by Chris Howard
"You are Rexenor, also."
Kassandra winced, took in a slow shuddery breath, and let it out. Her own voice in her head commanded her. Respond harshly. Follow with an apology to soften his mood. You do not have time for this.
"It is in my name. How am I allowed to forget your great-great-grandfather?” That had the right amount of sourness and she made a face to show that she regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. “I didn't mean to say it like that. I'm sorry. Lord Kassander is one of my favorite ancestors. He was a great man."
Gregor lifted his head and his eyes held hers, black as the abyss with a thin roiling ring of blue that flowed through the irises. She blinked and focused on him, and he clenched his jaw with the effort it took to keep them there.
He dropped his shoulders and gave up his offensive. “You are fearless—whether that is always good, I do not know. But I am wrong. I didn't mean to imply that you act like King Tharsaleos."
She gave him a curt bow. Gregor rubbed away a tear and looked at her. “Promise me you will be careful. It's just ... I don't understand you. I think I understand Jill. I understand Nicole to some degree. Your whole life is secret. You act as if you are in this alone, as if you are invincible."
"I'm never alone, father. I'm not allowed to be. Invincible?” Kassandra smiled thinly. “I was unaware that that was how you perceived my actions. I assure you that I do not think that."
She grabbed her sword off the kitchen island, slamming it into the scabbard that stuck out from her back over her left hip. “Now, please call Zypheria. She's probably down at the beach. Tell her to meet me in my room."
Kassandra waited for her father to leave before she let the armor dissolve off her body. Her sword vanished with it.
She gasped as if she had been holding her breath for the last ten minutes. The right side of her shirt was sliced open from her armpit to her hip and blood soaked the thin cotton in dark streaks across her back.
She turned, clutching at the kitchen counter for support. She reached into the narrow side sink where they usually washed vegetables, and picked up a long thin bolt—as long as her forearm—with a deadly black tip. Her own blood coated the shaft. It was slick on her fingers and clotting in the spines of the fletching.
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Chapter Nine
Recovery
King Eupheron was the only Wreath-wearer with two bleeds, the product of an early attempt to mend the relationship between the two mightiest Seaborn houses, Alkimides and Telkhines. The result could not have gone more wrong. Eupheron's mother, the Alkimides Queen Kleonike (and Wreath-wearer) married a lord of the Telkhines, Timasitheos. Queen Kleonike was reviled as “The Whore” by all Alkimides for producing offspring with the enemy. The Telkhines could not trust Timasitheos for marrying a usurper, and Eupheron was caught between the hatred of two powerful houses. With two bleeds, one each from his father and mother, he was the most powerful of the Wreath-wearers, and marked from the beginning as unbalanced.
—Michael Henderson, Seaborn History
* * * *
Zypheria's scowl deepened as she pressed one of the good white bath towels against Kassandra's side, soaking up blood. A lump of bone and muscle along the ribs stuck up where the bolt had pierced her. Kassandra's torn and bloody shirt lay on the floor with her bra. She yelped when Zypheria's fingers tugged at the lip of skin, pulling it and the meaty tissue underneath smooth.
The wound edge lifted with a fresh surge of blood, and Zypheria's eyes narrowed and grew more intense, one hand working the towel over the wound to keep it closed.
"You have so much strength, milady. Only so much blood to lose. I will work the bone and sew this up.” She frowned. “It is a shame that lying whore's son of a king isn't awake. Greatest rhaps?ides. He could do things with wounds and scars that none of the other wearers could."
Kassandra tilted her head up, gulping for air. She had her face buried in her pillow to muffle the screaming. Her voice was dry. “King Eupheron?"
Yes, Lady Kassandra?
Zypheria looked warmly down at her. “He could fix the webbing on your hands."
She gave Zypheria a weak mischievous smile. “The lying whore's son is awake. He woke a little while ago."
Lovely. That can only mean that there is an Alkimides here with us, Kassandra—aside from you.
"Zypheria is here."
Charming Zypheria! Please give her a paidari?n from me.
Kassandra tried to prop herself up on one elbow and failed, her eyelids fluttering with the pain. She touched Zypheria on the shoulder and whispered, “Lean closer."
She kissed her mother's ex-bodyguard and friend on the cheek, and felt the woman jump under her lips. Zypheria's hair smelled faintly of mint. Her skin was cool and smooth, browned by the sun, and when she drew back, Kassandra saw the hairline scar along her cheek that ran to her ear, the faded badge from a childhood fight with one of her brothers, which she undoubtedly won.
Zypheria bowed her head, her eyes filling with tears. “Milady, please."
Kassandra looked up at the toughest woman she knew and, seeing her uncomfortable, grinned as wide as the sea. “Charming Zypheria—that wasn't from me, it was King Eupheron."
Zypheria tried to hold her mouth steady, but the ends tilted into a smirk, and then she gave up, shaking her head. She looked down at Kassandra and more tears poured from her eyes. “Charming, indeed."
Charming and ... Eupheron's voice went high in shock. Old!
Eupheron! said Praxinos archly, his sensibilities offended. By my calculation, Zypheria can be no more than thirty-eight years.
Kassandra snapped her head back into her pillow, blinking. “How are you doing that?"
I am the only Wreath-wearer who can see through your eyes—and not much clearer than a tottering old man—but I've never been able to do it without some discomfort to the current wearer. You will get used to it. Toughen up. No one likes a weakling.
Enough! Andromache shouted and for ten seconds, there was silence in Kassandra's head. Kassandra is ... It was unusual to hear diffidence in Andromache's voice. She is only ... She needs your help, Eupheron. She is injured. A bolt went through her armor on the right side and broke at least one rib. She is bleeding. Andromache suddenly found her resolve. Do something, you shit-eating malignity!
Ah, there you are, great Queen Andromache. Your stuttering and indecision puzzled me. Is it not interesting how much of a person is made up entirely of words, and completed by them, and that without their words they become nearly invisible? I swear I did not recognize you without your bitter tongue and your unsocial, frigid, and base disposition. I thought for a moment that some gentle and feeble princess like Ampharete had stirred from sleep to torment me. Kassandra felt him grinning inside her head.
Longevity, Praxinos reminded. Kassandra's bleeding.
Eupheron choked. That hurt! Androm—Why it's Ampharete! I count you among my favorites of the wearers, but I did not expect to see you again for a century.
Liar. Help my daughter.
Your daughter? Oh, fine! Did somebody say something about a crossbow bolt injury?
Andromache's voice was low and cold. Call me “somebody” again, and I'll put out your eyes. Now, make yourself useful.
Eupheron seemed to have no capacity for pausing or pondering, only acting. He began by reciting an epaiod? to stanch the flow of blood. Ah, here we are. Right side, broken bones.
Kassandra, too weak to protest, sank into her pillow and waited for Eupheron's ministrations. He was inside her body in seconds, not filling her arms and legs, but like a car mechanic sticking his head under the hood. Eupheron evaluated the integrity of her rib cage from the inside, fingering the bones until he found two that were cracked and one with a splintery break.
I can mend bone and arrange the torn skin to heal without scarring. You have lost too much blood to think about performing any daring acts of war in the near future. We must feed you.
"Ve
ry good.” Kassandra breathed the words, just loud enough to hear. “I do not plan to land myself in another combat situation for another five, perhaps six days.” Zypheria gave her a reproachful scowl. “Plenty of time to regain my strength. Zypheria, can you bring up some orange juice and a PB-and-J? Extra peanut butter."
"Milady,” said Zypheria with her lips turned down in disgust and left the room.
Kassandra closed her eyes and pulled her knees up. She lay on her left side, her arms folded up around her face, her fingers clawing at her pillow as Eupheron kneaded her skin from the inside. He packed something that felt like oozing hot clay against her bone, stitching the fragments back into a whole.
Her face tightened, but she didn't make a noise as Eupheron's fingers worked the wound closed, then sealed it. He did something with fire that felt as if he was touching her skin with a red-hot wire, and she sucked in a breath every time it seared her. He used smaller and smaller points of burning until it felt as if he was using hot needles.
Rest now, and I will watch the progress of your healing. Eupheron let a beat slip by. May I ask you a question or two, nothing distressing?
"Okay...” She dragged out the last syllable, already suspicious.
Oh-kay? There are eccentricities in your speech I have heard before. You must tell me how have you come to acquire such a deep command of the surfacer argot, and why you insist on using it with me.
Kassandra turned the question over in a quieter part of her head. “I am one."
A surfacer? Ridiculous. You are the Wreath-wearer, the Alkimides princess, you belong in the oceans.
"I grew up in Nebraska, about as far from the ocean as my grandfather could send me."
Eupheron's voice went sour. I have to see this with my own—your own eyes. Swim to the nearest mirror. What is Neb-raskah?
"I don't need to swim. I'm in my room.” Kassandra grabbed her desk to steady her legs, staggered to the far wall, and shut her bedroom door. A full-length mirror hung on the back and she stepped in front of it.
Eupheron was silent a moment, but it was a disappointed silence. How old are you? How did you end up on the surface, and why did you not return to the sea? Who butchered your hands?
Kassandra folded her arms over her chest and curled her hands into fists, hiding the scarring, brown seams that lined the skin between her fingers. She hadn't felt embarrassed about them for a couple years, but the disgust in his voice brought the shame to the surface. “My grandfather had the webbing cut away when I was a year old, just before he sent me to St. Clement's—some place in Nebraska. I didn't even know I had a connection to the sea. I grew up getting the shit kicked out of me by my governess. I'm almost twenty."
You're too pale. Your hair—holy Thaumos! It is beyond repair. Where are we?
"In my room, in my house, in North Hampton, New Hampshire."
Above the waves?
"Above the waves."
And the light? Why is this room so bright?
"That is Helios. True Helios. The evening sun coming through the windows."
Eupheron's voice was hard and angry. Why have you tolerated this?
Kassandra held her reply because she didn't know if he was asking her or the other wearers. Then she answered before they could. “I wear the gift of the sea's lord. It is my decision to remain here. I go in the ocean every day. The Atlantic is across the boulevard from my father's house, but this is my home."
For now.
She nodded. “For now. I will return to the Nine-cities when I have the means to take the throne from my grandfather."
That appeared to satisfy Eupheron, because he returned to criticizing her hair and the rest of her. Your eyes are very dark. Did you get those from your Rexenor side—no, those are from Kallixene, are they not?
Kassandra's mother shifted angrily inside her head. Speak ill of my daughter again, and I will—
What a uniformly delightful girl! His voice was bright and cheery, without a hint of mockery.
The door swung in. It was Zypheria with a plate of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a glass of orange juice; when she saw Kassandra out of bed, she added a pained expression to her serious face.
Kassandra stepped out of the way, leaning heavily against the wall, laughing, “Eupheron the Liar. Say it. I am a freak fish out of water. I'm the freakish granddaughter of a murdering king."
Any other faults?
Kassandra took Zypheria's arm, and sat down gently on her bed, trying not to disturb the freshly healed skin and bone on her side. She slid up against her desk, and took a big bite of one of the sandwiches, avoiding Zypheria's incredulous stare.
She is headstrong.
"Headstrong is good, Andromache,” said Kassandra through a jaw-locking, roof-of-the-mouth-clinging wad of peanut butter. Zypheria groaned, loudly this time, wondering how Kassandra could stomach the nasty thick brown paste.
Kassandra nodded at her. “This is perfect, Zypheria. Thanks."
And she's often foolish.
"When am I foolish?"
How foolish, Ampharete? Tell me.
Kassandra persuaded four Naiads and what remains of House Rexenor—a handful of warriors led by Lady Kallixene—to make a stand against the Olethren at that school in Nebraska.
Eupheron made a choking sound. Kassandra coughed, swallowing some of the orange juice wrong. It burned in her throat—and kept on burning. She coughed again.
Two hundred and forty thousand of the drowned dead in the King's army.
That many?
Lady Kassandra went to their fortress before they marched and she counted them.
Beyond foolish!
Kassandra swallowed. The orange juice was trying to strangle her, and her throat tightened around her words. “The freezing storm worked. Their bones were full of water that turned to slush.” She took a bite of her sandwich, thinking that something less acidic in her throat might help.
How did you escape the Olethren? They do not cease until everything is dead.
She destroyed them, Eupheron.
Tell him, said Ampharete.
Kassandra chewed through peanut butter, jam and bread, nearly gagging on it. “When water freezes, it expands. This is science—physics of water. Parresia, Limnoria, Helodes and Olivia—they're Naiads—made an ice storm for me, and when me and Ephor—"
Her voice stopped. She dropped her sandwich, took in a breath and released it in a choppy wheeze that headed right into sobbing, all of the muscle contractions and sniffling nose, but without tears.
Me and who?
Ephoros, said Andromache sadly.
She is bold, summoning the king of the sea daimones. I do not understand the purpose of the freezing storm, but Ephoros, the wonderful old demon, made it all work, did he?
"Eph—Ephoros is dead,” whispered Kassandra. “He died in order to save his brother—to save me. He fought the king and took back the book my father created."
He is immortal. Do not make light of such a thing.
"I misunderstood that part as well. Immortal does not mean you cannot die."
Or do not want to, said Ampharete in a painfully sad whisper.
"Ephoros helped me with the last of his life. My grandfather's mistake was to command the army to fight above the waves. The dead could not stop the water when it froze. It expanded inside their bones and shattered them. All of them."
The entire army of the dead, gone? No more?
Kassandra laughed weakly and a wave of dizziness roared through her head. “I am not The Liar."
All four of the wearers in her head went still. Kassandra heard her heart beat a hundred times, and the silence hurt.
Eupheron broke it. Oh-kay. Is that how it is said?
Praxinos and Ampharete spoke excitedly. Tell us if it worked.
Give me a moment, said Eupheron. Most likely. Someone so young plotting the destruction of an army which the lords of the Telkhines could not defeat? Freak, did you say? Twenty years? Off of whom are you bleeding,
Lady Kassandra?
Kassandra frowned. She knew a little about the bleeds of power from parent to child, but it sounded as if he was talking about something else.
You are gathering the power from your Rexenor father. I can see that. You gain what he loses.
"Are you insulting me?” Kassandra winced as something sharp poked around deep in her skull.
Never! Eupheron said in a distracted voice. Would not dream of it. You described yourself as a freak and oh, Kassandra, you truly are a freak of the most extreme kind.
Eupheron! It was her mother's angry voice.
I am not speaking of her hideously disfigured hands, madam, but of the bleeding.
Praxinos’ voice was cautious. Did it work?
"Speak to me! Do not discuss this as if I'm not in the room—or in my own head. Did what work?"
Eupheron didn't miss a stroke. Kassandra, you are also bleeding off your grandmother of House Megalesios.
"Lady Kallixene? Ouch!"
Eupheron jabbed into corners of her brain she didn't know she had, tracing lines of power.
"Stop it now!"
That is what we had hoped for, said Ampharete quietly. Are you sure she is taking from both of them?
"Mother, what does that mean? Taking from both?"
Not just two, Ampharete! He was shouting now, his voice a muffled echo in her mind, as if he'd crawled into the ventilation system and had to raise his voice to be heard. Kassandra, you are also bleeding off an Alkimides source, probably that traitorous would-be Queen Isothemis.
"What are you talking about? No one can have more than two bleeds."
Kassandra. It was Ampharete's serious listen-to-your-mother voice. Do not, under any circumstances, speak of this to your father—or anyone.
"Of what?” She had a vague notion of the subject, something that the Seaborn rarely spoke of, even among relatives or close friends. “Bleeds of power?"
You must not tell anyone, said Praxinos gravely.
She was getting dizzy. “Answer me!"
Hysterical laughter burst from Eupheron, but all she felt from Praxinos, Andromache, and Ampharete was stunned silence.