Chapter 13
TERRAN
After dressing, I emptied the tub but didn’t leave my bathing chamber just yet. She would be out there, and while I could face the fiercest immortals in Elydor, I’d prefer not to face this particular Aetherian just yet.
I leaned against the gossimite counter, its gold flecks glistening in the near-darkness. What had possessed me, I was uncertain. Taunting her, as I had, knowing Lyra was as stubborn and competitive as they came—that bit of knowledge coming from my brother—perhaps it was the outcome I’d hoped for.
Yet she’d quickly turned the tides against me.
Hair spilling around her shoulders, Lyra’s eyes mesmerizing as they dared me to continue, she had become the very opposite of how I knew her.
No longer cool and aloof, though still very much measured, with the first tug of her silken sash, it took every bit of discipline I’d learned to remain still.
The thought had simply come to me, and before I could weigh its consequences, I’d decided there was, indeed, much more beneath the surface.
If Lyra epitomized control in every mannerism and action, outwardly, would she secretly desire the very opposite?
If I thought more on it before reaching for her wrists, I’d have remembered she trusted me least of nearly anyone in Elydor.
Lyra shouldn’t have allowed me to bind her wrists, though I was certain she could wrest free using magic.
Still, it was her willingness to succumb that surprised me most.
After that, I’d nearly released the thin thread of control I’d been maintaining.
Stepping back from her had been difficult.
Inhaling, reminding myself that Lyra was no ally… that the consequences of losing this game would alter the path of my life as surely as Kael’s when he chose Princess Mevlida, I pushed up and strode into my chamber.
No sign of Lyra.
But the table had been set with domes forged from thermoneutral, the Gyorian heat-holding alloy, covering trenchers of food. Thankfully, my servants were as loyal as my men. That I’d asked for a meal for two would not be questioned. Even so, Lyra could not remain here much longer.
I needed to retrieve the Stone before my father decided to wield it, contributing to the undeniable Unbalance, the cause of which he’d known and chosen to hide from me.
She sat in my leather chair, shoeless, feet curled under her, reading. It was a text I knew well: Chronicles of the Rift Wars.
“Hungry?”
She looked up. Hair back in place, features schooled. Aside from her bare feet, there was no other hint of the Lyra that had occupied the bathing chamber.
“Aye,” she said, replacing the book.
Caught staring at her fine-looking backside, I turned and Lyra followed.
Pulling off the domes, I snuck a glance at Lyra as she surveyed the meal. I’d asked for something worthy of an honored guest, and to bring wine instead of mead.
“I’m impressed,” she said as I poured two mulled Sylverwines.
“Spiced venison stew and root vegetables,” I said, surveying the trenchers. “Hearth-baked bread with herbed oil and roasted stonefruit glazed in honey and thyme.”
“You speak,” she said, tasting the wine, “as if you prepared the meal.”
I sat across from her, wondering what it might be like to be partnered with Lyra.
An absurd notion which I dismissed immediately.
“One of the palace cooks was orphaned in the Battle of Narn, and he was raised by my mother. We’re still good friends, and I’ve spent many days learning from him.”
After chewing a piece of venison, she said, “That was kind of your mother, to take him in.”
“I could regale you with many similar instances.”
“As I’ve heard. Your story does not surprise me, given her reputation. She must have been extraordinary… to be mourned with such fury.”
I took a bite of bread, considering her words. I said nothing to refute the latter part. Fury was an appropriate word for the decades-long campaign my father waged against humans.
“She was.”
The silence that followed as we ate by the fire should have been awkward.
“Tonight,” I said, sitting back, wine in hand, “I will take the Stone.”
“You’ve located it for certain?”
“Nay, but I know my father well. Or so I believed,” I amended, realizing that wasn’t entirely true. “If it’s not in the Throne Vault, I will live the remainder of my days in Aetheria. He’s posted an extra guard there, which alone should have raised suspicions… if anyone had known to be suspicious.”
“The Throne Vault?”
Was I mad to take her along? I told myself it was a strategy, that she knew more than she let on, that I could control the risk, exposing her true plans. But maybe, also, I just didn’t want to let her go.
“Few know of its existence. To the guards and all others, it’s nothing more than a hidden spiral staircase built into the mountain that leads to storage and little else.
But in that chamber, disguised as a part of the stone wall, the entrance to a long corridor is revealed to those who… can pass through.”
The Vault was also guarded against magical interference, but I kept that bit of knowledge to myself.
“What is the plan?”
“There is an entrance near the throne room through which none would expect visitors. There are two guards to contend with, still, but I have a plan for both. It is not getting into the Vault, or retrieving the Stone, I worry about, though.”
“Nay?” she asked, picking up a piece of honeyed fruit. “It would seem perhaps you should be.”
I watched her place the berry delicately between her lips.
“I’m concerned more with the guards waking. And my father discovering the Stone missing.”
She licked a bit of honey from her fingertip. If only I could do the same, though I’d not stop there…
“Wake? What, precisely, is your plan to get by them?”
“To knock them out, of course.”
There it was. The “Aetherian Stare.” All knew of it. Hated it. A reminder that the first Elydorians lived in, and established, what was now Aetheria. The keepers of our history. And with a full knowledge of the past came insights no other clan could claim.
“That is one of the many reasons we hate Aetherians,” I blurted.
She blinked. The Stare was gone.
“We don’t need to be told you feel superior when you look at us that way.”
I expected her to argue. To defend herself and her kind. Instead, she cocked her head to the side.
“I hadn’t realized,” she said finally. “And did not mean to condescend you.”
“What were you thinking?” I asked, expecting her to lie.
“That it was foolish to use brute force against your own guards when doing so would alert them to trouble.” She paused. “And that it was very Gyorian to do such a thing.”
She was not wrong. Even so.
Our gazes held, and something, I could not be sure what it was, passed between us.
“The Sovaen Whisper.” Her voice was barely above a whisper itself.
“Is merely a legend,” I said.
“Is it?” Lyra asked, picking up her wine.
By her question, I expected not. Which meant… surely, she could not perform it? Even in the legends, very few could manipulate an Aetherian Whisper and allow the wielder to enter a subject’s mind. Induce calm, a fogged memory. Or even sleep.
“If it were real, its wielder would be branded a mind-bender. A criminal offense in every clan,” I reminded her.
“Indeed,” she agreed. “One of the reasons it was outlawed by Aetherian scholars and twisted into legend. Its power to manipulate without consent was seen as unconscionable.”
Twisted into legend.
“Only those trained,” she said between sips, “as kings or queens, or Shadow Diplomats, were taught fragments of it, in secret, to be used for missions where violence could spark political fallout, or war.”
“In the legends?”
“Nay, Terran. Not only in the legends. Not every war is won on the battlefield. Some are never declared at all.”
“An Aetherian proverb—”
“More than simply a proverb. ’Tis a creed of Shadow Diplomats. A reminder to use magic such as the Sovaen Whisper judiciously.”
It could not be.
“An Aetherian Shadow Diplomat is also naught but a myth, used by non-Aetherians to keep young ones in check.”
She watched me.
My mind raced with all I knew of Shadow Diplomats. Trained in magic never seen performed, their presence never recorded and actions never acknowledged by the crown as they were purportedly trained in emotional manipulation and advanced negotiation tactics.
Shadow Diplomats were real, and Lyra—as well as her parents, I’d guess—were among their ranks.
It would explain how she could navigate royal politics, walk into enemy territory, and hold her own with kings.
Which meant, the outlawed magic they used was real too.
“The Subvocal Arts?” I asked.
“Legend.”
“Wordbinding?”
“Real. Though never used. A promise that could only be obtained in such a way is useless. The ability was discovered inadvertently while developing… other skills.”
Wordbinding was real. The Sovaen Whisper, real. It was no wonder Aetherians gave the rest of us such a stare. We had our secrets, but none such as this. How often throughout our history were such skills used?
Or abused?
“Who knows?”
“The king, and no other. With exception of those who whisper in the shadows, or have done so in the past. You told me of your Throne Vault. I am extending the same courtesy of a secret.”
A secret, indeed. “How many are there?”
Her smile was Lyra’s only response.
“You aren’t worried I’ll share your secret?”
“No,” she said softly. “At least, as worried as you are that I will share yours. But if you were going to betray me, you’d have done so already.”
On that, Lyra was right.