Dominick's Heart

Part VII

They were frantic by the time he arrived back at the manor. Guards and servants everywhere: the library, the stables, even in town. He chided them for thinking him a fool; do wizards not need some privacy? Flinging back a spell-singed cloak, he tossed a small velvet bag to the table before his astonished son and Rowan.

"I knew the minute you picked that ruby for Ysabel out of the family vaults that there was some history to it." He paused, plunking into the armchair at the head of the table and calling for spiced wine. "I just didn't know if it was good or bad. But it was the one you wanted, so I took no chances; that's why I insisted on the protective runes being around the band.

"It is called the Bloodstone," he said, sipping the wine slowly. "It belonged to Saghir's father Konrad. There were rumors of his having used it for... dark purposes, but nothing concrete about what it could actually do. Finally, after many hours in the Library, as well as in the family archives, I found that the gem was supposedly part of an ancient rod which could open gates to a dimension where only the foulest, most corrupt beings dwell.

"By the time I found out the history of the gem, the debacle at Carnelia's party had turned it up as 'glass.' I knew darned well it wasn't, and that said to me that someone was after it. So I set up the thief: I disengaged the magical locks on my office, and let it go around that they were malfunctioning. Then I made a spectacle out of taking the broken ring to my office, to schedule a 'repair.' I just needed to be gone for them to move, or so I hoped. And so, my dear," he looked at Rowan, "my sudden desire to visit Kern." She smiled.

Dominick, still befuddled at his unwitting place in the drama, withdrew to his chambers. Rowan stayed. Peering over his goblet, she raised an eyebrow in Harald's direction.

"So, you outsmarted us all," she said, "and caught a thief in the process. But why not just call the guard?"

Harald looked grim. "The gem was far too dangerous for that," he said. "Not to mention, whoever set up the heist in the first place." He shook his head. "The person I kil—caught was just a Darokinian wizard-merchant. He wasn't powerful enough to scry out the gem from afar and enchant it to appear as glass."

"So you think that the real would-be thief was a mage, one who knew the potential of the gem."

He nodded slowly.

Setting her wine down, she sidled toward him and began rubbing his shoulders through the velvet doublet. "But you foiled the plot," she quipped. "Not bad for the 'Reluctant Prince.'"

Pulling away from her touch, he settled back in the chair, brooding over his wine. "What is it?" she asked, puzzled at his mood.

"No matter how easily that 'plot,' as you call it, was foiled," he said, "it nonetheless existed. Someone is planning dark things for Glantri, and they are well-organized enough to suggest that they have been for quite some time."

Looking up into her dark eyes, he reached out and curled a lock of her coarse hair about his fingers. "I have striven for many things in my life," he said. "All of them have revolved around magic: the School, the Craft, even the desire for my Principality, though I do not expect you to understand my reasons for that. But I have suddenly realized that while I may be secure in my positions, and tempted to be complacent in my security, that these things are nothing but smoke, should anything happen to Glantri itself.

"I have been lulled into complacency for far too long, it appears, for this threat to come so close to home. Perhaps I have forgotten wheat my mentor taught me so many years ago." he sighed. "Étienne would never have allowed such danger to come so close to occurring on his watch. Neither should I."

He smiled up at her. "I may be nothing but a reluctant old man, my dear," he said. "But perhaps Glantri has need of me still. This old man is ready to wake up."

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII