Moth and Spark

by Anne Leonard

  Aram sighed, said grimly, “Thank you.”

  “I think it wants out.”

  Suddenly he seemed haggard. “I expect you’re right,” he said. “There may be nothing to do about it. Have you felt it too?”

  She could not speak. She nodded.

  “If it comes after you, either of you, run. Don’t try to fight it.”

  “I won’t. And I’ll be careful,” she said, wishing absurdly that she could somehow reassure him.

  “I can’t ask for more,” he said. “Now, there are a few practical matters. Can you ride?”

  “Adequately.”

  “Improve. I’ll have a teacher found. And you’ll need to learn to defend yourself. You may have to leave somewhere in a hurry. Wear trousers.”

  Trousers. That simple word brought the reality of war to her.

  “What else?” she asked.

  “Talia will have to put you somewhere else. You’ll sleep up here, in Tai’s room, tonight.”

  But, she thought. She saw a faintly amused expression on his face that told her she had said it. She felt very young.

  He said, “It will be easier to guard. Everything else can wait until morning.”

  It was a dismissal. She bent her head. He opened the door and gestured for her to precede him. She obeyed.

  It seemed as though everyone in the room was watching them, waiting for the king. Corin stood next to his sister, who was straight and tearless and very pale. Bron had come. Aram shut the door behind himself and faced her. He spoke in a low voice. “Try to rest. Corin will be up all night, he’ll need you clear-headed tomorrow.”

  She nodded. “My lord.”

  Then, to her utter astonishment, he leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Sleep well,” he said. He turned his back to her and stepped toward a grey-haired man she did not know. She thought with a sudden sadness of her own father. There was no going back now. What Aram had told her changed everything.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  At dawn Corin walked down the steps from the palace entrance and stood on the grass in the cool blue shadows of the eastern wall. His body and mind were both restless. He had not even tried to go to bed. He had not changed his clothing, though he had discarded the formal jacket. There was still a chill to the air, but it had no bite. It would probably be a hot day. The sky above was flooded with early light. He looked back at the palace and saw the red glow of the sun on the tower tops. Not far away he heard a wheelbarrow on cobblestones. A rooster crowed. He smelled bread baking. An ordinary morning. Behind him the guards, twice as many as usual, stood alert on the steps.

  It had been a tumultuous night, fragmented and inconclusive and unsettled. Little bits of conversation flickered through his mind. I’ll be all right, Corin, truly I will, said his sister with red-rimmed eyes. Aram, looking wearier than Corin had ever seen him, said, I should have let you go dragonback to look. Himself, speaking to the dukes whom he had been sent like a page boy to gather from the ball: My gracious lords, His Majesty commands you to an immediate council. He wishes to tell you why himself. He found Cina and told her far more than he had intended to. She said, Forgive me, my lord, but you can’t marry her. The stark immovable fact. What do you need? Aram asked. He answered, I don’t even know. He was going blindly into a locked darkness that nothing had prepared him for. He had thought of how little pain he had suffered; now it was coming, barbed and entangling.

  More words floated up from his crowded memory. Sometimes you walk and turn and turn and you can’t get anywhere, you keep coming to the same corner, or you’re standing in a courtyard that’s all white stone and nothing is alive and there’s no way out. Liko had seen the dragon in his shadow somehow, he was sure of that. And afterward Corin had sent off the curse that was as cold and deathlike as whatever waited for him hidden in the darkness.

  Opening doors that shouldn’t be opened, he thought. That was what Cade had been trying to do. That was why he had wanted to be put into trance. He had hoped to find something in that cold world. Had he been murdered because he failed or because he succeeded? Hadon would know. He imagined the Emperor, withered with fear into something inhuman that clawed at life.

  God, how much easier it had been when everything was politics. Damn the dragons. Damn Hadon. He clenched his fists. He did not know enough, not anywhere near enough. He was not trained to combat specters.

  Free the dragons. From what? What hold did the Empire have on them?

  He thought of Mycene, the lush green valleys, the terraced fields on the mountainside. The Emperor’s palace, with its splendid views and grand staircases and gilt ceilings. Distant dragons sparkling in the sunlight. Lizards and cats and snakes lying in the sun. The jungle at night, dark and thick and moving and alive. Monkeys screeching. The south end of the capital, more squalid than any place in Caithenor. It too was noisy with shrieks, human sounds of anger and pain and despair. Was he to go there?

  Frustrated, he pushed thoughts out of his mind and stood a moment in stillness. Slowly he became aware of the ground beneath him, the cool dampness under the dried soil, the small burrows of animals, the clay, the bedrock. It was his land. It was an immense and sleeping dragon, curled around an ember of fire. It was the home of the peasants’ corn goddess and the lord of the dead. It wanted him. There was power in it, spreading everywhere like some vast circulatory system. He felt its hum in his bones.

  He turned. He was wasting time. As he went back up the stairs, he once more had the feeling that he was being watched. He looked east again. The few clouds above the horizon were limned with gold, splendid. He made up his mind.

  Bron argued fiercely with him, but yielded after he snapped, “Take two dozen men and hit him over the head if you must, but I want him here.” Corin could not remember the last time he had lost his temper with the captain. He went to bed for an hour and felt more tired when he roused from a thick dreamless sleep. He bathed and dressed carefully. It was still early by courtier standards, especially the morning after a ball, and as much as he wanted to see Tam he thought he would let her sleep. She was going to need it to hold up to the world today.

  He went to his study. He would have liked to tell Teron to keep everybody out, but there was no justification for it. The work he was to do had no meaning in the imminence of war. He might as well be interrupted. As word got out—Aram was revealing what had happened and had doubled the guard—he would be faced by panicked people seeking assurance or advice or money. Cina had been relatively calm about it, saying only, I shall have to take her home. Most courtiers did not have her poise. He had said to her, She has chosen to stay and the king allows it. He regards her highly, which had rattled her a bit. She had gathered herself together and said, I had better stay to help her through things, then, paused, added, I will not interfere where His Majesty has permitted, but please, my lord, be careful of her. She is still quite young yet. He answered, I know. I will. For a moment they looked at each other, man and woman only, full of the same fear.

  It was about an hour later when Teron put his head in at the door and breathed loudly until Corin looked up, hoping to hear that Bron was back. “The Duchess of Osstig, my lord,” he said tonelessly.

  Oh hell. Seana. He should have expected it. “Send her in. And see that we are not disturbed.”

  She closed the door quietly. They looked at each other. How had he ever thought her beautiful? She sat down and said, “I have no intention of being difficult, Corin. I just want to know the truth.”

  “We’re done,” he said. “It’s not negotiable.”

  “Will you tell me why?”

  He could not be angry now. “It was never a good idea, you know that. And with a war on, it’s impossible. How much loyalty do you think I can get from a man who knows I’m in his wife’s bed?”

  Her hands were neatly folded in her lap. She rubbed one thumb deliberately against the other, then said evenly,
“That’s all quite true, but don’t you think you could have found the decency to tell me before parading some common woman around?”

  “Apparently I couldn’t,” he said, as composed as she, though he was bridling within. “I’m sorry it happened that way, and I grant that you have a right to be angry, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. She has nothing to do with you, it would be the same without her.”

  “I expected better of you,” she said.

  As well she might have. “I can tell you again that I am sorry, but that won’t change anything. You can comfort yourself with the knowledge that your husband is the better man.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. He heard the cruelty in what he had said and wished he could pull it back, but that too was done and unchangeable.

  “She—”

  “She and I are not under discussion, Seana, and never will be. You and I are. Or were, I have nothing else to say.”

  “Corin—”

  It was perhaps the importuning tone in her voice that snapped him. No longer caring if he hurt her, he said harshly, “Seana, both my sisters’ husbands were brutally murdered yesterday. Do you think I have either the time or the desire to listen to you beg for something you can’t have? Count yourself lucky I don’t love you, or you might be dead with them.”

  There was a very long silence. Then she stood up, cool as could be, and said, “I understand. I said I would not be difficult, and I won’t.” She stepped backward to the door, put her hand on it. She curtsied. “Your Highness.”

  She or, more likely, Teron, closed the door again. Corin stared at it without thinking anything. He swore a few times, clenched his teeth, and then bent again over his desk.

  Time passed in splinters and fragments. He spoke to visitors without really hearing what either he or they said. His mind kept dancing around, thoughts of his sisters, of Sarians, of dragons, of Tam, constantly intruding. He had been excused from seeing the bodies with a suggestion that was really a command—Aram said it had shaken even Gerod—and his imagination insisted on filling that gap. At last he stood up and stalked to the window and thrust it fully open. He smelled newly mown grass.

  I have to leave, he thought. His jaw was tight, his shoulders tensed. I have to leave now.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head briefly against the cool wall, then went back to his chair and resumed working.

  He could concentrate no better than he had, and he was just about to go to the gardens in an attempt to clear his mind when he heard footsteps rapidly approaching the door. Teron said something, but the door opened without even a perfunctory tap for courtesy.

  It was Tam. Her face was pale. Before he could be surprised that she had entered so he saw Joce standing behind her, giving Teron his iciest stare. That could only be his father’s command; it was something he never would have dared to ask for. He felt immensely relieved.

  “What happened?” he asked, taking her hands. Someone shut the door.

  She pressed briefly against him. He imagined he could feel her pulse beating.

  Then she stepped back and looked directly at him. “Alina’s dead.”

  It took him a moment to place the name. “Did you find her?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “Her maid did. I heard her scream and went to help. I was prepared for something horrible. She hanged herself.” She was calm, the doctor’s daughter who had seen death many times. He hoped she did not feel the need to pretend strength in front of him.

  He touched her face. “Gentle, love. Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Just sad. She didn’t deserve that. She left a note. It said—it said—” Her eyes closed briefly and her mouth set, as though she were about to be sick. She went on. “It said, ‘Arnet killed Cade. He was in the way. I helped. I’m sorry.’”

  Corin wanted to be relieved that the mystery was solved, but knowing Arnet he could not be. It seemed unlikely that the baron would have written a message accusing himself, though. He said, “Are you sure she did it?”

  “Unless he has the power to lock a window from the outside four stories up or slip by all the guards entirely, she did it. I saw her alive fifteen minutes ago. I would still set the death at his feet, though. He’s responsible.”

  “He’s probably cleared out by now, I doubt we’ll catch him,” Corin said. “Why do you suppose she did it? Pangs of conscience?”

  “I think fear. Perhaps of him. There was a bruise on her wrist yesterday that looked like he had held her, and I found another on her shoulder just now. Or she may have been afraid of getting caught. You might not have noticed, Corin, but it feels like a war camp or a prison out there. Soldiers are everywhere.”

  “Good. And speaking of that, why were you in that wing at all? I thought you were moved.”

  “I had a few things to get still. They put me in the wing next to yours. It’s much too grand. And it’s going to be lonely, no one’s going to find me there.”

  “That’s the idea,” he said. Those rooms were reserved for only very high-ranking guests and were much more sumptuous than she was entitled to. That too had to have been his father’s doing. What was he thinking? When Aram had kissed Tam’s forehead last night, Corin had been as stunned as the rest of them. It was beyond courtesy.

  “I’d rather take my chances with a crowd,” she said. “It has one advantage, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “No one will know if I sleep with you.”

  “We can’t,” he said.

  It hurt her. “Why not?” she asked stiffly.

  “It’s too great a risk now that they know about you. If there were to be a child—”

  “There won’t be,” she said with certainty. “I am not my father’s daughter for nothing.”

  It relieved him, yet saddened him too. He did not want to have his heir born out of some loveless obligation.

  “They don’t know that. They would try to find you and kill you to end the line,” he said. “Even if they had already killed me.”

  “I can choose my risks,” she said. “We’ve had this argument already, remember?”

  He found it suddenly very hard to speak. He kissed her lips, remembering that very first kiss, the taste of Illyrian wine and cold wind and curiosity. “I’ll send you home with a dozen bottles of the best wine,” he said. “No point in leaving it for the Sarians.”

  “Don’t change the subject,” she said. She kissed him passionately.

  He put his arms around her and pressed her close but said nothing. It was brutally unfair that Tai and Mari had lost this. How could he trust anyone else to keep her safe? He had to. He had to go. He lifted her soft hair with his hand and let it spill down the side of his arm like water. He could not even ask her to wait for him. She deserved better.

  “Well?” she asked softly.

  “You can come,” he said. He felt closed in, pressed upon by too many other presences. She ran her hand down his back, and suddenly he wanted her more than he could endure. He forced himself to step away.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Nothing beyond what you know of. Nothing to do with you,” he said.

  There was a silence. She looked around the room. It was the first time she had been there, and he wondered how it matched her expectations. He remembered looking down at her yesterday from the balcony—had it only been yesterday?—and being aware, as he was supposed to be, of the gulf between them. He didn’t want her to feel that here.

  “Sit down,” he said. “Not in that chair, it’s uncomfortable.”

  “Intentionally?” she asked with a trace of wryness that reassured him.

  “It keeps people from staying too long.”

  She smiled at him, a shadow of her usual grin, but did not sit. He watched her clasp and unclasp her hands, several times. Her fingers were slim and elegant and bea
utiful.

  At last she looked up. Her face was white. “Your father—your father says I have power.”

  That threw him. Not so much the power, whatever it was—she had seen the moths and the dragon in the carousel—but that his father would know. It was such a secret thing. “What did he say?”

  “He said I’m a Seer. And that it’s a natural force we do not understand. He was very calm about it.”

  “He always is.”

  “But what—how could he tell?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. He thought of the wizards, hidden away in their tiny mountain enclave. He had gone twice, once when he turned eighteen and was told the secret and a second time a few years later. Aram had gone more often. Perhaps he had learned the signs of power.

  But Tam was no wizard. She could not even carry it in her blood from some distant ancestor; any child got of the two races was barren. It must be a wild thing, springing into being of its own accord. The thought that she might not be able to bear children flittered treacherously across his mind. He pushed it away.

  “Tam,” he said, “don’t let my father get under your skin. He has a full bag of tricks and he can’t help using them. There’s enough to worry about without adding him.”

  She pointed at the door. “What about him? Joce. I don’t need an assassin to watch over me. Don’t try to tell me he’s an ordinary soldier.”

  “If Joce had been with my sister, she never would have been taken,” he said bitterly.

  She came to him. They put their arms around each other. Neither spoke for a long time.

  At last she said, “If it will help you for me to go, I will.”

  “Oh, Tam.” He knew what that meant to her.

  Teron’s chair scraped on the other side of the door. Corin took a deep breath. “Let’s decide later,” he said. “We’re about to be interrupted.”

  A knock. “Come,” he called.