Chapter 5
The Palace was in an uproar when Rylan and I got back.
Canter, the grizzly old receptionist, was frantically answering phone calls, and servants and Mages Guild staff were scurrying about the halls at an uncharacteristically hurried pace.
Usually everything was calm and collected around here—but now nervous excitement buzzed in the air.
“Something big must be about to go down,” Rylan said as he followed me down to the Mages Guild, located in the south wing of the Palace. My serapha charm told me Iannis was down there, and I wanted answers from him. “Any idea what?”
“No. I wasn’t told anything out of the ordinary was happening.”
“Miss Baine,” Dira, the Mages Guild receptionist, called from her desk as I entered the lobby. “Lord Iannis needs to speak to you right away. He asked that you come alone.” Her eyes briefly flicked to Rylan.
I nodded. “Go have dinner,” I told him. “I’ll let you know when I need you again.”
Rylan looked slightly put out that he was once again being excluded, but he bowed, then left without argument.
He might be my bodyguard now, but he was still an ex-Resistance member, and Iannis wasn’t about to trust him with confidential information.
After all, Rylan was here to serve out his sentence instead of working in the mines—he wasn’t a willing volunteer.
He might not support the Resistance anymore, but he still wasn’t a fan of the mage regime.
I had a feeling that if he saw an opportunity to undermine the Guild in any way, he would take it in a heartbeat.
Once, I would have done the same. But now that I was engaged to Iannis, and learning to become a mage myself, that wasn’t an option.
I needed to learn how to make the system work better, not bring it down entirely.
Revolution sounded nice on paper, but I was beginning to understand that the reality was anything but.
Violence, much as I loved using it on an individual basis, didn’t solve anything.
It only left death and destruction in its wake, and the pieces you had to pick up and put together afterward didn’t necessarily assemble to give you what you wanted.
“Enter,” Iannis called when I knocked on the door.
I opened it to see him seated behind his desk, a grave expression on his face.
Director Chen stood at his side, resplendent as usual in her silk robes, and Cirin Garidano, the Finance Secretary, sat in one of the guest chairs.
Fenris was curled up in front of the fireplace in wolf form, and he rose to greet me, tail wagging.
“Hey,” I said, bending down to briefly stroke my hand along Fenris’s coarse, dark brown fur.
It occurred to me that Fenris had been spending a lot of time in human form recently, and I wondered if last night’s full moon had inspired him to go back to his usual manner of skulking around in beast form. “What’s going on?”
“We are about to host some very unexpected guests,” Iannis said. “Take a seat, so I can explain.”
“Unexpected guests?” I sat down next to Cirin. “From where?”
“From Dara. Minister Graning is preparing his departure as we speak, along with several other high officials. The Mage-Emperor of Garai has died at long last, and the Minister is stopping in Solantha on his way to attend the funeral.”
“Through here?” I frowned. “But wouldn’t it be easier to travel through the Central Continent to get to Garai from Dara?”
“Perhaps, but the Minister wishes for me to attend the funeral as part of his entourage, so he is coming through here to collect me. The difference is only a few days in the end. He intends to stay in Solantha for three days, bringing half the government along, and then we will travel on to Garai by steamboat. Since the Garaians have to wait for the guests from all continents to assemble in their capital, there is just time enough to go that way.”
I crinkled my nose at the thought of a corpse waiting for weeks and weeks to be buried, in the summertime, no less. I guessed they’d have to embalm him in the meantime.
“When you say ‘we,’ who exactly are you referring to?” Director Chen asked. “I would think that just as the Minister is taking an entourage, so would you want one yourself.”
“Indeed.” Iannis’s lips curved as he glanced up at her. “That is why I am taking Sunaya along, and you as well.”
“Me!” Director Chen’s almond-shaped eyes flashed with surprise, and more than a little dismay.
“I am your deputy, meant to rule in your stead while you are gone. We cannot possibly leave at the same time. Who will run things in our place? You remember the fiasco that occurred when the Council seized power in your absence—that cannot be allowed to occur again.”
“I am naming Secretary Garidano as the Director pro tempore, and I will meet with the Council before we leave to ensure that they do not attempt to undermine him in any way.” Iannis’s voice turned ominous.
As Director Chen had said, they couldn’t be allowed to repeat the same mistakes they had made the last time Iannis had been gone.
It was largely their fault that the Uprising had started to begin with, and the city was still recovering.
Half of them had resigned in the last couple of weeks, so I didn’t think Iannis would have any trouble cowing the remainder into submission.
Cirin started at this announcement, as surprised as Chen. “Fenris will be here to advise you, Cirin,” Iannis continued. “I will also sit down with you and go over everything you will need to know before we depart.”
“Yes, sir.” Cirin’s deep voice was smooth, but the slight pause before his words told me Iannis had shocked the hell out of him.
“Thank you for the honor, Lord Iannis.” His dark blue eyes gleamed with anticipation, and despite his shock, I knew Cirin had been waiting for an opportunity like this.
He was ambitious, and I knew that he intended to take the Chief Mage position the moment Iannis vacated it.
I resolved then and there to keep an eye on him—he’d proved his loyalty in the past, but that didn’t mean he would always be that way.
Roanas used to say to me that the lust for power could warp even the purest heart, and Cirin was no exception.
“But Lord Iannis,” Director Chen protested, apparently not at all satisfied at his choice of replacement.
“A trip to Garai is not a short affair. I assume we will be staying for the new Mage-Emperor’s testing and coronation as well as the funeral?
With the boat ride each way, we may be gone for as long as three months! ”
“Indeed,” Iannis said. “However, it cannot be helped. It is absolutely essential that you accompany us, Director. As for the duration of our absence, until airships become safe enough to cross the big oceans, there is no alternative. We have requisitioned the fastest steamer available.”
There was a pregnant pause, and I remembered learning in school about several attempts to fly dirigibles across the ocean. Over half the voyages had ended in disaster, and further attempts were outlawed until such a time as dirigibles were made safe for these long distances.
“It would be madness to try flying,” Chen finally said. “Especially now, during typhoon season.”
“So we’re leaving three days after the Minister gets here?
” I asked, not sure if I should be excited or apprehensive.
After all, I’d always wanted to travel outside the Federation, but I’d only just gotten back to Solantha.
Was this what my life was going to be like from now on, hopping about from state to state, and now continent to continent, at the beck and call of Minister Graning?
Adventure was all well and good, but there was something to be said for ‘home sweet home,’ too.
“Yes,” Iannis said. “You are coming along as my fiancée and the junior member of the delegation, but there will be plenty of opportunities to advance your apprenticeship as well. The voyage is long, and we should be able to fit in quite a few extra lessons.”
“I must say I am surprised to learn that Fenris will be my advisor,” Cirin said, glancing toward Fenris, who was standing near my elbow.
“But I realize his counsel will be an asset, considering how much time he has spent at your side. It is very impressive that a shifter can become a scholar of magic history, law, and Loranian as Fenris has done. Indeed, his accomplishments have quite changed my perception of shifter nature and limitations.”
“If only he knew,” Fenris told me dryly, the words for my ears only, and I stifled a laugh.
I was glad that he was taking the compliment in stride rather than getting defensive, as he had every reason to be.
The real reason Fenris knew all these things was because he used to be a Chief Mage, before he was forced into hiding and Iannis changed him into a shifter with an ancient and highly illegal spell.
It was a little worrying that Cirin had made such keen observations about Fenris, and I wondered how many other mages wondered about Fenris’s strange knowledge.
But Cirin didn’t seem to suspect the unlikely truth, and hopefully the others wouldn’t think anything of it either.
The Finance Secretary thanked Iannis once more for the opportunity and assured him he’d do his best to deserve his confidence, then took his leave.
After Cirin was gone, Fenris shifted back into human form in a flash of white light.
One moment, he was a wolf, the next a stocky man with short dark hair and a beard covering his square jaw.
He wore a simple dark tunic, his usual dress, and I wondered if his decision not to wear modern clothes stemmed from the fact that in his former life he was accustomed to mage robes.
Since he couldn’t wear them anymore, tunics were the next best thing.