"Don't you dare lose consciousness on me now, damn it!" Blayre said, lightly flicking the sorcerer's face as his eyes began to close. She suspected he was concussed, and she needed to get him to a medic before he fell asleep and did any more damage to himself. And she needed to know more. Was he just being delusional? She doubted Caval would admit to being part of a rebel cause if it weren't true - head injury or no.
She was torn between staying with Caval and tracking down the rebel-mage-assassin. Moon and Sun, there were a lot of titles being tacked onto that filth. And though she itched to give chase, Blayre reasoned that finding out information from Caval while she could was most important.
And what would she do with that information once she had it?
"Fool!" She cursed Caval. She was tired of being put in compromised positions. Bloody mages.
"You know, I can still hear you." Caval mumbled.
"You can? Good!" She snapped. "What is this rebel group? What do they want?" She kept her voice low and as level as possible.
Caval smiled weakly. "They're not as bad as you might think. People are too quick to associate 'rebel' with a negative connotation. We want no ill to befall Rory, but I suspect that someone else does."
"No kidding." Blayre's tone was sarcastic. "He's had too many close calls."
Caval nodded and then winced from the movement.
"I think you have a head injury." She explained to him, her sympathy returning. "You need to stay alert. I'm hoping someone comes across us so I can send for a medic, but for now just keep talking."
"Ok," Was all Caval said. It seemed he would need more prompting.
"This rebel group that you're a part of. What is it they want?" Blayre inquired. "What is their purpose?"
"They want to remove the requirement that mages be marked upon magical development. And they want a leader who is sympathetic to the cause."
It didn't make sense though. Caval was next in line to be crown sorcerer. He was a marked mage who had it all. He'd come from nothing, and worked his way up. Caval had received the best training and mentoring that Emares had to offer. Why risk giving all that up for some illegal mages?
"Why are you of all people joining a rebel cause?" It was the next logical question. Though Blayre didn't know if it was more for her own knowledge or if it would actually add to the information she was filing away in her head.
"Why do you keep your ability a secret?" He emphasized the word "ability" in a way that made her freeze. He knew too? Twelve hells... her list of people who had knowledge of her power was growing more rapidly than she would have liked.
She responded with a silent glare.
"Because you don't want to be controlled. You're afraid that if the wrong person finds out, you'll be forced into a role that you don't want to play. We are one and the same Blayre. I never asked to be the next Crown Sorcerer. I had no choice."
Blayre didn't know what to say, so she chose to maintain her silence on the matter. It turned out to be a wise choice as footsteps rounded the corner and a group of guards came into view.
Blayre stood and wiped her hands on her pants - she hadn't realized she'd been sweating.
"The suspect got away. Sorcerer Caval is in need of medical attention. I believe he has a concussion."
She refused to look at her friend as she walked away, feeling confused, betrayed, and useless. Nothing was ever as it seemed.
The ballroom now looked more like it was housing a funeral. More than of the guests had departed, and some of the decor had been disrupted by the eruption that had occurred less than an hour earlier. It felt like a lifetime ago.
Blayre followed her Sense to where Ripley crouched beside his copper-haired friend while Conal tended to him along with a pair of medics. The Queen was nowhere to be found. Thank the Moon and Sun. Blayre intoned, hoping they had moved her out of the public eye immediately. If Blayre had learned anything tonight it was that leaving the Queen openly exposed to that many people was too dangerous.
"Let's get you to your rooms, your Grace." Said Conal in a matter of fact tone. "We've done as much as we can do for now. Rest is what your body needs to complete the healing process."
Rory nodded, looking dazed. Ripley and Conal each gripped him by an arm and helped him unsteadily to his feet.
The gentle touch of Ainslee's hand came to rest on her arm, as she watched them lead Rory away, helplessness holding her back like a dog tied to a tree. Taking a deep breath, Blayre steeled herself against the wave of emotion that threatened to engulf her.
"Find Fletcher and meet me in my room. We need to talk." Blayre said tersely without looking at her friend. Her eyes still followed Rory's back as he disappeared through the arched doorway, assisted by Ripley and Conal.
"Of course." Was all Ainslee said, and Blayre knew the other woman understood.
Blayre wanted nothing more than to collapse into the comfort of her bed. To have her face caressed by her pillow and the breeze from her bedside window tickle her face. She thought of that night she had spent with Rory on the run. Just the two of them and the horses, under the forest canopy.
How she wished they could run away again.
She rubbed her nose. Damn royals, and politics, and gatherings, and rebels. Damn them to all twelve hells.
A rap on her door interrupted her violent thoughts and she went to open it, not bothering to check who was waiting on the other side.
Ainslee and Fletcher filed in, faces grim. Blayre returned to her bed to sit while Fletcher took the desk chair and Ainslee sat beside her, the bed barely shifting under her light frame. A feeling of uneasiness had settled over her and she wished she could shed it like an itchy wool cloak.
"I think that what is going on is much more complex than we ever could have imagined." Blayre couldn't think of any other way to start off this conversation, so directness it was.
Fletcher cocked a bushy eyebrow, grabbing from a bowl of nuts that Blayre kept on her side table and popping a few into his mouth, "What exactly are we speaking of, and how complex?" He crunched on the nuts, the glow of the light on the table illuminating one side of his face.
"Do you mean the attempted assassinations?" Ainslee inquired quietly.
Blayre nodded, swallowing. "I found out... some surprising information."
Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside and the three of them froze, as though afraid to get caught in the act. The footsteps continued on past Blayre's door, but Ainslee gave her a nervous glance. "It's too quiet to be talking in here. Someone might hear us."
"Someone might hear us anywhere."
"Can't we at least get Caval in here to lay a charm down? Before we discuss all of this."
Blayre cleared her throat. "It's about him."
Ainslee's gray eyes widened.
"Okay." Fletcher said drawing out the last part of the word.
"We are just going to have to keep our voices down," Blayre whispered. If they were quiet enough, no one would be able to hear them. She rubbed at her nose again.
Drats. She stood quickly and began to peruse around her room. Focusing her sense. She felt something lightly tickling it, and she had been so drained from this evening that she had not recognized the itchy and unsettling feeling for what it was.
Someone had planted something in her room.
"What are you looking for?" Fletcher asked, and she shushed him with a fierce finger to her lips. His eyebrows raised.
"I lost one of my earrings," She said aloud. If this was, as she suspected, an eavesdropping charm, she needed to make it seem like she didn't know it was there. Until she could destroy it. Or get rid of it. At which point the one who placed the charm would realize that it was not where it had been planted.
Who could have come into her room and put it there? The only people who regularly stepped over that threshold were her close friends, and her brother. Occasionally cleaning staff would be permitted entrance.
Finding the charm was the first task. Finding out who had planted it would be the next.
****
Blayre stood in the market square, a hooded figure concealed by the dead of night. Despite the assassination attempt that evening, some of the celebratory festivities were still going on in the city. Voices called out and lights flickered every so often. The glow of mage-lights could be seen in various establishment windows. A welcome site against the present darkness.
Blayre had had some difficulty in locating the charm - she'd never struggled in that way before. Her Sense had been dampened, much like tired eyes after a long day of reading, or ringing ears from spending too much time at a loud event. It made it difficult to locate something so small and seemingly insignificant.
She had given up temporarily, and her Triad had left her room to carry on their discussion elsewhere. Both Fletcher and Ainslee had been undeniably surprised at the information that Caval was a rebel. And none of them knew what to make of it, but it seemed that the Rebels were perhaps not the highest threat to the Royals.
They both agreed that they would need to corner Caval and hoped that he would be willing to share more information once he had rested up a bit. They could resort to threat of exposure, Ainslee had pointed out. He had admitted to being part of a traitorous cause, and they could buy his information with their own silence on the matter - if only a temporary silence. But it was a start.
Blayre chucked the charm into the fountain. It clinked off of the dragon at the center and fell into the water with a satisfying plunk. She stalked away, hoping that whomever had planted it enjoyed the sounds of bubbling water. Perhaps she'd ask them when she tracked them down by their magical imprint.