He drew in a deep breath. “If my cousin is alive, bring him to me.”
Jarid sensed the threat even before he felt the vibration of too many footsteps. Usually he had to be in the same room with Stone to pick up his emotions, but today when his foster father became alarmed, his reaction surged with such strength that Jarid felt it from another room.
Lurching to his feet, Jarid pressed his back against the wall, his fists clenched as he prepared to face his silent, unseen enemy. A draft blew across his face: someone had opened the door. Unfamiliar and unwelcome scents assaulted his nose: dust, mud, wet wool, leather. Many people were entering his room, their emotions creating a muddle he couldn’t sort. He fortified his mind against them.
Then he felt her.
It was the rainbow woman he had touched two sleeps ago. He had no real idea of how much time had passed since then; “day” had little meaning when he saw neither the dawn nor the darkling twilight. He slept when he was tired, but if his sleeps had any relation to the rising of the sun, he neither knew nor cared.
A hint of flowers scented the air. Was it her? Jarid waved his arms in front of his body, but he touched no one. He felt the tension of his visitors, but he couldn’t tell anything more about them. Had he been inside one of the spheres he often imagined, instead of this boxy room, he might have focused better, perhaps enough to sort out their emotions.
Fingers brushed his shoulder.
Startled, Jarid swung his arm and his hand thudded into a soft surface. A shoulder? Whoever he had hit moved away. He struggled to subdue his panic. He didn’t know what these people wanted, and he couldn’t locate Stone clearly among their minds, though his father was definitely in the room.
Leave! He wanted to shout at the intruders, but he had no words. When he had first become mute, he had tried for days to scream, until he thought he would die. Tears had run down his face, but no sobs broke his silence. He hadn’t even been able to cry aloud for his parents.
Again someone brushed his arm, softly. He reached out, searching, fighting to hold down his alarm—and then a large hand grasped his other arm and pulled him away from the wall.
Jarid snapped then, losing his battle for control. When the strangers tried to take him away, he fought them with the single-minded ferocity that had sustained him all these years. The physical strength and skills he had developed from his exercise regime served him well against his would-be captors, but every time he freed himself from one, another caught him. It only provoked him further. Yet no matter how well he fought, he faced too many of them—and they could see.
Three pairs of hands pressed him against the wall and someone put a damp cloth over his face. Jarid held his breath, but he couldn’t do it for long enough, especially while he was struggling. A cloying smell overpowered him and his awareness ceased.
Iris sat by the bed, watching the man sleep. She had hardly been able to pull her gaze away from him since they had found him high in the north, living in a dilapidated shack that could barely keep out the rain let alone protect him from the severe climate of the Boxer-Mage Mountains. The range had taken its name centuries ago from a box-mage who had retreated there to finish out his days as a hermit. Only the desperate lived in those cruel peaks. Beyond them lay the wastelands of Harsdown. Iris had spent her entire life in fear of an invasion by the Harsdown armies, and she understood the need for a strong king to hold Aronsdale against them.
The man they had found in the shack now lay on a bed in a tower room of Castle Suncroft, on his side, his wrists tied to one post. She hated the bonds; if the soldiers had just given her time to allay his fears, she was certain she could have coaxed him to come with them of his own free will.
At least they understood her dismay at seeing him bound. Who wouldn’t recognize this man? He had the same dark curls as the man in the portraits of King Daron as a youth, the same handsome features and broad shoulders, and the Dawnfield long legs. Aye, he was like King Daron—but stronger, taller, even more fine of feature.
However, the resemblance ended there. The late king had been a sovereign of elegance and culture. This man was wild. His rough clothes were made from rags, all dull gray. A scar ran under his ear to his shoulder. His hair hung down his back in thick, matted tangles and stubble covered his chin.
Yet for all his untamed ferocity, he drew her the way a flame drew a moth. She wanted to touch the muscles that bunched under the thin fabric of his shirt. She flushed, embarrassed by the thought, especially for a prisoner they had taken against his will.
The man stirred in his sleep, his face contorting as his wrists pulled against their bonds. It violated Iris’s sense of right to see this man, surely Prince Jarid Dawnfield, tied up like a criminal. She leaned forward and worked at the ropes. His bonds were tight, but she managed to free him.
Still sleeping, he pulled his arms down and rolled onto his back, one palm lying on his stomach.
Iris stroked a dark curl off his forehead. “Are you Jarid?” she murmured. “Can you be the mage I touched in that lonely place?” She didn’t see how he had reached her from so far away, but even now, as he slumbered, she felt the luminous strength of his mage gifts.
A voice spoke tiredly behind her. “Muller has made the announcement.”
Iris turned with a start. Della was standing in the doorway, leaning against its frame. Dark circles rimmed her eyes.
“He stepped aside for Jarid?” Iris asked.
Della said, simply, “Yes.” She came over to sit in a chair next to Iris. “It is official. Muller accepts this man as the heir to the crown.”
Even knowing what Muller had intended, Iris felt stunned. This had all happened too fast. She believed the man they had found was Jarid, but they had no proof. Nor was he in any shape to accept the crown.
“Will Muller help us with Prince Jarid?” she asked.
Della pushed back a tendril of her gray hair. “He plans to leave Suncroft. He thinks it best.”
“But, nay! He canna just walk away.”
“I’m afraid he can.”
Iris didn’t understand Muller’s withdrawal. The king’s advisors were keeping Jarid’s condition secret from the people, but they had told Muller what they knew. Why would he leave this way?
“He must realize Jarid canna rule,” Iris said.
“He says the king’s advisors can help.” Della sighed. “What can they say? Muller knew they expected to do exactly that with him. He says Brant is better suited to govern.”
“Muller is angry.”
“Perhaps. But he believes what he says.” Della watched the man sleeping on the bed. “You shouldn’t have untied him.”
Iris spoke dryly. “What will we do, take him to his coronation in chains?”
“If we must.”
“This is all wrong.”
“Iris—”
“Yes?”
“I’m afraid there’s more.”
Ah, no. “More what?”
“From the king’s advisors.”
Iris didn’t see how they could advise a man who couldn’t hear. But then, in her experience, people rarely listened to their advisors even when they could hear. “What do they say?”
Della spoke carefully. “We are all i
n agreement.”
Well and sure, that didn’t sound good. “About what?”
“Only a sphere-mage could have reached across the great distance that separated this man from you.”
Ah. Now Iris understood. “Aye, Della, I think it is true. His talent is incredible.”
“I didn’t mean him.”
It took Iris a moment to absorb her meaning. “Well and sure, it couldna been me.”
“No one else.”
Iris pushed her chair back from the mage mistress. “It was him who touched my mind.”
“I was there. You initiated the contact.”
“That canna be! Never have I even lit a room.”
Della’s stern visage softened. “A room, no. But the trees and meadows, I think yes. The countryside stirs your power. That is why you have had so much trouble making spells. Inside the cottage, you didn’t know how to reach the core within you.”
Iris wanted to protest, but she couldn’t deny the land had always called to her.
The man on the bed turned his head, restless, his dark lashes stirring. Iris leaned closer. “Who are you truly?” she murmured.
“Iris, listen to me,” Della said.
Reluctant, Iris turned back to her. “Aye?”
“We have already spoken with Chime.”
Hai! No wonder Della was so upset. “She must be devastated. I think she genuinely likes Muller.”
“She and Muller still plan to marry.”
“But she canna do that.”
“Our greatest shape-mage must marry the king.” Della had a strange quality to her voice now.
“Aye. Chime.”
“No. Not Chime.”
Iris suddenly felt as if the floor dropped beneath her. “Nay, Della! I canna be queen!”
“You must.”
“Nay!” They couldn’t expect her to marry this stranger—a wild, injured creature who didn’t even know her name.
It couldn’t be true.
Della had always found the counsel of Lord Brant Firestoke invaluable, but tonight, neither of them had answers.
“It is a disaster.” Brant stood at the tower window, his gray hair brushed back from his face, accenting the widow’s peak on his forehead. The night shadowed his austere features. As the ranking lord among the royal advisors, he had served the previous king for two decades.
He and Della gazed out at a nearby tower, where they could see into a room lit by orbs-bud candles. Iris sat next to a bed there, keeping vigil on their slumbering prisoner. The man might indeed be the lost heir of Aronsdale, but he couldn’t act as king. Iris would soon have to shoulder far more responsibility than her nineteen years of life had prepared her for. Not only did she need to learn the duties of the mage queen, she would probably have to assume many of her husband’s tasks, as well.
Della shook her head. “This matter of heredity reeks. We are asking children to do jobs that people twice their age would find difficult.” Jarid was only a year older than Iris, barely twenty. Muller, at twenty-eight, showed little more desire for responsibility now than he had at their age.
Brant watched Iris with a brooding stare. “She has no idea what to do.”
“She is intelligent,” Della said.
“That isn’t enough.” Brant turned to her. “We cannot coronate that man tomorrow. What if he goes berserk during the ceremony? Our people are already discontent. If they think we are giving them a lunatic for a king, saints only know what will happen. Aronsdale is weakened, easy prey. Without strong leadership, we may fall to Harsdown.”
Della knew all too well what he meant. Armies from the untamed lands of Harsdown beyond the mountains had long sought to conquer Aronsdale. They had power, strength and will to fight—but no shape-mages. Aronsdale held her own against Harsdown, despite being smaller and gentler, only because she had shape-mages. They could use spells to heal the wounded in battle, buttress the morale of Aronsdale soldiers and predict strategies of the enemy based on their emotions. Aronsdale needed a king to lead the armies and a queen to lead the mages. Theirs was a fragile realm; if their will faltered, they could fall to Harsdown.
“And if we cancel the coronation yet again?” Della asked. “What message does that send—that Aronsdale is such a mess, we can’t choose a leader months after the death of our previous king?” She scowled. “We put off crowning Muller too long.”
“With good reason. The boy was ready to bolt.”
“Well, now he has bolted,” Della said flatly. “The situation isn’t going to improve. I say this—clean up this man, bring him out tomorrow, put the crown on him and let Iris rule.”
Brant frowned. “She has no training.”
“She has aptitude.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“We can guide her.”
He gave her an incredulous look. “And just how do we explain her husband? He may not even make it through the ceremony without losing control.”
Della thought back to how they had found Jarid. “Bring his foster father here. He seems to calm the boy.”
Brant’s gaze narrowed. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want that man exerting any more influence on Jarid.”
Della crossed her arms. “And just how long are your men going to hold him in custody, up there in the mountains?”
“It is better we separate Jarid from him. The boy needs a fresh start.”
“And if Jarid wants him at the coronation?”
“We delay the ceremony.” Brant didn’t look persuaded by his own argument.
“We can’t. You know that. We have waited too long already.” Della suddenly felt tired. “Convincing Muller he wants the crown has become irrelevant. We must work with what we have. Waiting won’t change that.”
It was a long moment before Brant answered. Finally he said, “Very well.” He gave Della a dour look. “Just pray we all survive the ceremony.”
A touch disturbed Jarid’s solitude. The hand stroking his forehead didn’t belong to Stone; this one had longer fingers, with fewer calluses, and it was too small. A woman.
He caught her hand. As she froze, he became aware of another sensation. His wrists hurt. Why? What had these people done to him? Images of boxes formed in his mind, focusing his spell enough for him to pick up her mood. She was…in pain?
Startled, he realized he was gripping her wrist too hard. He let go and she pulled away her hand. Her scent came to him: woods, fresh grass, piney soap. He caught other smells, too; this place was cleaner than the cabin where he lived with Stone. The fragrance of orbs-bud candles filled the air, releasing a flood of his memories: the dinner chamber alight with hundreds of candles; his mother’s wedding ring agleam, a gold circle inset with diamonds and amethysts; his father bidding him good-night and blowing out candles in his room.
What is this place? Jarid had no voice to ask his mysterious companion. Although he felt her mage power, he couldn’t tell what she wanted from him. He wasn’t certain she knew herself.
As the sl
eep cleared from his mind, he slid his hands over the quilt under his body, trying to understand. It had a finely woven feel to it, downy and well-tended, suggesting a prosperity unlike any he had known for many years. When he reached above his head, he found a post of the bed, its wood carved with shape-blossoms, their petals forming boxes, polyhedrons and orbs. The designs felt familiar.
Agitated, Jarid struggled into a sitting position. Stone would never have willingly let these people take him away from the cabin, and not only because Jarid could implicate him in the crimes of that long-ago night. Stone also feared what his young charge might do with his uncontrolled mage power.
But…Stone wasn’t here.
Jarid searched with his mind, spinning orb images to focus his power. He found no hint of his father’s emotions, only those of guards posted outside this room. They hadn’t come in here because the woman hadn’t let them know he had awaked, though they seemed to expect that she would alert them if he stirred. Her mind glowed, ruddy flames lighting his isolation. Warm. Inviting.
Go away, he thought, afraid of that warmth.
He knew when she moved because the air currents shifted. Although he couldn’t be sure, he thought she had come to stand by the bed. He wanted to strike out, as he had done with his attackers in Stone’s cabin, but he hesitated. Her mood came to him like sunlight. She soothed.
Jarid gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to be soothed. He preferred anger. These people had drugged him and torn him away from his refuge. He closed his mind to her mage gifts.
A hand touched his forehead and he jerked away, wincing as pain stabbed his muscles, which still ached from his fight with the strangers in the cabin. He slid across the bed, away from the woman, until he came up against a wall. Then he sat with one leg bent, his elbow resting on his knee, his hand curled in a fist.