Shadow’s Eyes,a Fey poem
Celieria ~ Celieria City
29thday of Verados
Hooves thundered down the North Road as a royal courier—the last in a network of couriers posted every ten miles from Celieria City to Kreppes—galloped towards the city gates. As one of the four riders assigned to run the ten miles stretching between the royal palace and the first posting exchange on the North Road, his face was well-known to every guard who worked the gate, but he still flashed his courier’s flag as he approached—a bright red square of fabric to indicate that he carried dispatches from the king. The guards hoisted a larger version of the same flag over the gatehouse and raised the gate so he could ride through without stopping.
“Make way!” the city guards cried. “Make way!” They rushed to clear the crowded city street as the courier galloped past.
Five chimes later, his horse lathered and panting, the courier arrived in the small, private courtyard of the king’s dispatch office. Alerted by the signal flags raised at the north gate, Lord Renald, the king’s minister of communications, was there to greet him and to take the pouch bearing the king’s dispatches. Lord Renald had never trusted vital communications to any servant or underling.
“Thank you, son,” Lord Renald said, when the courier handed over his leather satchel. “I will have a return pouch ready to go before twelve bells. Take your rest until then. I understand there are fresh burberry buns and clotted cream in the courier’s hall.”
“Thank you, my lord.” The courier tugged the brim of his hat and grinned. Lord Renald was a favorite among the palace servants. He never spoke a harsh word, and always ensured the comfort of those who served him.
Lord Renald carried the precious mail pouch into his office, closed the door, and sat down to personally sort and log its contents. A bell later, he emerged from his office to deliver the post.
A young serving maid entered the now-empty room to collect the tea tray she’d brought to him earlier. Three letters lay under the linen tea cloth—one written in Lord Renald’s hand, the other two sealed and marked with the king’s personal signet. She dropped the letters in her apron pocket, picked up the tray, and headed for the kitchens.
Lord Renald was indeed a man of impeccable character and incorruptible loyalty to the crown, but he was also a devoted husband and the adoring father of three young children. And that was the leverage the Mages had used to claim him.
A knock rapped on the door of an apartment in the courtiers’ wing. “Morningkeflee,Ser,” the maid called through the door.
A moment later, the door opened to reveal Ser Vale, Queen Annoura’s most favored of her Favorites. “Thank you, my dear.” He stepped aside to let the servant deliver the tray and flashed his famous, dazzling smile at one of Annoura’s other young Dazzles, who was eyeing thekefleeenviously as he walked by. One of the perks of being a Queen’s Favorite—besides the luxury of claiming a slightly larger room in the palace—was the option of having the palace staff deliver meals to one’s room rather than being required to eat with the other Dazzles in the queen’s breakfast room.
Once the maid had departed and the door to his room was firmly closed behind him, Vale’s smile winked out. The charming, sensual, seductive face of Annoura’s Favorite disappeared. A different man, much colder, much harder, and infinitely more dangerous, emerged in his stead.
Sulimage Kolis Manza, apprentice to the great Vadim Maur, High Mage of Eld, lifted the linen cloth beneath the plate of burberry buns and examined the three letters. The note from Renald was a brief summary of the correspondence from the king to his ministers and from the generals to their staffs. Kolis opened the sheet, scanned its contents quickly, and set it aside.
He poured a cup ofkefleeand held the sealed letter addressed to Queen Annoura over the steam until the wax seal loosened. An adept slice with a letter opener popped it free, then he unfolded the vellum and read the words Dorian X had written to his queen.
The letter contained no Writs of Authority, nothing that needed to be passed on, just a maudlin outpouring that made Kolis’s lip curl. In Eld, the Mages had long ago learned the uses and the limitations of women. They were kept to their place. Baubles to be enjoyed. Tools to be used. Nothing more. For a while, with Jiarine, Kolis had become too attached—and look where that had gotten him. Weeks of torture, terrors that still woke him, gasping and drenched in cold sweat—the punishment he’d earned for failing his master.
He would never fail again.
He tossed Dorian’s note to Annoura into the fire that warmed his spacious apartment. He’d worked too hard to destroy the royal couple’s marriage to risk reconciliation now. The break between Celieria’s royals had been severe, and Kolis meant it to be final.
As Dorian’s romantic outpouring to Annoura burned, Kolis picked up the last letter. He frowned at the name written on the outside of the folded vellum. What on earth could the king have to say to the Queen’s Master of Graces? Kolis loosened and popped the seal and read the contents.
Halfway through, his hand began to shake.
Gaspare Fellows and his pesky little magic-sniffing cat had brought about the demise of Lord Bolor—the man Kolis knew as Primage Gethen Nour. Now Dorian wanted Fellows to spy on the rest of the court to sniff out other agents of Eld and turn them over to the Fey and the King’s justice.
And the first two people the king wanted Fellows to investigate were Jiarine Montevero and the Queen’s Favorite, Ser Vale.
Twenty chimes later, garbed in resplendent, fur-trimmed wool and rich brocades, Ser Vale entered Her Majesty’s apartments and executed a full, flourishing court bow before her.
“Your Majesty. As always, I am dazzled by your radiance.” From another mouth, the outrageous compliment might have sounded laughable and insincere, but Kolis harbored genuine appreciation for the queen’s considerable beauty. What might have seemed insincere from another tongue flowed like a bewitching spell from his.
The queen’s Ladies-in-Waiting sighed. They all liked Ser Vale, lusted for him in fact. But he had always been careful to keep his dalliances to a minimum. It was much easier to keep the queen’s interest if she thought he pined for her in every way.
Of course, it helped that the queen was a celebrated Brilliant in her own right. And today, garbed in shimmering aquamarine, she was the epitome of regal feminine perfection. Her silvery blond hair was piled high atop her head, dusted with iridescent powder, and set with countless pear-shaped diamonds that caught the light and cast dancing rainbows upon the wall with her every move. An enormous diamond pendant hung from a chain of aquamarine-and-diamond flowers encircling her neck.
“I saw the flags go up on the gate announcing word from the king,” Vale said. “I hope, Your Majesty, that he only sent you the best of news.”
He hid a smile as Annoura’s hands tightened into fists in her lap.
A movement at the corner of his eye caught Kolis’s attention. He looked up to see the small, elegant figure of Master Fellows entering the queen’s chamber, the white kitten called Love perched on his shoulder like a sea captain’s bird.
