Thankfully, Maddie immediately started down the chipped-out stairway, and after a moment, he followed her, careful to keep his distance. Trap and Channon converged upon them from different directions, having chased away the gulls on opposing fronts. Or rather, moved their landing places back from the mound. They could do little against those that still circled overhead, and Trap, as usual, was eager to get Abramm out of harm’s way.
The king raised a dubious brow. “You think I should run from sea gulls now?”
“When they stop behaving normally? Yes.”
“They’ve been attacking people all day.” He scowled at the rows of birds lining the roof peaks and tower eaves, all of which seemed to be looking down at him smugly. Almost as if they’d known what knocking Madeleine into his arms would do to him. But how could they know what I didn’t know myself? And what did it do, anyway? “Even if their behavior is questionable, I’m not about to let them keep me from finding the guardstar.”
“You don’t even know it’s here, sir. If it has been hidden, you know how long it might take to find it. Especially if we have to search all the passages down in the warrens. It’s probably cloaked and . . . pox! For all we know, whoever took it could have thrown it into the sea. In fact, now that I think about it, that would be the most logical thing for someone to do who was trying to get rid of it.”
Abramm frowned at him, opened his mouth to offer what even he knew to be a lame justification for his stance and froze as his thoughts caught on what Trap had just said. The sea. Right before the gulls had knocked Madeleine into his arms he’d been thinking about something to do with the sea . . . and a blue-lit chamber. . . . Itwas a grotto. Down by the boat dock . . .and there’d been—
“Eggs!” he said triumphantly. “The day we found the kraggin eggs in that grotto by the sea—remember? Nine of them we clove but the tenth we couldn’t.” They’d burned the cloven ones, but the tenth—they’d guessed it was a cannonball put in with the netted eggs to hold them beneath the water’s surface, coated by some sort of algae—had been brought up to Weston’s office as a curiosity and doorstop.
Abramm had only to make the request, and shortly Commander Weston arrived, lugging the thing himself. Its skin, dried and hardened in the months since they’d found it, was now as hard as any rock. At Abramm’s direction Weston set the orb down in the midst of the dug-out mound, then climbed back up the side of the hole to stand beside the king, the duke, and the Second Daughter of Chesedh, all of them staring down at it in hopes it would do something.
“It only lit up in Hur when all those Dorsaddi took stars,” Trap said after a few minutes of nothing happening.
“Lots of people took stars last week at the coronation,” Maddie pointed out.
“More than there were Dorsaddi, that’s certain,” Abramm put in. “So if that’s the trigger, it’s not worked. . . .”
“Maybe it’s a percentage,” Trap suggested.
Abramm glanced at him skeptically.
“Maybe there’s something in the tunnels below that’s influencing it,” Maddie said. “Some kind of spawn or other Shadow invention.”
“Hur was full of spawn and Shadow,” Abramm told her, “and the Heart still lit.” He paused, looking down at the black-streaked globe again, disappointment sharpening. “It’s more likely this really is a cannonball—or just an odd rock—and we’re making fools of ourselves. It really doesn’t look much like the one we had to light at Hur.”
“We could try to melt it down, sir,” said Commander Weston. “That would show us if it was common iron, at least.”
Abramm glanced at Maddie, who stood on the other side of Trap. “Would a guardstar melt?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. But your crown seemed to be able to withstand higher heat than gold or diamonds.”
He stared down at the thing, considering.
“Maybe if the struts were pulled up and the ball set atop them?” Trap suggested.
Abramm frowned at him. “Didn’t the one at Hur straighten out its own struts when it came alive?”
“I don’t remember. But . . . it can’t hurt, can it?”
It seemed like an awful lot of effort for something that could very well be nothing more than a doorstop, an odd rock, or a cannonball.
He was still dithering when the distant boom of Kildar’s noon-hour cannon echoed across the compound. Pox and plagues! Noon was the very latest he could leave and get back to the palace in time for this afternoon’s meeting with the Tables.
He heaved a sigh. “Very well, why don’t you see if you can melt it down or burn off the covering . . . and bend up the struts. Might as well do it all.”
As Weston left the mound to comply, Abramm turned to Maddie, intending to invite her to ride in the carriage with him back to Springerlan, as protocol dictated he should. But before he could speak, she asked if she could stay behind and observe the proceedings, an offer he accepted with considerable ambivalence. He was happy on the one hand to have her keen eyes and wit still involved in the project, but disappointed to leave her behind. In fact, it was only then he realized just how much he had been looking forward to that carriage ride. And not just for the conversation.
It was a realization as startling as it was disturbing.
CHAPTER
13
Maddie rode back to Springerlan late that afternoon, having spent the time since Abramm left sketching the newly revealed platform, then lunching with Commander Weston in his dining room while the men removed the struts from the sidewalls and took them off to the forge to be straightened.
By the time she left, they’d freed two, and the team assigned to burn the orb had only made the covering harder in the process of heating it, as if it had been made out of mud rather than algae. She’d expected it would be something like that. While the structure Abramm had uncovered did support the tapestry record of a guardstar having been here, it seemed little more than a glorified candlestick. Her real reason for staying behind had been to avoid riding back with Abramm. Then she’d lingered further to avoid riding back alone with her thoughts.
Just the few hours she’d spent with him that morning—to say nothing of the inadvertent tumble into his arms—had reignited all the feelings she’d been stamping down to embers over the last nine days. Indeed, the plan to avoid the king by distracting herself with her research and making her reports through Jemson had worked so well she had at times gone for several hours without thinking of him at all. As she’d ridden out to Graymeer’s that morning, she believed herself well on the road to being rid of this illicit, illogical, impossible infatuation.
When she’d entered the yard on the fortress’s upper terrace and saw Jared standing there with Lieutenant Brookes beside the excavation, she’d gotten her first inkling that things were not as she thought them. Then Brookes had greeted her with the news that the king was up in the watchtower, and even seeing him from afar her heart had rammed itself up into her throat while her mind skittered frantically for an excuse to leave.
Then Jared was presenting her with the king’s invitation to join him in the tower, and what could she do but obey? When she’d emerged onto the parapet platform to stand before him and he’d looked down at her, broadshouldered and regal, the wind tousling his golden hair over those level brows, she’d been aghast at the intensity of her response. His blue eyes took her breath away every time she looked into them, and even with the scars raking down his cheek, she still thought him the handsomest man she had ever seen.
Somehow she’d managed to pull her eyes away, but that had only started her mouth going, and the next thing she knew she was babbling about Jemson and not having expected Abramm to be here. A fine thing to say to the king of the land. Then she’d glanced over the parapet and found the very images of her dream wedding staring her in the face, and all her wits had left. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and believed she might faint right there. Somehow she had pulled herself together, offering him an excuse she couldn’
t recall before launching into another of her frantic monologues, hoping it didn’t sound as hysterical to him as it did to her.
But none of that compared to what had happened when the gulls knocked her into his arms, and he’d held her tight against his chest, and the Light had flowed between them. She’d stood frozen and breathless, not wanting the moment to end, even as she sensed he was as startled and aware as she was. She’d felt the sudden acceleration of his heartbeat, then a flash of heat whose origin she couldn’t identify, and they’d broken apart as if governed by one mind.
But then, after a brief moment of awkwardness, he had gone on as if nothing had happened, arguing with Trap about the sea gulls, recalling the eggs, having the strange orb brought out . . . while she’d stood there trying to regain her poise, trying to pay attention to what they were saying, trying to stop being so exquisitely aware of him.
On the ride back, she returned to the arguments that had bolstered her during her nine-day confinement: that he didn’t care, that he only wanted her here for her “wit” and her “eye,” that she meant no more to him than his horse. . . .
And yet, each time the memory of being in his arms resurfaced, she felt it all again—the same rush of heat, the same desperate longing, the same intensity of emotion that took her breath away. Over and over and over, all the way back to Springerlan, despite her determination not to think about it, despite being horrified to discover she was not as in control of her feelings as she thought and was, in her own way, as silly and vulnerable and mindless as any of the most foolish girls she’d ever known, the thoughts kept returning. And what was she going to do when Briellen arrived?
Maybe she should leave, after all. Maybe she’d misread Eidon’s will and let her own desires dictate her course of action. Basing a life decision upon the finding of an Esurhite fetish? How much sense did that make? The red dragon was not something associated with Eidon, after all.
But it is associated with Abramm.
Maybe the rhu’ema had worked that sea gull, making him drop the thing so Maddie would find it and think she was supposed to stay. Maybe it wasn’t Eidon’s will at all. What had she really accomplished by staying? They still knew almost nothing about the regalia. Or the guardstar . . .
Oh, Father Eidon . . . I’m so confused. I know you have a special place for me, my own destiny. Show me where you want me to go. . . .
An image of Graymeer’s wallwalk, seen from the tower, floated into her mind, populated with the people from her dream, the bride and groom standing with the Chesedhan wedding ribbon woven about their joined hands.
Something close to terror shivered through her, and she blotted the image from her mind, turning her thoughts immediately elsewhere, searching for something—anything—to distract her from that unproductive, maddeningly tempting line of thought.
Like the fact she’d been tricked into coming out here at all. Like the fact that someone had given Jemson the wrong information about Abramm’s activities today. Though her new assistant was notoriously unreliable when it came to recalling casual comments, she did not believe this was one of those times. He knew she was interested in the excavation and knew that she would not go out if the king was there. He wouldn’t have made a mistake about something like that.
And anyway, now that she thought about it, it was ludicrous to think Abramm would have sent Trap out to dig the mound alone. If she’d had half a brain she’d have realized it right away. Unfortunately, when it came to Abramm, she seemed to lose all capacity for rational thinking. Still, she would ask Jemson where he had gotten the information. . . . Carissa had told her yesterday the court gossips were all abuzz with the fact that Maddie and Abramm had not seen each other in over a week and that some were wagering how long it would be before their next “meeting.”
Was today someone’s idea of ensuring his wager won?
She got a good idea of the answer to that question shortly after she returned to the palace, when Lady Leona and her friends waylaid her at the foot of the west-wing staircase.
“Back from your trip to Graymeer’s, I see,” Leona said with a wicked smile. “I hope you weren’t attacked by any more sea gulls!”
“I wasn’t. But how did you know I went to Graymeer’s, Lady Leona? Or that I was attacked by sea gulls at all?”
And all her ladies tittered in their obnoxious we-know-something-youdon’t manner.
“Well, those big loops of your hair pulled up from your braid are something of a giveaway,” Leona answered with a nasty smile. “Besides that, the king’s men gave us a full report.”
A full report, did they? Maddie sighed. Even when she tried to be discreet it didn’t work. Why couldn’t people mind their own business?
“Knocked you straight into the pit they’d dug, the men say, though you don’t appear to be injured. Except for your hair, of course.”
Leona’s ladies tittered again and exchanged knowing glances.
“I wasn’t injured, my lady.”
“I guess you have the king to thank for that, eh? Or perhaps your own quick thinking.” Leona smiled prettily while her eyes remained hard and cold. She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “You don’t really think any of us believe for one moment it was an accident, do you? Falling right into his arms? Please, Madeleine, what do you take us for?”
A flock of circling, squawking sea gulls, but with less brains?
“Besides, were any of us to find ourselves in a similar situation, I can assure you we’d have done exactly the same thing. I just wish you’d be a little more friendly and share with the rest of us poor deprived ladies what it felt like.”
Maddie stared at her blankly, silenced as much by her shock at Leona’s blunt suggestion as she was by the flood of her own memories. And then, by the heat that rose in her face.
“Oh, look,” said Lady Amelia, “she’s blushing!”
“I don’t know, Madeleine,” Leona said with another wicked smile. “You’re going to have to cover yourself better than this. What is your poor sister going to say?”
Maddie pressed her lips together, decided she’d had quite enough of this, and started past them.
Leona said, “Word came this morning that she’s just crossed over the Rhivaald at Foxton Bluff. Should arrive within the week, they’re saying.”
Madeleine refused to stop moving, refused to give them any more material for their fun. If Leona detested her, Maddie took comfort in observing that the feeling was mutual.
“Just thought you’d like to know, dear. . . .” Leona purred.
“I’m told that toast and tea are good for morning ailments. . . .” Lady Melissa called after her.
Maddie left the tittering behind and hurried along the crowded hallway toward her chambers, stepping in quickly and closing the door with a great sense of relief. She walked across the empty sitting room and on into the adjoining bedchamber, where Liza was picking wilted buds off one of the flower arrangements.
Ignoring the girl, Maddie’s eye caught on her reflection in the vanity mirror. Stopping, she stared at the freckled face with dismay. No great beauty there, that was certain. Her hair all flyaway, two big loops of it bobbling off her crown, her nose and cheekbones as red as a crofter’s girl. No, like that milkmaid Leyton was always saying she should have been. I wish I had been born a milkmaid. At least those cows wouldn’t talk back!
A sense of profound inadequacy swept her. She hated the way she looked. Hated that she couldn’t seem to make herself adopt the customs of the other women with regard to dress and adornment, even as she tormented herself for her differences. What was that she’d said to Abramm last fall? How you had to accept your differences and leave others to their own opinions, living in who and what Eidon had made you to be? Yet here she was, fretting again at how pathetically plain and unattractive she was. It made her thoughts about Abramm even more absurd and painful.
Especially in light of the fact that Briellen would be here in only a week or so.
She turned
from the mirror with a grimace, realizing Briellen was the reason for this sudden pique of self-condemnation. For all she’d anticipated her sister’s arrival as the cure for her infatuation with Abramm, now that it was actually coming to pass, she dreaded it. Dreaded the old smothering, soulkilling sense of inferiority that was sure to overtake her. That was already overtaking her.
She left the mirror, went over to her desk, and dropped into the chair with a sigh. Then she frowned, leaned forward, and lifted the leaf of inked parchment where it lay beside her pen and inkpot. “Liza . . . did you notice the book I had out here?”
“Yes, milady. And I was sure not to disturb it, either.”
“You didn’t move it?”
“O’ course not, milady. I know better ’n that!” Her eyes flicked to the desk and widened. “It’s not there?”
“No. Who was in here today?”
Of course there had been no one save Jemson, whom Maddie summoned at once. But he knew nothing about it. Which gave Maddie a moment of doubt: he’d been the one to send her to the fortress on the pretext of Abramm not being there, after all. Maybe it wasn’t Leona who had given him the wrong information. . . .
But no, she couldn’t really believe that of the man.
A few moments of searching and recalling brought her to the realization that they had taken not only the book but the map she’d begun drawing, as well. Which said to her as strongly as anything that the book held a treasure someone did not want her to find.
She’d discovered the volume three days ago, slipped in among a row of thick tomes, completely out of the cataloguing order. It was the journal of the architect who had planned and designed one of the early additions to the palace—a volume she’d inquired after ever since she’d learned of the other missing books. If they weren’t in the University library, and they weren’t in the royal library, nor in the king’s private collection . . . then there must be another room, hidden somewhere on the grounds. Uncovering Avramm’s tapestry had made her more certain than ever there was a secret library somewhere, similarly masked. But it would take her a century to go through each inch of the palace searching for it, and even then she might miss it. The best way would be to start with the original floor plans.
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