Fall From the Moon (A Bánalfar Novel Book 1)

by CS Hale

  I sat in the surf so long that I half expected Shale to slink up behind us like a red ghost and cart me off to the Cair. Now that I believed it, wouldn’t that be where they’d house me — a savior?

  “Don’t let them,” I whispered to Daria. “Don’t let them take me to the Cair and become a figurehead. Don’t let them use me.” History was full of people held against their will and trotted out to be used as a rallying tool.

  She gently laughed. “Reina’s not about to allow that.”

  I gave a bitter huff. “Don’t be so sure about that. I scared her. I scared her tonight.”

  Daria stiffened. “What did you do?”

  I rocked back and forth in the surf, let the breath of the sea ease and fill me before I continued. “I gave her a glimpse of the truth.” Daria’s head bobbed up and down. “Do you have tales of people who look beyond the veil or into the great abyss and are confronted with a truth so strange and terrible that it leaves them blind or forever mad?”

  “The mirrored pool at Horcair,” Daria said. “It’s said to be hidden in the mountains of the Archjarn, far to the south. Oluendi’s mirror. Part of the reason the Cordair are so crazy. As for Reina —” Daria chuckled. “She will recover. The woman is truly Capali. Once, when she was a girl, riding alone on the plains, a maskpol attacked, killing her darana. Reina survived by using the bridle as a whip, striking out at the beast with the bit and cheek rings until she was able to drive it away. A rescue party found her standing guard over her dead darana. They had to throw her, kicking and screaming, into the saddle with one of the guards. She wouldn’t leave. The next day, she went back out, cold and hard as steel, armed with a bow and arrows. Reina hunted down and killed the beast. I’m sure you’ve seen its skin on her wall.”

  I gasped. “She killed that? I thought it was just decoration.”

  Daria gave an amused hum. “It’s a warning. A reminder of what she can do if you cross her. But you haven’t crossed her, my queen. You’ve opened her eyes. The shock will wear off, and she will be forever grateful.”

  I shivered. “Time to go in,” Daria said. “You’re getting cold.”

  She pulled me to my feet. The sodden fabric clung to my legs. Daria gathered it up and knotted it above my knees. “There. That will make it easier to walk. If you weren’t so modest, I’d just strip it off and have you walk back naked to the High.”

  “If I were a different queen,” I said, a grin growing on my face. “I’d have you strip and take your gown.”

  Daria’s hands went to the clasps at her shoulders. “I could do it. Bit of advertising for the next Blood Moon.”

  I put my hands on top of hers. “Stop. I was joking.” This style of gown made it far too easy to get naked, which was probably the intent. “We may need to save that trick for a time when we truly need a distraction.”

  Daria slipped her hands from her shoulders. “Very true.” Her eyes flashed with glee. “You’re always getting into trouble of some sort.

  We met no trouble on our way back up the stairs or down the halls to my room. Daria rinsed the salt off me with a quick, scented bath.

  “Do you want a sleeping draught?” she asked as I put on my nightgown.

  I wavered then decided I did. Otherwise, I’d be up all night, playing with the implications in my head, rehashing everything that had happened in the two weeks leading up to my —

  I blinked and swallowed as the other pain in my heart rose. My wedding. I shuddered. “Yes. That would be lovely.”

  Daria took a small vial from her kit and let two drops fall into a glass of wine. I drained it down and handed the glass to her before crawling between the sheets. The curtains fluttered in the windows with the night breeze. Daria dowsed all the lights, save one.

  “Good night, my queen.” She hesitated in the doorway. “And, Astrid? Nothing’s changed, you know. What is — is. Maybe Oluendi’s mirror came before your face tonight, as it did Reina’s, but what was true before the telling is still true.”

  Daria gently closed the door behind her. Gods, I thought. How did I get so lucky to get her in Aedenfal? Or maybe Shale had placed her. I rolled over to face the windows.

  Daria was right. Reina’s impression of the world had been changed, but not her actual world. Did it matter if I was the Moon Princess or not? Maybe.

  Way back in the outer reaches of my mind, I had the feeling there was something — something — I could do. I just couldn’t reach it.

  As my mind became fuzzy, I let it slip away. Maybe it would be revealed to me in my dreams.

  I didn’t dream. I awoke to the tickle of the breeze and the gentle hush of the waves upon the shore far below. The breakfast tray rattled, sliding across the table, and I realized that Daria’s movements must have been what had awakened me.

  “Please tell me that’s not the Mödatal’s tea,” I said when I heard liquid being poured.

  “Would it be so bad if it was?” Daria asked.

  I sat up and took the offered cup. “I suppose not.” I patted the bed beside me. “Pour yourself one and come join me.” Daria filled a cup and sat down on the edge of the bed. “If you were me, what would you do next?”

  She sipped as she considered. “Does the prophecy matter to you?” she asked. “You’ve spent months thinking it didn’t. If you were right or if you were wrong, does it really matter?”

  I frowned. “I suppose not.”

  “So, let’s say last night was an episode of moon madness. The stress you’ve been under has been unrelenting. Put away yesterday evening and what would Astrid Carr do today?” I noticed she used my maiden name.

  “Astrid Carr,” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Would read the file.”

  Daria smirked. “Then isn’t that what Astrid Carbrev should do?”

  She had me there. “What file would you suggest she read?”

  “Enartin Carbrev’s treatise explaining his reasons for the agreement with the Cordair. The son is like his mother, but he respects his father. You should know what he struggles with upholding.”

  I held back a grin that threatened to split from ear to ear. “I do love you,” I said.

  Daria spluttered on her tea. She jumped up, torn between staining the covers and staining her dress. Holding the teacup out with one hand, she wiped her mouth with the other.

  “Not that way,” I said with a laugh, and watched her blush. “Though if I had to choose a woman as a mate, it would be you.”

  “Thank you?” she said.

  “I meant that I love how you’re always the voice of reason. You’re always there for me. I don’t know if you were another of Shale’s manipulations. And frankly, I don’t care. You are the best thing that’s happened to me since I stepped aboard the Palmas Cove —” My mouth hung open, waiting to add the months, but I couldn’t recall how long it had been. I knew it had been months, but there’d been no easy way to track time. There’d been, what? Four Blood Moons? Five?

  Daria sat again. “I’m sorry. You just startled me.”

  “No need to apologize.” I took her hand. “I just don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  Daria embraced me. “I will always be there for you. And no, the Mödatal did not direct me to you. It was Reina who suggested that I be among those that Valemar took when he rode south to look for you.”

  I leaned my chin on Daria’s shoulder and sighed. “I should be thankful that Shale’s vision was accurate. I’d be dead otherwise.”

  Daria pulled back and searched my face. “I know that’s what everyone suspects, but you sound so sure.”

  “The outsiders tried to kill me when I fell from the moon. Actually, earlier than that. I’m sure they blocked out our distress calls, so everyone —” I swallowed. “Died. I sent one last message before I left, saying that I, too, was dying and was sending my ship into the sun.”

  Daria’s eyes widened. “And then you didn’t. You came here.”

  “I’m sure they fired on my escape craft.”

  �
�And then Heymond found you.”

  “Right where the Mödatal said I’d be.”

  We both stared at each other, our eyes wide with shock. “I know you don’t like to hear it,” Daria said.

  “I know,” I agreed, both of us leaving it unspoken, the thing that still terrified me.

  Daria gave a firm nod. “Then you’re going to need Enartin’s treatise.” She stood up. A crafty smile began to creep up her face. “And Harrig is going to have to hand it over whether he likes it or not.”

  I covered a smile with my hand as Daria sauntered out. I didn’t know who was rubbing off on whom. But I liked it.

  Years of struggle and pain on both sides can be summed up by the word ‘uncompromising.’ Change can only come with willingness to change. What is right is often hard. But only the hard things are truly worth doing.

  I had begun to picture Valemar’s father as weak. Maybe because Reina was so strong. Maybe because the treaty hadn’t worked. But Enartin’s treatise on his agreement with the Cordair revealed him to have been a thoughtful, risk-taking visionary. He hadn’t given the Cordair an inch. He’d given them a proverbial half mile in hopes that it would keep them from trying to take the full mile. And it had worked, in that sense. Things were better than they had been.

  Enartin had also backed up his plan with additional training for troops stationed along the border. Aedenfal, Snow Reach, and even Lendurig had quietly been fortified and improved.

  And I discovered that I had the only copy in my hands, the ink put there by Enartin himself, a visionary’s gift to his future generations. And the single copy meant that the Cordair didn’t know everything that Enartin had done. Observation would have told them many things, just not all of them.

  I ran my fingers over the ink. What a loss it was to have lived in a time and place where a tablet was the norm. Or implanted in the eye so a person only needed to blink the information. Or speak it and have a computer answer. Information so far removed from the creator that it became like a cloud in the sky or a drop of water in the ocean.

  But Valemar’s father had touched these pages. My fingertips caressed the lines. It was almost as if I could reach through time and space and brush his hand. There were theories that we could do just that. We know that energy never truly goes away. That it only changes.

  I closed the book and pushed it away before I could slide any further down the rabbit hole. Mysticism wouldn’t help me.

  There was a plate of pastries and two different drinks — wine and a type of lemonade — on the table in my room. I uncurled from my chair and went over. Daria had brought lian tarts, a pilva pastry, and cookies made from nuts that were rich and sweet like chestnuts. I ate one of the lian tarts and poured myself a glass of wine. I began to pace the room, the wineglass curled in my palms.

  It should have worked — Enartin’s treaty. How much of the current unrest was a result of the Cordair ethos and how much was due to the interference of the Hormani? I tapped a finger on my glass as I thought. When had they arrived? Valemar might know. How much information did he have about the Cordair and the workings of their lands?

  I brought the glass to my lips and drank, savoring the burn in my stomach as the alcohol hit it. Maybe Reina would know. I swallowed back the rest and went to find my mother-in-law.

  Why is it that we feel so deeply with our hearts and not our brains? Is it because the heart is responsible for our survival, more necessary to engage in fight or flight than our brain? Why else would our emotions be housed there — love, hope, fear, longing? Our brains don’t feel these things. Our hearts do.

  My brain filled with endless scenarios as I walked down the corridors toward Reina’s rooms, and every shift in thought changed the adrenaline, changed how my heart responded. How long had the Hormani been here? A year? A decade?

  A decade — then things with the Cordair probably wouldn’t escalate very fast. A year — then warfare was potentially very close.

  My mother-in-law. I hated how my heart always sped up with that one. We’d come to cordial working relationship. In many ways, Reina was just another client. But she wasn’t.

  I pushed aside the pang and made myself follow the next thought. Would Valemar accept my analysis? I needed — we needed — to establish how extensive the Hormani infiltration was into Cordair society. Did they live openly? Did they have separate outposts? If so, how many?

  Thump thump. Thump thump. My whole life was encapsulated in that one muscle that speeded up, slowed down, clenched to aching, or floated free of my body depending on the situation.

  My brain wanted to build a new life. You could live happily in Vanerife, it told me. You can read the files. You can fit in here. This city sits at the crossroads of multiple civilizations that no one has yet explored. No one, other than those native to Crenfor.

  But my heart. My stupid, aching, yearning heart beating out a rhythm I could feel as I walked down the halls. It wanted things that I couldn’t have.

  I sighed. Life would be so much better if hearts came with an off switch.

  Reina was in her presence room. I knocked and waited for her to call, “Enter.”

  “Astrid,” she said, putting aside a dispatch that she’d been reading. “What can I do for you?”

  She gestured for me to sit. I did and leaned across the table. “How much do we … you … Valemar know about the —” I changed the word in case anyone was listening. “Strangers trading with the Cordair?”

  Reina leaned back and tossed down her pen. “I assume you don’t mean ‘where they’re from?’”

  “How integrated are they into Cordair society?” I asked.

  Reina drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. “I don’t know.” Her eyes flashed to mine. “Does it matter?”

  “It would give us an idea how long they’ve been there. Does anyone know?”

  Reina’s lips thinned. “I will ask. Should we be worried if they’ve begun living with the Cordair?”

  “No,” I said. “You should be worried if they have not.”

  REINA SENT A karawack to Valemar with my inquiries. A karawack could only travel about a hundred miles a day, so it would be six or seven days, at the earliest, before we would hear back. I had a feeling that Valemar had returned to Aedenfal. Vanerife might be the capital and Bánalfar’s most ancient city, but Aedenfal was its heartbeat.

  I wondered if that would have been true if a different people lived in the Archjarn. Glábac and Torfin were important. Even Lendurig. But they all stood in the center of peaceful activity. The Fairfada — the Golden Steppe — had been anything but peaceful for hundreds of years. And so Aedenfal pulsed, always on the brink of rising to defense, much like a heart.

  I spent chunks of time in the library, Harrig and I having come to a grudging truce. I read, mainly skimmed, books about the Cordair, the R’Keshans, the Capali, and the Tuljerd. Harrig must have told Reina about my activities, for four days after she sent the karawack to Valemar, she asked for my presence at a dinner with the R’Keshan ambassador. It was time to put my big girl pants on, so to speak. Which, in reality, was a flimsy dress.

  This would be my first real activity as queen without Valemar by my side. And while I outranked Reina, I was more than willing to let her take the lead.

  Daria and I chose a dress of bright blue that represented the Lian Isles and the light circlet of gold barat leaves. Around my neck, she fastened a necklace that held only a single stone — a teardrop about the size of my thumb, in a color that was neither sapphire nor blue topaz, which fell to nestle just between my breasts.

  “Are you sure I should wear this?” My eyes kept being drawn down to the stone sitting seductively like a blue fruit between two pillows on my chest. “Do we want to draw attention to my cleavage? My husband isn’t at home.”

  “The R’Keshans like a good bosom, and their women would be wearing even less. It’s much warmer there.” Daria stepped around to my front and surveyed me. “We want Sapir Ilahni to appreciate B�
�nalfar’s queen.”

  “More like my bosom,” I muttered.

  “Which is part of its queen.” Daria smiled at me. “Dazzle him with your bosom then impress him with your mind.” She fiddled with the fit of my dress. “You can’t tell me Protocol Specialist Carr never did the same.”

  I had actually.

  “Fine,” I said, giving in. “The necklace stays. Any suggestions on how to dazzle him with my mind?”

  Daria grinned, a mischievous smile as if she had a secret she couldn’t wait to share. “Would he expect the Moon Princess to have read Adzil?”

  My mouth curled up to match hers. “No,” I said. “No, he wouldn’t.”

  I had read many treatises on diplomacy when I was at the academy — Machiavelli, Henwick the Wise, and even Bedan Fortaire’s famous work from Guigel Ten. But my favorite quote came from twentieth century Earth and Winston Churchill.

  Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.

  Churchill’s sentiments would have resonated with Adzil, though he would have found them too blunt. But the R’Keshan prince had said, All diplomacy is better with a knife at your back. Which actually translated as “in your belt,” according to my chip (the original had been there in R’Keshan). I took Adzil as meaning, Be prepared for anything.

  I certainly didn’t feel like I was, but then rule number eleven was: Never enter a negotiating room stressed. Whomever you were meeting with would smell your fear, sometimes literally. Things never went well when you became prey.

  I sent Daria away so I could visualize and put on the mental armor of PS Carr. She would have seen tonight as a challenge. Astrid Carbrev needed to stop viewing everything as a life or death situation.

  I shook the tension out of my hands. Goal — Prove that I was a wife worthy of Valemar. I was educated, exotic, and had a gift for languages. I looked down at my chest and mentally thanked Daria. And I had a good bosom. That, at least, would keep the Sapir occupied until my other assets became noticeable.