Fall From the Moon (A Bánalfar Novel Book 1)

by CS Hale

  “Are you satisfied, my queen?” she asked.

  Yes. I’d done what I needed to do. “Thank you for the tea.”

  “Any time,” Shale said. “My door is always open for you.”

  It was a statement that earlier would have raised my hackles. But, somehow, this time it filled me with comfort.

  After lunch, I had Iree braid my hair. Valemar came to collect me, but instead of taking me to practice jaldun, we headed for the watergate. My steps slowed and my heart pounded, remembering all too well what had happened the last time he’d taken over my practice.

  Valemar reached back and took my hand. “We’re just going to run in the woods.”

  And my body responded to his touch. It wanted to follow him anywhere. Even when a caged mouse part of my brain squeaked, You can’t trust him. Because my heart did. It needed to trust that I had found a home here: with him, with these people. My brain would catch up in time.

  My practice with Erris the previous day allowed me to jump out of the boat without making a fool of myself. It wasn’t graceful, it was barely even pretty, but it was efficient. Valemar leapt out, landing by my side, and then, with a sly smile, he took off for the woods.

  On Earth, children still play hide-n-seek. My favorite way to play the game had been outside in the woods with a base that hiders could return to, adding the additional element of eluding the seeker if we wanted. Inside, I liked the challenge of finding one place and staying hidden, curled up someplace where no one could find you. But outside … outside I liked knowing I could reach safety if I needed to.

  It is a simple game. A throwback to when such things could actually be done, before thermal scans and chip-trackers. There are still ways of melting into a crowd, and most places rely on visual imaging. A few planets I’ve been to require you to provide DNA upon entry, and I still wonder if there are cloned copies of me out there in the galaxy. But overall, things haven’t changed much. People have always been pursued and seek to hide.

  So following my husband through the woods brought out the little girl in me. The giddy “Ha! Ha! You can’t find me!” little girl. A glow ignited in my chest, and a melting sensation as little shards of me fused back together. Yes, I’d follow this man anywhere.

  We walked and ran for miles, skirting around farms, though sometimes Valemar would whisper, “Go count their anapali,” or “Go count their bohar.” And I would sneak in and try and do it, conscious all the time that if I was spotted, everyone would know it was Bánalfar’s queen skulking around their farm.

  “Even it if were Erris or Heymond, the farmer would still know they didn’t belong,” Valemar told me when I apologized for my latest incomplete count. An odd glint entered his eye, though. Like he had a puzzle piece that I’d been searching for hidden in his pocket. And I knew, just like with killing the anapali, that this was a test.

  “You are going to tell me someday,” I asked. “Why you’re having me do this?”

  He drew me to him and kissed me, then traced a finger along my ear. “The Moon Princess should be prepared for anything,” Valemar said.

  I grasped his hips and pressed him against me. “Including having her husband take her in a field?” I asked.

  “This is not Gladama,” he said, even as he went hard.

  “Don’t want to get caught with your pants down?” I stroked his buttocks.

  “Wife!” Valemar reached behind him and took my hands. “There will be enough time for that later.”

  “Promise?”

  Valemar laced his fingers through mine and kissed me again. “Promise,” he said, his lips still against mine.

  I kissed him once more. “Then where to?”

  Valemar kept hold of my left hand and led me back to the tree line. “I want you to open the next farmhouse door.”

  And suddenly, it wasn’t a game anymore.

  “I need you to sit Laera next to me tonight,” I told Valemar on the way back to Aedenfal. If I’d been able to sneak into a farmhouse and leave a coin on the table without being discovered then I should be able to confront my true fears.

  Valemar drew to a standstill. “But she doesn’t like you.”

  It was hard to hear him confirm it. “And that is why. She is the steward’s wife. Technically, beside me is her place.”

  “Technically, the queen gets to choose whomever she damn well pleases.”

  “And it will please the queen to have Laera tonight.”

  “Why, Astrid?” Valemar stroked my face.

  “Because I need to make inroads, and I won’t be sitting in the solar sewing.” I brushed my fingers along the curve of Valemar’s jaw. “Besides, dinner is only an hour or so, and the solar would be all afternoon.”

  Valemar squeezed my hand. “Then I will have Laera seated next to you tonight.”

  It was easy to say, harder to do. Bathed, dressed in my favorite gown of green, and with the gold circlet of barat leaves glittering on my head, I entered into dinner on my husband’s arm. Laera’s face bore a strange mixture of satisfaction and distaste on her face when she rose at our arrival.

  “Thank you for the honor,” Laera said as I sat.

  I smiled. “My education has come far enough now that I don’t need a tutor at my right hand.”

  Her eyes widened as if I’d surprised her with the reason she’d been kept away. She struggled to put a smile on her face. “Then I am glad your education has been so successful, my queen.”

  “A woman should have someone next to her with whom she can simply chat, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  I took a drink of my wine. “I see Niah is sitting with a young man. Is that Reez?”

  Laera looked over to their table. “It is.”

  “Have they married yet?”

  “No, my queen. It is planned for next month’s Blood Moon.”

  Just over a month from today. “I’ll have to make sure I send them something. I’m afraid the king has me training —” I sensed Valemar’s eyes on the back of my head. Laera switched her gaze to him. “— so my days aren’t free.”

  “And what do you train for, my queen?”

  “War,” Valemar stated simply. “The queen trains for war.”

  Laera’s face turned sickly pale. “You can’t mean —”

  “The signs are all there, my dear,” Garris said from Valemar’s other side. “And our queen knows these outsiders that are supplying the Cordair.” Laera wasn’t able to keep the disgust from showing on her face. I’d just managed to drop even further in her estimate of me.

  “It’s my job to drive them away,” I said. “They’ve already attempted to kill me once.” Laera muttered something I didn’t catch, but Valemar put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Would you perhaps like to go to Lendurig, Grada Laera?” Valemar asked. Conversation ceased. Quiet rippled through the room as one table then the next fell silent. “If being in the company of the Moon Princess causes you so much distress then perhaps you should leave Aedenfal.”

  Laera lowered her eyes which were full of hate. “How do you know she’s the one?” she asked, her voice laced with venom. “She’s nothing like the moon. She’s nothing like us.”

  Valemar’s fingers bit into my shoulder. “Because I say she is. Because the Mödatal says she is. Because she was exactly where the Mödatal said she’d be.”

  “Because the Hormani tried to kill me.” A puzzled look entered Laera’s eyes, and I realized that I’d named the outsiders. “Would the outsiders, would the Cordair, send someone to Vanerife to kill me if I wasn’t the key to their undoing?”

  Whispers traveled through the hall. “Garris,” Valemar said. “You may remain in Aedenfal if you choose, but your wife leaves for Lendurig tomorrow.”

  “You can’t —” Laera said, half rising.

  “I what?” The cold steel of Valemar’s voice rang through the quiet hall like a sword unsheathed.

  No one moved. No one breathed. Not even Laera who, too late, realiz
ed her mistake. “You … you can’t separate me from my family and friends.” Her hushed voice was choked with sobs.

  “You’re lucky,” I said to her. “Had you insulted Reina, she’d likely have had your life.”

  Laera blanched further and began to weep openly.

  “I am only sending you to Lendurig,” Valemar said. “And the queen is right. The queen mother would be much less forgiving.”

  Garris bowed his head and stared at the table. His grim expression looked like he faced the axe himself. “If you want me to resign my king —” he said, and Laera began to wail. Garris winced and continued. “I will willingly do so.”

  Valemar’s jaw clenched. His eyes closed as he slowly drew a breath. “Do you feel incapable of doing your job?”

  “N-no, my king. But my disgrace —”

  “At having a silly, small-minded wife? Does she do your job for you?” Snorts and chuckles echoed around the hall.

  “N-n-no, my king.”

  “Would Aedenfal be better served by someone else?”

  “I’m not sure,” Garris whispered.

  Valemar’s jaw tightened again, and he slowly exhaled. “Bring me a list in the morning. The reasons why you should stay, and who might better serve me during the dark times to come.”

  Garris bobbed his head in agreement and rose from the table. He took Laera by an arm, hauled her up, and dragged her away, still crying. The room fell silent again.

  “Anyone else feel like they can’t live with the Moon Princess? Are there more of you who are willing to let the Cordair do as they please?” Valemar’s icy glare roamed over each table.

  “No, my king,” the crowd muttered.

  “This will serve as your warning. The Cordair seek to reclaim these lands, and they have finally found allies who may assist them in doing so. If you do not support the Moon Princess, then you do not support me. Treason will be dealt with as it always has.”

  Valemar rose and extended his hand. “Time to let them digest their meal,” he said to me, and we walked from the room.

  Valemar poured me a glass of wine as we waited for food to be brought to his study.

  “You know the Hormani assassin only came to Vanerife after I began meeting with the ambassadors,” I said.

  Valemar smiled. “No, he finally caught up to you in Vanerife. It’s such a crossroads of people that it made it easier for him to slip in.” He handed me the wine. “Do I need to remind you that I taught you to kill in Torfin?”

  I blanched. “No.”

  “They’d been looking for a way to get to you for a while.” Valemar’s fingers tightened around his glass. “And it’s my fault you were sent into danger.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “I don’t blame you for your deception,” Valemar said. “Now. I certainly did then. But now that I’ve heard it all —” He turned to me. “I have heard it all, haven’t I?”

  I closed my eyes, trying to remember what I’d told him at this point. “I’m from the stars. I don’t know how to save anyone. The Hormani aren’t supposed to be here and neither am I. We’re too different to have children together.” I opened my eyes. Pain etched Valemar’s face, and I knew there was one thing I hadn’t told him. I set my glass down and went to him, wrapped my arms around him. “And I love you.” I felt him melt. “I love you and would do anything for you. If you need to set me aside to save your line, I will go.”

  “Astrid.” Valemar placed a hand over my mouth. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare even suggest such a thing.”

  I bent my head, and Valemar removed his hand. “I can’t bear to have it all end with me,” I said.

  Valemar lifted my chin. There was an argument on his lips, but he didn’t speak it. He simply kissed me. “We have other things to accomplish before we worry about that.”

  “Like what the hell I can do that would stop the Hormani,” I said. Valemar burst out, laughing. “What?”

  “It just surprises me when you curse,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, you’re so small.”

  “I called the Mödatal a ‘fucking charlatan.’”

  “Fuck-king?”

  I smiled. “It’s a not very nice word that means what we do every night.”

  “Ah. A kwarging charlatan,” Valemar said.

  “Yes,” I said. Though the “pig” part didn’t really fit.

  “What had she done this time?”

  I buried my head against Valemar’s chest. “Showed me a trick.”

  Valemar stroked my hair. “Are you going to tell me about it?” I shook my head. Even though I now believed it, there was something mystical about it. To speak of it might break the spell. And it was the one thing that now held me together.

  A knock sounded at the door. Valemar and I drew apart as dinner was delivered. I sat and picked at my food. “Do you think Garris will leave?” I asked.

  Valemar brought the bottle of wine over to the table and took a seat next to me. “I don’t know.”

  “What will you do if he does?” I hadn’t paid enough attention to the hierarchy at Aedenfal. I didn’t know how everyone fit into the picture.

  Valemar carefully cut into his meat and lifted the piece to his mouth. He chewed slowly. “I’ll have to see what — or who — is on his list.”

  I put my hands in my lap. “I’m sorry.”

  Valemar reached over and grasped them. “It’s not you, Astrid. By the Father! These people have been living too close to the Cordair for too long. Resentment has crept into their souls.”

  “A similar poison that the Cordair have.”

  “True.” He squeezed my hand and went back to his dinner. “You’re sure there’s no way for you to contact the Shororato?”

  “There’s no way for me —” The words died in my throat. “There’s …”

  “Astrid?”

  I could feel my jaw working, but my mind skittered horribly away from the thought and tried to hide it from me. “There’s —” My mouth moved, but there was no sound, not even air, to go with it. I vaguely saw, felt, Valemar put his hand on my arm. Then my hands rose on their own and covered my mouth, trying to stop me from speaking the words that could change everything.

  “Astrid, what is it?”

  If there was a way, I might be able to do it. I could call the Shororato. But it would change everything. Everything.

  And I wasn’t sure that was a price I was willing to pay.

  I SAT FROZEN in my chair. Valemar called first for Ferrick who checked my pulse and looked into my eyes as I sat in a semi-catatonic state.

  “Medically, she’s fine.”

  “She’s not fine!” Valemar thundered. “Look at her!”

  “It’s shock,” Ferrick said. “I can’t do anything for that. Her body has entered a protective state. If I drug her or bleed her or do anything to disrupt that after Vanerife …”

  Valemar dismissed him with a grunt and a wave. He knelt by my chair and took my hand. “You can tell me. I will understand.”

  But he wouldn’t. I knew he wouldn’t. And so, I sat there in silence and tried to work out the thing on Earth they call a “catch-22.”

  I was not surprised when Shale arrived next. Valemar placed a chair for her in front of me, and she, too, took my hand.

  “You can tell him.”

  I looked up, tears gathering in my eyes.

  “You can tell him. This is why you’re here.”

  A ripping sensation tore through my heart, lifting the glue from its shattered pieces.

  “This is where you need to be strong, Astrid. This is where you need to trust. But Astrid —”

  My eyes found hers again. True warning showed in her eyes.

  “Only what you can do. Nothing more.”

  I felt my brow furrow.

  “What comes after isn’t clear.” Though my eyes were on Shale’s, it was as if she slipped behind a mask. A little tic in my brain that felt like the orange falsehood light of the ocu
lar implant flashed a warning. Part of what she said was a lie. And she knew that I knew it. “Don’t change the future. Follow the thickest cord. Tell him what you can do.”

  With Shale holding my hand, I spoke my words to the floor. “If you can get me onto a Hormani ship, I can contact the Shororato.”

  Shale embraced and kissed me then slipped from the room.

  “Why does this frighten you so?” Valemar asked, taking her place.

  “It’s sure to be the last thing I do,” I said, my voice as dead as I now felt. “And I’m a coward.”

  “How can you think that being frightened of this would make you a coward? Astrid —” Valemar wanted me to look at him, but I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. “It frightens me as well. The idea of you going into Cordair territory … onto a stranger’s ship … what if you were caught?”

  “I’d be dead,” I said simply. They wouldn’t bother to hand me over to Oluendi. The Hormani would have their fun with me and then they’d kill me. And then Bánalfar would suffer.

  “I’m not losing you,” Valemar said. “You can teach someone else how to do it.”

  I laughed. “Could you send a blind and deaf man out into the forest to hunt? Could he actually catch anything? Because you have no idea — none! — what our technology is like.”

  “Your ship. The one you came on. Someone could practice on that.”

  Wild, hysterical laughter bent me double. “Nothing works! And even if it did, my ship is more like an outhouse compared to what we’d be facing. Useful if you want to take a crap but not much good for anything else.”

  My laughter gave way to tears. I pressed my eyes into my knees and let it take over.

  “Hush.” Valemar knelt beside me, stroked my hair, then pulled me to him. I went limp. I was safe here in his arms. Valemar rocked me back and forth and whispered words of comfort to me, like a child being soothed after a nightmare.

  Which it was.

  Shale was right. This was why I was here. Only I could contact the Shororato.

  But we were all going to pay the price when I did.

  Valemar carried me to bed. I knew gossip would fly like arrows through the High, but I couldn’t get my legs to hold me. If they did, I’d be one step closer to being a savior. I didn’t want to be a savior. I wanted to hide in my room and let the danger pass and then deal with the aftermath. I truly was a coward.