Hexes of the Fall (The Hex King Book 1), page 5
Later that night, Genry and Ellex sat together beside the main hearth in the Great Hall. It was after supper, and most of the nobles had departed for the night.
“Was I too harsh?” she asked, pushing her hair back with the heel of her palm. “Earlier today, with the guards,” she clarified. “Should I not have interfered?”
“I don’t know,” Genry said slowly. “The court seems divided. Some are praising your hospitality, while others say you overreached. Some are calling you an Ithian sympathizer.”
“Well … perhaps that’s justified. I do sympathize,” Ellex admitted. “It’s not fair that Ithian hexers are regarded with more hostility than the Solian hexers. They all take the same Oath.”
“Maybe so,” Genry agreed, “but Sir Herryl did have a point. Their Oaths may be the same, but their abilities are different. Sometimes those differences can warrant different treatment.”
“I know. It’s just … Don’t you think stuff like this is the reason Hira’s so reluctant to return to Galan?”
Genry frowned. He’d always assumed that their eldest sister simply preferred a traveling lifestyle. It never occurred to him that she might have something against Galan. “You think she doesn’t feel welcome here?”
“Would you?” Ellex asked, holding her hand out toward the crackling fire, though the night wasn’t cold. “The walls of Galan were built to keep out monsters. And regardless of their Oaths, people still see Ithian hexers as just that. There’s always an underlying current of distrust.”
“Well, I’m afraid what happened today isn’t going to make it easier for people to trust them,” Genry pointed out. The story of what had happened down at the Vallum Salis had already run circles around the court, with people exchanging scandalized whispers about how, given that they hadn’t been properly inspected, there could be a wild hexer somewhere in their midst.
“Oh, Solace. Have I made things worse?” Ellex asked, pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead as if to suppress a headache.
“You’re stressed,” he observed. “Why don’t we go into town? I know it’s late, but the city is beautiful at night, and there will still be plenty of people. I know a nice shop that popped up in Fulcra East. They sell the best honeycomb cakes I’ve ever tasted.”
She leaned toward the fire, holding her hand even closer, almost as if she were testing to see how close she could get without burning herself. She didn’t look at him. Her mouth was set in an unhappy line, and he could tell she was about to refuse, so he rushed to try a different tack.
“Or we could take a carriage down to the Waterfront District,” he suggested. “We could get a tour of our father’s galleon. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”
“It would,” she admitted. “But—”
“Perhaps we could even get a boat ride down Riving Inlet. I hear there’s a waterfall only a couple of miles out that spills right off a thirty-meter cliff, directly into the water and, if you sail close enough, you can stand beneath the spray—”
“I can’t,” Ellex interrupted, her voice like metal. She snatched her hand back from the fire and glared at him, her eyes bright with reflected flames.
Genry stared at her, dismayed to notice a slight tremble in her lower lip. Then she clenched her jaw hard and straightened, her eyes going flat.
“I can’t leave. I can never leave,” she said. The metal in her voice had been replaced with wood, a hollow sound that tore his heart to hear. “My time, my energy, my life—it’s all owned by Galan.”
Despite her tough face, he could tell that some part of her was quietly drowning. He reached for her hand and pulled it away from the fire, wrapping it in both of his and wishing he could do something to pull her out of whatever darkness was eating at her.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “Galan won’t fall apart if you take a break.”
“It won’t?”
“Of course not,” he said. “I’m here. I’d like to see it try.”
Ellex leaned back on her other palm, smiling at his bravado, but then her face soured again. “Lady Tagan would never allow me to leave the citadel at a time like this. I can’t even go into the city without a full detail of horned guards.”
“Lady Tagan isn’t the queen,” Genry reminded her. “And Mother doesn’t need to know. You’re allowed to breathe, Ellex.”
She looked away. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“Then find out,” he urged. “Pretend you aren’t the crown heir for a day. See what happens.”
Ellex didn’t reply, but he could tell she was thinking about it. After a long pause, she said, “Maybe I will. Not tonight, but … soon.” She nodded once, as if confirming her own words, and gazed into the fire just as it gave a loud pop and sprayed sparks into the air.
CHAPTER FOUR
Disaster
THE NEXT DAY, Genry found himself on the training field, as he so often did. The sun was high and bright, causing his and his friends’ swords to occasionally flash with its reflection, blinding them. His eyes burned, and he fell back, raising his forearm to shield his eyes.
That was a mistake. His breath was knocked out of him as Keln plowed his shoulder into his stomach, and they both went tumbling through the grass, all elbows and knees as they struggled to keep their balance.
“Foul! Foul!” Genry yelled. “Unknightly conduct! Duel master, I demand a reset!” But there was no duel master present. The only other people on the training field at the moment were Maren and Aliss, who were also sparring and weren’t paying any attention to his fight with Keln.
Keln laughed as Genry twisted and punched, letting go of his sword in the process.
“You oaf!” Genry yanked a handful of grass and threw it into Keln’s face, though a lot of it missed and drifted back to the ground. Still, it seemed to do the trick.
“Hey!” Keln spit and blew bits of vegetation from his mouth, rolling away.
Genry seized Keln’s sword and yanked it from his grip, struggling ungracefully to his feet as he brought the tip around. He tapped Keln’s chest lightly. “My point,” he announced with a smug grin.
“I think you’ll find it’s my point. It’s my sword, after all,” Keln pointed out, still sitting in the grass.
“Really? Well, it’s in my hand. I think that makes it my sword.”
Keln shrugged happily, seeming content to let the argument end there.
“Come on, let’s go another round,” Genry suggested, handing Keln’s sword back to him. “A serious one this time.”
Keln took it and got to his feet, brushing some shreds of grass from his short blond hair. “A serious one?” he asked in mock amazement. “What’s gotten into you?”
Genry snorted a laugh and rolled his eyes. “En garde,” he said, taking a stance, pretending like they were going to follow all the proper rules this time. A moment later, their swords were clashing again, flicking beams of sunlight like drops of water. He ducked under a wide cut and attempted a little disarming maneuver that he’d seen some of the older knights do but messed it up and almost ended up with Keln’s sword up his nose. Their swords locked, and they both strained hard, glaring at each other as they tested each other’s strength and stance.
A scream pierced the air. Not close, but loud enough that they both froze and glanced around for the source.
“What was that?” Maren shouted from midway down the training field. She and Aliss had also paused in their game, momentarily concerned that someone might need help.
They listened for a moment longer, but no further sounds ensued.
“Don’t know,” Genry called back. “Maybe someone’s wig caught on fire. Or someone fell in the fountain.”
He had seen both things happen before. Hex lamps were safer, but open flame was considered more aesthetic for courtyard lighting, and the lip that encircled the fountain was right at shin level.
Before he could consider any other possible reasons for the scream, he felt the pressure return to Keln’s sword. They were back in the lock, gritting their teeth at each other as they shuffled back and forth. He began to feel his arms tremble; Keln was the stronger of them, and Genry couldn’t hold out forever. He stepped off the midline and snaked his ankle around the back of Keln’s leg, kicking hard and sending him lurching into the grass.
“Ow!” Keln complained loudly. “You won’t be winning any duels with moves like that! You’ll be disqualified!”
“Sorry.”
Keln inspected his knees as if expecting blood, and seemed disappointed to see they were only a little red. He stayed seated, frowning in the direction of the castle. “Something’s happening over there.”
Genry followed his friend’s gaze and saw a squad of guards moving briskly through the statue garden, their shoulders swinging with intent. It was too distant to make out what they were saying, but they sounded perturbed. Then they rounded the corner and were gone.
“It’s probably nothing,” Genry said. “But in case it isn’t, should we go over there and have a look?”
“I suppose,” Keln said, getting to his feet.
They all considered themselves knights-in-training and therefore responsible for helping the full knights keep peaceful order.
As they started walking toward the castle, a horrible screech ripped through the air alongside a blaze of light. Genry stopped in shock, looking up in time to see an auburn comet streak up into the sky.
It was a creature both terrible and majestic, with rust-colored scales and massive leathery wings. Its shoulders and ribcage were like that of a bull—powerful and heavy. As it rose higher over the castle, it opened its jaws and emitted a burst of flames, temporarily illuminating the darkened sky with orange light.
Its wingspan was easily twice the length of a man, but despite this, it was not a creature that could remain airborne for long. After reaching the pinnacle of its arc, it started to fall. It opened its wings and careened into the nearest tower, grappling onto it and raking its back legs against the stone in an attempt to find purchase.
Genry stared up in mute denial of what he was seeing.
It was a monster—a drakonid—here, at the heart of Galan.
Earlier, he had dismissed the court’s perturbed chatter about a possible wild hexer as ridiculous. Though he didn’t doubt that wild hexers were real and dangerous, he found it unthinkable that someone would actually try to cause trouble here of all places and now of all times, when they were only about a week away from the Millennial Anniversary of the Age of Peace.
Yet here it was, now curling around one of the castle’s towers, shrieking in a way that raised the hair on his arms and sent chills down his spine. This was no normal animal, produced by nature, but a monster from the realm of fire and madness. From Ith. It didn’t belong here.
With his pulse hammering in his veins, Genry grabbed his sword from where he had stuck it in the grass and began charging toward the castle.
“Wait!” Keln protested. “Genry, that’s just a practice sword!”
Keln was right. The sword was blunt-edged and wouldn’t do much against a drakonid. But there wasn’t much he could do about that, and he wasn’t about to stand idly by while a star-cursed monster attacked his home.
He was about halfway across the training field when there was a flare of blue light near the forecourt, and a jagged line of white appeared out of thin air, like a branch of lightning frozen solid. It struck the drakonid’s shoulder, causing it to shriek with pain before crashing down, smashing onto the roof before rolling out of sight.
Genry gawked upward in shock as the white branch disintegrated into tiny, sand-like particles that rained down, also disappearing from view.
The drakonid’s ringing cry faded into nothing, the sky returned to its natural emptiness, and all appeared normal, except for a few shattered roof tiles and a black scorch mark wrapping around the castle’s centermost tower. He could almost imagine that nothing had happened.
A door in the castle wall was opened, and several guards and well-dressed nobles spilled onto the cobbled path, all of whom were evidently curious about all the commotion. They squinted in the midday sun, looking around for what could have caused the noise. Their voices carried the clear hum of anxiety, punctuated by occasional shouts from the guards.
Genry reassessed his plan as Keln jogged up beside him, Maren and Aliss close at his heels. All thoughts of their sparring match had been driven from their minds at the sight of a monster flying over the castle.
“What happened?” Keln demanded, clearly unnerved.
“Hexcraft,” Maren declared. “It has to be.”
“There was a blue light!” Aliss added. “That’s salt magic, isn’t it?”
Genry nodded, still mute with shock. He’d done his best to skip most of his hexonomics lessons, but he knew the basics thanks to his siblings. Hexers could summon one of the six prime materials, and only salt was accompanied by a flash of blue light.
“Maybe Prince Rede did something,” Keln hypothesized.
“Maybe,” Genry said, though he knew it could have been any of the Solian hexers who’d arrived yesterday. “Let’s go ask one of those guards what happened.”
Together, the four of them briskly walked toward the castle and joined the cobbled path that led to the forecourt. As they rounded the corner, they saw a throng of people hovering nervously at the base of the stairs to the castle’s main entrance, all of them shuffling and peering to get a closer look at … something. A cluster of swarming guards made it difficult to see exactly what.
What he could see was that the entire forecourt was covered in a fine layer of white sand, almost as if an unseasonable early snowstorm had blown over.
“It’s salt all right,” Keln said just behind Genry’s shoulder. He had a finger in his mouth, evidently having tasted the stuff to identify it.
They approached the nervous throng, all of whom were shuffling and peering toward where the guards had clustered. The guards swarmed among themselves, their movements tight with urgency and intention.
“Esteemed guests, if you would please find your ways back inside. There’s nothing to see out here,” a horned guard said in a firm tone, gesturing toward the nearest castle doors with an open palm. A solid band of red was visible on his wrist as he pointed, marking him as one who had sworn an Oath to uphold the Knight’s Code.
The “esteemed guests” edged toward the doors noncommittally but continued to linger as soon as the guard stopped paying attention to them.
“What happened?” Genry addressed a woman in a green gown with billowing sleeves.
“That’s what we’d all like to know, lad,” the woman replied, evidently taking him for an ordinary knight-in-training. Talenne hadn’t been the first to make that mistake, and she clearly wouldn’t be the last, either.
“They’re saying some wild hexer attacked the castle!” a man in a velvet doublet informed them conspiratorially. “I saw it from my window—a monster with a mane of fire and scales like rusted metal. It’s a good thing a Solian hexer was nearby to stop it before it could get out of hand.”
“Terrible!” a third equinox guest opined shrilly. “What is Galan coming to? I say, Hex Law was once respected!”
A ripple of whispers moved through the crowd as the guards began herding the guests back to the castle.
“—awfully late for an awakening, but—”
“—like blood, but I couldn’t be—”
“—thing is that the princess can’t be—”
“Sweet Solace …”
“Everyone back inside!” one of the horned guards barked, abandoning the tone of calm reassurance.
“Mir, what’s going on?” Genry asked the guard before she could disappear back to her business. A hollow echo of dread was beginning to thrum through his veins.
He could tell from the hard glint in her eye that she nearly dismissed him with a rebuke, but then she did a double-take and appeared to recognize him.
“Prince Genry,” she said. “Princess Ellex was injured. A healer is already tending to her.”
“Ellex?” Genry repeated, but the guard was already moving away, shouldering her way through a crowd that was moving both toward and away from a knot of guards that were in the middle of the forecourt.
Hearing that his twin had been injured made it easy to decide his next move. Abandoning his friends, Genry plunged after the guard, elbowing his way through the grumbling masses with impunity, at times turning sideways and knifing through like an oar cutting through water. He received several indignant remarks, and a guard even tried to step into his path, but Genry evaded him easily.
The salt was deeper toward the middle, and as he neared the center of the commotion, he recognized several familiar figures. There was Galan’s hexmaster, Cole Dryward, standing with his arms crossed and his big nose pinched as if smelling something unsavory. Beside him was Rede, his olive skin unusually wan and his amber eyes unusually startled. There wasn’t much that could startle the young priest, which made Genry’s own panic surge. Both hexers were watching a third man, who was kneeling in the salt. Genry recognized the wide shoulders as belonging to Galan’s foremost physician, Healer Taniel. He was attending to a patient, and, though he could only see her legs, Genry knew it was Ellex, his best friend, his other half, and the future queen of the continent.
A sort of wild terror reared up in his chest and compelled him forward. A couple of guards appeared to block his way, but Genry weaseled past them easily, ducking and twisting like a dancer.
He was just about to arrive at Ellex’s side when there was a flare of red light, and he abruptly lurched to a halt. His feet were stuck in place and, looking down, he saw that they were tangled in a crisscrossing web of iron chains. He tried to kick them off, but they just glowed a faint red and tightened, holding him firmly in place. He struggled vainly for a few moments, more annoyed than alarmed. He recognized this hexcraft. It was the red iron type, the type that Hexmaster Dryward used.
