Crown of Danger (The Hidden Mage Book 2) Read online

  Crown of Danger

  The Hidden Mage Book 2

  Melanie Cellier

  CROWN OF DANGER

  Copyright © 2020 by Melanie Cellier

  The Hidden Mage Book 2

  First edition published in 2020 (v1.0)

  by Luminant Publications

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, stored in, or introduced into a database or retrieval system, in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN 978-1-925898-50-7

  Luminant Publications

  PO Box 201

  Burnside, South Australia 5066

  [email protected]

  http://www.melaniecellier.com

  Cover Design by Karri Klawiter

  Editing by Mary Novak

  Proofreading by Deborah Grace White

  Map Illustration by Rebecca E Paavo

  For Deborah—

  sister, editor, fellow-author, friend

  Contents

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Note from the Author

  Map

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Melanie Cellier

  Chapter 1

  “Come on, Verene. Hurry up! This is our last chance.” Bryony urged me through the streets of Corrin, impatient with my sedate pace.

  I gave her an amused look. “The shops aren’t going anywhere.”

  “No.” She sighed. “We’re the ones going somewhere. Back to the Academy, and its awful, remote location.” She looked longingly at the wall on the other side of the wide street which mostly concealed my own kingdom’s Academy. “Why can’t the Kallorwegian Academy be in the capital like your Ardannian one?”

  I grimaced. “Would you really want to be in such easy reach of the Kallorwegian court? I, for one, have no such desire.”

  Bryony wrinkled her nose. “No, I suppose when you put it like that…”

  The Kallorwegian court was poisonous, presided over by a cold, cruel king and full of deep rifts and divisions. It bore little resemblance to the court in Ardann which was ruled with the firm hand of my aunt, Queen Lucienne, a woman who had dedicated her life to ensuring peace and prosperity for her kingdom.

  But I thrust thoughts of courts and politics aside. They inevitably led to thoughts of Darius, and not even weeks of separation had managed to calm my conflicted feelings about the Kallorwegian crown prince.

  We passed the Academy and University, our attendant guards walking two in front and two behind, keeping a clear bubble of space around us despite the busy traffic. Bryony practically danced in her impatience as we passed the railings that separated the grand houses of various mage families from the road. Bryony had no interest in the green grass, fountains, or elegant buildings we could glimpse behind the fences. As an energy mage from the Sekali Empire, she had little need to worry about the power games played by the Ardannian great families.

  I had found myself with less interest in them over the summer as well, my mind full of the darker politics of the Kallorwegian court. I picked up my speed, suddenly as eager as Bryony to be past this section of the city and through to the shops. I glanced over my shoulder at the palace behind us, its tall towers of white marble dominating the capital from its place atop the hill that housed Corrin. It had been home for most of my sixteen years, and yet my thoughts about our imminent return to the Academy had a feeling of homecoming about them. My heart was in as much turmoil as my mind these days.

  When we reached the section of road where the large homes usually gave way to elegant storefronts featuring wares designed to catch the eye of passing mages, I stopped.

  “What’s happening here?” I asked.

  Captain Layna, who had been temporarily reassigned as my personal guard for the summer, stopped and looked back over her shoulder. She followed my gaze, her brow clearing when she saw I was looking at the construction to the side of the road.

  “Who cares?” Bryony asked. “It’s just a building.” She threw a plaintive glance at the closest shop only a few steps further down the street.

  “I can see that.” I eyed the red sandstone blocks that lay in neat piles ready for the actual construction to commence, their color giving a clue as to the future purpose of the site. “It’s some sort of public building. But why is it being built here?”

  I looked inquiringly at Layna who shrugged, her focus flitting between me, the building crew and the street on my other side, her eyes alert for threats.

  “I’m sorry, Your Highness, I haven’t heard anything about it.”

  One of the royal guards behind me cleared his throat. “I believe it’s a new office for the management of sealed affairs, Your Highness.”

  “Sealed affairs?” Bryony threw him a confused look before her face suddenly lightened. “Oh, you mean people who have had their power sealed. We don’t have special offices for that in the Empire.”

  I grimaced slightly. I could imagine they would have no need for such special efforts in the Sekali Empire where every commonborn was sealed at age two. Here in Ardann, however, the sealed had become their own class of society—with a whole host of attendant complications. Allowing them access to reading and writing while keeping unsealed commonborns from having similar access was an ongoing struggle.

  “But they already have an office.” I frowned. “Has something happened to the old one?”

  The number of sealed commonborns hadn’t been expanding at a fast-enough rate to warrant a second office. In fact, one of the current complaints from the leading commonborn merchant families was that there was a shortage of mages completing sealing ceremonies. The crown might feel the lack of mages either failing the Academy or committing serious crimes to be a positive indication of the state of the kingdom, but those on the list to be sealed viewed the situation less favorably.

  The commonborn guard who had spoken cleared his throat even more awkwardly than he had the first time. “I believe the current office in the lower city is still functioning, Your Highness. But certain interests requested the opening of a second building.”

  Ah. His careful choice of words clued me in to the likely motivation for this particular project. Twenty years ago, a derelict building near the outer wall of the city had been demolished and replaced with an office for the sealed. But in the years since then, the sealed had established their place in our newly reformed society, and I could only imagine some of their more influential members must have been complaining about having to make the trek all the way down to the lower city.

  “Well that explains that, then.” Bryony rolled her eyes, clearly still too focused on the shops to be interested in deciphering the layers of meaning beh
ind his words. She gave me a pointed look. “Shopping? Remember?”

  As I turned back to her, orange robes caught my eye, making me pause. Once the orange robes of creator mages would have dominated a scene like this, commonborn laborers scurrying around them only for the purpose of cleaning up debris and other such menial tasks deemed not worth the energy of mages. But I had already picked out the leaders of this team—two older, commonborn men, their wrists bare but for the elaborate pattern on their skin that marked them as sealed.

  One of them held a small, intact scroll of parchment in his hand, clearly a composition that he was ready to work once his workers had the site prepared to his satisfaction. The other consulted a sheaf of parchments that I guessed contained plans for the new building. Had they prepared the plans in concert with a creator mage? Or had they drawn them up themselves, sending them off to a mage in some distant part of the kingdom and receiving them back along with all the necessary compositions for the work?

  It wasn’t unusual for a creator mage to be in attendance for the actual moments of creation, especially for such a significant building, but something in the manner of the two I now spotted caught my attention. One was older, his hair entirely gray and his bearing stiff and confident. The other, by contrast, looked almost impossibly young and hunched in on himself, casting constant uncertain glances at the two sealed commonborns.

  Instead of standing at the forefront of the scene, as I would have expected, they lurked to one side, almost out of sight. The older man pointed to something in the middle of the work site and said something to the younger man. His words were lost in the noise of the workers and the street beside us, but a faint look of frustration crossed his face at the answer he received.

  Bryony appeared at my side. Looking first at me, and then following my gaze to the two mages, she heaved an enormous sigh.

  “That mage looks uncannily like our discipline instructor, Amalia, considering he’s male and must be two decades older. We’ll be back in her not-so-loving care soon enough, I don’t need reminding of her right now.”

  I chuckled although her words brought the scene into instant clarity. The creator discipline must be using the project as a chance to train one of their newer members. That would explain why there were two mages in attendance.

  Sure enough, when the man with the building plans called a loud halt, sending the workers scurrying to the edges of the site, the older mage stepped forward, beckoning for the younger one to follow. When the second sealed man glanced at them, his hands poised about to rip his composition, the mage spoke loudly enough for me to hear.

  “If you please, we will take care of the foundations.”

  The commonborn glanced at the man with the plans before shrugging and nodding his agreement, carefully placing his unworked composition into an internal pocket. The younger mage stepped forward, drawing a visible breath and pulling out a composition of his own.

  “Verene,” Bryony said by my side, lengthening my name into a plea.

  I started to reply as the young mage tore his parchment, but the words died in my throat.

  “Bree!” I hissed, and she stiffened, instantly alert to my change in tone.

  Sliding closer, she whispered. “What is it?”

  I didn’t answer, my full focus on the scene now unfolding on the site in front of us. As an energy mage, Bryony couldn’t feel power at all and only knew a working was being conducted because she had seen the composition torn. And while power mages like Captain Layna and the creator mages in front of us would be able to feel it, they would sense only a general, swelling rush of power released by the composition as it spread out to hover over the piles of stones around the edges of the site. For most of my life I had been like them, despite not being a power mage myself.

  But everything was different now. I could sense the working in a way none of the rest of them could. At the end of my first year at the Kallorwegian Academy, I had stumbled on hidden powers I never suspected I possessed. And ever since then, my awareness had shifted, expanding from its old limits over the course of the summer. Now, if I concentrated on a specific working, I could feel the broad shape and purpose of it. And if I let down my guard, it called to me, a siren song inviting me to take charge of the power and shape it to my own will.

  I didn’t need my new ability to know the purpose of this composition—the creator mage had spoken it aloud. But something felt wrong. The power bucked and twisted, almost as if it fought against the shape it had been given. No one else reacted, but the sour note grew stronger as stones rose into the air and began to move around the site.

  I hesitated, torn. I wanted to call a warning, but what could I say? No one but Bryony knew of my new ability, and I couldn’t put my concern into words. I just knew something was very wrong.

  An itching sensation, more mental than physical, urged me to reach out with my words and claim the power, but I held back. What would I do with it? I knew nothing of the expertise that must go into creating a building foundation.

  And I had never tried to subvert a composition that felt so twisted before. While one part of me longed to reach out and control it, another part of me pulled away, repelled by the discordant note in the power.

  The stones drew together, stacking on top of each other in an unnatural shape that could only be held in place by power.

  Bryony frowned. “I’m no expert, but shouldn’t a foundation lie flat on the ground?”

  Almost as if he’d heard her, the older mage uttered a sharp exclamation, striding forward to pull the two torn halves of parchment from the hands of his student. He held them against each other and scanned their contents, his expression growing thunderous.

  The stones piled higher and wider, forming the outline of the base of a large building…If the base of the building rose vertically into the air instead of lying against the ground.

  Captain Layna stirred beside me. “Your Highness,” she murmured, unease in her voice.

  She didn’t have to say more for me to know she wanted us to move away from whatever was developing here. But my feet had implanted themselves in the ground, and I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to.

  Other passersby lacked the instinctive caution of a trained guard, and a number of them stopped, drawn by their curiosity at the strange sight. The younger mage babbled at his mentor, but I didn’t catch his stream of words, my attention too focused on the sensation of the power.

  “Look, Mama!” A high-pitched voice broke through my concentration as a young girl pressed in beside one of my guards, oblivious to our presence. Her full attention was on the stones still dancing through the air to stack ever higher.

  Her mother gave us a wary look, but when no one remonstrated the girl, she moved to stand beside her daughter.

  “They’re building a new office for the sealed,” she told the girl, apparently better informed than me.

  But she frowned as she spoke the words. I was no longer the only one who could tell there was something awry with the composition.

  “Princess Verene,” my captain said, more sharply, but I continued to ignore her.

  Bryony dropped her voice to the faintest whisper. “Can you…?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured back. “I don’t know anything about creating.”

  All of the stones had now reached their place, although the structure they created was clearly unstable. A fresh surge of power fused them together, merging them into one solid block of stone more effectively than any mortar could do.

  But now that they had formed a solid shape, the power holding them together loosed. If they had been spread out on the ground, it wouldn’t have mattered. But they weren’t. The tall, thin structure teetered.

  “Take control!” I gasped.

  If anyone heard me, they must have thought I was entreating the creator mages to take action. But my power responded instantly, free to do what it had been straining toward.

  Reaching out, it grasped control of the working, and the haz
y sense of a twisted composition became instantly clear. Without having to think about it, I knew immediately the full shape of the working and all its intricacies. I could feel the power trying to drive the footings deep into the ground, the effort muddied by the incorrect placement of the blocks. The power kicked and writhed as it fought against itself, torn by the two competing directions that had gone into its composing.

  As the power attempted to drive the stone shape into the suddenly soft dirt, the whole structure swayed. For a moment it looked like it would fall onto the site, but then the momentum moved in the direction of the street.

  The mother beside me screamed and snatched up her daughter as the solid stone shape fell toward us.

  “Flat!” I gasped, as quietly as I could in my panic.

  Power sprang to life around me, enclosing both Bryony and me in the comforting sensation of one of Captain Layna’s shields. But it was tight and contained, offering only enough protection for the two of us—and only that because Bryony stood so close to me. I ignored it, my focus on the creator composition.

  Its power, now under my control, quieted, no longer fighting itself as I asserted the correct image of flat footings driven into the dirt until they hit the solid stone beneath. Instantly the power caught the falling stone, pulling it away from the spectators and back upright into its original position. It teetered there for a single breath before crashing down in the opposite direction to lie flat on the work site. The structure slid, creaking slightly as it found the right position on the site, before pushing itself down into the already softened dirt.