The bed was built into a cozy wooden box against the wall, decorated with gilded flowers running along the edges. A brocade curtain draped over the opening, tied back, promising a toasty sleeping experience. She sat on the bedside, resting her feet on the step to the box’s opening, and drank her milk.
Silence hung heavy in the chamber.
Are you saying you’d like to be married instead? She had once asked Vivene that question. She had hardly given it a thought before their conversation. Assuming she’d have a house, being married must be like this: having a private room with a bed shared with another person. Except it wouldn’t be so silent. She’d have someone to talk to before falling asleep, and to laugh with. She could wake her husband up if she felt scared. If she awoke from a nightmare, she’d feel him next to her and then be relieved to find herself not alone.
Her hand shook as she brought the cup to her trembling lips again. Another sip might stop the oncoming sadness. It was still warm. Erol must’ve set it there as she climbed the stairs with Bowaen and Del. The thick, heated milk running down her throat warmed up her core, but didn’t soothe her as much as she’d hoped.
Another thing would come with sharing a room with a husband: intimacy. Gossiping townswomen she’d passed on her way to the hospital or the market would make comments about “what husbands demanded,” or for some reason said that pleasing a husband was some kind of marital obligation a woman suffered. Though Kalea had never done that in real life, in her strange dreams of Dorhen, the feeling was quite mutual. Those women’s claims were off somehow. They were fools who didn’t realize what they had.
A sob crept up Kalea’s throat, and she covered her mouth. The bed behind her was quite dark within its wooden box frame. Too dark. Her candle still stood tall. Reading might be the best thing for now.
Whipping the lid open, she dug her hand into her basket, past the quilt she’d taken from the convent to find her book. She watched the light dance across the slim lines of the gilded arrow on Lehomis’s book.
“I wonder if Lord Dax has the other installments in his library,” she muttered.
Through the hall, she tiptoed with the candle from her bedside. The house wasn’t as complex as she would’ve thought. Down the stairs at the end of the hall, she turned the corner into the lounge, where many plump cushions were arranged around a recess in the floor. In the middle of the recessed area stretched another fine rug. The tapestry hanging on the back wall was woven in many shades of green with tree shapes, spiny pine trees like the forest in which she had grown up. Kalea hadn’t noticed all this on her first trip through.
The door to the basement was concealed at the back corner of the room; she remembered that part. The basement was colder than the rest of the manor, and the stones chilled her hand as she grazed it along the wall down the steps. At the bottom, darkness enshrouded the library.
She moved to the first available bookshelf that came into her candlelight to browse for more gilded arrow books, but stopped short. Banging sounds thumped overhead. And muffled voices. Was Lord Rem still up there? Did he sleep up there?
At first, she took one step closer to the bookshelf. Why should she bother anyone tonight? A sad wail stopped her again. Her mouth dropped open. Was someone hurt? She could offer help. She moved toward the spiral stairs she and the butler had climbed earlier.
The voices grew louder. “Lord Rem, please—”
He was still up there. Lord Dax must be the voice she heard. Footsteps stomped across the round span of ceiling above.
“N-no! I just… It’s not—No!”
“Please. Try to be calm!”
A loud thunk hit the ceiling. Kalea jumped and paused midway up the stairs. Nosiness was one of those minor faults her convent superiors used to preach about, and there must’ve been good reason for it.
Another somber cry startled her again. It had to be Lord Rem. He had been so kind to her earlier, maybe she could help him in return.
“Rem, is it about Damos?”
“Trees! And, and…”
“And what?”
“Idiots!”
“Who’s an idiot? Lord Rem, try to sort out your thoughts. Rein them in. Breathe deep.”
“They’re dead!”
“Who?”
“You fool!”
“Me?”
“No, Lord Dax, not you!”
A long growl rattled in a masculine throat.
“Erol, go get some sage—and lavender. Bring anything you think might be soothing.”
The door slammed open. Kalea pressed against the wall. There was no hiding here.
“Thomas, are you writing all this?”
“Yes, my lord!”
The door slammed closed behind Erol, and he descended the steps as fast as his old bones could handle.
“Kalea, is that you?”
“Yes, sir,” she said as Erol reached her step.
He put his free hand on her arm; the other held his own candle. “Don’t be frightened. You can go up if you wish. My lord told me to bring anything to soothe Lord Rem. You might help. He seemed to like you dearly. Go on up, no one will mind.”
Her eyes trailed up the winding steps as Erol plodded down past her. Against all of her fear and hesitation, she ascended the stairs and reached toward the door handle.
The scene beyond the door glowed with many candles. A young man sat at the table where they had drunk tea earlier, scribbling sloppy words onto paper with a drippy quill. Lord Dax stood over Rem. The otherworldly elf was crouched on the floor, scrubbing the boards with a wet rag. A soapy bucket stood beside him. His teeth were gritted and his eyes glassy and hurt.
The scene looked oddly like a mother punishing a child with housework. But that wasn’t the case. Lord Dax wasn’t making Rem do anything. It took a long time for any of them to notice Kalea. Rem saw her last.
“Look,” Dax said, “your friend Kalea is here! Tell her. Tell her what you saw.”
Rem shook his head and scrubbed the floor more furiously than before.
“No. Her least of all.” Lord Rem stopped talking. His body trembled, and he fell over into a full crouch. The wet rag slapped against the floor. “No.” His voice croaked, more sad than frantic. “My mother.”
“What about your mother?” Dax pressed.
Rem sobbed with his face buried between his arms on the floor. “She’ll be so sad.”
Dax’s eyebrows narrowed, and he regarded Kalea. Her arms hung by her sides, and she felt more useless than at any other moment in her life. Dax looked at the young man at the table, who’d paused to observe the scene also.
“Rem,” Dax said, “that doesn’t make sense. If my Norrian history is right, your mother has been dead for almost fourteen hundred years.”
“Don’t remind me.” Without raising his head, Rem reached out to grab the rag and continued wiping the floor, this time limply and absentmindedly.
“Lord Rem,” Kalea said as politely as she could over his sobbing. “Why will your mother be sad?”
Dax’s eyes returned to her, burning with intensity. Had he not thought to ask such a thing?
She ventured over and knelt beside Rem, keeping a distance between them.
Dax twisted around and whispered, “Thomas.” He waved his arm as if writing in the air. Thomas poised himself with the quill.
Rem’s shoulders shook violently. “Because”—he worked the words in between sobs—“how can they do this to her homeland? Her people?” The last word he whispered.
“What did they do, Rem?”
“They’re doing it right now.” His hands balled into fists. His tensed arms caused his spiky bracelets to dig into his flesh, and blood flowed from some spots. “I wanted to be a good son.” His voice twisted into a growl. “It was Hathrohjilh’s fault.”
Kalea reared back as he resumed his vigorous cleaning. “Hathrohjilh…?” The name’s breathy syllables were easy to whisper.
Kalea joined Dax’s side. “What’s going on?” she aske
d him.
He jerked both hands in Rem’s direction. Some of Rem’s next words were gibberish. Some of it sounded Norrian. “It’s another ecstasy,” Dax said.
“This can’t be an ecstasy. He’s suffering.”
“We know, woman!” It was hard for them both not to stare at the spectacle on the floor. Rem’s robes were half soaked and his hair hung in soapy clumps. “This is new. He’s never panicked like this before.”
“Well, if there’s a problem somewhere, can’t we remedy his suffering by…doing something?”
Dax’s next shrug was emphasized with tense hands. “It’s impossible! Sounds like something is happening in Norr. Whatever is happening and wherever it’s happening, we can’t hope to remedy it without more information. And even if he could tell us more, I’m sure we don’t have the resources to help with Norr’s problems.”
She waved her hands. “All right, sorry. We don’t need to add to the stress.”
Lord Rem shot upward, arching his back and hugging his stomach as he gasped at the ceiling. Every muscle in his neck tensed. He fumbled words as they forced themselves out of his mouth. Out of the mess, a statement became clear. “Then I can show you the life of a god!”
Kalea and Dax turned to each other.
“You heard it too, huh?” Dax mumbled. “Thomas!”
“Got it, my lord.”
Rem’s convulsing intensified.
“I can’t watch this anymore,” Kalea said, and ran to the basin beside the tea table.
“What are you doing?”
She ignored Dax and filled the basin halfway. Dropping to her knees as fast as she could without spilling it, she set it on the floor beside Rem. “Rem, it’s me, Kalea.”
He didn’t respond but continued to shake and convulse.
“Look at me.” She dipped her hands in the fresh water and took his head between them. He stopped crying and mumbling. “Shh-shh-shh-shh.” She made the sound in the rhythm her father had used when she’d cried as a small child. Rem’s eyes focused on hers, staring blank and empty. Her voice softened. “That’s right.”
She dipped her hands again and caressed the cool water along his hot, red face. She laid her palm along his forehead. His eyelids relaxed and he bowed his head.
“You can lie on me,” she said, and pulled his head into her arm. He relinquished control to her and laid there as she bid, keeping quiet and allowing her to caress his forehead and hair. His hair strands were softer than any human’s she’d ever seen. Softer than Dorhen’s too. “What’s wrong now? Why so upset, Rem?”
He groaned.
“Something big seems to be bothering you. Please tell me. We’re friends, right?”
“Yes.” A small sob escaped as he trembled in her arms. His entire form was clammy. He added another odd statement, “And then he saw darkness…”
Kalea waited a few moments for him to continue. “Who?”
“All of them.”
The hair stood up on the back of her neck. “Rem. Please explain what’s the matter.”
A string of incoherent mutterings followed her question, some sounding Norrian. “Idiots and—and—I don’t know.”
“Rem,” she whispered, “if you can sum it up in one word, what word would it be?”
His trembling continued for a moment before his breaths worked into an answer. “Wikshen.”
Then he fell asleep.
Chapter 30
Her Departure
This is the first time I’ve ever seen him sleep,” Lord Dax said, squatting beside Kalea as she supported Rem’s head.
She gave him a quizzical expression. “How long has he been staying at your house?”
“For the last year. Come on, let’s put him on the bench.”
Rem didn’t weigh much. Lord Dax scooped him up and placed him on the large reading bench with several plump, velvety cushions.
“What brings you up here anyway, girl?” Dax asked, stepping back beside her to observe Rem’s pitiful pose as he leaned into the bench’s corner, his hands crossed limply over his middle.
“I went to the library. Erol said I could read the books,” she said. “I heard the commotion… Well, I must admit I’ve been curious about Rem ever since we parted.”
Dax put his hands on his hips. “He’s a curious creature.”
“Why is he here?”
“He’s here to help us sort out the sorcery infiltration. Sometimes he can tell us which dignitaries have been seduced by the sorcerers, or which ones have adopted the practice. A lot of what we get, though, is puzzles.” He motioned to the limp elf.
The sight hurt her for some reason. He’d been so sweet to her earlier today. “You don’t mind having an elf in your house?”
He eyed her. “Why would I, when the sorcerers are thumping at my door? I can’t even attend sanctuary anymore. In these days, I’ll take whoever is willing to make themselves useful.”
“Sorry,” she said. “They arrest and throw rocks at elves where I grew up. I was surprised at your hospitality for one.”
“Speaking of which, it might be time for an audience with the Norrian leaders. We haven’t tried to make contact yet because Rem hasn’t been able to tell us whether sorcery has gotten to them or not. There’s a considerable divide between us, which I think you know.”
“He doesn’t know whether sorcery is in Norr yet? Didn’t he come from there?”
Dax shook his head, drawing his mouth tight. “He didn’t. I don’t know where he came from. He hasn’t told us. In fact, he didn’t even knock on the door. One day, I entered this tower and found him here, waiting. He’s been here ever since.”
“That’s so strange.”
“He’s made this turret his home. He also goes down and cleans the library, but he never leaves this wing.”
“What about his identity? You seemed to know a fact about his mother,” Kalea said.
“Yes, assuming he is who I think he is.”
“Which is…?”
“Prince Remenaxice of Norr.”
Kalea covered her mouth. “But…”
Dax spread his hands. “It’s an assumption. He’s mad as mad can be, girl. And he hasn’t answered my questions about his identity. But I scoured some books and found his name in some old stories. A Norrian princess gave birth to a set of triplets, but the three princes were hated among their own kind. Their mother’s power protected them from execution or whatever might’ve happened to them. Eventually, they were expelled from Norr, pushed out to wander the Darklands. Nothing else in our books hint at what happened next. Whoever Prince Remenaxice was, something happened to him, and here he is. He confirmed my belief earlier this evening too.”
“How?”
“When he told you to look for his brother, Adrayeth. Right there in the books, it says that Prince Remenaxice had two brothers, one bearing that exact name. The other was named Hathrohjilh.”
Kalea covered her mouth. She couldn’t keep her eyes from darting to the door, as if Bowaen would enter bearing the sword with the same name. Maybe Rem’s brother had owned it once upon a time. She withheld her questions about it from Dax. Bowaen might not have shown him the sword yet.
She looked back at Rem and couldn’t stop staring at him. “I don’t believe it. A Norrian prince.”
Dax added, “This makes little sense to me, though, because it’s like I said earlier: the mother of the triplets died fourteen hundred years ago. If that was when she died, it would make Remenaxice…older than that.” He shook his head. “If this is indeed him, he hasn’t been to his home in a long time.”
“My lord,” Thomas said, still sitting at the table, reviewing the phrases he’d recorded. “A word Rem used…”
“What?”
“Wikshen,” Thomas said, grimacing at the last sheet of paper. “Did you hear it the same as I did?”
“What does it mean?” Kalea asked.
Dax shook his head. “So we all heard the same thing. But…a fairy tale is what it means. It’
s an ancient Darklandic legend about a monstrous man who murdered and raped.”
Kalea bit her lip and looked at Rem. “Why would he mention that?”
Dax slicked a hand over his jaw-length hair, which was beginning to lose its neat shape in the late hour. “For any reason. It could be useful, or it could be a useless memory from his past. His mother might’ve told him those horror stories in his youth.”
“It’s eerie he’d mention it on a night like this.”
“We’ll have to try to decode it,” Dax said. “This is what Rem does: he provides us with codes. Some have been useful already, like when he spoke of a black ravian and we realized a black ravian was the crest of House Carri.”
“House Carri, as in Carridax?”
“Yes. Not long ago, the Carri Manor welcomed a mage into their household for his counsel. The mage, we found out, is a sorcerer who poisoned the mind of the man who used to be my best friend.”
“Oh dear Creator.”
“Sorcery is eating our proud city.”
Kalea turned her face away as Dax’s expression darkened.
“Better go to bed, girl,” he said. “Your friends are leaving tomorrow, and I suggest you get far away from here too.”
In the morning, the trio and Lord Dax went to a store room where leather shoulder bags had been prepared, full of dried food, kindling tools, knives, and whatever else might be useful out in the wilds. Lord Dax even granted the men and Kalea fresh undergarments and cloaks with hooded mantles. Del was given a set of lethal knives, though he boasted about his heavy pipe even as he accepted them. A bedroll for each of them was secured to their packs.
“What’s the matter, Kalea?” Del asked as hers was being tied to her bag by its leather fastenings. “Were you looking forward to nestling into the dirt and covering over with rotten leaves?” He followed up with a snicker.
She couldn’t deny her face must’ve looked long as she thought back to her exchange with Dorhen about bedrolls. With a sly smile on his face, he’d offered to let her share his, and she had refused. The alluring and mischievous feeling that exchange had brought on… She would’ve looked forward to flirting with him more along their way. How sad it was to have that prospect stolen away in the night. But she’d find him.
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