“Please do,” Jadren invited silkily.“They should know I exist by now.”Establishing his citizenship with the Convocation—given that his mother had concealed Jadren’s existence for most of his life, all the better to exploit him—had taken an annoying amount of paperwork and bureaucratic wrangling, but they’d finally, finally agreed that Jadren not only existed, but was a legitimate wizard, if not human being, and legally confirmed him as Lord of House El-Adrel.He’d gotten the official certification and seal that morning via Ratsiel courier.Thus today’s little play.
“This is a travesty,” Anita informed him.“I’ve lived in House El-Adrel my entire life.Longer than you’ve been alive.I was born here and I belong here.Far more than you do, boy.Katica must be rolling in her crypt to see what you’ve done with her legacy.”
Jadren leaned his chin on his fist, making his amusement clear.“Do you think she is?”he asked with a grin.“Golly, I do hope so.I should have installed a window in her mausoleum so we could watch.”Beside him, Seliah snorted softly.Anita looked appalled, but kept her counsel, wiser than Bogdan had been.
“I’ll go,” Anita said.“Send your escort to me in two hours.”
“I can do better than that,” Jadren replied.“They’ll go with you now.Just so you’re not tempted to take anything that doesn’t belong to you.”At his nod, her guards led Anita away.
Reluctantly, he signaled for Bogdan to be allowed to speak again.
“You’ll rue this day,” Bogdan burst out, fighting the magical bonds that still prevented him from using his magic.“I’ll destroy you for this!”
“Oopsie.”Jadren tsked, glancing at Seliah and taking her hand.Among wizards, the gesture was tantamount to drawing a blade.Being in physical contact with his familiar allowed him to draw on Seliah’s inherent magic and use it to amplify his own.“Did that sound like a threat to you, my sweet?”
Seliah gave him a resigned look.You’d think someone so catlike in nature—and with a marsh wildcat alternate form—would enjoy toying with her prey more.But he loved Seliah’s tender heart.Dark arts knew, she wouldn’t toleratehimif she didn’t possess compassion and infinite patience.
“Fine, fine,” he said on a sigh, lifting her hand to kiss it.“I won’t be unmaking any wizards today, though I suspect at leastsomeof you could do with a demonstration.”But he watched the assembly as he said it and, oh yes, that put the fear of the dark arts in them.Ironic since he didn’t actually know any of the dark arts, though he’d heard Alise had been studying them and he was fascinated to know more.
But the unmaking was no idle threat and everyone knew it.Turned out his gift to heal himself of anything short of incineration—and even that might be possible—wasn’t a healing magic at all but El-Adrel ability taken to an extreme degree.He could remake himself, and he couldunmake any living thing.He didn’t much care to rule via power, but he also wouldn’t have any enemies like awful Bogdan thinking Jadren weak enough to let a threat go by.Convocation law allowed him to deal with his own minions as he saw fit, but it also wasn’t a lie that the contracts had died with his mother.
Frankly, he’d rather they all just went away.
“Let’s do this,” he said in a mild voice.“Bogdan, since I can’t trust you to toddle off into the sunset like Wizard Anita here, and since you don’t believe the house is sentient and makes her own choices, here is my sentence.You will be placed in an empty room.The house will decide what to do with you.”
“That’s it?”Bogdan threw back his head as far as he was able, laughing in disbelief.“Oh, no, I’m going to be locked in my room like a naughty boy.Mamanisspinning like a top!It’s a good thing she’s dead because she’d be mortally embarrassed by the puling weakling nothing befouling her place.”
Jadren felt the house’s intent before the floor began to shift and signaled the guards to draw back.They did so with alacrity, feeling the movement beneath their feet.In fact, everyone not currently engaged in a manic rant—which was everybody except Bogdan—felt the incipient quake and drew back, widening the circle around the bound wizard frothing at the mouth.
A circle formed in the marble floor, like an underwater creature pressing against the surface of water, bending, distorting, and finally breaking through, like a brass shark fin.Seliah gasped and he squeezed her hand.Fyrdo looked away.Guess they didn’t need to even lock the asshole in a room.The fin grew—and turned out to be a long, pointed fingernail.It tipped a hand made of the same marble as the floor, other fingers and a thumb rising up in a cage around the wizard who’d finally acquired the sense to be afraid and had fallen silent.
The hand rose, cupping Bogdan in its palm, those marble fingers and brass nails enfolding him almost gently.Then, as silently as it had arisen, the hand sank again into the floor, carrying the wizard with it, the marble sealing itself immaculately smooth again, as if nothing had happened.Almost.
After Jadren dismissed everyone—the entire assembly more than willing to flee and save their petitions for another day—and he stepped down from the ass-numbing throne, he noticed a circle in the marble.A thin brass line delineated a perfect circle around where Bogdan had stood, a subtle warning, directly before the chair of doom.Which was apparently still going nowhere.
Oh well, Jadren had never kidded himself that he was in charge of the house anyway.He turned to Seliah.“Now about those panties…”
~5~
Nic had wantedto fly to House Harahel, but Gabriel had put his foot down.Well, that is, he’d attempted to put his foot down, met with Nic’s determined obstinacy, then endured a long conversation about her role as a familiar and whether her ability to take the alternate form of a giant silver phoenix counted as a service she owed him as her wizard or not.He didn’t much like pulling his ultimate card in this disagreement—that she couldn’t change without his wizardry—but he worried about her health more than he disliked exercising that level of control.Taking alternate form wore Nic out, plain and simple, and she was already tired from childbirth and breastfeeding.
Fortunately, Nic also took a certain pleasure in him taking control and telling her what to do, which he’d belatedly come to appreciate.She claimed she only liked it during sex, but he’d discovered ways to give his decisions erotic context.In the end, she knew he did it out of love and wanting to take care of her, so that made both of them happy.
Also, he seduced her with the promise of several cozy inns along the way to enjoy their time together.He knew his wife well by this point and she loved a nice inn, and food delivered to her in a cozy room.Though she could be pampered at House Phel, she resisted employing their many staff to cater to her.She had no problem having inn employees do so, commenting that it was their job and they were well-paid to do it, not to mention that she tipped generously.When he pointed out that they paid their own staff well, she launched into a complex discussion of House Phel finances and the necessary tiering of compensation for various kinds of jobs to reflect the difficulty of the tasks they’re responsible for and to allow for aspirational levels of employment without generating jealousy and conflict, making his head hurt until he threw up his hands and offered her a glass of wine.
Without little Bria to nurse, Nic eagerly indulged in the Elal summer red he’d arranged for her to have and she barely commented on the extravagance, which said something right there.They weren’t far out of Meresin at that point and the innkeeper was more than delighted to indulge her “royal guests,” as she called them.It was a testimony to how much Nic had done to exert House Phel’s influence over the surrounding lands, bringing order and support where things had fallen into self-reliant chaos, along with offering opportunities for increased commerce, allowing everyone to share in the growing prosperity of the newly restored high house.
“I’m the last person to act like House Elal is without fault,” she remarked with a grimace that smoothed with her first sip of wine, “but I can say the house of my birth does two things right: the house sharing prosperity with the people is a good business model and they make cursed excellent wines.”
She’d brought at least one of those gifts to Meresin, and the people they encountered eagerly demonstrated their gratitude, an unexpected bonus of their journey.The weather and their reception chilled as they moved north, with many people still unfamiliar with the House Phel crest, which had been retired generations before and was still not pervasive outside of certain circles.Nic muttered and made notes about changing that, and Gabriel enjoyed seeing some of her fire and determination return.She was an excellent mother, but Nic had trained most of her life to head a high house and thinking business was truly her element.
They arrived at House Harahel to not only an utter lack of fanfare, but apparently to no one’s notice at all.Gabriel wasn’t much surprised.Alise had told them the story of taking Cillian to Harahel and her strange reception there.She and Cillian had arrived unexpectedly, during the pre-dawn hours, so that had undoubtedly been a factor.Nic and Gabriel had, however, sent an actual human courier ahead to carry a note to Órlaith Harahel declaring their intention to pay a visit, couched in all the elegant and exquisitely polite social phrasing Nic could muster.
They hadn’t expected a reply or an effusive greeting, but they’d expected the house to be at least aware of their arrival.Gabriel noted Nic’s narrowed gaze as she took in the closed doors and abandoned appearance, the place looking as if no one had occupied the manse in ages.Almost ostentatiously Gothic in style, House Harahel looked how he’d imagined haunted mansions might look in the scary books he’d read as a kid.Weathered, with gingerbreaded eaves and conical turrets on the many towers, the manse perched on a rise overlooking thawing moors.Though the wind wasn’t blowing hard, he felt as if it should be.Wispy clouds scudded over a sky so pale it looked almost white.Though hardly pleasant weather, it seemed people should be out and about.Instead the place looked shuttered.
“Playing games with me, Órlaith?”Nic murmured.“We’ll see about that.”
“How do you want to play this?”Gabriel asked, entertained by the strategy clicking like El-Adrel clockwork behind her high brow.He left all things Convocation etiquette to her.Arguably, that was a major reason he’d picked her out to be his familiar.Besides that he’d impetuously fallen in love with her painted portrait, that was.
