StarCrossed

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

  Her eyes were as icy as I’d ever seen them. “Daul is cold and he is ambitious. When he wants something, he gets it. When he hurts you, he leaves no marks — but you bleed to death on the inside, from a thousand invisible cuts.” She turned her gaze into the distance, toward the wall and the mountains and, maybe, the canals of Tratua. “I saw Mils one more time. Daul took me to see them release him from prison. It had only been a few days, but he’d changed so much. The worst thing, though,” she said, so softly I almost didn’t hear her, “the worst was the look in his eyes when he saw me standing in the boat beside Daul.”

  She turned to face me. “So you can stop giving me that look like I’ve plunged a knife into you, and don’t you dare judge me. Because I know what it feels like to betray someone I care about, and believe me — this is nothing.”

  Before I could say anything, Marlytt pulled something from her sleeve and held it out to me. A packet of letters, a little road-worn and rumpled still from being crushed against someone’s rib cage for a month. Her hand was blue with cold, but steady somehow. “I think you were looking for these,” she said. “Don’t lose them again.”

  She lifted the sable hood up over her face, turned, and walked back to the castle with mea sured dignity.

  I didn’t follow. But in the fading light, I unfolded Chavel’s letters. And there, along with the letter to Vichet and Wierolf’s death warrant and the incomprehensible list of odd markings, was something new: a worn and much-folded slip of paper that read In these pages, I have recorded the truth. I knew that dark, spidery hand all too well: Senim Daul, my expert huntsman. Beneath that pronouncement, the page was covered in numbers that spread onto the back side. Folded with it was another sheet, in a hand I didn’t recognize, but could guess: Senim’s son. This one was filled with little notes and scratch marks, as if he’d been trying to puzzle something out. And, standing there in the late morning chill, I thought I knew what.

  “Thank you, Marlytt,” I whispered into the dusting snow.

  I had to wait until everyone else went to dinner, but as soon as I could, I hastened back to Meri’s rooms and popped open the little compartment beneath the window seat. Her books were still there, and I pulled out Senim Daul’s hunting journal. Beside it, I spread out the two pages Marlytt had given me: the sheet of numbers, and Daul’s efforts to decipher his father’s message about Kalorjn. A message to share, he’d said: half to Antoch, half to Daul. Antoch had received the journal, and Daul the list of numbers. How did they fit together?

  I turned a few pages in the journal, glancing not at the words but at the book itself, the margins, even the page numbers, carefully rendered in tiny, neat script. I’d had to renumber them in Daul’s version, to account for the sections his was missing — Meri’s sections. Daul had said the journal was worthless.

  It wasn’t worthless. Not the real one. Not the one I held in my hands, carefully arranged by a system of page numbers to say precisely the right thing at the right spot on the right page, so another reader could find that reference easily.

  I had seen a coded book once before in the Celystra manuscript room, a volume of heretical scripture disguised beneath a lackluster history of foreign rulers. The Scriptor had explained to me how it worked: One conspirator wrote out a message using words in the book, and then sent a coded version of the message referencing only page and word numbers. The recipient could then look up the numbers, and reconstruct the message by finding the right word on the right page. It was a neat little system, and in theory it worked beautifully.

  Unless you had a forged version of the book that was off count by some fifteen pages. Then your reconstructed message, instead of saying I can identify the man who betrayed us, would read Boar the and bloody fowl tossed there water.

  Precisely what had happened to Daul.

  I got up from the floor and made very certain Meri’s door was locked. Then I knelt in the dark by the fire, trying to decide if I really wanted to do this. In these pages I have recorded the truth. Senim had meant this information to be known, at least by a very few people that he trusted. But eigh teen years had passed; the damage was done long ago. Wierolf was right: Did it even matter anymore?

  It mattered to Daul. The truth he thought was hidden in this book had twisted friendship and love into something awful and vindictive. Maybe it was best if I just threw the note and the journal both into the fire, let this secret die with Senim Daul, like it should have.

  Antoch is too good a man. Even Marlytt sensed that, and her instincts about people were infallible. If it was true, if Antoch was the Traitor, it would destroy a lot of that good. And what would it do to the alliance growing right now at Bryn Shaer, if Lady Lyll’s allies discovered Nemair had betrayed them?

  I held the book close to the flames, but something stayed my hand. Wierolf had spoken of how damaging secrets like this could be, as if they ate at the heart of the country like a poison. And it seemed Tiboran had ordained this hour for the unraveling of secrets. First mine, then Marlytt’s — and now the truth about Kalorjn.

  With a weird weight pressing on me, I fetched fresh paper and ink, and set about uncovering one more secret.

  The contents of the message unfolded before me. What Senim Daul had carefully hidden among the falconry lessons and mating habits of the wild boar was the account of what the Sarist commander had discovered about the Battle of Kalorjn. How under only mild duress, and with weak promises of paltry rewards, someone had agreed to leak false intelligence to the Sarist troops.

  But who was it? Daul’s book contained no proper names, but when I searched through its pages again, I discovered a handful of strange spelling errors — letters repeated in certain words. I had taken them for fatigue or carelessness when I’d made my copy, but now I wasn’t so sure. When I rearranged the extra letters, they sorted themselves out into a name. I was hoping it would be harder, that the shape of the words would be unfamiliar, that it would reveal a name I didn’t know from the halls of Bryn Shaer.

  But it didn’t.

  According to Senim Daul’s convincing account, the Traitor of Kalorjn was not Lord Antoch Nemair.

  Commander Daul had named Lougre Séthe.

  Phandre’s father.

  I sat in the roar of the flames, feeling hot and sick. The strange things Antoch had said about her in the Armory finally made sense. No wonder the Nemair felt sorry for her. They were just that generous.

  What would Daul do? What should I do? I folded the account up with Daul’s papers and the journal, and tucked every thing under the window seat. I had to tell Daul when he got back; he needed to know Antoch was innocent. But that might turn his wrath on Phandre, which, however I felt about her, she didn’t deserve. And there was no way to convince Daul without also showing him the real journal — and nothing had changed there: I still couldn’t do that, not without endangering Meri. To say nothing of the trouble Marlytt would be in, for stealing Daul’s papers.

  Meri came in before I had made up my mind. She swished over to me in her red velvet gown. “We missed you tonight,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  Was I? I had no idea. But I nodded.

  “Master Cwalo asked after you. He wanted to partner with you at riddles. He told me all about his son Viorst, who manages a winery in Yeris Volbann. It sounded very romantic.”

  “Meri, I’m not going to marry one of Master Cwalo’s sons.”

  She smiled. “I know. But it’s fun to think about.”

  I watched her, something tight in my chest I didn’t understand. She wasn’t the daughter of a traitor; if she’d had any clue there was ever a risk of it, she’d be delighted that it wasn’t true. Was there any chance that Phandre knew what her father had done? “I’m sorry about Phandre,” I said without meaning to, and Meri frowned.

  “What about her?”

  “She took your sleeves,” I improvised. “I think she’s still mad about the seating arrangements for your breakfast.”

  “Oh, she’s always like
that.” Meri looked at her hands, smiling faintly. “My parents always insisted we be kind to her, and we have so much in common, anyway.”

  “Like what?”

  “Both of our parents were exiled, while we had to stay in Llyvraneth as wards of the Crown. She didn’t have a family to take her in, like I did, just a lot of tolerant houses that would keep her for a season or two. Lord Ragn was always kind to her, and the Decath usually let her stay longer than most. But she’d always move on, and then when she came back . . .” Meri trailed off.

  A daughter cast to the fickle sympathies of random nobs seemed like pitiful reward for Séthe selling out his brethren. Why had he done it? Meri curled up beside me on the bench and leaned her sparkling head against my shoulder. “I’m glad you came to Bryn Shaer with me, Celyn.”

  That weight on my chest pressed harder. “Me too, Meri.”

  The door to Meri’s rooms swung open, and Phandre walked in. She took one look at Meri and me sitting together, and her face clouded with disgust. With an angry shake to her head, she walked straight past us and slammed the door to her little room.

  As soon as Meri set off to meet Stagne the next morning, I nipped down to see the prince. He was carving again, this time with a better grip on the wood and a lot less blood. He looked up when I came in.

  “It’s not Antoch,” I burst out. “He’s not the Traitor.”

  The prince’s face lightened with relief. “Good. That’s wonderful. Did you find out who it was?”

  “It’s no one at Bryn Shaer. It’s someone — dead. I think it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Wierolf studied me a long moment, eyes dark and soft. I looked away before he convinced me to make any more spontaneous confessions, but I sat down on the floor, feeling strangely light and free. Daul was gone for the moment, I’d survived revealing my identity, and Antoch wasn’t the traitor. Maybe Wierolf was right, and this secrecy business was overrated. “What are you working on now?” I asked.

  Wierolf handed me the scrap of wood he’d been whittling. It wasn’t much of anything, really, just a series of scrolls and edge-fluting and faint, tentative markings, like he’d been trying out ideas before committing to them. “I’m carving you a miniature of the Celystra, for a souvenir,” he said with a grin.

  I punched him in the shoulder. “Oh! You’re very amusing. When winter’s over, maybe Lyll can find you a post with a troupe of traveling —” I stopped, staring at the carving. Among the random sketches on the back, one thing stood out. Scratched in the wood was a long, thin arrow, etched inside an oval.

  Suddenly I was freezing. I turned the piece around and showed it to the prince, my finger on the symbol.

  “What is this?” My voice was faint.

  Wierolf scowled. “I don’t know. I keep seeing it, whenever I get flashes of — that day at Olin. Why?”

  “Because I’ve seen this symbol before,” I said. I reached into my dress and fished out the onyx rings. “On two dead men, and one living man with a serious grudge against Sarists.”

  Wierolf turned the rings over in his fingers, his brows drawn taut together. “Where did you find these?”

  “They were on the avalanche victims. Does it have something to do with the men who attacked you?”

  “I — maybe. I can’t remember. The avalanche victims?” Wierolf’s frown intensified. He looked like his head hurt. “I don’t understand.”

  But I did. For the first time, I understood every thing, and it was so sickeningly, perfectly obvious. “I have to go,” I said, getting to my feet.

  “What? Go where? Digger!” Wierolf said. But I was already gone.

  I flew up the little passage and hauled myself into the empty stillroom and out into the hallway. In the servants’ stair, I dug through my hidden stash for the hunting map I’d taken first from Antoch’s and then Daul’s rooms. I unrolled it on the stairs. Where — where was it? There — about a day’s ride northeast of Bryn Shaer was a marking for what looked like a good-sized country house, in the midst of a forest labeled Miniver, Stag, & Grouse. Olin.

  Two people had told me that the hunting was good at Olin this time of year.

  The prince, who had been hunting stag.

  And Remy Daul. Who never hunted. And yet wore a huntsman’s ring.

  Somebody claiming the name Huntsmen says they’ve offed him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  For a moment I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop staring at the name on the map. Good hunting at Olin. The rings. The sovereign he’d paid me with. His utter lack of surprise over Wierolf’s death warrant. No, little mouse, that’s not news. An order to kill the prince wouldn’t seem like news to the man who’d already carried it out.

  Somehow I was on my feet again. I had to find Lyll. Daul surely didn’t know he’d failed. The “avalanche victims” must have been his accomplices; had he dispatched them too, while crossing the Breijarda Velde to Bryn Shaer? Grabbing the rings and the map, I banged up the stairs to Lady Lyll’s rooms.

  She swung the door open to my frantic knock. I pushed inside.

  “Celyn, what on earth’s the matter? You’re white as milk.”

  “Daul tried to kill the prince.” There wasn’t any other way but blurting it out. My shaking hands dumped the map and rings on the rug, and Lyll bent to retrieve them. “It’s not safe — we have to move him.”

  “What’s this?” Lyll asked, an edge of concern in her calm voice.

  I tried to nick a little of that calm for myself. Taking a deep breath, I started again. “I think that Lord Daul is responsible for the attempt to assassinate Prince Wierolf.”

  A little of the color leached from Lyll’s face, and she rose and clicked her door shut, pointing to a low bench. “Sit. Explain.”

  I obeyed, while Lyll examined the map and rings, her expression growing sharper when I got to the avalanche victims in the tunnels.

  “He must be one of these Huntsmen that the rumors are about,” I said. “He called the ring a token of his commitment to something — and if he’s already killed his accomplices . . . Milady, Wierolf isn’t safe here.”

  “This is very disturbing,” Lyll said slowly. “What made you . . . look into this?”

  I wanted her to be brisk and decisive, sweep through the halls of Bryn Shaer and somehow whisk Wierolf to safety, but instead she was cautious. I could tell she was tracking back over my movements of the last few weeks — my perpetual lateness, my pointed questions, my late-night wanderings, my discovery of the prince. She’d convinced herself that I was just impetuous and curious, but now she’d be reconsidering her assessment of me. And she’d get to the truth.

  I searched for the words to explain. “Your ladyship, I — I find things.”

  “You find things,” she echoed. “I had noticed. Is it too much to hope that finding is all you’ve done?” When I couldn’t answer, she pursed her lips. “I see. So besides spying on Lord Daul, what other things have you ‘found’?”

  I made a strangled sound. How many masks did Tiboran expect me to shed all at once? “Not on him, milady,” I said. “For him.”

  She drew back. “Ah.”

  “Lady Lyllace, please. I didn’t know he was going to turn out to be —” I faltered and gave up. Daul had shown me what he was the day I met him. The only surprise had been how I had come to feel about the Nemair. “I’m sorry. He’s been collecting information to send to the Inquisition.”

  Lyll nodded slowly and crossed the room. “We know,” she said finally.

  “You know?”

  She opened a locked compartment behind a drawer in her spice chest. “We’ve intercepted one of his messages. It was in code, so we have no idea what it says, but the Gerse address is a false one known to be used by His Majesty’s spies. We made a copy, but had no choice but to let it go through. We slipped it back among the other messages before Berdal rode out. At least we’re aware of him now.” She took a folded paper from the chest.

  There were a dozen q
uestions I wanted to ask. “How long have you known about him?” I finally managed.

  “I’ve wondered for some time, but it’s only been since Berdal left with the mail that there’s been anything concrete to confirm my concerns. We read all the messages before they left Bryn Shaer, and we recognized the address. That’s one of the reasons Antoch took Daul with him this week — to keep an eye on him, somewhere he couldn’t do any more harm.”

  “Milady, I — I don’t know what to say,” I said honestly. “This is all my fault, and —”

  “I can’t pretend to be pleased by this news, Celyn,” Lyll said crisply. “But I have to suspect there was some fairly significant pressure brought to bear to . . . encourage your cooperation.”

  I nodded unhappily. “But what about the prince?” I said. “We have to do something, before Daul discovers that he’s failed.”

  Lyll was grim, pacing between the chest and the bench. “Normally I would agree with you, of course. But, Celyn, he’s not well enough to ride, and I’m afraid there’s nowhere nearby to send him safely, and no one I trust, for that matter. I don’t know what we can do.”

  “Then at least give him some guards or something!” I sounded desperate.

  She considered this. “Good, yes. We have a little time, I hope. I will try to come up with alternate arrangements for His Highness before Daul returns and becomes an — urgent threat. But in the meantime, Celyn, I must ask you not to see the prince again.”

  I recognized the iron — the disappointment in her voice. “I understand, milady.” There was so much I wanted to explain, to make her under stand, but all my explanations would sound false. Lyll would never trust me again.

  She was still holding the paper from the spice chest, folding it and refolding it in her hands, and I caught a glimpse of the contents — a collection of symbols and numbers that seemed oddly familiar. “Milady, may I see that?”