Prince of Magic (3 page)

Arik smiled crookedly, a strange response given the dire prophesy. "Your grandfather was specific enough, Sian."

"There are many fine women in Columbyana and beyond, my lord. How will we know where to look for their sons?"

Arik shook a too-thin finger at Sian. "You see the prophesy, but I hear it. I imagine your grandfather heard it, too, in his own way, so he can be excused for making a mistake."

Sian's spine went rigid. A mistake from his grandfather? Unheard of.

"F-Y-N-E," Arik spelled slowly. "Fyne. I suspect the prophesy refers to the firstborn children of three
Fyne
women. I didn't hear the word 'sons,' though you used that word."

"As these children are meant to be soldiers in the coming war, I assumed it to be so."

"If sons were required, I believe your grandfather would've made that plain. No, his one mistake was in the misspelling of Fyne."

While Sian hated to admit that his grandfather might've made a mistake, given the old man's physical condition in his final days, it was certainly possible. "Do you know where these Fyne women and their children can be found?"

For the first time, Arik's smile seemed real, and familiar. He looked not quite so ill, not quite so old. This was the man Sian remembered. "Yes. Yes, I do."

Ariana ran down the hallway, her breath catching in her chest, her skirt held off the floor so it would not impede her progress. Something was wrong. She would not be called to the emperor so soon after her last visit if he had not taken a turn for the worse.

She wanted desperately to save him. Everything inside her told her that was impossible, and still… that was what she wanted. Not only had she come to care for the man, much as she cared for her own father, but she felt a responsibility to the country she called home. Under Arik, Columbyana had known many years of peace, with nothing more than infrequent local skirmishes and Tryfyn criminals who crossed the border to call his soldiers to battle. When he was gone, what would follow? Prince Ciro would not be a good ruler, as his father had been, and if Ciro was not found, anything was possible. War was not only possible, it was likely.

She had to keep Arik alive. He should have many years left! What could've happened so soon after her visit to require her presence? He'd been doing well, considering his condition. The wizard was surely to blame. The purple-eyed, beak-nosed man in black who'd made such a show of opening and closing the doors. He must've done something to the emperor. If only she'd seen the danger coming. If only she had known…

As she approached, waiting sentinels opened the door to Emperor Arik's chamber. Ariana did not slow down, but burst into the room, breathless and scared, and more than a little determined.

The man in black stood near the window beside the emperor, who looked no worse than he had when she'd left him. In fact, there was new color to the emperor's cheeks, and he smiled up at the man with the odd purple eyes. She could not forget the man's eyes, even now. The color itself was unusual enough, but it was the way the colors shifted constantly that had made her heart skip a beat when she'd first seen him. His eyes looked like dark skies on a stormy day, with clouds drifting and ominous rain threatening.

Ariana came to a quick halt in the center of the room. Both men looked at her, and then the emperor gestured to his sentinels, ordering silently that the doors be closed behind Ariana.

The wizard—for what else could he be, given those eyes and his trick with the doors?—lifted imperious eyebrows. "Her?" He sounded surprised and more than a little disappointed.

"Yes,
her
," the emperor responded calmly. "Sian Sayre Chamblyn, may I introduce Miss Ariana Kane Varden, firstborn child of the witch Sophie Fyne Varden, and a Fyne witch no matter which name she chooses to call her own."

Chamblyn looked down at the seated emperor. "But… she's a healer, and not a particularly good one at that."

Ariana stepped toward the men. "I beg your pardon…"

"Apologies," Chamblyn said in an offhand way that conveyed no real regret. "I should have said not a particularly
powerful
one. I'm sure you're adequately trained with potions and such."

He spoke of her in such a dismissive way, an uncustomary ire rose up and threatened to choke Ariana. How dare this dirty, arrogant, hawk-nosed, purple-eyed wizard insult her. How dare he dismiss her as if she were insignificant? "I'll have you know…"

Without even looking at her, Chamblyn lifted his hand and twitched his fingers, and with that simple move he stole Ariana's voice. She continued to try to speak, but no sound came from her mouth. She stalked toward the offensive wizard, and he lifted his hand again.

"Don't make me freeze you. I understand it's very uncomfortable."

Ariana wanted to say, "You wouldn't dare…" but she couldn't.

She came to a halt, and Chamblyn returned his attention to the emperor—who had been watching the exchange with no small amusement.

"We are talking about war, my lord. Not a war like the one in which you and my father fought together, but a struggle between light and dark. There will be monsters in this coming war. The blood of innocents will be shed before it's done, not the blood of soldiers and rebels who chose the life of combat, as you and my father did so long ago."

Ariana stopped trying to regain her voice and listened as the wizard raised his hand again and pointed at her. She wondered… what would he do to her this time? But he merely pointed at her, without so much as looking her way. "She will be eaten alive if you send her into this battle. Perhaps figuratively, perhaps literally. In either case, she will die a very ugly death, and I wish no part in sending her there. Only the strongest of wizards and witches have a chance of stopping this darkness before it claims the world we live in."

"She has potential," the emperor said. "If you teach her—"

"I am no tutor," Chamblyn snapped, interrupting the ruler of Columbyana with his sharp voice.

"You could be," Arik argued.

Chamblyn sighed, and raked a hand through long, black hair that had come loose from his braid to brush his face. "Let me take her place," he said more calmly. "I have the skills she does not, and I'm willing to fight in her stead."

Arik looked Ariana's way, and she was taken aback by the depth of sadness on his face. He'd had no reason to be happy of late, but she had never seen him look so completely disconsolate, as if the wizard had robbed the emperor of his last hope. "You read the prophesy, Sian. It doesn't work that way, and you know that well."

Chamblyn studied Ariana from head to toe with that annoyingly dismissive gaze. His purple eyes—heavens, she had never known such eyes were possible—seemed to glow from within. They danced and the color shifted from dark to light and back again. Set above a nose that was too sharp and too long, and above cheeks that were too lean, the eyes were captivating… and the only truly beautiful feature on a masculine and somehow bleak face.

"My grandfather made a mistake in the spelling of one word. Perhaps those who are required are not firstborn children, but firstborn sons. Did Sophie Fyne have a son?"

"Duran Varden," Emperor Arik answered. "He's a sentinel, one of my best. When Ariana came to serve me, her parents would not allow her to travel alone or stay here without family nearby, so he accompanied her."

The wizard seemed to relax. "What are his magical gifts?"

Arik shrugged. "Like his father, he has none. He's a fine soldier, however. Quite the swordsman."

Chamblyn began to pace. "Magical powers will be necessary for this fight." He stopped pacing and waved his hand carelessly in Ariana's direction. "Perhaps we should ask the healer what she thinks."

"I…" Ariana touched her throat as the word left her mouth. The wizard had returned her voice to her as quickly as he had taken it. "If this man wishes to sacrifice himself to monsters in my stead, I won't stand in his way." She looked bravely into his odd eyes.

Unexpectedly, he smiled at her. She did not find him at all attractive, but he had a nice smile nonetheless. It transformed his face in a way she had not expected.

Ariana dismissed the wizard and his smile, much as he had dismissed her, and turned to the emperor. "My lord, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me what's happened to make this man speak of monsters and war and the death of innocents."

"Of course."

Ariana moved closer so that the emperor would not have to raise his voice when he grew weary. She suspected this would take some time, and he did tire easily these days. He took her hand, and in a lowered voice began. " 'A darkness creeps beneath Columbyana and the lands beyond…'"

Three
Fyne
women. It did make some sense, he supposed, especially as the Fyne women Arik was acquainted with were powerful witches. That did not mean, however, that their firstborn children were equally powerful, or that those children would be adequate in battle against the darkness that was rising. If only the firstborn son had some sort of power inherited from his mother, perhaps Sian could convince himself that this woman before him wasn't meant to sacrifice herself to save others.

"So, what kind of wizard are you?" The Fyne witch Ariana—Varden, she preferred to be called—paced in the large Level Five room Arik had assigned them for their lessons. This had once been a suite for guests or family members, if he remembered correctly, but lately it had been used as some sort of meeting room. A long table, dark wood with a decorative inlay on top, had been placed in the center of the room. The large fireplace was dormant on this warm day, and a wide window allowed sunlight to illuminate the room. The rest of the room was ordinary. There were chairs—a mixture of comfortable and austere—and tables—some useful and others decorative. There were mismatched framed pictures on the walls, carried here from different parts of the palace where they were no longer wanted. Some were of long-ago imperial residents, others were landscapes that had lost favor from their original wall-spaces. Much of the spacious room was empty. In the coming days of training, he and Ariana were to have anything they asked for.