The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe (13 page)

The majicar reached inside her tunic and pulled out her
illidre
. It was a slender rod about five inches long. The ends were slanted and smooth, the sides faceted. It was a cloudy mix of purple and dark blue with specks of dark pink. She held it cupped between her palms, looking deep inside it. A moment passed, then she gripped it in one hand and pressed the other flat end against Keros’s chest.

A thread of green grew from her fingers, curling like vines across dirt, then they spread out and burrowed into his skin. The unconscious man jerked and went rigid. The majicar woman drew a gasping breath, her jaw knotting. Margaret’s fingers knitted together, her knuckles white. Nicholas had no comfort to offer. He could only watch.

The majicar’s fingers stiffened and gouged into Keros’s chest. Sweat gleamed on her forehead. A minute dribbled past. Another. Finally the skin on Keros’s face began to smooth, the blisters closing and shrinking until his skin was unblemished. When she was through, the majicar gave a gasping sob and slumped back against the seat, panting, her eyes closed.

Margaret rested her hand on Keros’s head. “The fever is gone.”

“He was dying. It wasn’t majick. He was poisoned.”

“Thank you, Ellyn.”

The majicar’s eyes opened and her mouth curved. It was like watching a snake smile. “That’s twice you owe me.” Then her gaze fell on Keros. The smile slid away. She sat up slowly, shock making her look very young. “What is this?” she asked. She looked at Margaret, her gaze as cold and bleak as the bottom of the sea. “How did you do this? Why? What is your game?”

“What do you mean? I have no game with you; I don’t know you.”

Ellyn’s gaze slipped back to Keros as if pulled. “It is not possible,” she whispered, her
illidre
still clutched tight in her hand.

“What isn’t?”

Just then Keros’s eyes flickered and opened. He stared at Ellyn. He frowned and slowly sat up straight. He reached out a hand, his fingers stopping a breath from her face. They trembled, then jerked away like he was burned. His hands curled into fists. His mouth snapped closed, his face contorting.

“You can’t be here,” he said, his voice guttural, the words violent. “They didn’t pull you out. I saw. I
saw
.”

She jerked her head from side to side. “No. I came out. You were gone.” There was pain in that last word.

Keros’s jaw knotted and he scowled. He looked as if he wanted to break something. “They threw me in and I swam. I was never going back.” He paused, his lip curling. “You serve them, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I had nothing else.”

Margaret interrupted. “Who are you? What’s going on? Keros?”

He flinched, glancing first at Margaret then at Nicholas. He leaned back, staring up at the roof of the hack, his mouth drawn tight.

“I was born in Azaire. I lived in a village on the edge of the Verge—as close to the sea as we could be without having to worry about the Chance storms. When I was thirteen seasons old, the Gerent sent soldiers. He had learned the nature of majicars and he intended to make some. He took the entire village—every last one of us—down to the sea. We waited for a
sylveth
tide. When it came, they threw us in one after another. Most of us turned to spawn—my mother, my sisters, my brothers, my cousins . . . No one was spared.”

He looked at Ellyn. “I had a friend—the daughter of a neighboring farmer. Her name was Sperray. We were inseparable. I meant to marry her one day. We had already—” He broke off. He reached out for Ellyn again and again pulled away. “I saw them throw her into the
sylveth
. She never came out—at least not in any shape I could recognize. There was spawn everywhere in the waves. They slaughtered them all as they came out.” Tears rolled down his face and dampened his beard. “I had lost everything. I had nothing to lose. I tore away from them and ran into the water. I dove under and swam. I felt my transformation and I kept going. Whatever I was to be, they could not have me.”

He looked at Margaret, jerking his thumb at Ellyn. “She wears Sperray’s face. But it is not possible. It is
not
.”

The agony in his voice was wrenching. Nicholas swallowed, thinking of Carston.

Margaret took Keros’s hand and looked at Ellyn, asking the question that her friend could not. “
Are
you Sperray?”

Silence. And then slowly, in a voice of iron, “I was once. Now I am only Ellyn.”

Keros twisted back around. “You can’t be.”

“Can’t I? Do you remember that day in the tall grass? It was only a month before. We’d finished our chores and we went to swim at the river. Remember our spot? The bank was hollowed out and the bottom was sandy. We stopped on the way to check your rabbit snares. Do you remember what happened next? Do you want me to tell you?”

Keros swallowed hard, holding up a hand as if to stop her words. “I remember,” he choked. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“For Azaire,” she replied. “That is all.”

For a moment he didn’t move. Then his expression closed, emotion flattening out into nothing. Nicholas watched the transformation with a deep sense of pity. It was a tragic moment, one that didn’t deserve to be witnessed by strangers. He looked down at his boots and then at Margaret. One hand was caught in a fist at her throat, the other was on Keros’s shoulder. Her eyes glittered with tears. She blinked them away and the chill, hard mask slipped over her face.

“Then perhaps it’s time we got to business,” she said to Ellyn. “We want to hire you to help us retrieve Nicholas’s son.”

“Hire me? Why?”

“Keros is unable and we need a majicar.”

“Unable?” Ellyn flicked a look at Keros.

“I will come with you. She is not required,” he said.

“No,” Margaret said. “It’s too risky for you.”

She meant the ghost spells and the risk of madness. Clearly the two of them were close and she was unwilling to endanger him further.

“I am fine.”

“You’re still as weak as a newborn lamb,” Nicholas said brusquely. “And we are going by horseback. Can you ride?”

Keros snarled. “No.”

“Can you?” he asked Ellyn.

She frowned at Keros a moment, then nodded. “Of course.”

“Then it is settled.”

“I am not sending Margaret off alone with an Azairian majicar,” Keros said emphatically. “I am coming.”

Nicholas looked at Margaret. It was her choice. “Very well,” she said. “But we’ll need another horse.”

“You and I will double up,” Nicholas said. She eyed him suspiciously. “Together we are lighter than you and Keros. I doubt he’ll permit you to ride with Ellyn. There is no time to go back to my manor, and we would have a difficult time sneaking out another mount without being seen. At any rate, we’ve wasted too much time. We must be on our way as soon as possible. My son cannot wait.”

Margaret gave a short nod. “We will need supplies.” She knocked on the roof of the hack. A moment later it slowed and stopped. “I’ll meet you all at the safe house.”

She opened the door and stepped out. Before she could close it, Nicholas slipped out behind her, shutting the door firmly, tossing the driver a coin and waving him on. The hack trundled away.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

“We’ll need more than you can carry alone,” he said, taking her arm and pulling it through his as if they were out taking a leisurely stroll. He pulled her beneath the awning of a milliner’s. She drew away, turning to face him.

“You left them alone together? After that? They’ll kill each other.”

He shook his head, sobering. “No, they won’t. They need time together without any witnesses.” Her eyes widened and he gave her a wry smile. “I am not made out of stone. Contrary to your low opinion of me, I do have a heart.”

“Really? Where do you keep it? In a box in a vault somewhere all covered with dust and cobwebs?”

He put a hand on his chest. “You wound me.”

“Not possible. Come on. Let’s get back before one of them kills the other.”

She started to walk away. Once again he grabbed her hand and slid it through the crook of his arm. She tipped her head, giving him a distrustful look.

“Never let it be said that I was not a gentleman,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, then settled her hand more firmly on his arm. He smiled to himself. It was a beginning.

Margaret and Weverton slipped out of the hack so abruptly that Keros had no time to call them back. The carriage wheels began rolling again and he was left sitting opposite Sperray—No, Ellyn. She was no more the girl she had been then than he was the boy.

As if reading his mind, she asked, “Keros? Is there some meaning to that name?”

He shrugged stiffly. “After my transformation, I washed up somewhere in Relsea—long before the Jutras conquered it. I had some trouble—I didn’t know to glamour my eyes to hide what I was. I had no money, no clothing, nothing. For a while I lived on the headland, snaring rabbits for food. I learned to make fire with my majick and eventually figured out that I had to disguise my eyes, but had to kill two men who thought I was spawn before I did.” The memory was an old hurt, savage still. He didn’t let the pain color his voice. He wasn’t going to give her that. He didn’t know who she was anymore; she was here on behalf of the Gerent, who’d done this to the both of them. She was not to be trusted.

“Eventually an old hermit found me. He gave me clothes and I helped him gather salt to sell in Berell. He took me there and I found work at an inn. In time I realized there was no one like me in Relsea. At least, if there was, they were disguising themselves so that no one would know. I needed to go to Crosspointe. I found passage on a tramper—I worked the season before they anchored in Blackwater Bay.”

“And the name?” she prompted when he didn’t speak again.

“It belonged to the hermit.” He chewed the inside of his lip. He didn’t want to ask. He knew the answer, but hearing it was a different thing. The words came anyway. “My family? Did any survive?”

She averted her face and shook her head. “No. Nor mine.”

“How many majicars did they harvest from Etelvayn?” he asked, bitterness sharpening every word to knives. Their village had been small, just under two hundred people.

“Six. Plus you.”

“Who?”

She raised her head, her lip curling. “Does it matter?”

“No. I suppose not.”

“And now you are one of Crosspointe’s majicars,” she said. “Lucky you weren’t in the Kalpestrine when it fell.”

“I was never a member of the Majicar Guild.”

Her eyes narrowed. “But you serve the Crown.”

“I do,” he said, more firmly than he expected. It was a harness that didn’t fit and he frequently struggled against it, but he didn’t want her knowing that. He didn’t know why. “Why are you here?”

“I told you—for Azaire. You lied to them. Why? You were never an ordinary villager.”

“I was that day.”

She snorted. “You were the middle son of the thane of Etelvayn.”

“And it meant nothing,” he said.

“If your father had been there . . .” She trailed away.

“He would have shoved us in himself. Even his family was not more important than serving the Gerent.” The words were bitter and hot. He’d seen his father little in those thirteen seasons before being sacrificed to the
sylveth
tide. The burly thane of Etelvayn was always needed, whether to push back raids from Kalibri, Glacerie, and Ayvreshar, or to subdue ambitious thanes who thought to overthrow the Gerent. Ryerdal mi Etelvayn had been one of the Gerent’s most trusted thanes. He was both loyal and ruthless. Enough to allow his family and villagers to be thrown into the
sylveth
. “He married again, didn’t he? He has new heirs. He lost nothing that day.”

Her eyes widened. “You believe that?”

“I know it.”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong. I’ve seen him. It hurt him dreadfully. I don’t think he’s forgiven the Gerent.”

Keros’s face hardened. “I doubt that. He still jumps when the fat bastard crooks his finger.”

“How would you know? You ran away,” she said disdainfully.

He smiled, tight and thin. “I am not unaware of what happens in Azaire. I will make the Gerent pay one day.”

She shook her head. “Better hurry, then, if you want to get there before the Jutras do. They are already pushing into the Gwatney Mountains. It will not be long before they reach the Saithe. The river will not hold them, and we don’t have enough majicars to hold them back.” The last was accusing.

For a moment his face went slack. “You think I should have stayed and helped Azaire?”

She flushed, but didn’t look away. “It’s your home,” she said. “Even if you hate the Gerent, you love the people and they needed you. They still do.”

He laughed, a harsh sound. That didn’t even bear answering. “Why are you here? What do you want in Crosspointe?”

“I’ve come to gather information.”

“You want more compasses,” Keros said shrewdly.

Her mouth fell open. “You know of the compasses?”

He knew far more than that. Unintentionally and wholly against his will, he’d been dragged into the center of Crosspointe politics. “There are no more,” he said quietly.

She recoiled. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?”

“Azaire needs compasses. We know what Pilots are. But without compasses, we cannot put our ships to sea. King William wanted this alliance. Surely Prince Vaughn and Prelate Ryland will as well.”

It was widely assumed that Vaughn would be elected to the throne, if there was ever an election. “Perhaps you should be talking to the regent,” he said.

She scoffed. “He will not survive long. This business with Weverton will get him killed all the more quickly. It is better to go to the Ramplings, especially now it appears Weverton is no longer against them.”