She smiled lazily as she felt Prince Zyperis's body tense against hers, then relax with an effort.
'I would never betray you, my mother, my Queen, my love,' Zyperis protested. He kissed her shoulder.
She chuckled throatily. 'Of course. But only suppose.'
The two of them were quite alone in Queen Savilla's private retiring chambers, sprawled upon a circular couch of saffron-dyed silk. The spicy scent of the fabric, heated by their recent exertions, filled the chamber, and the Prince's wings were spread over both of them like a perfumed cloak.
'You would destroy me,' Zyperis said. His tone was uncertain, as if he were not quite certain this was the answer she wanted. Good. Uncertainty was the beginning of submission… and of wisdom.
'But what if you were beyond my reach?' Savilla said playfully, reaching up to stroke his back with her gilded talons. 'What if you had escaped me? What then?'
'Then, dearest Mother, you would track me down, no matter where I had fled, and crush me utterly, no matter what you had to do.' From the faint note of relief in Zyperis's voice, he had decided this must be a game. 'Nor would you stop until you had done so. And for that reason, I would never flee… nor betray you.'
No, my son, you would not flee. Nor would you betray me unless you were certain you could win all in one throw of the counters, and render me powerless, Savilla thought with a faint spark of pride. Her son had greatness within him, and for that very reason, she must watch him carefully.
'The Arch-Mage Lycaelon Tavadon's son has betrayed him… and fled,' Savilla said.
'And does the human Mage pursue?' Zyperis asked with lazy interest.
He moved away from Savilla and off the edge of the bed. Getting to his feet, he walked over to a small jeweled table where a wine service stood waiting. He poured two jeweled golden cups full and brought them back to the bed, handing one to her and waiting until she drank.
'The human Mage does not pursue,' Savilla corrected him gently. 'The human Mage acted in accordance with the finest instincts of fatherhood— he condemned his son to death—but the Outlaw Hunt could not pursue the Mageborn boy beyond the boundaries of the City lands.'
Savilla did not know whether or not Lycaelon Tavadon knew what had happened to his Outlaw Hunt and his errant son, but her sources of information were far finer than Armethalieh's, and she did. The young Wildmage had lured a unicorn, and between them they had destroyed all the stone Hounds that the City had sent to kill him and escaped into the Wild Lands beyond the City borders.
What would Lycaelon Tavadon do if he knew?
He would want to pursue the boy, of course.
But the High Magick, by the terms of its initial creation, simply would not work outside the borders of the lands claimed by the City.
If Lycaelon Tavadon wanted to be able to chase down his Outlaw son with High Magick, he was going to have to get the High Council of Armethalieh to extend the borders of the lands the City claimed.
And doing that would drive hundreds—no, thousands—of fresh victims right into the Endarkened nets, solving all their problems at once.
Savilla sipped at her wine.
'As a mother myself, I feel for Lycaelon Tavadon. I know he would want to know where his son is, and what he is doing. Of course he has spies in the High Hills, but I'm afraid they're not quite as efficient as they could be.
'Do you love me?' she asked suddenly.
'As I love power and pain,' Prince Zyperis said huskily, his voice thick with renewed desire.
'Good,' Queen Savilla said. 'Now. Here's what I want you to do…'
GAREN Miq was a tinker and a peddler—a mender of small odds and ends, and seller of this and that—whose route took him all the way to the border, through every small farming villages there was. His favorite stops, of course, were the lowland villages that made a fruitful apron around the Golden City, and he always tried to make sure that his last stop before winter set in was Nerendale, where the trading post was, for Garen didn't like to travel during winter, and always picked a likely village to spend the months of cold and wet somewhere dry and warm. Nerendale was said to be as close as you could get to living in the Golden City herself—didn't it have an actual Mage living there full-time, after all?
