Three days had passed since they’d brought the water mage to Drayton from Terraquist Main. The lad was barely a man, but had put up a quite a fight when Bracken had grabbed him from behind and slapped a meaty palm over his mouth. Charis had stunned him with a spell and they’d hied back to Drayton’s cave within a few hours of grabbing him from the market.
They’d left him with the old mage.
Charis and his lads had resumed their search for the powerful female elemental, but they hadn’t gone far from the old mage’s cave. This morning, they’d been magically summoned back.
Drayton had ordered him to dispose of a body.
What’d happened in that cave had obviously led to the water mage’s demise, but what exactly Drayton had done to the lad was the mystery. The body was a shriveled husk that weighed nothing when Charis had retrieved it.
He’d probed for magic as soon as he’d gotten the lad’s remains to the woods where Bracken and Nason awaited him.
And found nothing.
When they’d taken the lad from the market, his aura had burned brightly, blue in color—denoting his water magic—and surrounding his form so brightly Charis had had to avert his gaze until the mage had been unconscious on the back of Bracken’s horse.
Even in death, magic should’ve been there. A slight trail his own magic could’ve sensed.
What had Drayton done to the lad before he’d killed him?
Unease settled over Charis.
Bracken and Nason hadn’t much magic—just a weak ability or two—so they didn’t share his concerns. Probably couldn’t tell something was wrong with the body.
Charis had thought it was his imagination that Drayton had appear younger before his eyes when he’d bowed to the old elemental and then gathered the body up.
What if…
He swallowed and looked at the hole his companions had dug. Stories about old Aramourian blood magic stirred in the back of his head.
Dark things.
Evil things elfin parents warned their children against in the earliest stages of training. Stealing another’s magic, another’s life, did things to a mage he or she couldn’t come back from.
Rumors of that kind of thing had been around for centuries. Secret elfin sects that’d wreaked havoc on their own clans for turns. It’d gotten so bad at one point that all the clan chiefs had come together and appointed a council of their most powerful mages to hunt down the sects and destroy them.
They had…and discovered a natural element that sucked all magic away in the process. No one with powers could be around it, as the tale went. One particular sect had worshipped the rock like a deity, and had stolen numerous human children to sacrifice to it.
Now, hundreds of turns later, Dimithian was a myth in Aramour, and most humans in the Provinces had never heard of it—even humans with powers. The Elves of Aramour were different. They never forgot, so they could prevent the horrors from repeating.
Charis shuddered.
If the old codger had performed blood magic… No wonder Drayton’s aura had a black ring around it.
It wasn’t his power in and of itself, it was taint. Evidence of stolen magic. Magic that’d been melded with Drayton’s, but didn’t belong there.
“Why are you so quiet?” Bracken asked as he tossed the lad’s body in the hole like a sack of pebbles.
Nason started shoveling dirt on top without hesitation, or paying them any attention.
“I think I know why Drayton wants the lass.”
“Does it matter?”
Charis met the big man’s dark eyes. “It doesn’t.” Or, it shouldn’t. “We’ll find her, give her to him and collect our coin.”
“Like always,” Nason agreed, proving he was more observant than he looked.
“You look as if somethin’ is wrong.” Bracken studied him, and Charis wanted to shift in his boots.
He schooled his expression and squared his shoulders. “Nay. Just strategizing. I don’t think she’s in Terraquist at all.” He tucked a strand of long hair that’d worked its way lose from his tie behind a pointed ear. As always, he’d made sure his ears were bare for his audience with Drayton.
“I don’t disagree.” Bracken cocked his head to one side. The wind caught his short shaggy locks and tossed them as if he’d run his hand through. The brown mass was a mess on top of his hatless head.
“We need to go to Greenwald.”
“Greenwald?” Nason straightened, jabbing his shovel into the dirt and leaning on it. “Sense something?”
“My gut says that’s the right direction.”
Bracken narrowed his eyes. “We’ve been ta Greenwald.”
“Aye, but perhaps we should inspect the holding where this all started.”
“It was a lord’s holding. With a castle. It’ll be guarded. Perhaps occupied,” Bracken said.
“We’ll be careful.”
Bracken grunted.
Nason scanned the horizon. “’Twill be dark soon.”
“We can leave on the morn.” Something nudged his senses and Charis froze, his conversation with his lads falling away.
Bracken—always the keener of the two—shot him a sharp look. “What is it?”
Charis gestured for silence and turned away. He concentrated, sniffed the air, and closed his eyes, sending his magical senses out wide.
A marker he’d left had been tripped.
He’d left pockets of magic everywhere they’d been. The markers could be anything, a rock, a tree, and were undetectable to most mages. He’d left them tuned to elemental magic specifically. If any elemental powers were used within range, he’d sense it.
Like he had now.
Problem was, they were too far away from this particular marker for him to tap in to it. To see exactly what had caused the surge. Or know exactly when it’d been tripped. The magical signal could’ve taken a day or two to get to him from where they were in Terraquist, even though they weren’t far from the Greenwald border.
Simple concentration told him exactly where this marker was.
Greenwald.
Charis smiled and brandished a fist. “Elemental magic. One of my markers was tripped.”
“Where?” Bracken demanded.
“Greenwald.”
Nason whistled. “’Tis as if you have the gift of foresight.”
Charis laughed. “I wish, my friend. It’d make our task much easier. This was just my gut…and a little luck.”
Not hide, nor hair. Charis made a fist and cursed. Savagely.
Drayton was on his arse, too. He should’ve never told the old mage about the marker being tripped. Excitement had lit the old man’s usually cloudy eyes. Now, the magical check-ins were bordering on obsessive and Charis had nothing to share.
The damn ancient fool knew a spell that could show him where they were at all times. If there was a flat surface around, his face would appear, and they could see each other. Hear each other. Talk to each other.
Damn trick was as good as tracking magic, and Charis hated it. He didn’t need a supervisor.
He had bigger problems than his annoying employer.
His magic was failing him. For the first time in his life.
He was going to have to tell the old codger he had no idea where the elemental was. He’d not sensed her—if she was the cause of the magic—anywhere near where his marker had been set off.
Somehow, his leeriness of Drayton had increased tenfold since he’d seen the water mage’s brittle remains and suspected what the old mage had planned for the coveted elemental lass.
Charis was worried even more about being the bearer of bad news. The old man was powerful, and not to be trifled with. His wrath lay in wait, highlighted by Drayton’s black-ringed aura.
“Nothin’?” Bracken’s harsh face settled into even more terrifying lines at Charis’ headshake.
“Are we fooked?” Nason wanted to know. He sported soot on both cheeks from the fire he was minding.
Charis frowned. “Not if I can help it.”
“Aye, that’s worked well so far.” Bracken snorted.
He glared. If he wasn’t so desperate for a magical solution, he’d cross the distance between them and put his fist in the big man’s face. Maybe he could improve the bastard’s many-times-broken nose. They hadn’t had a good fight in months. It’d probably make them both feel better.
Charis and his lads had only been in Greenwald two nights, southeast of where they’d been on the border of Terraquist. He wasn’t looking forward to the trek back to Drayton’s cave if they decided to give up and report in. He wasn’t ready to call it quits just yet.
The marker had revealed the remnants of a magic-induced thunderstorm a few days ago at best guess—but when he’d tried to track it, he got a big fat nothing to latch on to—with tracking spells or good-old-fashioned mercenary skills.
There was nothing in the area he suspected the storm had been. The signal was concentrated in a wooded area right off the main road, as if it’d had no purpose. As if the mage had lost control.
The trace was slight too, with most of the power fading at the end of the short burst of magic—that told him it’d been a short-lived storm.
Charis’ marker had recorded a seriously powerful elemental. Since it was a thunderstorm, he could only assume he or she was a water mage, but the magic was much more powerful than the mage they’d brought Drayton from the Terraquist market. Thicker, inferring there might be more than just water magic there.
But was it Drayton’s mage?
If so, what the hell happened to her?
The magic had just poofed. There was no trail to follow.
That just didn’t happen to Charis. His tracking magic was the best. He was no egotist to ponder on his powers, either. All his elfin teachers had boasted on what he could do. Before he’d left Aramour for bigger and better things—more gold, of course—he’d been sought out by all the clans when a tracker was needed for a difficult task.
Like he’d told Drayton, if he couldn’t find her, she was dead.
Or…covered in more powerful magic than his own.
But there’s no such thing as undetectable protection magic, is there?
Magic wasn’t working, so they’d gone back to the holding of the first lass Drayton had charged them with checking for identity. The site had been stripped of magic and bodies, evidence.
Charis and his men had kept their distance because knights wearing Greenwald armor had been all over the place.
His ears made him memorable. There weren’t that many half-elves running around the Provinces, so it was imperative he hide his heritage as best he could. He’d stick out even more in a Province where the duke happened to be half-elfin like him, too.
They had to blend in. He and his lads were just three men traveling. They always had a cover story in case they were stopped. This time, they were on their way home to Aramour. All three of their far Northern accents were authentic. It was best to stick to simple truths and build on them.
“We need ta move on.” Bracken’s gravelly voice broke into his desperate musings.
“Nay.” He shook his head. Instinct warred with good sense. Or maybe it was denial that his magic was failing him. Either way, Charis always listened to his gut. “We need to stay here.”
“Why? We’ve got nothin’, according ta you.”
“I can’t explain it.” He stood to his full height and squared his shoulders. Maybe he’d get that fight after all, if the expression on the big man’s face was any indication.
“Try.” Bracken’s meaty hands were tight at his sides, as if he was restraining himself.
Charis narrowed his eyes. “Watch your tone.”
Since when does Bracken command me?
His companion was getting too big for his breeches.
Bracken strode forward, closing the distance between them. “I don’t have a problem wit’ your leadin’. I have a problem wit’ wastin’ time and coin. And that’s all we’re doin’.”
“Nay. We’re doing what needs to be done. Sorry you can’t understand the hows.”
Growling again, this time deeper in his throat, Bracken towered over Charis. “You should watch your tone wit’ me.”
Nason said nothing. Just watched them, pitched on the edge of his log seat, fists clenched in front of him. He’d abandoned his fire-tending. The embers crackled as if protesting. The little blond man was never one to step between them anyway. Charis and Bracken both outweighed and outmuscled him.
“My gut says we stay in Greenwald. So we stay.”
“Your gut or your magic?”
“Both.” Charis pushed the word out with more confidence than he felt. He straightened and sucked in a breath.
Bracken’s huge shoulders finally loosened, but his expression didn’t soften one iota. “Get tha shite worked out so we can find the lass.”
“I’m working on it. I don’t like to be thwarted any more than you. Something’s not right here. My magic doesn’t fail.” Both his lads knew that from their turns together.
That seemed to relax the oversized oaf even more. After a few paces back and forth of their campsite, Bracken grunted and sat on a wide log Nason had dragged over from the woods when they’d stopped for the night.
Charis released the air he’d trapped in his lungs as silently as possible. He hated the idea of weakness. Holding his breath to see what Bracken would do? Unheard of. He didn’t fear the big man.
Maybe his powers had abandoned him for being a coward. He fought a shudder and planted his arse on a log next to Nason.
“What’s next then?” Nason asked.
“Greenwald Main. First thing in the morning.”
Bracken arched a dark brow. “Why?”
“Something’s telling me we need to go to market.” Charis didn’t dare question the urge now.
“Another mage for Drayton?” Nason asked.
“The mage, I hope.”