Moth and Spark

by Anne Leonard

  “What about the queen?”

  It was harder to speak for his mother; arranging a marriage for him was her province, not his father’s. But she knew that he would only accept a marriage of state if he was not constrained to it. Talia was nearly as practical as Bron. She had been a lucky royal bride—his father loved her—and she was aware that was unusual. “She knows I’m a man,” he said. “Don’t do anything scandalous and she will ignore it.”

  “Don’t do anything scandalous! Corin, we already have.”

  “Outside of this,” he said, grinning. “Although kissing is hardly a scandal. No drunken brawls, or gambling all night with criminals, or dancing in a fountain. Or telling everyone what they should do.”

  “In other words, stay in my place and be good.”

  It sounded harsh. It was, he supposed, the truth. He ran his hand through the ends of her hair, lifted a lock to his face to smell it. Lavender and mint, clean, sharp. He said, “Act with honor, and the rest of it will take care of itself. I don’t mean a woman’s honor, all modesty and politeness, though I know you have it. I mean bravery and truth and conviction.”

  She leaned her face against his shoulder. “There’s not one man in a hundred who would say that of a woman.”

  And not one woman in a hundred who would say so to him. “I can afford to. I have enough power.”

  She sat so still and quietly that a butterfly lighted briefly on the flower in her hair. It was a deep fire-orange with red and yellow markings. It made him think of dragons. It hurt a little. He waited. He was good at waiting. A cricket chirped somewhere in the grass.

  Her shoulders loosened, her face relaxed. “Thank you for not thinking I am a naïf.”

  He asked her something he had never asked anyone. “And do you think less of me for saying such a thing?”

  She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “No, Corin. Prince Corin. I know what I am getting with you.”

  “Are you getting what you want?”

  “I want you.” Another kiss, several of them, light and lightning on his skin. “I don’t care about the rest.”

  He would never be able to explain to her the peculiar kind of ache her words roused in him. There had been other women who said that to him, but never with the honesty in their voices that was in hers. Regardless of the heat, he held her as tightly to him as he could until she said, “I can’t breathe.” When he released her, she tugged at her neckline and smoothed down her bodice. He let his eyes follow her hands. When he looked back up he knew she had been watching him.

  He said hastily, “You know it’s not separable, though. You get the whole package. Especially if we are in public.”

  “Such as the ball. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What ball?” he asked, bewildered.

  For some reason that made her laugh. “The first ball of the season, of course. I’m told that you will open it. There was great excitement about being asked to dance beforetime.”

  He remembered vaguely about it now. He did not pay attention to such things and was usually reminded by Teron or the chamberlain the day before. His mother no longer submitted him to the indignity of telling him herself, as though he were a wayward boy. But he had to be there. Even with one sister a hostage and the other in flight, ignorant of her husband’s fate. It was all the pretending he had said he would do.

  She was staring at him.

  “I forgot about it. I always do. Do you want me to take you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Corin. You look—is there something wrong?”

  “Not about that. Not about you,” he said. Probably he had already given too much away, but he could reassure her as to his feelings.

  “Are you really offering?” she asked.

  “Yes. Provided, of course, that you give me a dance.”

  “I’ll give you the whole evening if you want. But everyone will think you have succumbed to my arts.”

  “Let them,” he said recklessly. He stopped. The last thing he wanted anyone to think of Tam was that she had seduced him. He would not jeopardize her standing.

  He said, “You must do what is proper for you. It’s not my reputation at stake. I will ignore you entirely if that is best, though I must say that failure for me to notice so beautiful a woman would be equally remarked upon. I have been known to succumb easily.” He would almost rather not see her at all than have only formal unfeeling words from her.

  “If I’m as beautiful as all that my charms don’t matter,” she said. Carefully she touched his face. “There is no point in doing things halfway, if we are to dance together at all we might as well come together. I will take delivery of the whole package.”

  “Thank you,” he said. He could not remember ever having cared about it before; balls had always been mildly pleasant but unimportant ways to pass time. What irony that this should happen now, when war approached.

  “It will take some time to strike the balance. I don’t want to embarrass you.”

  “You won’t,” he said. “I may have to ignore the jealous men, though.”

  “I am sure you will do it most amiably,” she said.

  “Dutifully, at least. And with no duels.”

  They went quiet for a bit. The sky was very blue and scattered with large white clouds. Damp smells from the rain lingered. The garden was a glory of red and purple and yellow flowers of all shades, and it was still early enough in summer that the tree leaves had not lost their green freshness and begun to dull. A handful of brightly dressed women and more somber men walked some distance away, well out of range of recognition or voice.

  “Have a walk with me?” he asked.

  “We’ll be seen. I mean, you’ll be seen. And interrupted. You need to wear a mask.”

  “I would if I thought I could get away with it.”

  Her face was suddenly serious. “You never get to play, do you?”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me, Tam.” An idea, suggested by the masks, rose in him. “If you really want to throw all this off for a while, come with me to the fair.”

  “Now?” She sounded startled.

  “No, not now. At night. No one will know it’s us.” He was seized with eagerness for the idea. He had gone to fairs many summers, not forsaking a chance to be wild and reckless. It would not be the same with a woman—he hoped he did not look awkward as he remembered too late some of the things he had done before—but he wanted to be with her outside the order and dignity of the palace and its grounds.

  “Can you?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Bron would be furious, but he refused to let the attack of two nights ago confine him. Anyone who had gone to the lengths taken then to kill or capture him could find a way to do it here. He did not intend to hide his plans; the king could forbid it if he wished. But he wasn’t going to let anyone else prevent him.

  Tam was still considering it. He thought she was going to reject the idea, but when she spoke she looked impish. “All right,” she said. “But you have to let me do anything I want.”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  He grinned. “I’ll trust to your basic decency,” he said. “But if I don’t get to say no, then you have to take my dares.”

  “Done,” she said. “Shake hands on a bargain.”

  He complied, but instead of letting go of her hand after the shake pulled her to him. Her body relaxed into the curve of his arm and she leaned against him. There was no way she could know how much that simple tenderness softened him.

  After a while she said, “Corin, what’s happening? There’s something going on, isn’t there? Something big.”

  So clever, she was. He was so used to keeping secrets, to hiding things, that he could not shape any words. He swallowed, looked down, clasped and unclasped his hands. Then he met her eyes, and that released him.

  �
�How do you know?”

  “You didn’t hide it very well last night,” she answered.

  Well, that was true enough. The war plans went on appropriately, but there were still too many unanswered questions. He would tell her what he could. “I’m not supposed to tell you. Not you especially, but anyone. But I can’t imagine that most of it will stay secret much longer. The guessing must have already started. It will have to be announced in the next day or two. So I am not breaking too much of a confidence.”

  One of the ducks in the pond quacked at the other. They splashed water about, the droplets rising like molten silver in the bright sun.

  “You don’t need to break it to me.”

  “You deserve to know; you are going to have to put up with me,” he said. He put one of his hands over hers and told her in a low voice about the imminent fall of Argondy to Tyrekh. He told her about Mari coming, but not Tai. That promise he had to keep. He should not tell her things the council did not know. He said nothing about the Emperor. Now that he had started, it was hard not to say it all. It felt very intimate. She listened intently, soberly, fully.

  When he finished, she thought. He liked that about her. She brought his hand to her lips and kissed it, said, “Poor Corin, all this and I have you bothering about balls. You haven’t told me half of it. This is why you wanted to know about me and the book, isn’t it.”

  “Yes. It was an odd thing in the circumstances.”

  He was relieved to see no blame on her face when she looked at him. She laced her fingers with his. “What I told you last night,” she said, “it was true, but there was a bit more.”

  “What?” he asked apprehensively. He was unreasonably afraid she was about to tell him something that would force him to break with her.

  “Lord Cade.”

  He had deliberately not tried to find out anything about her, but he had realized as soon as she spoke of her father that she was the woman Berk had talked to. He had decided then to wait and let her tell him. Softly, he said, “Go on.”

  She swallowed. The breeze moved shadows across her face. Her eyes were bright. She said, “I suppose you know this. I saw him die.”

  Though he had known, it was different to hear her say it. Thinking of Cade’s blood and agony he felt as though she had been in danger herself. He gripped her hand. “Oh, Tam, I’m sorry.”

  “It was awful,” she said. “His face—he was in such pain. All he wanted was for me—anyone—to end it. I stood there and watched. There was nothing I could do.”

  He knew that feeling. It never got any easier. Her face was steady and her mouth firm. Carefully, he leaned over and kissed her, not with passion but for strength. Her eyes closed. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but was afraid she would run.

  She clenched his hand, her eyes still closed. “Corin,” she said. Whispered.

  “What?” he asked softly.

  “It wasn’t—I wasn’t—there was something else. You’ll think I’m mad.” She was struggling.

  He put his arms around her. He could not imagine what she might say, but nothing would drive him away from her. Her slender body was warm against him. “I’ve seen people who are mad,” he said. “You aren’t.” He had no doubt of that.

  “Before the blood—I can’t say this.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “I must.” She took a deep breath, then said in a low rapid voice, “I saw black moths come out of him. Out of his mouth. Hundreds of them.”

  He felt as though he had been thrown into a mountain lake, beautiful, placid, cold. It frightened him and it woke him with anticipation, excitement. Something was happening, changing. It was drawing him closer to whatever lay in the things he had forgotten. It was terrifying her. Gently, he kissed her forehead, her palm.

  “It happened,” he said. He had burned Joce, cursed Hadon. It was not born of charms and potions but of the deeper older power that had belonged once to the wizards. There is a woman who comes up to you and touches your shoulder and you freeze like ice and she sucks the blood out of you while you stand there. Then she turns into a bird and flies away.

  He kept back a shudder. The light changed. It had an eerie, otherworldly quality to it, as though he looked through thick tinted glass. The sky was a deep blue, almost purple. The shadows were very dark. Once again he had the sensation that he was being watched.

  With effort, he spoke, the words like sharp cracks. “I don’t doubt it, doubt you.”

  “But how?” Her face was still strained, her body stiff. He saw that too through the strange light. He felt her stiffness, but it had no meaning for him. He was trapped. The willow fronds were carved on the face of the air. Light glowed around their edges. Tam’s face was all contrasts, paper white and ink black, inhuman. Something ticked, a clock sound, over and over. Now, it said. Now.

  A dog barked in the distance. That broke the spell. Ordinary sunlight shone on him. He could breathe again. The depth of his relief told him how frightened he had been.

  “I don’t know,” he said, recovering. He could think about it later. “But let it be. You’ve said it, you can be done with it. Don’t let it gnaw at you. Don’t be ashamed.” He was careful to keep back the habitual tones of command that wanted to come in to his voice.

  “No one else saw them.”

  “No one else was brave enough,” he said. “People are very good at not seeing things.” Including himself.

  That brought a silence. After a moment, her head still lowered, she said, “I wasn’t going to tell anyone. Ever.”

  “It’s not going to chase me off,” he said. He looked for some way to lighten the mood without mockery. A pause, a moment of looking at her until she raised her head and met his eyes. “Tam,” he said, nothing else, just her name.

  “Yes,” she said, answering something he had not asked. Then she drew away. She had passed the hard part, he saw it in the set of her shoulders.

  She pushed her hair back and said, “I know what he died from.”

  He was good at setting things aside and working on practical issues, but it was rather disconcerting to see her do it. He realized he was probably going to underestimate her his entire life. “Berk told me you had guessed. He confirmed it?”

  “Yes. That’s why I had the book, to find out more.”

  “Did you learn anything?” he asked.

  “Not really. You don’t think I stayed there, do you? I ran away about as fast as you did, and I haven’t dared go back.”

  She could not bring the book with her. That was absurd, he would write her out a pass. “Afraid of me?”

  “Yes. I know it’s foolish.”

  “I didn’t go back either,” he admitted.

  “We wasted time,” she said, a suggestiveness in her voice that he would never have anticipated. His body quickened.

  “An entire day.” There was still no one around. “Let me do something about that.” He tipped her head back and kissed the hollow of her throat. She hooked a finger under the waistband of his trousers. He had never expected her to be so full of passion, as though she were starving for his touch. He was starving for hers. There was this soft smooth spot here, right above the neck of her dress, exquisitely kissable. Her breast was firm and soft. He tore himself away and sat on his hands.

  She moved down the bench. “Am I safe here?”

  “Not a bit. But I will endeavor to act more restrained.”

  “Don’t inconvenience yourself on my account, my lord,” she said. It had never been so lovely to be mocked. Then she said, “It’s bad that it was blood-dust, isn’t it?”

  Berk had thought she knew the implications. “Do you understand what it means?”

  “If someone here had blood-dust, he had to be dealing with the Sarians, or with other people who deal with the Sarians. And therefore he might be a traitor. Or she.”

 
“Yes,” he said. He wished he could tell her Hadon might be the source so she could put her mind fully to the puzzle.

  “But why kill him? And why that way? It wasn’t very secretive. Was it ordinary hate?”

  “All we have now are guesses. But it worked, which is not a small thing. I expect there’s plenty left for another victim or two if necessary.” Such as himself. “It’s not particularly hard to explain why he was killed. He may have been likely to confess something soon, or he had outlived his usefulness. He wasn’t innocent.” When Liko had said desperate, he had not been exaggerating; according to Gerod, Cade had been staggeringly in debt.

  “How do you know?”

  He supposed he was telling her far too much. But she had seen the death, she was owed an explanation. He wouldn’t put it past her otherwise to try to solve the mystery on her own, which was unspeakably dangerous. He told her quickly what he had learned from Liko. He wanted to tell her about Liko’s fear of him, the stories, the darkness in the water. But whatever blocked his tongue would not let him speak of those, not even to her, not even after her story of the moths.

  So instead he told her about the attack. To his relief she did not become maudlin about it. He was beginning to realize that she disliked sentimentality almost as much as he did. He said nothing about the possibility that the attack was Hadon’s or his sons’ work too.

  “There’s something else,” she said. “I don’t know if it matters, but I think I’d better tell you anyway. It may be nothing.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “The night you came back, the night it stormed, I woke up and couldn’t sleep. So I went to the window and sat for a while. And I saw—there’s a small ordinary courtyard below, with a walkway. I saw two men meet there, in the pouring rain, at three in the morning. One of the women in the wing threw something down to them. It didn’t make any sense then. But I think it must fit into the rest of all this somehow. Cade died the next day.”

  “You don’t know who they were, do you?” he asked without much hope.

  “No. I assume one was a lord by his clothing. That was all I could see. I know the woman.”