empress of storms (29 page)

Her king shook his head. “Knowing them, she was able to convince them all by herself. And I need you safe in Hellas. If something goes wrong, you’re regent of Ypres and you need to raise Luna.”

A faint tolling of bells could now be heard, even through the castle’s thick walls. Danaë clenched her teeth, but nodded. “Fine. But that’s the Matins bell. If I don’t have word from you in two hours, I’m sending reinforcements.”

He kissed her once, quick and sweet. “Trust me, my love, I have no intention of dying today. Now go.”

Blinking back tears, she stepped back through the mirror into her audience room. Ife waited there now with Kostas and a stunned Reniel who was staring at the tapestries on the walls and the bright sunlight streaming through the windows.

Straightening her spine, Danaë forced herself to smile. “Welcome to Hellas, your grace.”

He turned back to her, still shaky but with a relieved gleam in his eyes. “Yes, thank you, your majesty,” he said. “Er, I believe there was talk of food?”

****

The path from the dungeon to the royal family’s wing was a route Matthias could walk drunk, blindfolded, or half-asleep.
Of course, I’m not usually trying to sneak past my own guards in the process.

The royal guards in his party had been invaluable in supplying practical shift and patrol pattern information. Officially, the patrols were supposed to overlap so that no one could do what they were attempting. In reality, however, Matthias was aware that the guards were less than full alert at this time of the morning, most of them looking forward to the end of their shift and a chance at their beds. The other guards confirmed this, and suggested useful gaps that they could use to their advantage.

He made a mental note to have them closed up once he had his city back.

The lieutenant commander had objected to Margot being the raid’s initial target. “Majesty, it would make more sense for you to go straight to the council chambers and demand that they rescind the regency,” he’d suggested.

Matthias had shaken his head. He saw the logic of Schrader’s suggestion, but the thought of Margot getting word of his return and slipping through his fingers was something he wouldn’t risk. “Not only has she undermined the rightful rule of my country, but she has insulted me,” he’d said. “I will not give her the chance to slither away and escape while I’m dealing with the council. When I confront them, she will be at my side in chains.”

Schrader had finally agreed. He now stood behind the guard who was leading them through the back staircases used by the servants. When the guard threw up a hand everyone flattened themselves against a wall, waiting for the potential danger to pass or raise the alarm.

Matthias heard the light voices of maidservants chattering to each other as they headed out to stoke the fires.
Please, gods, let them be too busy gossiping to notice us.

The voices faded and he relaxed. The guard taking point waved them on.

It took two more pauses, this time to let yawning guards pass, before they reached the royal family’s apartments. Drawing his sword, Matthias threw open Margot’s door and stepped inside.

The formerly cozy suite of rooms had been stripped of all personal items, the walls bare of their tapestries and the floors of their rugs. The small sitting room only held a few pieces of furniture now, and he could see through the door to her bedroom. It had been emptied as well.

A furious thought came to him. He shouldered past Schrader and stalked down the hallway to his own rooms. Throwing the door open, he saw where all of Margot’s belongings had gone.

The decorations that had been chosen by Hanne now lay piled in boxes and barrels near the door, ready to be removed. Margot’s tapestries hung on the walls, her rugs covering the floors. Even his bedclothes were gone, replaced by new ones in burgundy and grey.

Schrader appeared at his side, lips pursed in a soundless whistle as he studied the room. “Someone was in a hurry to move in,” he muttered.

Matthias’s hand clenched the grip of his sword. “Yes,” he said through his teeth. “I can’t wait to see what she’ll do with the dungeon.”

With Margot not in her rooms—or his for that matter—they couldn’t use the element of surprise to take her. Their best bet now was to head for the council chamber, confront his so-called councilors, and have a warrant put out for Margot’s arrest. If she wasn’t in the palace, he was more than willing to go door to door in Mons and search for the vile creature. 

Before they could move, however, a pair of palace guards appeared at the end of the hallway. The shocked look on the men’s faces made it clear they weren’t expecting him.

The hallway rang with the slithering sound of swords being drawn. Matthias raised a hand to halt the attack, adopting his grimmest expression. 

“Is this how you greet your king?” he said to the guards.

They exchanged a nervous look, but saluted. “We apologize, your majesty,” the taller guard said, bowing his head. “We weren’t told you were back yet.”

This might be easier than he’d hoped. “Well, I am. The two of you will escort me to the council chamber,” he announced.

Another nervous look. “As you wish, your majesty,” the taller one said, glancing at the raiding group. “Er…”

“They’re coming with me,” Matthias said evenly. “Let’s go.”

Saluting again, the guards made a neat about face and headed off. His men fell into a protective grouping around Matthias and Schrader as they followed.

“I don’t like this, majesty,” Schrader muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t want to battle my own guards if I don’t have to,” Matthias muttered back. “And we need to brace the council anyway. At least having these two in front of us gives us a bit of a barrier.”

The parade continued through the castle, with the occasional gasp of surprise from passing servants. More worryingly, additional palace guards began to fall in around them. Matthias ignored it as if they were acting at his command.

They arrived at the council room door, where two additional men had been stationed. These guards were unfamiliar to Matthias, but they saluted without objection and opened the doors. He walked in, an acid speech ready for his feckless councilors.

None of them were there. The room was full, however, of guards wearing the livery of the Pauwels. And at the head of the council table his smiling sister-in-law sat on his throne, with a smug Verheyen at her side.

****

Reniel hunched over a mounded plate of grilled meat, vegetables, and fresh bread, systematically chewing and swallowing his way through the food. In between bites he explained what had happened in Mons after their departure. 

“Margot must have been planning this for years,” he said, licking a bit of grease off his thumb. “She laid it out for the council like a proper lawyer, with that damned Verheyen nodding along like a marionette. According to her, the evil King Cresus had plotted for years to marry you into the Ypresian royal house and gain a foothold on the country and its trade roads. With Prince Lukas so weak and easily controlled by you, she said, you would become the dominant ruler after Matthias’s death and Ypres would come under Hellas’s command.”

Danaë winced. It was a clever twisting of the truth. “How did she explain the mirror?”

Reniel made a disgusted face. “Apparently you’d grown greedy for power. You weren’t content to wait for Matthias or Cresus to die, so you had your love slave Lukas present his father with a demon-haunted mirror that would kill him in his sleep.”

She wanted to pick up the wine pitcher and throw it against the wall. “And how was I supposed to have enchanted the mirror?” she snapped. “I was still a bloody adept, for the gods’ sake. I couldn’t have cast a spell like that if you’d held a knife to my throat.”

The patriarch’s massive shoulders twitched in apology. “Lady Margot took care to gloss over that little fact. But your wicked plan backfired, you see. Once the mirror killed Queen Hanne, poor love-addled Lukas disappeared, most likely murdered by you for failing to remain and take the throne. That left Matthias as the only hope of getting a Hellene on the Ypresian throne. So you worked your evil wiles on him and drew him into your vile clutches.”

She threw up her hands. “And no one mentioned the trade treaty? The one that’s been in place for well over a decade and required me to marry a Ypresian royal?”

“A bloodcurdling tale of betrayal and murder is always more entertaining than the prosaic truth, majesty,” Reniel said, sucking on his teeth. “It didn’t help that some of the more powerful members of the council had been against your marriage from the beginning, mainly because they had daughters and sisters they wanted to foist onto the throne. But the demon mirror was the truly damning part of Lady Margot’s case. The fact that such a thing could only be enchanted by an Aqua magister cast a great deal of suspicion on you.”

“Once again, I couldn’t have cast the damned spell in the first place.”

“But you were positioned to find a complacent Aqua magister who could.” He smacked his lips as if he’d bitten into something foul. “And certain information that had been passed to her by a Grand Magister Pelas didn’t help, either.”

So that’s what the little toad was up to.
“About my father’s death?”

“And your implication in it, yes. She made it sound as if pressure had been brought to bear on your own council to clear you of the deed.”

Too angry to remain seated, Danaë jumped to her feet and stalked across her audience room to the arched windows. From there, she could see the elegant structure of the Quad. Stripped of his rank as well as his powers, Pelas had been confined to the Aqua quarterhouse on Ife’s orders. 

“I swear by Lis’s fins, I’m going to make that little polyp pay if it’s the last thing I ever do,” she ground out.

“We don’t need to bring the gods into it.”

She turned. Ife was sitting next to the mirror where she’d been maintaining the Morning Road spell. The mage’s eyes were clear, but her skin had acquired a grayish undertone that was worrisome. “There are some unpleasant quarterhouses up in Cairngorm,” she said. “Freezing temperatures, sucking bogs, mosquitos the size of eagles, not to mention some of the most bloodthirsty people you’d ever wish to meet. And those are just the students. I can have him sent there if you like. They can always use more workers in the refectory.”

Danaë felt her lips pull back in a rictus grin. “I like it very much.” 

“Would it be possible to send Margot there as well?” Reniel asked hopefully. “I like the idea of her spending the rest of her natural life as a scullery maid.”

The mention of Ypres’s current regent caused Danaë to glance at the dark cheval mirror, then at the water clock in the corner. A good hour had already gone by. Either Matthias had captured his treasonous sister-in-law and was re-establishing command of Mons…or he wasn’t.

If he succeeded, Schrader would appear at the mirror before the second hour was up to inform them of this. Ife could then shut down the conduit and relax, opening it again later at a pre-arranged time to bring Matthias back to Hellaspont for the wedding. But if the royal council assumed that Matthias was spellbound and refused to rescind their order of regency, the mirror had to stay open as a bolt hole.

And if Margot captured Matthias….

Relief burst through her when she saw one of the cavalrymen appear in the mirror, ducking down to peer into Hellas. “Your majesty?” he hissed.

She darted to the mirror. “I’m here. What happened?”

The man shook his head. “We couldn’t find Lady Margot in the royal wing, milady. His majesty took us down to the council chamber to talk to them instead, but the Lady Margot and Chief Councilor Verheyen were there, along with a room full of her family’s guards. Captain Schrader had me hang back in case things went sour. They have the king boxed in.”

Danaë’s fists clenched, knuckles popping. “Damn that woman to hell,” she said savagely. “She’s the one who should’ve been haunted by Hanne’s revenant, not Lukas.”

Reniel had abandoned his meal to join her at the mirror. Now he sighed. “That would be a case of divine justice, indeed. I only wish it could be done.”

“It can be.”

Danaë stared at Ife. “It can?”

The grand high magistra rubbed her forehead, but nodded. “You’ll need a spirit bottle, silvered so that the spirit can’t escape once inside, and capped with more silver. Then you’d need to summon the revenant, capture it, and force it into the bottle. The spell to do that is complex, but a magister from any quarterhouse can perform it.”

Meaning Danaë could do it. Ife couldn’t be spared; she had to maintain the mirror conduit. And none of the magisters at the Quad could be trusted at the moment, not with Pelas spreading his poison there for at least the last year.

“Wait here.” Danaë darted into her bedroom. It took a moment to find the small metallic perfume bottle, a trifle Darius had brought back from one of his many trips. The bottle had been empty for some time, but she’d liked the look of the thing and had kept it as a decoration.

She trotted back to the audience room, holding up the gleaming bottle. “Will this do?”

Tired as she was, Ife managed a slow smile. “Yes, it will. Rinse it out, child, then sit down. You have a spell to learn.”

12

THE REVENANT 

Margot looked up at Matthias’s entrance. Her eyes widened a fraction, but apart from that she had no response to his appearance.

Verheyen, however, went a sickly shade of white. “M-majesty,” he stammered.

Margot gave the chief councilor the barest glance before returning her attention to Matthias. “Brother-in-law, you’re back!” she said, rising to her feet. Her voice was concerned but joyful. “We thought you were still in Hellas.”

“I was until an hour ago,” Matthias said, eyeing the Pauwels guards along the sides of the council room. Twenty-two of them, all armed and fresh, and the gods alone knew how many were elsewhere in the castle. Add to that four palace guards outside the door, ones whose loyalty he couldn’t guarantee, against twelve men. Not the kind of odds he favored. “But I got homesick, so I thought I’d pop back for a visit. You can imagine my surprise when I found out that my capital city had been barred against me and my sister-in-law made regent based on the vilest of slander against my new wife.”