It removed most of the inconvenience of her long hair. She had to make a few idle promises and comments to women around her about meeting sometime to teach them. Promises she had no intention to keep, but she doubted they expected her to. In truth, she barely heard them as she began to get dressed. A woman with auburn hair complimented her on her looks as she picked up her satchel. She’d be giddy from this bath for a week. Syline rarely liked being the centre of attention, but all the positive reinforcement she’d gotten from the women there, all complimenting her hair, magic or looks, left Syline feeling all fuzzy and warm. Opening the parcel, she found inside a white dress with long sleeves and ruffled hems. At the skirts it faded from white to yellow, then to orange and finally to pink. It was really quite beautiful and Syline had to admit, she was quite impressed with Thelonious’ taste.
She met Thelonious in the bar. His hair was freshly styled back and much, if not all of the grime and dirt caked into his hands, had been cleaned off. He had bought a white dress shirt and red waistcoat matching his ruddy-red skin. With his frame, they made him look all the more masculine, especially with the sleeves rolled to his biceps.
‘My, my, don’t you look handsome,’ Syline said to him with a smile. He bashfully grinned and rubbed the back of his head. His dopey, farm boy looks made him seem a mite out of place in the outfit.
‘I think I cleaned up alright. You’re not bad, yourself,’ he said, giving her a grin. ‘That dress really suits you, Syline.’
‘Thank you! Gods, that bath was just what I needed. Are you ready to head for the clergy?’
He stood up, putting on his sword harness over his outfit. He wasn’t about to go out without it. ‘That I am. Little nervous. Me and knee scuffers never really got along.’
‘Oh, it’ll be fine. Once I tell them who I am and what’s going on, we can get all of this sorted and you’ll get a hefty bonus for escorting me back to Russenholde.’
He grinned, following her out the door.
Chapter 10
Jane was sat down for dinner with her husband, listening to talk of the day-to-day minutiae of running his merchant empire. Their dining hall was magnificent, far bigger than was needed for only the pair of them, but she had declined guests. The tedium of the conversation was truly beginning to grate on her. Who cared about grain shipments, or the coming winter, or which transport group was running behind. Gods, she had chosen this man specifically for his mercantile holdings. She remembered a time when controlling a man like that, a business empire like that, were as far as her ambitions went. It still was for so many of her sisters.
They still didn’t see the value in what she was doing, the power she was claiming. Not that they knew the whole of it. Only Lauralee did and she wouldn’t be going anywhere until it was too late for any of them to stop her. Gods, the steak tasted like ash in her mouth. Her craving for a taste of the goddess was getting worse, but how could anything compare to something that glorious? She had to get back to the laboratory. She’d nearly mastered control of the creatures the scholar had gifted her as well. With just a few more tastes, she’d have the power for it to become second nature. Gods, she wanted another taste.
What was he talking about now? Oh.
‘Have you heard, dear? Apparently, some kind of illness is going through the maids. Many of them are so pale and weak they barely have the strength to get out of bed.’
That was her fault. She couldn’t risk overfeeding on the goddess, lest her prize pass away, but she’d been hungrier than ever lately. Having another mouth to feed in Lauralee certainly didn’t help. Her nails scraped along the grooves of the wood, a soft grinding noise.
‘Well, I for one think it’s this weather. It’s no good for young girls. They need sunshine,’ he continued.
She almost laughed. Sunshine. Her fingers continued working into the rut of the wood. That was one good thing about this fool of a husband; he could have the discourse of an entire debate hall with himself.
She wondered how the adventurers were getting on. With an exiled court mage among them, surely they’d have no trouble dealing with a child, even if she had some promise as a mage herself. Perhaps she should fast-track the mercenaries. They were a vicious bunch, to be sure, and in numbers there was no chance of her escaping. Finding them somewhere to lodge with the border guard in town had been a trial in itself. The hunting hound would make sure they had no trouble finding her, at least. Gods, but the thing was vicious.
‘Dear, you’re going to go through the lacquer like that. You’ve barely touched your steak either.’
She felt a slip of wood splinter beneath her fingers; she toyed with it, turning it this way and that.
‘Dear.’
‘What?’
‘I said you’re going to… Oh, it seems you did. Are you feeling well, my love? You seem–’
The door opened. Lauralee stood waiting. Her husband understood the girl to be a distant niece who had come to study under them both in the ways of magic and business. Not too far from the truth, and with him so deep in her sway, it really didn’t matter what he believed. She was glad to see her. She needed an excuse to leave this feast of ashes.
‘My lord, my lady,’ Lauralee said, giving a slight bow. She was a good girl. Obedient. As boring as her mother, though.
‘There’s…’ – Lauralee trailed off – ‘a matter you need to attend to, my lady.’
A wordsmith, she was not, though. It was amazing her mother gave her to her, and not Mary. She was the one to train a daughter into someone who could command a room. Right now, Lauralee stopped being commanding the moment she started talking. At least she was rather striking to look at. White hair with those young features was certainly a look. Jane stood, placing her napkin over her uneaten meal.
‘I’m sorry, dear, but duty calls,’ Jane bemoaned musically, pausing in her wake to plant a kiss on his cheek as she went, using the proximity to twist his strings and ensure he asked no further questions.
‘Of’ – he hesitated, confused – ‘of course, dear. See you tonight.’
She left him there in the dining hall, and stepped out after Lauralee, the girl leading her unsurprisingly, to the cellars.
‘So, what was so important?’ Jane demanded as they walked. Not that she particularly begrudged the girl for interrupting, but it didn’t pay to let them know that.
‘The, ah, adventurers have returned, some of them at least.’
Lauralee’s shoulders were hunched, as if she anticipated being struck. That did not bode well. Jane’s pace increased and she hurried on past the girl down the steps, through to the servants’ entrance she had commanded the adventurers to take upon their return, which led into a rarely trod part of her wine cellar. Even if she had control of everyone in this manor, she knew well that an experienced mage could still coax answers from them, so it was prudent to ensure they knew nothing in the first place.
The adventurers were a ruined pair. Only two of them had returned. The exiled mage, the lower half of her face swaddled in bandages, covering everything below the nose. She was missing that fine staff she’d had when Jane met her. Her companion looked little better, his face livid with bruises and one eye covered by more bandages still. She could tell by the depression beneath the bandages, there was no eye beneath it. He held one arm close to his body, like one would when someone was broken, but she couldn’t be sure. They stared at her for long moments as she flounced into the room, coming to rest to stare from one to the other.
‘Well? Is she dead? Where’s my book?’ she demanded, sick of the silence.
‘She,’ the mage began. Her voice was muffled; it sounded like it hurt to speak. ‘Had help, a giant of a hellblooded, true monster of a warrior. Killed one of us before the battle even began.’
‘And she was smarter than you let on. Used her magic well. If we’d caught her by surprise, we’d have had her, but that hellblooded heard us coming.’
Excuses. Syline was still alive. She still had her book. She’d dealt with an entire adventuring party. She’d gathered the aid of some freak warrior from the hells. This was well beyond a nuisance. The adventurers took a step back.
‘My lady, you’re…’ Lauralee began. Jane held up a hand, and only then did she notice the way embers flit about it. Motes of power trailing off her form as her choler rose.
‘So,’ she said in a low voice, ‘why are you still alive? Why are you here?’
‘What?’
