I knew it sounded doltish. And I knew this was why people thought me simple. And maybe I was simple. To even suggest we might just erase all this was woefully simple.
But I wasn’t as dumb as all that. I knew we would have to pay for it. Even if we were somehow able to undo things, we wouldn’t be able to walk away, easy as you like, and go back to whatever our lives had been before.
I understood that. And still . . . I wanted to undo it all, restore Braith, and let her see to the business of running the kingdom. She was built for it and I wasn’t. It didn’t take a whole hour on the throne, let alone a whole week, for me to see that.
Naith snorted. “Take it back? No. We cannot and we will not take it back.”
I gathered what courage I had. “Well, even so, maybe I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“You no longer have a choice.” Naith’s mouth curved as if it was filled with sting-tail venom. “Son.”
Just then, Bo-Fergel returned, carrying a tray with tea and cakes. He hesitated as he drew near, almost as though he could feel the ill will between me and the high priest. “Refreshments, my lord. Your Holiness?”
“None for me.” Naith moved toward the door. He paused and caught my eye. “I shall consult with the goddesses about your—ah—feelings. We will see what’s to be done.”
I gave half a stiff nod as he swept from the room.
Bo-Fergel set the tray on the table. “The others will be along in a bit. They decided to take a stroll and get some fresh air.”
“Fresh air sounds nice. I miss it.”
He smiled a little.
“I used to be a farmer,” I said, although he already knew that. “Then I was in the guard. Got plenty of air and sunshine doing both those things.”
“Yes, I suppose you would, my lord.”
“Ugh.” I grimaced. “When the others ain’t around, can you just call me Brac? My lord was fun for a few days. It’s starting to poke my ears like prickle-back quills.”
He smiled again in that tight, thoughtful way he had. “If the others aren’t around, I will submit to that.”
I knew a little of his background—he was the son of one of the royal library keepers under King Caradoc and Gareth. He had to be older than me by five or ten years, but not much more. He was kind and serious, steady and clearheaded.
And, more than anyone else in my life at the moment, I felt I could trust him.
Though it was just a feeling in my gut, and stars knew my gut had been wrong more than once.
Still. I needed someone to talk to.
“Bo-Fergel?”
He paused in the middle of pouring hot water. “Yes?”
“What’s your given name?”
“Hysgrifenyddion.”
“Sakes.”
Bo-Fergel chuckled. “My friends call me Eny. You may, too, if you like.”
“Eny, you ever feel like maybe you accidentally jumped off a cliff?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
BRAITH
Braith looked up sharply from the bruised, bleeding Meridioni to her mother. “What have you done to this man?”
Frenhin gave a delicate shrug. “Only . . . interviewed him.”
“With your fists, apparently,” Kharn muttered.
Frenhin smiled. “I do whatever is required, blood heir. I understand how that might make someone as weak-willed as you uncomfortable.”
Braith took in the pitiful old man before her, and her heart twisted. “Why have you interviewed him? If that is what you wish to call it.”
“Oh, I have your weaver friends to thank for this gem of a man.” Frenhin bent and caressed the man’s face as though stroking a beloved pet. “He has been most useful.”
“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he croaked to Braith. “She abuses her gift in the most shocking ways. She used her strands to pull things from me.”
“You see, blood heir?” Frenhin said to Kharn. “I did not lay a hand on him. My strands did all the work for me.”
“Your strands and your guards, I wager,” Kharn shot back.
“Trifles.”
“Sir,” Braith asked the man kindly, “what did you say your name was?”
“Insegno, Your Majesty. Master Insegno.”
“He was the tutor of the Meridioni colormaster,” Frenhin said. “They led me straight to him. Bordino was the first stop on their quest, and it was all so the Meridioni could catch up with his old teacher.”
Insegno shook his head. “You listened to conversations you had no right to.”
Frenhin moved to kick him.
“Stop it!” Braith demanded. “Do not hurt him again.”
Frenhin regarded her. “Or else what? It is truly incredible you do not recognize you are in no position to barter, my dear. Always the princess, aren’t you?”
Braith met her mother’s eyes. “Do not hurt him again, or else you might kill him. He is old, and you have abused him enough already. If you kill him, you cannot use him.”
Frenhin moved away from Insegno. She sat back in her chair and laughed. “It pains you to set aside principle and appeal to my basest desires. To beg for a man’s life on the basis of his usefulness.”
Braith did not dignify that with a response. Of course she hated to reduce any human being to a game piece.
But this woman standing before her could not be appealed to on any other basis.
Frenhin shrugged. “Whatever works, right, darling?” She produced a small fireball in one of her palms and began to bounce it up and down. “In any case, without Insegno, I would not have learned all I needed to know for the next phase of my plan.”
“And which phase is this?” Braith asked. “I’ve lost track.”
Frenhin’s eyes narrowed, and the fireball stilled. “Don’t get haughty. You are here to listen and to watch. If you refuse to do these things, you are no longer entertaining and I will dispose of you.” She glanced at Kharn. “And him. So I suggest you mind your tongue.”
Braith pressed her lips together.
“I had sought the storyteller girl—Yestin’s daughter—because she was young and impressionable. Ambitious, too, and I can use all of these things. There is also a certain amount of talent that is inborn for a weaver. There are some things you can’t teach. She has them in spades. I wanted her from the moment I saw her crystallize a story.
“When that farm boy begged your father for her life and insisted she was truly loyal to Gareth, not to be counted among the rebels, it was easy enough to convince the king to keep her instead of executing her. I thought, perhaps, I might one day make her like a daughter to me.”
She looked at Braith expectantly.
“Mother,” Braith began, the word like acid in her mouth, “I have always known I was a disappointment. And we were never close. I used to wish I was not beneath your notice. Now I understand why I was, and I count it as a credit.”
“Fair enough, I suppose.” Frenhin resumed playing with her fireball, directing it as it swirled through the air before her in lazy circles. “I thought Tanwen might be a better fit for my plans.”
“Then you have misread her.”
“Possibly. I lost the opportunity to find out.” She glared at Braith. “I have no trouble delaying satisfaction, my dear. I was married to your father for fifteen years before he became king. I am a patient woman. One step at a time, I execute my plans. It would have been the same with the storyteller. I would have worked on her slowly, and then I would have had someone to—”
Frenhin’s voice cut off. She turned toward her fireball, and Braith could see emotion swimming in her eyes for a long moment.
Then Frenhin composed herself. “I would have had someone to take over when I’m gone. At my age, one must think of such things, and you certainly would not continue my work. Don’t you see? This has grown bigger than mere revenge. I have built something. Something worth preserving. I wanted to pass it down to someone. I still do.”
Kharn shook his head. “You’re mad.”
“Perhaps.” Frenhin shrugged. “But Braith stole that chance from me with her betrayal.”
Braith did not bother pointing out it was actually Tanwen and the other weavers who conquered Gareth, not she.
“So I thought to simply steal the girl. Force her into my service. Or perhaps slowly work on her from afar, though I did not have the power or resources of a queen any longer. But then, to my dismay, she jumped aboard that ship with the others.”
Yes, Braith had received word of this from Yestin. When Tanwen did not return after seeing off the ship from Physgot, Braith had assumed at first that she had chosen to return home to Pembrone—back to her family cottage to await the return of her friends. The girl had not been entirely happy in the palace.
But then Yestin had sent news from Bordino that Tanwen was afflicted with the weavers’ curse and in need of assistance. Braith had been concerned for her young friend, of course, but Tanwen was in her father’s capable hands. If a cure was attainable, Yestin would find it for his daughter.
“It was a good thing she did jump aboard,” Frenhin remarked. “Or else I would not have followed the weavers quite as closely as I did. I would not have heard all I needed to know.”
“How could you have followed them?” Braith frowned. “Surely they would have noticed the former queen sneaking around Meridione.”
Frenhin sighed. “This is why we can’t communicate about anything, darling. You always have your sights set on the temporal, whereas I exist in the supernatural. That is my dominion, and you know nothing of it.”
“What you have done is dangerous.” Insegno pulled himself to a seated position. “You have twisted your gift and misused power that does not belong to you. You meddle in the supernatural, but you do not understand or respect it.”
Frenhin leaned forward and slapped him across the face. “Silence!”
She took a moment then—regained her composure and her malicious smile. And Braith realized something. Her mother did not like those occasions when her emotions took over. She did not like it when she was out of control.
Interesting.
“I did not literally follow them,” Frenhin continued. “One of my strands did.”
“One of your . . .” Braith blinked. “What?”
“I told you I play a long game. I have been honing my skills for a great many years. My strands can do things you can’t even imagine.”
Kharn stared at the fireball hovering above Frenhin’s left hand. “I might believe it.”
Insegno held his palm to the cheek Frenhin had slapped. “You are not honing your skills. You are using power that does not belong to you. You will pay dearly for your transgressions. Turn away before it is too late.”
Frenhin kept her composure this time. “Or else what, old man? What do you think you can possibly do to me?”
“Not I,” Insegno said. “Do you think these ancient strands appeared from nowhere? Do you think the weaver gifts have no origin? They merely reflect the Source. I tried to tell you.” He shook his head. “I tried to tell you.”
“I have not experienced any consequences like you describe.” Frenhin ran the fireball across her fingers. “So, I appreciate the effort, but you will not frighten me into submission.”
“I tried to tell you,” the old man said again. “Your destruction, however it comes, will belong to you and you alone.”
A shadow of fear eclipsed Frenhin’s face. But only for a breath. She turned back to Braith. “Yes, I suppose they might have noticed the former queen skulking through Bordini alleyways. But they did not notice my invisible strands trailing them, transmitting sound back to me.”
“You can just throw a strand after someone and hear whatever they say?” Braith asked in disbelief. If it were so, would anyone be able to mount a plan to stop Frenhin? She could listen to any conversation she wished, overhear any plan to take her down.
“Oh, it’s not as simple as all that. It’s safe to say I’m the most powerful weaver in history—right, Meridioni?—but even I have limits.”
Master Insegno did not respond to her question, but Frenhin did not seem to care.
She forged on. “The closer I am to the strands, the better I can hear. I had to launch a ship from the Eastern Peninsula quickly to stay within range of the rebels. To hear in Bordino from Physgot or some other peninsular town would have stretched me too thin. At least, without someone with whom I had a strong connection. In any case, I had other strands working for me elsewhere at the time.” She flashed a twisted smile. “I am only one person, after all.”
Braith tried to keep her tone even. “What special knowledge did you gain that you had not yet possessed? It seems you have been at your business for a very long time. What did Insegno have to teach you?”
“Do you want to tell them, Meridioni, or shall I?”
Insegno looked at Braith. “Forgive me, Your Majesty. I did not wish to tell her anything at all.”
“I understand,” Braith assured him. “Do not trouble over that just now. This is not your fault.”
Insegno’s head was bowed. “I helped my former student—you call him Dylun—complete his map and his plan to rebuild an ancient cure to save his two friends. One was too far gone. That was plain to everyone except those who loved her. Such is often the case, isn’t it?”
Braith smiled sadly. “It is, indeed.”
“But there was hope for the other ragizzi. I taught them about the ancient weavers—how the weaver gifts had been more powerful in days past, how the gifts had been exploited, and why the artifacts needed to be broken apart and their strands hidden. I warned them to be careful. This is power from the Source, and one does not interfere with such things lightly.” He glanced at Frenhin. “At least, not if one is wise.”
Frenhin flicked her fireball toward Insegno. It hit the floor just beside his filthy garment.
He flinched. “I have tried to warn—”
“Anyway,” Frenhin cut him off, “as they began to follow their map and as they drew that first ancient strand out of the rock monument, I recognized the feel of it.”
Braith’s brows rose. “You recognized the feel of it?”
“I was surprised when they said it was vivid blue. Not quite the same strand after all. And the others were not right either. Gold, purple, and red. But the unseen waves that pulsated from those strands reached me, even at my distance. I knew I had felt that power before. I knew I had that power.”
Braith fought to control her voice. “And what power is that?”
“I possess one of these ancient strands, and from it, I draw my strength.”
Braith stared.
“You don’t believe me?” Frenhin pulled back the edge of her sleeve.
There, wrapped around her forearm, was a white strand so bright it flashed like lightning. Braith blinked against the brilliance.
Frenhin smiled at the strand. “It was an accident, really.” She glanced at Insegno. “One might say it was destiny.”
He turned his face away.
Frenhin replaced her sleeve, and the light of the strand winked out. “Many years ago, before I was queen, in the early days of the plan, I had this place, the Craigyl, carved out for me. I needed a retreat. Somewhere I could go to practice my weaver skills and not be seen. Somewhere to meet with those loyal to me. Somewhere to be alone and think. So I had a fortress built into a mountainside.”
Braith scanned the carved stone of deepest gray. “Where in Tir are we?”
“I don’t suppose there is harm in telling you. You are inside a mountain in the Mynyth Range.”
“The Highlands?”
Even her father had always held a healthy fear of the Highlands. Highlanders were perhaps the toughest of all Tirians, bred in harsh conditions, cut off from the rest of the country unless they ventured south to trade pelts. And besides, mountainbeasts dwelt among the cliffs. And in the caves.
Braith shrank into the wall behind her.
But Frenhin did not seem bothered. “
Yes, in the Highlands. It was the perfect remote location, I thought at the time. And it turns out my inclination could not have been more fortuitous. As my builders drilled and mined and carved, they stumbled on a curious streak. They said it was like a thick ribbon of white light snaking through the rock. But they could not seem to take hold of it, move it, or do anything with it. It repelled their tools, burned their hands, and thwarted all their attempts to remove it. They called me to investigate.
“I knew immediately it was a strand. Any weaver would have known. And, as I was a weaver and none of them were, it responded to me in a way it did not to them. I was able to coax it from the stone. I took it, and it has been mine ever since.”
“It is not yours.” Grief edged Insegno’s words. “It does not belong to you.”
“So you’ve said. And yet, here we sit. I have used this strand for twenty years. Manipulating it has enabled me to do things other weavers could only dream of. So if you want me to apologize for my deeds, I will not. I am who I am and I have what I have because of that strand. And now I understand why—I understand how it works in a way I did not before.”
Insegno turned back to Braith. “She had seen Dylun’s map. She knew where they planned to travel. So she waited until they restocked at Bordino and were on their way to Minasimet before kidnapping me.”
“Now, that isn’t quite fair, is it?” Frenhin tsked. “I did try very hard to procure some company for you, but those weavers are so slippery.”
“You tried to kill Dylun.” Insegno’s voice trembled. “You tried to murder him in front of me. I watched as you sank their ship.”
“Oh, right. I had forgotten about that. As I have told you before, the young scholar is not useful to me. He is a colormaster, and I need storytellers.”
“Why?” Braith asked. “Why only storytellers?”
“These strands—the ones buried in the mountainside—must have been created by an ancient storyteller. They will only respond to storyteller commands.”
Braith’s heart sank. “There are other strands buried in the mountain?”
“Yes.” Frenhin patted Insegno’s cheek, and he cringed. “This one confirmed what I had suspected since I first became aware of the blue strand in Meridione. I had thought my white strand was unique, you see. But once I knew it was not, I wondered if it, like the blue strand, was part of a greater whole. Turns out it was.”
The Story Hunter Page 11