“Come here, Ghost,” Jelena called softly to the dog, and the old beast climbed laboriously to his feet and ambled over to her. He pushed his massive, grizzled head into her hands and stared up adoringly into her eyes.
In his prime, Ghost had been Magnes’s favorite hunting dog and his constant companion. Despite his ferocity in the field, he had always been patient and gentle with people. Now, stiff and slow with age, he spent most of his days either lying before a fire or sleeping in the sun.
Jelena bent to press her cheek against the wiry fur atop Ghost’s head, breathing in his musky aroma. She had always loved this dog for his sweet nature and because he belonged to Magnes.
With a final scratch behind the ears, she left Ghost at the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor of the keep. Climbing took too much out of him now, so after uttering a soft whuffof farewell, the big dog went back to his patch of sunshine.
Jelena made her way up the stairs and down a short corridor to the polished oak door of her uncle’s study. Before knocking, she smoothed her skirts and made sure that the tips of her ears were hidden beneath her hair; concealment of the most elven of her features had become automatic. This simple act of protective camouflage somehow always made her feel a little safer and stronger. She drew in a deep, shaky breath, and rapped firmly.
“Come!” a deep voice called out from within.
Jelena pushed the door open just wide enough to slide her slim body through, closing it carefully behind her. She paused, her quick, hazel eyes taking in the scene before her. Dark, heavy wood and shadowy corners made up her uncle’s study. A small fire burned in the stone hearth to her left. Tapestries hung against the walls, depicting various scenes from the Stories of the Gods. Numerous cases and tables were scattered about the room, all serving as display areas for an extraordinary collection of scale models. There were models of ships, siege engines—even a complete replica of Amsara Castle itself. All had been lovingly constructed out of wood and metal by the duke’s own hands. The smells of dust and wood smoke infused the air, and a telltale tickle in Jelena’s nose heralded a sneeze, which she quickly stifled.
“Come here, girl. I can’t speak to you when you’re across the room,” her uncle commanded.
“Yes, Uncle,” Jelena answered, and quickly crossed the expanse of Sermatian carpeting to stand before the duke, who sat at a small writing table. The scritch-scratchof quill pen upon parchment was the only sound in the room for several heartbeats as the duke worked, ignoring his niece completely. Just as Jelena began to fidget, he put down his pen and fixed his steely blue eyes upon her.
Duke Teodorus Preseren looked much like his castle’s keep—squarely built, imposing, and strong. He had a broad, plain face, with a heavy jaw and beetling brows, which at first glance could give the false impression of brutish stupidity. However, one would only have to look into his eyes, which gleamed with a shrewd intelligence, to realize that underestimating the Duke of Amsara would be a serious mistake. He was a man completely devoid of any sentimentality, an able administrator, hard and extremely demanding with his people, yet well respected for his fairness and judgment. Jelena knew that he took very good care of the folk of Amsara, and because of this, she had never borne her uncle any ill will.
“I’ll get straight to the point, so you can get on with your work,” the duke said, never one to waste time on trivial things like greetings and pleasantries. “Tonight, you’ll be allowed to feast in the great hall with the family and our guests.”
Jelena gasped, uncertain that she should believe what she had just heard. “Uncle! I…” she began, but the duke cut her off.
“You can thank me later, after the feast. Go see Fania.” Fania was the castle’s seamstress. “She has some old gowns of Thessalina’s that my daughter doesn’t wear anymore. You can choose one. You’ll know where she is, I trust.”
“I know where Fania works, Uncle,” Jelena answered, trying hard to keep the excitement from her voice.
Her uncle scowled, as if irritated by Jelena’s interruption. “Have Claudia help you with your hair. Here, take this. It may help to keep that thatch of yours in its place.” He held out a circlet.
Jelena’s embarrassment turned to wonder as she took the circlet from her uncle’s large, callused hand. Finely crafted of pure silver and beautiful in its simplicity, the circlet gleamed softly in the natural light streaming in from the window behind the duke’s desk. Jelena turned it over in her hands, admiring the tracery of leaves and flowers engraved on its surface.
“I can’t believe you’re allowing me to wear this, Uncle. It…it’s much too fine…” Jelena’s voice trailed off. At the back of her mind, a little bell of alarm began to chime. She shivered.
“That circlet belonged to my sister, Drucilla… your mother. I reckon you’re entitled to wear it, at least tonight, anyway. It should fit. Your head is about the same size as hers… same hair, too.”
“Thank you, Uncle. I’ll wear it proudly,” Jelena replied.
“You can go now,” the duke said by way of dismissal. He picked up his pen and resumed writing, as if Jelena had suddenly vanished from the room.
Just then, the door swung open and Thessalina entered. “Father!” she cried. “You can’t be serious!” She stomped across the room, radiating fury like the blast from a forge.
The duke’s only daughter had a face too hard to be pretty, but the force of her personality nonetheless drew men to her like a magnet and allowed her to bend them to her will. The full strength of her power emanated from her like the heat of the sun as she stood facing her father. Even the duke seemed to shrink a little in the face of her towering anger.
“I will not marry that…that toad!” Thessalina shouted. She hammered her gloved fist down onto the duke’s writing desk, sending the ink pot tumbling to the floor, where it disgorged its contents in a black spray upon the carpet. This proved to be too much. The duke catapulted himself up out of his chair and thrust his face to within a nose-length of his daughter’s. Neither of them acknowledged Jelena’s presence.
“I, uh…” Jelena stuttered as she backed away a few steps. Thessalina had nearly knocked her over.
As if seeing her cousin for the first time, Thessalina turned to face Jelena, blue eyes blazing. “Get out!” she growled.
Jelena fled.
Down the stairs and past the loudly snoring Ghost she ran, her mother’s precious circlet clutched tightly in her sweaty hands. She didn’t stop running until her feet passed over the threshold of the keep and she found herself back out in the yard. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a panicky rabbit, and her mouth seemed to have lost all of its moisture.
What a scene!she thought. Jelena had witnessed Thessalina’s rages before, but never up close. She shuddered to imagine the scorching heat of her cousin’s wrath turned upon her. She would be reduced to ash!
As the rush faded from her limbs, leaving her drained and shaky, Jelena made her way back to the room she shared with Claudia in the servants’ hall. Once there, she sat on the edge of her cot to examine the silver circlet. Holding this object that had once graced the head of her mother mined a deep vein of emotion within Jelena’s soul. It brought forth grief and loss, and tears for the young woman who had died to give her child life, a young mother whom her daughter would never know. Yet, the daughter did know something of her mother, in a way.
Surely there’s a lot of my mother in my own looks and personality, she thought. Claudia is forever telling me so.
Jelena dried her eyes and blew her nose upon her sleeve. She then placed the circlet lovingly in her chest, on top of the one other dress she owned. She would go now to see Fania and pick out something to wear from among Thessalina’s castoffs, but even a castoff from her cousin would be a far finer garment than Jelena could ever hope to acquire on her own. Then, she would return to work.
As she walked back down to the yard, she had a sudden change of heart. After she chose a dress, she would not return to the hot
, noisy kitchen. Instead, she would go up to the battlements to think. The windy solitude on those man-made heights always seemed to help clear her head. She needed to try to make sense of things.
Why, after all these years, has Uncle suddenly seen fit to allow me to attend a family feast? There has to be a specific reason behind his decision.
Jelena suspected it had nothing to do with any newly discovered affection for her. So, that could only mean her uncle needed her there for a particular purpose, one that would ultimately be to his benefit, and not necessarily to hers.
Of that, I’m certain.
Chapter 2
Unwelcome News
"Good mornin’, an’ happy Sansa to ye, Lord Magnes,” the groom said as he took the reins of the bay gelding and held them for his young master. The son and Heir of Duke Teodorus had just returned from his morning rounds, satisfied and cheerful.
“An excellent morning it is, Dari! The sun is shining, the orchards are in full bloom, and we shall all have a very happy Sansa, indeed!” Magnes threw his booted leg up and over the bay’s withers and slid to the ground. He ruffled Dari’s ginger hair, and the boy favored him with a gap-toothed grin.
“Heard tell Cook’s outdone herself on the vittles, milord. My old mam says never in her life has she seen such a Sansa cake as this ‘un. It be huge, says she!”
Magnes laughed. It delighted him to see the boy so excited. “Well, if you give Storm here a good, thorough rubdown, I’ll see to it that you get an especially big piece of that cake.” He slapped the gelding’s shoulder affectionately, and the horse whickered in reply.
“Aye, Lord Magnes, I will!” Dari tugged on the horse’s bridle, clicking his tongue to encourage the animal to follow him to the stables. Magnes smiled as he watched the boy walk away with the horse ambling along in tow. He had always liked Dari, a good boy and a hard worker. He seemed to have a special way with horses, an instinct almost. It allowed him to get beneath the skin of his charges, to inhabit their minds, to think like they did. Magnes had no doubt that someday Dari would be Amsara’s Horsemaster.
Magnes Preseren was not an overly ambitious man. By accident of birth, he was the Heir to one of the richest duchies in the Empire, but he cared nothing about his position. Magnes’s true passions were twofold. He loved the very land itself, with a deep, emotional connection few others understood.
He also loved Livie, the raven-haired daughter of Amsara’s chief game warden—a respectable girl from a respectable family. She and Magnes had loved each other since they had first met as children. Whenever the warden came up to the castle, Livie would accompany him, and she and Magnes would quickly steal away and lose themselves in adventure. Eventually, she started coming to the castle on her own, to work in the kitchens until she reached the age where she could apprentice at her mother’s trade. As a young boy not yet burdened with the social restrictions of his station, Magnes could befriend a common girl, and no one would disapprove.
As the years passed, their innocent affections gradually transformed into adult passion with the maturing of their bodies and emotions. But with maturity had come the painful realization that their love could never be openly acknowledged, at least not without devastating consequences. Livie’s family might be respectable, but as the daughter of a commoner and servant, she would never be a suitable marriage prospect for Duke Teodorus’s Heir.
Unable to be together openly, they had carried on their love affair in secret, but the fear of a pregnancy had put a stop to any physical intimacy. Now, with Livie’s eighteenth birthday rapidly approaching, her father would be looking to find her a husband. Magnes felt unsure how he would cope with seeing her wed to another man, but what choice did he have? The grief of their predicament had been keeping him awake at night, tossing and turning with worry.
Magnes shivered with the memory of their most recent time together. They had been unable to control themselves and had made love, filled with all of the desperate passion of doomed lovers. He sighed, and with great effort, pushed the memory aside. Any decisions about his situation with Livie would have to wait for now. He had duchy business to attend to, and his father was expecting him.
Magnes left the stables and made his way across the yard towards the keep. All around him, the hustle and bustle of festival preparations proceeded at a frenetic pace. He had to weave his way through rows of trestle tables and dodge scurrying servants, their arms laden with baskets of linens, crockery, and tableware. His spirits, brought low by the impossibility of his situation with Livie, were soon lifted as the cheerful hubbub of the yard re-instilled within him the happiness of the season.
Anyone who didn’t know him by sight might easily mistake Magnes for a farmer. He usually dressed simply in a linen or cotton tunic, leather jerkin, breeches, and sturdy leather boots. This morning was no exception, for he had spent it, like he spent most mornings, riding over his father’s vast estate, overseeing the duke’s agricultural interests. He had been competently performing these duties since coming of age at fifteen. Gifted with an instinctive understanding of how the land, weather, and the turning of the seasons worked to produce the bounty upon which all of Amsara depended, Magnes desired very little else out of life.
Unfortunately, Fate and the gods had decreed that he be born a duke’s eldest child, and with that station came a birthright that he could not escape, no matter how much he might wish otherwise. So, in exchange for allowing him to run Amsara’s agricultural operations, the duke had insisted that Magnes train at arms and study the classic subjects usually included in a young nobleman’s education so that he would be prepared to take over as duke upon his father’s death.
Each time Magnes scooped up a hand-full of rich, black Amsaran soil and inhaled its heady aroma, redolent of the promise of growth, he imagined life as just a common-born man, free to marry the girl he loved.
The keep felt like an oasis of calm after the controlled chaos of the yard. A fire burned in the large hearth, for despite the growing warmth of the day, the stones of the keep’s thick walls still retained their nighttime chill. Old Ghost lay sprawled on the stones before the fire, snoring loudly. Magnes took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor where his father’s study was located. As he approached, he could see that the door stood partially open. The sound of voices, raised in anger, drifted through. Cautiously, he entered.
Magnes’s sister Thessalina was as unlike in physical appearance to their father as Magnes himself was akin. Whereas he shared their father’s same stocky build, square face, and curling brown hair, Thessalina was their deceased mother reborn. She stood a good two inches taller than both her kinsmen, with mahogany hair that hung in thick, lustrous waves to her waist, and a slender body honed to the peak of fitness by years of arms training.
Right now, she and Duke Teodorus were squared off in a shouting match, nose to nose. Thessalina appeared to be winning, for the duke threw up his hands in exasperation and turned away.
“Uh…Is it safe to come in?” Magnes asked, a tentative smile playing across his lips. Both combatants turned as one to face him.
The duke irritably waved his arm. “Yes, yes, come in, son. Your sister and I were just having a small disagreement, that’s all.” Duke Teodorus turned hard eyes upon his daughter.
“A smalldisagreement? Father! I would hardly call…”
“Thessalina, please! We will discuss this later!”
“I could come back in a little while, Father,” Magnes offered.
“No, of course not. You have my morning report, and I want to hear it now.” The duke glared pointedly at the seething Thessalina, who narrowed her eyes and set her mouth in a hard line but kept it shut. The duke returned to his desk chair and sat. “Look at this mess,” he muttered, peering down at the ink splattered carpet. “I paid a lot of money for that carpet. Hmmm. Well. Talk to me, son.”
“The orchards are in full flower, including all of the new apple trees we planted. We should have a record harvest this year, if a
ll goes well.”
“That was a smart move, increasing the number of trees and when the new ones mature, we’ll probably have to expand the mill to keep up.”
“We should easily double our production over last year with just the old trees alone,” Magnes added, a touch of pride in his voice.
“We’ll be able to increase our profit without raising our price. Well done, Son,” the duke said, nodding his head in approval. It had been Magnes’s idea to expand the very profitable cider business. Amsara was famed throughout the empire for the exceptional quality of its cider.
“There’ll be no profits for anyone, ‘cept the arms makers if there’s a war on,” Thessalina interjected. “We should be discussing improvements to the fortifications and how soon we can raise and train our levies. We are a border duchy after all, Father, or have you forgotten?”
The duke shot his daughter a pained look. “There’ll be no war. The elf king has shown no interest in anything outside his borders. It’s been over a hundred years since the Empire and The Western Lands had any hostilities between ‘em, and that was Silverlock’s father started that business. So far, Silverlock himself has been nothing but peaceful, as was his brother before him.”
“I agree with Father,” Magnes said. “The elves have been good neighbors. They’ve left us alone, pretty much. Why should things change now?”
“You’ve heard the rumors, Father. You can’t just ignore them,” Thessalina countered.
“I’ve heard them, yes. The empress wants to take back territory her great-great grandfather lost to the elves during the last war. The elves have had the Portanus Valley for a long time now. They are not about to give it up without a very nasty fight. It’s too important to them. I don’t think the empress’ll be foolish enough to spend the enormous amount of money it would take to wage that fight, just to satisfy some musty old debt of honor.”
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