Ninthborn (The Ninthborn Chronicle Book 1)

by J. E. Holmes

  He strode closer, the weapon at his side. Then he brought it forward, flipped it in his grip, and extended it to her. He touched her hand and guided it, adjusted her fingers on the grip. The leather was worn to the shape of Javras’s hand. When she held it, she felt herself slip into that shape, her fingers resting where his had rested. Not perfect, but comfortable. Oddly warming. A gale rushed through her at being so intimate.

  The sword was about as heavy as she’d thought it would be. It strained her arm, unaccustomed to using those precise muscles, but it was a good strain. It was like learning. With time, if time were allowed, it would become familiar and comfortable.

  She realized Javras’s hand was still on hers, and she lifted her arm away from him, raising the sword toward the river. The nervous activity in her chest didn’t cease.

  “How does it feel?” he said. He took some respectful steps away from her. Maybe because he realized that they had just shared an intimate moment. Maybe because he didn’t want her to accidentally geld him. She agreed with his wisdom.

  She took a careful hack with the sword, allowing its weight to carry her arm through the motion. It felt incorrect, ugly, but it still looked beautiful. The blade actually carved a path through the mist that she could follow with her eye for a moment before it reformed.

  “It feels marvelous,” she said. “Does every soldier in Ronrónfa carry a sword, or just the wealthy ones?”

  “You think I’m wealthy?”

  “Son of an emissary, and I know the cost of a sword.” More or less. “Are you going to answer my question?”

  “The sword is a weapon of discipline,” he said. “A spear can keep a foe at a greater distance, can keep a less experienced warrior safer. But all officers of the Queen carry a sword, wealthy or not.”

  She allowed herself a few more sweeps of the sword with one arm, then used her other hand to cover her first, and the sword felt lighter. Swinging with two hands was slightly more restricting, more awkward, but it also felt so much more powerful.

  “Are you an Officer of the Queen?”

  “I am not, just a sword enthusiast. Do you like it?”

  “I do.”

  “Would you like one of your own?”

  She spun so suddenly that she nearly lost her grip on the sword. Her Grace kept her from slipping on the wet mud—this time, thankfully—and she carefully took a moment to regain her composure. “Are you serious?” she said.

  “Yes.” He didn’t smile. His face was distant in the mist. She could just make out his eyes.

  “I . . . I’m not an officer of the Queen.”

  “That isn’t a requirement,” he said.

  “Yes, I suppose that makes sense.” She paused. “The exchange of personal items is a serious matter in Tithelk. If you gave me a gift such as this, it would mean . . . .”

  “Please, tell me. What would it mean?”

  “At the very least it would mean that you are declaring your interest in courting me. And by declare I mean scream it. It could be interpreted as serious pursuit or even . . . other intent.” She choked down the words a proposal and made them stay down. “I just . . . I don’t know what kind of relationship we have, Javras. I’ve only just met you.”

  Damn it, what a perfect opportunity squandered by her weak stomach and unchecked mouth. Let him court you, let him propose if he wants to, she shouted in her head. Do your part. Make an ally of him at any cost.

  “I could offer it to you here, now, and no one would know,” he said. “They wouldn’t be able to misinterpret facts of which they are unaware. The only ones who could tie meaning to it are you and me, and we could dictate that meaning.”

  “That’s probably true,” she said. Her chest swelled, her body felt weightless, her tongue tingled and stung with nervousness.

  “Would you like one?”

  “Very much,” she heard herself say before she could catch the words. “However,” she forced out. Her voice caught. “However,” she said again, “I think that gift—as deeply appreciated as it would be—should come at a later time. If it comes at all.”

  “Then I will retract my offer until that suitable time—if it comes.” His lips quirked upward, hesitantly. Nervously? It hadn’t occurred to her, with his smooth confidence, that he might ever be nervous, too.

  She breathed out, relieved. A moment of awkward quiet grew between them, and she offered the sword back to him without words. He took a step forward, accepted it, sheathed it, and took a step back. The quiet continued.

  “Seeing as how I have already overstepped considerable bounds, I—”

  “Are you confessing to looking up my skirt, Javras?”

  He spluttered. “N-no!”

  She poorly concealed a wide grin.

  “I was referring to the sword,” he said, straightening. The awkwardness was at least fractured now. She felt a deep satisfaction at flustering him. “Seeing as I have already overstepped the bounds of our new relationship, I was hoping I could ask you a naïve and possibly rude question.”

  “I love rude questions,” she said. “What is it?”

  “It is regarding your hair.”

  She glanced sideways at her drifting curls. “Ah, that.”

  “I don’t intend to say that it is unattractive, or that it doesn’t suit you. Quite the opposite, actually. But it is rather unique. Could you explain it to me?”

  She ran a hand through it on the right. The black—then almost white—waves of hair fell between her fingers and bounced around her shoulder. Then the left, where it was shorn close to her scalp.

  “My mother hails from Morelek,” she said. “Gray or silver or white hair isn’t uncommon. Any offspring of such a person will have at least a streak of it. To have a whole head full of it is considered incredibly favorable. Like my brother Ancil.”

  A moment passed, and then with a sharp realization, she added, “I mean, at least he has that going for him. Like I said, I love him anyway.” Ancil is supposed to be the ninth, she growled in her head, not me.

  “Well,” Javras said, “I think it suits you very well.”

  The mist thinned a bit, and she could make out the finer details of his face. Sometimes he seemed real, like the honest smile, like being embarrassed at her jabs, like chasing her through walkways. And times like now he seemed so intense that she could hardly believe he was there.

  She cleared her throat. “Thank you for showing me the sword,” she said, “but I think we’ve been delayed long enough here. After you, Sesér.” She made a sweeping gesture to the ladder.

  He climbed fast, but she had no trouble keeping up. At the top, he politely waited while Ediline closed and locked the gate. Once the latch had turned, she felt a tremor underfoot. Someone was coming.

  It wasn’t rare for visitors to be brought around this way to see the vista behind the manor, or for stewards or maids to come round to avoid busier areas. She hooked Javras’s elbow and tried to tug him away from the tremor, but he stood rigidly and she only managed the tiniest budge. She peeked over his shoulder, at which point all the blood must have fled her body for safer ground, because she felt terribly dizzy and had to hold onto him. Nervousness caught in her throat.

  Approaching, flanked once more by his elite guards, strode her father.

  Alongside King Maxen, among the guards, was Ancil. Upon seeing Ediline—and, likely, Javras—Ancil spoke a quick word then turned around. Ediline remained frozen. Her limbs were just stuck. She wanted to hide but had nowhere to go.

  “Daughter,” King Maxen said, his voice low. “I did not expect to see you here.”

  She shuffled out from behind Javras. Her father’s guards backed away. There was still a whole length of a person between King Maxen and Ediline, but it felt too small a distance.

  “I was showing our esteemed guest around the manor,” Ediline said.

  “This corner is a poor choice,” her father rumbled.

  Do not tremble, do not cower. She forced her chest out, her head high,
chin up. She had to believe she was the eighth child, likely heir to the throne. It was a difficult lie to swallow, but she’d watched Ancil for years, the easy confidence he exuded.

  “Javras expressed interest in the lesser known areas—”

  “Such as a secret escape route, behind a locked gate.”

  She did not flinch. “I had not informed him of its purpose.”

  “Of course not.” His small, dark eyes were full of distrust.

  “We have nothing to fear from our friends,” she said.

  “By the light of the Lords, may that continue to be so,” King Maxen said. “I know you understand how important it is for us to have friends, daughter. We will be nothing without our allies.”

  Her legs were weak. Yes, she understood the weight of her task. She’d been shown what would happen if she failed, and her father knew it. Maybe he hadn’t sent Deffren after her directly, but she didn’t doubt that he had set Deffren upon that course by feeding on his cruelty.

  “Your Dominance,” said Javras. “I am honored to meet you.”

  King Maxen regarded him. “I hope my daughter is a passing escort.”

  “More than passing, Your Dominance, she has been quite gracious.”

  “I will not further interrupt her tour,” her father said, “save to say that it will not include a visit to our vaults, armory, or private records.”

  Ediline did not back away or bow her head in deference to her father. She was eighth for now. She behaved as she had seen Ancil behave. Confident but polite. “You may trust my discretion, Father,” she said.

  He glanced to the locked gate then held out his hand, palm up. Ediline hesitated, then retrieved the stowed key from under her shirt and set it in her father’s hand. He took it, gathered up his guard, and passed Ediline and Javras. As he walked away, she still felt the tremor of his footfalls in the floor. She couldn’t move. She didn’t budge for a minute or more, and then, when she did, she had to lean on the rail for support.

  “I was hoping to be more careful in arranging that meeting for you,” she said finally. She’d also hoped not to be present for it. Maybe fake sickness, perhaps some debilitating cramps, and hand Javras off to someone else.

  “He is all I’ve heard,” Javras said. There might have been an edge to his voice, like a clenched jaw, but it was gone before Ediline could look for it. “I didn’t expect him to treat you that way.”

  “That? That was nothing. You were here.” She tamped her mouth shut to keep from saying anything else, but it was too late. Javras wasn’t stupid. He would understand the implication. King Maxen had never once hit Ediline. She’d never transgressed so badly. But he mistreated her with his words, with his presence, and he permitted others to hurt her. She set her jaw and ran a hand across her face, smearing away the paint on her cheek. Pressing on the cut stung.

  “Ediline,” Javras said softly. He was too close to the truth. She could feel him near it, hovering in the quiet dark, and she was smothered by the sudden and desperate need to conceal it. Maybe he would believe that even the eight-born could be abused by her father. It burned her; she was not ashamed of who she was—except here, except now that she was the eighthborn and a liar.

  “There’s a secret door,” she said, her voice even. “Behind the throne. It leads here.”

  He blinked. “I don’t think you should have told me that.”

  She didn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t care,” she said.

  “Princess, your face—”

  “Your compliments are wasted on me, Javras.”

  “I could exhaust myself with words describing you,” he said, “but that isn’t what I was going to say. Is that from your fall earlier? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “No,” she said. “But like I said, I’m too adventurous for my own good. I run too fast and I jump too far, and sometimes I make mistakes.” She gently touched the cut.

  A swollen pause followed. There was no way he didn’t understand her implication. Even as an eighthborn, things were not perfect. She was not perfect. It might hurt her effort to forge an alliance, but it might not, and she didn’t care. She was sick with the lies already, and maybe this small partial truth would endear her to him. She was human. Even as the eighthborn, and even as the ninthborn, if he were ever allowed to know the truth.

  He raised his hand toward her shoulder but didn’t rest it there. Ediline listened to the soft rush of the river below and the quaking of her own chest. After a moment, Javras let his hand touch her arm. She covered it with hers and held it there, a tender embrace from a safe distance, the comforting touch of someone close to seeing the real her.

  — Chapter 4 —

  “The Lords excelled as benevolent leaders because of their balance. A Lordly ruler should possess in equal parts the eight virtues of the Lords—Presence, Focus, Insight, Resolve, Acuity, Might, Resilience, and Grace. What he lacks Inherently he must recoup through effort and the good council of others.”

  —The Words of the Lords, ed. ix

  Sladt remained busy deep into the night, but Ediline knew its business only from the outside. She had always been shooed from playing inside the manor as a child, and her house was too far from the political center of Sladt to notice the activity. At most she overheard scandalous meetings in the lesser known corners. By sundown, her part of the manor was quiet.

  So she was nervous that night when she pushed open the doors to Sladt’s North Wing. Only those involved in governing were permitted to enter. A huge man with a long-bladed spear of bone and wood crossed her path. This was Thule. He liked to throw Ediline out of the building whenever he got the chance. He would not today.

  “No no,” he said. His voice was deep as a growl, even though he spoke with poise. “Princess, I do not want to get into anything with you today.”

  “Is my father really in such a foul mood?” she said lightly, batting her eyes and shifting her shoulders.

  Thule sighed, rubbing at the side of his head with one idle hand. She read him easily, the stress playing at the sides of his face. He was looking to vent. Maybe he would let her in, if she listened.

  “You have no idea,” he said. “He is furious with you, even though he isn’t saying anything about it.”

  “What? Why?” Because she had shown Javras the back of the manor? Or simply because King Maxen had crossed paths with her, had been forced to look at her, had been forced to acknowledge that she existed? Lords, he had never wanted her. It shouldn’t have, after all this time, but that fact cut a deep, bloody gash in her. “Never mind,” she said. She was an expert at disguising hurt. “I know exactly why.”

  “Listen, Princess,” Thule said. “I enjoy hauling you out of the building. It’s a treat for me. One of my favorite things. But this is for your benefit. Stay out tonight.”

  She blinked and cocked her head. She could feel her eyebrows coming together. Her casual act broke and fell apart. “Why? What would happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “So you don’t hate me?”

  He shrugged. “You’re annoying. I don’t like being around you. But . . . .”

  “You pity me. It’s all right to say it.”

  He shrugged again. It was a way of saying yes that’s right without coming out and admitting to the disrespect. “You didn’t choose to be the way you are, to take after the Traitor. And you’re still a princess, too.”

  “Thule,” she said with sincerity, “I’m touched.”

  He turned hard, dark eyes on her, looming far over her. “So listen to me this once and scamper off.”

  “I need to talk to my mother.”

  “Send a request,” he said. “You shouldn’t be around tonight. His Dominance is in a poor mood.”

  She looked past him, to the narrow hall that he blocked. She couldn’t see anything past the first branching halls, and she couldn’t hear anything past the typical murmur of activity.

  The door opened behind Ediline, and Thule stood at attention. Ancil stepped into vi
ew. He didn’t catch Ediline’s eye, looking away at the wall instead.

  “You may enter at your will, Your Brilliance,” Thule said.

  “No,” Ediline interrupted. “I’ve had enough.” She grabbed Ancil by his finely tailored silk collar and barreled back through the open doorway with him in tow. She was stronger than he was, and he knew it enough not to resist.

  On the heavy timber walkway outside, in the cooling night, she released her brother. He dusted himself and carefully closed the door to the north wing. He cleared his throat as if to speak, and then said nothing. He still wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Ancil and Ediline were physically alike. He was tall, thin, fair-featured, and bright-eyed. He had a slender neck, narrow shoulders and chest, and long legs. The both of them benefited so much from their mother that neither much resembled their father.

  “Ancil, what’s going on?” she said. She sounded more desperate than she wanted to. Ancil was the one person for whom it seemed her Presence just vanished. She had always been so comfortable with him that she had never felt the need to put on a face. Growing up, he’d been her best friend.

  He said nothing. Had something happened to him? Was he injured or sick and couldn’t speak? She reached out and thwapped him on the forehead.

  “Ow!” he squeaked. “What was that for?”

  “Good, you still have your tongue.”

  “Ediline . . . .”

  “Please, Ancil, tell me what is happening. I have vague instructions from Betrys, I’ve been threatened by Deffren, I’m supposed to play your role while you play mine—I just don’t understand why.”

  He tucked his chin low against his chest and looked away. “It isn’t simple.”

  “No, I gathered that, mostly by the fact that the whole town knew about it before I did, and some people are talking about me marrying this man.”

  Ancil cocked his head. “Would you?”