“Yes,” she replied, turning slowly to regard him. Coryn was a very beautiful woman-one of the two most beautiful women Jaymes had ever seen-but now her eyes were cold, her gorgeous cheekbones as white as though etched from ivory. “I did send for you. What took you so long to get here? We should have started working at dawn.”
His face didn’t betray how much her cold gaze unsettled him. “I rode through the city,” he explained. “It’s been a long time since the people of Palanthas have seen their lord marshal. But I came here directly. What’s the urgency?”
“I need your blood. Sit, there,” Coryn said, directing him to a chair beside a long wooden table.
He obeyed, watching her through narrowed eyes. “My blood? All of it or just a few drops?”
For the first time, her icy facade cracked with a flicker of emotion that made him think that she would rather enjoy taking all of his blood. But she merely shrugged and picked up a large glass vial. “I need to fill this up. You’ll find yourself a bit tired afterward, but with some rest and food, you’ll be back on your feet soon enough.”
Footsteps pounded down the hallway, and Moptop burst into the laboratory as Jaymes was taking a seat in the chair.
“I brought him right here, Lady! Just like you ordered. He wanted to go down to the wharf and look for crabs, but I told him he shouldn’t dilly-dally.”
“Well, thank you very much, Moptop. You are a very professional guide.”
“I myself brought Coryn here, all the way from the Icereach,” the kender said to Jaymes proudly, “back when she was a girl. I’m pretty good at guiding folks.”
“Now why don’t you guide your own way down to the docks. Have Rupert give you some coins so that you can buy some crab claws for dinner.”
“ Buy them? But they give them away! At least, I think they do!”
“Well, do me a personal favor and pay for them this time, all right?” Coryn urged, gently insistent.
“Well, all right.” The kender seemed more puzzled than disappointed, but he nevertheless rushed off to find Rupert.
Jaymes had been thinking. “All this fuss about my blood,” he mused. “It means that you’ve figured out a way to make the potion. The elixir you told me was impossible to make.”
She glared at him, and he began to see the reason for her attitude. “I thought it was impossible. But there were certain clues in some of Jenna’s oldest books. It’s a dark spell, and if I didn’t see the need, I would never attempt it. This is more like a job for Dalamar than for one who wears white robes-and I don’t like it!”
“But we both know how important it is for the future-if Solamnia is ever to be a kingdom, an empire, again. You know as well as I do why it is necessary!”
“Yes.” She stared at him. “But I rather hoped such a potion was impossible. After all, the princess is not my enemy! However, I agree with you that this may be a way to unite the plains states with the city of Palanthas.”
In fact, the city-states on the plains had been in terrible disarray until recently. Their dukes had been weak and petty and spent an inordinate amount of time feuding with each other. Ankhar’s invasion had weakened the realm beyond repair, and Jaymes Markham had usurped the dukes, one by one. With Ankhar on the brink of ultimate victory, Jaymes had united the armies under his command and driven the invaders from the environs of Caergoth, then he had liberated Thelgaard and Garnet. Some three-quarters of the lands of the ancient Solamnic kingdom were now under the protection of the lord marshal. Only besieged Solanthus remained behind the enemy lines.
Palanthas, the most important of all Solamnic cities, remained under du Chagne’s iron control, however. Furthermore, du Chagne administered the wealth that financed Jaymes’s armies. As long as Jaymes was successful, the lord regent grudgingly accepted the cost. But he kept his own substantial army, the Palanthian Legion, safe at home. Now Jaymes needed that army, and du Chagne’s wealth, to carry the campaign to its conclusion.
“So my blood is a key ingredient.”
“Yes.” The white wizard had picked up a short, thin dagger and nimbly whetted the blade on a small stone she held in her left hand. The scritch… scritch… scritch of metal against rock seemed to echo her mood. “You’re a real bastard, you know that?” she said.
He flinched. “I’m merely doing what needs to be done for Solamnia. You and I both know that.”
“ I’m doing what needs to be done for Solamnia. You’re doing what you want to do… for yourself. You treat the princess like just another of your pawns-like you treat me!”
“You know that’s not true,” he replied. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Bastard!”
He shrugged. “Maybe this job needs to be done by a bastard. Solamnia needs a strong ruler!”
“Hold out your hand.” She set down the whetstone and touched the dagger with the edge of her thumb. “Put it down, here.” Coryn moved the glass vial to a small stool next to the chair and arranged Jaymes’s arm so his hand was hanging down, with his fingers just above the top of the container.
With one smooth gesture, the wizard sliced the blade through Jaymes’s forearm. He grimaced; the pain was sharp, intense, and burning. Immediately blood began to flow, a crimson stream running down the skin of his wrist, over his palm, and down his fingers. He watched as a steady trickle of the precious liquid flowed into the large vessel.
By the time the vial was filled, Jaymes was beginning to feel light-headed.
“All right, lift your arm.” She deftly wrapped a cloth bandage over the wound, spinning the material around his arm three or four times, pulling it tight, and cinching it with a quick knot. “Can you stand up?”
“I think so.” Jaymes swayed as he took his feet, but Coryn supported him, and he leaned on her gratefully as she steered him toward the door of the lab. They went out into the hall. The wizard guided him through an open door and to the edge of a small bed where he sat down gratefully.
“Rest here for as long as you need to. I’m going back to work.”
“Thanks. Coryn?”
“Yes?” She stopped at the door.
“How long will it take? The potion?”
“Don’t worry about that for now. The most important thing will be for you to get back to your army and break the siege. Matters in Solanthus are dire, and the suffering there grows greater every day. I’ll preserve the potion until you get back.”
He leaned across the small bed, resting his back against the wall, fighting dizziness. But he met her steely gaze. “No, I want the potion before I leave the city. I intend to use it right away.”
Her eyes narrowed. Her scorn-and hurt-was palpable. “There is no battle more important, nowhere else where the fates of light and darkness are so tautly drawn. Win that battle, Jaymes-let light prevail!”
“Yes, Solanthus is important,” the marshal acknowledged. “But so is that potion, important to me. I’m in Palanthas, and that’s where I need to use it. So you will give it to me when it is done. After I’ve used it, I’ll go back to my army. And then we’ll break the siege.”
She stared at him. Despite the powerful magic she could wield at the snap of her fingers, she looked for the moment more like a girl than a woman. Coryn blinked, but if there were tears brimming in her eyes, she held them back. Setting her jaw, she shook her head. “No.”
“This is not negotiable,” Jaymes said flatly. “I tell you I need that potion-as soon as it’s ready. You will give it to me, or there will be trouble between us. Agreed?”
She sighed, her shoulders slumping, seeming to shrink, becoming smaller, almost frail.
“It will be done tomorrow,” she said, closing the door behind her.
Jaymes woke sometime in the afternoon, feeling refreshed. He joined Moptop, Rupert, and Donny for a dinner of steamed crab claws and melted butter. Coryn remained at work in her laboratory, and after a few hours of restless pacing-and several curt rejections when he made so bold as to knock on her door-he retired for the night. A downy mattress and soft pillow were his bed, preferable to the woolen bedroll spread on the ground that was his usual resting place.
Or maybe it was the loss of blood that caused the lord marshal to sleep more soundly than he had in a very long time. When he awoke, he could hardly believe that the sun was streaming through his window and that dawn had passed-unnoticed by him-several hours before.
He rose and dressed hurriedly, irritated with himself for sleeping late. He headed immediately for the laboratory. This time, after his peremptory knock, Coryn beckoned him to enter.
