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Gabriel Phel crestedthe last ridge of the notorious Knifeblade Mountains that guarded Elal lands on nearly three sides, and faced the final barrier. The path through the mountains had been narrow, crooked, with blind endings and unexpected pitfalls.
Not unlike his life, Gabriel thought with grimly sardonic humor.
He halted his gelding, Vale, several lengths short of the border, sensing the repulsion spell that prevented the uninvited from crossing. It was a highly refined enchantment—he’d expect nothing less of the powerful Elal wizards—one that barred only humans, but allowed animals and weather to cross freely. Gabriel dismounted so he and Vale could both rest a moment before the last leg of the journey, while the Elal border guardians confirmed his identity. Lord Elal was famously insular and fanatical about guarding what was his. And, as the most powerful wizard in the Convocation, Lord Elal had a great deal to call his.
Finding a spot with a good perspective of the serene and rolling valley below—level enough to stand on and just shy of the border spell palpable to his wizard senses—Gabriel took a stance and opened the placket of his leather pants to empty his bladder. He would honor his first visit to the hallowed soil of the Convocation’s greatest High House appropriately.
With a grim smile, he aimed his stream across the border, marking his territory as he studied the land of his enemy.
House Elal stood at the center of the valley below, a towering edifice amid winter-quiet fields and clusters of farmhouses. Some of the smaller dwellings—those with families not wealthy enough to afford fire elementals for heating—had chimneys with smoke coiling fragrantly against the late afternoon light spreading to the horizon. An enormous river, so large that it remained unfrozen, ran through the valley, and House Elal sat in a crescent bend of it that also served neatly as a moat. The house—more accurately, a castle—sprawled in all directions, wings, courtyards, and towers added over multiple generations. At least three kinds of stone had gone into its building over the centuries, judging by the different colors easily picked out from this distance, probably more.
Between the moat, the high walls, and the edifice’s sheer complexity—not to mention the guarded narrow passes through the Knifeblade Mountains—House Elal was virtually unassailable. Except via the weapon he currently held in his hand.
Take that, Gabriel thought, shaking his cock dry and tucking it away again. He did so carefully, as that member had important work to do that night. All he needed was some unlucky accident to render him unable to plant the seeds of desperate ambition.
Lowering, when a man’s future depended on that kind of performance. But then, nothing much made rational sense when it came to the Convocation’s bizarre and arcane laws regarding their precious familiars and breeding the next generation of power-mad wizards. Gabriel didn’t like it, but you can’t win the game unless you play the game. If he wanted to restore House Phel and ensure comfort, security, and peace for his own people, like that enjoyed by the people below, then he needed to win.
Once, he would have said that there would never come a day when he’d go crawling to the Convocation for anything. But then, the idealistic certainties of youth had a way of collapsing before the exigencies of the present. To be a wizard powerful enough to challenge the likes of Lord Elal, he needed the magical amplification a familiar would give him. Who better than the most powerful available familiar in the Convocation? It was just a bit of extra satisfaction for him that she was Lord Elal’s daughter.
The ancient volume on enchantments that Gabriel had found in a moldering library at what was left of House Phel had seemed to guarantee the moon-magic fertility spell would work—and that it would be undetectable. It wasn’t cheating, exactly. The extensive Betrothal Trials rules booklet provided by the Convocation only forbade House Refoel interference with fertility, not other enchantments. Gabriel had read the cursed thing enough times to be sure.
Still, his annoying conscience whispered,it seems unethical. He banished the thought with a sharp shake of his head. Lady Veronica Elal was in the Betrothal Trials for the same reason he was. As a familiar, she needed to be paired with a wizard, just as he needed a familiar if he wanted to be more than a rogue wizard from a fallen house. She was a daughter of a High House, with a Convocation education and admirable magical potential scores. He was her fourth suitor, and he imagined she’d be glad to be done with being locked up.
He knew he’d hate it.
But will she be glad to be saddled with a no-tier house like yours?Apparently he hadn’t banished his irritating conscience firmly enough. Such considerations had no place in his life. House Phel had an opportunity to rise from the ruins, to escape the cycle of poverty that had them forever scraping for the leftovers of the Convocation’s wealthier lands.
Returning to his horse, he checked Vale’s hooves, then the gelding’s tack for fit and chafing. Another hour or so’s ride wouldn’t change much, but no sense losing his bid for a kingdom because his horse went lame short of the finish line. Satisfied all was well, he extracted his flask of water, tugged off his glove, and poured some into his palm for Vale, the chill biting bright on his wet hand.
How long would these border guardians make him wait? Probably just long enough to make his role as supplicant to the mighty House Elal very clear.
Upon the heels of that thought, a cloaked and hooded figure stepped out of a cloud of fog, closely followed by a bare-headed young man in House Elal livery.
“Lord Phel,” the cloaked woman said, tipping back her hood to reveal a stern face made sharper by ruthlessly scraped-back dark hair—and the depthless black eyes of a wizard. She wore a gold pin on one shoulder, the House Elal crest of spirits intertwined in a braided circle. The young man remained a pace behind her, head bowed. “I am Tyrna, wizard to House Elal. Welcome to Elal.”
He offered her a nod of greeting. “Thank you.”I think.Remaining wary, Gabriel kept one hand near the hilt of his sword. Not that mere metal could defend him from a House Elal wizard, but the blade might offer him time to summon a defensive enchantment.
She smiled mirthlessly. “You need not be concerned, Lord Phel. You are expected and may proceed onto our lands. Do not, however, stray from the main road. It will lead you straight to House Phel. You should have no reason to diverge from that path.”
“No reason, indeed,” he agreed curtly. At least there was some comfort in discovering Elal hospitality was as forbidding as he’d been warned.
“Good luck in your efforts tonight,” Tyrna offered with a smirk, looking him up and down and making it clear she thought no amount of luck could help him win the prize. “We’re all so interested in the future of HouseFell.”
Amazing how people managed to make the alternate meaning clear, even while smiling politely. It hadn’t taken him long at Convocation to clue into the insult.
Not dignifying her little joke with a reply, Gabriel waited. Perhaps she hoped he wasn’t enough of a wizard that he couldn’t detect the barrier. Another fine joke for her to get him to walk face-first into the invisible wall, thinking she’d already opened a crossing. If that was her game, she’d be disappointed. A moment later, with a hint of an annoyed scowl, the wizard yanked off her glove and held out her hand in an impatient gesture. The young man behind her stepped forward, placing his bare hand in hers.
Gabriel watched with close interest. He’d never seen a wizard work with their familiar before. There wasn’t much to see, however. No burst of transferred magic, at least to his unpracticed eye. The young man never moved while the wizard made a complicated gesture with her free hand, and an opening formed across the road, like a curtain drawing back. Taking Vale’s reins, Gabriel walked the gelding through the opening, then turned back to the wizard with a nod.
“Come, Feny,” the wizard said, turning on her heel—tugging her familiar along by the hand—and stepping into a cloud of fog that vanished again, leaving no sign of them. A nifty parlor trick. A waste of magic, though, just to look impressive.
Though, in Gabriel’s limited experience, the Convocation wizards seemed excessively interested in anything that made them look good.
“Come, Vale,” Gabriel said aloud in snooty tones to mimic the Elal wizard as he mounted again. Swiveling back his ears, Vale snorted in apparent appreciation of the humor. On this side of the border, the road opened up to a welcoming width—in stark contrast to the difficult trail through the Knifeblades, more suited to mountain goats than horses—and Vale kicked into a sprightly pace. Unsurprisingly, the prickle of unseen eyes still followed them.
Among the numerous skills in their magical arsenal, the wizards of House Elal commanded air elementals and other spirits mostly invisible to the human eye. There were tricks to making them visible. Gabriel could condense some fog or mist to reveal their movements. But, as much as he disliked being spied on, he wouldn’t. He’d do nothing to jeopardize this gambit.
