Roberson, Jennifer - Cheysuli 05

by A Pride of Princes (v1. 0)

  "You should have sent her away."

  "At the time, she served a purpose." Alaric's fallen mouth moved into a travesty of a smile. "I gave her freedom. I gave her power. I gave her everything she wanted, and willingly. There was no coercion. She used no sorcery on me. We worked toward similar goals." He bent forward, coughed; spittle flew out of his mouth. "I even gave her my daughter."

  "And now she wants your throne." Corin tried to keep the distaste from his expression.

  "Lillith has the throne in everything but name." The old man thrust himself more deeply into the huge chair, thin hands gripping armrests. "She is done ruling through me. Now she wants you."

  Cold radiated outward from the silver on his wrist and encompassed his entire body. "No," Corin said. "Do you think I would give in to her? I am not as you."

  "But I am in you." Alaric smiled again. "Will you tell me there is no ambition in .you? No desire for power? No need to rule other men?"

  "Grandsire—"

  "Will you tell me you do not want it?" Alaric's add tone, though diluted by age, retained enough of its arrogance and spite to stop Corin's protest dead. "Will you stand there, blood of my blood, and tell me you do not dream of holding the Lion Throne?"

  Appalled, Corin stared.

  "Aye," Alaric said. "'Aye ... I know what you feel. Because I felt it. . . I desired it ... I even dreamed of it. We know better, you and I. There is more to this world, much more, than petty island kingdoms. There are places such as Homana."

  "You are disgusting," Corin said. "A disgusting old man awash in the stink of his death. Atvia will be mine on your death because I am your grandson, not because I need it—"

  "But you do. You do." With great effort Alaric grasped the armrests and pulled himself out of the chair. He was stooped, twisted, wracked. But the flame of his hatred blazed. "She drains me ... drains me to feed Gisella ... to replace her addled wits. Once it is done, I am dead. And then she will turn to you."

  "Grandsire—"

  "She means to send Gisella to Homana," Alaric said steadily, "where they will see that she is not mad, not mad at all, merely the victim of Niall's lust for Deirdre of Erinn. And because there are Homanan laws governing the rights of husbands and wives, the lives of kings and queens, they will make him take her back . . . they will make her Queen again, not knowing what she is." Tears ran down his face. "My beautiful, addled daughter. . . ."

  "Grandsire." This time, Corin overrode Alaric. "Do I understand you? Lillith is using you to restore Gisella's wits?"

  Alaric tapped his head. "It grows emptier by the day—"

  Lillith laughed. "So it does, old man. I think your time grows short."

  Corin spun even as Alaric sagged and fell back into the chair. Lillith stood in the open doorway, one hand on the door, and then she swung it shut.

  Kiri's upper lip lifted. Hackles rose, Corin could not touch her through the link, but there was no need; what both of them felt was obvious, requiring no conversation.

  "Old man," she said, "are you unhappy with your lot?"

  Alaric mumbled something.

  "Old man," she said, "you knew it would come to this."

  The old man stirred uneasily in his chair. Between them the tension was palpable; Corin wanted to back away, to leave the hall entirely, wanting no part of this.

  "Old man," she said, "it was what you wanted. To see your daughter made whole."

  "Gisella," Alaric whispered, and the tears ran down his face.

  Lillith looked at Corin. "He asked it," she said. "He begged it of me: to make his daughter whole. To restore her wits so he could see the woman she might have been, had he not destroyed her mother."

  "I know the story," Corin said hoarsely. "Alaric shot her out of the sky. Bronwyn was in lir-shape, a raven, and he shot her out of the sky."

  "Not knowing it was her," Lillith said quietly. Her hands were folded in dark green skirts, hiding the silver-tipped nails. "Not knowing the fall would steal the wits from his unborn daughter, whose birth was so rudely precipitated." Her eyes were on Alaric, huddled formlessness in the throne. "He begged it of me, Corin: to make his daughter whole."

  Corin swallowed back the bile that tickled his throat.

  "For how long?" he asked. "How long will it last?"

  Lillith shrugged. "Once Alaric dies, the wits die. The power is not unlimited. Gisella will become what she has been from the moment of her birth."

  "Mad," Corin said.

  "We are all a little mad." Lillith approached the throne.

  She put her hands on Alaric's head. "Oh, my lord, I promise the pain will end. In a day, two, three, you will not know its name anymore. You will only know senselessness."

  "Knowing she will go mad, you send her to Homana."

  Lillith barely glanced at Corin. "It will be sweet to trouble Niall."

  Beneath her hand, Alaric stirred. And Corin, looking into the face of approaching madness, found he could no longer. He turned and walked rapidly from the hall with Kiri close beside him.

  Lillith's laughter followed him. "Welcome to Rondule."

  With Kiri, he left the castle. He ignored the servants who asked how they could serve him; ignored the soldiers stationed at the gates who offered to fetch him a horse. He ignored them all, too intent on escaping the castle, and said nothing at all to them. He went out of gates, out of the walls, out of Rondule entirely, climbing to the headlands. To the top of the dragon's skull.

  He shut his eyes and reached for the earth magic with all of his strength. And as it came tumbling forth, surging up to fill his bones with power, he summoned his other self.

  Now— His eyes snapped open.

  It hurt. It hurt. Perhaps it was Lillith’s proximity that twisted the power, perhaps it was something else. But the shapechange was slow and sluggish, wracking his bones with pain.

  He gasped. He fell, kneeling on the turf, and tried to thwart the pain. But it came at him in waves, as if intending to keep the earth magic from reaching him.

  Kiri—Kiri—Kiri—

  He gagged, then retched, as his belly twisted. He felt the shapechange start, then stop, then waver, then withdraw, only to try again. What he was he could not say, knowing only that if it continued he would no longer be Corin at all, but someone else. Something else; beast instead of man. Or something even worse.

  He cried out, hearing the echoes of an eerie yapping howl. Sweat blinded him, distorting his vision. Kneeling on the turf with arms outstretched, fingers clawing at the dirt, he saw the silver on his wrist. Lillith's seamless shackle.

  Muscles knotted. Cramped. Spasmed. Altered shape, then altered again.

  This time, Corin screamed.

  Kiri.

  Here.

  Kiri.

  Here. Her nose pressed against his neck.

  Lir—

  I am here.

  He was stiff. He ached. Flesh, muscle, bone, all ached with unremitting pain. Not blinding, screaming pain, but the deep-seated ache of a body abused within and without. Corin felt as though someone had stretched all his muscles out of shape, binding them tightly around the bones of an ancient man, to form a new one entirely.

  Or was he a new thing?

  He stirred. "Lir—"

  Here, she said. Here.

  He opened his eyes. The world was the world again, though he could not speak for himself. He lay curled on his side, arms and legs tucked up, and stared in shock at the woman.

  Girl, more like. She sat not so very far away, clad in gray wool skirt and blouse, leather tabard, boots. And she bared a knife in her hand.

  Corin bunked. She did not vanish into the air. She remained seated and silent, watching him warily.

  He tried to move and found it incredibly painful. Gritting his teeth, he forced arms and legs to straighten. It drew a hiss of discomfort from him. The girl, he saw, frowned. The knife glinted in her hand.

  He swallowed. His throat was dry. Even his teeth hurt.

  He tongued them, relieved
to find human instead of vulpine. He felt fully human. But he knew he could not be sure.

  "Am I a man?" he asked, and heard the croak that issued forth. It stirred him into a movement his body was yet unready for; he fell back, gasping, and wished he had not tried. "Am I a man?" he repeated; this time the words made sense.

  "With two arms, two legs, a head," the girl agreed. "Did you think you might not be?"

  He sighed. "Aye . . . aye, there was a chance." Slowly he sat up, locking his jaw against the stiffness. and felt a little of it fading. Perhaps once he was up and moving, things would return to normal. He looked at nails, fingers, hands. Then he touched his face.

  "Man." she told him firmly. "What else might you be?"

  Corin touched Kiri, who sat so close beside him. "Fox," he told her. "Like this one, though dog instead of vixen."

  Her eyes narrowed. She was brown-haired, brown-eyed. Not pretty, not plain, though her features had a familiar cast as well as an uncanny, arresting power.

  Oddly, she reminded him of Aileen. "Are you Cheysuli, then?"

  He nodded. "Aye. Kiri is my lir."

  After a moment of consideration, she slid the knife home in the sheath attached to her belt. "I heard you shouting," she said. "I heard you screaming. So I came to see what caused it, and found you there, on the ground, all bound up like a newbom babe." One hand splayed briefly across her abdomen; the gesture was eloquent, divulging much to Corin. "But when I found you, I saw nothing that caused such pain. Nothing except the fox, and she wanted only to protect you."

  Corin rolled shoulders, head; flexed hands. Everything responded, though a residual ache remained. "I tried to assume lir-shape," he said. "Something prevented me. Something twisted the magic." He looked more closely at her, seeing a look in her eye that hinted at wariness, and something close to fear. "I promise, I mean no harm."

  "Something might mean you harm," she said flatly, pointing to his wrist. "That is the witch's handiwork."

  Corin smiled. "You do not appreciate Lillith?"

  The girl shivered. “I would sooner live without her."

  She pressed herself up from the ground, shaking out gray skirts. "There is a tower not far from here ... an old watchtower, built to warn us of Erinnish invaders. But it is mine, now; will you come? I think you could use the rest."

  Corin got up slowly, hearing joints and tendons snap.

  He could not recall ever feeling so stiff and sore, not even after lengthy arms practice with Hart or Brennan, or even against his uncle.

  She took him to the tower on a cliff overlooking the Dragon's Tail. The edge of the world, it was; jagged, craggy, promising death to the man who fell over it. He could see Erinn from here, and the palisades, showing their chalk-white faces. It made him think of Aileen.

  The interior was clean, washed white with lime. The tower was round, supporting only a second story. A wooden stair was tucked behind the studded door, winding to the upper floor and beyond, up to the watchtower roof. There was a table, benches, chests, and baskets of wildflowers. Also the dome of a tiny fireplace where she undoubtedly cooked her food. It was a cozy, airy home unlike any he had ever known.

  She served him bread, cheese, ale. Her name was Sidra, she told him; she owned a goat, some chickens, grew vegetables, made cloth out of wool on her loom. In town she traded for the other things she might need.

  He looked at her in surprise. "You are alone?"

  "Aye," she said; her chin rose a little.

  "Why? Have you no husband "

  "No husband."

  "And no man to protect you?"

  "I protect myself."

  "With what, that knife?"

  "I have also a sword," she said clearly, looking toward one of the trunks.

  Corin thought of Keely, so proud of her weapons-skill; of her independence. But Keely, he thought, had sound reason for both. She was skilled with sword and bow and knife, because her brothers and uncle had taught her. As well as her father's arms-master before Niall had stopped it.

  "Sidra," he said quietly, "what are you hiding from me?"

  She sighed, staring down at the table as she turned her cup in restless circles. "No man will harm me," she said quietly. "No man who knows who I am, and my father takes care to make it known."

  "Why?"

  She lifted her head to look at him. "I am Alaric's bastard daughter."

  Seven

  "Alaric's bastard?" Corin stared at her in surprise. And then he began to laugh.

  Sidra was unamused. Color stained her cheeks and set her ale-brown eyes to guttering; she moved to rise, but he reached across and caught her hand.

  "No," he said, "no. Forgive me-. I do not laugh at you, but at the situation." He suppressed another laugh, though the sound threatened his throat. "How old are you, Sidra? Eighteen? Nineteen?"

  "Nineteen." She removed her hand from his. "Why do you ask?"

  "Because you are my su'fala." He smiled at her frown of incomprehension. "Aunt," he told her plainly. "Gisella, who is your half-sister, is also my mother."

  This time there was no quick color in Sidra's cheeks, but a draining of it entirely. "Gisella's—" She broke off, staring at him blankly, and then she thrust her stool away to rise and move from the table. "Cheysuli. . . aye, now I see it. Gisella's son—one of them . . . would your name be Corin?"

  He affirmed it with a nod.

  Sidra sighed, combing brown hair absently. She did not braid it like so many other woman, but wore it tied back with a strip of leather. Mostly free, it curled to her nips. "Corin," she murmured, "Crown Prince of Atvia ... if the witch lets you have it." She turned back sharply. "You do understand what she does, do you not? The witch? My father's Ihlini whore?”

  Corin recalled very well what Alaric looked and sounded like. He wondered how much Sidra knew. "I have seen him only today."

  "Then you do know." Abruptly she sat down again, leaning forward against the table. "He was not like this, Corin—not always. Oh, aye, I have heard all the stories-you have little reason to love Atvia or my father—but I swear, he was not always as you see him. That took her"

  "Sidra—"

  "I saw it," she interrupted. "I saw what she did to him, and what it meant, and I told him. I told him to send her away, to make her stop it, so she would not destroy him. But I should have known. I should have reckoned with her power over him." She shrugged a little, pulling slender shoulders forward; the gesture was eloquent as a sign of her helplessness. "Lillith had me sent from the castle."

  "Against Alaric's wishes?"

  Sidra sighed heavily, staring blindly at her cup of ale.

  "By then he had no more wishes—no more power to demand them of her. But she is not a fool; she used no sorcery against me, nor tried to have me slain. No. She simply sent me here . . . where I am away from my father."

  Corin could not reconcile the Alaric of his father's stories and the Alaric of the girl's. "Forgive me, Sidra—but I do not see him as you do."

  "No." She scraped a nail against the wood and drew an idle pattern. "No, you would not." She fell silent again, then flicked him a glance from under heavy-lashed lids. "It was after Gisella went to Homana to marry the Mujhar. The Lord of Atvia, being lonely without his daughter, turned to other women. My mother was one of them. And on her he sired a daughter, whom he named Sidra." Her mouth hooked down briefly. "My mother died. He took me in. There was no secret of my birth, but he did not care. He loved me, and made it known."

  "What happens when he is dead?"

  The question was cruel, but she did not avoid it. "What more than this?" she asked. "I have no place in the succession. My mother was a simple Atvian girl whose beauty, briefly, caught the eye of Atvia's lord. She was nothing to him. Once, I might have been, but Lillith ended that." Sidra shook her head. "I have nothing to offer Atvia."

  "Except the child you carry."

  Again he saw the telltale hand splaying itself across her belly. "How do you—"

  "You give it away y
ourself." He mimicked her gesture distinctly. "I have seen it before."

  Sidra looked away from him. "It was one of .my father's guardsmen. He is gone, now—sent away by the witch . . . but at least she leaves me the child."

  "For now." Corin shook his head. "I have grown up in the midst of political intrigue, Sidra. Bastard you may be, and the child, but it bears royal blood. If it is a son, what is to keep the people of Atvia from deciding to follow him instead of a stranger who shifts his shape?"

  She stared. "Do you think it will threaten you?"

  "You yourself said Lillith allowed you to keep the child—at least for now. But once it is born, and if it is a son, what is to say she will not take it for herself? Surely a child would be easier for her to control than a Cheysuli immune to her power."

  "Immune," Sidra echoed. "Is that why you wear her wristlet?"

  He had forgotten. Now, reminded of it, he felt the weight on his wrist. Cold. It was so cold. Bleakly, he shook his head.

  Unexpectedly, Sidra smiled. "Aunt," she said in amusement, "to a man who is older than I."

  He might have smiled back, but he was thinking of Aileen.

  "What is it?" Sidra asked. "What troubles you, my lord?"

  It was the first time she had used his rank. It was customary, and something to which he had grown accustomed since childhood, but it was odd coming from her.

  "Corin," he said. "I was thinking of a woman."

  "Ah." She nodded, sighing. "Even as I think of a man."

  His hand was lost in Kiri's pelt as she sat by his stool.

  "Did he know there was a child?"

  "No." Sidra poured more ale and drank. "No, he left before I could tell him. Before I knew for certain."

  "And if you sent word to him now?"

  Her eyes filled with tears. "I could not begin to say where he is. The witch would never tell me."

  "And Alaric?"

  Sidra brushed the tears away quickly, as if disdaining them. "I doubt he knows. I doubt it was his doing."

  "I might ask him for you."

  Hope colored cheeks and glistened in widened eyes.

  "Would you?"

  "I promise nothing," he told her gently. "I will ask. But I doubt Lillith would tell me anything more than she has told you."