The Kingdom of Eternal Sorrow (The Golden Mage Book 1) (5 page)

I can’t stall any longer
, he thought gravely.
I don’t like
it, but I need Zenas’s help.

Unfortunately, the only way the linguist would ever agree to magick the
Lamian language into her mind was by receiving King Diryan’s approval. The king
would undoubtable demand to see her first. Aidric had never spoken about the
Golden Mage legend with the king, or anyone for that matter. He had no idea how
the king would react to seeing the girl and realizing her probable identity. He
had wanted to bring Diryan as much information about her as possible to lessen
the chances of her being imprisoned, but without being able to understand each
other...

A sudden movement in the corner of his eye interrupted his thoughts,
and Aidric turned his attention back to the girl in enough time to see her bolt
out of his bed, obviously heading for the open door. In a panic, Aidric raised
his arms and threw a paralysis spell at her. With a sinking feeling, he watched
her collapse onto her face without so much as a gasp onto the marble floor as
the spell overtook her.

Now she will never trust me…
he despaired.
What have I done?

***

A blast of what felt like hot air abruptly hit her from behind, and Allison
suddenly found that her limbs no longer obeyed her in mid-stride. The momentum
instantly had her diving forward until she fell flat on her face, her forehead
hitting the marble floor hard enough to make her see black for a few seconds.
She tried to cry out, but her voice didn’t seem to be working, either. All she
could manage was a strangled gurgle, along with short, shallow breaths. She
struggled to rise again, but her body simply would not obey her.

Dear God, I’m paralyzed!
she realized with horror.
Somehow—
somehow
that white-haired man did it to me!

Allison heard footsteps approach her from behind, and the man’s
strangely cut, brown leather boots came into her field of view. She tried
desperately to shrink away from them, to curl into a protective fetal position,
terrified that one of those boots would suddenly bury itself into her stomach
as punishment for trying to run away, but she couldn’t even so much as blink an
eyelid. She tried to speak again, ready to lose all dignity and beg for mercy
as she stared helplessly at the tip of his boot, but it was as if an invisible
hand was squeezing her throat to prevent the words from emerging.

She mentally braced herself for the expected blow, half-suppressed
memories trying to push to the forefront of past times she had found herself in
this same position as a child, the same terror of the threat of violence. Instead,
he squatted down, and a couple of tense seconds later, Allison felt him gather
her into his arms, bridal-style. He then carried her back to the bed. It was then
that she got a good look at the bed and noticed that the tips of a few large,
white feathers peeked out along the edges from beneath the coverlet and the
thick top sheet. Was that the
mattress
? A bunch of huge feathers piled
high on what appeared to be a regular bed frame? Except this bedframe was as
ornate as a king’s might be.

The frame was of a dark, almost black wood, constructed from what she
suspected was the wood of those strange, monstrous trees she had seen. The
headboard rose approximately five feet from the bed. Many different murals of
various nature scenes were skillfully carved along it as well as the sides of
the frame, some of the animals alien to her. What appeared to be solid gold was
also plated along the edges of both the frame and headboard.

Allison was shocked when the strange man carefully laid her down onto
the coverlet and draped the thick blanket she had thrown off earlier over her
body up to her neck. She lay there enveloped in the warmth of soft feathers and
blankets, unable to even blink, helplessly gazing up at his strange, but
exotically beautiful, face as he looked down at her with an unreadable
expression. She was scared, waiting for blows with the surety of past
experiences and confused that they hadn’t come. She could feel the tears
leaking out of her eyes, but like everything but her breathing, she had no
control over them.

Standing over her, looking tall, regal, dangerous, and unearthly
beautiful, he was the most intimidating creature she had ever seen.

He looks like an angel of death…

And still, the expected blows didn’t come.

Instead, he sighed dramatically, a stricken look on his face, as he
pointed his finger at a sheathed dagger that hung from a belt she had not
spotted earlier and shook his head firmly.

Her confusion deepened.
What is he trying to tell me?
He hadn’t
tried to speak to her again after she had bolted, so he must have figured out
that she couldn’t understand him. She considered the dagger. It being a weapon,
was his gesture meant to tell her that he wouldn’t hurt her?

—or was it wishful thinking?

Abruptly, he extended a hand over her forehead. Allison eyed it
suspiciously, half-expecting him to strike her with it. Had she been capable of
it, she would have flinched. However, he merely waved it across her face in a
fluid pattern that didn’t once touch her.

To her astonishment, she felt her limbs instantly begin to tingle with
a strange sensation, and the hair on her arms stood on end. A few seconds
later, they came alive again, no longer feeling like dead weights attached to
her body. She moved both her arms and legs cautiously, not ready to believe
that he had cured her paralysis with literally just a wave of his hand, but
they moved freely at her will, showing no signs of resistance. Inexplicably,
her overwhelming fear also left with her paralysis, leaving only a deep sense
of curiosity.

Allison timidly chanced a look at her strange companion and saw that he
wasn’t even looking at her. He seemed to be deep in thought, his pale eyes
staring out at nothing in particular. As he stood there, motionless, he
suddenly reminded her of a statue of a Greek god she had once seen.

God, he really is beautiful…

He seemed to sense that Allison was looking at him because he immediately
turned to lock eyes with her until the heat of his gaze was too much for her to
bear, and she quickly looked down at the coverlet, her heartbeat speeding up.

In the next second, she felt him place his hand on her forehead. It was
warm to the touch and had a surprisingly soothing effect on her. Remarkably,
she didn’t flinch away. She risked another glance into those searing,
pale-violet eyes, and that was the last thing she remembered seeing before a
rising darkness came to take her away from all her confusion and fear.

After the sleep spell that he had placed on the girl had taken effect,
Aidric immediately set out to speak with King Diryan. He didn’t want to give
himself enough time to back out of his decision. The young woman had too much
power at her disposal, power that could easily destroy them all, especially if
used untamed. They had to find out where she had come from and why.

If she was indeed the Golden Mage of their prophecy, the fate of Lamia
depended on how they handled the situation. One wrong move and they could all
perish, squashed like bugs under the sheer force of her power. He knew he would
do everything in his power to prevent that tragedy from ever coming to pass.
Everything, that is, except destroy her.

That’s what I’m really afraid of
, Aidric thought as he
concentrated on weaving a shield around the door to his suite that would
prevent anyone except himself or a mage more powerful than he from entering.
I
guess that’s why I’m so reluctant to reveal her presence to anyone. If they
believe her to be the Golden Mage as I do, I’m not certain how they would react
to the knowledge that the old prophecy is true, how Diryan will decide to act.

All was still silent as he made his way down a branch corridor of the Mage
Hall, and for once, he welcomed the silence. The emptiness of the Hall often
reminded him of the loneliness he carried within his soul, so treading down its
corridors was not something he enjoyed doing under normal circumstances.

The good luck he had been experiencing thus far expired when he reached
for the handle to the door leading to the palace’s large, indoor garden and was
promptly bowled over onto his rump as it suddenly swung open before he could
even touch the handle.

Cursing, he looked up at whoever it was that had knocked him over,
ready to give him or her a piece of his mind and suddenly bit back whatever
words he had been ready to spat out at the offending person when he saw who it
was.

Damn
, Aidric thought with a groan.
Just my luck, the one
person I needed to avoid most of all.

“By Aidius, Aidric, I didn’t mean to knock you on your ass like that,”
Selwyn said apologetically, “but I thought that everyone had left the Hall by
now and didn’t bother to probe.”

He offered his hand to Aidric, who grabbed a hold of it and hoisted
himself up onto his feet again.

“No harm done, my friend,” Aidric assured him, forcing himself to
smile, “except maybe my pride, but I guess everyone needs to be knocked on
their ass every once in a while to help keep them grounded. Remember that the
next time
you
go to open a door.”

“Promises, promises,” Selwyn said with a grin. “All joking aside, what
are you still doing here? I thought that His Majesty gave you a few sand-marks
off today. Don’t tell me that you’ve wasted most of them on sleep!”

“Hardly,” Aidric replied dryly. “You know well enough that my name and
sleep are never associated with each other. I have been up and about well
before you even began to
think
of dragging your lump out of bed, thank
you very much. I only returned because—because an urgent problem arose that had
to be dealt with immediately.”

When that last sentence was out of his mouth, Aidric was instantly
sorry. He hadn’t meant to reveal so much about what he was doing there, but it
had just slipped out as usual. He never had been the type of person who could
hold back anything, much less in the presence of his best friend who always
seemed to be able to weasel anything out of him before he even knew there
was
something to weasel out of him.

“Oh?” Selwyn said, his eyes immediately lighting up with interest. “What’s
happened now? Is that where you were off to before I so graciously knocked you
on your backside?”

“I—” Aidric began uncomfortably, searching his mind for something to
tell Selwyn other than the truth, but when he looked into the honest face of
his friend, he knew that he couldn’t lie to him. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself
to tell the truth, either. Inexplicably, the fear that everyone would want to
destroy the girl when they learned her likely identity burned strongly within
him as if the fear of another.

That gave him pause. Was he still somehow connected to the girl’s mind
and the fear hers? The thought was unsettling. He had been extremely careful
with his mind-probe. If any connection between their minds remained, then it
had to be a result of something
she
had done…

“I—cannot tell you—just yet,” Aidric said, alarm adding a tinge of
impatience to his tone. “This is something that I must discuss with the king
first.”

Selwyn’s eyes suddenly narrowed. “Aidric, what wrong?” he demanded. “I
sense fear in you, and don’t you dare tell me I’m wrong. What could possibly be
so dire that it would frighten
you
?” He folded his arms against his
chest stubbornly. “I’ll not allow you to leave until you tell me.”

Aidric cursed creatively in his mind. Distracted and unsettled as he
was, a little of his fear must have managed to leak out through his shields,
which of course the strongest empath in Lamia had no trouble sensing, damn his
ability. Aidric sighed heavily and glared at the redhead. He knew that it was
pointless to argue with Selwyn. Once his friend made up his mind about
something, it was almost impossible to change it. What was even more irritating
was that he had no one to blame but himself for this one.

“All right,” Aidric said reluctantly, “but I insist on telling Diryan
along with you. I have come across something today that is so amazing, and yet
so frightening as well, that we all must act quickly and wisely. To do that,
Diryan must be informed at once.”

Selwyn paled a little at the severity of Aidric’s words and nodded
stiffly, allowing Aidric to lead the way to the Council Room while he silently
followed.

Why did I have to run into him?
Aidric thought irritably as they
walked across the palace’s magnificent indoor garden and into the central
courtyard. The garden might as well have been a barren wasteland for all the
notice he took of its beauty.
The fewer people that know about this, the
better. Seni knows that the first thing Selwyn will do is run home and fill Raya
in on all the gory details. Aidius, and what a mouth that woman has!

King Diryan was currently in a meeting with his councilors over the
issue of whether to send more troops over to Kemos to aid them in their current
troubles with Mihr, the kingdom bordering Kemos to the south. It seemed that
Mihr and Kemos was all anyone talked about these days.

For the past two decades, King Roderick of Mihr had been fighting a
silent war against Lamia, lusting for the power of their Mage-field. Protected
by a magical shield that had proved in the last few centuries to be
indestructible, Lamia was well beyond Roderick’s reach. Thus, he had begun a
long campaign of attacking the kingdoms in which Lamia was sworn to protect
with no end to his tyrannies in sight, hoping to force King Diryan into a
position Aidric did not like to contemplate.

The last silent war Lamia had endured was with Rathtyen, a kingdom to
the northeast of Mihr, and it had occurred during Diryan’s great-grandfather,
King Palles’s reign. It had ended with the death of the Rathtyen monarch. Now,
nearly two centuries later, it was happening again, but this time with Mihr. It
was also beginning to look as though this silent war would not end until Roderick
was condemned to the same fate as the Rathtyen king.

Aidric hated to interrupt, but he felt that his current dilemma was
more important to the safety of Lamia than the Kemosian-Mihran border
squabbles.

“I must speak to the king,” he demanded firmly to the guards posted
outside the Council Room door.

Without blinking, the guard on the left replied, “Milord, Mage-general,
the king has ordered that he is not to be disturbed for any—”

“I understand,” Aidric interrupted sharply, “but I must insist. The
matter I wish to discuss is urgent, else I wouldn’t wish to interrupt their
discussion.”

“But I have my orders—” the guard insisted uncomfortably.

“—which I’ll take full responsibility for making you disobey them,”
Aidric assured him firmly. “You must understand that the matter I wish to speak
of is far more important than the skirmishes they are now discussing.”

“Very well,” the guard said reluctantly. “Wait here, and I’ll see what
I can do.”

“Thank you, sir,” Aidric said politely, sympathizing with the guard’s unhappiness
of being forced to disobey direct orders from the king.

He knew that this abrupt interruption would not anger Diryan too much,
if at all. The king knew that Aidric would not insist on interrupting an
important meeting unless what he had to say was equally, if not more,
important. The others, however…

Through the closed door, Aidric could hear Lord Ion, the king’s
Seneschal, angrily demanding to know the reason behind the guard’s interruption.

Poor man. I must remember to apologize to him again later.

A few moments later, the king appeared, lines of worry etched across
his forehead that told Aidric that the meeting had not been going well. Not
surprising, really. His councilors never seemed capable of agreeing on
anything.

The king took one look at the seriousness in Aidric’s eyes and said,
“Come. We shall speak in my study. I have a feeling that what you are about to
tell me warrants that level of privacy.”

Aidric nodded and he and Selwyn followed their king through the palace
to the royal suite in silence. Diryan’s stiff gait told him that the king expected
nothing short of a disaster. Everything from his shoulders to the blankness of
his expression radiated tension, and he kept rubbing his left temple as if he
had a headache coming on, which Aidric suspected he probably did. As of late,
not a day passed that Diryan did not suffer a headache.

Not for the first time, Aidric wished that he dared to probe the king’s
mind to see what he was thinking, but stealing one’s thoughts without their
consent was a crime punishable by death in Lamia unless it was done to an enemy
or a person behaving suspiciously such as the girl that now lay in his bed.

Once they reached the royal suite, Diryan ushered them into his study
after threatening the guards with being relieved of their duties if they
allowed anything to disturb them.

“It’s good that there aren’t two of me or else I would feel very sorry
for the poor soul who had to disobey your orders at my request with that threat
hanging over his head,” Aidric joked to relieve some of the tension while he turned
to cast a spell of silence over the room.

Diryan smiled thinly. “There could only be one of you, my dear lad, and
thank the lord, Seni, for that.”

It took Aidric only a few moments to spell-silence the room. He called
upon and directed a bit of the energy particles from the Mage-field into his
bodily channels, silently chanting the proper incantation, bending the energy
to his will as it flowed from his hands. He placed the invisible force almost
effortlessly across every wall and the ceiling of the study to form a seamless
barrier to the outside rooms. No sound, no matter how loud, would escape the
room until he willed it so.

“Now, tell me what it is that has you so worried, Aidric,” Diryan
commanded once Aidric had turned to face him again.

Aidric sighed and said, “It’s that obvious, huh? Well, there’s no sense
in prettying it up with jewels is there, but I do think the both of you had
better sit down, first.”

The king merely raised an eyebrow but said nothing as he took a seat in
the large, thickly-cushioned chair behind his cluttered desk. Documents,
several maps, and personal letters littered the top in a carefree fashion,
giving the room a lived-in appearance instead of the impersonal formality of
all the other rooms in the king’s chamber.

This was one room that the king had forbidden the servants to enter
unless specifically instructed. Diryan had once told Aidric that it was the
only room that made him feel as if he was just a normal man and not a man that
carried the lives of thousands of subjects on his shoulders.

Selwyn followed the king’s example by taking a seat in one of the
chairs next to the desk, looking as giddy as a young child waiting for a
promised surprise to be revealed to him. Aidric had to smile despite himself.
It seemed as though anything could arouse excitement in his friend, and Aidric
was envious of that particular trait, though he would never admit it to Selwyn.

Once both were situated and gazed back at him expectantly, he became
nervous. A thousand “what ifs” ran through his mind about what could possibly
result in his revelation, and unfortunately, none of them were good. Typical,
since Sel often joked that Aidric could make even the worst pessimist seem like
an optimist. More than a life of a maiden was at stake here. He could
not
screw this up.

Aidric looked into the smoky-blue of Diryan’s eyes and was comforted by
the kindness and promise of understanding in them. He swallowed with some difficulty
and banished all the dire thoughts from his mind.

He then looked sharply at his friend. “Sel, what is said in this room
must
be kept strictly confidential until His Majesty deems otherwise. What I am
about to reveal has the potential to create great chaos within the kingdom if
mishandled.”

Selwyn merely stared back at him innocently, his eyes asking “who me?”

“I don’t want you to run home and tell Raya,” Aidric elaborated. “She
will know in good time, I’m sure.”

Selwyn opened his mouth as if to protest but quickly held his peace
when he saw the glare Aidric was directing at him.

“All right,” he grumbled. “I give you my word that I’ll keep whatever
you say in this room behind my teeth, even under the most horrible torture.”