Chapter Sixteen

 

 

A letter arrived the next morning for Jer from the palace. Av accepted it and hesitated in handing it over to Jer. He snapped the letter from his brother before Av had the chance to do something stupid and brotherly. Retreating to the relatively quiet, though cold, porch, Jer sat on the stoop and opened the letter.

Not just a missive, a few words on the page, it was a full letter from Laeder. There were no niceties in the letter or social necessities, it launched right into a very strange tale. Having read the story, and read about what happened at the palace the night before, Jer sighed and stood.

Walking back into the house, he looked at Av. “Why don’t you head to the village today?”

With a cup of tea almost to his lips, Av stopped, eyes widening just slightly. “Who’s telling me to go?”

“I am,” Jer said. Not as steward, not as a fellow warrior, not even as his brother, Jer was saying it as every title he held. Hoping that Av would obey without challenge.

“Should I take the children?” Av asked, lowering the mug. “Father mentioned some sort of gathering, said he might take them, but figured we’d need two chaperones to watch them since there are two children.”

“Father stays here,” Jer said. “Take both children, though. I’ve some coin to spare. They can have one each to spend at the gathering.”

“He was going to maybe…” Av trailed off and met Jer’s eyes.

Ervam was going to speak with the healer about coming to visit Anue. Av did not want to have that conversation with a healer. At least not about a girl who was not his daughter.

“You’re going to have daughters by Aren, so get used to it,” Jer growled.

He marched into his bedroom and closed the door, letter still in his hands. There he remained until he heard the front door open and close. He stood and opened his bedroom door just as Ervam raised his hand to knock.

The two made eye contact and his father motioned with his head to the kitchen. They made their way to the dining table and took a seat before a cup of tea.

“This may require something stronger,” Jer said.

“It may, but if we partake in something stronger every time Aren’s actions create a reaction in the world, we will very swiftly be referred to as drunkards, and then how will anything ever get done?” Ervam asked, raising his tea pointedly.

Jer pushed the letter across the table to his father. Frowning, Ervam picked it up and read. His features darkened as the page turned. At the end, the letter was set down carefully and Ervam swallowed, giving his head a shake.

“No, we cannot give in to the urge to drink at every little bump,” Ervam growled.

“This is what you’re calling a little bump?” Jer asked. “The women almost killed the men. If one of us had been there, if there had been a rank left at the palace besides Telm and the healers, there would have been bloodshed yesterday.”

Ervam sighed. “Av showed no sign of irritability. Don’t you think that if this were what Laeder believes it to be, the throne would have told Av? Sent him in the right direction?”

“Then what do you think happened?” Jer asked.

“I think Aren’s fallen into whatever trap the throne sent her to fall into,” Ervam grumbled, turning to the last page of the letter. “Your man’s a smart one. The lights of the palace have dimmed this morning but only enough that one who needs such small details as the shape of letters would notice.”

“And?” Jer asked.

“And there is a village to the northwest that is cursed by a queen and is in possession of an old binding magic,” Ervam said quietly. “The throne was created over hundreds, if not thousands, of generations. What it started as and what it has become are two entirely different creatures.”

“Landscape magic?” Jer asked.

“One lifetime of magic does little to one’s surroundings unless one is a queen, and even that is very little,” Ervam said. “Over generations excess magic alters the land. It changed the palace from a liveable place to one where the darkest and maddest spirits gathered, so we are told. The throne began as a throne, a fancy seat and nothing more.”

“Yes, but this happened maybe three generations ago,” Jer said.

“True, three generations is not long enough to create the type of link that the throne has between the world and a queen.” Ervam hesitated to sip his tea. “Doesn’t have the same bite. Wonder if there’s a drink we can find that at least bites the same, without the inebriation.”

“What was your point?” Jer asked.

“My point?”

Jer sighed. “You said three generations wouldn’t be enough. Your tone implied there was a ‘but’ in there.”

“Oh, yes, we live in the era of short-lived queens. In the time of their existence the palace went from light and marvellous to dark once more. Sickness and madness all but lives in the walls.”

“Could be the plaster,” Jer growled. “Plaster was not made to last that long. The only reason the palace is still standing is because the magic of the queens has a sort of healing quality to all around them. That and the long-standing contract we have with builders who come in and clean up the messes made within a day.”

“True. I wonder if Aren could be swayed to commission it being rebuilt,” Ervam muttered.

“Back to the trouble at hand,” Jer said sternly.

“With a proper connection, a thinking landmark magic, as you called it, the throne has burned through a queen every few years, on average, for the past however many centuries,” Ervam said. “Your mother seemed to imply that the throne would withhold from the queens. Rather than plunge into a dark time, it would keep itself starved in order to keep peace long enough to create more queens.”

Jer nodded slowly. “All right, I can understand that, I think.”

“Think of Em, for example,” his father murmured. “A few of us lived in misery in order to give one queen enough time to mature.”

“If she had been on the throne from mother…” Jer started.

“She would be Anue,” Ervam snarled, causing Jer to jerk his hands away from the table. “If the throne wanted Anue, Anue is right there and stronger than Aren. It doesn’t want Anue, it wants Aren. In all her instability, her magic, her moods, her past, it wants Aren.”

“To send her off immediately,” Jer said.

“To send Aren off to the northwest where a village that has an old binding magic and was cursed by a queen,” Ervam said to Jer. “By a queen who, according to an elderly lord is the only queen to have said no to the throne in documented history.”

“Without hearing from Olea…” Jer started, trailing off when he saw the look his father gave him. “Did you actually meet Olea?”

“She shares the bloodlines that the daughter in the story is said to share,” Ervam said. “She is a gorgeous woman, and her daughters inherited that beauty. She often said that her mother was a beauty, but likes to keep her history hidden.”

“Telm’s never had a child,” Jer said.

“According to Telm, she has no blood either,” Ervam countered. “Obviously that’s not possible.”

The two sat in silence for an extended period of time. Jer watched the table before him as he sorted through all the information he could recall.

“Let’s stop beating around the bush and just say it,” Jer said finally.

“Telm cursed a village that somehow created a link to the world like the throne did,” Ervam said. “This village now has Aren and has linked her to it. We don’t know where the village is, or what sort of danger we might face if we headed that way.”

“Not that we can before spring, anyway,” Jer said. “The village is on that finger of land between the northern wastes and the western marshes. That’s the only place it could be. The ice and snow is going to be too deep for us to forge through, let alone lead an attack.”

“The question, then, is: what do we do?” Ervam asked.

“About Telm?” Jer asked.

“Telm, we leave her alone. If we need to bring her in to ask her what’s going on, we will. I’d rather not try a woman who could do that when her magic is as limited as it is. Unless it has something to do with the amulet, in which case I’m even more afraid. What if she dies and gifts the amulet to a queen of actual magic?”

“True. Shelve Telm,” Jer said, making a motion as if he were sliding a book onto a shelf. “What about the village?”

“Obviously in the spring we go in and clear this whole mess up,” Ervam said.

“Burn it to the ground?” Jer asked.

“By now those involved are very old or dead, and their children have inherited the curse. We need to do a survey, see what’s gone on and make a decision from there depending on what has now happened.”

“Aren’s linked to the throne and a male has done something that upset her, obviously,” Jer responded. “Which means obviously there is something going on in the village that needs to be stopped.”

“The thought I have is that they’ve created a secondary throne.” Ervam stopped to consider his words. “Basically, this throne they’ve been linking short-lived queens to for the past three generations, likely dying just the same as the one who sits the throne dies. Going through who knows how many queens.”

“Creating a generational magic within only a few generations?” Jer asked. “That’s ridiculous!”

Ervam sighed. “No, it’s not. The moment of death is what did in the palace. Sixteen deaths are like sixteen generations.”

Jer uttered a curse. “Can we stop it? Destroy it?”

“The only person with access to the information on how to destroy the throne is currently in that village,” Ervam said.

“And now linked to the magic.”

Ervam nodded. “And now linked to the magic. It’s possible the throne knows what it’s doing. It is older than all of us and is showing a remarkable intelligence for magic. I just wish we had someone who could talk to the throne and tell us what was going on.”

“We do, he just doesn’t know the throne talks to him,” Jer said, motioning with his head towards the front door.

Both looked to the door, then back to one another. Ervam considered his tea for a long moment, then looked up at Jer.

“Which brings us to the real question,” Ervam said.

“What do we do with Av?”