The Castrofax (34 page)

Drawing Earth, he tore at the ceiling. Chunks
of stone and plaster fell upon the royal throne. Lace threw up a
shield protecting them and the Queen. The side of the room gave a
tremendous crack and split down the center, while fresh soldiers
rushed in. Nolen struck them down one by one.

“Do something,” Challis mouthed to Gabriel,
but he held up a defenseless hand, still crouched on his knee.
Soldiers fell all around the room, some with shards of mortar and
wood imbedded in their torsos, others bleeding from the eyes and
nose. As Nolen raged, Gabriel felt…stretched, as though he had been
drawn too far and could not bounce back to his former flexibility.
Lights danced before his eyes, and his vision blurred.

The man in green grabbed Princess Celise and
rushed her out, but Nolen threw an Air pattern in their path.
Celise screamed in a high pitch as stone dropped around her.

“Protect her!” Gabriel shouted to Lace and
pointed. The Arconian quickly laid another shield above the
Princess. Gabriel felt the sharp kick of Nolen’s boot slam up into
his calf, and in the Prince’s rage, he hurled a sparkling Spirit
pattern at the Princess.

Challis threw up a hand with a Water
ice-pattern on her forearm, but the shard passed through it with a
sizzle. The Princess crumbled to the ground with a scream.

“Kindle is in the Nevis Range!” Challis
shrieked. Light filtered through the ceiling. “Just leave!” The
Queen rushed around the Moon Throne and fell by her daughter; she
shook and bled from her face.

Gabriel struggled to rise, out of breath.
Nolen’s patterns had taken more out of him than he expected. Lace
put a hand under his arm and helped haul him up. Nolen ceased his
tirade, and all that filled the room was the sound of moaning,
crumbling stone, and the unintelligible weeping words of
Celise.

Nolen mounted the dais. Gabriel followed
close behind with Lace supporting him.

“Where?” Nolen snapped.

Challis looked up from her bleeding daughter,
holding two hands on her face. The skin was ripped up the cheeks
and bled profusely as all face wounds did. The girl fell silent as
shock set in. “A manor just outside the town of Veir. Please do
something for her.”

“Have you no Spirit Mage in the city?” Nolen
chuckled. “Why was Kindle sent away?”

“Even I do not know that.” Challis replied
tersely. “No man but the Head Mage himself knows.” The beam of sun
caught the dust falling from the ceiling behind her, and to her far
right one of the spilled candles caught the plaster and fallen
wood. “Prince Nolen, please mend my daughter.”

“Kindle knows where the Silex is,
Councilwoman Selene knew that much,” Nolen chuckled. “And Ryker
Slade wants it.”

Her face fell as she realized what she had
done. “You star crossed fool,” Challis hissed. “You have damned
yourself and this poor Mage by allying with a monster.”

Gabriel stepped close enough to see the
damage done to the girl. She was ripped from lip to eyebrow on both
sides, and he could see the bone of her cheek sticking from under
Challis’ hand. Her eyes were closed, and her hands shook as shock
took its effect. She had such a pretty face before Nolen ruined
it.

“Do you have no Spirit Mage here?” Gabriel
asked quietly. Nolen clocked him across the scalp with the control
piece. The metal bit into his flesh but did not break it.

“Mages have been fleeing to Jaden with the
rumors,” Challis replied. There were tears in her eyes and voice.
“Please just go.”

“Gladly,” Nolen snapped and drew the Elements
from Gabriel’s chest. Lace stood looking on at the girl, her face
full of sympathy and regret. Slowly, she laid the Air
sidestep-pattern.

Nolen’s draw on Gabriel’s Elements was not as
vicious as it had been, but Gabriel feigned weakness and fell to a
knee. Gabriel waited until the moment before the patterns were
fueled.

Gabriel drew Spirit from his chest with
difficulty, laid a powerful healing pattern that would mend from
bone to skin, and touched a hand to Celise’s ankle. Queen Challis
snapped her head up as Gabriel fueled the pattern, and her mouth
fell open in surprise. It took half a second for the pattern to
race up Celise’s leg and into her face. In the span of a breath,
the girl’s face mended, layer by delicate layer.

Gabriel’s calf suddenly gave with a sharp
crack where Nolen had kicked it before, and his scalp gashed open,
spilling hot blood down the side of his face and neck. The
sidestep-pattern was already fueled, and as Nolen realized what
happened, he struck Gabriel again across his head. Gabriel’s mouth
was open as the scream tried to find a way through his clenched
vocal chords. He dug his nails into the marble of the floor,
feeling carpets form under his hands.

Challis was becoming translucent as his eyes
opened. She reached her hand out to touch as tears streamed down
her cheeks, but he was no longer solidly in Viorica, and her hand
slipped through. “Thank you,” she wept, but he could not hear her
voice. He held her gaze until Nolen hit him again. When he opened
his eyes, Challis and the throne room were gone, replaced with the
carpets and decorated walls of the Willow Wine Salon.

“You—you—!” Nolen kicked him sharply in his
thigh. The jar to his calf, which was certainly broken, brought a
sharp cry to his lips. “Find a Spirit Mage to heal you, then spend
the rest of the day in the kitchens!” He grasped a handful of
Gabriel’s hair slick with blood and brought his face to his eyes.
“You did not lie with that Arconian last night, did you?”

“I did,” Gabriel whispered, pain taking the
conviction from his voice.

“Then she was too kind to you. I will be
sending someone else tonight who will not be.” He released his hold
and stormed out.

Lace put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me
fetch our Spirit Mage.” She rushed from the room and Gabriel put a
hand on his head to feel the wound that wept down his neck. He
eased himself to his side and hunched over with his hands on his
head until footsteps sounded nearby.

A hand pulled his fingers off the wound and
parted his hair. “It is long,” the woman said in a wary tone. She
took a knee beside him, and he saw a green dress over round hips
and windblown red hair falling behind her. Putting both hands on
his head, she fueled a healing pattern, and he felt the skin stitch
back together slowly. He dropped his hands to his lap, caked with
dried blood.

The woman came into his vision as she scooted
closer to his leg. Her face was fair, with curly red hair pulled
back in a bushy tail. She gave him a sympathetic smile with plump
lips and set her long, slender fingers on his leg, lacing a
probe-pattern to feel for the break.

Lace appeared on his right. “This is Bianji,
one of ours.”

“Hello, Star Breaker,” Bianji said, her gaze
on his left leg as she repositioned her hands over the break. “Only
one bone is broken.” She met his eyes with her pale green ones.
“Ready? Or would you like something to hold?”

“Just do it,” he replied and grit his jaw.
Bianji wasted no time and quickly pushed the two broken halves
together. He gasped and let out an exasperated breath as his hands
balled into fists. She made short work sealing the break and
lifting the bruise.

“You may feel that in the morning. I was
never good with broken bones.” She gracefully sat down beside him
and brushed her hands of the drying blood. “We are going to have to
learn who Nolen is sending tonight,” she said to Lace in Arconian.
“There are a few out for his skin, though I can see why. Had I not
vowed to Mikelle I would not touch him, I would probably jump—”

Lace threw a hand up. “He speaks
Arconian!”

Gabriel popped his head up and glared at
her.

Bianji’s face tightened. “Jump…jump in—never
mind.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with
Mikelle,” Lace waggled a finger.

Bianji huffed and held her hands out. “She
has an addictive personality. When she talks, people listen, and
she has been talking about muscles.”

Despite himself, Gabriel blushed.

“She said something about six,” Bianji
whispered and moved her hand to her stomach.

“Mikelle can’t count,” Gabriel sighed and
pushed himself to his feet. His body was weary and the blood rushed
from his head. He still felt stretched after Nolen used his
Elements and had not bounced back to his usual strength. It felt as
though his stamina left and not returned as it should have.

Bianji eye’s widened. “Is it eight?”

Balien waited until the girl delivering his
mid-day meal left before taking a hit. A new shipment of fresh and
dried poppy had arrived that morning, and he was eager to try the
new batch. While poppy could be grown in most climates, the best
came from Shalaban. Swallowed, the effects of pain relief came on
after about half an hour and did not leave him with hallucinations.
Those only came from inhaling the fumes, and he did not have time
at the moment to try that.

He had no pain to speak of. The poppy made
him invincible and mellow, and it made him laugh when he was
injured. It was always easier to deal with the politics of the
palace when he had internal armor.

He mixed various remedies as the poppy took
him over. It was likely most people knew his hobby of naturopathy
and thought it a silly thing, but those who knew the validity
behind his work respected him. While he began years ago to help the
servants in the kitchens who burned themselves, his craft developed
to include open sores, joint issues, colds, migraines, anxiety,
depression, assorted pains, and even indigestion. Every so often
the ‘friend of a friend’ would ask for something truly bizarre, but
with years of reading and practicing to support him, he usually had
a remedy.

Using a mortar and pestle he grinded red
pepper into the mix; a salve for pain. Halfway through the
monotonous job, he remembered the meal left cooling in his adjacent
room. He quickly downed it and went back to his grinding.

The servant found him draped over his chair,
mixing the pepper into cream. He raised his eyes when the young boy
did not take his tray of food and leave.

“Did…did you have the new mixture, m’lord?”
the young man asked with his hands clenched together. He slowly
shifted from one foot to the other.

Balien nearly forgot Nolen’s batch of calla
lily was running low. “I have some.” He jumped from his seat and
rifled through his study. The boy continued to shift from one heel
to the other.

“What are you so excited about?” Balien asked
as he dug deeper into a bag.

The boy grinned a gap-toothed smile. “The
Star Breaker is in the kitchens.”

Balien raised his brows. “Mage Gabriel?” The
boy nodded. “Why?”

“Mage Prince Nolen sent him down for
castration. He did something wrong.”

“I think you mean castigation,” Balien
corrected, and the boy nodded fervently. “What is he doing down
there?”

“He’s Mistress Marya’s new pet.” He snatched
the vial from the Prince’s hand, took the tray up against his
chest, and rushed from the rooms in a gangly fashion.

Balien gave the boy a few minute head-start
before making his own way to the kitchens. The main kitchens were
in the east wing, taking up the entire lower floor and much of the
basement. It took hundreds of people to run the monstrous
undertaking, and one woman ran them all. Mistress Marya was old
enough to be Balien’s mother though she was not as pretty as Queen
Rincarel had been. She was a pleasantly plump woman full of smiles
and was free to use whatever cooking utensil she carried as a
swatter. She had mousy brown hair but took care to sleep in curling
rags every night to give her short, thin hair fullness, and it
framed the milky skin of her face nicely. Today she wielded a
slotted spoon, wearing an apron spotted with red sauce over a stout
cotton dress of brown.

He heard her laugh before he saw her. Her
boisterous voice roared over clamoring of pots and pans. He spotted
her easily through the crowd of cooks. She was tall for a woman and
built stoutly to carry her weight. Her cheeks were red from
laughing, and Balien saw Gabriel standing beside her with an
abashed look, her hand on his bottom. She saw Balien and turned her
attention to him instead.

“My Prince, sir,” she chuckled. “What a
handsome bunch of gents I have down here today, unlike this sordid
rabble.”

Gabriel’s hair was wet, and the side of his
face and neck had been scrubbed red, but Balien saw the edge of his
shirt stained brown with dried blood.

“What is he doing down here?” Balien hissed
quietly.

“Why, he’s brightening my eyes, he is. Knows
a thing or two about cooking, he does.”

“Marya, he should not be down here. This is
no place for a Class Ten.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Gabriel said wearily and
folded his arms. “Nolen seems to think
he
took my Class
along with my power.”

“Rubbish,” Balien snapped. “Marya, I am
taking him from here.”

“Oh please don’t think
you
have
control over me, too,” Gabriel said tersely.

“I—I would never. I just thought you would
like—”

“I destroyed the Moon Throne room today and
killed about two dozen men and women,” Gabriel cut in. “Nothing
would please me more than to be as far from Nolen as possible.” He
gave a sudden gasp and his knee buckled. He flung out an arm and
caught himself on the edge of a table, sending a bowl crashing to
the ground, tossing beans into the air.

“What was that?” Marya asked urgently and
grabbed his arm as the beans skittered across the floor.

Gabriel put a hand on his chest. “Nolen. What
would you have me do now, Mistress of the Kitchens?”

She gave a barking laugh. “Why, stand there
and look pretty for me.”