Edinja smiled. “Not right away, we can’t. But perhaps soon. Our source in Arborlon has nothing more to add?”
“I received a message about the Elessedil girl’s return and subsequent departure. Nothing more. She seems to have spoken to no one about why she either went back to Paranor or later flew west.”
“Her sister will know,” Edinja said softly.
Stoon hesitated. “Do you wish me to find out?”
“What interests me is the reason behind the Ard Rhys’s departure and the nature of her destination. There is something important happening.”
She walked over to stand beside him. She was small, but it always seemed she was the larger and stronger of the two when he was in her presence. He had never felt that way with Drust Chazhul.
“I want to know the moment any of the Druids return or are sighted in any part of the Four Lands. I want to find them and I want to track them. Send more of my birds to search them out. Send word to my creature in Arborlon. I want to know what is going on. All of it.”
“I will see that it is done, Mistress.” He paused. “Do you wish to have Paranor occupied now? Perhaps the protective wards have been removed.”
She reached out and stroked his cheek gently. Then she sat down across from him. “Do you know why I wanted Drust Chazhul dead? Not because he was Prime Minister when I should have been. Nor because he was any real threat to my ambitions—certainly no more than Arodian was. I could have killed them anytime and gotten what I wanted. No, it was because Drust was so determined to put an end to the use of magic in the Four Lands.”
She got up again, crossed the room, poured wine into goblets, and returned, handing one to him. She smiled as he hesitated in accepting. “It is only wine, Stoon.”
He took it from her, and she sat. “Drust believed that magic had run its course and that once again science had become a viable alternative. He ignored history and common sense, believing that the advent of the Great Wars and the destruction of the Old World were things of the past and that the future should not be shaped by what had happened several thousand years ago. The discovery of diapson crystals and the inventions that were generated as a result led him to embrace this theory. Magic seemed dangerous to him. He perceived it as a threat—not only to himself because he had no use of it, but to the larger world as well, because its power rested in the hands of a few, and that could never change. Magic wasn’t an object that anyone could master and command. It was genetic and therefore elitist. It could be studied and learned or it could be acquired by chance and sometimes diligence, but never possessed by more than a few.”
“He hated magic’s unpredictability, as well,” Stoon added. He sipped at his wine and found it satisfactory. “He didn’t trust it.”
“He didn’t understand it. He preferred science because it could be contained and manipulated by everyone who had access to it. He could see its source; he could hold it in his hands. This isn’t so with magic, which is ephemeral and intuitive—even when you hold a talisman. In any case, he was determined to stamp it out, in spite of what he suggested to me in our final meeting. He thought to placate me and later would have betrayed me. Had he been allowed, he would have advanced science to the position it occupied in the world before the advent of the Great Wars. He would have relegated magic to the pages of ancient history.”
She shook her head. “Magic is the foundation of the Orle family and the source of what keeps the Four Lands in balance, whatever anyone else might say or think. Men and women like Drust Chazhul would manipulate and deceive their way to power that is beyond them. They would gain their positions and then squander their opportunities. When Drust became Prime Minister, all he could think to do was to strengthen his hold on his office. He gave no thought to how he might use the chance he had been given productively. He simply decided magic was bad and science was good, and that he would seize control of the one and stamp out the other.”
Stoon finished his wine and set the goblet on a small table at his elbow. “He was obsessed with making certain no one would challenge his grip on the Prime Minister’s office.”
She sniffed. “It was a grip he would never have been able to hold, even had he lived. But here is my point. I align more closely with the Druids of Paranor than with the politicians of Arishaig and the Federation. I am kindred to the Druid order in my history and in my worldview. They would not accept this, but it is so. We seek the same ends. What separates us is their unwillingness to use their magic to take control of the Four Lands. It isn’t that I am suggesting they need to do this to gain further power; I am suggesting they need to do more to make the Four Lands safe from predators. Once a central government is established, there are better uses to which magic could be put than in fighting the constant civil wars that have raged since the time of the First Druid Order.”
“And you would be the one to make this happen?” he asked.
“Of course. Who better? I am well positioned for it. I command the strongest government in the Four Lands. I have the means and influence to bring the others into line. As Prime Minister, acting on behalf of the whole of the Southland people, I can make anything I wish come to pass.”
“So you have a plan?”
“I have a plan. But it does not involve seizing Paranor and tearing down its walls. It does not involve engaging in a war with the Druids and eventually with the Elves, who at some point will ally themselves. It means taking a different approach.”
She did not offer to explain what that approach was, and Stoon knew better than to ask. He simply nodded in casual agreement. “So I am not to go back into Paranor?”
She rose from where she was sitting, reached out and pulled him to his feet, and then pressed herself against him. “The wards might be down, but the Druids would never leave anything valuable lying around unprotected. Try to take anything out of Paranor and you will pay a price for your arrogance. Besides, going back into Paranor at this point will undermine everything I hope to accomplish. The order will associate all that has happened so far with Drust Chazhul. I hope to leave it that way. His time has come and gone, and I will do my best to make it clear that his actions were not mine. I wish to disassociate myself—and the Federation, as well, if it is at all possible—from everything he did. Am I clear about this, Stoon?”
He felt her fingers working at the buttons of his tunic. “You could not be more clear, Mistress.”
She slid her hands inside his clothing and ran them up and down his chest. “You can stop calling me Mistress now,” she said. “Think of something a little less formal, will you?”
Then she took him to her bed.
When the assassin departed her chambers some hours later, the first rays of the sunrise were just beginning to show on the eastern horizon, the light silvery and muted. Stoon returned the same way he had come, alone and unseen, his mind on fire with memories of his time with her. Edinja was like no one he had ever been with, and he did not want their relationship to end. Even knowing that one day it would—that she would have it no other way and he would not be able to prevent it—he did not want it to happen. So he would make the most of it while it lasted, and he would not give himself cause to look back on this time with even the smallest of regrets.
For now, he had other business to attend to. He must send word to their spy in Arborlon. He must dispatch Edinja’s birds to seek out the Druid and her Elven protector. It would be their assignment to find the pair and then to track them to wherever they might be going, all the while sending messages back to him.
Messages he could carry to Edinja.
Messages of sufficient import that she would allow him to come to her and be with her as he had this night.
Stoon was a practical man with few vices and dependable instincts. But he was not perfect; he was not without weaknesses. He knew that she was one. But he also knew that for all her talk about serving a higher purpose and seeking a peaceful unification of the Four Lands, she was every bit as bloodthirsty as her former rivals. Why else had she allied herself with him? Why else had she been so keen to dispatch both Arodian and Drust Chazhul?