Micah’s been looking forward to the hunt? Raisa thought. Not nearly as much as I have. He’s able to come and go as he pleases.
He’s probably still angry about last night, she thought. That’s why he’s making us wait. He’s not used to anyone saying no to him.
Raisa kneed Switcher, and the mare tossed her head, breaking the wizard’s grip. Switcher snorted, shying at a leaf skidding along the ground. She was as eager to be gone as Raisa.
“I’m often late,” Raisa’s younger sister, Mellony, piped up, urging her pony forward. “Maybe we should try to be patient.”
Raisa threw her a scathing look, and Mellony bit her lip and looked away.
“Micah likely lost track of time,” Lord Bayar went on, trying to settle his own horse, a large-boned stallion. The breeze ruffled his mane of silver hair, streaked with wizard red. “You know how boys are.”
“Perhaps you could give him a pocket watch on his next name day, then?” Raisa said acerbically, eliciting the “Raisa ana’Marianna!” response from her mother.
I don’t care! she thought. It was bad enough she’d been cooped up in Fellsmarch Castle since solstice, closeted with tutors and overburdened with three years’ worth of catch-up lessons on useless topics.
For instance: A lady can converse with anyone, of any age or station. At table, a hostess is responsible for assuring that everyone participate in conversation. She should direct the conversation away from politics and other divisive subjects and be prepared with alternative topics should the need arise.
If a lady should do this, Raisa wondered, should a man do the same? Is he required to?
Both Raisa and her mother had changed during the three years she’d been gone to Demonai Camp, and now it seemed they were constantly at odds. Her clan-born father, Averill, had been a buffer between them. Now he was always traveling, and Marianna persisted in treating Raisa like a child.
These days, Raisa couldn’t help hearing the whispers that followed after the queen. Some said she paid too little attention to finances, policy, and affairs of state. Others said she paid too much attention to the High Wizard and the council on Gray Lady. Had it always been this way, or was Raisa just noticing it more because she was older?
Maybe it was her grandmother Elena’s influence. The Matriarch of Demonai Camp was full of opinions about Vale politics and the growing influence of wizards, and she had never hesitated to express them during Raisa’s three years with her father’s family.
After the relative freedom of Demonai Camp, Raisa found it a misery to force her feet into the pinchy shoes and elaborate stockings favored at court, and to sweat and itch under the ruffled girlish dresses her mother chose for her. She was nearly sixteen, nearly grown, but most days Raisa resembled a tiered wedding cake on two legs.
Not today. Today she’d pulled on her tunic and leggings and clan-made boots, layering her hip-length riding coat over all. She’d slung her bow over her shoulder and slid a quiver of arrows into the boot attached to her saddle. When she’d led Switcher from the stables, Lord Bayar had run his eyes over her and glanced at the queen to assess her reaction.
Raisa’s mother tightened her lips and let go a great sigh, but apparently decided it was too late to force her daughter back inside to change clothes. Mellony, of course, mirrored their mother in her tailored riding jacket and long, divided riding skirt, a froth of petticoats cascading over her boots.
Mellony was the image of their mother. She’d inherited Marianna’s blond hair, her creamy pale complexion, and looked to grow as tall or taller. Raisa favored her father’s side, with her dark hair, green eyes, and small frame.
So here they were, dressed and eager for the hunt on a fine sunny day, and it was being squandered waiting for the tardy Micah Bayar and his cousins.
Micah was a daring horseman and aggressive, competitive hunter. Though he was just sixteen, his dark, dangerous good looks had half the girls at court swooning over him.
Since her return to Fellsmarch, he’d courted her with a flattering intensity she found hard to resist. The fact that their romance was forbidden made it all the more appealing. Fellsmarch Castle was full of eyes and ears, but they still found places to meet unsupervised. Micah’s kisses were intoxicating, and his embraces made her head swim.
It was more than that, though. He had a savage, cynical wit that picked apart the society that had birthed the two of them. He made her laugh, and little did these days.
Raisa knew that a flirtation with Micah Bayar was risky, but it was a way of rebelling against her mother and the constraints of court life. Rebellion only went so far, though. She was not empty-headed Missy Hakkam, ready to trade her virtue for a bit of bad poetry and a kiss on the ear.
And patience was not Micah Bayar’s long suit. Hence their dispute the previous night.
She’d looked forward to hunting with him, but she wasn’t willing to wait forever. Time and opportunity were leaking away. The story of her life.
Captain Edon Byrne and a triple of soldiers were mounted up and ready too, conversing quietly among themselves. Byrne was the captain of the Queen’s Guard, the latest of a long line of Byrnes in that position. He’d insisted on providing escort on the day’s hunt, over Lord Bayar’s objections.
Now Byrne called over to them. “Shall I send one of my men after the boys, Your Majesty?” he asked.
“You could all go, if it was up to me, Captain Byrne,” Lord Bayar drawled. “Queen Marianna and the princesses will be perfectly safe. There is no need for you and your men to drag after us like the overlong tail of a kite. The clans may be savage and unpredictable, but they’re unlikely to try anything with me along.” He fingered the amulet that hung around his neck, in case Byrne had missed the point. The High Wizard always enunciated his words slowly and distinctly when he spoke to Captain Byrne, as if Byrne were a half-wit.
Byrne met the wizard’s eyes unapologetically, his windburned face impassive. “That may be, but it’s not the clans I’m worried about.”
“Well, obviously.” Bayar smiled thinly. “When you and the royal consort have repeatedly delivered young Princess Raisa right into their hands.” Distaste flickered over his face.
That was another thing that annoyed Raisa: Lord Bayar never used her father’s name. He called Averill Lightfoot Demonai the royal consort, as if it were an appointed office that anyone could hold. Many in the Vale aristocracy despised Raisa’s father because he was a clan trader who’d made a marriage many of them wanted for themselves.
But, in fact, the queen of the Fells had not married lightly. Averill had brought with him the support of the clans and counter-balanced the power of the Wizard Council. Which, naturally, the High Wizard did not like.
“Lord Bayar!” the queen said sharply. “You know very well that Princess Raisa is fostered with the clans as required by the Nǽming.”
The Nǽming was the agreement between the clans and the Wizard Council that had ended the Breaking—the magical calamity that had nearly destroyed the world.
“But surely it is unnecessary for Princess Raisa to spend so much time away from court,” Bayar said, smiling at the queen. “Poor thing. Think of all the dances and pageants and parties she’s missed.”
And stitchery and elocution classes, Raisa added to herself. A bloody shame.
Byrne studied Raisa as he might a horse he was thinking of buying, then said in his blunt fashion, “She doesn’t look any the worse for wear to me. And she rides like a Demonai warrior.”
That was high praise, coming from Byrne. Raisa sat up a little straighter.
Queen Marianna put her hand on Byrne’s arm. “Do you really think it’s so dangerous, Edon?” She was always eager to bring any argument to a close as quickly as possible, even if it meant throwing a bandage over a boil.
Byrne looked down at the queen’s hand on his arm, then up into her face. His craggy features softened a fraction. “Your Majesty, I know how much you love the hunt. If it comes to following the herd
s into the mountains, Lord Bayar will be unable to accompany you. The borderlands are full of refugees. When a man’s family is starving, he’ll do whatever it takes to get them fed. There’s armies of mercenaries traveling through, heading to and from the Ardenine Wars. The Queen of the Fells would be a valuable prize.”
“Is that all you’re worried about, Captain Byrne?” Bayar retorted, eyes narrowed.
Byrne didn’t blink. “Is there something else I should be worried about, my lord? Something you’d like to tell me?”
“Perhaps we should go on,” Queen Marianna said, decisively snapping her reins. “Micah and the others should have no difficulty catching us up.”
Lord Bayar nodded stiffly. Micah’s going to hear about this, Raisa thought. The High Wizard looked as though he could bite off someone’s head and spit out the teeth. She urged Switcher forward, claiming the lead. Byrne maneuvered his great bay horse so that he rode beside her, with the rest following after.
Their trail climbed through lush upland meadows sparkling with starflowers and buttercups. Red-winged blackbirds clung impossibly to swaying seedheads left over from the previous year. Raisa drank in the details like a painter deprived of color.
Byrne looked about as well, but to a different purpose. He scanned the forest to either side, his back straight, reins held loosely in his hands. His men fanned out around them, riding three miles to their one, scouting the way ahead and monitoring their back trail.
“When does Amon come home?” Raisa asked, trying out her hard-learned conversational skills on the dour captain.
Byrne studied her face for a long moment before answering. “We expect him any time, Your Highness. Because of the fighting in Arden, he’s had to take the long way around from Oden’s Ford.”
It had been more than three years since Raisa had seen Amon—Byrne’s eldest son. After her three years at Demonai Camp, she’d returned to court at solstice to find that Amon was gone to Wien House, the military school at Oden’s Ford. He meant to follow in his father’s footsteps, and soldiers began their training early.
She and Amon had been fast friends since childhood, when despite their difference in station, a lack of other children at court had forced them together. Fellsmarch Castle had been lonely without him (not that she’d had much time to be lonely). When I’m queen, Raisa thought, I’m going to keep my friends close by. It was one more entry on a long list of good intentions.
Now Amon was on his way back to the Fells, traveling the hundreds of miles from Oden’s Ford on his own. Raisa envied him. Even among the clans, she always traveled with some kind of guard. What would it be like, choosing her own way, sleeping when and where she liked, each day brilliant with possibility and risk?
The hunting party turned west, following a trail that stitched its way along the side of the valley. Though they were hundreds of feet above the Dyrnnewater, the roar of its cascades floated up to them.
They passed through a narrow canyon, and it grew noticeably cooler as the stone walls closed in on either side of them. Raisa shivered, feeling a twinge of worry, a vibration in her bones as if the rich web of life around her had been plucked by unseen fingers.
Switcher snorted and tossed her head, nearly ripping the reins from Raisa’s hands. The gloom on either side of the trail seemed to coalesce into gray shadows loping alongside her, their bodies compressing and extending.
Gray wolves, the symbol of her house. Raisa caught a glimpse of narrow lupine heads and amber eyes, tongues lolling over razor-sharp teeth, and then they disappeared.
Wolves were said to appear to the blooded queens at turning points: times of danger and opportunity. They had never appeared to Raisa before, which wasn’t surprising since she was not yet queen.
She glanced back at her mother, who was laughing at something Lord Bayar had said. The queen hadn’t seemed to notice anything unusual.
Had Raisa been riding out from Demonai with her clan friends, they’d have taken her premonition as an omen, poking and prodding at it like a snake in the dirt, studying over its possible meaning. Being of the Gray Wolf lineage, Raisa was expected to have the second sight, and this skill was respected.
A voice broke into her thoughts. “Are you well, Your Highness?”
Startled, Raisa looked up into Byrne’s worried eyes, gray as the ocean under a winter sky. He’d come up next to her and taken hold of Switcher’s bridle, inclining his head so he could hear her answer.
“Well…um…I…” she stammered, for once at a loss for words. She thought of saying, I have a peculiar feeling we’re in danger, Captain Byrne, or, By chance did you see any wolves along the way?
Even if the gruff captain took her seriously, what could he do?
“I’m fine, Captain,” she said. “It’s been a long time since breakfast is all.”
“Would you like a biscuit?” he asked, digging into his saddlebag. “I’ve some in my—”
“That’s all right,” she said hastily. “We’ll have lunch soon, right?”
The canyon opened into a pretty, upland meadow. The deer herd had been seen grazing there a week ago, but they were gone now. In this season they were likely heading to higher ground, and with the wizard Lord Bayar along, the hunting group couldn’t follow. They were pushing at clan boundaries as it was.
They stopped for their midday in the meadow, just outside the mouth of the narrow canyon. The meal was an elaborate affair, laid out on fancy cloths, with cheese and cold meats, fruit, and bottles of wine and cider. While the rest of them ate, two of Byrne’s soldiers scouted ahead, looking for traces of the missing herd.
Raisa had little appetite. She sat, arms wrapped around her knees, still unable to shake the feeling of disquiet that pressed down upon her, pinning her to the ground. It was just noon, but the day seemed to darken, and the sunlight and shadow that dappled the ground dissolved away. Gray shapes prowled the gloom, returning each time she blinked them away.
She peered up through the leafy canopy overhead. Although the sky to the south was a clear blue, overhead it had gone milky gray, the sun a bright disk swimming in a gathering haze. Raisa sniffed the air. Her nose stung with the scent of burning leaves.
“Is something burning?” she asked nobody in particular. She’d spoken so quietly she didn’t think anyone had heard, but Byrne rose from his seat at the edge of the woods and walked to the center of the meadow, scanning the slopes on all sides. Frowning, he gazed at the sky for a long moment, then looked over at the horses. They shifted, stamping their feet and straining at their tethers.
Raisa felt the growing conviction that something was terribly wrong. The air seemed to catch in her throat, and she coughed.
“Load up the horses,” Captain Byrne ordered, setting his men to clearing the camp and packing up the picnic things.
“Oh, do let’s stay longer, Edon.” Queen Marianna raised a glass of wine. “It’s so pretty here. It doesn’t matter if we don’t take a deer.”
Lord Bayar sprawled next to her. “I can’t climb much farther without violating the Nǽming and all that. But you go on, Captain Byrne, and find our princesses a deer. I will stay here and look after the queen.”
Raisa stared at the scene before her—the blanket spread under the trees, the darkly handsome wizard with his boots crossed at the ankles, bejeweled hand resting on the blanket. Her pretty blond mother, a confection even in her riding clothes, cheeks flushed like a girl’s.
It reminded Raisa of a painting in the galleries at home—a frozen moment that left you wondering about what had happened before, and would happen after.
“I’ll stay with you, Mama,” Raisa said, plunking herself down at the edge of the blanket and looking the High Wizard in the eye, knowing instinctively that they were enemies. Wishing her father didn’t spend so much time away.
Byrne’s soldiers had continued to load the increasingly restive horses, though it wasn’t easy. Now the tall captain came and stood over them. “Your Grace, I think we’d best go back. The
re’s a fire close by, and it’s headed this way.”
“A fire,” Lord Bayar said. He scooped up a handful of damp leaves, crushed it in his gloved palm, and let the soggy mass drop. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know, Lord Bayar,” Byrne said doggedly. “It doesn’t make sense. But there is one, and it’s upslope from us on Hanalea. I’ve seen them come down on people before they can get out of harm’s way.”
“But that’s only in late summer,” Queen Marianna said. “Not early spring.”
“Exactly.” Lord Bayar rolled his eyes. “You’re an alarmist, Byrne.”
Queen Marianna touched Bayar’s arm, looking anxiously from him to Byrne. “I do smell smoke, Gavan. Perhaps we should listen to the captain.”
While they talked a sullen dusk had fallen over the meadow. An odd wind sprang up, blowing upslope, carrying the smoke away from them, like some hidden beast inhaling. Raisa scrambled to her feet and walked out into the clearing, looking back toward Hanalea. As she watched, a dense, purplish cloud billowed skyward from the ridge above, under-lit by orange and green fire. A whorl of flame rose from the ground, a fire tornado sixty feet tall. She could hear it now, too, the pitch pines snapping in the heat, the throaty roar of the inferno.
It was like one of those dreams where you try to scream and it takes several tries to make a sound. “Captain Byrne!” Her voice seemed small against the howl of the fire. She pointed. “It is a fire. Look!”
Just then, a dozen deer exploded from the trees, bounded across the meadow, and raced into the canyon, oblivious to the would-be hunters in their path.
Immediately after, Raisa heard the pounding of hooves, and three riders burst into the meadow from the direction the deer had come. Their horses were lathered and wild-eyed, the riders only a little less so.
“It’s coming! Right behind us! A wildfire! Run!” shouted the rider in the lead, and it took Raisa a moment to recognize cool, sardonic Micah Bayar behind that soot-smudged face. It was the missing Micah and his cousins Arkeda and Miphis Mander.
The Seven Realms- The Complete Series Page 3