The Crimson Crown (6 page)

Han nodded. “There’s six members, plus the High Wizard. As I said, one is appointed by the queen, and one is elected by the assembly, all of the gifted citizens of the Fells. Four are inherited spots, assigned to the most powerful wizard houses—the Bayars, the Abelards, the Kinley/deVilliers, and the Gryphon/Mathises.”

Crow grunted. “That’s virtually the same as it was a thousand years ago, when I tried to change it. Only, in my day, the king was in charge of the council.”

“Bayar’s had a placeholder on the council in the Bayar spot, waiting for his twins to turn eighteen. Now Micah’s taking that spot. Lord Bayar hoped the queen would pick Fiona as her representative, but Queen Raisa put me on instead.”

“What is
your
relationship with the queen?”

“Well.” How should he answer that question? “I’m her bodyguard.”

“Are you sleeping with her?”

“None of your business,” Han said, thinking there’d never been so many people poking into his personal life before.

“I don’t care if you are,” Crow said, “Just don’t fall in love with her.”

“I’m not here for advice on my love life,” Han said, thinking it was a little late for that, anyway. “Thanks just the same.”

“As your many-great-grandfather, I feel I should at least put my dismal experience at your disposal.” Crow laughed at Han’s scowl. “All right. Back to the council.”

“Adam Gryphon is on, now that Wil Mathis is dead,” Han said. “Gryphon was my teacher at Oden’s Ford.”

“Would he be willing to support you, do you think?” Crow asked.

Han shook his head. “Best I can tell, he hates me.”

“How does he feel about the Bayars?” Crow asked.

“I’ve never seen them together outside of class, but I think he’s sweet on Fiona Bayar.”

“That’s unfortunate. She might persuade him to vote for her brother.”

Han’s mind wrestled with this possibility. Maybe there was an angle he could play.

“Who else?” Crow asked, breaking Han out of his reverie.

“Randolph deVilliers represents the Kinley House, and Bruno Mander was elected by the assembly. Mander will vote with the Bayars.” Lady Bayar was a Mander; it seemed the two families intermarried regularly.

“As I said. Some things never change.”

“Dean Abelard has had a placeholder on council too, since she’s dean of Mystwerk House at Oden’s Ford,” Han said. “But now she’s home, and she hates the Bayars.”

Crow nodded. “So deVilliers and Abelard are your best bets.”

“That’s still only three, counting me, and Abelard has her own plans,” Han said. “She means to go for High Wizard herself, so why would she support me?”

“Well, then,” Crow said. “Do you have leverage against any of the others?”

“After the first meeting, I’ll have a better idea of who the players are,” Han said.

“I’m not sure I should be giving anyone political advice,” Crow said. “But it’s easy to get so mired in the mud of day-today politics that you never get anywhere. It’s not enough to be against something or someone. What do you really want?”

“What do I really want?” Han looked Crow in the eye, took a deep breath, and said it aloud. “I’m going to marry the queen myself.”

Crow blinked at Han. His image brightened and solidified, and a brilliant smile broke across his face. He extended both hands toward Han, resting them on his shoulders, gazing fiercely into Han’s face.

“I believe you may be my descendant after all,” Crow breathed, his eyes alight with a feral joy.

After speaking with Crow, Han spent most of the next day conferring with his eyes and ears, moving horses around, and laying plans for Raisa’s protection while he was gone to Gray Lady. He let Amon Byrne know of his plans, and gave Cat orders to stick close to the queen, since Lord Bayar would know Han was away.

That evening, he was on duty in Raisa’s chambers. He’d hoped for a chance to talk to her—they hadn’t spoken since that desperate dance at Marisa Pines. But she was embroiled in an endless meeting with Delphian officials over border security. Delphi was in a precarious position, sandwiched between the Fells and Arden, but the queendom couldn’t afford the wagon-loads of money the Delphians demanded.

Raisa looked tired, her eyes smudged by shadow, her shoulders rounded under the weight of multiple demands. As her hands skittered restlessly across the tabletop, Han noticed that she still wore his ring next to her running wolves.

The Delphians blustered and bullied, but Raisa stood her ground. The meeting dragged on. Han stood against the wall, seething, wishing he could throw them out the window. In the end, he had to leave for Ragmarket, where he’d meet up with Dancer to travel to Marisa Pines.

The next morning, Han and Dancer rode out of the city hours before the sun grazed the top of the eastern escarpment. It was good to be riding with Dancer again. Han could almost pretend that all of the tragedies and triumphs of the past year had never happened, that they were hunters in search of smaller, less dangerous game.

Their strategy was to travel to Gray Lady via Marisa Pines Camp, leaving a day early to avoid any possible ambushes. Also, Willo wanted to meet with them before the council meeting.

They climbed steadily through the darkness, their breath pluming out, their horses swimming through a gray ocean of mist. They’d been traveling for two hours when the sun crested Eastgate, spilling into the Vale below.

As the mist cleared, they passed through brilliant sunlight and cool shadow, between banks glazed with maiden’s kiss and starflowers. Tiny speedwell bloomed in the crevices, monkshood and larkspur in the creek beds. Spirea and columbine smudged the slopes in sunnier areas. Once, Dancer pointed out a half-grown fellsdeer fawn.

They paused at midday to rest the horses and eat a meal of biscuits and ham. When they passed the turnoff to Lucius Frowsley’s place, Han wished he could stop and tell the old man that his friend Alger Waterlow still lived, in Aediion. If that could be called living.

But their business was at Marisa Pines, and so they pressed on.

In late afternoon, while they were still a few miles from their destination, Han heard the thunder of horses approaching at a run. Han and Dancer exchanged glances, then moved off the trail to wait.

Four riders galloped toward them on tall flatland horses. Foam dripped from the horses’ mouths, but the riders spurred their mounts as if they were being chased by demons.

Three of them were young—younger than Han—one middle-aged. As Han and Dancer watched, one of the riders groped at his neckline, turned, and sent a blast of flame over his shoulder.

“Wizards? Here?” Han leaned forward in his saddle to get a better look.

Two of the riders had passengers slung across their saddles in front of them. Children, in clan garb, limp as rag dolls.

Five Demonai warriors galloped out of the trees, riding hard in pursuit. They stood up in their stirrups, raising their bows, but seemed hesitant to shoot with the children on board.

Dancer heeled his horse forward, riding straight into the wizards’ path. Han followed, blocking the trail.

The wizards reined in, their horses rearing and plunging at this sudden obstacle.

Now the Demonai bows sounded, and the unencumbered wizards dropped out of their saddles. The clan warriors formed a rough circle around the two still-mounted wizards.

One of the young wizards carrying a captive brought his horse to a crow-hopping stop. He was dressed in finely tailored riding clothes. He raised his hands away from his amulet. “Don’t shoot! I—”

A Demonai arrow pierced his throat. One warrior leapt lightly to the ground and seized hold of the horse’s bridle, while another lifted the child to the ground.

The remaining wizard—the middle-aged one—seeing what had happened to his companion, wrenched his horse’s head around, trying to ride off the trail and past Han and Dancer. Unfortunately for him, there was a drop-off on that side. Horse, rider, and child tumbled down a steep slope into a ravine.

Han dismounted and plunged down the slope after them.

The child had flown from the horse and landed in the rocky creek bed. The wizard was trying desperately to slide out from under his mount, which had fallen on top of him in the shallow water. Above Han, on the trail, a bow sounded. And another. Two arrows bristled the wizard’s chest, and he slid under the surface.

The child wasn’t moving. Han worked his hands under her, and carefully lifted her out of the creek. A girl of perhaps six years, she was bleeding from the head, and her arm hung at an impossible angle. She lay perfectly still, eyes open, tears leaking out on either side.

Han turned toward the slope, supporting her head and shoulders to prevent further injury. “I could use some help, here,” he called.

One of the Demonai slid down the slope toward him, landing a few feet away. She was a stocky warrior, her face streaked with Demonai symbols. She looked familiar to Han, but he couldn’t quite place her.

The warrior raised her longbow, aiming at Han. “Put the
lytling
down, jinxflinger.”

“Trailblazer!” Dancer shouted, from the trail above. “Put your bow away. That’s Hunts Alone. He’s trying to help.”

The warrior’s name jostled Han’s memory. She was Shilo Trailblazer Demonai. Han had recently seen her at Raisa’s coronation party at Marisa Pines.

Trailblazer glared at Han, then slid her bow into its sling. Between the two of them they managed to carry the little girl up to where the horses waited.

The other warriors had a small boy laid out on the ground. He looked like he might be a four-year.

“He’s not moving, but I can’t find a mark on him,” one of them said.

“They’ve been immobilized,” Dancer said. “Here, let me.” Placing his hand on the boy’s chest, he gripped his amulet with the other and disabled the charm.

The boy reached up and gripped Dancer’s braids. “Jinxflinger took me,” he said.

“I know,” Dancer said. “But you’re safe now.”

He already knows that word, Han thought.
Jinxflinger.
Are we ever going to get past this?

“Leave the girl immobilized until we can get her to Willo,” Han said, trickling a little power into the child to relieve the pain. “What happened?”

Trailblazer spat on the ground. “These four jinxflingers kidnapped two of our
lytlings
—Skips Stones and Fisher. I suppose they meant to trade them for amulets.” She smiled grimly. “Now they will have to explain themselves to the Breaker.”

“Who were they?” Han asked.

“They didn’t introduce themselves,” Trailblazer said, shrugging as if wizards were all the same anyway.

The younger ones might have been students at Mystwerk, made desperate by the Spirit clan embargo on amulets. Powerful amulets were more and more difficult to come by—even the temporary kind. When they could be found, they were incredibly expensive.

“Let’s get the
lytlings
back to Marisa Pines,” Dancer said. Han mounted up, and Dancer handed the injured girl to him while the Demonai looked on uneasily.

“We will escort you into camp,” Trailblazer said. “To make sure nothing happens to you. Tempers are running high.”

“Let’s go, then,” Han said, worried about the girl in his arms and eager to hear what Willo had to say about this new business. He nudged Ragger forward, scattering the warriors in his way.

As they neared camp, there were signs of troubled times. The usual greeting gaggle of
lytlings
and dogs was nowhere to be seen. Grim-faced sentries stood along the road that Han had traversed hundreds of times in his childhood. Some of them Han knew—by sight, anyway. The Demonai leaned down to explain the outcome of the chase. The sentries nodded to Han and Dancer as they passed, but kept their weapons in readiness.

Han and Dancer dismounted in front of the Matriarch Lodge. Willo’s apprentice, Bright Hand, met them at the door. Han handed Skips Stones off to him, disabling the immobilization charm.

Willo emerged from the back room. “Bring her here, Bright Hand. I have a bed ready.” She glanced at Han and Dancer. “Please, share our hearth and all that we have. There’s tea brewing.” Then she disappeared into the rear.

The smoky upland blend brought a rush of memories as Han sipped at it. Would he ever feel at home here again?

It was more than an hour before Willo ducked between the deerskin curtains hiding the back room. “Skips Stones is sleeping now. I’ve set the broken bones, and she was able to take some willow bark. She was alert and talking. I think she will be all right. I’ve sent Bright Hand to fetch more supplies. Come—we’ll sit with her.”

They followed Willo into the rear, where Willo had once healed Han from an arrow-point poison he’d taken for Raisa. Skips Stones lay on a sleeping bench next to the hearth, her thin chest rising and falling in a sleep cadence.

“Mother, how did this happen?” Dancer asked, looking down at the girl.

Willo rubbed the back of her neck. “Skips Stones and Fisher were fishing in the Dyrnnewater when they were taken. We’ve had wizards raid the outlying villages, looking for amulets, but this is the first time they’ve targeted children. Relations were tense and poisonous already. Now…I’m worried some of the warriors may retaliate against wizard targets.”

She sat down in a chair next to the bed and pulled her basket of needlework onto her lap. She threaded a needle, knotted the ends. “I hope you will be careful, both of you,” she said. “It’s a dangerous time for the gifted to be traveling in the Spirits.”

They murmured agreement, and an awkward silence coalesced around them.

Willo took a deep breath, released it slowly. “Hunts Alone, could you ward us against eavesdroppers, please?”

Han walked the perimeter of the room, laying privacy charms to keep them from being overheard, glad the Demonai outside couldn’t see what he was up to.

Willo rested her hands in her lap, her dark eyes following Han around the room. Dancer sat cross-legged on the hearth rug, facing her. When Han had finished, he came and sat next to Dancer.

Willo bent her head over her stitching. “Fire Dancer tells me you intend to travel to Gray Lady tomorrow, to attend your first Wizard Council meeting.”