. His greatest detractors, unfortunately, would either perish as heroes supporting their Mage or die as incompetent fools, depending on the outcome of their battles.
When cunning and strength were not enough for a High Mage to hold his throne, it was time for ruthlessness. In particular, the swift and decisive elimination of all who opposed him.
Celieria City ~ The Royal Palace
Annoura, Dowager Queen of Celieria, sat alone on a stone bench in the private palace garden that had been Dorian’s favorite. Winter had come, and the trees had all lost their leaves weeks ago. It seemed fitting, somehow, to be here now, alone in a barren winter garden.
A sealed letter lay in her lap. Her name was written on the front in a familiar script.
Dorian had sent the letter to Dori, in Great Bay, before his death.
The ink was a bit smudged from seawater.
When Dori’s ship went down, the letter was tucked in an oilskin pouch strapped to his waist. Her son had come very close to dying.
If not for the Danae water spirits who had rescued him from his sinking ship, he would have drowned at the bottom of Great Bay.
The Danae had saved him, and he had returned to Celieria City with Gaspare Fellows, a dahl’reisen from Cannevar Barrial’s land, and the Fey, to save her.
After all she’d done, after all her hatred and accusations, the Fey and a dahl’reisen had still come to save her.
That was a humbling realization. But not nearly so humbling as the realization that her Favorite, Ser Vale, had been a Mage, one who’d nearly claimed her soul.
She had harbored, in her innermost circle, an Elden Mage who had planned the execution of her entire family in order to claim her soul and rule Celieria through her and the royal son she carried in her womb.
She ran the pads of her fingers across the folded parchment of Dorian’s last letter to her. She was afraid to crack the seal, afraid what harsh truths might lie inside, but eventually, she mustered the courage. The blue wax broke in two. She unfolded the parchment and began to read.
My Dearest Annoura,
I hope this letter finds you well. The battle has not yet begun. We wait in growing tension and dread, which I suspect is the enemy’s intent. But the waiting is a boon as well, for it has left me with much time to think.
There is a saying here along the borders: A man never sees more clearly than when he looks death in the eye. As I sit here in this cold, dark castle, on yet another cold, dark night, waiting for war, I know it is true, for I see more clearly than I have in a long time.