by Tanya Huff
“I yield,” he said softly. “You have won.”
Varkell stood, but Mikhail didn’t move. He wasn’t sure he could. He knew he didn’t want to. The peace of the Grove, too deep to be shattered by the battle just ended, began to lap at the edges of his soul.
“Mikhail.” The voice was a summons impossible to deny. “Look at me.”
Mikhail opened his eyes. He saw, standing before him, a tall young man with silver-white hair and leaf-green eyes. The other-worldliness was gone.
“No, never gone.” Sorrow clouded the words. “Just pushed aside for a time so we can talk.”
“Who are you?” Mikhail asked, getting slowly to his feet. “What are you?”
Varkell pointed to the young birch in the circle of ancient trees.
“In that spot, amidst the roots of a tree long gone, were buried the bodies of a hamadryad and the mortal man she loved. Out of their love came the Royal House of Ardhan. Out of their bodies and the roots of the holy tree grew the tree you see here. I came from the tree.”
“Are you a god?”
“No, only a messenger.”
Varkell turned and smiled sadly at Tayer. His eyes blazed as she came into his arms. “And, may the Mother help us all, the message has been delivered.”
The look he then turned on Mikhail was far removed from mortal understanding, but a greater part of it held the full weight of pain Tayer had only reflected.
“She carries my child, Mikhail. This is the last time I shall see her.”
“It burns, Cousin,” Tayer said softly, “this brightness within and brightness without. I can no longer bear them both.”
Mikhail stared at them. He felt large and stupid. “What can I do?” he asked, knowing he would do whatever they wanted but not knowing what he could possibly do that would help.
“The joining planned for Tayer must not happen. You must join with her yourself.”
“She doesn’t love me.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Varkell could not lie. “But when I am gone, she will.”
Mikhail looked at Tayer and then within himself. The flame of love he had carried for so long still burned, perhaps now more brightly than ever. Tayer had been chosen for glory; he could love that as well. He nodded and held out his arms.
Walking like one in a dream, Tayer came to him and rested her head against his chest with a sigh. Holding her gently, as if afraid she would break, Mikhail bent and laid his face upon her hair. When he looked up, they were alone in the Grove.
On the ride back to the palace, Mikhail pondered how much to tell the king. In the end, he decided not to mention the Grove. He’d not have believed it himself without proof. As everyone seemed to know of his love for Tayer, Mikhail felt his best chance lay in convincing the king that Tayer cared for him in return, hoping the older man’s love for his daughter and his desire to see her happy would cause him to call off the arranged joining.
He glanced at Tayer riding serenely beside him. It could only help that she was so obviously a woman in love.
Hanna met them in the stableyard.
“He’s been asking for you both,” she told them. “You’d better hurry. He’s waiting in the small audience room.”
Mikhail took Tayer’s hand and together they went into the palace, Hanna trailing along behind. Heads turned as they passed and the halls filled with rumor. Tayer, listening to the song of another world, didn’t hear. Mikhail set his jaw and pretended not to.
“Sire, I have to speak with you.”
The king looked at his nephew and then at his daughter.
“Yes,” he said dryly. “I should say you do.”
His Majesty had not been impressed when Tayer’s absence had been discovered and he was less impressed when she showed up five hours later with Mikhail. What must the envoy from Halda be thinking?
“Sire, your daughter and I wish to be joined.”
Keeping his face carefully noncommittal—he’d been afraid something like this would happen since the first time he’d seen the light in Mikhail’s eyes—the king sat down and peered over steepled fingers at Tayer. “Is that what you wish, child?”
“Yes, Father.”
“This talk of your joining is a little sudden, is it not?”
“If I’d known you were arranging a joining, Sire, I would’ve spoken sooner, but I was away on the border . . .”
“Defending the country. You grew up in my household, Mikhail, I know your worth. However, nothing prevented Tayer from speaking when I made her aware of my plans.” Although he’d carefully kept Mikhail from finding out, he’d made sure Tayer had no objections before he sent the Messenger to Halda.
Mikhail held his breath and sent a short prayer to the Mother that Tayer remained enough in the world to lie.
“I was unsure of my feelings, Father,” she hesitated then looked almost shyly up at Mikhail. “It wasn’t until I saw him on his return that I knew.”
Mikhail smiled at her and gently squeezed her hand. It seemed very small in his and very cold. Then he gave his attention again to the king.
“If Tayer joins with Halda,” the older man said thoughtfully, “Ardhan gains a valuable ally. What does the country gain if she joins with you?”
“The country would gain less, it’s true, but you would have comfort in the knowledge that your daughter was happy. Sire.”
The king raised a bushy eyebrow.
“And you don’t believe she will be happy in Halda.”
“No, Sire.” Mikhail met his gaze steadily. “If she joins with the Crown Prince of Halda, it will be a joining without love.”
“Do you love her?”
“Oh, yes, Sire! With all my heart!”
Only a fool would doubt the sincerity of Mikhail’s response. The king was no fool.
“Tayer?”
For the first time since she had entered the room, for the first time in many months, Tayer looked at her father directly. He drew in his breath sharply under the full impact of her eyes. He couldn’t question the love they held—he couldn’t know the love was not for Mikhail.
“If love is the way of it,” and he wondered how he could’ve been so blind to think that Tayer had no more than a sibling’s affection for her cousin, “you have my blessing. I will do what I can about Halda.”
“I will join with him, Sire.”
“What?” The king spun around, Mikhail stared at his sister in astonishment, and even Tayer rejoined the world long enough to look surprised.
Hanna got up from the stool where she’d been sitting and stepped forward.
“Hanna, child, I didn’t know you were there.”
Hanna smiled strangely. “Yes, Sire, I know.”
“What’s this you’ve said?”
“I am willing to join with the Crown Prince of Halda. If he approves, you’ll still have an ally and Tayer will be happy.” The Mother forbid, said her eyes, that Tayer should be unhappy.
“That’s a very noble sacrifice you’re making for your cousin,” the king began kindly, wishing that either Hanna’s mother or his beloved queen still lived. “And we are all touched that you’re willing to put her happiness ahead of yours but . . .”
“I’m not doing it for her,” Hanna explained, wanting someone to understand, just this once. “I’m doing it for me.”
“To go away from your family, to join with a man you’ve never met.” Mikhail took a step toward his sister, his hands spread in puzzlement. “What is there in that for you?”
“A place of my own,” Hanna answered softly, turning to face him. “Where I am not overlooked. Where I am myself, not Tayer’s cousin or Mikhail’s sister or the king’s niece. You and Tayer have each other, why can’t this be for me? All my life I’ve been the second princess; I’d like to be first for a change.”
The king’s heavy brow
s drew in over his nose and he studied his niece as if seeing her for the first time. “We never knew you felt this way . . .”
“That,” said Hanna, “is part of the problem. Please, Uncle.”
And the king nodded.
“If Halda agrees . . .”
A Messenger was sent and Halda agreed. One unknown princess would do as well as another in the opinion of the crown prince, who had little interest in being joined at all. At the end of a week of state festivities, a proxy joining was held on the dais of the People’s Square. Hanna managed to look regal in the ridiculous clothing demanded by the occasion and gave her responses in a strong, clear voice that carried to the meanest viewpoint at the back of the Square.
“I still don’t understand why you have to do this,” Mikhail said, as attendants carried her back into the palace and the Great Doors closed.
“If you’d understood,” Hanna told him sharply, removing the cumbersome headdress, “I wouldn’t have had to do it.”
Mikhail looked to Tayer for support, but she only smiled sadly and shook her head. With the light she carried had come understanding, but it was far too late to start making amends.
The next day, Hanna left to live with a husband she had never met and, although Mikhail and Tayer both watched until she rode out of sight, she never once looked back.
Tayer and Mikhail were joined by the king in a quiet ceremony; a ceremony they both considered to be unnecessary. In their hearts, they knew they had been joined that day in the Grove. Tayer’s condition soon became obvious and her father was delighted.
“The Mother has blessed this union,” he declared, so enchanted by the idea of a grandchild he ignored the unusual aspects of the pregnancy.
For the most part the rest of the court took their cue from the king. Tayer was insulated from gossip and Mikhail heard little of it, for only a fool would speak in Mikhail’s presence, but what he heard caused him great uneasiness.
“Tayer?”
With a visible effort, Tayer brought herself back from the light. She smiled at Mikhail, who knelt at her feet, and gently touched the tumbled mane of his hair.
“Tayer,” he hesitated, considered what he was asking and found, with no little surprise, that the question was painless. To think of Tayer with another man would have torn him to pieces, but to think of her with Varkell brought only a renewed sense of wonder. “Tayer, the child you carry, when did you conceive?”
“A month after you left for the border.”
Mikhail cursed beneath his breath and Tayer looked at him in puzzlement.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“When the child is born, the court will know it isn’t mine. Your time will be either a month too early or a month too late.” Convincing the court, and her father, that he’d impregnated her before leaving would’ve been bad enough but nothing compared to what was likely to happen. A royal child was meticulously examined and then presented to the people, making an eight-month lie impossible to sustain. He didn’t want to think of what Tayer would go through then.
“Don’t worry.” She took one of his hands and placed it on the gentle swelling of her stomach. “It has been taken care of.”
And suddenly, Mikhail felt that it had.
Tayer’s pregnancy was not an easy one. Throughout the long winter, as the child grew within her, she seemed to fade. Cheekbones cut angles into her face and her hands became thin and frail, almost transparent. She gave all her strength, all her life, to the child. Her eyes still shone as bright, or brighter, but few could meet the unearthly beauty of her gaze. Mikhail, looking beyond the beauty to the glory that consumed her, was himself consumed with worry for his young wife.
Winter finally ended. The grip of ice and cold released and the first greens of spring began to appear. The time came when, by Mikhail’s count, Tayer should deliver; and then it passed. Taken care of, yes, but Mikhail worried that Tayer would not be able to bear the burden much longer. Every day he carried her out to the gardens, but it did little good, for every day she grew weaker. At long last, on a cloudless summer afternoon, the pains began.
The midwives expected trouble. The princess’ hips were narrow and she wasn’t strong. The birth, they feared, would rip her apart.
“And if it comes to it,” sighed the younger as they scrubbed their hands, “who do we save, the mother or the child?”
“Both,” came the reply and the voice held conviction that even Lord Death would have hesitated to challenge.
When everything was ready, they let Mikhail into the room. He sat by the bed and held Tayer’s limp hand in his. Her grip tightened and she whimpered. He doubted she knew he was there. He’d never felt so helpless.
“Isn’t there anything I can do?”
“Give her what strength you can, milord,” said one of the women, laying a cool cloth on Tayer’s brow. “This isn’t going to be easy.”
But the babe had other ideas. As if wanting to make up for all the trouble that had gone before, she slid effortlessly into the world and greeted the day with a hearty bellow.
“A girl, milord, milady. A fine, healthy girl.”
Mikhail looked at the bloody, wrinkled bundle at Tayer’s breast and touched a tiny cheek with one massive finger.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered.
A breeze came through the window, bringing with it the scent of trees and forest loam. It gently fanned the mother and child.
“We shall call her Crystal,” Tayer said, looking down at her tiny daughter, “For the light shines through her.”
When Tayer raised exhausted eyes to Mikhail’s face, his heart sang with joy for though the other world had left her they still shone with light . . . only now, at last, as Varkell had promised, the light was for him.
* * *
Seated on a moss-covered log, just outside the Sacred Grove, Doan waited. The seed had been planted and nurtured. All that remained of Varkell was the tree and the child. The tree was an empty vessel. The child had her own guardian in Mikhail. One last thing and he could return to the caverns.
“So, little gardener, your job is done.”
Doan’s eyes narrowed as the speaker sat down beside him. The sapphire robes should have looked ridiculously out of place in the depths of the Lady’s Wood; as it was, the Wood looked out of place about the robes. Doan suppressed the urge to move away. “I felt your presence,” he growled. “I waited. You’re too late.”
Slender fingers ran through red-gold curls and the full lips curved. “But I came to talk to you.”
“Why?” the dwarf demanded.
One wickedly arched brow rose. “Why to thank you for being such a sturdy guardian, of course.”
Doan hooked his thumbs behind his belt and glared. “I guarded against you, not for you.”
“But I never had any intention of interfering.” He stretched out long legs and settled himself more comfortably against a protruding branch. “I’m a game player, always have been. Your seedling is likely to be the last worthy game I’ll be able to play.”
“Last game?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, little man. She can’t defeat me, although I won’t begin until she thinks she has a chance.”
“You’ll stay away from the child?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
“You lie.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “I do.”
Doan could not decide if this amiable admission was general or specific so he left it. It was enough that the enemy saw only the most obvious scenario, that his vanity blinded him to possibilities other than outright confrontation. “Was that all you wanted to say?” he demanded after the silence stretched to uncomfortable lengths.
“That you’ve been more than useless here? Yes.”
“You came all this way just to annoy me?”
He smiled lazily
. “Basically. It’s a hobby of mine, annoying people.”
A twitch. Another. Then Doan threw back his head and laughed. He couldn’t help himself. It was, after all, a hobby of his as well. When his eyes stopped streaming, he was alone on the log.
I almost liked him, he realized, wiping moisture from his cheeks. Mother-creator help you child; he is more dangerous than we thought.
INTERLUDE TWO
Tayer’s baby grew into a child, not outwardly different from other children. She learned to walk early, and then to run. Soon, the entire court, the Palace Guard, the Elite, and a small army of servants were watching out for her as she frequently appeared in places she had no right to be, her harassed parents and nurses often with no idea of where she’d got to. She learned to talk late, but when at last she did, she spoke in full sentences; never resorting to baby prattle, and never hesitant about expressing her opinion. Green eyes wide and oddly mature, she backed many an adult away from their views.
She was pampered and much indulged and proved without doubt that a child cannot be spoiled by too much love.
For ten years she grew as other children did. And if she moved a little faster, threw herself into childhood with an almost desperate enthusiasm, involved herself in everything she did with a thoroughness and single-minded purpose, it was easy for the adults surrounding her to miss seeing. Or seeing, misunderstand.
Toward the end of her tenth year she quieted and began to spend long hours with Tayer in the gardens, leaning against her mother’s knees. She went to Mikhail’s office off the training-yards and stood, cheek pressed to his shoulder, watching as he worked. At odd times she stood, head cocked, as though she listened to words carried on the wind.
Two days after her eleventh birthday, the centaur came, appearing suddenly in the garden where Tayer and Mikhail sat with their daughter.
“Crystal.” His voice was the rumble of a thousand galloping hoofs. “I have come for you.”