by Claire Merle
“I'm getting you out of here,” I whisper. “Back to Pa and Ma. They're waiting for us. Your eyes are changing, they're fading. In two months people won't even know you're Uru Ana. You'll be safe. This will never happen again. We'll be safe with Ma and Pa. I promise, Kel. You'll be safe.” I cup my hand around his chin and turn him to face me. “Kel, can you hear me?”
There is a thin sheen on the whites of his eyes, a prick of the grief and fear pushing up through the wooden deadness. His head moves in the smallest nod. But a response nevertheless.
I rub his back while stretching my mind around the tower. The Duchess told me to inspect him and return at once. I have already been here longer than I'll be able to explain, and yet I do not know how I will ever let Kel out of my sight again.
“I'm staying in the royal guest tower on the south eastern side of the fort,” I murmur. “Across from the market square. Tug and Brin are with me. I have arranged for us to leave here at moonrise tonight. Until then you must speak to no one about my visit. You cannot say anything.”
His arms come to life. They slip around my waist, grip growing tighter and tighter as though sensing what I am trying to tell him—I must go.
“You can find me. You can find my mind in the fort. I won't leave you, Kel. Do you hear me? I'm not going to leave you again.”
“OK,” he whispers.
“You must eat or you won't be strong enough for the journey.”
He buries his head into the soft cotton of my dress and nods. I hold him until I sense two men entering the bottom of the bell tower. Then I smother him with kisses.
“I have to go,” I say. “You mustn't tell anyone you've seen me. I have to go.” I untangle myself from his unyielding grip, prising little fingers out of my own. I grab the crust of bread from the tray on the chair and hand it to him. “You eat, Bud, OK?”
My legs threaten to give out as I cross to the secret door. I glance behind before pulling it closed. Kel stares at me with wide, bruised eyes. I cannot manage a smile.
The door drags across the stone. When the key is turned in the lock, and safely in my pocket, I slump against the wall, not bothering to fight the flow of hot tears.
Twenty-Six
There is something odd about the way the Duchess stands in the workshop alcove with her back to the passage. I expected her to be pacing, wringing her hands, anxiously checking for my return. Instead, she is as still as one of her bone-dry clay models. A deep part of me warns I should proceed with caution, but anger eclipses reason.
I slip into the alcove and bang the door shut. The Duchess’s shoulders jump in fright. When she turns, neither remorse, nor shame, etch her cold expression. The sting of it, in the face of Kel's pain, fuels my blazing outrage.
“Do you even know how your guards are treating him?” I spit. “Your son is almost the same age. You are Uru Ana. How could you let your men do this!”
“The journey here was not kind on him,” she answers.
“The journey, or your men?”
“They had to transport him in a wooden chest.”
In my mind, I see Kel trapped and crushed in a dark clothes chest, getting bashed about as the men's horses gallop south. Starved of air, and light, and hope. I stare at the Duchess with dry eyes. I have no more tears to cry. But grief can move beyond the body I discover, to furrow rifts in the soul.
“The bruises on his face were not from being bumped around,” I say, stepping closer. Before she grapples for another pitiful excuse, I slap her hard. My hand leaves a red imprint on her cheek. She gasps, and shrinks back, covering the injury.
Behind the alcove wall comes a scraping sound. We are not alone! There is another mind, dulled and hidden by mist berries.
I spin around the wall of the alcove, swiping a large ballerina statuette from one of the drying racks to arm myself.
“Watch who you're striking, Mirra,” Tug says. He has followed us here! Or the Duchess arranged for him to come. How could I have been so naive?
I leap at him with the figurine. He blocks my aim for his head. The clay shatters across his arm. I try to punch him in the neck but he grabs me, wrapping his fist around the top of my shoulder, squeezing my healed arrow wound. The edges of my vision twinkle with white specks, but I am happy to be pitted against someone who will fight back. Someone who will make the hurt real and muffle the unbearable pain of my brother's suffering.
Kel is dying. If I do not take him from Lyndonia tonight, he will not survive another week. The Duchess will force me to break this last promise, and it will destroy him. All for Tug, and his stupid loyalty to a selfish, cowardly woman, who would willingly send another child to be assassinated in her son's place.
I spit in the direction of the Duchess and hopelessly kick at Beast-face. His grip risks pulverising my rib cage, but I don't care. Elise's eyes widen with shock at my transformation. Yes, Your Grace! Take a good look! I've grown up in the dark northern forests, hunted and hiding. I'm no more than a wild beast!
As she realizes Tug's hold on me is unyielding, and I will not be escaping to strike her again, a little of her composure returns.
“This!” I sneer at him. “This woman is who you have dedicated your life to protecting and destroyed yourself for? She is honorless! She is disloyal! She is selfish and cowardly!”
One of Tug's great, brute hands pinches my jaw to stop my insults. I spit and bite but he doesn't let go. He tilts my head, compressing a nerve. A bolt of pain zigzags up my neck. Leaning over, he growls in my ear. “How many lives would you risk hurting to save Kel?”
“I'm nothing like her!” I hiss. But deep inside, I'm not so sure. Would I kidnap Jules and hold him prisoner, if it meant Kel could return to Ma and Pa? I would, without a second thought, betray the Prince, and leave Tug and Brin to die.
I give up struggling, exhausted, and aware it is pointless. Tug's hand loosens around my mouth.
I'm heaving and puffing and burning with indignation. “At least I don't pretend I am noble and kind. My choices have been ripped from me. I have no other options. Unlike you. Unlike her!”
Duchess Elise swishes closer. “You will stay in Lyndonia,” she says, “until Prince Jakut receives word of his father and leaves for the Ruby Court. You will go with him and do what you were purchased to do. You will discover who is behind the Prince's assassination and whether my husband and son are also targets. Your brother will remain here until I am confident Jules’s life is not in jeopardy.”
So haughty and sure of herself now she has Tug to protect her. She is a false and brutal beauty.
“Kel will die,” I tell Tug, “if he remains her prisoner. He will not last until the third moon.”
“You have my word,” Elise says. “I will do what I can to keep him alive.”
“Your word means nothing to me. Your own husband does not know who you really are.”
“You stand nothing to gain by telling the Duke the truth,” she answers. “He would not believe you.”
Her confident bearing doesn't fool me. “You doubt your own words. Besides, your husband might be a fool, but he would recognize the truth fast enough if I told him who Tug really was, and why you were waiting at the waterway last night.”
“I told you I was not waiting for anyone.”
“Yet Tug came,” I guess. “And when he saw us together, he followed you back to your quarters to speak to you.” It is only an assumption, but in the mind-world a memory flits to the surface, confirming it.
She moves quickly through a dark alcove. Tug lurks in the shadows. She instructs her guard to wait for her at the end of the passage.
“You of all people,” she says, “understand the ties between a brother and sister.”
“He is not your brother,” I snarl. “You were waiting for him because you used to be in love with him. Because you're still in love with him.”
“Stop!” she whispers.
“And the Duke suspects your feelings, and suspects that you and Tug are not true brother
and sister. How long did you put off having children, terrified one of them would be glitter-eyed? What would you have done if you'd seen Claudia's eyes sparkle in her first days of life? Would you have let her live, or strangled her in her crib to protect your secret and your own life?”
“Enough!” The violence in Tug's voice rips through my haze of contempt. “You will go,” he says, “with Prince Jakut to the Red City and discover who is behind his assassination attempt. You will discover whether the Duke and Elise's son are in danger. You will report back to her regularly. I will take charge of Kel. I will tell him of this bargain and return him to Blackfoot Forest myself.”
I grow quiet, weighing up why Tug would make such an offer. Is it so he'll still be paid by the Prince? Or to protect the unrequited love-of-his-life's secret? Is he trying to win her over with a show of mercy?
Away from this oppressive fort, back in the hands of Beast-face and on his way home, Kel would start eating. As always, Tug understands I will accept some hope over none. I am bound to.
Jakut cannot be informed of the situation. I have hidden too much from him for too long, and after last night, the distrust between us is unbridgeable. Besides, if the Duchess suspects I have confided in the Prince, she would be forced to get rid of Kel. She would probably send him to the tundra or kill him to save her own skin.
“If you take the boy,” she says to Tug, “what assurances do I have she will report back?”
Oh, how I'd love to knock her down, back to the earth and grime she was born into.
Tug cracks his knuckles. “If I hear that she has not upheld her part of the bargain, I will take a half-dozen men into the northern forest and slaughter her parents.”
I curl my lips in a contemptuous smile. Beast-face cannot hide his true nature for long. Even his efforts to show mercy and grace are steeped in violence. Good. It means I know if I stick to my end of the bargain, he will stick to his.
Twenty-Seven
Tug marches me back through the fort, stars twinkling in the darkness above, the Duke's guards following us. I drown him in a torrent of insults and cutting speculation about the Duchess, and why she chose the Duke over him, dredging up the cruellest things I can think of, though I must be far off the mark because he barely reacts.
We are almost at the royal guest tower when I notice the unusual bustle of the fort. Lanterns burn in a dozen of the tower's windows. Boots stomp, swords clang, and through the myriad of stone tunnels, come echoes of orders given in raised voices.
Tug releases my arm, and we hurry towards the guest tower. A vaulted archway opens into the circular courtyard. Taking in the Prince on the steps by the entrance, panic circles through me. I cannot explain why I am wandering about Lyndonia at such an unsociable hour with Tug, or the state of my dress, or the stolen room key.
Wooden torches blaze in the curved courtyard walls, creating two arcs of light around the grand entrance. Jakut's face is lit up in a blaze of orange flames. His gaze is fixed on our approach, the hostility and warning in his eyes so sharp, I check to see if he is wearing his sword. Gloved fingers curl and uncurl around the bejewelled hilt. He widens his stance to block our way.
Tug offers the smallest nod. “Your Royal Highness,” he says, voice grave and cautious. I give a stiff curtsey. The Prince allows Tug past, but when I try to follow he lays a hand on my arm.
“I wish to speak with you.”
In the dimly lit corridor, Tug glances back. His look says he does not trust me alone with Jakut. Gritting my teeth, I pretend not to notice. After everything I've been through, does he really think I would do anything to divulge my brother's existence and risk Kel’s freedom?
The Prince's eyes settle on my face. “I suppose I should thank you for leaving the key where I could find it.”
A brittle wall has gone up between us. All trust and goodwill he had for me has gone. I accused him of condoning the attack on his escort and murdering those who helped him, and now he doesn't despise me. It is worse. I am nothing to him, just a nuisance. I am the dirty soil beneath his fine boots, which he must tread on to reach his destination.
An uneasy sensation wraps around me, like a thick fall of hushed snow, temporarily smothering my guilt and hurt over seeing Kel.
“Something in particular you were looking for?”
Anguish catches in my throat.
“No matter,” he says, lips twitching. “News has come of my father. The Duke sent a messenger to wake me. We must go to him at once.”
I grow conscious of my dirty dress, which will be blindingly obvious in a lit room. “It would seem odd if I were to go with you after last night, Your Royal Highness.”
“I do not care what they think,” he snaps. “You have forgiven me. That is all they need to know.”
“But they would never—”
He leers in my face. “Your dress is creased and soiled. Your eyes are puffy. You are sneaking around the fort and stealing room keys. If you think I will let you leave my sight for even a minute, you are very mistaken!”
His unmasked fury suddenly reminds me of his confession in the great hall moments before we were presented to the Duke and Duchess. I wonder if he is jealous again, or pretending to be, because I was with Tug. What does he imagine we were doing together?
We stride through tunnels and dark courtyards, headed for the Royal Hall. I realize Jakut will continue our charade of awkward sweethearts in front of the Duchess while she will know him for a liar. I dislike giving the perfidious Duchess an upper hand over the Prince. But I don't have the luxury of picking sides.
In the royal gardens, beside an aisle of potted berry shrubs, Jakut comes to a standstill. He pulls off a leather glove and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. A small fleck of blood sits on his jaw where he has nicked himself shaving. I wait for him to say what licks like flames on the tip of his tongue.
“I will need you in the Ruby Court,” he clips, pulling his glove back on. “Duke Roarhil sent a messenger this morning to report I am alive and well, and now news has come of my father, I will be expected to return home.”
I bow my head in understanding, then examine the cobbled stones beneath his boots.
“When you have discovered what really happened to my escort, I will have you taken wherever you wish to go. You will be free, and you will be rich.”
“Rich?” I ask, disbelief creeping into my voice. “I care nothing for money.”
“Then what? Name it, Mirra. It will be yours.”
The question is a gouge, cutting deep into me. If I live through this, when it is over, I will either have won or lost the only thing I care for. With all his wealth and position and freedom, the Prince cannot give me what I value most.
I clear my throat. “What will happen if I discover you were behind the attack on your escort?”
“To escape marrying a Rudeashan princess?” he retorts.
“Will you still wish my freedom, knowing I could tell someone of your crime, and you would be hanged?”
“If you discover I am responsible for the murders of my men, they will not need to hang me. I will do it myself.”
Words I cannot say thunder through my mind. They have Kel! Tug must have told the Duchess I am only with you because I am a shadow weaver!
Jakut's hand reaches for my waist. I look to the Royal Hall, certain we are being watched. Commander Fror waits outside the grand doors, but the Prince is not pretending to flirt as he lifts the torn cloth of my dress where it snagged on the crumbling passage wall.
“I have forgiven you,” I say, echoing his earlier words. “We have made up.” Understanding flashes in his eyes. He nods.
Side by side, we stride through the gray stone gardens, two pretenders, engulfed by the secrets we carry.
Commander Fror leads us away from the Royal Hall, through a long arcade towards the royal tower. We wind up stairs to the third floor where an open door greets us. Inside the round tower room, the Duke stands by the large table where I saw him poring o
ver a map of the land yesterday, when we arrived in Lyndonia.
He is accompanied by two advisers, Chamberlain Velequez, and a soldier. My eyes search out the darkest corner. I am relieved to see the armchair where the Duchess sat yesterday is empty.
“Lady Mirra will wait outside with Commander Fror,” the Duke informs us. Lines of tension appear on Jakut's brow, but clearly my attendance under any circumstances would be inappropriate. As I curtsey, Jakut addresses Commander Fror.
“I would appreciate it, if you would make sure Lady Mirra waits for me until our meeting has finished.”
“Your Royal Highness,” Fror answers with a nod, but one eyebrow arches in an unspoken question at the Prince's request.
The Commander leads me around the small landing, past two archer windows to a third with a cushioned stone ledge. I do not sit to wait, but lean forward and gaze out across the land. We are dizzyingly high. I concentrate on the horizon. The moon has set, and in the starlight, vague shadows of the wide forest touch the sky.
Fror leaves me to stand guard outside the meeting room, knowing I cannot reach the stairs without passing him. I send my awareness into the room and enter the first mind I brush against.
He holds a paper weight of a girl pirouetting. The girl's face is tilted to the heavens. The weight of the Duke's body pulls towards his feet. He stares at the Prince. The men are of a similar height and the higher angle alters my impression of Jakut's face, softening the angles of his chin and cheekbones.
The Duke clears his throat. “It is not good news,” he announces.
Jakut folds his arms across his doublet. The Duke's reconnaissance officer steps forward. Grime and dirt smear the edges of the man's skin trousers and gray tunic. The fabric is crushed. There is a small tear in one of the pockets, the result of hard travel and few opportunities to wash or change.
“We were staying in the town of Midlay to the south west, in the Peltik district when the news came to the Lord of Peltik.”
The officer wipes his sweating hand on his trousers. “Word arrived in the Red City a week ago. The Carucan army was attacked while they hibernated during the long-sleep. The Eteans knew precisely where to strike. They destroyed the Watch in one swift blow, every post covering fifty miles. Soldiers sleeping in the underground barracks barely had a chance. Over half the army was wiped out.”