by Claire Merle
“I have waited a long time to return to my homeland with the Carucan army,” he says. “I will take back what is mine. And you could help me discover something I would like to know once the kings and queens of the eight kingdoms of Rudeash are bowed at my feet.”
“The Prince will not allow you to attack Rudeash.” If I can keep him talking for long enough, perhaps luck will be on my side and he will eat one of the poisoned pastries.
“The Carucans neither respect nor fear the young Prince. He has no authority. When the Duke and the Queen are both dead there will be no one with enough influence to stop me.”
Strik has been a step ahead of Prince Jakut from the beginning. I remember our first encounter. I was right when I said he was cautious around the Prince. He already suspected the sway of his voice did not work on Jakut. But now he is in the Red City there is no need for caution.
Whether the Prince responded to his voice, or not, has never mattered. There would always be others who would. The Prince's lack of authority renders him ineffective. Even the ignoble or noble nature of Jakut's true intentions didn't matter. Strik was never going to be a partner, never going to trust the son of his enemy. His plan covered all eventualities.
Except one.
I pick up a pastry and play with it in my fingers, reminding him they are there to be eaten.
“You are considering my offer,” he says, a smile forming at the edge of his lips. If you could call the tight-lipped pull of his mouth a smile. “I suspected when I first saw you that you had a keen instinct for survival. Heroic gestures that end in death are for those who have never struggled to stay alive from one day to the next.”
“You could use your power to make me do your bidding. Why are you bargaining with me?”
“I noticed you had a hard time paying attention when I used my influence. The journey across the tundra will not be easy. If I have to break every bone in your body just to get you to Rudeash, you will not be much use to me.”
I fiddle with the pastry, willing him to eat another. Eat it. Eat!
“Go ahead,” he says, gesturing to my hand. He thinks if I accept his offer of food I will accept the offer to work for him. If I don't eat, I'm declining. And I can't accept his offer but not his food, because he's astute enough to realize something is off. Strik is a tyrant, but he is also shrewd.
I close my eyes, and nibble at the corner. My dry mouth turns to ashes, making it hard to swallow. It feels like eating sand. In my head I count to five. Calmi said the poison acted fast. How fast?
Lord Strik watches, examining the minutest expression on my face. He is unconvinced. He will think my reticence is because I'm undecided. I take a larger bite. Warm cheese melts on my tongue. There is nothing I can do to stop it disintegrating. I should have waited to hear what he wanted before trying to poison him.
At least my larger bite has the desired effect. His intent look relaxes. He reaches for the bowl, and pops a mini roll in his mouth.
I freeze, waiting for some sign of poisoning, barely able to curb the anticipation. Nothing. Did I even get the potion in the dish? My hand had been shaking all over the place. I'd been too scared to look at what I was doing and take my eyes off Strik for more than a second. But there were at least twenty drops and only two would be enough to kill him. Or me.
His head tilts to the side. “You need not die today,” he says. He reaches for another roll, now trying to encourage me. “Eat.”
If I eat the rest of my pastry, he'll eat the second one he's holding. That's the deal. We're making a contract with food. He just doesn't know it could kill us.
I put the end of my flaky roll in my mouth, chewing slowly. Strik reflects my gesture, wiping crumbs from the corners of his lips as he eats.
We are down the road of no return. Calmi said the poison was quick but I don’t know if she meant it would work in seconds or minutes. All I can do is keep Strik eating.
I am reaching for a pastry when Strik fumbles for the collar of his tunic. He undoes a button. In the dull glow of the lantern his face grows red. Sweat glistens on his upper lip.
He pushes to his feet, steadying himself with a hand on his chair. There is a moment when his eyes flame with understanding. He grasps for a small blade handle tucked beneath his tunic. Before he can remove it from his belt, a spasm jerks through him.
The pastry I'm holding falls from my fingers, hitting the ground just before Strik. His collapse sends the dish clattering across the stones. Two assassins burst into the cage. I scurry back on the pallet, tuck myself into a ball, half-expecting an assassin to take his knife and slit my throat, half-expecting the potion to start working on me at any second.
Strik flips on the ground. One of the men shouts at a guard to fetch the food taster and a healer. Mayhem erupts in the tunnel. I peek out from my ball to see Strik's eyes roll back into his head. White foam froths at the sides of his mouth. More than two drops and you are sure to die, Calmi had said.
How many seconds have passed since I ate my pastry? Is it longer than the time since Strik swallowed his first one?
In my head I am counting as the assassins lift Strik and carry him from my cell. Counting when the echo of their boot-steps falls into silence. Counting as I belly crawl towards my open cage door.
Option one, I hang. Option two, Strik takes me to Rudeash to destroy a kingdom. Option three, my personal favorite, Strik dies.
Even a brilliant tyrant can’t plan for everything.
Fifty-One
I'm standing at the edge of my cell, gripping the cage bar, dazed and weak and not quite sure where to go or how I will get anywhere, when I sense the Prince. Without thinking, I slip inside his mind, feel the metal of his sword hilt pressed into his palms, breathe the fetid, damp air whooshing in and out of his chest as he flies down the dim passage, feet barely touching the ground.
I try to shout his name, but my voice leaves my mouth as a broken whisper. My hand slips down the cage bar as I lower myself to the floor, unable to remain standing. Fear has kept me alert, but now the Prince is here weariness spans the breadth of me, as though my body is a piece of cloth without strings or padding to hold it in shape.
Jakut steps from the darkness, wearing a gray soldier's uniform and helmet, sword raised, ready to fight. In an instant, he takes in my open cage and the missing guards, sheathes his weapon, and drops down on his knees before me.
“Mirra,” he says, pushing off his helmet, pulling me into his chest. “Mirra,” his voice carries the weight of anxiety and guilt. He holds me to him, stroking a hand over my head. For a moment all I can do is lean in and soak up the comfort of his arms.
“Where are the guards?” he whispers.
“They took Lord Strik.”
His body tenses. “Strik was here? What happened?” A patter of light footsteps rebounds through a distant passage. The Prince whips around, grasping for his sword.
“It's Calmi,” I say, laying a hand over his to still him.
Torches still glimmer on the walls in and outside my cage. Enough light to note the overcast, threatening look that seeps into the Prince's eyes.
“Why was Lord Strik here?” he asks. “What happened?”
He must have heard Strik is dying or dead or he would not have come. But he doesn't know about Calmi's potion. Before I can answer, Calmi appears at the edge of light cast from the torches. She halts abruptly, Sixe remaining hidden behind her in the shadows. Surprise flashes in her eyes at the sight of us. It vanishes quickly, all expression leaving her beautiful face.
“What is happening?” she asks. The Prince rises, fist tightening around his sword.
“Your grandfather came to see Mirra,” he snarls, “and now he's in the infirmary, poisoned, dying. No doubt, just as you planned.”
Emotion smashes through her, not a fleeting change in her eyes this time, but a tremor shaking her whole body. When her features settle it's as though she's resurfaced from a violent ordeal, stepped from an ocean that tried to drown her.
Sixe must have brought her here, but she was not aware of what has happened to her grandfather.
“I gave Mirra a potion to take before the hanging.” Her voice quivers as she steps towards us. The Prince raises a hand to stop her.
“I told you I would not risk Mirra's life, and I meant it.” He puts a protective arm around me, building a wall between himself and Lady Calmi, turning from her physically and mentally. “We must get you out of here,” he murmurs. “Lord Strik has many supporters and when the shock is over and people start asking questions, those who are loyal to him will begin to piece together what has happened. You will be in danger.”
“She cannot travel,” Calmi objects. “Look at her. We must protect her until she's recovered.”
“Can you walk?” the Prince asks.
“She cannot even stand!”
Sixe slips into the light. In the mind-world I see a memory of him carrying Calmi on his back when she was injured as a girl.
“Sixe will carry me,” I say. “He knows all the hidden passages out of the palace. No one will wonder where I am until I'm safe in the city.”
“The city is not safe,” Calmi argues. “It is strewn with the mercenaries who were paid by my grandfather.”
“You two must return to the court,” I whisper to the Prince, “before you are missed. You must prepare yourself for the Queen, and the council, and how you will explain all this.”
“I'm not leaving you.” He is determined, but if he vanishes while Strik is dying, he will come under suspicion from Strik's supporters for having a hand in the poisoning.
And if he does not release the imprisoned Queen now, he will never win her confidence. She will always consider him a traitor. At once I see what Strik saw. For the Prince, my safety has taken precedence over his own life, his duty, his throne and his kingdom.
A ball twists in the pit of my stomach. I care for Jakut, I will miss him, but beyond that there has only ever been room for Kel. Beyond that, my heart is a mystery. The Prince is offering to risk everything for me. What I do know is I cannot say the same for myself. So instead, I say the one thing I know will change his mind.
“Tug is in the palace.” Watching the transformation in the Prince’s eyes is like squeezing a bruise in my chest. But I would be lying to both of us if I let him hope I could stay. And he would be lying to himself if he pretended he could walk out of here when he knows his duty must come first. After a silence I wish I could fill, but do not, he says,
“Sixe will hide you in the city. I will find Tug and he will take you to Lyndonia.”
Calmi sways towards us. “You have no idea what you have managed to do,” she says. “If Prince Jakut will not tell you, then I will. You have saved Caruca. All Carucans are indebted to you. You belong in the palace on the council, where the whole kingdom will know that the Uru Ana are respected and accepted in Caruca.”
Her words bring back my dream when I stood beside the council in the throne room. Perhaps my people will need a voice so they are not forgotten as Caruca rebuilds herself, but I will be a voice among them, not apart.
“Mirra has done enough.”
“We will need her help to smooth things with the Queen.”
“No.” Jakut rises to face Calmi, jaw clenched.
“Tell her how you feel and she will stay.”
His mouth sets in a hard line. “She already knows.”
He helps me up. Then he leans in and kisses the edge of my mouth. A kiss goodbye. A kiss that sends heat crawling across my cheeks. I stop him from pulling away, press my lips to his. The softness of his mouth wraps around mine. I close my eyes and forget everything else for an instant. Pure emotion seems to fire back and forth between us, like a fork of lightning moving between the clouds and the earth.
Then he steps away, bows low, the way Deadran taught us a Prince bows to a King or Queen. As he turns, the heat of his gaze goes with him.
“Your mother,” I say, stopping him in his tracks. “Did not betray your father. She protected him. It was her power that kept Strik from the Red City all these years.”
And perhaps she is the true reason he is dying now, or already dead. Perhaps her power did not fade when the King died, and as she suggested, the day Strik entered the Red City, he would pay the price with his life.
A memory shimmers in the mind-world. The Prince is three or four years old. His mother is reading him a story about ice palaces and kings and princesses. He snuggles in her arms, and when he turns to smile at her, through the haze of years long past, I see what he sees. The woman with the slim face is the woman from the sketches he carried in his binder. The woman I had assumed was Calmi, was his mother.
Jakut does not turn back to face me. But in the soft glow of the torches, I see the tension in his shoulders shift.
“Thank you, Mirra,” he says. Then he walks away into the darkness, his strides lengthening, boot steps growing more determined.
Once he has gone, Calmi offers me another pendant. I recognize the cloudy-yellow Nocturne Melody, and shake my head. She shrugs and tucks it in her pocket.
“I sprinkled the pastries with your potion,” I say.
She nods. “I will get rid of the evidence,” she answers, as she helps me onto Sixe's back. “Good bye, Mirra.”
Another world, another time, and Calmi and I would have been good friends.
“Your grandfather is dead,” I say, sensing the shift of his passing in the mind-world.
She smiles, tears filling her eyes. “Yes, I can feel it. It is like being able to breathe again.”
Fifty-Two
It takes Tug and me eighteen days to reach Lyndonia, a week longer than the time it took us to travel from Lyndonia to the Red City. Tug refuses to let me ride more than eight hours a day. He insists we rest in comfortable inns, until the morning he comes to my room and finds me asleep on the balcony in the bright sun. Then we only stop at taverns to eat when we grow tired of cooking, and bathe when there are no streams or rivers along our path.
The season heads swiftly towards the all-night sun. With so much rest I feel my strength returning. I am not sure my foot will ever fully heal, but as well as gold, the Prince sent Tug to find me with a pair of wooden sticks which allow me to hobble about.
Four days into our journey, Tug receives word from Lyndonia that the ragtag army gathered around the fort disbanded as soon as they learned of Strik's death. Not a sword was raised or an arrow shot, though for his protection, Kel had been moved inside the fort when the attack seemed probable.
Word slowly ripples through Caruca that Lord Strik is dead. Stories circulate of an Uru Ana who entered the Ruby Palace and saved the Queen. A royal decree, declaring the Uru Ana as legal citizens of Caruca, spreads throughout the kingdom. The prejudice against my people will not vanish overnight, but for now, it is enough.
Aside from the news of the kingdom, and news that Brin is alive, and recovering near the Red City, Tug and I are lost in our own worlds, and talk little.
My thoughts are caught up in many things. I am impatient to see Kel. He knows I am coming back, and that alone fills me with such warmth I sometimes don't know how to contain it. I think often of the Prince and Calmi and how they fare with the Queen. I think about whether I have the Carucan Gods, the Prince's mother, or sheer luck to thank for the fact that I was not poisoned.
On the afternoon of the eighteenth day, the fort of Lyndonia grows visible through the trees. Deep waters glisten around the tall gray walls and towers.
Nervousness cuts my breath short as we approach. I squeeze on the reins of my mare. Tug sees and smiles at me. Heart battering in my chest, we trot the horses across the jetty to the drawbridge. Soldiers greet us and Tug produces a letter from the Duchess stating we are her honored guests. The guards let us pass.
As the clop of hooves over the wooden bridge clatters in my ears I send out my mind through the fort, anxious to touch Kel, to tell him I am here. The fort is abuzz with people. I search the old bell tower and the palace
but do not find him.
We give our horses to the stable boy, and on the Prince's crutches, I hobble through the courtyards towards the royal quarters. The sound of children laughing rings in my ears, increasing my impatience.
I wonder how Kel will look when I see him. Will he still be pale, fragile, and bruised? Will the Duchess really have taken proper care of him?
My crutches are too slow, but Tug puts a hand over mine, telling me without words to take my time, Kel's not going anywhere.
We pass through a stone arch, reaching the large courtyard where the laughter came from. Children in cotton shirts, smelling of sweet melon, play blind man's bluff. I hurry through them, desperation to hold Kel in my arms more than I can bear.
As we pass three tier steps at one of the houses, I stop. Deadran, the Prince’s old tutor, sits on the middle step, smiling to himself. I am about to accost him, pull him up by the collar and demand to know what he's done with Kel, why he isn't looking after him, when a child squeals and Deadran grins.
I turn slowly. A girl dives past me giggling as the boy in the blindfold, arms outstretched moves towards her. The boy's step falters. He reaches for the cloth around his eyes. My left crutch slips from my grip. I fall to one knee, tears welling up over my vision.
The blindfold comes off. The girl running away shouts he's cheating. But Kel doesn't hear her. He walks towards me carefully, as though I might be a dream, might vanish if he moves too fast. I am rooted to the spot, choking on the sight of him. His eyes have almost settled, his face glows coppery from days spent outdoors, his sleeveless arms are strong and muscular.
He doesn't say a word as he stops right before me. Tears roll down my cheeks. I brush them aside but they keep flowing. As though still uncertain I am really there he reaches for the lodestone pendant I gave him and squeezes tightly. The other children with him are growing curious.
“Who is it? Is it her, Kel?” they ask, circling around us. I am sobbing as I hold out my arms. He throws himself into them and I muffle my face against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of flowers in his hair.