Mystery? In a Royal Court?
What price do you pay to protect someone? What cost to yourself do you pay to make sure tender dreams are not crushed?
There are no dragons (not on this planet, everyone is glad about that). Dungeons are generally fo...
The six escorts with pikes take Emme, Good Fellow, King, Queen, & Princess of Annovae to an upper level on the left. Just as at Castle Annovae, the Castle of the Central Kingdom places mages and magic activities to this side of the royal halls.
Six mages certified for royal matters (and some others there also) stand in a long hallway. Everyone stands expectantly as the minutes pass.
A note is delivered to the mages, and they exchange soft-spoken words. "That high? Above sixty? All the accusations are about her. Let us start there."
Mages, dressed in light-cream colored cloaks with yellow trim and insignias of royal service, take Emme down to a room at the far end of the hall.
They use hand devices at a distance and pull away themselves with hands glowing in spells that point towards Emme.
Emme is pretty sure these are detection magics.
They ask 'What magic energy level would say you are?'
Emme: "I know that growth is often marked by an ease in basic things. I have noticed nothing like that. I would say I must still be at a basic level."
'Have been in contact with any powerful mages or magic creatures during of your life?'
Emme: "I served a local mage that offered to train me and work toward a cure for me. But he died. He was well experienced, but did not seem to have any reputation."
The mages write down notes and take Emme back to the others. Finding the King of the Central Kingdom is already there. They show the results of her examination to him.
Emme has a magic aura in the mid thirties, with an explanation that it is likely a value that used to be higher. The spell (or spells) of an advanced nature that have gotten weaker over the years.
They move everyone to a room with magic runes. A place for breaking spells. Men with pikes stay outside, but everyone else enters.
The mages lead Emme to the center of the room. They take the House of Annovae to benches built into the walls at a corner.
Mages take orbs and circle Emme the feet away, occasionally touching one orb to another.
The King of the Central Kingdom watches for reaction from those of Annovae. He also struggles to keep track of the count. Three or four?
The mages have been using the orbs like a safe cracker spins a lock. Locating seams in overlapped spells.
In a few minutes, one mage brings an orb over to the King of the Central Kingdom. He peers inside.
Stepping back, he shudders and orders out all that are not mages (somewhat ignoring Yva and the others in the corner).
"Get the royal historian, and the scribes, and the medical staff. Bring them here right away!"
The king knows. There could be no doubt. Inside the magic that creates this woman called Emme. There is his kinswoman, Lady Violet. Those wounds are unmistakable.
Within the spells, she is reacting just like Emme (confused). These spells must alter her perception. She thinks she is Emme.
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