SHADOW WEAVER

by Claire Merle

  I stop. But if he has lied about the sketches, then Queen Usas and Lady Calmi are already surfacing in his consciousness.

  “What is it?” Tug asks.

  “Jakut showed me drawings. Portraits he said he has had in his possession since waking from the long-sleep.”

  “And?”

  “If he is lying, and they were done more recently, then he is beginning to remember.”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “I was in one of them. He says our meeting was the will of the Carucan Gods.”

  A slight indent appears in Tug's bottom lip. “If you're wondering whether there is any possible way he drew a picture of you before he met you, the answer is no.”

  “He has a sketch of Kel.”

  “He was in the Pit the day we bought you and Kel there.” Tug steps towards me. Up close the specks of dirt in the wide-open flesh above his eye are visible. “There are ways to get inside a person’s head. Without the sight. He's drawing his net around you. He wants to make sure you act in his interests when we're in the Ruby Palace.”

  “I will act in my own interests.”

  A spark flashes in his dead gaze. “I'm counting on it.”

  Once he has left the tent, I fold the bloodstained, cream and yellow dress, and return it to the chest. Something metal pokes my hand. I dig in and find a wrought iron mirror, packed by a maid for the journey and forgotten. A broken piece of looking glass would make a reasonable weapon.

  Before tucking it into my saddlebag, I check I am presentable for the Duke and the Royal Court.

  My pupils are large with Nocturne Melody. Perspiration gathers at my hairline, and my face has a sweaty, unhealthy glow. The evening I saw myself in the dining room at Lindy flutters into my thoughts. I had been disturbed by the strange foreignness of my appearance. By the wildness in my eyes, the semblance of a lady, the six years that had suddenly caught me up.

  I am no longer disturbed. I am ready. Ready to face the Ruby Court and the truth about Jakut. Ready to end this.

  Thirty-Six

  Horse hair tickles my cheek. The smell of dust, sweat, and hay fills my nostrils. I ride half asleep, leaning into Dancer's neck. My body tingles with warmth, beams of Nocturne Melody sunlight trapped inside me. A song Ma used to sing when Kel was a baby drifts in my head. Far off in the mind-world a dense pool of color pulses, carrying echoes of a gigantic symphony through the mountains. The Red City is close.

  A voice, irritating as a gnat, disturbs my tranquility. It occurs to me my mare has stopped. With enormous effort, I squeeze my eyelids, until they release and flutter open.

  “She's fine,” I hear Tug say. “The bird-men attack left her petrified. I gave her something to calm her nerves.” Calm her nerves! Bravo, Tug. An artful lie, in keeping with the Duke's opinion of my frailer sex.

  “I am concerned her affection for the Prince will be the ruin of her,” the Duke answers. “If her father knew what was going on, I am sure he would not approve.”

  The Duke is talking of the Delladean Lord Tersil, but it is Pa's face that forms on my inner eye. My father reaches out his arms, asking me to come home. I shake my head, partly telling him "no", partly to dislodge him from my thoughts.

  “As you have noticed, Mirra is a determined young woman. Lord Tersil understood preventing his daughter from following the Prince would only backfire on him.”

  “I have seen it before,” the Duke answers. “A lady with a broken heart is hard to coax back to the living.”

  “Prince Jakut will not break her heart.” The abrupt finality in Tug's voice sounds false. He doubts his own words. It is as though they have both unknowingly started talking about Tug and the Duchess. “He has agreed for Mirra to be presented to the Court as your niece.”

  “For what good it will do.”

  The blurry Duke in his royal tunic melts into the mass of soldiers. I strain to sit up. Tug repeats my name, but it is the view ahead that catches my attention, and rivets my gaze.

  Shimmering in the fiery glow of the evening sun, a city of ochre-tinted houses climbs to the sky. And high on the top, in a misty haze, stands the palace.

  White flags fly from the spires of a dozen minarets. The massive tiered structure resembles a vertical maze of arcades, walkways, and stepped gardens. It is as though the soul of the Carucan people was distilled and poured into one perfect vision.

  “It's beautiful,” I murmur.

  “Like all the deadliest things are,” Tug says. “Give me the pain reliever.” I take it from the pocket of my skirt and pass it to him, wondering what my father would think if he knew tonight I would be sleeping in Caruca's infamous Ruby Palace.

  An image of Pa lying in the snow snaps to the front of my mind. Dark patches staining powder-white snow as his life force ebbs away. The bewildered expression on Ma's pale face as I told her she would have to build a shelter, and fire, and heal him without my help. Pa! I cover my eyes with my hand.

  Arms wrap around my waist, and I am pulled from my mare. I moan as the pressure on my rib transforms to pain. My feet touch the ground, but I am so sleepy I can barely stand. Tug kneads my sides, his oafish hands prodding and pushing. I batter him away.

  “What are you doing?” My words come out in a lazy drawl.

  “I am checking if it is a bruise or a fracture, and nothing is moving.”

  “A bit late for that.”

  My neck lolls as I tilt to look at Beast-face. Guilt slithers in his eyes.

  “We are almost at the royal stables at the bottom of the city,” he says, “where we will rest the horses and eat before the climb. It will be a slow ride up the mountain, and well after supper before we reach the palace. You will be able to go straight to your chambers and sleep. No more Nocturne Melody.”

  “Have we beaten the messenger from Lyndonia?”

  “It appears so. Otherwise soldiers from the royal guard would be here to greet us. Or arrest us.”

  Tug holds my shoulders. I suppose I am swaying. Certainly it is a challenge to stay on my feet.

  I stare at his tattooed face, but it is not what I see. The island of the Rushing Winds shines before my inner eye. White houses dazzling in a bright sun, huge waves smashing against glittering crystal cliffs.

  When the Eteans arrived at the lands of my ancestors, they quarried the crystal cliffs and hillsides until their vessels were full. They left only to return with more boats, gouging out moonstone, onyx and amber, destroying the coral reef barrier, which protected the island from the great spring storms.

  They finally departed, leaving the island and the Uru Ana to drown, taking four hundred glitter-eyed children with them. The children were a curiosity, an amusement, a symbol of their conquest. Of course, they did not realize, at first, the ability these strange sparkling eyes held.

  I used to feel scorched with the shame of my people's weakness. What good was the power to see into your enemy's psyche, if you did not find their weaknesses and use it to defeat them? But the melody coursing through my blood and shifting the furniture of my mind has opened a doorway. I suddenly understand what my people always knew. War transforms the luminescence of the mind-world to darkness. My people hoped their compassion would be enough to change the warring spirit of the Eteans. But they refused to change themselves, to descend into the shadows of hate and violence, death and revenge.

  “Mirra?” Tug's voice returns me to the foothill.

  “Where's the Prince?” I scrunch my eyes at the unit of soldiers and find the answer to my question. The Prince is near the front, on his knees, praying. Before the long-sleep, Jakut spent much of his day in prayer, but since our meeting in the Hybourg, I have not once seen him turn to his Gods for guidance or help. Wariness trickles through me.

  “If we're almost at the stables,” I ask, “why have we stopped here?”

  “The white flags,” Tug answers.

  “They resemble birds.”

  “They are a symbol of the Carucan ceremony of departing. It means someone
from the royal family has just died.”

  Riding through the Red City is like moving through a dream. We wind up narrow streets, terraced houses slanting down on one side, rising on the other. The warm air smells of thyme and sage. The mind-world flows on a great ocean of melancholy. Small white flags and drapes hang from windows, doorways, and rooftops. They flutter and snap in the breeze. And beneath their flapping chorus, the clicking of thousands of insects.

  The knowledge of our presence ripples through the city. More and more people gather on the steps of their homes to watch us pass. They hold candles, cling to white shawls, curtsey and bow as the Prince and Duke pass.

  No fanfare of trumpets, or cheering crowds, signal our arrival at the palace. We ride alongside tall, sunburnt-orange walls until we reach gates of wrought iron and gold filigree. The gates stand open, armed foot soldiers lining an enormous entrance of symmetrical hedges, fountains and tropical plants.

  I sit up in my saddle, tension as thick in the air as the sweet scent of jasmine. The Nocturne Melody is fading from my blood, the pain in my ribs taking hold, along with a needling voice, which tells me I need more of the pain-numbing poison.

  We are inside the royal walls, but the ground level consists of the royal army barracks, horse stables and servant quarters. From here, there is only one way into the world of courtiers and kings—steep, wide steps to an archway taller than four men. And blocking our entrance at the top of those steps, centered between two magnificent ruby-studded doors, stands Queen Usas.

  Swathes of white fall from her shoulders. Loose matching trousers hang beneath her swollen belly, and a sword sits against her thigh. Her hair is bound in a sweep of blonde curls. She is not beautiful. She is not even pretty. But her presence is arresting.

  She tilts her head and murmurs something to one of her dozen guards. Three older men in long white robes step aside, and the summoned guard descends the steps, dropping to one knee in front of the Duke.

  By showing her respect to Prince Roarhil before Prince Jakut, she has just slighted the rightful heir to the throne.

  “Keep an eye on me,” I tell Tug.

  “Welcome back,” he says, as I close my eyes and reach for the Queen's mind.

  I travel an arid world, scudding and skimming over long hours of the Queen sitting beside the King's pyre, the Queen alone in her chambers, the Queen with the royal council. Her mind is organized, and disciplined. My search is as unencumbered and swift as sand blown across a desert. Until something interesting...

  She stands before a mirror, squeezing droplets in her eyes to hide their redness. Or accentuate it. Copper brown eyes, a crooked nose, and a long, youthful face.

  A knock sounds in the distant recesses of her chambers. She sails out of the marble bathing quarters, her warrior body graceful, despite the child, almost fully formed, in her belly.

  A maid answers the door to her outer chambers. Queen Usas stops to light a candle. It is one of six candles standing waist-high in the latticed white arches that lead to a exterior cloister. The semi-precious stones in the arches and walls reflect soft light onto the polished marble.

  An officer enters, bowing.

  “Is it true?” she asks.

  “He is approaching the gates with Prince Roarhil, Duke of Rathesyde.”

  “And where has he been all these months? If he were in Lyndonia we would have heard of it.”

  “The injuries he sustained during the attack on his escort kept him in the far north during the winter.”

  “How is this possible? You said your spies knew what Lady Calmi muttered in her sleep. How could she have hidden this from us?”

  “I'm convinced she was no better informed than we have been.”

  “Does he wear the white mourning robe?”

  “He does not.”

  The Queen extinguishes the long match burning between her fingers just before it reaches her flesh. She tosses it in a fire grate and picks up a sword from the mantle-piece.

  “My Queen,” the officer says, bowing. “We must not act hastily. The child you carry is in grave danger now the Prince is alive. Circumstances stack against you. With the Prince's assassination attempt and the King's death, he could claim you have betrayed the Carucan army and tried to rid yourself of the rightful heir to throne, in a plot to continue as regent and secure the crown for your child.”

  “Jakut is not the rightful heir! King Alixter would never have named the Prince his successor!”

  Tug's hand touches my shoulder. I open my eyes, easing from the Queen's mind without effort. Around us, Duke Roarhil's men are dismounting their horses, dropping to their knees.

  I look up. The Queen is descending the palace steps. Tug helps me from my mare. I cannot tear my eyes from the warrior Queen. She has kept her pregnancy secret from the Kingdom. She has a motive for Jakut's assassination. And she does not intend to submit the throne to King Alixter's first-born child and heir.

  Thirty-Seven

  I kneel alongside Tug, facing the stairway and the ruby palace doors. Scattered around me the Duke's soldiers are all down on one knee, heads lowered, as stable hands weave around us, leading our horses away.

  Queen Usas greets the Duke, telling him to rise. He takes her hands in his and mutters words of regret and sorrow. She nods, eyes scanning the Prince. She sways towards him, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

  Images streak through the mind-world, so fast I only comprehend snatches and fragments, struggling to decipher one moment, while the next streams forward to submerge it.

  Hands on a bloody bed sheet. A frozen face marbled with burst blood vessels. A distressed wailing.

  A man's voice. “I have lost my best assassin. And I will not lose you.” His hands in hers. “Promise me you won't try anything.” The King's eyes. Tenderness, strength.

  The Red City sprawled before her. “You must see Lady Calmi is married.” She turns to her husband. “See she is married and send Jakut north for the princess.”

  The mind-world settles around the Queen. With my head lowered, I squint to watch her staring down at the kneeling Prince. The images were confusing, out of chronological order. But the love she felt for the King is indisputable.

  “Your father is dead,” she says.

  “May his spirit follow the path of Rhag,” the Prince answers, remaining bowed in the deepest sign of respect. The faintest trace of surprise alters the Queen's cold expression.

  “The King's head arrived at the palace two days ago. We are preparing a body for the ceremony of departure.”

  In the vast entrance gardens, from the surrounding foot soldiers, right up to the Queen's personal guard and council on the terrace, no one moves.

  The Prince slowly raises his head. The moment his eyes meet her my flesh tingles. I cannot see his expression but I see the memory that has shaken loose from the darkness of his past.

  Black flags with the royal crest flapping in the wind. Young men sparring. Queen Usas drawing a Bo staff. Striking. The Prince ducking. Striking back.

  A tournament. Sparring with the Queen. I wish I could examine the Prince’s face and see his reaction to remembering Usas. Then I would know whether he has lied about the sketches. Lie or not, there can be no doubt now, the Prince's past is emerging.

  What if this is the tiny shift that causes an avalanche? How long before all the pieces rise and find their places and the Prince is under Strik's influence?

  The Queen steps back and nods, signalling the Prince may rise.

  I lower my gaze as she strides through the soldiers. My chest sinks when I realize she is coming towards me.

  “Princess Aliylah?”

  A shiver prickles up my spine. I shake my head.

  “The King told Prince Jakut not to return to the Red City without the Princess. Am I to understand he has brought you instead?”

  I stare at her shoes, the soft leather moulded around her feet for comfort and nimbleness. All Deadran's preparation, the Prince's test in Lyndonia, deceiving
the Duke and Duchess, nothing has prepared me for this. I feel like I have shadow weaver written on my skin, crawling across my face, and she has only to look closer and she will see it.

  She stands before me, silence stretching out like a promise of the silence that will meet me in my grave.

  “Rise,” she orders. I push to my feet, while the mind-world flashes with a lithe female figure, swinging and ducking. Queen Usas is remembering a younger version of herself, training with a smaller, female warrior. “Look at me.”

  I breathe in deeply, the pain in my ribs vying for attention. Her eyes are as blue as the sky in the summer and behind the intelligence, the anger, the hate, swirls a storm of grief.

  “You do not look Rudeashan. Your coloring and face resemble the Eteans.”

  I struggle to swallow, unable to steady my rapid heartbeat. If I claim to be the Duchess’s niece who no one has ever heard of, turning up to find a suitor in the Ruby Court when the King has just been slain and the kingdom is in turmoil, the Queen will distrust the Duke and me as fully as she is convinced of the Prince's betrayal.

  This Queen lives in a world of vipers and politicians, kingdoms, crowns and wars. Unlike the isolated Duke and Duchess she will not believe a flimsy lie.

  My presence is not inappropriate. It is inexplicable.

  Her gaze fixes on the scratches at the side of my face.

  “Rise!” she proclaims, extending her arm across the soldiers. The Duke's men stand. Their leather boots creak, their scabbards clink against belts and buttons. They stare forward while her eyes roam across them, lingering on the fresh, honey-sealed gash above Tug's eyebrow.

  “My master-at-arms will allocate your barracks,” she announces. A man with gray hair, fit for his years, steps out from the formation of royal foot soldiers and bows to the Queen. “Prince Roarhil,” she turns to the Duke, “your men are exhausted from the journey. I would be honored to organize your personal guard if you wish your men to rest.”