Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series)

by Luiken, Nicole

  Her hair was clipped short like a legionnaire’s. What hair she had looked black against the red of her hood. Only her brown eyes and perhaps the firmness of her chin reminded Sara of Lance.

  “I demand to know by what right I am brought to trial. I have committed no crime,” Sara said.

  The Protector’s expression did not change. “Bors, keep her quiet.”

  The older guard held his sword at her throat.

  Sara swallowed, but ignored the cold kiss of metal. “If you mean to murder me, why bother with a trial? Why not slit my throat while I lay sleeping?”

  “I considered it,” the Protector said coldly. “Now, be quiet!”

  Just then, another figure in red entered the throne room. Unease crawled up Sara’s spine as she recognized Lance. “I wear the Brown,” Lance had said repeatedly. Why was he in red? And where was his father?

  She tried to catch Lance’s eye, but he avoided her gaze, standing at his mother’s side.

  The Protector raised her right hand. “Donal, please begin.”

  The armed man that Sara had taken for a third guard stepped forward. He was older than she’d realized, in his forties; strands of gray decorated the blond hair falling back from his widow’s peak. “Lady Sarathena Remillus, of the Republic of Temboria, I call you to trial.”

  “For what?” Sara demanded. “Sleeping? Being sick?” The sword pressed harder against her throat, and for a terrible moment Sara thought the Protector would have her killed on the spot.

  “I said be silent!” the Protector snarled.

  Lance put his hand on her arm. “Mother.” That was all he said, but she laid her own hand on top of his and took a deep breath. At an irritable wave of her hand, Bors removed the sword from Sara’s throat, though he didn’t sheathe it.

  “Continue,” the Protector said.

  Donal stared at Sara with absolutely no warmth. “You are called to trial for committing an act of war against Kandrith.”

  Sara’s heartbeat stuttered. It was as she had feared. General Pallax had done something— No, wait. The blond man had accused Sara, personally, of committing an act of war. “Bring in a Listener and you’ll know you’ve made a mistake. I have committed no crime.”

  Then things went very wrong.

  The white-haired man holding the blind woman’s elbow cleared his throat. “That last bit she said there must have been a lie. I couldn’t hear it at all.”

  The old man was a Listener? His tunic was white, but his vest was red.

  Sara quelled her first instinct—to deny the lie—and thought furiously. Why would he say she lied? She recalled her exact phrasing and realized she’d been too broad. She had committed crimes in her lifetime—lying about Felicia’s defection for one. “I have committed no act of war,” she said carefully. That should—

  “Another lie,” the old man said cheerfully. He seemed to enjoy being the center of attention. Laughter lines crinkled around his eyes.

  Lance winced, as if in pain.

  Sara clamped her lips together. This was outrageous! But she knew enough about Kandrith to realize that she would get nowhere accusing a Listener of lying. “What act am I supposed to have committed?”

  “You know very well—” the Protector started angrily.

  “She fell unconscious. She truly may not know,” Lance said. He told her, woodenly, “My father is dead.”

  “Oh, no.” Sara could see the deep grooves of grief on his face now. Her heart ached. He’d only just gotten home after a long absence. “Lance, I’m so sorry.” Without thinking, she reached out to him.

  Only to find the sword once again at her throat. No one here knew she and Lance were lovers. All they saw was a Republican noblewoman moving toward the son of their former king.

  Sara knew her relationship with Lance must return to one of formality, but it still hurt to see Lance hold up his arms as if to fend her off.

  “Sorry,” the old man said. “I forgot to say. The last one was truth, she is sorry.”

  “How did he die?” she asked.

  “A blue devil attacked him.” Lance watched her closely. “A blue devil that you brought into Kandrith.”

  “What?” Sara asked stupidly. Her marrow turned ice cold. “That’s not possible.”

  “A lie.”

  Lance ignored the old man and continued doggedly on, “The blue devil was what was making you sick, Sara. It attached itself to your soul in order to pass through the Gate. The Watcher saw a purple soul instead of a blue or red one.”

  Sara struggled to make sense of his words. She remembered the Watcher talking about colors. “He said there were two souls, a red one and a purple one. You said the purple one belonged to my refetti.”

  Lance closed his eyes. “I was wrong.”

  “Her soul is red now,” the blind woman said diffidently. “I know I’m new to this and my sight can’t be as good as the Watcher at the Gate, but I don’t see any difference in shade between her soul and anybody else’s.”

  Was that a vote of support? Was she saying Sara wasn’t evil since she didn’t have a blue soul? Sara could read nothing in the white-haired woman’s serene expression. Feeling harried, she faced Lance again.

  The Protector rapped her fist on the arm of her throne. “Enough. This leads us nowhere.” She looked straight at Sara. “Did you or did you not knowingly bring a blue devil into Kandrith?”

  “I swear I did not know,” Sara spoke to Lance.

  “A lie,” the Listener said. His voice had an irritating singsong quality that seemed to imply that Sara always lied.

  “Lance, you have to believe me,” Sara pleaded.

  His eyes seemed haunted. “Why didn’t you tell me? If the blue devil was forced on you, I could have helped you.”

  “This is insane,” Sara said flatly. “I’d never even heard of blue devils until Lance told me about them several days after I’d entered Kandrith.”

  “Truth.” The Listener looked startled.

  The Protector leaned forward. “And why didn’t you tell my son you carried one, once you did know of them?”

  “I didn’t know I was carrying one!”

  “A lie.”

  Sara was developing a serious dislike for the cheerful old man. He was going to get her killed.

  “I’ve heard enough,” the Protector said flatly.

  She was going to order Sara’s death. Sara turned to Lance. “I didn’t want your father to die!”

  “Truth.” The Listener’s white eyebrows shot up.

  Lance lifted his head hopefully.

  His mother’s visage remained cold and angry. “And yet you led the blue devil straight to him.”

  Sara didn’t risk a straight denial, appealing to Lance. “I didn’t want to go to the Hall, remember? I didn’t want to see the Kandrith.”

  “Truth.”

  “She begged me not to take her here.” Lance’s skin turned ashen. “I almost had to drag her.”

  Sara winced at the heavy guilt in his voice. She hadn’t meant to add to his burden of grief, but she had no choice. She pressed her advantage. “Why would I want to kill the Kandrith? His death means my own.”

  “Truth.”

  Sara tried to catch her breath, marshaling her arguments. This was her only chance. If she stepped off the narrow bridge she trod, none would catch her.

  “If a blue devil attached itself to my soul and killed your father, it was not because I wanted it to.” She spoke to Lance, desperate to convince him at least.

  “Truth.”

  The Protector frowned. “If that is so, why did you not warn Lance of what you carried?”

  Sara tried again. “I didn’t know a blue devil hid inside me. If I had known, I would have warned him.”

  “Two lies in a row. She just doesn’t learn, does she?”

  Sara flinched. Once again the Listener had condemned her, but why? She was telling the truth.

  The Protector’s expression grew colder. “If you can speak naught but lie
s—”

  “Wait!” Lance held up his hand. “That doesn’t make sense.” He stared at Sara intensely. “Say that again. ‘If I…’”

  “If I had known, I would have warned him.”

  “A lie,” the Listener said.

  “Yet earlier when Sara said she would have warned him if she could, the Listener named it truth.” Lance’s eyes shone with hope. “Say it again, Sara.”

  “I would have warned him if I could.”

  “Well, I’ll be hanged. She’s telling the truth.” The Listener looked stunned.

  “‘If I could,’” Lance quoted. “The blue devil must have prevented Sara from warning me.”

  She hadn’t warned him because she hadn’t known there was a blue devil inside her, but she dared not say so. “Yes,” she lied.

  “Truth.”

  The Protector frowned. “Why didn’t you say so? The blue devil is no longer attached to you.”

  “I didn’t know the blue devil had…” she began.

  “A lie.”

  Sara shot a venomous glance at the Listener. Every time she said the word ‘know’ he proclaimed it a lie.

  “Why do you continue to lie?” the Protector demanded.

  “I don’t mean to,” Sara said desperately. “I am telling the truth as I—” superstitiously she bit back the word know and substituted, “—remember it.”

  “Truth.”

  “As you remember it?” Lance noticed her change of phrasing. “Are there things you do not remember?”

  “No.”

  “Another lie.”

  The Protector’s nostrils flared with impatience.

  Lance came to Sara’s rescue. He was on her side, despite the colors allying himself to his mother. She could have wept in relief. He had every right to hate her for contributing to his father’s death. “Perhaps you were magically made to forget, but somewhere inside, you do know the truth.”

  Sara glimpsed salvation, but couldn’t quite grasp it.

  The Protector turned to her. “Is this true? Were you made to forget about the blue devil?”

  Sara had no memory of such. “Yes,” she said, not knowing if it was a lie. Not remembering.

  “Truth, again.”

  “Then you are innocent.” The Protector didn’t sound very happy about it.

  Sara’s knees felt weak. But her relief lasted only a moment. The Protector wasn’t done with her yet.

  “Now you will tell me who is guilty. Who did this to you?”

  Sara shook her head. “I don’t remember. I don’t even kn—remember when it happened.”

  “Truth.”

  “The blue devil caused your headaches,” Lance said. “When did they first start?”

  Sara thought back. “They began the morning after I met you. I’ve been prone to them the whole journey.”

  “Truth,” the Listener said.

  Lance looked encouraged. “It must have happened the night before, at the feast.”

  “Thousands of people attended the feast. Who—?” Sara’s eyes widened. “Nir! He must have done this to me.” Conspiracies spun in her head. She knew Nir hungered to bring her father down—and get personal revenge on Sara for spurning him—

  “A lie.”

  Sara swore silently, then rallied. “One of the Pallaxes then. They could have done it.”

  “A lie.”

  She wracked her brains. Some other enemy of her father? “House Arranius—”

  The Protector sighed. “Before you list everyone, let’s rule out the most obvious. Aleron Remillus, Primus of the Republic.”

  “My father did not do that to me,” Sara said indignantly.

  “A lie,” the Listener said, his eyes closed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “It’s not true,” Sara said through numb lips, but her trial seemed to be over. The Protector was giving orders in a crisp voice, and everyone was scrambling to obey.

  “Sara.” Lance steered her over to the wall, out of the way.

  Sara barely noticed. “My father wouldn’t do this to me.” Cause her pain. Use her. Set her up to die. None of it. Sara blinked desperately. “He loves me.”

  Lance said nothing.

  Sara balled up her hand and hit his chest, hard. “He does!” she almost screamed.

  Lance caught her fist before she could hit him again. He sat down right there on the floor and pulled her onto his lap, cocooning her in his strength.

  “He does love me,” she whispered.

  Lance sighed. “He left you alone for most of your life on a distant estate under the care of servants and a sick mother. Where was he, Sara, the day the stallion threw you?”

  Sara was silent. Her father had been miles away. And really wasn’t that part of the reason behind her childish recklessness, the thought that if she were hurt her father would have to come home, that he would be sorry and spend more time with her? Instead of which, she’d received a stinging lecture on the value of prime horseflesh—by letter.

  “When Wenda was whipped, only a stout chain kept my father from running to her aid,” Lance said.

  Sara calmed. Her father might not have been there for her during her childhood, but he’d made up for it later. “He paid the ransom for me. He beggared the estate.” It had been the turning point of her life, when her resentment of him was replaced by a burning need to redeem herself.

  Only she suddenly remembered the doubt on Julen’s face when she’d told him about the ransom. If you had asked me, I would have sworn House Remillus was quite wealthy.

  Julen was her father’s right-hand man, how could he not have known that their House teetered on the brink of financial ruin?

  What if the House had never been beggared at all? What if it had all been a monstrous lie? “No,” Sara whispered. “It can’t be.”

  But. But up until then, she and her father had fought like rachas. He’d wanted her to behave like other noble daughters, to marry well—something Sara hadn’t seen the need for until their House was in danger.

  As lies went, it had been beautifully simple. Because it was a secret, Sara had never spoken about it to anyone but her father.

  He used guilt to control me, to turn me into the biddable, marketable daughter he wanted.

  And if that had been a lie… then House Remillus had never been in debt to the Temple of Nir. Her father had asked her to placate Nir…for nothing. For influence and power.

  Sara’s gorge rose, a hot choking flood. Lance put his hands on her shoulder, and the feeling receded. He touched her face, wiping away tears she didn’t remember shedding.

  “Why are you holding me?” Sara choked out. “G-go away.” She braced herself to reject his pity, but Lance surprised her.

  “I just lost my father too,” he said simply.

  She’d forgotten. His father was dead—murdered—and he was comforting her. Sara tried to scramble off his lap, but his arms held her fast. “I’m sorry. You can’t want to hold me—not after what I’ve done—what I brought.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Sara looked deep into his brown eyes. He seemed to mean it, which made her feel, conversely, worse. “My father…” she started.

  “The father you knew is dead. The father you loved. Go ahead, let yourself grieve.”

  His simple words shattered some dam inside her. Sara rocked back and forth in a storm of tears and faced the truth. Her father didn’t love her. He had handed her over to be killed. He had sacrificed her to blue devils. She couldn’t remember it, but deep inside she knew the truth: Her father had betrayed her.

  * * *

  Across the throne room, Lance’s gaze connected with his mother’s. Sara’s time was running out.

  “I need to speak to my mother.” Lance gently disengaged himself from Sara. As much as leaving her was like ripping off his skin, he couldn’t afford to be outside his mother’s circle while important decisions were being made.

  He approached the throne. “Mother.”

  She
and Donal, the castle steward and his father’s best friend, were consulting in low voices. After a glance at his face, Donal politely withdrew.

  Lance cursed the man under his breath. For the first hour after his father’s death, his mother had wept. She’d even allowed Lance to hold her while they mourned together. And then Donal had come in to ask what she wanted done with his father’s body, and his mother had drawn back into herself to give cool, clear orders.

  The composure was merely a shell, Lance knew, but it was rapidly hardening into iron. Only the Goddess knew how much time would pass before his mother allowed her barriers to drop again.

  Lance loved Kandrith with all his heart, but its needs had eaten his father. He wished his mother would let it go, let someone else step forward and take up the burden, but he knew she wouldn’t—not voluntarily.

  And in a way, he didn’t blame her. If she wasn’t Protector anymore, what was left to her but ashes?

  Lance took a deep breath, readying his argument, but just then his mother said, in tones of surprise, “What’s she doing with the shandy?”

  Lance followed her gaze and saw that Sara’s refetti had crawled into her lap. “That’s not a shandy, it’s a pet,” he said impatiently. “Mother, you can’t—”

  “It’s no dumb animal,” his mother said, definite as always. Her greatest strength—and her greatest weakness—was that she never doubted herself. “The refetti spoke to your father…just before.” A crack appeared in her composure, but was swiftly mended. “It told him a blue devil was coming.”

  The information diverted Lance. “Maybe animals can sense blue devils,” he suggested. Sara had fished the refetti out of the Vaga River. He’d never heard of a shandy living in the Republic. That didn’t mean there couldn’t be one, but— “Shandies can talk.”

  “That’s true,” his mother said thoughtfully. “All I heard was a bunch of chitters and squeaks.”

  If the refetti had warned his father, why hadn’t he and Sara been stopped at the door? And then Lance realized that he had been. The guard had asked Lance to leave Sara and bring his father a box. Lance had barely heard the man, so consumed was he with fear for Sara. He’d left Sara in the hall, but cut off his father before he could speak, begging for his help. And then Sara had come in, bringing with her the blue devil.