The Black Mage: Candidate (29 page)

“Gods, this place is a bit much, don’t you think?” Andy hadn’t outgrown her habit of speaking her mind.

Another familiar voice cut through the crowd like a knife. “Cassandra, that is no way to speak to the Crown!”

Andy made a face and I cringed.

Mage Mira appeared with a courtier’s smile aimed at the prince. “Your highness, how pleasant it is that we meet again. I’ve just been conversing with your dear brother. Ryiah… I see you are still here.” Her expression made it clear she didn’t care for it. “Well, carry on. I won’t keep you from your night of celebration, your highness.”

“Thank you, Mage Mira.” The words flowed so easily from the prince’s tongue. “It has been pleasant to see you as well.”

When Mage Mira had returned to the wretched hole she crawled out of Andy smirked at me. “Dragon Lady misses you.”

“I don’t miss her.”

“She was cursing your name the whole way to the capital.”

“Is she still in Langli?”

“Blessed gods, no. She’s been running around the countryside in one of those fancy Crown’s Army regiments with a promotion under her belt.” Andy grinned with a nod at Darren. “Or did you forget your little stunt in Dastan’s Cove? Our unit hasn’t seen quite so much action since.”

I started to laugh and then stopped—a moment of shame soiling the brevity. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten our time on Caltothian soil so easily. The little girl and her mother. Our mission.
What had ever happened to them?
My eyes shot to Andy, but she shook her head, already guessing my question from the expression on my face.

“Nobody knows.” Cethan’s gruff voice was a low rumble that blended in with the rest of the crowd. We were still under Crown orders not to discuss the assignment. Ever. I had to press closer to hear the rest. “We dropped them off at the city limits. Two men from the King’s Regiment came and took them away.”

I turned to Darren who frowned. He looked bothered that he had forgotten them too. Kidnapping a woman and child was something a person shouldn’t be able to forget. But back then we had both been so busy with the apprenticeship and a tumultuous romance, it had happened anyway.

“I asked my father that year we returned to the palace.” His eyes were on the king and the circle of ambassadors across the way. “He told me he couldn’t recall.”

Andy and Cethan stuck around for a couple more minutes, trading easy jokes about their time in Langli, but it quickly drew to an uncomfortable note after she mentioned one of the new recruits, a handsome young man with a great sense of humor and “golden-green eyes.” “A shame he transferred to Ferren’s Keep last summer. Took off rather suddenly after he got the summons.”

Cethan adjusted his vest. “It was about a girl, I believe. She had just accepted a post there.”

Darren’s eyes shot to mine, accusingly, and I wanted to kick myself for letting this subject even come up. Why did they have to even know Ian? And what were they talking about? Cethan was mistaken.

“I swear to you he never said a word.” My voice was barely a whisper. “Whatever Ian’s reason for coming, Darren, it wasn’t me.”
I’m not lying. Please believe me.

The prince’s pulse was hammering against his skin but he forced himself to exhale slowly. “I believe you.”

Andy cleared her throat uncomfortably after exchanging a glance with her comrade. They hadn’t missed the conversation between us. “Well congratulations on your win, Darren. Ryiah, you gave a great effort. Who would have known we were in the presence of two prodigies that whole time onboard? Don’t forget us little people while you are saving the world.”

Darren’s smile was forced, and mine wasn’t much better. I wanted to find Ian and confront him over Cethan’s accusation, but I was not about to do it around Darren. So I strung along and joined him for small talk instead. A long succession of well-wishers followed in Andy and Cethan’s wake.

Last but not least were Blayne and his new wife. The crown prince and I still weren’t close by any means, but since his revelation I found him a bit harder to hate. I understood him, and that almost made it worse. We still avoided direct conversation if we could, and I spent the majority of our reunion conversing with Wren instead.

Wren had a sweet tooth and was quick to describe each one of her favorite desserts since arriving in Montfort.
Such a lovely girl
. Even though she was boring me to death with talk of pastries, I still found myself eager to please. She was the complete opposite of her conniving uncle, Duke Cassius. Fortunately the Pythian ambassador was too busy filling his cup with drink to be much of a hindrance.

“Which one was your favorite, darling?” Wren tugged on Blayne’s hand to draw him away from his talk with his brother.

The crown prince took a deep sip from his glass. “The raspberry tart, same as you, my dear.”

“Would you like me to—”

“Blayne, you don’t look well.” Darren interrupted the princess with a start.

“You don’t look that well, either, Darren.” Blayne’s tone was sardonic.

“True, but I’m still healing.” The non-heir’s brow furrowed. “You have nothing to be healing
from
.”

I studied Blayne and was alarmed to see Darren was right. A heavy sheen of sweat had broken out along his brother’s forehead. Blayne looked pale—so much lighter than when he and Wren had arrived a mere five minutes before.

“Truly, brother, I’m—”

The crown prince never finished. His goblet fell to the marble tile with a loud clash. Darren caught his brother by the arms just as Wren started to scream for a healer.

“Healer!” Darren’s voice roared out above the crowd. He had cast a defensive sphere in place. “Guards, get my brother a healer
NOW
!”

The floor broke out into a frenzied herd as servants and nobility alike came rushing to tend to the heir. Mage Marius and several guards formed a circle as a cluster of healers rushed in to help. I stumbled out of the way and almost slipped to give them space. Something was familiar. Something I couldn’t place my finger on, but it had to do with Blayne…

Red seeped out on the marble floor beneath my boots. But it wasn’t blood.

The wine.

His mother. Queen Lillian. And her poisoned wine.

The Caltothians had done it to her…

I started running to the front where I had seen Lord Tyrus last.

And I spotted him. Removing a dagger from the inside of his cloak. Right behind the king who was trying to push through to his son—

“To the ki-”

My hand shot out to cast as I cried—but it was too late. My magic was nothing but a whisper of flame. The potions the healers had given me had slowed its recovery to help speed my physical health.

I was helpless as the Caltothian plunged the weapon into King Lucius’s back.

“FOR CALTOTH!” The man’s blade struck out three times more as Darren’s father stumbled and fell, blood spraying from his lips as he hit the ground with a
thud.

I was still running as the room became chaos. Mage Mira was the closest to respond—she was able to cast what my magic could not. A bolt of lightning and Lord Tyrus went down without a fight. Before I had even reached the king, she had already sent two swords piercing his front to back.

Blood was dribbling from the man’s wounds like a fountain, coating the tiles in red. Funny, how a Caltothian’s blood was no different than a king of Jerar.

“Protect the Crown! It’s an attack!” Commander Audric was running forward to see to the king as half the regiment on duty formed a circle around the two princes, the other half to their fallen king.

“Uncle!” Wrendolyn was running toward Duke Cassius in the crowd. She was sobbing and her eyes were crazed.

I fought the crowd, trying to push and shove my way toward the girl. Someone needed to protect her. I wasn’t sure where the three Caltothian guards were.

“Wren!” I screamed her name.
“WREN! NO!”

A servant snagged the girl’s arm and another appeared, a quick draw of the blade, and then she was on the floor. A river of scarlet trickling from her neck, blond curls tinged in red.

I was chasing the servant as Duke Cassius and two of his men dropped to the princess’s side. The Pythian ambassador’s bellow shattered my heart. I pulled up short when I cornered the first. It wasn’t a Caltothian in disguise.

It was one of the lower city guards I’d seen during my apprenticeship.
A rebel
, I realized belatedly as he pulled out his knife.
The rebels are working with the Caltothians.

I had to warn the others. “Rebels!” I screamed. “They are here!”

My hand shot underneath the folds of my robe and I blanched. My dagger wasn’t there. I reached for the sheath by my thigh.
Empty.
My outfit tonight had been for show. I’d spent all day in the infirmary; I didn’t have a single weapon on me.

And my body was still healing. I was weak, sluggish. I had bruises speckling my arms and a bandage to the chest.

And no magic.

I wasn’t the hunter; I was the prey.

The man’s panicked expression turned sly, as he seemed to recognize the same. And then I was thrust aside as Paige’s sword gut him from chest to belly, bowels and blood spilling out. A putrid stink filling the air.

I had to fight every instinct not to vomit.

“We’ve got to get you out of here!” My knight started to pull me away—one hand on my wrist, the other gripping her sword.

“Wren—”

Her voice grew thick. “She’s gone, Ryiah.”

“But the healers—”

“With the princes.” Paige was dragging me across the floor, both eyes flitting back and forth, checking our surroundings for safety.

“Where’s Darren?” Panic clawed at my throat when I didn’t see him or his brother at the front.

“He got his brother out. Marius and some of the King’s Regiment are guarding them in the eastern tower.”

“Ryiah!” Ella rushed forward and stopped just an inch before Paige’s blade impaled her throat. My friend shot her a reproachful look. “Paige, it’s me. I’m here to help you, fool.”

“Sorry.” My guard looked apologetic, but didn’t avert her gaze from the crowd. “I don’t trust anyone right now.”

“Ella.” I grabbed my friend’s arm. “There are rebels, you’ve got to warn Commander Audric—”

“They already know.” My friend pointed to the exits, and there was another scream behind us. Her pupils dilated. “He blocked off the room until they can identify everyone in the attacks. The only ones leaving are foreign dignitaries and the Crown. You aren’t safe here, Ry. Princess Wrendolyn—”

Paige cut Ella off. “She already knows. Help me get her out of here. If they went after the Pythian princess, Ryiah would be the next logical target.”

“But the others!” I protested. “What about—”

“You are more important.” Paige’s reply had an edge. “Ella and I will return when you are safe.”

I had never felt so useless in my life. I let them lead me through the maze of people, all the others begging to be free of the room.
Safe.
Not only was I without magic, and weak from injury, but I was also a part of the group others risked their lives to save.

I had trained my whole life as a warrior. But in that moment I was the damsel-in-distress.

Chapter Fifteen

Nine dead. On the final night of the Candidacy the new Council of Magic was brought into its official reign by the blood of a king of Jerar, a young Pythian princess, four high-ranking Crown advisors, two prominent noblemen, and one poisoning attempt on the crown prince—now new king of Jerar—himself.

Never in the history of Jerar had so many important lives been stolen away in the course of an hour.

The five rebels were all found and executed. The three Caltothian servants that had come with their Lord Tyrus? They never made it out. Commander Audric’s men and the newly promoted Mage Mira ensured every single one of the traitors were put to death before the night had ended.

I doubted they had expected to live. In a room filled with so many of the Crown and King’s Regiments? With so many high-ranking mages and the world’s most powerful black robe? Their mission had only been to kill.

The Crown’s progress carried King Lucius’s corpse back to the capital in Devon. Duke Cassius took his niece’s body back to Pythus by ship with the rest of the court from his own country. The Borea Isles followed the same.

We left so hastily I only got the barest glimpse of my parents and Alex and Ella before I left. Derrick was already riding off with the rest of his regiment friends for the keep. I saw Ian and Jacob alongside him, and a part of me wished I were returning too. Derrick hadn’t forgiven me for what happened to our brother, and more than ever I wanted to make amends.

I spent the whole of our five days south quietly mourning Wrendolyn’s loss. Quietly, because the new king had lost a wife, and both he and his brother a father.
All in one night.
Despite everything they had experienced at the hand of Lucius’s reign, he was their father—and that in itself was its own kind of misery.

The speech Blayne gave at his father’s funeral was a call for war.

“Gone is the benevolence my father gave to our neighbor in the north. For too long I have watched our great country suffer in the guise of peace. No more. King Horrace sent his chief ambassador to slaughter my father in cold blood… He took the life of an innocent young beauty, my wife—”
Blayne’s voice cracked and through the mage’s amplification casting he swallowed.
“—Whose flower had barely begun to bloom—”
The young king ran a fist across his eyes. “
And several great house lords in the attack.
Horrace has been paying off our men to weaken our kingdom and turn them against the Crown...”

Blayne climbed the towering steps of his father’s pyre; they led up to the sky. The red folds of his father’s cloak flapped heavily in the wind.

“
Jerar will no longer be victim to Caltothian greed. We
will
fight back.”