The Sentinel Mage

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE





KAREL STOOD ACROSS from the rose bower. The princess hadn’t walked the crushed marble paths today, hadn’t walked them for a week. She sat on the cushions, half-dozing, while bees hummed busily among the roses.

He paced another circuit of the garden, turning his head to keep her in sight. Her hair, binding the crown to her head, had lost its shining luster, her face had lost its bloom. She was fading, every day a little more listless, a little paler, a little thinner.

It’s the poppy juice, he thought grimly. She has to stop taking it.

And what if she did stop? What then? Did she have the strength to survive her marriage to Rikard without it?

Karel looked away. He knew the answer.

The duke must have noticed the change in his wife, but he didn’t appear to care. As long as he has a princess to rut, he’s happy.

Ahead of him, a beetle struggled on its back among the pink and white chips of marble. Princess Brigitta would kneel and save it; Duke Rikard would grind it beneath the heel of his boot.

No, that was wrong. These days the princess wouldn’t even notice the beetle’s plight.

Karel bent and picked up the beetle. He placed it on leaf mold beneath a flowering rose bush, as Princess Brigitta would have done, and resumed his circuit, his boots crunching on the path. The daydream filled his head again, as it did more and more often these days: the weight of his sword in his hands, the flex of his muscles as he swung it, Duke Rikard’s head spinning, spraying blood.

He would never do it. Could never do it. Everything his parents had slaved for during their bondservice would be forfeit. Not just his own freedom, but everyone in his family: the sisters he’d left behind, his aunts and uncles, his cousins.

It was the only way he had of saving the princess. And he could never take it.





“SHE HAS TO stop drinking the poppy juice!” Karel said. Outside, the sky was darkening and the tenth bell was ringing. “She’s barely aware of anything that happens these days!”

“But how can I refuse it to her?” Yasma asked, wringing her hands.

The door to the bedchamber was closed. The duke had finished his day’s duties and was rutting his wife before dinner, as was his habit. In a few minutes the light would fade from the sky and Duke Rikard would emerge from the bedchamber, his face flushed and smug.

The daydream blossomed in Karel’s mind again: hefting the sword, swinging it, sending the man’s head spinning across the room. He imagined blood spattering across the rugs, the walls, the ceiling.

When Duke Rikard emerged, the princess would remain in bed, lost in poppy-induced dreams. The duke would dine alone and then return to her, closing the door again.

“She needs it,” Yasma said. “Don’t you see?”

Yes, he did see. But he also saw what the poppy juice was doing to her. “It’s destroying her. You must reduce the dose.”

“But she keeps asking for more!” Yasma cried. “How can I refuse her? She saved me!”

Karel took her hands to stop their twisting.

“I was scrubbing floors,” Yasma said, tears in her voice. “One of the armsmen had just come off duty and he...he— And she saw me, Karel. She saw me.”

“Yes, but Yasma—”

“She didn’t have to stop,” Yasma said. “She didn’t have to take me as her maid. She could have walked past.”

“No, she couldn’t. It’s not in her nature.”

Yasma sniffed, and nodded.

“Yasma, if she dies, what will happen to you? You’ll go back to scrubbing floors. Without her protection...”

Yasma’s face was pinched, miserable. “I owe it to her.”

“Reduce the dose,” Karel said. “You must give her less. Otherwise you’ll kill her.”

“But—”

“Reduce it, Yasma. And get her to eat more.”

Yasma ducked her head and nodded.

“Is she drinking the dung-root juice?”

“Yes.”

He squeezed her hands and then released them. “Good.”

The bedchamber door began to open. Yasma scurried over to one of the settles and began rearranging the cushions. Karel stepped back so that his shoulders were against the wall. He lifted his chin and stared stolidly across the salon.

Duke Rikard strolled into the room. His face was as flushed and smug as Karel had imagined. “You,” he said to Yasma. “Go to the kitchen. I’m hungry.”

Karel’s hand flexed near the hilt of his sword. He saw blood in his mind’s eye, a head spinning.