Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3)

by Nilsen, Karen

  *And King Rainier. The thought was out before I could stop it, souring the air. Suddenly I remembered the assassins close by, perhaps even listening somehow. I shivered and huddled against Merius, who tightened his arms around me.

  “Shh, sweet,” he murmured, his breath warm in my hair. *We have years before King Rainier even thinks of exacting his threat. We’re bound to find some way to thwart him well before then. And Father and Rankin are determined to help us--I can’t think of two more cunning allies, particularly when they plot together.

  I wiped my watery eyes--I hoped I didn‘t overflow as much during this pregnancy as I had during the last. At the reminder of being pregnant with Sewell, more tears threatened to rise. I had to find some way to distract myself. I couldn't think about him now, I just couldn't, or I'd cry all afternoon. I quickly said, "They balance each other well, don’t they? Mordric has a gift for practical strategy, and Rankin is a walking library."

  "With Cyril’s support, they’ll be running the country before you know it." Merius’s voice was wry.

  "And you with them."

  He shrugged. “Is that what you want? A husband who stands behind the king’s throne?” he asked, his tone light though his aura shifted to pewter again.

  “You know it’s not. I want a husband who’s happy. And it seems to me you’re happiest when you’re studying these journals or working on your glider, and you‘ve hardly any time to do either since we‘ve been here. This is the first morning in a week you‘ve spent on your own pursuits.”

  “That’s not true--Rankin and I discussed the glider and the journals yesterday.”

  “Yes, a discussion interspersed with plotting and court intrigue.”

  He exhaled in a long sigh. “Safire, sweet, I appreciate your concern. But I owe our children a secure position at court.” He rested his hand on my stomach. “And I owe Father my service here.”

  “I’m not saying you should go back on your promise to Mordric. Just balance out your work so that you have more time to do the things you love.”

  “It won’t be like this forever.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “Father needs me more now as we consolidate our power at court and get rid of threats like Sullay and Peregrine. Later, when we’re fully entrenched, I’ll have more time for myself.”

  “Later, when you and Mordric go off to war with the SerVerin Empire?” I asked, trying to put him on the defensive before he said any more about Peregrine.

  He froze, his muscles taut. “How do you know that?”

  “Eden--she told me about Mordric re-negotiating the terms of your king’s guard commission with Herrod. She said you weren’t even present.” My eyes narrowed--I still hadn’t had the chance to talk with Mordric about his high-handed behavior in regards to Merius’s commission.

  “This is between me and Father. I know you’re upset, but the fact is, I wouldn’t dream of standing idly by while other men go off to war, not when I have so much training and experience. Father did the right thing.”

  “Perhaps, but he didn’t even consult with you before he did it. He didn’t even think to consult with you. That’s not right.”

  “I’ll fight my own battles with Father.” Merius’s grip tightened, his voice holding an edge. “He used his influence with Herrod to help me, high-handed though it was. Accept the fact you married a courtier and warrior with certain duties to our country, including the duty to protect you and our children. And since you’re so concerned about me having a say in things, be careful around Father, Safire. He’ll pull you into this mess at court to use your talents somehow.”

  “He means me no harm, Merius. When are you going to accept that?”

  “I know he means you no harm, no more than he means me harm. Hell, he swore to lay down his life for either or both of us if need be, and Father never swears to anything lightly. That said, he’s the most driven, manipulative man I know. He’ll draw you into his plots without a second thought, without meaning to, even. The same thing goes for Eden.”

  I bristled, hoping he thought I blocked him from sheer irritation and for no other reason. “Eden’s the only woman my age I’ve met aside from Elsa who I can actually have an interesting conversation with.”

  “Just watch yourself, all right?” he muttered.

  I twined my arms around his neck and softly pressed my lips to his, coaxing open his mouth with a long kiss, still the best way I knew to distract him sometimes. Tense about returning to court and even more tense about striking the right balance in his complicated relationship with Mordric, he didn’t need a disobedient, argumentative wife. Still, there were possibilities to being in trouble with Merius. I grinned as he groaned, his hand tight against my back.

  There came a knock at the door, and we hastily drew apart. I noticed paint smears all over Merius’s shirt sleeves and doublet and neck, even a few dabs in his hair. “Who is it?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

  “Elsa again.”

  “Come in.” Without warning, Merius leapt up, dragging me to my feet. He twirled me, then drew me close as we waltzed around the chair, easel, and table, the graceful dexterity of his sword-trained muscles guiding us. In all the mad swaying and turning, I caught flashes of Elsa standing by the door, her mouth open as if she wanted to laugh but was too startled to do much more than stare.

  He dipped me, and I laughed breathlessly, trying to ignore the bile rising in my throat. “Dear heart, dear heart, please--I think I’m going to be sick.”

  He led me to the chair, still warm from our occupancy, and set me down upon the cushion gently, as if I were made of glass and might break. I caught my breath, the dizzy nausea slowly receding as I watched Merius grab Elsa’s hand and take her in a quick dance all over the studio. He misjudged a turn and knocked his elbow against the canary cage. A cloud of feathers and squawks followed his litany of curses.

  “Sir Merius, have you lost your mind?” Elsa demanded, finally managing to extricate herself from him. She leaned against the wall and held her temples--likely she was dizzy, her aura swirling around her in an ever shifting array of autumn colors. Her laughter came in pants as she regarded us with bemusement. “Are you insane?” she repeated, looking Merius up and down, probably suspicious about what he would do next.

  “Lady Safire just told me she’s with child,” Merius announced.

  Elsa looked over at me, her eyes wide as if seeing me for the first time. “I should have known,” she murmured finally, her fingertips resting on her bottom lip. “I should have known when you were sick . . .”

  “How could you have known? I just figured it out myself, dear one. I think the birth will be in late October or early November, so we have plenty of time to prepare.”

  “That’s no time at all, my lady, not for a baby. We’ll need to make all the little gowns and booties and rags . . . there’s so many things. Of course, likely we can borrow some of the things Lady Dagmar and I made for Flavian, but you‘ll need your own. You can use the same things from baby to baby, you know, which is nice . . .”

  Merius grinned and waved at me before he ducked out the door on his way to council. By the time I remembered the paint in his hair and on his clothes, he was already at the palace, and it was too late to remind him to change. As Merius blocked me during his stints in the council chamber, I could only imagine what Mordric had to say about his appearance. Oh dear.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Lady Narie of Rankin leaned toward my easel, then moved back from it, her head tilted and brow delicately furrowed as she gazed at the painting of the winged woman. The train of her red and gold brocade gown, draped over her arm to keep it from tripping her, almost landed on my palette as she leaned forward a second time.

  I grabbed the palette and set it aside. She didn’t even notice, her eyes still on the painting. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she marveled at the movement, but I already knew she couldn’t see it. When we had first stayed at the embassy in Sarneth after our captivity at the palace, Lord Rankin
, Merius, and I had worried about Lady Rankin seeing the movement in my drawings and paintings. It wasn’t that we didn’t trust her, but she was such a friendly, forthright soul, and secrets had a pesky way of slipping loose to the wrong people. Besides, with the assassins trailing us, it seemed best to leave anyone we cared about in the dark as much as possible. One day, however, she had surprised me in the middle of painting, and I had realized after a few tense minutes of her exclaiming over my clever use of color and my knack with a brush that she had no perception of the witch movement. Such a relief, really, that I had someone here I could share my work with who enjoyed the painting for its own sake, because she admired art, not because of some oddity I couldn’t control.

  “Beautiful as always, Safire,” she said. “But I must admit, the subject befuddles me. Did you mean her to be an angel, with those wings? If so, I can’t imagine such extravagant colors in heaven.”

  Lord Rankin, who had been talking with Merius near the doorway, came up behind her and chuckled. “Oh come, my dear, you of all women should appreciate a heaven where you get to keep your gaudy baubles.” He winked at me over her shoulder before he turned his scrutiny back to the painting.

  She shot him a ruffled look. “I said extravagant, Artemious, not gaudy. There’s a difference.”

  “Of course. I‘ll never misquote you so flagrantly again,” he murmured as he planted a peck on her jaw. Though her cheeks were still tinged pink with indignation, her mouth turned up a little at the corners, and I grinned at their gently teasing affection for each other. Then I glanced at Merius as he rifled through his journal, shaking his head and muttering to himself, his aura a blinding, shifting net of silver all around him. His hair stood on end again, after I had made him comb it smooth when he got back from council this afternoon. Would the stormy sea between us ever know such a peaceful calm as the Rankins’ marriage? Somehow I doubted it. Of course, calm seas lulled me to sleep. I sighed, then smiled to myself as I touched my belly. I bet Merius was right--I bet it had happened on the ship, during that night with the rough waves. It seemed fitting that we would tie the most impossible knot between us in the middle of a tempest.

  “I’ve found it, my lord,” Merius exclaimed then, his eyes bright. His aura crackled in what I had secretly begun to call his mad scholar look, a phrase I had overheard Mordric mutter at court once when he saw Rankin and Merius talking to each other.

  Rankin crossed swiftly over to Merius and took the journal, reminding me of an alert greyhound on the hunt with his long-legged, loping gait. He whipped out his spectacles and peered over the translation of Talus’s writings Merius had done this morning. After a long, tense moment, he glanced up at Merius, his eyes piercing. “Are you certain, lad?”

  Merius nodded. “Though I hardly believe it myself. Here--take a look at the original--see what you think.” He led Rankin over to the long table where he had laid out tattered pages that had fallen loose from Talus’s journals and papers. No matter how careful he was, almost every time he perused the ancient, crumbling texts and scrolls, pages fell out, freed from their bindings by that slowest and most insidious of liberators, time. They had remained in one piece as long as they were left alone, but now that Merius touched them constantly, they had started to disintegrate at an alarming rate with clouds of mildew and dust that made us both sneeze. Sometimes I wondered if this swift decay was a sign that perhaps he sought knowledge that should have died centuries ago, secrets that should have remained secrets. As one whose talents often forced me to know more about others and myself than I wished to know, I found knowledge to be a burden as often as it was a blessing. Merius, though, curious about everything as an eager child, didn’t share my reluctance. I glanced over at Narie and found her watching Merius and Rankin with a soft look. She gave a slight smile and shrug of her elegant shoulders, as if to express a fond, somewhat puzzled patience with our husbands.

  “Your translation seems mostly correct, Merius,” Rankin said after staring at the loose pages for several minutes. “This word though--weirflynt--what did you say that was?”

  “I thought it was another term for his phrase unseen flint.”

  “No, not when it’s spelled with a y. I know the old spelling sometimes seems arbitrary but not in this case. Flynt with a y and flint with an i are two different, though related, things, I think, especially since he coupled flynt with weir.”

  “He seems to use weir and unseen and secret interchangeably. Are you telling me that they’re actually different?”

  Rankin stroked his beard, still staring down at the pages as if hoping to discover some meaning to the stains and dusty creases that marred their surface. “Most translators of ancient Corcin assume that weir means secret, as a weirfish would often keep her true identity as a shape-shifter secret. And in most cases, I think the translators would be right--the public records that we possess from that time were mostly written by overlords, men whose first language was Sarns, not Corcin, and as a result, they did not grasp the subtleties of the Corcin tongue. These journals and scrolls, however, are the private record of a man whose first language was Corcin, a man I might add who seems most deliberate in his choice and spelling of words. Perhaps from another man’s pen, secret or unseen flint and weirflynt would be the same thing, but not from Talus’s pen. He seems far too subtle for that.”

  “So what is weirflynt then? And why does he mention it in conjunction with this weirfish he apparently lusted after?”

  “He was in love with a mermaid?” Narie exclaimed, picking up on the one tidbit sure to intrigue her. “How romantic. That would be a lovely subject for a painting, Safire.”

  “I agree, my lady. I do enjoy painting mythological creatures.”

  “Mythological? I thought you believed mermaids to be real, sweet. That’s what you said this morning,” Merius remarked with a nastily impish grin.

  *Condescending ass. I glared in his direction as Narie said stoutly, “It would be impossible to paint mythological creatures with as much conviction as you do unless deep down, you had a suspicion they actually existed. Being a bit of a changeling myself, I understand completely, my dear.” She rested her hand on my shoulder, likely to keep me from throttling Merius, before she turned back to ask Rankin a question.

  Merius’s brow furrowed. *For God’s sake, just teasing. Narie seems to find your beliefs charming and an indication of your artistic temperament, much as I do. No need to be so upset.

  *Be glad we’re not alone, Merius, or I fear I‘d be a widow by my own hand at this moment. Your mockery of me is just a cover for your own fear.

  He drew a shuddering breath, his hand clenched around the table edge as if he needed to anchor himself. *You dare imply I’m afraid?

  One ear cocked, I heard the Rankins arguing about mermaids with each other--Rankin seemed to think mermaids wouldn't look like women at all but instead resemble giant fish, while Narie couldn't reconcile her romantic notions with a creature that could be mistaken for a huge tuna.

  Assured that our guests were preoccupied at the moment, I turned my attention back to Merius. *Natural to feel fear about the unknown. Deeper we go into the mind bond, the more afraid I am too.

  *Absurd. Why am I devoting so much time to translating these journals, if I’m so afraid?

  *Because it’s an intellectual exercise that distances you from your feelings about having warlock blood in your veins, your feelings about having married a witch.

  *Horseshit, Safire. His eyes flared, sparks lighting the depths of his flinty aura. *If you think that you being a witch bothers me, you know nothing about my feelings and never have.

  *Apparently neither do you. You know what you think, not what you feel. Until you accept that some things can only be understood by the heart, not the brain, you’ll never truly know yourself or me. I turned on my heel then and flashed what I hoped was a winning smile at Narie. “What do you say we leave our husbands to ponder these dusty scrolls while we go to the ball, my lady?” It was the firs
t ball King Arian had ever allowed on the eve of a holy day, a special occasion to celebrate Segar and Esme's betrothal. Peregrine would most certainly be there, as well as Mordric and Eden.

  Narie clapped her hands. “How did you know I’ve been itching for a lively dance?”

  The square line of Merius‘s jaw became more apparent as he lifted his chin, a sign he was ready to do battle with more than just his temper to back him. *Rankin and I hoped to ask you questions about what Talus wrote . . . things here I think only you would understand, and we may not get this opportunity for awhile. If this was his idea of being conciliatory, he could forget it. I didn’t want a damn thing to do with his bookworm-eaten journals at the moment.

  *I’m not your experiment, Merius. I’m your wife. “Have a nice evening, gentlemen,” I added aloud. Then I swiftly blocked Merius before he could protest. Arm in arm with Narie, I flounced from the studio.

  Much as I would have preferred walking the short distance to the palace, I knew Merius would be really upset at the idea of Narie and me on the streets at night, even with my silent bodyguards following behind. So I sighed and summoned the Rankins’ carriage, Narie chattering away brightly about this and that while we waited.

  “You know, Safire,” she said when we heard the rumble of the wheels and clop of horses approach on the cobbles, “you should bring your paintings to court. I’m sure you could find ready patrons among my more discerning friends.”

  I gaped at her--I had never heard an older noblewoman, even one as free-thinking as her, dare voice such a suggestion. “You mean, paintings to sell?”

  “Well, naturally to sell. I wouldn’t expect you to give them away--none of the male noble artists at court give their work away. Your painting is as fine as any man’s and far more imaginative. Of course you should earn some coin from it.”

  “Why, my lady, you astonish me. I’ve never thought of doing such before.” This was polite lie--I had sold my charcoal sketches on the docks to all and sundry before the unnatural movement had appeared in my work. I missed those days--the bustling market with its colorful wares and even more colorful hucksters, the warm sunshine on my back, the musical babble of the fountain in the square, people’s honest appreciation of my work, the freedom of anonymity (I had carefully concealed my true identity for fear of my father finding out), and especially the clink of coin I earned in my pocket.