Felling Kingdoms (Book 5) Read online

  She snapped a glowing ball of Spirit into her hand and perched it over her head as she sleepily walked to her dressing room.

  “Do you want me to accompany you?” Nolen asked rubbing his eyes.

  “No, he summoned me.”

  It had taken weeks for Maxine to forgive Nolen after killing the Prince of Anatoly. When she did, the resolution was so passionate she forgot why she had been so angry, and they resolved for hours. She almost felt sorry for punishing him so hard. Once Nolen achieved redemption in her eyes, the rest of the Arch Mages seemed to forget his transgressions.

  She slipped on a wool robe and seized Void, sending herself towards Atrox Manor. Minutes later, she was beside Ryker in a dark room with Evony. A skeleton set out before them on a table.

  “Can you please summon me in a different way?” she said to Evony in an irritated tone.

  “Would y’ rather we walk in?” Ryker smirked.

  “It is the middle of the night. What do you think I am doing?”

  “Passions obey no hours, my dear.”

  She slipped an arm through Ryker’s and looked down at the skeleton accompanied by a skull. “Stars, that boy did it?”

  “Aye,” Ryker replied. The Silex was already chained around his neck, and Maxine saw a large dead boar lying beside them. “Evony, y’ will breathe par him. Maxine, summon Dorian ac beat his heart.”

  Ryker slid a dozen strings of Spirit through the white Silex piece, and built the heart while Maxine seized Void and summoned Dorian Lark’s spirit. Veins snaked down the blanched bones like trickles of water in a parched desert. The bones themselves whitened and shifted, stitching together. The pig shrank as its resources were removed.

  Dorian’s spirit did not take long to arrive, almost as if he had been hovering around them the whole time. “He’s coming,” she said.

  “He can wait,” Ryker replied as he formed muscles one thread at a time. The body built up slowly as red lines crossed over and around the bones. Ryker had an expert understanding of the body. He knew where every thread went, every line connected, as if he created the human form himself.

  Dorian’s shimmering spirit drifted to Maxine and stopped. Maxine spent countless years in the spirit world, and while the memories of the waking world faded, she remembered the moment she was summoned. It was like someone had grabbed her lucidity, and she suddenly saw reality through the spirit world. Buildings had appeared. Faces she sometimes caught out of the corner of her eye became solid, and she knew. Now, memories of the spirit world evaded her, mulling together in one blurry mass of half images.

  Dorian smiled at Maxine with a whispering quirk of white. He knew.

  “My lady,” his faint voice whispered to only her.

  “My lord,” she grinned.

  Ryker divided his attention to the chest cavity and organs, converting the resources of the boar into Dorian. Inflating lungs formed, and Evony breathed patterns into them.

  Time slowly passed as Ryker worked tirelessly to align every fraction of the body. Pale skin was already forming around certain areas.

  Dorian nudged Maxine, his elbow passing through her and giving her a chill.

  “Dorian wants you to be more generous than that.”

  Ryker shrugged as if it was the most normal statement and obliged. Maxine watched carefully as the muscles of the face formed, giving way to translucent skin that hardened.

  “Green eyes,” she reminded him, and he nodded.

  Golden blond hair sprouted from his scalp and fell back over the table. He always kept it almost long enough to tie back, and layered tastefully over his forehead the way the ladies liked it. He was a dashing man and a serial seducer throughout the Ages, using his handsome face and chiseled body to get what he wanted. It was why Maxine loved him so. He was the male version of her.

  “Does that look right?” Ryker asked, seeping a pattern into the face and realigning a muscle. “It should be perfect now.”

  “Looks correct to me.”

  “Ask him if he is ready.”

  “Always,” Dorian whispered, his voice making her skin tingle.

  “Ready to release on three,” Ryker paused. “One, two, three.”

  Maxine pushed Dorian forward as she and Evony released their patterns. Dorian slipped into the new body. It jerked and the chest rose as his head fell back. His whole body tightened, and his mouth gasped for air. Evony pulled a long yellow robe from a peg to drape over Dorian, but Maxine held her back with a wicked smile.

  Dorian coughed and opened his pale green eyes. Ryker grabbed the robe from Evony and laid it over the man’s legs to Maxine’s dismay.

  “Sacred stars,” Dorian whispered, coughed again, and swallowed. He looked at his hands, and then rubbed his eyes.

  “How does everything feel?” Ryker asked, standing beside him with his hands behind his back.

  Dorian slowly sat up with Maxine’s assistance and looked around the dimly lit room, pausing for brief moments to make contact with everyone’s eyes. “Fine, my lord,” he replied. “What have I missed?”

  “We have a Class Ten Head Mage controlling everything but Air, ac I want him removed.”

  Dorian smiled broadly, his rosy lips and perfectly straight teeth the doom of many women through the Ages, Maxine included. She felt the heat rise to her face at the sight of his grin.

  Ryker had done a perfect job of restoring his face, from the straight nose, the square jaw, high cheekbones, full lips, and almond eyes. Even the hair was just about the right style. Dorian’s body was as hard and lean as Mikelle’s had been upon rebirth. He was not as muscular as usual, but the muscles would come later.

  “Where is Pike?” Dorian’s voice smoothed with a tenor like the Head Mage’s, but with a tinge of a highborn Gaelsin accent.

  “He is in Castle Jaden waiting par y’. We need to get y’ up t’ strength as quickly as y’ can.”

  Maxine stepped up and put her hand on his knee. “I will be helping with that.”

  “Maxine,” Ryker hissed.

  “Oh, my lord, not like that.”

  “Oh, my lady, like t’at,” Dorian replied.

  “Time for me to leave,” Evony whispered and made for the door.

  Ryker sneered. “Use the regeneration-pattern ac have him ready in two weeks. I do ne want Pike waiting. They tortured him t’ death the last time they had him.”

  Dorian rose off the table. He was inches taller than Maxine and proportionately shaped unlike the Head Mage who was beautifully leggy. ‘You’re thinking about him too much,’ she mused as she came around the table to support him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

  “What has changed in my absence?” he asked, holding the robe around his hips. They walked slowly as he found himself.

  “Everything,” she replied and pushed the door open wider. “The Classes have diminished to an average of Five.”

  “Ryker made it work,” Dorian smiled.

  “Anatoly is the ruling power, and the Queen is betrothed to the Head Mage.”

  “Is she a Mage?”

  “No.”

  “Ryker did make a difference.”

  “The Head Mage is a boy, powerful, beautiful, but tortured. The Queen’s cousin put him in Overturn.”

  Dorian staggered a step and braced himself against the wall. The robe slipped to the ground unabashedly. She stooped to retrieve it and held it around him as they continued to walk.

  “T’en what is t’ problem?”

  “He escaped.” Dorian raised his dark brows. “He died and was freed. The last Head Mage had the Ring of Rebirth and raised Gabriel in his place.”

  “First name basis, my lady?”

  “Oh, very nearly.”

  Dorian chuckled. “You have felled kingdoms before, what is one Head Mage?”

  “He is…much more than he seems. You will see.”

  Dorian waned the farther they walked. His body was void of fat and energy, so Maxine shifted him to his room. The chamber was dark, and she thr
ew up balls of light to illuminate his massive bed already prepared. His things sat undisturbed on the shelves, dusted by the servants. He fell back into the silken sheets exhausted.

  “My lady, t’hank you for t’ help.”

  “Rest a few hours. The sun will be up soon, and I will need to regenerate you.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  She threw the covers over him, hanging his robe on a bedpost. She shifted back to her mansion, finding Nolen fast asleep. The night was still young, so with a twisted grin, she searched Prince Virgil and found him in Kilkiny Palace.

  She expected to shift outside the Queen’s apartments as far as the warding would allow, but she was surprised to find herself outside in the garden. The weather here was still cold, and the bushes had yet to flower, but the tall evergreens offered cover and almost hid the palace from view.

  She found Virgil lying on his back in a cluster of trees. His hand pillowed his head as he stared at the stars. Her footfalls were soft on the rich loam, but he still heard her before she got close. He raised himself warily and watched her approach, loosening a hidden weapon in his boot.

  “I assume that since you are here, you gave Robyn the ring.” She stood beside him, and he looked away with a frown. “Has it worked to your favor?”

  “No,” he muttered.

  She crouched down on her heels. “Controlling a person is difficult…with a ring like that one, that is. I can do it without.” She struck a finger down his cheek, and he leaned away with a grimace. Few men rejected her advances, and those who did made her want them all the more. Virgil was an observant man, and he would not have missed the fact she wore only a robe that was in need of being tightened and straightened.

  “What ails you?” she asked gently.

  He picked up a twig and snapped it, gritting his jaw. He was a man. Men did not always reveal their feelings as she expected.

  “Is the Queen unreceptive? Are you feeling guilty?”

  His frown deepened.

  “Ah, she must be showing a great deal of emotion for you to feel this way. Command her to be gleeful in your presence all the times.”

  He threw a piece of the twig. “It is not so simple. I want her to love me.”

  “Command her to do so.”

  “But she never truly will, not after what I have done.”

  She poked his shoulder with a grin. “Couldn’t wait for the marriage bed?”

  “No—no I would not. I put…”

  Maxine’s heart suddenly leapt. “The Head Mage?”

  He looked away.

  ‘Oh, poor Gabriel.’ She knelt down and kissed Virgil’s cheek. He frowned at first, slowly looking at her with distain.

  She relished in it. “Give me the control piece.”

  “I…it did not have another piece.”

  “No? No crown? It should have come with a crown.”

  “There were only three pieces.”

  She sighed. This was not the first time. The Arch Mages lost the gold control piece shortly after it was forged.

  “I want to take it back. I want the Head Mage freed, and Robyn’s rings removed. Will you offer me sanctuary?” Virgil asked.

  “The Head Mage cannot be freed.”

  “Legends say a failsafe was built into the Castrofax.”

  “Legends say many untruths.”

  “Then can you…damage Robyn’s memory?”

  “Not without great risk to the rest of her brain.” She leaned closer. “Remain where you are and marry the Queen. I need a man like you here as King. In a few years, you will have fathered children, and she will be so delighted with them, she will forget all hatred she had against you.”

  He looked away and focused on nothing in the distance. “I do not think it will be so easy.”

  “Trust me, I have seen it done,” she lied. She felt no shame in molding this man’s mind to her plans. He was simply a means to an end, and he was foolish enough to let her take root. She brushed a hand over his hair. “Let me ease your mind.”

  He turned to her with a pinched expression. “No, I love Ro—”

  Maxine closed the distance and pulled the back of his head, pressing her lips against his. A man as strong as him could easily pull away from her grasp, but he was powerless. She grabbed his face with her free hand and let her Class Ten instinct take over. He did nothing to resist.

  Chapter 14

  Gabriel stared at the bed canopy as he had for hours, lost in his broken body. His despair was unfathomable. Overturn was a breeze compared to Glittering.

  He could feel his body, the cloth, and the warmth of hands that touched him, but his brain refused to acknowledge its existence. His Elements were simply gone, lost in a blink. He never felt so helpless. At least Overturn had allowed him to move and feel the sweet pulse of Elements in his chest. Now, he was completely useless, a burden to his Mages. He could not even give orders without complex and lengthy tactics. He gave up the second day. Lael could handle Jaden.

  To his displeasure, Afton and Mikelle stripped him to better bathe and strengthen him. Respectfully, they kept his modesty mostly intact. Afton stood by his side with her hands on his calf, sending electrical pulses into his muscles to make them convulse and rip. She worked through a whole muscle before healing it. He could feel the strength locked in each fiber but had no way to use it.

  There was a way out of this. He made up his mind early on to refuse food. When Mikelle tried to manipulate broth and pureed items down his throat, he would constrict and hold his breath. She had no choice but to stop forcing or chance suffocating him. He knew she was frustrated with him, but it had to be done. Unfortunately, water could be seeped through the skin. At this rate he would last about three weeks unless Mikelle devised a new way to force food in him. On day three his body called for food less.

  Mikelle sat to his left, propped up with pillows, and read aloud from a tome on cultures of the Third Age while Afton finished with his calf and moved to his thigh. He wished he could tell her to stop, that what she did was useless, but no one was paying attention.

  Mikelle paused in her reading. “Adelaide said something at the meeting the other day I thought interesting. She said this Castrofax never held a Mage higher than a Class Eight, and you said it felt weaker. Is…is there anything about this one that makes you think it cannot hold you?”

  He frowned in response.

  “But, you loosened the muscles around your eyes. What is to say you cannot do that for more?”

  Afton paused with an interested expression. “Why not divert your attention to a single area and try to break it loose?”

  In his despair he had not thought to try. He replied with a quizzical expression and closed his eyes, focusing on the fingers in his right hand. He lay there for what seemed like hours until Afton got too far up his thigh and made him loose concentration. ‘Dead puppies….’

  Mikelle droned on as he stared at the bed canopy and felt the Castrofax. There was something different about the feel of this one, as if something did not quite match up perfectly. He cleared his throat, and Mikelle stopped to look at him.

  “Need something?” She began to count through the alphabet until he blinked, a terribly time consuming process. Afton came to his bare hip, covering his leg.

  “Feel…inside…Castrofax,” Mikelle spelled out. Blessedly, she was smart and could guess the word within the first three letters. She set the book aside and positioned herself better to grab the neckpiece, slipping her fingers underneath.

  Instantly a flood of her concern, loyalty, and love rushed into him. It overwhelmed him and made his eyes water. Along with it came the exchange of Elements. Her Water, faint as it was compared to his, was as sweet as honey. It flooded into his chest like tea swallowed down the gullet. His own emotions of despair, uselessness, and anger flowed into her, making her frown as she moved her fingers along the inside. With it came his Elements, and he watched the fire spike in intensity behind her.

  Mikelle stopped and
ran her fingers back and forth. “This Castrofax is angled just a touch. It has a corner, a small one, but one none the less. It’s shaped like a large water drop.”

  Her hands released, and her stream of emotions and Element severed, but Gabriel had control for a few seconds and laid a pattern to pull water from a cup beside his table. Hovering it above his chest, he shaped it to a point and froze it. Before he could plunge it to his heart, Mikelle flicked a finger, and the shard flung against the wall and burst into a hundred pieces.

  “Don’t be so dramatic.” The fire roared behind her in response. She glanced back abashedly, and laughed. “Does the point mean something? Yes? What? W…e…a. Weakness? The Castrofax is weak.”

  “Has anyone tried breakin’ it?” Afton asked timidly.

  The two women looked at each other, then at him. They jumped up and rushed to find anything they could bash him with. He closed his eyes as Mikelle rushed up with a fire poker and grabbed his wrist. She jerked him off the pillow and laid the wristlet on the bedside. Raising the iron rod, she missed. Twice.

  Afton took a subtler approach. She slipped two steel bars through the wristlet. By using the tension his wrist gave, she tried to snap the glass in two. No matter what the women did, the glass did not fracture, and Afton had to mend the bruises Mikelle left.

  Still, Gabriel could feel the weakness in the Castrofax. It was as though there was a fault in the glass; a thinness. He strained as Mikelle continued to read, and Afton moved to his stomach.

  He growled in frustration a while later, but something suddenly gave, and his fingers tightened. Mikelle snapped the book shut.

  “Do that again!”

  He slowly flexed his right index and middle finger, curling around the sheets.

  “Oh my stars! How did you do that? Push? You pushed against the Castrofax? Why did you stop? E…x…h…a. Exhausting? Oh.” She gripped his hand. “Keep trying! You may be able to free your whole body someday.”

  “He’s got t’ree weeks unless he eats somet’in’.”