by Tony Daniel
Ravenelle stood and turned her back to Gunnar. He placed the chain around her neck. Then he brushed aside her hair and reattached the ends. The silver was still warm from his skin. Ravenelle opened the drawstring of the leather bag and reached a finger inside. She took a single black wafer from it. Ater-cake. She pulled the bag closed again. She pushed it under the neckline of her dress and between her breasts.
“Come to the altar,” she said.
They took the two steps to the altar table. There Father Calceatus had obeyed Ravenelle’s instructions and laid out the implements of her Talaia faith. There were silver pricking needles. There was a hemp string tourniquet with a steel twisting stick. Next to this was a silver bleeding chalice. And there were linen napkins to daub the wounds and clean up the implements afterwards.
Gunnar smiled and took her left hand in his. “May I, Princess?” he asked.
“Yes, you may,” she answered. She pulled back the sleeve of her dress to reveal her arm up to the elbow. It wasn’t really improper, but baring her skin to him like this sent a little thrill through her. He took the tourniquet and wrapped it around her arm just below the elbow. He gave it a couple of twists, compressing her veins tightly but not squeezing them shut. He was very good at this.
Then he took one of the needles and with a finger traced the vein in her arm from her wrist toward her elbow until he found where the blood was nearest her skin. With another smile, he pricked the needle in.
As always, there was the sudden coldness of the metal underneath her skin, but Ravenelle had long known how to control her shudders. Blood welled, then flowed freely.
Gunnar turned her arm over and squeezed a steady trickle into the silver chalice until it held several spoonfuls of Ravenelle’s blood. He took the cleaning cloth and pressed it to the wound, holding it there until she clotted and the blood flow stopped.
“Now myself,” he said. With a tourniquet and the other needle Gunnar repeated the pricking process on his own left arm. He squeezed his blood into the chalice with hers until it was a quarter full.
He held out his right hand and bowed. Ravenelle placed one of the ater wafers into his palm, and kept the other herself.
“You first, prince,” she said, nodding toward the chalice.
Gunnar took the wafer between his thumb and forefinger and dipped it into the blood. He pushed it under so that it could absorb its full portion of the mixed blood, which it soaked up like a sponge.
“Princess,” he said.
Ravenelle opened her mouth and Gunnar carefully placed the wafer on her tongue. She tasted the warm blood and the tang of the ater-cake wafer. The wafer was brittle. She pressed it against the top of her mouth and broke it, then chewed the pieces and swallowed them. She lifted up the chalice and took the ceremonial sip that allowed you to be sure the whole of the wafer went down and wasn’t stuck in the throat.
She took her own wafer, dipped it, and put it in Gunnar’s mouth. He seemed to swallow it whole with one gulp, then raised the chalice and drained the remainder of the blood from it. Ravenelle wiped out the blood cup with its special napkin then set it back on the altar table. Father Calceatus would come later and see that everything was put away correctly in the sacristy.
She and Gunnar went back to the cushioned front pew and sat down side by side. Ravenelle smelled the sandalwood scent he wore. Then the ater-cake began to have its effect. She closed her mind and traveled down the shining, silver-webbed tunnel that led into Gunnar’s thoughts.
They were, for the most part, thoughts of the day. Seeing to a lame horse. Criticizing a silversmith who had done shoddy work when making a brooch he was planning to give to Ulla.
The prongs barely held the turquoise in, Gunnar thought. If Ulla were to jostle the brooch the wrong way—if she was out riding a horse, say—the stone would pop right out. Ulla would be embarrassed, he would be humiliated, and a very expensive stone would be lost in the mud of Shenandoah.
He’d give the man one more chance, and then, if there was no improvement, he’d have his personal secretary notify the Raukenrose Silversmith Guild that they had better reconsider this smith’s master standing. If it came to that, he knew he’d be doing a favor to all the first families of the town.
Ravenelle experienced not only Gunnar’s memory of the scene, but also his senses and feelings. The smoothness of the stone. The burnt-honey odor of the beeswax that the silversmith had used as a metal finish for his work. Gunnar’s iron-willed determination to be and act like a prince in every circumstance.
He had to. His father would make his life miserable if he didn’t. King Siggi had done that before, driving away Gunnar’s unsuitable friends when he was a child, making one of Gunnar’s tutors beat his charge when Gunnar had stolen an apple from a merchant stall. Then making Gunnar watch as the tutor’s hand was chopped off for daring to strike a prince.
Oh dear, Ravenelle thought. She used the blood-bond thought-speech she’d learned years ago. It was almost like saying a word, then holding back at the last possible moment. Thought-speech took practice, and Ravenelle had already noticed that she was much better at it than Gunnar. That was to be expected. Gunnar was a Kalte prince, a barbarian.
He’d come to the castle to ask for Ulla von Dunstig’s hand in marriage as part of an arranged alliance between Shenandoah and Sandhaven. She’d sensed that he was one of the holy host, but doubted herself. It had taken her several weeks to get up the courage to ask him to commune with her.
“You know I’m going to marry Lady Ulla?” he said aloud.
I most certainly do. That is why you are here.
“Yes, yes. But there is something…holding her back. I can’t read her mind. Yet. That will come. But I can sense that something isn’t right. I was hoping you could tell me what this thing might be.”
How flattering that you would think of me for an explanation, she replied tartly.
“You do have a mean streak, Princess,” Gunnar said, sitting up straighter and looking her in the eyes. “You live up to what the castle children call you.”
The l’Obac Terror, and I’m not a bit sorry for it, she thought. So there.
“Well, my terror, what can you tell me about Ulla?”
A lot, Ravenelle thought. More than I’d ever let on to you.
I really don’t know her all that well.
“But she is your foster sister,” said Gunnar. “I think you sell yourself short.”
She and I aren’t that close.
“Come on, Princess. I’ve seen that the von Dunstigs have made you part of their family.”
Ravenelle took a deep breath. This wasn’t going as planned. She would have to give him something, if only to get past him to unbolt the door.
Ulla and I like clothes and makeup. We like to pay attention to what we wear, for different reasons.
“Or the same reason,” Gunnar replied. He smiled.
Might as well be pointing at himself, Ravenelle thought. But this thought she did not allow to be pre-verbalized and shared with Gunnar. She and Gunnar did connect. She couldn’t deny her attraction.
But he’s Ulla’s.
Ulla won’t care. She doesn’t like him anyway.
But it could mess up a match, a carefully arranged alliance.
There was part of her that really liked the fact that the Prince of Sandhaven, the most popular man in Raukenrose, the man every girl in the castle was ready to faint over, liked to spend time with her, Ravenelle Archambeault.
She opened her eyes—she usually kept them closed during communion—and glanced at the prince.
His sea-green eyes were open, and he was gazing at her.
“I would like to kiss you, Princess.”
Ravenelle almost guffawed. Good grief. It was like being in a romance.
“You are engaged to my sister.”
“Foster sister.”
“Yes, but I love…she’s very important to me, all the same.”
“I know,” Gunnar said. He put a hand un
der her chin and tilted her lips toward his. He kissed her.
She knew it was wrong the moment their lips touched.
He’s trying to get inside my head! He’s trying to find out Ulla’s secrets!
Ravenelle jerked away. Gunnar pulled her back to his embrace.
“Let me go!”
“Don’t be a terror, little Princess.”
“I mean it,” Ravenelle said.
She called out to her bloodservants in thought-speech.
Help! Get in here, all of you!
We are coming, mistress!
She could hear them beating on the chapel door.
The door is locked, mistress!
Right. Gunnar had latched it behind himself when he’d come in.
Donato will break it in. Hold the man off until we can get there. This was the voice of Raphael, her faithful eldest bloodservant. He and Ravenelle shared thoughts like waves overlapping in the same pond.
All right, but hurry.
Ravenelle gathered her hand and slapped Gunnar across the face as hard as she could. He jolted back, holding his cheek. She had striped it bloody with her nails.
You’re going to regret that, little Princess, Gunnar thought. Now I want inside, and you’re going to let me come in.
With a mental thrust harder than any she’d ever experienced in all her years of taking communion, Gunnar forced himself inside her mind and forced her to think the thoughts he wanted her to think.
Thoughts about Ulla von Dunstig.
He is sifting through my memories! No. Nobody does that to me!
I am Ravenelle Archambeault.
I will be a queen of a nation much stronger than your petty kingdom. I am Roman. You do not mess with me!
Gunnar let out a grunt of surprise. And pain. His hands went to his temples.
“Princess, that hurt. How can you be that strong? He didn’t warn me about—”
Then the door burst open and her bloodservants rushed in.
The tie with Gunnar was broken.
Gunnar stood. “We could have had something, Princess,” he said. “We are both very alike, you know.”
“I didn’t want to have sex with you.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Ravenelle Archambeault, that’s all you wanted.” He turned toward her servants. “I’m leaving,” he told them. “Your precious mistress is safe, you poor slaves.”
He stalked past them and out the chapel door, leaving behind the lingering scent of sandalwood cologne and fresh blood.
Ravenelle wiped her face, and the palm of her hand came away red. She’d been crying and hadn’t realized it. Here was another way she was not like anyone else in the castle. Another reason she would never fit in.
Like all true Roman aristocrats, Ravenelle cried blood tears.
Chapter Four:
The Tryst
Saeunn Amberstone held tightly to the hand of Ulla von Dunstig and pulled her hurriedly along. The two girls made their way down the underground passageway. This was a servant corridor that led from the castle at Raukenrose Castle to one of the kitchens that was a separate building. The passageway was pitch dark. It was lit by oil lamps during the day, but now the time was half past midnight.
Both girls could see nothing, but Saeunn had a sixth sense that Ulla did not possess. Like all of the Children of Starlight, she could sense the direction to her homeland, Amberstone Valley, from any spot on Earth. And she could always find her star in the sky at night. She just knew where she was. All elves did.
And sometimes her star also spoke to her.
Your land-dragon is stirring tonight, my child. The clutch is restless. Tonight we sing to calm them.
I hear you, my star, my soul.
Since she had been down this corridor several times before—with and without Ulla in tow—she also knew where to pull up short and stop walking.
Ulla, who truly had a terrible sense of direction even for a human, stumbled, but Saeunn caught the hem of her dress and steadied her.
They had gotten to the locked iron grate that covered the corridor at night. Saeunn put her hand out and touched the cool metal of the grate, then lowered her hand gradually until she felt the keyhole.
“All right, here it is,” she said, guiding Ulla’s hand to the spot. “Use the key.”
After curfew the gate was locked and the key got hung in its place on the rack.
She’d been the one who had taken it. That was always her role. She could move a lot more silently and quickly than Ulla.
Stealing the key was also the least of the ways they were disobeying. If the duke and duchess found out—
No, when they find out, Saeunn thought. They are definitely going to find out. She didn’t have to see the future to guess that much.
Ulla was breaking the rules big time.
Saeunn heard the voice of her star again. You are restless as the dragon tonight, my child.
I am happy, my star. Just a little overexcited.
Her star laughed a tinkling laugh like crystal ringing.
The humans interest you?
Yes, my star.
The girl you are helping?
Yes, she is untraditional.
And the other, the brother?
He’s very intelligent. I do like him . . .
Take care not to become too attached, for you know—
Yes, I know. They die.
And we do not.
“Saeunn?” said Ulla. “Are you in there? You’re doing that thing again, where you get all distracted and practically turn into a statue.”
“Talking to my star,” Saeunn answered. “We’re done. Open the gate.”
“Elves are really strange sometimes,” Ulla said.
“It wasn’t my idea to go rambling around in the dark, you know.”
“Okay, okay.”
Ulla slid the key into the keyhole with far too much racket. Saeunn figured Ulla’s hands were trembling. There was the click of the lock opening. The gate was heavy, but well oiled. Ulla left the key in the lock. Saeunn would get it on her way back if all went well.
The girls pushed the gate open. It still squeaked enough as it swung on its hinges to worry them both.
Saeunn went first, and then Ulla tried to follow her through the gate opening, but banged into the bar on the side of the gate.
“Curse it,” she whispered. “That’s going to leave a bruise. I’ll have to come up with some reason I got it. Thayer will definitely notice when she’s dressing me tomorrow.” Thayer was Ulla’s personal maid. She was a bear woman, a Tier, a talking beast. You did not want to get on her bad side. “Well, we’d better start moving.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think anyone heard us?” Ulla asked in a whisper. “Can you listen?”
Saeunn’s hearing was much better than Ulla’s. They both knew it.
The girls stood still for a moment while Saeunn listened. She heard the usual castle noises—settling stones, mice scampering—but there were no footsteps. She did hear someone stumbling around in the castle beyond the entrance of the corridor, but then a toilet door in the castle creaked open and shut. Nothing to worry them down here.
“I think we’re all right,” Saeunn said.
Ulla squeezed Saeunn’s hand, then leaned forward and bussed her cheek with her lips. “I love you, little sister. I would be lost without you,” she whispered. “No matter what happens to me, you know that’s true.”
Ulla drew back, leaving the lingering scent of her perfume. It was exquisite, like everything else about Ulla. But what impressed Saeunn most was that none of her perfection seemed to have gone to her head. In fact, the von Dunstig children were certainly overindulged, but none of them were really spoiled. She’d met lots of other children of nobility elsewhere who were.
“Ready to go, big sister?” Saeunn whispered back.
Ulla smothered a giggle. “Oh, yes,” she said.
Saeunn had not been lying to her star—even if that were possible. She was happy here
in Shenandoah.
When she’d come, she’d expected to have to endure the place. She’d figured that Shenandoah was going to be a layover, a diplomatic stop she had to take for a few years. Her father wanted to explore an alliance between the elves of Amberstone and the Mark of Shenandoah.
The arrangement had been made with Duke Otto to foster Saeunn for ten years, which, she knew, would seem like a long time to a human but was practically a blink of an eye to a Child of Starlight.
People died. Elves did not.
Oh, elves might be killed by accident or in battle, and there were rare diseases that could kill them. But if she avoided any of these calamities, Saeunn would go on living for century after century.
Right now, though, she was very young for an elf. She was sixty-two years old. A teenager.
Although she’d been alive for decades, a lot of Saeunn’s early life, especially the very first few years, had been spent in the star-trance. She’d lived within the thoughts of her star, and sang her star’s part in the great song the stars sang to the dragons. Stars were not just friends to the elves. They weren’t just family.
The stars were elves and the elves were stars. Like one of the saga singers had put it:
Light that splatters into matter,
and to living bodies scatters.
Souls of elves are starlight spatter,
stars that come to Earth to dwell.
Elves are stars and stars are elves.
The souls of elves were made of starlight, and each elf shared that soul with a particular star in the night sky. Saeunn was her star made into a person upon the Earth.
She did not understand exactly how this worked, or why it should be. She’d asked her mother once, but her mother had smiled and replied, “Ask me again in a hundred years. Then you might be ready to understand the answer.”
Saeunn might be over sixty years old, but because of the nature of elves, she had the mind, the personality, of a teenager. It took elves a very long time to mature into a grown-up.
Saeunn led Ulla the rest of the way down the corridor until they emerged into the outside kitchen, a single large room with four huge fire hearths for cooking. The dim glow of the half moon outside filtered through the kitchen’s high-set windows. After the complete darkness of the corridor, there was moonlight.