StarCrossed

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  The rest of that long week was interminable, following Lyll through an endless list of irrelevant tasks until I was ready to stab someone to death with my tiny embroidery needle. The snow never let up, building in slow, inexorable drifts on the windows and in front of doors. One freezing afternoon we gathered in the solar, where Lady Lyll super vised Meri working out the seating arrangements for her birthday breakfast. She shuffled people back and forth, while Lyll looked on and made suggestions.

  “I wish Marlytt was here,” Lyll said. “This is the sort of thing she excels at.”

  My eyes jerked up from the knot I was trying to untangle in my thread. “I think she’s taken to bed —” I winced. “With a head ache.”

  Phandre laid her stitching aside and gave a languorous stretch. She went to peek over Meri’s shoulder, but as she read the chart, her face grew red.

  “Cwalo?” she said. “You’ve seated me by the wine merchant?”

  Meri looked up, confused. “I — I thought you’d want to,” she said. “His sons —”

  “You thought I’d want to sit with a common shopkeeper while she” — she glared at me — “gets the place of honor beside you? Who is she? I am a noblewoman, from a family older than yours!”

  “You can have my seat; I don’t care.”

  Phandre spun on me. “Of course you don’t! You’re nobody!”

  “Lady Phandre,” Lyll began ominously, using her title, but I was annoyed.

  “Honestly, don’t you ever think about anything important?” I snapped.

  Phandre’s face went white with fury, but Lady Lyll stepped between us. “Celyn, dear, why don’t you run down to the stillroom, and check on that — prep ara tion we’ve been working on. Lady Phandre and I will finish this conversation.”

  “Oh, what’s the point?” Phandre said, heading for the door. “You always take her side.” And she slammed out of the solar, the rest of us staring after her.

  “What did I do?” Meri said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lady Lyll said with a sigh. “Sooner or later she’ll have to accept the realities of her situation. We’ll find her a strand of pearls to wear, or something, and she’ll get over it.”

  I took Lyll up on her suggestion anyway. Wierolf was kneeling on his bed, rummaging one-handed through the medical supplies on the shelf, his other hand stuck in his mouth. I could see the outline of the fresh bandages beneath his linen shirt, and wondered briefly if Lady Lyll was ever going to get him more clothes.

  “Celyn, thank the gods,” he mumbled through his fingers. “Can you help me — I can’t seem to find anything to stop this bleeding —”

  “You’re bleeding? Again?” I crossed the room. “By Marau, Your Highness, you are truly the clumsiest man I’ve ever met. What have you done now?”

  What he’d done was cut himself — badly, in the webbing between his finger and his thumb — on the dumb, dull knife Lady Lyll had given him to carve with. I dabbed the cut with a rag dipped in poppy. “Here, press down hard. What were you making?”

  “Ha — here; you’ll like this.” He patted the rumpled bedclothes and found a disk of wood the size of my palm. “I’m making a new device for myself. What do you think?”

  He handed it over: a skillful rendering of a lion, silhouetted against the rising sun. The sun’s rays spread like flames to the edge of the disk, mingling with the flowing mane of the lion, its sinuous tail, its outstretched paw. I fingered the spokes of the rays, stretching out into forever. It felt like gold in my hand, warm and smooth from his touch.

  “What do you think?”

  The sun. Neither Celyst moon nor Sarist star, but something separate and above them. It was a daring statement — something I wasn’t sure the world was expecting from Wierolf, Lazy Prince of Llyvraneth. I held the device of the lion and the sun up until the carved flames shone back the flickering lamplight.

  “I like it,” I said, absently watching the light hit the wood.

  “Something’s troubling you.”

  I glanced up. “No.”

  “Liar. You only come down here when you’re upset.”

  “Not true! I also come down here when you’re bleeding.”

  He smiled faintly. “What’s the matter?”

  With a sound that was half sigh, half growl, I sank beside him on the floor. “Nothing. Everything. I just saw a grown woman throw a fit over a feast seating chart. Nothing makes any sense anymore.”

  I couldn’t sit still. I jumped up and grabbed Wierolf’s knife, pacing before the wooden target. For the first time I realized the circle in the middle might actually have been more than just a ring to aim at. A round full moon, to strike at with a blade.

  “I used to love secrets,” I said. “Exploring rooms I wasn’t supposed to be in, looking through locked keyholes, reading forbidden books. There was a thrill in knowing something nobody else knew. It made me feel — I don’t know. Less small and powerless.”

  Wierolf leaned forward on the bed, listening. I paced a few more steps, and he finally said, “So what happened?”

  I took a toss at the target, but the knife bounced off. “I met you.”

  He strode over and retrieved the knife. “Oh, come now,” he said, handing it back. “I must be just about the best secret you ever had.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to smile. “Almost.”

  “Really? Now what could possibly compare to me?” He sounded teasing, and I ignored him.

  “This isn’t funny. I don’t know what to do. I know things, and I wish I didn’t. I’ve never collected secrets about — about people I know, before. . . .” I shook my head. “It’s different.”

  “Don’t do anything,” Wierolf suggested.

  “I can’t. They’re too big. Somebody’s going to get hurt.” I flung the knife again. “Damn it! I wish I didn’t care whether or not Antoch was the Traitor of Kalorjn! Or that Lady Lyll was stockpiling weapons — and princes — under her castle. Or that Meri —” I broke off. “This is impossible.” I sank down on the bed.

  He sat beside me. After a moment he said, “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  “More? What are you talking about?”

  “This isn’t just about Lord Antoch or Lady Lyllace, or whoever your Meri is. Something else is weighing on you.” He was looking at me with those steady deep brown eyes.

  “Don’t do that,” I said.

  “Do what?”

  “Look into my — soul, like that. I don’t like it.”

  “That’s it, then,” he said, and there was a hint of discovery in his voice, like a man finally figuring out a puzzle he’s been working on. “This is about what you’re hiding. About your secrets.”

  “I told you. I’m not hiding anything.”

  He looked at me softly. “Simple Celyn, just a maid.”

  “That’s right.”

  Wierolf eased back. “All right. Well, if you’re interested, I’ve never been that fond of secrets, myself. I think they’re at the heart of a lot of what’s wrong right now — the fear and suspicion, the secrecy. Neighbors turning on each other, parents hiding their children, people hiding their faith. That can’t be what any of the gods intended. Bardolph and Werne have it wrong.”

  “Werne?” The name slipped out, a faint little whisper.

  “What happened to you at the Celystra?” Wierolf’s voice was gentle.

  I pulled back. “Nothing.”

  “Did it involve your brother?”

  I turned to him. “What? No, I told you —”

  “Do you know you flinch anytime someone mentions him?”

  “I do not!” But I did. I knew I did. “Why am I talking to you?” I got up again and found the knife where it had fallen, across the room at the base of the target.

  “You want to,” Wierolf said easily. “Celyn, you’re not small and powerless anymore. Whatever it is, it can’t hurt you now.”

  “Oh, yes it can.” But somehow, it suddenly seemed intolerable that Daul was the only person who kn
ew this, when I was surrounded by people who wouldn’t use that knowledge to hurt me — Meri and Lyll and Wierolf. The prince was wrong; this was very dangerous, but hiding from the truth couldn’t keep it at bay forever. Wierolf had shown no interest in the throne — yet he’d been attacked by his uncle’s men anyway. And I couldn’t keep pretending that renouncing my brother meant the connection between us did not exist.

  I took the knife and sat back down beside Wierolf. He looked at me expectantly. “Let me see that pendant you wear,” I said. He quirked an eyebrow at me, but handed it over. “What does this look like to you?” I asked.

  “Uh — bronze? A circle, with a star on it? Why, what does it look like to you?”

  I gripped it in my hand, until the magic frothed through my fingers. “Like sunlight on water. Like — heat haze. Or a fog.”

  “You have magic.” Somehow, there was no surprise at all in his voice.

  “I see magic. You don’t want to see magic at the Celystra. My brother was the devout one; he told me I was unclean. He called me an abomination, a corrupt thing unworthy of the gods.”

  Wierolf touched my hand. “That’s unforgivable.”

  “No — what’s unforgivable is that I believed him. For years, I thought somehow, maybe he was right. Surely he knew, right? Hadn’t Celys chosen him to speak for her? If the Lord High Inquisitor calls something unholy, it must be so.”

  The prince’s dark eyes grew wide. “Wait. Your brother is —”

  I was halfway there already. I took a breath and undid the lie I’d been hiding behind for five years. “Werne the Bloodletter.”

  He just looked at me a moment, utter disbelief on his face. Then he made a strange, strangled sound, and covered his face with his big hand.

  “Laughing. You’re laughing? I tell you my brother is the king’s Inquisitor, and your response is to laugh.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Truly, Celyn — that’s just so much bigger than I expected! I knew you had a secret, but by Tiboran —”

  “Did you ever think that maybe this is one of the reasons people want you dead?” I snapped. “No wonder they favor Astilan.”

  The smile dipped. “I deserved that,” he said. “I know what it cost you to tell me this. But you speak truly? You really are the Inquisitor’s sister?”

  I closed my eyes and kissed the knuckles of my left hand. “I swear by Tiboran and the Nameless One, I would not lie about that.”

  “No, I believe you — it’s just . . . I’ve never heard that he had any siblings.” He uncurled my fingers from his medallion. “But I suppose the reason for that is obvious.” There was a long, silent pause, as Wierolf seemed to try to place this new information in his understanding of the universe. “So it’s Celyn Nebraut, then? Who’s Celyn Contrare?”

  “An invention. And it’s not Celyn at all. It’s Digger.”

  He looked amused again. “The Inquisitor has a sister called Digger. What’s your real name?”

  “Children born inside the convent aren’t given names until they take their vows. I wasn’t there that long.” The prince was still watching me in astonishment. “It’s a long story.”

  “Then tell me.” His voice was gentle, inviting. Go ahead, Celyn, give us your tale. And somehow, there I was, telling him every thing. About the Celystra, about the man who’d died when I’d informed on him, however unwittingly, about leaving the convent and making a life on the streets as a pickpocket. How I’d buried myself so deep in the slums, as Werne rose so high in the church, that I was sure we’d never find each other ever again.

  “Who were your parents?”

  My voice was rusty and stiff on this unpracticed story. “My mother came to the Celystra when she was pregnant with me, though Werne always liked to claim I was one of the priests’ children. She’d been married to his father, a potter who died when Werne was small.” A monk had told me that once, meaning to be kind. “She died when I was born, so I don’t even know her name. Werne would never tell me. She died in grace, he’d say, and her life before meant nothing.”

  I sighed and looked into my skirts. “I’ve always wondered what kind of life she had hoped for, coming there. What she’d wanted for us. She got it with Werne, at least.” My voice sounded bitter.

  “How old were you when you left?”

  “Eleven. I really did just climb up over the wall and drop down on the other side — smack in the heart of Gerse. That first night — I was sure I would die. Everything was so loud, and disorderly. A horse from a passing coach nearly ran me down, and I thought it was Celys, come to drag me back inside. I ran. I’m still running.” I took a breath, remembering. “But another girl found me when I nicked a roll from a cart, and she took me to a tavern and told me all about Tiboran. And everyone there was messy, and devious, and they laughed at every thing, and they gave me a knife and told me to go cut a man’s purse strings — and I did it, and I was good at it. And I liked it. I loved it.”

  “And somehow you ended up at Bryn Shaer.”

  I explained how that had happened as well. Wierolf mulled this over for a bit, then surprised me by standing, and by pulling me to my feet too. “Well met, Digger of Gerse,” he said. “I am Prince Wierolf, and I’ve a few questionable relations of my own.”

  Now that the words were said, I felt horribly exposed, as if someone had stripped away my clothes and pushed me out into the snow. “What now?” I said. “What happens next?”

  He regarded me solemnly. “Now you can figure out the next secret on that list.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I felt raw and hollow after my confession to the prince, like after a bad sickness. I had said the words, and they hadn’t killed me, but it would take a while before I felt like myself again. I took the kennel route from Wierolf’s chamber, to delay the moment I’d have to face people. Afternoon had faded to evening, and Tiboran’s moon was high and bright in a deepening sky. I looked up at it gravely, then sketched a formal, actor’s bow. “Thank you,” I said aloud. He had guided my per for mance all these years, after all. I had to have faith that the timing he’d chosen for the end of my masquerade was the right one.

  The next few days were peaceful ones at Bryn Shaer, even amid the birthday prep ara tions. Lady Lyll’s late-night meetings with the conspirators continued; Meri and I “attended” another one together, and they seemed to be piecing together their final arguments for the king’s representative. I knew Lyll nursed some concern for Lord Antoch’s party, now a day or so overdue, but for me, with Daul gone, it almost really was like a holiday.

  One morning I came back from the stillroom to find Phandre pawing through Meri’s clothes chest.

  “What are you doing?” I crossed the room and slammed the lid shut, unfortunately missing her fingers.

  “Looking for Meri’s pink sleeves,” she said haughtily. The garments in question were balled up in her hand. “Not that it’s any of your business. I wanted them for luncheon this afternoon.”

  “Wear your own sleeves,” I snapped, snatching them away from her. As I smoothed the silk, I saw a little tear in the lining. “Phandre . . .”

  Phandre ignored me, just strode across the room, looking around like she didn’t live here too. “Where is she this morning?” she asked sweetly. “She disappears a lot, doesn’t she? Like you. I came in late last night, and what a suprise to find your bed empty.”

  “I’m sure you find that strange,” I said. “If Meri wanted you to know what she was doing, she’d tell you.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot. You’re her great confidante now.” Phandre gave me a little sniff and headed off to her own room — but not before plucking the pink sleeves from my hands again.

  I shook my head. Nobs.

  Meri returned a few minutes later, bubbling over with excitement. “Stagne and I materialized a ball of flame for a full minute before it dissipated!” As I helped her out of her riding clothes, she added, “I saw Marlytt in the courtyard. She’d like to speak to you.”


  When I didn’t respond, she squeezed my arm. “Say you’ll go. I don’t like to see you two quarreling. She says she has something to give you.”

  Outside, a figure in blue descended the east tower steps and came to meet me, long hem trailing behind her in the snow.

  “I know you don’t want to talk to me,” Marlytt said. She held the neck of her coat closed with one shivering hand. “So just listen.”

  Warily I nodded, and she set off walking toward the moonslit sculpture garden. I followed close behind.

  “When Daul found me, I was in Tratua with a man called Mils Rhonin. He was a low-level city official, a widower. I had been with him almost a year.” She paused and looked up into the sky. Ice crystals had formed on her long, pale lashes. “He wanted to marry me.”

  She kept a mea sured pace, and her voice in the whipping wind was soft but distinct. “I think he mostly wanted a mother for his children — a girl and two little boys. They had a house with a view of the sea, and a courtyard where the children could play.” She looked straight at me. “It was the kind of life that girls like us never dream of having.

  “And then one night I met Daul at a banquet — some city function that Mils had to attend. I danced two dances with him, and by the end of the night he’d told me to leave Mils and come with him. I refused, of course. The next day I saw him again, when Mils’s daughter and I were drawing water at the city fountain. He claimed to have contacts in the Inquisition. He again told me to leave Mils, this time in much less . . . subtle terms. Mils’s daughter had to stand there and listen while Daul called me a whore.

  “A week later, five Acolyte Guardsmen arrested Mils at our house, in front of his children. Daul was there an hour later. And that time, I went with him.”

  She arranged a strand of fair hair that had slipped loose. “He brought me here to spy on Antoch, to seduce him. But when it came time, he wouldn’t let me. I guess Daul turned out to be a jealous lover after all. Not that Antoch would ever have been tempted; I saw that immediately. He’s too good a man. And then you showed up, a new toy Daul just couldn’t resist.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Digger. I didn’t mean to get you into this.”