The Kingdom's Crown (Inheritance of Hunger Book 3), page 6
"And the poison?" I asked. She couldn't be just…dying, surely?
"We couldn't prove it, but Head Guard Amos launched an investigation that turned up next to nothing. A footman who conveniently vanished from the castle in the night, no doubt paid off and sent packing on a ship out of the country," Vincent said softly.
I remembered my conversation with my grandmother before she left the north when I said I was uncomfortable with the mandatory nature of the Chosen. If my grandmother was failing now because she didn't have those men here… "Grandmother, you didn't dismiss your Chosen because of—"
"I dismissed them because I wanted to," my grandmother snapped. "Bryony, listen to me. This is important. It is easy enough to wrest control from your mother. Too easy. She is soft-hearted, I think. I should've pushed her more, but I…thought I had the kingdom in hand. She is inclined to you as her successor, but she will only agree with you on changes to Kimmery as long as you are the voice in her ear."
I nodded, I had guessed as much already. "She has Camellia and the council there now, but I'll find my way," I said.
Grandmother frowned, and her hand covered mine gently. "The council has to be changed."
"Of course," I began.
"No, listen. All your convincing will go to waste when they talk her out of your decision in the next moment. The council has to be changed, and so does Kimmery's ruler." My breath caught, and I started to shake my head. "You are a little young, I know, and Camellia will not make it easy for you, nor the council. But your mother doesn't have the heart to fix the kingdom, let alone to see the problems. She will pass on the crown as I did if she can be convinced it will give her fewer burdens, and she won't stand in your way as I did with her."
I searched for words, but none made their way to my tongue. This conversation felt so final. My grandmother was resigned to her fate and with hers, mine. To take the crown, now, not just wait for the time to come. I knew my grandmother was right, I'd known as much almost since the beginning of this journey, but it didn't make the obstacles I faced feel smaller. If anything, they grew monstrous in my mind. The council. Camellia. Taking the throne.
Queen. I had to become queen. Not eventually, but soon.
"Your Chosen, do you trust them?" Grandmother asked.
"With my life," I said without even having to think about the words.
"With Kimmery?"
I paused then. I trusted Aric, Wendell, even Thao with Kimmery. They understood the weight of a kingdom on my shoulders. Daniel had come to me as a spy for the council, but he'd made a horrible one, and I knew where his loyalty lay now. Cresswell's duty to Kimmery was mixed up in his love for me now, but the two weren't unrelated. Owen's devotion was so deep, he would never go against my wishes, but Cosmo…
Strangely, of all my Chosen, Cosmo was the one most likely to defy me if he thought it was done in defense of me, or at least my heart. But no, that would never send him to the council's side or to Camellia's.
"Yes," I said, holding my grandmother's eyes.
"Good. Perhaps your strangeness served you better in this," Grandmother said, lips twitching.
I laughed, but there was a note of panic in the sound.
6
Aric
Roasted ducks glazed in orange and ginger. Meatballs smothered in a rich cream sauce. A mountain of roasted vegetables, spiced and salted. Pork chops and golden potatoes. Egg tarts topped in delicate greens.
Enough wine to drown a village. Enough food to feed one too.
The longer I stared at the feast, the less appetite I had for the food and drink. I'd thought our meals in the north were rich and sumptuous, but they'd always been well considered in portion and Bryony had made sure that the staff ate as well as we did.
This was…waste and decadence all at once.
She warned you, I thought. Bryony had warned me when I'd given up my life as bar owner and King of Thieves that my position as Chosen might leave me trapped in the fineries I resented, but I'd failed to imagine the real scope of a royal dinner.
"Ohheeeee!"
My eyes automatically flicked toward the sound and then away again just as quickly. If the feast wasn't bad enough, the way it was disregarded by more than half the table was equally offensive. Camellia was on the floor with three of her Chosen, and Bryony's mother, the queen, was seated at the head of the table, her head back and mouth parted, and two of her Chosen presumably keeping her occupied under her skirts. Magic buzzed in the air, but it was eaten up by the lovers just as quickly, creating an irritating kind of friction against my skin.
I glanced across the table to where Bryony was sitting, curious to see her reaction. It was as if she was in an entirely different room. Or no, not quite. She was studiously eating a tart, her eyes down, but she was wearing a fallen expression, similar to the one she'd returned to us with after visiting her grandmother. It made me itch to go to her, to pull her into my lap and scratch my rough chin against her neck to make her giggle. Except that display would be a little too similar to her family's antics.
"I know what you're thinking, but just eat so she has one less worry on her mind," Cosmo whispered in my ear from my left. Owen sat on his other side, and to my right was one of Camellia's Chosen, guzzling wine and ignoring the towers of food in front of him.
Thao and Wendell sat on either side of Bryony, with Daniel near another of Camellia's Chosen, who was openly sleeping.
"More!" Camellia cried out, voice ragged.
Heat tugged at me, and I stiffened in my chair, throwing up a guard of magic almost unconsciously, shocked by the ease of the act. The man at my right groaned, whimpered almost, and slid out of his seat, crawling reluctantly in the young princess's direction.
Bryony's movements froze, her body trembling with tension, eyes finally lifting from her plate to glare in her sister's direction, green fire in her gaze. I leaned forward, putting myself in the way, and found it easier to smile than I expected, rewarded with the slow sigh that lowered Bryony's shoulders.
I was angry, I hated sitting at this table, stuck with the role of forced audience to the younger princess's performance, but so did Bryony. Her anger was palpable, and even that prickling bite of her Hunger snapping at me was more welcome than the dizzy torrent from her sister or mother.
"It's not meat on a stick, is it?" I asked, making Thao flinch by lifting what I supposed was a quail from a pile, jiggling it by its leg.
Bryony blinked and then snorted, shaking her head. "Unfortunately not." She glanced briefly up the table before turning her face away, color on her cheeks. "Royal dinners aren't… They're not so common," she said softly. "I usually just ate in my room."
"With your ladies?" Thao asked.
Bryony shook her head. "I didn't have ladies. With a book," she said, smiling to herself.
Thao opened his mouth and then shut it again, looking to me. Alone? Is that what she meant? That she usually ate her dinners alone in her room with a book?
"When we were young, sometimes Camellia and I ate with a nursemaid or one of our tutors," she added, taking another bite of her tart, not noticing the way we all stared at her.
The suite had a private dining room and I'd sneered at the room, thinking it unnecessary at the time I'd found it, but now I looked forward to dinners there. It would be like we were at the Winter Palace again, but more intimate. With this hint of how Bryony had grown up, I wanted to fill her dinners with conversation and company.
There was a moan from the head of the table, but already I'd learned not to look. Chairs squeaked, and a feminine laugh echoed as footsteps rushed away. On the floor, Camellia's cries grew louder.
Bryony's expression shuttered again. "There is music after dinner, but no one will notice if we're here or not."
It was tempting to try and find a way to make her smile again, maybe a little dancing. But it was more tempting to get away from the scene around us, and I suspected it would do Bryony more good.
The castle was orderly, easy to map in my mind, rooms defined by the rare treasures decorating every surface. A little light thieving in the castle might go unnoticed, and it could do a wealth of good in the north.
Bryony would probably forgive me.
But my role of the moment wasn't rogue, but mage. I was hunting through the castle for the royal mages, trekking up and down floors of courtly rooms, libraries, meeting halls, even down into the relatively empty dungeons. It wasn't until I accidentally tripped my way into the guard's quarters that I was able to get directions.
The mages' study was in the heart of the residential wing. After a moment of confusion, it began to make sense. Camellia stuffed her Chosen up with her Hunger, creating a constant loop of attraction, but Queen Peony seemed to let hers float about as Bryony had before learning control. By putting their studies beneath the queen's quarters, the mages provided themselves with a constant supply of power.
It was clinging to the ceiling, pale and soft, not quite as potent as Bryony's magic. A little airy like the mother. Did the nature of magic relate to the personality of the woman who created it? The thought made me smile. Bryony was a little like her fencing sword—light and elegant, flexible, unexpectedly powerful and sharp when challenged—but she was more precise than her magic, which was wild and somewhat sensual.
No, she's that too, I reminded myself, conjuring a picture of her twisting in the sheets of her bedding, chasing pleasure even as she tried to squirm away from it.
There wasn't much decoration here in the hall. Already in our suite, Bryony's magic had begun to work its way into minor details of the room, unraveling the orderly elegance and fashioning it into whimsy. Either the mages were gathering every spare scrap of the queen's power, or hers didn't have the same clever creativity as Bryony's.
I raised my hand to knock on the broad double doors and then hesitated. Did I want to ask permission to enter and risk being denied?
My lips twitched, and my hand dropped to the door handle, trying to twist, only to find it locked. Easily dealt with. I traced a quick sigil over the lock, magic flying readily from my fingertip, and listened to the tumblers turn and thunk. The handle twisted easily under my grip, and I leaned in to shoulder the door open.
The air inside the room was stiff, lamps turned up high and windows shrouded in heavy dark curtains. It was immediately clear where the queen's magic was going. At the center of the room was a massive crystal prism, throbbing with light, shimmering without cause. The most outrageously enormous and well-charged conduit I'd ever seen in my life, my dreams even.
Doors remained open on either end of the room, but there was no one here watching this prism, and I hesitated in place, almost afraid to step forward. Bryony's magic that she'd shared with me tugged me in the direction of the prism. It called magic, like to like, and I closed my fist at my sides, holding on tightly to what I possessed.
There was no furniture in the room aside from tables in the corner, and none of the trinkets other mages might use to collect power—gold coins and shells, fine gemstones cut into rings. Of course there wasn't, anything else would've interfered with the vacuum of the prism.
I stepped softly closer, moving in a slow circle around the object. It was resting in a gold stand, branches extended around the facets of the prism, pinching it between the ends like an egg held in a bird's claw. It was about a foot off the ground and as tall as my waist. Every step I made, the light changed and shifted inside, as if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Or the prism was.
This was what powered waterfalls in our bathing pool, what made the palace floors shine and the chandeliers glitter and the fires roar. This was also what held magic captive, preventing it from being so easily accessed outside of the castle.
"Who are you?"
I spun, stepping away from the prism and facing the older man leaning forward on his cane, glaring at me over the glasses perched at the end of his nose. He looked more like a solicitor than a mage, dressed in a careful black suit coat and brightly polished shoes. From the other doorway, papers rustled and footsteps clapped closer.
"Aric Martin, Chosen," I said, the title a little odd on my tongue.
"You can't come in here," the second man said, and I was surprised to find him so much younger, closer to Bryony or Owen's age. He was slight with a full beak of a nose and hair so light, it reminded me of Sam, wispy and too long around his ears.
"I'm also a mage," I said.
"Where's your certificate?" the old man asked.
"Well, I haven't got it on me, have I?" I didn't have a certificate at all, not that they needed to know that.
"I have. He has," the young man said. "You've got magic in your fists, and you're not wearing a conduit ring. He's untrained, Nathan."
"I can see that, Kenneth."
"Are you two the only royal magicians?" I asked them. The prism was a constant presence in the corner of my eye, pulsing and pleading for my magic.
"Don't answer," Nathan, the older magician said.
My eyebrows rose at the obvious suspicion. "You had a Leftman's locking charm on the door. It isn't hard to break."
Kenneth squawked and slammed his door shut on me, but Nathan only tilted his head. "You'd better come in, I suppose. He still has trouble with Leftman's. Prefers Bundry's."
I scoffed, glancing back at the other door. Bundry's lock was child's play. A good lock pick could break it, let alone any mage with basic skill. Weren't royal magicians meant to be powerful? I turned again and followed Nathan into a crowded office. He remained at the door for a moment, staring at the prism, before slowly shutting it behind us.
"Make me a cup of tea."
I frowned at the older man, watching him drift toward a large but old fashioned armchair with bald patches on the velvet. He sat down and cocked one eyebrow at me, tipping his gnarled hand in the direction of a teapot resting on a table.
This was the kind of instructional magic I'd avoided learning when I first discovered my talent. A pot of tea? When people were starving and sick? Eventually, I discovered that the principles in the charm reappeared later in more significant workings, ones with meaning.
I moved to the table, smiling and studying the scraps of paper with scribbled notes as I set about the magic. Pulling humidity from the air to supply water in the pot. I added a spoonful of tea from an open tin and deftly pocketed a note on balancing magical frequencies to examine later. My hands cupped around the chipped and cracked porcelain of the pot, held together with magic no doubt, and I created heat to warm the water and steep the leaves.
There was a mug on the far end of the table, stuffed with another note, and I called it over with a manipulated breeze. Nathan's breath caught, and he bit off a grumble as I swept the note—this one was more scientific and a little beyond my knowledge—into another pocket, and cleaned out the mug with a rinse of hot water.
"This is why mages aren't meant to be Chosen," Nathan muttered as water steamed from the teapot, and I strained the leaves as I poured his mug.
"I don't understand," I said, taking the mug to him.
He reached for it, eyeing the color, taking a deep sniff, and only frowning more deeply with every detail. "You have too much access to the source," he said, eyeing me warily.
I searched the floor and found a stool buried under a pile of books. Nathan didn't reprimand me when I moved the books, but he huffed as I helped myself to the seat.
"Because I don't use conduit charms to hold—" I didn't want to say Bryony's name. He probably knew exactly whose magic I used, but she was more to me than magical theory and a power source. I suddenly regretted showing off my skill with her power. "To hold power?"
"You're unmeasured. You spent twice the magic you needed on every one of those acts."
"The tea is too hot? Too strong?" I asked.
Nathan scowled at his tea. "It's a perfect cup. I think you know that. But no one needs magic to brew a cup of tea."
"Oh, and they need it for a luxurious bathing pool?" I laughed and narrowed my eyes at the older man, glancing briefly around the room. He was obviously scholarly, but also nervous, secretive. That prism was stuffed with magic, not because this man was using it for himself. He was hoarding power. "And you know about the source?"
"You know about the source!" he tossed back, leaning forward, a little tea spilling over the brim of the cup onto the floor. "That's another reason why mages aren't meant to be Chosen. And why mages aren't meant to be self-taught. To do as they please with any kind of instruction they can get their hands on!"
"If no one is meant to know about where Kimmery's magic comes from, why all the talk about the queen's line and—"
"Prosperity," the old man hissed. "It's not a very clear word, is it? Could mean plenty of things. None of them necessarily magic."
"I don't understand why it matters either way, if I'm honest."
"It's too much. It's too much power running about," Nathan muttered, leaning back into his chair, head shaking and eyes trailing away from mine.
I frowned, running through his words, through the fragments I'd read on the notes strewn about.
"Unpredictable. Dangerous! Might end up doing anything, in anyone's hands. Might hurt someone," Nathan continued.
My mouth opened and then shut again. The royal mages were preventing magic being released? And even more disturbing was the fact that Nathan's words sounded a little too similar to the one's I'd thrown in Bryony's face when I discovered her Hunger. I'd been wrong in that argument—on many points—and the Hunger had more or less demonstrated that it posed more danger to Bryony than it did the general populace or any inexperienced magician.
"What does a royal magician do?" I asked. Aside from choke Kimmery's magic inside of a conduit the size of a boulder.
"It really isn't any of your business. You shouldn't even be here." Nathan was growing agitated again, taking a gulp of the tea I'd brewed and then grimacing as he remembered how it had ended up in his hands.
