The Hollow Crown: A Novel of Crosspointe (5 page)

His stomach twisted and his gaze shifted farther out, beyond the Pale. A shudder rippled down his spine, and it was all he could do not to close his eyes and look away. With firm resolve, he scanned the too-empty water. Four months ago the Kalpestrine had fallen. It had been the island stronghold of the Majicar Guild. Then one day, the entire mountain fortress had collapsed into itself. All that was left was a small tree-covered hump called the Thumb that had sat on the western edge of Merstone Island.

It’s not that Keros regretted the destruction of the Kalpestrine. He’d never even set foot on Merstone Island. As an unregistered majicar, the Guild was his enemy. If they’d discovered him, they’d have forced him to serve inside the rigid bounds of their rule, or else they’d have imprisoned him. But it had taken an enormous force of majick to destroy the Kalpestrine, and that was a reason to fear. Because he was one of just a handful of people who knew that the destruction had been caused not by the gods or invading Jutras, or the story that the Crown and the surviving majicars were spreading—that a bore had opened in the bottom of the sea and had weakened the mountain so much that it collapsed. Most believed this. After all, the Inland Sea was a place of chaos and change—what was shallow a moment ago was now deep. Bores were enormous holes that opened up randomly, sucking in vast amounts of water before shutting again. Where they might open was unpredictable, and the phenomenon made for a reasonable explanation. But it was a lie. The truth was that the Kalpestrine had been destroyed by two renegade majicars that the Guild had been holding captive. And if that wasn’t frightening enough, just at the moment, those two enormously powerful majicars were not friends to Crosspointe.

Keros rubbed a hand over his jaw and shook his head, turning to hurry along the headland path. The Jutras were vicious and greedy and they coveted Crosspointe like starving wolves after a meaty carcass. He’d witnessed firsthand their horrifying blood majick. They’d carved the flesh off two living people right in front of him and he’d been helpless to stop them. He shied away from the horror of the memory. Even now he could not sleep through the night without waking in a cold sweat.

The worst part was that even without Pilots and majickal compasses to guide them, the Jutras had managed to cross the Inland Sea once, and it was only a matter of time until they did it again. Without an army and without a king, Crosspointe was nearly defenseless. Even with so many surviving majicars, it wouldn’t be enough. The Jutras had majicars of their own, and they had an army, and both were well practiced in war. Crosspointe was going to need Fairlie and Shaye Weverton—the two majicars who’d destroyed the Kalpestrine. But Fairlie was one of the terrible spawn, and neither she nor Shaye had any love for the Ramplings, especially Prince Ryland, who’d been the one to transform Fairlie against her will.

Keros sighed heavily. It was a mother-cracking mess and he was right in the middle of it. How had he let that happen?

He reached a stair cut into the side of the vertical cliff. It zigzagged recklessly down to the boulder-strewn strand. The steps were slick, and the wind and rain smashed into him. He skidded and held tight to the rocky wall. From time to time he glanced at the frothing surf far below. He saw no sign of anyone, but didn’t really expect to.

Taking three-quarters of a glass to get to the bottom, by that time he was limping. His soaked boots had rubbed his heels and toes raw. He grimaced. As an unregistered majicar, he made it a point to not use his power ostentatiously, which meant not majicking his clothing against the weather. He sobered and a shaft of cold that had nothing to do with the storm ran through his lungs. Majick wasn’t working the way it should anymore. It was increasingly volatile and unpredictable, and, as often as not, a well-cast spell went badly awry. Even old spells that had been reliable for years went suddenly haywire. Having majick around was not safe for anyone.

The problem was so pervasive that Keros had taken to using his majick as little as possible and praying that the problem soon settled. He hoped that it was nothing more than the aftermath of the Kalpestrine’s fall. But the failing majick wasn’t the worst of it. Keros had begun to notice odd behavior among his fellow majicars, and nothing good. They were becoming strange—paranoid, fearful, full of rage . . . The list went on. He didn’t know if it was because they used majick or because they had been in some way tied to the Kalpestrine, so that when it fell, it damaged their minds. But more and more of them were acting peculiar. Keros pulled his sodden cloak around himself, the cold inside him growing sharper. If it could happen to them, it could happen to him.

He pushed the thought away violently, but it clung to him like pine pitch.

He walked along the shingle above the outgoing tide, heading for the small wooded cove just west of the steps. He slipped and stumbled over the wet, rounded rocks that made up his path, groaning a little with relief when he reached the shelter of the tall firs. They smelled pungent and green.

The footing was better here with a thick bed of brown needles, and he broke into a limping jog. He slowed when he reached the tree line curving around the small inlet.

She was waiting.

Lucy sat on a rock wearing hardly anything. Just a chemise and a pair of thin trousers. Her bright red hair was caught up in a thick braid down her back, wet tendrils clinging to her cheeks and neck. Her eyes were telltale majicar silver, ringed with crimson—the same color as his own, when he wasn’t disguising them with illusion. She sat with her arms around her knees. As he stepped out onto the rocky beach, she leaped to the ground and ran to him, flinging her arms around him.

“Keros! It is good to see you!”

He returned the hug. She was warm, like she’d been sitting beside a fire. He pushed her away and frowned. “You’ve lost weight. A lot of it.” Lucy had always had a rounded face and a plump body, but now her cheeks were almost hollow and he could feel her ribs beneath his hands.

She made a face. “I’m fine. I haven’t been eating all that well.”

Something in her voice made Keros stiffen. Lucy was one of the most powerful majicars in the world. Before Fairlie and Shaye had pulled down the Kalpestrine, he would have said she was
the
most powerful majicar. Little frightened her. But she was scared; he could hear it. “What’s going on?”

She took his hand and led him over to the relative protection made by a tall rock and a cluster of wind-tossed pines. She pulled him under, close to the trunk of one, where the wind and the rain could not easily reach.

“I don’t like the beard,” she said, reaching up and pushing his unkempt curls out of his face. “You look like a stray dog.”

She was stalling. He caught her hand and held it, his thumb rubbing lightly over the back of it, like he had a right. Reluctantly he let go. “Where’s Marten?” he asked.

Marten had been Keros’s best friend, before Lucy came along. He was a sea captain and had hired Keros to sail with his crew. He’d known Keros was a majicar and had protected his secret. He’d also been a gambler, and when his debts had become too much, he’d been paid to trick Lucy into breaking the law. The result had got them both sent to the Bramble with all the other convicted criminals of the year. They were to be exposed to the Chance storms. But the
sylveth
had turned Lucy into a powerful majicar and Marten into—

Keros still wasn’t sure what Marten was. A son of the sea god Bracken, perhaps. He could manipulate the waves and the storms, and every creature in the sea seemed to answer his call. He was also Lucy’s husband.

Keros smothered the hot spike of jealousy that stabbed through his chest. Lucy had never known how he’d felt about her, and she loved Marten deeply. If the truth was told, Keros was jealous of their bond as much as anything else. They were his best friends—his only friends, except for Margaret, but he rarely saw them or heard from them anymore.

At the mention of Marten’s name, Lucy’s mouth hardened. “He’s exploring the Kalpestrine, again.”

“Why?”

“Something’s wrong. Majick isn’t working the way it’s supposed to.”

He nodded. “I know.”

“No, you don’t. Keros. There’s less
sylveth
in the sea than there used to be. And”—her mouth pulled tight and her voice dropped—“the Pale could fail.”

He rocked back as if struck, his mouth falling open. “Fail?”

She nodded somberly. “I’ve done all I can to strengthen it, but I can’t find what’s draining it.” She shrugged. “I’m going back to the Bramble. Errol Cipher hid his library there and maybe I can find something in his books.”

Errol Cipher had been one of the founders of Crosspointe. He was the most powerful majicar in Crosspointe’s history. Lucy had discovered his library when she and Marten had been exiled on the Bramble. They were the only records he’d left behind. Majicars had been searching for them for years, hoping to discover the key to so many lost spells—like the one that created the Pale.

She drew a breath and blew it out sharply. “You need to warn my cousins that the Pale could fall. And that I will not answer their calls until I sort this thing out.”

Lucy was a Rampling—a member of the royal family. The cousins she was referring to were the princes Ryland and Vaughn and Princess Margaret. The other two, Prince Perry and Princess Ivy, were somewhere in Glacerie making a royal visit to shore up relations. Ryland, whom Keros had agreed to serve as a private majicar—was serving as prelate. He was, ostensibly, supposed to have equal power to the regent until a new king or queen could be elected from the ranks of the royal family. Vaughn, who had the support of the Merchants’ Commission and the Majicar Guild, was expected to win that election. But Regent Truehelm wasn’t willing to let go of his newfound power, and had been hunting down every Rampling and Rampling ally he could find and selling them into slavery.

Keros’s mouth twisted. Slavery enraged and disgusted him. Ryland tied his hands most of the time refusing to do much about it, or to let Keros do anything. Ryland provided safety for those who could find him, and at first there had been quite a few, but he wasn’t ready yet to free those bound in chains. It was too risky for the fledgling resistance. They needed time to build strength first. Keros understood the argument, but he burned in the caldron of his helplessness.

Part of the problem was that, for years, an angry sentiment had been growing against the Rampling family—fostered by a powerful coterie of merchants like the powerful Nicholas Weverton. Many people now believed that it was time to be done with royalty, and so chose to toss in their lot behind the regent. Keros shook his head. At least the Ramplings cared about what happened to Crosspointe and her people. Geoffrey Truehelm only cared about money and power. He had an unquenchable thirst for both—and as regent, he was in a position to get them.

“Vaughn has gone to Brampton, a village south of Wexstead along the coast. They have begun staging their army there. Ryland continues to try to stir up support against the regent among merchants and majicars, and Margaret—” He broke off with a shake of his head and wry smile. “Margaret does what she does.”

Lucy’s brows rose. “What is that?”

“Needles her brothers relentlessly, for one. She disagrees with much of what they do.”

“And they don’t listen to her.”

“No.”

“Is she right?”

“Probably.” He shrugged. “But neither prince listens. They don’t really understand what she is.”

“And you do?” Her head tilted and brows arched.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “She and I recognize each other. She’s no more the pampered princess than you are, despite the fact that she grew up in the castle. She’s a weapon and a spy, and she’s brilliant.”

Lucy looked surprised and Keros knew why. Margaret was a small, delicate thing. She looked fragile—the kind of woman you might keep locked away from the world for fear she’d break. But she had nerves of iron and a will of ice. She could fit in among both the worst criminals and most elite rulers. She was, in a word, dangerous. She also had a tongue like a razor, and Keros liked her very much.

“I always thought she was . . .” Lucy waved a hand. “Soft, maybe. Frail.”

“You were meant to, I think.”

She shook her head. “So much happened in the castle that I never began to understand. And with cousin William dead, I wonder how much has been lost that we desperately need to know? He played his cards so close to his chest. He had to, of course. What he was doing was too dangerous not to.”

Keros nodded. Like Lucy, he’d been appointed to the king’s Chosen Circle of advisors, much to his own chagrin. That meant he knew as much as anyone did about the king’s plots, and it wasn’t much. “Margaret is intent on discovering his secrets. She’s been sneaking about inside the castle, much to Ryland’s horror. He’s ordered her not to, but . . .”

Keros shrugged. Ordering Margaret was like ordering a cat. If she wanted to obey she would; if not, she would do as she pleased, and to the depths with the consequences.

“Tell her to be careful.”

“I will.”

Suddenly Lucy twisted and pushed out from their shelter. Keros followed hard on her heels. Rising out of the surf was a naked man. His skin was pale white, his long hair dark brown. Silver scales spangled his cheeks and trailed down his neck, chest, and thighs, finally condensing into a silver net around his feet. But more unsettling were his eyes. They were midnight black from corner to corner, making him look inhuman.
Spawn.
But then, all three of them were.

Marten paced up over the rocky shingle without a hint of embarrassment at his nudity, nor did he seem to feel the sharpness of the ground beneath his feet. He put an arm around Lucy as if he couldn’t resist touching her, and stretched out the other to Keros.

“It’s been too long, my friend,” he said.