“And the first summer you’re caught, your world crumbles.” A shadow passed over his face, and he glared into the dawn beyond them.
“No,” she said, reaching up to turn his face toward her again. “It felt that way at first. But I think the Mirror Magi had things planned for me long before this summer. So many nights I dreamed of standing on the edge of a cliff with our village poised to slide into the ocean. I think I always knew my simple days on the island were temporary.”
“So, what keeps you hesitant? What’s this wall made of, if not fear?” Resh asked, gesturing between them.
Coren bit her lips, uncertain how to explain something she hardly understood. “My mother suspected that Weshen children born from a loveless union would be born without magic. She hid her magic when she crossed into Weshen... but she went mad. Having children stripped her magic from her because it wasn’t the right time.”
“I’m hardly asking for children, Coren,” he said, but his tone was gentle.
“I don’t worry about having children at all,” she retorted, frustrated with her own ability to find the right words for the wrong feelings.
Resh smiled, the curve of his lip soft and inviting. “I know the women have ways to ensure no child is born from our union.”
“That’s not it.”
“Do you regret my past, then? The way I embraced the role of lusty Second Son?” He was quoting her words from the beach - the morning her life had changed forever. “I believed our ways were right then, but now, I know they weren’t. I’m sorry for any sorrow I’ve caused you,” he whispered. He hadn’t drawn away, though. If anything, his grip on her waist had grown desperately tight.
Coren studied her hands, wishing for an easy way out, knowing there wasn’t one. “I do regret the way we met. I’ve forgiven you for the things you didn’t know or didn’t understand. Just like I know you’ll forgive me for hesitating to bring you close.” She sighed and slumped against his chest. His heart thumped a steady beat right beneath her ear, and his arms gentled, gathering her close.
She gritted her teeth and forced out the words they both needed to hear. “Resh, I want you. In every way. Just... not yet. I have things to finish first.”
“You think I’ll get in the way of your quests,” he guessed, his fingers stroking her hair.
She remained silent, unwilling to affirm she worried for his safety. Without magic, Resh was so vulnerable to attack from witches or even Riatans with alchemy, and she knew he hated this fact with an unreasonable passion.
Her fear was for the devastation she would feel if she let him too close, and he was taken from her. Or worse, if he decided he was tired of her. Her parents had loved each other, but no matter the reasons, Kashar had still left Sorenta.
“I don’t think I can handle losing you,” she whispered finally, burying the weak, hated confession in the prayer beads around his neck.
She heard his heart speed, and she marveled at her effect on the smooth Second Son of Weshen.
His palm cupped her chin, tilting her face up toward his. “Coren, I’m not going anywhere. You - us. It’s more than I knew was possible. And I know I don’t have the advantage of Sy’s Grizzlin power or a magnificent set of wings like yours, but don’t forget my training. I’m one of Weshen’s best Paladins as well. And I can read people,” he added, his voice rough.
Coren sighed. “How does that help in battle against Brujok? Or Shadow?”
Resh shrugged, his fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the seat. She’d hit a nerve with him, but she’d cracked open the center of her fear, and she couldn’t seem to stop staring at it now. She couldn’t bear to lose him, and the closer they got, the greater that fear grew.
“Reading people isn’t as good as sword skills on the field. But before and after the battle... that’s when I play my games. And I always win,” he said, grinning as he bent forward suddenly and captured her mouth in a greedy kiss, silencing the conversation. This time, she gave in to it.
Pressing her deeper into the cushions, Resh brushed a hand down her neck, around her shoulder, and strummed each rib until he grasped the curve of her hip through the thin layers of fabric.
Breathing was more difficult now, and Coren wanted to smother her fears with the beauty of this moment.
He pulled her closer against his chest, tucking her under his hips. Their bodies fit together perfectly, all her soft places protected by his hard planes of muscle. Coren breathed in his heady scent - leather and fine wool and somehow, a hint of sandjasmine and salt beneath it all.
Her mouth pressed to his skin, just at the opening of his silk collar, in the tantalizing hollow of his neck, and Resh groaned.
“Weshen witch,” he whispered. “How could you want to stop such madness?”
Coren grinned despite her nerves, tracing a finger along his jaw.
“I think I know why I fell for you instead of Sy,” she said, meeting his eyes.
“You mean, aside from his interest in Nik?” Resh teased, pressing a kiss to her temple.
Coren’s cheeks heated. “Of course. But I didn’t know Sy liked men at first.”
“Why, then?” He distracted her for several seconds with tiny nips behind her ear and down the column of her neck.
“Because he’s too good. Too good for me.”
Resh leaned back, studying her. Coren hoped she wouldn’t offend him.
“You’re not all good,” she explained. “And you don’t try to hide it. I want that bit of bad. I want it for myself because I think I’m like that, too.”
His eyelids dropped halfway, and a corner of his mouth lifted, the half smile turning her insides into an inferno. “Oh, you are a witch. I’ll have fun showing you each of the thousands of bad things I’ve learned in my life. Every day, we’ll have a lesson.” He rolled her fully beneath him, holding himself above her with the strength of his forearms, hovering just out of reach of her lips. “I’ll teach you everything I know, then maybe we’ll write our own lessons.”
And he dropped his head, fusing his lips to hers.
MUCH LATER, COREN WOKE alone, golden light streaming down on her. She still rested next to the window, and her dress had been smoothed and arranged prettily around her, but her cheeks heated as she remembered who would have straightened it and why.
“Resh?” she called, her voice barely a whisper in the cavernous room. There was no answer, and as she sat up and looked around, she saw the room was empty.
The golden light grew even more intense, and Coren blinked, her hand shielding her eyes against the sun.
But then the whispers began, and she realized she wasn’t basking in the glow of mid-morning. The spirit of Ferula swerved close to Coren’s face, and she nearly toppled off the edge of the window bench.
The spirit’s mouth opened and closed, but there was no sound. Coren scrambled to her old leather traveling bag where she’d hidden the journal of spells, after ordering the servants not to unpack her personal items. She hurried to find the spell she’d used before. As she chanted the now-familiar words, Ferula’s voice became more and more audible, and her form grew more distinct.
“No time. No more time!” she cried, and Coren startled at the gravelly desperation.
“Time for what?”
“Shadow! Shadow approaches.” The golden woman was nearly wailing now, and a chill shot across Coren’s back. She remembered all too well the feeling of Shadow suffocating her, sinking its odd source-less body into her skin. She shuddered again at the memory of finding Damren, bleeding out in her own bedroom from an invisible enemy’s slice.
“Where? When?” she demanded, reaching to grasp Ferula’s shoulder. Her fingers closed on nothing, her nails digging into her own palm.
“Shadow approaches, and the Brujok are coming. My sister witches are coming. The time is near. Only the SoulShifter can stop the darkness from drowning the light in shadows. You must find your power.”
Coren flinched at the mention of the very power Mara had been
so intent on her learning. And if Ferula was a Brujok, that changed everything. Shards of doubt entered her mind, bleeding out her trust in this spirit.
“What does the SoulShifter have to do with Shadow?”
“Shadow is made of souls. Shadow feeds on souls. Shift them away from its grasp, my Queen. Queen, Queen, of everything...” Ferula began to mutter, half-singing as she floated past Coren toward the window.
“Stop! Wait,” Coren cried. The spirit paused and turned, the song still echoing from its amorphous form. “I need to know more than that.”
“You are worthy. If you can read the book, you can rule the kingdom.”
“What book? This one?” Coren held up the journal.
“Only a true Queen of Riata can read the book. You can read it. Queen, Queen...”
“Stop it,” Coren yelled, her frustration boiling over. “Tell me something real. I’m not Queen of everything. Riata does not own all the world. And how do I learn to SoulShift?”
“It’s in your blood,” the woman sang, flickering. “When the time is right, your blood will show you the power...”
Coren huffed at the impossible answer. She pushed away from the window and paced the room, keeping the spirit in the corner of her eye. She chanted the spell a few more times, hoping it would keep Ferula present long enough to get some real answers. Her eyes snagged on her blue armor resting on the table.
“If Lorental and Zorander had a child, then they had a relationship. Why wasn’t she chosen as Queen?” The spirit shimmered, and Coren had the vague sense that Ferula was laughing at her. “Why not?” she repeated.
“She could not read the book. Read the book! Read the book,” she repeated.
Coren briefly imagined throwing the book, but she knew the spirit wouldn’t feel it. “I will read the book,” she promised instead, opening it at random. Ferula calmed a bit, but then began mumbling again about the Brujok.
“What do the Brujok have to do with Shadow?” Coren asked. “Are they allies?”
“Shadow has no allies, stupid girl,” Ferula shrieked. Coren narrowed her eyes. If the spirit had been a real person, she would have ordered the guards to restrain her. Perhaps there was a spell for that. She began flipping the pages of the book.
“The Brujok search for Mara. They search for themselves and what they once were,” Ferula said after a moment.
“Are you Brujok?” Coren raised her eyes, waiting. She whispered the spell to keep Ferula whole a few more times under her breath.
“I am,” the spirit admitted. Coren glared, but Ferula held up a glowing blur of a hand. “I was Brujok before it became a curse. Mara’s Brujok minions - the ones who surround Sulit and attack StarsHelm - are nothing like the glorious witches they used to be. Twisted. They desire power, becoming grotesque shades of the Mother they used to worship.”
“But witches live so long. Are these the same witches? Did you know some of them?”
Ferula nodded. “Shadow will twist us all with dark dreams and the promise of dominion. None are safe. Not you or your silly brother. Not your beautiful Weshen men. And certainly never Zorander and Mara.” She turned back to the window, her form nearly passing through the glass. “If I had lived... I could have saved him.”
“Saved Graeme?” Coren asked, confused by the sudden switch of topics.
“Yes. He was just a boy, barely your age. His brothers had twisted him so much he hardly knew good from evil, and when Mara arrived, those differences became even more muddled.”
“Where did Mara come from?” Coren asked. She’d wondered so many times.
Ferula turned, shoving her face too close to Coren’s. “Moonshade.”
Coren huffed. Nobody really believed that was the whole story. “Can you tell me more about Shadow then?”
The light around Ferula softened from a fire’s heart to a candle’s flame. “Shadow has always been and will always be. When there is light, there is darkness. When there is too much darkness, there is too much Shadow. The world needs balance.”
“Mara was darkness,” Coren guessed.
Ferula became agitated, her shape flickering in and out. “Queen Mara was a mistake. We did not know she could read the book.”
“Who wrote the book?”
Ferula shook her head. “It was always written.”
Coren flipped the pages, trying to reign in her aggravation with the woman’s riddles. “Is it Riatan or Sulit?”
“The Sulit Mother always helps her people. Even when the Brujok deny her and curse her, the Mother will find a way to bring her family together once more.”
“What family?”
“The holy family,” Ferula answered, her voice puzzled as though Coren should know this. “They have always protected the balance. But people weight the balance in unnatural ways, and the family has scattered.”
“Who is in the family?” Coren persisted, trying to hold the odd pieces of information together.
“FatherSun, Sulit Mother, Magi Twins.”
Coren stared into the spirit’s fading face, her brain struggling to comprehend what she’d just heard. “Our Weshen gods are the children of Riata’s god? And Sulit’s? Like a real family?”
Ferula nodded, but her shape was diluting in the strengthening morning light. Coren realized her time was short.
“How does Shadow fit in the family?” she asked.
Ferula’s light flared more than it ever had, searing Coren’s eyes shut like a slap. When she opened them again, blinking at the dark dots swimming in her vision, the woman was gone.
“Ferula?” she called, but the Queen’s chambers were still and silent, growing cold without the spirit’s small heat.
The tiny servant’s door cracked open, and a head popped out. “You’re awake, Majesty? I will build your fire now,” the girl said, and Coren nodded, in a daze. “I beg your forgiveness, Majesty. I didn’t want to wake you before,” she murmured.
Coren waved her on without a word, her mind reeling with all the odd bits of information Ferula had given her. She hurried to the narrow writing desk in the corner and sat, shoving at her wealth of skirts while scrambling for paper and ink.
Her hands shook as she wrote a list of all the mismatched facts, leaving gaps where information seemed to be missing and adding questions to the side. In all the excitement of the coronation, she hadn’t shown the book to Sy or told Resh what she’d learned.
But she couldn’t delay another minute.
She also needed someone who had lived here a long, long time - someone who knew the palace history and Riatan religion. Maybe Giddon. She’d yet to visit the library, but Sy had been there a dozen times on their previous visit with Kashar. And Resh had studied much about the Mirror Magi - perhaps he knew about the holy family.
Jyesh might have information, too, but she didn’t want to involve him. She didn’t want to give him one more reason why she was evidently destined to rule this country.
She wasn’t even sure she wanted Dain to know what she’d found. He’d helped her a great deal, but he’d also been leaving her out of some important conversations.
“Please send for Sy and Resh,” she called to the servant, who had just risen from the fireplace. “I’ll have breakfast in my room with them, if that can be done.”
A surprised smile flitted over the girl’s face. “Of course, Majesty. Anything can be done for the Queen.”
Chapter 19
“WE HAVE A PROBLEM,” Coren said as soon as the brothers had joined her for breakfast.
She produced the journal, and Resh nodded. He looked at Sy. “Coren found that hidden in Mara’s throne. We think it’s a talisman.”
“Actually, it’s not,” Coren said. “It’s a spellbook. Well, it might be more than that. I met someone last night. Her name is Ferula, and she was Graeme’s nurse.”
Sy raised his eyebrows. “She must be a hundred years old.”
“She’s dead,” Coren admitted. Resh laughed, but the sound died away when he realized she was
serious. Coren held out the spellbook, and Resh took it, flipping through the pages. Sy looked over his shoulder, and both shook their heads.
“I don’t see anything,” Sy said.
Coren tried to explain what she saw in the book, and she related the two visits she’d had with Ferula. The brothers listened intently, but she could tell they were both worried.
“I trust her,” she finished. “It’s weird, but just like, Sy, you know the seven brothers mean you harm. Well, I can tell Ferula is the opposite.”
“Dead witches can lie as well as live ones,” Resh warned.
Coren shrugged. “We need to check her story, then. But I still trust her.”
“Can you call her?” Resh asked. “Can you summon Ferula here? Now?” He handed the journal back to her.
She chewed her lip. What if it worked, and they didn’t agree with her assessment of Ferula being helpful rather than harmful?
“Call her,” Resh coaxed. “We’ll help you decide. It’s possible the witch has entranced you.”
Coren sighed, taken off guard again by Resh’s uncanny ability to read her emotions right from her face.
“You and witches,” she muttered, but it wasn’t really funny this time.
She flipped the pages in the book, finding the spell she’d used earlier. Chanting it under her breath several times, Coren peered around the room. No golden glow appeared, no unnatural warmth.
“Try another,” Sy suggested.
Coren cocked her head, realizing she had only ever tried the one spell. She flipped through the pages, reading them more carefully than she’d done before. “None of them are named,” she said, frustrated. “Who knows what spells I could be casting?”
“Would Giddon know?” Sy offered.
Coren shrugged, feeling defeated. “I’ll visit him after breakfast then. We should all eat,” she said, gesturing at the food before them. Silence settled over the table as the four filled their bellies. Coren’s mind filled with answerless questions, and she stared unseeing out the window. The late morning had become early afternoon, and though they had just finished breakfast, it was likely past lunch now.
Dream of Darkness and Dominion Page 18