03 - Sworn (60 page)

Myk unlocked the door to Severn’s chambers and held it open. I moved silently over the thick carpet. Without Severn’s voice and presence to fill it, the place had the feeling of a temple, solemn and quiet and frightening.

“I didn’t realize you worked so closely with the king,” I said, and set the tray on the desk in the outer chamber.

Myk squared his shoulders. “Not as closely as I might wish to, but he knows that I’m trustworthy. Like you, I think?”

I smiled as though that pleased me. In fact, my skin crawled. Though I found myself falling under Severn’s spell when I was with him, it disappeared when I was alone and returned to my senses. “I think he’s beginning to trust me. He’s very perceptive.”

“He is that. I don’t see the king often, but I am allowed these important little tasks. Makes me feel I’m a part of something big. Like I’m making a difference in my own way.”

Severn doesn’t deserve such loyalty or affection,
I thought. Still, I couldn’t help smiling. Myk was clearly smitten with the charismatic king. As long as he didn’t get too close, my new friend was safe enough.

I poured wine from the bottle on the table into the glass on the tray, then turned to Myk. “Is this all I do? Leave this here?”

Myk’s cheeks flushed. “I don’t know. I usually get kicked out at this point. But I know Sara adds something to his drink. It used to be a shimmery black liquid, but now it’s a glowing pink one.” He pulled back a wooden panel on the wall next to the door that I suspected led to Severn’s bedroom, revealing a hidden shelf with a few bottles on it. “This is the one he’s been having lately. Should I send for Sara?”

My potion. The bottle was still half-full, but he’d been taking it.

Building up the enemy’s strength. Just what I came here to do.

I pushed that thought back behind the walls of my mind. Myk couldn’t read me, but I wasn’t about to let my guard down anywhere. I picked up the bottle and swirled the contents, which seemed to glow even brighter in the dark than they had that first day in the workroom.

“Actually, it would be helpful if you could ask Sara what dose he’s accustomed to. I don’t want to get it wrong.”

Myk grimaced. “No, I suppose that could be bad. Wait here, and don’t touch anything. He’s very particular.”

I made my eyes widen. “I’d say. No, I’ll stand right here.” I planted my feet on the carpet and shoved my hands into my apron pockets.

Myk smiled and hurried off, leaving the heavy door open.

I waited for a few minutes, only chancing a quick look around, not wanting to be caught snooping. Nothing in the room had changed since my last visit. The fireplace was cold and empty, the room silent.

It might not hurt to look around a little,
I thought.
Sara’s room is close, but—

I screamed as Severn appeared directly in front of me, wide-eyed, gasping, and completely naked.

“Sara,” he gasped. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know—I’ll try to find her.” But before I could move, he fell forward and grabbed onto my arms to steady himself.

“Myk!” I screamed.

He rushed in, followed a moment later by Sara. A split lip that hadn’t been there when I saw her earlier was already three days healed. A talented Potioner indeed, but I understood why she hadn’t wanted to be seen for a while.

“Severn!” she cried, and ran to him. Myk followed, but hesitated to touch the king.

“Help us get him to bed,” I ordered, and Myk complied, assisting Severn through the door next to the fireplace. The room beyond was dim, the afternoon’s sunlight filtered by heavy curtains. Myk deposited Severn gently in the big, wood-framed bed that filled much of the space, and Sara hurried to cover him to his waist with blankets. I stood beside a wooden desk, far less ornate than the one in the outer rooms.

Severn’s body trembled, and he gasped for air. No change in his appearance, I noted. Whatever had happened, he wasn’t hurt as badly as he had been after Rowan dealt with him.

Pity.

“Nox, get that potion!” Sara shouted.

I hurried to the outer room and returned with the one I’d concocted. “No, the other. The black one with the unicorn horn.”

Severn roared and clutched his stomach as I set my potion down and went to get Sara’s. “Not that one! You’ve cursed me, you idiot.”

Sara shook her head and forced his hands away so she could examine his abdomen. “Let me treat you as I did before. You don’t know what you’re saying. Whatever just happened had nothing to do with unicorn horns, or—”

He still had the strength to slap her across the face hard enough to send her to the floor. “The pink potion. Now.”

I took the bottle to him. Severn grabbed it and drank. He collapsed back onto the pile of pillows behind him, laughing maniacally.

“Cursed,” he said again. “There’s no other explanation. I go to challenge my enemies, certain of my victory.”

“I told you not to try transporting yourself that way again,” Sara muttered as she stood and straightened her skirt.

Severn ignored her words. “And what happens? Who should get in my way? A gods-be-damned mer in the middle of the forest.” He laughed again. “That’s not bad luck. That’s a curse. I believe it now.”

I stepped back into the shadows and forced my heart to quiet, my mind to not imagine the worst.

“A mer stopped you?” Sara asked. Her voice took on a hushed, panicked tone I didn’t understand.

Severn took another swig of potion. “He might as well have. I took the old man down, but Aren was stronger than I expected. I tried to pull myself back here and—Well. Something has changed in him, and he held me there. I panicked and threw magic at the Sorceress to distract him, and the mer got in the way.”

Don’t react. Don’t let anyone see.
I held my breath, then let it out slowly.

Sara, who could not by any reckoning be called superstitious, paled. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“I don’t know. I might well have, for the damage I sent at him—a blast as large as any I’ve killed with before.”

I forced myself to forget Kel’s warm eyes, his smile, the feel of his lips against mine. My face had slipped into an expression of shock and pain, but I forced it to mold itself into concern before anyone could see. My heart became a stone, and I stepped forward again.

Severn looked again at Sara. “What did you say before?”

“Nothing, my king,” she said. “I spoke out of turn.”

“You said, ‘I told you not to try that again,’ did you not?”

Sara reached for his hand, and Severn allowed her to take it. “I shouldn’t have said it. I was concerned for your safety. The last time you transported yourself like this, you nearly died.”

“The last time I did this, it was new to me. And yes, it cost me dearly. Do I look so poorly now?”

Her eyes roamed over as much of his body as wasn’t covered by the blankets. Whatever damage had been done to him was invisible. He looked as strong as ever.

“No,” she admitted. “You appear to be in proper health, physically. But you’re experiencing pain. I was only concerned. Let me make it up to you. I will remember my place next time.”

“That you will,” he said, and pulled his hand away from hers. “You,” he said, and snapped his fingers in Myk’s direction. “Take her to her room for the night, or until I have time to decide what to do with her. The bedroom, not her work space, and clear out everything but the bedsheets and the chamber pot. Lock her in.”

“You can’t!” she cried, and struggled as Myk forced her hands behind her back. “You need me!”

Severn’s gaze turned to me as Myk dragged his Potioner away. His eyes burned, and a secretive smile crossed his lips. “I think, perhaps, that I don’t.”

My heart beat wildly as the desire to be away from him drove me halfway mad. I put my hands in my pockets to hide their trembling.

“Fetch me my robe from the corner,” he ordered, and I retrieved it from a standing rack. He sat up, slipped his arms in, and tied it. It was several moments before he could stand straight, and did so only by holding on to one of the posts at the head of the bed. He pulled on a tasseled cord, and a small man entered the room.

“Did you see the guard who just left?” Severn asked.

“I did.”

“See that he doesn’t survive long enough to talk about what he’s seen here.”

“It will be taken care of, sire.” The little man bowed and retreated.

My heart’s flutter turned to a pounding. Panic beat about my mind like the wings of a great bird.
Don’t think. Don’t think.

Severn sat again. “Nox, I need a different potion. Something to strengthen my body.”

“The pink potion should help, if it’s shoring up your magic.”

“Make it stronger.”

I dipped my head in a quick bow and backed toward the door. “I’ll see what I can come up with, if I’m excused.”

He waved me away, and I forced my feet to carry me slowly out the door and through his outer rooms. As soon as I reached the corridor, my emotions threatened to boil over. Rage battled with fear, grief with hope. He didn’t see Kel die.
But he said...

I broke into a run and headed straight for my room. I fumbled to fit the key in the lock, pushed my way in, slammed the door and locked it.

“Kel,” I moaned, and pressed my face deep into the pillow as my sorrow poured out in a raging torrent. Kel’s face came to mind, his touch. A house by the sea. A life. Love that had threatened to pull me out on its tides.

I should have run away with him as soon as he suggested it.

Surrounded by the cold stone walls of a palace which should have been my home, I let it all out, screamed my loss into the mattress and took my anger out on the feather pillow.

And suddenly my heart stilled. Peace filled me. The scent of the sea came, and the taste of salt on my lips.

A
shhhhh
that could have been the crash of waves or the comforting noise a mother makes to calm her child filled my ears. The tears continued to flow, but my sobs quieted.

“Kel,” I whispered. “Please. I can’t do this.”

The peaceful feeling passed, but I had regained control of myself. And I would maintain it. If anyone knew about this, it would be the end. I forced my legs to support me, and splashed cold water over my face at the basin in the corner.

There would be time again later for grief, and for memories. For now, I would do the job I’d wanted to come to Luid to do in the first place.

If Ulric was dead, he had no need of my research or my potions. If Kel was gone, I had no reason to return safely to the world outside of the palace. Nothing would stop me from following this path to the end—the one Severn had created the night he’d forced my mother to flee for her life.

I would see him dead, but not before he fully understood my pain.

41

ROWAN

^“
I
think the merfolk deserve to know about this.”

Aren turned slowly. I’d caught him alone in his tent, and he’d allowed me to enter. There was no embrace this time, though. Everything about him was cold and hard, closed-off and focused on one goal. He’d had reason to want Severn gone before. Now, he wanted revenge, and nothing would distract him. A night’s sleep after the challenge and Kel’s death had done nothing to cool his rage.

Or dull my pain.

“It won’t change anything,” he said. His voice came out flat, either from exhaustion or distraction.

“But they should know. He was one of theirs, and I think one of their best. You can’t let them wait for his return. They’ll have to find out some time. And maybe this will change things.”

His jaw muscles flexed. “It could turn them against us. I let this happen.”

I stepped closer, but didn’t dare reach out to touch him. “Kel made the decision to stay and fight with us. He whispered to me to not interfere, to not use my magic. He pushed me aside when Severn attacked.” I still wondered what might have happened if I had stepped in sooner. Maybe I could have distracted Severn and given Aren an advantage. It would have been a dirty fight, but it hardly seemed to matter now.

Or maybe Severn would have destroyed all of us if Aren was the one thrown off by an illusion, or maybe he’d have had a way to turn my skills on me if I opened myself to that. Aren still didn’t know what Severn was capable of. No one did.

That’s the problem with ‘if only’
, I thought.
You never know what, exactly, you’re wishing for.

Aren sat on the folding stool he’d taken from Ulric’s tent.

“Please,” I said. “I can’t help here. I don’t know battle strategy or politics, or even as much about magic as any of you. But I can do this. Florizel and I will go back to the cave we left in the autumn. I’ll take a message if you’ll write it.”

He looked up at me. “How’s your magic?”

“Full strength, as far as I can tell.” It had taken some time to come back. All night, in fact, after the effort of pulling up Kel’s spring. “I’ll be careful. We’ll be in the air most of the journey. Morea’s improved her potion for me, and I’ll have my weapons.”

He paled at that, but nodded. “You’ll probably be safer there than here. Just don’t go into the caves. Remember how easy it is to get lost in there, and that’s the least of the dangers. You’re not likely to get out.”

Silence followed.

“That’s it?” I asked. “No speech about how I’m not ready?”

He smiled sadly. “You are, though. If this is the contribution you wish to make, I won’t stop you. I’ll worry, but I would no matter what you were doing.”

That had been easier than I’d expected. Pride in how far I’d come mixed with fear of what I might find on my return. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said.

“Good. I’ll write the message, and you can leave this morning.”

“Good,” I echoed.

There seemed to be nothing else to say.

F
LORIZEL TURNED
her head back toward me. “You’re certain there was no cave closer?”

“Sorry. There probably is, but with no one to lead us there, this is the best we can do.”