Forgotten - Kingdom Gone Book 3, page 15
His buddies stopped walking. They exchanged a glance behind him and in the unspoken language of hunters decided to circle her. Payne’s grip on the dagger tightened. She stepped out, and the men fanned to either side.
“She’s got a knife,” the one facing her alerted the others. “There now, pretty, we’re not gonna hurt ya none.”
“Yeah.” The chuckle echoed from both sides. “Put that sticker down and play nice.”
She walked forward, straight for the first man, closing the distance faster than his buddies could compensate for. He backed up a step, in fact, and she saw a shadow of concern on his face. She should be scared. Of course. She should have trembled, perhaps.
“Y-you guys go round there.” His eyes stayed on Payne, and she held perfectly still. If she spooked him now his buddies would be far enough away to consider shooting first instead of moving in on her.
The brush cracked under their stamping. The birds scattered to nicer corners of the woods. Payne held still, held her breath and waited for them to close the gap. A few more steps. The short one was almost behind her now. They’d have her in a few more steps.
“N-now you just hand me that knife there, you see.”
She stared at him. His buddies came in, closed their trap and made a tight triangle just beyond her reach. The hair on her neck lifted. Her skin crawled and a rush of something dark stalked her pulse. It whispered of power and dust and screams that had no sound.
Hands landed on her arms from behind. She felt them stiffen and saw the death behind her reflected in the eyes of his buddy. They stretched wide in shock. The bearded jaw fell open and Payne lunged. Her hands gripped the sides of his face and she watched him darken and die. She witnessed his eyes fade without fear and she felt his death in the heating of her palms.
The third man screamed. The sound broke through to her and she turned, expecting to be struck with a blade, to be pierced for her sins. Instead, he stumbled backward through the trees. His arms flailed and guided him from one trunk to the next and his jaw worked around the scream as if it were words. Only a howl came out however, an animal terror.
Payne smiled and took a step in his direction. He spun and bolted. For a breath she imagined letting him go. He’d tell the town, spread the story and then she’d have a search party to kill as well. She moved her arm, flicked the dagger free and watched it fly like a silver bird to land between the man’s shoulders.
He stumbled, fell forward, and didn’t stop howling until she reached him.
Chapter Nineteen
Kerrigan waited in the hallway again. This time, he didn’t listen at Weredewell’s door. He watched out the window in front of his own, watched the path that led to the gardens. This time, he was waiting for her.
Farine hesitated at the top of the stairs. The light made the edges of his robes glow more charcoal than black, and his hair was pulled away from his face, outlining his jaw and profile. They’d worked close together every day, and he’d only had eyes for his scrolls, for the little book and the paper that captured his magical markings. He hadn’t treated her like a princess, like the lady Yedan labeled her as.
He’d let her work, and freely criticized her errors and complimented her successes. He’d nodded and listened, and when she’d been right about a mark or argument, he’d conceded it to her willingly and without offense.
Kerrigan had offered her nothing, nor had he placed any expectation upon her. Today, he stood watching for her, and Farine felt a tickle of pleasure at that thought. Her stomach fluttered to be inside, standing beside him at the table, drawing something important, doing good work together.
He’d turned to face her somewhere during her musing. They stared down the long hall at one another and Farine’s cheeks flushed warm again. The flutter became a jolt, a shock of something like fear but without any menace attached.
“Good morning.” Kerrigan’s voice breached the distance easily. He pivoted and headed for the workroom, vanishing inside before she’d halved the hallway.
Farine scrambled after, inhaled no herbs today and blinked at the clear air, the lack of fumes. The table was devoid of its usual scroll as well. Instead, a pile of silvery crystals waited on the surface.
“Our work has been put on hold, I’m afraid.” Kerrigan took position and glared at the mound of stone. “I must turn to the First Mage’s task now. Your father did not hire me to do my own research.”
“Are those the stones from beyond the sea?” She heard the disappointment heavy in his words, but couldn’t rein in her excitement for his benefit. The crystal glimmered at her, full of foreign secrets.
“Oh yes.” Kerrigan’s lips twisted. “The last best defense against imagined invaders.”
“But Atla has invaded Gault, and he’ll no doubt…”
“Is this what Yedan of the Northern Glade says?”
“Yedan?”
“Why would Canton invade our kingdom, do you think? Are we so rich to warrant it? A long siege in Gault would cost more than it earned Atla, and one here could drain away any riches to be had upon winning.”
“Perhaps it’s not about money.”
“No. It most certainly isn’t.” He picked up one of the crystals and held it up so that the light made rainbows along the table between them. “This is about power, and power hungry men are dangerous, Farine. No matter which side they’re on.”
She knew that. Farine meant to tell him, too, that she didn’t care for the tone of his lecture. It reminded her too much of Hadja and put a creeping feeling in the place of her usual butterflies. Before she could argue, however, a shadow fell across the doorway and Mastral Weredewell entered without the courtesy of a knock.
“Slate,” he said. “And the princess as well. How surprising.”
Everything about his tone and pose belied anything of the sort. He’d expected to find them together, of course. He knew she worked with the User every chance she could.
“First Mage,” Kerrigan almost hid his snarl. “What can we do for you today?”
“We, is it?”
Nothing was going to make sense today, apparently. Farine stared as Mastral approached, stalking to the table and standing like a gargoyle at its end. He laughed, an elf’s laugh full of his own sense of superiority, and reached into his robes. Kerrigan flinched, and the First Mage pulled out another of the translucent silver stones.
This one had a sigil on it. The twist of line looped three times around itself, and she recognized it immediately as one they’d been working on.
“Is that Capture?” Farine leaned closer, unable to resist despite the warning on Kerrigan’s face. “What does it do?”
“Hold, would be the exact translation,” Mastral sniffed and raised one slim eyebrow. “And in combination with the soulstone it does just that.”
“Soulstone?”
Mastral pointed the crystal at Kerrigan. “Let me demonstrate.”
Kerrigan’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move and, before she could, the First Mage spoke a single word. A light flashed in the air around them as if a star had fallen to engulf the workroom. It blazed for as long as it took her to blink, and when her eyes opened again, Kerrigan Slate was missing.
“Where is he?” She leaned over the table, as if he might only be cowering behind it. “What have you done?”
“Don’t fret, princess. Your User is fine.” Mastral’s laugh was nasty this time. He held up the stone, his face a snarl of derision. “He’s in here, held, you might say.”
His fingers opened and the crystal fell toward the table. It flashed as it tumbled. Farine squeaked and snatched it from mid-air, barely catching it before it hit the wood. She held it up and peered into it, searching for some trace of Kerrigan, but the facets only gleamed and twinkled.
“Let him out, please.” Her eyes burned. The stone felt warm in her palm. “Mastral, let him out.”
“How did he trick the king into allowing you to work with him?”
“What?”
“In the hallway, princess. I caught the two of you spying on us and this User did something to the king.”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Tell me, or he’ll live in there forever.”
At least he said live. Kerrigan wasn’t dead then, only “held” in the soulstone. Still, it didn’t sound pleasant, nor did Mastral’s threat have even a whisper of emptiness to it. He hated Users, and one less of them in the castle wouldn’t offend him in the least.
“He used a mirror shard, a piece of the Rosy Glass.”
“So you do know about it.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve managed to break free of that particular spell.”
“That one? How many more should I be worried about?”
“Don’t!” Mastral lunged in her direction. He leaned in and forced her to press against the table. Even so, his face fell far too close to hers. The look he gave her had no trace of propriety or deference to her status. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me.”
“Just let him out, please.” She sounded like a child again, a terrified child.
“You listen to me,” he said. “I’ll let your User free, and I’ll leave him alone, but only so long as you obey my instructions. You want to play with magic, fine. To be honest, it’s not surprising. You can have it and him…for now. But when the time comes for you to serve your kingdom, you will do so. You will not argue. You will obey your father’s wishes.”
“What wishes?”
“Does that matter? If you do not obey, I will see this User of yours in his grave. And if he tries to enchant the king again, I will see him tortured for treason first.”
“But…”
“Do you understand me?”
What could she say? He held Kerrigan’s life in his hands, even as she held the man’s soul in hers. She nodded and whispered, “yes.” Mastral’s face relaxed. He smiled, even, and stood up straight again.
“Now give me the stone.”
She hesitated, and one of his eyebrows launched toward his hairline.
“Now.”
Farine placed the crystal in his palm and held her breath. Mastral had overstepped, and yet she couldn’t tell her father about it, couldn’t even be certain her father would take her side. She had allowed Kerrigan to bespell him, and she’d no idea how he’d react to that any more than she knew what other spells they might have blanketed her beneath.
Mastral kept his word, however. Though he warned her again about disobedience before speaking the same word he’d used to trap Kerrigan inside his crystal. The light flared and, though she fought to see this time, her eyes closed of their own accord and opened to find her User back where he belonged.
Mastral smiled and dipped into a bow that stank of mockery. His eyes warned her—keep quiet, obey—and he nodded politely to Kerrigan. “Very well then, Slate. We need the rest of these enchanted the same way. You’ll do your part, I’m sure, to keep the walls safe.”
Kerrigan didn’t speak. He stood like a rod, smoldering. His face burned, his black robes rippled like smoke, the shadow of his rage.
“Good.” The First Mage assumed acquiescence. He nodded again and spun, cast an admonishing look in Farine’s direction and glided from the room. This time, he closed the door loudly. The thump echoed around them, amplifying the horror that had been dropped in their midst.
“Are you—”
“Fine.” He shook himself and then turned to the table, not making eye contact, not even looking at her. “Shall we get to work?”
“Kerrigan.”
“It didn’t hurt, Farine. Not more than my pride.”
“Mastral threatened me.”
“What?” He set both of his hands on the table and stared across. “Why? What did he do?”
“Only scared me, but he made me tell him about the Rosy Glass, and your mirror trick. I’m sorry, Kerrigan.”
“Why would he care about that? What is so damned important about everyone falling in love with the king?”
“I don’t know, but he said if I don’t obey them, do whatever my father asks me…”
“What?”
“It’s not important. I’m sure it will be fine.”
“He threatened you? To hurt you?”
“Not exactly.” She looked at the stones, at the silver she’d thought so pretty only a while before.
“Oh.” Kerrigan’s tone lowered. “He threatened to hurt me.”
“Unless I do whatever father asks.”
“And do you know what that will be?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“It’s not important, really. Kerrigan, it’s not the worst part.”
He snorted. “Enlighten me then, what is the worst part?”
“This is the stone they brought back from the port? The soulstone?”
“Yes.”
“Well Malcolm said they had a big one too, one that had to have a cart to itself.”
He didn’t reply. She found him frowning, his mis-matched eyes both dark with concern. She understood. If just one of these tiny crystals could hold a man inside. If the soulstones were a trap…
Kerrigan spoke her thoughts aloud. His tone echoed her horror. “A cart to itself. What could they possibly plan to capture with a stone that size?”
Chapter Twenty
Payne found the southern road without any problems. By the time she’d wandered to the spot where she was supposed to meet the Gentry, she’d identified four pockets. She had a few extra knives, a warmer cloak and three small sacks full of life essence.
Neither the imp nor the fiend had arrived yet. Or else they hid in some nearby pocket or searched for her from above. That was unnerving. She glanced toward the clouds and felt her skin prickle. Dusk had arrived. She’d found the spot exactly as they’d instructed and with little difficulty…or at least no difficulty that she couldn’t handle on her own.
She’d killed five men now. The count had amused her at first, as she sat scooping up the dust of her latest victims. Now it settled a bit more heavily in her stomach. All but the father had deserved it, to her mind. The last three had practically begged for death. She’d have rather seen them castrated, flayed perhaps. Her touch only saved the world from their misery.
The spot of Slipstone’s choosing lifted above the road a good twenty feet. The arc of clearing looked down a long bank to the flat, rutted track. They could rest unmolested there and still keep an eye on any traveler from either direction. It was a clever choice, an advantageous position for anyone who meant to avoid detection. It would be a perfect spot, for instance, from which to launch an ambush.
Payne dangled her legs over the embankment and lay back on the grass. She imagined leaping onto a passing carriage, demanding purses and waving a long knife in terrified faces. Then again, she wouldn’t need a weapon, would she? Just so long as her story spread, as long as they knew what her touch could do…
She was losing her mind. Sanity slipped further from her with each death. She knew it, could feel it like a snake coiling up her spine, higher and higher. Turning her into the monster her curse had always wanted her to be.
He’d been right to keep her isolated. He meant to keep the world safe from her. She understood, now, why he’d never risked her leaving. She understood also why he’d gone away again and again. What sane man could live with the devil for long? Now that she’d freed him from that task, she wondered how far he would run, how long it would take him to forget about the ring around her arm and the ring she’d worn smooth inside the temple columns.
The grasses whispered in the light wind, sea-less and playful on the edge of evening. She could almost hear his answer in the sound, hear his voice so softly. It took her a moment to realize she actually heard him, and another two to get her heart rate under control, to chew her cheek and keep from moving a muscle.
“Taking the Heir to Westwood,” he said. “Why, Slipstone? Why now?”
“A hundred years to own their sins.” Payne recognized the imp’s voice. They stood behind her, had come to the clearing from the forest and missed her lying at the bank’s lip.
“And a hundred years to wait. It hasn’t been anything like that long.”
“The princess…”
“Was taken from us, imp. Trust me. The Powers had their revenge already.” His voice crackled like the brush had, and Payne’s dark serpents, the snakes in her belly, turned back into an ache. She heard the loss in his words and, though she didn’t understand it, it felt familiar.
“But…”
“Have you seen a castle rising from the pockets?”
“No.”
“And the last time you saw a gobelin was?”
The only answer was the rustle of the grasses. Overhead, the sky shifted closer to black. A first splash of stars twinkled.
“Take her to the town if you must. Drag her to the ruins if you think it will help, but don’t let them at her. Let me do it.”
“I gave my word.”
“Damn your word! You little wart. You mean to protect the girl that was? By turning in the woman? What will happen to her after? You helped us get away from them once, think. What would the princess have wanted you to do?”
“If there’s a chance that she is the Heir, how can we not try?” Slipstone sobbed now. He spoke as if begging forgiveness. “For the Kingdoms.”
“How do you know the Kingdoms won’t suffer for it? You trust the Powers still?”
“No. Not that.”
“No. Of course not. Let me take her, Slipstone.”
“They said you won’t. They said you had all that time and never tried it.”
“Never tried?” His voice crackled like ice breaking. “All I did was try.”
Payne tried to swallow, but a lump formed halfway down and her chest tightened, refused to let it pass. He’d known more about her all along, had kept things from her for his own reasons. And the damned imp knew too. Everyone, it seemed, knew more about her than she did. Malcolm and Sariah had sought her out specifically. Why? Because she was this Heir? Because they needed to bring her to Westwood? Then how different was Slipstone, or the man he now spoke to, from any of the others?
