“I… Company would be welcome, thank you,” she said in a small voice.
“Young’uns,” Silvay muttered, but turned away to her blankets with what looked suspiciously like a smile. “Just don’t keep the rest of us awake.”
Chapter 11
They walked in silence at first, the sounds of their passing echoing against the stones and dying as they moved through the darkness, their way illuminated only by snatches of moonlight. Alexei didn’t think Zara cared where they went, so he steered them gradually towards the reception hall, which he had not bothered to explore since his return.
The door creaked open, an eerie wail in the darkness, and he beckoned her inside. Gazing up into the shadows, he stretched out a hand, felt for the enchantment in the stones and pushed some of his own magic into them.
The crystal lanterns flared to life and he heard Zara’s gasp of wonder from beside him. His own breath caught at the forgotten beauty of crystal globes, suspended from golden chains, throwing brilliant rays into the far corners of the round chamber.
“We rarely took the time to entertain, either ourselves or outsiders, but when we did, this is where we came,” he explained. Zara’s mouth was still hanging open as she gazed around the room, and he couldn’t blame her.
The floor was seamlessly tiled in quartz, veined with gold, in fanciful swirls of milk, rose, smoke and vermarine. The walls were decorated in scrollwork and blue velvet hangings, while the ceiling boasted painted scenes of sterile ferocity—stylized wyverns, rampant indriks and glittering forests, all surrounded by curling, thorn-bedecked vines. At the center was painted a single enormous rose.
“It’s almost a crime that no one got to see this,” Zara said softly beside him. “Not that I would want to live in it every day, but it is beautiful. Haunting, really. I can almost feel the ghosts of people who walked here, danced here, lived and believed their dreams under these lights.”
“You’re remarkably romantic for a treasure hunter,” Alexei noted without thinking. When she stepped away from him, he turned to amend his words. “I didn’t mean to be harsh. It was merely an observation. I swear that I am done with holding your past over your head. Can you forgive me?”
She didn’t say anything. Her arms were folded, almost as if to protect herself, and her eyes darted to his before turning back to the floor.
“Zara, I speak truly.” The need he felt, for her to believe him, to forgive him, nearly stole his breath away. “Even if you cannot believe that I am sincere, can you believe that I regret having judged you when I knew so little of your life? That I would know more if you would allow it?”
“Why would you wish to?” she asked quietly, still not looking at him. “There is little to know, and none of it very happy. Not that I was always miserable, but my life has been neither peaceful nor conventional. None of the things that I enjoyed will give you pleasure to hear.”
“Tell me anyway?”
When she hesitated, he tried again. “At least tell me of your family. I know that you miss them. If it will help to speak of them I am happy to listen.”
“Why are you being so nice?” Zara muttered. “I think I liked it better when you were irritated with me on general principle. At least then our conversations were predictable.”
“The fact that I was predictably an ass doesn’t seem all that comforting.”
“Perhaps you weren’t always an ass,” she allowed. “But I find it hard to believe you haven’t always been a curmudgeon.”
“Only since I was five.”
Zara made a sound that was almost a laugh, and Alexei marveled at the awakening desire to make her laugh again. To lighten the fear and shadows that seemed to haunt her more each day. Each day… How long had they known one another? Only a handful of sunrises. When had he gone from wishing her to the farthest ends of the continent to wishing she would laugh more?
“My mother died when I was ten, but she left me well before that.”
Alexei looked up quickly when he realized she was going to answer his question, but her eyes were tracing the pattern in the quartz at her feet.
“My father was a treasure hunter when they met. He was born Vidori, but the martial lifestyle didn’t suit him, and when his father disowned him as a coward, he stole a treasure map that was a family heirloom and set out to make his fortune.” Zara let out a breath that sounded like resignation. “Oh he’s handsome enough, so I can imagine why my mother fell for him. She was Frenish. They rarely leave their island, but her father was the captain of a trading ship and brought her on one last adventure before she was to submit to an arranged marriage.”
“I imagine he regretted it later.”
“Probably,” Zara allowed, “but I’ve never met any of my parents’ relatives so I can only guess.”
“Never?” The idea of such isolation, such aloneness, made Alexei ache with sympathy. True, he’d had only his brother for years, but his early life had been filled with the noisy, boisterous, unrelenting presence of people who loved him. He couldn’t really imagine the lack.
“Father was all dash and sparkle, his hands either dripping with riches, or empty of all but promises, but he couldn’t exactly go home or ask for help. I could have any number of cousins, I suppose, but they probably wouldn’t be willing to acknowledge the connection.” Her mouth twisted a little. “My father might be a thief, but he’s a proud one. And most likely delusional. He promised my mother the world despite his lack of connections, and because he was young and handsome, she believed him, and he set her up in a little house in an out-of-the-way part of Andar.”
“And then he left.”
“Well,” Zara explained, “he had to make a living somehow, and he had no taste for real work. All his father taught him how to do was fight, and he hated that, so instead he made a profession out of searching for rumors of long-lost treasures and hunting them down. Ancient temples, tombs, forgotten strongholds—he would raid them all and come back boasting of the palace we would live in one day.” She glanced at Alexei. “I don’t think this is what he had in mind.”
“I can imagine not,” Alexei murmured. Zara’s father didn’t sound the sort to appreciate an enchanted castle, unless he could sell tickets for admission. And wouldn’t Athven have loved being thoroughly trampled by thrill-seeking tourists.
“I think one day Mother realized it was nothing more than a dream. Whatever he gained, he spent just as quickly and we were lucky to have enough for food, fire, and occasionally new clothes. She stopped speaking, stopped caring, and eventually began to drink. But it was a fever that took her life about a month before Father came home from his latest trip and found me alone.”
A silence fell and filled the room with the weight of that memory. She’d been only ten. No wonder she feared being left alone.
“He didn’t want to take me,” she went on, “but I convinced him I could be useful. I was small enough to fit into tight spaces. I was fast, and I was smart, and I knew how to read, which his henchmen usually didn’t. Plus, I ate less.” She shrugged. “I only knew that he couldn’t leave me behind.”
“Did you hate it, living on the road?”
“Strangely, no,” she admitted with a sad smile. “I was bored with my quiet life and ready for adventure. We travelled to so many new places and I saw things most people only dream of. And”—she looked sideways at him—“I was good at what we did. Good at deciphering maps, good at puzzles, and the thrill of it kept me sharp.”
“You weren’t in it for the treasure.” He was sure of it, but he wondered whether she was.
“No. It wasn’t the treasure for me. I loved the thrill of solving the mystery, and the awe of walking in places that no one had seen for hundreds of years. Just touching objects that someone long dead had handled and loved made me wonder about their lives, about their hopes and dreams, and whether anything I did or made would survive me for so many centuries.”
“And now I imagine you’d give anything to be anonymous and free ag
ain.”
“Anything?” she echoed. “No. But perhaps I would give much to return to my ignorance. I clung to the belief that my father loved me, in his way. I know that he needed me. Even now, I cannot quite shake the notion that if I could only find him, everything would be all right again.”
He could see the defeat in the slump of her shoulders, the absent scraping of one toe over the tiniest smudge on the gleaming floor.
“I am so tired of being afraid,” she said finally. “I have walked in a hundred places that would have left others in screaming hysterics, but this place…” She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself. “It undoes me. I feel isolated and small and powerless. It makes me want to lash out, just to feel less helpless.”
She did not mean the stone, he knew. There was no terror for her in a building, no matter how old and dark.
“Are you still afraid of me?” Alexei could not help asking, and dreading the answer.
Zara straightened and turned her head to look at him, and he saw her in that moment not as a usurper, not as a challenge or a mystery, but as a woman. Her white hair fell unbraided around her shoulders, reflecting the many-hued lights of the crystal lanterns, and her blue eyes seemed to glow against her brown skin. She stood like a queen and held his gaze without flinching.
The effect was mesmerizing. Even surrounded by the ancient grandeur of the hall, even dressed in worn leather, her beauty captivated and left him momentarily without breath.
“No,” she said, and grinned, a mischievous expression that did nothing to diminish the strange new effect she had on him. “Despite the fact that you can shoot fire from your eyes and turn stones into lanterns, I am not.”
“But you were.”
She muttered something unintelligible. “Maybe. A little. But I was telling you the truth when I said it has nothing to do with how you look. Your scars are not nearly as terrifying as your air of dismissive majesty.”
“My what?!”
“You heard me.” She elevated her chin and affected haughty grandeur. “Your outraged righteousness of purpose was enough to intimidate anyone.”
He silently mouthed her accusations, eyes narrowed. Outraged righteousness? Dismissive majesty? Had he really been so horrible? “Was it really so bad?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound plaintive. He was too old for whining.
“We are not all honorless thieves,” she mimicked in a deep voice, her face drawn into a disdainful frown. “I would never shame the House of Nar so deeply.”
True shame flooded him as he recalled the words. “It was bad,” he agreed. “Perhaps I was misled, but my reaction was at least as much a matter of wounded pride. It’s a wonder you still speak to me.”
“Yes,” she said, lifting both hands palm up with a puzzled expression. “It really is. I should have Gulver examine my head.” She smiled to show she was teasing. “But I have decided to overlook your offenses. Receiving a random marriage proposal from a complete stranger is probably as good an excuse as any for outraged righteousness.”
“Many a marriage has begun with little more than that,” he said flippantly, hoping to dispel any lingering embarrassment for them both.
He’d miscalculated. Her breath caught and she looked at him like a startled rabbit.
“I could at least have refused politely,” he went on hastily. “There was no excuse for trampling on your dignity.”
“I wasn’t aware that I had any.” The startled look faded. “But I thank you for the sentiment.” She gazed up, eyes fixed on the rose in the center of the ceiling. “What are we going to do, really?”
“You mean about the army?”
“About any of it. We cannot hope to defeat them, and your vague hints about the man Athven calls ‘Bright One’ are not reassuring.”
How much could he tell her? How much did she have a right to know?
“Vague hints are really all I have, to a point. Rowan Tremontaine is a man of great intelligence and greater ambition. But I do not know whether even he knows what he truly wants. He has enough magic to bend minds to his will, and he possesses no known scruples. The difficulty is not that he is infallible. Rather that he has been defeated, and yet simply rises again as though defeat cannot touch him.”
“And you believe he wants to take the Rose for himself and leave?” Skepticism colored her voice.
“It is what I believe, yes. He would not settle for small dreams. Athven is a powerful ally, but she is too contained in her reach. Even if he knows what she is capable of, I doubt he would limit himself by attempting to possess her.”
Zara let out a quiet breath and her shoulders seemed less tense, for some reason.
“Perhaps the most important thing I can tell you is that he is never what he seems. You will be tempted to believe he is your friend. That he wants the same thing you want. Even without magic, he is a master of words and misdirection. And”—Alexei tried to keep his voice neutral—“he is astonishingly attractive. There are few women who can withstand his appeal at close range.”
“Yes,” she replied sweetly, “because looks are all we women care about.” She snorted. “Give me some credit, Alexei. I have not been a child in many years, and I hope by now I am old and wise enough not to cozy up to a monster simply because it has a pretty face.”
He shrugged. “I would have warned anyone, no matter my estimation of their age or intelligence. I was once blamed for not offering sufficient warning and I don’t intend to repeat the mistake.”
“How long have you known him?” she asked.
“I have known of him for years, but it has only been the past few that we have had occasion to be better acquainted,” he answered cryptically, hoping she would let the matter rest.
“And?” she prompted.
He sighed. Perhaps it was only fair, as she had shared her story with him.
“I was employed in Andar as a horseman for much of my life after I left Erath,” he told her. “There I was as mundane as anyone else, and concerned myself only with hiding who and what I was. But my brother and I grew fond of our employer’s daughter and when she fell afoul of one of Rowan’s plans, we were marginally involved in the aftermath.”
“Did you know about Porfiry then?”
“Not until after Prince Rowan was exiled. When I heard the name, I begged for more information until it became clear he was indeed my cousin. I maneuvered myself into a place on a ship going to Caelan to look for Rowan, and while I was there I made it my goal to find Porfiry and bring him home to face justice.”
Zara’s brow creased pensively. “What about your brother? Did he not go with you?”
“Andrei never cared much for the concerns of the world at large. He is a gentle man with a gift for animals, and even without magic, he is content working with horses and living in peace.”
“And you were not?” Her eyes seemed to look right through him.
“No.” He could be honest now, with himself as well as her. “Even when I had no suspicion that Porfiry was still alive, a part of me could not live with the knowledge of what had passed. But I buried it deep, along with the guilt that I felt over running instead of standing to fight.”
“You were not much more than a child,” Zara scolded. “Why would you not run?”
“Why would I not stay to share in the trials of my people?” he countered. “What right had I to live on in peace when they died in blood and fire and chains?”
“All right,” Zara said quietly. “Why didn’t you?”
He shut his eyes in spite of himself, and his fists closed so tightly they ached. He remembered it so clearly, the moment burned into his memory by years of anguish and regret. Regret he had never even spoken of to his brother.
“We knew the army was coming. They burned and slaughtered as they came, and we did what we could to hold them off, but they brought silver, which is deadly to magic and painful to magic users. And we were never a martial people.” He could feel his hands begin to shake. “As many as possible were
evacuated from Athven. We warned everyone we could to leave, but my people were, and are, deeply tied to our land. Many could not leave, many would not. And when the army drew near to Athven herself, my cousin gave orders.”
“She could not leave either, could she?” Zara’s voice wavered, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears.
“No.” His voice grew hoarse with the pain of remembering her courage in those final moments. “She intended to hold here as long as possible. To distract the army to give more people time to escape if they chose. There were not many of us left. Many of my cousins had already fallen, trying to stop the army before it arrived, though she would never allow me to go. She said that my power was not yet strong enough. That as an enchanter, my gifts would be useless on the field of battle.”
“She lied.” Zara nodded, as though hearing the voices of the past.
“Yes. She sent my fifteen-year-old cousin Yala to build trenches with her gardener’s gift. I could have set the enemies tents on fire, if nothing else.”
“She wanted to save you.”
Alexei felt himself shrug, minutely, and the motion seemed to unleash an anguish he had never dared permit himself to feel. Hot, angry tears crowded into his eyes, but he willed them back. “She sent me away. Told me to leave Erath and not look back. And when I refused…” His teeth clenched on the memory.
“She made Athven throw you out.”
“And my brother with me. I think Beatra knew I would never expect him to face what was coming. He was too kind, too gentle to be sent into battle, and he would never have survived being put in chains.”
“Did he convince you to run?” Zara’s voice was gentle, understanding, and it did nothing to stem the pain.
“No. Andrei is no leader. I think he would have done whatever I asked, even stayed and faced death. But once I was out and the doors held against me, I could see the smoke from the burning that the army left in its wake. I could feel the land’s anguish as my people died or were chained in silver and their gifts cut off. And, to my shame, I was so afraid that I did as my cousin asked.”
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