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25
Upstairs, it was pandemonium. There had long been protocols in place for moments such as these: for eruptions. The housekeeper ran monthly drills with the staff, timing their responses, pushing them to go quicker and in a more orderly fashion. There were a few items, precious family heirlooms and ceremonial swords and the like, that would be packed up quick and moved, but most residents were charged with grabbing up anything they wanted to and could manage on their own before they went dashing to one of the “safety rooms.”
In truth, no room within five miles of the Keep was safe during an eruption. There were only small eruptions and large eruptions; only different portions of the Keep carved off by lava flow and then carefully rebuilt. But the front façade was farther from the magma spill, and so that was where everyone evacuated. There were similar drills run at the stables and outbuildings, plans for saving the horses and sheep and grain stores.
Náli had lived through these panics before, but this one annoyed him because the mountain wasn’t truly about to blow.
“My lord!” a terrified maid cried as she passed him, arms laden with an over-large basket that smelled of bread. “What’s happening? Why is it angry?”
Náli bit back a sigh and forced a soothing tone. “Nothing’s happening. The mountain isn’t–”
“My lord!” This time, the call came from a kitchen boy, red-faced and panting as he pelted down the hall toward them. “There’s a–”
“My lord!”
“My lord!”
“Lord Náli!”
Too many voices, too many faces converging on him all at once. He needed to be able to address everyone at once. To make an announcement.
Beside him, Mattias cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. “Everyone, remain calm!” he boomed, voice echoing down the long corridor. “There is no eruption! Make way for Lord Náli! Move to the great hall!”
People slowed, and stopped, and gaped. Then the talking started up again, a flurry of questions, voices blurring together until the hall buzzed like a hive of bees.
“Go now!” Klemens roared, and even Náli jumped. He couldn’t remember him ever shouting like that. Nor clapping, as he did after, the smack of his gloved palms ringing down the corridor. “To the great hall, go!”
Náli sent him an impressed glance, as, slowly, the Keep staff turned and scurried in the proper direction.
Klemens eyed him sideways. “I don’t think one of your snarky comments was going to do the trick,” he said, flatly.
“I had no idea you were so insubordinate under that strong, silent type routine,” Náli observed. “If it wasn’t so entertaining, I’d upbraid you for it.”
Klemens snorted. “You’re welcome to try, my lord.” He started down the hall at the head of their party.
Náli turned to Mattias as they walked behind him. “I feel as though I’ve unleashed a terror upon the world with that one.”
Mattias looked like he suppressed a smile. “Such is the price you pay for dabbling in new magic.”
Náli felt the best, most mature response was to stick his tongue out at him.
It was a long walk to the great hall, but since that was one of the “safe rooms,” it was relatively easy to herd the panicked household in that direction. People came spilling in from every cross-hall, clutching those belongings they’d deemed precious – one of the footmen held a fiddle, of all things – and asking what was happening. Klemens shooed them forward firmly and loudly, chopping the air with his hands and scowling when anyone tried to press for more information.
By the time they’d reached the great carved doors, with their woodwork rams with diamond-set eyes, Náli had heard more than one person remark that there had been no more tremors. “Indeed, no,” he said, stepping around Mattias as they entered the room. Brigida walked behind him, and he felt a tug at the back of his robe as she hurried to keep up, and keep from being lost in the press of bodies.
The hall wasn’t so grand as the one at Aeres, but it was a wide, deep room walled with fireplaces, its ceiling lost in shadows high overhead, beyond the reach of the candle flames. It seemed small, though, packed full with all the Keep’s residents. A dais of gray granite stood at the far end, where the high table sat, a crude, polished slab of granite on thick wooden crossbeams, more than a century old, a relic of Náli’s predecessors.
Serafina stood in front of it, wrapped in a jeweled dressing gown, hair tied back in silk ribbons the way she wore it to bed. Her thin hands were knotted together across her middle, and her gaze, hawkish and piercing, found and locked onto Náli as he approached.
He slowed his steps on purpose, and mounted the dais with deliberate casualness. His magic hummed inside him, a well of strength the likes of which he’d never known, and it made him feel powerful, in this instance; rendered her blistering gaze more amusing than anything else.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Where have you been?” she hissed. She clutched her gown tight around her throat and bared her teeth at him like a cornered animal. “What have you done to cause all of this?”
He gave her his flattest stare, his driest tone. “Yes, of course it’s something I’ve done. It’s always my fault, isn’t it?”
“Well,” Brigida said behind him, “technically, this is your doing.”
