The kings mage starian c.., p.1
The King's Mage: Starian Cycle #5, page 1
The King’s Mage
Starian Cycle #5
Iris Foxglove
Belladonna Press
Contents
The King’s Mage
THE STARIAN CYCLE
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Thank you to our Patrons!
About the Author
Coming Soon
The Last Flight of Marius Chastain
The King’s Mage
(Starian Cycle #5)
Published by Belladonna Press
Copyright © 2021 by Iris Foxglove
This 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.
All rights reserved worldwide, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
Support artists; don’t pirate.
Edited by Alicia Z. Ramos (https://aliciazramos.com)
Cover design by Paper and Sage (paperandsage.com)
Created with Vellum
THE STARIAN CYCLE
The Traitor’s Mercy
The Duke’s Demon
The Prince’s Vow
The Exile’s Gift
The King’s Mage
Acknowledgments
We’d like to thank Alicia for her fantastic work editing this book, wrangling all our commas and italics and helping us tell the best version of this story that we could possibly tell! We’re pretty sure that with your help, our book is worthy of devouring by a certain blue illusory fox demon ;) Also thank you so much to Justy, Sarah and Elle for first reading an early draft of this manuscript and giving us feedback. Finally, thank you so much to our patrons for your support!
To everyone who was excited for Emile’s story. We hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it!
Author’s Note
Please be advised that the biological imperative kink element to this story is intended as fantasy, and is not intended as a factual representation of BDSM as practiced between consenting adults in real life. The dynamics portrayed in this and other titles in the series are entirely fictional, and should not be considered a guideline for the safe practice of any activity described herein.
Thank you for reading!
Chapter 1
It was really all Emile’s fault that he ended up poisoned.
And they say I’m too paranoid to kill, he thought as he stumbled away from the palace proper and toward the gardens. Not paranoid enough, apparently.
The wedding of Prince Adrien de Guillory and Duke Isiodore de Mortain had been a joyous affair, with the palace festooned with ribbons of white, gold, and purple—along with midnight blue and silver, the colors of House de Mortain—and the bells ringing for all of Duciel to hear. Adrien, dressed in his royal regalia, had been beaming at his new husband since they said the vows, as pleased with himself as a cat that caught the canary. Isiodore, a bit more subdued than Adrien as a rule, was clearly just as happy. Emile had always known his son had a bit of a crush on Izzy—the man had submissives sighing over him throughout the entirety of the kingdom and likely a few others—but he’d never imagined that Isiodore, his oldest and, he thought, his only friend, would return those feelings.
They were well and truly wed now, and the guests were still enjoying the hospitality of the Crown, even after Izzy and Adrien had departed the palace in their carriage, heading through the city toward Izzy’s country estate. They’d be there for a month or so, to enjoy each other’s company without the responsibilities that went along with their titles. Emile did not begrudge them that time together, and he felt a pang of guilt as he realized they’d have to turn round and come right back. Hopefully Serene, the frazzled woman who had been in charge of planning Adrien’s nuptials, wouldn’t be too overworked to plan a funeral and a coronation so soon after. At least Emile knew his son was, if not entirely ready to shoulder the burden of kingship, closer to it than he had been. And with Isiodore and Sabre de Valois at his side, he would be fine.
Emile had toasted the carriage as it departed, rolling slowly toward the streets where it would be showered with well-wishes by the entire populace—the people respected Emile as their king, but they loved Adrien, and it showed. They would not long mourn him, he thought, the king they’d once believed murdered his own wife. The truth had gradually come out after Laurent de Rue and Hektor Drakos took down the Archmage of Mislia and his foul demon, and of course everyone acted as if they’d known all along that he couldn’t be responsible. The crown ensured short memories. His mother had always told him that.
Ah, she’d be cross with him, wouldn’t she? For taking the flute of champagne and drinking it without first ensuring it wasn’t poisoned. Jules, her submissive, would probably write some long, horrifying ballad about it. Emile leaned against the wall as weakness began to assail him. He pushed his way into the gardens, which were mostly empty of revelers. He wondered what flower was the hardest to rhyme, whether he could recognize it in the dark and die there.
See how you’ll rhyme my untimely death by poison with rhododendron, you hack.
He wondered who’d done it. Plenty of people wanted him dead, as evidenced by the number of plots on his life he’d uncovered. Most of those related to power, status, that sort of thing. To be expected, really. But there were some who held ill will for him on a personal level, and murdering him by poison at his son’s wedding felt like the latter.
Isiodore would figure it out. Terrible about the shortened honeymoon, though.
Emile did not make it to the rhododendrons. He could have, he suspected, as he was still able to shuffle along—the poison was something that made the limbs slow and his breathing difficult, meaning he’d likely suffocate to death. More dignified than expelling bodily fluids and being found covered in shit and piss, but not as respectful as a shot to the heart or the clean strike of a blade on his neck.
The gardens were open to the public now, but they hadn’t always been. They’d been Lianne’s favorite place, and he felt as if they were the last part of her that he could hold on to. Adrien, he’d needed to push away to keep him safe. But the flowers she’d loved, he could keep those for himself. Let them think he’d walled up the garden in a rage and it was a mess of weeds and overgrown trees. In reality, it was beautifully tended by a gardener paid enough to keep quiet. And in the center was a clutch of carnations, Lianne’s favorite, their distinctive scent sweet on the warm night air. As good a place as any to die.
He coughed hard when he fell to his knees beside the flowers, and he frowned at the blood on his hand. There would be some mess, then. Ah, well. Perhaps he deserved to suffer a bit for the things he’d done to hold his throne. He wasn’t a tyrant, but he was a king, and there was enough metaphorical blood on his hands to earn at least a little of the literal kind. He coughed again and blinked as his head started to swim. He should have been afraid to die, but he wasn’t. Maybe it was the poison, or maybe it was the relief of knowing Adrien was as safe as he could be. His son had built a cadre of support around himself, not even on purpose, and would earn the people’s respect and adoration in a way Emile never could. Emile didn’t even look like a king. He’d shed his own royal regalia as soon as the ceremony was over, making his mother sigh in frustration that “You look as if you just came in from stabling the horses, son.” The only vestige of his status was the silk ribbon tying back his hair in place of the simple twine he normally preferred to use. He pulled it out now, barely feeling the silk between his fingers.
Emile did not know whether there was an afterlife or whether he’d see Lianne again. She would likely not be very happy to see him, if the dreams he often had of her were based in any preternatural truth. But he was almost certain what waited on the other side was nothing but the longest sleep, the eternal dark.
He would have liked to see Adrien’s children. He hoped Adrien knew that he loved him, even if he had not been a very good father.
Take care of him, Izzy. I’m sorry you’re the last of the four of us left. We were all good friends, once, weren’t we.
He laughed, coughed some more blood, and felt so hot that he took off his coat and tossed it away. Then he lay on his back, wondering how long this would take. The drugged part was nice, a blessing, perhaps a mercy he did not deserve. The fear and anger were there, he realized as he sprawled on the cool grass beside the flowers his wife had loved so much. It was only that the drug was making it hard to pull them close—and that was a shame, because if he could, maybe he could survive this. Pain, rage, fear … he’d lived in them long enough. Maybe it was fitting he let them go when he died.
You should get up and dive in the fountain, old boy. Xavier’s voice, reminding him of when they were boys running about Izzy’s old country house. I tossed you and Arthur both in there when you got sauced.
Xavier might have poisone
I can’t get up. I’m dying.
You should try. Arthur de Valois’s voice, and he’d always been a fucking optimist, hadn’t he? Arthur would hate him now, though, for what he’d done to his daughter. Even if she had been going to murder Sabre. Arthur would have insisted he could hug the treachery out of her, and maybe he could have, if his wife—Emile’s cousin Aline—hadn’t murdered him.
I’ll have a lot to apologize to him for if there’s an afterlife, won’t I. Making his son stand on the gallows. Hanging his daughter. I daresay he won’t care so much about his wife, though. Or maybe he would have suggested hugging her, too.
Emile stared at the stars twinkling in the sky. This was not how he’d thought he’d die. His mind was screaming at him, trying to force him to his feet despite the certainty of the death that awaited. Maybe it wasn’t all that certain, and that’s why the drug made it so hard to think. Either way. The grass was cold beneath him, the stars were colder above him, and the death that waited was coldest of all.
There was a man dying in the royal gardens.
Baz set down his bag of clippings, which he was gathering while the rest of the city poured into the streets to celebrate the prince marrying some wealthy Starian noble, the one Baz’s brother called Izzy. Baz didn’t bother himself much with the nobility—his black eyes, the sign of a Mislian mage, were overlooked well enough in the lower city, but the nobles remembered their king’s dislike of Mislia, and Baz tended to keep to the shadows when he had to venture up the hill. He’d only risked wandering the garden tonight because no one was likely to be there, not when they were following the prince’s carriage out of town.
Which left Baz alone with the man wheezing softly in the carnations.
The man was handsome enough, with reddish-brown hair and the frame of a fighter—possibly a soldier, then, but he wasn’t dressed like one. He looked more like a laborer. Someone who’d wandered drunkenly into the garden and choked on a poisonous plant, no doubt.
His demon stirred in the back of his mind, concern pushing up against his own thoughts, and Baz went to his knees in the grass.
“Let’s look at you,” Baz said. He knew his accent was rather thick by Starian standards, but given the dazed look in the man’s icy blue eyes, it wouldn’t have mattered if he were speaking nonsense. He lifted the man’s head and laid a hand on his chest. The man was barely breathing, and there was something about him that made Baz’s skin itch. Something familiar. Perhaps he’d seen him somewhere before.
“Put me down, Arthur,” the man said.
“I’m not Arthur.” Baz grimaced. The smell on the man’s breath reminded him of the drug they burned in the brothels of Mislia. It was usually in sticks of incense, meant to dull the mind and make the pleasure slaves resistant to pain, agreeable to anything their so-called clients wished of them. Even now, the smell of it made Baz’s stomach turn.
Too much of the drug did more than dull the senses. It was a poison, slow and terrible, drawing out death while the victim smiled through weeks of pain and starvation, leaving behind a grinning corpse.
“We need to find you a healer,” Baz said. The man struggled to look at him, his brows lowering.
“No.” His dominance fluctuated with his voice, from overwhelming to just a whisper. “No magic.”
Baz doubted he had that luxury. He called on his demon, and the earth stirred and shifted beneath them. Mislian clover grew at his knees, a pale, papery imitation of the kind they had in Staria. Baz ripped some of the blossoms free and pushed them into the man’s mouth. “Swallow.”
The man grimaced—the clover was foul, that much Baz remembered—but Baz pressed his mouth closed until he choked the blossoms down. A tea would have done the trick better, but the blossoms would do in a pinch.
“I know, they’re terrible,” Baz said, feeding him more flowers. “I had to eat them myself, once. They taste like earth, but it helps.” He looked around. The gardens were empty, cloaked in shadow. “Do you have anyone? Someone who can take care of you?”
The man tipped his head back to look at Baz, but he said nothing. He was probably too far gone, and anyway, Baz doubted anyone in Staria knew how to tend to someone dying of a Mislian drug meant for pleasure slaves. Baz groaned, slung his bag of clippings over his shoulder, and gently lifted the man into his arms.
It was slow going. Baz was a gardener, not a laborer used to hauling stone and mortar, and he had to stop several times to push the poor man into an alley and force more flowers down his throat. Still, there were plenty of drunk revelers in the streets, and none of them looked twice at a man dragging his passed-out friend home from the palace.
“I’m only doing this because my girl would disapprove if I left you,” Baz told the man as he stopped outside the markets to catch his breath. As lies went, it was a poor one. Baz was always the one people went to, in the brothel at home. He was the one who made tea for those who burned too much incense, or bandaged up those who didn’t know how to beg and fawn under the lash, or sat with some poor girl as she sobbed over a child taken from her arms too soon. Then there was Hektor, his brother, earnest and kind and possessing the self-preservation of a mayfly.
On top of all that, Baz knew how it felt to shiver in the heat of a drug fever, unable to move or cry for help. No one deserved that. Certainly not some poor Starian commoner who’d probably, judging by his disheveled state, dipped into a bottle of something he shouldn’t.
“Here we are,” Baz said, panting as they reached the small apartment he was renting in one of the lowest rungs of the city. It was hardly more than a room and a cubby for a toilet, but Baz kept flowers to deter bugs and mice, and the landlady didn’t care if he was a Mislian so long as he paid his rent on time.
“Strange,” the man said, as Baz laid him down on the patch of moss and flowers he used as a bed. His demon made the flowers grow, building up a cushion for the man’s head, and the man looked up at Baz with a fogged blue gaze. “Strange place to die.”
“You won’t die,” Baz said. “You’ll drink terrible tea, you’ll hate me for it, and you’ll be home in a few days. I could use a name, if you remember it.”
The man tried to raise a hand to touch him, and Baz took it, frowning at the clamminess of his skin.
“Arthur,” the man said, in a low, hoarse voice.
“All right,” Baz said. “Arthur it is.” He doubted it was the man’s name—it seemed the man thought he was speaking to someone else—but it was as good a name as any.
He sighed as he washed out the kettle. The water in that part of the city was foul, so Baz kept some purified in a bowl of plants that floated serenely on the surface, green tendrils drifting like kelp. He poured the kettle full and set a fire in the ancient stove, then poured another potful to heat so he could wash the chill off his visitor’s skin. He remembered the chill being worse than the sweat, those nights he came back shaking from an assignment, sweating a fever into his pallet.
Arthur was asleep by the time the water was warm enough for tea, but it was a fitful sleep, his eyes moving under closed lids. Baz sat next to him and helped him sit up. Arthur spat out the first sip of tea, but Baz just grumbled darkly and forced half the cup down, leaving Arthur blinking hard against the effects of the drug.
