The Will of the Empress

Musta been under the mattress for hours, to bleed up through everything, Briar decided. The energy in the oils had to move somewhere. The only way the mage that made the spell left it to go was up.

He couldn’t say how he knew the mage was a man, but he did. Moreover, the fiery brightness of the original spell and its complexity, even if he didn’t know how it was made, told him that they faced a very powerful mage, even a great mage. It was as bright as any work done by the four’s teachers.

To keep her asleep longer and deeper than the spell on us, I bet, thought Briar, recognizing some of the signs written into the original spell. To keep her out for days, not a day. And it woulda seeped into her power slow, so she’d never feel it coming over her. She’d be halfway across Namorn before she’d wake.

As soon as we get the rest of the household up and on her trail, we’ll destroy this and wake her up. Won’t that be a fine surprise for whoever’s got her? He smiled thinly and placed the parchment on the frame of the bed. Mage kit in hand, he went to Daja’s room. She slept as soundly as the others. Once more, Briar uncorked his wake-up potion and put the vial under her nose. She gasped, choked, and opened her eyes. Coughing, she swung a fist out to clip Briar’s head. Expecting it—the potion had that effect on many people—he dodged the blow.

“Kill me later,” Briar told her as she scrambled to get at him. “Some belbun nicked Sandry, and he’s got a serious mage in his pocket. If he isn’t the mage himself.”

Daja rubbed her eyes. “What’s in that poison?”

“Just the biggest wake-up weeds I know, spelled to crunch through any sleep spell. That’s how they got us in Gyongxe, sleep spells.”

Daja pulled a sack out of her mage kit and began to put items in it. She wore only her medallion, a breast band secured with a tie looped around her neck, and a loincloth. Her lack of clothing didn’t seem to concern her. “One of these days you’re going to have to tell me about what happened in Gyongxe,” she said, turning a spool of fine wire over in her hand before she stuffed it into the bag. “And not that ‘It was just a war’ pavao.” She straightened. “Let’s go smelt this down and see what floats.”

19

Briar suddenly realized he was very glad it was Daja with him. She was solid in spirit and heart—he’d forgotten that. She didn’t have Tris’s temper, vexing even with its most dangerous aspects held under rigid control, and she wasn’t inclined to the kind of noble arrogance that Sandry kept displaying. Of course he wouldn’t tell Daja that, but it was good to be reminded.

They trotted downstairs. The inn’s staff was asleep in a private parlor. It looked as if they’d told themselves they’d just put their heads down for a moment, then fallen asleep at one table. The four other guests had not returned from the horse fair.

I bet Zhegorz was right. Maybe they were soldiers, but now they’re in the pay of whichever imperial favorite tricked us this time, thought Briar. Maybe they had charms to hold off the sleep spell, but old Zhegorz scared them into the woods to wait till we were snoring, instead of being all nice and snug in here. Briar spat on the tiles in disgust. Tris was right to send him, and I was a bleater.

Daja went outside and quickly came back. “Asleep, all of them.”

“Stables are through the kitchen,” Briar said, pointing. “They’ll have needed horses to take Sandry.”

Daja nodded grimly. They walked through the kitchen door together into a force that felt like hard jelly. It wrapped around them in an eyeblink, then pulled them apart, leaving a yard of space between them.

One man was still awake. Quen lounged at the cook’s big table, fiddling with pieces of chopped turnips and carrots obviously meant for soup tomorrow. “I’ll wager you’ve never walked into anything like that before, have you?” he asked casually, his brown eyes gleaming in triumph. “Don’t worry, you can breathe. In fact, inside that working, you can stay alive for weeks. I tested it on a criminal scheduled for execution. After three months, Her Imperial Majesty lost patience and had him executed anyway.” He yawned. “I can’t leave this inn and still hold you two like this, but I’ve had worse situations. I wish you could tell me how you broke my sleep spell. No one was supposed to wake from that for three days. And I shaped it so that it couldn’t be broken once you were asleep.” He scratched the side of his mouth. “You’ll tell me when I free you, perhaps. Or I could let the glove of air down enough to free your mouths, if you swear to behave. Or not. I suppose you’re a little more powerful than I expected.” He smirked. “So, what shall I talk about?”

Daja and Briar reached out at the same moment along their magical connection, withered as it was. It sprang to life as Daja said, He’ll bore us to death if he keeps talking.

It seems like that, Briar answered. While he natters, we still don’t know about Sandry.

Sandry! cried Daja, grabbing for their bond. Sandry!

I couldn’t reach her before, Briar said. At the same time, he added his call to hers. They still found no trace of their friend.

“I suppose you’re running through all the spell-breaking charms you know,” Quen observed. “But that’s the beauty of it, don’t you see? They’re layered shield spells, but some of them are reversed. My own design. No single charm possessed by any mage will work on this glove spell. Well, Isha broke out, but she’s even more powerful than I am. She just blasted it. She said I need to stay humble. She even thought she might not be the only one who could do it, but really, outside noble courts, or the universities and the Living Circle schools, you’re not likely to find that many great mages. People tend to dislike us. They think we’re conceited and high-handed. They never think that perhaps we just spend so much time trying to wrestle our magic into behaving that it makes us short-tempered with the everyday world. So we hide.”