Chapter Forty-Three
Niall’s expression pinched as they entered the outskirts of Casselarn. “ This is the capital city of the mighty Arnsveld?”
Casselarn was small compared to Bellacosta’s capital.
The buildings were short and squat, usually with only one floor.
The rare few with two stories were shops on the first floor, homes on the second.
The streets were natural dirt and stone rather than cobbled.
Neighbors chatted idly as they hung their laundry on the same drying line stretched between their houses.
Children ran through the streets, chasing balls and screaming with excitement.
The warmth of community radiated from every smiling face.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Penn replied with a grin.
Niall snorted dismissively. “It is nothing compared to Litus. That is a city of true craftsmanship. Beauty around every corner, in the fashion, the statuary, each building designed with grace and symmetry.”
“Amazing. I didn’t know even country servants had the opportunity to enjoy the splendor of Bellacosta’s capital.”
Niall snapped his mouth shut. As they traveled, his servant persona had slipped more often than it stayed in place.
Turning his nose up at the simple trail food.
Complaining about aches and pains from horseback riding, as if he was unused to any form of physical labor.
Expecting Penn to do all the menial chores—setting up tents, tearing them down, cooking when they stopped for a meal.
Never once had he expected Alistair to perform any of these tasks, which only made the ruse more obvious.
But Penn preferred the arrogance and presumption, the reminders of who hid beneath the glamour. They were so much easier to process than Alistair’s smooth transition into Valerian.
Even now, the mage rode his horse alongside Penn’s, hazel eyes bright as he examined the people around them. His lips quirked in a wistful smile as another group of children purposefully marched past them, carrying stick swords and bark shields as they set off on an adventure.
“I have a child”, Val had confessed when they’d traveled together. Was the mage’s wistfulness a ploy to keep Penn’s guard down, or Valerian’s memories influencing Alistair? Or perhaps the emotion belonged solely to Alistair.
Penn didn’t know much about the adviser, and what little he did know wasn’t good. Was he a father? Did he want to be a father?
In the time they’d spent together, Penn hadn’t learned nearly enough about Alistair’s history. Now that the mage was pretending to be Valerian, Penn had lost any chance to feign interest in him.
Alistair guided his horse closer to Penn’s and said in a low, intimate voice, “I think it’s charming.” A softness lingered in his expression as he gazed around them.
Maybe he’ll be so charmed he’ll reconsider whatever awful plans he has, Penn thought with little hope. “It’s one of my favorite places in the world.”
“Did you grow up here?” Alistair asked.
Penn hesitated for a long time before admitting, “No, I grew up in Irongard.”
Ice blue flashed over the right eye, as if Alistair had temporarily lost control of the glamour. “The name sounds familiar,” he said, his tone casual.
“It was a mining town,” Penn explained. “At least, it was before the mines collapsed, killing half the miners and taking half the town with it.”
Niall sneered. “An avoidable tragedy.”
You mean if we gave in to your master’s demands?
Though Penn had only been a child at the time, he knew the rumors that had circulated—how King Jareth had sought to purchase the rights to some of the Arnsveldians mines.
King Holden had quickly rebuffed him, and not a month later, one of the mines collapsed.
Coincidence? Sabotage? Or a curse cast by the very man riding casually beside Penn?
Penn’s grip tightened on his horse’s reins as he said, “My father died in the collapse.”
Both mages quieted—even Niall had enough tact to bite back his snide remarks.
“You never told me that,” Alistair murmured, his voice low and concerned, as if he really were Penn’s lover learning about the old heartbreak for the first time.
Penn gazed into those fake hazel eyes. He tried to smile but it slipped too easily off his lips. “Knowing about it wouldn’t change anything between us.”
Someone called out a cheery hello, and Penn used it as an excuse to drop the subject.
He smiled and waved and greeted others as their horses carried them closer to the castle.
Perched high up on the mountain, surrounded by a tall wall of gray stone, the castle was as much a fortress as a residence.
If any enemy kingdoms tried to invade and made it all the way up the mountain, every citizen of Casselarn could fit inside those walls and survive the siege for months.
But here I am, escorting the villains right past the gate.
Penn stopped his horse before the guards would have a chance to recognize him.
“Well, Reginald, you’ve made this as unpleasant a journey as possible,” he said, keeping his voice cheerful.
“But this is where we part ways. Good luck on your errands. Have a safe journey back down the mountain.”
Niall scowled. “Are you trying to dismiss me? You damned, insolent little—”
“Remember your manners,” Alistair scolded, ice leaking into his tone. “You’re here at your master’s behest, and he would not be pleased to learn you were expelled from the mountain for improper behavior.”
Niall gritted his teeth hard enough to hear the grinding. He forced himself to smile and said, “Excellent advice, sir. However, to complete my master’s … errands, I must be allowed to pass his message on to the dowager queen.”
“I can deliver the message to her,” Penn said, holding out his hand.
“I must hand it directly to the queen.”
“Then you’ll have to wait out here while I speak with the guards.”
“Now wait just a damned minute!”
A warm hand settled on the small of Penn’s back, and at the same time the heat of another presence caressed Penn’s mental shield, searching for a weak spot. “It’ll be easier to help him inside,” Alistair murmured near Penn’s ear. “They’ll allow it if you say he’s your guest.”
Thin spider-legs of dread crawled over Penn’s spine. Blurry images flashed through his mind. A green-clad soldier aiming a crossbow at him. A sharp icicle covered in blood. Someone’s head cradled in Penn’s lap.
After Niall and Penn had fought, Alistair stripped the events from Niall’s mind. The memory of your fight would not serve my purposes.
When Penn had woken up in Alistair’s dreamscape, he hadn’t questioned why the mage had suddenly changed tactics, trapping Penn in his own mind. What did you take from me while I was dreaming?
Penn might not remember the events clearly, but a warning still clanged through his mind.
He knew with absolute certainty that Niall would attack the guards if Penn didn’t let him through.
Maybe I should let them fight. There were enough soldiers to protect the castle, but what about the civilians around them?
How many people would become collateral damage?
How much havoc could two mages wreak before the soldiers killed them?
Then there was Niall’s barrier. Penn’s hand still stung from where the broken shards of dagger had cut him. What other weapons could it deflect?
That barrier needed to be neutralized before Niall could be killed.
Until Penn found a way to break past it or tear it down, he needed to keep the mage complacent, cooperative. “All right, I’ll see what I can do,” he agreed, and gently guided his horse toward the closed gate.
Last time Penn had returned home, the guards opened the gate the moment they’d spotted Archer, and their general chewed them out for not following protocol.
“What if we had been magicians under some glamour?” Now that Penn was accompanied by two glamoured mages, he hoped the guards had taken their scolding to heart.
As they neared, the gate didn’t budge, remaining firmly in place. One guard raised her hand to stall Penn’s approach. She looked him up and down, lips pressed in a thin line. “State your name and business.”
The other guard looked at her like she’d gone blind. “Sanne, it’s Penn.”
“Maybe, or maybe not. I can tell you one thing: that’s not Scout.”
The other guard’s brow furrowed as he looked at the horse, then his hand tightened on his weapon.
“Trust me, I’m no happier about the change in horse than you are, Rowen,” Penn replied. “But for formalities sake, my name is Penn Kaurier and I’m returning from the campaign in Bellacosta with a message from His Majesty King Archer for Dowager Queen Helena.”
Sanne’s lips thinned and her eyes skated between Alistair and Niall. “And these two?”
“Valerian Sommers,” Alistair introduced.
Both of Sanne’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “The mercenary?” Her lips pursed as she scanned him from head to toe. “My dad served with you once …”
“Oh? What was his name?”
“Kurt Welbourn.”
Alistair snapped his fingers. “Yes, I remember him. Led a mission hunting a group of bandits through Lyberna who had kidnapped a nobleman’s son.”
Sanne’s shoulders relaxed. “I made him tell me that story a hundred times as a kid.”
A shiver went up Penn’s spine at how easily Alistair stole Valerian’s place.
Rowen gestured to Niall and asked, “And him?”
Niall looked down his nose at the man, much easier while he was still on horseback.
“Reginald Paxton. I am a messenger for Lord Edgar Slater of Causley Estate, who wishes to discuss a border issue.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a scroll, tossing it through the gate’s bars at the guards.
They instinctively backed away from the suspicious scroll. Rowen poked it with his glaive, then raised his shirt over his nose and carefully unsealed it with one gloved hand.
Niall’s jaw ticked and he muttered, “Such unnecessary theatrics.”
Penn wasn’t sure if he was annoyed because they had successfully neutralized a trap or because their vigilance would make it harder to trick them later.
“Sanne, grab the book of seals,” Rowen said.
Niall sighed in exasperation. “Must we go through all this hassle?”
The guards ignored him. Finally, Sanne returned with the book. They compared the seal on the missive to the one in the letter, then nodded.
“Everything seems in order.”
Penn watched, conflicted, as the gates to Castle Arn opened and two villains stepped through.
The spiderwebs so thickly encased one tree, Valerian struggled to see the memory through their silvery filaments. He squinted and cocked his head to the side, peering through the gaps. “What did you find so interesting?” he murmured, hands clenching tighter on the handle of his axe.
A flash of movement in the canopy above caught his eye. Valerian threw himself out of the way just as a spider half his size lunged at him. It arched up from the ground, forelimbs raised and fangs bared in warning. Instead of attacking outright, it waved its legs as if to ward Valerian off.
Is it shooing me? Valerian thought, eyebrows arched at the odd behavior. “You’re the invader,” he reminded the spider.
The spider rubbed two of its legs together to create a warning hiss that echoed through the trees.
As Valerian watched, he realized it wasn’t just defensive—it was afraid. How many spiders had he already killed? And that was before he’d learned to conjure flames.
“If you’re so afraid, run along and fetch your master. He and I have unfinished business.”
Either the spider didn’t understand him, or it didn’t care to do his bidding. When he didn’t heed its warning, it lunged again.
Valerian met it head on, the axe burrowing deep into the spider’s thorax.
Its legs twitched and collapsed under it, dropping its large body to the ground in a sad pile.
Valerian pulled the axe out and, for good measure, chopped down three more times, until the arachnid shriveled into a pathetic ball.
The end of Valerian’s axe was coated in green gunk. He considered cleaning it off on the ground, but it seemed pointless when he hoped to splatter more spider guts with it.
Now that the spider guardian was dead, Valerian turned his attention back to the memory tree. With the tip of his axe, he cut away a small section—just enough to see the image without allowing the tree to flee from him.
In the bark, he saw his own familiar shop. The image spun, allowing him to take it all in—the counter, the empty shelves, the bare wall where he would one day install a hundred cubbies to store his scrolls.
It was a happy memory, one that filled Valerian with pride. He’d paid for that shop with his own money, earned through a lifetime of struggle.
But he would willingly burn it to the ground if it helped him defeat Alistair.
Valerian dropped the axe to his side and raised his palm, once again envisioning the heat of fire. The webs encasing the tree caught first, smoldering red under his touch before scorching black. They quickly fed the flames, spreading the fire all the way up to the canopy in the blink of an eye.
Valerian stepped back, admiring his handiwork.
Pain spiked behind his left eye, and he instinctively covered it with one hand.
The pain needled through his brain, sharp and persistent, carving out a tiny piece of him.
He gritted his teeth and breathed in carefully through his nose, determined to ignore it as he watched the flames devour the tree.
Whatever memory it held was now only another scar in his mind.
Scurrying through the trees and across the ground warned Valerian that other spiders had come to defend their stolen home. The first one was simply the vanguard.
“That’s right,” Valerian snarled as he swung his axe, slicing straight through the foreleg of the nearest spider. “I’ll burn it all to the fucking ground unless your master stops me!”
The spiders ranged in size—some as tall as him when they reared back on their hind legs—others the size of his thumbnail. He soon realized the smaller ones were the most bothersome as one bit the back of his hand. He flung it off, but already he saw swelling around the tiny wound.
The venom can’t kill me, he thought, firmly inserting this belief into his own mind as he swung the axe again. This time, when it collided with a spider’s thorax, it smoldered and burned against the hairy exoskeleton.
It can sting and irritate but nothing more. As long as he believed it, he could push past the pain in his hand and continue attacking.
More and more spiders converged on him, some large enough to bite his head off if he let his guard down.
Yet none of them went in for the killing blow. They bit him, they tried to ensnare him in webbing, a few even tried to maim him.
Alistair had never killed him. Instead, the mage continuously resorted to trapping Valerian in different memories, no matter how often he escaped.
Because if Valerian died, his body died, and he would take Alistair down with him.
Valerian would fight until the bloody end or until Alistair came out and faced him.