The Beauty of Darkness

by Mary E. Pearson

  My chest jumped, and I stifled a sob in my throat. I hadn’t had a chance to mourn her death. There’d been only a few cries of disbelief before I had stabbed the Komizar and everything tumbled out of control.

  Rafe’s hand laced with mine beneath the blanket. “Do you want to talk about it?” he whispered against my cheek.

  I didn’t know how. Too many feelings crowded my mind. Guilt, rage, and even relief; complete, utter relief to be alive; for Rafe and his men to be alive; thankful to be here in Rafe’s arms. A second chance. The better ending that Rafe had promised. But in just the next breath, a drowning wave of guilt overwhelmed me for those very same feelings. How could I feel relief when Aster was dead?

  Then rage at the Komizar would bubble up again. He’s dead. I killed him. And I wished with every beat of my heart that I could kill him all over again.

  “My mind flies in circles, Rafe,” I said. “Like a bird trapped in the rafters. There seems to be no way to turn, no window to fly through. No way to make this right in my head. What if I had—”

  “What were you to do? Stay in Venda? Marry the Komizar? Be his mouthpiece? Tell Aster his lies until she was as corrupted as the rest of them? If you lived that long. Aster worked in the Sanctum. She was always a step from danger long before you ever got there.”

  I remembered Aster telling me nothing’s safe around here. That was why she knew all the secret tunnels so well. There was always a quick exit at hand. Except this time, because she was watching out for me instead of herself.

  Dammit, I should have known!

  I should have known she wouldn’t listen. I told her to go home, but telling her wasn’t enough. Aster yearned to be a part of everything. She wanted to please so very badly. Whether it was proudly presenting me with my polished boots, ducking low to retrieve a discarded book in the caverns, guiding me through tunnels, or hiding my knife in a chamber pot, she always wanted to help. I can whistle loud. It was her plea to stay. Aster was eager for any kind of—

  Chance. She had only wanted a chance. A way out, a greater story than the one that had been written for her, just like I had wanted. Tell my bapa I tried, Miz. A chance to control her own destiny. But for her, escape was impossible.

  “She brought me the key, Rafe. She went into the Komizar’s room and took it. If I hadn’t asked her—”

  “Lia, you’re not the only one questioning your decisions. For miles I walked with you half dead in my arms. And with every step, I wondered what I could have done differently. I asked myself a hundred times why I ignored your note. Everything might have been different if I’d just taken two minutes to answer you. I finally had to push it out of my head. If we spend too much time reliving the past, it gets us nowhere.”

  I laid my head back against his chest. “That’s where I am, Rafe. Nowhere.”

  He reached up, his knuckle gently tracing the line of my jaw. “Lia, when we lose a battle, we have to regroup and move forward again. Choose an alternate path if necessary. But if we dwell on every action we’ve taken, it will cripple us, and soon we’ll take no action at all.”

  “Those sound like a soldier’s words,” I said.

  “They are. That’s what I am, Lia. A soldier.”

  And a prince. One who was surely wanted by the Council now as much as the princess who stabbed the Komizar.

  I could only hope the bloodbath had eliminated the worst of the lot. It had certainly taken the best.

  CHAPTER THREE

  RAFE

  I kissed her and laid her down carefully on the bed of blankets. She’d fallen asleep in my arms, mid-sentence, still insisting she could walk back in on her own. I covered her and went outside to where Orrin was roasting tonight’s dinner.

  Nurse the rage, Lia, I had told her. Use it. Because I knew the guilt would destroy her, and I couldn’t bear for her to suffer any more than she already had.

  Orrin had built the fire under a rocky overhang to diffuse the smoke. Just in case. But the skies were thick with gray and mist. Even if there was someone searching the horizon, smoke would be impossible to see. The others warmed themselves by the coals while Orrin turned the spit.

  “How is she?” Sven asked.

  “Weak. Hurting.”

  “But she put on a good show of it,” Tavish said.

  None of them had been fooled by her smile, me least of all. Every part of my own body was beaten and bruised by the river, knuckles cracked, muscles strained—and I hadn’t been pierced by two arrows on top of it all. She’d lost a lot of blood. Little wonder her head swam when she stood.

  Orrin nodded approvingly at the roasted badger that was turning a dark golden brown. “This’ll fix her up. A good meal and—”

  “It’s not just her body that’s hurting,” I said. “Aster’s death weighs on her. She’s second-guessing every step she made.”

  Sven rubbed his hands over the fire. “That’s what a good soldier does. Analyzes past moves and then—”

  “I know, Sven. I know!” I snapped. “Regroups and moves forward. You’ve told me a thousand times. But she’s not a soldier.”

  Sven returned his hands to his pockets. The others eyed me cautiously.

  “Not a soldier like us, maybe,” Jeb said, “but a soldier just the same.”

  I shot him an icy stare. I didn’t want to hear about her being a soldier. I was tired of her being in danger and didn’t want to invite more. “I’m going to go check on the horses,” I said and left.

  “Good idea,” Sven called after me.

  They knew the horses didn’t need checking. We’d found a stand of bitter pea for them to graze on and they were securely tethered.

  A soldier just the same.

  There was far more that I looked back on during my twelve-mile walk than just my failure to answer her note. I also saw Griz, over and over again, lifting her hand and declaring her queen and Komizar. I saw the alarm in her face and remembered my own rage surging. The barbarians of Venda were trying to sink their claws in deeper, and they’d already done enough damage.

  She was not their queen or Komizar, and she was not a soldier.

  The sooner I could get her safely to Dalbreck, the better.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  One by one, they dropped to a knee, offering formal introductions. Though they had all already seen me half naked and held me down in the most familiar ways while I was stitched, perhaps this was the first time they thought I might actually live long enough to remember any of it.

  Colonel Sven Haverstrom of the Dalbreck Royal Guard, Assigned Steward of Crown Prince Jaxon. The others laughed at that title. They were free with their jest and jabs, even with an officer who outranked them, but Sven gave it back as good as he got it.

  Officer Jeb McCance, Falworth Special Forces.

  Officer Tavish Baird, Tactician, Fourth Battalion.

  Officer Orrin del Aransas, Falworth First Archer Assault Unit.

  I bit the corner of my lip hesitantly and raised my brows. “And I can trust those are your real names and occupations this time?”

  They eyed me uncertainly for a moment, then laughed, realizing I was jesting along with them.

  “Yes,” Sven said, “but I wouldn’t trust that fellow you’re leaning on. Claims he’s a prince, even though he’s nothing but a—”

  “That’s enough,” Rafe said. “Let’s not wear the princess out with your mindless yammering.”

  I smiled, appreciating their levity, but I sensed a certain unease behind it, an effort to mask the grimness of our situation.

  “Food’s ready,” Orrin announced. Rafe helped me sit down against a makeshift backrest made of saddles and blankets. In the process of sitting, I bent my leg and a fiery jolt shot through it as if I was being pierced with an arrow all over again. I bit back a groan.

  “How are the back and the leg?” Tavish asked.

  “Better,” I answered once I caught my breath. “I guess you need to add skilled Field Surgeon to your list of titles.”

 
Orrin watched me eat as if every bite I took measured his cooking skills. Besides the roasted meat, he had also made a soup from the carcass and some turnips. Apparently Jeb wasn’t the only one who had stowed some luxuries in his saddlebag. The conversation centered around the food and other game that they had spotted for future meals—deer, possum, and beaver. Gentle topics. Not at all like their plotting this morning that they had tried to keep from my ears.

  I finished my meal and turned the conversation to a more pressing topic. “So, it sounds like we have a week’s lead,” I said.

  They paused from their eating and glanced at one another, quickly assessing how much had been said this morning and what I might have overheard.

  Rafe wiped the corner of his mouth with the side of his hand. “Two weeks’ lead with the heavy snowfall.”

  Sven cleared his throat. “That’s right. Two weeks, Your—”

  “Lia,” I said. “No more formalities. We’re well beyond that by now, aren’t we?”

  They all looked at Rafe, deferring to him, and he nodded. I had almost forgotten he was their sovereign. Their prince. He outranked them all, including Sven.

  Sven confirmed with a single nod. “Very well. Lia.”

  “At least two weeks,” Orrin agreed. “Whatever Rafe put in the gears of the bridge did the job.”

  “Lia gave it to me,” Rafe told him.

  They looked at me, surprised, perhaps wondering if I had conjured some sort of Morrighese magic. I told them about the scholars in the caverns below the Sanctum who were unlocking the secrets of the Ancients and had devised the powerful clear liquid I gave to Rafe. I also described the Komizar’s hidden army city and the things I’d witnessed—including the charging brezalots that carried the packs that exploded like a firestorm. “The Komizar was planning to march on Morrighan first and then the rest of the kingdoms. He wanted them all.”

  Sven shrugged and marginally confirmed my story, saying the Komizar talked up the power of the army that the governors and their provinces were financing. “But at least half the governors were skeptical. They thought he was inflating the numbers and their capabilities to get greater tithes out of them.”

  “Did you see the city?” I asked. “He wasn’t overstating his claim.”

  “I didn’t, but the other governors who had still weren’t won over.”

  “They probably only wanted him to sweeten their own stakes. I know what I saw. There’s no doubt that with the army and weapons he was amassing, Venda could easily quash Morrighan—and Dalbreck too.”

  Orrin snorted. “No one can beat Dalbreck’s army.”

  I looked at Orrin pointedly. “And yet Morrighan has done so many times in our rocky past. Or do you not study history in Dalbreck?”

  Orrin glanced at me awkwardly, then back down at the tin of soup in his hands.

  “That was a long time ago, Lia,” Rafe intervened. “Long before my father’s reign—and your father’s. A lot has changed.”

  His low opinion of my father’s rule didn’t escape me, and strangely, it made a defensive spark ignite within me. But it was true. I had no idea what Dalbreck’s army was like now, but in the past several years, the Morrighese army had shrunk. Now I wondered if that was by the Chancellor’s design—to make us an easier target—except I wasn’t sure that as overseer of the treasury, he alone could make that happen, not even with the Royal Scholar’s help. Was it possible that more in the cabinet conspired with him?

  Rafe reached out and rested his hand on my knee, perhaps perceiving the harshness of his comment. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “If such an army does exist, without the Komizar’s calculating ambition, it will fall into disarray. Malich doesn’t possess the wit to lead an army, much less keep the loyalties of the Council. He may be dead already.”

  The thought of Malich’s arrogant head rolling across the Sanctum floor warmed me—my only regret being that I wasn’t the one who had sent it rolling. But who else might step into the powerful shoes of the Komizar? What about Chievdar Tyrick? Governor Yanos? Or maybe Trahern of the Rahtan? They were certainly the most nasty and driven of those left on the Council, but I was sure none possessed the cunning or finesse to secure the loyalty of the entire Council, much less follow through with the Komizar’s staggering ambitions. But with so much at stake, was that an assumption that any kingdom could afford to make? Morrighan needed to be warned of the possible threat and be prepared for it.

  “Two weeks easily,” Jeb said, trying to return to the more positive subject of our ample lead time. He tore off another piece of the badger meat. “The Sanctum was in chaos when we left, and with more grabs for power, they may not set out for the lower river at once.”

  “They will.” Sven eyed Rafe with cool gray eyes. “The question is not how soon but how many will they send? It’s not just her they’ll be after. You’ll be a highly sought prize too. The crown prince of Dalbreck has not only stolen away with something they value but has no doubt greatly injured their pride with his deception.”

  “It was the Komizar’s pride,” Rafe corrected him, “and he’s dead.”

  “Maybe.”

  I looked at Sven, incredulous, and my heart squeezed to a cold knot. “There’s no maybe about it. I stabbed him twice and twisted the blade. His guts were in pieces.”

  “Did you see him die?” Sven asked.

  See him?

  I paused, taking my time to compose a reasoned answer. “He was on the ground, choking on his last breaths,” I said. “If he didn’t bleed to death, the poison released into his gut finished him off. It’s a painful way to die. Sometimes slow, but effective.”

  Wary glances were cast between them.

  “No, I haven’t stabbed someone in the gut before,” I explained. “But I have three brothers who are soldiers, and they’ve held nothing back from me. There’s no chance the Komizar survived his injuries.”

  Sven took a long, slow sip from his mug. “You were shot in the back with an arrow and fell into a raging icy river. Not good odds, and yet here you are. When we left the terrace … the Komizar was gone.”

  “That means nothing,” I said, hearing the panic rise in my voice. “Ulrix or a guard could have carried his body off. He’s dead.”

  Rafe set down his cup, the spoon clattering against the side. “She’s right, Sven. I saw Ulrix drag the body through the portal myself. I know a corpse when I see one. There’s no question, the Komizar is dead.”

  There was a strained silent moment between them, then Sven quietly acquiesced, dipping his chin in acknowledgment.

  I hadn’t realized I was leaning forward, and I lay back against the mound of blankets Rafe had made for me, weak with exhaustion, my back damp.

  Rafe reached out and felt my forehead. “You’re running a fever again.”

  “It’s only the fire and warm soup,” I said.

  “Whatever it is, you need to rest.”

  I didn’t argue. I thanked Orrin for the supper, and Rafe helped me over to my bedroll. The last few steps drained me, and I was barely able to keep my eyes open as Rafe helped me get settled. It was the most conversation and activity that I’d had in days.

  He leaned over me, wiping strands of damp hair from my face, and kissed my forehead. He started to stand, but I stopped him, wondering what else he had seen.

  “You’re sure you saw him dead?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Don’t worry. You killed him, Lia. Rest now.”

  “What about the others, Rafe? Do you think they survived? Governor Faiwell, Griz, Kaden?

  His jaw clenched at the mention of Kaden’s name. He was slow to answer. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t think they made it. You saw the soldiers swarming in as we left. Kaden and the others had nowhere to flee. There was Malich too. The last time I saw Kaden, he was engaged in combat with him. If Malich made it down to the river, you can guess what happened to Kaden.”

  The ache of what he didn’t say swelled in me—Kaden was no longer an obstacle for Malich.r />
  “He got what he deserved,” Rafe said quietly.

  “But he helped us fight so we could escape.”

  “No. He was fighting to save your life, and for that I’m grateful, but he wasn’t trying to help you escape. He had no idea we even had a way to escape.”

  I knew he was right. For their own reasons, both Kaden and Griz wanted to keep me in Venda. Helping me leave wasn’t their motive for raising swords against their brethren.

  “He was one of them, Lia. He died the way he lived.”

  I closed my eyes, exhaustion already making my lids too heavy to keep open. My lips burned with heat, and my mumbled words stung on them. “That’s the irony. He wasn’t one of them. He was Morrighese. Noble born. He only turned to Venda because his own kind had betrayed him. Just like I did.”

  “What did you say?”

  Just like I did.

  I heard Rafe walk away and then there was more whispering, but this time I couldn’t discern what they were saying. Their muffled words wove with the darkness into a silky black fog.

  * * *

  I startled awake and looked around, trying to remember what had roused me. A dream? But I could recall nothing. Rafe slept next to me, his arm protectively around my waist as if someone might whisk me away. Jeb sat back against a large rock, his drawn sword at his side. It was his watch, but his eyes were closed. If we had a two-week lead, why did they feel the need for a watch? Of course there were wild animals to consider that might like this nice roomy cave to take refuge in. Orrin had mentioned seeing panther tracks.

  Jeb must have just stoked the fire, because it blazed with heat, and yet a chill tiptoed over my shoulders. The flames flickered with a breeze, and the shadows grew darker.

  Don’t tarry, Miz.

  My head throbbed with the sound of Aster’s voice, and I wondered if it would forever haunt me. I rose up on one arm and sipped from a canteen. Rafe sensed my movement, and his arm pulled tighter, his body edging closer. I found comfort in his small tug. It felt as if he would never let anything come between us again.