He scrambles to his feet, daring to hope that it might be Lucy again, but it’s the fiery queen who steps through, her hair dark in the dim light. The bird he’d seen her riding is now small enough to perch on her shoulder, and it does so with what can only be described as an arrogant look in its eyes.
The queen smiles, and though the gesture isn’t overly warm, neither is it threatening. “Hello, Alexander.” She waits until he gives a polite nod, but he draws the line at inclining his head—he may be imprisoned, but she is not his queen. “My granddaughter has spoken to you, but now I think it is time I presented you with an option.” Granddaughter? Alexander thinks. The queen doesn’t look much older than I am. “You can be useful to me, and if you are, then perhaps I will set you free.” She tilts her head questioningly. “Would you like the chance to redeem yourself?”
“Redemption in your eyes or Lucy’s?”
She smiles again—an expression that is almost amused but not quite. Alexander can sense the tension in the small cell. He knows that one wrong word may result in the queen locking him away forever. And yet, he has never been much good at total submission.
“Both, I should hope.” Her eyes narrow. “I want you to help Lucy destroy your Order.”
Alexander blinks stupidly. Whatever he expected her to say, it wasn’t this. His mind fills of thoughts of Lucy, of her bright, gentle spirit—though even as he thinks of that, he remembers her standing so proudly in her fencing uniform. Still, the thought of her destroying anything causes so much cognitive dissonance that his head pounds. “Does Lucy have assassin skills I’m unaware of?”
Alexander speaks without thinking, the wry comment escaping his mouth before he has the chance to swallow the words.
“My granddaughter is capable of many things of which you have no knowledge,” the queen says with a bite to her melodic voice. “Unsurprising since you didn’t even know you were Sylvani. At least, that is what you say.”
Her incredulous tone crawls under his skin. “I believed what I’d been told. You are right in thinking I was a fool, but I will not stand being called a liar.”
She appraises him silently for a moment. “Your Sylvan blood is not as potent as Lucy’s. By my estimate, you are at most only one-fourth Sylvan. I will therefore concede that it’s possible you might not have known, though it’s clear you still have the gift of arcana.”
He turns this over in his mind. His mother had only been part-Sylvan, then. It seems that Lucy has more Sylvan blood than he and less than the queen … so she must be half? He knows that her mother, too, is dead, so she seems to be the likely candidate. As shocking as all this is, Alexander must admit that he is fascinated. “I was told all mortals have prana, or spiritual power, and I happened to have an abundance of it.”
“Spiritual power? Yes, I suppose that’s true, in a way. Though it’s a little like comparing the strength of a summer breeze with the power of a hurricane.”
A small smile teases Alexander’s lips at this. He is not immune to a good metaphor. “And where does my power fall?”
“Somewhere between a strong wind and a gale,” she answers readily, just a hint of amusement in her eyes. “Lucy and her siblings are unusual even for half-Sylvani. They have abilities that nearly put them in the same league as the pure-bloods.”
“A tornado, then?” Alexander asks wryly, and she smiles. “So what is the plan for this tornado of power? How will she destroy an ancient order?”
“By cutting the head off the snake.”
Alexander’s expression darkens. He can deduce what she implies. “And if I refuse?”
“Then I will be forced to disappoint my granddaughter and keep you imprisoned until death comes to release you.” She gives him the look of a queen unused to being thwarted. “I very much do not want to disappoint my granddaughter.”
Though the thought of helping Lucy take down Lord Tyrell has Alexander feeling sick, he can see that he has no other choice. Even as he fears for the man who took him in as a child, his traitorous heart soars at the prospect of seeing Lucy again.
He meets the queen’s intense emerald gaze. “What must I do?”
TWENTY
THE sun sets and the moon rises in its stead, and after my rather disastrous conversation with Alexander, Grandmother told me to rest again before dinner. I tried to put aside all thoughts of him, but questions continue to swirl in my head. How had he not known he was Sylvan? What must he feel now, knowing he had been hunting his own kind? A twinge thrums painfully through my chest as I think about his words. He came in search of me, and if he had found me guilty of whatever crimes the Order accuses the Sylvani of …
I shake my head in an effort to banish the thoughts.
I lean on the balcony and gaze in wonder at the night sky. Here, the moon hangs so low it looks twice as large as the one I’m used to. The stars are bright and glittering, almost artificial in their intensity. I try to find some of the few constellations I know—Orion’s Belt, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor—but when I do find them, they appear to be the mirror image of the ones I’ve always known. A little shiver runs down my back.
Rowen jumps up on the balcony beside me, balancing like a cat. I have the strongest urge to pet him, but I restrain myself. We stare out at the city below us together, a light breeze ruffling Rowen’s fur, bringing the smell of exotic flowers and the clean scent of the waterfall.
“I’m ashamed how easily I was taken in by him,” I say to Rowen and to the night sky. “Even James had the sense to be suspicious.”
Rowen glances up at me, turquoise eyes gazing straight into my mind. And were you never suspicious?
“Reluctantly,” I say after a moment. “I’m still reluctant, and he’s told me of his involvement to my face.”
It isn’t unusual for the mind and the heart to disagree—this is a fact that transcends worlds.
I smile down at him. “You are being too kind to me, I think.”
He was foolish—no one should blindly follow another person in life—but I believed him when he said he had no intent to harm you.
“I only hope his generosity extended to others like me.” A memory of Lord Blackburn, the odious member of the Order who nearly killed my sister, suddenly latches hold of my mind. I see myself standing at the top of the stairs at my grandmother’s posh London townhouse, watching my sister leave with him—willingly, to keep me safe—and not knowing whether I’d ever see her again.
If Alexander has been responsible for even a fraction of that pain, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him.
“You won’t have to forgive him,” Grandmother says from behind me, “but you will have to work with him. You were projecting again, dearest one,” she adds when I answer with a blank look. She wraps her arm around mine and draws me away from the balcony. “I’ll explain it all over dinner. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”
She starts to lead me out of the room, but I glance down at my frock with some alarm. “Shall I change?”
Confusion knits her eyebrows. “Are you uncomfortable in your gown?”
“Oh no, not at all—quite the contrary. It’s only that we usually change into evening gowns to go down to dinner, but of course, this isn’t England … this isn’t even the mortal realm.”
Grandmother still looks a bit confused. “And how many times do you change a day?”
I run the calculations in my head. “Perhaps … five or six times a day, depending on what activities are planned.”
Her eyes widen. “How fascinating. Well, you’ll find it a great deal simpler here. Although,” she gestures to my elaborately embroidered golden gown, “I never thought I’d say that about our own clothing.”
“The clothing here is anything but simplistic, but I quite like the freedom it affords. I’d never be able to wear something that bares my legs in such a way.”
“I do remember that part of it, at least. It was I who helped your mother pack her things for her first visit between realms—though
now that I know how often you change, I suppose I sent her with far too light of a trunk.”
It’s simple asides like these that I try to squirrel away in my memory—these brief glimpses of my mother’s former life here.
“Now that we’ve agreed you are quite beautifully dressed, shall we go to dinner?”
“Dinner sounds lovely,” I say as I follow her lead into the hall, Rowen and Serafino at our sides. “Will we be dining with anyone else?”
“Not tonight—I thought we’d dine informally if you don’t mind.”
I shake my head, thinking of my brief meeting with other Sylvani—including Lord Titus. “I don’t mind in the least.”
Grandmother leads me through a labyrinth of hallways, each with achingly beautiful artwork—still more fantastical paintings, but also spiraling glass work in many different shapes and sizes, so delicate I can’t think how it doesn’t shatter with our footsteps. Grandmother passes all of these by, as though immune to their splendor. My heart swells with every new thing I see, my eyes greedily taking everything in, and I realize with no small amount of dismay that I am rapidly falling in love with this castle and this world.
“Ah, here we are,” Grandmother says as we arrive at a small outer door. When she pushes it open, it reveals a garden with a riot of color. “I’m afraid we won’t be dining in the formal dining room as I’m sure you’re used to. I can’t stand taking my meals in the cavernous room unless I’m absolutely forced to.”
“No, this is perfect,” I say in a hushed voice as though I am stepping into a quiet church instead of a garden. Flowers of vivid colors—crimson, sunset orange, rich violet—tumble on top of each other, both exotic and familiar. The grass beneath our feet is plusher than the thickest Oriental rug, and my soft shoes sink into it pleasantly as I walk. A short distance away is a marble balcony, and beyond that, the waterfalls flow endlessly down from the castle and the other buildings in Cascadia. As my golden skirts trail behind me in this wonderland of color, I nearly feel like the princess they say I am.
In the midst of all the flowers and verdant grass is another ancient tree—this one something like a cross between a lilac and a weeping willow. Beneath its dropping branches of soft pink flowers is a black iron table with three chairs. A slender male servant, one of the first I’ve seen since I arrived, waits beside a tray filled with tantalizing food.
“Have a seat, my darling,” Grandmother says, and the servant moves swiftly to pull out chairs for us both.
The servant places silver plates before us, and the fare is light and refreshing: fruits and cheeses and greens, crusty bread still warm, and goblets of wine that, when I taste it, explodes with flavor—honey and berries and something tangy. It’s nothing like the heavy, decadent six-course meals I’m used to, but is delicious all the same.
Grandmother spends the first part of the meal in silence, eating her food slowly and mindfully, and I endeavor to do the same. The silence, while not unpleasant, is certainly nothing like what I’m used to. No forced small talk here. Colin would enjoy himself immensely, I think with an inner smile.
After a short time, Grandmother puts her goblet down gently. “I was a bit vague when I came to get you for dinner, and if you’d like, I can explain.”
I swallow the bite of creamy cheese I’d been enjoying and nod enthusiastically. “Yes, I should be glad of that.”
“Before I say anything of what transpired between myself and Alexander, I should make known one of my abilities.” I perk up, giving her my undivided attention. Nothing is more fascinating to me than the many different shades of arcana. “I can search through someone’s mind,” she says, and a little jolt of surprise runs through me. I immediately try to control my run-away thoughts, but of course that only makes them even harder to rein in. “It’s a fearful ability, as you can see from your own reaction, but know that I never use it on any of my kin or loved ones without their express permission. Enemies or prisoners though …”
I take her meaning perfectly. She’d no doubt dug through Alexander’s mind as soon as she could, and though I know how terrible such a thing must be, I still find myself desperate to hear her findings. “What I can tell you is that he didn’t know he was Sylvan, he’s had suspicions about the Order for quite some time, and most importantly, he never wanted any harm to befall you.”
I am ashamed to feel my heart soften. “So what he told me was true.”
Grandmother watches my reaction. “His innocence in that regard is why I enlisted his aid. He has information you will need in order to infiltrate the leader.”
I stare at her, thunderstruck. “Infiltrate? But surely … you cannot mean … I thought you were going to instruct me in defense …” I trail off, too flabbergasted to continue.
“The quickest way to stop an organization such as this is to defeat its leader.”
I pale. “And when you say defeat, surely you don’t mean I should …” I trail off, unable to vocalize the word. I am no assassin.
Grandmother touches my hand comfortingly. “No, nothing like that, dearest one. To ask you to commit such an atrocity would be to blacken my own soul and yours. What you can do, however, is assist Alexander. Working together, the two of you can create a painting that will become a portal to Tyrell’s very estate. Alexander will cross over, not you. His charge will be to bring Tyrell back through for trial.”
“But how? Mortals cannot cross over into this realm.”
She shifts her gaze to the falls, her expression darkening. “He isn’t human. He’s Sylvan.”
Now even Rowen looks at Grandmother in surprise. For the leader of the Order to be Sylvan is the worst sort of betrayal for our kind. I think of Grandmother’s earlier dismissal of the brotherhood, which is so incongruent with her obvious anger now. “So Alexander is innocent of knowing he was Sylvan and hunting his own kind, but the leader—Lord Tyrell—must be very much aware?”
Grandmother nods tersely. “I should have known, really. Your mother told me of the brotherhood long ago, but I dismissed it as a radical and relatively powerless group. It wasn’t until I searched Alexander’s mind that I saw the truth. I recognized this Lord Tyrell.” I hold my breath, almost afraid to hear what she will say next. “He comes from a line of Sylvani with the power to drain arcana from others—a line so feared that most of them were wiped out centuries ago.”
I take a sip of my wine, my mouth suddenly dry. “So you’ve met him then?”
“No. I’ve only seen his likeness in books. He is Centerius, the first Sylvani to be banished from our realm. He committed an unforgivable offense—he took another’s life by draining him completely of arcana.” A terrible sense of foreboding takes up residence within me. “In truth, he should have been executed, but his sister pleaded for him. She claimed the man he’d killed had attacked her, and her brother was only coming to her defense. It was one of my own ancestors who searched her mind and found the truth buried there, and so Centerius faced only exile.”
“I am confused, though, how Lord Tyrell—Centerius—survived this long. I thought once a Sylvani crossed over to the mortal realm, they gave up their immortality?”
“I’m afraid the answer to that is what makes this whole affair so disturbing. Centerius did lose his immortality upon his exile, but he found a way to preserve himself. We know that their ability to drain another’s arcana results in greater power and vitality for the caster, so it doesn’t take much to assume that’s exactly what he did when he crossed over to the mortal world. He sought others like him—and then descendants of others like him—and drained them of arcana. He founded this nefarious order to continue his goal, using men and women with Sylvan blood to track other Sylvani descendants or to drain them of their arcana.”
My mind works through everything I’ve known about the order, about men who have the power to drain us of arcana—Lord Blackburn, who stole my sister’s arcana, and Lord Wallace, who has drained at least one girl to the point of death. These men were monstrous creatures
in my mind, but even more so now that I know the truth. “They’re all Sylvan,” I say, the words filling me with horror. “All our enemies are Sylvan.”
Grandmother nods sadly. “Your mother must have known they had Sylvan blood, of course, but she didn’t know the truth about Centerius.”
Even this comes as a shock to me—how much Mama must have known. “Why wouldn’t she have told us the truth?”
“You were isolated enough without knowing that the enemy who threatened you was also Sylvan.” Grandmother nods toward the fox sitting quietly next to me. “Think how it would have affected your sister when she most needed Rowen’s aid. Katherine may not have trusted him, may not have even considered coming to this realm—she never needed to, but it was important she had the option. The same line of thinking applies to you. It would only hurt you if you were to think Sylvani were your enemy.”
Her words resonate. Wren and I were terrified enough about crossing over to the Sylvan realm, simply because we had no real knowledge save Mama’s bedtime stories, nor did we know if one could easily return. It would have been that much worse had we thought there were real enemies hidden here.
“I know Alexander lost your trust—and rightfully so—but he will be the one who provides us his physical abilities for this venture. His abilities as a fighter are impressive; if it hadn’t been for the effect of this realm on him, I suspect he would have seriously injured more than one of my Sentinels.”
Surprise and grudging respect mingle closely within me. “Can’t you just send your Sentinels through the portal to apprehend Lord Tyrell?” I ask, a little irritably. Working beside Alexander is the last thing I want to do, but not for the reason she thinks. Already my heart is moving rapidly toward forgiveness, and though I’m often seen as excessively compassionate, at this moment, I only find it to be a frustrating and unwelcome trait.
The Order of the Eternal Sun Page 21