Chapter 41 - Purity

  “I am not sure I am a believer in the Goddess.“ He swallowed. “And, Trials are said to be deadly difficult.”

  “And yet I passed this one.” Her chin lifted with quiet pride. “And in less than a day, too.”

  Ib’s eyes turned to the dark-haired maid standing silently behind her mistress. Miriam nodded once—confirmation enough. Lady Seraphina’s legend grew larger in his mind; she seemed capable of anything.

  “But I am not so heartless as to hurl you in empty-handed. I will give you a few advantages,” Seraphina said, voice sweet as spun sugar. Yet, Ibn sensed the iron beneath it.

  Not too many advantages, the blonde girl reminded herself. The Trial must still be a deadly challenge if it is to be effective and push Ibn to the limits.

  “Miriam, if you please,” Seraphina commanded.

  “At once, milady.”

  The maid disappeared down the corridor and returned moments later bearing a long cloth-wrapped bundle. With a deferential bow, she placed it across Seraphina’s outstretched palms. When the cloth fell away, it revealed an elegant weapon.

  Seraphina eased the blade free from its sheath, admiring its savage grace. The blade was almost as long as a tall man’s stride, single-edged and slightly curved, it ended in a wicked point designed to pierce armor seams. Sacrificing hand protection, the small square guard promised swift draws. The scabbard itself opened up a quarter up its length to allow a smooth draw for even this long blade and near its guard was a clasp that allowed the blade to sleep steadily. Once a ruin of rust in a pawn-shop display, it had cost her a small fortune to restore—gold well spent.

  She slid the sword home into its black-lacquer scabbard and offered it horizontally to the boy. “A gift, Ibn. In gratitude for deeds done and proof that I believe in your future and in the man you will become.”

  The boy accepted it with both hands, reverence shining in his eyes though it looked ridiculously large in his hands. Even Seraphina could not awaken the magics that slept within the blade; it would resonate only with its destined wielder. For her it would be nothing more than a sharp lump of metal.

  “My gift to you. Proof that I value your efforts and believe in your future. You’ll do this for me, won’t you, Ibn?”

  Pride surged through Ibn like wildfire racing through dry grass. He dropped to one knee, fist over heart. “Milady, I owe you everything. I will not fail.”

  Seraphina’s smile curved like a crescent moon—serene in its stillness, luminous with quiet confidence, and edged with mystery. Oh, she did love it when things went according to plan.

  ***

  Now Seraphina found herself coming closer to the knife-edge of destiny. She could shore up her defences, nurturing the fragile shoots of her embryonic faction—a handful of disillusioned but powerful nobles and a sprinkling of decidedly less-than-devout clergy. Or, she could go on the offensive.

  Why choose? She would do both.

  Rumor slithered through corridors of the Academy that King Elidion II planned to donate a veritable carnival of beasts from lands so distant they existed on the edge of maps where cartographers scrawled Here Be Wonders. This was backed by Seraphina’s own sources; her bought people in the Meridian City Guard and the agents of Lehman’s Bank. Supposedly, the ever-radiant, silver-haired Este Lize had “tamed” them herself with a cadre of Royal Knights—a tale so saccharine Seraphina nearly gagged. The Royal Court, of course, intended a grand exhibition in a few weeks at the Academy, once the creatures were fully broken to human commands. Prestige for the Crown, applause for the Saint of Silver… and, for some reason, she felt all of that was a slight against her, Seraphina.

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  As if any silly creature could rival my Hydra, she scoffed, fingers drumming across a stack of parchment. Cornelia, two sinuous heads, scales like moonlit snow, made an offended hiss in agreement. Yet the Hydra could hardly be donated to the menagerie. Cornelia was her familiar, after all. Solution: obtain something even rarer than whatever the King thought to bring..

  A glimmer of delight sparked behind her green eyes as she dipped quill to ink. The note she composed for her agents was written with almost crystal clarity.

  The young girl wrote down as much as she could, every line detailing landmarks: the petrified birch that bled silver sap, the waterfall whose falling roar concealed an entrance to a crystal grotto. There they would find the near-mystical creature, a unicorn.

  A unicorn, according to commonly held knowledge, consented to be mounted only by the purest. Seraphina grinned. Capturing one would neatly sidestep the increasingly popular, and mortifying, “virginity inspection” that she might be made to suffer in the future. She could fell two birds with a single stone.

  Securing the agents she was going to employ for this hunt had not been simple. Though they had been recommended by Eloise’s father, they still had to be carefully vetted. Luckily, she could rely upon her mother, or assumed she could, at least.

  So, she exchanged letters with her mother, trusting Anaselena’s power to vet these Adventurers of the Gold rank. However, letters dashed across provinces by horse took days, and though she could easily afford Gryphon-post, every perfume-scented envelope of hers would pass through the Royal Censors’ claws. Elidion’s paranoia tightened like a garrote around the kingdom—another reason, she decided, that the weakening monarch simply had to go.

  For the good of the people.

  She sanded the ink, sealed the vellum, and summoned Miriam to whisk it away. Next came gifts for Lady Michélié de Montan—exquisite teas perfumed with jasmine and Dust-laced bonbons whose narcotic sparkle would surely keep the chubby girl pleasantly pliant. She had observed the pudgy girl, noticing that she was eating even more of Seraphina’s candies every day. The de Montan lands flanked de Sariens' territory, and, no matter what it took, Seraphina simply could not allow herself to expose her flanks. It was unfortunate that the fat girl’s brothers were all already married. Odious as it might be, were she a man, she would have seriously considered marrying Michelié to secure that alliance.

  Seraphina decided she would present them to Michelié after they arrived in class. It would be a declaration that their houses were very definitely allied.

  While her prophetic insights into the timeline grew maddeningly less useful, certain key events remained immovable and inviolate. The trick was to manipulate those events, like the recent fires in Meridian, to her advantage. One could not entirely change the future, but one could certainly attempt to direct it.

  A civil war loomed like the promise of thunder on the horizon, and with the right whispers and a few levers pushed and pulled here and there, Seraphina could paint herself the savior of the Kingdom. She needed only to prod Elidion toward one more catastrophic decree and win the support of the common people.

  To seize the throne, she must topple two pillars—the aging king and the thorn that was Este Lize. And, behind the “Living Saint,” stood the monolithic Church of the Goddess.

  She would also need to solidify and strengthen relations with Rashana with a very interesting proposition that would tie her closer to her. Something that went beyond the current transactional relationship she had with House de Lehman. She would give her something beyond just gold. But first, she would need to find the dusky girl.

  Getting up, she slowly made her way out of the dormitory, nodding to the brothers Giles and Krayton, who were doing their best impression of trimming bushes. Cornelia tightened around her shoulders a living, double-headed stole.

  “Find Rashana,” cooed Seraphina to her lovable pet.

  The serpent’s twin tongues tasted the air, orienting unerringly toward Rashana’s location, as though the creature itself had become a divining rod forged for her political intrigue.