Crown of Iron

Chapter Three

Elias procures a silver chalice of Etrian make from within the pockets of his robes, placing it on the table before the lord. It's encrusted with more gems than Anya has ever seen before—something like that would feed her family for years. Elias doesn't appear to be swimming in wealth, his robes frayed and thinning, but he doesn't look to be a thief either. There's something about him that makes her stomach turn.

"I shall not be in Mórsail long," he continues. "I hope this is adequate compensation."

"It is a beautiful chalice." Lady Cara is the opposite of her husband. She's kind, gentle, though she is as blind as Rian when it comes to their people's suffering. Anya does not know if she's indifferent, or if she simply does not know how to help. "Thank you, Elias."

He flashes her a dazzling smile, dipping into a slight bow. "I shall be out of your lands soon enough."

"What brings you to Mórsail?" asks Anya, hoping that some answers would soothe her growing unease.

Elias cocks his head, surprise flashing through his lead-grey eyes for the briefest moments before it disappears. It's replaced by an unnervingly calm stillness, his features blank of all emotions. "I'm looking for someone," he says. "That is all I'm allowed to say."

"Allowed? By whom?" she repeats, brow arched, ignoring Rian's hissed warning to bite her tongue. "You don't seem like the kind of person who'd roll over and follow orders."

"What kind of person do I seem like, my lady?" he asks with a smile that is anything but friendly.

You seem like you're keeping a secret. Why are you here really? she asks silently, her eyes never leaving his. What is it that you want?

But she says none of those things. Instead, she returns his cruel smile with one of her own, all pointed teeth and poison. "Like someone who would not be named Elias," she says.

He laughs at that, but it's just as dangerous as everything else about him. "Come find me after you are finished here," he says. "I sense we have much to talk about."

Her smile widens but it doesn't grow any kinder. "Yes," she says, "I think we do."

Then, Elias bows before Lord Rian, and goes to leave. The silence left behind in his wake hits her like the first storm of winter.

Anya watches him retreat from where she sits at Lord Rian's table, getting the distinct impression that he knows she's watching him. She cannot be faulted for her suspicion. There is a reason Lord Rian employs a mage despite having a very clear disdain for people like her. Magic has the power to create, certainly, but more than that, it has the power to destroy. She poses her own danger, fire and flame bending to her will as though they're an extension of herself, but Lord Rian needs her. Every noble of any importance employs a mage of their own, and the only way to protect oneself from magic is with more magic.

She would not be surprised if Elias had been sent here by a neighbouring baron, jealous of the fortune Lord Rian's expansive fields and forests brought in. Such is the way of nobility, forever unhappy with their place, never mind the fact that many of them earned in a year what she would earn in a lifetime.

You're doing it to protect them, she says to herself. You promised Mother you'd protect them. You promised.

And indeed she had. When her mother had fallen ill with whatever ailment her father had brought back from Etria, she had made her only daughter swear to take care of them all. Anya still doesn't know why her mother had chosen her. Her magic? It isn't as though Tiarnán couldn't fight off the fiercest of foes with his arrows. Her position? Should Eámann finally complete his apprenticeship, his job as a fletcher could double their income. What does she provide that her brothers do not? Why had her mother's last wishes been that she protect them all?

It's been years and she still doesn't have the answers to those questions, even as she lays awake most nights, her mother's necklace clutched to her chest as she prays her spirit will answer. Every night, her prayers go unanswered, and she wakes in the morn resigned to uphold an oath she had never wanted to keep.

It isn't until the moon has risen high in the sky that Lord Rian deigns to let her leave, dismissing her with a wave of his hand as he disappears into the servant's quarters, no doubt to force some poor girl into pleasing him. The thought turns her stomach but the last time she'd tried to stop him, he'd threatened her with lashes only to settle for docking two week's pay.

Her family had gone hungry for those two weeks.

She wonders if the nobles even understand what their actions do to people like her. Do they know she has no choice but to accept the two silvers a week with a smile and quell the fire that rages inside of her? Anya can't work anywhere else. Mages are watched with suspicion and fear everywhere they go. The only ones that get any modicum of respect are the battlemages in the King's army, and anyone who can use their talents to serve. That's all people like her are good for. They provide a service, and at the end of the day, if they fail to do that, the people call in the Justiciars and have her hung. It's an ever looming threat, and what will her family do without her? They need her, and she promised—

"What happened to talking?"

She hadn't even noticed Elias standing just outside the gates of Lord Rian's home, mindlessly picking at his nails. His pale skin almost seems to reflect the moonlight, his ink-black hair seeming impossibly darker than it had before. A mischievous smile dances upon his lips.

"I was... distracted," she says simply.

"Not by my dazzling charm, I hope?"

"Hardly."

Anya pauses for a moment, thinking. She doesn't trust Elias any further than she can throw him—throw him without magic, anyhow—but she has a thousand questions, and he's the first mage that she's met in a very, very long time. Her job is to protect Mórsail from magical threats, isn't it? Perhaps...

"What are you doing?" she asks him.

"Presently? Little."

She eyes him for a moment, swearing to herself that she'll rip apart if he does anything dangerous. "How would you like to come for dinner?"