Chapter One

She's Here

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Abrizhen had just finalized the sale of a half-dozen horses when Avetya appeared in the stables, red-faced and straining for breath after running across the grounds.

“She's here...” Avetya gasped, warily eyeing the customer, an agent of some aristocratic family.

“She?” Abrizhen queried.

Avetya fixed him with a meaningful glare.

“Great Hall...” she said through labored breaths. “Hurry!”

“Fuck!” Abrizhen spat, momentarily forgetting his client. “Sorry... if you'll excuse me...”

Handing the client off to his stable manager, he shed the apron he wore and dashed out of the stables back to the manor, Avetya hot on his heels.

Upon reaching the Hall, he found his entry blocked by all of the courtiers filing out of the main doors at once, guards barking at them to move. He shouldered his way against the flow of the crowd, pushing at people even as they tried to skitter out of his way.

Upon gaining entry to the room, he found the central floor occupied by a circle of Gorvan's Alchemists surrounding...

Well, it was Kazia... but there seemed to be something very off about her.

“Lord Devratha, so good of you to join us,” Gorvan said derisively, his authoritative voice carrying across the Hall from his high seat. “You missed Court.”

“I... had business...” Abrizhen answered hesitantly, struggling to quell the terror chilling his core. “What is happ-”

“Abrizhen, come here!” Yilina snapped.

He glanced at her, then at his father, who nodded for him to obey her. He stomped around the circle of Alchemists to where she stood with Kelvaran and Sir Goska, his riding boots leaving trails of mud and probably horse dung across the elegantly tiled floor.

“How did this happen?” he whispered to her.

“Shh!” she said, peering around through the Alchemists around Kazia. “Why aren't they affecting her? Last time she went down like a bitch.”

Abrizhen glared at her, and for a very brief moment he saw Kelvaran do the same. As he turned away, the corner of his eye caught Kelvaran slipping some sort of vial from his pocket and surreptitiously swallowing its contents behind Yilina's head. He knew of Kelvaran's 'medicating for anxiety', but couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for him just now, not with Kazia inexplicably standing here in the Great Hall, probably due to the efforts of one Lord Meratha.

As the doors closed behind the last of the departing courtiers, Gorvan turned his attention away from Abrizhen and back to Kazia.

“Our last petitioner for Court today, I suppose,” he said, his voice tinged with cruel amusement.

“I hear tell that you require my assistance with an Artifact,” Kazia proclaimed. “Give him to me and I am at your disposal.”

“What!?” Kelvaran hissed.

“Don't worry, Kel,” Yilina murmured. “That will never happen.”

Abrizhen glanced at Yilina's clenched fists and Kelvaran's baffled expression.

This is about him? But I warned her, he thought. Just what the fuck is she doing?

“It appears to me that you are at my disposal regardless,” Gorvan noted. “You will be housed in the dungeons and you will do as you're told.”

“Did you rear me to be so meek, Father?” she countered. “My willing participation will be far more expedient. I have not only come to aid your project, Father, but to take my place as Lady Devratha. As a token of my sincerity...”

From within her fur cape, she produced a packet wrapped in brown paper and held it aloft.

“Plans for the first ever working mechanical portal. This is how I've arrived here today.”

A murmur went through the Alchemists as Kazia approached them and shoved the packet into a woman's arms.

Kelvaran sucked in an audible breath.

“Kel... is that real?” Yilina whispered.

“Yes,” he said grimly. “Why would she...?”

The Alchemist opened the packet and leafed through the pages inside while others came close and tried to peer over her shoulder. Sir Goska rushed across the room to look as well. Shocked exclamations came from them all as Sir Goska lifted his wide eyes to Gorvan with a nod of confirmation.

Kazia's gaze roamed to an Alchemist standing next to the woman.

“You,” she said coldly. “I remember you. The last time we met, you kicked me.”

She suddenly grabbed the front of his coat and pulled him close to her as she plucked something from her hair, sending her hat tumbling to the floor, its black veil fluttering as it fell. Before anyone could react, she embedded the small throwing dagger into his shoulder.

The man screamed out, and the huddled Alchemists scattered, ethereal energy appearing in their hands.

With a deft kick, Kazia swept the man's feet out from under him, sending him to the floor, then stood on his knee until it cracked.

Yilina ran forward.

“You little bitch!” she shrieked. “Just who do you think you are?”

Kazia raised a hand. Her fingers lit up with crackling ethereal energy as she brought her palm down across Yilina's face, sending her into a sprawling slide across the marble tile.

“Ka... Lady Devratha!” Kelvaran called out harshly.

“I am the ranking Lady of this House,” Kazia said indifferently. “Who do you think you are?”

Yilina scrambled up onto her knees, a sizable orb appearing in her hand, but before she could throw it, Gorvan's voice boomed throughout the Hall.

“Yilina! Halt!”

Yilina looked back at him, her expression utterly confounded.

He was actually smiling.

It sent shivers down Abrizhen's spine.

“Did he kick her?” Gorvan asked.

Yilina simpered, hemming her answer.

“We were capturing her,” she explained. “These things happen...”

“Then I fail to see the problem,” he replied curtly.

Yilina's mouth fell open. Her swelling lower lip sent a rivulet of blood trickling down her chin. Kelvaran came forward.

“If I may, Your Highness,” he said deferentially. He helped Yilina up from the floor and pulled her aside again.

“Your request may prove difficult,” Gorvan remarked. “I don't believe that Lord Meratha considers himself to be your property.”

Kazia shrugged indifferently.

“'There is nothing desired by Devratha that will not be obtained,'” she said pompously. “He is your man now, is he not? Order him.”

“You use my own words to argue with me?” Gorvan chuckled.

“They are our family lessons,” Kazia retorted. “I learned them well from you, Father.”

Gorvan laughed darkly.

“We'll see about that.”

 

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