Breaking Stars (Book 2) (22 page)

Chapter 22

Freedom was a powerful word, and yet still undefined. Freedom meant one could come and go as he pleased and do as he wished, but Gabriel was confined by the things seen and done when he was not free. He laid on his back in his bed, unable to sleep more than a few minutes, staring at the endless square patterns of red, gold, and black in his canopy. Freedom was a wonderful notion, and he was overjoyed to have his Elements back, but he found he still winced when someone knocked on the door. He no longer felt broken, but he wondered if part of him would always remain wounded where Nolen left his imprint. His memories would always be haunted.

Despite his calm nature, Gabriel wracked with anger against Nolen, and a lust for revenge plagued him from the moment he could assess his fate in the Castrofax. Yet as the days and weeks passed, he found himself less driven. Now that he was free and had a true shot at revenge, he dwelled on it when he could not sleep, planning an attack and mulling over every situation. He was leagues ahead of Nolen’s comprehension of the Elements, and even with the Silex, Gabriel was confident he could outdo the Prince.
‘He’s no longer a Prince. I should start thinking of him as the Mage he is.’

He wanted the death to be spectacular and public, but the more he dwelled on it, he realized he was becoming like Nolen. The Mage was ruthless and cold. The scenes Gabriel envisioned were just as dark as the man had been.

The Secondhand had seen to funeral arrangements for Head Mage Casimir Brynmor. Gabriel could not fathom how one man could trade a healthy life for a broken man.
‘Did Casimir know I would rise whole and unburdened? He could only have hoped for it. He died unknowing what would become of the race he worked for over thirty years to strengthen. I will do all I can to save them, I promise.’

Gabriel felt kinetic energy brush his senses before a knock sounded on his door, so he was able to prepare himself. Still, he winced. “Enter.”

An older gentleman in a handsome black vest and slender silver sleeves stepped in with a bow. “I am Skip, my lord. Princess Robyn has asked me to be your manservant while you reside in Kilkiny.” In a hand was a thin wooden box, and he revealed a cream coat. “This was King Eirian’s.”

This coat was a true treasure and unlike anything Gabriel had in his wardrobe. It was corded around the shoulders and down the chest with fine braiding laced with thread-of-gold and studded with ivory buttons. The collar was stiff and tall in the back, and the underside fringed in gold-stitched foxes. As the manservant held it up, he revealed it to have buttons up the back that laced to fit the figure.

“King Eirian had fine taste,” Gabriel marveled.

Skip wasted no time finding a pair of appropriate trousers of dark gray that fit Gabriel quite snugly, and a light gray blouse with a collar to compliment the coat. He fit the coat on Gabriel and buttoned it to the neck, smoothing it around Gabriel’s curves to better synch in the back. It reached just below his hips in the front, and the back bore a square tail split up with more cord and buttons. Skip shined a pair of black boots with a hundred laces. Gabriel adjusted his hair—which consisted of running a hand through the back—and ran a Spirit pattern over his cheeks to make sure they were shaven.

Skip insisted on lacing the boots himself, as was his duty, and tied an ivory tassel to the top of one, assuring Gabriel it was a statement the Lords made to remind even those looking at the floor that he was a highborn.

Skip handed him a pair of white gloves, which Gabriel slipped on. He let Skip straighten the collars and tail before he looked in the mirror in his washroom. “I look like a peacock.”

“A handsome one if ever there was one, my lord,” Skip chuckled and shifted a button on the collar.

Gabriel smirked and pulled a curl forward to fall over his brow. “Do I escort the Princess to dinner?”

“It would be most appropriate, yes. Please wait here, and I will fetch you when she is ready,” Skip gave a bow.

The boots felt tighter around the ankles than his usual ones, almost as though they offered their support to his mental debates—after all, the feet are the foundation of the body. If the shoes were wrong, the whole body would be thrown off. He felt stronger in a way and decided he liked the idea of tall boots compared to the short ones he grew up with.

Skip readjusted the tails of the coat and collar before he let Gabriel step into the anteroom and vanished into a corner after instructing him to wait for her at the door.
‘It’s all so proper,’
Gabriel thought as he put his hands behind his back and strode across. The door opened before he reached it, spilling forth a maid who held the door back. Robyn emerged a moment later with a rosy smile and the ending trill of a laugh on her tongue.

She wore a long ivory dress cut in Anatolian style with a high neck, bare arms, a dropped waist, and bulky skirts. It fit her so well, he had to swallow and remind himself of dead puppies. Tiny freshwater pearls were sewn around the neck stiffly and branched out to the shoulders and mid-chest, so she did not have to wear a necklace. Her ears dangled pearls to match. Her pretty gold hair pooled atop her head in twists and braids around a many-peaked silver crown encrusted with tiny white diamonds. As customary of nobles, she wore a fair powder on her face that smoothed her free of the sun on her cheeks, but unlike many women who overdid themselves, she looked effortlessly beautiful and fresh.

She stopped as she crossed the threshold and saw him. The laugh sharply died on her rouged lips. “You—” she began, but he cut her off.

“The stars above are envious of you,” he replied, not thinking how silly it sounded but letting the words spill without check.

She blushed red and put a hand on her lips. “I have never seen you look so stunning.”

“Dress any man in a fancy coat, and he becomes a gentleman.”

He offered his left elbow and she took it, leaving her maids behind as Gabriel escorted her to the door. The King’s Hall was a good walk from their quarters, down several flights of stairs, and in the far end of the East wing. Gabriel relished every moment with her on his arm. Many servants gave surprised bows and pleasant greetings, but a good number more stopped when they saw him as everyone in the palace already knew his face and story.

As in proper noble fashion, the dinner party convened in a solar attached to the King’s Hall where they conversed and drank wine until the table was set. Gabriel could hear talk and laughter as they stepped up, and a pair of guards grasped the double doors. A handsome older page bowed and confirmed he had their salutations and names correct. He paused for a moment when looking at Gabriel.

“Forgive me, Mage Gabriel, I thought your true style was ‘Star Breaker’,” he said, bewildered, making Gabriel try to smother a chuckle but losing the battle. Satisfied, the man stepped through a crack in the door and announced loudly “Princess Robyn Bolt and Mage Gabriel Lenis.” The guards pulled the doors fully open.

They were immediately greeted by Talon, Andolyn, and most of the Council as well as a few new faces for Robyn. Mages Malain and Oren had been freed and were already beginning to look like men again. Mage Oren sported a sun burn on his brow.

Through all the greetings and salutations, Gabriel heard the silence of Lael and Adelaide off to his right. They had been in the middle of a debate, Lael looked tense and Adelaide had a furrowed brow, but as Gabriel walked in they fell silent. Lael visibly relaxed, and the woman smoothed her brow quickly looking him up and down.

“By the stars, Lael, he certainly looks the part.”

The supper was wonderful. Robyn had been allowed to sit next to Gabriel and Lael, with Mages Malain and Markus flanking them. She heard a great deal from Malain on Nolen’s cruel dealings, and listened to Lael about the affairs of the Mages and how they would handle Head Mage Casimir’s burial and memory. Markus gave them tallies on resources Jaden had should Mage Ryker attack. He accounted well over two thousand rooms left unfilled. Robyn knew it was her duty to protect her people, and it would not have been appropriate to ask them to harbor non-Mages. She wished there were more Mages to fill Jaden’s rooms, for every Mage put against Ryker was one more to protect her lands.

She retired to her room after a long meal. Her maids took down her hair and dressed her in a gown of pink silk, with a creamy satin robe, and lamb’s wool slippers. The wrap was hardly warm enough in the chill of autumn, but the seamstresses were hard at work to make warmer pieces, and she was not about to complain.

As a maid braided her hair and tied off the end, the door to the bed chamber suddenly burst open. Robyn spit out the cinnamon alcohol she had been swishing and turned to the door. The two maids with Robyn gave a start, and Robyn stood swiftly to face the intruder. Mage Mikelle rushed in with her eyes fixed on Robyn.

“Come quickly,” she said and rushed to grab Robyn’s hand. “There was an Air Mage—Gabriel—he didn’t stand a chance—hurry,” she exclaimed and pulled her out of the chamber, urging her into a run as they raced through the study and down the hall.

“What happened?” Robyn breathed, too worried to wonder why there were no guards rushing to protect her or any sounds of peril from the anteroom.

“I am not sure,” Mikelle replied, bursting through the threshold of her door and into the anteroom. She extended a hand to lay a pattern and clenched her fingers. For a moment Robyn thought Mikelle smiled, but that would be absurd in a moment of such danger.

Mikelle hit Gabriel’s door first, slamming a shoulder into it as she forced the latch down, flinging the door open. She stopped and her forward momentum propelled Robyn forward into the room.

Gabriel stood in the center of the chamber looking at the door as if he expected them, though he must have felt their energy and knew they were coming. He had an inquisitive expression as he looked at Robyn and past her to Mikelle. He narrowed his eyes at her and could not help but grin as if he was the soul recipient of some huge joke.

He wore nothing but a pair of loose white sleeping trousers with a synch around the waist left untied that sat so low Robyn was afraid it might slip. She had never seen so much of him before. It seemed as though every fiber around his hips desperately clung to his skin, but they threatened to lose the battle at any moment. She held her breath as
he
should, for an exhaled breath could surely loosen them enough to send them to the floor. He was dripping, his hair in wet tangles about his neck and face, and his cheeks rosy with heat. In one hand he held a towel, but he dropped it to look at the two women indignantly. The firelight of his hearth shone on him, and the droplets of water sparkled on his skin as if burnished with gold.

The three of them stood there for several seconds as Robyn held her breath. Gabriel glared at Mikelle, and Robyn heard the door close with a soft chuckle and lusty sigh from the Mage.

“I…” Robyn began, certain somewhere in her mind there were words for a conversation, but stupidity bested her, and few words came to her mind. “I was….”

“Running about the palace in your nightgown?” he finished for her.

She flushed red as she realized she was indecently garbed. The month apart from him had stripped him of any fat he carried, leaving him lean and long. The muscles of his torso were prominent, and his stomach was flat. Unlike people who had to swordfight and perform hard labor to be muscular, he was naturally so.

“Mikelle said you were in danger….”

“From her. She causes most of it. You shouldn’t be friends with her.”

Robyn could not help but grin at his serious tone but coy expression.
‘I like her already. We are to be fast friends, I know it.’
“I should probably….”

He extended his hand, the muscles in his shoulders tightening as the skin pulled taught down his side.
‘But the trousers!’
her mind exclaimed and she swallowed, preparing for them to pool around his ankles. “Should we?” she asked and took a step closer.

He smirked. “I am not going to steal your innocence, Robyn. Can we not sit like old friends?”

“Can we, Gabriel?” She inched closer and took his hand. “I think we are beyond that.”

“Nonsense,” he said, and in one swift movement he swept her into his free arm, pressing her against his front. “We’ll always be old friends, but we’re going to be new friends as well.”

His hand in hers was warm and so much larger than her own. He took it behind him where he placed it against the tight cords in the small of his back. She took the opportunity to press her fingers into the ravine and draw him closer.

She had been kissed once before—well, almost once—actually never. A boy in a market on a dare from his friends had jumped out at her from a window and tried to put a kiss on her lips but missed by a good inch. Gabriel throttled the boy, and the entire village shunned her, so they moved on. She was always on the move, so she could never find a love or a pretty face to steal away with, and Princesses did not steal away with pretty faces just to kiss them. Boys never came to court her while in Urima Manor because no one knew much of her.

He did not ask as he drew her up and leaned into her, and she would not have been able to speak, for her heart beat so swiftly in her ears she could not hear. She trembled, she was sure, and felt him pull her tighter to hold her firmly. She gripped the hollow of his back and wondered where her other hand was, but in the moments of heart-racing, he had put it against his chest. She was about ready to faint. He was as smooth as she imagined, warmer by far, and smelled of earth and a scent she could not quite name but knew to be his.