The Sponsor cupped his chin in his left palm. “None of these, Majesty. I have two daughters, but neither is suitable for you. I already have an army, it seems, and I rather hate sailing. The sea upsets my stomach.”
An army? A Shiver man who hates the sea? Orumna found it all very odd. “What is in this bottle of yours? Not the Red. The other bottle.” He glared down the table at the scrap of cloth inside the Sponsor’s glass cylinder.
The Sponsor smiled. “A page from a book, your Majesty. A very old book, as it happens. Perhaps the oldest.”
Orumna rubbed his head. He could hardly hear the Sponsor’s words anymore. His headache was too powerful, and the cold washing over him felt like waves from a wintered sea. His breath made great clouds when he breathed, and his eyelids felt as though icicles were hanging from his lashes. “A book?” He fumbled with the words. “What book? Am I the only one freezing in here? Where is Reya?”
He glanced behind him, hoping to see his guards, or Reya, or anyone. But Reya and her girls were gone, and the guards frozen stiff as statues. The two men’s skins were blue, their eyes glazed with frost, and their brittle fingers cracked around the hafts of their spears. The fog in his head was too thick to make sense of it, and so he faced the Sponsor once again. “Do you see that?” he blustered. “The guards are…”
But the Sponsor was gone, and in the Shiver man’s place Orumna saw himself sitting in the chair. The second Orumna’s cheeks were just as bulbous, his gut just as huge, and his sausage-like fingers twiddling against his kingly robes. The only difference was in his eyes. Green, though the real Orumna. Green as Thillrian water, green as moss. But impossible! There is no magic in this world!
“Majesty…” The second Orumna grinned. “It’s rather cold in here, did you notice?”
The real Orumna cracked his mouth to cry for Reya, but no sound came out. The cords in his throat were frozen stiff, and his teeth stuck together with frosted saliva. The false king smiled at him, feigning sympathy, and then reached out to tap the real Orumna’s knuckles with a spoon. The King of Thillria felt no pain. He watched his arms shatter like glass, then his chest, and then finally the rest of his body, raining in crystalline shards upon a floor he would never walk again.
A Sight for Sore Eyes
Her sandals forgotten, Andelusia walked barefoot into Gryphon’s market. The cobblestones felt warm between her toes, and the sunshine like a lover’s caress upon her cheeks. It was early summer, the warmest day of the year thus far, and though the hour was early, the market was busy. She wove her way around baskets of fruit, tables covered in bread, and barrels of cider stacked two-high. She smiled and laughed with everyone she met, her voice like music, her heart soaring. She meandered among the vendors, passing out her silvers until the front of her jade-colored skirt sagged beneath the weight of apples, cherries, and several handfuls of confections.
Clutching her treasures close, she wandered out of Gryphon, arriving moments later in the shadow of Grandwood, home of Graehelm’s largest trees. Today is a good day to be alive, she thought as the city fell behind her. Here is the sun, bright and smiling. Here are the oaks, my fairest of friends. And here am I, far from Furyon.
Of all the creatures of the world, perhaps Andelusia was most beautiful. Her eyes were the darkest of greens, the shade of crushed emeralds, while her hair, wavy as the sea, cascaded upon her narrow shoulders in a waterfall of crimson. Most folk of Gryphon adored her, for she was accidentally bewitching, as soft and sensual as honey, and as graceful as a windblown flower. More charming still, she was unaware of her beauty, for though most folk admired her whenever she went by, she returned only smiles to their stares.
Today she felt particularly blissful, though she could not say why. She bounded into Grandwood like a fawn, and just a few hundred strides in, she found her favorite spot beside Mirror, her favorite pond. She plopped down onto the grass and propped herself against an impossibly tall oak, whose trunk was gnarled like the hands of an old man, and whose roots were as thick as the barreled bodies of most other trees. Away at last. Her sighs mingled with the wind. No voices here but the birds.
Alone and happy, she loosed an apple from her skirt and chomped noisily into its flesh, savoring every drop of sweetness until it was gone. Tossing the core aside, she dropped several candies on her tongue. Reds, yellows, and blues, she tasted, each one sweeter than the last. Once half her candies were gone and her mouth tingling from their tartness, she leaned back against her oak, allowing the sunshine to spill across her face. I could almost be a queen, she mused. My subjects are the grass, and my throne these old, old roots.
She had a new book to read today. It was weathered thing, a tome of ancient lore she had borrowed from Saul. The book had no name she knew of. Several of its pages were worn and unreadable, but it hardly mattered to her. Like all the others she borrowed, the old tome would surely awaken her imagination, and that is all that matters. She cracked the dry, creaking cover and immersed herself, soon forgetting her foothold in the real world.
Hours passed her by. The warm winds shifted and the sun crawled across the cloudless sky, casting shadows from the leaves upon her face. Midday came and went, yet no one arrived to trouble her. Rellen does not mind, nor does Saul, nor Helena, nor anyone else, she knew. They know where I am if they need to find me.
Come afternoon, she felt her thirst calling. The sun, even filtered through Grandwood’s green canopy, tired her eyes and parched her throat. She shut her book, stretched her slender arms high above her head, and let out a great yawn before rising to her feet. I need something to drink. She smacked her lips. Would you mind, Mirror, if I took a sip or two?
She moved lazily between the trees toward Mirror. It was her pool, her secret spot, the very place she had dallied countless days away. Its pale blue water smiled at the sky amid a ring of bronze-barked oaks. As if wandering in a dream, she knelt at its edge and splashed her face clean.
And then she felt the hairs rising on her neck.
Perhaps it was the way the leaves went utterly still, or perhaps the sudden silence of the birds, but she felt watched, as though a creature from the pages of her book had leapt from the parchment to stalk her. She froze beside her pond, shadowed by the great shelf of slate overlooking the water. She felt eyes watching her, though from where? No one ever comes here, not even Rellen. This is my place. Everyone knows as much.
Then came the footfalls of a man, too near to be imagined. The sound of boots crashing against the earth echoed through the forest, rattling birds and squirrels from their hiding spots amid the trees. She swore she saw a long shadow fall across Mirror’s surface, a blade of night coming to rest against the day’s throat. She shut her eyes and pretended it was false. But no, she knew. It is real. Someone is here.
Startled, she sprang to her feet. An apple and a wad of candy tumbled from her skirt into the water. She darted to the nearest tree, gazing out across the oaks surrounding Mirror. “Who goes?” she called into the forest. “Come out! This is not funny!”
From another place in the woods, the man’s voice snapped the silence. “Over here.”
Her curiosity fled. A trickle of fear iced her blood. Rather than run, she knelt in the loam and reached for the inside of her right thigh, where she always kept her secret knife, a needle-like blade lashed high enough so that none but Rellen knew it was there. “My husband is a soldier.” She held the blade close and hid behind her tree. “He could slay a hundred men, to say nothing of one!”
From thirty paces out, just beyond a trio of young oaks, she heard the shuffling sound. She saw a dark-clad man push an oak limb aside, and she heard the sound of his bootfalls crunching in the grass. Her heart pounding, she clutched her dagger to her chest and pressed her back against the tree. I could scream, but no one will hear me. I could run, but my sandals are still in Rellen’s room. If it comes to it, I will fight.
She held her breath and glanced once more around the tree. She saw a man emerge from the ring o
f oaks, his tall, silhouetted shade like a black tower standing in a ring of sunlight. She strained to see his face, but when a breeze washed through the glade and rattled the leaves, her mouth fell open and her blade tumbled from her grasp. I know him. Her breath left her. Father sun, strike me down! I know him!
He was as familiar to her as the rising of the sun, as calming a presence as a cloudless winter twilight. He looked just like she remembered: tall, lean, and earthen-haired, a black-scabbarded sword hanging from his waist and a white bow slung over his back. His eyes were a stormy shade of ocean blue, dark enough to hide whatever his stoic mind might dwell upon. Though all in black, she knew he was no brigand come to assault her. He is the hero of Mormist, the savior of Graehelm, the destroyer of Furyon.
Her fear became dust, and Andelusia bolted into the open, arms extended. “Garrett! You came back!”
She hit him at a run, staggering him with her affection, clinging to him as though he were the last tree in the world. If not for Rellen, she would have kissed him, and hard. “Garrett, oh Garrett.” She felt him lift her into the air. “I worried… I never thought… I…”
“Ande.” He set her down and squared her shoulders in his strong, gentle hands. “You look…very well.”
“And you.” She blushed. “Sorry I yelled at you. I thought maybe…”
You said husband.” Garrett smiled a rare smile. “I wondered when you would marry Rellen. I hoped to make the wedding.”
“No…” The scarlet in her flesh deepened. “Not married. Not yet anyhow. I did not know your voice, Garrett. I only said those things to scare you off. But it was you who scared me, you know. I could have tickled you with my knife. Then where would you be?”
He tousled her hair and went to Mirror to retrieve her fallen pile of foodstuffs. His calmness felt impossible, considering she had not seen him in what seemed an eternity. Three years. The memory rushed back into her mind. Three long, long years. And now he just wanders back into our lives. How did I know it would be like this?
“Garrett…” Her voice cracked. “I… I thought I would never see you again. Your letters…all these years…I thought you would stay in Mormist.”
Like a breeze come to soothe her, he returned and folded her treats into his rucksack. Look at him, she marveled. Calm as a cloud. Like we were together all morning.
“Ande.” He touched her arm, and she felt her flesh tingle. “Things were not so simple. I did what I could to help my people, but Mormist has far to go. I left them with all I had. If I took too long, I am sorry for it. My ghosts are laid to rest now, and here I am. My fighting days are done. I will stay in Gryphon, if Rellen will have me.”
“You mean if we will have you.” She beamed. “Which we will, of course.”
He touched her hair, caressing a fiery lock between his fingers as if it were spun of something sacred. He has that look, she thought. Something serious is on his mind. In the next moments he became quiet, unsettlingly so. She could not bear it.
“What is it?” she asked. “All this way and your tongue is tied?”
“You look the same, only different.” He touched her cheek.
“Different?”
“Your hair is darker than before. Your eyes are a much deeper green than I remember.”
“I know.” Her gaze sank to the forest floor. “The others do not notice, but I do.”
“I do not say it to worry you.” He lifted her chin with his fingers. “I only wondered…”
“…if the shadow still lingers?” She finished his thought.
“Yes.”
There, in the shimmering light beneath the leaves, and in Garrett’s protective presence, she allowed herself to remember. The shadow. Furyon. Revenen. The Orb. The voices. The last vestiges of her darkest days were not something she could let go of, not now or ever. If her hair was a deeper red than before, it was only because it had once been black. If her eyes were a darker shade of green and her lips as red as a shadowed rose, her time in Malog was to blame.
“It was impolite to bring it up,” Garrett apologized. “Forgive me.”
She took no insult. Garrett was her guardian from darker days, her rescuer from a lifetime of despair. She revered him, for he was among her most treasured of friends, and now he is back.
“No forgiveness needed.” Her smile relit her face. “But I do have a thousand questions for you. Shall I make a list? Are you well? How was your journey? Where is your horse? Did you miss me?”
“Maybe a list is a good idea.”
“I have an idea.” She tapped him lightly on the chest. “Why not come back to the keep, put away all your things, sneak up on Rellen and Saul, and give them the biggest surprise of their lives? Then we will feast you, pummel you with questions, and you can stay up all night answering everything we ask. How does that sound?”
“Exactly what I had in mind.”
“Good!” she chimed. “Follow me.”
Taking his hand in hers, she tugged him away from Mirror and toward Grandwood’s edge. She made no secret of her smiles. For three long years he had been the missing piece of her life, the one thing lacking she could never replace. Though when we see Rellen, I shall have to hide my smiles, she thought. Else my poor love might be jealous.
They soon reached the forest’s edge, where the line of towering oaks came to a halt and gave way to the meadows south of Gryphon. The grasses were waist-high, an ocean of gold and green swaying in the summer wind. She and he waded in, and for a time it seemed as though she had never left him standing on the broken streets of Orye, as though we walked this field together every day. But no, that was only a dream.
“You were right, you know,” she said halfway across the field. Garrett walked right beside her, his blacks so stark against the golden grass. “I know I look different. I see it in the mirror every morning. I feel different, too. I mean…I am happy, happy with Rellen, happy with Gryphon. I have Saul, even though he is chin-deep in his dusty books all day. I even have Rellen’s mother, whose wits are as sharp as a sword, and Helena and all the others.”
“But there is more.” Garrett knew her mind.
“Yes.” She felt a subtle chill. “There is always more. Something has changed in me…something since…you know when. I feel it whenever I am alone. You know what I feel, right? You remember it?”
“As if it were yesterday,” he admitted. “I remember Malog. I remember the storms, the creatures in the blackness, and the Orb. I have tried to forget it all. I cannot.”
“Only you and I understand,” she said. “And maybe Saul, maybe a little.”
“I will take this to mean you and Rellen have not talked about it.”
Right as ever, she wanted to tell him. I should not burden him with these things. I should be happy he is back. It was three years ago, long enough that it should not matter anymore. But the darkness inside her deepened. A cloud ran across the sun, casting a shadow across her face, and she knew she had to speak her mind.
“I told Rellen a little, but far from everything.” She let herself breathe again. “He was not there. He has his own demons, but not like ours, nothing like ours. I never told him about the voices or what Revenen did to me. Please do not ask him about it. Keep it our secret. Please?”
“Of course,” Garrett promised. “Not a peep to Lord Gryphon. We never have to mention it again. Never, if you like.”
“Never.” She liked the sound of that. “Right. Never, not unless we want to.”
With that, her seriousness faded. Memories of the past gave way to questions of the now, which she began to heap upon Garrett long before reentering the city. Of his days in Mormist, his travels, and his hopes for the future, she prodded, and he answered everything as patiently as he could.
By the time they found their way to Gryphon Keep, it was late, for they had taken the slowest way back. The sun burned on the horizon, a cauldron of violet fire sinking into twilight’s hearth, and the two, still talking, crossed the short-grassed courtyard and s
wung wide the doors to the keep.
Dark Moon Daughter Page 3