Daughter of Ashes (Rise of Aiqasal Book 1)

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Daughter of Ashes (Rise of Aiqasal Book 1) Page 12

by Moira Katson


  You thought of me? It was the sort of question she should ask, but she could not give voice to it. How often, last night, had her thoughts wandered from the plot of treason, to its target? The plot was war and horror, and she could think only of his eyes. Betrayal and treachery should occupy her thoughts, and instead she saw his flourishing bow, over and over again. If she spoke now, she was sure he would hear that in her voice.

  “You do not ask any questions of your own,” he observed.

  Should she be? This would have been confusing enough even without her own plan. She looked up at him mutely.

  “You haven’t asked why, for one thing.” He seemed almost amused.

  “Why …” Her thoughts took a moment to catch up. Again, unwise instincts took hold before she could stop herself from speaking: “Why set aside a beautiful, educated woman for a common born bride?”

  A spasm of pain crossed his face and she wanted nothing more than to take it back. “Your Majesty, I—”

  “No. You have a right to know.” He looked away from her, swallowing.

  “I do not,” Alleyne said firmly. “Your reasons are your own. And I …”

  “It seems the sort of thing a wife should know.” He walked a few steps further, but the humor was knocked from him. “Have you ever loved blindly?” he asked finally.

  Almeric. The thought came to her at once. “Yes, Your Majesty, I think so.”

  “Beyond reason—or perhaps from too much of it.” He gave a humorless smile. “I will not lie to you, Nerea would make a more than capable Empress Consort. She was one of my first friends at court, she is unfailingly gracious, she is intelligent and educated …” He swallowed. “I am making a mess of this. Please understand that I speak of her neither to shame her, nor to disrespect you.”

  She could think of nothing to say to that.

  “Perhaps I should learn to hold my tongue, as you do so well.” The jest was sad. He paused, and when he spoke, there was something old in his voice, old and yet new—a phoenix, millennia old and rising from its own ashes. “Aiqasal was built on the ruins of what came before. Empires that rose, only to rot from within until their husks were conquered. And now, Aiqasal rots as well. Its time has passed, and it, too, will fall. Unless …”

  “Unless you make a pious gesture?” Blessed goddess of the dawn, what was she trying to accomplish by saying things like that? Was she trying to get herself thrown out of court?

  “Is that what they’re saying in the palace?” Weary interest touched his voice. “Is that what you think?”

  “I … cannot see how I would help,” she admitted. “How any of us would help.”

  He was not put off by the sentiment. “Where does an empire rot?” he asked her intently. He swept an arm out. “Here. In the palaces, in the council chambers, in the generations of nobility trained to rule just as their parents before them had done, and their parents before them.” He looked around himself. “Every part of this palace has seen blood. I think of the gardeners, sent to cull away the overgrowth and the weeds after the palace has fallen into disrepair in the twilight of empires, and …”

  She could see it so vividly that she shivered.

  “You understand.” His voice almost ached with hope.

  “You want Aiqasal to overthrow itself,” she said slowly. “You want to burn away the rot and build it new, be its conqueror.”

  “Yes. Yes.” His fingers squeezed around hers.

  “Would it still be Aiqasal?” she asked him.

  “Is this Aiqasal?” he asked cryptically. “Hundreds of courtiers drifting to and fro, clothed in silk? The city outside is more vibrant, more alive, than—” He caught himself. “You would know that, though, wouldn’t you?”

  She could not help but smile. “Yes. But how do you?”

  “I went, twice, when I had just been crowned.” His eyes were faraway, and a smile played over his full mouth.

  “Your uncle allowed it?” She could not help but be intrigued.

  His face closed off at that. “No,” he said shortly.

  They walked in silence until hydrangea blossoms caught Alleyne’s eye. She had torn herself away from him, heedless, before she even realized what she had done. She knelt, fingers brushing over the petals. Her father, ever the warrior, never inclined to softness and luxury, had somehow managed to have these in his rooms all season.

  He knelt beside her and she looked over, an apology coming to her lips before she remembered that she hated him. “I interrupted you.”

  “I do not mind.” His eyes were very warm. He considered. “I think I only saw the rot because I was so young. My uncle told me I was never to go out into the city again—it wasn’t done. It was what they said of everything: it ‘wasn’t done.’ They said I would understand when I was older, and if I had taken the throne then, I think I would have.”

  She looked over at him, frowning.

  “I would have,” he repeated helplessly. “If my father had survived, I would have ruled as he did, I think. I would have learned from him. I would have forgotten the questions I had, just like they said I would. But as it was … it was like an itch in my mind I couldn’t scratch. Every time they told me something just wasn’t done, or was done just because, the itch grew larger. I wanted to build a different Aiqasal, and none of them would follow me. First it was just them, just the elders and my uncle, and so I thought when I attained my majority, I would find those who would see the vision I had of Aiqasal and love it as I did. For that, I turned to Nerea. The Four know there have been enough good marriages without passion. But …”

  As his voice trailed away, Alleyne understood at last. He had wanted Nerea to be the Empress Consort of an Aiqasal that did not yet exist—and she had not wanted the same. The friend he had relied upon to be his confidante and his north star had not followed the same dreams.

  “I’m sorry.” The words were inadequate.

  “Don’t be.” He lifted his shoulders. “Tell me of you—tell me of your parents.”

  She should not, but her mouth opened despite herself. “My mother was so kind, so courageous. She would go walk—like you did, I guess. She loved something about the city. She sang, and she advised my father, always, to be generous. And he … he was born a warrior, but without a war. He wanted a simple life, a simple world. She helped him laugh. He was so gentle with us …” She bit her lip, looked up.

  He was looking away from her, and she could not read the expression she saw in his profile.

  “Dar—Your Majesty?”

  If he noticed the misstep, he said nothing. He looked back at her, stared into her eyes.

  “Your Majesty?” She was frightened of his silence.

  “I told you I would have ruled like my father,” he said distantly, “and hastened the rot of Aiqasal. It’s true. I would have presided over the fall of my nation and never understood it. It is lucky I lost him, in a way—though I have missed him every day since he died.”

  She wanted to reach out and take his hand. A good Empress Consort would, and it would gain her more of his trust—but she could not. His touch would burn like a brand. She was terrified to touch him. “What of your mother?”

  “She died birthing me.” He shook his head. “He loved her. He should have taken another wife, but he never did. So, perhaps he did know something of breaking rules.” The smile was fleeting. “I miss him so much. I would never give up what I am, what I know, but …” His voice changed, hardened. “But there is a rage in being orphaned, isn’t there?”

  His eyes met hers, and it was beyond her to lie. “Yes, Your Majesty. There is.”

  He looked at her for a long time. Then he nodded, only once. “I must go.”

  And he was gone, just that quickly, in a swirl of red silk from his cloak. Alleyne looked back before she could stop herself, to the watchers hidden in Baradun’s rooms. There—there—was the flash of green. Jarin, the traitor. She clung to the reminder like a lifeline as she stood.

  She should go back in,
there was really nothing else to do. But as she turned to leave, she looked to where he had disappeared. There is a rage in it, Your Majesty, and you are the reason I am an orphan. She did not dare say the words aloud, or even shape them, but she could scream as loudly as she wanted in her mind and no one would hear her. You are the reason, she thought fiercely, and I am the one who will make you pay.

  She was no longer sure just whom she was reminding.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “That was all?” Baradun asked sometime later.

  “Yes.” Alleyne kept her voice level and light. She had, at Baradun’s prompting, shared Darion’s words about missing his father. She had not shared his sentiments about the ruling of Aiqasal.

  The man frowned and settled back in his seat. “’There is a rage in being orphaned,’” he quoted distantly. “Well, I cannot argue with that—and I know only the smallest part of it.”

  Alleyne had not known that. From what little she did know, Baradun generally lived alone at court, leaving the day-to-day running of his estate to his son—the son who, as Baradun had reminded her that morning—had a young child of his own. From the little gifts and notes he sent upriver, Alleyne had reason to believe that Baradun genuinely cared for his granddaughter, and surely he must have cared for his wife if he had never remarried.

  Margery had offered little other information, which was its own signal—the woman felt little compunction about offering her opinion on those to whom she had no loyalty.

  Now, the maid looked up from her work on a small circlet for Alleyne. “Perhaps it’s good that he spoke to her of it.” In mixed company, she was silent and deferential; when the household was alone, it was another matter. Alleyne had seen that Baradun welcomed, and even sought out, Margery’s insight.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Whatever his purpose in wanting a commoner, it can’t be just zealotry.” Margery’s eyes lingered on Alleyne, assessing. “Or perhaps it was meant to be, and he’s unsettled that he enjoys her company.”

  “Implausible.” Baradun’s voice was gentle even as he chided her. “A man is not unsettled to be in love, and even less so when he desires a woman.”

  “Is that what you think?” Margery raised an eyebrow, entirely unconcerned by Baradun’s opinion. “If you ask me, I say His Majesty went searching for something other than love—and other than Nerea.”

  “Margery.”

  “It’s no secret, for all it’s usually whispered. And she—” Margery pointed a needle at Alleyne “—needs t’know, doesn’t she?”

  “Perhaps, but less bluntly, my dear.”

  Margery snorted as she returned to her work. “That’s just wastin’ time. It’s a miracle any business goes on in the realm at all, the way nobles carry on.”

  “Enough.” It was good humored. “If you would go the retrieve the new dresses from the seamstress, please, Margery, I have matters to discuss alone with Melisande.”

  “Aye, sir.” Margery curtsied and was gone in a swish of her blue dress.

  Baradun rose to pour himself more tea, and offered a cup to Alleyne as well. “What do you think of Margery’s theories?”

  Alleyne bit her lip and tried to look appropriately thoughtful. In truth, she thought that she would rather be finding Jarin and tracking down the conspiracy, but she had learned some patience, at least, in the last thirteen years. For now, she would practice her court manners; she would need them, if she were to wait out the conspiracy.

  “I think she’s half correct,” she said finally. She did not wish to speak of Darion’s hopes for Aiqasal, so she added simply, “I do not think he’s a man who would fear desire.”

  Indeed, in his easy grin and his confessions of jaunts to the city, she had seen a spirit much like her own: a ready appreciation of beauty and a healthy streak of stubbornness. He would have climbed to the top of the bathhouse with her without complaint, the danger only a spice to him.

  So why had he left her so suddenly? Why did she so unsettle him?

  There was one possibility, of course. Fear began its steady beat in her chest and she swallowed hard. “Perhaps it upset him to remember his parents,” she suggested, simply to say something.

  “Perhaps that was all it was,” Baradun agreed. “In any event, I think we have gone as far as we can with the information at hand. As my merchant forbears would say, we’ve not enough to build a deal on, and more pressing matters, besides.” He smiled easily, he had a good humor about his heritage. “The Regent tells me that His Majesty plans to announce his choice the week before the ambassador’s arrival.”

  Just as Almeric had said, then. Alleyne nodded. “Less than a month,” she murmured.

  “You know the date of his arrival?” Baradun was visibly startled.

  “We do hear of such things in the city, you know.”

  “When?”

  When you bribe the right people and listen at the right keyholes. “At the docks. Merchants know everything—of course, it might have been no more than a lucky guess.” She lifted one shoulder as elegantly as she could.

  “That could be.” Baradun relaxed somewhat. “Regardless, it gives us little time—as much a boon as a problem, I should think. If he truly was not upset, I should say you have good odds. You could be wearing the crown by winter.” He gave her a frank appraisal, but his look softened when he saw the fear in her eyes. “It is a lot of change in so short a time. Tell me, Melisande, did my eyes deceive me, or did you find joy in his company?”

  Too much joy. Alleyne looked away hastily rather than show him the sheen of tears in her eyes. Why was she crying?

  She pressed a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. She must think of something to say.

  “I know it is very quick,” Baradun told her. He came to take her hand.

  Too much kindness, too much understanding; she deserved none of it. She looked away from him desperately.

  “Melisande, there is nothing that says you must marry him.” Baradun’s voice was grave. “It is not only his choice. If you find you do not love him, if you think you never could … well, that is one thing. But I would say, before you fear that this is too quick: successful marriages have been built on less. My wife and I barely knew one another a day before we were married.”

  That startled her enough that she forgot her worry. Alleyne looked over at him with a frown.

  “It is true.” Baradun smiled at her. “There are many kinds of love. Ours was steady and kind, born of a shared understanding. Marriage is not only passion. I am only a noble, and only one of merchant stock, but it seems to me that what a monarch needs is a partner of strength and resolve. Darion needs a woman who will be honest with him, who will share his vision for Aiqasal when the powerful do not, who will help him become the ruler he is meant to be.

  “I will not press you more. I do not ask for answers. You would bring favor to my house if you became his wife, but you already know that much, and the fate of empires should not be decided over so small a thing. Know only that I believe you could make a good Empress Consort if you chose.”

  He took his leave of her and she sat still as a statue in the ornate chair. Tears were running down her face and she did not move even to brush them away. She was not sure why she was crying. It was not for fear that Darion was choosing a wife too quickly—royal and noble marriages alike were always arranged more for convenience than love—but she could not think of an answer.

  Or rather, she could not think of just one.

  She was crying because Baradun was correct: because everything was changing too quickly. Because the fact that she was going to ruin Baradun’s reputation and his family’s prospects, and perhaps even lead to his own trial for treason, seemed too cruel. Because she did not know what it would take to find the plot against Aiqasal and stop it, and she did not know if she would be able to do so. Because even when she found them, how would she know that there were not more plots, more nobles waiting to profit by Darion’s death?

 
She was crying because she was terribly afraid that she would be Darion’s wife before she had a chance to take her own revenge, and she was not certain she could laugh with him, share his vision of the Aiqasal that could be, become his confidante … and then plunge a knife into his chest.

  And she was crying because some part of her no longer wanted to kill him; where the last night had sparked the fear, today’s encounter had confirmed it. She must cut that piece of herself away if she were to succeed … and she could not begin to say how she would do that.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “This would have been easier without your runner last night,” Margery informed Alleyne bluntly later that night. She yanked the comb through Alleyne’s curls. “Sit still.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Making you look like a priest.” Margery jerked her head at the undyed gown and black kirtle on the bed. “And before ye ask why, as I know ye’re going to, it’s because everyone’s now on the lookout for the beauty who snuck into Darion’s chambers last night and stole his heart. We’d already be in trouble if his mightiness hadn’t come t’see ye today. Now there’s an army of nobles just waiting to turn you into the Regent. And before ye say he likes ye—”

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” Alleyne murmured.

  “—he just issued a proclamation today about proper behavior,” Margery finished.

  “A proclamation on …” Alleyne blinked. “But he isn’t the Regent anymore.”

  “He was a philosopher once. Anyway, people still listen to him.”

  “Does Darion?”

  “Most assuredly not.” Margery’s proper manners were back in place. She smiled her most winning smile. “His Majesty is stubborn as an ass and contrary with it, especially where his uncle is concerned. You’d think the Regent would know that by now.”

  “Margery!”

  “Oh, no one can hear us, and you’ll need to know the ways of the court when …” Her voice trailed off and she busied herself with Alleyne’s hair.

 

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