Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3)

by Nilsen, Karen

  “You always do this.” She abruptly sat up and clambered over me. I stared after her, the shivers rippling up her bare back as she fumbled for her clothes. Her aura had shrunk again, a dark purple-black cloaking her heart and mind from me. I cursed my lack of subtlety--if I hadn’t been so blunt, maybe she wouldn’t have put her guard up so quickly.

  “Ass,” she muttered then, tossing a dagger look over her shoulder. “You think you can sneak into my mind whenever you want, and I won’t know it?”

  “All your pretty outrage is for naught, so you might as well give it up.” I crossed my arms and glared at her. “Something scared you witless tonight, not just the assassins. I can’t believe you. I ordered you not to speak with him, not without me . . .”

  “Ordered me! What am I? Your servant?”

  “So you don’t deny that you and Father plotted behind my back?”

  “Oh, damn you.” She grabbed a wrinkled apple from the bowl in the middle of the table and threw it at my head. I caught it easily and took a bite, my unblinking gaze trailed on her, her flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. Her hands trembled so much that she almost ripped her bodice laces before she gave up. “I’m going to bed,” she announced, clutching the loose edges of her gown to her heaving breasts.

  Suddenly there came the sound of footfalls overhead. Safire and I glanced up, the strings of dried herbs and pots and pans hanging from the thick ceiling beams casting huge shadows. I realized then I was still naked. Where were my clothes?

  The footfalls started down the steps. I tossed the apple aside and clambered toward the bathtub. My shirt and pants had somehow gotten draped over the side of the bath and now were sopping. I gathered them in an untidy bundle and held it in front of me, water dripping down my legs and on my feet.

  “Oh Merius,” Safire whispered hoarsely, her hand fisted over her mouth. “Get in the bath!”

  Why hadn’t I thought of that? I lunged back toward the tub, but then the latch clicked, the door creaked open, and it was too late. I froze, the water suddenly cold against my bare skin as a draft came down the stairwell.

  Safire uttered a low moan like an animal in pain and dodged past the startled cook standing at the foot of the stairs. “My lady,” she murmured, gaping after Safire as the witch pounded up the steps. The sound of a door shutting reverberated down to us an instant later.

  The cook, a quiet, brown mouse of a creature somehow related to Elsa, turned back to face me, her mouth dropping open. I tried to remember her name, but my mind had gone blank, sensible thought as elusive as smoke. She could concoct a delicious currant pudding, laden with cream--I remembered that. Just not her name.

  “Sir Merius?” she said finally, hesitantly, as if she were in doubt.

  “So sorry--I just got out of the bath,” I muttered. “My clothes somehow fell in the water.”

  “Oh. I was just coming down to check the fire was banked for the night. I didn’t mean to interrupt . . .” She averted her eyes and stepped aside so I had a clear shot at the stairs.

  “Quite all right, you couldn‘t have known,” I babbled. “Good night.” I ran up the steps, stubbing my toe. “Damn it,” I swore. I reached the door to Safire’s and my bedchamber, wrenched it open, and slammed it shut behind me. Then I flung the wet clothes from me as if they burned.

  Safire had lit a single candle by which I made my final preparations for bed. She was already a huddled shape under the covers. Her shoulders shook, and at first I thought she was crying again. But then I heard a muffled snort and realized she was trying not to laugh.

  I blew out the candle and lay down beside her. “You think it’s amusing, making a fool of your husband in front of the servants?” I asked the purple and golden sparks sizzling through the darkness over our heads.

  “No.” Apparently unable to hold in her mirth anymore, she let loose a musical peal of laughter. Several of the sparks came together in a hovering ball of light that softly touched the tip of my nose, like some mischievous pixie planting a kiss.

  I started to swat it, then grabbed it instead. The sparks vanished with a cedar-scented puff of air, ebullient bubbles suddenly filling my veins. A rare contentment warmed me, made me feel ready for peaceful sleep, despite embarrassing myself in front of the servants, despite the assassins lurking nearby, despite my growing suspicions that Father had used Safire in some plot. How did she make magic like that, out of thin air? She wasn’t even touching me.

  “I can‘t do that for everyone, not without touching them,” she said. “Just you, our children perhaps.”

  “You’re impossible.” I gathered her to me, our auras weaving together in their endless dance like the northern lights around the bed. I sighed and pressed my lips to the crown of her head. “Speaking of impossible, do you know I had paint all over my clothes today, even in my hair?” I said. I hadn’t been going to tell her this story, but I always ended up telling her things in our bed in the dark that I never thought I would tell anyone. “I went to council and delivered the terms Father and I wrote for our new military alliance with Sarneth, and at the end of it, Prince Segar started laughing, half the council with him. I thought Father and Cyril were going to kill me. Father said he should have trained me to be the court jester, that I used to manage at least the ‘semblance of dignity’ if not the actuality of it.”

  She lifted herself up, watching me in the dark. “Oh Merius, I’m sorry. I was so excited about the baby, I forgot to say something before you left this morning. Did your terms pass the council anyway?”

  “Yes--we actually got more votes than I expected, which I think saved me the brunt of Father‘s wrath. As it was, his comments were biting but few, considering the lecture it could have been.”

  “He has been less prickly of late.” Her voice held an odd richness, a hidden jest, as if she knew some delightful secret she dared not share. Quickly, she continued, “You said yourself once that laughter is good diplomacy. Mayhap you’ll garner more votes because you don’t take yourself so seriously.”

  “I’m Mordric of Landers’s only son. Saturnine is supposed to be my middle name.” I sighed. “Not even our servants find me dignified.”

  “I notice they still follow your orders. A jester can be a master as well as any other man. Look at Rankin--he never takes himself seriously, and he’s an ambassador and respected scholar. Men respect you for what you’ve done, just as they respect Mordric and Rankin for what they’ve done, no matter if their manner is glum or comic. And I couldn‘t bear living with a man who demanded solemnity of himself and others all the time. It would be like a funeral, and our lives are hard enough.”

  “That they are.” My arm tightened around her. “They’ll not touch you again, not with me around,” I said after a long moment.

  “I’m just so scared for the baby. For all our babies, dear heart . . . Sewell . . .” her voice broke. “Why, Merius? Why?”

  “I don’t know.” I felt her tears warm my chest. “All I know is I’m here now, love. Always.” I rubbed her back, the silence between us stretching out comfortably.

  “I always feel safe with you,” she murmured at long last, sounding on the verge of sleep. “G’night.”

  “Sweet dreams.” I continued to run my hand up and down the curve of her back, her skin as smooth as polished ivory. I knew that somewhere close by in the house, outside the magical circle of our swirling auras, the assassins lurked. I found myself gritting my teeth, my muscles so taut suddenly that Safire murmured something in her sleep. A tingling warmth radiated from her hand on my chest--it felt for an instant as if she touched my very heart, her fingers massaging away the tension. The pounding lessened in my ears to a slow, calm rhythm, and I found myself sinking back on the featherbed, vague sensations of floating with Safire on a cloud flitting through my body.

  “You witch,” I muttered, the cloud beneath us shifting gently like ripples in a vast sea . . .

  Safire and I flew hand in hand over a vast forest at night. The full moon shone ne
ar the horizon with the bright silvery chill of a winter far north. The forest was a maze of black and silver and blue, the stark points of giant pine, fir, and spruce trees arrows aimed at us. Ice crystals dotted Safire’s hair, her skin bluish-white in the brilliant moonlight, her eyes gleaming black wells of secrets.

  *What are we looking for? I asked.

  *Don’t you know? The cave. The cave is where we began, Merius.

  *Began? But she turned her face away, her thoughts silent. The forest appeared closer--I was able to make out distinct branches on certain tall trees, even an abandoned eagle nest in one, filled with snow, and I realized that was because the ground rose toward us. We approached the northern hills where giants and weirwolves lived. I blinked--the forest seemed to move below us, the trees marching.

  *That’s right--shut your eyes for a moment, love, while I take us there. Safire thought.

  I felt the ground beneath my feet suddenly, and my eyes jerked open. We stood in a huge cavern, lit by a bonfire in the center of the floor. I stared overhead at the immense space pressing down on my head and shoulders, the great pillars of stone, the fire-tipped stalactites pointing down at us, sharp as arrows. The flames crackled and rose ever higher, nude women and men dancing in the white-hot center of the blaze. They pirouetted around each other, their eyes black wells, their bluish-white bodies outlined in orange.

  *Fire souls. Safire’s inner voice sounded wistful, and when I looked at her, I realized she looked just like the people in the fire, her eyes obsidian, her skin blinding bluish-white. And I had thought the moonlight made her look that way.

  *What is this place?

  She didn’t answer, instead wandering away toward the back of the cave. I followed, thousands of gleams leaping out of the shadows. At first I thought they were eyes, and I started to yell, but then I realized the gleams were shelves of flasks, thousands upon thousands of flasks. A few of the flasks, the ones I noticed first, appeared to be carved from diamond--these contained molten fire, the facets of the diamond shining like a thousand tiny suns. All the other flasks were made from glass, and some of these held water, others gold- and silver-flecked rich earth, and still others seemed to hold nothing. One of these last Safire plucked down--it was square-shaped, with a gray marble stopper. She cupped it in her hand, as gentle with it as she would be with a baby.

  *This will be one of our daughters, Merius.

  *How? It’s empty.

  *It’s not empty. She rolled her eyes at me. * It has air in it. Her soul is made of air, just like your soul. Here--listen. She pulled out the stopper and held the lip of the open flask to my ear. I heard the coo of a mourning dove and the soft flutter of dainty feathered wings, the scent of apple blossoms filling the cave. After a moment, Safire corked the flask and set it aside. She quickly pulled down several more flasks, a couple sloshing with water, one opaque earth, another one filled with air. *These will all be our children.

  I stared at the beveled edges of some of the flasks, the rounded sides of others. *So many?

  *Apparently you keep losing your concentration. Her tone was tart. She straightened, gazing up at the shelves. *Can you reach that one? She pointed at one of the diamond flasks high up on a top shelf.

  *Who’s this going to be? The flask was warm, almost too bright to look at.

  *Another daughter. Safire sighed, tears shimmering on her cheeks as she took the flask from me and cradled it.

  *What is it?

  Shouts echoed across the cave then, the ceiling trembling. *Oh no, they found us. Quick, dear heart. Safire started handing me the flasks containing our children’s souls. *Be careful--if you drop a flask and it breaks, that one can never be born. However did they find us here?

  *Who? I glanced down at my belt, looking for my sword, but the scabbard hung empty.

  A short figure trotted around the edge of the fire toward us, his crown a ring of golden teeth around his large head, his eyes oily dark gleams in the firelight. King Rainier. Four masked and hooded figures in black trailed him, their footfalls soundless. Assassins. My eyes ran over them, looking for some identifying feature so that I could hunt them down later. The last assassin was a big brute--he looked oddly familiar, with his wrestler’s build and blue eyes shining through the slits in his mask. His seal ring flashed then, a huge scrolled B for Bara. Peregrine.

  King Rainier reached out his impossibly long arm then, his stubby fingers brushing the side of one of the water flasks I held. I leapt back, and he laughed, a high-pitched warble of glee. *There’s no where for you to go, young Landers. You don’t even have your sword.

  Safire screamed then, the screech of bird diving for prey. She ran at him, her fingers outstretched as she tried to dig her talon-like nails in his nasty oily eyes. Peregrine the assassin lunged for her, and she jumped in the fire to get away from him.

  *No! I dropped the flasks, all the glass shattering as I dove toward the fire. The flames licked my skin, blisters rising, my eyes watering as I searched for her . . .

  “Merius, Merius, wake up!” I rolled over, Safire’s slight body clasped in my arms. I had found her, thank God I had found her. “Merius, you’re still having the nightmare,” she said, her voice muffled.

  I blinked. Sunlight shone through the windows--the light had that freshly varnished gleam that often came after a rainy night. Safire lay under me, gasping for breath, and I immediately released her and fell back on the pillows. I shut my eyes against the painful light.

  “God, what a dream.”

  “I know,” Safire said. I opened my eyes as she leaned over me, her gaze searching my face. “Are you all right?”

  “You were there.” I had meant it as a question, but it came out as a statement, as I realized I already knew the answer.

  “It’s not the first time we’ve shared a dream, dear heart. Why, just the other night, we dreamt we flew together over that beautiful city, with all the stained glass and onion domes and corkscrew spires. Remember?”

  “But that wasn’t a nightmare.”

  “Well, I was bound to have strange dreams after they gave me the Ursula‘s Bane.”

  “I dropped our children, sweet. Their flasks broke . . .”

  “Shh.” She ran her hand over my jaw. “It wasn’t real, Merius. It was just a dream.”

  “And what was King Rainier doing there? And Peregrine? And I didn’t even have my sword. God, what an awful dream.”

  “It’s over now,” she soothed.

  I started to sit up, then remembered it was holy day. No council on holy days. Safire and I could stay in bed for awhile and eat a late breakfast. Jared, who had agreed to try a stint as my steward, was supposed to arrive around noon. As soon as he and I got the troublesome details of duties and wages and contracts out of the way, we could head over to the palace and fly the kite off the parapet to test the wind currents. Then he could take a look at the staves I had made for the glider--I was sure he could tell me why they splintered and how to fix it. Reaching for Safire, I fell back on the pillows and turned over. “I love holy days,” I muttered into her hair, inhaling her burned cedar scent.

  She untangled herself from me and slipped from my grasp as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Merius, we have to go to chapel. We missed the last time.”

  “What?” I tried to pull her back to bed.

  “Merius.” She looked over her shoulder at me, her features suddenly as sharp as her sister Dagmar’s. “We can’t afford to miss too many times. There’ll be talk.”

  Grumbling, I padded around the chamber in my bare feet. My green and gold king’s guard tunic hung over the back of the bedside chair, the first piece of clothing that came under my gaze. I grabbed it and then looked around for a shirt to wear under it. Safire tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned, she shoved some trousers, a shirt, and a gray doublet crisscrossed with lines of silver thread at me. “But I’m wearing this.” I held out the tunic.

  She sighed. “You’ve worn that the past two days. This is fr
esh.”

  Shrugging, I took the clothes and threw them across the foot of the bed before I went over to the washstand. “Elsa or her cousin must have just been here,” I remarked, noting the almost too hot water as I scrubbed my face and neck and combed my hair.

  “I hope they didn’t hear us in the middle of that dream.” Safire’s muffled voice echoed from the depths of the wardrobe.

  “Hope not.” I paused as I pulled the shirt over my head. Someone had brought my abandoned boots and belt up from the kitchen and arranged them neatly beside the washstand. The boots had been polished to a high shine, the loose buckle on the left one mended. I hadn‘t asked anyone to do that--I had been saving it as a job for Jared. It seemed more the sort of thing stewards did, not cooks.

  Safire came up beside me, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “See, I told you--a jester can be a master as well as any other man. They probably figure some sensible woman needs to look out for you, since your silly wife lets you run around the kitchen naked.”

  Chapter Nine - Safire

  Royal Palace, Corcin, Eastern Cormalen

  July, 3 years ago

  My hand, seemingly guided by maternal instinct, found the growing swell of my womb. My fingers tightened in the gathers of my loosened skirt, my knuckles white as the bishop ascended the steps to the altar. He spun around, his gold-threaded robes flaring out and casting a dramatic shadow. There was a moment of echoing silence as he surveyed the crowd. I studied the dust motes dancing in the beams of colored light through the tall windows of the palace chapel and prayed his gaze missed me. His eyes were so pale they appeared silver rather than gray, the black pinpoints of his pupils burning all they touched with the intensity of embers just spat from a raging volcano in hell. Eden had said he likely wanted to burn holes through all the women’s clothes so he could have the simultaneous joy of seeing them naked and declaring them hopeless temptresses.

  Although I appreciated her wit, I doubted the truth of it. Examining the bishop’s lined, thin face, with his colorless lips and delicate ascetic’s bone structure, I doubted he ever looked at a woman with lust in his heart because he no longer had a heart. He had a pair of iron scales where his heart should beat, scales that dipped and swayed in the balancing act of justice, the constant movement his preservation and his torment. Sometimes the scales were so difficult to balance that his face drew tight as he clutched at his chest. His brittle aura of steel-colored ice sparkled at these times, as it likely sparkled every time he sent another witch to the stake, the sparkling, exquisite pain of self-flagellation. Even though I could never be certain, I suspected he had once loved a witch with a secret passion forbidden a priest, so he had sent her to the stake long ago, his missing heart burned to ashes with her.