Shrouded: Heartstone Book One

by Frances Pauli

“Good. Good. Lovely girl.”

  Syradan let them natter on. His own focus danced between the princes already assembled and the door. He caught Dielel sneaking in, his chest puffed up and confident of his new status as king’s fool. Syradan snorted and watched him slinking. Dielel kept to the wall and worked his way around the length of the room to get at Haftan. As he slid into the chair nearest his idol, Mofitan appeared in the doorway.

  Now that was interesting. Syradan sat taller and peered between the old and new kings. Mofitan limped in. He looked a bit like he’d been caught between hover cushions. His wraps hung loose enough for his sleeve to gap at the wrist, and his braid poked stray hairs at every stitch. Dolfan followed him in, in a worse state and barely upright.

  Good. Let the two most dangerous princes focus their ire on one another. He preferred them to be distracted.

  “She appreciates a good tune,” Tondil told Pelinol. “The new queen.”

  Syradan caught Haftan’s snort and frowned. The look on his face, the derision, would have to be watched carefully. Haftan’s ambivalence to his bride could compromise his own rule should it become too obvious. The man most certainly knew that, and yet his scowl only deepened as they discussed the woman. Was he disappointed? Had he wanted the Heart more than Syradan had guessed?

  In truth, the entire assembly sported various frowns and foul looks. Not the best foot for his new king to place forward. They needed to sweep past the moment, to get on with business before too much thinking sprouted behind those scowls.

  “I believe we’re all here,” he said. “If one of your Highnesses cares to begin?”

  There would be officer selection. The new Council needed structure even before the coronation. Its predecessors would be relieved of their tasks that very day. He would be relieved of his task. Haftan had his recommendations already. If he followed the advice, they’d have a chance of surviving the immediate future. If Haftan ignored his suggestions, well, Syradan had done what he could to save them. The future of Shroud would affect him little either way. Once he’d made his escape, what would it matter to him if Haftan fought to keep the planet sequestered or tossed the doors wide and let the galaxy in?

  If Haftan kept in line, if he managed to play a believable role, then this coronation would seal more than the man’s place on the throne. Whatever the future brought upon the Shrouded, Syradan would not be there to see the repercussions. He had his promise from the outsider, his route off world, and all it had cost him was the key to his people’s undoing.

  She’d fallen asleep before Haftan returned. When she rose, he’d already departed again, but she found a heavy blanket folded neatly at the end of one couch and a square pillow tucked under it. Their table bore a tray of fruit, dried meat and breads, and a pitcher of some kind of juice.

  Vashia sat, stared out at the Shroud and wondered if the food had been poisoned. Haftan despised her, she’d seen enough to figure that, but he did need her in the long run, at least for now. She picked up a star shaped pear and sniffed it. The door rattled under a soft knock, and she dropped the fruit.

  Her breath caught and her chest pattered. She didn’t feel the static. Nothing hummed at the edge of her senses. She relaxed her spine and answered, “Come in.”

  The queen entered. The former queen. Vashia tensed. This was the woman she’d be expected to replace, this smiling, statuesque monarch who waved her back into her seat and crossed the room with skipping, girlish steps. They’d introduced her the night before, but the blur of faces hadn’t latched onto any names, and as the woman dragged a chair away from the table to join her, Vashia had no idea what to call her.

  “Good morning.” The queen smiled deeper, only the few lines in her face around the eyes giving away any hint of her age. She had blue eyes and long brown hair that hung in thick twists to either side of her face. Vashia had seen the style before, the smoky skin that spoke of her off-world heritage.

  “Good morning, Your Highness,” she said.

  “Lucha, please.”

  Vashia enjoyed a wave of relief. She nodded and watched Lucha retrieve a piece of fruit.

  “How is our new Highness this morning?” The woman eyed her sideways and popped the slice into her mouth. “Mmm. Delicious.”

  “He left early,” Vashia answered.

  “I meant you, my dear.”

  “Oh.” She plucked the pear again and bit into it before she could say anything even stupider.

  “I remember,” Lucha continued, and her eyes roved over Vashia’s face, “my first days here, you know. It hasn’t been that long. I remember how terrifying it was, and how exciting.”

  She poured them each a cup of juice and pushed Vashia’s across to her.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ll need your strength. I didn’t eat and spent a week far too close to fainting.”

  “You came from off world?”

  “We all do. I signed the contract, boarded a ship and flew straight for the unknown, just like all the other brides. Just like you.”

  Vashia wanted to ask her why. She needed to know what drove the others, what had driven Lucha specifically to buy into the Shrouded scam. But the queen smiled amiably and sipped her juice. She just couldn’t bring herself to spoil it. Maybe she’d gotten lucky. Maybe her king had been the right man.

  “It can be a little overwhelming, and of course, Haftan will be busier than normal the first few weeks. My predecessor vanished the second we took over, and I decided right then, that I’d never do that to you, dear. Even though, of course, I didn’t know who you were yet.”

  Vashia stared at her and tried to make sense of it. She took a drink and nodded as if she understood completely. Her eyes drifted to the two women Lucha had brought with her. Were these brides who didn’t find a match? The servants waited just inside the door. One of them looked like the girl who’d trailed her and Haftan the night before. Did the Shrouded have so few attendants that the royals shared amongst themselves?

  It seemed Lucha had been waiting anxiously for her. She probably wanted to get out of here as soon as she could, but instead she felt some sense of duty to Vashia.

  “After my Heart ceremony, I barely had time to say hello to Pelinol before they whisked him away.” She sighed and blinked a few times at her fruit. “I felt so lost without him, even then when we’d only just met.”

  “Really?” she blurted without thinking, but Lucha paid no notice.

  “Really. They didn’t let us get to know one another properly for days.”

  Vashia nodded. She’d taken it the wrong way entirely. Either the queen was well disciplined in her façade of marital bliss, or she and Pelinol had had a much different arrangement. Well, that was nice. At least one bride had found what she wanted under the Shroud.

  “So, back to my job.” Lucha set her glass down and put both hands on the table, fingers folding into a tidy peak. “I’m going to keep you incredibly busy.”

  Vashia laughed. She couldn’t rightly help it. Lucha made her task sound terribly important.

  “Of course, I’ll be teaching you all of your duties as well.”

  “Of course. Thank you.” At least she’d know what she was supposed to do.

  “We’ll start right now, with the most important task for any queen.”

  “And what would that be?” Vashia almost balked. A flare of mischief lurked behind Lucha’s eyes. She almost choked when the woman answered:

  “Why, shopping, of course.”

  Dolfan left the throne room in slightly better spirits. Haftan gave him the moon. Mofitan glared at him on the way out, but they both took quickly to opposite directions. He could at least get the hell off-world. He’d have to wait until after the coronation, but at least he could leave the moment it ended.

  Still, he had some free time and the voice in his head still chanted to get away, as far away as possible. He tucked his breather in and made for the stairway and the hover pads below. Each step reminded his aches that he was a stupid ass,
but he endured the descent in silence.

  One of the small transports already sat on the mag cushion. Dolfan could feel the static in his mind, and he wasn’t surprised to find the queen, both queens, and two of the Palace attendants on the other side of the vehicle preparing to board.

  “Good morning, Dolfan.” Lucha beamed at him, but her face fell when she noticed the damage to his clothes, the dried blood showing through his pant legs. “Heavens. What happened to you?”

  He stared past her. Vashia half hid behind the queen, but she peeked out enough to keep him in sight. Her wide eyes sparkled and pulled at his senses. What had he expected? Had he feared or hoped it would go away once the Heart had finished with them? He blinked and tried to answer, but he’d already forgotten what Lucha had asked.

  “You look like you’ve had a fight,” she noted accusingly. He was taken aback. He shook his head, only partially looking at her.

  “The stairs.”

  “You fell?”

  He nodded and noticed Vashia’s eyes widen. A forbidden emotion within him rejoiced in that look.

  “Did the stairs also give you a black eye?”

  “Yes. No.” He snapped back to present. “No. I’m afraid that was something else.”

  “I see.”

  “Your pardon.” He bowed low and still caught Vashia’s eyes following him.

  “Hardly necessary,” Lucha said. “It’s your poor face.” She chuckled and shook her head at him. “We’re going shopping, Dolfan. Do you need transport somewhere?”

  “No!” He let a flash of panic make his refusal too forceful. He saw Lucha’s brow rise. She stepped back and gave him a more critical look. Vashia frowned and dropped her eyes away. “I mean, that’s fine, but I planned on taking a bike.”

  “Ah, boys.” His excuse worked on the queen, but Vashia didn’t look up again. “Well, then, have fun young prince and look more closely where you’re going, perhaps?”

  Dolfan smiled and bowed again. He backed toward the sheds, watched until they’d both boarded and the hatch slammed down into place. He waited until the currents shifted and the ship shot out over the incline before sagging against the wall.

  What had he expected? He could refuse to play Shayd and Mofitan’s game until the Shroud faded and blew away. It wouldn’t change the fact that he was a traitor. In his heart, he’d already committed that sin repeatedly.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “IT’S SO FRAGILE.” Vashia stroked the instrument. The thin wood felt like foam in her hands, the lute barely constituting more than a long neck that flared slightly around the sound hole. Her finger found the strings and she plucked an experimental note. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “It’s simple.” Tondil lounged on the couch nearest her chair and played a twin lute. His fingers plucked and strummed alternately, but she still couldn’t work out how he could muster so many notes from three strings. The instruments she’d learned on had at least eight a piece. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

  She sighed and listened to him instead. The music trilled under his adept fingers. Peryl hummed along, leaning against Tondil’s couch and tapping a matching rhythm against the floor tiles with his fingers. His milky ring shimmered in the room’s light and the glow of the Shroud blushing beyond the windows.

  “You all wear the same ring,” Vashia said.

  Tondil nodded and kept playing.

  “They’re Council rings,” Peryl explained. “Every prince wears one.”

  “The stone?” The cabochons looked like agate, pearly white with faint banding, but she couldn’t be certain from a distance, and she’d never wanted to get close enough to examine Haftan’s. “Is it agate?”

  “Feldspar.” Peryl shook his head. “Like the Heart.”

  “The Heart?”

  As Tondil’s playing faded, the room’s mood grew somber. He took over for Peryl, and his voice lent a touch of magic to the story. “The stones are mined straight from the Heart vein,” he said. “The tears are supposed to carry some of the stone’s powers.”

  “Powers?” Did they all believe in the Heart nonsense, or, like Haftan, did they play along only for appearances?

  “The matrix that our Heart grows from protrudes in other places,” Tondil continued, “though the other crystals are smaller. The palace was built around the main point, of course.”

  “Of course.” Vashia watched the Shroud swirl and frowned. “They do the other ceremonies there? At the other points?”

  “She misses her friends,” Peryl guessed. “Tondil, play something happier.”

  “It’s fine.” She couldn’t help but chuckle. No foul mood could stand long against the two of them together. “Can you show me how to play the notes?”

  She watched his hands and struggled to force her fingers into their proper places. Tarren and Murrel had been on her mind, yes, but the shadow on her thoughts fell closer to home. Vashia couldn’t shake Dolfan’s reaction on the hover pad. She couldn’t shake the black eye, the limp. He’d had a hell of a fight with someone.

  “No,” Tondil corrected from across the room. “Like this.” He flexed his fingers and Vashia cringed.

  “Tondil, you’re bleeding!”

  He held up fingers dented with bloody trenches and smiled. “I’ve lost my calluses. Been playing the flute too long.”

  “Well, stop, then. For heaven’s sake. I don’t need to play that badly.”

  He shook his head and strummed a warbling chord. “Nope. I’ll never get them back that way. The flute has wooed me away long enough.”

  “You could always stick to one instrument,” Peryl offered. They cackled together at some private joke.

  “Well, I won’t be responsible for your poor fingers.” Vashia shook her head. “I can figure this out on my own.”

  “No point now,” Peryl said. “He’ll be for the lute until the next thing sways him in a different direction.”

  “True,” Tondil nodded. “Peryl knows me far too well.”

  Vashia laughed with them, but she couldn’t help the shiver of suspicion. Maybe all the Shrouded lived by their whims. They might be a fickle lot, swayed by the moment and the whisper of their big crystal. She didn’t want to believe it, but the room they sat in pulsed with static, and all seven Shrouded Princes set her “Heart bond” flaring. Maybe they were meant to be interchangeable?

  She followed Tondil’s lead and shifted her hand across the neck of the flimsy instrument. Her fingers pressed hard enough against the metal wires to draw her own blood. But what hurt most of all was remembering that when Lucha suggested Dolfan join them at the hover pads, he’d been horrified. If one thing in all the background noise had come across clearly, it was that Dolfan wanted as far away from her as possible.

  Vashia sighed and closed her eyes. She strummed the lute and heard only the discordant brattle of her own failure.

  Dielel crossed the platform, spun one tight circle and then paced back in the opposite direction. He’d repeated the same maneuver three times since Dolfan first spotted him. The fourth time he stopped half way across the pad and ran both hands through his short hair. Fair, for a Shrouded. Funny, he’d never really noticed before.

  Not that Dielel begged noticing. Still, amidst all the black, a lighter shade of ashy brown should stand out, Dolfan mused. He spent the majority of his time a half-step behind Haftan, so Haftan had no problem claiming all the attention.

  Today, Haftan was king, and Dielel, pacing and wringing his hands again, looked damn near lost. Dolfan leaned away from the screen and tapped nervous fingers along the console. The Gauss was fine. He had no reason to feel twitchy. The Shroud curled overhead, soft and yellow, and Dolfan guessed he understood exactly what drove Dielel’s pacing feet.

  The whole world was wrong today.

  The guardsman on duty slipped into the control room and they exchanged a curt nod of their heads. “Your Highness,” the man dipped into a chair opposite the next panel down. He squinted at the forward windows and
frowned as Dielel made another spin and stalked away again. “Is he well?”

  Dolfan laughed. The man flushed, dropping his eyes, but not without a subdued chuckle. “He’s been at it awhile, hasn’t he?” The guardsman only nodded in response. He wore the stiff, pressed uniform that made Shrouded Security look unflinching and, in Dolfan’s opinion, horribly uncomfortable. Their short wrist wraps served an aesthetic function on sleeves, but hugged the guardsmen far more tightly than any Dolfan had ever worn. How do they move in them?

  “I suppose I should see what he needs,” Dolfan sighed.

  The guard’s face twitched, but the smile was as tight as his dark uniform. He nodded, stiff also, and turned his gaze forward. It’s all an act. Dolfan pressed his lips tight and slid through the shed doorway, out under the awning where Haftan’s shadow paced. They guard against nothing. The rigidity gives them weight, lends them an aura, as if we might need them at any second. Like Syradan’s drama. Like all of it. The uniforms were stiff, but not armored. They provided no more protection than the men who wore them. The illusion again. How much of our life is false?

  “What?” Dielel’s voice cut into his reverie. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He took a step out from under the hangar and joined the other prince on the pad. They’d never been friends, but then, he’d never spoken to the man without Haftan present. “You just—is everything all right?”

  “I have a perfect right to be here.” Dielel’s lip curled. His voice whined like a hover bike, higher pitched than he’d expected. “I came for today’s messages.”

  “Of course. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.”

  “Haftan gave me communications.”

  “I remember. A good match, I suspect.” And one that would allow Dielel to spy for Haftan. “Did I take too long?”

  “What?” Dielel followed his gesture toward the consoles through narrowed eyes. He shook his head. “No. I already got them.”

  “Oh.”

  They frowned at one another. If Dielel had the mail, then why did he still pace the hover pads? Why did he linger here when he could be delivering his daily reports to the new king? Dolfan shifted his weight to the other foot and eyed the stairs. None of it was his business. He shrugged and took a step to the side.