Tapestry Lion (The Landers Saga Book 2)

by Nilsen, Karen

  Merius patted me clumsily. “S’all right. Nuns’ll watch him. Rest now, Saf-i-r-e . . .” his voice faded in a yawn as he slipped into deeper sleep.

  I stared at the shadow of the bed canopy looming overhead. Somewhere, my baby cried, wailed for the comfort of my arms, and I couldn’t go to him. I could likely never go to him again. Soon, he would forget me, his mind too young and pliable to have memories yet. Soon, another soft breast, another pair of warm arms, another gentle voice, would be mother to him. And since I had to leave him, it was a blessing he was still young enough to forget me, young enough to accept another woman as mother. If it’s a blessing, why is my heart outside of my body? I buried my face in a pillow. Someday I might bear another baby, but that was no comfort now. No matter how many babies I held in my arms, I would never forget Sewell, my baby son, the first spark of life I had carried in my womb. My firstborn, with his silky fine hair and his tiny fists, his funny fits of temper that already reminded me of my father, his orange flame of an aura . . .

  “Safire?” Merius sounded awake this time, his hand curling around my hunched shoulder.

  I blinked, noticed the pattern of black bars across the silver pool of moonlight on the floor. Of course, bars on the windows--what did I expect? “I’m fine, dear heart--go back to sleep. You need your rest, after all those nights of nightmares.”

  “But you’re crying.”

  “Merius, I’m always crying.”

  “Not always.”

  I drew a deep breath as if it were my last and tried to think of something besides Sewell before the tide of grief overwhelmed me. “Who knew it could be like that? Who knew that our souls could join at the same time as our bodies?" I said.

  “Who knew indeed,” he murmured, his hand in my hair. “Your skin glows in the moonlight like a pearl, you know that? This must be how Mahalalel felt, lying beside his fire bride for the first time . . .”

  I flipped over to face Merius. “You’re a better man than Mahalalel ever thought to be. He claimed the fire woman against her will. I come to you freely, Merius.”

  “Perhaps I’m no better than Mahalalel, just luckier.”

  “What does that mean? Are you saying my taste in men is suspect?” We both lay on our sides at this point, facing each other. I wrapped my hands around his neck and pressed my body against his, thrilling at the quickening in our pulses, the sudden explosion of silver and amethyst sparks in my brain.

  “Safire, Safire,” he murmured over and over as if my name were a prayer, kissing my brow, my hair, my ears, my jaw, finally daring to brush my lips softly with his. He turned over on his back then, pulling me on top of him. I pressed my head to his chest, his crinkly hair tickling my cheek as his heart thudded against my eardrums. His hand slid under my shift, his fingertips tracing invisible patterns on my bare skin. We lay like that for what felt like hours, even our thoughts silent as we watched the ever shifting play of our auras together around the bed. The sparks softened and joined each other in glowing ribbons of light, some purple and silver, others amber and burgundy.

  "It reminds me of the northern lights," he said finally.

  “What’s that?”

  “Lights in the skies far north. You can only see them from the islands north of Cormalen or parts of northern Sarneth and then only at certain times of the year. They’re mesmerizing--like this.”

  “When did you see--” I began, all the hairs on my neck suddenly prickling. There were footsteps far off, footsteps on the stairs. I stiffened at their inexorable approach.

  “Sweet?” Merius heard them then, whether in my mind or with his own sharp ears, I couldn‘t be sure. “That harpy queen,” he muttered and bounded off the bed, his aura leaving silvery trails in the dark.

  I shivered despite the lingering warmth from our mingled auras. Merius stumbled around the chamber, and I cringed for him when he apparently stubbed his toe on the same overturned chair that had tripped him earlier.

  “Damn it!” he swore.

  “Merius, what are you doing?” I hissed finally. “They’ll hear you.”

  “I need a weapon.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know.” He sank heavily on the bed beside me. “I just want something solid at hand, you know? Hellfire, what I wouldn’t give for my sword--I keep forgetting it’s not here.”

  “Do you think it’s the queen?” I asked, the footsteps growing louder in the hall.

  “For certain.” He found my hand and gripped it tightly in his. Through his ears, his thoughts, I heard several pairs of boots, probably Toscar and more guards, and slippers, the swish of a heavy train, which would be Jazmene, but there were lighter, shuffling footfalls between hers, so there was at least another woman with them. *A handmaid? he thought.

  “I don’t think so,” I whispered. A shadow fell across my heart, a quiet dread settling on me. Long, dark fingers reached under the door and stretched across the floor, probing my aura, my mind with sharp curiosity. I grimaced at the invasion and grabbed for Merius. The silvery shield of his aura surrounded me as he took me in his arms, and the fingers retreated, paused beyond the confines of Merius’s light before they disappeared back under the door.

  There was a rattle of keys in the lock. The door opened. I hid my face against Merius’s shoulder for a moment, then turned my head to look at our . . . *Visitors? Merius supplied with a sardonic edge that made me stifle a giggle.

  Queen Jazmene stood near the door, jeweled scepter clasped with frightening casualness in her right hand. Only she would carry a scepter like a parasol. The two guards who’d been outside the door this afternoon flanked her, their steady gazes trained on Merius. Toscar lurked off to the side, his posture poised and ready for battle, the intent gleam of dark speculation in his eyes as he regarded Merius without blinking.

  A strange old woman, her skin like crumpled ivory silk over bird bones, grasped Toscar’s arm. Likely her jewels weighed her down--her black gown dripped with flecks of what appeared to be volcanic glass, a massive tiara held up the elaborate gray coils of her hair, and gold hoop earrings stretched her ear lobes. Her eyes made me shudder--milky white with no irises or pupils, they glowed with an otherworldly light as if she could see despite her obvious blindness. I stared at her, my own eyes hurting from the effort of trying to focus on her aura. A restless shadow, it shifted and moved around her, at times veiling her face from my sight. She had one of those auras like Peregrine of Bara’s, easier to smell than see, and hers smelled of stale vanity powder and old perfume. I had a sudden childhood memory of hiding in my fashionable grandmother’s wardrobe, the stuffy warm darkness rife with the stifling scents of perfume and powder from her clothes, the sickly sweetness of slow genteel decay.

  “We would have readied the chamber and ourselves for the honor of your visit, Your Majesty, had we been adequately forewarned,” Merius drawled, his tone dripping disdain.

  Jazmene laughed. “I apologize for the lateness of the hour, pet, but Lord Toscar and I had a royal banquet and ball to attend. I must say, under the circumstances, I’m pleasantly surprised.” She strode around the chamber, poking at a few of the scattered books and bits of furniture with her toe. “You didn’t break all the chairs, at least. Safire must be a good influence on you.” Her glittering gaze lit on me for a moment before traveling past us to the mirror. Too late, I remembered that we had covered it. I had intended to take the blanket off it before the queen or guards came into the chamber and noticed. She gazed at it for a moment before she slowly looked back at me. “Well, that explains one mystery,” she muttered. I expected her to go over to the mirror and yank the blanket down, but she didn’t. Instead, she continued to stare at me, so long that I felt a flush warm my skin. Her stare reminded me that all I wore was my shift in this roomful of strange eyes. The way she looked at me, predatory, one would think she was a man benighted with lust.

  Merius stirred beside me, his arm tightening. *Safire?

  “Perhaps you would introduce your com
panion, Your Majesty,” I said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “My dears, allow me to present Lady Undene of Norland, long exiled from your mutual homeland.”

  “Norland? Some relation to Rhianan of Norland, I presume?” Merius hid his surprise better than I did. All I could do was gape for a long moment.

  “Poor Rhianan’s great aunt on her father’s side,” Undene said, the voice from her thin ribcage unexpectedly strong, the musical cadence of one who had spoken Sarns a long time with a Corcin accent. Beneath the charming accent, though, I heard the November wind whistling through barren canyons when she spoke, and I shuddered at the sound of it stirring amongst the bones of an animal carcass. This frail old woman terrified me even more than Queen Jazmene.

  Toscar stepped forward with Undene, leading her. When she abruptly stopped halfway across the rug in front of us, Toscar continued, bumbling backwards when he realized his companion was no longer moving. Merius snickered, and the sound reverberated in the chamber. Toscar’s eyes narrowed, his face shuttered and still, and I knew then he looked forward to the duel with Merius.

  *When he sees you, he sees Mordric. I thought.

  *I hope so. He knows Father would slaughter him on the salon floor, and if I learned anything from Father, it‘s how to use a blade. His aura seethed, pewter smoke swirling around us, and I gripped his arm as if to restrain him.

  “Why are you so upset, young man?” Undene asked suddenly, the singsong rhythm of her voice sharpened into a saw, rasping back and forth through the air. “I can barely see either of you through all the smoke.”

  “Good,” Merius spat.

  Undene cackled, as if delighted by him. “Quicksilver, even you can’t shield her forever.”

  “What did you call him, Undene?” Jazmene demanded.

  “Quicksilver.” Her white eyes glowed obscenely as she stared at us. “He has a light that shines like a shield in the sun. It burns my eyes so I can hardly sense her. He surrounds her, protects her with it. I can get no closer with him so angry.”

  “Guards,” Jazmene said perfunctorily, gesturing towards us. “Separate Safire and Merius.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Merius growled, so taut suddenly that his muscles felt like iron bands where he touched me. The guards hesitated, obviously not eager to engage him.

  I met Merius’s gaze. "We knew this was coming. Let me go, just for a moment."

  Slowly, he loosened his grip. *If she hurts you somehow . . . his thought dissolved into the unintelligible scarlet of rage, like a profuse flow of blood obscuring the wound beneath. Poor dear heart--these bastards had made him feel helpless, and there was no worse feeling for a man like him. I squeezed his knee as I rose to face Undene.

  “The guards won’t be necessary, Your Majesty,” I said aloud.

  “I can see that.” The queen laughed softly, almost uneasily. “You have quite a knack with your husband, Safire.”

  I turned my gaze on her. “Have you ever pressed your ear to the river ice and heard the distant gurgle of the water rushing underneath?”

  “What does that mean?” She raised her hand in an impatient gesture.

  “If you have to ask, Your Majesty, you’ll likely never understand what Merius and I hear when we look at each other.” Without waiting for the queen‘s reaction, I turned to face Undene, only a couple yards away. She stood and stared at me with her sightless eyes, so motionless that I wondered if she still breathed.

  *I’ve never met another witch, aside from my mother. I thought in her direction, just to see if she could hear me.

  Her reply was immediate. *I’ve met many witches and warlocks, little one, but none quite like you.

  I put my hand to my forehead--Merius’s thoughts mixed with mine smoothly, a carryover of our spoken conversations, but this was different. Undene’s thoughts, like her voice, sawed through my skull. *Stop.

  She rolled her shoulders back, her apparent weakness dissipated in a straight posture that rivaled the queen’s perfect carriage. *You can hear me. An excitement thrummed under her words.

  I shrank back, the saw rasping back and forth, dull red explosions before my eyes. *Please stop. I imagined my mind locked away in a lead-lined trunk, the peaceful, dark quiet inside. The peace lasted for a moment, and then the saw started on the outside of the trunk, a muffled rasp that promised more pain soon. *How did you find me here?

  *When you imagine yourself in a trunk next time, make it all lead, not just the inside, and throw the key to the bottom of the ocean. You burn far too brightly to smother your fire in a box anyway. The smoke will give you away every time.

  “What’s happening?” Jazmene demanded, and for the first time, I welcomed her interruption.

  “Uncover the mirror--Safire and I want to take a peek together,” Undene said, shaking off Toscar’s hand as she stepped toward the mirror. One of the guards rushed to tug at the blanket. It slithered down and landed softly over the wash basin and ewer. The still, silvery surface lay exposed. Undene strode forward, her blindness not hampering her in the slightest. It was as if the mirror called her.

  Despite the jumble of images earlier from all over the palace, now the surface showed only our reflections, the reflection of the chamber behind us, just like any other mirror. I looked like a hedge witch, my hair unkempt and wild as a copper bush, my skin flushed as if I’d just returned from a long winter walk.

  *Your silver stallion uses you well. Undene cackled in my mind.

  “Have some respect,” I hissed.

  The wicked crone ignored my indignation. *It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?

  I shook my head. *Why is that?

  *Because I work best with mirrors. It’s my particular talent.

  *You made this mirror?

  *In a sense, yes. Any mirror that I use absorbs my gift, just as your drawings and paintings absorb yours. I used this particular mirror for a long time, which makes it stronger than ordinary mirrors.

  *So the mirror that led Rhianan to her doom--that was your mirror at one time?

  She nodded. *Rhianan was a weak fool. She had a small talent for prophesy and used it at the wrong time.

  *Perhaps she couldn’t help it. It sounds like the vision overtook her without warning.

  *How did you know to cover the mirror, little one? Her mental words were soft, almost a caress, and the hair rose on the back of my neck. Under the sweetness, a shadow lurked. I remembered the dark fingers that had come under the door the moment before the guards had unlocked it, the fingers that had tried to prod Merius’s and my auras while we waited together on the bed. They hadn’t been my overworked imagination. Those shadow fingers had been Undene’s aura. Now she was drawing me out with this conversation, using my curiosity to get me to relax and perhaps expose myself in front of the mirror. She wanted to see my secrets for Jazmene.

  *How did you know to cover the mirror? she repeated.

  Last time I had tried to defend myself by locking my mind in a trunk, and that hadn’t worked. This time I would attack and see if that worked better. The blanket slipped from my shoulders as I raised my arms. I drew heat from the rising rage in my veins, the scarlet and gray smoke still emanating from Merius, and formed it into a flaming ball that was far too hot to hold. So I hurled it at the mirror. An ordinary mirror wouldn’t be affected, except perhaps to feel hot to the touch. But an enchanted mirror . . .

  “Oh my,” Undene exclaimed and stumbled back. Toscar grabbed her. The mirror cracked into a hundred pieces. Some landed on the blanket that still draped the washstand. Most crashed to the floor with a harsh silvery music, leaving only the trembling frame hanging on the wall.

  Silence buzzed in my ears for a long moment. Jazmene finally strode forward and bent down to touch one of the glass pieces. Some evil part of me hoped she cut herself on it, but no such luck. She turned to look at Undene, still sagging against Toscar’s arm, and then at me. “What happened?”

  “Your Majesty, if you have something you wan
t to find out about me or Merius, then ask us directly instead of spying. Otherwise, you’ll end up with more shattered mirrors and broken furniture.” I spun on my heel and stalked over to the bed, trying to hide the shiver of anger and fear still warring inside me. Merius pulled me into his arms.

  Undene laughed then, that obscene high-pitched cackle. “Your Majesty, why did you leave these two alone together this afternoon? It’s only made their bond stronger. Before, the bond was still new enough that we could have severed it eventually with the poison, but now . . .” I felt my cheeks grow hot as I realized what she meant, and I hid my face against Merius’s shoulder.

  “What do you mean?” Jazmene asked, and my whole face burned. Did she have to ask?

  Undene cackled again. “Whatever did you expect of such a hot-blooded buck and a delectable wench? He tupped her as soon as the door was closed. Oh, to be young and lusty again and so--eager,” she paused, a nasty little grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. She was angry, I could feel it, angry at me for breaking her mirror, and this was her revenge. “We’ll never sever the mind bond now, not without killing one or the other. And that would be a shame--Quicksilver has quite the touch with his little mare. He had her legs open faster than a pair of scissors . . .”

  “Undene, enough,” Jazmene interrupted. “I have to think about this for a moment. You mean, there are stages to a mind bond?”

  “Of course, Your Majesty.” Undene sounded as if she spoke to an ignorant child. “Mind bonds don’t happen overnight. I wager these two didn’t realize they had a mind bond until right before your guards seized Quicksilver, not enough time for them to consummate it then.”

  “So a mind bond requires physical consummation to be complete?” Jazmene was an impatient student, thirsting for knowledge. Good God. Though I did find myself interested. Here at last was someone who could explain what had happened to us, and it was a relief in a way to hear that we weren’t the first to have these experiences.

  Undene nodded. “Their spirits mate at the same time as their bodies, and after that, it’s impossible to break their bond unless you kill them. So it seems all your poison has been for naught, Your Majesty.”