The Story Peddler

by Lindsay A. Franklin

  Braith paused then stepped forward.

  “I did all you asked of me,” a voice muttered from the darkness. Definitely her father. “Everything. Why did you let this happen? It was all supposed to be mine. Caradoc’s life for my rule. Your systems, with those two fools at the helm, for my power.”

  Braith froze. Who was he talking to?

  A roar from the former king ripped through the air. “Why won’t you answer me?” A dull thud sounded, like something hard had been struck. The voice shriveled to a whimper. “Why have you left me?”

  “Father?” Braith steeled her courage and stepped closer to the iron bars. She peered into the darkness of the cell. “Father?”

  The deposed king sat on the straw-covered floor, hunched over, head down. Braith noticed his hand and stifled a gasp. Blood oozed down his knuckles, and several fingers splayed at unnatural angles. He must have punched the stone wall with his bare fist.

  “Father, it’s me.” Braith stood close enough to the bars to touch them, but she folded her hands in front of her skirt. “Will you not speak to me?”

  His gaze lifted to meet hers, and raw anger seethed there. He growled something in his throat, but Braith couldn’t make it out.

  “Father, who were you talking to?”

  He squeezed a handful of filthy straw in his uninjured hand. “Left me.”

  Braith couldn’t escape the feeling that her father’s mind was splintering before her very eyes.

  “Who has left you?”

  But he didn’t seem to be aware of her presence any longer. He grumbled and growled to himself, punctuating his ramblings with shouts every once in a while. Braith watched him in silence for a few moments. Tears snaked down her cheeks, and she gripped Tanwen’s flower tighter.

  Finally, she knelt so that she might see him face-to-face. “Father.” Braith paused to allow her thoughts to collect. “I have often wished I were something different so I might have pleased you better. But I must always stand by what is right. Can you understand that?”

  The disgraced man, mind disintegrating and hands covered in blood and straw, glared holes into his daughter. “Traitor.”

  Expected though it was, the word pierced Braith. She shored her heart against it and nodded. “Good-bye, Father.”

  He didn’t acknowledge her.

  Braith rose stiffly and strode toward the exit. But just as she passed by the last cell, a hand darted out from between the bars and clamped onto her wrist.

  Braith tried to scream, but she was pulled toward the cell and another hand clamped over her mouth before any sound escaped.

  Chapter 52

  Braith

  “Shh.” The soothing hiss sounded just beside Braith’s ear.

  Familiar.

  Then the expected voice followed. “I’m going to take my hand from your mouth. Don’t scream.” The hand dropped from Braith’s face.

  She inhaled deeply to settle the hammering of her heart. “Release my arm immediately, Sir Dray.”

  “Do you promise to stay?” A defeated note rang in his voice. He was utterly beaten and desperate. Braith had never seen Dray in such a state before.

  Still . . .

  “No. I make no such promises. Release me, just the same.”

  He did, and Braith turned to face him, but she stepped beyond his reach. In the dim light of the cell, his graying hair looked grayer. Braith had never seen a speck of dust on his clothing before—not a strand of hair out of place. Now he was positively bedraggled.

  “Will—” He seemed to swallow with difficulty. “Will you please stay for a moment?”

  Braith nodded. She hesitated for a few heartbeats, then stepped toward the cell bars. “What is it, Sir Dray?”

  “Why do you call me that? Do you not realize it’s over?”

  Aeron’s words flooded back to Braith—that she chose to call Braith a princess because the former guardswoman believed Braith worthy of the title.

  Dray was no knight. Not as knights should be anyway. Nor was he noble in the true sense of the word.

  “You’re right, Dray.” She took another step closer. “What is it you want to say?”

  His arms reached through the bars. Braith recoiled, but she could see he didn’t mean to grab her. Only—what? Reach out? Touch her?

  Still too dangerous.

  “I wanted to say that I—” Dray swallowed again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you the way I did in the throne room. It’s only—” He broke off and looked down.

  “It’s only,” Braith continued for him, “that you wanted to control me. You don’t know how to manage something you can’t control, except to crush it.”

  Dray’s gaze lifted, and Braith couldn’t conceal her surprise. Genuine hurt swam in his eyes—tears, even. “Don’t you know I love you, Braith?”

  Braith almost laughed—almost cried. Had to fight the urge to scream at him. But she kept her peace and said nothing for a moment. Then she looked him straight in the eyes. “I believe you do, in your own way.” And it was true.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I think as much as you are able to love another person, and in the fashion after which you are accustomed, you might love me.”

  Dray pressed himself against the bars. Braith sucked in her breath at the hungry look in his eyes. “This from the ice princess,” he said, bitterness hemming the words. “What does she know of love?”

  Braith cringed under the judgment in that nickname she hated, often whispered behind her back. But she collected all the compassion she felt for Dray and spoke from that place instead. “I suppose you’re right. I am an ice princess. I’ve built a wall of ice around my heart to protect it—to keep myself safe from those who would exploit me. But a heart still beats inside. A heart that can feel and love, if there is something in this world good enough to love. Today, I’m not sure there is.”

  The hunger in Dray’s eyes settled into despair. “Like Princess Cariad,” he said. “You’re the Stone Princess, except your heart is walled with ice. Tell me, Braith. If your heart is surrounded by ice, what is mine? You speak as though you’re better than I, so tell me. You’re ice, and I am . . . ?”

  Braith swallowed whatever emotion was rising in her throat. “You’ve compromised too much. You made your choices in life, and you’ve sold pieces of your heart along the way so you might better reach your ends. Your heart isn’t protected by a wall of anything—it’s been replaced a piece at a time. Flesh for stone.”

  Dray looked down. She was startled to see he was shaking. “Is there any coming back from that, Braith?” His voice sounded broken.

  She stepped toward the exit. “I hope so, Dray. For all our sakes, I hope so.”

  Chapter 53

  Tanwen

  I could have collapsed onto my bed and stayed there a fortnight, and it still wouldn’t have been enough sleep. I also could have eaten an entire grazer, a field’s worth of smashed watta root, a bushel of buttered sweet roots, and a mound of hathberries as big as the annual planting tax haul. Even then, I still might have been hungry.

  But instead of any of that I shut the door to my chambers behind me, leaned against it, and let myself sob.

  Wasn’t sad, exactly. Everything was nearly as good as it could have been. Brac, my accidental betrothed, was laid up in the infirmary with Dylun, where everyone seemed confident they’d recover from their wounds. Gryfelle, Mor, and Karlith were settling a patched-up Zel into a vacant room in the palace. They’d found Ifmere in her cell. The baby had come already and was healthy as any wee one born of hearty Tirian stock I’d ever seen. A little lad with Zelyth’s eyes and Ifmere’s sweet-root hair. But Ifmere herself was exhausted to the point of death and half starved at that.

  Karlith seemed to be making it her personal mission to see the lass and that ruddy, bouncing little boy recovered. So I knew they’d both be fine, and if they were, Zel’s wound wouldn’t trouble him much. He had his family, as he never thought he’d be able to, and I thin
k if he could have stood toe-to-toe with the Creator, that would’ve been the only thing he would have asked for.

  So I wasn’t sad, even with the mess I’d made of things with Brac. Because at least he’d live. I was just utterly spent as a body could be.

  Aeron and Warmil fairly exploded with strategies for how to proceed from here, though I could hardly think about that at all. What happened when a king was overthrown and there wasn’t anyone to take his place? Couldn’t exactly post the job opening in the town square, as was usual when looking to hire somebody for something. But I supposed I’d let someone else figure out that business. When it came to politicking, I was about ready to mind my own onions forevermore.

  Seemed the former king was unraveling worse and in shorter order than I watched my father’s mind unravel in his journals. Karlith was most troubled by his ramblings and thought we ought to have someone watch him—make note of the nonsense dribbling out of his mouth, though I couldn’t see why. War said he, Mor, and Aeron could rotate shifts on that one, though no one was quite as needled about it as Karlith. Seemed to me Gareth just couldn’t cope with defeat very well.

  But, truly, when did I ever know what I was talking about?

  Aeron had also been assigned to keep guard over Braith and Cameria. Didn’t blame Warmil for being cautious about that, I supposed, but it still grated on me a little. Poor ladies had been through quite the ordeal, and being kept under lock and key—even if it wasn’t in the dungeon—didn’t seem entirely fair. But once they got to know Braith, they’d see she wasn’t a threat. I knew it.

  One question gnawed at me, and I wouldn’t have satisfaction until I’d found a moment to ask Cameria. What had happened to my father? How long had she been able to keep him alive? How had . . . it finally happened?

  Or had it happened at all?

  I pushed away the tiny voice in my head that kept asking that question. It didn’t seem possible he could be alive, so it was a fool waste of time to bother with wondering. But still . . .

  I thought of Father’s journals. I’d never had a chance to finish investigating. Where did the filled journals stop? Could it have been less than two days ago that I’d fallen asleep on one of those books? Seemed a moon, at least.

  Why not check them now?

  I found the secret key in its usual spot around my neck. Without thinking too hard about how tired and famished I was, I shuffled over to the trick bookshelf. The key slipped into its notch, and I felt a thrill shoot through me as the false rock clicked and loosed from its home. Then the lever came into view. A moment later, the panel creaked open.

  I started. There was a man sitting in the middle of my secret passageway, a journal on his lap and a pen quiet in his hand. He covered his face to block the light, but I recognized him at once.

  I gasped. “You!”

  He lowered his hand and blinked several times, but he didn’t speak.

  “The wild bowman. What are you doing in here? Who—?”

  But before my question could get all the way off my tongue, I froze, solid as grazer milk on a winter night. I glanced from the shelves of journals lining the wall to the one in his lap. The pen in his hand. The ink-stained fingers. The straggly gray hair.

  This stranger, the wild bowman who had helped us in the throne room, was old enough to be my father.

  I lifted one hand to my mouth. “Yestin . . .” I whispered. A lump formed in my throat. I took a halting step toward him. “Yestin Bo-Arthio?”

  He didn’t stir except for another blink. His muscles seemed coiled and ready to spring, but he kept still.

  Before I had a chance to think about it, story strands poured from my fingers. Something in my mind wove the idea together. The strands coiled like wisps of smoke—fuchsia, gold, blue, purple, green. A knot like my secret key swirled in the middle of the colored smoke, except this one was gold instead of silver. I didn’t know what it meant or where it came from, but all it needed was one command from me.

  Finish it.

  And the strands crystallized into a glass orb the size of a pebble with the golden knot and colored smoke still swirling inside. The orb dropped into my hand. I stared at it for a second, then held it out to the man on the floor.

  His fingers—all callouses like I hadn’t seen even on the oldest, craggiest Pembroni farmers—reached out, hesitated, then took the tiny ball from my palm. He stared at the thing like it was a ghost.

  My heart fell. Could he speak anymore? Even if he could, it seemed clear he didn’t recognize me—that his mind must have fully slipped away some years back. The reality of it was too unbearable to stomach. I’d finally found my father, my only family left. But would it make a difference if he didn’t know me? Seemed his mind was lost long ago, so really I was only meeting yet another stranger. I was still alone—still an orphan.

  I felt I was being sucked into a pit of despair that wanted to swallow me.

  But then he spoke. The words came slowly. “She used to make this one.” He stared at the glass marble.

  My heart hammered at the sound of his voice. His throat sounded a size too small—I supposed out of lack of use. But his words were clear, understandable. Intelligent, like how he sounded in the old journal entries.

  I just stared at him in dumb shock. Afraid he might disappear if I blinked.

  “My Glain,” he croaked. “Your mother. She told this story.” His face creased into a smile and he held up the marble. “I don’t remember the words.”

  I kept staring.

  His gaze lifted from the glass orb to me. “Hello, my Tannie.”

  Finally, the spell broke. I rushed to him as he reached out for me. I dropped to my knees and burst into tears. We fell into a hug. A hug that’d been thirteen years in the making and left Yestin Bo-Arthio with a very wet shoulder and me with the fullest feeling inside I could ever remember.

  “Daddy,” I sobbed.

  Chapter 54

  Tanwen

  “Thank you all for gathering today,” Braith said, sitting uncomfortably in her seat. “I didn’t expect such a swift or positive response to my request, in light of recent events.” Braith’s gaze dropped to her folded hands, and my heart flew out to her. Poor thing didn’t know which way was up these last few days since her father fell.

  But she held herself straight, like a lady of the palace ought, and managed to look dignified in a simple pine-green dress like a respectable merchant’s daughter might wear. But not, I noticed, like a courtier or royal. Seemed she didn’t think it was her place anymore.

  Around a wooden table in some forgotten palace meeting room, a ragtag group had gathered at Braith’s invitation. Most everyone from the Corsyth, including Dylun all wrapped in bandages around his middle; a few members of Gareth’s court, who Braith seemed to trust on some level; some people I’d never seen before but who Father said were connected in some way to King Caradoc’s court; and Cameria next to Braith.

  My father paced in one corner of the room. He didn’t like to sit in proper chairs, and all these people made him nervous, I knew. But he looked better by the day. His hair was groomed and pulled back into a tail, he wore clean clothes, and he’d trimmed his beard into something that looked proper. I’d made him take a real bath. Several of them, actually. He looked so improved, in fact, I could almost see a former First General in there somewhere.

  And then there was me. I couldn’t have belonged in the room any less if I’d tried. But Braith had asked me to come, so I had.

  Braith cleared her throat. “I know I have no authority to call this meeting, but I beg your forgiveness and pray you will see I only do this to keep in mind what is best for Tir.” Her voice faltered, and she paused a moment. After a visible swallow, she continued. “Something must be done about the state of things. Word of the king’s fall is spreading quickly. Chaos is near at hand and, indeed, already reaches the palace doorstep. Riots, looting. Most of you know how it’s been in Urian since my father—”

  She paused again. Her ey
es closed, like she was trying to keep from retching. Then she opened them again. “Since the end of Gareth’s reign. As the trouble presses inward to the palace, it also presses outward. King’s guardsmen all over Tir are abandoning their posts. Some are inciting riots. Others are simply waiting for someone to give them orders. It seems that Tir is in need of a leader.”

  One of Gareth’s courtiers spoke up. “Has anyone heard from the queen?” He corrected himself quickly. “That is, Frenhin Ma-Gareth.”

  Braith’s lips pressed together for a moment before she spoke. “It seems the former queen has fled. Several garments are missing from her closet, as are many of her items of personal and monetary value. Her closest servants are missing. The only logical conclusion is that she has retreated into hiding.”

  And left her only child in the palace to face the wrath of the Tirian people.

  I felt sick on Braith’s account.

  “Forgive me, Lady Braith.” Dylun looked directly into Braith’s eyes. “But are you certain what Tir needs is another leader? How have we any guarantee this leader would not become a tyrant just like his predecessor?”

  Mor plunked his elbows on the table and propped his chin on his fists. He shot a glance my direction. “Here we go.”

  Dylun lifted his chin but refused to acknowledge Mor. “Perhaps what we need is a stateless society. It could work, you know. Only then will there be true freedom, and not just for weavers and those of non–Tirian blood. But for all people.”

  Another of Gareth’s courtiers, who I vaguely recognized from his seat at the council table, scoffed. “The Meridioni sure has novel ideas for Tir’s future. But we have always had a king, dark one, and if you don’t like it, I suggest you head south, back where you came from.”

  Warmil crashed his fist to the table. His fierce eyes shot daggers at the councilmember. I had to stifle a giggle. You would never guess that Warmil and Dylun had gone around and around about just this sort of thing. Reminded me of Brac and how he could tease and taunt and torment his wee siblings until the grazers wandered home, but if anyone else spoke a word against them, he’d level him to the ground in a flash.