The Shadow Of Fallen Gods Page 9

  “As you know, the Prince doesn’t just share our ideals but is also a mage himself. The first one to ever be in the position of occupying the Imperial throne. For this reason, the Academy is heavily invested in the Prince’s success. His safety is of paramount importance to us. Which is why, for now, I am personally taking responsibility for the Prince’s protection.

  “However, for obvious reasons, this situation is untenable in the long term. This brings us to the reason why you’re here. I want you to be Prince Fadan’s bodyguard.”

  There was a moment of silence where Phaedra was only able to blink. “Are you serious?” she asked at last.

  “Quite,” Persea replied matter-of-factly.

  “With all due respect, Your Majesty, this would be a waste of my skills.” Phaedra looked at her mistress. “You have plenty of talented mages you can use. Mages who don’t have my…” she searched for words, “responsibilities.”

  “No need to hide what you do,” Persea said. “The Prince is well aware of the Circle’s existence and what your job is. I will miss having another Archon hunter in the field, but as I have explained, the Prince’s safety is of the utmost importance for us. I will not trust this task to anyone outside of my Chosen. And among that select few, you possess the skills that make you ideal for this task.”

  “Like what? I’m available?”

  “You’re my best tracker,” the Arch-Mage replied.

  Phaedra was taken aback. Did she just receive a compliment from Persea? “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

  Persea sighed and rolled her eyes. “You have excellent observation and deduction skills, Phaedra. It’s no coincidence I always give you the targets that are hardest to find, and, in this case, your first task is to find whoever is behind this attack.”

  “There isn’t much for you to work with,” the Prince chimed in. “But there is an obvious suspect. My father. The questions is how did he infiltrate us?”

  “Your father?” Phaedra echoed, still recovering from Persea’s words. “No. No, it couldn’t have been your father. If he knew that you were here, that this is the Rebellion’s headquarters, he wouldn’t have sent a lone assassin. He would’ve sent every single one of his Legions. A moment ago, you said you’re not the Rebellion’s leader yet. What exactly did you mean by that?”

  Smiling, Persea looked at Fadan. “See? What did I tell you?” She turned back to Phaedra. “Not everyone in the Council is as enthusiastic about the Prince’s leadership as we are. The Prince has been busy working to persuade them to his cause.”

  “For months,” Fadan added. “So, are you are suggesting this could be someone from the Council?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything yet,” Phaedra replied.

  Fadan nodded. “But you are accepting this job, right?”

  “Why, is it optional?” Phaedra asked, directing a smirk at Persea.

  Instead of replying, the Arch-Mage simply said, “The Prince is correct when he says there isn’t much for you to work with. The assassin died in the scuffle. However, you are free to examine the corpse.” Persea turned and headed back to her desk. “Find out who’s behind this. Until then, I will remain by the Prince’s side.”

  “I fear we might be sending you on a wild goose chase,” Fadan said. “I wish you luck.”

  “There’s nothing harder than lying and keeping secrets,” Phaedra replied. “Somewhere along the way, people always slip up. There’ll be a breadcrumb, I’m sure. And I’ll find it.”

  “Excellent!” Persea sat down at her desk. “The mage outside will escort you to the scene. It has been kept undisturbed for the benefit of your investigation.” She picked up a quill and started scribbling on a piece of parchment. “I will maintain a mental connection to you, so keep me appraised.”

  “Yes, mistress. Your Majesty.” With a short bow towards the Prince, Phaedra turned around to leave.

  Just as she reached for the doorknob, Persea said, “And Phaedra?”

  The Wizardess turned around.

  “Be quick about it.”

  * * *

  Fadan was tired of laying still, his muscles growing restless from the complete inactivity. As if that wasn’t enough, his whole back itched as if an army of ants was crawling all over it, but he did not dare scratch for fear of the pain that came with his every movement.

  Silence filled the room, broken only by the intermittent scratching of Persea’s quill. Fadan rolled his head to look at her.

  “I wasn’t expecting someone so…” He searched for the right word.

  “Pretty?”

  “I was going to say small.”

  “Yes, but you meant pretty.” With a bored expression, Persea stopped writing and looked at the Prince. “Phaedra is one of the most talented mages I’ve ever trained. On a good day, she could make some Arch-Mages I know look bad, so don’t let her looks fool you.”

  “I know enough about mages not to judge them on their looks.”

  “Also, if she is to be your bodyguard, you will have to put those thoughts aside,” Persea continued. “You have too many responsibilities to allow yourself that sort of distraction.”

  Feeling his face grow warm, Fadan looked away from Persea and stared at the ceiling. “You’re being ridiculous. Besides, no one is more aware of my responsibilities than me.”

  “That’s good to know.” The Arch-Mage resumed her writing.

  Fadan took a deep breath. He felt powerless. Something was about to change—something big—and instead of preparing for it, he was tied to this bed.

  “You’re so calm about this whole thing,” Fadan said.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? You survived the assassination attempt, so it has now become an advantage.”

  “An advantage?” Fadan rolled his head to look back at Persea, frowning.

  “Nothing is safe that has not been attacked. It is that which seeps through the cracks that warns us of our vulnerabilities. We have an enemy we did not know about. Thanks to this attempt on your life, now we do.”

  “Yes, I know.” Fadan looked back up at the ceiling. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  * * *

  Be quick about it. Persea’s words echoed in Phaedra’s mind like a taunt. The gall of that woman… She paced back and forth, pretending to inspect the scene, fuming. I knew that damn compliment couldn’t’ve been real.

  The room was a complete wreck. Charred remnants of what had once been furniture littered the floor, two walls had crumbled to the point where they barely existed anymore, there was even a hole in the ceiling.

  “You’re probably assuming this was caused by a magic fight,” the bald mage said, indicating the destruction around them, “but—”

  “But it wasn’t, yes, I know,” Phaedra interrupted.

  “Oh… I thought I was supposed to brief you.”

  “You are!” Phaedra shot back. “Except this is obvious.” She pointed at one of the gouges on the stone wall. “These are too clean and smooth—typical signs of spatial displacement bubbles, indicating that all of this was caused by a bunch of mages clumsily teleporting in.” She strode to the dead body, laying in a pool of his own blood. “He was killed by a blade and not magic, so obviously they all arrived after the fight.”

  The poor man just blinked back at her, probably wondering what he’d done wrong.

  Realizing she was taking her frustrations out on the wrong person, Phaedra cleared her throat and knelt next to the assassin’s corpse. “Let’s see what you have for me,” she muttered, hiding her embarrassment.

  The corpse had belonged to a middle-aged man in decent physical condition. Death had stolen most of the color on his skin, which now looked waxy. He wore cheap, plain clothes, tall leather boots, and a dark cloak to cover it all.

  “You should stand back,” Phaedra warned the bald mage.

  Frowning, the man complied, stepping back a couple of paces.

  Phaedra placed her fingers around the dead man’s head, like two spiders crawling aro
und his scalp. She closed her eyes, tapped her Runium reserve, and ignited it, channeling a mind reading spell. Her stomach turned immediately, and a sense of revulsion swept through her body. Unable to contain it, she puked into her mouth. Grimacing, she turned and spat the vomit to the floor, nearly spattering over the bald mage’s feet.

  Cursing, the mage stepped back even further, lifting his blue robe so its hem was as far away from the floor as possible.

  “Sorry about that,” Phaedra said, standing up and spitting again, trying to rid herself of the foul taste in her mouth. The corpse was too far gone. There was nothing salvageable in that brain.

  “What did you just do?” the bald mage snapped.

  “Don’t worry, I wasn’t trying to raise him from the dead or anything.” She stepped around the body to stand over an adjacent pool of blood that, she assumed, must’ve belonged to the Prince. “I don’t do death magic.” The blood was smeared as if the Prince had dragged himself across the floor. “Not on weekends, at least.”

  “What?”

  Ignoring the man, Phaedra twisted her head. A serious wound such as the one the Prince had received meant that the moment he had collapsed to the floor, he was already too weak to fight. Which, in turn, meant that he had killed his attacker before falling to the floor. So why had he dragged himself to the already dead assassin?

  To call for help, of course, Phaedra concluded, looking at the fireplace.

  The assassin had been prepared. Knowing the Prince was a mage and not being one himself, he’d brought a Syphon to even the odds. That explained why the Prince had killed him with a blade and not a spell.

  Phaedra knelt before the fireplace and rummaged around in the ashes until her fingers ran against a small crystal about the size of a plum. She retrieved it and wiped the soot off by rubbing it on her purple robes, then inspected it. The crystal’s radiance was gone, stolen by the fire, rendering the Glowstone useless. What once had been a valuable magical artifact was now nothing more than a blue paperweight. Any clues it might have contained were gone as well.

  Tossing the dim crystal aside, Phaedra turned back to the corpse. “Come on, what have you got for me?” She opened the assassin’s cloak and felt around the body, searching for pockets. She found a lockpick, some coins, and a ring with an amber stone that was probably worth less than any of the coins—nothing of use.

  Phaedra scratched her chin. “Why do I have a feeling you’re keeping something from me?” She double checked his sleeves and collar, then took off the assassin’s boots and looked inside them.

  Nothing.

  With a knife, she pried at the seam of the soles, detaching them from the rest of the boot’s bottom, searching for any hidden caches.

  Again, nothing.

  Exhaling loudly, she unbuckled the man’s belt and pulled it off.

  “Are you going to undress him here?” the bald mage asked, grimacing.

  “Why, you’ve never seen a naked man before?” Phaedra replied, running her fingers along the belt’s leather.

  “Not a dead man…”

  Phaedra smiled. “There you are…”

  “What?”

  There was a seam in the belt, a hidden pocket. Phaedra slid two fingers inside the pocket and found a small mirror half the size of the palm of her hand. Its silver rim was covered in tiny Glowstone crystals. They glowed as if she had reached up into the night sky and collected a handful of stars.

  A portable Hypervisor.

  “Got you!”

  * * *

  As far as clues went, used magical artifacts were among the most useful. Traces of magic were occasionally left in the Glowstone crystals, revealing important details about the mage who had cast the enchantments. However, gleaning such hidden secrets wasn’t easy. Only those highly skilled in the art of crafting magical artifacts—Artificers—were able to extract that kind of information.

  Phaedra was no such expert, but the Rebellion’s headquarters was also the heart of the Academy as it existed today. If there was a place in Arkhemia where she could find the best Artificers, it would be here. For that reason, her next destination was, of course, the Academy’s Department of Artifacts.

  Phaedra navigated the underground facility’s labyrinth of dark hallways and narrow stairwells with ease. She was surprised she still remembered the layout of the place so well. But this was, after all, her home, or at least as close to one as she had. After the Purge, Phaedra had been among the few magelings directed here as part of the effort to rebuild the Academy. As the years had gone by, she grew up, completed her studies, and watched as the Rebellion’s Headquarters expanded. In the very first years, they had occupied only a couple of levels—one for storage of supplies, kitchens, and baths, and another to accommodate mages as well as non-magical folk hiding from Imperial authorities. Slowly, the facility had grown, tunnel by tunnel, level by level, until it had become the small underground city it was today.

  The Rebellion wasn’t anywhere near its goal of overthrowing the emperor and restoring the legality of magic yet, but they had indeed grown into a sizeable organization, and despite Phaedra’s duties being related to another, more secretive endeavor—fighting the Circle of Archons—there was no doubt she was proud of all they had achieved. After all, fifteen years ago the Academy had been on the brink of disappearing from the surface of Arkhemia, and now they numbered in the hundreds once more.

  As Phaedra strode across the compound, memories of her youth sprang into her mind. Small things triggered by familiar locations, like a cupboard near the kitchens where she used to hide every time she came last in one Persea’s challenges, or a nook at the end of a hallway with stone benches surrounding a small water fountain, where she had kissed a boy for the first time—Turek, of all people.

  After being selected as one of Persea’s Chosen, Phaedra’s world had revolved mostly around their small class. Their status among the students in general and the secrecy of what they were being trained to do had erected a wall between them and the rest of the people in the compound. It would’ve made sense that the twelve of them would become a tightly knit group, but the opposite had happened. Persea’s methods were harsh, pitching them against each other. The thorns of mutual distrust and suspicion had pushed them slowly apart, even though all they had were each other. They didn’t hate each other, either. Phaedra certainly didn’t dislike any of her classmates—except, perhaps, Turek—but they had been taught to survive even at the expense of their friends, and it had left scars.

  Her youth, Phaedra thought, was clearly a very odd one. And yes, every once in a while she did miss them all. Even Persea. The strangest of all things, however, was this recurring dream she kept having. In this dream, she was back in the magic school of Ashan, attending classes in the same towers she remembered from her childhood, except her tutor was Persea and her classmates were the rest of the Chosen. Persea taught them patiently, sending warm, motherly smiles at them. Then, they would run out of class, laughing, headed for some game in the courtyard. Ursula and Eliran would grab her hand and challenge her to a race—last one to the courtyard wouldn’t get dessert. Apodyon and Ebomir would play pranks on other students, prompting her to laugh herself to tears. It was the kind of dream one wouldn’t want to wake up from. And then Phaedra would wake up, and it would all feel odd and uncomfortable, like wearing someone else’s pants.

  “Phaedra?”

  Startled from her reverie, Phaedra spun around. A tall young man, about her age, was standing outside the door to a study. He wore the blue robes of initiated mages and hugged a bundle of boring looking tomes.

  “It’s been so long,” he added, stepping to her.

  His face was familiar, but Phaedra couldn’t quite place it, so she smiled faintly. “Yeah…” she muttered.

  “How have you been? I mean, I know you can’t talk much about your work, but…”

  The puzzle pieces fell into place inside Phaedra’s head and she remembered. They had been classmates after the Purge, in t
he months before Persea had chosen Phaedra for her private class. His name was Somlin. Phaedra remembered him as a sweet, quiet kid. She also remembered he’d had a massive crush on her.

  “I’m great,” she replied, then pointed at the door he had just come through. “You have your own study now? Very impressive.”

  “Oh, no.” Somlin blushed. “I’m doing an apprenticeship with Great-Enchantress Lowysa. The study is hers.” He laughed nervously. “Lowly mages like me don’t get our own studies.”

  “Right.” Phaedra nodded, struggling to keep her polite smile on. “Well, it was good seeing you.” She stepped away, making to leave.

  “Yeah, you too. Do you know how long you’ll be staying?”

  “Hum, no, actually.”

  “Well, if you’d like, we could go for a drink,” Somlin suggested as Phaedra started to pull away.

  “Sure. I’ll look for you if I have the time.” She turned and began to walk away in earnest.

  “Okay, great,” Somlin said. “Bye.”

  Phaedra waved.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” Somlin called. “I was sorry to hear about Apodyon.”

  Phaedra halted, a cold grip tightening around her spine. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Somlin giving her a pained look.

  “I really liked him.” Somlin gripped his books tighter. “He was a good guy.”

  “Yeah,” Phaedra said, her voice faltering. “Yes, he was.”

  * * *

  “You don’t work here!”

  Phaedra lifted her head from the small desk. The voice belonged to a young boy of about sixteen years, who was frowning disapprovingly at her. With arms crossed over the light-blue robes of a novitiate, the boy waited patiently for an explanation.

  “I don’t?” Phaedra asked, feigning innocence.

  “I’m quite sure you do not,” he insisted. “And since I’m the assistant to the Head Artificer, I think I should know.”