by CJ Brightley
I couldn’t help laughing at the idea of Geric mooing soft words about glorious eyes and starry romance to the pouting princess, all the while trying to grab the necklace from her.
“Anyway, if he does get them, he won’t know if we replaced them or broke his enchantment,” Thianra said. “It gives us time.”
“We need time, for a number of reasons,” Hlanan said, shaking his head. “But since you know little of politics or magic, they can wait.”
“So tomorrow I go on trial in front of these high and mighty nobles, and I confess and give them up, is that it?” I asked.
“That’s it,” Thianra said. She laughed and added, “Suitably humble and chastened, and we’ll have to coach you on protocol. I assure you, it will be severely formal. But you won’t have to say much, and it will not last long.”
“And after?” I said. “What about after?” My gaze strayed to Hlanan, who was toying with his cup again.
“That’s for the Empress to decide,” Thianra said. “But I’m reasonably sure that whatever happens will be something you wish.”
“All right,” I said, trying to understand Hlanan’s avoidance of my gaze. “Last question, since you two seem to know so much. Do you know anything about Jardis Dhes-Andis’s family?”
“He’s not your father,” Thianra said quickly. “But apparently, and I just found this out myself, he is your uncle.”
Our blood, he’d said. He hadn’t quite lied. I made a sour face. “What happened?”
“Your people came from another world long ago.” Thianra passed out plates, and we all began to load them with pastries, stirred eggs, little crispy potatoes of many colors, and fresh fruit. “They reappeared some years back. Dhes-Andis’s older brother went to them as ambassador—actually to spy out their weaknesses—and ended up falling in love with your mother. What he didn’t know was that love, or some other change of heart, had caused your father to completely foreswear the villainous plans they’d laid.”
“The Council says they think Dhes-Andis expected that any children would be gifted in magic beyond the normal range. They were to be trained by the emperor, and used in his plans. When you were born, your parents tried to disappear rather than hand you over,” Hlanan said.
“They disappeared from their allies as well, rather than endanger them, but Dhes-Andis is good at hunting people down when he wants them, and the Council thinks he might have caught them before they could do gate-magic and go to her world. They apparently tried to hide you somewhere, and separated to go to ground. No one knows who you were given to, or what happened subsequently,” Thianra said, and bit into a tartlet. “Oh, that is superb.”
“Everyone thought the three of you were dead by the emperor’s decree,” Hlanan said, toying with his fork. “He probably spread that rumor around himself, as he didn’t want anyone finding any of you first. It could be that your parents didn’t survive. But you did.”
“I see, “ I said, with an effort to be casual. “So that mystery is solved. Uh, will you two be there tomorrow?”
“I will, in my function as lowly court scribe,” Hlanan said.
“But I’m just a minstrel, and so I’ll not,” Thianra said, smiling crookedly.
The door opened, and the Empress appeared. “Well, my children?”
“All caught up,” Thianra said, rising to her feet. Hlanan had as well. So I uncurled my legs and hopped up.
“Except one thing,” Hlanan murmured.
“We shall resolve that one now,” the Empress said, and to my surprise, walked up and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “Lhind the Hrethan thief, very few people know this, but they insisted you be in on the secret: these two are my youngest children.”
I stared. “What?” I remembered that one ought not to squawk questions at an Empress, and backtracked hastily. “So that is why you looked familiar! Um, Your Imperial Majesty.”
The Empress’s lips twitched as Thianra chuckled. Hlanan regarded his plate of food as if it had bugs crawling in it.
So that was his one other thing.
The Empress gestured for them to sit down. “All four of my children have different fathers. They have been trained well, without anyone knowing anything more than that I have children. This is our tradition. Hlanan is my youngest.”
“And so . . . you are going to pick one as an heir?” I asked, remembering what Kuraf had told me. “Or is that already done? The older ones?”
“One of my older sons has striven for excellence as a commander, his goal to defend the empire as my heir,” the Empress replied. “That decision has yet to be made. I have to admit that I favored Thianra from the beginning. Though there are exceptions to everything, I think women are better managers. Men tend to throw things when flouted, like armies. Thianra had the best training of them all, and she was ambitious enough to make me happy . . . until she fell in love. There’s no gainsaying that passion.”
“With someone?” I turned to Thianra, who laughed and shook her head.
“With music. Though she’s dutiful, I can bring before her a gathering of the world’s sharpest rulers and diplomats, but she spends the evening talking to the hired players about tri-tones and the differences in wood for instruments.”
Thianra saluted her mother with a bite of egg. “Music, the great leveler. Far more interesting than armies and laws and balancing money exchanges.”
I waited for Hlanan to say something, but he had begun to eat in an absent way, his attention distracted. I said, “Rajanas knows who you are?”
Hlanan had put down his fork and was twisting that silver ring on his little finger. “From our days together on the Shinjan galley. He said to tell you, by the way, that you are always welcome in Alezand whatever you decide to do. And Kuraf offers you a home.”
He was facing me now, as if . . . as if the worst was not yet over?
The Empress clapped her hands to her knees and got to her feet. “My children, I wish I could stay and chat. Lhind, I want to hear more about your life. A lot more. But I have a chamber full of people waiting to talk to me, and I need to make certain that everything proceeds exactly as I wish tomorrow.” She bent down and flicked my cheek. “Ask Hlanan to take you out to the waterfall. I think you will like it.”
She walked out, followed by Thianra; the last thing I heard before the door closed was their voices, both sounding very alike.
“It’s your foreheads,” I said to Hlanan. “The resemblance is there.”
He dropped his hands. “Can you forgive me?”
“Forgive you? For not telling me about that?” I hooked my thumb toward the door. “But it’s traditional not to tell people. I learned that from Kuraf.”
“For all the burden that comes with knowing,” he said in a low voice.
“So you want to be the heir?” I asked, finally getting what he could not quite bear to tell me. As if he feared it would be a burden too weighty for me to bear.
“I think I do.” He let out his breath in a short sigh. “I do.” He up his hand with the ring. “We all had to go out into the world to experience it, and to learn. Used to hearing myself described as smart, and bored with the scribal training that my father had insisted on, I left a lot earlier than most. And almost immediately found myself on a Shinjan galley. The only protection we had were these rings. I could have used it to transport myself home from anywhere, but to walk out on problems without solving them would mean I was a failure.”
“Did your mother go through that?”
“Some day ask her about working as a ship’s cook in the fleet fighting the slavers away from the south coast countries.” His grin flashed, then he was serious again. “I told you that once we escaped, Ilyan Rajanas and I each chose ways to learn to deal with the harsher parts of the world. He turned to the military, and I to magic.” He halted, and gave me an uncertain glance.
“I remember that,” I said. “I remember everything you told me.”
“And everything I didn’t tell you.” He looke
d away, his hand turning his cup around and around. “Here’s another truth. I don’t know where we are going, that is, you and I. My only experience with women was that one time, with the duchess. Ever since, I’ve kept my distance. The boring scribe no one notices. I understand it’s a kind of disguise, called hiding in plain sight. But it didn’t prepare me for meeting . . . you.”
“I probably have less experience than you do,” I said.
He nodded. “The grime and the essence of fish. Also excellent disguises.” He squared his shoulders. “So this has been my goal.” He lifted his chin.
“Being chosen as heir?” I asked.
“If I can prove my worthiness to myself first,” he said quickly. “The thing I learned on that galley is how much damage someone in power can do. How many lives can be lost as the result of one person’s will. I believe a good emperor should not have to use armies. My brother disagrees. Maybe I’m wrong.” He lifted his gaze to mine, then said in a rush, “I want to prove myself by taking down Jardis Dhes-Andis of Sveran Djur, and freeing the Djurans from his evil rule. And I want to do it without starting a war.”
I rubbed my hands. “Now that is a splendid plan.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, taking a step nearer.
“I mean if you want to do that, let me help. Oh, I know I’m ignorant, that it can’t be done today. But everybody keeps telling me I have potential. So if I meet these Hrethan, and assuming they don’t throw me out on my ear for being a thief, they can teach me about magic. I think you and I make a fine team. Don’t you?” I finished a little wistfully.
“Lhind,” Hlanan said, taking another step. “I believe that you’re probably the one person he’s afraid of. But is that what you really want to do?”
“Right now it is,” I said, and closed the distance between us. “This is what I know right now. I never felt so right until we were fighting side by side against that duchess, and then when we stood by the river. Maybe it was even before that. The first time we talked, you expected the best of me, because you expect the best of yourself, and you look for the best in everyone. I hated it at the beginning, because I knew you were right. Now. I think . . . I think I love that. I think I love you. As little as I understand love.”
He took my hands, and there was the real smile at last. Crooked, but there. “You can’t be more ignorant than I am, but we can explore that together. There’s time, and yet the thing I fear most is that the expectation of my position might become a burden to you, who has cherished freedom above all things. I might become a burden. If we do succeed against Dhes-Andis, and I must return to state affairs.”
The future emperor of Charas al Kherval, twenty kingdoms spread over two continents and countless islands, held my hands tightly, waiting for me to make the first move.
And so I did. “State affairs,” I said, “can wait their turn. And so can evil emperors. About that kissing. Can we try that again?”
Afterword
Thank you for reading! Find more of my work at http://www.sherwoodsmith.net/.
The next book in the series is Lhind the Spy.
In this sequel to Lhind the Thief, Lhind has gone from castoffs to silks, back alleys to palace halls—and is not having an easy time of it. That’s before she’s snatched by an angry prince she’d robbed twice, who is determined to turn her over to the enemy who frightens her most, the sinister Emperor Jardis Dhes-Andis.
The Keeper and the Rulership
Emily Martha Sorensen
In a world where both magic and mathematics are forbidden, Raneh is growing magic and she can't seem to stop. She'll face the death penalty if anybody catches her, so she hides it in the weeds of her family's land, pretending to be a typical eighteen-year-old heir. And it works.
Until the Ruler comes to visit.
Now, with the purpose of the Ruler's visit a mystery and not only her safety but her family's reputation in danger, she has to find a way to do the impossible:
Stop growing magic.
Copyright
1
I should have been delighted. In normal circumstances, I would at least be relieved. I wouldn’t be obliged to attend the most significant event of the season without the favor of a suitor displayed on me.
But there were a few obvious problems with being presented with two bouquets. First, of course, whoever I turned down would be offended.
Second, I honestly didn’t know which boy I preferred.
I tried to swallow my coil of fear — bad things happened when I got nervous — and turned to the first bouquet.
It was from Jontan. His family’s land was right next to ours, and he’d been an easy escort for me for years. The problem was, I didn’t think our relationship was going anywhere. Jontan felt more like a brother than a suitor, and I was weary of pretending we had chemistry that just wasn’t there.
Derrim and I sparkled with chemistry. He made me laugh, and even though he wasn’t handsome, he had incredible charisma. When he took me to events, I lit up with laughter, I had a great time, and I felt giddy as long as we were together.
But there was a problem with Derrim, too. He was rude and caustic, his cutting remarks always hilarious when said in context. But every time I let him escort me someplace, I felt sick the next morning. I liked Derrim, I liked spending time with him, and yet I didn’t like the person he made me.
I stared at the two bouquets disconsolately.
A rustle sounded behind me. I turned to find my mother sweeping down the stairway.
“Why, Raneh!” she cried, plucking up the first of the enormous bouquets. “Two choices! And here you were worried that you might not receive any!”
I gave her a weak smile as she flipped through the flowers expertly.
“Luries,” she said, running her fingers along the broad pink petals. “Thick. And healthy. He has honorable intentions.”
I nodded. Jontan’s intentions were always honorable. That was one of the things I liked about him.
“Affection and fondness,” Mother continued, examining the smooth orange lennies and the delicately scented turquoise adlies. With just a hint of sweetness, those must have been cut just before budding. That required foresight. He must have been planning this for weeks. “And tied together with tiny white speckies. A very harmonious arrangement, Raneh.”
“Jontan’s always are,” I sighed, pointing at the tiny spray of wheatling and adly leaves that was his family’s signature. “But they always have something else, as well.”
Mother frowned and pulled out the biggest of the pale pink luries. There, hidden beneath the rest of the flowers, was the crushed velvety blue-purple he always shoved there.
Mother let out a bark of laughter. “Filias? He really always puts one in there?”
“‘Loyalty to the Rulership,’” I said dryly. “If it were anyone else, I would think he was showing off. But with Jontan, he’s always sincere.”
Mother chuckled. “That’s not a bad trait in a suitor, Raneh.”
“But it’s not flattering, either!” I protested. “Every single bouquet he sends is practically saying he’d put the Rulership first over his family!”
“So? Were you planning to make him choose between them?” Mother teased.
I looked down, not daring to answer that. The truth was, I had reasons for not liking the Rulership, reasons for not wanting to marry somebody who was so blindly faithful to it. In fact, Derrim’s irreverence towards the Ruler had been one of the reasons I’d been attracted to him in the first place.
“Let’s see the other bouquet,” Mother said, setting the first one down. She picked up the second and examined it critically. “I see Derrim’s preference for spectacle hasn’t been dampened since the last invitation he sent.”
This bouquet was a wild mash of clashing colors that seemed entirely haphazard. Garishly orange whirlies spun out the sides, purple-green-striped inna leaves jabbed from the middle, and tiny red speckies were strewn in strange places. He’d put his family’s
signature of laceleafs right where it was supposed to be, front and center, but it was rendered deliberately ridiculous with a pair of bright orange stokwings perched on top, arranged to look like birds about to eat the laceleaf berries.
Mother caught a whiff of the strong scent of inna and whirlies, and choked. “Would someone teach that boy how to mix perfume properly?”
I giggled. “He always uses flowers that are too strong and should not be mixed together. I think it’s his way of showing off his acerbic taste.”
“Or lack of taste whatsoever,” Mother shuddered. She tossed the bouquet back onto the main hallway’s receiving table. “Tell me, does he actually show up smelling like this?”
“No, no.” I couldn’t stop giggling. “He rarely wears scent at all, actually.”
“Well, that’s something.” Mother eyed me critically. “So? Which boy are you planning to go with?”
I hesitated. “Well, in some ways Derrim is a lot better than Jontan. He’s so interesting.”
Mother glanced at the so-safe-that-it-could-have-been-taken-straight-out-of-a-textbook-and-probably-had-been bouquet. “I understand. Jontan does lack creativity.”
“Or ability to gain status,” I admitted, brutally. “He rarely loses any, which is more than I can say for Derrim, but he rarely earns anything, either. He’s just . . . invisible. I’m not saying that I’m wildly ambitious, but . . .”
“But one can’t spend status that isn’t there,” Mother nodded. “One wants to have some revenue that’s more than the crops bring in.”
“If one wants to stay a landowner, anyway,” I said glumly. “And I don’t want to be a vassal, Mother!”
“Well, of course not. Nobody does.”
Grandmother and Grandfather don’t mind, I thought. But their situation was different. They worked for us; they didn’t have to live with some landowner family that didn’t love them.