“She’s a willful child, isn’t she?”
Ailith willful? No, Selah thought with a small frown. No. No. Not willful. Bright yes, in mind and spirit but willful, no.
“Ah. I misspoke myself. I meant she’s strong-willed.”
Yes. Strong-willed and even-tempered like her father. Geric. Even-tempered. No more. Not anymore. She rarely saw him. She never saw him. Not anymore. Not the man she married. Not the man she’d loved so deeply.
“My lady.”
Tolan always called her that, never by her name.
“She’s strong-willed, is she not?” Tolan said, his voice that soft sing-song.
Sighing, she nodded.
Tolan nodded in return, his head mirroring her own. “As I thought, as I thought. And stubborn, as well. Like her mother. Stubborn, determined, but in the end…”
Her head was nodding. Yes, stubborn sometimes as well. Determined.
“Good, good,” he said. “Then I’ll have to be more careful. It will simply take more time. Excellent. Thank you, my lady.”
He was gone. She was relieved. Her hand went to her neck. Something bothered her there. It itched maddeningly. The chain. She hated chains.
What had she been thinking?
Was Tolan here? Tolan had been here. Yes. Again. She didn’t want him here.
Something nettled her neck. She worried at it like she would at a sore tooth, her fingers drifting to it and then drifting away.
Ailith. Tolan had been asking about Ailith. Somewhere deep inside of her that little voice was shouting again. Tolan had been asking about Ailith. Her daughter. That voice sometimes sounded like her mother. Like her mother was taking her by the shoulders and shaking her.
That itch, that maddening itch.
It was dark. She looked out the windows and now it was dark.
Tolan had been here. He’d been asking about Ailith. Her mother had been shouting at her. No. Mother wasn’t here. Tolan had been here. Asking about Ailith. Her daughter. Her only child.
That maddening itch. She dragged at it. The chain snapped and it and the little charm fell to the floor.
For a moment she just stared at it. In the center of the charm was a small oily stone, dark but if you stared at it long enough you could see shadows move in it.
She looked up. Moonlight streamed in the window. It was late. Where had the time gone? Tolan had been here but then it had been daylight. Now he was gone and it was dark.
The thread of fear that had haunted her so long blossomed abruptly into cold terror. Tolan. Geric had given her that thing but Tolan had been there. His voice, that soft even voice, never changing volume, only that mesmeric sing-song modulation. Tolan had been here. Tonight. Asking about Ailith.
Was she strong-willed?
Selah’s heart was pounding and she was dizzy. With light steps she ran to the door. Get Ailith and maybe run to her mother. Mother would know what to do. Carefully, she eased the door open, peered down the stairs to the landing. Could they both get out? How? She didn’t know what to do. Her mind was still oddly fogged, her thoughts disjointed.
Her mother would know, she would know what to do. Carefully, Selah picked up the charm from the carpet. Her thoughts become hazy and thick again. Hastily, she dropped it. It rolled beneath the bed. She wouldn’t touch it again. That had startled her badly. Her heart pounded. She was so frightened. Mother would know what to do.
How, though, could she get out unseen? Guards patrolled the walls. New guards. She remembered that. Geric had hired them. She hadn’t liked the looks of them.
Then it came to her. A bolt of terror. What if she was caught? What if they both were caught? Remembering the rages and remembering Tolan. She was afraid of him. Ailith was strong-willed. If Selah could get away, get to her mother’s, maybe her mother would know what to do. What if she were caught? Well, it was only her. Not Ailith. Someone had to know. They had to get Ailith away from here. Mother would know what to do.
Silently, she eased the door shut again. There was a better way out. She knew it. From here. She knew. The door, the secret door. The escape in case of siege. No one would see her. She would be gone. She needed to be gone, wanted to be gone. Fear drove her through the door and sent her flying down the stairs.
Sleeping and dreaming. Darkness. A long dark tunnel. The sound of water dripping. It was dank. Mold bloomed over the rough, dark stones. A sound like the wind came, a rushing, a soughing. Ailith knew it, it was familiar, this place. Why was she afraid? She knew this place but it was dark. Very dark.
A glimmer of light in the distance, torchlight or firelight, very faint.
Then a voice.
A familiar voice, so oddly even, so reasonable, that peculiar sing-song.
“It has to be done, my Lord,” that voice she knew said in her dreams. “She got it off. It has to be done.”
Another voice, deep, familiar. Father. Oddly vague and tenuous, not the firm tones she once knew, or the furious rages of late but sad, mournful the way a child’s voice might be when they’d been bad. Not clear. Muttering dolefully.
“I know, I know,” that sing-song voice said. “Sad, so sad. But it must be. It must be done. And you must do it, only you. It’s sad but you must. You know she’s doing wrong. You know what she’ll do. She’ll tell. She’s betraying you. You know that. Defying you. That’s wrong.”
So reasonable, that voice, so very reasonable. Yet, somehow she knew that what he asked wasn’t. What he asked was unreasonable, insane. What was he talking about?
“If she wasn’t going to betray you, would she not simply come to you and say, please my Lord, as a proper wife should? Would she creep about and sneak about? No. It’s sad, so sad, but it must be done.”
“She wouldn’t,” her father said in that thick and dreamy child-like voice.
Ailith’s heart pounded. Something was about to happen. Something terrible. She had to wake up but she couldn’t. It felt as if her limbs had been weighted down.
“She wouldn’t,” her father repeated.
Father, don’t, Ailith pleaded silently.
That other voice, that oh-so-reasonable voice, said, “She will. She has. I’ll prove it. She comes.”
From the darkness came the sound of light fast footsteps, drawing near. A pale figure, a blur appeared out of the darkness, running, her feet bare.
“As I told you. See, as I told you. She’ll betray you. She’s leaving you. You can’t allow that.”
The figure ran past them, there was a brief glimpse of a pale face, strained with fear.
Mother?
Her father roared, “No!”
Stunned, she saw him jolt into a run as if goaded, saw the glitter of the blade in his hand.
No, Father! No!
A silent scream echoed inside her head. No, don’t! She didn’t want to believe he would do it. At the last second he would remember himself and stop. He had to, he must. He wouldn’t only be killing her mother – terrible thought – but he would be killing himself as well. Somehow she knew that. Not his body, that would go on, but his soul and any hope he might ever be the man he once was, the man he used to be, would not.
He wouldn’t kill her mother, he couldn’t. This was just an evil dream. A horrible dream, a nightmare from which she couldn’t wake. It wasn’t real. She couldn’t be watching her father racing after her mother down that dark and dripping tunnel.
Turning her head, her mother looked back and her expression turned stricken and hopeless as she saw who it was who gave chase. Her heart broke in that moment, it was there in her face. As well as her stride. That hesitation, that moment of horrified heartbreak, was all it took.
Blood splattered and arced across the walls as the knife struck, rose, then fell again. All was black and grey in that terrible place, all but the bright red blood that splattered as the knife rose and fell.
It was as if the knife lanced into Ailith’s own body, that terrible pain, the horror and grief.
Feeling her mother die
.
A part of her mind kept repeating, it’s a dream, but another part knew it wasn’t.
Stunned, she watched, even as she felt something become hideously aware. As she sensed eyes turn. Awful eyes. Sandy eyes. Her mother… Her mother was dead, she was gone. If those eyes saw her, saw Ailith, she might be dead as well. Or worse. The shell of her father was standing erect again, covered in blood, the knife in his hand. A shell, a puppet. Somehow she knew, deep inside him, that he was screaming. But that voice was fading, becoming fainter, dying as well. The light that was her father was fading, tattering, and then it was gone. With that last terrible act, what was left of him died.
He was gone.
New grief, new pain, terrible, tore through her heart.
Those eyes turned. They sensed something. Turning. In a second he would finish that endless turn and he would see, he would know she was there.
If he saw her she would die.
Crying out, she clapped her hands over her mouth as she shot awake and fell out of bed to lay on the floor shaking in cold terror and horror. It hadn’t been real. It couldn’t have been real. Had it? It couldn’t have happened. No, her father couldn’t have killed her mother. Couldn’t have.
She was across the room and easing the door open before she thought consciously about it. If it was true? If she’d dreamed true? She had to know.
If it was, if it was, then they were still far down below. But it couldn’t be true.
She had to know.
Every sense was alert. The stairwell was empty. There was no one.
The stairs. She flew up them two at a time, her feet barely seeming to touch the cold stone.
Her mother’s solar. The door was closed. It was almost a relief to see that. Maybe she was there, maybe she was sleeping. It had been nothing more than a terrible dream.
Carefully, quietly, so as not to disturb, Ailith eased the door open. Moonlight streamed into the room, across the bed. It was empty, unslept in. A litter of clothing covered the floor.
That wasn’t like her mother. Her mother had always been neat, careful and well-groomed.
The room was empty.
Ailith’s breath came in short, hard pants.
Reluctantly, but almost as if she were drawn to do it she stepped inside. Moonlight lit the loom with silvery clarity. A tapestry was stretched across it, half-started, the pattern clear at first before it became a jumbled madness. Her mother made wonderful tapestries, masterworks of loom, needle and thread. Had made. This wasn’t one of them.
A section of wall stood ajar. The hidden door. The escape door, the one that led to the stairs within the walls. A like one exited her father’s rooms, an escape route from ancient times when such things were necessary.
Her heart seemed to go still for a moment and her blood went cold. She froze. That door led to the tunnels far below. Dark, dank and dripping tunnels, smelling of mold and earth. It had seemed an exciting place to explore when she was a child. No more. Reality began to sink into her awareness. The open door. The tunnels. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
Oh, no. Oh please, no.
Something distracted her, though, some odd bit of darkness, a wrongness. Something wasn’t right in this room. Something goaded her. It repelled her rather than called to her, a half-heard not-whisper, a thread of sound that wasn’t sound. An odd mindless maddening humming that was felt more than heard. Her skin crawled.
Kneeling by the side of the bed, she peered beneath it. The moonlight made something there gleam. It was like being in the awful dream again, that speechless horror. Whatever it was that lay there, it frightened her and called to her. She didn’t want to touch it, not with bare fingers. No, something within her recoiled at the mere thought of it. Reaching behind her blindly, she snatched up one of her mother’s dresses. Smooth, impossibly smooth, so very soft and incredibly thin. Elven-silk. No one knew how those folk made it, nothing made by men could match it.
Wrapping her hand in it thickly, she reached out with clumsy fingers and snagged a bit of chain, drew it toward her.
It dangled in front of her eyes. The charm. One just like the one her father wore. The sight of it stunned her. It wasn’t something her mother would have worn and there was something strange about it. Something disturbing. She was suddenly dizzy and hot, as if she were caught in a sudden fever. Her skin crawled. She was abruptly aware of how alone she was and of time passing.
Quickly she wrapped the thing deep in folds of silk and then she ran. Back to the dubious safety of her own room.
She locked it as quietly as she might and then pushed her storage chest against it for additional security.
Creeping into a corner far from the window she lit a candle and shielded the light with her body as she unfolded the silk once more. A gold chain, a simple gold pendant with a single, smooth, gray and oily stone in the center. Plain and unassuming. The stone only seemed smooth and shiny, though, until you looked closely. Then you could see movement and patterns within. A shifting greasy shine seemed to shimmer inside the stone, it was like looking at oil on water in a basin when the sun shone on it. Except it wasn’t bright, it was shades of black and gray. She was suddenly lightheaded.
She shook herself and glanced at the window. The first pearly light of dawn was showing.
That stunned her.
How long had she been staring at the thing? Shocked and startled, she covered it up, tying the folds of the dress tightly around it. Where to put it? Not beneath the bed. Not so close. Not this thing, not sharing space with her swords.
The garderobe. There was a curtain across it, she stuffed the thing in the corner where the curtain bunched.
Ailith stood in the middle of the room, lost for a moment. Lost in grief.
The pain was too deep, too great for her to speak. Her mother was gone. She was dead. Somehow she knew it, knew it for sure. She rocked with the pain. Even if she could have wept, she would have, but if she did she was doomed. They would see by her eyes, they would know that something was wrong. They mustn’t know. How could she not weep for her mother? But she couldn’t. Maybe it was only that the horror of it was too huge.
Her father had slain her mother and in doing so had slain himself. Whatever he looked like, the man that was her father was no longer there. He was gone as well. She knew that, somehow she knew that. She thought she would go mad with that knowledge, the pain was so great. Then she was on her knees, her head to the floor, hands clasped over her wrenching, aching heart. It seemed to go on forever, yet it was only hours before she crawled onto her bed, to lie limp, shaking and exhausted.
What could she do? If she accused him, who would believe her?
That so smooth voice, that had been Tolan. She knew how reasonable he could be, how persuasive. Would the body of her mother still be there in the cold fetid tunnel? She didn’t think so.
Her father still resembled her father, but he wasn’t.
How would they explain her mother’s absence? There would be some explanation, she was sure of that. How far would they go to explain it away? They’d murdered her mother. That was how far. But she had no proof. All she had was a dream and that charm. Nothing else. Somehow she needed to get down in the tunnels. Not soon but she would need to go. Had to look, to see if what she imagined and dreamed matched what was there. She needed to know, had to know.
Could she go? Flee? Could she run away? If she ran would they let her go?
Somehow she didn’t think so. Tolan wanted her for some reason but she didn’t know what that reason was. Even if she ran, where would she go? To her grandmother’s? And if she did? They would simply come after her. What would happen then? It was a large homestead but not that large. She still wasn’t of age. So far as King and Crown were concerned, she was still the ward of her father as both her father and her King and so the man who looked like her father had complete jurisdiction over her. With no proof, she would sound mad if she accused him of anything. Anyone she went to would have to send her back to
her father in the end.
There was no place to go, nowhere to run. What could she do? Nothing. All she could do was pretend nothing had happened. That there had been no dream. That nothing was wrong. And wait, wait until an opportunity presented itself.
Stay out of Tolan’s way.
Her heart raced and she was weary from her uneasy sleep. Even so, sleep was impossible. She needed calm.
Dorovan’s lessons. The exercises and meditations he’d had taught her.
She took a deliberately slow deep breath, willed herself to stillness. Found her center and pressed her hands together over her heart and faced east. The forms, without her swords. Each movement careful and deliberate. Think of the sun, the bright and soothing warmth, the light. Let the light of reason still your mind. She could almost hear Dorovan’s voice coaching her.
She wished so much that he was here to advise her.
When she was done, she was sweating lightly but calm again and in control.
The sun was up. It was time for breakfast. She washed quickly and dressed.
She had another fitting scheduled for one of her dresses for her majority ceremony. A reason to get away from the castle, people who expected her. Terror gripped her. Her throat tightened. Another deep breath. And another. Until she was calm again.
Downstairs, she walked into the great room with its massive fireplace, the room where her father held court. The thrones for her father and mother were there at the long table. Her father and Tolan were there. Her mother’s seat was empty.
“Where’s Mother?” she asked, keeping her voice light and curious, because they would expect her to ask.
To no surprise it was Tolan who answered. “There was a call in the night, some illness in one of the villages to the north. She went to help tend the sick.”
It was reasonable. Selah had trained as a healer, she was an herbalist. Her herbs and tinctures, salves and potions were well known. It was a wonderful excuse, not only for them but for Ailith. She’d helped Selah a time or two.
“I have to go down into the village today for a fitting for my dress for the majority ceremony,” she said as she sat down, to let him know she was expected somewhere.
The Coming Storm Page 12