by Amy Little
Zak’s cloak rustled as he took it off. He placed it around her shoulders. It felt thick and warm.
“I don’t want it.” She tossed her head.
“Don’t take their greeting to heart,” he said gently.
It was as though the last of her strength rose up in her in the shape of an uncontrollable fury. “How could you understand it? How could you understand anything?” she cried and threw his cloak off. The anger comforted her, but the comfort was all too brief. The sensation of being propelled, of taking action, ebbed as swiftly as it had risen, and she turned to the fire again, feeling more deflated than before.
Zak picked up the cloak and patiently replaced it around her shoulders.
It was made of thick grey wool. She could smell him on it. The smell seemed to bring him closer towards her, to envelop her. Shivering, she did not want to let it go. On the edge of the cloak was embossed the image of a wolf and the threads of the decoration pressed into her cheek.
Zak took her hands, which were clamped before her, into his. “Your fingers are like icicles,” he said. He breathed onto them. His breath and hands were warm, soothing. Then he brought her closer to the fire.
She felt the warmth from the fire on her face. She looked at the flame. In the red and orange flecks she saw herself and her mother, all those years back; her sisters, Cara, and also Miriam, who had vanished when Annika was only three. She remembered their shouts of laughter as they played under the warm summer sun in the lush fields beyond the castle, their silly childish games. She felt the lump in her stomach slowly melt. Tears wet her cheeks.
“It’s all right,” she heard him say.
“I don’t need you,” she said, not bothering to wipe away her tears for to wipe them away would be to acknowledge them. She was not ready to do that, not now, not with him there. “I have managed alone all those years.”
“I know you are strong, Annika. I knew it the moment I laid my eyes on you.”
At the sound of her name on his lips she felt her breath deepen, becoming more grounded, gathering up and somehow blanketing all the pain she had felt.
“But nobody can be strong all the time,” he said. “You don’t have to be.”
“I don’t need anyone,” she said. “No my family, not you. No-one.”
He drew her in until her head rested on his chest.
She no longer had the will to push him away. She closed her eyes and gave in to her tears which ran down her cheeks in streams while the kindling in the fireplace crackled, the cold, stormy wind outside buffeted the trembling shutters, and his hands gently caressed her hair.
Chapter Two
The royal gardens were laid in a rigid rectangular pattern on the outer edge of the chapel. The winter had stripped the leaves off every tree and even the bark looked chafed raw by the piercing winds. The beds where the flowers had bloomed in summer were like empty orbs. It was a bleak landscape, lightly dusted by the snow that fell overnight, and that had in the few hours since sunrise turned in most places to a muddy mess.
Annika could not bear to think of the meeting with her father and sister a few days earlier. The rejection still hurt too much. So did the memory of her weakness, crying on Zak’s chest.
Each time she remembered it, she held her breath as though this could dull the pain. It did not.
To distract herself, Annika walked. She walked all around the castle, up and down all the stairs, even those that led to the tops of the central tower and that took close to half an hour each to navigate, and in the gardens she walked around the chapel and then did loop after loop of the outer path.
In the center of the garden stood a large statue of a tiger. The tiger was cast from a single piece of orange-red material that people said was made by magic in eons gone by.
Annika recalled her father marveling at the statue when she was younger. Annika herself just found it scary. Even now, almost a grown woman, she shivered unconsciously as the tiger’s eyes seemed to relentlessly track her wherever she walked in the park.
A tall, stooped man with shoulder-length black hair and an ashen complexion walked out of the chapel. He was accompanied by a young woman who hid her face under a hood.
Annika caught a glimpse of their faces as they quickly turned the corner, as though they were seeking to hide. It was her sister, Cara. The man, Annika did not know.
Her sister seemed to have grown more gaunt in the last few days.
But it was the man’s face that made Annika stop in her tracks.
The man had deep orange-red eyes that seemed to glow. Both he and Cara disappeared like apparitions.
Annika blinked a few times, unsure of what it was that she just saw. Whatever it was, the man, she had no doubt, was trouble. Cara’s trouble, Annika said to herself. She steeled her heart and quickly walked in the other direction.
She had bumped into Cara once and her father at least half a dozen times in the days since. Each time, they were formal, cordial, and distant. Once, when she had joined them for a supper, they spent the entire meal in silence. Since then, she ate in the kitchen alone.
Outside the rigid outlines of the park lay a knoll, beyond which were the castle’s walls.
Walking along the path now, Annika was surprised to be able to notice and name the different types of moss that grew on the walls. She could also name all of the grasses and perennial shrubs that grew in clumps in the sheltered nooks between trees. She had learned this during her years in the river lands.
The knowledge, and seeing these patches of green, however small, cheered her.
She had spent the five years with Baroness Hale. The Baroness was a distant relation. She had some Tiger blood, it was said, although in person she looked more like a bear. The woman had lost her husbands, and her four sons all served in the imperial army. So the Baroness spent her days hunting and hawking. When the Baroness had learned Annika’s distaste for both pursuits, she immediately lost interest and Annika was swiftly passed on to the only person at the estate the Baroness trusted - her healer.
At the time, Annika felt she was being cast off yet again. Only after some time did she see how blessed she had been by the Baroness’s choice.
The healer was old. Just how old, no one, including the healer herself, knew. But what the woman did know was the nature of every plant that she chanced to see. She certainly knew all the plants that grew for miles around the Baronesses’ castle, where the woman lived in a low-roofed, mud-brick hut that sloped away from the bank of the stream that ran across the Baroness’s land. The hut was roofed with rushes, and every year the rushes were taken off, the pigeons that had made their homes there evicted, and new rushes laid.
That hut was the closest to what Annika could call a home. She missed it now.
She missed the smell of the drying herbs, the faintly sweet smoke that filled the hut when the old woman prepared a potion by the fire, the cozy confines of the thick walls and small windows. Within those four heavy walls, the heat of summer the cold of winter and the turbulence of the outside world passed without a mark.
The healer was small, and stooped, with ancient hands and face, and eyes that were almost white and beyond seeing. Yet, somehow, the woman saw. She saw enough to navigate her way across the fields, streams, and forests of the Baroness’s land; to prepare the potions; and also, somehow, into the future, saying her farewell to Annika in grunts and nods the day before the messenger from her father had arrived.
From all of her life in the riverlands, Annika missed the old woman the most.
At first, Annika feared her. She feared the woman’s features, the silences, the habit of avoiding looking anyone in the face, the sly smile. Then, she learned that the woman was mute. Subsequently, that the woman was kind. And, in a matter of months, the old healer became the constant that Annika clung to for the five years she lived in the river lands.
Annika wanted to cry just thinking of the old woman’s final hug.
Thinking about the riverlands, she remember
ed once healing a falconer who had been savaged by a pack of wolves. The man went searching for his missing birds. Two days later he was found, clinging to the top of a tall fir tree, still waited on by a couple of enormous wolves that had to be chased away. He was brought to the healer on a stretcher made of a coarse woolen blanket and two boughs. The blanket smelled of sheep and was covered in the man’s blood.
Annika could not bring herself to look at the man.
The man’s leg had been shredded to the bone. Only an immense power of will kept the man conscious. He was tall, and handsome, with features that were slightly heavy but that matched one another in proportion.
She had just turned sixteen. The man was in his early twenties. He looked at her as though he wanted something more than just the concoction that she had ladled into a tin cup. That look, now, reminded her of someone else she had met more recently.
Zak.
Zak was the other reason she avoided sharing meals with her father and sister. She was certain that one day Zak would be invited along. He was bound to be. She wanted to see him -- and that was what scared her.
Why did Zak make her feel this way?
That night, as he brushed her hair and held her as she cried, she felt that she never wanted to let him go. She felt safe and protected. Yet, when she pulled away, she felt even more vulnerable and exposed.
She was certain that underlying his gentle, soothing touch lay something darker. And there was no hiding that at the mere thought of him she felt something stir inside herself.
The cupola of the chapel on the east side of the park diffused the weak, slanting rays of the late-morning, winter suns.
There were seven suns. They were arranged in the sky in order of size, from smallest to largest, forming a vanishing accent on the horizon. She remembered that many years ago, her geography teacher had told her that five of the suns were supposed to represent one of the five great houses. What about the largest and the smallest sun? Annika asked. After some hesitation, he replied that the largest sun represented the Emperor and the smallest was a mere tail – like that of a snake. But he left the castle soon after, as Annika heard from the cook, because he had told a kitchen girl with a pleasant, round face something that had made her belly swell up, which made anything he had told Annika suspect. Although she now knew better why he had gone, she still regarded his tales with suspicion.
What did the sun for her house have to tell her?
She walked another lap. There was pleasure in movement. As she walked, she tried to direct her thoughts to what she would do next. She felt the urgency in her bones.
With each step, that urgency escalated more and more.
She could stay in the castle, Annika said to herself. It would be safe, and comfortable; certainly more comfortable than what she had experienced at the river delta. It would also be dull.
The sun was now directly overhead.
Light sweat beaded on Annika’s forehead.
After the morning’s walk, she knew and could name all the plants that grew in the garden. She also now knew what she would do.
She would seek an audience with her father at which she would again request to leave the castle and establish her healing practice outside the castle walls. If her father refused, she would leave. They would not dare to stop her. And if they did… Annika’s frown had a determined cast. If they did try to stop her, she would not let them. She would not let anyone control what she chose to do.
Annika was returning to her chambers where she wanted change her tunic and leggings and then seek out her father, when still on the garden path, facing the tiger statue, she saw the sideways profile of a man. He had his weight casually on one leg and his head turned away, as though contemplating something. He turned on hearing her approach.
It took Annika some moments to realize it was Zak. He wore a heavy black cloak, dark leather leggings, and heavy leather boots that looked well worn. Underneath his cloak dangled his long sword. It took her a few more moments to catch herself standing there with her mouth open, like the silliest of silly farm girls. Annika closed her mouth and blushed in anger and embarrassment.
“You walk very fast, Princess.”
Annika to found her voice after some seconds. “How dare you creep up on me!”
“I almost thought you were fleeing that tiger.” Zak did not bother hiding his amusement.
She barely controlled her desire to hit him. “I’ve no wish to hear your thoughts!”
He looked at her calmly, a contemplative look lingering in his eyes.
The calmness with which he met her response extinguished her anger. Without the anger to fall back on, she felt his pull again, stronger than before.
Seeing her expression change, Zak smiled. “I had just left the chapel wing of the castle, when I saw you in the park. I’d tried to catch up.”
“Remind me to walk faster next time.”
“You walk like a woman possessed.”
“It’s a lovely day,” was all she could find in response.
His smile was open, mesmerizing her. She tore herself away, turning around but then stopping, at a loss on which way she wished to go.
How did he do that, she groaned inwardly. How did he make her lose her head by just… being there?
“I would not forgive myself if I had cut your walk short. Let’s continue.”
“I was about to return to the castle,” she quickly said.
“The castle can wait.” Zak took her by the hand. His fingers were warm, large, rough.
She felt her hand buried in his. She was unable to explain to herself why she followed him. After a few meters, she pulled her hand out.
Despite his claim that he could not catch up, she found herself having to rush to keep up with his long strides.
Danger, everything inside her screamed at her. But she could not solve things by running away. She slowed, then stopped.
He continued for a few meters before realizing that she had fallen behind. He tracked back.
“You act as though you are at home here,” she observed.
“In this garden? I rarely come here.”
“I meant this castle.”
“I belong wherever I am,” he shrugged in a matter of fact way.
She was certain that he spoke the truth. There was no boastfulness in him at all.
He examined her closely. “Would you rather I were not here?”
“No,” she said, disconcerted by his examination and before she had time to think. She took a deep breath. “I meant… I meant that it is unusual for someone of your House to be so welcome at the Tiger castle.”
“It used to be unusual,” he conceded. “Things have changed.”
“Evidently.”
He waited for her to continue. The silence dragged on. He kept his eyes on hers.
What was it that she saw flicker in them?
Annika felt herself blush. She blurted out, “Did they not even take your sword at the gate?”
“No,” he said simply. “Why should they?”
The question stumped her. “The reason I had left five years ago--”
“Our Houses were on the opposite sides then,” he said. “Your House wanted to keep the Emperor in power and we did not. But that’s all old news.”
“Old for you. It’s loomed large in my life until now, despite my wishes,” she said, and resumed her walk along the path, not caring which way it led.
“I was being flippant,” he said, his voice serious now, as he easily kept up with her. “The Emperor found a resolution. We are at peace, or so they tell me.”
“What else do they tell you?” she asked, curious in spite of herself. News was very slow in reaching the river delta; she rarely saw the Baroness, who never had any conversation anyway other than how many deer she had chased down with her dogs and how many rabbits her hawks had killed; and of course Annika could not expect any worldly news from the healer.
“Not even in this park, away from all ears, would I dare
repeat them.” His voice was grave.
She looked at him carefully sideways.
His profile seemed serene, but there was a tightness around his lips, which dissolved when he smiled.
“All praise the Council,” he said, his smile easy. “And the Emperor. And each of the five Houses. Have I missed anyone?”
She continued looking at him. Not all was what it seemed, was that his message? Yet he would not say that outright. What was he hiding?
Annika changed tack. “So does the Council permit your strolling into this castle whenever you choose?”
“Not quite,” he admitted. “The head of my House, who unfortunately happens to be my father, asked me to relay a warning to your father.”
“What is the warning?” she asked, bluntly.
It was his turn to examine her sideways. “I did not know you are interested in matters of state. Very well. Here goes: my father has asked yours to increase security at this castle. There have been assassinations. Most of the five houses have been targeted. Two nights ago, someone stole into the castle of the House of the Bear. One of the princesses is now dead.”
Annika gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. “Which one?”
“Eli.”
Annika remembered the three Bear girls. They would have been either eighteen or nineteen by now. Triplets, they were. “And the other two?”
Zak shrugged. “Safe enough. They were in a different wing of the castle. It was a break in their routine. Eli returned to her own quarters. They found here there an hour later.”
Annika had to ask. “How?”
Zak quietly walked ahead.
His action was worse than anything he could have said. Annika felt herself tremble. “Who would want to harm her?”
Zak put his arm around her shoulders.
She felt herself moving in to him but then with a conscious decision that was almost painful pulled back. She threw his hand off. “You said that we are at peace! What peace is this?”