Chapter One

You Still Carry This?

Part One

~*~

 

 

Early in the morning, Kazia sat at her bedroom window looking down into the bailey.

Eaphan's older brother, Duke Laryn Palanaida, had brought a formal funeral carriage to collect Eaphan's body.

Its wooden frame was carved all over in intricate designs, painted all in black, but its sides were made of glass. It was drawn by six enormous black horses with manes that reached almost to the ground.

The family's green and purple banners flew from the top of the carriage, and the horses were festooned in tack of the same colors.

A small crowd had gathered in the bailey to see Eaphan off, the Queen and her family at the forefront. Kazia recognized the Alchemists who had been in the carriage with her to the University.

She did not see Kelvaran among them, but she had been advised that Duke Laryn would not welcome the presence of any Valeskan.

When Eaphan was carried out by a cadre of footmen, his coffin draped in the Palanaida heraldry, and placed in the back of the hearse, Kazia leaned forward and rested her forehead on the glass of the window.

There she stayed as the carriage departed, until tears and her breath on the glass conspired to blur her view.

“Kazia?”

Amelys had entered silently and now came to stand behind her at the window, rubbing a palm in circles around Kazia's shoulders.

“Has Kelvaran gone?” Kazia asked.

“Just now,” Amelys answered.

Kazia rose and motioned toward the sitting room, then followed as Amelys led the way. Amelys took a chair and Kazia went to the stove and added water to the kettle.

“How about a brandy instead?” Amelys said.

“It's quite early-” Kazia said.

“Exceptions must be made,” Amelys answered.

Kazia retrieved the brandy from a cabinet and poured out two glasses. Amelys raised her glass toward Kazia.

“To Sir Eaphan Palanaida,” Amelys said. “Such a gentle soul.”

“He will be much missed,” Kazia said, and touched her glass to Amelys'.

“Kazia, I beg you not to let these events ruin you,” Amelys said as Kazia settled nearby. “I will not be here forever, and I don't want you to be lonely.”

“I won't be,” Kazia assured her. “I am fulfilled in my work, and I have Neiphi, and there may be other Apprentices in the future. You have done quite well for yourself on your own.”

“Not as well as you think, if I confess the truth,” Amelys said. “There was a man when I was young. He is how I ended up in Valesk. We studied Alchemy together in Loranar, and when he went to teach at the Academy in Valesk, I applied as well.”

Kazia raised her eyebrows, sipping at her brandy.

“Brandil Warris. He was lovely, and I thought I couldn't be without him, so I went.”

“What happened?” Kazia asked. “Was he a scoundrel?”

“Not at all. He was a very gentle soul, much like Eaphan,” Amelys answered. “But if you remember your history, that was a time of plague, and he did not survive it. He would have married me if he had.”

“Mistress! I never knew.”

“I was distraught, and decided that I would never love again,” Amelys said. “And here I am now. My life has been fulfilling, yes. I have loved my work, and my students, and you and Kel are my heart's joy. But to have a partner to walk through life with... I should have opened my heart to that again.

And, Kazia, you have a heart made for love. Take time to grieve, but don't take too long.”

“I wasn't in love with Eaphan,” Kazia said. “Perhaps I could have been, given time.”

“And if your heart were not already elsewhere.”

Amelys set her empty glass down on the side table.

Kazia rose, suddenly restless. She drained her glass and placed it next to Amelys'.

“Yes, and now that elsewhere has gone to get himself killed too.”

 

~~~*~~~

 

Kelvaran emerged from the portal he had cast into the bailey of Vaksim Castle, a small fort in the Vysdatha Principality of Valesk.

He was momentarily blinded by a gust of freezing wind blowing a cloud of snow into his face, but through this he heard the sound of soldiers rushing to surround him, and he put his hands up.

“I need to see Madame Vysda!” he shouted over their clamor. “Please, it is most important!”

Two men held Kelvaran's arms as a soldier turned out his pockets and found the watch there.

“Show her that,” Kelvaran said. “She'll know who I am.”

Another soldier nodded at the one who held the watch, and he ran to the keep.

Kelvaran remained still as they continued their search of him, confiscating the daggers within his coat and boots.

The other soldier reappeared in the keep doorway.

“Chain him below!” the man called. “He is an Alchemist. Take care!.”

“I come willingly,” Kelvaran said. “I won't try to escape.”

Holding his arms behind him, the soldiers led him into a side door in the keep, and down innumerable stairs to an underground dungeon with only one cell of iron bars.

Two men pushed him into the cell and against a wall, where they shackled his hands to an iron ring overhead, then took up guard positions outside the cell gate, while the others went back to their posts in the bailey.

Kelvaran took stock of his surroundings. The dungeon was not large, the cell occupying a full quarter of the room. There were no ethereal energy dampers on the cell. He could portal away at any time, but that would be contrary to his plan.

There were torture devices in the open spaces outside of the cell, used quite recently judging from the blood on them. Another door in the side wall presumably led into the keep.

That door opened now and a tall young woman appeared through it, her blonde hair loosely braided and allowed to flow over her shoulder to her waist, a bright contrast against her black gown.

She came around the corner of the cell and the soldiers bowed to her as one opened the gate. She waved them to the door and they left.

She stood in the gate, looking Kelvaran up and down with a hungry expression on her face.

She held up the watch.

“You still carry this?” she said.

“Of course,” he answered. “Of course I do.”

“I can't imagine why,” she said, coldly taunting.

“Yilina,” Kelvaran said.

She rushed at him, grasped his throat in one hand, and brought her face so close to his that her lips brushed his own when she spoke.

“You have no right to be familiar with me anymore,” she hissed. “You left me.”

“I was a fool,” he answered.

“You are still a fool, apparently. Why ever would you come here?”

“I have been distraught,” he said. “Yilina, I cannot be without you another day.”

She backed away and regarded him skeptically.

“You shouldn't have come,” she said. “Now I'll have to kill you.”

Kelvaran nodded.

“If that is your wish,” he said, hanging his head down, his hair falling in a curtain around his face. “My misery will end at least.”

Yilina approached again and grasped his hair, pulling his head back. She stared into his eyes.

“The things you said to me...”

“I was wrong,” he replied. “I was led astray. By Mistress Amelys. She took me from you. I should never have listened to her. Yilina, all I want now is you. I will pledge myself to Halany. Perhaps my fealty might bring others to his side as well. Just help me...

Help me come back to you.”

Yilina pressed herself close to Kelvaran and released his hair, allowing her hand to fall in a caress over his face and down his chest.

His breathing deepened.

“I am to be married,” she said dryly.

He drew in a sharp breath.

“I see,” he said. “I hadn't heard your engagement announced.”
Yilina looked askance.

“It will be... when the time is right. I will be the Princess Devratha.”

“Gorvan?” he said in disbelief.

“Ugh, of course not,” she answered. “He's ancient. I mean his son, Abrizhen.”

“That seems unlikely. You're an Alchemist, and only a distant cousin of Vysdatha Royal.”

“Are you trying to hurt me?”

Yilina allowed her hand to trail further down Kelvaran's body until she grasped the waistband of his trousers.

“Times are changing,” she said. “We are changing them.”

“I won't have it,” Kelvaran said roughly. “You are mine, Yilina, forever. Unchain me and let me remind you.”

She pushed herself away from him.

“Everyone always said that you had no sense of humor!” she laughed, as she walked out of the cell. “I'll think about it! You stay up there awhile and think about it too.”

 

~~~*~~~

Yilina