Bricrui (The Forgotten: Book 2) (4 page)

Amelia was sitting in the corner in a rocking
chair, a wet towel draped over her forehead.

“Are you unwell?” Layna asked, concerned, as
they entered the room, thankfully leaving the rest of the party in
the hallway.

The older woman removed the cloth and gave
her a weak smile. “Oh, I’m fine, just a bit of a headache.”

“And how is Miss Phoenix today?” Layna asked,
her voice rising to the pitch that she had always gotten amusement
out of adults seeming to think babies responded to better – until
she had one of her own. Gryffon beat her to the child, sweeping her
up into his arms.

“Giving poor Amelia a headache, are we?” he
jokingly admonished. Phoenix smiled at them and reached for
Gryffon’s crown. He humored her by tilting his head so that she
could get her chubby hand around one of the jewels. She grabbed it
and pulled the whole thing neatly off his head, much to his
surprise, and Layna laughed at the look on his face.

By unspoken agreement, neither immediately
brought up the subject that they had come here to discuss, allowing
some of their stress to melt away in the presence of their
daughter.

Eventually, however, it could not be ignored
any longer. “We received messages from each of the Council members’
households,” she told him, “that none of them can make it for one
reason or another.”

“Excuses by the members themselves or from
their staff I wonder?”

“Hard to say, but it stands to reason that
whatever Telvani was holding over their heads is still in place.
And may be getting worse. He obviously planned this well.”

“How did we allow our entire Council to be
subverted? I thought that when we got rid of the old politics and
placed people at Amelia’s suggestion that this sort of thing
wouldn’t happen.”

“Now wait just a moment,” Amelia chimed in,
and Layna smiled despite the situation. Amelia was one of the only
people who still spoke to them as though they were just people and
she found it refreshing. “It wasn’t my suggestions that caused
this. These are all good people and not one of them is going to be
turned by bribes or other such nonsense. Maybe if he was holding
their whole family hostage or something, but how would he have done
that?”

“What if he was threatening their loved ones
with some new disease he came up with?” Layna suggested, thinking
back to Lord Telvani himself, currently wasting away in the
dungeon.

“Or threatened to turn one of those creatures
loose on them,” Gryffon said, not taking his eyes from Phoenix
whose nose he was tapping. Layna tried to imagine someone
threatening Phoenix with such a monster and shuddered.

“But that would mean we haven’t done a very
good job,” Layna pointed out.

“What do you mean?” Amelia asked,
perplexed.

“In eradicating his supporters. If he still
has enough influence to hold threats over all six Council
members….” She paused and tipped her head towards the dungeons.
“He’s obviously not in a position to be the one carrying out his
plans at the moment.”

Gryffon looked up at her and they locked eyes
for a moment. Finally he spoke, “Perhaps it’s time that we go pay
some of the Council members a visit.”

Layna nodded and they regretfully left
Phoenix with Amelia, telling their aides that they would be leaving
the palace. In short order the royal carriage was prepared, and
they were on their way. Layna supposed that this particular
convenience was worth the inconvenience of always having someone
around; when they needed something done, it was done instantly.

Though she tried her best to be polite and
courteous to all the staff, it was sometimes difficult to both
ignore their presence for the semblance of privacy for her sanity,
while also treating them accordingly respectful when she needed
something. She was half-tempted to magic her way into the servant
quarters some night to see what they said about her behind her
back, but seeing as how that would be a horrible invasion of their
privacy, she resisted the urge.
Barely
.

The carriage ride to the first manor was a
short one, as the lord had already lived in the city when they had
asked him to become one of the Council members. When they arrived,
the staff looked harried, and they quickly ushered them into the
sitting room. It wasn’t often that the King and Queen made house
calls - at least it hadn’t been before Layna and Gryffon had become
monarchs - and the servants were beside themselves deciding how to
react. Layna tried to calm them the best she could, assuring them
that all they needed was to speak with the lord of the house.

After a few minutes, it was the lady that
arrived, greeting them nervously. “Your Majesties, what an
unexpected surprise!”

“Yes,” Gryffon said dryly, “We got a message
that Lord Walcott could not make it to the palace, so we came to
him.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Lady Walcott
replied, but her darting eyes revealed that her true emotions were
nowhere near what these words conveyed. “But I’m afraid my husband
is not well and cannot be receiving visitors.”

“We really must insist,” Layna persisted.

The lady looked ready to argue further until
Gryffon put on his Kingly tone and added, “He
will
see his
King and Queen.”

She deflated and stood from the chair she had
been sitting on the edge of across from them. Bowing deeply, she
straightened and led the way out of the room. “I must warn you,
Majesties, that he hasn’t quite been himself lately…”

She stepped lightly through the manor
hallways before coming to a stop in front of what must be the
lord’s bedchamber. Two guards stood stationed outside, and both
regarded the lady with a look of worry at their appearance. The
lady shook her head at them almost imperceptibly, as though in
defeat, and they moved aside.

As the door opened, the reason for their
reluctance became clear. Lord Walcott, once a proud and well-kept
man, was sitting beside the window muttering to himself. His facial
hair was grown in to an uneven stubble with bits of food still
attached to it. His clothing was rumpled and dirty, as though it
had been unchanged for days, and his hair clung to his head with
filth.

Layna raised an eyebrow. “How long has he
been like this?” she asked softly, moving slowly towards the man.
Her guards closed in protectively.

Lord Walcott glanced up at her approach and
he shouted something nonsensical at her, waving his arms wildly
around.

“It came on slowly,” Lady Walcott reported,
seeming to be relieved at finally being able to share the burden
with someone, “maybe a few weeks, it’s hard to say. It started out
that he would start to say something and then cut himself off to
spout some nonsense about a new plan Telvani had come up with.
Normally he’d naysay many of them immediately, but for some reason
he was agreeing with the vile man, so I became worried. I tried
talking to him about it, but he just kept telling me that he’d
realized that Telvani actually did have some good ideas. Then,
after you got better and Telvani escaped, he started to become
forgetful and very unlike himself. It eventually progressed into
this.” She waved a hand at her husband, worry creasing her
brow.

“Is he lucid at all?” Gryffon asked, kneeling
next to the man and laying a hand on his forehead. Layna caught a
subtle look he gave her and came to stand beside him. She linked
her power to his and immediately felt the probe he had sent into
the lord’s mind.

Something was definitely not right.

“There are brief moments when he knows who he
is and where he is, but they are becoming fewer. I’ve had the house
mages working feverishly to find out what’s wrong with him,” she
seemed to suddenly remember that she had made false excuses in
order to keep the situation from them, and she hastily explained.
“I wanted to either fix it, or at least figure out what it was
before we contacted you about it. I know you have a lot of other
things to deal with right now.”

Layna half-listened to the ramblings of the
woman while following Gryffon’s magic through the man. There was a
dark spot in his mind which seemed to be pulling his sanity into
it, like a black hole. But the origin of the spot was elusive. They
pulled out.

-
Telvani?
– she mind-spoke to
Gryffon, a talent they had discovered they could achieve together
after the binding of their magic while fighting Nuko.

-
I would say so, but how did he
accomplish it? It’s like no other mind-spell I’ve ever seen. The
closest I can think of is the collar that the Order was using to
control people, but there’s no sign of a physical link
. –

“We’ll send someone over to look at him,”
Layna promised the distressed lady out loud, and exchanged a look
with Gryffon.

Once back in the carriage, they made their
way to the next Council member in somber silence. Their fears were
confirmed as one after another they made the rounds to all the
Council members within a reasonable distance, and one after another
found similar situations. Two of them lived too far away to warrant
a visit that day, but messengers were sent with explicit
instructions to report the true reason for the Counselor’s
absence.

The pair finally returned to the palace
exhausted and discouraged. It appeared as though the entire Council
was out of commission for the moment. Layna and Gryffon would have
to handle things on their own.

*

Katya drifted in and out of consciousness.
She groggily awoke to find broth being poured down her throat, but
she was out again before it reached her stomach.

Voices sounded somewhere near her, but she
couldn’t understand them, and soon the effort of trying to listen
exhausted her, and she faded back into sleep.

Finally she woke with her senses returned,
her mind clearing. She groaned and looked around, searching for
Hunter. He was lying sprawled out next to her, and she rushed to
his side. She regretted the sudden movement instantly as pain shot
through her head, but was rewarded at Hunter’s own moan of pain
when she touched his shoulder. He was alive.

“Are you alright?” she whispered, hastily
searching their surroundings. They were all-too-familiar. It
appeared to be the very same cell she had just broken out of,
though meticulously repaired.
Curses
.

“I think so,” Hunter answered, prodding at
his head. He stood carefully and started running his hands over the
walls methodically.

“It’s no use,” Katya informed him. She moved
towards the window and stood as close to the wall as possible so as
to see out the edge. She could see several people rushing around
hurriedly. Something was up.

“How long do you think we’ve been here?”
Hunter asked, finally abandoning his futile search of the cell
walls.

“I don’t know,” Katya answered regretfully,
“my last clear memory is of Gareth breaking me out of here.” The
thought of her father made her eyes water. She had gained much more
control over her emotions since having her collar removed, but
though the emotion was not all-consuming as it may previously had
been, it didn’t hurt any less when she thought about his death. She
cleared her throat and continued, oblivious to the tear streaming
down her cheek. “Then I ran into you and we ran through the
forest,”

“We made camp for the night,” Hunter
added.

“And then something attacked us.”

“Apparently the tribe.”

“Well, this isn’t good.”

Footsteps drew near and Katya glared at the
familiar face approaching.

“On your feet,” Slade commanded them and the
bonds on the cell forced them into standing positions.

“Slade, why are you doing this?”

“What do you mean, why am I doing this?” he
growled at her, “You’re the one who came in here and lied to us –
and stole from us – after we took you into our homes and trusted
you.”

“You never trusted me,” she snarled,
countering his claims, “you used me. And I didn’t steal the
Bloodstone, it was never yours to claim in the first place.”

“Shut up,” he snapped, and shoved her
forward.

Hunter moved towards him menacingly, but
Katya held up a hand and whispered, “Not worth it.”

The two of them were led before the Elders
assembled in the Chamber. The woman with the braid, whose name
Katya could never remember, moved forward to speak.

“Katya of no tribe,” she addressed her with
the tribe’s equivalent of berating a noble with lack of title, “you
have been found guilty of your crimes and sentenced
accordingly.”

“And what are her crimes, exactly?” Hunter
pushed past his two guards to demand.

The woman paused to turn to him. “I will deal
with you in a moment, Lost One. Silence.” She waved a hand towards
him and his mouth involuntarily clamped shut.

He glared at her with daggers in his eyes,
and tried to shrug off the guards who were now gripping his arms
firmly, but to no avail.

She turned back to Katya as if she hadn’t
been interrupted. “The penalty for your crimes is death.”

Hunter strained against the guards, his eyes
growing wide. Katya didn’t bat an eye, but continued to watch the
woman.

After a pregnant pause, she continued,
“However, we have decided to give you a chance to redeem yourself
and earn both your own and your friend’s freedom.” When Katya still
didn’t respond she went on, “You will find and bring back a
specific artifact from the Dena’ina tribe for us.”

“And if I refuse?” Katya finally spoke
up.

“Then you both die.”

Katya glanced at Hunter, sure to keep any
emotion from showing. “How do you know I won’t just never come
back?”

“Because then your friend here will pay for
your forfeit with
his
life. And then we’ll find you, and
kill you too.” The woman’s tone was threatening.