Canavan Trudi - The Traitor Queen

“All you need to do is smuggle me out of the Guild House and take me to your mansion,” Lorkin told Achati. “The Traitors will arrange the rest. They will ensure the king does not know your part in my escape. In return, and not until I am sure of my safety and freedom…” Lorkin sighed, then his expression hardened “… I will answer the question your king most wants to ask me. I will tell you where the Traitors’ home is.”

Achati stared back at Lorkin, his surprise changing to thoughtfulness, then approval. He nodded. “I can do that. It won’t be easy getting you into the carriage unseen but-”

“Lorkin,” Dannyl interrupted. “You don’t have to betray the trust of-”

“Let him go,” Tayend said. He met Dannyl’s eyes, his gaze sharp and unwavering, and nodded. Dannyl felt a stab of anger, but it quickly faded.

Tayend wouldn’t do anything to risk Lorkin’s life unnecessarily. He must think this will work. Or that it is the only chance Lorkin has. Which meant that Tayend thought Achati was telling the truth. How strange that it is Tayend who trusts Achati now, when I’m no longer sure of him.

Dannyl could believe that Achati didn’t approve of the king’s actions, but it would take a lot to convince him that the man was willing to go against his ruler’s orders, and risk that his actions would be discovered and considered treachery. He would lose not just the king’s trust, but his position, reputation and wealth. And possibly his life.

But Dannyl couldn’t think of an alternative, so he watched in silence as Achati and Lorkin sealed their agreement with vows. When they were done, Tayend beamed at them all.

“Perfect! Now all we have to do is figure out how to get Lorkin into Achati’s carriage without any of those pesky watchers noticing.”

Finishing her cup of raka, Lilia sighed with relief. In the last day or so she had begun to feel a bit worn around the edges — like the old clothes Jonna had given her to wear when she visited Anyi, Cery and Gol. Late nights spent underground and early morning lessons with Kallen were starting to take a toll.

She suppressed a groan at the thought of facing Kallen this morning. Anyi had told her about the cellar she, Cery and Gol had found under the Guild, and the conversation they’d overheard. From the descriptions, she suspected the two magicians were Lady Vinara and the Healer in charge of growing cure ingredients.

The news that they wanted to grow roet had shocked her at first, but it made sense. She didn’t agree with Cery’s theory that the Guild wanted to grow roet in order to put Skellin out of business — or at least prevent him being the sole supplier of the drug to magicians. It was far more likely that the Guild wanted it to help them find a cure for roet addiction, as well as to explore the plant’s potential as a cure for other maladies. After all, cures for the ill effects of plants were often found in the very plant that caused them.

But the news that the Guild was seeking roet seeds roused other suspicions, and for that reason she was not looking forward to meeting Kallen. Part of her wanted to confront him with what she’d learned. Is this why he won’t help Cery set a trap for Skellin? Are he, and the other magicians addicted to roet, afraid of removing Skellin in case it cuts off the roet supply?

Cery had told her to keep what she knew to herself, unless she had good reason to reveal it. She would have to pretend not to know anything while around Kallen, and somehow act as if she didn’t suspect him of having selfish motives for failing to help her friends.

“You’re lost in thought today,” Jonna noted. She moved to the table and leaned down to pick up the empty dishes from the morning meal. As she did, Lilia caught a strange but pleasant fragrance.

“Are you wearing perfume, Jonna?” she asked.

Jonna hesitated and looked a little guilty. “Yes.”

“What’s wrong?” Lilia frowned. “You don’t usually wear perfume. Are servants not supposed to?”

“Oh, nobody would be that fussy,” Jonna waved a hand, “but… Sonea doesn’t like this one. It was hers, but after she found out what it was made from she told me to throw it out. I like it and… well you can’t blame the plant for what it is. I don’t wear it when I’ll be around her, of course.”

“Which is why I haven’t noticed it before.” Lilia nodded. “It is lovely. What’s it made from?”

Once again, Jonna looked sheepish. “Roet flowers.”

Surprised, Lilia sniffed the air and tried to find some link between the odour and the smell of roet smoke. “It’s hard to believe the scent comes from the same plant.” Then something else occurred to her. “Where do the perfume makers get roet flowers from?”

Jonna shrugged. “I suppose from the people who grow it for the drug.”

Thinking back to Healing lessons on the sources of the Guild’s cures, Lilia considered what she knew about plants. Flowers usually contained a plant’s seeds. The Guild wanted roet seeds. From what Anyi had said, the plants the Guild had grown were not roet. They’d been tricked. Cery didn’t think any roet grower would dare sell seeds to the Guild — though they weren’t averse to cheating the Guild for what would have been a huge profit by substituting some other plant seed. If Skellin found out they had sold anyone roet seed, they wouldn’t live long.

Cery didn’t think roet was grown in Kyralia at all. He suspected it was cultivated elsewhere, harvested and dried before it was shipped to Imardin. Was the same true of the perfume? Most perfume makers were based in Elyne. Did they need fresh plants, or would dried ones do for making perfume?

Lilia stood up. “I had better go. Don’t want to be late and make Kallen nervous.”

Jonna smiled. “See you tonight.”

As she walked to the Arena, Lilia considered everything she knew and how little she could reveal in order to get answers to her questions. In brief moments of rest during Kallen’s lesson she weighed the risks and benefits. The sooner the Guild gets roet seeds, the sooner Kallen will help Cery. I just need to work out how to tell Kallen that I know the Guild is trying to grow it without revealing how I know…

She did not head to the University as soon as Kallen said they were done. He already had that distant, distracted manner where he didn’t meet her eyes but gazed into the distance when she approached him. As he saw she wasn’t leaving, he frowned and then his lips thinned.

“You can go now,” he told her again.

“I know, but I thought you’d like to know something: word on the street is that the Guild tried to buy roet seeds. Is it true?”

His gaze snapped to hers. His pupils widened. That got your attention, she thought.

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear from your friends,” he told her.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is this why you won’t help Cery? Afraid the supply will run out if the supplier is captured?”

Kallen’s eyes flashed with anger and his jaw tightened. “You have no idea how lucky you are,” he told her.

She blinked in surprise then felt a flash of anger. “Lucky? Me? My closest friend tricked me into learning black magic to set me up for murdering her father, then tried to kill me. The only people who care about me are far away, or likely to die any day now.”

His eyes widened, then his expression softened. “I apologise. I only meant…” He looked away, grimacing as if in pain. “You are fortunate to avoid being trapped by roet. There are many, many magicians who wish they had your resistance.”

Like yourself, she thought. But she found she couldn’t sustain her disgust at him. His reputation as a man whose integrity was infallible was essential to his role as a black magician. To lose his will to a mere pleasure drug must be humiliating, and would have shaken his confidence. The fact that he was a black magician must be making the other magicians who knew of his affliction nervous. Though, it was as frightening to contemplate what could happen if high numbers of ordinary magicians were held hostage by Skellin.