by J. F. Lewis
“Ah, I saw that.” She giggled. “You smiled at me.” The spirit’s expression sobered, and Yavi snapped her fingers. “Well, I’ll have to do it then. You asked for it, and I don’t want any complaints.”
A hint of fear played across the road spirit’s narrow face.
“I’ll have to use my secret weapons on you.” She indicated her pointed ears. Just over two hands in length, they were longer than an Aern’s and angled slightly to the back and off to the sides of her head when they weren’t sticking embarrassingly straight up and down. “Remember. I warned you. You’ve brought this on yourself,” Yavi said seriously. Then she wiggled her ears. The spirit laughed, and Yavi felt the road become gentler under her feet, almost like walking on soft new grass.
Compassion for compassion. Joy for joy. Even rage for rage.
Like for like. Yavi found herself wishing people worked more like magic.
“Better,” said Yavi. “That’s much better.”
She continued on her way, both excited and worried. In a way she was excited to meet an Aern, yet in another way, she wished Queen Kari, her mother, would buck tradition and come to the Conjunction herself. Maybe her mother would even come back pollinated and carrying a new baby Aern, like the last time, when she’d brought home Irka.
Raising Irka among the Vael hadn’t worked out. He’d eventually gone to live with his father’s people, but one failure was no reason not to try again, was it? What if I come back pollinated?
A low rumbling snapped Yavi out of her reverie, and she almost stumbled on the stone.
“Do you know what that is?” she asked the road spirit. Not waiting for an answer, Yavi darted off to the side, wincing on the road’s behalf as twenty-four raven-haired Oathbreakers in glittering crystal armor paraded into view on horseback. Above them waved the standard of King Grivek: three white towers on a blue background. Yavi assumed it was supposed to be impressive, but the way the midday sun refracted off of the crystal, sending rays of multicolored light in all directions made it hard to focus on anything at all.
Shielding her eyes with her hand, she spotted a particularly grim and haughty-looking Oathbreaker at the head of the procession. He might have been handsome, but the severity of his features and, if she were tracking true with herself, his expression made Yavi wonder if the Oathbreaker might be a bit saddle-sore.
She stepped farther from the road to make way for them, frowning when their leader came to a halt in front of her. Yavi started to go for her heartbow but stopped. Up close, the lead Oathbreaker looked oddly familiar, much like the Oathbreaker in her dreams, but daylight had frayed the edges of those memories, and she could not be sure.
“I am Dolvek of the Eldrennai, son of Grivek, son of Zillek and second in line to the Throne of Villok, who united the mastery of all four elements in one bloodline. I give you greetings and ask if you might be the Vaelsilyn called Yavi, daughter of Kari, princess of The Parliament of Ages and Guardian of the Rule of Leaf?”
“You said all that in one breath,” answered Yavi. “That’s impressive.”
“Are you Princess Yavi . . . eh . . . noble Vaelsilyn?” Dolvek attempted to smile, but he was obviously out of practice. “We have come from Port Ammond to escort Princess Yavi to the Citadel of Oaths. It is of utmost importance that we find her. There have been reports of irkanth hunting in this area.”
Yavi looked at him sideways, her ears flattening back along her petals. As if she couldn’t kill an irkanth. What? Did they think her bow was broken? Did they have her age wrong? If they thought she was just a sapling that could explain it, but surely they could see she was a full fifteen and a quarter hands. How tall did they expect her to grow if they thought she was a sapling at this height?
They did realize she was a girl-type person and therefore perfectly capable of defending herself, didn’t they?
“You know I’m a girl-type person, right?” Yavi asked, showing off years of tedious practice with the Eldrennaic tongue.
Dolvek leaned forward, and Yavi squinted as the rainbow-colored lights scattered by his armor shone in her face. “Can you turn that off or does it have to do that all the time?” Was it her imagination, or was the Oathbreaker having trouble breathing?
Dolvek gave a hand signal, then all the riders spoke a single word, “Vey.” The crystal armor became an opaque sapphire blue. Without the glare, Yavi still had spots dancing before her eyes, but she could see.
“Speaking with the battle, not with the plan, eh?” Yavi asked. She waited for a response, but Dolvek flushed red instead of answering. Was her Eldrennaic that bad?
“I. Am. Yavi.” She tried again. She patted Dolvek’s horse on its muzzle and waited a beat. “Nice. To. Meet. You.”
“A . . . uh . . . horse,” Dolvek gestured past the line of horses.
Maybe he’s just lame-brained. Poor thing. Yavi walked to the end of the row, where a knight held the reins of a riderless horse. It was a beautiful palomino mare, but Yavi crinkled her nose at the saddle on the horse’s back. “You want me to ride on her?”
Dolvek seemed to finally find his tongue again. “Yes, she is a gift for you. Magnificent, isn’t she?”
“A gift?” Yavi asked slowly. “As in, this living being is your property and you are giving her to me, to be my . . . property?”
“Yes, of course,” said Dolvek with an impatient head nod in the horse’s direction. He looked away quickly as if something off to the west required his urgent attention. She followed his gaze but didn’t see what could be so interesting or important. A light breeze picked at her petals and ruffled his long black hair downwind of her.
“Yhask, what a mess. I’m guessing you didn’t get approval for that stupid offer from your commanding officer or boss or whatever. Vael don’t practice animal slavery.”
“But you eat meat,” Dolvek said.
“When it’s been properly hunted in a fashion pleasing to Xalistan,” Yavi explained. “What we don’t do is raise animals into slavery or for slaughter and . . . I’m sorry, but you really should have known that.” Dolvek blinked at her few a few long moments. Oh dear. I broke him.
“My, um, sincere apologies. Ah . . . we could all walk,” Dolvek stammered. “We . . . I . . . have no wish to insult the Vaelsilyn.” He lives!
“No.” She smiled. “It’s fine. You can enslave animals if you want and we won’t judge you for it. Just don’t ask us to do so.” She looked at Dolvek and gave him a wink. “We call ourselves the Vael now, by the way. I’m pretty sure my mother sent a note to your dad. I know my grandmother did . . . and I think her grandmother did as well . . .”
Yavi walked over to the horse, removed the bridle, and then set about unsaddling her. They don’t eat meat, but they enslave animals. How weird is that? As she worked, she talked to the palomino filly, calming her and explaining as best she could that the animal was now free. A very short time later, she sprang lithely onto the animal’s back and nodded at Dolvek.
“She says I can ride her,” Yavi explained. “Shall we go?”
CHAPTER 23
DOLVEK’S FOLLY
Aldo help me, Dolvek prayed inwardly. Help me, please!
It was all the Vaelsilyn’s fault. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, as if the most exquisite yellow rose had been given life and the perfect female shape. He had expected that. Her people had been intentionally created with grace, beauty, and amiability in mind. But beyond all of that, the resemblance to Wylant—admittedly a younger, more vivacious, and less arrogant Wylant—should have been off-putting. Did Wylant look this enchanting when she let her hair grow? And if so, why in Aldo’s name did she ever shave it? Did she not understand how to be attractive?
“This way, right?” Yavi looked over her shoulder and smiled at him.
“Yes,” he managed. True, the Vael didn’t prune her dental ridges, made no effort at even scoring them so that they could pass for teeth. Even so, something about her made his mind freeze up. And her scent. Gods, but
did she have to ride upwind from him? It was intoxicating. Yavi’s aroma was similar to the scent of the hedge roses that grew at the entrance to the royal gardens, but only in that Yavi’s natural perfume showed the scent of the roses to be a poor imitation.
Dolvek had heard that a Vaelsilyn’s scent had a calming effect on the Aern, and that Eldrennai were supposed to be quite fond of it as well. No amount of studying could have prepared him for the effect Yavi had on him. Not calming. Quite the opposite.
Dolvek had muddled through sentences that made him feel pompous, arrogant, and embarrassingly stupid. And then, when he’d leaned closer to Yavi, he’d lost the power of speech. And then he’d lost his mind. Of course the Vaelsilyn didn’t own animals. He had known that. He hadn’t even meant to give her the horse. The words had been carefully prepared, practiced over and over, and then, confronted with Yavi, he had promptly forgotten every one of them in the moment, to utter the grandiose and elegant words “A . . . uh . . . horse.”
He had the words clearly in mind now, of course, when they were useless to him: If you are both amenable, I thought you might enjoy traveling with my friend Sunsprite.
How hard was that? One sentence. He should have known not to have the horse saddled. He’d been a bundle of nerves ever since word of the hunting irkanth had reached his Lance. Worse than anything else, events had unfolded exactly as his father had predicted.
“I don’t know why I’m even bothering,” his father, King Grivek, had told him the previous night. “You’re just going to make a fool of yourself. We always do. I did. Sometimes I wonder if Gromma or Shidarva did this to us as punishment for Uled’s meddling in the affairs of creation.”
Dolvek didn’t know if the goddess of growth and decay or the goddess of justice and retribution was responsible for his plight, but it wouldn’t have surprised him. Yavi rode ahead of his Lance toward Port Ammond, but as they neared the city, she seemed to withdraw emotionally, shoulders hunched, head down—a turtle pulling its head inside its shell. Dolvek spurred his horse and caught up with her.
“Perhaps next time we could send a representative to The Parliament of Ages to meet with your people?” he offered. “I know the Place of Conjunction is a long way for you to travel . . .”
Why did I ask that? Of course we—
“No thanks.” Yavi reached into her pack and withdrew a square of finely decorated kidskin with thin straps extending from the top corners. “You know the Aern don’t like for you to be on our land unless it is absolutely necessary. Simple concept. If we come onto your land, then to the Aern, it’s a visit. If one of you trespasses on our land . . . well, I think the Aern consider that an invasion or something. And then, you know: rar!”
“One of us?” he asked.
“An Oathbreaker,” she said softly, her expression sad, as if she knew the word would hurt him and had been avoiding its use. Still the word came as a slap in the face.
“The Aern,” he growled under his breath. Everything came down to the Aern’s hatred for the Eldrennai. For hundreds of years the Aern continued to bear a grudge against his people. In some countries the Aern were even called Grudgebearers, a soubriquet which struck the young prince as particularly appropriate. Dolvek and other members of his generation were getting tired of placating the Grudgebearers.
“Plus, you’re all so very picky,” Yavi said teasingly. “I don’t think you’d like meeting at Hearth any more than I like going to Port Ammond. A lot of the material you use is dead, while in our homes, even the walls are alive.” As Yavi finished speaking, she tied on the kidskin veil. It covered her face from below her eyes to the bottom of her chin. A samir, he believed her people called them.
Dolvek hated the samir instantaneously. It was if someone had veiled the sun. His men obviously felt the same way; they all seemed gripped by an identical sense of loss and relief.
“You don’t have to wear that,” Dolvek told her.
“Yes, I do. Otherwise you people get ideas, and I’ve been taught that an unscored set of dental ridges offends you, ‘single flaw in my creation’ and all that,” she bubbled, quoting part of Uled’s On the Sentience of Roses. “I should have put it on earlier, but I got distracted talking to the spirit of the road.” Yavi ran her fingers over the horse’s neck absentmindedly. “Tell me you don’t find it easier to think with the samir on.”
Dolvek couldn’t answer. True, his thoughts were clearer, but with every breath he still inhaled the sweet natural perfume of her people, and it . . . affected him.
“Your ancestors made us to appeal to the Aern,” Yavi said ruefully. “Who knew you had so much in common? I just hope it didn’t cause a problem for your knights, my forgetting to put my samir on, I mean.”
“No,” Dolvek said quickly. “It’s nothing an Eldrennai can’t control.” So why am I having such a hard time? “Look,” he said, pointing ahead. “You can see the city from here.”
Yavi followed his arm and saw Port Ammond on the horizon. Even from this distance, three white towers could be seen rising far above the other rooftops: The Citadel of Oaths, the Tower of Elementals, and the Grand Library.
“The buildings in front of the central tower,” said Yavi, “are those the museums?”
Dolvek blinked. He couldn’t make them out from here.
As if she had read his mind, Yavi laughed and pointed to her left eye. “We have better eyesight than you. I would’ve have thought you’d know all about us. Don’t you have a big section of the Museum of Natural History devoted to us?”
“We do,” Dolvek answered. “But I . . .”
“I want to see that first.” Her green eyes sparkled at him from above her samir.
“We have a reception planned,” he started again.
Yavi put her hand against his gauntlet, palm up, knuckles resting against the crystal. “And I’m sure it’s a really, really nice reception, probably hours and hours long and I’d be introduced to all the most important Eldrennai, the Master of the Tower of Elementals, and the king, and you’d probably give me something really sweet and magical and probably dead and I’d be oh so grateful, but I’d just have to bury it later, so let’s not.”
But the plans for this reception began when the last Conjunction ended successfully one hundred years ago. That had been what Dolvek intended to say. Instead, all of his attention was focused on her hand. If only he’d worn formal robes instead of his armor! Then her hand would be touching his. Then again, since the Vaelsilyn avoided restraining gestures, she might not have touched his bare hand for fear that he might grab her. Even now, her fingers were near the wrist of his gauntlet; it would be difficult to turn the touch into a grasp. That was exactly what he wanted to do, to hold her close, to enfold her in his arms.
“I think we’re going to need a new representative from the Oathbreakers. One capable of speech.” Yavi’s dry tone snapped him back to reality.
“No!” Dolvek protested quickly. “Ah . . . I mean, that won’t be necessary. I was just thinking on how best to explain this to the head of the reception committee. Do you think you could withstand an hour?”
“Maybe,” Yavi conceded hesitantly. “Why?”
“I could tell them that you are weary from your travels, but that you do not wish to ruin the occasion. You have agreed to stay for the music and the presentation but are too tired to endure all the introductions.”
“I’m still tracking you,” said Yavi.
Dolvek hoped that was a good thing and continued. “Then I could sneak you into the museum after hours and you could see the Vaelsilyn exhibit.”
“And the Aern exhibit,” Yavi added.
How could she know about that? Still, the Eldrennai prince did not argue. Arguing would, he feared, add more demands, and he doubted he could deny this enchanting creature any request she might deign to make of him.
CHAPTER 24
DEATH IN THE MUSEUM
Prince Dolvek glanced nervously from side to side as he waved four of his most trusted lie
utenants forward. Yavi, still clad in the comfortable midriff-baring beaded doeskin top and matching trousers she’d worn to the Oathbreakers’ reception, padded barefoot in their midst looking bemused at all the drama.
“He is the prince, right?” she whispered to the guard nearest her. “Is he afraid the king is going to jump out and surprise him?”
The guard, stiffly attired in his dress silks and crystal breastplate, did not answer but moved formally toward the pillared entrance to the Royal Museum of Natural History. Yavi stopped to examine the image of a battling irkanth and giant sea hawk worked in marble which sat in the middle of a pool of water, which, during the day, she imagined would be an impressive fountain.
Dolvek waved frantically for her move on. He did, if Yavi were tracking true with herself and discounting all the arm waving, look at least moderately handsome in his silk dress robes. The front was embroidered with the royal seal repeated and intertwined in a rectangular pattern: three castles in silver thread on blue. She wasn’t sure how useful the ceremonial sword he wore at his waist was, though. The ornate hilt, in the shape of a flaming pillar, seemed like it would be painful and awkward to hold for more than the briefest of combats.
“Please, Princess,” he whined.
“Coming.”
*
Two of the guards stepped to either side of the exhibit entrance, eyes toward the main door of the museum as if they expected an invasion of rampaging history fanatics. Dolvek gave what Yavi imagined he thought was a subtle hand sign for the other two guards to follow along but hang back, and proceeded to show Yavi through the museum.
Please, Xalistan, Yavi prayed, don’t let him try anything stupid enough to make me maim him. Doing her best to remain pleasantly curious, awed, and attentive, Yavi let her attention be drawn to the architecture. Since Dolvek seemed at a loss for words, she felt obliged to keep up the conversation.
“Wasn’t this part of the old military complex?” Yavi prompted with a smile. “The Aern Armory, maybe?” It certainly had been, in all of her dreams about the place. How could she explain to the prince that she’d already explored this museum in her dreams a thousand times or more? Best keep it to yourself, Yavi.