I took a seat at the table, and Elenna served me fresh-baked bread, a hardboiled egg and a bit of mutton.
“The time is coming,” she said conversationally as she took her seat at the other end of the table.
I looked up from my food. I could feel Johai nearby. He was perhaps a few days’ ride from Keisan. “In the next couple of days, I think,” I replied. My daughter squirmed within me, perhaps feeling the tension.
Elenna nodded, and there was a haunted look to her expression that set me ill at ease. Before we could discuss it further, we were interrupted by a knock on the chamber door. It was a heavy-handed persistent knock that echoed through the room. Elenna got up to answer it. I ate my food, listening to the murmured conversation down the hall. I heard footsteps as Elenna led our guest to the dining room. She rejoined me with a palace guard. He was wearing the blue cape with an emblem on the breast plate, the encircled tree.
“Your grace, His Majesty has sent for you. The council has been called together.”
I sighed and pushed back from the table. I eased out of my chair, leaning on the table for support. Elenna was nearby, hovering over me in case I should fall. I never did, and I had told her as much on more than one occasion, but she would hear none of it.
“I will not keep His Majesty waiting,” I said to my escort.
He nodded, and I followed him out of my chamber and through the palace halls to the audience hall. Wherever I went about the palace now, whispers followed. Most were unkind. I had been called many things since coming back, charlatan, king’s whore, sorceress. None knew the truth. I am a diviner, and it is because of me that we have maintained in this war thus far. I had played a dangerous game coming to Keisan, not only in risking Adair’s displeasure but in keeping Johai away until the right moment. If he arrived too early, Keisan would have been conquered, and I would have not had the means to stop him. I had to feed both Adair and Johai just enough information to keep them both running in circles. The war had been waging for nearly four months now, and the death toll weighed heavy upon my heart. Adair once said to me that you cannot feel for the pieces upon the board, but I am not heartless like him. These men who died, I sent them to their graves.
The audience hall was almost empty when I arrived. A few of the other dukes were milling about, waiting for Adair to start proceedings. When I entered, the conversation stopped. Duke Quince scowled in my direction, as did Duke Payton Magdale. My father greeted me with a smile, but even those that had at one time treated me fairly looked upon me with suspicion.
I slid over to my father and Layton, who were off to one side. They greeted me each in turn.
“Why have we been summoned? Is there news from the front line?” I asked.
“Nothing good, I’m afraid,” Layton said. “The Neaux force and the Biski force have joined together, and they have swept through Ilore province, burning and raping wherever they go. The small folk have been flooding into the city en masse.”
The time is coming, I thought. Out loud I said, “Do you think it will come to a siege?”
My father tugged at his beard and nodded his head. “I think it will.” Both he and Layton shared a look. They alone among the council knew of my plans. Thinking of it here, now, near the other council members, made my palms slick with sweat.
The doors at the back of the room were thrown open, and Adair strode in. His pace was quick and agitated. At his right arm was his army commander, a grizzled man who had been a youth during the last war. He had gray hair and a lined, weathered face. The council turned to face the king. He stood for a moment looking at each of us in turn.
“Many of you know that Neaux and Biski forces have joined together and are marching towards Keisan. We suspect they shall be here in the next three days at the most. We have a decision laid before us. Do we ride out to meet our enemy, or do we wait and hope we can break them with a siege?”
Several voices shouted at once, half a dozen council members wanting to be heard before their peers. Adair held up his hand, and they quieted for a moment.
“What say you, Mikell?” Adair addressed my father first. “You’ve fought the Biski before. Would it be better to meet them on the battlefield or stay and wait?”
“I say we wait. These wild people do not know how to build siege machines, and I am certain they do not have the stores to feed their army. They are rumored to be some twenty thousand strong, with women and children among their numbers. I say we wait.”
Adair nodded. “What say you, Duke Quince? You fought with my uncle in the Neaux war.”
“We must meet them on the battlefield. Neaux has the technology to build siege towers. We could send our fastest messengers ahead to bring back our forces from the Slatone province and the Nanore province. We can trap the enemy on all sides and break their forces. We cannot forget that the Biski fight with fifty thousand Neaux soldiers as well. They will all be trained in the classic art of war.”
“What of the Jerauchian support from the north? Are they still bringing men?” Duke Magdale asked.
“They have promised us ten thousand swords, but we have seen no sign of them,” said Duke Nanore.
“It takes time to bring an army by sea, especially at this time of year,” Layton replied.
Adair looked at me before answering their concerns. “What say you, Maea?”
I ignored the scathing looks of my peers. They did not trust me.
“Let them come,” I told Adair.
He nodded. “Then we wait in the city. Prepare the city for siege.”
Adair was turning to leave when Layton said, “Your Majesty, let me lead a force. In order for them to reach Keisan, they will have to travel through the foothills. There are canyons and hidden valleys where we might be able to corner them and lessen their forces with a concentrated repeated attack. We might be able to weaken them at least a bit before they reach the city.”
I stared at Layton, wide-eyed; this was not the plan. That was a suicide mission. Layton was meant to stay in the city until after the promised day. If we lose Layton, we lose everything we’ve worked for.
Adair considered his offer, and I hoped he would not consent. He inclined his head. “Very well, I will trust you with this.”
Layton bowed. The council members filed out of the chamber, and I went to follow, but Adair grabbed my wrist and held me back. He held onto me until we were alone in the chamber once more.
“Is everything well with you?” he asked me. His hand hovered over my belly, but he did not touch me. He balled his hand in a fist and moved away.
“I am well enough,” I said. I was wary of his motives.
He faced away from me and instead stared at his council chair. “I have a difficult question to ask of you, and I hope you will look upon it with favor.”
My stomach squirmed with unease. “Oh?” I choked out.
He turned to face me once more. There was a strange conviction in his expression. “Maea, my mourning has ended at last, and my mind has turned to finding a new queen, someone who can help me raise my son—”
“No,” I said without thinking.
He looked at me as if he had been struck.
I shook my head and took his hand in mine, trying to cover up my visceral reaction. “I’m sorry. It just came as such as shock. Sabine’s death is still fresh in my mind, and it sounds as if you were asking me to marry you.”
“I told you long ago that I would have made you my wife if it were my choice. Well, I am the king now, and there is nothing stopping us from being together. You need a father for your child, and I need a queen.” He rubbed his fingers across mine. His very touch was repulsive to me, and I had to fight the urge to rip my hands from his.
“This is sudden...” I tried to look away.
He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. “Tell me you will.”
Never. I am going to kill you to save the man I love. I could not speak the truth, and instead I said, “I cannot marry you until my child is born.”
He smiled and leaned in to kiss me. I pulled away at the last moment. “But I have to tell you the truth. This child I am carrying, it is Johai’s.”
He took a step back, and a complicated series of emotions crossed his face. “I see.”
“I did not want to tell you; I feared your reaction. But I know now, if I am to marry you, I should tell you the truth.”
He cleared his throat. “I appreciate your honesty. Perhaps we should discuss these things at a more opportune time.”
“You’re right. There’s a war to prepare for. Until then.” I smiled at him. The truth had the desired effect. He was repulsed and maybe a bit jealous.
“Yes, until then.” He clasped hands with me one last time before walking away. I watched him go. My fear was coiling around my stomach. The game was getting more dangerous with each step I took. The end is coming soon.
The next day, Layton and his forces prepared to march out and meet the combined strength of both the Biski and Neaux. I feared for him almost as much as I did myself. We managed one final meeting before he was to go.
“Be safe,” I said. There were so many other things I wanted to say, to ask him, but none of them seemed appropriate. I had to trust that he was doing the right thing.
He smiled in his cocky way. “Do you doubt my abilities, Maea?”
I smacked him gently. “Come back and become the king you deserve to be.”
He straightened up a bit more at that. “I will. You have no reason to doubt that.”
We embraced and then broke apart. I went up to the parapets after that to watch them march away. The wind was blowing, and it pulled at my shawl and tangled my gown about my ankles. I watched as Layton rode off into the shadow cast by the rising sun. The future of our kingdom rested with him. Further in the distance I could feel Johai coming ever nearer.
The promised day came. It was a hazy day. My lower back ached, and I massaged it as I rose from bed. My daughter was twisting and turning inside me. My head seemed to pound with the rhythm of drumbeats. The day is here. The palace was chaos. The Neaux and Biski forces had arrived during the night and were camped outside the palace walls. Elenna and I headed to the Sea Chamber. We slipped past panicked servants who were half mad with fear from the siege.
The journey to the Sea Chamber was more arduous than ever before. We had to take several breaks, and Elenna made sure I rested as much as possible. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I felt the pull. I moved into the chamber, which was pitch black. The drumming sound echoed loud enough to split my head in two. I went to the basin, where images were flickering chaotically across the surface. Inside my head I felt a buzzing, something different than before. Then I heard laughter as the image of Johai filled my mind. He rode a white stallion at the head of a column of warriors. He laughed and joked as they marched to war, and then he looked in my direction as if I were standing beside him, and said, “I’m coming, Maea. Wait for me.”
Whatever had been keeping me from visions of Johai snapped in that moment, and I was taken from the Sea Chamber and into the dream world. I rode by Johai’s side as if I were a soldier within their army. I watched as Johai, hair streaming behind him, surveyed his army. They were an amalgamation of two different nations. Among them were the olive-skinned Neaux proudly waving their crimson banners on the wind, and beside them but separate were the Biski. They were wild, and their hair was tangled and tied with feathers and beads. They carried deadly looking spears and rode shaggy horses, which were sturdy but stockier than the sleek warhorses the Neaux soldiers rode.
Behind the mounted riders were thousands of soldiers on foot. They were an undulating mass of bodies. I could see, from their perspective, Keisan in the distance. It was illuminated by the dawn light. The white walls were turned pink by the rising sunbeams, and the walls bristled with soldiers. They were like hundreds of small ants running across an anthill.
“They’ve led us right to the palace,” a gravelly voice said.
Johai turned to the man at his side. Aland sat astride his shaggy horse. He wore no more armor than a thin leather vest, and his wild hair was tied back from his face. He had a fierce-looking axe strapped across his back.
“All the easier to take their kingdom from them, don’t you think?” Johai said with a smile.
A third figure rode up to them. He wore a crimson cloak over his shoulders, and when they approached, he removed his helmet to reveal that he was no man at all but Queen Arlene. She was scowling at the palace in front of them.
“So it comes back to this. The treaty seems a distant memory, does it not?” she said to the two men.
“A tad ironic,” Johai said with a cruel twist of his mouth. The other two leaders did not seem to understand the irony. I, however, knew different; this was where he planned to betray them all. He would knock out three powerful leaders with one battle and become victorious. Or so he hopes.
“Ready the siege towers, and prepare the battering ram. Your Majesty, I would have your men start digging down to the south. Aland, prepare the battering rams. I will not let this siege continue overlong.”
“What will you be doing?” Aland asked.
“I will be going to get what belongs to me.”
He looked up at the sky. The clouds were a heavy gray full of ominous promise. He smiled and laughed quietly to himself.
He wheeled his horse around and went down the rows of tents. The men called out to him, and he waved and smiled as he went. They were all entranced by his supernatural charms. None of them suspected the evil that lurked beneath the surface. He rode to the back of the camp; there was a group of men mounted and waiting for him. Among them was Beau. He wore light armor and mail.
“Are you ready?” Johai asked him as he reined back his horse.
Beau nodded. “Yes. Everything is in preparation.”
“Good, we shall ride north within the hour. Have the men at the ready.”
Johai’s unit moved north. They stuck to the coast and moved with stealth. Then in a bay just a few miles north of the palace, they met a man in black who loaded them onto a boat. The boat pushed off from the shore and continued south towards the palace. I remembered that desperate row away from Keisan; now Johai returned with every intention of coming for me. The end was painfully near. I felt my heart beating in my conscious body. Fearful. Prepared. Determined.
I am waiting for you, I thought. The sun had risen high in the sky and dissipated some of the cloud cover overhead. The time was approaching. I could feel it. A half-crescent shape had blotted out part of the sun.
They reached the cliff base, and they swung hooks up to the top. They clinked on solid rock, and quietly, their movements hidden by the roar of the ocean, the men began to climb. I knew everyone would be focused upon the fighting; no one would know they were climbing. I had to pull away from the vision to prepare for Johai’s arrival, but I was unable to break away. He reached the top of the rise first. The garden was hushed but for the occasional shout of soldiers in the distance. Beau reached the summit, and Johai signaled to him.
“I’ll go ahead. You bring the men up and do as you were instructed.”
Beau nodded, and Johai slipped off into the halls of the palace. Only then did the vision leave me.
I collapsed onto my knees. I had been transfixed, waiting and watching him this entire time, and I felt as if I had ridden beside him and rowed with them in the boats during those long hours. My body was tired, and I had my most important task yet to complete.
Elenna was at my side, helping me to my feet. “You were in the vision for a long time. What did you see?”
“Johai is in the palace. We have to prepare. We should call for—”
I stopped speaking. And Elenna turned around to see our intruder.
“Adair, I was going to summon you. Johai is within the palace walls. We need to stop him before there is a massacre.”
He laughed. “I know he’s in the palace, and you helped him get here.” Adair strolled over to me.
“What are you saying? I came here to help you defeat Johai. How could you accuse me of such a thing?” I asked. My voice was high and false. It was too late to continue the charade. Just a little longer, I only need to wait a few more moments; the time is here. I could feel the power building. The water was singing to me, begging me to look within, but I resisted the urge. I had to remain attached to the world of the living or be lost when the crucial moment came.
He smiled. “Don’t you know, Maea? I am here to fulfill the prophecy.”
He cannot possibly know what I have planned. “What do you mean? The prophecy?”
He shook his head. “Don’t be coy. You’ve done so much planning; I don’t want to take your big moment away.”
Elenna was standing between Adair and me. She circled about, not letting him get any closer to me. I held onto the edge of the basin for support.
“Have you come to give your life to open the gateway, then?” I asked.
“Oh no, I will not be dying today; I’ll be reborn.” He paced around me, watching me, his blue eyes dark and malicious as he moved. “I’ve known about your little plot for some time. You plan to put Layton on the throne in my place. You’ve even won a few of my dukes over to your side. I’m impressed, but you were never one made for intrigue, Maea.”
“Why didn’t you stop me if you knew?” This was a trick; he was playing with me.
He only laughed. “Because I needed you, and it amused me to watch you both flounder about. Do you think Layton chose to go on that suicide mission? That was my idea. I told him he could die a hero or die a traitor. Like the fool he is, he chose a hero’s death.”
I felt sick to my stomach. “He was your best friend.”
diviners fate Page 28