"Is your sister in the building, Highness?" Seb asked abruptly.
"She shouldn’t be," Prince Justin said. "I told her to go back to the palace." He turned to one of his bodyguards. "Ridgeway, go check the dining hall. Bring her back here if you see her."
The guardsman went off at a run, and nervous conversation broke out, which Rennyn ignored, concentrating on chalking the long series of sigils in each corner and at the halfway points of the walls. If the shield was necessary at all, there was likely little time left to finish it.
The Sentene, being charged with the protection of more than just Rennyn’s brother, herded the occupants of neighbouring rooms in to fill most of the seats. This produced an annoying babble, rising when the guardsman returned with a small blonde girl and her own set of attendants. Rennyn climbed on one of the desks and scribbled on the ceiling.
"But it’s daytime!" the girl protested, though she was plainly enjoying the drama. "The walkway between the Houses and the main bit of the palace is all open and sunny. Night Roamers couldn’t come here."
"Only the weakest and the strongest Night Roamers are killed by sunlight, Highness," said the wall-like Sentene, coming into the room. "All dislike it and many are hurt by it, but there’s more than a few which can venture out into it."
As Rennyn climbed off the desk, she glimpsed another Sentene pair out in the hallway. Reinforcements. She knelt and rapidly began chalking the last set of sigils in the centre of the floor. They wouldn’t have sent reinforcements if the incursion had been defeated already.
"Five Escaton-types have been located in the palace," the Sentene mage continued, dropping his voice a little, though the room had immediately fallen to a fascinated hush. "It won’t be long before they’re dealt with, but Captain Illuma’s divinations show curious results, and there’s been reports and signs of something large moving which we can’t isolate. Almost as if it’s shielded."
Food for thought. One thing Eferum-Get didn’t usually do was cast shields on themselves.
"Could it be him?" Seb asked, leaping to the same conclusion.
Rennyn finished the last of the sigils first, and stood up. "I doubt it. His personal shielding was perfect. But I wouldn’t put it past him to cast shields on Eferum-Get."
"And send them after me?"
"He may not even know you exist, Seb. But as wicked uncles go, I think this one would take great delight in getting something to eat you in front of me."
"Should we move, Your Highness?" one of the guardsmen asked Prince Justin. "There is a well fortified room in the Houses' central tower."
The prince glanced at the Sentene in the doorway, then shook his head. "We would need to take some of this room’s defenders with us. And–" He offered Rennyn a little bow. "I’ve heard enough about Lady Montjuste-Surclere’s strength to suspect this might be the safest place on Aliace Hill."
Rennyn just started casting. Safety would only come when the shield was complete.
Chapter Fourteen
Kendall was entirely envious of Sebastian’s sister’s ability to ignore people. She acted like she couldn’t even see the twenty Arkathan students sitting at and on the desks around her, let alone hear their whispered comments. Turning away from Prince Justin, she gave the sigils on the floor a sharp look and began pumping power into them.
It really was becoming clearer. Not just people casting, but already existing enchantments. Kendall could even tell when she’d crossed an active circle. None of it made much sense yet, but it was a far more positive sign than the long days of failing to do more than make pebbles jump unpredictably.
The sigils began to glow as Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere spoke softly beneath her breath, bluish light working from the top to bottom of each row at the same time. Kendall couldn’t see the shield which was being created, but felt like she was being boxed in. There was a moment when the final sigil flared and, even though the door was still open, Kendall knew she wouldn’t be able to walk through it. It was like the room itself was telling her so.
"Sealed for air as well?" asked the gigantic Sentene mage, his rumbling voice more curious than concerned. Unlike the royal guardsmen, the Sentene just looked alert and interested.
"You think this will take so long we’d have to worry?" asked Rennyn, then shrugged and followed her brother as he moved back to where Kendall and Sukata were sitting by the windows closest to the chalk-board.
Kendall seized the opportunity. "Can I ask something?"
"Why not? It’s my day for answering questions."
"Your brother was trying to explain how everything goes slower in the Eferum. That an hour there is like two days or more in the real world. But if that’s so, then wouldn’t the Black Queen have only been in the Eferum for a year or two?"
"Not far from that. The distortion is variable, and we don’t know anything of what it’s like when you move away from this world. But I doubt more than two or three years would have passed for her."
"Then, if it’s – if what everyone’s been saying about her having a second son, one born in the Hells, is true – why isn’t he still a baby?"
"Mmph. Have you heard any of the theories on the origins of the Eferum-Get?"
"Not really." They were monsters. They lived in the Hells. They ate people. What more was there to say?
"A common idea is that the Eferum-Get are the nightmares of this world, conjured into existence by our fears. I can’t be sure exactly how my Wicked Uncle came to be, but I’d be surprised if Solace went through any form of pregnancy. Maybe he sprang fully-formed from her forehead."
Kendall checked the expressions of those around her, not certain if she was misunderstanding an attempt at humour. "You mean she just thought him up?"
"It’s entirely possible, though it’s equally possible she went through some form of ritual or…activity with a thing which could be called his father. Certainly the dominant school of thought is that Eferum-Get come into being, rather than do anything so mundane as breeding – that they only become capable of doing so when they reach this world and begin to adapt to its nature. In either case, it wouldn’t make this Helecho any less her son."
"The Eferum operates on an entirely different set of rules from this world," Sebastian put in, because he always would try and explain anything and everything, no matter how much Kendall discouraged him. "There’s no physical surfaces, no air. You float in Efera, raw magic moving all around and through you, without any need to eat or breathe. It’s very easy to lose your sense of self. A weak-willed person venturing into the Eferum is more likely to forget to come back than be attacked. A strong-willed person, someone able to hold back the tide of magic, blazes with a sense of Self which can leak through the best shielding. It’s a place of the mind, of emotion, and most importantly of will."
"Have you summoned a focus already?" asked Princess Sera, playing the wide-eyed and innocent card again. "You don’t look nineteen."
"Unregistered mages are so bad about keeping all sorts of rules," Rennyn Montjuste-Surclere said before her brother had to answer, studying the young princess as if she were deciding whether to step on her. She obviously hadn’t missed the mischief behind the question.
"Summoning my focus was the most daunting thing I’ve ever done," Prince Justin said, taking Princess Sera’s hand and settling with her at the desk just across the aisle. "How you can bear to venture there frequently I can’t guess, Lady Montjuste-Surclere."
Kendall would bet Sebastian and his sister found it harder to bear all this fascinated attention. Scary and dangerous as the Hells sounded, it was the source of all the magic in the world, and to this pair probably bunches more fun than being in a room with gossip-hungry strangers. If it wasn’t for them acting so much like they were in charge, it would look like they’d been backed into this corner and trapped there.