Eris began casting at once.
“What are you doing here?” the guard demanded. He pointed his spear their way.
“I could ask you the same,” Khelidon said. “I’m Khelidon, the Duke’s nephew. This lady and I have retreated from the party to find someplace more private—I didn’t expect to find armed guards here.”
Perhaps this guard recognized Khelidon, for he relaxed slightly. His voice came muffled: “You’ll have to do it elsewhere.”
Eris wanted to quip, but she was focused. She sensed the guard’s soul. Wakefulness emanated from him like body temperature once she knew what to look for. That heat needed to be snuffed out. Every inch of his consciousness’ flame smothered. Then…
Khelidon bowed. “We’ll head straight back.”
“You’ll be escorted back, so you don’t get lost,” the guard said. He stepped forward, but then he noticed Eris’ casting. “What are you doing?”
She concentrated to bring more mana from the air. She let Arcane Semblance lapse and her hair darkened back to brown in the light. Sleep was not an easy spell, but she was nearly—
Her eyes must have turned golden because the guard recoiled and swore. He lunged to hit her with his shield but he was too slow; she pulled the final thread and the light behind his eyes was extinguished. He toppled to the ground at her feet, snoring.
They both let their excitement wane. Khelidon glanced back down the corridor, but no one followed after them.
“That’s one way to do it. We could have checked other passages first.”
Eris took a moment to recenter herself. She needed to sustain Sleep consciously if she wanted to guarantee this man did not wake up. Adjusting to such a thing after growing used to wielding magic with the assistance of a staff and arcane focus took some time. Then she regarded Khelidon.
“The guard is dealt with. Account yourself lucky my wit is quick,” she said. “Of course it seems ‘twas unnecessary, for you have led us to a dead end.”
He proceeded to the end of this corridor, then kneeled down. “Not a dead end,” he said. The floor was covered by a rug; he pulled it back to reveal nothing at all. But he drew a dagger concealed within his doublet and jimmied loose a brick with its blade. He reached into the place where the brick had been and undid a latch, then replaced it—and pulled on a newly-opened trap door concealed perfectly within the masonry. Eris never would have suspected its existence until it had swung ajar.
She hummed at the sight.
“And the guard isn’t dealt with,” Khelidon continued. “He saw us together, and saw you were a magician. We’ll have to kill him.”
Eris nodded—for a moment. “Very well, I—you wish for me to kill the guard?”
“If you won’t, I will.”
Those were strange words to hear out of a voice much like Rook’s. “You will not take the moral high ground?”
“If we don’t kill him now, we will when we storm the Keep,” Khelidon said. “Better to thin Hierax’s numbers early on.”
“Your brother would disagree.”
“My brother’s too sentimental. Do you disagree?”
She smiled. “‘Tis not our fault he chose the wrong side. I will make sure there is no evidence.” Her hands found his neck as she prepared Disintegrate, but another thought came. “Wait. It will arouse suspicion when the guard goes missing, and such suspicion may still fall on you. And not all evidence can be destroyed.”
“Better that than let one who’s seen us together go.”
Her smile broadened. She remembered her year in Nanos. She recalled the spellbook she retrieved from the Magister’s Vault. From its pages she had learned Hydropneumonic Purification, the Embering Eyes of the Lynx, and…the Lover’s Bane. A spell to delete short-term memories. She had memorized it at the time, but with no one to practice on had not once used it in the two years since.
“But he has not seen us together,” she said. “I will make certain of that.”
She extended her mind into his. She could not read what she saw, nor manipulate anything beyond the last five minutes of experience; the Lover’s Bane was a powerful spell, but to truly wreak havoc on memory one needed complex rituals, preparation, and Old Kingdom technology. Even so it was a complicated procedure, liable to cause considerable damage if handled improperly, and challenging to wield effectively—for, as the name implied, it was written for the manipulation, rather than wholesale deletion, of recent recollections.
But Eris did not need to subtly edit out flashes of memory within this guard’s mind. She extracted everything from the last five minutes, casting her spell, excising that part of his very soul as if her Essence were a surgeon’s scalpel. When all was done she checked again, and although she could not see what his memory held, she knew the spell had worked: a piece of his memory was gone.
“There,” she said. “I have waited years to do this. He will not remember us when he wakes.”
“There’s a high price for being wrong,” Khelidon said.
“I do not know what it means to be wrong,” Eris replied. “I will let him nap until we are some distance away. Then he will think he fell asleep at his post, but that will be all.”
Khelidon nodded cautiously. He posed the guard to more reflect this scenario, then led Eris into the secret passage. She pulled the rug back into place over the trapdoor with a quick spell—
And they were in darkness.
----------------------------------------
“We were supposed to bring torches,” Khelidon said.
“I am a torch,” Eris said. She brought up a light in her hand. Khelidon had an expression on his face like she was some kind of monster. “You look as though you had never seen magic before.”
“Now you mention it,” he limped forward as he spoke, “I rarely have.”
The passage was very narrow. They were both forced to turn as they walked, their torsos brushing against the walls. It was warm here and the air was stale and Eris’ dress was quickly coated in dust. They reached countless forks; at each Khelidon chose one direction over the other with a hesitation that did not inspire confidence. Much of the way there was a steep gradient, an incline without steps, before the tunnels leveled out once again.
Eris felt as though she were deep underground, in catacombs or Old Kingdom ruin. That was more comfortable to her than any keep.
“I hope you are confident you know the way,” she said.
“Of course I know the way,” Khelidon replied. “I think. We’re going to the top.”
They passed countless more trapdoors and hidden entrances. “Such secret corridors seem a flaw in the security of a fortification.”
“They’re too narrow for armies to traverse, and easy to defend. Besides, you have to know them to navigate them—and they’re well-hidden.”
“Only a hazard when one makes enemies of his own family, then?”
“Precisely.” There was a ladder up to a trapdoor. “Here. Can you disguise us now?”
She nodded, but in contemplating such a spell said, “I do not know the faces of any servants on this floor. Nor how they dress.”
“Then make us both as guards in armor with masks.”
“I know you have noticed I am a woman,” Eris said. “Such details are challenging to convincingly conceal when attired as such.”
“The illusion only needs to be convincing at a distance. The longer we spend here, the more we risk our absence being noticed.”
“I suspect my absence has been noticed already.” She sighed. For a moment she considered disguising them as Hierax and Kirkos, but the heights were all wrong, and Eris was still not dressed to appear as a man.
She relinquished her spell on the guard at the entrance to the secret passage. He would not wake immediately, but magic would no longer suppress his consciousness—a loud noise or nightmare would be sufficient to rouse him. That was something like ceasing a deep exhalation halfway before her lungs were empty; no mana was reclaimed, but plenty more was spared.
Then she went to work. She started with Khelidon, carving the fashion of his doublet into that of a guard’s banded armor. The facsimile was good, though no metal clanked when he walked. She attempted to fashion his face into the illusion of a helmet and mask—extending his hair, then molding it into bronze. That was more challenging without some other helmet and mask to work off of. The end result was unconvincing up close, but perhaps looked right far off.
Khelidon regarded himself. “That’s very strange,” he said.
“Not so strange as looking at yourself and beholding the opposite sex,” Eris said. “I cannot move like a soldier, especially not within this dress. I will give myself a more fitting disguise.”
She used Rook’s hand-mirror—she had brought it for just this purpose—and watched her reflection as she changed her own face to be unrecognizable. Then she modified her dress to something far poorer, casting an illusion over its fabric to bleach it, shorten it, and make it more resemble what she saw on the slaves in the great hall. By the time she was nearly finished she had exhausted herself. Complex transformations were as draining as they were unconvincing to the touch. Sustaining both her and Khelidon’s illusions would take great concentration.
“It’ll have to do,” he said. He found a latch on the bottom of the trapdoor and, like the other, pushed it open, and soon they found themselves in a wide hallway lined with windows, and through each poured moonlight. A brief break in the cloudy night.
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They walked in silence. The hallway was wide and lined with doors opposite the windows, guest rooms with sconces at their sides, and tapestries and statues and busts and suits of armor and carpet underfoot all down the way. Eris felt no spells prickling against her blood here. The lights were all mundane. Even despite the lunar sliver through the windows the landscape beyond the Keep was dark; fields rolled outward into patches of forest and bodies of water that looked little more than shadow. The only points of light came from a collection of buildings beneath the crest of Keep Korakos’ hill: there candles and torches burned within huts and cottages and shops and houses arranged in a small village. Trees concealed most of everything, shrouding the just-visible shape of a black river. Beyond the land was cultivated.
Crowsbrook.
More clouds moved in. The sky darkened. The landscape outside became nothing but a mirror in which fireflies hovered.
They saw a guard far-off patrolling their way down the halls. He made no reaction at first, deceived by Khelidon’s appearance, but as they came nearer he called out to them through his mask.
“What’s she doing? She can’t be here.”
“I—” Khelidon started, putting an arm on Eris’ bicep. He stopped himself and became paralyzed as he realized his voice would not be muffled when he spoke.
“Say and do nothing,” she whispered. She turned and took off her necklace—golden, chosen at Diana’s recommendation—and palmed it. It had been concealed by Arcane Semblance but when off her body became visible once more. “I will handle him.”
The guard drew closer. “I don’t recognize you,” he said, “what’s your name?”
“Kallia,” Eris said, putting on her most timid voice. While she spoke she prepared a spell long-unused—she imagined a man’s voice, muffled through a mask, and with Aethereal Voice she issued it from the proximity of Khelidon’s face.
“She is a servant of Lady Lenora. It seems the lady forgot her necklace and sent this girl up to retrieve it.”
Eris formulated the words herself in her mind, but a different organ than her vocal cords turned them into speech. She played the opposite part in her own pantomime.
“I’m terribly sorry for intruding,” she said meekly. But she showed the necklace. “I didn’t mean to sneak.”
“Lady Lenora?” the guard said. “She’s a guest on this floor? I don’t know her.” Khelidon nodded emphatically in silence. “How did you get up here?”
“A passage, milord. A guard near the ballroom let me through,” Eris said.
This seemed plausible enough to the guard, who nodded in return. “You’ll escort her back downstairs?”
“You’ve intercepted us on that path already,” Eris projected with Aethereal Voice.
A moment’s consideration “Very well. Don’t spend too long leering at the ladies.” Then he waved them away.
Khelidon had caught on, for he tugged her by the bicep down the hall. Presently they had left the guard behind. As promised he led her to a stairwell. Eris put the necklace back on.
“You think fast,” he said. “You know that a guard isn’t anyone’s ‘lord?’”
“I was thinking fast,” she replied.
“So you were. Clever magic. We might be in luck that Hierax grows paranoid; he must have hired mercenaries for guards, or otherwise that man would’ve demanded to know who I was. Keep Korakos isn’t big enough for the garrison to stay strangers.”
“So long as mercenaries are all we encounter,” Eris said.
Up the stairs. The Duke’s bedchamber and office were one storey higher.
“I still think we should have killed him,” Khelidon whispered. “Forgive me for wanting my vengeance.”
“The time for vengeance will come. For now ‘tis more expedient we remain undetected.”
“Come now, Eris—wouldn’t you like to impress me by showing your true power?”
“You are the last person in the world I feel the need to impress, for you are impressed whenever I walk by.”
No guards were posted in this staircase. They found their way to its final landing, where a large door awaited them. Khelidon creaked it ajar and peeked through…
And ducked back at once. He regarded her with an expression she had hoped never to see.
“What’s the armor of a Cult Custodian?” he asked in a hushed voice.
Eris felt the blood drain from her thighs at the question. “Mail, with a tabard of purple. Some wear plate.”
“That’s what I thought. There are three of them outside the Duke’s room.”
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The Cult of the Aether was a state unto itself. A third government, independent of the Archon and the Magisters, responsible for all matters of religious authority. They lended their legions to the Gray Council for the purpose of hunting rogue mages, but this was not, in fact, their purpose. They existed as a check on Magisterial power. A knife to the throat of the Elves. The process of creating one immune to magic did not involve mana, or so they said, and the pontiffs of the Cult were not themselves mages.
It was an ancient institution. In the Old Kingdom man had ceased worshipping the animal gods and goddesses of old in favor of the sky, praising not the invisible Lioness but the real, concrete world of magic—a world they saw around themselves every day. A sensible choice, in Eris’ estimation.
In the eons since they had fallen out of favor with much of the people of Esenia. That was why so many had returned to the old ways. Only in Koilados and Erimos was the Cult still ascendant. But its power in Katharos remained immense. The Cult was a dignified, autonomous, fearsome player in politics.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
And not one that lended out its agents to dukes. Yet when Eris herself glanced into the hallway beyond the door, she saw what Khelidon described: three men in mail with purple tabards, each armed with swords in the flickering light of sconces. These were Cult Custodians.
“Your uncle must have paid a stupendous bribe for this service,” Eris hissed.
“It seems he might get his money’s worth,” Khelidon replied. “What can we do?”
“Where is the Duke’s room?”
“Just beyond them, at the end of the hall.”
Eris thought hard. She could not use magic to kill the Custodians directly, but that did not mean her powers were useless. She dropped Arcane Semblance and allowed her Essence a moment’s rest, soaking mana from the air—the illusions were not needed now.
“What do you think?” Khelidon asked.
“I could try to disarm them with Disintegration, or melt their armor with fire. I do have my jade ward, ‘tis some protection, but…without my magical tools I am not confident I could do such to three at once.”
He drew his dagger. “This is the only weapon between us.”
She had one idea. It made sense. It could work. If it did not Khelidon would die, or be captured, but she could likely still escape. That was—not ideal. She didn’t care for him, but Rook did, and she did not want him to be killed. Yet. But any success in their operation required some danger. The problem was…
“Is there a secret passage to this floor?” she asked.
“Yes, but it can only be opened from above, not below.”
She nodded. “If we lure the Custodians to this stairwell, I can use Blink to teleport us through the doorway—and Hold Portal to seal it shut. There is no Seeker with them, so they shan’t be able to get through even with their immunity to mana.”
“But they would see us and survive.”
“But they would see us and survive, and there is no way to disguise ourselves against them with magic.”
Khelidon gave this considerable thought. “They know Eris is their enemy already. It’s Khelidon who can’t be known for a turncoat. I need to return to the party. You know the location of the vault—you can handle—”
“That will not work!” Eris cut him off. “If the Custodians identify me, then before long they will know Eris is Cleopatra, and Eris is Rook’s lover, Cleopatra is Khelidon’s guest, and Khelidon is Rook’s brother; even a fool would not fail to see our scheme then. I—”
Another idea. When she was younger and just beginning her career as an adventurer her toolkit of spells was very limited. She could use brute power to overcome her opponents, or float above them, or translate their speech, but do little else. Now, however, her options were more robust. And she thrived in a place of restrictions, for Eris was brilliant. Her mind worked to find some solution with mind of the restraints on her:
Custodians were immune to the primary effects of mana, but not their secondary effects. Magic cast on herself in their presence would work, so long as it did not need to go through them—as an illusion did. They obeyed all the laws of nature as any man did.
Through the crack in the door Eris saw that it was still very dark outside. The moon was covered by clouds.
“I will snuff the light of the sconces,” she said. “I have never tried to do so many fires at once, but it is a skill I have learned with mana. That will leave them in darkness.”
“And us.”
“I have a spell that will allow me to see.” She twisted her jade ward. Now she had to make a decision. Did she utilize the darkness, a powerful enhancement to Blink, to trap the Custodians; or did she trust in her protection and attempt to kill them while they were blind?
A trap would allow them to raise the alarm, even if they weren’t seen. It would be known that they were gone when the alarm was rung. It seemed unlikely they would get away with this in the long-term regardless. And as Khelidon felt of the guards across the Keep, so Eris felt about Cult Custodians. They all deserved to die.
“Give me your dagger.”
“You intend to fight them?”
“In the darkness—I believe I can, with my ward.”
“They have armor.”
“Not on their faces.”
“What if they have magical lights? Enchanted items?”
“They will not, for they cannot see magical light,” Eris said.
She expected more resistance, for this plan did seem lunatic even to her, but the brother wore a look of resolute determination on his face. He desperately needed this plan to succeed. He wanted Rook redeemed more than Rook did.
So he handed her the dagger.
“You’re insane,” he said. “I’ll wait here.”
“Such a gracious knight,” she said.
“No. I’m more than happy to fight. Just a cripple.”
She laughed. Then she closed her eyes and cast the Embering Eyes of the Lynx. All color faded from her vision—but she saw details in darkness clearly.
She peeked one final time out into the hallway. Left, then right. The Custodians neither stood statuesque like good sentries nor gossiped amongst themselves; instead they stared past each other, waiting in silence. The Duke’s door was clearly their designated target for protection. They did not notice her. She raised a hand over the threshold, and as she had in those long nights spent in the Kaimas jail, she extinguished the sconces with a single gesture—only now it was a dozen lights instead of merely one.
Only one died at first. All the Custodians turned their heads that way without a moment’s delay. The seconds passed like hours—but, after what could have been days, the others followed, down the line, as if a silent gust of wind had ripped through the corridor, until but one flame remained—then even it fell pitch black.
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Three swords schlinged from scabbards. “They’re here,” one of the Custodians said. His voice was cool and unemotive.
Eris readied the dagger and stepped into the hall. She saw all three men, but the three men did not see her. Their heads craned about like confused puppies. They wore cruciform helmets, barbutes, and otherwise full armor; one reached out like a blind man for the wall, searching for a sconce.
“Light it,” one said.
“Reveal yourself,” another said. Completely calm. No hint of agitation.
“Can you not see me?” she called to them. “I am right here!”
Two of the Custodians lurched in her direction. The third fumbled in the dark with a striker. He had a collection of objects on his belt and he went to the window in hopes of finding light, but it was little use. Rain caressed the other side.
Eris prepared Blink. With them drawn to her position she wanted to get behind them. She erased herself just as they drew near—
And the moment she closed her eyes, she reappeared behind them. She nearly vomited from the sudden shift, it was always jarring yet even more so in battle, but there was no time to bask in disorientation. She went straight for the Custodian with the striker. She grabbed him by the base of the helmet and slipped the blade through his visor. Once, twice, and then a third time. He made no sound but the gurgling of pain, and as his voice began to stutter she pulled his helmet all the way off and rammed the dagger in his neck, down to its hilt.
One of the remaining two said, “Thyestes,” and his vision must have adjusted to the darkness because he seemed to spot the shape of Eris. “Here,” he pointed—but his companion fumbled toward a wall, left with nothing but the sound of voices to follow.
He charged at her with his sword leveled. She ducked aside, but she was still in her tight dress—her movement was constrained, and as she stumbled, the dying Custodian grabbed her by the ankle. She gasped and toppled to the ground. She kicked him in the head and tried to squirm back up, but the dress—idiot dress, so beautiful, that made her look so incredible, made her only stumble more, and the Custodian with his sword out brought it down on her.
The stab of the blade was deflected into blunt force on her wrist. The jade ward saved her life yet again. She grabbed him by the shin and tried to stab, but there was no way to get through his armor. He kicked her and she gasped, but he was disoriented in the dark, and she managed to tug him down to his knees. The sword sliced at her again and again and each time was deflected, yet each time a worse bruise formed on her wrist, but she ignored the pain and with her left hand held onto his knee and used Disintegrate.
On a normal human the spell would have removed his entire leg in seconds. Yet the Custodian was unaffected; instead only his armor melted away, mail and the padding beneath, but that was all Eris needed. She saw the bare skin of his knee and thrust the dagger within.
He grunted and toppled to the ground.
She used the opportunity. She scrambled over to his face and tried to retrieve the blade, to impale it through an eyeball and kill him, but it was stuck in the bone of the joint. She tugged and tugged and the hilt was slick with blood and when she pulled her hand slipped, unable to find purchase.
The Custodian punched her. She scrambled away, climbing over him, and grabbed the fallen’s sword—for he was truly dead now—and brought it quickly down through the visor of the one still fighting on the ground. The blade hit the metal of his helmet on the other side and he went limp. Only then did she look up—
And see final Custodian coming to tackle her.
She used Blink in an instant. Not thinking, relying on her practice and memory, expending a large portion of her Essence. It worked, for she found herself across the hallway, toppling to the ground, face-first into a carpet. It took her several seconds to right herself, and even longer to figure out how to stand in a dress so long.
The third Custodian sliced away at air, screaming furiously. He was two dozen feet away now. Eris used the opportunity to catch her breath.
She was bloodied and bruised badly. The jade ward had once again proven its value. She twisted it about her wrist—
And it fell in shards down to the ground, finally expended, finally broken.
“Where are you?” the Custodian said, still somehow calm. “Thyestes? Meleager?”
Once she could see again and had her breath back, she tiptoed to the staircase. “Khel! I need your help with the last!”
Khelidon had been listening, not watching, at the door. “I can’t see!” he whispered.
“I will tend to that!” She grabbed him by the shoulder and handed him her sword. “I will illuminate him. When his armor is gone, you strike.”
He nodded, stepping blindly forward.
“I hear you,” the Custodian said.
Her Essence was exhausted. She could do little else with magic today. This would be her last feat. “We are here!” she shouted, and when he turned, she let slip green inferno from her fingertips.
The brightness overwhelmed her vision, her spell for low light made useless, as day overcame the hallway. The rug beneath them and the sconces on the wall and tapestries nearby caught aflame in the heat of the blast—but the Custodian made no reaction.
Instead, to see Eris, he charged toward her.
The brightness of the fire climbed. She poured every ounce of mana in her bloodstream into the spell, expending herself entirely, until the jet was so hot the rug simply immolated, turned to ash. If only she had her arcane focus she could use Disintegrate instead—but here she had no option but fire—
Something hit her. She was knocked to the ground, and a moment later a blade that was glowing hot like it had just been taken from a forge sliced through her shoulder, cutting her dress open. She screamed in pain and ended her spell and looked up just in time to see—
The Custodian over her. His suit of mail was slag. He groaned in agony, somehow still alive, his helmet pouring down to his shoulders in torrents of lava.
Khelidon stepped forward and sliced his head cleanly off.
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Warm liquid spread through her body. At first she thought it was the Custodians’ blood, but soon she realized that most of it was her own.
The molten blade had somehow still given her a good cut. It was skin-deep, but exceedingly painful. She hissed as she righted herself, and on the ground before her she saw Khelidon trying to pull his dagger free from its impaled-place in the Custodian’s knee. He had barred the door at the top of the stairs.
He met the same amount of success that she’d had, but he took his doublet and used it to wipe off the hilt, then managed to find the friction required to pull it out. He sheathed it before coming to help her up.
“Is it bad?” he asked.
She ignored him and surveyed the hall. Everything was burned. What wasn’t was covered in blood. There were, of course, three dead bodies.
“I think the Duke will know we came,” she said.
“We should’ve killed who we had the chance,” he said.
“Perhaps so.” She limped his way.
“You would think skilled anti-mages might have thought of your trick,” Khelidon said as he came to regard her.
“Seekers are anti-mages,” she said. She managed to maintain her usual diction, but she spoke more slowly, with more exasperation, with shorter sentences. “Custodians are janitors. Yet my trick with fire is not a well-known one. ‘tis merely a skill I learned while in jail. To amuse myself. And your brother thought I was a fool to be so interred.”
“Rook is a fool, I’d hope you’d know by now.”
“I do know. But he is a clever fool. And a virile one.”
“You needn’t settle for fools, no matter how clever, when there are smart men nearby.”
She glared at him. She wasn’t surprised to hear him try such a line, and she was too exhausted and injured to think much of it. “Perhaps,” she said, “but such ‘smart’ men are inevitably cripples with small penises.” Then she regarded the Duke’s door. It was mundane, but most certainly locked. “I do not suppose you have the key?”
“I left it at Jason’s,” he said. “I thought you would be the key.”
She closed her eyes. Her mind was spinning so much that she had forgotten to drop the Embering Eyes, even as she was blinded by the now-lit sconces, so now she finally did. She felt sick to her stomach. Her Essence was drained. She did not want to use more magic. It was more than a fear of Spellsickness, or a conscious desire to avoid such a fate, but rather that her body had so come to associate using magic when she felt as she did then with the horrors of Spellsickness—and for good reason—that the mere thought of doing so again was to bring symptoms upon her. It was a nearly physical reaction to the idea.
But there was no choice. And it would not be hard.
She Disintegrated the lock off. The entire mechanism removed, then the door pushed open. The room beyond was black, but Khelidon grabbed a sconce to use as a torch.
The Duke’s bedchamber was enormous. A bed large enough for an entire orgy sat at its far wall, by a number of dark windows, and everywhere were vanities, mirrors, and silken curtains. What Eris would give to collapse on that bed…
Khelidon proceeded to a large desk. He searched it over, glancing through everything. Eris decided that he would let him handle this portion of the operation. She had done her share of the work. So she stumbled to a mirror.
It was beautiful. Immaculate. Beyond compare. Golden horses up and down its frame, and within the mirror itself—
She stared into her reflection.
“My dress is ruined,” she said.
Khelidon looked back at her. “You’re wounded. We can get you another dress.”
“I liked this one. I do not want another.”
“It’ll look just the same.”
She still bled badly. She tore a piece of curtain and wrapped it around her shoulder as a bandage, which did little more than soak the blood up, but that was enough for her in the moment.
She was right. The dress was ruined. Her right sleeve was halfway cut off. The fabric was completely soaked in gore. Torn in multiple places. Yes, she would have a black eye, she would need weeks to heal, she was in pain—but wounds would heal. The dress would not.
She wanted to go back to Rook now.
“Help me,” Khelidon said. He had gathered a collection of papers and folded them into a pocket; now he was at a wall behind the desk, in the far left side of the cavernous room from the entryway, doing—something.
“With what?” she sighed.
“One of these bricks is enchanted. Can you find it?”
She stepped to the wall. She sensed nothing. With so much discomfort across her body it was impossible to detect small changes on her skin. She shook her head, ready to explain as much, when she noticed the blood on her breast trailing up her neck.
She stopped. She wiped herself off, then held a palmful of her own gore against the wall.
The blood bubbled as she drew nearer the enchanted brick. After a minute of searching she was certain she had found it. “Here,” she said.
Khelidon pricked his finger with his dagger and pressed its tip against the masonry.
“Korakos family blood,” he explained. “He can’t change this lock.”
“Shows how stupid one must be to build an empire on the principle of bonds of blood.”
“Blood is important.” The brick recessed. Then the brick above it folded upward, and the brick below it folded downward, and so onward, until a passage was revealed. “Think how much happier you would be right now if yours was still all inside you.”
She glared at him, but only for a moment, because then he stepped into the passage—along with their source of light.
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This was no treasury, but a personal secure storage. When they reached the ‘vault’ itself it was barely large enough for the both of them to stand in. Eris was stuck behind Khelidon, but she saw a few chests, cabinets, and dressers; more papers scattered about and a few objects of value, perhaps in case of emergencies; and a safe with a slot for an intricate key built into the wall. Its metal was hued violet—enchanted to be resistant to spells.
“I cannot burn the lock away,” Eris said.
“I can,” Khelidon said. He pulled out an iron set of tools concealed on a chain around his neck, until now hidden against his sternum by his doublet—a hammer, a screwdriver, different shaped keys, all very small and combined on a single ring. Eris recognized them as thieves’ tools.
“You will pick an enchanted lock?” she said, in disbelief.
“With only one good leg I figured I needed some skills.”
Eris checked to make sure no one was behind them. “It does not seem a very gentlemanly talent.”
He got to work. “If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m not the gentleman in the family.”
“No, that is clear.”
One by one he lifted the tumblers within the mechanism. It was an ancient device but Khelidon had deft fingers, and although it took twenty minutes he eventually managed to force the lock open.
The vault unlatched with a loud thump. He pulled it to the side.
Within were five slabs of obsidian stacked against the corner. Khelidon grabbed one and considered it. He tapped his finger against its top ridge—
The black sheen became a mirror. Within appeared the image of an elf, tall and noble and fair, her figure warped by the refraction of the slab’s shape. She spoke Kathar with a strong accent,
“The shipment has arrived. The Regizar sends his regards. Report—”
Khelidon tapped it again and the mirror went dark. “What is it?” he asked.
“A missive,” Eris said cautiously. “We have found what you sought. Let us take every paper we can, and these five stones, and be off.”
He smiled, enthused but still silent, and nodded. They had been here far too long already. They grabbed every piece of communication, every confidential report, they could find, then hid them across Khelidon’s body—Eris had nowhere to put such things. Then he led them all the way around the top storey of the keep, to another dead-end, where he revealed a secret door hidden within a wall.
“It can only be opened from this side,” he said. “To allow for escape during an assault.”
Through the passages that crisscrossed the actual hallways and staircases of the Keep they eventually found their way toward the great hall. Khelidon led them to a door that faced the outside, which was high up and hidden in the hills but could be used to escape in emergencies, but peering through it he saw three guards stationed by its egress. Instead he led them back around to the place where they entered. He pushed the trapdoor open cautiously—
And the guard beyond was still asleep.
A sigh of relief.
“You need to tidy yourself,” he whispered to her.
Normally Eris would have been eager to do just that, but after having committed a triple homicide she was not so concerned with such things. She was too tired to use more magic. But there was little choice. She concealed her injury and knitted the damage to her dress and bleached out the blood with Arcane Semblance—that was all easy to do, using what was already there to smooth over unwanted details, and soon she once again looked perfect (although she felt dreadful).
They returned to the party. It had been an hour of absence at least, but Khelidon insisted they make their presence known, to deflect suspicion away. When they entered the great hall again the same bald man who had accosted Eris earlier approached and asked where they had been.
“They have no castle like this in Telekhasmos,” Khelidon said. “I thought I would show Cleopatra the premises.”
“And I do so love the gardens,” she said with an unconvincing sigh. Her will to lie diminished as pain became more pronounced.
No one had detected the massacre upstairs yet—or, if they had, the alarm wasn’t rung. In the ballroom Kirke danced; and when Kirkos noticed Eris he came to her at once.
“Milady,” he pronounced nervously. “Would you join me for another dance?”
He seemed to have been working up the courage for this all night, as he said the words like they were carefully rehearsed.
Eris wanted to agree, to avoid suspicion, but if she said yes the boy would put a hand on her waist and retrieve it covered in blood. So she instead replied, “I had a long journey from the city today, Your Grace. Khelidon and I will be retiring presently. But we have discussed your invitation and—I do believe I would like to attend the Tournament in your company.”
At first he was disappointed, but soon a broad smile spread across his face. “That would be the most tremendous honor of my entire life,” he said.
Eris bowed, smiling fakely. “Then I shall see you then.”
“Yes. Yes! I will send for you!”
“She wasn’t lying,” Khelidon said, “I’m afraid she’s quite exhausted. I’ll speak to you soon, cousin.” He led her back to the great hall. There they lingered for a time—Eris fought off a dozen more suitors—and he whispered, “We hadn’t discussed his invitation at all.”
“I needed to say something,” she whispered back. “Do not harass me.”
She drank a copious amount of wine to dull her pain, and had almost forgotten about what the night had entailed—when Khelidon noticed a guard who came to the Duke. He whispered something in his ear.
“I think that is our queue to depart,” Khelidon said. “Come.”
Thus they found their litter again, and so they departed, now in the rain and storm, back to Jason’s estate in the Silver District. Once in complete privacy Khelidon erupted in excitement. He raved about how he had suspected the secret dealings of the Duke, how he was dirty in every way, how they had certainly found exactly what they needed, but Eris was too tired to listen. After a thousand feet of the gentle carrying of those four slaves downhill, she fell soundly asleep.