Mage Slayer: Book Four of the Empress Saga

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Most of the Dragon Lords had left to return to their duties, leaving the impromptu council chamber feeling empty. The empress and King Sasha sat at the head of the table, Jin stood at Enfri's side, and Reyn sat at the far end of the table while shuffling through the stacks of maps and documents Krayson and Starra claimed were necessary for this second meeting.

The only others were Deebee, Kimpo, Dragon Lord Thaan, and Thaan's bonded orchid dragon, Keeta the Archivist, who had assumed a human form.

In Reyn's opinion, Hierarch Thaan of House Thaan, Lord of Spinels, was an arcane genius. A man who'd gone from a penniless street urchin to a member of the congress of hierarchs over the course of his life would have to be. He might have been one of the premier wizards of the magocracy after the death of Ambrose the Merovech, and his name came up often in discussions on the latest research into theoretical spellcraft.

As Reyn listened to Starra explain the truth of the secret war that had raged in the shadows of the Five Kingdoms for the last few centuries, she found her attention drifting to Krayson. He'd already given his report on his brief encounter with an enigmatic shopkeeper calling himself Algol. By his testimony, it did indeed seem likely that Algol was, if not a demon himself, something in thrall to one. Yet Krayson was certain. He said he could feel something unnatural about the shopkeeper, something out of place in this world. Krayson believed Algol was a demon.

And Krayson stood alongside Pacifica as one of the three people Reyn trusted, so she believed it, too.

You saw one of them, Reyn thought. You spoke with a demon. I only wish I could have been with you. It's important we find out if a demon can bleed.

Deebee had provided one interesting piece of information that supported Algol being one of the old masters who'd taken physical form. Algol— "black star" in the ancient dragon language— was the name of one of the sentinel cities of Shan Alee. The city of Algol itself had been built upon the ruins of an older one, a proteurim city.

Lord Thaan and his dragon remained skeptical of everything, not yet ready to accept what most others in the room had known for quite some time.

Like Starra, Thaan was Irdish. His skin was a pale gray, quite unlike any other race of humanity. His eyes were black, and his hair was white, as if he'd been painted by an artist using only gray pigments. His house colors, lavender and blue, were displayed on the cravat tied around his neck. Those were perhaps the most subdued colors he wore. From his open-necked shirt, to his blazer, and even to his heavy shoes, everything was a different color and each more garish than the last.

Reyn believed that one thing that could be said of Lady Starra Nolaas was that she didn't dress in the typical manner of the Irdish people. She favored black as her color of choice. Simple and refined in its own way. Meanwhile, Thaan seemed to take it as a personal challenge to wear every shade he knew of. Irdish theology held that displaying different colors brought different Blessings from the spirits. If that were true, Thaan should've been a blessed saint.

Keeta the Archivist appeared to follow Irdish fashion in reverse. Her wardrobe was little more than a plain gray shirt and leggings. Her skin, however, was striking. Orchid dragons appeared much as their namesake. Keeta was predominantly mauve, though subtle patterns of red, white, violet, and fuchsia traced over her body following the contours of her musculature. It had the effect of making her appear more muscle-bound than that body really was. Her eyes were blue with traces of bright pink in the iris, and her strawberry blonde hair was worn in a sensible bob.

The form she chose to wear was one of a young woman in her late teens, diminutive and slender. She had sharply angled cheekbones that married well with her almond-shaped eyes, slim jawline, and pouty lips.