Stormcaster

by Cinda Williams Chima

  “Lyss is at Chalk Cliffs,” his mother said, and bit her lip. She turned back to Byrne. “Tell the others that we’ll have a small reception after the council meeting tomorrow.”

  Byrne cocked his head. “Will there be a council meeting tomorrow? I thought all meetings were cancelled this week.”

  “That was before I began to believe in miracles again,” the queen said. “I’m sure we’ll have lots to discuss tomorrow.”

  After Byrne saluted and left, Ash used flash to rekindle the fire on the hearth, spending considerably more time on it than the task required.

  “Is that your father’s amulet?” she said finally, to his back.

  Ash swung around to face her, his cheeks burning. “You’ve probably been wondering what happened to it. Da gave it to me that day in Ragmarket. I’ll understand if you want it back.”

  The queen shook her head. “If he gave it to you, keep it. It suits you.” She motioned to two chairs under the window. “That will do, Adrian. Let’s sit.”

  Ash sat. His mother sat across from him. He had too much to say, and no clue as to how to begin. He’d hoped she might begin spitting out questions, but she just kept looking at him as if memorizing every new detail.

  Finally, she breathed deeply and said, “You smell of the road—sweat and horses and leather, meadowsweet and pine.” She put up a hand when he tried to apologize. “No. I like it. My father was a clan trader, and he always came home smelling like faraway places. It reminds me of something your father said once.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “He said, ‘I want to breathe you in for the rest of my life.’”

  Ash swallowed hard, guilt rising in him. “Mother, I—”

  “We are wolves, Adrian. For us, scent is the seat of memory. It is how wolves recognize family, friends, and enemies.” She paused. “I miss the road. Wolves run free. Do you know that I have not been out of the queendom since the war began?” She smiled wistfully. “My children have gone much farther afield.”

  Right, Ash thought. Your daughter Hanalea went into the borderlands, and was murdered. Your son went south, and became a murderer. And Lyss—

  “Speaking of traveling, what’s Lyss doing in Chalk Cliffs?” The Chalk Cliffs he remembered was little more than a gritty port with a military barracks, bars and clicket-houses, and a stone keep. What business would his sister have in such a place?

  That question must have shown on his face, because his mother said, “Alyssa has changed since you last saw her. And I’m afraid that she’s angry with me right now.”

  Ash was mystified. “Angry? I can understand if she’s angry with me, but why would she—?”

  “Soon after you . . . disappeared . . . I found out you were alive, and I didn’t tell her.”

  “So you did know,” he said. “Lila told me that you did.”

  His mother nodded. “I knew. I decided—I decided that after Hanalea’s and Han’s murders, maybe you were safer there, under an assumed name, than here at court. I didn’t tell Alyssa, though.”

  She fingered the wolf ring that always hung from a chain around her neck. “We’d already had your funeral, and she was just beginning to recover from that. I thought it was too dangerous a secret to tell an eleven-year-old. Knowing your sister, she would have insisted on going to Oden’s Ford and bringing you back. If agents from Arden had found out where you were, they would have murdered you.”

  “Well,” he said. “They tried.”

  “As I found out, a few days ago, when the team I sent to Oden’s Ford to fetch you home returned with the news of the attack on your dormitory and your apparent death.” Tears welled up, and spilled over once again. “I blamed myself.”

  “I’m the one who ran away,” Ash said. It hadn’t occurred to him that his mother would hear about the attack, because, for all intents and purposes, he was already dead. He hadn’t known that Taliesin had ratted him out.

  “Why did you decide to bring me home now, after four years?”

  “There was an assassination attempt on your sister.”

  That punch to the gut nearly folded him in two. “Wait—what? The bastards went after Lyss? They’re targeting children now? Is she . . . what did she—”

  His mother raised an eyebrow. “She’s not a child. She’s just two years younger than you, and she’s grown up fast,” she said. “That’s what happens when you go away. You think time stops at home while you grow and change.” She paused, in case he wanted to argue, but he didn’t.

  “So. She overheard me talking about bringing you home from the academy. She was furious on the one hand, but so very happy that you were alive. She went to Chalk Cliffs to meet your ship when it arrived. And then, when Captain DeVilliers and the others told her you were dead after all—”

  Ash sighed. “No wonder she’s angry.”

  “Right. You could have been together, these past four years, but I left you there, unprotected, to be murdered. That’s how she sees it. So, when she . . . when she heard the news, she refused to come back here. She said she was afraid she would say something unforgivable. I’ve not seen her since I visited her in Delphi soon after Solstice.”

  Another unexpected consequence of what he’d done. He’d never considered that it might drive a wedge between his mother and sister.

  “Will she come home now, do you think?”

  “I think the news that you’ve survived will bring her home,” the queen said, with a wry smile. “Especially if you send her a message and ask her to come.”

  “I’d like to go to Chalk Cliffs and bring her home myself,” Ash said.

  “No!” She said it with such force that he flinched back. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but you’ve just come back and I’ll not have you leaving again right away. I’ve come to feel like each time I say good-bye to my children it may be the last time I see them.”

  “Right,” he said, chastened. “How do you want to handle it, then?”

  “Here’s what we’ll do. The weather has been so bad that we’ve received no communication from Chalk Cliffs in weeks. I think that’s easing now. General Dunedain’s in Delphi right now, getting ready for the spring campaign. We’ll ask her to send a salvo to Chalk Cliffs to relieve Lyss, and send her back to Delphi. We’ll meet her there.”

  To relieve Lyss? Relieve her of what? Ash felt like he’d walked into the third act of a play.

  His mother rose, crossed to the fireplace, and brought back a framed portrait. “This was done at Solstice.” She handed it to him.

  His mother was right. Lyss was no longer a child. What had seemed like scrappiness in childhood had become confidence and resolve. She was all golds and coppers—deep golden hair, coppery skin, steady brown eyes. Her chin was tilted up a bit, as if to say, Try me.

  Most surprising of all, she was wearing a spattercloth uniform with an officer’s scarf.

  Ash looked up at the queen. “Lyss is wearing a uniform. Does that mean she’s in the army?”

  His mother nodded. “She’s a captain in the Highlanders now, and she has made quite a reputation for herself.”

  “But . . . what happened to music, and drawing, and stories? She has so much talent, and—”

  “I believe she’s decided that those skills are not well suited for the world she lives in. But, happily, she seems to excel at warfare, too. They call her the Gray Wolf in the field.”

  Jenna’s words came back to him. I will try and think of you as a wolf called Adam. She’d seen the wolf in him, too.

  Is that what war does? It turns us into wolves? Or does the wolf have to be there to begin with?

  “Adrian?” His mother touched his arm and he realized he’d gone silent for too long.

  “I’m sorry. I just hope that she’ll return to the arts someday.”

  “I do, too. I hope the time will come when we don’t need her martial talents so much, anymore. We’ve had so many losses. Most of us have had to develop new skills. Your cousin Julianna, for instance. She’s directing the intelligence
service now.”

  “Julianna?” Ash shook his head. “I never would have predicted that.”

  “She’s very different from Mellony. Very different,” she repeated, for emphasis. “That’s becoming clearer every day.”

  That had raised another question, one that Ash was afraid to ask. “If Julianna is heading up the intelligence service, then what about Cat Tyburn? What’s she doing?”

  “She’s dead. Murdered. Nearly three years ago now.”

  “Cat, too?” Ash took in that news like a punch to the gut. “I can’t imagine anyone taking her by surprise.”

  “None of us can. No one is safe, apparently.”

  “So maybe Lyss is safer in the army than here in the city. At least there, you know you have a fight on your hands.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, it’s part of her role as a wartime queen.”

  Ash handed the painting of his sister back. “I can understand why soldiers are willing to follow her. She looks . . . formidable.”

  “She is. It’s not easy to get her to sit for a portrait. I tried to persuade her to wear a gown suitable for her name day, but she said she’d rather look like herself. I think she wants to put any possible suitors on notice.”

  “Suitors?” Ash said, feeling pummeled. “Isn’t she a little young to be thinking about that?”

  His mother smiled at his expression. “Her name day is this June, and that’s when that kind of talk begins. Not by her choice. She’s about as eager to get married as I was at that age.”

  “That’s just a few months away.” It wasn’t easy to get his mind around that. It was as if he was going to lose his sister all over again.

  “It doesn’t mean that she’ll be getting married anytime soon. Though I wasn’t that much older than she is when I married your father.” She sighed and twisted her wedding ring. “I’m glad, now, that I married young, so that Han and I had more time together. It was twenty-five years, but it just flew by.” She stood, extending her hand. “Speaking of your father, let’s go see him.”

  20

  IN THE CITY OF THE DEAD

  His mother led the way through narrow passageways and up back staircases, taking routes he’d probably once known but had since forgotten. Fellsmarch Castle was a labyrinth of hidden ways, some of them built by his many-greats grandfather Alger Waterlow, and many added since. Growing up, Ash and his friends, including Finn sul’Mander, Ty Gryphon, and Ruby Greenholt, had burrowed into all the dark places, seeking routes that would enable them to go wherever they wanted, while avoiding parents and schoolmasters and nurses.

  His mother had always had the uncanny ability to find him when she really wanted to. “Don’t fool yourself, Adrian. Though I don’t pretend to know all the secrets of this palace, there is no one living who knows them better than me.”

  Eventually, Ash and his mother crossed the bridge into the cathedral temple. Ash had spent hours in the libraries there, studying old histories and books about healing plants and poisons and magic.

  He’d spent less time in the sanctuary, preferring the small temple in his mother’s garden or Southbridge Temple, which seemed cozier to a small boy.

  The Gray Wolf queens were not buried here. Their ashes were interred on the flank of a mountain that would forever after carry their names. Wolves run free.

  But the cathedral was the final resting place for generations of royal relations, temple speakers, court officials, and friends of the Line. Most High Wizards preferred to be buried with their own kind on Gray Lady, where the Wizard Council met and many wizards had estates. But some had chosen to be buried here at the cathedral, close to the center of power.

  The crypt was reserved for the most important of the dead—royal princes and princesses, consorts, and those bound captains who did not choose to be buried with their queens.

  At first, Ash thought the sanctuary was unchanged from the last time he’d seen it, at his sister Hanalea’s funeral. But now he saw that there was a new side chapel, flooded with light from an adjacent courtyard.

  Instead of leading him down the stairs into the crypt, his mother led him into the light.

  Like most older temples, this chapel had apertures oriented to admit the rising and setting sun. Other than that, it was more of a library, with shelves lined with books about botanicals and horticulture. A plaque on the wall was inscribed Alister Reading Room.

  “This began as your father’s project,” his mother said. “It was going to be a surprise for me, to honor your sister Hanalea. Hana didn’t live long enough to be crowned, so she wasn’t buried in the Spirits like the rest of us. Han didn’t want to send her to the crypt—he couldn’t imagine that a young woman would want to go down there with all the old people. Plus, she wouldn’t want to hear speakers droning on every day. As you know, some are better than others.

  “I wanted her close, though. I wanted to be able to come see her whenever I wished. So he created a churchyard.” She threw open a set of wrought-iron doors in a design featuring the Waterlow ravens, the royal wolves, Hanalea’s winged torch, and the briar rose.

  The courtyard reminded Ash of a churchyard in a small mountain town, or a private family cemetery on an estate. Trees had been planted, but they were still small, though the courtyard would be shaded for a good part of the day by the surrounding temple. It was slightly overgrown with meadowgrass, as a country churchyard should be.

  Their family plot contained three stones. The largest was for Princess Hanalea, as befitted her status.

  Hanalea ana’Raisa, Princess Heir

  34th in the New Line of Gray Wolf Queens

  Naemed Running Wolf in the Uplands

  Killed in the Borderlands

  With her Bound Captain

  Simon Byrne

  Wolves Run Free

  On the other side of Hana’s plot, his father’s stone.

  Hanson Alister (Han sul’Alger)

  High Wizard

  Consort to Queen Raisa ana’Marianna

  33rd in the New Line of Gray Wolf Queens

  Naemed Hunts Alone in the Uplands

  “You don’t get what you don’t go after.”

  The third stone was his own.

  Adrian sul’Han (Ash)

  Prince of the Realms

  Wizard and Healer

  Son of Queen Raisa ana’Marianna

  And Han sul’Alger, Consort

  Streetlord of the Borderlands

  Between Life and Death

  It was more than peculiar, standing here, reading his own gravestone inscription, feeling unworthy of it.

  “You really went to a lot of trouble,” he said, embarrassed. “You could have just built a cairn or something. Especially once you knew I was really alive.”

  “Your sister insisted. At first, she wanted nothing to do with holding a funeral for you. She never lost hope that you were still alive. When we went ahead anyway, she refused to attend. Finally, I was able to persuade her to take charge of your epitaph. That’s what she chose.”

  Ash was beginning to realize what a force his sister had become. She occupied space, even when she wasn’t here.

  His mother knelt and began pulling out some weeds that had crept into one of the flower beds around the plot. “Remember when we used to work in the garden together?” she said.

  Ash stared down at the flower bed. The flowers were familiar—foxflowers, and trueheart, and maiden’s kiss. Red, white, and blue. The same as the ones his father had bought his mother on the day he died.

  “Those flowers,” he said hoarsely, pointing. “That was—that was—”

  “I know,” the queen said, without looking up. “Your father knew these were my favorite flowers. They still are. I refuse to let an assassin take that enjoyment away from me.”

  Ash knelt beside his mother, awash in memories from when they gardened together when he was a boy. At the time, he’d mainly noticed her many absences, their many differences. Now he remembered how much they’d shared.

  He cl
eared his throat. “Speaking of Da, I have a message for you. From him.”

  This time, she looked up at him. “A message?”

  He took his mother’s hands and looked into her eyes. It was a job to force the words out, though they were engraved on his soul. “Something he said to me that day in Ragmarket. When he knew he was dying, he said . . . he said to tell you . . . that having you . . . that being with you . . . that loving you—it was worth it.” He swallowed hard, then repeated it softly. “He said it was worth it.”

  His father’s amulet buzzed against Ash’s skin, startling him. It was as if it were underlining the message, or reacting to it. But he kept his focus on his mother’s face.

  She sat for a long moment, eyes closed, until tears leaked out from under her lashes. She swallowed hard, and then said in a husky voice, “I might have to add that to both our stones.”

  “So it was worth it for you?”

  “How can you ask that question?” she said. “Falling in love in wartime is chancy, just like having children. We’ve had a lot of pain, but a lot of joy, all the same. Of course it’s been worth it for me, too.”

  “How much time does it take?” Ash blurted.

  His mother frowned, as if puzzled. She let go of his hands and sat back on her heels. “How much time does it take for what?”

  “How much time does it take to stop feeling guilty for surviving? How much time do you have to have together to make it worth the pain of saying good-bye?”

  “There’s not a rule for that,” she said, searching his face. “You’ve met someone—haven’t you.” It was a statement, not really a question.

  He nodded. “I met a girl,” he said.

  “Is she a student at the Ford?”

  Memories rushed in at him from all sides—the acrid scent of the torches, the dance of the light on the walls of the dungeon, Jenna in her filthy finery, saying, “For a healer, you have a very dark soul.”

  He shook his head. “It’s a long story—one maybe I’ll tell later.” Once I figure out what to say. “Anyway. Her name was Jenna. We weren’t even together that long, so I don’t know whether to call it love.” He looked up at her. “How do you even know?”