by Mark Anthony
“Grace, it’s so good to see you,” Aryn said.
Grace studied her friend. The baroness looked older somehow, more mature. Aryn was wearing an indigo gown Grace had never seen before. The bodice was fitted tight to her slender waist and cut revealingly low. A small cape of white rabbit fur draped her right shoulder, as if cast on casually and not to hide the withered limb beneath.
“I had a feeling you’d be here,” Aryn said.
Grace raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Is Tressa teaching you something you haven’t told me about?”
Roses bloomed on Aryn’s snowy cheeks. “That’s not what I meant, Grace. It was just a feeling, that’s all.”
Grace gazed down at her hands, at her own fingers coiled around the cup, long and slender. “I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing as just a feeling.”
Aryn cast a nervous glance at the door, then pressed it shut. She turned back around, her blue eyes wide and earnest, nineteen years old again.
“I’m beginning to think the same thing, Grace. Or maybe I don’t know what to think.”
They sat on the window bench in the failing light.
“I’m not sure I can stand this, Grace. Tressa tells me to do things, but she never tells me why. It’s maddening. But I do them, because I want to know, because I have to know, and sometimes … sometimes …”
Grace made a slow nod. “Sometimes you do understand.”
Aryn met Grace’s eyes, then gripped her hand. “What are we doing, Grace?”
Grace gazed out the window at the castle below in all its sprawling, muddy grandeur. “I don’t know, Aryn. But I’m not sure I can stop now that I’ve started. The things Kyrene has shown me, about the Touch and the Weirding. It makes me feel … it makes me feel so …”
What, Grace? What does it make you feel? Powerful? Sensual? Alive? It was all these things, but more. She couldn’t find the word, but a squeeze on her hand let her know Aryn understood.
Grace turned her gaze back to the young baroness. “I think we should tell Boreas what we’re doing.”
Aryn snatched her hand back, her face an oval of terror. “Grace! Please tell me you’re making a jest. Boreas will have us drawn and quartered if he finds out. He’s a disciple of Vathris. You know how he feels about the Witches.”
Grace let out a troubled breath and nodded. Aryn was right, of course.
Now Aryn’s alarm turned to concern. “What is it, Grace?”
“I’m not sure, Aryn. It’s just that I’m supposed to be King Boreas’s spy at the council. Only now we’ve started studying with Queen Ivalaine. I know she has some agenda at the council. But I can’t even get close to finding out what it is.”
The words came faster as Grace’s mind raced, piecing together all the clues and innuendoes she had gathered in her observations of the Council of Kings.
“And I don’t think Ivalaine is acting only as queen of Toloria. I think she’s here at this council as a Witch as well. I know it. The Witches are up to something, Aryn. Kyrene keeps dropping those smug little hints of hers.” Her lips twisted in a wry smile. “Yes, I know you have to take everything Kyrene says with a grain of salt, but it’s still clear something is going on at this council, something deeper than what’s on the surface. And the Witches are part of it.”
“Watching,” Aryn said.
Grace cocked her head.
“Ivalaine is always watching. I see her during the council. It’s like she’s watching for something, and waiting.”
“For what?”
However, if they had known the answer to that, they would not have been in this predicament.
Aryn glanced at the window, then gasped and leaped to her feet. “I’m late, Grace. Tressa will be waiting for me if I don’t hurry.”
“Go,” Grace said. She rose and guided her friend to the door.
“What about you?”
“Kyrene said she couldn’t meet with me tonight. No, it’s all right. She gave me some herbs to work with, for making some simples, and I need the practice.”
Aryn gave her one last grateful look, then was out the door and running down the corridor. Grace watched her go, then shut the door, alone in her room once more.
She moved to the sideboard, lit a candle to warm the blue light of evening, then looked at the cloth bundles that contained the herbs she had picked in the garden. She tried to recall the recipe Kyrene had recited to her. Take five leaves of redcrown, three leaves of hound’s vetch, and a strip of dried willow bark as long as your finger.…
Grace frowned. Or was that three leaves of redcrown and five leaves of hound’s vetch?
With a sigh she set the bundles down. She knew she should practice. So far all her simples tasted like dirt when she sampled them, and the only magical effect they had was to make her use the chamber pot with greatly increased frequency and percussion. However, the council had exhausted her. She was too tired for spells and simples.
She glanced out the darkened window and thought of the garden. She longed to feel that life again, that energy, to let it fill her emptiness. However, the sun had set, soon it would be too cold and dark to venture outside the keep, and there was nothing living in this room.
But who says you can only feel living things, Grace?
A shiver coursed down her spine. The thought hardly seemed her own, although she knew it was. Yet it was a foolish notion. Inanimate objects weren’t alive, they couldn’t possibly have energy like the growing things in the garden.
Except you know that isn’t true, Grace. A scalpel can have a life of its own. And a knife.
She crouched and slipped her hands to the knife tucked into her deerskin boot. Her fingers brushed the smooth hilt …
… then pulled back. There was another knife she could touch, one that held greater mysteries. She rose, moved to the chair by the fire, and dug under the cushion where she had hidden it. With trembling fingers she unwrapped the cloth until it lay exposed in her hands.
“This is crazy, Grace.”
Even as she spoke she sat in the chair and rested the knife on her lap. It looked like a black serpent against the violet fabric of her gown, sleek and dangerous. In the garden she had sensed so much about the things she had reached out to with the Touch. What might she learn from this? About the hand that had carved the door with it?
Grace gazed at the knife and remembered Kyrene’s words. She took a deep breath. Then she reached out with her mind—
—and touched the knife.
Cold. It was so cold. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel anything. Only an icy wind streaming through the very essence of her being. This is what it must feel like to be dead. Then she opened her eyes.
The castle receded in the distance, fading in the blue half-light. Snowy fields and stone walls slipped beneath her. She flew through the frigid twilight, over the wintry landscape of Calavan. Tracks and bridle paths twined and untwined below. Villages appeared and vanished in an eye blink. More fields sped by, then a great swath of black flashed beneath her. She saw an arch of stone. By the time she realized it was the bridge over the River Darkwine it was gone.
Now the snow-dusted fields beneath her were barren, undivided by stone walls. They glowed in the last light of day and the first light of stars. She half expected to see her own shadow flickering across the hills and vales below, but she did not, and how could she? Grace knew, even at that moment, she sat in the chair by the fire in her chamber in Calavere.
Where am I going?
The thought was dull with the chill, and even as it occurred to her a tangled wall rose up from the fields. The edges of Gloaming Wood. The forest absorbed the lingering light, captured it in the net of its leafless branches, and refused to release it again. Was she being taken into the woods?
No, the ground rose up to meet her. She was sinking. Or something was drawing her down. She floated over a snowy hill, into a dell, and she saw it.
They stood in a circle, as if frozen in the midst of a thunderous dance. Nin
e standing stones. Each was twice the height of a man, and all were worn and pitted with time. They thrust up from the ground, black and sharp against the sky. That they were ancient Grace had no doubt. Perhaps not as ancient as the forest. But then perhaps they were. Did even the stones themselves remember who had placed them here?
She drifted closer to the megaliths. A tingling shimmered through her, along with the cold. Something was going to happen. Something important. Grace floated between two of the standing stones, and at once she knew this was what she had been drawn here to see.
There were two of them in the center of the circle. She could tell they were both men from their riding gear: leather breeches, woolen tunics, thick cloaks. One of them, the shorter of the two, stood with his back to her, so she could not see his face. The other faced in her direction, but the hood of his riding cloak was pulled forward and cast his visage into shadow. Behind them, on the edge of the circle, were two horses, their reins tied to thornbushes that had sprung up around the base of one of the standing stones. A crescent moon—sharp, pale, and curved as a knife itself—sank toward the still-glowing horizon.
“You’re late,” the tall man said.
Had she had the ability, Grace would have gasped. It seemed he was speaking to her. No, the other took a step forward, his boots crunching through the crust of the snow. It was to him the man in the hood had spoken.
“I came as soon as I could,” the shorter man said. “You know it’s not easy for me to get away from the castle.”
“That’s your concern, not mine,” the hooded man said. His words were low and gruff.
He’s disguising his voice. He doesn’t want the other man to know who he is.
“Well, I’m here now,” the bareheaded man said. His own voice was muffled by his turned back and the moan of the wind through the standing stones.
“Is everything in place?”
“It will be.”
“What do you mean it will be?” The hooded man took a step forward. His voice could not disguise his anger. “All was to be ready this night. That was what we agreed upon.”
“I’ve been leaving signs for my associates, but it’s hard to find time when I’m alone. And there are prying eyes about the castle. I’ve done the best I can.”
“Then your best is not good enough. Another reckoning of the council could come at any time. It is imperative it go our way.”
Grace strained to move closer, but she could not. The wind seemed to hold her back. Or perhaps it was some power of the massive stones.
“And it will go our way,” the shorter man said. “Soon six rulers will sit at the council table, not seven. Which of them will be missing we won’t know until our moment comes. Regardless, there will be no more deadlock.” He put his hands on his hips, confident. “So do not worry yourself.”
“You knave!” the hooded one hissed. “How dare you tell me what I should or shouldn’t do?”
It happened in an instant, so quickly Grace barely saw it. A dagger appeared in the tall man’s hand, spirited from the folds of his cloak. The blade flashed in the moonlight, the shorter man stumbled back, and the horses let out a whicker of fear. Now blood spattered the ground: bright winter berries scattered on the snow.
The bareheaded man clutched his side. Crimson welled forth between his fingers. “You … you stabbed me.” His words were no longer confident but quavering.
“Only a sting to remind you who your master is,” the hooded man said. “I promise you, the next time you act so bold before me the bite will be much deeper. And believe that I know where to place the knife. Now get yourself back to the castle, and see to it you finish what we’ve started.”
The shorter man made a shallow bow, still clutching his wound. As he did this, the other’s hooded visage rose and gazed past him—
—directly at Grace. He cocked his head, almost as if he saw something on the frosty air.
Cold and panic were one. Grace tried to claw at the air, but she could not grasp it, could not move. No, it was impossible. He couldn’t possibly see her.
The hooded man took a step forward.
No!
Somewhere far away numb hands let something fall, then Grace herself was falling. All of it vanished in an instant—the men, the standing stones, the crescent moon—replaced by a vast well of darkness into which she tumbled. Down she fell, toward a lake of darkness from which she knew she would never emerge.…
“Lady Grace!”
Grace’s eyes snapped open, and she drew in the shuddering gasp of a drowning victim shocked back to life. Ivalaine stood above her, her face hard and impassive. Tressa knelt beside the chair in which Grace sat, her brown eyes warm with concern. Aryn hovered behind the two women, her face a tear-streaked mixture of fear and relief.
Tressa clucked her tongue as she rubbed Grace’s hands. “Your skin is like ice, child.”
It was hard to speak, but somehow Grace forced the words out. “What … what happened?”
A shadow touched Ivalaine’s brow. “You were almost lost, sister. Three times I called to you. Had you not come back this last time, you never would have come back at all. You are lucky Lady Aryn and Lady Tressa came looking for you, to invite you into their studies in light of Lady Kyrene’s absence.”
Grace shivered, and feeling coursed back into her limbs, hot and tingling. “I don’t understand,” she said through clattering teeth.
Ivalaine lifted something in her hands: a knife with a black hilt. Grace clenched her jaw.
Ivalaine’s face was carved from stone. “Do not again attempt things Kyrene has not taught you, Lady Grace.”
No more words were needed. Grace gave a jerky nod.
“Come, Tressa.” Ivalaine set the knife on the sideboard.
The red-haired woman cast one last concerned look at Grace, then rose.
“See to the Lady Grace, sister,” Ivalaine said to Aryn. “You are finished with your studies for today. I think you have both learned enough this evening.”
The queen of Toloria turned and left the chamber, Tressa behind her. As soon as the door shut, Aryn was on her knees beside the chair. She rubbed Grace’s hands.
“You’re cold as snow! What happened to you, Grace? When we found you, you seemed so far away.”
Grace opened her mouth, but words were beyond her now. All she could do was shiver and hope the fire would thaw her before it burned her alive.
81.
Travis set down his tablet and unclenched his fingers from the stylus. The doves were roosting for the night in the rafters high above. It was time to go.
He left the tablet where Rin would find it—things had been going better since his conversation with the young runespeaker—then headed downstairs and opened the tower’s door.
“Oh!” he said at the same time she did.
She had been in the act of lifting her hand to rap on the door as he opened it. Grace.
She recovered her composure. “Travis, I have to talk to you.”
He only nodded, too surprised for words.
She clutched her arms over her chest. “Can I come in?”
“I’m sorry. Of course, please.”
Grace hurried in, and he shut out the wintry blast. She pushed back the fur-lined hood of her cape. Her face was pale with the cold, but her eyes, as they always did, glowed like a summer forest.
“Can we speak here, Travis?” She glanced at the wooden ceiling above.
Travis frowned. “It’s only Rin and Jemis up there. And they couldn’t hear us anyway. They’re all the way up in the attic chamber.”
Grace took a step forward. “Good, because I don’t want anyone else to hear this.”
By the time she finished her story Travis’s face was as white as her own.
He drew in a breath. “I think we need help, Grace.”
She nodded. “Do you mean Melia and Falken?”
Travis thought about this, then shook his head. “No, let’s not bring them into it, at least not yet. Th
ey’re both too busy with the council. Let’s see what we find out, then we can tell them if we learn anything more.”
“Who are you thinking of, then?”
Travis scratched his red-brown beard. He really should get around to shaving it. “They say the way to fight fire is with fire, Grace. If there’s a conspiracy in the castle, then maybe we need to start a conspiracy of our own.”
“What do you mean?”
He grinned at her. “Come on. I’ll tell you as we go.”
It was just after sunset when they met in Grace’s chamber. Twilight had coiled its purple cloak about the castle, and outside the window the moon glowed in the sky. Even at just a quarter it was far larger and more brilliant than the moon of Earth. Would Travis ever see that smaller, more distant satellite again?
“What’s going on, Grace?” Aryn said.
The young baroness stood near the window. She held a cup of wine in her left hand but did not drink from it. Her eyes flickered toward Travis, and it was clear her question could as easily have been, What’s he doing here, Grace?
Travis clutched his own cup of wine. Stop it. She’s only wondering what this is about, that’s all. You’re not a servingman in this world any more than Grace is a duchess. Maybe if you quit acting the part, people would stop thinking you’re one.
“Something has gone wrong, of course,” the knight Durge said. He sounded almost pleased. “Lady Grace would not summon us here with such urgency if that were not the case.”
Grace took a step forward. “Aryn, Durge, you both remember Travis Wilder.”
Aryn gave a polite but shallow nod. Durge made a bow.
“Goodman Travis,” the knight said in his solemn baritone.
Grace licked her lips. “I’ve learned something. Something about the Council of Kings.”
A frown alighted on Aryn’s brow. “Do you really think we should discuss this in front of Lady Melia’s man?”
Travis winced.
Grace drew in a breath, then blurted the words out all at once. “He’s from Earth, Aryn. From the same place I am.”