Bounty Hunter (The Black Tulip Chronicles #1)

8. Ikar

Chapter 8

Ikar

One month later…

I ride amidst the patrol, flanked on all sides by guards. Around my guards ride sixteen of my soldiers. The horses are anxious. Champion pulls at the reins and shakes his head, and I can tell he wants to be anywhere but here. I rub a hand down his dark gray neck, calming him. Darkness infests the forests, and for every bit that magic weakens, gloam hungrily fills the space. We’ve been pushed back by an enemy that seems impossible to battle, and I hate to see the kingdom that was entrusted into my hands after centuries of dedication and work by my forefathers dwindling due to my weakness. I employ Originators throughout all the kingdoms, and they have helped in some areas. They pull raw magic, sharing it with my people in the small amounts they are able wherever they go, but it’s not enough. It’s like a drop of water in an ocean. It is said that weak kings have weak kingdoms, and naturally, they die off early. I’m in my late twenties, but interestingly, I feel at more of a prime than I was even five years ago. Nothing adds up, but guilt is a constant companion.

We ride in silence, watching warily. The further the three suns set, the more chance something will come forth in an attempt to claim even more of our land. Just a few miles away, a small farming village relies on the protection of these patrols, and the same goes for all the outlying villages. If we can’t protect our food source and our kingdom’s main source of income, mainly exporting wheat and other crops, the situation is hopeless. I battle the despair daily, because even if we protect our farms and our people, lucent magic is dying, and it has affected every part of our world. The weather is more sporadic, sometimes even violent. Our main river for travel is now inconsistent and dangerous, and the soil and plant life are struggling. And on top of it all, every day it seems harder and harder to pull magic for protection. Only the strongest can now do so without collapsing or dying within minutes.

Shadows reach longer and longer, and an eerie wind begins to blow from the darkness beyond. The warmth of the suns is replaced with a bitter cold that quickly reaches my core. A few minutes later, the head soldier signals us to stop. It means he sensed something, same as I, as my eyes search for something unseen. I place my hand around the grip of my enchanted sword as our horses prance uncomfortably, shying away from the black forest line several hundred yards away.

I want to remind them not to pull magic. It will drain us too quickly. We have only one Originator traveling with us as I don’t have enough to send two with every patrol that is constantly protecting our borders. We’ve increased our training with enchanted weapons to counter the effects of the lack of lucent magic, but it’s difficult to fight the instinctive ability to pull magic when in danger.

I see the silver tips of the curved stingers that rise unnaturally from their backs, their four powerful legs crouched and prepared to spring, and in the last of the dusky light, I see their black, fathomless eyes. Deathstalkers. I readjust my grip and pull my sword. Round heads lined with a halo of dark, pointed spikes step out of the shadows. Their dark eyes are magnetizing, and I intentionally avert my gaze so I don’t get stunned. They pull their lips back, revealing razor sharp teeth as they stalk forward. A reptilian-like skin armors their bodies, thick and tough. They are the monsters of grown men’s dreams.

One of my men stiffens, beginning to release his grip on his weapon. I watch in horror as the soldier next to him immediately jumps into action, catching his sword mid-air and snapping him out of the stun, but the Deathstalkers lunge, and we all race to battle.

I rest on a comfortable sitting chair in my room beside a hot fire, my armor and clothing stripped from my tired body long ago. I’m left in undergarments while one of the healers wraps a wide bandage around my lower thigh. Even with an Originator to assist, he wasn’t able to pull enough magic to heal it in one sitting, but I’m grateful for the pain that’s left. It grounds me in reality when it’s so easy to get lost in the darkness and imaginings of what my kingdom is becoming.

“I’ll remove the dressing tomorrow, Your Majesty.”

I nod, but inside, I feel hollow. I stay sitting long after he leaves. Defeated. Over and over again, I see the way my soldiers were stunned, killed, ripped from their horses while their magic and then their souls were devoured by the Deathstalkers right before my eyes. I’m supposed to protect them.

My eyes burn with emotion that never truly shows itself. I realize my jaw is clenched when my head begins to ache. I’ve let my people down. I’ve let my soldiers down. Yet, why has magic kept me alive? Every morning, I wake, waiting to feel the call of death, feelings of weakness, anything to indicate that magic is displeased. And there’s nothing. I have no heir, so now would be the perfect time for magic to choose a new, stronger king. It’s not up to me, though, so I’ll continue to honor my position and serve my people with everything I have.

There has to be a better way to deal with the gloam. In fact, Jethonan has already suggested a better way. I sit and think about everything he told me. The picture he showed me in the ancient book… I don’t know what all the symbols mean, but I trust Jethonan. If he says it will work, I have to believe it will. Memories of my father and his advisor drilling me about how to handle the low kings battle with more recent memories of Jethonan urging me to find a Tulip.

My thoughts turn into a mixed haze of indecision until I take a breath and clear my mind. My father was a good man, a strong king. He taught me well, was a loving father, trained me in every way possible to prepare me to be king. I glance down at the mark on my left shoulder, eyeing the section of it that was created at his birth. Dark as gloam. Even he, my strong and peace-keeping father, wasn’t able to keep lucent strong. I don’t want war, I don’t want the low kings to rise against me, but if ever there was a time to go against the decision of the council, against the advice of my father, it is now. If I do things the same as he, nothing will change. I sit in my chair, unmoving while the decision settles, wondering why something that feels so right seems to be so wrong. I only hope I have enough time to convince the low kings it’s right before I have mutiny on my hands.

I dress as quickly as my leg will allow and make my way to where I hope Jethonan will be. I reluctantly step into my advisor’s office, waiting for another stomach-flipping smell to assault me as I open the door. Instead of a smell, though, this time I feel mid-winter cold wash over my body, raising goosebumps along my arms.

I frown. “Jethonan?”

The dramatic-robe style he usually sports is covered beneath heavy furs and has him looking like a somewhat skinny bear. Strands of his long hair and even his eyelashes carry icy clumps, and his nose looks partially frostbitten. I rub my arms to warm up as I walk over to his work table. A large, oblong glass container sits in a metal stand, almost like an empty glass egg that’s been stretched at both ends. A heating element beneath exudes a miniscule flame of blue and yellow. I lean closer to investigate the smoke-like, wispy threads circulating inside.

This looks very similar to the mist that comes before a murk attack. I look at Jethonan with a quirked brow.

He shoves some notes aside. “Not to worry, Your Majesty. It’s only a sample.”

I decide not to ask what he plans for it—or where he got it. I prefer not to know.

“We need to talk.”

Jethonan’s frozen brows raise. “Of course, my lord!”

He leads me through another door, and this time I find a messy room lined with over-stuffed bookshelves. More books are stacked in teetering piles throughout the room. So many, in fact, that there is no free place to sit. But it’s warm, and I immediately begin to thaw.

“I need to know more about the Tulips. How do I find them?”

A pleased expression crosses his face. “I’ve prepared something for you.”

He gathers a pile of books in his arms and balances it precariously atop another smaller stack. I wait for it to tip, but the swaying stops and the tower stills. He gestures for me to take a seat.

“Because you were apparently taught incorrectly about this topic from your birth, I will start at the beginning.”

I frown at him but ignore his antics as I wonder again where exactly Jethonan came from and how old he is.

“Tulips and kings are made for each other. Magic chooses Tulips, and they are automatically bonded with the raw power that holds our world together at birth. Raw power is where lucent magic comes from, as you know.”

I nod, it all makes sense so far.

He stops for a moment, thinking with a finger and thumb stroking his chin in a manner far more mature than he looks. “How to word this?” He paces for a few seconds longer. “Your kingdom loves your magic, and you are bound to it. If it suffers, you suffer.” I nod, thinking of the blackening mark on my shoulder. He continues, “Lucent magic, when used, turns gloam. For years now, there has been no Tulip to recycle the magic, and so naturally, gloam is growing as lucent has decreased. You need a Tulip to restore the gloam to lucent. Even a king can’t do that.” He clasps his hands behind his back and strides from one side of the small space to the other, almost in circles. “Lucentia placed within all the royal heirs and within her chosen Tulips a draw to each other. Which is the reason you will have a magnetism toward a Tulip.”

“You mean like attraction?”

He shakes his head. “There can be that, too, but what I’m talking about is deeper, a magical magnetism.” He repeats himself with a smile. “I like that. Magical magnetism . Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? I do enjoy alliteration. ”

I pull him back to the conversation. “A natural draw to their magic. Continue.”

“Yes, yes. That draw, it’s how you’ll know you’ve found one since they’ll likely keep the mark on their neck hidden. Their reputation has suffered the last two hundred years, you know. Not to mention they were hunted down and murdered.”

I nod, but this all sounds crazy. Maybe Jethonan drank that rancid potion, and it ruined his brilliance. I narrow my eyes at him, watching for oddities, but I realize that’s useless—he’s full of them on a normal day.

“What exactly are their abilities?”

“Ah, yes, another important point.” He walks to his bookshelf and pulls out the book he used last week. He opens it back to the page showing the woman in the gown. “See the white bird here? That indicates peace. Black Tulips have only defensive magic. The black tulip flower is the ancient symbol of magic itself.”

“A black tulip? Black symbolizes gloam.” I lift a brow at him, still not completely sure if I believe they aren’t evil incarnate as I’ve been taught.

“Not really. Magic is magic. Lucent. There’s always a bit of gloam, and always will be—just as there is night and day in perfect balance. It’s the unrecycled waste of used magic, and it’s currently out of balance because we don’t have a proper way to restore it. But when our kingdoms work with the Tulips and they fill our kingdoms with lucent magic, the gloam is naturally restored, and things come into balance, effectively drowning out the dark creatures naturally and quickly turning it back over to light.” He looks up with a frown, thinking. “Though, I’m not sure how that balance will be repaired since it’s been so long and gloam is thriving. Better find a mighty powerful Tulip.” He chuckles off-handedly, like he’s not talking about the survival of my kingdom. “Something we’ll see, I guess.”

He begins pacing slowly around his office with his hands behind his back. He’s always had difficulty being still. “Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes. The black tulip is the ancient symbol of magic and indicates that they are very powerful. Where all others risk death if they pull too much magic, Tulips have no limit.”

My brows raise, impressed. I know well the fine balance between pulling magic and the energy required to survive. It can be dangerous, more so with how much more energy is required now to pull even small amounts of magic. I experienced it firsthand while battling the shard beast. People have died just trying to use magic to accomplish simple tasks now that things have gotten so bad.

“They’re peaceful and powerful. Got it. But what can they do with all that power if they don’t use it to fight?”

Jethonan pats the book as he’s passing by. “According to the book, they can share it with individuals on a case-by-case basis, but there are no details about how that works. Seems similar to an Originator, at first.” He shrugs. “But they seem to have gifts of a variety of forms of magic.” He lifts fingers as he lists. “Originators, Hunters, Healers… you get my point. Makes them very difficult to recognize without the magical draw between them and a king or a visual of their mark.”

I list off a quick version of what I’ve learned so I remember it. “So, they can offer raw magic at will, heal, and have some hunter senses.”

Jethonan nods. “It seems their magic is most similar to Originators, to me. Though from the sounds of it, their magic runs cool and is white, whereas Originators, as you know, have more of a yellow magic that runs hot when shared in great amounts. Lucentia wanted her Tulips different, their magic made specially to complement the king. After all this time, though, they’re likely very good at hiding it, and it may not be noticeable.” He looks at me like that’s a big deal when all I can think is that this search is like a needle in a haystack.

“Where do I find them?” I run a hand roughly through my hair.

He passes by again, his robes fluttering behind him while he gestures again to the book. “These books are ancient records, so it is impossible to verify their current-day accuracy. I’ll tell you what I do know. They used to be a tight-knit group, even had a school where Tulips would live, a sort of boarding school to learn about their gifts and how to be a Tulip. Now? I don’t know.”

Right. I’m supposed to find a woman who has skills that could place her among any of the factions, without seeing a mark, and she could potentially take over our world by bridging with an enemy. That’s going to go over well if this information is widely spread.

This is a lot to take in, and I’m still not sure how I’m supposed to find one. “Thank you for your help, I’m sure I’ll be back with more questions.” I nod to him and head for the door, but he stops me.

“One more thing, my lord!”

I turn slowly, not sure I want to know one more thing. “Yes?”

He laughs uncomfortably. “There’s also a flower you’ll need in order to bridge. The Tulips know where to find it, but…”

“I’ll have to search for it,” I say flatly. Of course no one knows. I curse under my breath and sigh. “Where can I find another one… more… of the flow ers?”

“It can only be found in the Lucent Mountains. There lies the only field of black tulips. Only a worthy king can take one. I read that Lucentia ensures her Tulips are cared for only by the best.”

I stare blankly at him. No one goes there. It’s probably entirely engulfed by gloam at this point. And a worthy king? From the looks of my mark, that’s not me.

He continues quickly, aware of my darkening mood and seeming as ready as I to be done with the conversation. “I would highly recommend taking an Originator to amplify your magic for the journey.”

“The High Kingdom can’t spare any of the Originators. I’ll have to find one elsewhere.” I can’t leave my people completely unprotected and helpless while I’m away, though I only hire the best of the best Originators, and it’s tempting to hire one of them for this important journey. “We’ll discuss this more later.”

As I stalk down the echoing hallway, the literal downpour of information I just endured seems too deep—as if I can’t come up for air and the weight of it is going to crush me. And what about Nadiette?