Of Kings and Killers (Elder Empire Sea #3) - WIll Wight Page 0,45
hand.
Calder didn’t always carry around the Emperor’s crown, but he had been meeting with alchemists and strangers earlier. He trusted its power to defend him against anyone with sinister designs.
Carefully, he pulled it out and held it over Cheska’s palm.
She jerked the hand back on instinct, but he kept the crown out. Gingerly, she reached back out…then shuddered and withdrew her hand.
“All right,” she said. “I get it.”
Calder wordlessly pocketed the crown.
Bliss suddenly stuck her head between them from behind the couch. Both of them flinched; the swords she had been standing on just a moment before were still driven into the wall. “I do not get it. It is only polite for you to explain yourselves.”
“There’s…too much Intent,” Cheska said. “I can feel it from here. If I dove in, I don’t know if I’d be the one coming out, or if it would be some copy of him in my body.”
Calder searched his pockets for a loose piece of lint, which he balled up and tossed into the flames. “So that leaves us with the question: how do we win?”
Cheska groaned. “The Farstriders’ report will bury us.”
“But we know it’s coming,” Calder countered. “We can get out ahead of it.”
Bliss nodded along with his words, still uncomfortably close. “Yes, and also I can help you use the Optasia.”
Calder turned until he was nose-to-nose with Bliss. She was pretty, in an otherworldly way, with flawless skin and wide, clear eyes. Which made the close contact all the more uncomfortable.
“You can?”
“They’re not actively watching us at the moment. After the battle in the Imperial Palace, all the Great Elders that we can track have split their attention. So I can help guard you.”
She put a hand on either side of his face, and for a second he wondered if she was going to kiss him. But her expression remained perfectly serious, and her hands were firm; she was preventing him from looking away.
“You will have a short amount of time. And if the Elders notice you, they will destroy your mind and I will destroy your body. Are you willing to try?”
It seemed that all of Calder’s options involved the risk of his mind being destroyed. “I don’t see us beating Jorin without rolling the dice.”
Bliss nodded, but she didn’t release him. She studied his face inch by inch, as though committing it to memory.
“Um…Bliss…”
“You have freckles. They’re very faint. I’ve never noticed them before.”
Cheska leaned in beside her. She took a sip from a glass of red wine that Calder hadn’t noticed a servant bring. “Huh. So he does. You look good with a beard, by the way.”
Calder looked from one woman to another. “What’s…happening here?”
“We’re having a conversation,” Bliss said gravely.
Cheska pulled back and ruffled his hair. “Wishful thinking won’t get you anywhere, Captain.”
After chasing the Imperial Guard out of the Emperor’s quarters, Bliss began nailing wide silver rings into the walls around the Optasia with her Blackwatch spikes.
Calder touched one of the rings, spinning it around the spike. He hesitated to Read it himself, standing so close to the Optasia. “What do the rings do?”
“Silver rings were traditionally used to ward off Elderspawn,” Bliss said, hammering in another spike. “They had no effect until they were used in that manner. The collected Intent to repel Elders is what made them function.”
She stood on the tips of her toes, trying to reach the frame over the secret door that held the Optasia, until Calder took the hammer and spike from her and did it himself. He looped the silver ring over it afterwards.
“These rings were part of a set that dates back almost five hundred years,” Bliss continued. “Do not steal them.”
“Why would I steal them?” Calder asked, wondering how much they would be worth.
“Because they are very valuable. Don’t do it.”
Calder looked over the vaguely chair-shaped cage of steel bars and wires that was the Optasia. “They’re most valuable to me here.”
“That is true,” Bliss agreed. “I do not know how effective these will be. And it is always possible that the Great Elders have deceived me, and that they are in fact watching this place closely. I do not feel an Elder presence now, but they can be deceptive.”
“I’ll keep it brief. Focused.”
“Good, because I can only help you start using it without breaking your brain. If the Great Elders felt your mind on them, they will focus all their attention on slipping inside your flesh, and I will have to kill you.”