Breaking Stars (Book 2) (6 page)

His back burned and bled with every breath. Dried blood crackled with his movement. He could do nothing but sit hunched over, his arms on a table and his head resting between them. It was close to the position he had been in during the flogging, and the whip marks returned to their original cut state. Lowering his arms meant changing the direction of the marks, and the pain was something he dared not tempt.

Since healing him from Nolen’s dungeon, the Mages had not been able to restore feeling to most of his back, though he would never voice it. There were patches he could feel, but most was a mystery. Mages of their Class could never mend nerves, and Gabriel knew he would never retain feeling. However, the new marks cut deep enough for him to feel every sensation.

He sat there for what felt like hours in the dark, trying to drift off but in too much pain and mental torment
. ‘Robyn is injured or dead, father’s life is forfeit, Nolen will return with some new horror, and I have been publically humiliated. I don’t know how much more I can take.’

Bootfalls on the hall woke him from whatever middle ground of slumber he had fallen into. Several people came from down the hall, and Nolen’s voice spoke lowly with the guard outside. Torchlight flickered between the gaps in the doorframe, and the latch opened with a loud screech.

Gabriel raised his head, and his sore back commanded him back to his original position. Light flooded in from several lanterns, and two men stepped in. Gabriel pushed himself off the table slowly but remained seated. He did not care if he faced Nolen standing over him or seated lowly.

Nolen’s silhouette filled the doorframe, holding something large and draped in white in over his arms. He stepped inside, and Gabriel saw the triumphant smile on his face. Gabriel bolted to his feet, knocking the chair back and ripping open the wounds beginning to close.

Nolen held a body.

The Prince set the small bundle on the table between them. The figure was swaddled in white cloth spattered with blood blooming in several locations. Gabriel’s heart caught in his throat as Nolen lifted the corner of the blanket and threw it back.

The girl was burned horribly from her ear down to her thigh, the clothes crumbled revealing black and pink flesh beneath. Her left hand was severed below the wrist, charred around the stump from a jagged blow.

‘It’s not her, it’s not Robyn,’
he told himself, but his eyes went to the girl’s wet brunet hair to see water had splashed across her ruined face and washed brown dye from the golden hair beneath.

Nolen touched a finger to her face and turned it for Gabriel to see. It was charred and streaked with blood. The right lobe was caved in, but the structure of her face was Robyn’s with the same little chin and rounded cheekbone. He passed his eyes over her again, defying reality, looking for anything that would say something else. The strong shoulders were the same, the lithe neck, the golden hair shorn off jaggedly at the shoulder, the pointed nose, the petite body. “No,” Gabriel whispered.

“My men rode her down. It took her a while to die.”

“No,” Gabriel repeated, his voice wavering. It couldn’t be. His eyes searched the near-naked frame again, but he had never seen much of her skin to know if she bore a mark or scar that could help identify her.

“Bannerman,” Nolen called and a youth stepped in. “They found this on her,” he stated and took up a leather quiver, setting it beside the body. Wrought of sturdy brown elk hide, it had adjustable straps and bottom-tipped wood. It was the same as the day he crafted it for her.

“Oh stars,” he whispered, his voice cracking as the tears came to his eyes. “Robyn.” He could not bear to touch her charred skin though he desperately wanted to cradle her into him.

“The Bolt line dies with her, and Balien will be quick to follow. The throne is mine.” Nolen whispered, but his voice sounded so loud. He pulled the sheet over her.

Gabriel leaned on the table and lowered his head as tears fell down his face. His shoulders shook, and his knees wavered in a blank state of shock. The heiress, the only saving grace Anatoly had, the girl he had grown up with and loved and protected—gone. At last everything he knew had been taken from him.

Something strong within him died.

He sank to his knees, and as he wept, he broke.

Chapter 5

Lady Aisling pushed her charger a little harder, urging the beast to lengthen his stride, but the horse was tired. If they were any closer to Robyn, they showed no signs.

“Could we have passed them?” Cordis called on her right. He was dressed in black clothes and a long brown cloak that was tucked around his legs. The clothes were her son’s, and the cloak was hers since no one had made a Mage cloak for Cordis yet. Prince Balien had come to them in the dark of night with distressing news. Balien generously left out the details of her son’s flogging, but enough stable boys talked about it as they saddled the horses.

“They could have veered off the road—but I wager they are heading to Jaden as fast as they can,” she called. Balien had brought her the words from Gabriel’s lips, Robyn was injured badly and headed for Jaden. They did not know if she had a party with her, but Aisling wagered General Calsifer was still with her, and the General was skilled in evasion.

If the Princess was as wounded as Gabriel whispered, it was possible the whole palace could fall that very night, and Balien would be in grave danger. Aisling voiced as much as she dressed. “You need to make yourself scarce,” she advised him. “Where is the last place Nolen will look for you?”

“I cannot rightly tell
you
, my Lady,” he had replied with a faint smile. “I will be in the palace, and I will be close.” With that he swept away, swallowed by the cloth-of-gold cloak and the darkness.

“I awoke to lightning a while before Balien arrived,” Cordis called. “Could a girl sustain a lightning strike?” His voice betrayed a hint of worry. Cordis loved the girl like one of his own.

“It…it is unlikely,” she returned.

They rode until the sun rose behind them, waking the world in a golden sheen. Their horses slowed to a trot, catching their wind as they crested a slight hill. Cordis squinted into daybreak and looked along the road.

“A fire at night can be seen for miles,” he said, but his eyes were not solely for the road. “If her wounds are bad, they will need to light a fire to cauterize or boil the damage.” They stopped the horses and waited on the crest for several minutes, and far off in the distance they spotted rising smoke. Cordis kicked his heels and took off.

“It could be anyone,” Aisling called, but the man did not hear her.

“We cannot be far. They could not have gotten much farther ahead of us,” he yelled. They had fine palace chargers, and the chance that Robyn found better was logical but not guaranteed. If she was traveling on roneys and garrons, there was slim chance they were much farther ahead.

They slowed to a trot as they came off the road. There was evidence of recent trafficking in the brush. Before too long they heard horses ahead, and Cordis dismounted in hopes that a man on foot would not seem as threatening. Aisling followed suit but took the lead as she was accustomed to. Cordis liked to be the leader in their relationship, but she rarely gave him as much control as she was used to.

They smelled the fire before they saw it. She moved slowly, keeping her footsteps soft as they picked their way through the brush. The forest was thick with pines that filled the air with their earthy scent. The underbrush scattered with pine needles, a dozen varieties of ferns, and a few thorn plants snagged at her skirts.

Aisling spotted several men around a fire and a blonde woman as they came around a tree.

“Hello there,” Aisling called gently and the girl spun, her wide red eyes surprised. Instantly, a dozen men grabbed their swords and weapons that made a shrill metallic ring through the trees.

“Mage Gabriel sent us,” Aisling said and raised her hands. “As well as the Princess’ brother.”

“Nolen?” the blonde girl spat with an accusing, suspicious tone. Aisling looked at her a second time. She knew the face but not the name.

“
Brother
, not cousin,” a tall man with dusty blond hair replied and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Lady Aisling, you are welcome in our camp. I am Talon Estrin; this is my sister Andolyn.”

“We came as soon as we could.” Cordis said and stepped up beside Aisling. “Where is she?”

Andolyn’s eyes welled up. “I’m afraid you have come too late.”

Fear clenched Aisling’s heart, but she had long ago learned to push it aside. General Calsifer had his back to them, swathed in a gray blanket that almost drowned his head, but Aisling knew his short salt-and-pepper hair too well. She swallowed and prepared herself for the worst as she stepped around the blanket’s edges.

The General hunched over, his legs folded beneath him, and the blanket wrapped around him. “I failed her, Aisling,” he said gruffly, his voice tired. She stood before him, and he looked up for a second, revealing red-rimmed eyes. Aisling’s heart caught in her chest.

She pressed a hand against her lips and willed the tears to stay back. “What happened?”

Calsifer sniffed. “Lightning struck her.”

“Where is she? Did you leave her in the City?”

He raised his eyes, confused. “I—I would never….” Like a great gray wing, he lifted the blanket draped around his shoulders, and revealed a small, broken body nestled between his folded legs.

Robyn lay tucked in tightly to Calsifer’s protective frame. One arm wrapped around her shoulders keeping her from moving. She was asleep or unconscious. Her chin against her chest rose slowly and fluttered as she took slow gasps. Her clothes were singed, and the left sleeve burned off to the shoulder. It was impossible to not notice the bloody bandage wrapped around her arm, and Aisling measured it too short.

Cordis was the first to kneel before the Princess, reaching a hand out to brush back a lock of her brown hair that looked so unnatural against her pale skin. “You grew up, little one.”

Aisling took to her knees and smoothed her skirts. Swallowing, she knit her hands together and pulled free the probe-pattern, sinking it into Robyn’s petite frame.

She felt the shortened arm first, feeling the absence of a hand and wrist. There were also multiple fractures and burns. The lightning had traveled from her hand, down to the underside of her left thigh, where it exited. She felt a branching abrasion tracing down her side, around her hip, and over her thigh which she had never felt before. Other than the severe wounds to her arm, the rest of her was undamaged. Aisling breathed a sigh of relief. The lighting had not gotten to her brain, a land uncharted.

Cordis was already unwinding the bandage when Aisling finished the probe. “Someone bring me water,” he commanded an on-looking Shalabane. The man ran off and returned a minute later with a large skin. Cordis uncorked it and poured a goodly amount into his hand, catching it with a blue Water pattern. He tossed the skin back to the man and telling him to shake the rest to create energy. As Aisling unwrapped the bandage, he heated the water until it bubbled ever so slightly in his hand. He was a strong Mage, but even he could not bring the water to a full boil.

Twirling a finger, he drew the water from his hand and wrapped around Robyn’s arm like a coiling snake. As it moved and pulsed, it sloughed off dirt, blood, and burned skin. Aisling pulled the rest of the bandage, and she thinned her lips angrily. The strike had taken off the hand an inch below the wrist at a sharp angle, leaving a pointed burned bone around a mass of charred flesh. Calsifer did not seem to be affected, but he clenched her a little tighter.

“I can fix this,” Aisling nodded, beginning at the shoulder. Calsifer’s eyes lightened.

“How much of it?”

“I—I can heal the burns and the…the stump, but I cannot make her a new hand.” She had never been strong enough to manage more than mending bone and skin. It was terribly difficult to make new skin. She could stretch it around the bone and create a bit of new skin where needed, but she was tired and still had a way to go before reaching Castle Jaden. Head Mage Casimir could help her more.

She mended as Cordis cleaned the wounds. He kept his face pinched unknowingly as he worked, and after a while, she put a hand on his shoulder to motion him to stop. He lowered the pattern and looked away, heavy with emotion. He shared a relationship with her that Aisling would never be privilege to.

Robyn’s rule would be all the more difficult now that she was left crippled. People would look at her as un-whole, and it would take her more time to gain their respect. There was always a chance they could hide it for a while, but people would learn eventually.

Aisling fixed the fractures and burns, stretching the skin around the bone to enclose it. It was grizzly work, and it would not look comely when finished, but it would have to suffice.

“Gabriel could fix this,” she whispered. Calsifer raised his brows in question. “He could make her a new hand.”

“Can she travel? Castle Jaden is still a two-day journey,” Calsifer said and adjusted his folded legs.

“We may not have to go,” Aisling said quietly.

“What do you mean?”

Aisling brushed the question off. “Lay her flat,” she told Calsifer who carefully stood and left her in prone position. As a Class Five she could just manage a cloth-pattern, not well enough to make clothes but decent enough to mend and tear the fabric of garments. Laying the pattern, she ripped down the side of Robyn’s dark tunic and blouse as she felt the lightning’s path. The red marks blistered in thicker areas, but the rest was scaring. Robyn would bear the scars forever, for no Mage could heal what was already healed. In a strange way the marks were beautiful, branching like tree roots.

“You do not propose returning to Kilkiny,” Cordis stated, standing slowly. His knees gave protesting clicks. He had not filled out to his normal stature that she knew so well, and his face was still thin. But it was such a handsome face that she did not mind its gauntness. It was that face she first saw walking down the main hall of the great Madison Library back when he was a Mage-Select. He had been surrounded by a thrall of his cocky companions who thought the foundations of Jaden sat in their hands, but his pretty blue eyes and short black hair made her ignore the rest of them. It had taken him weeks to realize, but eventually he noticed her. The memory made her stomach tighten. Back then he was as fresh as spring, as tough as marble, and as confident as they came. Life had taken little energy from him, but he had learned caution and patience.

Aisling repaired the rips to Robyn’s clothes and looked up at the curious men. “We need not go to Jaden or return to Kilkiny because Head Mage Casimir is coming here.”

Lex had done a great deal of awful things in his life, and they lingered with a haunting guilt: like running rather than fighting for his mother; like breaking the leg of his father’s horse and blaming it on the mute stable boy; like stepping over the starving child sprawled in the street to find him dead by morning, but this trumped them all.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at it. Dried blood crusted beneath his fingernails, causing him to gag again, but there was nothing left to come up. Falling back against the wall of his small washroom, he reached for the tap to the bath and wrenched it free to fill with boiling water. Two dozen cisterns sat on the roofs dotted around the palace, each laced with Age-old patterns set by Class Ten Water Mages to keep the water forever boiling.

He pulled at his clothes as if the mere presence of them made his skin crawl. Two brass buttons flew across his bed chamber, and he ripped the arm of his blouse nearly clean off. Panic and anxiety rose as his fingers scrabbled over the laces in his boots. He fell into the bath still struggling with his trousers and underclothes. Scalding liquid brought a sharp gasp to his mouth.

General Calsifer was a hard man, and Lex feared his father as much as he respected him. They had never been close, spending too many years separated by leagues, but he knew he owed his father and the crown his allegiance when the General gave a command. His father would never have asked it of him, but the General knew what had to be done.

General Calsifer had already formed the plot by the time he brought it to Lieutenant Shepherd, worked out every detail, and even selected a girl for it. “If all goes awry, it is
you
who would hold the safety of the Bolt line.”

Lex scrubbed at the dirt and blood under his nails. His legs hung outside the tub where his trousers still gathered around his ankles. The cloth began to muddy as he ground into his skin, not realizing he stopped scrubbing dried blood and began opening hangnails. No one had suspected him, but
he
knew. It was his guilt, and no pardon of the crown would ease him.

The General had selected a young girl for the task with blonde hair like the fair-faced Princess, though it fell to her shoulders and not her waist. She had the same Anatolian face with a slender chin, small nose and cheekbones. The girl’s eyes were deep brown unlike the Princess’s hazel orbs, but it was the only variation. She was the same height, strong in the shoulders and legs with tough hands, but the hand would not matter in the end.

Lex had been given strict instruction to stay close to Mage Gabriel once the alarm was sounded. By the time he found the Mage, it was almost too late, but the General said
go,
and he went, stealing into the grain house where the girl slept with her sisters. Years of training taught him silence, and a pillow to her face taught her the same. A grizzly task was ahead of him.