Today, Jayson listened to Teak excitedly describe the new team of horses he had purchased.
“No more long walks here from the farm,” he said, a half-filled mug of steaming broth in his hand. “The trip will take a couple of hours now. I can come more often.”
“I’d like that,” said Jayson. He had finished his broth and was feeling relaxed after drinking the warm, savory liquid that Agnora had prepared for lunch. “Soon, maybe I could come visit you.”
Teak glanced up. “Do you really think so? Are you strong enough?”
Jayson shrugged. “Not today, of course, but maybe in another week or two. Would you mind?”
From the other side of the room, Dianis chimed in. She and Agnora were stripping Jayson’s bed of its sheets to wash at the river. They had already bundled up the blankets from Agnora’s makeshift bed and added Jayson’s to the pile.
“I think you should do more than visit,” said Dianis. “Why don’t you come stay with us?”
Her invitation took Jayson by surprise. He looked at Teak, who answered with a grin and a shrug. “We do have an extra room,” he said.
Jayson turned his eyes to Agnora, who gathered the dirty blankets into her arms with a grunt. “Why are you all looking at me?” she said as if she had heard nothing of the conversation.
Jayson tapped the rim of his mug with one of his claws. “What do you think, Agnora? Should I leave here and move in with Teak and Dianis?”
The old enchantress rolled her eyes at him. “If you’re worried about me, you shouldn’t be. I’ve lived alone for nearly thirty years.”
Jayson felt embarrassed. He hadn’t been thinking about Agnora. She’d been the one caring for him. He was pretty sure she didn’t need him for anything.
“Actually,” he said, “I was wondering if you thought I was ready.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Ready for what?”
“Ready to be on my own. Ready for the journey, to take care of myself.”
Agnora huffed loudly and then laughed. “You’re managing fine on your own now, or haven’t you noticed?” She turned to Teak. “I’ve never known a man to be so uncertain of himself.”
Jayson felt his face turn hot. “That’s not what I meant. I know I can manage,” he said, “but should I? Am I healed enough? Am I out of danger?”
Agnora’s expression softened, which surprised Jayson even more than her nastiness. She stepped over to him until the bundle in her arms was the only thing separating them.
“I’m afraid you will never be out of danger, Jayson,” she said. “But that shouldn’t stop you from doing what you know you must.”
As she continued out the cabin door, Dianis followed her. But first the younger woman stopped to give both Jayson and her husband a kiss on their cheeks. “Please consider it,” she told Jayson. “It’s time to move on.”
The door closed behind the women, and Teak and Jayson sat in silence for a few minutes. Teak finished off his broth, then stepped over to the hearth to refill it from the kettle.
“Dianis is right, you know,” Teak said at last. “It is time to move on. It’s been four months since Ashlin. You’re lucky to be alive. It’s truly astonishing how well you’ve healed. Agoran blood ought to be bottled and sold. You’d make a fortune.”
Teak held out his hand, and Jayson placed his own mug in it. Teak refilled it and handed it back.
“My body may have healed,” said Jayson, “but parts of me are still broken. Every time I close my eyes, I see the flames. I can still feel the heat on my skin even though there are no more scars. But I still can’t remember anything about that night. It’s as if someone cut it out of my brain with a knife, leaving only remnants behind.”
Teak sighed. “It might come back someday. Though maybe it’s better if it doesn’t. I see it too, and sometimes I can’t sleep because of it. Dianis still cries when she thinks I’m asleep.”
Jayson suddenly felt restless. He rose from the table, his legs still protesting, though he had much more control than he once had. He strode to the window and gazed out at the trees and the river.
“I could stay here forever,” he said.
Teak joined him and placed a hand on Jayson’s shoulder. “You could,” he said, “though you know you can’t.”
Outside, a lone raven flew across the sky with a loud caw. Jayson had to leave, he knew it. Agnora had taken him in, had nursed him back to health, and even forced him to become independent. He was deeply indebted to her, but he could not intrude on her hospitality any longer, though staying in this cabin, hidden away in these woods far away from the Vatéz, away from the memories of Ashlin, was exactly what he would prefer.
“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll come. Next week, bring me a horse. I don’t think I’m strong enough to make the trek on foot quite yet.”
Teak beamed with satisfaction. “Perfect. Dianis and I will have a room all ready for you.” He drank deeply from his mug and then smiled at Jayson again. “You’re doing the right thing. Besides, Agnora wants her bed back, and you know it.”
Teak laughed victoriously. Then he set his mug on the table and made for the door. “I’m going to tell Dianis. She’ll be very pleased.”
Once alone, Jayson again turned his attention to the window. The raven had landed on a tree branch and was preening its feathers. Jayson knew Teak was right of course, but something about his decision seemed completely wrong. No, it wasn’t about going to Teak’s place. He had felt a sense of unease since he had first awoke in this cabin. It was more than the shattered images of Ashlin, more than the absent memories. It was a deep, empty pit in his soul, as if a part of him was missing.
20
“You’re a lucky young woman.” The man’s voice was kind and sensitive. He patted Ivanore’s arm reassuringly. “If I had arrived an hour later, you might have lost the baby.”
Ivanore blinked open her eyes. The man hovering over her was old with a graying beard and compassionate eyes.
“There now,” he said to someone standing behind him. “I told you she’d be all right. The bleeding has stopped, and the child is fine.”
Child? Ivanore wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. Had he said something about a baby?
Arik stepped into view, and the sight of him sent shivers through Ivanore. But there was nothing severe in his expression now, only sincere relief. The physician moved aside as Arik came to Ivanore’s side and wrapped one of her hands in his.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, smiling at her.
Ivanore wasn’t sure how to respond. How was she feeling? Afraid? Confused? At least the pain had gone.
“Better,” she managed to say.
Arik pulled up a stool and sat down. “Of all the times for me to be away. Fortunately, one of the servants had the wits about her to fetch a healer from the village.” He smiled again, but there was a look in his eyes, something akin to pleasure. Surely he could not have been glad she’d been ill.
“And from what the healer tells me, congratulations are in order.”
Ivanore felt a twinge of comprehension.
“You’re having a child, Ivanore. You’re going to be a mother again.”
Ivanore felt a sudden burst of joy, like a star had abruptly come into being inside her. Of course, she thought. The nausea. The pain. How hadn’t she known? She hadn’t bled since before she’d escaped. At first, she had simply lost track. Then she had assumed it was the weakness from traveling, the trauma of the attack. But the persistent sickness, surely that should have been a sign. But she had never been ill with either of her sons. If she really was pregnant now, this was different.
She thought of that one night of heaven she’d spent with Jayson before the Vatéz had descended on Ashlin, and her joy withered. She studied Arik’s beaming face, wondering what plot he was hatching now.
“How can my having a baby possibly be good news for you, Arik? Won’t this child pose another threat to your claim on our father’s throne? Isn’t that why
you hated my firstborn?”
She chose her words carefully. As far as Arik knew, Lord Fredric’s true heir, young Kelvin, had died. And he had no knowledge at all of her second son, Marcus.
Arik’s smile widened. “I guess you didn’t hear all of what the healer had to say about your condition. The life of your child hangs in the balance. You are weak, dear sister. Any exertion on your part could result in miscarriage. That means you will be cared for, watched over. For the next five months, you will not lift a finger.”
“Three months. Not five,” Ivanore corrected under her breath. “Agorans infants are born at seven months, not nine like humans. This child is Agoran.”
Arik’s expression tightened almost imperceptibly. “Half Agoran,” he said. “In any case, all your needs will be met. You are to stay off your feet. You are to rest.”
His focus on her sharpened, and Ivanore felt the stab of his words.
Arik didn’t care about the baby any more than he cared about anything except snatching a crown that was not rightfully his. To him, this child was a fetter to hold Ivanore captive. She would never endanger her own child. He knew it, and she knew it. He might as well have her locked in chains again.
Arik got up from his stool and called to a servant who brought him a goblet on a tray. “Cheers to you, Ivy, and to your offspring.”
He raised his glass and drank it down before setting the goblet back on the waiting tray. The servant nodded and backed away.
“Now, unless you had some secret intention of trekking through the forest again, hiding among quiet villages, or soliciting young boys to help you, if you want to keep this last memento of your dearly departed husband, you would be wise to stay here where you and your baby will be safe.”
Young boys?
Ivanore caught her breath as fear clutched at her heart. Not Bastien. Not the boy. She remembered the visions she had had of him months ago and the horrible scene she had witnessed when she had bled. She had hoped she would find some way to prevent that particular horror from occurring, but the realization that she had led Arik to Bastien, that it was she that had endangered him, made her sicker than she had ever felt before.
What had she done?
Her worry must have shown on her face, because Arik’s mouth turned down in mock disapproval. “Don’t feel so bad, dear sister. I promise you they died swiftly. Well not all of them. I left a few alive to tell the rest of Hestoria of their fate.”
Ivanore clenched her teeth as she fought back tears. “You’re a monster.”
Arik smiled again. “At least,” he said coolly, “I am human.”
He said this with a sharp, judgmental glare at Ivanore’s belly. Then he turned for the bedroom door. “You know, you ought to thank that young guard for saving your life. What was his name? Fred?”
To her shame, she hadn’t once thought of Fred. She’d been so preoccupied with the news of her pregnancy and Bastien’s end that the guard hadn’t even come to mind. She did owe him her life. If it weren’t for him, she might have bled to death. Though now she was wishing she had.
“Yes,” she forced herself to respond to Arik. “Yes, I will thank him the next time I see him.”
Arik shook his head and laughed. “Oh, when will you ever learn, Ivy, that when it comes to you, I will do anything to keep you where I want you? The idiot defied my direct orders. He left you alone.”
“He saved my life.”
“Either way, abandoning you here or standing by to watch you die, the consequence would have been the same.”
“What consequence?”
“The boy is dead, Ivy.” He said this with such pleasure that if Ivanore could have leapt from her bed to slash his throat she would have.
The boy is dead.
The boys are both dead. Bastien and Fred. And countless others—Bastien’s village, the Guardians, and so many more.
Ivanore ignored the nurse bustling beside her as she rolled to the wall and wept. Still, she slid her hands protectively over her belly. If there was just one person who would never be harmed because of her, it would be this child.
21
Is she all right?” Erland asked as Arik exited Ivanore’s room. He had waited in the hall while the healer had worked on her, the room too small for so many people. He had wanted to be at her side, to stroke her brow and console her through the pain. If only he had been there when she had become ill, he would have gone for the healer immediately, not dawdled as that guard and the servants had done. But he had been at Arik’s side, cleansing the village of Ulna.
Arik’s announcement that it was time to punish “the traitors” who had aided Ivanore in her escape came abruptly late one night. The sky was dark with storm clouds and the air was bitterly cold.
“Now?” Erland had asked, hardly believing what he was hearing. “But Ulna is two days’ march from here at best, and the weather is turning.”
Arik flexed his fingers in their leather gloves. “All the more reason to make haste.”
“But my men—”
His words were cut short by Arik’s sharp glare.
“Your men?”
“I’m sorry,” Erland said. “I only meant that a storm is coming. Making the men walk for so long in such conditions may lead to illness.”
But Arik would hear none of it. The storm, he insisted, would drive the villagers into the cottages. A visit from the Vatéz would be the last thing they expected.
Only Arik’s prediction proved wrong. Ulna had never grown complacent. The boy must have confessed his deeds to others, and they must have known the Vatéz would come for them—eventually. They met Erland’s soldiers in the road, weapons ready. Though outnumbered ten to one, the villagers fought valiantly to the very last man and woman.
But when he and Arik had found the boy in the field—
Even now, Erland tried to push the image from his mind. But that hadn’t been enough for Arik.
“Kill them.” He had spoken the words with cool precision, daring Erland to disobey him.
Erland gazed desperately at the boys’ younger siblings clinging to his body, crying. “But Minister—”
“Unless you want to lose your own head, Captain,” Arik continued, I command you kill them—now.”
And he had.
Even as his heart tore itself to pieces, he did as his superior ordered. His loyalty to the Vatéz, after all, was more important than his own conscience.
When he and his men were through, not a child was left breathing. Arik spared only two young women in order to tell the sad tale of Ulna’s fate.
The short journey home was a subdued one. Even Erland’s men had little to say amongst each other. It was as if they, too, had tired of the violence. But they followed the Minister, they followed Erland, unquestioningly—as good soldiers must.
When they arrived at Auseret, the castle was in chaos. Servants wringing their hands, calling on the Gods to have mercy on their souls. They feared Arik’s wrath once he discovered Ivanore’s condition, but fortunately the healer had done his part. She was in no immediate danger, and the baby—
The baby.
Erland ran his fingers through his hair. How foolish he’d been to think she might love him, if not now then someday. Of course, she didn’t love him. Couldn’t love him. The Agoran occupied her heart and mind completely. And now he occupied her body as well.
“Please tell me Ivanore is safe,” Erland said again, following Arik down the hall from Ivanore’s room. Arik seemed preoccupied, his eyes glazed over, his lips pressed into a thin, thoughtful line. Finally, Arik blinked and shot a brief glance at Erland.
“What? Oh, yes. She’ll be fine. But that’s not what’s troubling me.” Arik stopped abruptly to face his Captain of the Guard. “There are others,” he said impatiently. “Not all of the Guardians died on Ashlin. As you told me before, some escaped. They are hiding from me—in the forest, in villages. Scattered across Hestoria. Perhaps some have even fled to Imaness. Their existence mocks my autho
rity. Mocks the Ministry itself.”
Erland didn’t see how a few errant Guardians could have any effect on the Ministry, but Arik sounded resolute.
“We must root them out,” Arik continued. “We must leave no stone unturned.”
“We’ve tried that before,” responded Erland cautiously. The Minister seemed on edge, and he didn’t want to tip the balance. “Ralen-Arch was supposed to draw them out. It didn’t.”
“Ralen-Arch. Ulna. Do you really think Hestoria cares about two measly little farming villages? No. We must put the fear of the Gods into the land. You’ll take your men and interrogate every villager in every village. Those who refuse to submit will be punished. Anyone who comes forward with news that leads to a capture will be rewarded.”
“With what, Minister?”
“Gold. Silver. What does it matter? A few coins will change them all into turncoats.”
“And what should I do with the Guardians I find?”
Arik turned a piercing glare on Erland. “Kill them all. Every last one of them. And,” he added, drawing the fingers of his right hand into a tight fist, “any village that refuses to comply or that is found to have aided the Guardians will be crushed—like Ulna. Like Ashlin. Hestoria will run red with their blood.”
The torches in the wall sconces flickered as Arik strode past them down the hall. As Erland watched him go, he thought of Ivanore and the child she carried. What would Arik do with them? He had hoped Arik’s lust for blood would be satisfied after Ulna, but now Erland understood that the young Minister’s drive for power was limitless—and his own fate was inexorably woven in with Arik’s.
22
Brommel’s wagon slogged through mud and rain for several hours before finally reaching Lord Fredric’s celestine mine. The rain fell in cold, harsh sheets. He gathered the folded blanket he’d brought with him and climbed out of the wagon, shivering from the water trickling down his neck.
“I’m here for Arla Sotherby,” he told the guard in charge while drawing the scroll from under his cloak.
The Crystal Keeper BoxSet Page 28