The Realms Beyond

by Bo Burnette

  He turned on her, his voice rising. “What have you done? Everything—it’s all gone! You have besmirched my reputation beyond repair, and you don’t seem to even give a care for it.”

  She snorted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  His eyes burned. “Damn it all, Arliss, don’t be such a fool! I had good relations with Merna, and you crushed them. I was on speaking terms with Thane, and you broke that, too! What’s next—the Ikarrans?”

  “Well, maybe they deserved to be broken!” Arliss stiffened. “Watch your language, Eamon. I am a princess.”

  “And a bloody foolish one, if you ask me.”

  “Maybe I’m foolish. But you cannot be friends with so many kinds of evil and good. Just when you need them most, they will stab you in the back. Villains are not good allies.”

  Philip tried unsuccessfully to catch her eye.

  Eamon glowered. “Thane and Merna had never been enemies to me until you came along. I need no hate towards them. I need no war, for that matter.”

  Arliss shook her head. “There is a time for everything. Love and hate, peace and war.”

  The train screamed into the station, its wheels cranking to a stop. No passengers exited, and no others were there to board.

  Eamon stood, casting a glance around. He nodded to Philip and Erik. “Get her on.”

  The two fellows hoisted her up and into the train. As she collapsed on one of the long wooden benches that spanned the walls, she contemplated what Eamon had said, what she had said. Hadn’t Philip spoken those same words to her? And hadn’t he been right?

  The train started to ease out of the station, quickly speeding into a breakneck oblivion. Arliss felt herself being rocked slowly to sleep by the train’s methodical seesaw, almost as if she was floating out of her own body.

  Orlando sniffed at the foggy air which hovered along the river. Morning was coming soon—already a sliver of purple light teased the far edge of the horizon beyond the bay. Soon the storeowners would be setting up their wares, baking their foods, serving up drinks.

  He silently cursed himself. A whole night’s searching, and he still hadn’t found any sign of the Reinholdians! He’d pursued those two chatterbirds, Ilayda and Brallaghan, but even the guards at the outer tower hadn’t seen any sign of them.

  He was a spy, a fighter—and the best in the land, for that matter. Two inexperienced foreigners shouldn’t have been able to evade him so easily. It simply wasn’t possible. That meant one thing: they had found some sort of help.

  Perhaps he should return to the castle. He’d heard nothing from Merna or her guards. Who knew? Perhaps Philip and Arliss were dead already.

  He sighed. He didn’t like either of them, but the idea of the two of them lying in their beds, sleeping, blood soaking the sheets…

  An almost physical pain pierced his heart, and he clenched his eyes shut. Philip possessed so much raw strength and talent, if only he could be trained. And as for Arliss, she was simply special. She was ridiculous and a bit of a babbler at times, but there was something curious to her. She had an almost enchanting truth about her.

  Orlando flipped the edge of his cape as he scattered his thoughts to the morning wind. No time for any of that foolishness. He had to find those other two.

  Something pattered in the narrow alley between the bakery and the pub.

  He stopped, backing up in front of the the bakery windows. Nothing had a right to be scrambling through this tiny backstreet this early in the morning, except for a stray dog. This was no stray dog.

  He caught the person’s wrist as they darted out of the passage. A muffled grunt led to a fierce kick, and Orlando jumped back, still twisting his opponent’s wrist behind her back. She slung her head back at him, tossing the purple hood off her head. She bent her legs at the knee and jumped them into Orlando’s shins.

  He let her go. He could have held her if he had needed to, but there was no need.

  She stumbled forward a few paces, huffing out a breath with her head lowered. “Orlando.”

  “Clare.” He subconsciously reached for where his knives should have been until he remembered Arliss still had them.

  Clare glared at him, her chin lowered, her eyes rising to meet his. “Why out so early?”

  “I’m not out early. I’ve been out all night. You could actually say that I am up late.”

  “I can’t help but feel you’re up t’ no good.” Her accent was so much thicker and sharper than his.

  “Maybe.” He smirked. “But that isn’t your business either way.”

  She gave a single nod. “I will keep to the accords. You’re lucky you have the favor of the queen.”

  “And you’re lucky you have the queen’s son among your numbers.”

  She nodded again, a smile teasing her lips. “Yes, we are, aren’t we? Ríon is an excellent leader.”

  “Merna despises him. I can see it in her eyes.”

  “I don’t know why. He does more good for this country than she does. He actually helps the poor and stops crimes. Merna does nothing, except to find a new variety of citrus to trade in.”

  “You speak awfully poorly of her to like her son so much.”

  “Why should I speak well of her? She has no honor, no kindness. She’s a snake.”

  “Watch your words, scout. I am one of Merna’s men, don’t you know.” He twisted his hand around the pommel of Thane’s sword. He wondered where in the city Thane would be hiding—since he had to be here by now. Maybe Thane had already caught up with some of the Reinholdians. “Have you seen any of the visiting Reinholdians?”

  Clare made a fist, but her face remained placid. “Reinholdians? Were they at the party? I’m not invited to such things, remember? In fact, even Ríon—the very prince of this realm—was not invited.”

  “If he didn’t make a fool of himself, they would invite him. Same for you,” he hissed. “So have you heard anything of the Reinholdians?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head, caramel brown hair glimmering in the sunrise. “How many are they? I will let you know if I hear anything.”

  He ran his hand along his jerkin pockets. Whatever information she might bring would be false as likely as true. “I don’t work with your people.”

  “Nor I with yours.” She pushed past him and disappeared slowly into the distance of the riverside path.

  Arliss awoke to the wonderful feeling of being in her own bed in her own bedroom, with fresh, pure light wafting in from the window. She kept her eyes shut, wallowing in the thickness of the covers. A sweetly spicy scent hovered over the bed like an invisible fog. A deep sigh escaped her lips as her mind came fully awake.

  She wasn’t in her own bed.

  She forced her eyes open wide, and the merest glance confirmed she was not in Reinhold. Nothing could have been farther from her own room. Instead of hewn stone walls, she saw painted wood. A cracked wooden pane instead of a curtain encased the window, and very little furniture graced the symmetric chamber. Two bookshelves, each holding several rows of thick volumes, bracketed on the far side of either wall. By either side of the bed sat a little table. A lone chair to the right of her bed broke the room’s symmetry.

  From that chair a man peered at her. His hair was stark white, but his eyes were younger than any man’s she had ever seen. He may as well have been thirty as a hundred and thirty.

  A gentle sigh puffed from his lips, and he placed a bowl of something on the table beside her. “I thought you would never wake.”

  “What time is it? Who are you? And where am I?”

  The old man smiled. “It is nearly six o’clock—or the twelfth hour, if you prefer the old measurements—on the twenty-eighth of November. My name is Galcobhar, but you may call me Gally, as it’s easier to remember. And you are at Glasberry, where you have been since early this morn.”

  Arliss felt she needed to remember something. A forgotten question tugged at her lips, but she could not recall it, so she asked another questio
n. “Where in Anmór is Glasberry?”

  “South,” he replied, “down near the sea, at the very end of the rails. Here all trains turn about and continue back towards the populated lands.”

  Her mind cleared. “Where is Philip?”

  “He is fine, in a room just down the hall. I just came from tending to him. His injuries had to wait, since yours were more serious.”

  She pushed herself into a sitting position, ignoring the throb in her calf. “Injuries? Is he all right?”

  “Oh, he shall be fine, daughter, just as you shall be. It seems he was jostled a bit by jumping from a window.” Gally chuckled.

  “He did not even mention a thing to me.”

  He leaned onto his knees. “You care about him?”

  She nodded.

  “You are in love with him?”

  She tossed her head back. “I—I don’t know. I thought I was, then I thought I wasn’t. Now I’m just not sure.”

  “Love is confusing.” Gally nodded. “But it is also beautiful.”

  Arliss smiled, blinking back tears. “I suppose I’m mainly seeing the confusion right now.”

  Something rattled in the distance, and the building—or whatever it was, she couldn’t say where they were exactly—shook slightly.

  Gally glanced up, a light flickering in his eyes. “Ah! Speaking of love—the train’s back. There will be one on there who will want to see one here.” He stood up, retrieving the bowl from the table, and started for the door.

  “Who’s that?”

  “You haven’t met them yet, but you will, daughter—you will! And you will like them both, I don’t wonder.” He stopped in the doorway and pointed at her fiercely. “But do not move an inch from that bed. I will see if I can whip ya up a chair on wheels or something to get ya out. We can’t risk you injuring that leg further.”

  “Is it bad?” Her heart sank, worrying she wouldn’t be able to walk for some time.

  “No, no, not at all. A cruelly shaped knife, but not deep. You will be walking by this evening, I don’t doubt.” Gally smiled, jostling the liquid in the bowl. “But I am a better healer than most.”

  Arliss wanted to ask him more questions, but he left without another word. She leaned back on the bed, feeling more rested than she had all week. All week—but how could it have only been a week? Could it have been that last Sabbath that she had sung “The Parting Glass” to her people? Reinhold seemed a dream, a faraway fantasy, compared to this impossible land of parties, trains, and river roads.

  Reinhold…

  Even wrapped in her cloak, Elowyn shivered in the rush of wind which gusted across the exposed tower. She held the cloak down about her sides, trying to ignore both the wind and the uneasiness that dragged at her mind. Something in the wind—in the very air she breathed—reeked of change and confusion.

  Below her, the three-tiered city spread out like a child’s plaything. The thatched roofs blurred and the people became smaller than infants as they bustled throughout the village, buying and trading and selling and making and crafting and living and breathing.

  Elowyn breathed again. The mountains in the north towered as steadfast as ever. To Elowyn they were old friends, never changing, always standing. Much like this city. For thirteen years they had called Reinhold home. It had stood in some form for most of those thirteen years, and she felt it could never fall. It had been built by strong hands and stout hearts—men and women—and would endure through the winds of time, no matter how they howled.

  The door to the tower clicked shut, and soon Kenton stood beside her. “I thought I might find you up here.”

  His voice sounded harsh in the silence that had lasted for so long. She stared out in the direction of the seashore and the lands beyond. “I have many thoughts. Up here, I hoped I might be able to order them. But I cannot.”

  He slid a strong arm around her shoulders. “What troubles you?”

  “Arliss has been gone a week.”

  “She said she would be gone for perhaps three.”

  “Yes, but she is veiled from me. I cannot sense her…feel her…” Elowyn searched for the right words, but for once they would not flow. She sighed. “I cannot explain it. For a time I had a peace in my heart, even for many days after they left. But now I have no peace.”

  “Do not be afraid. Arliss is in God’s hands now.” He pressed his palms into the crenelated stone.

  She turned to him. “It is not fear alone that moves me. It is love. Fear is uncertain. Love is certain. I do not know what is coming to Reinhold, but I am certain that something is coming.”

  “Love and fear cannot live together,” Kenton said. “Love casts out fear.”

  Elowyn exhaled, letting her mind bathe in a river of thoughts. She closed her eyes.

  She was floating through a deep sea. Somehow she walked through the sea, her feet finding footholds in the water far above the ocean floor. Then she was rising, rising, until she walked upon the water itself. A great wave, filled with blues and reds and purples, curled up high above her and cast her forward upon a wide shore. She saw Arliss upon that shore, assailed by many dragons and worse foes, but she could not rush to her aid—she could only watch. The darkness gathered thick around Arliss, but still a light emanated from her. Then other lights joined her—some purple, some blue, some red—and joined her light, and the darkness swallowed itself up.

  Elowyn opened her eyes, once again looking towards the distant western horizon. “I see her again. She is safe for the moment.” She turned to her husband, her eyes finally meeting his. “The past is stirring. It is coming to Reinhold.”

  Chapter Thirty: Royals

  “WHAT DID YOU SAY?” ARLISS COULD NOT BELIEVE what she had heard.

  “I said, I am Ríon, the heir of Anmór.” The flaxen-haired young man sat on the divan opposite the one on which she sat. His dark eyes shone in an angular face with sharp cheekbones. “Is that too hard for you to believe?”

  She grasped for words as her mind whirled through the past week: the voyage from Reinhold, the sea battle, the Isle of Light, Orlando’s betrayal, their capture by Eamon, meeting Harrison and Merwin and Merna, running from Thane, the train, and now Glasberry.

  She shifted her leg where it sat propped on an ottoman. A murmur of pain trickled up from her calf. “I don’t understand it. How can you be the heir—the prince—and yet be the leader of some outcast band?”

  A wide grin spread across Ríon’s face. “Not just some outcast band. The outcast band. There are no others. My parents wouldn’t allow them.”

  The doors to the kitchen flapped open, and Gally bustled into the room with a tray of tea. Eamon booted in behind him.

  Gally set the tea on a table between the two divans before tiptoeing over to close the wooden window panes. “Don’t want too much light—or unfriendly eyes. This floor lies above ground and can be seen from the train station.”

  As if responding to Gally’s words, a train whistled by, roaring so loudly Arliss felt it would crash through the lodge. She reached for a teacup. “How do you endure the noise?”

  Gally laughed. “How else would we survive? Any closer to civilization we would be found out; any further away, we would have no quick transportation.” He nodded. “We make do.”

  Arliss leaned back, draining a long swig of tea. Finally, real hospitality—no wine, no assassins, no stabbings—just simple shelter and strong tea. She managed a laugh. “So, I have the pleasure of meeting Prince Ríon of Anmór, then?”

  “Indeed.” Ríon set his own teacup down. “And I, of meeting Princess Arliss of Reinhold.”

  “The first princess of a country hardly thirteen years old.”

  Ríon’s eyes grew more serious. “It is a first in so many ways.” He glanced at Gally. His jaw surged in agitation. “That train arrived fifteen minutes ago, didn’t it?”

  Gally burst into laughter and slapped a hand on Ríon’s shoulder. “She will come, my son, she will come! She’s just being careful about it.”r />
  “Am I now?” The cool, sudden voice shocked everyone—including Eamon—but Gally recovered from the surprise first. He rushed to greet the young woman who had just stepped into the circular den.

  “My dear granddaughter! Safe and lovely and all in one piece. Would you like some tea?”

  “Please—with honey, if you don’t mind.”

  The woman stepped all the way into the room, and Arliss got a good look at her. She was probably Arliss’s same age, with wavy golden-brown hair hanging just past her shoulders. Her purple cloak, flecked with mud, almost touched the floor. Her expression was that of one who has seen uncertainty beyond measure. Arliss felt they were already friends.

  Ríon leapt up from his chair, his eyes shining. “Clare! It feels longer than it’s been.”

  “Not a long enough break from me, though, I’d wager?” Her lips twisted as she melted into Ríon’s embrace.

  Arliss fingered the handle of her teacup, unsure whether to watch the seemingly endless hug or look away. She felt almost as if she were intruding on a terribly private moment. Did Philip ever hug her like—

  “And who is this?” Clare turned from Ríon and smiled at Arliss.

  Gally reentered with Eamon, Erik, and Philip, as well as the honey. “This is the Reinholdian princess, a guest of Eamon.”

  Clare turned to Eamon first. “Many moons have passed since I last saw you, Captain. And now you’ve brought a lovely lass for my company. How thoughtful of you.”

  Eamon did not smile. “If I had thought for even a moment, I would not have brought her.”

  Arliss laughed dryly. “If I myself had thought a moment, I would not have joined him.”

  Clare let out a burst of laughter. “Why are you here, then?”

  Arliss stopped short. Why was she here? The past few days had been focused more on saving hers and her friends’ lives rather than accomplishing any goal. Now, in the relative safety of Glasberry, she recalled her mission’s purpose. “I left Reinhold in order to find our kingdom’s ancient treasures. However, it seems that the warmonger Thane is mongering war again, and he is in league with at least Merna—if not all of Anmór.”