Threats of Sky and Sea

by Jennifer Ellision

  Caden sobers quickly. “It’s a difficult decision to make, but we managed to keep the number of Egrians that we lose considerably lower this way. However, my father now believes that your father knows how to reverse whatever it is that’s happened. That whatever this ‘treasure’ he was meant to retrieve holds the key to my father’s victory. He’ll use any means to get that information, and so must we.”

  Something about this bothers me. That’s all well and good—except that really, if Caden’s father succeeds, he’ll only be ensuring more power for Caden someday. Why should the prince sacrifice that so willingly?

  “I don’t understand what you stand to gain from it,” I say, unable to stop myself.

  “Gain?”

  “Well…” I interlock my fingers and study them, not meeting his eyes. I feel a little guilty accusing him of ulterior motives when he’s done nothing but be kind to me, but I’d thought that my ladies had nothing in their thoughts for me but kindness, too, and look where that got me. My resolution firms. I have to ask. “Why should you want to stop your father when it would only mean a bigger kingdom for you? What’s your ultimate goal?”

  He pulls away like I’ve slapped him, looking stricken. Aleta’s quieter than she’s been all evening, and Tregle rocks back in his seat.

  Caden draws himself up stiffly. Miles away from the charming prince, he now looks every inch the king he’ll someday be. His voice is just above a whisper, and the insult is clear in his tone.

  “Quite apart from making certain that my father doesn’t run Egria into the ground before my reign even arrives, we’re talking about a war, Bree. I have no interest in inheriting an empire at such stakes. Hundreds, likely thousands, of lives would be lost over my father’s quest to obtain the Nereid throne and retrieve water abilities in Egrian Adepts.”

  I turn my head to the side, ashamed. The idea of profiting from his father’s machinations obviously repulses him. “I had to ask,” I say quietly.

  No one speaks for a moment. “Why does he want Nereidium so badly?” I ask when I can make myself look at him again.

  Caden shrugs, willing to let it go. “I don’t know.” He looks uncomfortable about admitting it. I’m familiar with the embarrassment that comes with too little knowledge of one’s father. “But in truth, it’s been a blessing that he’s so fixated on it, since there’s been little he could do about it over the past several years. I shudder to think what he’d be able to do to some other nation if his attentions shifted.”

  “What of Aleta?” I ask him, pretending that the princess isn’t in the room. “Won’t your marriage to her be enough to secure Egrian rule there?”

  “Not for the king,” Aleta says flatly, answering anyway.

  Caden takes over the explanation. “To hear him tell it, he wants Nereidium by contract and combat. We’ve done all we can to avoid the farce of a marriage. It was already supposed to have occurred on my birthday—” Caden trails off, realizing that he’s shared a bit more than he intended to.

  Caden’s birthday had been the day he’d felt that “pressing need” to attend to some of the other provinces. He hadn’t been avoiding a party. He’d been avoiding a wedding.

  That’s not the point I should be focusing on now though, I think, trying to scoff at myself. The image of Caden and Aleta standing with clasped hands before a priestess persists in my mind, and my stomach churns unpleasantly. I worry the medallion between my fingers, feeling the imprint of the etchings against my thumb and try to focus on things that actually matter.

  The only thing that I think is a certainty is that Da knows about this room. And to this day, it’s been kept a secret from the king. Is that enough for me to go on?

  “So what do you say Lady Breena? Will you help us?” Caden extends his hand to me. I stare at it. His hand is steady. Calm. Sure of itself.

  They’re against the king. That decides it for me. That has to be enough to go on. I seize Caden’s hand and shake it, willfully ignoring the eyes that drill into mine like he can weld the promise between us that way.

  “I have conditions,” I say, jerking my hand away and wiping the sudden sweat that sprang up there on my nightdress.

  Aleta pushes herself away from the table, her chair screeching. “Of course you do.” She leans against the stone wall, ankles crossed.

  The longer I spend in Aleta’s presence, the easier I’m finding it to brush off her hostility.

  “The first,” I say, ticking it off on a finger, “is that, if it’s ever possible, I want to get out of here. With my da. And the second is that I tell you only what I think you need to know. Not every bit of my conversation with Da is going to be recounted for you.”

  Caden nods. “The second is easy enough.” Aleta opens her mouth to object, and Caden holds up his hand. “As long as you’ll consent to let us ask you questions about said conversations.”

  It’s my turn to try to object. Isn’t recounting my meetings for the king enough? They’re supposed to be working in opposition to him. They don’t need to borrow his methods.

  “We’ll only ask if we feel it’s necessary,” Tregle assures me softly.

  That’s slightly better. “Deal,” I agree quickly, before I have a chance to change my mind.

  “But your first caveat is a bit more of a conundrum.” Caden sighs, looking at me regretfully. “You have to understand that the guard on you is difficult enough to work around. Your father is a considered a traitor to the crown, and thus his guard is even more difficult. Certainly, we have people that can afford you some protection, but… I don’t know if we can do it, Bree. I don’t know that I can just let you go.”

  I raise a quavering hand to shake on our bargain anew, ignoring the cold feel of my palms as air brushes sweat. I take a leaf from Caden’s father’s book and whisper: “Try.”

  Once the accord is struck, Aleta takes her leave. Good. I’ve had my fill of the haughty princess and can tell that the feeling’s mutual.

  Caden and Tregle quiz me on my current interactions with the king. But first, they ask me whether there’s anything my ladies may have already given away.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t know anything for them to betray me with.”

  I’m keenly aware that we’ve been there for an hour or more, so I try to answer their questions as quickly as possible. Better that I should get back before a particularly dutiful guard decides to do a sweep of my chambers to “ensure my safety.”

  Has the king threatened me? Caden and Tregle want to know.

  “Only vaguely.”

  Does he intend to let me visit my father?

  “Yes, but it hasn’t happened yet.”

  Does he have me meeting with anyone else?

  “Larsden.” That brings us back around to how I’ve been pulled into this meeting in the first place.

  “I have to agree with Tregle,” Caden says with a thoughtful grimace on his face. “It pains me to say it, but you’re going to have to let them test you. It will make them believe that you’ve bent to my father’s will.”

  “That’s just what Tregle said,” I say glumly.

  “I can try to arrange for someone else to sit in on your lessons,” Caden suggests. “I know it’s far from a perfect solution, but it may stop Larsden from taking his…tests further than he might otherwise.”

  That tips me off immediately. “And how far do you think he might go?”

  “I’ve heard stories about the man,” Caden says grimly. “I’d really rather not find out.”

  Twenty-One

  They fetch me three more times that week, but we really don’t have a lot to discuss, as I still haven’t seen Da or been sent to Larsden again. The ladies have kept me busy, but though the king returns to dinners, he doesn’t address me. I suppose he prefers for me to stew in my own worries.

  I live for the nights now. The castle is my adversary in the daylight when every stray wind feels like Kat breathing down my neck. But it’s friendly when all of the servants and nobles are tuc
ked away in their beds. Tregle fetches me each time, and flames dance on his fingers like little fireflies to light our way.

  Aleta mostly ignores me to tap a bored fingernail against the wood. Caden uses the meetings to educate me on the realm and the capital, with his explanations supplemented by Tregle’s knowledge of the military situation.

  The look on Caden’s face when I tell him I can’t pick Abeline out on a map is so dismayed, it’s almost funny. I’ve never seen someone scramble for a book so fast.

  His finger traces the yellowed page. “You said you’re from the northern province?”

  I nod. “The High North. A town called Abeline. You won’t find it on there though. It’s teeny.”

  “No, but I can approximate it.” He’s engrossed in the maps as his rough fingertips flip through pages. The speed of Aleta’s tapping increases, and Tregle juggles a fireball out of boredom. Caden smacks down his thumb. “Here, I think. You mentioned a river, correct?”

  I lean over. The top of my hair brushes his chin, and I look up into his eager eyes. He thinks he’s given me a gift, but this is just ink etched across paper. The river is just squiggly lines winding into a book’s crease. It doesn’t capture its gentle rushing sound. I can’t feel the cold that squirmed its way into me most days. There isn’t a depiction of the Bridge and Duchess or the people in the village, who can’t be confined to a simple portrait.

  But I can’t say that to Caden, who’s so proud to prove himself a friend.

  My mouth quirks up. “What else do you have to show me?” I ask softly.

  He’s thrilled with the question as the answer is, apparently, a great deal. I learn things like the ocean’s name (Remediant); that Caden and Aleta aren’t permitted to be seen by the general townspeople except by a distance; that Caden’s house—Capin—hasn’t borne an Elemental in five generations. Maybe that’s why such strict laws were developed over them—fear of something the royals couldn’t ever truly understand.

  “And—” Caden hesitates. The page he’s turned to is a new map. It’s filled with tiny triangles symbolizing a mountain range. “These are your lands. Duchy Secan.”

  I recoil like the points of the mountains are about to impale me. “Those are not my lands.” We’ve already seen my lands—the river and Abeline—and they brought me no feeling. “My history is back with the ashes of The Bridge and Duchess. I want nothing to do with Secan.”

  Tregle twitches, but I hadn’t meant it as a dig at him for burning it down. Just that if The Bridge and Duchess is gone, so is my land really.

  “Ridiculous,” Caden says.

  “Excuse me?”

  He pushes the book toward me, poking sharply at the spot where “Secan” is scrawled. His frown carves a V between his eyebrows. “Just because you are ignorant of the history you have there doesn’t mean it ceases to exist.”

  “It doesn’t tell me anything about who I am either,” I point out.

  “Our history tells us where we come from,” he insists. “Knowing our people, our bloodlines—it’s important.”

  “I come from Abeline,” I say. “None of the people who come from Secan affect me. I can’t put so much stock in history, Caden. If I did that, I’d have lost myself already.”

  The book slams shut, and dust flies from its pages. Caden yanks it toward him and deposits it back on his stack of texts with a loud thump.

  “Caden,” Aleta warns.

  “Aleta,” he mocks, running his fingers through his hair. This makes me hide a grin. The two are more like brother and sister than anything else.

  She ignores that poor verbal parry, and he turns to Tregle. “How long until sunrise?”

  “Still some time yet.”

  “Fantastic. Come on then.”

  His hand at my back enflames me, and I jerk away, annoyed. It’s gentle, but I still feel like I’m being manhandled. “Where are we going?”

  “To show you how history can still affect you.”

  After that tease of information, what else can I do but follow him? His steps through the hallways are presumptuous, taking little trouble to quiet his travels. Such is the luxury of being the prince, but I’m twitchy with worry. At least I’m in a simple brown dress this time and not my nightgown. Still, I don’t want to be caught out of my bed with the betrothed prince. His little-used sword clatters at his hip.

  “Here.” He waves me inside a room and yanks a torch from a wall so that we can see. Aleta and Tregle haven’t followed us.

  “I still don’t understand what we’re doing he—” I stop short as the light dances over gilded frames. We’re in a room filled with formal portraits. Hard-eyed men with steel at their sides, women with pursed lips and glittering with pearls and gems. But I only see one.

  I know Caden’s watching me as I take a step closer to it. He’s at least twenty years younger in this portrait, but I’d recognize Da anywhere. He has the same brown eyes, but the mischief in them is tamped down.

  The woman at his side has to be my mother: Lady Corrine. Her lips are thin, but smiling. It seems genuine. She’s a freckly blonde, with happy green eyes. Her curls are pinned up, and Da’s hand rests on her shoulder.

  My fingers run along my collarbone as I study her. “I don’t look anything like her,” I murmur.

  “But she made you,” Caden says softly. He crosses his arms. “I told you: our people are important. Without her, you very literally would not be who you are today.”

  True. As I stare at the mother I never knew, I have a strange longing in me, and it doesn’t go away when I turn my eyes to the likeness of the father who is now a stranger to me.

  Then I realize: Da’s hair isn’t auburn, like mine, like he’d said it used to be. It’s black.

  “Bree?”

  Of all things, why would Da lie about that? I swallow the lump of confusion in my throat. “Take me back to my room, Caden.”

  Twenty-Two

  Days later, the king enters my rooms without so much as the courtesy of a knock. Taken aback, I put aside the book I’m reading: A History of Nereid Waters, borrowed from Caden. I’m trying not to think about the lesson I have with Larsden in a few hours. And I’ve given up protesting Caden’s insistence of understanding how history shapes our circumstances, but I’m not going to dwell on my own—at least not until I can ask Da about it. The first step in assisting with the group’s plans is to really understand how Egria and Nereidium got to this point, but the text is so dense that I haven’t gotten past the first paragraph. I rise from my chair to curtsy.

  “My lord,” I say.

  Inwardly, I seethe. I know what this trick is about, entering my rooms without waiting for my permission. For all he knows, I could have been changing. It’s just another way to show me that he doesn’t need my permission and that he can and will do as he pleases.

  “Lady Breena.” He clasps his hands behind his back and nods to me. He sends a meaningful look to my ladies who slowly stop what they’re doing and file out of the room.

  I plead with them with my eyes not to leave me alone with the dreaded king, but Emis and Gisela won’t even look at me. Maybe they feel guilty. And they should. I’d thought we were all friends—or as close as I could get to friends here, at any rate—but I see more and more where their loyalties truly lie.

  “I’ve done you the discourtesy of neglecting to make the arrangements we spoke of when last we met, just the two of us.”

  The biggest discourtesy you’ve done me is continuing to breathe. Aloud, I protest mechanically, staring at the floor. “No, my lord. ‘Twas no inconvenience to me.”

  “Yes, well. I’ve done as I said. You’ll be meeting with your father before supper.”

  My eyes fly from the floor to meet his. “Truly, my lord?”

  He nods. “You are to be waiting at the dungeon gates at dusk, after your lesson with Tutor Larsden today. A guard will escort you to the cell. You will have thirty minutes. After which, you will dress for dinner and attend me in my chambers.”
>
  Attend him in his chambers. My insides flip. Is that where he’ll wrest a report from me?

  “We will arrive at dinner together after you have given me the summation of the important matters you and your father discuss.” A self-satisfied smile plays at the corners of his mouth.

  Dinner isn’t until moonrise. I do the math quickly. Da and I will have thirty minutes, I’ll be in the king’s rooms after that, and he’ll have plenty of time to quiz me on the conversation. Then I’ll have to have dinner and find some way to alert Caden of what’s happened. I resign myself to the fact that I won’t be asleep until very late this evening.

  “I’m thrilled,” I say, realizing that he’s waiting for a response. “Thank you.”

  The words sound hollow. I am happy to be seeing Da, but less so to recite the content of our discussions. And it grates on me to pretend humbleness to the king for anything. Not when I know that I’ll be spending the next several hours with Tutor Larsden as the man experiments on me, without proper time to mentally prepare myself for a meeting with Da.

  He turns to leave, pausing at the threshold of my door. “I have been thinking over your living arrangements. I feel that it would do you good to spend time with someone your age closer to your station.”

  “Sire?” I feel the beginnings of dread. Maybe my ladies are more loyal to me than I thought. Why else would he be taking them away?

  “Somewhere I can ensure your protection at all hours.”

  Now that’s odd. He should be secure in the idea that I’m under watch. Has he somehow learned that I left my rooms last night? The only person of noble rank and my age in the palace, the only one who won’t cause a scandal at least, is—

  “You’ll be moving into a guest room in Princess Aleta’s suite.”

  Wonderful. My huff of displeasure refuses to be contained. I’ll have to spend most of every day and every night with the person who glowers at me whenever we cross paths, flickering hatred whenever I enter a room. As strenuous as the idea that my ladies report on my actions is, being constantly at Aleta’s side will be worse. The princess is never without an escort—though she does seem to know how to slip about the castle after-hours.