Adrienne (31 page)

His gaze turned to the Elite guards. “And where were you?”

Again, Indivar answered. “Because Feyr walked with Queen Adrienne, we allowed her distance as she strolled in the garden. As soon as the confusion spell hit her, a barrier appeared around her. We couldn’t break it to reach her.”

Flavian added, “We looked for the origin of the attack and found no one, Majesty.”

Qamar concluded, “We are prepared to die for our failure to protect our queen, King Malik.”

Hani knelt beside the Elite guards. The Primaries hadn’t known her true role. Indivar had looked surprised when Malik attacked her first.

Malik raised his hand to deliver the spell. The guards had failed in their duties. So far as he was concerned, that meant a sentence of death.

Mushira grabbed his hand. He turned burning eyes on her and yelled, “You dare.”

Mushira didn’t meet his eyes. She shook her head and continued to cry. She muttered, “Queen Adrienne has grown fond of the Primaries…of all the Elite guards, and Hani. She would be distressed if she found them dead upon her return.”

Her return?

Malik lowered his hand. Adrienne wasn’t dead, but kidnapped. There was a difference. He had to remember that.

He snatched his hand out of Mushira’s grip. While she was right about sparing the guards, Malik needed satisfaction. He summoned an orb, held it in front of him and squeezed it. Before him, the guards hit the ground in agony. Their screams of pain filled the throne room. His grip on the orb tightened and their pain grew.

“
That will not make you feel better, Malik. You should stop before you damage them,
” Feyr said.

Malik ceased his torment of the guards. When they recovered enough to kneel once more, he said quietly, “Get out. You will find out who attacked my queen or no amount of Adrienne’s grief will keep me from killing you all.”

They nodded as one and quit the room.

Malik turned to Mushira. She cringed back from him in fear. He whispered, “Leave me, Mushira.”

She complied, happily.

When she closed the door behind her, Malik turned to Feyr. “Tell me,” he demanded.

Feyr shook himself out, now fully recovered from the effects of the mage metal. “
The attack was sudden. The confusion spell had no effect on me, as you well know. I tried to help Adrienne when the portal opened beneath her but the mage metal hit me then. Before I blacked out, I felt a great surge of power. It wasn’t from the attacker.
” Feyr watched as Malik came back to his throne. After Malik sat, he continued, “
Adrienne is safe. I would bet my cubs on it. Something happened before the portal could finish its task, and I think that ‘something’ was Adrienne.
”

“How come I do not feel her, then? I should be able to track her anywhere through the power of the silver cord that binds us in marriage. I do not feel even a hint of her.”

“
If she were dead, you would feel it. You feel nothing. That, in and of itself, is hope.
”

Mischief came out from underneath Adrienne’s throne. He walked over and stared up at Malik. He said, “
Me and Rena were bad. We ran too far away. Adri told us not to and then she went away. We’re sorry.
”

Malik reached over the arm of his throne and stroked Mischief’s head. While not in the mood to comfort the cub, he said in a soothing tone, “You are not at fault, Mischief.”

A knock sounded at the throne room doors. Malik bid the person enter. Travers stepped into the room as he had done so many weeks before. He bowed to Malik, then said, “We have a traitor in the palace, Majesty.”

“I had surmised as much, Travers,” Malik said flippantly. He was seconds from using the pain orb on Travers if the man didn’t get to the point.

“I knew of the traitor before Queen Adrienne disappeared.”

Malik surged out of his throne and bellowed, “You what?”

“The blood spell should have found Queen Adrienne at the moment of her birth, regardless of the different dimension. A powerful interference spell, amplified by its proximity to you, caused the delay. I broke it once I became aware of it.”

“Someone tried to keep me from finding her. Hollace?”

Feyr shook his head. “
Hollace abhors magicks, you know that,
” he reminded Malik.

Travers repeated Feyr’s words, not knowing the cat had spoken them. He admitted, “I would have come forward with this news before now, but I wished to have a list of possible suspects to the treachery.”

“Where is this list?” Malik held out his hand.

At this, Travers bowed his head in defeat. He replied, “My search has turned up nothing, Majesty. The only reason I have come forward with this news now is because of the queen’s kidnapping.”

Malik smiled slowly. His smile grew when Travers stepped back. Outside, dark clouds gathered, lightning split the sky and thunder shook the earth. “No, this is a perfect time to find out exactly who is loyal to me.” He sat back on his throne, his lips moving as he invoked a silent spell.

An invisible shield materialized around the palace. Eighteen people appeared in the throne room before him. They all looked confused and scared—as they should be.

Malik explained, “You all were in the palace at the time of my wife’s disappearance. The barrier spell I created around the palace brought you back. You are to be my guests until I find out who the traitor to my throne is and kill him.”

The people called out denials and pleas for mercy. Malik turned a deaf ear to their complaints. He would find the person or people responsible and they would know a new definition of pain.

Chapter Twenty-One

The cloaked man huddled in the shadows, a new desperation in his conduct as he waited to be acknowledged. His fingers curled and uncurled around the orb he held.

“You have failed me—again,” the shadowed woman said in an annoyed tone. Her fingers drummed on the desk in front of her. Little sparks of blue fire scattered from the places where her nails hit the desk.

The man shook his head in fear. He pleaded, “I had her, Excellency. She was to be delivered to your prison mere moments after she fell into the portal. A power disrupted the portal. Not even Malik can track her.”

“Return to me here and we will find a way to track her. I will not have your incompetence ruining my plans.”

This time, the cloaked man’s head shook in denial. “I cannot, my lady. Malik sealed the palace. If anyone tries to leave, they are immediately returned to the palace’s throne room and under extreme suspicion.” The man didn’t add that he was in no hurry to find out what punishment the woman on the other end of the orb had waiting for him.

“You try my patience—”

“My lady, the confusion spell remains active. Even now the orb vibrates against my body. I cannot pinpoint Adrienne’s location with it, but I do know—wherever she is—she is in pain.”

The woman was silent for a time. She stared at something beyond the orb’s view. “As you cannot come here, send the orb. Surely Malik hasn’t guarded the palace against objects leaving. My soldiers will track her down.”

The cloaked man bowed in relief. He held out the orb that contained the confusion spell and it disappeared, then reappeared in the woman’s hand. The communication orb faded and the cloaked man made his way back to his chambers. He had to get out of the palace before Malik questioned him.

Malik systematically interrogated everyone, starting with the most recent guests to the royal palace, then progressing to the servants. Each person was interrogated individually and under the influence of a truth orb. Screams of pain could be heard from those who tried to lie.

There had to be a flaw in Malik’s barrier. He needed to find it before his time of questioning came. And, that was soon.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Hollace slammed into his bedroom, his face contorted with fury at the situation.

“No luck, still, Father?” asked Oringo, Hollace’s one and only son.

Hollace looked up at his son and his anger switched targets. He hated his son’s beauty. Oringo took after his mother in that respect. He was tall and lanky. No amount of training put any muscle on his frame; however, Oringo wasn’t a weak man. He only looked it.

His face further pronounced this weakness. No one would fear a man who looked pretty enough to shame most women. Oringo’s red locks were cut above his shoulders to frame his heart-shaped face. His jewel-green eyes were always wide and innocent looking, a trait that endeared every woman in the palace to him.

That was the main reason Hollace wanted the boy married. He wanted an heir for the throne before Oringo started making bastards. At the rate Oringo had worked his way through the female servants of the palace and the noblewomen who visited the court, Hollace wondered if he wasn’t already too late.

In answer to Oringo’s question, Hollace ground out, “It has been four days. No one knows where the girl is from. I have contacted the Mage Guild. It took them this long to tell me they are missing no students.”

Contacting the Mage Guild and waiting so long for their answer had only added to Hollace’s bad mood. The school took up a large amount of land that could be put to better use. He’d have it demolished tomorrow if that wouldn’t constitute a breach of Derex’s stipulations to have a Kontarian representative—namely the Mage Guild master—at every birth and wedding. Since neither he nor any of his predecessors wanted a mage in the palace, a school was built.

Tacita asked, “Will the Mage Guild contact other mage guilds of the surrounding kingdoms?”

“Yes, wife, they will. Are you questioning my intelligence by asking such a profoundly stupid question?”

“No, my husband. I was merely curious—”

“Silence, woman,” Hollace growled. He gave a nod when Tacita closed her mouth and bowed her head. His eyes went to his son. “Have you found a wife yet?”

Oringo looked back at the pictures on the desk in front of Tacita. He scanned them with a look of indifference. “Does it really matter who I choose, Father? They are all the same.” He looked back at his father. “Why don’t you simply pick one for me? It’s not as though any of these women will keep my attention for very long. No woman has before.”

“She’ll keep your attention long enough to beget Kakra’s heir, boy,” Hollace snapped.

“Of course, of course, Father,” Oringo soothed in a bored tone. “It’s a shame Chandra wasn’t born male. She seems a better choice for the throne than me.”

Hollace stalked over to his son. The back of his hand cracked across the boy’s cheek. “Bite your tongue, boy. No woman shall sit Kakra’s throne.”

“I said if Chandra was a
male
, Father,” repeated Oringo.

“Get out. Go back to whatever it was you were doing…or whomever,” Hollace dismissed. Disappointment colored his words. His son had a point. Chandra was everything Hollace could ever want for Kakra’s throne—responsible, strong, and able to fight close to a first blade’s level. But she was a woman. Hollace was stuck with Oringo, the son who would rather be in a woman’s bed than on the throne.

Hollace’s attention went back to Tacita. She had started to sift through the pictures of potential brides.

She said, “Lady Sovenne is quite beautiful, and from a Kakran noble family. She even trained as a warrior. I do believe she graduated as a fifth blade, my husband.” She picked up Sovenne’s picture to show Hollace. “And she has red hair.”

“Do not think I have not noticed how much time you spend with Chandra of late, wife.”

Tacita lowered the picture with a confused look on her face. “I do not understand, my husband, what you mean. Chandra is still our daughter and I like spending time with our new grandson, Devon.”

Hollace gave his wife a sly smile. He taunted, “You forget to mention Adele, wife. You forget to mention how you spend almost every waking moment near her to feel her magicks instead of standing behind my throne where you belong.”

“I do not—”

He hauled her up from her chair and grabbed the chain around her waist to give it a good yank. He nodded when it didn’t give. “If I ever catch you not wearing this, Tacita, you will rue the day.”

“I would never take it off, my husband. You know this.”

“You envy her, don’t you, woman? You want the freedom I have granted her—her and Caradoc. The only mages within this palace without mage metal adornments.” He fingered the chain again before shoving Tacita away from him. “Take off that chain and it will be the last thing you ever do.”

He left the room then. He didn’t want to sleep there tonight. A palace maiden had caught his attention earlier that day. He only hoped he had seen the girl before his son had. Having a woman after his son did annoy him.

* * *

Adele bounced Devon on her knee and smiled as he cooed at her. The babe had the red hair his mother envied so much. Every other member of the Kakran royal line had red hair. It was a trademark of sorts. Chandra believed if she had it, her father wouldn’t treat her so coldly. Adele thought otherwise but kept her opinion on the matter to herself.

Her days with Chandra had shown the woman didn’t want a companion so much as someone to listen to her and agree without comment. Her maid did nothing but frown disapprovingly at Chandra’s constant complaints about her situation in life. The woman thought Chandra should be thankful Hollace allowed her to stay in the palace after her marriage and subsequent demotion.

Adele listened to Chandra rant while she cared for Devon. It was an easy enough task. Chandra only wished an affirmative from Adele on the odd occasion, but mostly it was Adele’s lack of censure she liked best. And Devon was happy with anything Adele did. He seemed starved for attention.

Across the room, Chandra smiled at them in the mirror. It confused Chandra that she found herself fighting off Caradoc’s presence whenever he came to whisk Adele away to conquer the mystery of her amnesia.

Everyday after lunch, Caradoc took Adele back to his cottage in the woods outside the palace. There he tried spell after spell to find some way to break through Adele’s amnesia. They always returned in failure. Despite Caradoc’s promises of a speedy resolution, Hollace’s foul mood at the lack of progress ruined dinner after dinner.