She refolded the tunics she’d brought for the girl. She’d chosen three very different colors—burgundy, which suited her own deep red hair and green eyes well; light grey, in case the girl needed a more subtle transition from the plain colors of her secluded life; and the medium green of the Ilazers, her personal favorite of the three. She then placed them in the day pack her aide would carry on the ride up the mountain and tied the flap shut. She listened to the sounds of disembarking intruding from the deck, amazed that so few could make so much noise.
She had spent years organizing this entourage in her mind. A minimum crew of five for the vessel, three guards, her aide and, of course, Nalin. Nalin had requested that his friend, Jozan Tuane, the heir of Minol, join them. Hermit Eloise was Jozan’s aunt, but, more importantly, Jozan had visited the Isle several times as a girl. Flandari hoped that perhaps Jozan and Ariannas had met during one of those visits. If Ariannas—Lisen, Flandari reminded herself—remembered Jozan, it might help with the girl’s transition. Even if they’d never met, Jozan possessed a skill with others that Nalin lacked, and a young hermit, isolated all her life with other hermits, might relate better to the friendly Jozan than to the distant Nalin.
Flandari’s thoughts slipped back to this morning and Ariel demanding to know where she was headed and why. She had replied that she was heading for Solsta for a few days of contemplation. Ariel’s brown eyes, so like his father’s, had tightened in on her, and she’d shivered when she’d realized he’d read through the lie but couldn’t fathom the truth. After a heartbeat’s hesitation, he’d mumbled something like, “Finally,” then had disappeared to wherever it was he always disappeared to when done with her. Impossible boy.
She turned at a knock on her door. “Come.”
Captain Rosarel of the Emperi Guard ducked his head to enter the cabin. “My Liege.”
“Captain.”
“You have a visitor from the haven, my Liege,” the captain said. “A Hermit Eloise?”
“Send her in,” Flandari replied, her heart fluttering just a little. It was an unaccustomed sensation. She didn’t like surprises, and she had not anticipated encountering the seer down here rather than up there at the haven. With a nod, the captain turned smartly and left the cabin, and Flandari stood and awaited the hermit’s entrance which was almost immediate. She strode in, everything about her quick, hurried, her braids unkempt and turning grey. The last time Flandari had seen her, her hair had been brown and shorter, but no hint of the girl Flandari had once known remained.
“My Liege,” she said with a nod.
“Hermit Eloise?”
“There is something you must know,” the hermit blurted out, “now, before you ride up to the haven.”
Flandari glowered at the hermit. “What? More prophecies to keep me from my daughter? You will not keep her from me any longer, Eloise.”
The hermit drew back, her head lowered but shoulders rigid. “Just…one…moment, my Liege. And then, I promise.”
“Then tell me,” Flandari said, forcing calm.
“It happened seven years ago, but I had no way of telling you until now. During his passing, your spouse let slip his regret at having never known his daughter.”
Flandari dropped down onto her cot. “But he promised he’d never say anything.”
“He didn’t say anything, my Liege. It undoubtedly came from deep within his soul, revealed at the moment of death.”
“Creators.”
“There is, of course, the necropaths’ oath of secrecy,” Eloise reminded her.
“Oh, yes. Of course,” Flandari replied with relief.
“But I didn’t want to risk your daughter’s safety,” the hermit continued.
“You did something without telling me, without my permission, didn’t you.” Her chest tightened. This seer whom Eloise had become was the most despicable woman.
“Yes, my Liege.”
Flandari waited for the hermit to continue, but she didn’t. “What?” Flandari asked, frustrated.
“I…found another world, a world where the inhabitants look very much like us, and I hid her there, in the care of two very loving guardians.”
“‘Another world’?” Flandari raged. “Another world?”
“Yes, my Liege,” Eloise answered softly.
“You took her to another world without telling me? I suppose you didn’t think I’d understand. That I wouldn’t permit such a thing. Damn right, I wouldn’t have, you obtuse, damnable seer.”
“Forgive me, my Liege. I didn’t tell you,” Eloise tried to explain, “because you had just lost your spouse, and I didn’t want to upset you further. I was confident I could retrieve Ariannas when the time came, so there was no need to involve you.” The hermit had folded her arms across her chest and shoved her hands into the opposing sleeves.
“And you did retrieve her?”
“Of course.”
“When?”
“Last night actually. Right after I sent you the message. I wanted you to know so that you’ll understand when you meet her why she may seem a little strange. She may use words from a language you don’t understand, and she definitely acts less humble than one would expect from a haven-raised child.”
“You have taken liberties, Seer, that you had no right to take.”
“It was the only way.”
Flandari threw her hands up. “Of course it was.” She paused, inhaled, exhaled, then spoke again. “She still doesn’t know her true identity, correct?”
“No, my Liege, she does not. When I sent her away, I told her it was because there was someone looking for her who wanted to stop her from fulfilling her destiny. I never told her what that was.”
“And she believed that?” Flandari asked.
“She was only ten years out,” Hermit Eloise replied.
“Yes. Well.” She pointed at the hermit. “I haven’t finished with you yet. But…right now I will see my daughter for myself.”
Eloise began to back out of the cabin, and with a small bow, she said, “I will see to it she’s ready when you arrive.”
As Hermit Eloise closed the door, Flandari jumped up from her cot and threw the first thing she could grab, an empty scrollkeep, across the little room where it clattered harmlessly to the floor.
“Damn that seer!” She had kidnapped a royal daughter, twice, the second time without Flandari’s permission and without her knowledge. To what kind of influences had Ariannas been exposed in this other world? They must have changed her, but for better, or worse? “Damn!” She would come up with a penalty for this. But later, much later.
Yet another knock at the door, and she sighed. “Enter,” she said, conceding to the constant demands of her life, and Captain Rosarel stepped in again. He wore his dark hair in a single braid down his back, an affectation, she believed, from his tour of duty at the Rim over Thristas—it was said that Thristan men wore their hair braided thus. He kept his beard trimmed close, a regulation of the Guard. “Males must keep their beards short but still visible.” It was, after all, an easily recognizable manifestation of gender.
“All is ready, my Liege,” the captain pronounced.
“Do you expect any problems with the climb in the dark?”
“No, my Liege,” he replied. “The moon is only in its first quarter, but we’ll take it slow.”
Flandari knew the trail from the dock up to the haven was narrow and riddled with switchbacks, but if Rosarel thought it was safe, then it was. Flandari picked up the day pack and carried it out onto the deck herself, declining the captain’s offer to relieve her of it. She did, however, allow the captain to assist her as she stepped from the ship to the pier, where her servant, Rasendir Mirta, met her. The servant was an able worker, but she had grown oddly distant in the last few months.
“My Liege,” Rasendir said, her eyes remarkably vibrant.
“Yes?” Flandari replied absently, her mind preoccupied with what lay at the top of the mountain. She tossed the day pack to the ser
vant and headed for her stallion and her companions who waited for her in the clearing from which the path to the haven rose.
“Wouldn’t it be better…if we waited…until morning?” Rasendir fumbled through the question as she trotted behind her Liege.
Flandari paused as they reached the horses and turned to study the woman. “If the captain believes it’s safe, then it is,” she stated flatly, then took the reins from Captain Rosarel and mounted. She stood up in her stirrups to test their strength and length and then fully settled into the saddle. She nodded to Nalin who sat on his own bay and to Jozan, mounted on her grey beside him. The two young nobles nodded and smiled in return.
Rasendir appeared uncomfortable on her mare as she rode over to her Empir. “My Liege,” she tried yet once more. She maneuvered her horse so that Flandari’s stallion hid her from the others.
Flandari turned to look at her attendant, her patience diminishing by the second. And, as she turned, she realized that something in Rasendir’s dark eyes had shifted, and she seemed very unlike herself, possessed even. The servant fiddled with something at her leg, the leg opposite Flandari, and an uncommon anxiety gripped Flandari like a vise. Flandari stared, incapable of movement or speech, her will suddenly not her own, as Rasendir lifted her hidden hand, revealing its contents.
Creators, it’s a dagger. Flandari’s eyes went wide as Rasendir grabbed her with one arm, yanked her close, their horses flank to flank, and then, with the other hand, stabbed her.
“Wha…,” Flandari managed past the drugged sensation that sapped her of all will to fight, then she gasped as the weapon found its mark, deep into her belly, the feeling not immediately painful.
“Forgive me, my Liege,” Rasendir whispered “I couldn’t stop….”
The dagger was withdrawn, and Rasendir Mirta pulled away, leaving Flandari on her mount, gaping at the small slit in her leathers. She put her hand on the place, and it came away wet and sticky. She stared at the blood on her fingers—such a small amount of blood for a wound so deep—and realized, finally, the truth. The pain arrived, and then she screamed.
“Assassin!” The wound was small and certainly not lethal; she’d suffered worse in practice sessions. And yet, the servant’s intent had been to kill.
Flandari was barely aware of the flurry of activity which quickly encircled her. While the guards wrestled Rasendir Mirta from her horse and to the ground, Nalin and Jozan dismounted and rushed to stand below Flandari, to her right. Jozan Tuane began to search Flandari for her injury, and Flandari allowed it, lifting up the leathers to reveal a stain of blood slowly spreading around the hole in the fabric of her tunic. With both index fingers, Jozan enlarged the rent in the fabric, poked around a little, studied the wound as best she could in the limited moonlight, then poked around again. Flandari gasped.
“My Liege,” the young woman said, “it seems clean enough, but it needs better care than I can offer, I’m afraid. A healer should see this. Without delay.”
Flandari nodded through a haze of pain and expanding shock.
“I agree, my Liege,” Captain Rosarel declared as he joined them and saw what Jozan saw. He lifted his hand up, a small, empty vial cradled in his palm. “I found this in the hand of your assailant who now lies shaking on the ground. I suspect poison, my Liege.”
“Poison?” Flandari’s stomach twisted.
“We must get you to a healer,” the captain said.
“We’ll be right behind you,” Nalin proclaimed and touched Flandari on the leg. Then he left her for his horse.
“I don’t know if I can…,” Flandari began, but she swooned and couldn’t finish. She felt the whoosh of someone, probably the captain, throwing himself up on her horse behind her, the horse shifting with the added load. The captain kicked the horse’s flanks, and it broke into a gallop, leaving the dock and the entourage behind.
They aimed directly for the path that rose out of the clearing surrounding this end of the harbor, and as she slipped slowly from herself, surrendering all to the man in control of the horse, Flandari prayed that his instincts would see them safely up the mountain.
Trees and bushes flew by, and she barely remained conscious. The quick turns and the heaving lungs of the poor beast between her legs became but vague sensations. Such a little wound to cause such pain and such distraction. She’d been hurt far worse over the years. It was but a scratch. Nothing more.
Korin Rosarel, the Destroyer at his heels, willed the warrior stallion beneath him to run to the limits of its endurance. The haven lay some distance from the mountain’s base, and the incline of the path’s ascent was such that the road switched back and forth at impossible, wild angles. He relied more on his own instincts and the horse’s than on his eyes to guide him, for the Empir in front of him required all his concentration to keep her upright in the saddle as she slipped further into a stupor. The assailant had downed the contents of that vial too quickly, and Korin suspected that the destructive power of the dagger he had taken from her lay in more than blade and point, a suspicion he would be sure to mention to the healer at the summit.
His soul quivered. Hermits. Damnable bunch. Magic and the unseen accompanied them in whatever they did and wherever they went. In their presence, the power lurked, an entity, palpable and very real. And the worst of all were the necropaths, those who claimed to accompany the souls of the dying into and past the end of all ends, who allegedly risked possession each time they reached out to a soul. Korin believed only in that which he could see and touch for himself, and an existence beyond this one had no place in his philosophy. Still, he had volunteered for this mission, knowing Solsta Haven lay at the end of the quest. The Empir’s secretive purpose had intrigued him. He had, however, expected to spend little time in the actual presence of the hermits. Now, he was caught in it, and he must steel himself; his Empir’s life depended on it.
Despite the extra load it carried, the horse valiantly attacked the incline of the road, breathing hard now, its gait slower by only a fraction of what it had given in the beginning. Stout-hearted beast, this mount of the Empir’s. Even the Guard didn’t know its like. Korin hoped that that stout heart would not give out before they reached this journey’s end.
CHAPTER FOUR
NEVER…EVER…PUSH
Arms wrapped over her chest to hold back the cold, Lisen paced from one end of the parapet to the other, not a long walk, three steps each way at best. She could have circled the tower, but then she would have lost sight of the dock, and the movement below held her captive. The lights had finally settled into place, but she could see little else. When were they coming? She hadn’t seen any lights heading upward in the haven’s direction. Damn. Where was Eloise the Slippery anyway?
She stopped and stared into the mystery below, willing it to reveal itself to her. Nothing.
I’ll leave. I’ll leave and head down the stairs. To hell with Eloise’s orders. I am not a child. I won’t be ordered about. She was an emancipated woman with experiences no one in this world could understand. Yet, something held her in place, a fascination with the magic of anticipation. She remembered dreams, fantasies, all conjured up by the active mind of a young orphan seeking herself. They rose to the surface and floated there, engaging her in a debate between the comfortable simplicity of ignorance and the overwhelming impatience to know everything now. She was used to immediate answers. If she were still in L.A., she’d text message someone or Google “Lisen’s destiny.” If she were still in L.A., she wouldn’t be worrying about being an orphan. She’d have her mom and her dad—well, Daisy and Simon.
She sighed. She would most likely have at least some answers by the end of this night. Why else would Eloise have come up here to her, warned her of the arrival of the strangers below and insisted that she not move from this spot until the hermit said so? She felt five years old—no, out, she reminded herself—anticipating all the surprises another “outcoming” day might bring.
She started at the sound of soft foo
tfalls on the circular stairs and stepped around the tower just as the old hermit emerged from the small door, out of breath, her eyes wild, not calm at all the way she’d looked earlier. Lisen’s stomach lurched, and she wished harder than ever that she could see what the sooth saw.
“What is it?” Lisen asked.
“Seven make their way up the mountain,” Eloise replied, struggling for air with which to speak, “one wounded, one nearly dead. It’s time. You must hurry.”
“Hurry for what?”
But the hermit had turned and was rushing down the cold, steep, circular stairway as quickly as her aging legs could carry her, Lisen in her wake.
“Hurry for what?” she yelled as she continued to follow.
Over the sanctuary roof, across the bridge to the visitors’ garret and down the stairs, two stories’ worth, until they reached the main level, Lisen followed Eloise who had not yet responded to her question. She was such a curious, cantankerous woman. Lisen bet Eloise would have hated her taste in music and probably would have disapproved of her friends, too. Friends. No more. Not now. Now was hurry-up time, and Eloise the Elusive had yet to explain what they were doing, why they were rushing to meet these visitors, these dead and dying visitors.
Through the residence where hermits slept in bare cells hardly larger than the pallets on which they now stirred, then into the outer domain of the sanctuary, Lisen jogged on behind the hermit. They rushed down the hall that paralleled the sanctuary proper and out the main entry onto the steps. There they paused at the top of those worn, stony steps, and Lisen stared at the receiving yard, the stone-hewn haven now at her back, blending into the mountain. The scene which greeted her—a half dozen great horses at least, two with riders, the others held by the only hermits in sight—stole the breath from her lungs and the rhythm from her heart. The steeds pawed at the ground with heavy hooves and snorted puffy clouds of warm breath into the cold air. It seemed they’d ascended the path to the haven at high speed and needed time to rest.
Fractured (Lisen of Solsta Book 1) Page 4