The Greater Challenge Beyond (The Southern Continent Series Book 3) (35 page)

“Who else was with us?  I felt someone else present, I swear,” she said.

Grange considered.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “But it may be Ariana.  I thought I heard her at the end.”

“She’s the jewel spirit, the one in your sword?” Jenniline asked, as Grange nodded.

They lay in silence, each thinking about the previous night’s experience.

“I feel like I was turned inside out – two or three times,” Jenniline said at last.  “How do you feel?”

“I’m glad it’s over.  I’m glad you helped me,” he said.  “I feel worn.  I’d prefer to stay in and do nothing today.”

“You need to at least make an appearance, to let people know you’re alive,” Jenniline told him.  “Father will be expecting you to schedule your appearance at court.”

“Can we just send Geric out to announce we’re okay?” Grange asked.

“I sent all the servants out of the tower for the night when I came up to see you,” Jenniline informed him.

He thought about the glowing stones of the tower, and the tremors that had shaken it.  “That was a good idea,” he replied.

He heaved himself into a sitting position, then picked up his wand and looked at it.  The appearance was unchanged, but it felt different.  It felt heavier, more substantial.  And it felt like it belonged with him.  The touch of its smooth covering felt comforting, and a flash of insight explained why Grace had always carried her wand in her cleavage; she had wanted to feel her wand touching her flesh, to enjoy the safety and peace that its contact gave.

“I’ll clean up and go get breakfast,” he said.  “Would you like to come with me?”

“I think I better, so that people don’t think you made me into a sacrifice during last night’s show,” she joked, as she sat up.

“That really was amazing,” she said after another moment.  “I felt so much, was so aware.  But it was frightening too, because I had no control whatsoever.

“It must be amazing to be you, with all that power,” she said, and she looked at him.

“It’s more than I imagined,” he answered.  “I hope I do the right things.” 

Jenniline stood up.  “I’m sure you will.  I’m going to go change; I can hardly wear this to breakfast!” she indicated the red gown.  “Will you be ready soon?”

“I will,” he answered, and watched her disappear down the stairs.

The wand was still in his hand.  He needed to tell Brieed, he realized, but the moon was no longer in sight; it would be missing until early evening.

He stood up and walked around the roof top.  A shallow puddle remained where he had dumped the buckets of water upon the two of them, and the ring of ashes around the roof perimeter was cold.  He lifted the wine bottle and chalice, took them downstairs with him, and changed into clean clothes, then met Jenniline at the door, and they descended the stairs together.

When they appeared at the entrance to the dining hall, the room erupted into an uproar of voices, and the space bristled with fingers and arms pointing at them.

Grange saw the faces of several people he knew, mostly of the younger generation, who tended to use the dining hall more frequently, while the senior members of the court relied on cooks and private meals.  Acco, one of Hope’s sisters, was with Tomas, a boy who usually shadowed Hope.

Hope was not present though, Grange saw.  Inge and Halsten were sitting together with their cousin, Tranch.  Paile was at another table with a group of noble girls, and various other familiar faces were spread about the busy hall.  They all were turned to look at the two new entrants in the dining room.

“Tell them,” Jenniline hissed.

There isn’t much to tell, Grange thought.  Or perhaps, there’s too much to tell – so much that can’t be put into words that would make sense to them.

“Last night, I brought my wand up to its full potential.  It will serve me now by obeying only my commands, and by meeting my greatest needs for power,” Grange spoke loudly to tell the crowd, as he held his wand in the air above his head.

“In case you happened to notice anything unusual last night,” Jenniline added, drawing a round of appreciative laughter.

“Will you do anything like that again?” Inge asked.  “I’d like to know so that I can leave the city beforehand, so that I can get some sleep!”

There was more laughter, less nervous than the first round had been.  Grange lowered his wand, and he led Jenniline to the table where her brothers sat.

“That was a spectacular display in the sky,” Halsten said.  “With all the colors and the images.”

“The swords and the trees and the jewels,” Inge added.

“The two of you kissing each other,” Tranch added slyly.

“You projected an image of our kiss?!” Jenniline asked in shock, looked at Grange.

“Not intentionally!” Grange protested.  “I wasn’t in control of what was happening.  I didn’t know that was something that the power would show.”

“You dog!” Jenniline slapped his arm with a hard, loud blow.

“Kissing her apparently doesn’t soften her,” Inge observed to Halsten in a false whisper.

Those around them laughed, as Jenniline began to blush lightly, a demonstration of emotion unusual among the native Southgar residents.

“What about your tower,” Halsten kindly changed the topic.  “Will it remain the color it is now?  A golden tower?”

“I think it will,” Grange answered.  “I think the energy we displayed last night had an impact on it.”

“It certainly had an impact on Jenniline,” Inge continued to bait his sister.

“I’m going to take you to the armory and turn you into fishing bait,” she hissed back at him.

Two plates of food were delivered with great reverence by the servants, who bowed to Grange and Jenniline after they were served, an unusual gesture.

“I’d like to make an appointment for finally being presented to your father’s court,” Grange told Halsten.  “Preparing my wand was what I was waiting for.”

“I’ll ask the chamberlain to schedule you for an appointment,” the prince replied.

“It will probably take a day or three; I’m sure there are a great many members of the court whose schedules will have to be accommodated because they will want to be sure to be present when you are there,” he added.

“That seems reasonable,” Grange replied, as he started to tuck into his meal.  He was famished, he realized, and he saw Jenniline eating her meal with gusto as well.  The long night of the exposure to the energy must have drained them each, and left them starving for nourishment.

More people started to approach the table, to talk about the extraordinary spectacle that had played so brightly in the skies over the city.

“I’ll bet Goala could have seen that clear down in Skengare,” one wag referred to the Earl who had first captured Grange and taken him prisoner in the countryside of Southgar, then sent him to the palace, many miles away.

“He’d be furious if he did,” another added.

“It doesn’t matter,” Grange answered.  “It was just one step that has to happen.”  He felt a sudden dose of fatalism.  “And then the audience with the king has to happen.  Then the rapprochement with the Bloomingians, must happen, and then,” he let his voice trail off without mention of the war against the demons.

There’s more that must happen as well,
Ariana’s voice sounded in his ear.

“I heard that,” Jenniline said in a low voice.

“And then what?” Inge asked.

“We’ll have to see how those two events turn out,” Grange answered, shaken by Ariana, and shaken by Jenniline’s ability to perceive Ariana.

“I’d like to head back to the tower now,” he said.  “I’m still exhausted by the events last night,” he said, which was true, although the real reason he wanted to go was so that he would have a chance to try to communicate with the spirit of Ariana that seemed to be re-aggregating within the jewel.

He took the last bite of his meal and stood.  Jenniline gave him a significant look, stuffed a large piece of ham into her mouth, and stood as well, chewing rapidly as she did.

The two departed, with Grange promising to visit the armory later in the day.

“What’s your hurry?” Jenniline asked as soon as she finished chewing her last bite of food.  “I could have eaten a whole other plate of breakfast!”

“You can go back and eat more,” Grange told her.

“No, I want to know what’s going on.  It’s that voice, isn’t it?  It’s that woman’s voice?  It’s your jewel,” she reached over and tapped the sword on his waist, where the Ariana’s brilliant blue sapphire rested.

“Yes,” he agreed, as they started to climb the stairs.  “If she is able to talk, I want to talk to her,” he said with a catch in his voice, recollecting the last time he had seen her, after she had suffered the fatal wounds delivered by the demon at the mine.  He had kissed her, just seconds before she had dissolved back into dispersed energy.

He stopped halfway up the stairs, as Jenniline grabbed and held him.

“Are you in love with your jewel?” she asked.  “Is that why you don’t want to marry one of us?  You’ve got a crush on her?”

“No!” Grange grabbed Jenniline’s hand.  “I owe my life to her.  She fought off demons time after time to save me.  She taught me how to use a sword.  She lived with me to protect me and teach me.   That’s why I want to restore her.

“She is going to help fight the demons; the jewels can kill demons.  My sword can kill demons.  Not many other things I know of can do that for us right now – we need the jewels to return to life to help fight our war,” he said passionately.

Jenniline looked at his hand, which held her wrist in a tight grip.  He followed her gaze, realized that he was squeezing her, and released his hold.

“Sorry,” he said.  He was trying to deny something that he knew was true, and he hated being forced to confront that particular truth.  Ariana was forever beyond him, and there was no point in pretending otherwise, though he truly did still feel desire for her.  And he had no wish to expose his hopeless position to anyone else.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” she told him, as he turned and started climbing the steps again.

“Is she beautiful?” Jenniline asked when they had risen only three steps further.

“Come with me,” he told her, and he led her up to the roof.

“This is Ariana,” he said.  He closed his eyes and pictured the girl, calling up a hundred memories of her – fencing, picking apples, dancing, lying in bed.

“Energy, show my vision to Jenniline,” he said softly.

Jenniline was silent.  Grange opened his eyes, and saw a watery image of Ariana standing just in front of him, blinking her eyes as her hands were demurely clasped in front of her waist.

“I suppose that by the standards of the northerners, who like that dark complexion – they live with it, after all,” Jenniline sniffed, “I suppose she is pretty enough.”

“So this is the one who was foretold to be your companion in battle?” the image startled Grange by speaking.  Ariana examined Jenniline assiduously, and Grange saw the startled princess squirm under the inspection.

“She is beautiful, and I see the strength and passion in her soul.  You have been well-blessed with this one, Campeaodeuses,” Ariana told him.

“I look forward to when you restore me.  We have a long journey ahead to restore my sisters as well.  Now release me, and wait for the instructions that will arrive soon,” the vision told Grange.

He stared in shock, then snapped out of the stasis as she snapped her ephemeral fingers in front of his face.  With a wave of his hand he released the energy he had called into service, and the vision disappeared.

“Oh spirits!  You brought a ghost to talk to us!  How did you do that?” Jenniline asked.  Her jaw hung slightly opened as she looked from Grange to the spot where the shade of Ariana has stood.

“I didn’t do that; not all of it, anyway,” Grange said.  “I just created the image, but I didn’t give it the power to speak.  That was something she did on her own.

“She likes you,” he added.  He was slightly startled by the things the elemental had said about Jenniline, especially the reference to the princess as his companion in battle.  It implied a closeness and a continuation of their relationship that Grange had not counted on.

The two of them looked at one another speculatively.

“You planned to try to talk to her secretly, didn’t you?” Jenniline asked.

“Yes,” Grange admitted. “But there’s no point in that now,” he added.  “She said I’ll have to wait for instructions.”

“Tell me one thing before I leave,” Jenniline said softly.  She stepped closer to him, and he stepped towards her, to catch the words that she barely seemed to breathe.

“How could you project an image of our kiss for the whole city to see?” she shouted loudly, just inches from his face.

“Do you think I had any control last night?” he answered hotly.  “I just barely managed to carry out all the steps that were needed.  I might not have stopped at the kiss if,” he stopped abruptly, recollecting the power and the passion they had shared, and the reaction of the energy, which had started to lift their feet off the tower.

“I know,” she said softly.  She stepped back.

“I’m going to go around the palace; I’ll see you after lunch at the armory?” she asked as she excused herself.

Grange nodded his head.  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I want to see what that kiss did to the odds,” she laughed, and then she was gone.

Grange grinned at her insouciance, then he pondered what he should do.  He felt a compulsion to not add any more energy to Ariana’s jewel; something in the conversation with the spirit told him that he needed to wait for the promised instructions.

But his wand was another matter. He pulled it off his hip, and felt the comfort of the contact with his skin once more.  He had discharged it the night before, so it was ready to be refilled with energy – now, for the first time, a true wand that would answer to him and him alone, and would conform to the desires and wishes he had transposed upon it.

He called upon the energy, and lifted his bed up from the floor below, and then brought up the chairs as well.  He took a seat in one of the chairs and began to pour energy into the wand.  He watched the glow of the power appear in the air around the wand.  It appeared in a wider globe than he had seen before; he was calling upon so much energy that it gained visible mass further from the wand’s tip than previously, and it poured into the slender stick with a steady pace.