Landscape Magic by R.J. Price

Author:R.J. Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, magic, warrior, queen, caste
Publisher: R.J. Price

Chapter Eighteen

Jer walked into the kitchen, and the staff came to a stop. The head cook came around the counter as he turned pointedly and closed the door.

“No, don’t—”

He clicked it shut and turned back to the head cook as the lighting changed, as the light orbs lit up in the kitchen and air circulated. The stuffiness that most kitchens had, the smell of food, and the pail meant for the midden heap, all seemed to disappear.

“My name is Jer Hue. I am steward to the throne. Do you know who sits the throne?”

“Lady Aren Argnern,” the head cook said.

“She chose me and is now mated to my brother. We are both warriors, do you know what that means?”

“It means you are here to question us about her life here, to know what sort of things one might need to control Lady Aren. But we won’t do it. We won’t be giving you any information. Go ahead and tell Lady Para about this, about whatever you please. Kill me where I stand, it will make no difference.”

Jer looked over the head cook, who wasn’t the matronly woman who usually took up residence in an estate after years of training. She was not yet middle-aged.

To Eln’s children, she would be older, perhaps have a few children of her own.

“How long have you been working here?” Jer asked.

“Five years.”

Five years past, Aren would have been almost fourteen. Her magic would have been strong enough to do all sorts of things.

“How far away did you live from here?” Jer asked.

“I came for Lady Anue, not Lady Aren,” the woman countered. “I lived on the coast, at the village they once lived at. I came because I didn’t want what happened to my sister to happen to them. I knew she could hide, but that was because we taught her how.”

Comforts of the East, where queens learned how to use magic for everything but lights and heat. Jer looked the cook up and down.

“Are you a rank?” he asked.

If she was, he was impressed with how well she hid it. The woman’s nose went in the air. She shifted just slightly to the side.

“My rank is commoner.”

“And you hand-selected each of those working in your kitchen?” Jer asked. “Trained many of them, given their ages?”

“I did, yes.”

“This is good. This is a family, families work well together. Who, though, does all this?”

“We can’t say.”

Jer sighed out. “What do you mean, you can’t say?”

“Saying their name draws their attention,” the head cook said. “And I just don’t want to.”

“You mean to tell me that you saying her name would be a betrayal of her trust, and this would end?” Jer asked. “That would make this a spell. No one knows how to do spells.”

“This one does.”

Not Aren, maybe Anue. How they shielded themselves might be considered a type of spell, magic that worked until such a time as someone brushed it aside.

Spells were linked to witches by commoners. What witches were said to do was say words, draw shapes, and mix strange things like eye of newt and baby liver.

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