by Jenna Glass
Once upon a time, Alys had had her own suite of rooms in the palace—rooms that had been kept ready for her throughout her marriage. Delnamal had, of course, had those rooms stripped bare, their contents burned or sold. Alys knew Kailee had been tasked with refurnishing and redecorating the suite for her, and though she would never have said so out loud, she experienced some trepidation as to what she would find. Kailee’s lack of eyesight didn’t concern her—Kailee had a lifetime’s experience compensating—but her bold, impish, youthful spirit led Alys to worry the suite might be too garish and modern for her own more staid tastes. But from the moment she first stepped into the anteroom, she saw she needn’t have worried.
Honor—having entered the room close on Alys’s heels so that she could immediately begin directing footmen where to put Alys’s cases—clucked her tongue. Alys grimaced to realize her relief was written so clearly on her face, and she and her lady’s maid shared a rueful smile.
Alys walked from room to room as the footmen continued to carry in her baggage and was pleasantly surprised to see that Kailee had somehow managed to retrieve some of her old things from wherever Delnamal had sent them off to. There was an overstuffed armchair in the parlor by the fireplace that Alys had loved to curl up in to read, and a dainty escritoire inlaid with golden roses, and even a beautifully detailed silken rug that her stepmother had always heartily disapproved of for having far too much red in it to be strictly proper in a princess’s bedroom. The new furniture and decorations Kailee had chosen matched the style of the pieces she had miraculously retrieved, and though the room no longer looked as she remembered it, it still instantly felt like hers. The thoughtfulness made her eyes tear up for a moment.
Alys tried to stretch some of the kinks out of her neck and back as soon as the footmen retreated, but there was only so much stretching her stays would allow, and she yearned to get out of them.
“We can leave the bulk of the unpacking for tomorrow,” she told Honor. “For now, let’s just find my nightdress and dressing gown.” Both her body and her mind yearned for sleep, although she felt certain the welter of emotions within her would keep sleep at bay for a long time if she didn’t avail herself of one of the sleeping potions she’d brought with her.
Honor frowned at her. “Surely you plan to pay your respects to your brother before taking to your bed?”
Alys frowned back, her stomach giving a nervous flutter. She had spoken to Tynthanal many times since he’d come to Aaltah to serve as regent, but that wasn’t the same as coming face-to-face with him. Talking with him via flier, it had been easy to forget—or at least pretend to forget—the troubles that had come between them when she’d refused to let him marry Chanlix. She did not imagine that pretense would be possible in person.
“Surely it’s too late at night to trouble him now,” Alys said, although she knew that her own duties in Women’s Well generally kept her up a good deal later than this.
Honor clucked her tongue again, sounding very much like a disapproving mother. “Is that why you spent so much time seeing to the disposition of the caravan?” she asked. “So that you could put off facing your brother for one more day?”
The guilty flush that heated Alys’s face made a denial pointless. There were so many scars eating away at her soul, and sometimes she lacked the will to pick at them. She lowered her gaze to the rug and chose not to answer.
It was possible Honor would have scolded her—she had known Alys far too long to hold her tongue despite the difference in their stations—but whatever she was about to say was forestalled by a knock on the anteroom door.
Honor gave her a droll look as Alys’s heart suddenly tripped over itself in panic, for they both knew there was only one person likely to come looking for her at this time of night.
“Seems the decision is being taken out of your hands,” Honor said as she went to open the door.
Alys had to bite her tongue to stop herself from calling Honor back. But surely she was not such a coward as to run from her own brother, no matter what difficulties lay between them.
After gracing Tynthanal with a curtsy, Honor slipped from the room without a backward glance, and Alys was left alone with the brother who had been her best friend for most of her life.
The months Tynthanal had spent as Prince Regent of Aaltah had aged him. There were strands of gray in his dark hair, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes—crinkles she would previously have termed laugh lines—were deeper and more plentiful. It was also abundantly clear that his duties inside the palace had curtailed or even eliminated altogether his daily training regimen. His usually nut-brown skin had faded to the color of tea with too much milk in it, and he had grown…well, not fat, but at the very least stout.
Somehow, when they’d been speaking via talker, either the subject matter of their conversations or the small size of his projected image had caused her to miss all these signs, and she found herself surprised to be faced with a little brother who for the first time in his life looked his age.
Tynthanal’s regard was as measured and assessing as her own. She saw his eyes sweep over her from head to foot as the corners of his mouth tugged downward in a hint of a frown. She raised her chin defiantly, sure he was going to tell her what he thought of her continued mourning blacks. She had seen that frown more than once when they’d spoken via talker, and she braced herself for the disapproval she was sure was coming.
But instead, Tynthanal spread his arms. “We are not so estranged that we cannot greet each other with hugs, are we?” he asked.
Tears suddenly stinging her eyes, Alys hurried into his arms. “I’ve missed you so,” she croaked, the admission escaping her lips before she had a chance to think better of it. And threatening to let everything else she was thinking and feeling bubble up out of control.
“And I you,” he said, and it didn’t even sound forced. He broke the hug and smiled down at her tiredly. “I’m sorry for all the turmoil I put you through,” he said, his hands squeezing her shoulders. “I acted like a spoiled child, and I took out my anger at the situation on you when I knew full well you were doing the only thing you could.”
Alys’s throat closed up, and she found herself incapable of speaking. He had apologized to her before he had left Women’s Well, assuring her that he understood that it had been her duty to arrange his marriage to Kailee. But he had also made it clear that understanding it and accepting it were two different things. She hardly dared allow herself to hope that maybe now he had finally come to forgive her.
Alys cleared her throat, although her voice came out hoarse all the same. “I’m sorry, too.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You were in the right, I was in the wrong. Now, how fares your lady chancellor? She tells me she’s doing well, but then she would likely say so whether she was or not.”
Alys let some of her tension out on a long sigh before answering with a fond smile. “She is doing an extraordinary job of juggling her duties as a mother with her duties as a member of the royal council. There is some grumbling occasionally,” she admitted, for Tynthanal would never believe that even Women’s Well would adapt with great ease to having a single mother serve as the second-highest-ranking person in the whole principality. “But overall, everyone is adapting well. When I told my council she would be regent while I was gone, they all seemed to take it as a given.” Which, of course, it would be if Chanlix were a man.
“And your daughter…” She smiled faintly at the image of her little niece. “She has charmed the members of the royal council one by one. I do hope we can arrange for you to meet her in person when this is all over.”
Tynthanal closed his eyes and nodded, but they both faced the future with a healthy dose of doubt. There was still far too much strife on the horizon, far too much death and destruction and uncertainty…
&nbs
p; “Let us hope so,” Tynthanal said, then swiftly changed the subject. “I’ve arranged for Corlin to have leave tomorrow so that he may come and spend some time with you before…” He shrugged. “Just before.”
Alys took a shaky breath, trying hard not to think about the possibility that it might be the last time she and her son saw each other. Corlin would be going into battle, and she…Well, even if no one else believed it, she was still convinced it was her fate to die defeating Delnamal.
“Thank you,” she said. Her voice came out tight with anxiety and dread. “How much…How much does he know?”
His eyes narrowed. “You mean have I told him you’ve come to Aaltah ‘just in case’ you need to slash your own wrists to defeat Delnamal?”
She fought the urge to look guiltily away. He had already made his disapproval and disagreement abundantly clear. And yet he had not forbidden her to come, which told her that he did not think her interpretation of Leethan’s dream quite as ridiculous as he claimed. She met his flashing eyes with an unblinking stare. Tynthanal grunted and backed down, looking away and scrubbing a hand through his hair.
“Of course not,” he said. “There are only a select few who’ve been told about Leethan’s dream, and Corlin is most definitely not one of them. I don’t like keeping that particular secret from him, but he hardly needs that worry when he’s likely to get his first taste of battle.” He held up his hands to forestall anything she might say. “He and the rest of the youngest cadets will be kept well away from the fighting if at all possible, but we have to be realistic in our expectations.”
She nodded her reluctant acceptance, though she still wished heartily that Corlin were just a little less brave and honorable and had left Aaltah when he had the chance.
Tynthanal reached out and put his hands on her shoulders, his fingers squeezing so hard it almost hurt. “Promise me you aren’t planning to throw your life away,” he urged. “If not for my sake, then at least for Corlin’s. He’s suffered enough loss already.”
She winced slightly, for in all her planning for the battle that was to come, she had not once allowed herself to think of the aftermath, of how Corlin would feel if he survived and learned she had given her own life, that she had known she would die and had not told him. But as much as her actions might hurt him, she could not allow his pain to stay her hand.
Raising her chin, she once more met her brother’s eyes. “I promise you I will not throw my life away. If I sacrifice myself, it will be because all other hope is lost.”
Tynthanal closed his eyes and lowered his head in a gesture that signified both acceptance and dread.
* * *
—
Despite a distinct lack of leisure time—and privacy—Corlin had spoken to his mother several times via talker since he had arrived in Aaltah, but somehow the prospect of seeing her in person did not compare. He had spent all of the previous night tossing and turning in his bed, trying to anticipate what the reunion would feel like, and rehearsing what he would say.
When Corlin had left Women’s Well, he’d been very angry with his mother. Not for exiling him—that decision he well understood after he’d almost killed Smithson—but for the role she had played in Jinnell’s death. His anger with his mother had been no more logical than his anger with himself—neither one of them could possibly have anticipated what would happen, nor could they have prevented it—but knowing that had failed to quench the flame of his ire.
During the long and sleepless night, he had searched the depths of his soul, examining what remained of the anger. Once, it had been a living, breathing being residing just under his skin, ready to spring into action at the slightest provocation. He still sensed it lurking there, but it was much more deeply buried and harder to provoke. Even Cadet Justal had not goaded it to the surface in the months since Rafetyn had taken Corlin’s punishment, and it was not for lack of trying. Surely if he could let go of his anger enough to tolerate Justal’s abuses, he could find it in his heart to forgive his mother.
It was mildly irritating that Tynthanal had sent a pair of honor guards to the Citadel to escort Corlin to the palace. It felt rather ridiculous to be flanked by honor guardsmen while he wore the uniform of the Citadel, but arguing would not do him any good. Outside the walls of the Citadel, he was Crown Prince Corlin, not Cadet Corlin, and protocol required he have an escort.
The trip through the Harbor District, up the cliffs on the risers, and through the royal palace passed in near total silence as Corlin brooded and mentally rehearsed. He could not say with any certainty that he knew what to expect. Would he be facing Sovereign Princess Alysoon, who hid behind a mask of court-trained composure? Would he face the terrified, weeping mother who had resisted letting him set foot in the Citadel in the first place? That prospect was nearly unbearable, and even thinking about it made guilt stir. He was convinced that staying to fight was the right thing to do, that it was his duty as a man and as a soldier. Even so, he could easily imagine how frantic with worry his mother must be. The grief of losing Jinnell had almost broken her, and he did not like to think of how tortured she must feel at the moment.
The first thing he noticed when he was admitted into his mother’s sitting room was that she was still dressed in deepest mourning in a gown of unadorned black. He’d seen when they’d spoken via talker last that she was still wearing black, but somehow he had hoped she would have put it aside by now, half a year after her official mourning should have ended. He quickly executed a formal bow, as required by protocol; however, protocol had less to do with it than a desire to hide his disapproving thoughts.
He lifted his head when he was sure he had his expression under control, and saw that his mother’s eyes were shining with suppressed tears, her hands clasped tightly together in front of her. Corlin had made no secret of how much he despised maternal hugs, and he could see the supreme effort she was making to restrain her natural instinct to sweep him into her arms.
Smiling tremulously, she shook her head. “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown!”
Shame stirred in his breast as he heard the anguish in her voice—anguish she was clearly trying hard to suppress. He had once thought it childish and below his dignity to allow his mother to hug him now that he was a grown man, but he suddenly realized that it was his refusal that had been childish. He crossed the distance between them and put his arms around his mother’s waist.
“Oh!” his mother gasped in surprise, and her answering hug was so fierce he could hardly breathe. He felt the fine tremors in her body and knew she was crying. It was all he could do not to cry himself, in large part because of all the pain he knew he’d caused her.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” he said as she pressed her head into his shoulder and wept openly. When had he become tall enough that his mother’s head was at the level of his shoulder? Maybe her surprise at his growth was not a mother’s exaggeration after all. “Sorry I’ve been such a terrible son.”
Still sniffling, his mother shook her head and pushed away from him, looking into his eyes. “Nothing could be further from the truth!” She forced a smile, though her eyes were still swimming. “You are far and away the best son I’ve ever had.”
She surprised a short laugh out of him, and something inside him unclenched. He had dreaded an emotional reunion, but it was not as unpleasant as he had imagined.
“I’m happy to hear that,” he answered, mirroring her smile momentarily.
Still smiling, she dabbed at her eyes and looked him up and down in wonderment. “Your father fretted that you would take after him in height and build,” she said, “but clearly he needn’t have worried. You are the spitting image of my father in his younger years.”
Corlin’s father had looked every bit of the scholar he was, and Corlin had to admit that before his latest growth spurt, he’d worried that his fellow cadets—except, naturally, Rafetyn—would quickl
y become too large and too strong for him to keep up.
“Life in the Citadel agrees with me,” he said, flexing his biceps so she could see how strong he’d grown from all the drilling.
Her smile remained in place, but he couldn’t miss the distress that shone in her eyes, and he cursed himself for bringing up his military service so soon. He braced for her onslaught of pleas to change his mind and leave for Rhozinolm and was pleasantly surprised when they didn’t come.
“I can see that,” she said. “And I hope you know that I’m proud of you.”
Corlin did a double take, for that was about the last thing he’d expected to hear. “You are?”
“Of course I am! Tynthanal has kept me updated on your progress.” Her smiled turned into an ironic grin. “I found his reports far more informative than yours.”
He looked down at his feet, ashamed of his reticence. He knew his mother, knew she’d have let their talker conversations carry on for hours on end if he’d only opened up to her. But he’d always been so aware of how unhappy she was with his decision to join the Citadel, and he’d told himself she would not be interested in the details of his service. He realized now that had been his own discomfort talking, for it was he who didn’t want to face the distress he imagined seeing in her face. Funny how facing the possibility of death in battle was changing his perspective.
“I guess I must beg your forgiveness again,” he said. “I had convinced myself you didn’t really want to hear about my life in the Citadel.”
She sighed and patted his shoulder. “I won’t lie and pretend I am pleased with the life you’ve chosen,” she said. “Especially when we are on the brink of war.” Her voice tightened, and he feared for a moment she would start crying again, but she quickly regained her composure. “But I can respect it. And I can be proud of you even while I’m terrified for you.”