The Conservatory's massive double doors were already open when Alori and Taelan arrived at the front entrance, followed shortly by Yuka with his viola case tucked under his arm. The royal carriage was parked outside on the driveway. Alori's driver, Gadry, as well as Mr. Baejun and several stable-hands fussed about, preparing the vehicle for the trip.
Alori felt a twinge of guilt at having to alter their plans on short notice, but there was nothing to do for it.
"Princess, forgive me, but I don't want you embarrassing yourself." Yuka darted a meaningful look between her and Taelan. "It seems that in the heat of the moment– the very quick moment you two must have shared– you redressed in the wrong garments."
Alori slapped his arm. "Remember who you're talking to, bard." It was a joke. Mostly. "I'll have you know, these trousers were no accident. As it turns out, we won't have the luxury of a carriage ride to Ville-Tokki. We'll be taking the stags. I have it under good authority that Thelix compromised my magic this morning."
"Thelix did what?" another welcome voice said, entering the conversation.
Reeve stepped up beside Yuka, holding the handle of a wooden violin case identical to Taelan's. Like the rest of them, he was dressed for the elements, in a heavy winter coat and furry gray scarf.
Did he plan on joining them also?
"Among other things," Taelan said cryptically, "Thelix cornered Princess Alori in the hallway before breakfast."
"During the... altercation, my magic was silenced."
Alori hated to admit she was vulnerable. No one should have been able to steal her magic, yet it had happened and she had no idea how.
"When I realized what happened, I started to recall Thelix's odd behaviors." She dropped her voice, stepping farther into the ring they'd created by standing at each other's shoulders. The movement created an odd, although not unpleasant sensation in breeches stuffed into narrow women's boots. "Yesterday he insulted my patrollers on the borders, calling them useless. I didn't think much of it at the time, but what if it was a warning?" She gritted her teeth, then forced herself to relax, concentrating on the cool air drifting in through the open doors. "We need to get to Ville-Tokki as soon as possible. Thelix, or whomever he's working for, may already be there."
"You may be right, my lady." Reeve gripped the handle of his case so tightly his knuckles turned white. His brown eyes traveled around their circle as he spoke. "Thelix showed up late for Practical Theory, with a leaking bloody bandage on his nose. Professor Squall told him to get it taken care of before he bled all over the instruments. Thelix cursed and threw down his music stand, then stormed out saying something about knowing the best healer in town."
"And the best healer would be–"
"A mendmage," Alori and Yuka answered Taelan in unison.
Each of the five realms housed at least one mage who'd studied the mending arts, and Ville-Tokki was closest among them to the Conservatory.
"It's a starting point." Alori sighed, buttoning her borrowed wool pea coat. It smelled strongly of Taelan, though he claimed he'd outgrown it years ago. It was also a few sizes too big, but she wasn't going to complain. After the humiliation she'd suffered this morning, she needed all the comfort she could get.
The cozy scent of spice and fir trees enveloped her like a toasty hug whenever she moved.
"Reeve, are you free to come along with us?" She didn't want to assume the timid bard intended on accompanying them, just because he was dressed for the occasion and carrying an instrument.
"Indeed, Your Highness." He dipped into a shallow courtesy, one of his longer ringlets falling across his forehead. "We'll help get your magic back, whatever it takes."
Alori nodded, solemnly acknowledging his fealty. "I'm glad I can count on you three."
Yuka was too busy pinching Reeve's arm to notice the princess' nervous smile, but Taelan was watching, his eyes dark and unreadable. He tipped the brim of his cap toward her, his cheek punctuated with the hint of a dimple. It was a small, guarded smile, barely there, but it filled Alori's heart with wild hope.
Somehow, over the course of the past several days– tense and chaotic as they'd been– she'd gone from knowing none of these men by more than their sheet music, to considering them each a friend, even Yuka, with his schemes and bad jokes.
When they stepped out of the academy doors into the cold January morning, Alori was overcome with the sudden realization that Taelan wouldn't be the only bard she'd miss if he decided not to follow her to the palace.
♪♫♪
They didn't have saddles for the stags.
In her haste, Alori hadn't considered certain problems that would arise with her plan, such as a lack of saddles, saddlebags, and a way for the bards to transport their instruments whilst riding. If she'd had access to her powers, it would have been simple enough to spell her way through these minor dilemmas. But with her magic silenced, they were forced to improvise.
Mr. Baejun and the stable-hands outfitted the stags in their wool sleeping blankets folded in half as a makeshift saddle. Their connecting leads were reconfigured so that each stag had an individual chain-link bridle, and the bards were given lengths of rope to tie their instrument cases to their backs. It was an inelegant and rushed solution, but it was still faster than taking the heavy carriage which would be forced to follow the long, winding roads to Ville-Tokki.
No one had seen Thelix leave, and none of the horses owned by the Conservatory were missing, but there were drops of blood like breadcrumbs in the snow, as well as boot prints leading toward the road. If he'd gone on foot, they were sure to beat him.
Alori thanked everyone who had helped get the stags ready, then mounted Bellesan, giving the large beast a pat on his velvety gray pelt once she was confidently astride his back. At times like this she was grateful her parents had allowed her to take riding lessons. Real lessons, not the side-saddle nonsense most ladies of royal status were made to endure.
But she'd never ridden in pants before. It was exhilarating!
"These three know what they're doing, eh?" Gadry jutted his thumb in the direction of her trio of companions.
The bards did look a bit ridiculous astride their mounts, with their instruments strapped to their backs like odd-shaped quivers. All three had managed to mount their steeds, at least, which was promising.
She gave Gadry a hopeful shrug. "I should think they would have told me if they didn't know how to ride."
"And look like an arse in front of the crown princess?" The burly driver's barking laughter was like ice cracking on a lake.
"You make a good point." She pursed her lips. Either way, there was no turning back now. "Give my apologies to Hamoni, please, Gadry. Tell her I would have waited for her to see me off, but there was no time. I'll explain everything later."
"Aye, my lady. I'll tell her, even if she bites off my head for it." He winked, giving Bellesan a gentle slap on his rump. "Good luck out there, princess."
Alori waved as she set off, the bards close behind her, their stags' hooves making fresh prints in the snow.
The rhythmic motion of riding, and the musky smell from the animals, mixed with the rich, raw scents of nature, slowed her speeding heart to the point that she could concentrate on the present instead of catastrophizing a thousand possible futures.
It turned out her bards did know how to ride, a little, enough to get the job done.
Deer were somewhat slower than horses, even Cardosian stags domesticated for the purpose of riding, who were bigger and brawnier with hardier antlers than wild stags. This both worked in the riders' favor and against them. They could ride more securely, with less fear of plummeting to the hard-packed snow.But if Thelix had somehow managed to catch a ride into town, he might have beaten them. It all depended on how much of a head start he'd gotten.
Alori wondered at his motive. Why would Thelix silence her magic, and how had he done it? Did he plan on widening the shield breach, and if so, for what reason?
Thelix was a detestable human, but she wouldn't hurt him unless he forced her hand. But without her magic, how could she threaten him?
Her thoughts were running away from her again, tangling into knots. She turned halfway around in her pseudo-saddle, which did little to cushion her thighs and bum from the rough jolts over the rugged landscape, and pitched her voice above the wind, calling out to the men catching up behind her.
"I should be able to sense the location of the breach once we get closer! It may not be near the shieldmage, and I don't want to waste any time!"
A patroller would be in range. Hopefully. Alori would send them to fetch the shieldmage, while she got to work devising a fix for the breach. That much she could do while silenced, like an architect crafting blueprints. If worse came to worst, and she wasn't able to quickly figure out how to dispel the silencing spell blocking her magic, she could mind-meld with the shieldmage. It wasn't mind control, not as such, but Alori could use other mages as a conduit to power her own abilities, similar to the way she used the bards' music to strengthen her magic.
Repairing the breach through a mage conduit would take longer than if she were working by herself, and the repair wouldn't be as strong, especially if the shieldmage didn't possess all three primary magics, but it was a decent back-up plan.
"We'll follow your lead, princess."
Yuka leaned over the front of his stag's neck, careful not to grab Maristan's velvet antlers. As she'd explained before they set out, wild stags lost their antlers in winter and didn't grow a new set until spring, but Cardosian stags had been bred to regrow them after their fall mating cycle. It would be a month or so yet before they shed their velvet, revealing hard antlers which could be used for self defense. While in velvet, their antlers were vulnerable. Much like Alori, currently.
Worry niggled at her as they rode on, the bright mid-morning sun glittering off the icy snow. They took the road until it veered off their intended path, pushing them into the sparse evergreen forest that bordered Ville-Tokki. She closed her eyes against the raw cold and slurry spraying up from the wet forest floor, trusting Bellesan to get her safely around the trees and roots growing up around them, guiding him in the correct general direction with gentle pressure on his flank.
What if she was wrong about Thelix, and he wasn't the reason she'd lost control of her magic? He'd done something to her, though, it was the only logical explanation for the way she'd reacted to his touch. The intensity of her desire was more than she'd ever experienced, and it hadn't been natural. She'd hardly been able to move. The words he spoke had seemed to manifest into an unbreakable contract. She'd been powerless to disagree with him. It repulsed her, how much she'd enjoyed his touch.
The morning had been busy, so she'd managed to keep her darker musings at bay, but Alori had experience with trauma and knew the memories would come back when life settled down, most likely when she least expected them. Trauma was a terrible beast, but if there was a silver lining it was that the aftermath of her mother's death had given her a special kind of strength. Now she could look into the blackest parts of her soul, knowing she'd gotten through unthinkable pain before and could do it again.
They broke away from the forest into a fallow field blanketed in white. Stubborn dead weeds pierced the snow like needles through fabric. The stags avoided the sharp protrusions, sticking to the denser drifts of snow along the east-facing side of the field. Alori began to sense the breach as they picked their way toward the village, the stags setting a careful trot.
A cold feeling of wrongness nagged at her, like a draft through a poorly sealed window. She pressed her boot into Bellesan and marked their course.
Taelan pulled up alongside her on Arcan, Bellesan's littermate. Of her three traveling partners, her raven-haired bard seemed the most at ease riding.
"How are you doing?" His tone was neutral and unassuming.
"Fine."
At this rate she'd abuse the word into meaninglessness by day's end. But if there was anything her mother had taught her about leadership, it was the importance of projecting a sense of certainty. If Alori exuded confidence, those she led would feel more confident.
"Are you sure?" Taelan's brow dipped low over his eyes. His pale cheeks were beginning to chap.
Was she really that transparent?
"Yes," she lied, pointing at a spot in the distance, where gray smoke rose from a handful of cottage chimneys tucked close together in a dip in the terrain on the outskirts of town. Yuka and Reeve edged their stags nearer. "The breach is just beyond those cottages," she told them. "Follow my lead."
♪♫♪
Alori had never sealed a breach, not even a simulated one. She'd vanquished countless spelled obstacles during training sessions, and had used the scope of her power to dispel offensive magics thrown at her in practice, but she hadn't been faced with true danger since before her mother's passing.
Tomso and Hamoni had been told the breach was minor, that the shieldmage's back-up shield was secure, but the hair on the back of Alori's neck stood on end as they neared ground zero. This was no insignificant breach. The hole in the transparent defense shield that domed Ville-Tokki felt like a hole in her head. There was no back-up here.
Dark magic oozed onto the land, coating all it touched with an invisible miasma, filling Alori with a deep sense of foreboding. It was stealthy, this magic. Whoever– or whatever– was behind it, couldn't be far. If they hadn't made it through the breach yet, crawling up from the pits of one of the five hells, they would soon.
Alori dismounted quickly to avoid a clamber of assistance, and the bards followed suit. They each hooked their chain leads over sturdy fence posts near the cottages. The doors of the cottage nearest them stood open, but no one came out to greet them. Despite the smoke twisting away from the chimney, Alori doubted anyone was still inside. Who would leave the door open in the middle of winter?
"It's too quiet," Reeve said, voicing what they were all thinking.
The streets were unpaved this far from the center of town, but the smoking chimneys and amount of snow which had been trampled into black slush between the cottages spoke of recent activity.
"Either everyone's fled or they're hiding." Yuka stepped onto the porch, hollering a greeting through the doorway into the dim, firelit den.
No one answered.
Alori rubbed her hands up and down her coat sleeves, wishing the warmth from the fire was strong enough to reach them outside. It was strange, being unable to use magic to fend off the chill. She'd almost forgotten how cold winter truly was.
Twigs cracked close behind them, echoing in the raw stillness of the shallow valley. Alori spun on her heel, uncrossing her arms to hold them out in front of her, not that it would do any good without magic to defend herself with.
Blood pulsed through her head, and a whooshing noise throbbed in her ears. She hadn't known what to expect– a villager, an animal? Thelix?
"Good day." It was a strikingly handsome man in the loose red uniform of a patroller, saluting them. He was tall, around Yuka's height, and nearly as lean. Bone white hair swept off his forehead above a face that was almost more beautiful than it was handsome. His arresting golden eyes flared with curiosity when they landed on Yuka.
Alori relaxed, letting her hands fall to her sides. A patroller, thank the goddesses! Now they would be saved from having to spend precious time seeking him out.
The patroller grinned, loosening his grip on his sword pommel. "What are you doing here, Yuka? I'm supposed to be evacuating this place. You're not trying to loot, are you? I thought you were past all that."
"We're here to help the princess." Yuka's tone was severe. Perhaps he didn't appreciate this patroller– an old friend? An enemy?– revealing his past debaucheries. He made a low, sweeping gesture toward Alori. "Fox, let me introduce you to the crown princess."
The patroller's eyes widened again, taking in Alori's unusual ensemble and the ratty state of her hair.
"Princess Alori?" He bowed, tipping his head in deference. All that pale hair spilled across his face, made even brighter in contrast with his suntanned, tawny complexion. "Forgive me, Your Highness, I didn't recognize you."
"That's understandable. Be at ease, Patroller Fox." She waved at him to stand up. "This outfit may be unorthodox, but it was integral to our timeliness. We rode here on my stags." She wasn't sure why she was explaining herself to him, but it made her feel better.
She glanced at the sloping rural road and fields beyond. "Are you the only patroller on the beat? There should be more than one of you on rotation."
"There are two of us working right now. Shall I fetch my partner? We're taking rounds along the perimeter, until..." A blush of color rose on his sculpted cheeks. "I was going to say, 'until the princess arrives,' but here you are, my lady."
Alori couldn't help but smile. Patroller Fox was perhaps the most objectively good-looking man she had ever seen. Hells, he was prettier than most women. She wondered if his white hair was natural, some rare birth defect that had worked in his favor, or if, like Yuka, he knew his way around a jar of bleach and hair dyes.
But she had never seen anyone's bleached hair look so perfectly white.
She would ask Yuka how he knew the patroller later. For now, they would simply have to accept Fox as part of the team. "The situation is worse than we were informed," she told him. "Can you fetch the shieldmage? I need to get to work on the breach, and these three can help me keep an eye on things here while you're gone."
Fox nodded, gave another salute, then turned to leave.
Yuka didn't protest the patroller's involvement in their plan, which gave her a little relief.
"Wait," she called out, realizing she'd forgotten to ask him one very important question. "Do you know a bard called Thelix? He might have come this way."
Fox shook his head. "The name doesn't ring a bell. Do you have a description?"
"He's about your height, massive arms, dark blond hair. He has a gold tooth or two... and currently, a broken nose." She smirked sidelong at Taelan, who was scowling under the shadows of his cap at the mention of the unaccounted for menace. "If you see him, apprehend him by any means necessary, but try to keep him conscious. I need to speak with him... And be careful, Fox, he's dangerous."
"Understood, my lady." Fox nodded, then dashed in the direction she'd bade him.
Alori's gaze followed him a while, enthralled by his impressive speed. She should have asked him the name of the shieldmage. It was ignorant of her not to know these things. Her mother would have known.
"Your Highness, what would you have us do?"
Taelan's deep voice pulled her back to him. He rubbed his hands together then blew on them, his shoulders hunched against the cold. His eyes were steady on her face. If he was angry with her, or anxious about their plan, she couldn't tell.
"Whichever of you most prefers long walks should take over Fox's perimeter circuit. The other two can stay with me." She bit her lip, realizing she'd made another mistake. Without her magic, their instruments were useless. How were they supposed to defend themselves until the shieldmage arrived? She glanced around their close circle. "Did any of you happen to bring a weapon?"
"I have a dagger, my lady." Reeve pulled the blade from his boot, its sleek metal flashing in the sunlight.
"As do I," Yuka said, unsheathing a similar blade from his own boot. He twirled it artfully between his fingers.
Where had he learned that trick? Perhaps Fox hadn't been embellishing Yuka's scoundrel history.
Alori turned to Taelan last, the only one yet to respond. He was holding something small and sharp in his palm, although it appeared he was trying to hide it. When he caught her looking, he shrugged, uncurling his fingers. It was a letter opener.
"They forced me to bring it. I'm a musician, not a highwayman."
She smiled. "I applaud your creativity. But since you're the most ill prepared– and I don't say that as an insult, I brought nothing– I'd like you to stay with me."
"But he's the one who prefers long walks," Yuka complained, still toying with his blade. "Haven't you smelt him?"
"I have, and he smells wonderful, much better than some." Alori let the insinuation hang in the frosty air. Yuka smelled fine, but sometimes it was better to keep the truth to oneself, lest the blue-haired bard come up with another pretentious title for himself. "You should take the perimeter, Yuka. After watching you wield that blade like a natural, I'd feel well protected with you watching out for us."
Reeve chuckled, a bright and effervescent sound Alori wouldn't mind hearing more often.
After today, she'd make a concerted effort to get to know each of these bards better, even the two she didn't hope to marry. Reeve and Yuka were Taelan's best friends, and she had no desire to change that. There was no reason they couldn't all visit each other-- so long as Taelan still desired to become the bard prince-- and once they had sealed the breach, she would make sure they knew it.
Yuka grumbled, kicking at pebbles in the slush. But he knew, perhaps best of all, that it wasn't worth arguing with Alori when she'd made up her mind. And she had a sneaking suspicion that his opinion of his assignment would change at the first sign of distress. Yuka Ellis struck her as the type of man who flourished in drama. She imagined he would be all too happy to bask in the glory of victory later on, once they were safe and sound back at the Conservatory, preferably with bottles of wine stacked around them.
Later. All of that would have to wait until later.
She turned to Taelan and Reeve, ready to get to work.