The Broken Dragon: Children of the Dragon Nimbus #2 (8 page)

G
LENNDON SHRUGGED AND
rotated his shoulders to ease the binding of his fine golden brocade tunic. He’d spotted General Marcelle lurking in the shadows of an interior buttress, slapping a riding crop across his palm and waiting to ambush Glenndon or Mikk for another lesson. Quickly, he darted into the illusory refuge of a different alcove. If he stood absolutely still and willed himself to blend with the stone wall, then maybe, just maybe, the general would give up and go away.

Then too, Glenndon needed to be wary of the gaggle of teenage girls milling around the hall. He ardently wished they’d turn and go the other way.
You don’t see me, I’m invisible. I’m not here
.
He threw a hint of magic into his unspoken words, willing them to be true. Sometimes he liked having all of the female attention. Not now. They just got in the way of his work. And they never gave him any privacy.

Besides, they broadcast their lustful, greedy thoughts without a hint of a barrier. He barely needed any magical talent to read them. He didn’t want to try. He was a prince without a princess and old enough to begin looking for one: a valuable prize. Nothing more.

None of them saw him for what and who he really was. None of them eased his loneliness.

So far, he’d only approached a sense of belonging with his cousin Mikk and his bodyguard Frank. Mikk reminded him a lot of Lukan, half-forgotten, lost in an adult world, and trying desperately to fit in. But Mikk didn’t have Lukan’s anger and stubbornness. That made him all the more loveable and attractive to the girls. As a friend. Lukan attracted girls because of his rebellion against authority and the anger he used to justify it. The bad boy, always in trouble and forbidden to the girls by their cautious fathers. At the University they fluttered around him like moths drawn to a flame.

He shrugged his shoulders again and heard a tiny rip. Regretfully he returned his posture to the original, uncomfortable Court Slouch. Old Maisy knew how to make clothes fit. Now that she was gone, the other royal seamstresses seemed to have forgotten everything about measuring and fitting and allowing a man to move beneath the cloth.

“Nothing serious, Highness,” Frank whispered from behind his right shoulder. “If you allow your queue to drape over your left shoulder, no one will notice the separation in the seam.”

Glenndon grumbled something impolite.
Stargods
, he wished he had his staff with him. But Father had suggested he leave it behind at official meetings. Coronnan hadn’t yet discarded their deep distrust of magicians.

Then he looked up at the berobed clerk, a minor magician by his vague orange aura, wringing his hands beside the doorway into an official greeting parlor.

“Has the new ambassador arrived?” Glenndon asked the anxious messenger.

“Not yet, Highness.” He looked around, worry pulling his mouth into a deep frown, making him look older. “I arranged the seating beside the cold hearth and had the housekeeper fill the grate with fresh flowers, as you requested.”

Frank snorted. He didn’t approve of flowers for anything but presenting to a lady he courted. The idea of their perfume masking the scent of men recently returned from the practice arena didn’t occur to him. Glenndon had grown up with the rare luxury of soaking in a hot-spring pool with a dragon for a companion after heavy exercise. City folk settled for sluicing off with cold water when necessary and bathing only on rest day before Temple services.

Glenndon watched the messenger’s eyes. “Do I know you?”

“Not really, Highness. We were in first-year apprentice classes together, briefly. I was a late bloomer and so untalented your father assigned me to clerical duties. Quite an honor for my poor family to have a son allowed to learn to read and write.” Some of the tension bled out of his voice.

“I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

“No need to remember it, Highness.”

Glenndon waited out an embarrassed silence.

“Keerkin, Highness.”

“Thank you, Keerkin. Tell your master I’d like you to be assigned to me henceforth. I find I need someone to keep track of all my appointments and the masses of parchment I am required to read and sign. And it wouldn’t hurt to have you transcribe my scribbled notes from Council sessions. I can barely read them and Mikk—um—Prince Mikkette has other duties as well. Anyone searching out laws and precedents would find my notes useless.”

“Yes, Highness. Thank you, Highness.” Keerkin bowed repeatedly in his gratitude.

“He prefers to be called ‘sir,’” Frank whispered conspiratorially. “This Highness thing is still new to him.”

“Very good, High . . . sir.” He bowed again.

“Please announce the ambassador when he arrives and then join us to take notes.” Glenndon nodded to his new scribe and strode into the parlor, easing his shoulders and not caring when the fabric shredded a bit more.

Frank followed him and took up his post, behind and to the right of Glenndon’s high-backed chair. He rested his right hand on the pommel of his sword, leaving Glenndon’s dominant left hand free to draw his own near-useless ceremonial sword. The blasted decoration was supposed to make him look strong and virile. It was more often in the way when he wanted to sit, or move in a hurry. S’murghit, he wished again he had his staff, a tool and a weapon better suited to his skills.

Bright summer sunshine filled the room with warmth, despite the chill trapped within the stone walls of the palace. Sweet floral scents rose from the grate until they cloyed at Glenndon’s senses. His legs cramped from sitting straight in a chair meant for a shorter man. His fine linen shirt beneath the decorative tunic scratched his damp skin.

He stretched and slumped. Then he rose and paced. Frank prowled the room, poking his nose into every bit of furniture, scuffing at the green and gold carpet, peeking behind tapestries that depicted great moments of battle in the history of Coronnan.

Outside the Temple bells rang the noon hour. “He’s late,” Glenndon growled.

“Yes, sir,” Frank replied absently, finding the image of a red-haired Stargod hovering in silent observation and blessing of a victory more intriguing than the missing ambassador. The first ambassador from Amazonia in generations.

“My father sent me to greet the man, an honor, and then escort him to the king’s presence. Where the hell is he?”

“Unknown, High . . . sir.” Keerkin appeared in the doorway, looking over his shoulder along the long corridor leading toward the Great Hall. “Ah, sir, I see a messenger. One of the City lads, not a private servant.”

A scurry of footsteps on the polished wooden floor accompanied that announcement. Then a plainly dressed boy in brown wool slid to a stop before Keerkin, handed him a folded missive, tipped his cap, and dashed off again.

“Well?” Glenndon asked impatiently as Keerkin slid a finger beneath a black wax seal and unfolded the parchment.

“Ambassador Amazonia, they never give their real names over there on the Big Continent, just title and city-state of origin, sends his regrets and apologies. He has been unavoidably detained by a problem at Customs with a shipment of rare wine from his home.”

Glenndon fumed a moment in furious thought. Then he smiled. “Inform the ambassador that when he is ready to open trade negotiations and possible marriage alliances with one of my sisters, he may apply for an appointment. My father will consider if it is worth the time of one of his servants to serve him a cup of our finest wine while he awaits our pleasure.”

He stalked off, shedding tunic and ceremonial sword as he headed for the barracks and training arena. “I need to bash some heads, Frank. Quarterstaff practice today.”

S’murghit! I had everything set to lure in the king, make him vulnerable to my cause and thus plant the instrument of his destruction. The crate with my other instrument of restoration is already on its way to my colleague in the rebellion I invoke. A necessary rebellion to bring the Circle of Master Magicians back to the proper path. The distance of my instrument’s journey is the only reason for delay.

Except His Grace is too busy to meet with me
. Me!
The ambassador of his newest ally. No he can’t be bothered to rule his land. He’d rather lock himself away and drown himself in hard drink. Oh, the nobles say he has given up liquor. But I know the lure, the craving, the demands of a body once used to it. ’Tis similar to the effects of the Tambootie. I’ve seen that often enough among magicians. But I’ve never been tempted by either. I am stronger than an addiction. King Darville is not. He just drinks in private now. I’m certain of it.

The people no longer know their king, or his ailing queen. They do not trust him.

So he sends his bastard son. Not only a bastard but a magician in a land that only recently allowed—by independent royal decree—members of the royal family to be magicians.

I could not chance that Prince Glenndon would recognize me. He can’t be allowed to report back to the Senior Magician that I am here in the capital working to bring him down, to end his tyrannical rule over the University and the king.

Lord Jaylor could not trust his closest comrades with the truth, that Glenndon is not his son, but the king’s. If he’d trusted us, we would have worked with him. Instead he kept silent and ruled the University alone. Now he will die alone, left with nothing. Not even his honor, or his son. I can turn this to my advantage.

“Can’t you remember anything?” General Marcelle yelled at Mikk in exasperation.

Mikk hung his head, wishing he could squeeze his throbbing and swelling right hand under his armpit to ease the bruising from the general’s vicious slap with the flat of his sword.

He glanced across the arena to a separate practice yard where Prince Glenndon angrily thrashed three opponents at once with a quarterstaff. His weapon looked suspiciously gnarled. It might be his magician staff, except it lacked the telltale white bone embedded along the top. If he used the staff, he might be tempted to fell his comrades with magic instead of physical prowess and skill.

Mikk wished he knew enough about magic to use just a little to lessen the general’s blows.

And there was Geon, hunkered in a corner with his nose in a book, only half-watching the arena for threats to Mikk. The slim volume looked suspiciously like the one Mikk had retrieved from the upper archives.

“I . . . I’m sorry, sir. My mind wandered,” he tried to excuse himself. Truth was, phrases from the book he’d found in the archives kept swimming through his head.

Transmission of energy from the mind
. Or more enticing:
Fluctuations in the magnetic field
. He sort of thought he knew what Kimmer, Scribe of the South, was talking about, but not really. He needed to study the words and phrasing in context to glean the meaning and then execute it as magic.

He wondered if Geon understood the words and if they talked about it together, maybe Mikk could understand them better.

Not a dragon’s chance Geon would talk about anything. In three months barely three words a day had crossed his lips.

“A wandering mind will get you killed, boy,” Marcelle reminded him, less angrily than before.

“I’m . . . I never thought I’d have to train as a warrior, sir,” Mikk said. “Grand’Mere intended me for the Temple.”

“Did she now?” The general shifted his grip on the broadsword. “She’d know better than me if that’s what would suit you best. But fate has made you a prince. The Temple isn’t good enough for you, boy. Let’s hope you never have to lead men into battle. But if the worst ever happens, I intend to make sure you can.” He frowned at Mikk’s hands. “Who taught you to hold your sword like that? It isn’t one of those harps the music master uses.”

Mikk looked at his fingers curled around the fat grip. “Um, Prince Glenndon showed me a few things.”

“Hmmf,” Marcelle snorted. “Prince Glenndon is many things, but only slightly better-trained than you. He can wield an ax or a staff better than a sword.” The general sheathed his own weapon and grabbed Mikk’s blade by the crosspiece in one hand. “Flat of your palm on the fattest part of the grip, pommel resting along the inside of your wrist.”