The innkeeper's wife met me in the stairwell. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was out of breath.
"Madame, a Danhadine man is here asking for you! He came in a royal carriage."
I smiled despite my nervousness. "Thank you, is it possible for us to get a private room and some ale?"
She nodded her head furiously. "Yes, of course, madame, your husband is with the man now. You put in a good word for me. Danhadine have good coin to spend, and with so many of them in the city these days, I would not mind a bit of the Danhadine king's gold."
I laughed, but it felt hollow and forced. I do not think you would like it if they overran your city and took your inn. I followed her down the stairs to a room just off the main dining hall, reserved for important guest and meetings. I took a deep breath before entering. The innkeeper's wife had bustled off to get our drinks. I should not leave Jon and Johai alone for overlong. Once I had calmed my nerves, I opened the door. Johai stood leaning against the far wall, and Beau was next to the door. Jon sat in the center of the room at a scrubbed wooden table.
He smiled as I entered and stood to greet me. "Lady Diranel, you are as radiant as the sun."
Johai glowered at me from behind Jon, and I dropped my gaze. "If we could dispatch the flattery and small talk, I would prefer to put this business behind us," I said and walked over to the table and sat down.
I took a seat across from him, and Johai took the seat to my right. Beau did not move from beside the door, but I imagined he, too, was glowering at Jon Sixton. Neither of them supported my decision, but there was no other way. Jon touched his neck where a faint line remained where Beau's knife had scored it.
Good, he is discomfited. I can use that to our advantage.
"Straight to business, then." He smiled weakly, and his eyes darted towards Johai and then to Beau. "Shall we be making the arrangements in traditional style with a contract signed by your nearest male relative, or shall we run away in the night?"
"Watch your tongue. This is not a game," Johai snarled, and I whipped my head in his direction. His animosity was surprising, and I feared the specter had taken him again.
"But isn't this all a game? Lady Diranel and I are playing our parts as are you, your grace." He smirked at Johai, who gripped the tabletop, white knuckled. He was holding himself back for my sake. I'll need to wrap up this proceeding quickly.
"I have a few conditions."
"Oh?" He raised a brow.
"For one, I will be your wife in name only. You will not seek to fulfill certain obligations as my... husband." I could not stop the blush from staining my cheeks and neck.
A slow grin spread across his face, and my shame deepened. "You mean I cannot take you to bed?" He laughed.
Johai slammed his hand on the table. "Enough," Johai said. "I will not allow this without some kind of assurance for Maea's wellbeing."
Jon looked long and hard at Johai, and then a smile curled his lips. "You care for her, don't you?"
I blushed harder, and Johai scowled.
Jon laughed again. "I swear to the goddess and upon my eternal soul that no harm will come to her and I will not force her into bed with me." He crossed his hand over his chest.
"I do not trust your oaths," Johai said. "Words are as trustworthy as they are visible."
The smile had not left his face. "Then what will you trust, your grace?"
"Blood." He extracted a small blade from a sheath at his hip. He stabbed it into the wood of the table. "Swear to me a blood oath, and I will know you are who you say."
The glint had returned to Jon's eye. "You're serious." He chuckled. "How barbaric. Have you been spending too much time with the nomadic woman?" Jon asked Johai.
Johai did not blink. "Who I spend my time with is of no consequence to you. Will you agree or not?"
Has Johai been visiting with Elenna? Jealousy coiled around my stomach and settled like a rock there. It is none of my concern; it is just Jon's taunting. He is just telling me he knows who my allies are, nothing more.
Jon plucked the dagger out of the table. "Tell me, your grace, how does one swear a blood oath?"
"Is it not obvious? You must shed your blood." Beau spoke up for the first time.
Jon's gaze flickered towards Beau. "I see, and shall I sign my name with my own blood?" he asked Johai.
Johai shook his head. "No, but you will swear and mix your blood with mine." Beau handed Johai a knife, and he sliced the palm of his hand. Crimson blood bloomed on his pale skin like a flower opening. I stared at it as it ran down his hand and dripped onto the table. "Your grace?" Johai asked with an arched brow.
Jon shrugged and pricked his own hand, and blood pooled in his palm. He extended it for Johai to shake.
Johai took it with a firm grasp and said, "You swear to protect Maea, the last of House Diranel, with your life if need be, and when the time comes, you will take her to Keisan when I, Johai of House Slatone, can no longer protect her."
I made a sound of protest, but Johai stopped me with a look.
Jon smirked. "I Jon, Duke of House Sixton and son of Eloise de Mere, swear to protect Lady Maea Diranel with my very life, and when the time comes, I shall lead her to Keisan, where we will smite her enemies."
Jon jerked his hand away in surprise and looked down at his palm. It was free of blemish, and the blood was gone. The color drained from his face. Johai was holding onto the table in an iron grip, and I peered up at him. He gave me a wan smile. There was no sign of the specter in his visage, but he seemed tired.
"Johai?" I said.
He waved away my concern. "It is nothing."
"The rumors are true, then; you are a sorcerer," Jon said to Johai as he turned his hand over, examining it.
I answered for Johai. "Yes, he is, and I would not take the oath you have given lightly."
"I will not, my lady." He looked at his hand once more before glancing back at us. "So it seems we may come to an agreement. What are the rest of your terms?"
So the planning began. I requested that Johai and Beau be given positions at the duke's villa. Jon agreed without complaint. He had his own terms; I was to join him at official functions and manage his household as a normal wife would. To the world we would be husband and wife, but in truth, we had reached an uneasy alliance. The marriage contract was drawn up by Johai, and Beau witnessed the signing with a dour expression on his face. By the time we were finished, the sun was high in the sky, and I did not know how much longer I could control this façade of aloofness. Tremors threatened to overtake my body, and my head pounded.
"You should have a disguise," Johai said. He stared a hole into the table.
"A disguise?" I asked.
"If you were to announce yourself as Duke Sixton's wife as you are now, anyone from Danhad would recognize you and report back to Adair. We can use a spell similar to the one I used in Keisan."
"No!" I shouted. I did not want him to use anymore of the specter's power. He was already losing control; maintaining such a complex spell would only make it worse.
"Do you wish to go through with this? If so, this is the only way," Johai said with a bland expression.
I looked away from him and crossed my arms over my chest. He was right, and I knew it. I thought perhaps I could have used walnut dye like we had used on Johai's hair and maybe some of the stage makeup from the playhouse, but that was folly. Anyone would see through that. Any Danhadine who saw my unique violet eyes would know me for who I really was.
"Very well," I said.
Tension hung on the air for a few moments until Jon spoke. "Do you not care about the ceremony? Shall I plan the fete?"
I gave him a puzzled expression. My mind was tired from the day's proceedings. I never imagined any kind of occasion, maybe a magiker and private handfasting, nothing more. This was not a celebration but a fulfillment of a contract.
"I do not care for any grand occasions. This is necessary to my needs, nothing more."
I turned to leave, an
d Jon's laughter filled my ears.
After the meeting, I returned to Johai and my room and lay awake, tossing and turning in my bed. Johai had come earlier, trying to coax me to eat, but I had turned him away. A few hours after that, he returned for bed. He did not speak to me as he blew out a candle and laid down on the futon on the floor. I rolled over, and the bed creaked as I did so.
"Do your dreams trouble you?" he asked, his voice disembodied in the darkness.
I glanced over to where he lay. "No, but my thoughts do."
"Do you wish to talk?"
The candidness in his tone disarmed me. Johai had never been one for shows of affection. My emotions felt raw, and though I knew better than to draw closer to him, I needed someone to talk to. I hesitated before answering, fearing my voice would betray my hidden feelings.
"I fear that I do this in vain. I am haunted by the princess' death at all corners, yet I cannot find the connections."
He was silent for a long moment. "Her passing was a tragedy, but are you certain it is of any significance?" It was the first time he had voiced his doubts, and I, too, shared them, but if she was not connected to the specter, then what did I have left?
I sat up and leaned on my elbows and peered at him through the darkness. "Yes. The diviner told me as much, there must be something here."
"Hmm," he replied.
I did not want to let this moment end because when the daylight came, everything would be different. I wanted to savor this moment. "What was Sarelle like?" I asked.
He sighed. "I don't remember much about her, other than the day they took her to Neaux. She was always smiling. On that day, she did not, and it struck me how sad and small she looked as she rode out the palace gates. I've thought of that day often since we came to the city. I can still see his face as she rode away. Adair chased after her, and she watched him over her shoulder for a very long time before they disappeared into the distance."
Hearing Adair's name from Johai's lips felt wrong. I wanted to forget Adair and how he made me feel, but I seemed unable to escape him.
"Were they close?" I asked in a small voice.
"Mmm. Very, it was not often that I did not see them with their heads pressed together, scheming something." It wasn't often that Johai was this wistful, and I wondered if this was a trick the specter was playing on me. If Adair and Sarelle were close, why did he kill her? Did he have nothing to do with her death, or did something change?
I feared voicing my doubts. I had gambled too much on Sarelle to give in to my misgivings now. I changed the subject instead. "What was Keisan like, when you were a boy?"
Johai was silent for a few moments, and I thought he would not answer me. "For me, it was not a kind place. Because my mother was Jerauchian, I was made an outcast. I was set above many because of my father, but unaccepted because I was different. After my father betrayed the kingdom, it went from uncomfortable to unbearable."
I sat up and folded my knees on the bed. My eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could see his silhouette sitting on his pallet on the floor.
"Is that why you...?" I could not finish my sentence for fear of pressing him too much. He was being unusually candid.
"Yes and no. That's what I told myself at the time, that if I were all powerful, then it would make up for the wrongs done against me. I convinced myself that if I had the specter's power, I could wipe away my past and rewrite the future. I wanted to beat my father, to do what he could not. In truth, I did not have the real ambition to see it through. I merely made a rash decision that cost me everything."
I thought of my vision back in Keisan. The specter had warned Johai as much, but as a young boy, he had not listened. I wondered if our lives would have turned out differently if he had heeded the specter.
He moved across the room in the dark, and his hands found my face. I gasped but did not move. Only now, in the dark, would I allow his touch, would I let myself feel his breath fan across my cheeks. I must save him. There was no more time. There was no hope.
"Maea, whatever happens, know that I will always be with you."
A sob escaped my throat suddenly. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I motioned to brush them away but could not because Johai's hand was there. He rubbed his thumb along my cheek and let it linger. I turned his palm to my lips and kissed it. And tried to transmit all the love and unspoken promises I wished we had the time to share. If only there was more time. But there was not; the next day, everything would change.
Chapter Eleven
THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY was to be held at Jon's villa. A carriage came for Johai, Beau and me the day of. Servants in purple livery with golden stars sewn on the breast pockets came and packed our things, the little we had, in the back of the carriage. Jon had sent the ambassador's carriage; it was embossed with the royal oak of Danhad. It was trimmed in silver and painted a midnight blue. Inside, the seats were plush and lined with velvet all around. He had not come to get me himself, for which I was glad.
The ride to Jon's villa was tense, to say the least. Johai stared out the window. I opened my mouth, wanting to say something to end the silence, but could not find the right words to say. He was beyond my reach now. Beau rode in front alongside the coachman, and I wondered if he was avoiding me as well. In the end, I stared down at my linked fingers and tried to rationalize my decision. My conversation with Johai from the previous evening ran through my mind. It's not too late to call it off, a nagging voice at the back of my mind said. There may still be another way. I glanced up at Johai. His jaw was pulled tight, and his hands were balled into fists.
The power to stop this was within my grasp, yet I hesitated. We arrived at Jon's villa. It's too late now. I pulled down a sheer white veil that was attached to a pearlescent hairpiece I wore. Both were gifts from Jon. In a traditional Neaux marriage the bride wore a veil over her face to conceal her from her betrothed until the marriage vows were spoken. This was, of course, a ruse Jon had concocted to get me into the villa without anyone seeing.
Johai threw the door open before jumping out. A servant exited from the iron gate at the front of the villa. He was a younger man with a Neaux complexion and a round face. He wore all black and had a ring of keys jangling from his belt. Johai walked past him and into the courtyard beyond. The servant held out a hand for me to take and helped me down from the carriage. I watched the gate through which Johai had disappeared. I cannot expect him to agree with my decision, but it does not hurt any less.
Johai waited in the courtyard beyond, his arms crossed over his chest. The servant led me by the hand as we mounted the steps to the front door. Johai walked behind me as a stern shadow. Inside, I got my first glimpse of the foyer. It was spacious with an arched ceiling and flagstone floors. There were hints of Danhadine architecture, arched doorways and large windows. It was funny, I had been to the villa twice now and this was my first time seeing it from a guest's perspective. At the back of the room was a spiral staircase, which we were led up to the second floor where the bedrooms were. This seemed more familiar, but I took my time admiring the fine woven rugs and the tapestries that hung on the walls. This will be my home. The servant led us to the end of the hall, opposite of Jon's study, and he opened a large carved door.
The bedroom was much larger than our inn room and had a balcony. The double doors that led out to it were open, and a breeze stirred the gossamer curtains. Just beyond them, I could see the mountainscape in the distance.
"This will be your chambers, my lady. His grace has left you a gift on the bed." The servant motioned to the four-poster bed, which was draped in heavy maroon curtains.
He stepped out, closing the door behind him. I took a calming breath and looked to my gift, it was a lilac gown trimmed in white lace. I walked over and picked it up, tracing the beading on the bodice and admiring the touches of lace along the sleeves.
"We need to perform the spell," Johai said.
I looked him in the eye for the first time since agreeing to marry Jon. H
is expression was cold and distant as it had been in Keisan. It cut me to think I had been the cause of his change. This is how it must be. There is no future for us, regardless of the outcome here in Sanore. That ended with the loss of my memories. I will never be that girl who loved him beyond doubt again, I had to remind myself lest I were to grow weak once more.
Johai reached into his pocket and then held his hand out for me, resting on his palm was a pair of pearl drop earrings.
I took one between my thumb and forefinger. I held it up to the light. It gleamed with a slight purple sheen. "They are beautiful."
"I needed to anchor the spell to something, and I did not think you would want a necklace," he replied.
I closed the pearl in my palm. "Thank you for doing this. You do not have to stay, you're—" My voice sounded too formal, and I hated it.
"Don't," he said, and I clamped my mouth shut. "It is painful enough. You do not need to release me. I meant what I said last night."
He handed me the other earring and turned towards the door. "Get dressed. The ceremony will be starting soon."
"What about these? How does it work?" As selfish as it was, I didn't want to let him go. I wanted to hold onto him, no matter how painful it was for the both of us.
His shoulders tensed as he came back over to me. I offered one of the pearls back to him, and he snatched it from my hand. "Pull back your hair."
I did as he instructed, revealing my left lobe.
"When someone is looking upon you while you wear the pearls, they will see the image I have created." His hand brushed my neck as he put the stud through a hole in my ear. I pulled my hair back on the other side, and he repeated the action, this time being careful not to touch me. "Look." He nodded to a vanity mirror by the bedside. I did not feel any different, but I did as he instructed.
When I looked into the mirror, I gasped and covered my mouth with my hand, as did the stranger that was my reflection. The glamour bound into the jewelry had lightened my hair to a dark chestnut, which rippled with glossy curls, and my brows were thicker but handsome. My eyes, a green-hazel, were more almond shaped than the originals, and my nose was petite and squashed, splashed with a sprinkling of freckles.
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