Between a mage and his best friend
Jasper
Even though I usually relished the opportunity to bring anything back to an orderly state, I fucking despised the task I had of restoring Enora’s room to what it used to be.
But I, as a goddess-damned fool, told her to trust me.
And, even worse, I saw it written all over her face just how little she did.
That stung my ego like no other and left me with little option.
I’d been scrubbing for goddess-damned hours.
Whatever was in the tar tossed all over her room, it etched the profanities right into the glass of her mirror, and I couldn’t coax it away from anything else with magic.
The first time I tried on a simple piece of clothing, it went up in a burst of nytefire and met a watery end in the sink.
A trip to my workshop could have afforded me the chance to do a little research, but I didn’t know when Enora would be back from the barracks, and I’d be damned if things weren’t somewhat back to normal for her.
Days ago, I hadn’t held myself much above begging for forgiveness at her feet, but now? I’d fucking crawl if it would ease a measure of her distress.
Whoever had done this—and I had a healthy suspicion who—was going to have absolute hell to pay, and it wouldn’t even be from me. If Enora got to them first, it would be a bloodbath. If Maksym did, there wouldn’t be a trace of them left.
Thankfully, the Agōn Ferr was already underway to replace the few outgrown Elixia we were bound to be losing soon.
Once I’d finished gathering the pages of Enora’s notebook and wrapping my head around whether it was salvageable, I’d be paying my friend and king a visit.
This entire display of insolence aside, we needed to have a much more meaningful conversation.
I refused to keep him in the dark about what had happened with Enora. While a smarter man would have put more thought into the implications of taking his king’s betrothed to bed, and a more cowardly one would have pretended as if it never happened, I found myself stuck in the middle.
Just like I’d always be with them, for the rest of our goddess-damned lives.
“JASPER!”
I nearly threw the pages I’d been stacking with profound care.
Eilir shot across the room, and their exasperation expanded tenfold as they took in the scene of half-repaired disarray. Whatever else they tried to say, it came out as nothing but a shrill squeak.
“I know, I know.” I set down the papers beside their leather cover. “Don’t worry about this. Enora knows I’m dealing with it. What has you worked into such a dither?”
“Dither?” the sprite squealed. “The council called another event already! Max sent me to find you because he’s freaked out, and I’m freaked out, and Gallan is too! She’s fighting Elixia, Jas. Elixia!”
“What?” I choked on the word.
“Oh, it’s bad. It’s so bad.” Eilir took a shaky breath. “They’re going to beat her to a pulp. I know it. A-And I didn’t mean to not be there, you know? B-but Max asked me to keep an eye on the Wastes, w-with that movement, a-and I—”
Eilir’s next words warbled into a high-pitched shriek as I reached into the planes and pulled myself to the arena.
In the spirit of not startling someone within an inch of their life, I stepped into the corridor behind the royal viewing box and took a much-needed moment to collect myself.
I half expected Eilir to be hot on my tail.
Hoped they would be, actually, because I had a deluge of questions now that I was afraid to ask anyone else.
Some of them were incredibly selfish, but most revolved around why the fuck it had taken hours for anyone to notify me that another event had been called.
Even though Max swore to me up and down that he had the council under control after word got out about a loosely tangible threat on the horizon, I never should have trusted him to handle it on his own.
There couldn’t be any other reason they’d chosen to call another event this early.
Not that precedent was ever truly set, but to give the competitors only a day of rest, especially after pairing two trials together, was highly unusual.
They had to be panicking about something, or they were out to prove a point.
When I grew tired of my pacing footfalls echoing off the stone corridor, I set my hand on the bronzed, whorled inlay on the door of the royal suite and braced myself as I pushed it open.
The patio was a modest space, built of the same tenebrous stone as the rest of the arena, draped with a rich blue fabric roof to shield the royal family and their court from rain or sun while they spectated games.
That was the original intention, at least, long before the Blackspire line was cleaved and whittled down to its last surviving member.
The threadbare fabric likely wouldn’t do much for rain anymore.
Max’s gleaming black horns were visible over the top of the stately throne set in the middle of the patio, just as the horns of dozens of Grimmorian Kings before him, but the rest of the seats were vacant.
Gallan was the only other occupant on the entire patio, leaning against the railing with his eyes lowered on the activity happening in the arena pit.
It was his attention that slid over first, and he fixed me with an uneasy look and the most subtle shake of his head. Any hope I had of him not remembering what he saw behind the tavern that night was dashed.
As for the odds of him having told anyone…
Sweat beaded on the back of my neck, and I adjusted my collar.
“My liege,” Gallan drawled to our king without breaking eye contact with me.
My feet carried me over with ample hesitation as Maksym leaned on the arm of his throne and cast me a scathing glance. “Where the fuck have you been?”
That was a tone seldom turned in my direction.
My throat worked as I fought to swallow down a lump. “We had a slight…issue this morning. Enora’s quarters were vandalized. Badly. I’ve been dealing with it.”
Maksym sank back with a defeated sigh. “This day just keeps getting better,” he muttered. “Let me know what needs to be replaced, and I’ll castrate whoever’s responsible later. It’s the least of our worries right now.”
My fears he’d already learned what had transpired between Enora and me settled a bit, but only enough to make way for a deluge of other concerns.
“She’s fought already?” I cast my attention over the lower arena pit, divided into multiple rings, but there was no sign of her.
“Twice.” Gallan walked past me and toward the doors. “Bright-eyed shifter whelps from the city. Both draws, which I think were unfair to her. I’ll be back soon.”
Smart man, escaping while he could.
Maksym didn’t even acknowledge Gallan’s departure.
“Three rounds total?” I asked him.
“Yeah.” He’d propped his elbow on the arm of the throne and rested his forehead on his fingertips as he shook his head subtly. “Thank Mina she already taught me how to prepare her people’s fallen.”
I couldn’t help but wince, and I noticed then just how disheveled Maksym was.
Completely unbound hair he’d clearly been raking his hands through.
A shirt so rumpled, it must have come straight off the floor—without its laces, too. Not a glint of a ring or ear cuff in sight, and mud-splattered boots.
My king may not have been the most showy man with his appearance, but there was a well-defined line of standards he held himself to. I’d only seen them slip a handful of times in our fifteen years of friendship, and not once since he’d taken his father’s throne.
Guilt flared in my chest, and I was eager to find a thread of positivity. “Two draws, though. That means she will not be disqualified, right? Even if she loses her third?”
Maksym was quiet for a moment before he straightened, and his voice was a little hoarse when he spoke.
“The council has chosen to depart from tradition this year. Participants won’t be faulted for draws, but they must win one of their three bouts or see it vetoed.
If they don’t, it will count as disqualification. ”
Well, fuck.
“The council…thinks I’m distracted. That I’m losing my grasp.
” Maksym didn’t entirely sound like he was directing his words at me, but I sank back against the railing and gave him my attention.
“They tore into me yesterday. About her. About that fucking letter. About the shit in the Wastes—” He gestured a hand vaguely, but I knew what he meant.
Odessan scouts had been spotted across the Wastes in the week leading up to the Agōn Ferr, making erratic movements that made little sense.
Given that, and the clear-as-mud threat Maksym had received on paper from their tyrant boy king, allegedly, we were bracing ourselves for an inevitable unknown that clearly had more than just the two of us on edge.
“And just look at them all down there, drunk in their fucking revelry, like we aren’t playing with lives.”
The patio just below Maksym’s was where the lords and council liked to sprawl themselves for these events.
Waited on hand and foot with refreshments and food.
Placing their bets and throwing around more money than the commoners would make in a lifetime.
Jeering and heckling, as if they were people of any true consequence.
“I asked them to consider postponing the rest of the events. Delaying them, at least, until we get better intelligence.” My attention snapped back to Maksym and the utterly detached look on his face. “And this is what they did instead.”
Despicable.
An ask by their king not only rejected, but thrown back in his face.
I suspected that by the end of the Agōn Ferr, the council chambers would be painted with dark fae blood, and Maksym’s hands would drip with it.
He’d vowed up and down not to be an oppressive king like his father, to never rule with an iron fist, but there was something to be said about being used as a rug, too.
Still, it wasn’t the time to broach an ounce of that, especially not while I had a festering bulb of guilt sprouting inside me at frightening speed.