by Sarah Dalton
He had sent soldiers to make sure that the workers were treated well, he thought resentfully. He was doing all that could be asked of him. The Gardens of Anios were not his invention, after all.
He was lost in his thoughts when Lord Tinian approached him with a smile. “Prince Luca, I am pleased to say that your sister has been found.”
“Where was she?” Luca had spent the day in increasing worry. Even Carolina did not seem to know where Serena had gone, and it was unlike her to miss council meetings. As far back as Luca could remember, Serena had been very careful about all of her duties.
As they still were not sure how Stefan had escaped Nesra’s Keep, they were worried that perhaps Serena had been abducted. As the hours had passed and no ransom note arrived, Luca’s fear had only grown. He was supposed to be the king soon, and his family was not safe in their own castle.
“It would seem she went out into the city,” Lord Tinian said. He spoke carefully, as if to gauge Luca’s reaction to his words before offering any personal opinion on the matter. “She brought medicine to one of the plague hospitals and stayed to tend to the patients.”
Luca stared at him open-mouthed. Serena would never do such a thing. Carolina was the one who would go running off into the city without any thought for the consequences, but Serena had always been well-behaved to a fault. Indeed, when they were younger, it had been Serena who lectured Luca on his posture and his etiquette.
Now he was to believe that she had gone into the city without telling anyone? And how had Tinian been informed of this before Luca had?
He cleared his throat. “I see.”
Lord Tinian’s brows rose fractionally. “You must be concerned, Your Highness.”
“My sister is a careful woman,” Luca said. “I am sure if she went into the city, she made a plan so she would be safe. She took guards. I must simply have missed her message to me, telling me where she was going. She has been working with you on plans to cure the plague, after all.”
Lord Tinian hesitated. “May I walk with you, Prince Luca?”
Luca nodded and allowed Lord Tinian to fall in beside him. The Xanti councillor considered his words carefully before he spoke.
“I am told that the princess Serena made a speech,” he said finally. “It was very cleverly done. She worked at the hospital for the day, pretending to be a servant to one of the ladies at court, and then she revealed her true identity to the patients and the nurses.”
Luca frowned. This did not sound like Serena. He did not remember her being the type to make dramatic gestures.
“Apparently, she spoke well of your efforts to bring peace and health to the country,” Lord Tinian said.
Luca smiled tightly. He wished other people would stop assuring everyone that he was going to be a great king. The thought of it made him want to throw up. He was not sure he could do the things they kept saying he could do. Could he defeat Stefan? Could he cure the plague?
Then he realised Lord Tinian was trying to tell him something without saying it aloud. Luca sighed. He hated himself for asking, but he was too tired and too frustrated to play guessing games. “What is your concern, Lord Tinian?”
Lord Tinian sighed regretfully. “Perhaps it is nothing,” he suggested. “However, Princess Serena is beautiful and very charming. We know that Stefan considered her a threat to his throne.”
“She was a threat to his throne,” Luca pointed out. “You were backing her as well as me.”
Tinian gave a little shrug, entirely unconcerned. “Princess Serena was a strong contender for the throne. Though she is, of course, a woman, she is known to be very knowledgeable about political matters, and she bargained with us very astutely regarding the medicine. When we learned you were alive, of course, it was a different matter, but she was inarguably a better choice for the throne than your brother Stefan.”
Luca regarded the lord carefully but could not decide if this was a threat. If Serena was inarguably a better choice than Stefan, did that mean she was a better choice than Luca? Was it only that she was a woman that kept the Gold Council and the nobles from backing her instead?
Tinian studied him gravely. “Though she spoke well of you in her speech, Prince Luca, I fear the speech set her off to rather more effect than it did you. The whispers in the city are that the princess came to visit them, that she was not afraid to walk among them, that she tended to them with her own hands. Those whispers do not mention you.”
“That would not be her intent,” Luca argued.
“Of course.” But there was a faint, sardonic tilt to Tinian’s smile, as if he were asking if Luca was very sure that this was the case.
Abruptly, Luca was angry. He was doing everything he could to make sure that the people of Estala had a cure for the plague, and he was the one who was being blamed for keeping the Gardens of Anios open so that the medicine could be made—but Serena was the one who got the praise for all of it. It was not fair, he thought.
His anger emboldened him.
“Lord Tinian,” he said. “I wanted to speak to you about your picks for the generals.”
Lord Tinian looked over at him curiously.
“Though we agree on the appointment of Lord Essad,” Luca said, “I had chosen others, including Lord Rokkan, to lead my armies.”
“I took the liberty of replacing them,” Tinian said. Again, he seemed to have no shame about his meddling in Estalan matters. “Lord Rokkan is not known to be a friend to Xantos.”
“That is of no consequence in a general,” Luca argued. “I chose Lord Rokkan because he is well-respected by the soldiers, and he is very competent. He will not be fighting the Xanti, Lord Tinian. We are allies. He will be fighting my brother.”
“I am afraid the Gold Council cannot take that risk,” Tinian said. He managed to sound regretful, but Luca knew it was only an act. “We must protect our interests, Prince Luca. Installing military leaders hostile to our nation is something we cannot allow.”
“Lord Rokkan is not hostile to Xantos,” Luca said.
“Prince Luca, you must understand that this is no more than a matter of business.” Lord Tinian spoke patronizingly now, as if Luca were a small child throwing a tantrum.
Luca clenched his hands. He felt like a small child, and he was frustrated by it. How had this conversation gone so wrong? “I am going to be the king,” he said, and he hated the way his voice sounded. “I made my choices for the generals.”
Lord Tinian stopped walking.
“Prince Luca,” he said, and this time there was a faint stress on the word “prince”. “I hope you will remember how you came to be here in Nesra’s Keep, awaiting your coronation. A gesture of goodwill was made by the Gold Council. It allowed you to take Reyalon, which you would not have been able to do otherwise. I think you know this. It was a significant investment, Your Highness. The Gold Council will not take risks now that it is time for repayment.”
He bowed, but not deeply, and left.
Luca stared after him. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, and he could not think of any words to say. He hurried back through the gardens and into his chambers, then ripped his circlet off to throw it across the room.
He was no king.
“Your Majesty.” Josef spoke from the darkness, and he stepped out of the shadows a moment later. “You are perturbed. Was it Lord Tinian who angered you?”
Luca only gave him a look as he sat. He went to pour himself some water and then stopped and reached for the wine instead.
He took a sip, but it tasted like nothing to him. When he returned to the Gold Port from his months in the Menti training camp, he had been eager for luxury. Now it was all beginning to sour. Reva had run from the banquet the other night, the gold circlet did nothing to give him any true power, and all he wanted right now was a good, plain meal of dates and water.
“You know why Lord Tinian fears you, do you not?” Josef asked him.
Luca set the cup down. “Lord Tinian does not fear me.
He does not respect me, either.”
“Oh, he fears you. Any human without powers fears a Menti—and any ruler without powers fears a Menti king.” Josef’s face was inscrutable, and his eyes were like pits in the darkness. “As they should.”
“I am nothing,” Luca said. “I am a fire wielder, as common as a copper coin.” He echoed his father’s words, and Stefan’s, bitterly. “Stefan is a dragon. What is my fire next to dragon-fire?”
“Prince Luca, you do not know what you are capable of.” Josef smiled. “Come, we will train.”
“What is the point?” Luca asked, though he stepped back as Josef began to draw his sigils on the floor. “I cannot defeat Stefan.”
“You are wrong,” Josef told him. There was a hard glint in his dark eyes. “Your brother is weak in many ways, and you are strong. Come, stand in the circle and build the flame. This time, make it a column as tall as you are. Make it as hot as you can.”
Luca stood reluctantly in the circle of runes Josef had drawn. He held his hands before him, but he was miserable, and the flames he built did not go very high. In fact, they sputtered out within a moment.
He dropped his hands and stared dully at Josef.
“I am not meant to be the king. I am a Menti, but a weak one. I am a royal child, but again, I was the weak one. My sister should take my place.”
Josef curled up one hand into a fist and shook it at Luca. “Your sister is not the rightful heir. Stefan has proved himself incapable of leading Estala, and you are the eldest son after him.”
Luca did not bother to argue.
“Will you choose to fail, then?” Josef asked, raising his voice. “Did I choose wrongly in you, Prince Luca?”
“Why did you come to me?” Luca demanded.
“Because I saw you fight in the city!” Those little black eyes lit up as though they were aflame. “I knew your brother’s rumours were truth. Your mother had the power of fire as well, Prince Luca. Your sickness, Matias’s death—it was all part of a pattern. Matias was never meant to be the heir. You were. Stefan was weak. He wished to be surrounded only by those who would tell him he was meant to be a god reborn.” Josef’s lip curled, and then he narrowed his eyes at Luca. “But you—you went away, you learned to use your powers, and you came back with an army and fought your way to Nesra’s Keep. You had taken command of yourself. I knew you had a chance to save us from Stefan. Could Serena ever face him in battle? What powers does she have?”
Luca hunched his shoulders in a helpless shrug.
“So they try to put her in your place,” Josef said venomously. “Let them. You are the Fire King, Prince Luca. Lord Tinian seeks to control you. He seeks to keep you from learning how powerful you truly are. You must learn to control your powers. You must defeat your brother. You must become the king and rule. To do anything else is to choose to fail.”
Luca stared at him.
“They would see you dead in the street if they could,” Josef said, and Luca was afraid to ask who he meant. “Make yourself strong so they cannot. Try the column of flame again.”
This time, the flame blazed as it stretched nearly up to the ceiling, white-hot and swirling with Luca’s fury. He stared up at it with a grim satisfaction and barely heard Josef’s murmur.
“Good,” the mage said. “Very good.”
Reva
Night fell, and Reva sat miserably on the edge of one of the fountains. She had stayed in her rooms all day like a petulant child, not speaking to Luca or to Sam and Carlia. She knew the other two were worried about her, but she could not face them and tell them that she had been wrong about Luca.
Sam would be glad. She was annoyed and pleased by that in equal measure. She had seen the way Sam had looked at the fine clothes and the gold circlet when Luca greeted them at the gates. Perhaps he, like Reva, had been expecting the same gentle boy Luca had once been.
She knew what Carlia would say to all of this: that Reva should reason with Luca. Carlia would say it was Reva’s duty to lead Luca back to the boy he had once been so he would shut down the Gardens of Anios and help the Menti. But Reva did not want to reason with Luca. She felt too betrayed by his choice to keep the camps open. The look on his face when he told her had shown her that he knew how wrong his choice was.
She was trailing her fingers through the water when she heard footsteps. Who would it be? One of Luca’s friends, perhaps? or the Xanti Lords, or—
“Brother Axil,” she said. She managed a small smile and stood. She curtsied.
He said nothing, merely watched until eventually he gestured for her to sit again and came to sit beside her. He stared out at the gardens, and she realised that he was troubled, too.
“Luca has told you I am a Menti,” Reva guessed.
“No.” Brother Axil smiled slightly, though he did not look over at her. “But I had wondered. It was rumoured that your parents had powers.” He gave her a quick, curious glance, but Reva kept her mouth shut and he smiled again. “You have grown up, Lady Avalon. You are far more cautious than you once were.”
Reva laughed bitterly, picturing herself running away from Luca’s rooms. That had not been a cautious way to do things. She was embarrassed to admit that she had acted like an impulsive child.
“I heard about your miscarriages,” Brother Axil said directly. “Then I thought it was even more likely that you might have powers. Stefan was not the only one who put the pieces together about Francis Unna, you know. The way he decorated his castle was well-known. You may not know this, but iron can interfere with the pregnancy of a Menti woman. I would have sent word to you if I thought I could do so discreetly—and if I thought it would help you.”
Reva blinked away tears. She had known this, of course, but he was trying to be kind, letting her know that what had happened was not her fault, as Francis had always believed. Then she nodded.
“I heard that you left Prince Luca’s rooms quite suddenly last night,” Brother Axil said finally. “May I ask why?”
Reva looked over at him, and suddenly she was furious. “You cannot guess?”
“I can guess,” Brother Axil said. “I thought I would ask instead.”
“The Gardens of Anios,” Reva spat at him. “Do you want to know why I am so thin, why I was dressed in rags when I appeared here? That is where I was. I was captured after the castle fell to Stefan, and the Sisters brought me to the Gardens. They would have worked me until I died. I escaped, and when I heard Luca was here, I came to tell him about the Gardens so he could shut them down. I thought he might not believe me, but I never thought he would keep them open. Especially being a Menti himself.”
She had thought the choice to keep the Gardens open was something that had been decided in a council meeting. She imagined all of the councillors agreeing with pompous nods. To her surprise, Brother Axil looked as troubled as she did.
“I never thought he would do so, either,” the Governor said. “In the council meeting, when he learned of the Gardens, he was horrified. Lord Tinian argued with him, but Luca said there was nothing to be done but to shut the Gardens down. He was adamant.”
Reva frowned. “But he said they must remain open.”
“Yes. Perhaps that is my fault. Lord Tinian asked to speak to Luca alone, so I left. When next I heard of it, Luca had agreed to keep the Gardens open.” Brother Axil shook his head.
“It was Luca’s decision,” Reva said. She heard the anger in her own voice. “That is not your fault. Clearly, you do not agree with what he did.”
“I do not,” Axil said. “I had never known that King Davead had done such a thing. He hid it carefully. He would have to, of course. He said that the Menti were all defeated. Every village with a Menti child would think they were the only one. That he would execute them was cruel enough, but that he would use them as slaves….” He shook his head. “Cruel,” he repeated. “I never understood Davead’s hatred of the Menti. It was not faith. It was something personal for him.”
Reva shook her he
ad impatiently. She did not care about King Davead. “What has happened to Luca? Why would he do such a thing?”
Brother Axil sighed. “They say it is impossible to know the measure of a man until he is given power, but I had no doubts about Luca when we came here from Xantos. I knew he was cautious, but I thought that was good. He was not greedy for the throne the way Stefan had been. But Luca is unsure of himself, and Lord Tinian has more power than I would like.”
“Why would Lord Tinian care about the Gardens of Anios?”
“Money,” Brother Axil said grimly. “It is always money, where the Gold Council is concerned. They spent money to bring Luca to the throne, and now they want to recoup their investment. The Gardens of Anios make good profits—as well they might, since they do not pay the slaves or feed them well. Luca has changed some of that, of course, but….” He shook his head.
“The soldiers he sent will not stand up to the Sisters,” Reva said with surety.
“Do not be so sure of that.” Brother Axil was smiling this time. “There are more honourable people in this world than you know, Lady Avalon. Those who went had orders from their king to stop abuses. They may well have done so. Of course, slavery is still slavery, however it is dressed up.”
“Yes,” Reva whispered. All of the horror of her time at the Gardens was poured into that single word. She remembered Sister Valeria’s eyes and the bite of the lash. She remembered the younger girls shrinking away from the gazes of the guards. So many nights going to bed with her stomach aching from hunger, to lie on the floor and fall asleep bone-tired.
Brother Axil said nothing to this, for which she was grateful. She did not think she could have kept from crying. She had survived the Gardens of Anios and escaped. Why was she crying about it now, when it was over and done with?
“Luca did not come to the council meeting today,” Brother Axil said after a time.
“What?” Reva looked over at him, blinking in surprise.
“I think he is troubled by your reaction,” Brother Axil continued.