The Kingdom of Eternal Sorrow (The Golden Mage Book 1) (12 page)

However, she lost some of her anxiety when she set her eyes on the
extravagant double doors up ahead that could only lead to the Throne Room. It
seemed that the palace would never cease to amaze her, not surprising given the
restrictive life she had once led.

The doors were either solid gold or thickly gold-plated, and a mural of
an unknown battle was painstakingly etched into the soft metal to cover every
inch of both doors. Light seemed to radiate directly from them so brilliantly
that Allison couldn’t look at them without squinting. On either side of the
doors stood two columns from floor-to-ceiling seemingly cut out of a nearly
colorless crystal-like substance. She couldn’t believe that the Lamians had
found crystals large enough to create those two monstrous columns.

She pointed over to one and asked, “Aidric, are those columns really
made out of crystal, or are they just glass?”

“Neither,” came the reply. “Those columns were cut from a couple of
diamonds Diryan had hailed in from Sersia. The types of crystals I think you
mean have never been found so large. Now, if you would pardon my absence for a
moment, I must speak to the guards before we are allowed to enter.”

Allison merely nodded dumbly, distracted by the impossibility before
her. Ignoring the guards and Aidric completely, she walked over to one of the
columns and ran a hand over the smoothness of the jewel. She could see the
colors of the spectrum glimmer throughout the flawless, diamond column as she
circled around it.

A diamond
, she thought wondrously.
Aidric talked about it so
casually, and yet, if I tried to cash in on just a piece of this back home, I
would definitely be billions of dollars richer! I wonder if they even think of precious
stones as valuable here beyond being just another beautiful decoration?

She took a step back from the column uncomfortably when she noticed
that the guard not speaking to Aidric was staring at her intently, his face
completely expressionless and unreadable. Hastily, she looked away and wished
that Aidric would hurry up and finish talking with the other guard. This
guard’s total lack of emotion disturbed her more than if he would have gaped at
her in horror as she expected.

To her relief, Aidric abruptly motioned for her to come to him, and she
hurried over to his side, self-consciously aware that the guard’s eyes still
followed her every move.

“I don’t like the way that guard is staring at me,” Allison whispered
to Aidric with a nervous glance in the guard’s direction. “I feel like he’s
looking for an excuse to slice me in half with his sword!”

“Pay them no mind, milady,”
Aidric sent into her mind.
“It’s
merely their duty to look so fierce. Gaul is a master at looking like a brute.
It’s his way of safely gawking at you without appearing to be doing so. You
must remember that they are as curious about you as you are about them and this
world.”

Aloud, he said, “The Circle and the king are ready to receive us. I’ll
do most of the talking, so you need not say anything unless a question is
directed to you. Just remember to curtsey before His Majesty when I announce
you. I’ll help you through this as much as I can.”

Despite Aidric’s reassuring words, Allison didn’t feel very reassured as
both guards each opened a golden door, and Aidric half-pulled her inside after
him. She couldn’t help jumping a little as the doors banged shut behind them,
echoing loudly through the silence of the enormous Throne Room. It sounded so
final, as if the closing doors had sealed her fate. She swallowed down her fear
with some difficulty and willed herself to appear outwardly calm even though
her heart was threatening to tear out of her chest.

Several gasps of shock immediately followed the echoing of the closing
doors. Suddenly, Allison felt the weight of dozens of eyes on her as she
reluctantly took in the scene before her.

At once, she knew why this group of people called themselves the
Circle. Over two dozen elegantly dressed men and women sat side by side on a
narrow, elevated platform that circled the entire room along the walls, broken
only in the center by the silver- and blue-carpeted aisle leading from the
doors up to the dais where the king of Lamia and a silver-haired woman who was
probably the queen sat. Inside the circular platform lay several rows of marble
benches on either side of the aisle, a setup much resembling that of a church.

Four marble columns similar to those that lined the corners of Aidric’s
sitting room, rising at least two hundred feet to the high, arched ceiling, lay
on either side of the aisle at both the beginning and ending of the aisle where
the circular platform was divided. On the wall behind the throne seats hung a
magnificent tapestry of a large silver teardrop, a hint of a figure within,
against a sapphire-blue background.

The whole effect was just as overwhelming as Allison had feared. It took
every ounce of willpower she contained to prevent herself from fleeing from the
room and all those penetrating stares that seemed to demand to know the secrets
of her very soul. Aidric’s grip on her arm abruptly tightened as if he sensed
that she might bolt. With his empathic abilities, it was probably closer to the
truth than she realized.

It seemed that everyone began to murmur at once when the initial shock
of her appearance wore off, until King Diryan shouted for silence. Instantly,
the room fell silent. Fighting back tears, Allison hardened her expression and allowed
Aidric to lead her up the silver- and blue-carpeted aisle until they both stood
only a couple of feet away from where the king and queen sat in regal silence.

Allison’s eyes widened as she stared up at the queen. Like Aidric, the
woman’s appearance seemed otherworldly. She was not young—Allison could plainly
see that by the faint lines around her eyes—yet, they seemed to refine the
woman’s features in a way that probably made her more beautiful now than when
she was younger.

She had an agelessness about her that made pinpointing her age
impossible, especially when her hair was a lovely shade of silver that seemed to
sparkle with its own vitality and not at all like the dullness of the silver
caused by aging. Allison suspected that it was the color the queen had been
born with as Aidric’s true hair color was white.

The eyes that were scrutinizing her so intently were a shade of violet
so deep that they appeared almost black. Her expression was curious without
even a hint of the fear so many others had shown.

She held herself with such grace and dignity that anyone would be envious.
Allison feel ugly and awkward in comparison.

“Your Majesty, My Queen,” she distantly heard Aidric say as he bowed
gracefully, “my lords and ladies, I present to you Allison McNeal, my new ward
and apprentice.”

Somehow Allison remembered to curtsey before the royal couple, though
clumsily, since she wasn’t altogether sure of the correct method, and her only
examples had come from movies.
I don’t know why I couldn’t have just bowed
,
she thought irritably
. Even I couldn’t mess that up.

The king and queen both nodded in acknowledgment, and at once the low
buzz of voices resumed all around her. She shifted her feet nervously and
glanced over at Aidric to see what he would do next.

She really hated to know that all those people were talking about her,
and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it. All she could do was
stand there feeling like an idiot and hope that it would all be over soon so
she could once again hide out in the relative safety of Aidric’s suite.

Surprisingly, it was King Diryan, not Aidric, that next spoke.

“Enough with the formalities, lad,” he said in a voice so low that it
surely was meant for their ears alone. “You may both go take your seats before
the Circle. Now that they have seen her with their own eyes, maybe they will be
more inclined to believe all you have told them and listen to reason.”

“As thick-headed as some of them are,” Aidric murmured mischievously,
“I doubt even the sight of her will make them believe.”

“You are probably right,” Diryan replied just as mischievously. “Now go
take your seat, lad, before someone overhears that loose tongue of yours and
you suddenly find that you have more to concern yourself with than a legendary
ward!”

“My King,” he said mockingly as he led a very astonished Allison to one
of the two empty seats between the dais and the circular platform. He then
seated himself in the other across the aisle.

Allison couldn’t believe that the king allowed Aidric to speak so
freely and sarcastically to him as if they were merely drinking buddies and not
king and underling. For all she knew, they might just
be
drinking
buddies. Either that, or her idea of how a king ruled over his subjects and
King Diryan’s were as different as apples and oranges.

As she took her seat, Allison noticed that all eyes were still on her,
some with ill-concealed fear, others skeptical, but most awestruck. She could feel
her face burning red in embarrassment under all their scrutiny. This was
exactly what she had wanted to avoid when she had first refused to come to the
presentation.

Standing before the king and queen had not been as bad as she had
thought it would be since her back had been to the dozens of prying eyes, even
though she had still felt them boring into her back. Sitting before the Circle
where she dared not lower her eyes was infinitely worse. She longed to be able
to melt into her seat.

Allison reached for that imaginary line between Aidric and her.

“This was exactly why I didn’t want to come here,”
she sent
intently down the line, hoping that she was using her thought-speech correctly.
She certainly did not want anyone else to know how uncomfortable she was.

Although his face remained as passive as ever, she saw his lips twitch
ever so slightly as if he was trying to hold back a smile.

“How quickly we learn,”
she suddenly heard him say in her mind,
his voice dripping with the amusement he could not outwardly show.
“I had
about given up the idea that you would bespeak me with thought-speech without
my first initiating the conversation. I see that you have also mastered volume
control—at least my mind hopes you have! Now you can see firsthand the
importance of thought-speech, especially in a situation such as this when
conversation is taboo. Now, what is it that’s troubling you?”

“All those eyes…”
she replied with a mental shudder.
“I wish
they would stop staring at me like I was some kind of monster or something. I
hate
being scrutinized, Aidric. You can’t even begin to understand just how much.
When will this be over? What happens now?”

“I’m afraid that it’ll be a while, yet. Diryan plans on addressing
the Circle about you and how your presence here will affect Lamia. It’s
extremely important that they see you, Allison. They must accustom themselves
to your presence.”

“You’ve been so vague about the prophecy and what’s in it that has
so many people looking at me with fear and suspicion as if I’m plotting to
murder the entire kingdom in their sleep! Even
you
look at me warily
sometimes. Don’t think that I haven’t noticed. Do you ever plan on telling me
the whole prophecy?”

Allison marveled that his expression never changed once as they “talked.”
In fact, he didn’t glance in her direction at all.

“I realize that you must be very frustrated about that vagueness,”
Aidric said,
“but please understand that I had to be so. The Seer in the
Order of the Providence who Foresaw your coming also thought that it should be
the king of Lamia who would ultimately reveal the contents of the prophecy to
the Golden Mage when she appeared. Have patience, milady. You’ll hear it soon
enough, although afterwards, you may wish that you were not so eager to learn
the fate Seni has given you.”

She struggled to keep her sudden alarm from her face.
“What the hell
does that mean?”

“Patience,”
was his only reply before King Diryan began to
address the Circle.

“You have all now seen with your own eyes the golden-haired maiden in
which Aidric spoke of,” King Diryan said. “I know that everyone present in this
room is very familiar with the Providencen Prophecy of the Golden Mage. For as
the prophecy reads:

On the Eve of the Birth of the World,

Through brilliant colors and light,

A mage that hath dwelt in a realm unknown

Will come to the land of Lamia,

A maiden with hair spun like gold

And a beauty meant for no mortal eyes to
behold.

This mage will possess power that no man
has possessed,

Bestowed upon her by our divine lord, Seni,

To seal the fate of the kingdom.

The Golden Mage she is named,

And either Lamia’s savior or destroyer she
will be proclaimed.”

Allison’s blood turned to ice when she heard the words King Diryan
spoke, words she only minutes earlier had demanded to hear.

No wonder these people look at me like I’m the Devil
, she
thought in horror.
That prophecy all but says I really will murder them all!
The savior or destroyer—it doesn’t take a genius to know which one everyone
believes I’ll be. Aidric was right—I shouldn’t have been so eager to know the
truth. If only I hadn’t insisted Kat and I visit that damned park, then maybe none
of this would have ever happened…

She was startled out of her thoughts when she suddenly found King Diryan
standing before her. All she could do was blink stupidly up at him in surprise,
wondering how his rising had escaped her notice. She could feel herself
beginning to blush again. Painfully aware that all eyes were on them, Allison
forced herself to meet the king’s gaze and not shrink from it.

When he gestured for her to stand, she could do nothing but obey.
“Come,” he said simply, and she followed him down the aisle until he halted in
the very center. Despite her best efforts, she could feel her knees begin to
tremble at having to stand so exposed.

“There is nothing to fear,”
Aidric thought-spoke to her, but his
words didn’t make her feel any better.

“As you all know,” King Diryan began while Allison suffered silently at
his side, “today is the Eve of the Birth of the World, and this maiden,” he
gestured to Allison, “suddenly appeared in our kingdom within the Forest of
Illusions. She also has spoken of traveling through a portal filled with
multitudes of colors and light from a world that is not our own, a world named
Earth. You also can plainly see that she has hair of gold, a hue no mortal in
Seni’s world has ever possessed, and no soul here could honestly deny her
beauty.”

Mortified, Allison could feel her cheeks heat up more fiercely and
desperately wished that Aidric’s spell of invisibility still concealed her.
I
just want to die, right here and now,
she thought miserably.

“The Mage-general has confirmed that she has abilities even beyond his
own,” the king was saying, oblivious to her distress. “Untrained, she flattened
him with the power of a single mind-scream. The evidence is quite compelling. I
believe she is indeed the Golden Mage that was Foreseen to come, and we must do
everything in our power to see that the disaster foretold in the prophecy never
comes to pass. That is why I have entrusted Aidric with the duty of instructing
her to control the powers that Seni has bestowed upon her.”

He paused dramatically as his gaze slowly swept the entire Circle. “She
will be given full citizenship as well. As Aidric has pointed out to me, she is
indeed an important asset to our magical defense, so I expect her to be treated
accordingly. I forbid any unprovoked acts of violence against her under penalty
of death. It is Seni’s will that has brought her to us, so it is our duty to
see that His will is carried out accordingly. Who are we to defy what He has
set forth?”

Questions burned in Allison’s mind as she listened, but she didn’t dare
say a word for fear that the nobles of the Circle would think her disrespectful
for interrupting the king. After all, she knew next to nothing about the proper
etiquette of a royal court. She didn’t want to give them any more reasons to
look at her with contempt than they already did.

She stood silently with her back ramrod straight at Diryan’s side until
he finished speaking.

Allison then cleared her throat and inquired timidly, “King Diryan—Your
Majesty?”

His head turned to her in surprise. He had probably not expected her to
speak at all. “You have a question for me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she continued, relieved that her voice came out steady. “You
spoke of an uncertainty in your prophecy, that I will either be the destroyer
or savior of Lamia. Is Lamia currently at war?”

She had spoken softly, intending for only the king to hear her
question, but then everyone suddenly began to talk all at once while the king
frowned in thought, making her instantly regret opening her mouth at all.