Max jerked his hands back as if from an electric shock. Cassandra closed her hand around his wrist. Her fingers warmed as if picking up heat from his body, and he turned to find her eyes fixed on his face.
“Is it supposed to do that?”
“When the right person touches it, yes.”
Max looked back at the chest. He told himself again that these were Faerie, making carvings move wasn’t beyond them. Yet he found there was a part of himself that wanted to be the right person, the person who could make this carving, this wood, live.
“Open it.” Cassandra repeated as she released his wrist, her fingers lingering.
Max took a deep breath, thumbed open the catches, and pushed back the lid of the chest. A smell like baking apples rose from the heavy flame-colored damask inside. Gingerly, he pushed aside the wrappings, using only the very tips of his fingers, but he could still feel a trickle of power tingle its way up his forearms.
The sudden light made him squint, and the first thing Max saw as his eyes adjusted was a sword. Without thinking, he lifted it out, hefting it in his right hand and feeling how perfectly the hilt fit his grip. It felt warm, like a living thing. He held the blade up to his face, tested the edge with his left thumb, and pulled it back, bleeding. He grinned at Cassandra over the edge of the blade as he stuck his cut finger in his mouth, tasting the clean copper taste of his own blood. He put the sword down in the lid of the chest and lifted out a mail shirt like the one Cassandra was wearing under her filthy T-shirt. Or not like hers. Max looked more closely at the tiny fitted plates. Where Cassandra’s were shaped to look like scales, these looked more like tiny feathers. He smoothed his hand along the metal and found it warm, like the feathers of a living bird.
He lifted it to pull it on over his head.
“Max.”
He looked at Cassandra over the fold of metal.
“It goes next to the skin.”
He grinned at her. Of course it did. That was where Cassandra was wearing hers. The other people in the room seemed far away as Max stripped off his own torn and dirty T-shirt and pulled the pliable warmth of the mail shirt over his head.
Max had once had a pair of gloves made for him by a master glover. They had fit so well that he had at times forgotten he was wearing them. The mail shirt made those gloves feel as if Max had been wearing ski boots on his hands. It didn’t fit like a second skin, it became his skin. He could actually feel it adjust to fit, hugging each ridge of bone and muscle, until it was as much a part of him as his eyes or teeth.
Suddenly Max choked, shaking his head in an effort to clear it. No, he said, but the word couldn’t pass the constriction in his throat as the mail shirt seemed to tighten. He wasn’t the Prince after all, and this thing was trying to smother him, to kill him for daring to usurp its master’s place. Part of him felt gleeful triumph that he was, after all, right, and everyone else wrong. Part of him felt a sorrowful loss.
He heard movement, and the voices of the others, but knew that even Cassandra wouldn’t be fast enough to save him. He caught a flash of anger in someone’s blue eyes.
The last thing he felt was the slam of the table edge as it hit his forehead.
Chapter Six
STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. Cassandra finished counting Max’s pulse and laid his arm back by his side on the heavy damask coverlet. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, one leg tucked under her, the breath she took shuddered, and she had to try again, and again, until her own breathing was as steady as Max’s. He’d only fainted, after all. He was a little pale, but his pulse was strong and regular. She hadn’t been so frightened since the Hound. She rubbed her eyes with the tips of her fingers. She’d thought she’d known what to expect—she was certainly familiar enough with the physical demands of wearing gra’if—but the psychological effects became so unconscious over time that she’d forgotten all about them. In his own mind, Max was a human being, but his body knew what he really was, and the conflict between what his mind knew and what his body knew . . . well, it was simply more than Max could take just now. Those who wore gra’if were more closely connected to their Guidebeasts, according to what the Songs told, and while the sensation of pulling it on was, by all accounts, nowhere near as consuming as meeting with that Beast, they might still have killed Max with this little experiment. Not that warning him would have made the least difference. That he would wake up only stiff, sore, and with a blinding headache was more luck than she deserved.
The room they’d been given in the guests’ tower of Griffinhome was smaller and more intimate than the Signed room; a place for privacy and sleeping, not a conference room. The walls were covered with sandalwood paneling—darkwood, of course—instead of tapestries; the table was smaller and had only two chairs, but both of these had cushions and arms; the fireplace was cold, though there was wood laid ready to light. The real differences were the bed, piled with silk-covered cushions and down-filled bedding, and the two windows open to a sun-filled sky. Between the windows hung a drape of bright linen, thickly embroidered with a Phoenix rising from its nest of flame.
A noise in the hall drew her attention to the closed chamber door. There would be someone waiting there, more servant than guard, in case she or the Prince needed anything. It had taken a bit of persuasion, once she was sure Max wasn’t choking to death, to get the older Riders to let her take Max to the rooms Honor of Souls had ready for them. Lightborn especially had wanted her to wake Max up, but in Windwatcher Cassandra had found an unexpected ally.
“Let him sleep,” Windwatcher had said, his baritone growl causing everyone to turn and look to where the Sunward Rider still sat at the table. “Truthsheart is his Warden, and a Healer as well. At the least we know now who he is, not that we are any better off. Unless,” Windwatcher had looked at Cassandra, “the gra’if . . . ?”
Cassandra leaned back against the bedpost at the foot of Max’s bed, drawing her knees up and resting her forehead on her crossed arms. She had no more answer now than she’d had then. Though it would solve their problems, wouldn’t it, and hers, too. If being reunited with his gra’if was enough to undo the effects of the Chant of Oblivion, if he woke up the Prince Guardian, and no longer Max Ravenhill . . . at the very least a good part of her personal difficulties would be ended. And at the most? She’d known the gra’if would recognize Max, and she’d said so, but whether it would do anything more . . .
Cassandra should have known that Windwatcher would understand; she’d seen the gra’if mail showing at the open collar of his red tunic, and the wavy-bladed dagger hanging at his belt. As Riders who had been fitted for gra’if, they shared a bond of experience that excluded Lightborn and his mother. Gra’if, arms and armor, was made by Solitaries, forged by a special process known to very few even of them, using the intended bearer’s own blood. Not everyone was able to sustain the making of a complete set of gra’if armor and weapons; no one knew why, though there were plenty of theories. Some Riders had only a single gra’if gauntlet, or a dagger, but whatever pieces were made, they were literally an extension of the bearer’s body. Those who had not undergone the process could have only a dim understanding of the bond between a Rider and gra’if.
She rolled her shoulders, loosening tight muscles, and ran her hands through her hair. That bond was something she’d have in common with the Prince, if Prince it was who awakened. But that was all they would share. Even if Max Ravenhill didn’t remember her, didn’t remember all the lives they’d shared together, at least they had the experience of living a human life in common. They might not have anything else, but they had symphonies and subways, the Inquisition and the Pieta, traffic jams and Titian, Shakespeare and rock and roll. Waking up and realizing it was the weekend, and even though the alarm had gone off, you didn’t have to go into work today. Sunday morning crosswords and—
Cassandra looked up, her cycling thoughts stopped short by movement at the head of the bed. Max was waking up.
The first thing he sees is his o
wn hands, holding a freshly sharpened goose quill pen. The parchment on the table, marked with the small symbols he uses to show the deployment of men, has been scraped clean for reuse several times already, and he hopes he won’t have to do it again. The only way the duke can use his cavalry is to bring them in from the left flank. He knows the duke won’t like to hear that, but it is the only way.
The candles flicker as a young man, tall, pale, with honey-gold hair and slate-gray eyes, closes the chamber door and smiles at him with Cassandra’s mouth, and his heart turns over. When they’re alone, she can leave off looking like a young man, passing herself off as his servant and squire. She couldn’t be always with him, ready with her sword or her memory of how many other campaigns he had guided, if they knew she was a woman. He preferred not to think about what would happen if it came out that she was not even human. Their sharing of that secret is part of what binds them so closely together. But only part, and the smallest part, he thinks, as he watches her move scrolls and parchments from a chair. He loved her before he knew she was Faerie. He knows that he has loved her in other lives that he does not remember, and that he will love her again. And he believes that even when he returns to his own life, when the Banishment she has told him of is over, and he becomes his true self once again, he will still love her. She does not believe this, he knows; it is something that gives her a sad look from time to time. But he understands that his love for her is one of the few Truths about herself and the world around her that she does not see.
“Max,” she says, and he knows she is speaking to him, even though his name is not Max, “You need to wake up now,” she says. “Wake up.”
And he does.
Max stamped his right foot to set his bootheel and turned to where Cassandra stood slouched, eyes closed, resting the back of her head against the door, her folded hands a pad for her tailbone. They’d both taken the time to wash and change their clothes, and she was dressed much the same way—though not in the same colors, he noticed—as he was himself: breeches made from a glove-soft leather tucked into riding boots whose heels rang on the wood floor as he walked toward her. His pale yellow shirt was cut close to the body, and over it he wore a cotte of flame red, thickly brocaded with phoenixes. Over the cotte was a harness, almost a vest, light, but elaborately woven from thin gold leather, meant to hold his weapons and other gear. Cassandra’s shirt and breeches were silver, her cotte a dark blood-red, brocaded with dragons. Over it she wore a harness like his, but hers was made of fine strands of black leather, and supported a short sword on her left hip. The sword that should have hung down her back, the long sword she’d used to kill the Hound, was leaning against the stone wall, close to her right hand. Both cotte and shirt were open at the throat to show her gra’if.
Max touched his fingers to where his own gra’if lay under the fine cloth of his shirt. He had been intrigued when Cassandra had told him he didn’t have to remove it to bathe. Less intrigued when she told him why. The gra’if had been made out of his own blood, it was literally a part of him—no wonder Cassandra’s had always felt so warm, touching it was like touching her.
Proof for them was proof for him, he’d said when he was opening his gra’if chest, and no matter how much he still told himself it wasn’t so . . . his skin and bones and blood knew that it was. This gra’if had been made for him—from him if what Cassandra said was true—and that meant he was the Prince.
Well, as right as the gra’if felt, as True, it didn’t change what he wanted. His own clothes, his own bed, his own life.
“They’re waiting for us, Max.”
Max looked at Cassandra without lifting his head. “Are we ready for them?”
His heart lifted as she smiled. “Are they ready for us?”
The three Riders waiting in the bright sunny room all looked up as Max followed Cassandra in. As if they’d rehearsed it, their eyes flicked first at Max, and then at Cassandra. She shook her head minutely, and Max began to have an idea of how important it was to these people that the Prince be restored by the way the light died out of their eyes and their shoulders fell. Honor of Souls was slow to turn, and she offered Max the thronelike chair at the head of the table almost as an afterthought. She’d been hoping, he realized, that she could offer it to a restored Prince, but whether he had his memory or not, he was still the Prince.
Max came around the table, his boots clicking on the intricate parquet flooring. “Please,” he said, putting his hand on the back of the chair to the right of the one Honor of Souls had offered him. “That should be your chair.” He waited until she was seated at the head of the table before sitting down himself.
Windwatcher nodded, and sat down to Honor’s left, across from Max, with Lightborn next to him. Cassandra sat forward on the edge of the chair to Max’s right. Lightborn and Windwatcher both looked at Honor of Souls, waiting for her to speak, but the older woman was staring absently into the middle of the room, eyes unfocused.
“My lords,” Cassandra said, and again, Max thought, it was a measure of their preoccupation that all three of the Riders jumped slightly at the sound of her voice, “why did you bring the Prince Guardian here? Why does the Basilisk Prince want him? What is it that could not wait until the end of the Banishment?”
Windwatcher narrowed his eyes, as if he wanted to protest her right to speak up, but the older Rider subsided when Cassandra turned to him and raised her eyebrows. Max covered a smile with his hand. It was as if the words “Don’t try it, buddy” had been said aloud.
“Does your Oath still bind you?” Windwatcher asked.
Cassandra sat up straighter, placing her hand lightly on Max’s wrist. Max, unsure what Windwatcher meant by his question, found his heartbeat returning to normal, relaxed by her touch.
“Here’s the thing,” she said, leaning forward to tap the polished inlay of the tabletop with one fingernail. Max smiled to hear her fall into the cocky familiarity of human speech. She’s here for me, he thought, she’s on my side. “He’s safer with me than he is with any of you—always will be, Oath or no Oath. So unless you tell me what’s going on, I’m out of here, and he goes with me.” She glanced at Max, and when he nodded, cocked her head at the other three and raised her eyebrows. “Clear so far?”
“We would stop you,” Lightborn said, the steel in his tone at odds with the smile on his face.
“You would try,” agreed Cassandra. She sat back in her chair, and folded her arms, the picture of stubborn resistance. But Max had seen her slipping two bright gra’if daggers into her sleeves, and knew she was ready to back up her words. He squeezed his eyes shut. This was all he needed.
“Stop,” he said without thinking. Honor of Souls, who had been gently drumming the side of her wine cup with her fingertips, keeping time to a tune only she could hear, froze in midtap. Windwatcher and Lightborn both sat back in their chairs. Only Cassandra did not move. Max swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “If you children are through checking whose sword is longer, maybe we can get back to the matter at hand.” He turned to Honor of Souls. “You were about to tell us why you brought us here.”
A curious smile, a twinkle in her eye, and Honor opened her mouth to speak, only to have Lightborn cut in before she could begin.
“The Basilisk Prince wants the Talismans, and the Prince Guardian is the only one who knows where they are.”
A little muscle jumped at the side of Cassandra’s mouth as she shook her head. “When the Banishment ends, the Talismans will reappear, and everyone will know where they are. Try again.”
This time Honor of Souls raised her hand, and Lightborn subsided, leaning back in his chair, eyes on Cassandra.
“The Basilisk Prince does not wish to wait,” Honor said, in her cool silk voice. “He wants the Talismans now, and if that is not possible, he wants the Guardian in his hands and captive when the Talismans appear, not free and a rallying point for others.” Honor looked around the table before focusing once more on Max and Cassandra. “The Basilisk
has found the Chant of Binding.”
Max looked at Cassandra, ready to take his cue from her reaction, but this time her face was blank. A cold spot in his stomach, there for so long he’d started to ignore it, expanded to twice its size. He already knew Cassandra well enough to know that showing nothing but calm wasn’t good. He glanced quickly at the others, and saw nothing there to reassure him. Lightborn had a hand to his ear, twisting his earring. Windwatcher leaned forward on one elbow, chin on his fisted hand, but the knuckles of that hand were white.
The Mirror Prince Page 13