by Willa Hart
“If we are banished to the Hinterlands and stripped of our title, than House Roya passes to Katya, his daughter.”
“And she has to marry,” Sarkany says.
“Unless she dies,” Taraz says, with little emotion in his voice. As though he is processing a scientific equation.
My gut churns and my heart beats faster with my brother’s words.
“If we are banished,” Taraz continues, “and Katya dies before marrying or producing an heir, then House Roya will pass to Uncle.”
“What are you talking about?” I say. “Have you gone mad? Are you saying that you believe Uncle would kill his only daughter?”
Taraz steps closer to us and lowers his voice to barely a whisper. “If you saw what I saw in Uncle’s mind, then you’d have no question as to Uncle’s ability to kill Katya. After what I witnessed, I’m surprised he never tried to kill us.”
“The Kingdom would’ve fallen,” Sarkany says. “You might not remember, but I do. After Mother and Fathers were found dead? The Civil unrest, the garrisons of guards that were sent all over the Kingdom? How we were hidden here for a fortnight while all the Dregs were rounded up and placed behind the Ninaku Wall.”
“I don’t actually…” Taraz glances out the windows. “I remember being so very sad. I remember very little about that year.”
The ache of losing Mother and Fathers rolls through all of us. I remember more of what happened after the assassination. “All of Mother’s reforms were reversed. All the freedom for the Dregs, the equal rights, the unification of our two groups, all of it was terminated by Uncle. The assassination nearly caused a war. Lady Alana was the one who was able to keep the peace. Do you remember how after the funeral we were paraded throughout the realm? Us three young Roya Princes? So that everyone could see us? They were trading on the People’s love for Mother and Fathers even while they were stripping away their newfound rights. If we had died immediately after Mother and Fathers, or when they did, there would’ve been war.”
“The Kingdom would’ve fallen,” Sarkany says.
“Or at the very least, House Roya and Uncle with it,” I say. “No, Uncle couldn’t kill us then, and I’m not certain that he can kill us now, not with the way everyone wants us to wed and become Kings. But if we fail and Katya were to become Queen?”
“Most people don’t really like Katya,” Sarkany says.
“She’s not unkind,” I say.
“Just demanding,” Taraz says. “So we get banished—”
“Or offed,” Sarkany says.
“Then Katya becomes Crown and Uncle offs her before she marries,” Taraz says.
“And then he’s King,” Sarkany finishes Taraz’s thought.
“What I want to know is how were you able to see his thoughts? Why would he not have cloaked them? It’s not like—”
“I have a theory,” Taraz says. He clasps his hands in front of his body. “Uncle does not have The Gift.”
I pull back with his words.
“Come now,” Sarkany says, his voice filled with disbelief. “You can’t honestly believe that Uncle is a dormant?”
“I’ve felt him reach out,” I say. “His tendrils into my mind.”
“But have you?” Taraz asks. “Have you really? Think back to the energy trace of the tendril.” Taraz’s eyes drill into me. “Are you sure? When I was in Uncle’s mind before he left…well it felt more like a dormant mind, and the mind with the tendrils felt more like a Dreg than it did a Slayer.”
“I’ve seen him slay Dregs before,” I say
“As have I,” Sarkany says.
“He wasn’t prepared for your tendril.” I shake my head, unable to believe that Uncle, the man we’ve all feared for most of our lives, is dormant. “He didn’t think you’d have the audacity to enter. He didn’t cloak his thoughts,” I say. “Frankly I’m surprised you entered his mind. It’s illegal to do so. Not even I have tried that.”
“Nor I,” Sarkany says. “But I will now.”
“Be careful when you do, because I think he’s protected by a powerful Slayer.”
“So now you’re saying he’s a dormant but linked to a powerful Slayer?” I shake my head. “Brother you’ve read too many children’s nighttime stories. Linking to a powerful Slayer for protection hasn’t happened in at least a hundred years, if ever. It was banned after the revolution.”
“I know what I saw,” Taraz says. “And what I felt. You don’t have to believe me. Besides, none of this tells us what we’re going to do with Meela.”
Meela.
Meela.
Meela.
We all three think of Meela. Her face, her long dark hair, her black eyes, the beauty of her legs and her breasts.
“She can’t return to Ninaku,” Sarkany says. “And I won’t allow her to go to the Dark Forest.”
“We can’t tell her yet what happened,” I say. “She’s too weak. It’s not time.”
“And we can’t let anyone know where she is,” Taraz says. “Because they will kill her.”
I press my hand to the back of my neck and look at Sarkany. “I think the best plan is for the two of you to stay here while she regains her strength. No one at the Palace will question you disappearing to this place.”
“And you’ll return?” Taraz asks.
I nod. “I’ll return and try to sort out what Uncle is up to.”
“And Lady Alana?” Taraz asks.
I shake my head. “What would we tell her? That you entered Uncle’s mind, which is illegal, we’ve linked with a Dreg, which is also illegal, and Sarkany believes the Dreg might be our fated mate?”
“When you put it that way…” Taraz grumbles.
“Look,” I continue, “we don’t know if what was in Uncle’s mind was intentional or simply errant thoughts. We have to find some kind of proof that he intends to take power by possibly killing us and Katya and thousands of Dregs and Eliterrati too. Plus leaving Meela here with Sarkany may provide answers for us and what the three of us are meant to do.”
We can’t say what we are all thinking: we need to find out if it’s true, that Sarkany’s link to Meela means that Meela is the fated mate meant for our Tripsett.
“Since you’re the first with the natural link, it makes sense that you’d try to find out what kind of relationship this is meant to be.” Jealousy creeps through me. “Even though I was the first to touch her.”
Not the first to link though, Sarkany thinks.
So competitive brother, I think
Ha! And you’re always so jealous.
So it’s settled then,” I say. “She’ll stay here until she’s well, and Sarkany will determine whether Meela is possibly our fated mate.”
“Don’t you think you should ask me before you determine what I will and will not do?”
Behind us, the cold tone of Meela’s voice slices through the air. My belly drops. So unfamiliar is this tone directed at any one of us Roya Brothers. The insolence, the idea that this…this…Dreg might not want to be our fated mate.
I spin around. We all three gaze at Meela standing in the doorway. She wears an Eliterrati gown. A deep blue, the color is beautiful against her bronze skin. Her hair is wrapped around her head in a braid.
“We want you to be healthy before you leave,” Taraz says.
“And safe,” Sarkany adds.
“Sounds more like you’re trying to hijack me to become your wife,” Meela says.
“As though that would be a bad thing for you,” I say.
Her gaze cuts me, and her lips tighten into a thin line. “Do you think I’d be mated to a man that I can’t even stand?” she asks. “Someone who thinks me beneath them? Less than them and wanting in some way?”
“You’re a Dreg, and we’re Eliterrati. You are beneath us. Even the law allows for this,” I say, though I suddenly wish I could pull back my words.
Her cheeks pinken and I sense heat flowing through her body—and not the kind of heat that might get me bedded, but the ki
nd of heat that might get me stabbed.
“We don’t have time for arguments.” I turn away from Meela and back to my brothers. “We’ll be missed soon and then a garrison will be sent to find us. With the unrest in the North, everyone is on edge.”
“I will not stay here,” Meela says. “You’ve kidnapped me and now you will not let me leave? Is that what I’m hearing?”
“No,” Taraz says, and stands. “What you’re hearing is that once you’ve regained your strength—”
“Then,” Sarkany continues, “then you may do whatever you wish. We only ask that you stay so that we might facilitate your recovery.” He moves closer to Meela. “I mean, it’s my fault that you were ill. Surely you can let me help you recover.”
“Nice try, Sarkany,” Meela says, and provides my brother with a smile. Again, the green monster named jealousy threads through my blood. How can I possibly be jealous that this Dreg bestows a smile upon my brother?
Because I am more than just a Dreg. I am a human and you know, as your mother did, that the separation between Dreg and Eliterrati is a false separation used by those who’d want to steal power to keep all of us fighting amongst ourselves.
“You’re in my head,” I say. My gaze tightens upon Meela.
“How could that possibly be?” Meela asks. “When I am merely a Ninaku Dreg?” She provides me with a sweet, albeit false, smile.
Heat bursts through my chest and the urge to slay the girl that is so insolent pounds in my head.
Brother, it’s time for you to go, Sarkany thinks. He steps between me and Meela, and in this one movement, it’s quite clear that his loyalty has already begun to shift.
I walk toward the front door with Taraz beside me. I pause and turn back. “Good luck with that one, Brother,” I say to Sarkany. “I certainly hope we find you alive when we return.”
Chapter Thirteen
Meela
“I must get out of this place.”
Books fill the floor-to-ceiling shelves in the library of Sarkany’s hunting lodge. The scent of paper and ink permeate the air. A memory, distant and from childhood, stirs deep in my mind. A memory I can’t quite pull into focus.
Sarkany looks up from the book he reads. Every piece of furniture within this lodge is built bigger than average. The ceilings are higher, the chairs are wider, the beds are longer—everything is built to accommodate a human that is much more on the scale of a bear than that of a human. And even though the chair in which Sarkany sits was built bigger than any other chair I’ve seen, it still looks too small for him, as though it was built for a small child
Our eyes lock. He pulls his glasses from his face and a smile curls over his lips.
“You’re better, then,” he says.
“You’ve been waiting on me?”
“Of course.” He stands and returns the book to its shelf. His gaze lingers on my body. “Now?” He glances toward the window. “Shall we go for a walk now? It’s early and the weather is good.”
“Yes, now.” I can’t stand to stay inside a moment longer. It’s been nearly two weeks since Leo and Taraz left, and I’ve finally recovered all my strength.
A woman after my heart, he thinks. I was losing my mind sitting inside waiting on you.
Ha! I can’t help but smile at Sarkany as I’ve been waiting on him while he was waiting on me.
The forest around Sarkany’s lodge is dense with old-growth trees. Little sunlight breaks through to the earth, but there is a trail cut through the trees and undergrowth that leads up an ever-steeper incline. The path is just wide enough for Sarkany and me to walk side by side.
I come here to be alone, Sarkany thinks. When I can no longer stand to be in the Palace with all the people and especially…his thoughts trail off. He glances at me. “Well, my Uncle,” he says out loud. “This place, the lodge, belonged to our father, Sazelle. He loved the outdoors. He brought us here every spring and fall. We’d hunt and fish and even sleep outside beneath the stars.”
I glance around the path and the sun filters through the leaves. The scent of earth and rain, scents that despite my many years spent in the laundry, somehow remind me of home.
“Do you hear the sounds of the forest?” Sarkany asks. He strides slowly beside me as it takes me three steps to keep up to his one.
“The animals?” I ask.
“Yes,” Sarkany nods. “But there’s more.”
I stop and close my eyes. A sound begins as a whisper, a rustling of leaves in the trees, but then the sound grows richer, similar to the strings that musicians play on festival days. Slowly the music builds and ebbs and flows in a joyous song.
“That’s it,” Sarkany says. A slow smile crosses his lips and joy enters his eyes. “Not everyone can hear it. Leo can’t, and Taraz just barely hears a humming sound.”
“I didn’t know. I’ve not heard that song before.”
“It’s the forest itself, singing its song much deeper than the rattling of the leaves. It’s the sound of the life of the land and the trees and the plants that grow. It is a symphony of life, but very few can hear the song.” A wistfulness fills Sarkanay’s mind.
“You loved him very much,” I say.
“I loved all my fathers very much,” Sarkany says. “But I felt a unique closeness to Sarzelle as he, too, was large like me and loved the out of doors. Preferred the solitude of the forest to the politics of Palace life. I’m most similar in look and personality to him.”
We round a corner and the giant trees, dense and thick, give way to an opening. I suck in my breath. We stand high on an overlook, and below us are miles and miles of forest. To our left, across the ravine, is a giant boulder bigger than the entire hunting lodge, and from it falls a ribbon of golden water lit by sunlight.
“It’s…it’s…”
“Amazing,” Sarkany finishes my thoughts. His words hold a deep reverence for this place. “I haven’t been here in a very long while.” He reaches out his hand and clasps mine. With his touch comes thoughts and memories that flood my mind; a gift of the times he stood in this exact spot. Warmth floods my heart as I see him first as a young boy. Then as an adolescent on the cusp of manhood, with his brothers and his father, and then finally as a young man alone with great pain pulsing through his heart. This final memory weaves sadness through me: the loss of his mother and fathers.
“This was the place that healed me after Mother and Fathers were killed,” he says, his tone more somber. “I couldn’t find any solace in life with their deaths. It was only pain and anger and despair. I…I felt rudderless and could not find a way to embrace life and return to joy.”
I squeeze his hand. So familiar are his feelings to me.
“You felt the same didn’t you, my little bird, when your parents abandoned you and Huali.”
“I…” My words catch in my throat as I try to speak to Sarkany to explain how different my experience was compared to his. How my parents sold me to Dribble for a few gold coins and then abandoned me and Huali—how what happened to me is not nearly the same as losing parents that loved you and cared for you and wanted you…but were assassinated.
“No, it may not be the same,” Sarkany says. “But the feelings that you and I experienced are still very similar. The feeling of loss, of anger, of abandonment. The cause of the feelings may be different, but the feelings are the same.”
I sigh. I close my eyes and block out the vision of the beauty that surrounds us. “I…I try not to think about it. I definitely do not speak of it. I simply…” I open my eyes and look at Sarkany; into those deep brown eyes that hold so many thoughts and feelings that now I can share. “I block out the memories and the feelings and continue to exist.”
Sarkany squeezes my hand. “Sometimes blocking out the burden only means that you ignore the weight of it. Perhaps your load would be lighter if you were to unpack the feelings and simply put them down. Let them go.”
I look to the clear blue sky. A hawk cuts across the open expanse.
&nb
sp; We turn away from the overlook, still hand in hand, and head into the woods, following the path down and around in a winding trail that cuts through the forest. Sunlight dapples the leaves, and around us we hear the sounds of animals and then a faint scent and bubbling sounds. “Water?” I ask.
“The river is just ahead,” Sarkany says.
The trees give way to a river swollen with water from the recent storms. To our right is a bridge hewn from timber.
A vision of the bridge with less water beneath it and glistening rocks and Huali… “That bridge,” I say, “it seems…so familiar to me…but I have not passed in this place before now.” Have I?
“We are on Royal lands at the edge of the Dark Forest. I can’t imagine that you’ve been here. Perhaps it is my memories that cloud your mind,” Sarkany says.
“I…I don’t know.” I can’t stop myself. I’m drawn to the bridge. I break away from Sarkany and walk to it and cross. The Bear is right behind me. The path calls to me as I cross over and hear the voice of… In my mind, I hear the voice of Huali, but not as she is now, rather…her voice that I remember as a child, high and light with tiny giggles between her words. “The butterfly, Meela, with blue wings—do you see the butterfly?”
On the far side of the bridge, I turn and there…there as though called forth from my memory and Huali’s memory is a butterfly as big as my hand with giant blue wings. It flits up and down, finding its path in the soft breeze.
“Ahh…an Azure Papillion,” Sarkany says. “You don’t see them often. They’re meant to be a sign of good luck and prosperity. Beautiful, aren’t they?”
I hold out my hand and the giant butterfly flutters to a stop on my finger. Sitting still for just an instant and then up and into the air it floats again. My gaze follows his path and I walk forward.
“This is…we’re nearly to the edge of Roya lands,” Sarkany says. His voice contains no fear, but a hesitation.
“I…I have to keep going,” I say.
We no longer stand at the river. We’ve followed the Azure Papillion deeper into the forest. The forest is different here. The earth is deep and dark. There is little light that makes its way to the forest floor and the trees are older and denser. The trunks are a darker brown. I close my eyes and listen. The song of this forest is not that of the lightness of strings but instead a deeper sound with a rougher and harder pulse to the tune.