“That it would be you? No, Highness, but I am most pleased.” She bent her head close to his, and whispered, “Daughter of Thelátimos, welcome.”
More priests arrived. Arkoniel and Kaliya took them aside, speaking quietly. Tobin shivered as he watched them. One by one, they all turned and silently saluted him, hands to their hearts.
Presently Solari appeared on the parapet, and called down, “Greetings, Prince Tobin. I regret the poor welcome you received.”
“Don’t you know what’s happening in Ero?” Tobin shouted back. “They sent messenger birds yesterday. The city is under attack!”
Astonishment rippled through the crowd.
“Yes, I know,” Solari shouted. “But Atyion must be protected from plague at all costs.”
“That ain’t right!” someone in the crowd yelled.
“Even at the cost of her rightful lord’s life?” Tharin shouted back. “Solari, this is Rhius’ son, and he’s here by the king’s order! Your own son is there in Ero with him.”
“Other pigeons have outdistanced you, Tharin, and my news is fresher. Lower Ero is lost and the king is trapped on the Palatine. They’ll all be dead before you can get back.”
“Traitor!” Ki screamed, brandishing his sword.
Solari ignored him. “Skala must be defended and Atyion is the greatest stronghold left. She must be led by a seasoned general. Give over your claim, Prince Tobin, and I will adopt you as my heir. Let the priests witness my pledge.”
“I will not!” the Illioran priestess cried, and was echoed by the others. “I send the traitor’s curse upon you!”
“You have other sons, Solari,” Arkoniel replied. “Even if we believed you, how long would Tobin survive among them with all this to gain?”
“Not a fortnight!” a woman cried out in the crowd behind them.
“Someone shoot that traitor!” someone else called out.
“Storm the walls!”
“Hang the bastards! We’ll never bend knee to ’em!”
Ki dismounted and went to Tobin. “Could you send Brother after him, Tob?” he whispered.
Somehow, Arkoniel heard and hissed, “Never ask that again, Ki. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
He rode to the edge of the moat and raised his right fist in the air, clutching his crystal wand. The failing daylight struck fire through it. “Hear me, all you in the castle, and you here behind us.” His voice carried like a battle cry. “I am the wizard Arkoniel, once the pupil of Mistress Iya. You knew us as the hearth friends of Duke Rhius. By his own hand, we have also been the protectors of his only child and heir, who stands here like a beggar at his own gate!
“Solari claims he’s shutting out the plague. Has he ever done such a thing before? No, only now that he believes Ero lost. Know this, people of Atyion. These years of plague and death are the curse of Illior that King Erius brought down on the land. With the complicity of the people, he usurped the throne from Skala’s rightful heir. Princess Ariani, daughter of Agnalain, mother of Tobin—she should have been queen!”
“He speaks the truth,” Kaliya cried, displaying both palms in official sanction of his words. “Her child stands before you now, untouched by plague or famine. Prince Tobin’s holdings—Atyion, Cirna, Alestun, Middleford, Hawk’s Lee—all of them and their people have been spared. Did you never wonder why? I tell you now; it’s because Ariani’s blood runs true in his veins! Unknowing, Tobin has been your true protector, blessed by Illior and all the Four.”
The rumble grew to a cheer, but there was no response from the castle. Tobin looked around nervously. Despite the goodwill of the crowd, he felt very exposed. Solari’s archers could be looking down their shafts at them that very moment. “Now what?” he asked Tharin.
Kaliya stepped close and grasped his stirrup. “I promised you my help long ago. Do you recall?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you’ve never come seeking it. I offer it again. Give your battle cry, Scion of Atyion. Good and loud, now!”
Something in her voice gave him hope. Tilting his head back, he shouted, “Atyion! Atyion for Skala and the Four!”
Ki and the others took up the cry, and the crowd joined in fiercely, waving kerchiefs, shawls, and weapons of every sort. The sound rolled over Tobin like thunder and sang in his ears like wine.
Kaliya held up her hands for silence. “There. Do you hear that?”
The cry had been taken up inside the castle walls. “Atyion for Skala! For the Four!” It swelled to a roar, and was soon punctuated by the unmistakable clash of steel against steel.
Tharin bowed to the priestess with a grim smile. “Well done, my lady. Atyion knows her master’s voice. They’re fighting for you, Tobin. Call to them.”
“Open the gates!” Tobin cried, but there was no reply.
They mounted and sat their horses tensely, watching the drawbridge. The sun fell another hour before the sound of fighting ended and they saw a new flurry of activity above the gate.
Some sort of struggle appeared to be going on. It was brief, and ended when a man was tossed screaming and flailing from the battlements with a noose around his neck. His cries were cut short as the rope fetched taut and snapped his neck. The green silk robe he wore was as rich as a king’s; costly embroidery caught the sun as the body spun slowly at the end of the hangman’s rope.
It was Solari.
Moments later the drawbridge rattled down and soldiers surged out to greet Tobin. Some among them wore Solari’s green, but they were chanting Tobin’s name.
There were women with them, too, still in skirts and aprons, but armed with swords. One of the cooks ran to Tobin and fell on her knees before him. Offering her sword up to him with both hands, she cried out, “For Atyion and the Four!”
It was Tharin’s cousin who’d greeted him on his first visit here. Dismounting, Tobin accepted the blade and gave it back to her. “Rise, Grannia. You’re a captain again.”
Another great cheer went up, echoing between the castle walls and the town. It seemed to lift Tobin back into the saddle on waves of sound, leaving him dizzy and elated. Then Arkoniel was beside him again.
“It’s time, Tobin,” he shouted over the noise.
“Yes, I know.”
Flanked by his companions and the chief priests, Tobin rode across the bridge into the huge bailey beyond. The brief battle there had left scores of dead, mostly Solari’s men. Others had been herded into several corrals and knelt there under the watchful eye of Atyion archers and swordsmen.
Tobin rode in a wide circle, taking in the situation. Most of Solari’s men had sided with Atyion in the end.
“The castle is yours, Prince Tobin,” said Tharin.
Duchess Savia and her children were waiting for him at the head of the castle steps. The duchess held her head up proudly, but he saw the fear in her eyes as she pulled her children closer to her. Jobin’s heart turned over in his breast as he saw the same fear in the children’s eyes. He’d feasted and played with them the last time he was here, and held little Rose on his knee. Now she clung to her mother’s skirts, wailing with fear at his approach.
Savia fell to her knees. “Kill me if you will,” she cried, holding her hands out to him in supplication. “But I pray you in the name of the Four, spare my children!”
“You are under my protection,” Tobin assured her. “I swear by the Four and the law of Skala that no harm will come to you!” He looked around. “Is Lady Lytia here?”
“Here, my prince,” she called, stepping out from the crowd below.
“Lady Lytia, I proclaim you Steward of Atyion. See to it that my order is made clear to the garrison. No harm or insult is to be offered to the duchess and her children. They can stay in their chambers under guard for now. When you’ve seen them safely there, give the order for my banners to be raised.”
“I will, my prince.” The approval in her pale eyes as she gently guided the weeping duchess away warmed Tobin even more than the cheering had.
<
br /> “You’d better address the garrison now,” Tharin advised.
Despite his success so far, Tobin’s stomach tightened into a cold knot as he looked out across the sea of expectant faces.
“Warriors of Atyion,” he began, and his voice sounded thin and reedy in the open air. “I thank you for your faithful service this day.”
Arkoniel stepped closer and whispered in his ear as they waited for the cheering to subside. Tobin nodded and took a deep breath.
“Good people of Atyion, you have loved me for my father’s sake, I know, and welcomed me as one of your own. Today—” He faltered, his mouth dry. “Today the warships of Plenimar fill the harbor before Ero. The city is in flames and the enemy is at the gates of the Palatine.”
He paused again, gathering his thoughts as the angry outcry subsided. “Today, I stand before you not only as the child of Rhius, but of Ariani; she who should have been queen.” He stopped again, so scared he thought he might be sick right there in front of everyone. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself on. “Skala must have a queen again, if she is to survive. I have—I have something very odd to tell you, but …”
He turned desperately to Arkoniel. “I don’t know how to tell them. Help me, please!”
Arkoniel bowed, as if in answer to some stern order, and raised a hand to the crowd for their attention. Ki moved in beside Tobin and clasped his shoulder. Trembling, Tobin shot him a grateful look.
Arkoniel reached inside his plain tunic and pulled out a silver amulet of Illior. “Warriors of Atyion, some of you know me. I am Arkoniel, a free wizard of Skala, follower of Iya. My mistress and I are the chosen protectors of Prince Tobin, ordained by Illior Lightbearer through the Afran Oracle sixteen years ago. My mistress was granted a vision while Ariani’s children were still in the womb. You’ve all heard that the princess bore twins, and that the girl perished and the boy lived. That’s not completely true. My mistress and I witnessed the births that night, and have kept the truth of the matter a secret until today.
“I tell you now that it was the girl who lived, not the boy. By the will of Illior and for the sake of Skala, the girl child was by the most fearsome and difficult magics given the form of her dead brother in order to escape murder at the hands of the king and his minions. That girl child stands before you now as Prince Tobin!”
Silence. Tobin could hear ducks quacking on the moat beyond the wall, and dogs barking in the village. Then someone yelled, “That ain’t no girl!”
“What manner of magic could do such things?” a bearded Dalnan priest demanded, and his words set off a greater outcry, as the soldiers and townspeople who’d crowded into the bailey all began talking at once.
Tharin, Ki, and Lynx closed in around Tobin, hands on their sword hilts. Arkoniel’s knuckles went white as he clutched his wand, but it was the Illioran high priestess who stilled the crowd.
Kaliya clapped her hands over her head and a crack of thunder echoed between the walls. “Let them finish!” she cried. “Would I be standing here with them, and these my brethren of the other temples, if we did not think there was some meaning in their words? Let the wizard speak!”
Arkoniel bowed to her and resumed. “For fifteen years you have known this brave young warrior as the son of Rhius. Today, by the will of Illior, you are privileged to see her revealed at last as the true heir of the Skalan throne. You are blessed, people of Atyion. It is you who will bear witness that a rightful heir ordained by Illior has returned to you. You proved your good faith when you overthrew the traitor Solari. Put the seal on it by bearing sacred witness now with these priests of the Four.”
There were a few scattered exclamations and grumblings as Arkoniel motioned everyone away from Tobin.
“He’s too exposed! Can’t we do this inside the hall?” Tharin muttered.
“No, it must be seen. Please, Tharin, you must step back.”
Tharin gave Tobin a last tense look, and Ki and the others grudgingly moved aside with him, but only to the far end of the stairs. The priests did the same on the other side.
Though his friends were no more than twenty feet away, Tobin suddenly felt very alone and exposed. No one was cheering or chanting his name now. The bailey seemed like a sea of skeptical eyes.
Kaliya smiled, as if she sensed Tobin’s mounting fear and accepted it with compassion. The others watched with obvious unease.
Arkoniel came to Tobin and presented him with a thin silver knife; it had been Lhel’s. “She gave me this sometime ago. Use it with courage,” he whispered, kissing Tobin on both cheeks. He’d never done anything like that before. “Remember what I described to you. Begin with the doll. Be brave, Tobin. These are your people watching.”
My people. The entire throng seemed to be holding its breath. Clutching the knife, Tobin felt his fear seep away, leaving him with the same inner stillness he felt before battle. Even so, his hands shook as he pulled out the doll and felt for the hair cord in the fold of its neck. Slipping the tip of the blade under it, he cut it and let it fall away. Then he sliced open the worn muslin and emptied the crumbling herbs, yellowed wool, and all those bits of delicate bone from the doll’s body. Something small and shiny tumbled out, and bounced down the stone steps. It was the golden tablet bearing the Oracle’s words. He’d forgotten he’d hidden it there. It landed at the feet of a bearded sergeant, who hesitantly picked it up. When Arkoniel motioned him to stay where he was, he held it up, and whispered, “I hold on to it for you, shall I, my prince?”
Then Brother was standing there beside him, watching him with hungry black eyes. Judging by the sudden cries and gasps, others could see him, too.
“Your clothes,” Arkoniel called softly. “You must take them off. Ki, help him.”
Brother hissed softly as Ki approached but did not try to stop him. Not letting himself hesitate or think, Tobin took off his sword belt, the studded coat, and shirt and handed them to Ki. Brother’s presence raised gooseflesh along his arms. The ghost stood close beside him, bare-chested now. Tobin quickly shucked off his boots, socks, trousers, and, after another moment’s doubt, his linen clout. Ki gave him a wan smile as he added them to his pile. He was scared, too, and trying not to show it.
“It’s all right,” Tobin whispered, pulling the chain over his head and holding it out to him. “Keep these for me.”
Ki closed his fist around the ring and seal and raised his hand to his heart, saluting Tobin as he retreated to his place with Tharin.
Naked, Tobin faced the crowd and felt for the bone shard. There it was, just below the skin. The tiny ridges of Lhel’s stitching were rough against his fingertips.
“Quickly!” Brother hissed.
Tobin looked into his brother’s black eyes one last time as he raised the silver knife. “Yes.”
Bracketing the lump with two fingers, he pressed the knife’s sharp point to the taut skin. He couldn’t see what he was doing, but his touch was deft. He grimaced as it broke the skin. Blood trickled down.
“Cut deeper!” Brother crooned.
Tobin cut again, twisting the knife, and searing fire shot through him as the tip found its target. He fell to his knees, and the knife clattered to the stone stairs beside him.
“Release me!” Brother screamed, crouching to show Tobin the bleeding wound on his own breast. Blood ran down his cheeks in scarlet tears. “It hurts! Finish it!”
Gasping, Tobin squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. The pain was too much.
“Now!” a woman shouted. “It must be now, daughter!”
Opening his eyes, Tobin saw the ghosts.
They stood in a circle around him, all of them crowned and all holding the Sword of Ghërilain upright before them. He didn’t recognize them—the tomb effigies had been too crude to capture their living features, but he knew who they were. Ghërilain the First stood there watching him, and his own blood-soaked grandmother. And that gaunt, sad-faced man beside them—he must be Thelátimos, the last rightful king.
Cool fingers brushed his brow. Tobin looked up into the one face he had seen before. It was Tamir, the murdered queen. It was she who’d called out to him, and she spoke again now. Courage, daughter. It must be now, for Skala!
Someone put the knife back in his hand. It was Ki. He wept as he knelt beside Tobin.
“You can do it,” he whispered, and retreated. He looked like he was sending Tobin to his execution.
Tobin raised the knife. Pain pulled his lips back in a snarl as he gouged deeper. He’d always imagined that the tiny shard would slip out like a splinter, but the flesh had grown fast to it, like a tree bole healing around a nail. He twisted the blade again and heard someone screaming. It sounded like Brother but his own throat was raw with it.
The tiny fragment came free, still sheathed in a pulpy shred of raw flesh. He scarcely had time to feel it between his fingers before a new wave of pain engulfed him, beyond anything he’d ever imagined.
White fire engulfed him, so intense it was icy cold. Caught in that inferno, he couldn’t breathe or think or scream or hear, but somehow he saw Brother, felt the spirit grappling with him, enfolding him, passing through him like a cold black shadow at the heart of that white fire.
And then the pain was gone and Tobin was curled in his side on hot, smooth stone in the sunlight. The ghosts were still around him, but fainter now, like shapes made of grey gauze. The stairs were scorched black in a great circle around him.
And Brother was gone.
Looking around, he did not see the shocked, silent onlookers, only that his twin was not there. He felt it, too; an aching emptiness filled him. There had been no farewell between them, no parting words. He had cut Brother from his body and the ghost had left him. Tobin could scarcely comprehend it.
“Tob?” A warm hand clasped his elbow, helping him sit up. It was Ki.
Tobin reached out to him, then froze in horror, staring down at the strange skin covering his arm. From fingertips to shoulder it hung in loose colorless shreds like a rotted glove. His whole body was the same; his skin was in tatters around him, flayed by the horrendous magic he’d unleashed. He rubbed gingerly at his left forearm and the skin fell away, exposing smooth, whole skin below. The wine-colored wisdom mark was still there, brighter than ever.
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