Nightshade

by Shea Godfrey

  Darry asked of Jessa’s home and if she had seen the horse yards that were legendary even in Lokey. Jessa had shifted on some pillows and faced her, both knees resting along Darry’s right leg as she described the vast prairie that was home to the breeders and their immense farms and ranches. She had not seen them, Jessa said, but she had walked the smaller yards on the northern edges of Karballa.

  Darry asked her many things, about the flowers of her home and the music, and what of the sea? Had Jessa been to the sea, for Darry had heard that the beaches on the southern edges of Lyoness were of a black sand that would burn one’s feet at midday. Jessa told her she had only been there a few times but never allowed to leave her covered coach. She had smelled the scent of the waves as they came in, though, and it had washed over her as if she were the sand itself. As she told Darry this, she let a curl of Darry’s hair slide gently through her fingers.

  Radha watched Darry closely and saw the heat in her gaze as she had looked at Jessa, though Jessa was lost in some stray thought. Darry had cast her eyes aside with some effort and an expression of shyness that Radha found terribly sultry.

  She had looked just as beautiful the night before, as Radha had watched from a comfortable corner in Madam Salina’s House, veiled within her spell as Darry had hosted a celebration for one of her men. She had treated each of her company with respect and affection, which they seemed worthy of. Radha had a skill for seeing to the heart of a man and knowing his worth, and Darry had chosen her friends very well indeed. Though they were considered outcasts for the most part, and bastard sons of powerful men, they seemed to mean the world to the Princess. They responded to her regard in kind, which had impressed Radha deeply. Darry had made them a family and a tribe unto themselves, a discarded generation of blood made kin by a woman’s love and firsthand understanding of their rejection.

  They spoke of the Queen and how Darry could fool almost anyone else, and then Darry asked, with great care, the name of Jessa’s own mother.

  Jessa had been surprised and her face showed it. Her smile had faded and a stillness settled within her body that Radha knew was Jessa’s deepest sadness. Darry took Jessa’s hand in her own.

  “It is said,” Jessa whispered, “that she rode a horse so black that the night sky would rise early every eve in search of its lost heart. Radha says the foal was named for the constellations and a prayer was said at her naming, for the Shaman swore the animal was blessed by the Vhaelin. When she was given to my mother a great celebration was held.”

  “Was there dancing?” Darry asked.

  Jessa chuckled. “Yes, I’m sure there was.”

  “And your mother’s name?”

  Jessa glanced away and Radha wanted to call out across the room. Speak it, child, and it will give you the freedom you so long for.

  Radha remembered well the day that Jessa had said her mother’s name before Bharjah, and he had struck her with such force that her child’s body had spun like a cloth doll across the tiles. He had followed her quickly and kicked her, then, as she lay gasping on the brightly colored floor, declared that the name was forbidden. Should Jessa ever speak it again, she would be given to her brothers and they would decide her punishment.

  Jessa had been made to watch then, a girl of but ten years old, as one of the maidservants was brought forth to be murdered and torn apart by Sylban-Tenna’s dogs. The woman’s high-pitched screams had echoed off the jade-encrusted walls of Bharjah’s throne room until at last her throat had been torn out. Jessa’s brothers had laughed and goaded the animals to further violence until one of the dogs had to be slain when it would not leave its blood lust. Jessa had not spoken her mother’s name since, not even within the secrets and privacy of their vast rooms and terraces.

  “It is forbidden,” Jessa whispered. “He said he would…that he would…”

  Speak it, my child.

  “I’ll tell no one, Jess,” Darry whispered in return.

  Speak it, Jessa-Sirrah, take her back from him. Win your freedom with a single word.

  “I swear upon my life,” Darry said.

  “It’s not…I cannot,” Jessa said, and Radha could hear the tears in her voice and the bone-deep fear that Jessa had never been able to banish. It was the last shackle she had left to throw off in order to walk free through the rest of her life.

  Darry turned smoothly and faced her, still holding her hand. “You’re in my land now, Jessa, not his. Within the walls of my home. If your father can reach across those leagues in the dead of night and a thousand stars away, then I’ll protect you from his reach, no matter the cost.”

  Sweet child, how have they overlooked you so easily?

  “She must’ve had eyes like yours,” Darry declared softly. “I would know her name and hold it safe within my heart. I would know whom I should thank when you look at me so, with eyes the color of the southern seas at midnight.”

  Radha could see that Jessa reacted to the words, sweetly enticed by the honesty and strength of the woman she desired. Sahla una patrice-ma, jhaloona fahdhee. You have a lover’s tongue.

  “On my honor, Jess, I will hold it dear.”

  “Jhannina.” Jessa spoke, then smiled. Sudden tears welled up and streaked her cheeks.

  Jhannina de Cassey LaMarc of the Red-Tail Clan, Radha thought boldly. Daughter to the slain warrior Tinsella de Sheen LaMarc and his widowed wife, priestess of the deepest bloodline reaching back to the blessed Neela herself. Neela, the greatest High Priestess the Vhaelin has ever known. Neela, who sacrificed what was left of her heart after the death of her beloved Tannen, only so that her power and blood would not be lost. Ancestor to my own Jhannina, a daughter to the Plains of Ibarris and a lost prophet of the Vhaelin. A prophet who sacrificed herself, in turn, so that our people would not perish beneath the sword of the Butcher. Lost blood and lost promise. Lost hope, until you, child. And oh, how she wept with joy when she looked into your eyes, holding you up to the stars as you wailed your fire like a battle cry into the night! She laughed as she blessed you and kissed your eyes, which were indeed her own.

  “My mother’s name was Jhannina.” Jessa spoke again, then laughed. And though the sound was quiet it was filled with joy. “And he can’t hurt me any longer.”

  Darry caught a tear upon a careful thumb. “’Tis a beautiful name.”

  Jessa hid her face. “Yes,” she said, wiping her cheeks.

  “We don’t seem to have such names here within Arravan,” Darry said quietly, and Radha smiled at the clever turn. “Names filled with mystery and sounds that only a poet might understand. All I know of such things is the sea. I can only offer up the sea as having such rhyme. I would show you a beach that does not burn your feet, and you may walk within the surf for as long as you like. It will whisper as it washes against the skin of your legs, the names of the people you love. It will echo with the songs of fish so large that no ship may carry them should they be hooked upon a pole. So large that no net may hold them. It will tell you where the sun sleeps when it hisses into its bed at the edge of the world. Would you like me to take you there, Jessa?”

  “Yes.” Jessa accepted the invitation without hesitation. “I would like that very much.”

  “Then I promise that I will.”

  Darry talked of the sea and sat back as Jessa rested her head on Darry’s shoulder. Still holding Jessa’s hand, Darry told how once she had sailed on a great ship across the sea, seeing the Southern Islands and Wei-Jinn itself, and finding perhaps the place her grandmother had found. It was a place with a wall of orchids hidden in the mists beyond a fall of water so clear that Darry swore she could count the stars in it.

  Radha left them and sat on her divan for a very long time, lost within her own vast memories. The touch of a hand smoothing down her back. The sound of a strong laugh and the sight of a child running in the sun, nearly lost within the wild grass. Each memory led to the next and she lay down eventually and rested her head on the pillow Jessa insisted she use, though Radha disl
iked such silly comforts.

  I have seen your daughter become a woman, Jhannina. Radha spoke in prayer. On this night, I have seen the deepest part of her childhood fear stripped away. I have seen her start upon the road to her freedom at last, and she will walk it beside the one who promised she would return. I have seen the birth of the Vhaelin’s most sacred prophecy, and our power shall return now. Our blood shall usher in a new era.

  *

  Jessa lifted the shawl from the back of the divan and placed it over Radha’s left shoulder as she curled on her side in a fair imitation of sleep.

  “Have a care for her heart, Jessa,” Radha said softly.

  Jessa’s hands stilled but she said nothing.

  “She is a backwards woman and you’re a most beautiful temptation. Your actions are inappropriate, child, do you understand? You’re here for her brother, and Darrius has seen you with him, smiling and walking with him amidst the beauty of the gardens. It is very clear why you’re here, at least to her.”

  Jessa’s blood began to rise. “And?”

  “And so you treat with her in the moonlight and touch her without reason to do so, but for your whim. It is innocent enough, though, perhaps, it is not so simple for her,” Radha said. “If you have the intention of pursuing her then do so, but do not do it lightly, for you will pit her against her brother. There is bad blood between them and she is in danger from his hatred.”

  Jessa looked at the hearth. After a minute or two she shifted her legs to the side and sat against the divan, placing her right arm along Radha’s.

  “She is the one in your visions.”

  “Yes.”

  “A child of the Durand line.”

  “Not a son,” Jessa whispered. “Not a son, but a daughter to the High King.”

  “Are you troubled that your desire lies in the body of a woman?” Radha asked.

  “No. Not at all. Are you, Radha?” Jessa asked, her whisper filled with apprehension.

  “I would bed her myself if I were not as old as the sea,” Radha said.

  Jessa let out a breath of startled laughter. “Radha.”

  Radha’s raspy chuckle filled the air between them. “You had not thought, then, that you might be backwards?”

  “It does not seem very backwards to me, Radha,” Jessa said. “It feels like, like my want is…it feels very simple and honest.”

  “It is your heart.”

  “I hadn’t thought of ever feeling anything like this,” Jessa responded, amazed. “I had never thought that it would be so, so much.”

  “It’s very lovely, isn’t it.”

  “Tua an ishla, I cannot breathe when she is close,” Jessa said, grateful to finally voice her feelings. “When she moves or when she laughs, I don’t know, something breaks inside. And her hair smells like the sea and musk. Her skin is so soft that I wish to fill my hands with the touch of it. Such sweetness, Radha, she’s the most magnificent thing I’ve ever known. Ever, Radha. I had no idea that one person could be so pleasing.”

  Radha’s expression was filled with tender amusement.

  “And her mouth,” Jessa said, almost groaning on the words. “It’s all I can do not to kiss her, and I am dizzy with want for the taste of her.” She could not keep the despair from her voice, her words quickening with frustration. “Not that I have even the slightest notion as to what I’m doing. And the things I feel, they burn like nothing I’ve ever known before. Not even the touch of the Vhaelin compares. Not even that.”

  “And so this is desire, my child.”

  Jessa stared at her.“Yes, thank you, Radha,” she replied with quiet sarcasm. “I’ve managed to figure that much out for myself.”

  “What will you do?”

  Jessa did not answer, laying her head on the cushion.

  Radha touched Jessa’s hair. “And if the Prince wishes you for his bride?”

  “Malcolm does not wish anything from me, and I’m glad of it.”

  “He needs nothing but to find you beautiful to get an heir from you. He does not have to love you, Jessa. He does not even have to like you.”

  “I don’t think that’s why we’re here. I am here as a ruse, at least for now. I am the excuse, Radha, though for what I cannot say. We’re speaking of Bharjah’s deeper play again, and I still haven’t figured out what that is, though I’ll swear by my braids that Joaquin spins at the center of it. He and Malcolm are devising something beyond the King’s negotiations. I can see it when they speak. I know it. Joaquin with that clever look he gets when he’s hiding something. And then I am brought forth like a bluff in a game of Suns, a shiny coin tossed before his secret wager in hopes of deceiving any eyes that may be watching.”

  “And if you’re wrong, Jessa? If Joaquin finds his price and the boy’s father agrees, if Bharjah agrees? What then?”

  “I don’t know.” Jessa tried to see what the future held but was unable to do so. It seemed a very short road in her mind’s eye and shrouded in darkness. “What if she doesn’t want what I do?”

  “If she does not love you as you love her?”

  “Love?” Jessa asked in a breath.

  “Do you deny it?”

  Do I love her? It was not even a question, really, and Jessa knew it as soon as the words moved through her thoughts. It mattered very little that the feelings were new and strange and time had been short since that first moment she had gazed into Darry’s eyes. Love. She knew very little of what it might be, but she knew enough to recognize it. The deep feelings she had when she merely looked at Darry were beyond desire. And though time had been short in the scope of her years, she had known Darry for a lifetime, if only from afar. Darry had easily fulfilled the promises given to her by the Waters of Truth, and then some. It was perhaps an unfair burden to place upon her, but it was the truth and Jessa knew it.

  Love. Darrius.

  “Do you love her?” Radha asked again.

  “Yes.” Jessa felt a profound thrill at the admission. “What am I to do?”

  Radha was impressed that Jessa would accept this fact so freely despite all that she knew of life. Though Jessa had been sequestered, her seclusion had taught her a great many lessons that made her wise in the dark ways of the human heart. It had made her clever and trained her thoughts to follow hidden paths and long views that most did not even consider. By watching life as she had without truly being a part of it, she had become a dangerous woman in her knowledge of others.

  For Jessa to be so near to her most precious desire, to finally be a part of that life she had only glimpsed from the outside looking in, her fear would be most formidable. “If you’ve not the courage to find out for yourself how she feels?” she said, “I’ll not help you. Nor will the Vhaelin, I imagine.”

  “It is a reasonable question, Radha,” Jessa said quietly.

  “I know. But what if she does? You will have to choose.”

  “If she wants me that won’t be difficult.”

  “There will be consequences,” Radha said. “Hard prices to be paid, perhaps even violent ones.”

  “If she wants me, Radha, then let them come.”

  Radha smiled at the steel she heard and moved her hand gently in Jessa’s hair. “You’ve grown into a very fine woman, Jessa-Sirrah,” Radha whispered. “Your mother would’ve been most proud.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The ladies of the Queen’s Court moved through the crowded solar, their dresses between casual and formal. Though it was an official function it was decidedly private and unhampered by politics. The men were gone from the keep and it was a celebration of their liberty. The afternoon tea was somewhat of a tradition with the Queen when the Green Hills hunt was on, and the women present were her closest companions and Emmalyn’s as well. A few names could not be avoided, but for the most part it was to be a friendly affair free of courtly pretense.

  Tables were scattered about and the beautiful afternoon was filled with light breezes and summer warmth. There was wine, both warm spring red a
nd cool Ravonese gold. The tea set on each table was merely for show, for if one were to pour and expect tea she would find a mild blend of Pentab Fire filling her delicate cup instead.

  Musicians sat deeper within the gardens and out of sight, the lute and pipes seemingly drifting in with the breeze. And only the most delicious food was present: sweet breads and pastries and delicately spiced meats and cheese. The cooks had even prepared a plate of Lyonese rum sticks, the rolled bread heavy with the dark liquor.

  Jessa watched the women around her with enjoyment, never having experienced such a gathering, as Bharjah’s court was not known for frivolous functions. The Blooded women of her land were afforded little more station than the common people, for they were women, after all.

  She smiled and was introduced to Emmalyn and Darry’s cousin, Nina Lewellyn, arrived only that morning in Lokey. She was the daughter of Sulladon Lewellyn, Cecelia’s brother, and Jessa liked her instantly. She had blondish red hair and freckles, and green eyes like Emmalyn, her sense of humor extremely bold and more than somewhat inappropriate. Jessa was still not comfortable with the laughter that always seemed to hover upon the edges of life in Blackstone Keep, but she considered it the most pleasant thing she might ever have to get used to.

  She met the sisters to the infamous Bentley, and they were as beautiful as he was handsome. Alisha found her immediately, pulling her into their circle. She was a delicate woman and very pretty, and Jessa found her most appealing, liking her eyes and her sweet smile. And there was Melora Salish as well, who moved through the room as if she owned it, her brother’s wife at her arm. As sister to Malcolm’s most trusted advisor, Melora was a permanent fixture at any function no matter who the guest list might contain.

  The older women of the court were present as well, friends who had been lifelong companions to Cecelia and a few distant relatives, recently arrived for the upcoming Solstice events. When Jessa was introduced they doted on her and she let them, treating them with the same ease and respect that she showed her Radha. Some had even known Owen’s mother, Marget of the Moonblood orchids. One woman was Cecelia’s own aunt, the only Lewellyn of her generation aside from Cecelia’s father, who still lived.