The Story Hunter

by Lindsay A. Franklin

  “Yes, supplies.” Dray rubbed his hands together. “Excellent. I shall provide a list.”

  Father’s brows rose. “A list?”

  “Yes. I require a decent set of clothing—two, preferably. And a proper razor to maintain my beard. Beard oil, a tooth-cleaning cloth, brisk-leaf paste, soap. I suppose these would be considered necessities, even for you people.” He pursed his lips. “See if you can’t find a decent waistcoat. I rather doubt you’ll be able to. I prefer fine grazer leather, but I’ll take the best of whatever you can find.” He flashed his over-white smile. “I’m flexible.”

  “Anything else?” Father snapped.

  “A looking glass. A traveling cloak—fur-lined, please. Mountainbeast fur, if you can find it, though I don’t know that you can this far south. I suppose you would know what small-town merchants in these areas stock better than I, so do your best. Lined gloves wouldn’t be a bad idea either. And my boots could use repairing. Is there a good cobbler in Bowyd? That is the town in question, is it not? I rather doubt they have a decent cobbler, but any provincial dolt ought to be able to deal with these soles. Half a year in the palace dungeons has been murder on my wardrobe.”

  I couldn’t listen anymore.

  I spun and stomped deeper into the forest, wondering how Father would stand it. Listening to that vain, pompous man make his demands for fine clothing while the queen was kidnapped or dead.

  This was supposed to be a rescue mission, but far be it from Sir Dray Bo-Anffir to travel in anything less than high style.

  “He may not wear frills and lace like some of the noblemen, but he’s no less foppish,” I muttered to myself as I climbed over a boulder. “‘Fur-lined, please,’” I mimicked. “Ugh. What a puff-prowler he is.”

  I slid down the other side of the boulder, then stopped and leaned against it. I held a hand to my chest, affecting Dray’s pompous demeanor. “‘I’m flexible.’ Are you now, Sir Puffy? Shall we test the limits of that flexibility?”

  Even over my grumbling, I heard it—the sound of a twig snapping nearby.

  And then another. I whirled, my hands thrust out, strands ready to meet the threat.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  TANWEN

  It was Mor.

  He held his hands up in surrender, a corner of his mouth upturned. “Don’t shoot. The others left for Bowyd, and I wanted to make sure you were safe out here. I’ll leave if you like.”

  I lowered my hands and breathed out a laugh. “No, don’t. You just startled me is all. Don’t leave.”

  Say it again, Tannie, just in case he didn’t hear it the first seventeen times.

  My face flushed, and I looked down. But he didn’t respond right away, so I did say it again. “Don’t leave, Mor.”

  “All right. I won’t.”

  I dared a glance. He was leaning against the boulder beside me, looking into the forest. He seemed deep in thought.

  “Care to share?” I asked.

  “Huh?” He turned to me. “Oh. I don’t know. I’m just . . .” He looked away again. “I’m sorry about Brac.”

  I swallowed. “Aye. I am too. I don’t understand how he got mixed up in all this.”

  “You will get the chance to ask him someday.” He said it surely, as if there were no doubt.

  But of course there was doubt. We were floating down a river of doubt at the moment, and nothing was sure. Not tomorrow, and certainly not someday.

  “I have a feeling this is much bigger than he is,” Mor said. “I don’t mean to minimize Brac, only that—”

  “Please, make him as small as you like.” Betrayal simmered hot in my gut.

  “Tannie.” Mor frowned at me, like he disapproved.

  “Don’t defend him. Don’t defend that sunbaked sack of rocks that got Ifmere killed and Braith kidnapped and Urian thrown into chaos.”

  Mor hesitated. “I just think there is a good chance he didn’t know what would happen. That someone has used him terribly.”

  I wouldn’t allow the possibility to take root. The risk of hope cut too deep.

  Because if I hoped Brac had not been as guilty as he looked and it turned out he had known exactly what he was doing and who would be hurt, I didn’t think I could bear it. I couldn’t bear the devastation of that disappointment.

  “I hope I never see Brac again.”

  “Just think about it, Tannie.” Mor, gloves on, took my hand. “Maybe not now. But after the hurt fades a little.” He squeezed and released my hand.

  We stood like that for what felt like a long time. The forest sounds soothed my buzzing mind. I could set aside thoughts of Brac and Braith and the Master and just listen to the wind rattling through the dried-out gold and orange leaves. The last of them would fall soon, and winter would be upon us.

  But for now, birdsong still filled the woods, as if the birds called all the forest wildlife to hunker down and prepare for the white days to come.

  One bird’s twittering caught my notice, and I briefly closed my eyes. It tickled something in my memory.

  Ah yes. That was it.

  “It sounds like Gryfelle,” I said aloud.

  “Aye.”

  He had noticed too.

  “It’s strange,” I said. “She was barely awake most of the time at the end. I knew her longer that way—sick, sleeping, just barely hanging on for us. But I miss her. I only got a handful of conversations with her before she left this world. But she has left a hole in my heart.”

  “And mine.”

  Our conversation that night on the ship—the one where we had said we could figure out us later—came flooding back. I hadn’t had much chance to think about it since then. It seemed we were always running for our lives.

  “There might not be a later for us,” I said quietly.

  I didn’t need to say anything else since I knew he remembered our conversation as well as I did—that he had maybe been thinking of it in this moment too.

  “Aye.”

  “There might never be a later where we can figure everything out—where we can figure out if there’s a place for us to be happy, even after what happened with Gryfelle. And Brac. I don’t know if there’s a way to climb out from under the shadow of that.” I brushed away a few tears.

  “I don’t know either, Tannie.”

  “Will this be our life forever, Mor?” I faced him. “Will we always be on the run, our lives in danger? Chasing cures and queens and quests?”

  Mor was quiet. He wanted to assure me that this wouldn’t be our life forever. That we would find a slice of peace and a little bit of space to decide what we wanted. I could see it on his face—the struggle of wanting to say it but knowing it wasn’t true.

  “Sometimes there is war and strife for a person’s whole life,” I said for him.

  “Aye. Some lives are filled with unrest and there never is a tomorrow.”

  The tears fell a little harder now—frustrated, exhausted. And in that moment, I allowed myself to set Braith aside. To imagine that the quest to save her was fruitless. That she was already dead, and even if she weren’t, we were up against too many enemies to overcome them all. And that maybe it wasn’t our job to find her.

  I even allowed myself to imagine that Brac and his allies, whoever they were, would run Tir at least as well as Gareth had. That life would go on. People would return to their farms and villages and towns and taverns. That crops would grow and taxes would be paid. Ships might even sail, and stories would be told and sold.

  “We could stay here,” I said with difficulty. “We could stay in the Corsyth and be safe.”

  “We could have all the tomorrows we wanted here.” He took my face in his bare hands—no gloves. He had taken them off and I hadn’t noticed. His fingers heated and began to glow. Then he leaned forward.

  I lost myself in his blue eyes, so like the crystalline waters along the Meridioni shore.

  He paused for a heartbeat—hesitating.

  I didn’t wait. I stood on my tiptoes and closed
the space between us.

  Our lips met, and a cyclone of multicolored light encircled us. I closed my eyes, but I could still feel the rainbow beams swirl around us, lifting my hair and ruffling my blouse.

  I resisted the urge to wrap my arms around Mor’s neck. I wasn’t entirely sure what would happen if I did, and I wasn’t keen on the idea of an explosion of rainbow shooting into the sky just now. I didn’t want to give away the location of the Corsyth.

  And I didn’t want to have to explain it to my father.

  As if my thought made him appear, suddenly I heard my father’s voice. “Tannie?”

  “Mor?” That shout had come from Warmil.

  Mor and I broke away from each other. He looked as flushed as I felt, and to my horror, the beams of light lingered around us, even though the connection was broken.

  Mor pulled his gloves back onto his hands just as Warmil and Father appeared around the boulder.

  Father scanned the scene, taking in the strands of light and our mortified faces. He was pale.

  I hoped not from anger.

  But in the next moment, I knew for sure it was not anger or embarrassment that had caused the blood to drain from Father’s face. He held a piece of parchment, and as soon as I caught sight of it, he thrust it into my hands.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BRAITH

  “And again.”

  At Frenhin’s command, a guard balled his fist and delivered another blow to Kharn’s face.

  Braith shut her eyes. But it did not block out Kharn’s groans, and it did nothing to ease the ache when Frenhin’s voice sounded again. “Another.”

  Braith squeezed her eyes tighter. “Please!” she begged. “Enough. You’re going to kill him!”

  The dull thud of another punch.

  “Please stop.”

  Silence wrapped the room, and Braith dared to open her eyes. Frenhin was holding one hand up, stilling the guards. She regarded Braith, amusement twinkling in her eyes.

  “Surely there is some sort of agreement we might strike.” Kharn’s voice, faint but solid.

  Braith turned to him. Kharn was dragging himself to a seated position, wiping blood from his forehead onto the shoulder of his filthy shirt.

  “Ah. He speaks.” Frenhin arched an eyebrow. “Tell me, blood heir—what makes you so sure there is a deal to strike?”

  Kharn shifted and winced. “Braith is Queen of Tir. I am blood heir to the throne, last of Caradoc’s line. Whatever you asked for, we would be able to get it.”

  Frenhin pursed her lips, considering. “It’s not entirely untrue. You do hold a certain amount of power. Or did, some days past.”

  Braith studied Kharn’s face. She knew him well enough to know that this must be a play. He would not hand anything of import over to Frenhin, even if it cost him his life to resist her.

  But what might he give if he thought it would save Braith?

  Leverage.

  “What could you offer, blood heir?” Frenhin took her seat—the chair stayed in the room at all times now, as though Frenhin held court in this cavern. She looked down at Kharn. “What could you possibly give me that I might want?”

  “You want control. So we could give you an important council seat. A title.”

  “And would it be better than Queen of the Tirian Empire?” Frenhin pointed a long finger at Braith. “She made sure to strip me of that title.”

  It wasn’t completely true, and it certainly wasn’t fair. But there was no use arguing the point. Not with a woman who kept a list of enemies and crossed them off as she murdered them.

  “No,” Kharn said carefully. “We could not offer you the title of queen. But how did you use it when you had it? You were always in the shadows, exerting your power behind closed doors. Hidden and in secret.”

  Frenhin’s eyes lit.

  Kharn had found a weakness—Frenhin’s pride.

  “That is true, blood heir,” she said, pursing her lips. “There would be something rather glorious about having a political career in the open. I engineered Gareth’s rule—built his empire with my own two hands—and it was the men who took the glory. Gareth, the heroic conqueror. Dray Bo-Anffir, the great strategist. Naith Bo-Offriad, the faithful spiritual guide.” She laughed. “It was all me. Always me.”

  Braith held back the words that sprang to mind. If she knew Dray at all, he was at least half as good a strategist as her mother.

  A thought struck her. “Did he work with you?”

  “Who?”

  “Dray Bo-Anffir.”

  A flicker of cruelty crossed Frenhin’s face. “You sound . . . disappointed.”

  Braith could see in her periphery that Kharn was looking at her, but she didn’t care. Her relationship with Dray had never been romantic, whatever he had tried to make of it.

  But the possibility that he’d worked with her mother did stir something in her—something akin to disappointment, tinged with disgust. She had thought Dray was changing, and maybe he was. But just how far into darkness had he descended before that change began?

  She allowed a long moment to pass. “I suppose I am disappointed.”

  “Why?” Frenhin tilted her head to the side. “You saw how he grabbed for the throne—grabbed for you. You knew how he was.”

  Even in the distance, Braith could see Kharn’s muscles tense.

  “Yes, I knew how he was,” Braith conceded. “But I thought . . .”

  “You thought he had changed,” Frenhin supplied. “Well, darling, you’re certainly not the first foolish woman to be taken in with the idea that men can change. I doubt you will be the last.”

  “It was not like that,” Braith said, more for Kharn than her mother. “I was concerned more for his soul than anything.”

  “Of course you were.” Frenhin sighed. “Dray was a useful, though unpredictable, pawn. One might think, with his levelheaded manner and cool temperament, that he would not have caused such trouble. But, oh, he did.”

  “Did he?” It gave Braith strange satisfaction to imagine Dray bringing trouble to her mother’s plans.

  “I did not appreciate his little grab for the throne. He didn’t consult me on that play.”

  Braith thought about this for a moment. “But he didn’t know you could see his every move. If he did not know your true identity, he would assume he could act somewhat secretly in the palace and the Master would not know about it. He didn’t realize you were there the whole time.”

  “I told you my plans were brilliant. It was all by design.” Frenhin paused. “Dray was unpredictable and troublesome because he was never truly loyal to me. He was loyal to his own desires, and those desires shift often, believe me. When our desires aligned, he was a perfect ally. When they did not, he was a nuisance.”

  “I’m honestly surprised you were not the one to orchestrate the failed attempt to marry me off to him,” Braith mused.

  “That was all his own doing, my dear.” She looked at Kharn. “But you found a preferable option. Preferable for us all, actually. Because this one has somehow won your heart, and Dray would never have managed that, no matter how reformed he became. Yes, this is very much my preference.”

  Because to Frenhin, love was just one more weakness to exploit.

  Frenhin clapped and rose. “Enough of that. Forgive me, blood heir, but I’m afraid our negotiations have come to an end. There is nothing you could grant me. When I execute the final phase of my plan, I will be queen again. I will have more than what you offer me now. Besides, everything you have to give is temporal. Fleeting. Less than what I seek.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’ve told you. Ultimate power. Not the kind that can be gained on a council seat. I have my sights set on something that is . . . not of this world.”

  Something supernatural. Power that could not be touched by the sort of forces Braith or any other earthly ruler might have access to. What might Frenhin do with such power?

  Kharn spoke up again. “And what makes you so sur
e these weavers will join you?”

  “Oh, it is startlingly simple. I will offer them what I seek—what all men seek. I will offer them power.”

  “But they are the ones with the power here,” Braith protested. “They have what you need, not the other way around. You want to use their gifts. You need them.”

  “I don’t expect you to be able to understand this, Braith. You are not, much to my disappointment, a weaver. You don’t understand what it feels like to have that sort of magic running through your veins. It’s heady. Addictive, one might say.”

  “They don’t need you in order to use their gifts.”

  “No, but I’m offering them something greater than the version of their gifts they have previously known.”

  Apprehension gripped Braith.

  “I will offer them magic deeper and more powerful than they could have imagined a few moons ago.” Frenhin inhaled deeply, as if she were drawing in the power. “They have had a taste of it now. That their little seaward quest involved hunting such magic works to my advantage. Now they will understand that what I offer them is real, for they have seen and tasted it themselves.”

  “What magic do you mean?” Braith asked guardedly.

  “Oh, it’s a power more ancient and sacred than anyone has a right to touch. But that has not stopped me before.”

  She glided over to Braith and stooped so they were at eye level. “What you cannot understand, darling, is that weavers are born with their gifts, and we are compelled to use them. That is why Dray’s plan to suppress the arts for your father’s sake failed. It brought an ancient curse upon the weavers who tried to obey the law. I knew it was a possibility but did not see much alternative at the time. Art reveals truth, you know, and we needed to quash truth just then. It was an interesting experiment, that ban.”

  Braith’s mind went to the sick girl—the one her friends had traveled around the world to save. Gryfelle En-Blaid. An experiment? The destruction of life was an experiment to this woman.

  “Interesting but unsuccessful,” Frenhin continued, “because weavers must weave. We must not only use our gifts but nurture them. Stoke them from tiny, inborn flames to wildfires beyond imagining. I will offer the most useful of your weaver friends the fuel to feed their wildfires.”