Feral Mage 3: Chapter 23

Bryce sat on a large stone while Callie tethered Charlotte to a tree. The sound of moving water was the only sign of the stream she had spoken about. Vex sat on the ground next to him while Janna and Thea found seats on an old log a little further away. He rolled one of Vex’s arrows in his hand, examining the red mana crystal near the arrowhead.

“You came up with this, Vex?” he asked, seeing the magic swirling in the crystal.

Vex smiled proudly and nodded.

“She said she got the idea from how the Black Knife assassins would store spells in the crystals, and the time we used mana crystals to pull the Fire Magic out of my hands when the spell backfired on me,” Janna added, leaning against her naginata. “Nicole helped us with the concept. It’s not the same as how the Black Knife uses theirs. I have to call upon my magic in them to activate the spell, but… well, you saw with the Wyvern.”

Bryce grinned as he handed the arrow back to Vex.

“Good work, both of you. How didn’t I know you two were doing this? You had to practice it in the training yard,” Bryce said.

“You were doing Princess stuff,” Vex answered.

A sigh escaped him at the reminder of how much time he spent away from his girls while acting as Thea’s bodyguard. They were a team, and he should know what his team was capable of. Hells, he should be working with them enough that he should anticipate their next move, but he wasn’t.

“Sorry, you two,” Bryce said, meeting both Vex and Janna’s gaze. “We’ll be training more together, promise.”

He caught Thea watching him with a mute expression, but he could see the fear in her eyes. His mouth went dry at the memory of her trying to knight him in the Duke’s garden.

“Animals! Animals! That’s all you lot are!” Charlotte screamed, interrupting the peacefulness of the surrounding woods.

Callie frowned down at the sea elf Princess and looked as if she were considering shoving the gag back into her mouth, but Bryce shook his head and stopped her. The Princess was scared and blustering to try to mask that.

“And you, Princess Volson, keeping such company! Your Uncle would be disgraced at seeing you!” Charlotte yelled.

A dark cloud formed on Thea’s face.

“If that monster sees me as a disgrace, it means I’m doing something right,” she sneered.

Charlotte laughed and shook her head.

“One day, soon, you will see what a fool you’ve been, dear sister-in-law,” she said with a twisted smile.

He saw Thea’s eyes widen as she mouthed the word ‘sister-in-law’.

“Enough!” Bryce said, glaring at Charlotte. “You’re going to answer my questions.”

Charlotte scoffed. “Or what? You’ll beat me? Torture me? Show Princess Volson exactly the kind of low-life scoundrel you are?”

Bryce shrugged at the grinning Princess.

“Naw. We’ll just leave you here tied to the tree,” he said.

The grin the Princess wore fell away to one of confusion, and Bryce continued.

“You saw the Quill Wyvern. What else do you think is in these woods?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You wouldn’t dare leave me, I’m a Princess of the Saltland Kingdom!”

Callie scoffed at her words while Bryce pointed at his chest.

“You stabbed me in the heart,” Bryce reminded her. “Right now I’m trying to decide how much trouble you are worth, or if you’re better off as monster food.”

He heard Callie click her tongue. “I bet the howlers will find her first. They’ll start with her legs since she’s bound to the tree before trying to get to the meat under the ropes.”

“My coin is on some of the surviving Carrion Fairies finding her. Turn her into a living nest like they did the Quill Wyvern,” Janna said.

He saw Charlotte pale at Callie and Janna’s words.

“Why are you helping Harold Volson?” Bryce asked.

Charlotte’s eyes widened, and then she swore before her gaze turned steely. Bryce thought she would refuse to answer and continue to fight against them. Instead, she answered him.

“Because Duchess Frozenveil has all three keys and Harold Volson controls the largest army on the continent,” she answered with a heavy sigh. “I know what he is, I know about the wooden hearts, and so did my mother when she made this alliance. It doesn’t change the fact he’s the only one who might stand a chance with what’s to come.”

Bryce frowned at the revelation that Frozenveil had all three keys.

“That crazy bitch is seriously going to the island?” Callie growled. “Why isn’t the Saltland Kingdom stopping her?”

“Because her poor excuse of a fleet was a trap. The Saltland Armada went up in flames last week, along with two of my brothers,” Charlotte replied. “My Kingdom knows better than any what horrors she could unleash upon the continent if she unlocks his tomb. So, yes, I’m helping the puppet master gather nobles to replace so he can conquer this Kingdom, the same as those in the North, and I’m even marrying his nephew to seal our alliance with blood because what other choice do we have?

“The Winter Kingdom is fractured, the Burned Queen barely holds together the Red Pine Kingdom, the dwarves refuse to leave their mountains for anything, and the Southern human Kingdoms will ignore the threat just as the Kingdom of Brook ignored the Volpin army on their lands.”

He frowned.

“So you killed three nobles and attacked a Duke twice over some old legend?” he asked.

Charlotte glared at him.

“History! Not some old legend or myth,” she growled. “Though I suppose I shouldn’t expect a commoner to understand the difference. Even after a thousand years, we have records of the Sorrowful King’s invasion of the Coral Island. I have even sailed close enough to see the ruins and shambling corpses that still infest the place! So believe my words, peasant, when I say it’s not some myth.”

Vex tsked as she shook her head.

“She’s so noisy, no wonder the Wyvern showed up,” she said in beastkin while glaring at Charlotte.

“The Sorrowful King?” Bryce asked.

Callie answered before Charlotte could with one of her barbed remarks.

“The name he’s given in the history books. However, he’s not really a King, just a powerful necromancer that the Saltland Kingdom provoked. Then they pleaded for help from the other elven nations once he achieved lichdom and invaded with an army of undead.”

Charlotte’s glare shifted to Callie.

“We did not provoke him!”

Callie scoffed.

“We have our own records in the North. I would call sending someone the corpses of their wife and child in a barrel an act of provocation.”

The Princess sneered, but Bryce interrupted her before she could start ranting.

“Okay, we have your reasons. Why is he attacking now?

Charlotte looked toward Thea.

“While Princess Volson’s warnings may have seemed to have fallen on deaf ears, they have not. King Bradford has agents scattered across the Kingdom of Brook, and very little truly escapes his knowledge. Harold has tried a few times to replace these agents with puppets, but each time they are quickly destroyed.

“The Northern Alliance has a larger army than the Kingdom of Brook, and is better organized. King Bradford is well aware of the danger he’s in, but there’s little he can do other than close his inner circle off from the world and wait. Since Harold wishes not to use the Northern Alliance to invade the Kingdom of Brook, he needs a new antagonist, as he calls it, to break this stalemate and draw King Bradford out.”

Bryce frowned.

“So I take it that means the Saltland Kingdom will be the one invading Witchbrook?

Charlotte nodded.

“Soldiers made up of constricted criminals from the Saltland prisons, backed up by unmarked human soldiers from the Northern Alliance. Their success in the attack is trivial, just as long as it makes King Bradford shift from his inner circle.”

“Why isn’t Harold getting his own hands dirty?” Callie asked.

Charlotte rolled her eyes.

“That man treats this as a play and wants the Kingdom of Volpine to be the hero. He says it's to ensure the legacy of what he’s trying to build isn’t stained by war, but I think he’s wary of a potential drawn-out conflict. Perhaps due to his concerns about the Selkie Isles.”

Bryce picked up the puppet and showed it to Charlotte, a grimace forming on her face as she stared at it.

“What is this?” he asked.

For the first time since Bryce had met her, Charlotte was silent, just shifting her glare between the marionette and him.

“It looks like one of my Uncle’s puppets,” Thea answered.

Bryce didn’t break his gaze from Charlotte, carefully watching her expression.

“Because it is. I believe this is how she was communicating with Harold Volson,” he said. “I saw her slip a piece of paper in the puppet’s mouth, and it started glowing with runes.”

The look on Charlotte’s face darkened, and Bryce knew he had discovered something important. Perhaps another way they could stop Harold without killing him and risking the collapse of the Northern Kingdoms.

Thea stood from the log and marched toward Charlotte, delivering a devastating slap to the Princess of the Saltland Kingdom’s face when she arrived.

“Answer him!” Thea yelled. “You saw what my Uncle created! The monstrosities made from stitched-together corpses! How can you support that?”

Charlotte glared at her, blood trickling down from her busted lip.

“Yes, he makes those… things… but there are still people living in the Northern Kingdoms. Farmers till their fields, merchants hawk wares, and whores spread the pox. Life continues the same under your Uncle’s puppet kings, the same as it had before. When the lich is free, there will be no life. Only shambling corpses.”

Thea moved to strike Charlotte again, but Vex caught her wrist and kept the Princess from lashing out in anger again.

“If everything is so hopeless because of the lich, why did you even come to visit Alice about the journal?” Thea asked, visibly shaking. “Or was that just a ploy to spy on me by my Uncle?”

Charlotte stared at Thea for a moment, then looked at Bryce with a devilish smile, her teeth stained red with blood.

“Oh, so she doesn’t know?” Charlotte cooed.

Bryce glared daggers at her, while Callie placed a hand on the hilt of her sword.

“Does the Duke know who’s staying in his city? The Saltland Ambassador said Alice bears a striking resemblance to her poor departed mother,” Charlotte laughed. “I wonder what he would do if he knew?”

“Another word, and your head will be rolling on the ground,” Callie warned as she drew her steel.

Charlotte kept grinning, while Thea looked at them all with confusion. Janna mumbled something under her breath as the kitsune approached the sea elf, only to place the butt of her naginata on Charlotte’s shoulder.

Charlotte quickly turned away from everyone and stared into space for several seconds. Her cocky grin faded to a look of sheer terror, and then she screamed.

After several seconds, Janna removed her naginata from Charlotte’s shoulder, and the Princess frantically looked around.

“Where? Where did he—” she asked, her eyes still filled with terror.

Janna cleared her throat. “I think she knows better than to say anything now.”

She then smiled before leaning on her weapon. Bryce and everyone else, except Charlotte, stared at the kitsune.

“I won’t say anything, I swear on the name of my God. Just keep the angry fox away!” Charlotte yelled, her eyes darting around her.