So. His eyes had not misled him.
It was indeed a wheel, and more than a wheel. It was two wheels, and most of an ornate, painted carriage. It was a brown horse, and sundered harness, and a man, and a woman, and a girl.
He closed his eyes, choking. Saw a broken mast and another broken man.
‘Da,’ he whispered. ‘Oh, Da…’
Ice cold to the marrow, shaking, he continued his descent.
There was blood everywhere, much of it spilled from the shattered horse. Splashed across the rocks, pooled in the hollows, congealing beneath the stunted, scrubby bushes that clung to life on this last ledge before the dreadful drop to the valley floor, it soaked the air in a scarlet pungency.
Staring over the platform’s edge Asher saw treetops like a carpet and the white specks of birds, wheeling. There was no sign of the second carriage horse or Coachman Matcher. A fine fellow, he was. Had been. Married with two children, son and daughter. Peytr was allergic to horses and Lillie had the finest pair of hands on the reins the City had ever seen.
Or so said Matcher, her doting father.
Despairing, he turned away from the pitiless chasm yawning at his feet and faced instead the death he could see. Smell. Touch.
Borne was pinned beneath the splintered remnants of the carriage. His long lean body had been crushed to a thinness, and one side of his face was caved in. He looked as though he wore a bright red wig. Dana lay some three feet to his left, impaled through chest and abdomen by branches smashed into javelins. The impact had twisted her so that she lay half on her side, with her fine-boned face turned away. It meant he couldn’t see her eyes. He was glad.
And Fane… beautiful, brilliant, impossible Fane had been flung almost to the very edge of the narrow rock shelf; one slender white hand, unmarked, dangled out into space, the diamonds on her fingers catching fire in the sun’s sinking light. Her cheek rested on that outstretched arm, she might have been sleeping, only sleeping, anyone finding her so might think her whole and unharmed… if they did not see the jellied crimson pool beneath her slender torso, or the eerie translucence of her lovely unpowdered face. Her eyes were half open, wholly unseeing; the lashes, darkened by some magic known only to women, thick and long and bewitchingly alluring, as she had been alluring, lay a tracery of shadow upon her delicate skin.
There was a fly, crawling between her softly parted lips.
For the longest time he just stood there, waiting. In a moment, one of ’em will move. In a moment, one of ’em will breathe. Or blink. In a moment, I’ll wake up and all this will be nowt but a damned stupid ale-born dream.
In a moment.
He came to understand, at last, that there were no more moments. That not one of them would move, or breathe, or blink again. That he was already awake, and this was not a dream.
Memories came then, glowing like embers at the heart of a dying fire. ‘Welcome, Asher. My son speaks so highly of you I just know we’ll be the greatest of friends.’ Dana, Queen of Lur. Accepting his untutored bow and clumsy greeting as though he’d gifted her with perfumed roses and a diamond beyond price or purchase. Her unconstrained laughter, her listening silences. The way her eyes smiled in even the gravest of moments, a smile that said I know you. I trust you. Trust me.
Borne, his sallow cheeks silvered with tears. ‘What does my kingdom hold that I can give you? He is my precious son and you saved him. For his mother. For me. For us all. You’ve lost your father, I’m told. I grieve with you. Shall I stand in his stead, Asher? Offer you a father’s words of wisdom if ever you need to hear them spoken? May I do that? Let me.’
And Fane, who smiled only if she thought it might do some damage. Who never knew herself well enough to know that beneath malice lay desire. Who was beautiful in every single way, save the one that mattered most.
Dead, dead and dead.
Bludgeoned to tearless silence, he stayed with them until to stay longer would be foolish. Stayed until the cold and dark from the valley floor crept up and over the lip of the ledge and sank icy teeth into his flesh. Until he remembered the last living member of this family, who had yet to be told he was the last.
Remembering that, he left them, reluctantly, and slowly climbed back up the side of the mountain.
By Karen Miller
Kingmaker, Kingbreaker
The Innocent Mage
The Awakened Mage
The Godspeaker Trilogy
Empress
Hammer of God
The Fisherman’s Children
The Prodigal Mage
Writing as K.E. Mills
The Rogue Agent Trilogy
The Accidental Sorcerer
Witches Incorporated
Wizard Squared
Wizard Uncovered
Praise for The Innocent Mage:
“Miller’s prose is earnest and engaging, and h[er] complex story accelerates nicely toward a brutal cliffhanger finale.”
—Publishers Weekly
Contents
Front Cover Image
Welcome
Dedication
Map
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Two
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Acknowledgements
Meet the Author
A Preview of The Awakened Mage
By Karen Miller
Praise for The Innocent Mage
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Karen Miller
Excerpt from The Awakened Mage copyright © 2007 by Karen Miller
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First e-book edition: December 2011
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ISBN 978-0-748-13230-0
e Innocent Mage