Wyvern Ways and Elven Magic Page 3

  Brick caught one uniformed servant gazing at him, but supposed the guy was checking out his slitted pupils rather than his face or bod. People did stare at his strange-looking eyes, so much so that Brick sometimes liked to wear dark glasses in new places, among new people.

  “Where’s Sylph?” he thought to ask. Their family’s—well, the Ruby Throne’s—air elemental servant was mostly invisible, but Brick could usually detect its presence, even before it manifested with its customary shimmer. “Keeping away from the fountain?”

  Sylph would avoid even this ornamental, contrived contraption that was splashing out sparkling water and wine to drink. Brick stuck a finger under the drops and licked it. It tasted fine to him, but their elemental didn’t like any type of water, even a trickle of the stuff.

  Gules studied Brick. “If you’re lonely, why didn’t you bring someone? I know you aren’t…with anyone,” he added before Brick could speak, “but there’s room in the second carriage—you could have invited a friend?”

  Brick sniggered, thinking of his drinking bro Flad at an event like this. The guy had no patience for anything of this nature and no pretensions either. When he’d met the First Lady, it had been when Cerise was congratulating the guards who’d just graduated from training and asking them what was next for them. Flad had replied, “I’m gonna stay drunk for a month.” And when Cerise, blinking in bemusement, had explained that she referred to his future plans, Flad had said, “Yeah, so did I,” and winked.

  He’d also called her by her original name, not the one she’d taken on marrying into the Ruby Throne, which had enraged her to the point her face had burned red. Brick had stopped Flad commenting on how well that fitted in with the ruling family color scheme.

  But yeah, he did wish he had someone. Gules was betrothed to his soul-bonded, Marija —who already had Magenta picked out as her marrying-in name—and Vermillion was happy with her current pair, Krystle and Hans, whom she had no intention of settling down with…well, not for more than a few hours at a time, anyway. He imagined walking around a celebration like this, or any of the stuff planned for the royal wedding, arm-in-arm with someone he loved and who loved him.

  Someone I can laugh with too. And go drinking with. And who likes all this diplomacy and ruling stuff. Who’s handsome, likes sex and preferably has a big d—

  “Does it mean anything that Jerrick, the Chancellor, isn’t here yet? Or that his son isn’t expected at all?” Carnell swung by to hiss at them out of the side of his mouth, covering his action by holding a silver cup to the splash of the fountain, to fill it.

  “Jurgen’s high up, and so’s Jodhi. Over there, look. You can tell by their names how royal-adjacent they are,” said Cerise, on his arm.

  “Hmm.” Carnell seemed placated.

  Brick wouldn’t expect Jade, the Storm King, to be here at some meet-and-greet like this, even if everyone was coming to the kingdom for his wedding. He must be far too busy with the preparations for the ceremony, as would his mate, Grlind. Brick studied the massive portraits of the couple that were hanging from the big pavilion.

  Jade, the Storm King, the leader of the Elves, stared back regally from his painting, the tips of his pointed ears visible through his long black hair, the markings on his forehead clear. There was no portrait of Jade, the Storm Queen—there’d be no point, Brick supposed. The royal blood made the Storm King able to switch genders, but the face didn’t change, just the body attached to it.

  Grlind was, well, an orc. Literally. Brick wasn’t name-calling. His race meant that the guy shone the color of fresh peas, the shade now known as Grlind green, Cerise had told them. He was bald, and his head sort of lumpy…a bit like a dish of mushed peas, in fact.

  “Ewww,” muttered Scarlet, seeing where Brick was looking. “Like, really ewwww.”

  “Don’t let anyone hear you say that,” her mother snapped. “You know we’re here not just as fellow rulers from a neighboring realm to celebrate a royal wedding, but also to strengthen ties and revive old alliances between our kingdoms.”

  “Bet the ‘happy couple’ is too,” Scarlet deadpanned.

  Brick wasn’t so sure. All he saw was the love shining in both sets of eyes, elf and orc. He wanted that. Yeah, he was lonely.

  “So we’re all here to do what’s expected of us. Every one of us.” Cerise looked first at her daughter then at her youngest son.

  Brick shrugged. “Not much I can do,” he admitted. He wished there were.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” replied his mother, and the steel in her gaze softened a little as she eyed him. For a moment, a sly and almost calculating look crossed her face. “No, I wouldn’t at all…” She walked away to the larger tent.

  What was that about? Brick opened his mouth to ask Scarlet, but she turned and mumbled something, making a hasty escape. Huh. Brick didn’t know what was going on, didn’t see how he could help out his family…but he knew he didn’t like the feeling settling over him. The breeze wasn’t cold, but he shivered nonetheless.

  His heart heavy, Brick plodded after his sister to where they’d be eating local refreshments. He hated these things but he knew his duty. This pointy-topped tent was large and everyone stood chatting around high tables, which saved working out the protocol of who could sit before whom. Always a nightmare. As were the dainty little chairs people seemed to favor for these diplomatic occasions…and that Brick always seemed to crush to matchwood or get his rump stuck in.

  Cerise accepted a tiny cup from a bowing servant, dug out what looked like a glowing cherry with her little finger and licked it into her mouth. She downed the drink then threw the cup into her mouth too.

  “Really?” Brick muttered. His mother should know. “Okay… Ooh.” The drink was sickly sweet and the small square cup was made of chokolaite, he discovered. Crunching it made him miss what the just arrived-elderly man, the chancellor, was saying. Something about his son being too busy with something but joining them later.

  Cerise seemed to know the man. Herrick, wasn’t it? Jerrick, right. Brick helped himself to a second tiny cup and listened to his family walking that fine line between being social and showing off.

  “Gules just got his wyvern breath now he’s bonded, yes.” His proud momma beamed. “And it’s a peacemaking, tranquilizing ability!”

  “Useful when his little lady kicks off, eh!” joked an elderly council member, his shining row of service medals proclaiming his senior rank.

  “Useful in diplomacy, yes. And it’s the exact opposite of his father’s,” Cerise added.

  Carnell had gotten storm breath, making him powerful, which was more useful in negotiations. Brick’s sigh—not wyvern breath, because he couldn’t ever see himself finding his soul-bond and so gaining that special wyvern power—ruffled a pile of napkins, making a servant grab them.

  He thought he’d better take himself off and slipped into a quiet corner, out of everyone’s way. He was no use in a situation like this, just as he had no value in making alliances or treaties or anything that would benefit his family.

  “Not true. The prophecy?” A glimmer then a gleam and Sylph was there, picking thoughts out of Brick’s head as usual.

  “What?” Brick’s neck ridges wanted to rise, and he wasn’t in shifted form.

  “The prophecy that says the wyverns will help the elven kingdom and the elves aid the wyverns too.”

  “That’s…nice?” Brick didn’t like the jagged glints Sylph was giving off.

  “Good, because it’s through you.”

  “Me? I hardly think so.”

  “I know so. You’re coming to live here.”

  Sylph must be moon-addled. “I’m what now?”

  “You’ll be living here when you marry one of the Storm King’s royal-adjacent councilors, fulfilling the alleged prophecy, but really as collateral for the mutual aid alliance.” Sylph glittered diamond bright and steel hard.

  “Counc…” Brick stared at the group, all of whom were wrinkled and wizened like—

  “Trolls’ nutsacs? I think you picturing trolls’ private parts is something your lady mother should know about.” Sylph vanished, probably to tell her.

  “Come back here!” Brick cried. “So I can tie you to the ceiling and spin you around and use you as a disco ball! What…? Why—? The hell?”

  He was to be given over, as if he were mere goods from their land, like a jar of gymph wine or a wrap of ged curd cheese? He staggered from the tent, making for the fresh air. Arriving in the elf kingdom had made him unwell, but knowing he wouldn’t be leaving? That had put him under a death sentence.

  Chapter Four

  Whishhh! The ax flew through the air of the Hall. Tunnng! It landed in the barrel of beer on its stand beyond the far end of the long wooden table.

  “Wait for it,” Mikel, the palace’s Great Hall steward and ax thrower, advised the eager onlookers, and sure enough, seconds later, the barrel split with a creeeak and, to loud cheers, the drink flowed from it. The guests stamped their feet in approval and the pages catching the stream of ale in goblets and passing them out were smiling.

  “I hereby declare the first wedding celebration banquet open!” Mikel yelled, to louder applause. He lifted his cup and took the first swig, as he should, to test it was fit to drink—and not going to poison the Storm King—then held it aloft to signal that everyone could and should follow suit.

  Not that they need any encouraging, down this end of the Great Hall. Jagger, one of the few councilors or officials there at the moment, took a cup and had a healthy gulp too. These long tables with their fixed benches were for the lower ranks. Jade and Grlind, when they arrived, would be in the thrones up there on the raised dais, not down here behind the open fire.

  “Think it’s going to
work?” he asked Mikel. “This more informal first feast plan?”

  Mikel shrugged his vast upper body, slopping his beer, and gestured at the townsfolk who were marveling at the Great Hall’s vaulted ceiling and ouro-thread hanging tapestries. It hadn’t been his idea to ask the lowliest of the kingdom to arrive well before the highest, but he had to make the best of it. “Maybe. Yeah, the staggered invitations probably will make this lot feel they’ve rubbed elbows with their betters but be finished and out so they’re not gawking at them for too long while they eat.”

  He would probably be too conscious of his place—and Jagger’s—in the hierarchy to ask if it had been his or the chancellor’s idea. Jagger couldn’t have cared less about who ate when and didn’t think the plan had come from his father. The chamberlain probably. He hadn’t been paying enough attention in all those boring planning meetings to recall. He wandered about, nodding at people he knew from the town—well, mostly male elves he knew from the tavern.

  A couple of them gaped in amazement to see him here like this, one of the first in the Great Hall, his mahogany curls washed and bouncing, and him resplendent in his newest leather breeches. He’d polished his boots and sword. He had a dress uniform of course, and he’d wear it—if forced to—at the actual ceremony but not before. It had a triangular hat with a long, curled feather on it, that he wouldn’t put on his head for all the gold in the vaults, if he had his way. The last time he’d had to don the outfit, the stupid feather had bobbed around his face and tickled his nose and chin. He’d been that close to plucking the ridiculous thing off and turning it into a pen.

  And virtue was its own reward, as they said—being here early got him first look…and first pick. There must be some possibilities among the arrivals. Weren’t the cabal of mages, from the seminary beyond the Crosswise Mountains, arriving today? He’d love to see if the rumors about what exactly the seminary’s curriculum consisted of were correct. The things mages were reputed to be able to do…

  Jagger peered around the hall but couldn’t see any tall figures in deep indigo cloaks. There were only elves, arriving in droves now. That was the actual name for a group of them. Well, an adult group—the collective noun for young elves was a mischief. In his case, fitting. And hey, he was young!

  “Son!” Jerrick beckoned him over, looking flustered. “You’ve been circulating down there, yes, as I suggested? And anything to report? Any new faces? Anyone stand out to you?”

  “Huh?” Jagger pulled his wrist from Jerrick’s shaky grip on it. “Dad, I don’t need you prying into my affairs! I can find my own…entertainment, shall we say. And I’m sorry I have no intention of finding the one who stands out, or however you put it, but—”

  “What? Son—” Jerrick glanced around and nudged Jagger behind a pillar. “I’m not referring to your…to anything like that. I meant the threats! Haven’t you been paying attention? Did you at least read the minutes of today’s meeting?”

  Of course not. About to say, ‘What do you think, Dad?’ Jagger realized how serious and even flustered his father was. “Remind me?”

  Jerrick tsked. “That not everyone is happy that the Storm King has chosen to marry someone outside his own kind! Some people are against interspecies mating. And not just people here, in the elf kingdom. Prejudice is universal.”

  “Hatred, you mean. Bigotry.” Jagger paused. He’d heard murmurs, in the Cock and Balls, the local tavern where he spent most of his free time, but not actual conversation. Hust, the landlord, had a very strictly enforced no politics, no religion rule. “But there’s been nothing concrete?”

  “There’ve been protests!” Jerrick wiped his forehead with a linen square. “You know how careful we had to be in choosing the routes the guests took through the town to the palace, to avoid certain areas. Certain neighborhoods. We’ve had to use a little magic to shield the processions from anyone not wishing the visitors well, those without joy in their hearts for the union.” He replaced his handkerchief in his pocket and accepted the cup of water Jagger took from a page’s tray for him.

  “I have to admit, I never knew it was possible,” he admitted, waving a hand at the enormous portraits above the thrones. “Bonding, between different species.”

  “Talking of different species, the ogres are late,” Joziah inched up to tell them. He lifted the seal on his chain of office. Bespelled, it changed into whatever the chamberlain might happen to need at any given time, and it was currently a big fat gold watch with a clear face and a loud tick.

  “Oh, they can’t tell the time and no page wants to go to their rooms to call them!” Jodhi, the chief steward, wheezed at his own joke.

  “Oh, not their fault…that they couldn’t read the itinerary!” Hareth replied.

  Jagger expected the senior councilor to slap his thigh after that rib-tickler. “What were you just saying about prejudice, Father?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  His father, who’d been chortling a little at the pathetic jokes, had the grace to look ashamed. “Come. Let’s take our places,” he suggested, sweeping his fellow councilors along to their section of the table on the dais.

  It was situated under the Councilors’ Gallery of portraits hanging on the wall, and as always when he was in the Great Hall, Jagger noted the resemblances between Jerrick and the painting of his father, Jacron. Grandfather Jacron had been chancellor too, the most trusted and loved advisor to the Storm Emperor, Jade’s parent. Jagger supposed Jerrick’s portrait would hang there too when he left the earth. Would they remove Jacron’s, then? And Jagger would sit where his father was now? Gods. The hall they were in was big enough, but Jagger felt it closing in on him.

  Nah. I’m unlikely to make chancellor. It had to skip a generation at some point, even if their family had always served the high court. Through famines and feasts, insurrections and celebrations… He couldn’t remember the rest of the family creed and wasn’t that cut up about it. It didn’t even rhyme anyway. Or scan. He switched his focus to the servitors laying out their wares with practiced, swift movements.

  The Great Hall was filling up before his eyes, the different groups entering to fanfare and polite ripples of applause with the fancier or more exotic guests provoking the occasional gasp. One group coming in the east door had everyone about them craning their necks to see.

  “The Ruby Throne,” Jodhi leaned over to tell Jagger. “You’d be interested, hey?”

  Why would I? Jodhi turned to the person on the other side of him before Jagger could ask him. He didn’t care much, anyway. The noise rose if not to the ceiling, then to the minstrel galleries on either side of the room. A trio of musicians was making their way to one, weaving their way through the streams of nobles, courtiers and burghers.

  Jerrick had hardly sat before he tsked and stood, hurrying to the thrones to align them better. Jagger couldn’t see any difference when his father had finished and doubted the Storm King would either.

  The place stilled, then everyone rose to their feet and broke into applause—Jade and Grlind had entered the hall. Jade, switched to his female form as the Storm Queen, waved the guests to their seats again, and the pages bustled up and down once more. Palace guards ringed the room, standing discreetly against the walls, and Jagger now understood why. Threats, his father had said. Why, for gods’ sake? All the Storm Queen had done was choose to be with the person she loved. Even if that brought no advantages to the kingdom. Even if it brings the opposite.

  Jade suddenly looked at him and beckoned. Jagger considered pulling a ‘who me?’ act and looking behind him but got to his feet and approached the thrones. He gave a low bow.

  “Your place is here with us.” Jade, now in male form, indicated the first chair that wasn’t a throne at this top table, to his left.

  “It’s my honor,” Jagger responded, and sat. Did Jade have him confused with someone else? Unlikely—they knew each other. Oh, wait. Was he supposed to be delivering some speech or announcing something? He really should have paid attention in the meetings. Well, whatever it was, he’d pick up enough cues to wing it. He usually did. He took a huge gulp of litch wine in preparation.

  “Mister Jagger…”