Chapter 39

S he followed Leopol down the hall to Knox's office, her stomach twisting with possibilities. They hadn't sent the messenger back to her with the mirrors, but had come themselves.

Inside stood John, Knox's dwarven friend from Vidrland, and his brother Kris from the northern mines.

"Gentlemen," she said as she entered.

Their bushy white brows rose as they took in her dress. She winced and shook out the skirts. "Not a word about this. What's the news?"

Kris pulled the mirrors from his bag on the table, and she stepped closer. "Yes, well, this magic mirror was trickier than normal."

"It's definitely not any of the normal technology the Buspartans have produced in the past few hundred years," John said.

"But we've figured out how it works. Seems to be an ancient magic, possibly from the mer kingdom, but we deciphered it alright."

"Deciphered—you mean it works?" she demanded.

Kris nodded, opened one of them, and handed it to her. "Aye, we made some modifications. See the seven buttons on the side? Push the second one."

She pushed the tiny knob, and the mirror shimmered with magic before it revealed one of their brothers in their northern home.

"Oi, it works over long distances!" the brother said.

"Pay up. Five gold. I told you it'd work," said another from behind him.

The men bickered as another took the mirror and held it too close to his face, showing his nose hairs.

"Huntress, is that you?"

She grinned. "Yes, it's me. I'm here with Kris and John."

The man in the mirror said, "I want to call this thing talkies. What do you think?"

She chuckled, "Talkies is fine."

The mirror's image jiggled as it was ripped from the dwarf's hand, and another one said, "Hey, you didn't even tell her my idea about commies. It's a much better name."

"Too late. Snooze you lose," sang the other. A growl, a yell, and the pocket mirror's image bounced as they argued.

Kris scowled and pointed to the side of the round pocket mirror as he said, "Push the button again to end the image and sound."

She waved, even though none of them were paying them any attention. "Bye, boys." Then she pushed the button before asking, "Do we know the effective range is for communication?"

Kris shook his head. "No, but your messenger said it needs to reach the Southern Road? We'll need someone to take these there and test them."

She nodded, turning the things over in her palm as Kris explained how each button was tied to a different mirror. "Once we figured out how the magic worked, we could reproduce it fairly quickly. The rune on the bottom prevents anyone else from duplicating it or prying into the magic, of course. But this will help not just the Feral Forest but the entire continent communicate much faster. Can you imagine? There could be communication shops in every town. If help were needed, it could be sent right away instead of days or weeks later once word had traveled on foot."

Kris finally took a breath, and she grinned. She knew he'd keep talking if no one stopped him, so she said to John, "And what about you? I didn't expect you to arrive yourself, with all you have to manage Vidrland."

John wrinkled his thick nose and hunched his shoulders. "Yes, well, about the reports in Busparia…"

"Yes?" she asked.

He pulled out a larger hand-held mirror with a long handle. It was the size of Wulfric's giant hand, with similar runes on the edges as the pocket sized ones. He pressed a few of the ruins, and magic shimmered as he talked.

"I've been cataloging all the mirrors in Busparia in my spare time."

Kris snorted. "Who has spare time these days?"

John shrugged. "It helps me fall asleep. Anyway, this doesn't have any sound, but do you see what I see?"

Scarlet stepped closer and narrowed her eyes. The image was murky, but she saw a shimmering yellow gown on the floor of a library. The woman was bent over, her lips moving as Scarlet watched her profile.

A pack of forks and spoons pushed a book off the second to bottom shelf, and the woman sat back on her haunches and clapped, a beaming smile on her face.

Scarlet gasped, "The queen."

"Aye," John said. "But something's not quite right. See how she's almost coaxing the silverware to open the book and flip the pages?"

"Where is this?" Scarlet demanded. Anger raced through her. The woman looked unchanged, happy and smiling in the library. It wasn't fair, when Scarlet's own world had been irrevocably changed six months ago. Her stomach tightened, and dinner threatened to come back up.

"Demerel in Busparia. The Winter Palace," John said quietly. "When we reverse engineered the king's spy mirrors, we began to find the patterns and sequences to the runes and magic. Each mirror has its own signature, so to speak. It's taken months to go through, but the signatures just keep going. This is the only mirror left in the Winter Palace, though."

Scarlet frowned, her brain whirling. The latest reports had the queen in the capital. What was she doing back in Demerel?

John touched some runes on the side, and the image wavered, fading to black before revealing a town square.

"This is a village ten miles outside the capital on the Newing River. We've watched it at various times and have seen the monsters that keep the curfew. This isn't the only village like this, but the one most preyed upon."

"Probably because of its proximity to the army base," Kris scowled.

"You think they really are monsters?" she asked, watching as shadows raced down the dark street. It was too dark to truly see what they were, but they didn't move like Growlers.

John stroked his white beard. "Daemons, most likely. Leopol showed us the one you defeated, and what we've seen in the mirrors are very similar in structure and movement, but not the abilities."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her heart racing as she watched the shadowy creature.

"Not all of them can make a whirlwind of ice. Some burn down buildings and others simply suck the living into a pit of darkness."

She frowned, her mind racing through the books that they'd poured over the past few days. She turned and found the stack on a side table.

As she flipped through it, she said, "That does sound like the daemons in this book Leopol found. Look here."

She held it out, and John took it, nodding as she turned to the window. They talked quietly to each other as she walked away.

She could barely see the stars, it was so dark outside, the sliver of the new moon not yet risen. The Hunters—once armed with enough knowledge about the daemons—could probably handle them. They'd be able to track them down and eliminate them.

"Have you seen any other monsters in Busparia? Growlers perhaps?" She turned to face them.

John's hand froze on the book, and they looked at her with eyes wide.

"Any that wear Buspartan clothing and a medallion on their cloak?" she pressed, not giving them a chance to respond.

John and Kris looked at each other, then John picked up the mirror and pushed more runes on the side. The image flickered to a dark room lit by a roaring fire below the image. Three cots lined the left wall and three the right, each with neatly tucked corners and nary a thread out of place. The entire room looked cleaner than any she'd ever seen.

Just then the door in the image swung open and in strode two Growlers. They ducked under the doorway as they entered, and she saw their shifted jaws moving as they spoke.

"Still no sound," John said. "We're working on it, but they are definitely in Busparia. We weren't sure what they were doing there last month when we first saw them, but based on what Leopol told us while we were waiting for your dinner to end…"

He trailed off, but Scarlet didn't need him to finish. The medallions on their cloaks were bright as day.

"Where is this?" she asked, licking her dry lips as her hands shook.

John looked in the mirror and squinted. "According to our data, in the castle keep at the capital, but not in the castle itself. One of the external buildings."

Scarlet shook her head and turned to pace from the windows to the fireplace. Her skirts swirled and then caught, and she hiked them up so she could stride. She'd need to ask Eirwyn about the layout of the castle at the capital, as Scarlet had never been there.

The Dragon Claws were real. Perhaps they were even the ones who'd murdered her mother thirty years ago, although they hadn't looked that old. Perhaps they'd have answers on why the king had sought to kill the druids. Hells, she'd be happy with confirming who had ordered it done because surely the former king had been just a child then. His father, the old king who'd died in the forest?

She spun on her heel, her mind thinking through every possibility and planning her next steps. It would take time for Wulfric to pick the Growlers most likely to succeed against them. Perhaps they could make a joint mission with Growlers and Hunters.

But the queen was closer. Demerel was just outside the Feral Forest. It was the epicenter of the curse, and where her life had been changed six months ago.

Her hands shook as turned around and blinked in surprise. Wulfric walked toward her from just a few feet away. She'd been so lost in thought, she'd missed Knox, Eirwyn, Wulfric, Ashur, and Leopol coming into the room. Her gaze met Wulfric's concerned one as he took her hands in his, holding them tight to his chest.

His smooth caress made her shaking ease.

"What is it?" he asked, a worried line between his eyes.

She licked her lips, her eyes wide and heart racing. "Tomorrow morning, we ride for Demerel."

Tomorrow night, she'd have her curse reversed or the queen's head on a pike.