Алекс Ланг - Once...

Like a chick in its egg, Jenna lay curled within a bubble of ice half-buried in muck at the bottom of Palace Lake. In her gloved left hand she clutched the frost-covered spellstone that kept the walls of her shelter frozen, teased air from the blue-green water… and slowed time. After a day and a night, she should have been so cramped from immobility she would not be able to move when the time came, but to her, it had not been a day and a night; to her, it seemed only a few minutes had passed since she had waded into the lake in the early morning darkness. Her thoughts, though flowing normally to her, in fact moved with all the sluggishness of treacle in midwinter.

She had left that cold the day before, passing through the single Gate in the Lesser Barrier into the Palace grounds with a dozen other young women, newly hired to serve as maidservants.

And what happened to those we replaced? she thought bitterly as she waited in her bubble of ice. Some have grown too old, some have grown too ugly. And some have simply vanished, used, abused, discarded, no questions asked, no investigations launched, no retribution, no recompense… because those doing the using and abusing and discarding were MageLords.

The spellstone filled her left hand, but her right held something else: a tiny crossbow, cocked and loaded, the quarrel white with frost, steaming with cold. Around her neck, she wore a third item of magic: a simple silver circlet, broken in one place, hanging on a cord of leather.

In her time-slowed memory, it had been only a short while since Vinthor had hung that amulet around her neck. “This is the power source,” he had said. “Keep it hidden.” She had nodded, and pushed it down inside her blouse, so that it lay, cold at first but warming quickly, between her breasts, glad that at least it did not glitter with frost like the spellstone and quarrel.

“The spellstone knows what to do,” Vinthor told her. “The moment you are completely submerged, it will form your…” he hesitated, searching for the word.

“Blind?” Jenna suggested. “I am going hunting, after all.”

Vinthor smiled at that, but it was a smile tinged with sadness. “I wish someone else could do this,” he said softly. “But…”

“But only a young woman, hired to be a maid, can get inside the Lesser Barrier,” Jenna said. “I volunteered, remember, Vinthor? When you told us what the Patron needed.” She remembered the pride she had felt, the excitement that at last she could strike a blow for the Commons…

… for her mother’s sister, the aunt she had adored as a small child, until suddenly she wasn’t there anymore-vanished, like so many others, in the service of the MageLords.

That memory brought a fresh surge of hatred to her breast. “I want this, Vinthor,” she said. “It’s the greatest honor I can imagine.”

Vinthor nodded, lips pressed tightly together. “Of course. And I have every confidence in you. As does the Patron.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I will be watching,” he said. “From outside the Barrier. When you strike your blow… I will bear witness to the Patron that you did your part, and did it well.”

That had been their farewell. There was nothing else to be said, because they both knew that, whether the attack succeeded or failed, Jenna would almost certainly not survive. It was one thing to get inside the Lesser Barrier: another entirely to get out of it, with the Royal guard in full cry.

And that was why Jenna carried one other small object, not magical at all: a simple glass vial, filled with a fast-acting and fatal poison.

Whatever happened, she must not be taken and questioned by Lord Falk, the Minister of Public Safety. And so, whatever happened, she would not be.

She took another long, slow breath. Subjectively, her wait had not yet been long. But it didn’t matter.

Long or short, it would end eventually.

Eventually, the Prince would come.

And then, the Prince would die.

Not ten strides from where Prince Karl and his bodyguard Teran sat in magical sunlight on soft green grass, a snowstorm raged.

Warm enough with only a wrap around his waist, Karl watched snow slithering across drifts that ended abruptly, flat as knife-sliced slabs of cheese, against the Lesser Barrier, visible only as a slight shimmer in the air like heat waves rising from a fire. Then his eyes narrowed. Something was moving out there.

“Teran, look!” He pointed toward the Barrier. Teran, who had been gazing across the lake at the Palace, twisted his head around to look as a shadow took shape, materializing into a Commoner who was struggling through the snow-choked park on the other side of the Barrier. Swathed in a knee-length coat of black fur, with throat, mouth, and chin wrapped in a dark-green scarf beneath a huge fur hat, the man raised his head as the light of the magesun fell on his face. His eyes met Karl’s. For a long moment-a few seconds longer than strictly proper, Karl thought-he stared at the Prince; then he lowered his head and plowed on. Within seconds he faded back into the swirling gloom.

“He didn’t look too happy with you, Your Highness,” Teran said idly. Being technically on duty, he wore his guard uniform of blue tunic and trousers, silver breastplate and high black boots, but he had set his helmet aside on the grass and his sword next to it. His right hand held a dewcovered bottle of Old Evrenfels Amber. Drinking on duty was definitely against regulations, but the only one who could report him was Karl, and Karl had given him the bottle in the first place, from the magic-cooled chest close at hand.

Karl snorted. “ I wouldn’t be too happy with me, either. But what’s he doing wandering through the park in that weather?”

“Probably just wanted to get a glimpse of something green and growing,” Teran said. He jerked his head in the direction of the Barrier. “It’s not easy out there in the winter, you know. Even in the city. That’s when the Commoners envy the Mageborn the most. It’s a good thing you make a point of going out there once in a while, cutting ribbons, making speeches. Otherwise that envy might turn into hate.”

Karl shook his head. “They’re fools if they envy me,” he said. “Oh, it’s a nice enough prison,” he looked around at the manicured grass, the flowering bushes, the sparkling blue lake with the sprawling white limestone Palace on its far shore, the many-arched long bridge across the top of the dam that had formed the lake, “but it’s still a prison.”

“I suspect those held in Falk’s dungeon would dispute your definitions,” Teran said dryly.

Karl laughed. “True enough.” He grinned affectionately at his bodyguard. “So you’re saying I should quit bellyaching and enjoy myself.”

“Exactly.” Teran took another swig of ale. “Like me.”

“You’re supposed to be protecting me,” Karl pointed out.

“From what, exactly?” Teran said. “Out there,” he gestured at the snowstorm, “sure, there could be a risk. I could see a Commoner attacking you, since he might not understand how the magic works. But in here?” He looked around. “Unless some goose gets homicidal urges, you’re safe as houses. No Mageborn would ever attack the Heir. What would be the point?”

Karl laughed again. “Lucky for you.” He took a swallow of his own beer. Teran was quite right, of course. No MageLord or Mageborn would attack him, because it would accomplish nothing; he might be the Heir, but if he died, the Keys, the special magic of the King that kept the Great and Lesser Barriers in place, would simply choose a new Heir. No one would know who that Heir was until King Kravon died and the Keys made the leap to their new host. Since the new Heir would be unknown, no one could influence that person ahead of time. Worse, the new Heir might prove to be an enemy of whoever had arranged the assassination-someone who would then be able to act on that enmity with all the resources of the Kingship once the Keys came to him or her.