The Royal Wizard (28 page)

“Enough,” he rasped, plunging his fingers into his hair as he paced around the chamber like a caged animal. His chest rose and fell in harsh breaths, and his jaw was clenched so tightly she could hear his teeth grind against each other.

When he came back to the table he lashed out and sent the water pitcher flying with an angry swipe. It flew end over end, but though it stopped at the wall upside down, it neither fell, nor spilled its contents. It was not Nia’s doing.

“Why would my father not warn me of this?” he asked, staring at it. That, more than anything Nia said, proved the truth of what she was telling him.

“He did not know,” Nia answered. “Your mother never told him. She was half dragon and must have hoped it would give her strength enough to survive. She died before she could tell anyone.”

The pitcher fell and Saeran’s head lowered. “You are telling me I cannot take another wife. I can never have heirs without sacrificing the woman’s life.” He was no fool. Though he wished he could argue, to call Nia a liar, he felt the truth of what she told him. Something had changed him, though whether it was the cursed illness or the dragon’s fire Saeran couldn’t tell. But whatever it was, it awakened a fire inside him he’d never felt before. The bright, shining flame gave him strength as he’d never known and enhanced his senses beyond anything Nia had ever taught him.

He no longer strained to hear the elements or summon a vision; they came to him for the asking. When he slept, he dreamed visions so sweet he was loath to open his eyes in the morning. Saeran had only to think of what he needed and it appeared before him as if summoned and earlier, standing witness to Mari’s funeral, he thought he’d glimpsed white shadows moving among the crowd. The Others had been in attendance. While he embraced the changes within him, they also sometimes frightened him.

And so he understood what Nia was telling him, and it nearly killed him. He mourned Mari as a friend and companion. She hadn’t deserved to die at all, let alone because of him—and no matter what Nia said, it was his fault and his alone. From the moment he made the pact to end the war, to the moment he took her to wife and gave her a child, all his fault. Each and every one of the choices leading to her demise had been his and he would have to live with that for the rest of his life. He ached and missed Mari.

But he had never felt for her what he did for Nia.

The wizard was the very beat of his heart. She was why Saeran lived.

But if there had been boundaries between them before, they’d been nothing compared to this. He’d rather die than risk her life.

When Nia didn’t answer, a memory suddenly struck him and he turned rigid with fear. Beltaine night.  Saeran forced himself to face her, though everything in him resisted broaching the subject. “You would,” he said, then had to clear his throat to continue. “You would know if you were with child, would you not?”

Nia blinked up at him as if the thought had never occurred to her. She nodded. “I can control that. Prevent myself from conceiving.”

Relief made him sway dizzily and he took a chair, closer to her this time. Her eyes were bright and her posture slumped. “I can see how weak you are.” And he knew it was because she wouldn’t sleep, though she desperately needed it.

“I am well enough,” she replied, but the smile she attempted only made her condition that much more obvious.

“Sleep, Nia,” he told her. He didn’t like seeing her vulnerable this way. He’d give her his strength, the way she’d tried to give it to Mari, taking none for herself, but Saeran knew without asking that she wouldn’t let him. He knew because the walls grumbled to him day and night about the magic she poured into them for protection. Someone had tried to kill the king, and the last thing she would do was take from him and leave him vulnerable.

 “Can’t leave you unguarded,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “The spell that was cast on you was no trifling matter. If there is another attack while I am sleeping, I will not be able to protect you.”

Hazy memories of a glittering object and incoherent words floated across his mind. It would make sense that someone had enchanted him. Saeran had always been strong and healthy. He’d not have succumbed to an illness so easily. But the healing Nia and his dragon grandfather had performed had wiped away any memory he had of his attacker.

Saeran tugged on the silver chain around his neck to pull the dragon pendant out from beneath his shirt. He wore it next to his skin now, sensing its power as he could his own. “This might do a passing fair job of it,” he told her.

Nia smiled a little and reached out to trace the dragon’s image. “It likes you.”

Saeran caught her hand and brought her palm to his lips. “Sleep, Nia. I need you strong if I am to rule forever and without heir.” The ease with which he spoke the words gave him pause. How quickly he’d given up a future with a wife at his side and children bouncing on his knees.

But he realized he didn’t regret the loss. He still had Nia. Until death or longer. The words bound them both better than any marriage ceremony devised by man or god. He had Nia by his side now. Nothing mattered more.

Nia frowned, gazing at the swinging pendant, and he felt it grow hot enough to warm the chain it hung from. She looked entranced by it, her shoulders slumping a little more. “I am a wizard,” she mumbled.

“Yes, the greatest wizard Wilderheim has ever seen. And the prettiest. Now let’s get you to bed.”

 “Of the Streams, he said.”

“Who said, sweet?”

“The dragon.” She struggled to raise her gaze to look him in the eye. “He knew things even I don’t. He said
of the Streams.
I was not…paying attention…” Her eyes closed, but she shook her head to wake herself up again.

Losing patience with his stubborn wizard, Saeran picked her up, tucking her against his chest. “Enough of this, Nia. You will sleep whether you want to or not. I order you to sleep. And I am king.”  He felt her smile against him and his own lips twitched in answer.

“Can’t let you walk about alone,” she murmured sleepily.

“Then I will just have to stay close to you.”

“I could send you away.”

He laughed as he laid her on the bed. “Try it.”

And she did. But either he’d grown too strong for her to command, or she was too weak to force him away.

Saeran grinned at her attempts to banish him and pulled the covers over her. “Give up?”

Nia scowled. “Stubborn royals.” He felt her magic flare again, creating a bubble that expanded until it melted into the walls. Once the guards were raised, added to the ones already in place, he doubted he would be getting out again until she took them down.

Saeran couldn’t say it bothered him overly much. He kissed her on the brow. “Sweet dreams, Nia.”

She sighed, already fast asleep. 

CHAPTER 30

There were shadows, and within them pools of darkness so thick they could hold portals to other worlds. It was through these secret, sacred doorways that a pale, red haired creature chose to travel. He was not one for fanfares or great processions. No, he preferred to remain unobserved when he watched the seeds of his mischief bloom and bear fruit. He uncurled his long bony fingers to watch the lines on his hands change yet again.

Destiny for ones like him worked in odd ways. Nothing was ever set in stone; no eternal pathway lay ready to be walked for always. Only those with an end got the pleasure of reaching it. He cocked his head to the side, black eyes narrowing when the pendulum of his fate swung wildly to settle in an unexpected way.

Merely by appearing here, he’d changed his destiny. His temporary destiny. The darkness that had been spelled out in the center of his palm, the centuries of pain and destruction, the end of all things he’d been foretold to cause were suddenly gone.  In their place now lay mist. Balance. A point from which he could move either way.

The legendary Trickster found this new turn of events unnerving. Crossroads and convergences could be distorted, but when there was a clear, straight path, he had nothing to play with. Left to his own devices this way, he usually chose to cause more mischief. It didn’t suit him to have a reputation for doing good deeds when plagued with indecision. Faced with such a decision, and the choice he always made, his destiny tended to change instantly, just for the intent of a dark deed, plunging him right back into that blackness he found so reassuring.

It failed to do so now.

Instead of dwelling on it, a tiresome thing to do, he stepped out of the doorway and into shadow, casting his wild black eyes about the room. It was plain, unless one possessed the ability to see through illusions. Nothing plain would do for his ambitious sorcerer. His ego was big enough to rival a god, and that his pride and vanity were so wholly undeserved made the Trickster chuckle in delight.

Great golden and silver shields covered the walls to act as mirrors. They reflected the lights of a hundred candle flames, only three of which would be visible through the illusion’s cover. The floor, hard packed earth, was covered with animal skins that overlapped each other so that the sorcerer’s toes might never touch the ground. His grand bed was bigger even than a king’s, with posts reaching the ceiling and heavy velvet drapes hanging from the top as canopy.

“I can feel your presence, Ancient One,” the man himself said from that bed, and even his voice sounded different without the glamour he cast on himself. “
It
feels your presence.”  It was a good one, the glamour. It even made him feel young. But beneath that polish he was an old man already. The power he held so tightly was too much for him to bear, though it was contained for the moment, it still drained his years away and he was far too drunken with it to care. His skin was withered like an autumn leaf, scarred from the pox and boils he could not treat, his teeth were rotted, and what was left of his hair was pure white and matted from lack of washing.

It was the height of rudeness for a creature so low to address a deity in such a way. And Loki didn’t take kindly to it. The Trickster narrowed his eyes at the pathetic pile of bones and decided to put the withered prune back in his place.

The heavy bed frame shook and shuddered, a mere hint of what he could do, but it would be enough to get his point across. The mattress lifted toward the ceiling so quickly the sorcerer had no time to draw breath for a scream. He did scream later, all the way down, when Loki let the mattress drop, slightly out of place and balance, just enough to jar the sorcerer until he began sliding off the side. So far off the floor, the fall might have proven fatal. A shame his grip was still sturdy.

Deprived of his opportunity to spy, Loki stepped out of the shadow and into the flood of candlelight. He rushed the bed, coming nose-to-nose with the cantankerous wretch, brushing away the meager spell the sorcerer spat at him. “Manners, mortal,” he hissed and then disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, removing himself to the other side of the room.

The sorcerer clutched his chest and wheezed. Even from so far away, Loki could hear his heart thundering, and it amused him enough that his temper dissolved like a snowflake in the sun.

He should have known the stone would reveal him. He squinted at it from a distance. A fine piece of creation, he wasn’t too modest to admit. A work of genius. It drained the wearer of his magic without draining him at all. What got sucked into the black ice crystal was a mirror image of the power, just as potent, but forever trapped in the pendant. It had to be touched to release its magics and became so bonded with the wearer that it would forever find its way to him, eager to share what it held, and absorb more.

A ravenous wee thing, it was. Always wanting more.

The sorcerer sputtered, attempting to cast yet another spell. All it took was for Loki to toss a small windstorm about himself to make the fool fall silent. With wide eyes the sorcerer watched him, that precious little gem clutched in his gnarled hand. It was the same look he might give to a ravenous beast that had him cornered. Good.

Loki was used to such reactions. He made no attempt to use a glamour to hide his true appearance, saw no reason to do so. He was, after all, a god. Why should those who look upon him not see it? He knew full well that he exuded energy so potent it made lesser creatures shrink back in fear. His appearance was as it should be; at once beautiful, and dangerous and terrible. His hair was as pure copper, shining and sharp, his war braids merely proclaiming him that much more of a threat. His skin was pale, nigh sickly, but magnificent to behold, and his charcoal black eyes were opaque, without the wet gleam of human eyes, or the whites.

Perhaps his teeth were a little sharp as well, too often displayed in a wicked toothy grin. That very same grin he wore now. “I see you were not expecting me,” he said with mock disappointment and clucked his tongue in censure.

“What would you want of me?” the sorcerer rasped and coughed, surprised that his glamour was faltering. One gnarled, shaking hand reached for the goblet of wine by his bedside. Half of the liquid sloshed over the sides as he brought it to his pale lips and drank greedily. When he was finished, he let the goblet tumble from his grasp, spilling what remained.

“It has been a very long century since the day I deigned to answer an old woman’s prayer,” Loki said, holding the sorcerer’s gaze. He enjoyed the man’s squirming. “One hundred years of waiting and watching from afar as one after the other powerful mages destroyed each other and then themselves in the name of grandeur.”

With a careless shrug, he wandered around the room to examine its contents more closely. “A very boring century. You see, my creation was so beautiful and self-sustaining that it no longer needed me to move it along. It wrought its deeds very well without me. I am…displeased.”

Another wheeze. But this time, his brows lowered defensively. He would fight Loki for the trinket, should he think it necessary.

Loki smiled at the sorcerer’s reflection in one of his shields. Its shape offended him. Perfectly round and ordered, perfectly shined and centered on the wall. With a thought, he warped the metal, crumpling it like a piece of parchment, the sound sharp music to his ears. When it was nothing but a jagged ball, he straightened out half of it and stepped back to survey his handiwork. Better. “And so I have decided that it might be time to intervene and have a little fun of my own.”