The Beauty of Darkness

by Mary E. Pearson

  Kaden wasn’t responding to anything I said, instead staring blankly across the room. Suddenly he stood and went to the pantry, rifling through supplies. “I have to go. It’s not far from here. Only an hour west of Luiseveque in County Düerr. We won’t lose time.” He named a rendezvous point where he would meet Natiya and me north of here tomorrow and told me to take a woodland trail. “No one will see you. You’ll be safe.”

  “Leaving now?” I stood, and pulled a sack of jerky from his hands. “You can’t ride at night.”

  “Enzo’s asleep. It’s the best time to trust him.”

  “You need to rest too, Kaden. What—”

  “I’ll rest when I get there.” He took the jerky from me and began rearranging his bag.

  My heart sped up. This was not like Kaden. “What’s so urgent in County Düerr?”

  “I need to take care of something, once and for all.” The muscles in his neck were like tight cords, and he kept his gaze averted from mine. And then I knew.

  “Your father,” I said. “He’s the lord of the county there, isn’t he?”

  He nodded.

  I stepped away, trying to remember the county lords. There were twenty-four of them in Morrighan, and I didn’t know most of their names, especially not those down here in the southern counties, but I knew this lord might not be alive much longer.

  I sat down on a stool in the corner, the same one where Berdi had once tended my neck. “Are you going to kill him?” I asked.

  Kaden paused, then finally pulled out a chair and straddled it, facing its spindled back. “I don’t know. I thought I just wanted to see my mother’s grave. See where I had once lived, the last place where I was—” He shook his head. “I can’t just let it go, Lia. I have to see him at least one more time. It’s something unfinished inside of me, and this might be my last chance to make some sense of it. I won’t know what I’m going to do until I see him.”

  I didn’t try to talk him out of it. I felt no sympathy for this lord who had whipped his young son, then sold him like a piece of trash to strangers. Some betrayals ran too deep to ever forgive.

  “Be careful,” I said.

  He reached out, squeezing my hand, and the storm in his eyes doubled. “Tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be there. I promise.”

  He rose to leave, but then stopped at the kitchen door.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He turned to face me. “There’s something else that’s unfinished. I need to know. Do you still love him?”

  His question knifed through me—I hadn’t expected it, though I should have. I saw the wondering in his eyes every time he looked at me. He knew when he held me in the loft that it wasn’t dust I had choked on. I stood and walked to the chopping table, unable to look him in the eye, and brushed imaginary crumbs away.

  I hadn’t even allowed myself to dwell on this thought. Love. It felt foolish and indulgent in light of everything else. Did it really matter? I remembered Gwyneth’s cynical laugh when I told her I wanted to marry for love. She already knew what I hadn’t yet grasped. It never ended well for anyone. Not for Pauline and Mikael. My parents. Walther and Greta. Even Venda was proof, riding off with a man who had ultimately destroyed her. I thought about the girl Morrighan, stolen from her tribe and sold as a bride to Aldrid the scavenger for a sack of grain. Somehow they had built a great kingdom together, but it wasn’t built on love.

  I shook my head. “I’m not even sure what love is anymore.”

  “But it’s different between us than it was with—” He left his question dangling as if it was too painful to say Rafe’s name.

  “Yes, it’s different between us,” I said quietly. I lifted my gaze to meet his. “It always has been, Kaden, and if you’re honest with yourself, you’ve always known it too. From the beginning, you said that Venda came first. I can’t explain exactly how our destinies became entwined, but they did—and now we both care for Venda and Morrighan, and want a better end for them than the one the Komizar has planned. Maybe that’s what brought us together. Don’t underestimate the bond we share. Great kingdoms have been built on far less.”

  He stared at me, his eyes restless. “On our way here, the things you scratched into the dirt, what were they?”

  “Words, Kaden. Only lost unsaid words that added up to good-bye.”

  He pulled in a deep, slow breath. “I’m trying to find my way through this, Lia.”

  “I know, Kaden. I am too.”

  His gaze remained fixed on me. He finally nodded and left. I walked to the door, watching him ride off, the moonless night swallowing him up in seconds, and I ached with his want, ached with what I couldn’t give him. His need reached deeper and farther than me.

  I returned to the kitchen and blew out the lantern but couldn’t let the night go. I leaned against the wall tacked with paper—lists that tried to hold on to the life that Berdi had traded for another decades ago. In the dim light, the faint edges of her kitchen became a distant world of twists, turns, and unmapped choices, the ones that had woven together and defined Berdi’s life.

  Do you regret not going?

  I can’t think about things like that now. What’s done is done. I did what I had to do at the time.

  My hands pressed against the cool of the wall behind me.

  What was done was done.

  I couldn’t think about it anymore.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, I raided Berdi’s wardrobe and found only part of what I required.

  “Natiya, are you good with a needle?”

  “Very,” she answered. I’d suspected as much. To rip out a hem, conceal a knife in a cloak, and then sew it up again in a few precious minutes required a skill that I certainly didn’t have—much to my aunt Cloris’s chagrin.

  I asked Enzo for coin. I had used all the money Rafe had packed in my bag for messengers in Turquoi Tra. Enzo didn’t hesitate, and pulled a sack from the potato barrel in the pantry. He threw me the whole thing. It wasn’t much, but I gladly took it and shoved it into my pack, nodding my thanks. “I’ll tell Berdi you’re doing a fine job here. She’ll be pleased.”

  “You mean amazed,” he added sheepishly.

  I shrugged, unable to deny it. “That too. And remember, Enzo, you’ve never laid eyes on me.”

  He nodded, an understanding passing through his eyes, and I wondered at his transformation. Rafe’s threats had no doubt gotten his attention, but I was certain it was the magic of Berdi’s trust that had changed him. I just had to pray that the change was lasting.

  We snuck out, quiet as night, careful not to wake any boarders.

  * * *

  The clerk at the mercantile was happy to see us. We were her first customers of the day—and the only ones. I saw her squinting, trying to peer through the gauzy cover of the white scarf draped over my face. I asked if she had any red satin, and she didn’t try to hide her surprise. Most widows would be asking for more somber, respectful fabrics.

  Natiya surprised me with her quick explanation. “My aunt wishes to make a tapestry honoring her departed husband. Red was his favorite color.”

  I added a quick sob and nod for effect.

  In minutes we were on our way, with an extra yard thrown in by the sympathetic clerk.

  We had one more stop. What I needed there couldn’t be bought with the usual kind of currency. I only hoped I had the kind I needed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  RAFE

  My transition from soldier to king had been abrupt, and it seemed every baron in the assembly wanted a piece of my hide. I knew their bravado was posturing to secure my ear and attention, which I assured them they had. The eight officers of the cabinet were the most demanding, but then they were the ones who had worked the most closely with my father.

  I was welcomed of course, but behind every welcome came an admonishment—Where were you? And a warning—The upheaval is widespread. It will take time to heal.

  The court physician offered me the
most painful reminder. Both of your parents asked for you on their deathbeds. I promised them you were on your way. I wasn’t the only one who offered false hope and expedient lies, but I had little time to dwell on my guilt.

  If I wasn’t in sessions separately with the assembly, cabinet, or the court of generals, I was with them all at once. General Draeger spoke up often, and being the governing general of the capital, his voice held sway. He made his opinions known—a message to me as much as to everyone else that he was keeping a close watch. His hand was still in this, ready. He was going to make me pay for my absence.

  They all felt the need to test this untried king, but as Sven had advised, I listened, I weighed, I acted. But I would not be pushed. It was a dance of give and take, and when they pushed too far, I cut them short. I was reminded of my dance with Lia when she would not step back, her foot stamping down and staying put.

  It was during that dance that I had known she wouldn’t be pushed any further. I was losing her. No, Rafe, not losing. Lost. She’s gone for good. It’s for the best, I reminded myself. I had a troubled kingdom that needed my undivided attention.

  When the court of generals balked at my first order as king, I held my position and let them know this decision was not under advisement. Reinforcements were to be sent to all northern border outposts and the vulnerable cities in between, and troops at southern outposts were to be split between the eastern and western borders. Trouble was brewing, and until we knew the exact extent of it, this was a necessary precaution. The barons protested, saying it would leave little protection here in the capital.

  “But first they would have to get past the borders,” I told them.

  “Our borders are already well fortified based on your father’s and his advisers’ assessments,” General Draeger interjected. “You’d further disrupt the kingdom because of one unreliable girl’s claim?”

  The chamber grew instantly silent. Unreliable flicked off the general’s tongue with a hundred insinuating nuances. Rumors and questions about the princess and my relationship with her had surely run through the assembly like wildfire. No doubt they knew of my bitter parting with her too. This was the first time anyone had dared bring her up. One girl? As if she was chaff. Weightless and disposable. It was another gauntlet thrown down. A test of my loyalty. Perhaps they even secretly laughed if they knew I had claimed her as my future queen before my troops. Looking at the faces staring into mine, I suddenly saw myself through Lia’s eyes, how I had questioned something she so desperately believed. I saw myself as one of them. Rafe, haven’t you ever felt something deep in your gut?

  I wouldn’t bite at the general’s bait and bring Lia into this. “My decision is based on what I observed, General Draeger, and nothing else. My duty is to keep Dalbreck’s citizens safe and the realm secure. Until we have further information, I expect my orders to be carried out immediately.”

  The general shrugged, and the assembly grudgingly nodded. I sensed they all wanted more from me, to denounce Lia before them all as another Morrighese conniver who couldn’t be trusted. They wanted me to be fully and completely one of their own again.

  There was a rushed coronation, and my father’s funeral pyre was built at last. He’d been dead for weeks, his body preserved and wrapped, but until I was found, his death had to remain a secret and he couldn’t receive a proper release to the gods.

  When I lifted the torch to light his pyre, I felt oddly inadequate, as if I should have understood the gods more. I should have listened more. Sven hadn’t been strong on tutoring me in the heavenly realms. Most of that had been left to Merrick during my infrequent visits to the chanterie. I remembered Lia asking me which god I prayed to. I had been at a loss to answer her. They had names? And according to Morrighese tradition, there were four of them. Merrick had taught me there were three who ruled from a single heavenly throne and rode on the backs of fiercesome beasts while they guarded the gates of heaven—that is, when they weren’t throwing stars to the earth. It is by the gods that Dalbreck is supreme. We are the favored Remnant.

  I watched the flames engulf my father’s shroud, the fabric dissolving, the stacked tinder falling down around him to disguise the realities of death, the flames bursting higher as a revered soldier and king left one world and entered another, a whole kingdom looking on, watching me as much as the pyre. The weight of every gaze pressed with expectation. Even now I had to be an example of strength for all of them, assurance that life would go on as before. I stood between the towering pillars of Minnaub, an ancient warrior carved in stone on one side of me, and his rearing warhorse carved on the other, two of a dozen sculpted memorials that guarded the plaza, sentinels of a glorious history, and one of many of Dalbreck’s wonders I had wanted to show Lia.

  If she had come.

  My face grew hot with the blaze, but I didn’t step back. I remembered Lia telling me that Capseius was the god of grievances, the one I had brazenly shaken my fist at when I was back in Terravin, and I thought he was probably looking down at me now, laughing. The flames crackled and snapped, hissing their secret messages to the heavens. Black smoke rose and hovered over the plaza, and instead of offering up prayers for the dead, I dropped to my knees and offered them for the living, and I heard the gasps and whispers of those around me, wondering at a Dalbreck king falling to his knees.

  The funeral hadn’t been behind me three days before cabinet officers, barons, or other nobles began stopping in with their marriageable daughters conveniently in tow as they dropped off insipid messages that could have waited until our assembly meetings. “You remember my daughter, don’t you?” they would say, and then they’d offer an introduction and a not-so-subtle résumé of her virtues. Gandry, the chief minister and my father’s closest adviser, saw me roll my eyes after a baron left with his daughter and told me I needed to give marriage serious consideration, and quickly. “It would help quell doubts and add stability to your reign.”

  “There are still doubts?”

  “You were gone for months without word.”

  Strangely, my guilt over my absence was gone. Regret, yes, that I hadn’t been here when my parents died, and the extra worry it must have brought them, but I had done what no Dalbreck king or general before me had—set foot on Vendan soil and lived with its people for several weeks. It gave me a unique understanding of Vendan minds, needs, and machinations. Maybe that was why I felt the support of the troops, if not of the upper echelons of the court. I had led a mission of five soldiers who were able to outmaneuver thousands. It somehow felt necessary instead of reckless, but translating that feeling into something measurable for the cabinet and assembly to appreciate was another matter.

  I closed the ledger on my desk and rubbed my eyes. The funds in the treasury were at an all-time low. I was to tour with the secretary of commerce tomorrow and meet with key merchants and farmers in an effort to increase trade—and coffers. I stared at the worn leather cover of the ledger. Something else still turned inside me. Or maybe it was many things, each so faint I couldn’t articulate any one of them, and they pulled in different directions.

  The office closed in on me, and I pushed back my chair and walked out onto the veranda. I still thought of it as my father’s office, and his presence was evident in every corner, mementos of a long life and reign. These had been his meeting chambers since I was a child. I remembered when he called me in to tell me I’d be going to go live with Sven in just a handful of weeks. I was only seven, and I hardly understood what he was saying—I only knew I didn’t want to go. I was afraid. Sven was invited in to meet me, stern and imposing and nothing like my father. Meeting him didn’t help calm my fears, and I struggled to hold back my tears. Now, after all these years, I wondered if my father had done the same, each of us trying to be strong for the other. How many hard decisions had he had to make that I never knew about?

  It was a rare moment for me to be alone. Every night, meetings ran into the dinner hour. I felt less like a king and more like a harr
ied farmer trying to herd a field of loose greased pigs into a pen. I leaned against the thick stone rail, feeling the cool breeze ruffling through my hair. The night was brisk, the lit pillars of Minnaub glowing in the distance, the capital asleep, the thousand stars of the sky blinking over the dark silhouette of the city. The same view my father had looked upon countless times when he wrestled with the demands of his court, but his worries had been different from mine.

  Is she there yet?

  Is she safe?

  And then, unexpectedly, was she right?

  Was that what continued to nag at me? Even back at the Marabella outpost, Colonel Bodeen and the captains had doubted her claim. In truth, I’d seen no evidence of a massive army, not in my tours of the city with Calantha and Ulrix or heard of it in the loose chatter in Sanctum Hall.

  But I had seen the brigade of five hundred who escorted Lia into the city. That alone had been startling and unexpected, but it could have been the whole of their so-called army.

  Except there were the tithes. I’d heard the governors grumbling, and yet they still came through with them. Was it just out of fear—or expectation of reward? There was no doubt that, like the Komizar, they wanted more. I’d seen it in their eyes when they looked upon the booty of the slain Dalbretch soldiers.

  And then there was the flask, a strange, powerful liquid that had been able to damage an immense iron bridge with a single blast. That didn’t fit with the image of a crude, impoverished city. A lucky fluke, Hague had called it, the result of poor Vendan craftsmanship. Maybe. There were a dozen maybes, no single one was so compelling that it pointed to the impossible—that a poor barbarian kingdom had raised up an army powerful enough to quash all the others combined. I had already pushed the limits of logic with the assembly when I dispatched troops to border outposts.

  I heard the door to my meeting chamber open and shut, and then the rattle of a tray being set on my desk. Sven always anticipated what I needed. I thought about all the grief I had caused him in our early years together. All the times I had kicked his shins and run and he had scooped me up and tossed me over his shoulder, throwing me in a trough of water. I am raising you up to be a king, not a fool, and kicking someone who can crush you in a single blink is the height of folly. I was dunked more than once. His patience was greater than mine.