galled Falk to show the respect due to a Prince to the youngster.
Karl would make a far better King than Kravon, Tagaza thought. Perhaps a very fine King indeed. Too bad he’s not really the Prince, or the Heir, at all.
He sighed, and went to meet the approaching wagon.
CHAPTER 3
Karl was glad to see the door of his quarters, and even more glad to usher Teran into them and firmly shut the other guards out. With the door closed and locked behind him, and suddenly feeling much older and more tired than any eighteen-year-old had any right to feel, he reached down and pulled off his boots, then went over to the fireplace, enjoying the feel of the thick white carpet on his bare feet.
Someone had obviously managed to warn his servants he was coming, because a fire blazed in the hearth. It wasn’t really needed for warmth, since the MageFurnace provided all the hot air anyone could want, piped into every room in the Palace through floor vents, but there was something about a fire that made you feel warmer in a way mere heat could not.
Except he took one look into the hearth and turned away abruptly as a chance arrangement of embers reminded him of the blackened, staring face of his attacker.
Teran stood at attention just inside the door. “Take off your helmet,” Karl told him. “I’m going to have a glass of asproga… do you want any?”
“Not on duty, Your Highness,” Teran said shortly. “Thank you.”
Karl, on his way to the sideboard next to the window, shot him a sideways glance. “Since when? Was that some other guard I saw swigging ale down by the lake?”
Teran’s face turned red beneath the helmet. “I would appreciate Your Highness not mentioning that to anyone,” he said.
Karl, at the sideboard, paused in the act of pulling the top out of a crystal decanter filled with a bright yellow liquid. “Oh,” he said in sudden understanding. “Falk. I saw him talking to you.” He felt a sudden flush of anger. “If he blamed you…”
“He did not, Your Highness,” Teran said. “But I do blame myself. I was on duty, and did not perform as my training dictates. I find myself embarrassed.”
Karl made a rude noise, poured his liqueur, and picked up the little crystal glass. “There was nothing you could have done. Except possibly die if you’d been between me and that crossbow bolt.”
“Your Highness,” Teran said, “the best definition I know of my job is to be willing to die between you and a crossbow bolt.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” Karl reconsidered. “What I mean is, I’d be very grateful to you if you did, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“It should have come to that today, Your Highness. If I had remained closer.”
“Then you’d be dead, and I might be, too,” Karl said forcefully. “Because I think that crossbow bolt would have killed you for sure.” He hesitated, but then rushed on. Suddenly keeping it a secret didn’t seem so important anymore, not if it had just saved his life. “Teran, I think I know why the assassin’s attack failed.”
Teran frowned. “Your Highness?”
“Do you remember that night when we were twelve, and we sneaked into the maids’ bathing quarters?”
Teran’s face flickered into a smile. “I am unlikely to forget, Your Highness.”
“That door had not been left accidentally unlocked, Teran. I unlocked it.”
Teran blinked. “A magical lock? But as Heir, you…”
“… have no magic. Indeed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either, exactly. But…” Karl explained about his strange ability. When he was finished, Teran looked… frightened. Which wasn’t exactly the reaction Karl had expected.
“Your Highness,” said Teran. “You know what that sounds like.”
“What do you mean, what it sounds like? It sounds like what it is. I have this ability. It’s probably because I’m the Heir, ebut…”
“Your Highness, that is not what I meant,” Teran said. He took a deep breath. “That sounds like the Magebane.”
“The Mage-” Karl gaped. “But that’s… crazy. The Magebane is a myth. Tagaza says-”
“‘Tagaza says,’” Teran mimicked. “Of course he does! But the common people… they are not as dismissive of the stories of the Magebane. Particularly the Commoners. After all, the Magebane, it is said, is the one who delivered them from the MageLords in the Old Kingdom.”
Karl snorted. “I’m not the Magebane, Teran. I’ve got a minor ability. Like I said, it’s probably related to the fact I’m the Heir-”
“Your Highness, forgive my bluntness, but you’re being a fool.”
For a moment Karl was not inclined to forgive his bluntness. He felt a rush of anger. But he tamped it down and said, “Why do you say that?”
“Because if someone among the Mageborn thought you might be the Magebane… or even thought you might be taken for the Magebane by the Commoners… that alone might be enough reason to kill you.”
Karl gaped. He’d never thought of that. “But… no one knows.”
“Your Highness, surely you have lived long enough now… as have I… to discover that many of the things you did as a child that you thought were secret were in fact well-known to the adults in your life.”
“Um…” Karl couldn’t deny that. “Lord Falk did not mention the possibility,” he said. “So I don’t think he knows…”
“Perhaps not.” Teran’s voice grew guarded at the mention of Falk. “Though I would be… reluctant to make assumptions about what Falk does or does not know.”
“I’m assuming you won’t tell him,” Karl said, lightly, as a joke, but Teran’s face grew still and closed. “Teran?”
“No, Your Highness.” For some reason, the words didn’t seem to come easy. “No. I will not tell him.”
“Well… good.” What was that all about? Karl wondered as he took his first sip of the fiery yellow liqueur in his glass, then forgot about it as he considered Teran’s suggestion that a Mageborn might want to kill him simply to prove to Commoners he wasn’t the Magebane. That made… some kind of sense, he supposed. Except, of course, for the complete failure of the plan. If any Commoners really thought he was the Magebane, they must be completely convinced of it now that he’d walked away from a magical attack that had incinerated his attacker.
The other thing that worked against Teran’s suggestion was the simple fact that the Mageborn most likely to want to eliminate someone who might stir up the Commoners was Falk, and if Falk had wanted to kill him, he could have done it any time in the last eighteen years.
But he didn’t like Falk’s suggestion that Commoners were behind the attack either. He had gone out of his way to reach out to the Commons, at Tagaza’s urging; the First Mage had often told him he hoped there would someday be better relations between Commoners and Mageborn. He had attended any number of balls and festivals and grand openings in New Cabora, filling in for the King. He’d always gotten along well with the Commoners he met. After all, officially he didn’t have any magic either.
Besides, there were surely greater acts of terror a determined Commoner could come up with, acts that would have far more impact, than the murder of the Heir, since the only thing killing him would accomplish would be to pass the Keys on to some other Heir outside of the current line of succession. Should Kravon’s line die out with Karl, it wouldn’t even be seen as a great loss, Kravon being… what he was.
He sighed. Too many questions, and no answers. “It’s beyond me,” he said. “I guess we’ll just have to hope Falk figures it out.”
“Falk is very resourceful, Your Highness,” said Teran.
Taking another sip of asproga, Karl sat down in one of the two high-backed blue armchairs set in front of the fire on either side of a round marble-topped table. “I’m tired of thinking about my narrow escape from death,” he said. “It was interesting for the first hour or two, but…” He grinned, and after a moment Teran grinned back.
