Page 6 of A Kiss of Healing & Honor (Darkstone Academy #4)

My stomach clenched in disgust at my mother’s confident assurance.

Now I know for certain that she’s under some kind of spell! I thought.

Maybe it was useless, but I had to try to reach her with the truth.

“The Duke de Norhas isn’t the man you think he is.” The words spilled out of me in a rush. “Chatelaine Erzabetta de Norhas and her brother Lord Roderigo, who was castellan at the academy—they spent months attacking and murdering the students and diplomatic hostages under their case. All on the duke’s orders, to undermine the domina-regent and make trouble with the supernatural nations. They even tried to blame me for the deaths, before they figured out who I really was.”

Princess-Royal Jacinthe di Severieri. Even now, I couldn’t really believe it. Back at the academy, I’d played along with Erzabetta and Roderigo’s claims to make things easier for myself and my friends.

“No, that can’t be true.” Mama frowned. “I’ve gotten to know Beltràn well over this past year. He’s a good and honorable man. He’d never do something so evil.”

“But his allies have hurt a lot of people, Mama! I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” I gripped her hands, willing her to believe me. “I mean, I went to sleep in Darkstone Castle and woke up here. Someone drugged me and brought me aboard his ship. We have to find a way to escape before it’s too late.”

To my shock, Mama pulled her hands away. Her expression hardened. “Jacinthe, you’re wrong about Beltràn. He only wants the best for the people of the Dominion.” Mama’s voice sounded angry. “He’s doing his best to protect the Dominion from those who would usurp power. Like my mother, our beloved Domina-Regent Jacinthe.” Her tone was heavy with sarcasm. “I can’t believe I named you after Mother. As if she’d ever forgive me… or let you live.”

I rocked back on my heels, stunned by the bitterness in her tone. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that perhaps Beltràn’s concerns are justified.” Mama lifted her chin, her eyes narrowed with old resentment. “Mother has always been the ruthless one in her partnership with Father. And now that she holds the regency, who knows what she might do to keep her grip on the throne?”

I shook my head, unable to believe what I was hearing. “Mama, no. Domina-Regent Jacinthe is not the enemy here. It’s the duke who’s plotting against the government. Look what he tried to do to me!”

“You’re wrong, Jacinthe. All those other things that happened—I’m sure they were all a misunderstanding. Overzealous actions by the duke’s allies.” Mama’s voice softened, but her expression remained resolute. “Since Duke Beltràn’s men rescued me from that sinking ship, I’ve come to see how selfish I was by going into hiding for all these years. I left the citizens of our dominion believing that the imperial throne had no heir.”

She patted my arm with a condescension that made me grit my teeth. With every moment that passed, Mama felt more and more like a stranger to me.

If she’d truly been rescued and not abducted, why hadn’t she written me to let me know she was alive? It made no sense.

“I’m sure Beltràn brought you here for your own protection,” she continued. “What do you think would happen if my mother ever discovered your existence?”

I stared at her in disbelief.

“Protection?” I asked sharply. “By kidnapping me in the dead of night, locking me in a magical restraint collar, and keeping me prisoner on his ship?”

Mama sighed, reaching out to smooth my hair in a familiar, soothing gesture. But I flinched away from her touch, my heart aching with confusion and betrayal.

“Duke Beltràn assured me you’re an honored guest. Trust me, my dearest. I would never let any harm come to you.” Mama smiled fondly at me through the mask of her ruined makeup. “He’s is not our enemy. Give him a fair chance. Please?”

My own mother had become a stranger to me during the long months since we’d parted. Despite the initial joy of our reunion, it seemed I was still alone.

Her next words hit me like a punch to the gut, driving the air from my lungs in a sharp gasp.

“You should know that Beltràn has asked for my hand in marriage,” she said softly, her eyes now shining with the same affection she once showed for my stepfather. “Now that I’m a widow, he has only to divorce Duchess Ausilia to make me his bride. Together, we’ll put an end to Mother’s usurpation of Father’s throne.”

I gaped at her, my mind reeling. This can’t be happening, I thought. The duke’s put her under a compulsion charm. Right?

But what if this isn’t just the duke’s influence talking? a traitorous voice asked inside my head. What if Mama truly believes in his cause?

How much bitterness did she harbor towards the parents who had condemned her to imprisonment or death? Who would’ve killed me, too, if they’d known of my existence?

A sharp rap on the cabin door jolted me from my turbulent thoughts. I tensed as the door swung open to reveal Lady Margitts, shimmering golden fabric piled high in her arms. A pair of soft leather slippers, dyed to match the gown, dangled from her fingers.

“Your Highnesses, apologies for interrupting,” she intoned. Her voice was flat and emotionless, and her expression was carefully neutral.

Her presence confirmed my suspicions about who’d drugged me last night.

“You!” I exclaimed with loathing. “What are you doing here?”

“His Grace sends Princess Jacinthe a gift of clothing. He respectfully requests you attend him in his cabin once Her Highness is finished dressing.”

Lady Margitts smiled pleasantly at me. I saw triumph in her eyes.

“Who are you?” Mama asked Lady Margitts, frowning. “And where did you come from?”

Lady Margitts sank into a deep curtsy. “I’m Amella of Parrish, Dowager Baroness of Margitts, Your Highness. I came aboard with Princess Jacinthe last night.”

“You kidnapped me,” I corrected. I turned to my mother. “Lady Margitts is the new chatelaine of Darkstone Academy. It took her less than a day to show her true colors.”

Lady Margitts’ pale cheeks flamed in outrage. But she said nothing.

Mama reached out to clasp my shoulder, her grip warm and reassuring. “Don’t worry, Jacinthe,” she murmured in a reassuring tone.“Duke Beltràn means you no harm. You’ll see.”

“Shall I stay to assist Princess Jacinthe in getting dressed?” Lady Margitts asked coldly.

I shuddered at the thought of her touching me or lacing me into a corset.

“No need,” Mama said airily. “I’ll do it. Jacinthe and I have a lot to catch up on.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” Lady Margitts sank into another deep curtsy. “Please don’t keep His Grace waiting too long. He ordered the cook to prepare a special breakfast.”

∞∞∞

Ilhan

The sense that something was wrong nagged at me when I awoke in my student apartment shortly after dawn.

My head ached with a mild hangover from the mulled cider served by the pitcherful at last night’s banquet.

When Aunt Amella announced she intended to whisk Jacinthe away to the safety of the donjon’s apartments, I’d agreed with the decision. With the Duke de Norhas’ small fleet anchored in the cove, it made sense to move her to the most defensible part of the castle.

Of course, it also thwarted my plans to confess my feelings to Jacinthe at last. There would be no private conversations.

And certainly nothing else was going to happen tonight.

At least Tama, Boreas, and Gwydion weren’t any happier than I was about the situation. Tama and Boreas drank nothing but water, but Gwydion was a different story.

When my fellow Senior Infirmary Apprentice challenged me to a drinking contest, I’d decided to drown my frustration by showing him what the men of Parrish were made of.

I yawned and stretched. My thoughts moved as sluggishly as honey on a snowy winter morning back home. At least my first lecture wasn’t until after the midday meal. Until then, I’d be compounding cough and sore throat remedies in the pharmacy.

Will I see Jacinthe in the Great Hall for breakfast? Or will Aunt Amella and Castellan Guisbald insist on keeping her under lock and key until De Norhas had been dealt with?

Thinking of Jacinthe made me aware I couldn’t feel the warm, steady glow of her presence in my head anymore.

The only thing more troubling than the constant flow of emotions through my soul-bond with Jacinthe was the dead silence right now. This had only happened once before, when Lord Roderigo and Lady Erzabetta arrested us all and put Jacinthe in a magical restraint collar.

Alarm shot through me. Suddenly, I was wide awake. I sat up, flinging aside my coverlet.

At that moment, someone began pounding violently on the door to the apartment I shared with Alondra.

“FRIEND ILHAN!” Boreas roared, loud enough to make the diamond-shaped panes in my window rattle. “WAKE THE FUCK UP!”

“Coming!” Hoping vainly that the Wind-Walker hadn’t roused the entire building, I scrambled out of bed.

I raced across our shared sitting room, dodging around the furniture we’d been allowed to bring from home.

Alondra, still in her nightdress, opened her bedroom door. “Brother, what’s going on?” She sounded alarmed.

“Something’s happened to Princess Jacinthe!” I replied without thinking.

I unlocked the door and pulled it open.

Crowded in the corridor outside were Tama and Gwydion, with Boreas towering head and shoulders above the other two.

My heart sank. There could be only one reason that all three of them needed to see me.

“You sense it, too?” I demanded, hoping against hope. “She’s gone?”

Boreas tapped his head. “I can’t feel her.”

“Nor I,” Gwydion said in his soft, musical voice.

“Has anyone seen her this morning?”

All three of them shook their heads.

“The castle guards are running around like ants when you’ve dug up their nest,” Boreas announced.

Vesta preserve us, I thought. This is bad.

“What’s going on?” Alondra demanded from behind me.

I turned to see my sister looking at me from narrowed blue eyes. Like me, she was still in her nightclothes. Her short golden hair stuck up in tufts, but her expression was fierce.

She continued, “You’ve been behaving strangely for months now, brother.” Her gaze shifted to Gwydion. “You, too, Prince Gwydion.”

He winced at hearing her use his title. Back when he first came to work in the infirmary with us, he’d insisted that we call him ‘Apprentice Gwydion,’ or simply ‘Gwydion.’

“How do you all know that Jacinthe is in trouble?” she demanded. “Did you put some kind of tracking spell on her?”

“Something like that,” Gwydion said smoothly.

It was my turn to wince. I hated lying, and doing it to my sister, who trusted me, felt even worse. “I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I need to get dressed. I’m going to call on Aunt Amella and Castellan Guisbald.”

Tama’s mouth was set in a grim line. His dark eyes, as huge and liquid as a seal’s, bored into me. “We must find her. Now.”

∞∞∞

I had a difficult time convincing Jacinthe’s other soul-bound companions to let me handle the inquiries. Eventually, though, I prevailed.

Tailed by Boreas, Tama, Alondra, and Gwydion, I made my way over to Aunt Amella’s office.

It was locked. I tapped politely on the door.

No reply.

A thin filament of dread wound through my gut. I curled my hand into a fist and pounded. “Aunt Amella! Open up! This is an emergency!”

Tama leaned over my shoulder. “No one is inside that stone box,” he informed me in his usual emotionless tones.

I had no reason to doubt him. His senses were sharper than mine.

“And Lady Margitts’ scent is stale,” Boreas added. “She hasn’t been here since yesterday.”

Fuck. The ice-cold thread in my stomach thickened.

Hoping against hope that Aunt Amella was conferring with Castellan Guisbald, I spun on my heel and marched down the corridor to his office.

This time, when I pounded on the door, I received a response. “Enter!”

I found him hunched over his desk, his balding gray head in his hands. He looked up hopefully as our little group burst in, but his expression immediately fell.

“My lords and lady, whatever you want from me, can it wait?” he snapped. “I’m busy dealing with, ah, something important.”

“Castellan Guisbald, where is Jacinthe?” I demanded. “None of us can—” I hastily edited myself. “I mean, she’s missing. And we can’t find her anywhere.”

Guisbald looked up slowly, his expression grave. “I’m afraid I have distressing news, Lord Ilhan.”

Somewhere behind me, Boreas growled. At least I thought it was Boreas. It could’ve been Tama.

So far, the normally garrulous Gwydion hadn’t said a word. I’d noticed his pale features grow taut with stress, though. Alondra, too, maintained a tense silence.

Guisbald flinched at the growl. He nervously rubbed his bristling muttonchop whiskers.

I’d never seen the castle’s highly experienced Master-at-Arms look so unsettled. So, his next words came as no surprise. “As near as I can tell, Lady Margitts fled the castle last night to join the duke’s forces, along with Mage Ysandre and several guards. And they apparently took Princess Jacinthe with them.”

Alondra gasped. “Oh, no!”

“The princess didn’t go willingly,” Gwydion stated.

“I agree.” Guisbald heaved a sigh. “I had no idea Lady Margitts had suborned Mage Ysandre, or that they’d attempt anything so brazen.”

Boreas cracked his knuckles. “Then we’ll just go get Friend Jacinthe back,” he declared confidently.

Guisbald shook his head. “By the time we realized what had happened, the duke’s ships had already sailed. I just returned from the cove. It’s empty.”

I couldn’t breathe.

My aunt had betrayed us once again. And now Jacinthe was gone, just when I had finally found the courage to tell her how I felt, to act on the bond that had been growing between us…

I had failed her. Utterly.

“We have to go after them,” I said hoarsely. “Now.”

My mind raced with fragments of desperate plans.

Guisbald’s expression was pained as he shook his head. “Lord Ilhan, I wish it were that simple. But Darkstone Academy has no ships of its own. It’s an imperial security measure to prevent anyone from escaping this island.”

This time, it was definitely Boreas who growled. “Are you telling me you’re just going to sit on your ass and let that fucking earthworm take Jacinthe?”

Guisbald’s weathered face went ashen under his tan. “I don’t have a choice, Prince Boreas. Believe me, if there’s anything I could do, I’d do it!”

My hands curled into fists at my sides as my mind raced. “I refuse to believe that. There has to be a way.”

“There is! Restore my true form!” Boreas bellowed, his voice like thunder. “I’ll burn the duke’s ships to the waterline and feast on his charred bones for what he’s done!”

Tama stepped forward, his lean frame coiled tight with barely contained violence. When he spoke, his words were clipped and as cold as a blade. “I agree with Boreas. It’s long past time we shed these wretched Drylander skins. I’ll hunt down the duke’s ships myself and punch holes in their hulls until they sink to the bottom of the sea. I’ll tear the duke and his men apart and leave their dismembered bodies as food for the sharks. They won’t have time to drown.”

I gaped at them, taken aback by the sheer primal fury radiating from the Dragon and the merman.

But they weren’t wrong.

We had to rescue Jacinthe. And that damned traitor De Norhas needed to pay for what he’d done.

“Trust me, I want to help—” Guisbald began.

“Why should we trust you?” Gwydion’s voice cut through the castellan’s words like a lash. His next words dripped with icy contempt. “You had your chance to protect Princess Jacinthe, and you failed.” He turned to us. “I say, we trust no one in this accursed castle save for Mage-Healer Armand. The academy’s authorities have betrayed us too many times already.”

The castellan opened his mouth to argue, but no sound emerged as he met Gwydion’s unyielding gaze. Then Guisbald’s shoulders slumped. “You’re right, of course,” he said dully. “After everything Lord Roderigo and Lady Erzabetta did… well, I don’t blame you for doubting my word.”

“You could prove your sincerity by allowing Prince Boreas and Lord Tama to resume their natural shapes,” I suggested, a plan springing fully formed in my head. “Without ships of our own, they’re the only ones who have a chance of reaching the duke’s fleet.”

“Damn right,” Boreas growled.

Tama merely crossed his arms and fixed the castellan with a cold black stare.

Guisbald dragged a hand down his face. “Fine. I’m ashamed to ask His Imperial Highness’ guests to risk their lives to correct my security failure, but you’re right.”

I’d been braced for an argument. The new castellan’s ready agreement was a pleasant surprise.

He reached for a pen and a piece of paper, and quickly scribbled out a message before signing and stamping it with the castellan’s seal. “Take this to Mage-Healer Armand or Mage Bevitrice. It authorizes them to lift the spells binding Prince Boreas and Lord Tama to human shape.”

“Thank you.” Relief shot through me as I took the paper from him.

“But please, I’m begging you all… be careful.” Guisbald called after us as we left his office.