Unleashed Fury (BloodRunes: Book 1) (34 page)

She dismissed him with a wave, and he
departed, leaving her to fetch her driver to take her to the
palace. She thought it odd that the King had only been trained in
the rudimentary uses of magic when he had demonstrated far more
power than that statement would imply. It sounded as though his
family had not had the money to send him to the optional additional
training.
But if they didn't, then how did he master its use?
For he obviously has.
She made a mental note that the King may
be hiding more than they realized if he so modestly presented his
powers that were, in reality, much more dangerous than he made them
seem. She almost immediately admonished herself, however, as of
course the King was an expert in subversion. He had, after all,
maneuvered himself into a position of great power both in the Order
and in the kingdom. A position which Jezebel planned to soon take
from him as her own.

Back in her suite at the palace, Jezebel was
surprised to see a letter with her father's seal waiting for her.
She picked it up and glared at it for a moment before sliding a
nail through the wax, and unfolding the contents. It was a lengthy
letter, one that got her more and more inflamed the more she read
of it.

He started off pleasant enough,
congratulating her once more on her new position. But then went on
to berate the seat, saying that she would be foolish to believe
that having a seat on the Council would give her any real power. It
implied that there was much more going on here than she could
possibly hope to even understand.
Basically it says I'm too
stupid to follow the intrigues going on, and therefore I should
just do whatever he tells me to in the notes that I'll soon be
receiving regularly and by referencing the files he gave
me
.

She ripped the note into a thousand tiny
pieces and tossed it into the air, igniting it mid-fall with the
power. It gave her a small tug and she felt momentarily weak after
doing so. She felt a flash of annoyance. She had been surprised to
learn that oftentimes the use of smaller amounts of the power was
actually more draining when used for things that required detail.
So, for example, lighting each torn piece could potentially be more
draining than, say, a huge fireball hurled out, which took pure
power but very little focus on detail.
How can Father still
think that he can control me? Can't he tell that his bond over me
has been broken?

She had thought that once she gained the seat
that he would see just how powerful she was, but not only had he
not lost that smug smile of superiority, but he had even had the
gall to try and use her with magic. Jezebel found it displeasing
that there was an aspect of blood-magic that could be used against
her without her knowledge simply because she and her father shared
ties of kinship.

Jezebel snorted her irritation and shook
herself, trying to brush off the effect of the letter. The King had
said that he would be punished; she simply must be patient and see
what he had in mind. She walked to the window and looked out over
the maze of gardens beneath her balcony. It wasn’t long before she
returned to her desk, however, to write to Devon. Patience was not
her strong suit, and she decided that perhaps she’d set Devon to
the task of arranging a little something for her father in the
meantime as well.

She opened the door to have one of the
servants go and fetch Devon from the manor for her, and found that
he was already on his way towards her, coming down the hallway
looking excited. She held the door to the suite open for him and he
squeezed by. “I have news of the renegades,” he told her without
preamble as soon as the door was safely closed.

“What is it?”

“A guardsman in Avonmora filled out a
complaint against a superior officer for letting two people go who
matched the description that we had sent out. It sounds like the
older man was due to be off-duty and dismissed the younger
officer's assertion that they should detain the couple longer.”
Jezebel’s eyes flashed with anger at the use of the word 'couple',
and Devon seemed to sense her mood change as he did not pause to
give her a chance to act upon it. “They very well could be the two
traitors we are looking for. It is very near the town where the
travelers were spotted being followed by the hounds.”

Jezebel took a deep breath. “That would mean,
however, that the hound has thus far failed.” She had thought as
much. After the initial backlash of power, no amount of questing
would allow her to connect with the last beast. She should have
felt something by now if it had caught up to them, either its death
or its victory. “How dare that officer ignore a direct order to
detain and question all matching the description, just so he
wouldn't have to deal with it.” She sighed irritably. “The whole
world is against me. Do we have any idea where they are
headed?”

“Happily yes,” Devon acknowledged. “A young
man happened to be paying them attention as he found the woman
very-” he stopped himself short from using whatever word he had
originally planned on and put in instead, “-odd, and he happened to
hear them talking about the town called Dunlop.”

Jezebel pursed her lips and thought a moment.
“Dunlop? What an absurd name. Where is this town?”

“It is in the North Country, Councilor. It is
both the town nearest the Shadowlands, and near where the King is
from.”

“I will have to think about this,” she told
Devon. “In the meantime, I believe I need to set up a meeting with
the other Councilors. Can you arrange that for me?”

“Anything for you, my lady,” he said bowing,
and he showed himself out.

This meeting, Jezebel found herself seated
and waiting before any of the other Council members arrived. They
slowly filed in and took their seats, and several of them gave her
looks she couldn't quite place. The last to arrive clarified it for
her, however, as he presumptuously rose to speak before her saying,
“Lady Jezebel, we are scheduled to have a meeting in three days
time, and some of us,” he stressed these words as if trying to
brazenly imply that she was not included in this group, “have more
important things to do than be called to another of these so-called
emergency meetings for yet one more of your trivial matters that
really should just wait until we are scheduled to convene.”

Jezebel refused to be derailed, and took his
ignorant patronizing in stride. The opinions of lesser people meant
nothing to her, and he was about to get a swift kick in his pride
anyway. She gave him an amicable smile and said silver-toned, “I
just thought that you all would want to know right away that I
spoke with the King directly, and he has expressed his wish that I
be the speaker for this Council. He is also further elevating my
status by giving it a new title of 'First Advisor'. This makes all
of you under my direct command and me only answerable to the King
himself.”

The man had sat heavily in his seat and all
the Councilors were staring at her, some with completely
undignified slack-jawed expressions. “But,” one sputtered out, “you
can't do that! The whole point of the Council is to keep the
balance in check!” The man's voice cracked as it rose hysterically
in pitch.

She laughed churlishly at him and beamed.
“The King can do anything he wants. And now, so can I. And what I
want you all to do right now is gather your personal guard and
select the most talented of the bunch to send after the two
renegades. It is imperative that they be punished for their
betrayal and that an example be made of them for others who would
think to betray their country.”

“Others who might betray the country or
betray you,” asked the man who had first spoken.

“Examples will have to be made,” she repeated
and gave him a hateful stare until he paled and looked away
uncomfortably. She dismissed them after giving more detailed orders
of what she wanted done, and then took a deep breath, admiring her
surroundings. Things were going quite nicely her way.

CHAPTER 29

Layna muttered the word she had just
memorized and reached for the power gently, gasping in delight as a
tiny globe of water appeared before her. Though the word itself
didn’t make or break the spell, it helped to focus the energy
properly. Gryffon was doing his best to continue her training,
despite the risk of detection. They decided that having her be able
to use it at this point would outweigh the cost of possibly sending
out ripples in the power to those who might be following them. He
was going through the basic elements, and then branching out to
show her how to use these elements in different ways. Although he
told her that after her display with the hounds, he wasn't sure he
was really qualified to be teaching her anything. He was
significantly impressed by the power she managed to handle without
difficulty, but warned her and sometimes even more importantly than
the actual amount of power, was the ingenuity of the power-wielder.
Oftentimes you could achieve the same results by a more precise
application of power rather than simply using raw energy to try and
accomplish a feat.

Layna spoke again and the water crystallized
before smashing to the ground beneath her in a spattering of ice.
“Oh!” she exclaimed.

Gryffon rebuked her. “Remember to account for
the differences in weight, density, and such when changing the
characteristics.”

Layna brushed her hair away from her face and
bit back a nasty comment. He was only trying to help. Gryffon
reached a hand up and held her hair away from her neck, inspecting
the place she knew she had a mark. Layna looked at him curiously.
“Yes?”

Gryffon scrunched up his forehead, and leaned
closer to her. “That mark on your neck, it's growing darker. It's
definitely much more pronounced than it was at first.”

Layna looked worriedly at him. “You don't
think it means anything bad do you?”

Gryffon shrugged noncommittally. “I honestly
don't know what it is, but if it does have to do with the Dark
King, maybe it's growing darker simply because we are getting
closer to his ancient lair.”

“That's not very comforting,” Layna told him
with a meek smile, but didn't comment further. “How's your own mark
doing?” she asked him.

He shrugged again. “Still hurts, but I'll
live.” He returned her smile with one of his own, and the two of
them sat contemplating their dual scars.

A figure suddenly came bounding out of the
woods and sprinted towards Layna. Gryffon jumped to draw his knife,
but paused when a familiar voice called out, “Hold!”

Charles came running out after the figure,
which was now skipping excitedly around Layna, trying to lick her
face while she pushed it off, laughing. It was the hound she had
freed from its compulsion, and it looked as though freedom agreed
with it. It still had a rather unearthly quality about it, but now
it reminded Layna more of a dog than something she would term a
beast.

Gryffon was still eyeing the hound warily,
but Charles came up beside them and assured him, “I'd been tracking
‘im for a while when suddenly he just stopped runnin’ and turned to
face me. He just sat right there while I walked up to it with my
knife drawn and all and waited to see what I'd do. He let me pet
him on the head, and since then he's acted just like a dog. He can
even play fetch, and I've been hunting with him. He learns very
quickly.”

Gryffon lowered his weapon cautiously as
Layna sat on her haunches to better scratch the hound which had
rolled over so that she could reach its belly. Its tongue lolled
out its open mouth, and even the razor sharp teeth seemed less
intimidating in the goofy pose it was in to get a better rub-down.
“It seems that whatever you did, my lady, you cured him from his
evil,” Charles said respectfully to Layna, giving her a small
nod.

Layna surveyed him curiously, Charles had
called her many things, but never 'my lady' and she wondered at the
change. They filled Charles in on what they had found out in
Avonmora, and he agreed to accompany them towards Dunlop, though
declining to go into the town with them. He had no desire to visit
such an evil place, he told them.

“You two are becomin’ awfully popular you
know,” he told them seriously. He described the wanted posters he
had seen in different towns, and the several big brawny men asking
questions about them.

“I guess we'll be taking game trails, and not
getting to stop at any inns,” Gryffon said regretfully.

“Maybe you shouldn' go into any towns at
all,” said Charles, “not even Dunlop. Your demon lady seems to have
a monomania over the two o' youse. I know a place up north we could
go and you'd be safe. Your demon lady would never find you there,
and you could finally get away from her miasma.”

“No,” Gryffon disagreed, “we need to go to
Dunlop, and then afterwards we'll figure out what to do next. Thank
you for the offer though.”

Charles just nodded his acceptance of the
thanks and didn't press the matter, to Layna's relief. She wasn't
sure that her resolve to go all the way to Dunlop would hold,
knowing that Jezebel had everyone under the sun after them, if
someone tried to persuade her otherwise.
Jezebel must be doing
some serious crying to her father to get the funding for such an
undertaking
.

After a moment Charles put in, “Well, if
you're dead set on it anyway, at least do somethin’ ‘bout your
looks. What with all the wanted posters galore with your likenesses
plastered all over. Them burlies are getting' all corybantic over
you people.”

When the two men went out hunting, Layna
gathered together some of the herbs for spicing the meat that in
the spring weather were starting to poke out through last year's
dead grass. She then set to work finding a berry that Mila had once
mentioned to her in passing. Layna marveled at her memory of such a
seemingly insignificant piece of information, but was glad that she
did remember it.