Chapter 13
Following Enhart’s instructions, I unfurled my fingers. A fine mist rose from my palms, dissipating slowly into the cold evening air. “What now?” I asked.
“Now you grow it. Try to turn it into a kind of shield.”
I released my breath, conjuring the mist again.
Thanks to Mordric’s intervention, we’d finally moved on to the second tenet—elemental magic.
I spread my fingers, allowing the mist to grow.
It was almost like a living being, the way it expanded and contracted above my palms. I grinned as it thickened, obscuring the space between Enhart and me.
“Good,” came Enhart’s voice. “Useful in case you ever need to make a quick getaway, and good practice for elemental wards.”
“I thought wards were just in our minds,” I said.
He shook his head. “There are many kinds. An elemental ward provides physical protection like a shield. You’ll use similar mechanics to conjure one.”
I let the mist fade, coming face to face with my tutor once again, and it fell like snow around him.
No, my eyes widened, it was snow. I watched in awe as crystalline flakes coated the ground beneath us.
The snowflakes contrasted sharply with Enhart’s black hair and clothing, making him look like a statue that had been left out in the garden through the winter.
He held out a hand, studying the flakes that landed there.
“Now that’s a beautiful bit of magic,” he said absently.
I stuck out my tongue, catching a flake on its tip.
“Humans are so odd,” he observed, his head cocked.
“I didn’t know I could do this,” I replied, as the last of the snowflakes melted into the earth.
“You’re following your instincts,” he observed. “It’s a good sign.”
“This comes much easier to me than psychal,” I admitted.
“That’s because you already use elemental magic every day.”
I frowned. I didn’t spend my days conjuring snowstorms in my bedchamber. “What do you mean?”
“Most of the basic magic you already know has its foundations in elemental. Take your trick with the broom, for example. You’re not just enchanting the apparatus, but also the air around it to make it move.”
“I never thought about it that way,” I said. “Wait, how do you know about that?”
He shrugged. “It’s the first thing Mordric told me about you.”
“That was the first thing he told you about me?” I asked. “Not that he’d met a powerful witch who fought off her assailant?”
“As I understand it, you didn’t actually fight him off.”
“I might have if Mordric hadn’t ripped his throat out,” I mumbled.
“In any case,” he said. “You’re making progress. Although, I suggest we stop here so you can get some rest before tomorrow.”
He turned on one heel to leave, and I trailed after him. “What’s tomorrow?” I asked.
“Something far more challenging. Fire.”
I stopped short. I could practically smell the scorched thatched roofs of my village. “I can’t do fire.”
“Then we’ll practice until you can,” he called over his shoulder.
I picked up my pace, darting ahead of him to block his path. He shot me an annoyed look, his newfound patience apparently running thin. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“I really don’t think I’ll be any good with fire,” I insisted, wringing my hands.
He narrowed his eyes, his gaze searching.
I shuddered as a chill bloomed between my temples, like I had forced my head into a bucket of ice water.
My concern began to fade, giving way to a crushing sense of calm.
“Hey!” I cried, raising my wards. “Stop poking around in my mind.”
“If you’re not going to tell me what’s going on with you,” he began, stopping short as a vampiress appeared before us, her crimson curls whipping her face.
I stared at her, my lips parted. I was fairly certain that the cold didn’t bother vampires, but she was shivering violently.
Little wonder given she wore no cloak, merely a long black gown with a neckline that dropped nearly to her navel.
“Enny,” she said curtly, her voice high and her accent polished. “I’ve been waiting for hours.”
I glanced sideways at the prince. “Enny?”
“Deepest apologies, Genevieve,” he purred, taking the vampiress’s hand and bringing it to his lips. “I had my hands full with my charge. You understand.”
She scowled at me. “Clearly. But you’re done now, yes?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Good,” she said. “Take me away from this awful cold.”
He offered his arm. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I muttered. He ignored me, the pair of them disappearing into the night.
I returned to the castle alone, intent on finding Mordric to take my mind off things again. To my surprise, I instead stumbled upon a silver-haired vampiress I recognized from the solstice. She dawdled in the great hall, as if waiting for someone.
“Vesper!” I called, waving a hand.
She beamed at me. “Lady Witch.”
“What brings you to Valnar Castle?” I asked.
“I was searching for you,” she replied. “The King promised to let me borrow you for the night. Tea, remember?”
“How generous of him,” I said, winking at her. “Are we going somewhere?”
“I would have loved to invite you to my home just over the bridge, but King Mordric mentioned you’ve been awfully tired from all your training.”
“Oh,” I replied. “Another time, perhaps. It seems like ages since I’ve been outside the castle grounds.”
“Another time,” she agreed, looping her arm through mine. “The Eilkan Parlor will have to do.”
We set off toward the western edge of the castle, passing throngs of nobles as we did.
The castle was nearly always teeming with new faces: dinner guests, dignitaries from foreign lands, citizens of Valnar come to petition their king.
A pair of ladies, one vampire and one human, put their heads together as we passed.
The vampiress giggled, her companion whispering into her ear as she looked Vesper up and down.
My brow creased in disapproval, but Vesper appeared not to notice the gossipers.
The Eilkan Parlor looked out onto the royal gardens, which were admittedly difficult for me to see in the dark.
I’d been assigned to clean the parlor once or twice, though, and so I knew the view was quite lovely in the daytime.
The roof was made of glass, making it appear almost as if we sat within a crystal cage.
The room was decorated in brilliant shades of midnight blue, the tapestries hanging on the walls gilded with whorls of silver.
We settled in a pair of matching armchairs, a round table between us that had already been set with matching crystal glasses and a tray of canapés. A note lay on the table, our names scrawled across it in cursive.
“How thoughtful,” said Vesper, flipping the note between her fingers. “Things are going well with the King, I presume.”
I flushed, thinking about the previous evening. “Very well, actually.”
A knowing smile played on her lips. “It’s quite unlike him to take a consort, you know. He must truly care for you.”
A consort, I thought. Is that what I am?
“And the training? How are you finding it?”
“Fine,” I replied quickly. Too quickly.
Her brows shot toward her hairline. “Really?”
I sighed. “No. It’s been difficult, in truth.”
“How so?” she asked.
“It’s the prince,” I said. “We tend to, er, butt heads.”
Her laugh was like wind chimes. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
I frowned. “It doesn’t?”
She shook her head. “Did you know that I attended university with Prince Enhart?”
“No,” I admitted. “I had no idea.”
“He was a few years ahead of me at Hollybrook. Always the rebel, running around with his friends or driving the faculty crazy for a lark when he wasn’t in lectures. No one ever reprimanded him, of course, him being the prince.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m surprised he even went to lectures.”
“The prince curates his image rather carefully, you know,” she said. “One might take a single glance at him and think him ever the spoiled brat. The spare of the realm, free to do whatever he wants and travel wherever he pleases while his brother carries the weight of the kingdom on his shoulders.”
“Are you going to tell me that that’s wrong?” I asked.
“To an extent,” she explained. “You may have noticed that I’m a bit of an outsider here at court. When I was in my second year at Hollybrook, a viscount approached my father—who was held in high esteem among the nobility—and asked for my hand in marriage.”
“How old were you?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Not young by mortal standards, but I had barely ventured into the world on my own. I wanted more than to be the wife of some boorish nobleman. Not to mention the more obvious issue.”
“That you weren’t attracted to him in the slightest?” I asked, grinning.
She winked. “It’s not a scandal for two women or two men to fall in love these days, but it can be complicated when your family desires a political union. The more pressing issue, though, was that I had heard some rather unsavory things about him.”
“Unsavory?” I whispered.
She nodded. “One of my classmates was an associate of the viscount’s.
One evening, after a few goblets of wine, she warned me about the young vampiresses who were taken into his employ.
Impressionable things, each of them prettier than the last. All of whom he used for his own pleasure for a few months before dumping them back onto the street.
In his mind, they were wasted goods. There were whispers that he’d even gotten one of them pregnant and had his footman return her, penniless, to her father’s doorstep.
As if he couldn’t afford to look after a bastard or two. Pig.”
My fingers curled inwards. “That’s despicable. Your father knew of this?”
She exhaled slowly. “He did, but it mattered not to him. The viscount’s family made their fortune in the trade of luxury goods—gems and rare spices, among other things—and despite his already considerable fortune, my father was nothing if not a greedy bastard.
Coin is everything to the nobility, though they’ll never admit it. ”
“That’s awful,” I said softly. “If you don’t mind me asking, though, what does Enhart have to do with this?”
She sighed. “I was so devastated by the prospect of the marriage that I began to withdraw. I stopped attending classes and spending time with my friends. I had no energy and yet I could not sleep. One day, Prince Enhart happened upon me as I was wandering the university grounds like some kind of wraith. He was so quick to lend an ear, even though we weren’t close.
He encouraged me to tell him everything, and so I shared with him my fears that I was too young, and, more importantly, that I knew I could never love a man even if I were to choose my own husband.
So he volunteered to protest the marriage on my behalf to his brother. ”
“The King was involved?” I asked, my mind spinning. Apparently, marriages among the nobility included quite a few players.
“The King is involved to a degree in the relations of everyone in his court, simply by nature of his post. The issue was that he supported the proposed union.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Oh.”
“Prince Enhart had no reason to help me,” she said softly.
“In fact, he could’ve gotten in serious trouble with the King for questioning his judgment.
But my petty plight mattered to him for some reason.
No more than a week later, the betrothal was broken off and my father dropped the subject entirely. ”
“Was it really Enhart who swayed the King?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
She shrugged. “I never found out. My father died in his sleep a few months later and I was finally free.”
I nodded. “That’s why you told me you have no desire for a higher station or coin,” I posited, recalling our conversation at the ball. “Your father’s fortune passed to you when he died.”
She nodded.
“So what happened then?” I asked.
“It was a bit of a scandal at the time. Many in court never forgave me my impudence, but it matters not to me. With my father gone, I was free to finish school, and Prince Enhart and I never spoke of it again. There are others who could tell similar stories, I’m sure.
For all his faults, he is a good man at heart. ”
I shifted uncomfortably. It was easier to think of him in low regard. “What are you trying to tell me?” I asked.
“I’m saying that there’s more to him than meets the eye. Just like there is to you.”
My pulse pounded in my ears, but I said nothing. “And the viscount?” I asked finally. “What became of him?”
She chuckled. “I managed to worm my way into Cyril Harring’s life a century or so later.”
“Cyril Harring?” I echoed. “I’ve had the recent, er, pleasure of making his acquaintance.”
She snorted. “Trust me, that man knows nothing of pleasure. They say that vengeance is unbecoming of a lady, but I just can’t stop myself from making his life the teensiest bit more difficult lately.”
I grinned. “By bedding his wife, you mean?”
“What can I say?” she replied. “I relish the knowledge that she would much rather spend the night in my bed than his, especially since the viscount knows it too.”
She pulled a bottle from the folds of her cloak, easing its cork free with a hiss. Grinning, she unfurled her long fingers, beckoning for my empty glass.
“Now,” she said. “How about some tea?”