Breaking Stars (Book 2) (2 page)

Mikelle left him with Shayleen as she spoke to the others about the happenings in the palace. After a while Bianji put on a hooded cloak and slipped out of the room to glean more information.

“Do you not speak my tongue?” Gabriel asked in Arconian as he took a seat across from Shayleen.

“I understand it, but I was lowborn, and my family never learned.” She smiled softly. “They say you are an Anomaly—as am I. I come from a family with no Mages. We have no Mage bloodline to speak of. We live in strange times.”

“True words. What have you learned of the Castrofax?”

“I read your language better than I speak it.” She opened her book, and he saw more piled beside the chair. “You wear Overturn, and it was created in the Third Age by Arch Mage Pike Bronwen. It was reported to have encased 220 Mages; the most of any—though I have not discovered why it was so well used. It seems people wore it for the shortest time of the Six.” He caught most of the words she spoke, but strung together his own conclusions by identifying the main words. “The farther the control piece from you, the less power can be drawn. The range seems to be ten miles, but beyond that the user cannot draw from you.”

“Can I use the control piece?”

She shook her pretty head sadly. “Nay.”

“Did anyone ever make it out of the Castrofax alive?”

The question took her aback. “You know what you wear, yes?”

He felt foolish. “Of course, but if there ever was a chance, would I not go for it?”

She blushed. “N—naturally. I have seen one instance when a man was put in Eraser—the binds that kill the bloodline—just so his children and grandchildren would die, but it seems as though he was freed. Unfortunately, it simply says that Ryker saw fit to release him, and did so. It gives no solution.”

Gabriel tapped a finger against the armrest. “So perhaps Ryker built in a failsafe,” he said in his own tongue. Shayleen slipped off the chair and came to kneel at his feet, taking up one of his hands in hers. The action was so sudden he jerked back, but she was gentle, and her face so serene that he let her have it.

Carefully, she put a thumb and forefinger on the copper Castrofax and held it up to examine. It was the first time he could remember anyone touching it; her eyes were not afraid but inquisitive. She flicked a small pattern in her hand, and a glow of soft teal light sprouted from each of her fingertips, illuminating the copper band.

“I have never seen that before,” Gabriel mused.

She smiled up at him. “I thought a Class Ten knew every pattern. This one mimics glowworms.” She inspected the underside of the band as best she could, but she stopped after a few moments and gently pushed the band up, taking up his wrist in both hands. Across his skin were red rope burns below the heel of his hand. “What are these?” she whispered in a nervous tone.

He pulled his arm back and pushed his sleeve down. “Consequences.”

“Come play Tiles with us,” Lace called from the hearth, pouring herself a cup of hot wine. “Are you any good?”

“My lady love would say no.” He stood and helped Shayleen to her feet. They had dedicated a short, round table to the game, and on it were two black bags and four red starter tiles. “I’ve never played with four.”

Lace took her seat beside him. “We play with many in Arconia, often for loot. What will you give me if I win?”

“Secrets are all I have to my name.”

“I will accept your secrets and wager an uncut emerald in its place.”

“A whole emerald?” he asked.

She grinned and nodded. “My family has land rich with jewel mines.” She pulled a tile out of the bag between them. “We supply the stones for the King. I shall be playing for the green,” she said and set a green-lacquered tile with purple underneath on the edge of her starter piece. He drew a tile and set the dark purple beside his starter.

Mikelle sat across from him and Shayleen to his right. “We play with other pieces,” Mikelle explained and drew a small box filled silver drops of glass, pressed on one side, so they would not roll. “Once ten pieces have been laid, you have the chance to use one of four of these Watchmen to stop an attack on your kingdom. Once played, the person who has laid the attacking tile removes the piece and cannot attack again for another round. Should you choose not to use the Watchman, it will add an extra two points per unused piece.”

He lifted a piece and weighed it. “Cinibarians play with Soldiers who mount attacks and prevent you from building.”

Lace nodded. “Shalabane have more tiles for bodies of water and use Ships to do something similar. Each culture makes the game their own, but no one knows who began it.”

They sat silently, laying the pieces they drew to form walls and ramparts, roads and mountains, sipping wine and watching the broken star burn brilliantly in the black sky. Gabriel could still feel the excited energy the palace gave off, even if it was more a subtle brush than an actual feeling. Before the Castrofax he could often tell someone’s mood just by their energies, and feel them several rooms away.

Bianji returned and reported people were both excited and frightened by the star. Everyone had a theory, saying it was an omen heralding someone’s birth, or the beginning of Shalaban’s destruction, or the end of the Novacula ruling. The few Mages in the palace tried dispelling the claim that Gabriel had anything to do with it, for every Mage knew their Elements did not even stretch to their moon, but there were skeptics. Some were clamoring for Gabriel’s release, exile, and even his death.

Bianji took a seat behind Gabriel and with skillful fingers mended the tears in his shirt and other abrasions taken during the scuffle. The scratches on his neck from the attack mended with a tingle that made him itch, and the back of his shoulder blades and elbows stop burning where he scuffed them. Bianji leaned over his shoulder, wrapping one arm around his chest much like a lover would, but the Arconians were accustomed to physical touch far more than Anatolians. She reached her free hand for a forearm and lifted it above his head to better look. When he realized she was looking at the rope burns on his wrist, he pulled it back down with some resistance.

“Let me fix those,” she whispered in his ear and put her fingers against his hand.

“Leave them,” he replied.

Lace was mounting an attack against him where Shayleen kept her kingdom to herself, and Mikelle seemed to be attacking everyone.

“Axa doesn’t believe your stories,” he said suddenly.

Mikelle popped her head up, her look of concentration remaining. “And I do not believe hers.”

“What is she saying?”

She waved a hand in dismissal. “A great load of nonsense. It’s your turn.”

“This party will be all a-flurry in the morning when they found out you stayed with us, so we will spread new stories, and no one will care what Axa has to say,” Lace chimed in, laying a green tile between Mikelle’s unfinished wall, breaking it. Mikelle huffed and took her revenge setting a blue piece in Gabriel’s lake, preventing him from joining it to his river.

He watched the two of them carefully. Lace had taken Mikelle’s side and steered away from his question, which meant Axa was saying some truly terrible things—and they believe her. He tried to come up with a better question to answer his fears, but Bianji took that moment to begin running her fingers through the back of his hair, quoting there was still evidence of the scuffle, and all sense of intelligence left him. He even misplaced two tiles before he realized Mikelle was grinning over his shoulder at the redhead. They were in cahoots.

In the end, he lost. Mikelle beat the two of them, but Shayleen had built up a solid defense against her, and Lace managed to keep all her Watchmen.

“Secrets!” Mikelle declared as they put the pieces away. “That is your price for losing.”

He leaned back against the chair Bianji was sitting in. “Secrets are meant to be kept.”

“And we are excellent at that.”

He searched for something that would not damn him. “Queen Miranda will not hold the throne more than a moon’s turn.”

They stopped cleaning and gaped at him. “Explain,” Bianji said, leaning forward.

“She is not the rightful Queen. The true heir to the throne will come of age in the next week and claim her throne. Miranda has known this for ten years.”

“How do you know all this?” Lace asked. Mikelle flicked her eyes at the woman a moment before returning them to Gabriel’s. It seemed
she
knew.

“Many people know Miranda is only keeping the throne warm, but not many know the heiress is alive and coming for her Kingdom.”

“How do
you
know she is alive?” Mikelle asked levelly, her narrow eyes pinched.

“You only beat me at one game, and I do not plan to lose again.”

And he did not.

After two more games, they conceded. Their tricks could not distract him. Shayleen tried conversing in his tongue to get him to focus on correcting her speech, Lace attempted massaging the leg closest to her—which ended up distracting
her
enough to lose—and Mikelle tried talking as much as necessary, but he had long ago learned how to tune out a woman. In the end, he barely made it ahead though lost all his Watchmen in the process.

“Another refresh?” Bianji asked and held up a jug of wine.

He waved a hand away. “You harpies are trying to get me drunk.”

“Be more subtle,” Mikelle whispered to her companion.

Gabriel eased himself off the pillows and into a chair with a sigh. He glanced outside at the dark night frosted by the crescent moon and broken star.

“Can you feel it?” Bianji asked, sitting on the edge of the table with a mug in her hand. “The energies the palace gives off?”

“Very faintly, right here,” he nodded putting a finger on his breastbone. Lace opened a window and threw out a net of gray threads from her hands, listening to the conversations drifting on the winds.

“What does it make you feel like?” she whispered and touched a nail to his neckpiece.

“Like a wrung-out towel.”

Shayleen slipped away and returned with an ebony violin that she softly played in the window seat by Lace.

“Maybe a soft tune will sooth you,” Bianji smiled and put a hand over his. “Shayleen’s family makes the violins, and she is quite talented. I think this is yours,” she said and put the mug in his hand. “Excuse me.”

She left him and slipped into the other room. Gabriel took a draught of the warm wine and realized,
‘No, this is not mine. That girl is craftier than I estimated.’
He shot Mikelle a glare, and she beamed behind her own mug.

“You better change out of those.” Mikelle gestured to his clothes, “We’ll send them to be cleaned by morning.”

“You have nothing for me to change into.”

She gave him a long stare and slowly tilted her head forward in a way Gabriel could only translate to mean
‘obviously’
.

“What hour is it?”

Shayleen looked up from the gentle song she played with experienced fingers. “Ten.”

Mikelle took a few steps closer to Gabriel and threw a look at the door. “Quick, out of your shirt at least.”

“What—no,” he began, but Lace heard something he did not and snapped her fingers at Mikelle. Mikelle quickly plopped herself in his lap. The doorknob behind him rattled just as Shayleen began a swifter tune. The door swung open as Mikelle put her face up against his cheek and gave him a loud kiss.

Her arms were around his neck, and she gave a laugh as Queen Cathlyn let herself in. The Queen had her hair down, and it framed her square face matronly. He could not see the rest of her honey-colored dress, for Mikelle pulled his head back around.

“I will have him first—oh, hello Your Majesty,” Bianji said as she strode from the other room wearing a sheer garment very nearly see-though, cut at the thigh to show off her long muscular legs.

“I thought we agreed I would have him before you,” Mikelle said and tightened an arm around his neck, digging the Castrofax into his skin. “It is my right as eldest.”

Gabriel surprised himself by replying “I think I can manage you both at the same time.” Shayleen missed a string, and the violin gave a sharp squeak.

The Queen gave a peppy titter. “I am glad to see we did not come all this way for nothing. Goodnight ladies, Mage.” She closed the door behind her as she left, and they waited a few moments before Shayleen’s music returned to the soft song.

“You will do
what
now?” Mikelle asked and raised a brow at him. He put a hand on her side and tried to push her off, but her arms remained around him. “I quite like it here actually.”

“You did not tell me the Queen would be making rounds.”

“I was not sure you would play believably. Apparently you are rather convincing.” She put a kiss on his forehead and hopped off him. Bianji threw on a robe that was far less transparent. “You will be sleeping in my bed, and I want clean sheets, so out of your dirty clothes. It will look best if we leave them out to be washed because my people and Nolen will know you were here and…
without garments
.” Mikelle smirked slyly.