After the meeting with the ineffectual pirate captain, Esmona led Shrilynda to a crumbling, creature-infested section of Bayselle Castle. Shrilynda assumed she was deep in Bayselle after speaking to the captain, anyway. She didn't distinctly remember traveling to this spot, but it would hardly have made sense the other way around.
"This place is disgusting," Shrilynda noted as soon as she was sure the scuttling vermin were present and not merely shifting dark spots in the corners of her vision that disappeared when she turned.
"Landlocked cabin urchins have the tendency to run away as soon as they learn they will be cleaning rat droppings from a crumbling castle instead of swabbing vomit off the deck of a pirate ship," Esmona explained. "A clean base of operations wreaked havoc on recruitment."
"I can't recommend containment curses enough," Shrilynda said, "and the perks of a remote location."
"Watch your step," warned Esmona out of habit rather than concern. The jagged cracks in the floor were alarming.
"You must have waged quite the battle here," Shrilynda noted, not because she wanted to have a conversation, but because she was accustomed to talking to herself.
"Kings are stubborn," Esmona said with a smirk.
She seemed like the type who would have little trouble bending the mind of a king. Or stabbing one in the stomach, for that matter.
Shrilynda side-stepped rubble, emerging into a room that had been blasted open entirely. A gull squawked at them angrily for the interruption before winging his way to a precariously balanced turret above.
"We're headed there." Esmona pointed to a space above the room across from them. "The Sorceress-thieves found a hidden stash of objects before their sudden exit." She spread out her be-ringed fingers, pantomiming a splash.
If the state of the room below was any indication, this search through broken cabinets and crumbling walls would not be pleasant.
"Did you look through what's there?" Shrilynda asked.
"Somewhat," Esmona replied. "There were no gold, weapons, or liquor, so interest was low."
"Good," Shrilynda murmured. "With any luck, the idiots didn't manage to destroy what I hope to find."
"Which is?" Esmona asked.
"Not necessary for you to know," Shrilynda answered coolly.
"But perhaps I would be more useful if I did," Esmona countered. She was persistent.
"Perhaps," Shrilynda admitted. She was going to need to decide what to do with Esmona. "See you there."
She snapped her fingers, and a cloud of black smoke later, she was standing across from Esmona on the other side of the divide. Use of her personal magic was only nominally reckless near the site of other magical objects. If Rin was smart enough to track magic—already questionable—she would have to weigh the risk of coming through the pirates to find nothing more than them setting off the king's magical contraband like the fools they were. Of course, if Shrilynda had been dealing with Daniella, she would have walked.
Across the divide, Esmona pointed a single, unimpressed finger upward, and Shrilynda looked up to see a draping metal ladder leading to a hole in the ceiling. She considered magically transporting herself again, but she had no desire to appear in the middle of one of the aforementioned piles of rat droppings. She would have to climb. Her limbs and muscles felt nearly foreign after a decade of disuse, but the blood spells that kept her alive also gave her enough strength to compensate for limbs and fingers that occasionally felt like they were part of someone else's body. The dangling chains she grasped felt oddly cold, and the sensation sent shivers up her arms.
The overwhelming smell of seabird excrement was not at all a pleasant way to be shocked back to the present, but it worked all the same. After she pulled herself into the short secret room, she rubbed feeling back into her arms and fingers, deciding where to begin her search. The blasted open end of the secret room was in some ways a welcome source of light and air—the ceiling was close and the thick stone a bit too prison-like for Shrilynda's tastes. In most others, the openness to the elements was wreaking havoc on this space. Everything was weathered, shattered, or smeared in something exuded by an animal.
So she searched for a rune that could be in any form or not here at all underneath the debris and bird droppings. The King of Bayselle had some skill identifying and hoarding significant objects. Shrilynda saw a mish-mash of enchanted objects—some spent, some with dregs of power still left in them—in shelves and cubbyholes.
Of course, the king's stash couldn't hold a candle to Daniella's stockpile. After her failure to kidnap or murder any one of Rin's urchins, Shrilynda had considered infiltrating Kianne. However, even half mad, she knew she could not risk another encounter with Rin's minions, especially not after learning how powerful Crystal Palace had become in the past decade. Shrilynda had at least hoped Rin and Daniella would cripple each other, but to find them allied upon her return was nearly too much to bear.
Shrilynda had been fortunate enough to find one of Namon's old stashes in Curi. That man was so paranoid, he kept essential potions, powders, and enchanted objects hidden all over the protectorates. Due to his sudden murder, most of them would remain lost to time forever. Shrilynda only knew about this one because he had needed her assistance in identifying the function of the clever knife Shrilynda had in her belt. Since knowing its hiding place was the condition of sharing her information, Namon begrudgingly agreed to share the location of a single trunk buried deep underground in the event of betrayal or attack. For a psychopath, Namon had been generally easy to work with. He was always prepared. Of course, he had been killed by a not-yet Sorceress wielding an arrow, so how prepared had he been really? Regardless, the things he left behind had come in handy.
"Have you found what you're looking for?" Esmona asked, announcing her arrival as she hauled herself up into the hidden room with a thud of her spiked boots.
Shrilynda barely acknowledged her, but she did manage to jog herself back to the present.
"What are you looking for?" Esmona tried again.
"I already told you." Shrilynda unclasped her cloak and pulled the satchel over her head, depositing the bag stuffed with an unconscious monkey in the middle of the floor. "I'm looking for the most powerful magical talisman outside Crystal Palace."
Esmona waved her hands around the broken room. "Did you find it?"
"Did I imply it was here?" Shrilynda asked. She gestured toward a trunk in the corner. "See if there's anything interesting in there."
Esmona struck up a pose of defiance—arms crossed and hips askew. "If I don't let my captain order me around, I'm certainly not going to take orders from you," she said with the full force of her smooth, rolling accent.
Shrilynda shrugged, flipping open a wooden box containing two old spell books. "Stand there and be useless if you'd prefer to drink in this delightful smell longer." She left the books alone for now. They would crumble if she touched them in this state. They would need to be magically treated to survive. Besides, the spell books were as old as she was and probably wouldn't contain anything new to her.
"What classifies as 'interesting'?" Esmona asked. She had—to no one's surprise—decided to search the trunk.
"Something that calls to you," Shrilynda murmured without elaborating. She had never had the patience of a mentor.
Shrilynda scanned the contents of a stone alcove built into the wall. Rusty hinges on each side implied these items had been sealed away by glass doors or wooden shutters. Now they were open to the elements. A box had tumbled onto the floor next to a half-liquefied rat. Shrilynda could recognize the orange glint and sour smell of powdered scorpion tail. She would return later with some frog-skin gloves to retrieve that treasure. For now, she was distracted by a ring box etched with intricate, Naxturaen designs.
Shrilynda briefly wondered how the king had come by this box. She did not wonder why he had kept it secretly. The Naxturaen-made object inside was humming with power. Of course, the box had a particularly vicious Malum ward on it as well.
Esmona was speaking. Shrilynda hadn't noticed. The pirate had said something like, "What does it mean to me, to have magical blood?"
"You can—" Shrilynda paused, her eyes lingering on the box in front of her. "Items and creatures containing magic will respond to you," Shrilynda said, gesturing to the box. This would make a nice test.
Esmona approached slowly and with a hand ready to grasp the knife strapped to her thigh. "What does it do?" she asked with an admirable level of suspicion.
"Can you sense it?" Shrilynda asked.
Esmona's pale blue eyes focused on the box as if she was hypnotized. "I feel a pull," she said quietly. "I'm drawn to it. It's the same as—" She blinked and shook herself out of her single-minded focus. "I've always had an uncanny ability to find things. Is that magic?"
"Perhaps," Shrilynda answered. Sorceresses each had their own pathetic propensities. Although finding things seemed highly relevant to Shrilynda's current search, she will still unable to muster up the will to care. "Focus on the box."
Sorceresses had very little magic of their own. They could use prepared magical items and potions. And, of course, their blood was very useful for potions and spells of all types. They could also tap into magical sources regular, useless people could not. For example, Shrilynda was a magic source. She was skilled at guarding her magic to make herself impossible to track and to keep her own magic safe from bumbling Sorceresses. But sometimes that magic was worth sharing, especially when a Sorceress needed to be tested.
Shrilynda released her hold on the smallest bit of her magic.
Esmona gasped. "I can see...something. Whatever's in the box is—It's like it's on fire, it's so bright."
"It's very powerful," Shrilynda agreed.
Esmona stretched out her hand to pick up the box. Shrilynda inhaled a breath of anticipation. The second Esmona's fingers brushed the carved surface, the box responded. Filmy black, tendrils snaked up the pirate's arm, twisting around her body. Esmona tried to back away, but she was already pinned in place by the dark magic.
"What's happening?" Esmona managed to choke out just before the black tendrils snaked up her neck and forced their way into her throat.
"You've activated a rather nasty trap," Shrilynda answered, although it was doubtful Esmona could hear her through all the gagging and struggling. "It had to be done."
Also, to elicit such a powerful response from the ward, Esmona's blood must have been reasonably powerful. Interesting. The potential danger was increased, but so was her potential usefulness.
Shrilynda pried the box from Esmona's hand as her strangled breath rasped in her magic-tangled throat. Black lines wrapped tighter and tighter around her body. She fell to her knees, convulsing like she was being shocked by a lightning rod.
Shrilynda flipped open the wooden lid of the box. Sitting unceremoniously within the roughly hewn inside of the small box was a glossy, dark ring. The band was thick and simple, but it hummed with protective power.
Esmona had managed to wrest free one of the knives strapped to her side, but short of a feeble attempt to end her own suffering, there was little she could do against this magic attack. Shrilynda was nearly moved by her tenacity, her drive to continue her pointless existence.
Shrilynda knelt on the ground next to the dying woman and picked up one of her limp, floppy hands. Esmona struggled, limbs twitching while strangled sounds gurgled from her throat. Her feebleness was comic. Shrilynda had little difficulty jamming the ring onto the pirate's middle finger. The instant the ring was in place, the black tendrils shattered and evaporated.
Shrilynda sighed. It would have been lovely to collect up that dark magic, but it was the particularly troublesome type that would have fed off any magic Shrilynda chose to combat it with. The Malum ward had no doubt been designed in a time when sources of dark magic were plentiful—not stolen and obliterated by a foolish girl with a savior complex.
"What—" Esmona gasped, trembling on the debris-littered floor. "Was that?"
Shrilynda rocked back on her heels. "A rather clever ward was placed on the box—a curse left behind to attack anyone with magic attempting to get at the ring of protection inside."
Esmona spread out her fingers and examined the plain ring on her hand. "What kind of 'clever' curse can be countered by what is inside the cursed box?" she snapped, her voice still raspy and weak.
The question may have been rhetorical, but Shrilynda did love the twisted beauty of curses, so she chose to answer it anyway.
"The Naturae would have tried to break the ward before simply allowing it to harm one of their precious Sorceresses. Attempting to use magic to dislodge the ward instead of allowing it to attach itself to a magical being would have multiplied its effects and potentially killed a whole roomful of Naxturaen curse-breakers. They always were shockingly ignorant about curses. It's a shame the box was never able to fulfill its purpose." She stroked the wood lovingly, sorry for its loss.
Esmona glared at her and massaged her neck, not sharing Shrilynda's nostalgia or regret.
"Luckily, I am much less squeamish about what needs to be done," Shrilynda finished.
"You knew exactly what was going to happen?" Esmona snarled.
"No, not exactly," Shrilynda mused. "I needed to show you how dangerous dark magic is. If you don't know how to take control of it, it will consume you."
"I see how dangerous you are," she muttered.
Shrilynda mouth twisted into a smile. "As long as you're more valuable alive than dead, you'll remain alive."
"Is that supposed to earn my trust?"
Shrilynda laughed at this. "If you trusted me, you'd be too stupid to bother working with." Still chuckling, she added, "But you do need me if harnessing magical power is a path you choose to follow."
Esmona continued glaring.
"Oh, come now," Shrilynda pointed out. "I did save your life."
"Which means you must need me," Esmona replied, picking herself off the ground, "or I would be dead now."
She was an intuitive woman, although "need" was something of an exaggeration. Shrilynda rose and went back to her search. "Mind what you touch," she warned casually. "That ring will protect you from most curses, but physical magic like the powdered scorpion tail on the floor will still melt your skin off."
Esmona sniffed and backed away from the death powder. "Good to know," she muttered, not sounding particularly grateful for the information. "Why give me the ring at all? Will it control me in my sleep or something?"
"The Naxturae were not nearly that creative," Shrilynda replied. "You have it because it's of no use to me. The ring was designed for a Sorceress."
"Why would I believe a word out of your mouth?"
Shrilynda decided to assume that was a rhetorical question. She was going to have to admit her blind searching was getting her nowhere. There were too many objects of interest in this room, and too many cabinets and shelves and trunks in addition to smashed wood and birds' nests plastered to walls.
To add to the chaos, she heard a faint "eep" from the middle of the room. Esmona flipped the satchel open with her toe to reveal the furry, trembling lump.
"What use do you have of the monkey?" Esmona asked.
"She's eaten a stone that calls a rather onerous form of transportation," Shrilynda explained.
"To go where?"
"Where I need to go."
Esmona dug the ball of fur out of the satchel. "What are you doing to the poor thing?"
"She was opposed to coming with me, so a batch of Pulviseris Dormio fixed the problem."
"I don't think she appreciates your methods," said Esmona, stroking the monkey's back. The pirate appeared to have a soft spot for animals, or at least small monkeys. Shrilynda could not bear to stumble into a story about Esmona's personal background, so she let that lie for now, especially because Shrilynda had just thought of a way to use the monkey.
"She can find what I need," Shrilynda said.
Quita heard Shrilynda's voice and snapped awake, trying to leap out of Esmona's hands, but ending up fumbling awkwardly in her drugged state. Esmona held her securely. "I know, amorita," Esmona purred, still stroking the monkey's back. Quita gave up and drank in the sympathy, whimpering softly and glaring in Shrilynda's direction.
"The active stone inside that creature should be drawn to the control rune Rosaliy was too stupid to take with her," Shrilynda said, half out loud to herself and half to Esmona.
"What is a rune?" Esmona asked.
"A symbol imbued with power."
"I meant what am I looking for?"
"A symbol imbued with power," Shrilynda repeated.
Esmona rolled her eyes and flipped her hand in the air. "Fine. I'll see what she leads me to."
Esmona carefully set down the furry ball. Quita turned toward Shrilynda and launched into a combination of screeches and hissing, likely some version of monkey cursing.
"You might want to stand over there." Esmona pointed across the room. She wanted to pretend like they were on equal footing, which was amusing, but since there was some hope the monkey might cut down the search time, Shrilynda acquiesced and moved toward the hole in the floor in case the monkey decided to attempt a pathetic escape.
Quita watched Shrilynda go angrily, buffeting her head with her little arms.
"The rune might be making a sound only she can hear," Shrilynda realized.
"What do you hear, amorita?" Esmona asked, tapping her ears pierced with gold rings and dangling, shiny stones.
The monkey squeaked in response, still tugging on the side of her fuzzy, brown head. She scrambled to a locked trunk where she proceeded to beat on the sides with her hands and beseech Esmona with her bug-eyes and plaintive screeching.
Esmona hesitated. "Is this lock magical—filled with demon rats who will chew off my toes perhaps?"
Shrilynda appreciated her sadistic creativity. "You're a quick learner," she said with both honesty and more than a touch of sarcasm. "No, it's just a lock."
Esmona withdrew her knife and flipped it so she was holding the upper part of the handle and wielding the knife backwards. She slammed the hilt against the lock until the tired, rusty thing snapped. She pushed open the lid, and the monkey scrambled over the side and dove in headfirst. Esmona was quick to react, but by the time she pulled the squirming ball of fur from the trunk, Quita's little hands were wrapped around a chunk of glossy, etched granite.
"Letting her touch it may not have been the best of ideas," Shrilynda said.
Esmona was about to ask why, but off in the distance, a cannon fired. Esmona edged toward the open wall to crane her head out.
"An alarm from the offshore patrol—something incoming," she said.
"Hmm," Shrilynda replied. "That was fast."