Frigid magic ards oath b.., p.1
Frigid Magic (Ard's Oath Book 3), page 1
part #3 of Ard's Oath Series
Frigid Magic
Ard's Oath 3
Bruce Sentar
Copyright © 2024 by Bruce Sentar
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Story Thus Far
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
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Afterword
Also By
Story Thus Far
His journey to the Capital was eventful in the form of a manticore hunt, where Ard performed admirably and found a weathered stone statue.
Ard had made it to the Capital of Avente, home of the Royal Palace and royal pain in the ass, Carmilla.
The First Princess has the Capital in the palm of her hand. With the King and First Prince out, she ostensibly rules the kingdom from her perch, all while closing in on getting a seat at the Enclave as an Elder Mage.
Very little stood between her and the position.
She used her influence to bring Ard under her tutelage in the hopes of changing his mind. Unfortunately, Ard was no child, and her antics fell short of convincing the headstrong young mage.
Her maid, Maribelle, became Ard’s tutor, and despite his grudging dislike for lessons, picked up both the academic lessons and the military ones taught by the old general, Enem, who refused to tell Ard his name.
Ard was chomping at the bit and finding small ways to get back as he was deprived access to magical lessons.
His mother, under the supervision of the goddess Hecate pretending to be their maid, recovered swiftly and was determined to teach her own son. After several weekend lessons, she established a reason for them to escape, as well as getting away from his ill-advised duel with Zuri’s brothers.
Yet they’ve followed Ard to the major port city of Faylin. Ard has taken to the mountains in search of a corrupted, and to clear out pirates while the bulk of the military is in the east fighting a war with Garrish.
Ard, with his four anchors, Emlyn, Zuri, Maribelle and Aurelia, set up a base after destroying a group of pirates and recruiting a lone pirate, Izzy, after she helped them with her crew mates.
The corrupted was found, and it killed Ard’s horse, Cyam. In a desperate attempt to revive his Congratulations-you’re-a-mage horse, he stuffed the corrupted’s soul into the horse’s body. Ard then saved Cyam’s soul by stuffing it into his shadow and feeding it dark magic, producing an effect on par with an adept spell.
At least they got the body, and Ard brought it back to keep on ice in the Aldis manor at the port. For now, he can stay in the mountains and train his magic until he’s ready to return to the capital.
Yet the world doesn’t wait for him.
Unknown to Ard and the rest of the kingdom, Carmilla has killed Elder Brimsam, all but guaranteeing that she will take the empty Elder seat in the near future and flip control of the Enclave, the governing body of the mages, over to the Royals.
Chapter 1
“So, like this?” I scribbled on the parchment in front of me, trying to understand what I was being asked to create.
“Yep, though this section does better with some sand. Ultimately, it’s the water in the pipe that keeps the stink away. See? This part of the pipe curves back on itself. Water sits in there and keeps gasses from rising back up.” Sienna tapped on the diagram.
“That’s the important part.” Emlyn sipped at her wine. “Don’t mess that part up.”
I rolled my eyes as the table laughed.
Making a toilet for our new little base was at the very top of my list, and I was being reminded about its need constantly from my female companions.
Moving to the capital meant that I’d learned about life without outhouses. While I’d existed with them for most of my life in the small village where I’d grown up, I wasn’t ever going back if I could help it. Call me spoiled, but it was a luxury I was going to give to myself.
We’d finished dinner and were sipping on wine while my mother froze and hid the corpse of the corrupted that we had brought back from the mountain. While I had every intention of showing I had fulfilled the quest, I was buying some time to train before getting mixed back up in court politics. While my four spheres gave me power, it was un-honed.
While we trained, we had decided to build a fort in the nearby mountainside to be our homebase. Sienna knew the most to help offer designs for the space and was currently giving me detailed instructions.
“You know, I could come up there and help you make much of this. I’d be more than happy to be of assistance to you,” she offered.
“No thank you. This is a challenge I want to tackle on my own first. Then I can find my limits.” I smiled at her. “Once it is done, has plumbing and heating, you can come up and spend a comfortable few days with us, though.” I winked.
“In that case, I shall help you as much as I can before you go.” She gave me a sweet smile.
Sienna was a gorgeous mage from the Greystone Noble House. She had chased me from Hidavente to the Capital, and now to Port Faylin where I had been searching the mountains for the corrupted that was currently being frozen in the basement while my mother reestablished House Aldis at the port.
I wasn’t ready to go back, so I was glad my mother had not even batted an eye when I’d shown up with a dead body to store in our basement.
The Leviathan Crest mountains were a unique and rich training opportunity for me. They were filled with pirates and monsters for my anchors and me to sharpen our skills and our teamwork.
Sienna brushed her raven hair behind her ears. “Distracted by my beauty?”
“Always,” I shot back without missing a beat. “Though, being a poor mage from a small house like Aldis, I do wonder when you’ll give me a courting gift?”
She snorted. “Is that where we are going? Making the lady get the gift?” She shook her head.
“Technically, your house is larger,” Emlyn added in helpfully. “Even if I’m not sure it’ll be that way in the future. Arden is a rising star, rising far faster than any of us can really understand.” She glanced at my shadow from the flickering candle.
My shadow huffed back at her, making the whole table freeze.
“What was that?” Selina was on her feet, hand on the pommel of her sword, ready to defend her mage, Sienna.
“Nothing dangerous. I… uh… did a thing,” I stumbled for an excuse. I had not quite worked up how I was going to cover my current shadow horse.
“I believe he means he farted,” Zuri laughed. She was always quick to find a solution to any of my problems.
Selina’s face blushed.
“It’s okay. You are in a rush to defend your mage.” I smiled at her, hoping to help some of the embarrassment. “I wish my anchors jumped to my aid every time I made a strange noise.”
Internally, I wanted to glare at my shadow and yell at it. Cyam had made that noise, not me. When my congratulations-you’re-a-mage horse had almost died, I’d tried to save him. Unfortunately, I’d messed up a bit. His soul now rested in my shadow, and his actual body now held the soul of a rapist mage turned corrupted.
I felt like the situation was a very minor and entirely understandable error on my part. We would fix it soon enough. But for the moment, Cyam was a horse made of dark magic and shadows. We guessed he was as powerful as an adept spell at least.
“Thank you for being so understanding. Not everyone would take kindly to an anchor about to draw their sword.” Sienna put a hand over mine. Her emerald eyes smoldered with something else. I got the feeling she was using the moment as another excuse to touch me.
My anchors had taken a back seat at the moment, not feeling threatened. Aurelia had stepped away to blow off some steam.
Really, it was just Maribelle that was a concern at all. The blonde with tight curls was a bag of crazy that I had stepped into. And I had a strong sense that she was not going anywhere now that she had found somebody who at least saw her for the bag of crazy she was and tried to meet some of those needs.
I knew that soon I’d need to ‘hunt’ her, or it was all going to backfire. There was a small length of rope in my pocket, enough to keep her from screaming as she enjoyed herself. Yet it had been there for several days and I still hadn’t found the right moment.
“Oh, there’s nothing to
“That’s an interesting way to phrase it. As if there could be negatives to being in my presence.” She split a giant smile at me and leaned even closer, pressing herself to my side. “Back to the matter at hand. You are over engineering this thing.”
“I killed the pirates that had been here with a rockslide. There’s plenty of stone. And with all the magic I can put out, why not just make it durable enough to survive another rockslide?” I asked.
Sienna hummed as she looked at it. “So the more material you put on top, the stronger the base has to be. Though, from what you’ve told me so far, you could just make the lower walls of this place into the mountain. This at the end of a trough?”
“Yep, cave on the back. The trough has been leveled out where we are going to build,” I clarified.
“Wonderful, then… yeah. Just build into the mountain for the first floor. Use them to keep the whole thing sturdy, and then you won’t have to worry about having a strong enough foundation.” She trailed her fingers over the design. “You are going to stay the winter here?”
“That’s sort of the plan,” I agreed. “With the corrupted frozen in the basement, we can stay as long as we like as we pretend to search.”
“I thought that was the wrong one?” Sienna batted her lashes at me.
I stuck my tongue out. “Right, silly me. That must be the wrong one.”
The thought reminded me of the corrupted’s soul still running around in Cyam’s body. I really needed to find that damn horse and fix the situation. It was disrespectful of Cyam’s memory. And it was probably killing people.
My mother rolled back into the room on her wheeled chair.
“The corrupted is frozen. Next time, bring back the correct one.” She smirked and glanced at Sienna leaning on me. “I can see you are all getting along well. The future of House Aldis rests heavy on your shoulders, Arden. The more you can spread that burden out in the coming decades, the better.”
Sienna blushed. “Of course. Though, we’d have to be courting for that.”
“That would be proper. I’m sure House Aldis would accept you with open arms if you were willing to step away from Greystone.” My mother’s eyes were sharp as she began negotiating.
“Your son would have to make the first move.”
I was starting to be able to interpret this new world. If we gave the courting gift, she’d come to my family. I tucked that knowledge away. I’d have to find something for her.
“I am here. In this room. With both of you.” I exaggeratedly waved my arms, tired of them talking around me.
Sienna blushed in embarrassment. “I didn’t mea—”
“You didn’t offend him,” Emlyn cut in. “Ard will tell you the moment something bothers him. He doesn’t let it fester. He would rather just perform the etiquette equivalent of a slap in the face the moment it suits him.”
I glared at Emlyn. “I was raised as a proper villager.”
“Your efforts at ice cream proved that.” Emlyn fought down a smile.
I threw my hands in the air. “The ice cream again. I was eight? Nine? It was good for that age.”
There were a few quizzical raised eyebrows around the room, but I dismissed them all with a wave. “It’s an Emlyn thing.”
“He made ice cream with flour and salt because he couldn’t find enough sugar,” Emlyn explained.
They all nodded as if that statement made perfect sense given what they knew about me. To be fair, it might have been. But I could make real ice cream now, with magic. Magic was good for a lot of things, and I preferred random applications over killing things like most mages.
“Anyway.” I drew out the word as I worked to move the conversation forward. “I think we have some tentative plans for the fort, and things are settled enough that we should probably head back out tomorrow. We probably won’t be back for… a week?” I hazarded a guess.
Knowing myself, I would probably insist on working the fort to completion before coming back.
“Do take care of yourself.” My mother rolled over and placed her hand on my shoulder. “While you are gone, Sienna and I will work on the home here and establish some trades.”
Sienna nodded dutifully. “It would be my pleasure.”
“Ard is going to be working on his adept spell,” Maribelle interjected. “As well as his general studies.”
I groaned. General studies meant she planned to make me do more math.
“Learn well. You’ll be reviewing contracts the next time you are back, and I expect you to be able to see the traps and check the math,” My mother warned.
Even more math! I avoided rolling my eyes. My mother could be a little scary.
“Well then, we can’t let him miss any sleep.” Emlyn smacked her hands on the table and stood. “Let’s go get some rest.”
“Yes, because you two do so much ‘resting’ when you sleep in the same room,” Zuri sighed. “I’ll get a few pitchers of water so he’s at least hydrated.”
Emlyn blushed and snuck a glance at my mother. “We will be getting plenty of rest.”
My mother waved off her concern. “Arden needs to be prepared to expand the family. All of you can go get ready. I’d like a moment alone with my son, please.”
Nobody wanted to upset the lady of the house and hurried out of the room except for my mother’s maid, Hecate. I did a double take as I looked over. The maid seemed even prettier than before, like there was almost an inner glow to her.
“How are things?” my mother asked, resting in her chair as it glided over towards a window.
I kept pace with her, leaving Hecate at our backs. The dining room had a large bay of windows overlooking the beach.
“Progressing?” The statement came out more as a question. “We might have gotten the corrupted’s corpse, but the truth is I might have accidentally stuffed the corrupted’s soul into my horse’s body.”
My mother’s chair turned to face me. I’d managed to surprise her. “Is that a joke?” She glanced at Hecate out of the corner of her eyes, including her in the conversation.
“Uh… no. I really did it. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m a four-sphere, but I can touch souls. When Cyam died, I tried to manipulate his soul back into his body. Just… I grabbed the wrong soul.” I scratched the back of my head and stuck my tongue out.
My mother held her face in her hand. “What am I going to do with you?”
“How about giving me a hug before I go back out there and right the situation by myself?” I waved my hand, and Cyam, he hopped out of my shadow in his full dark magic glory. “I did another thing, though.”
Hecate gasped and took a step back.
“Sorry to surprise you.” I flashed her a smile.
My mother reached out and rubbed magic Cyam on the nose. “This feels just like his nose.”
“Yeah.” I smirked. “It stood up to some pretty big fireballs too.”
“No. It feels just like a horse's nose.” My mother was still petting Cyam’s nose and glanced at Hecate, but she seemed to swallow whatever she was going to say. It must have been too important to share in front of the maid. “Your father’s adept spell, a giant raven, was much the same. I’d say even some of the Elder Mages would have difficulty matching everything about Cyam, including the little bald spot on his muzzle.”
I wasn’t sure why that detail seemed so important to her, but I shrugged it off.
“Perhaps because Cyam’s soul is in there. His sense of self and the image he has for his form is that much stronger?” I asked.
My mother nodded. “I would guess so. So much so that Cyam’s soul is doing most of the work, isn’t it?”
I scratched my cheek. “Mostly. I just feed it magic. He keeps himself in that form. Though, I can shift him. Say, make him larger.”
I swelled Cyam until his crown touched the ceiling and then his soul resisted growing further, likely some instinct on his head touching the ceiling was resisting me.
“Or I can just make it a part of him.” I transformed Shadow Cyam into a giant hoof the size of the table.
