The Sentinel Mage

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE





THERE WERE TWO maps left to copy. Britta used red ink to mark the arrows, as the duke had done. The fourth bell was ringing by the time she finished the last one. She laid down the quill and flexed her fingers.

“Britta?” Yasma appeared in the doorway to the bedchamber.

Terror froze her in the chair. Her heart seemed to stop beating. “He’s here?”

“No.” Yasma shook her head. “But the fourth bell has rung. You need to stop.”

Britta pressed her hands to her face for a brief moment. Her fingers were trembling. “I’ve finished.” She picked up the maps and thrust them at Yasma. “Here, hide them.”





THE DUKE EMERGED from the bedchamber, flushed and smug. Karel stared stolidly at the opposite wall and imagined drawing his sword. He listened to the duke’s footsteps come closer. His fingers flexed, touched the sword hilt. Here, when you’re this close, I’d take your head.

Once the duke had departed, Yasma went into the bedchamber. Nearly an hour passed before she emerged again.

“How is she?” Karel asked. It was a stupid question. How do you think she is? The duke’s just spent an hour rutting her. The daydream blossomed in his mind again, so vivid he could almost smell the duke’s blood.

“Sleeping,” Yasma said.

The afternoon passed slowly. Yasma was busy in the dining room, lining baskets with silk. Karel watched a band of sunlight slowly move, sliding along a wall, making silver threads glint in a tapestry, then inching across the floor, where the thickly piled rugs came alive with color. He paced the salon and looked into the dining room. Baskets were lined up on the long table. Inside them, crystal vases lay on beds of silk. One vase stood on the table, a delicate fluted shape. Yasma was bent over a basket lined with moss green silk, sewing. He thought he heard the crackle of parchment. “What are you doing?”

Yasma started so violently that her elbow thumped the table. The vase teetered. Karel strode across and steadied it before it could fall. He had a flash of memory: the king’s atrium, a gilded vase smashing.

Perhaps Yasma had the same memory. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with fear. “I was just... The lining was crooked. I’m re-sewing it.” She thrust the vase on top of the moss green silk and stood, her movements jerky and flustered.

“Are you all right?” Karel asked.

“Yes,” Yasma said, but she still looked pale. “You startled me, is all.” She rubbed her elbow. “What time is it? I should check on her.” She hurried across to the door.

Karel eyed the moss green basket. The silk lining looked thicker than the others. He reached out to touch it.

“Karel.” Yasma’s voice was sharp. “Don’t touch them.”

Karel looked over his shoulder.

Yasma stood in the doorway, anxious, edgy. “The vases are fragile. You might break one.”

I don’t think that’s what you’re afraid of. “They look nice,” Karel said mildly. And then he followed Yasma back into the salon.





ONCE YASMA WAS closeted with the princess, Karel returned to the dining room. He studied the long table. Twenty-three baskets were lined up on the polished wood. Delicate crystal vases nestled on beds of crimson and yellow, leaf green and sky blue. Only one basket was lined with moss green.

He walked over to the basket with the moss green silk. The needle and thread still dangled from it. Karel carefully picked up the vase and placed it on the table. He fingered the lining, heard the rustle of parchment beneath the silk.

A gilt-edged card lay on the table. Lady Pirnilla, he read. The wife of Lundegaard’s ambassador.

Karel sat in the seat Yasma had vacated. He slid the needle from the thread, undid half a dozen stitches, and lifted up one corner of the lining. Sheets of parchment lay folded underneath the silk.

Karel pulled the sheets out and laid them on the table. Pages of writing, folded maps. What’s going on here?

He opened one of the maps. It showed the border between Osgaard and Lundegaard. Red arrows were drawn on it.

Understanding flared inside him. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, could only stare, then he reached for the top sheet of writing and began to read swiftly. It was a letter, written in the princess’s hand, more scrawled than usual, but with the fluidity Yasma’s writing lacked.

Karel skimmed it quickly. Osgaardan soldiers, she’d written. Guise of refugees. And further down the page, Take the gold fields, and Sarkosian mercenaries.

The princess finished simply: I enclose copies of the maps and plans. Please believe that every word is true.

She had signed the letter: A friend.

Karel refolded the map and replaced everything in the basket. He understood Yasma’s fear now. The maps, the pages of writing, were proof of treason. To be found with them would mean death.

He rethreaded the needle, his fingers clumsy with haste. If the duke returned now, if the pages were discovered—

With the lining stitched back the way Yasma had left it and the vase lying snugly in the basket again, he felt only marginally safer. Fear sat beneath his breastbone as he hurried back into the salon and took his position alongside the door.

If you knew what she was doing, you’d approve, Yasma had said.

Karel shook his head. He didn’t want to see Lundegaard conquered, he truly didn’t, but—

Cold sweat broke out on his skin at thought of what would happen if Princess Brigitta’s treason was discovered. She was walking an extremely dangerous path. One misstep could kill her. And Yasma.

Karel closed his eyes. All-Mother, he prayed. Keep her safe. Please.