Aurella shook her head ruefully. “Always, always, your solution is based on the assumption that this gambit guarantees you the throne. I assure you, it may raise your chances, but it provides no guarantee. King Tedric is a strange man, old and fickle, embittered by the loss of the surety that his blood will follow him to the throne. I wouldn't put it past him to pass over all his squabbling nieces and nephews and choose this newcomer Blysse instead. She showed character today and our kingdom is beset by rivals. With Bright Bay at our frontiers, strength and decisiveness may matter more to the king in his heir than possession of the right bloodline. Don't forget, too, that Blysse has House Kestrel to back her. Kestrel may not be as prestigious a house as that of the Peregrine or the Gyrfalcon, but it is as old and very respected.”
“And if King Tedric selects Lady Blysse, I,” Elise said patiently, determined to demonstrate she had gotten her lesson by heart, “would still have made enemies for myself.”
“And for your father and me as well,” Aurella reminded her. “Since you are a minor, your betrothal must have our blessing. We will put our heads into the furnace along with you.”
“Isn't the possible gain worth the risk?” Elise asked, al-most pleading.
“What gain?” Aurella said with deceptive mildness. “The throne of Hawk Haven or handsome Jet Shield for a husband? I think the first is worth the gamble, but I am doubtful about the second.”
“Still!” Elise said, leaning forward, her hands clasped so tightly that her knuckles grew white. “Still! Shall we sit back and let ourselves be swept out of the miming? Here is a chance to ally our house with another, to make the king's decision easier, for he can please both his brother and his sister by his selection!”
“That is the best point in favor of this match,” Aurella agreed. “Then you wish me to speak with your father?”
Elise swallowed, met her mother's gaze, and was overwhelmed by the realization that for the first time she was being spoken to woman to woman, not as a daughter by a mother.
“Yes, ma'am, I do,” she said.
Aurella nodded. “Tonight, then, after the banquet.”
In a single, swift, graceful movement, Lady Aurella rose, leaving her fancy work behind her on the chair. She was gone before Elise rosefromher dutiful curtsy, but not before Elise saw the single tear glittering like dew on her rose-petal cheek.
XI
HANDLESS, FOOTLESS, armless, kneeless, unmoving unbound. She drifts. Eagle-winged, free to ride air as warm and firm as Blind Seer's fur. Suddenly bound. Unable to move even within human limitations. Time spiralling into memory's clouds.
Smaller, shorter, weaker, afraid, alone, lost. Cold and hungry, the raw meat the wolf has dropped before her as inedible as a rock would have been. The little girl cries and her tears wet against her face are the only thing warm about her. Trembles, coughs, lungs protesting air's intrusion. Wishing she was gone where the others are gone. Shrill whining in her ears, keening of the wolves who have taken her to themselves only to watch her shrivel and fade like autumn leaves under winter's blast.
Dying. That's what she's doing! Dying. The realization comes as a faint surprise, rather like learning that it is her birthday: an abstract thing, anticipated but not understood. Dying. How very odd.
Little people die. She'd seen that during the first days when they'd come with Prince Barden into the wild woods. Jeri Puhkinhair had died of a cough that wouldn't go away, no matter how warmly his parents wrapped him, no matter how dutifully he'd choked down brews of honey and tree bark, hot broth, stewed herbs. Little people die, twisting and bending like seedlings that never quite get a start on growing. Now she is dying. She wonders why if this was to come she hadn't been burned in the fire. This new dying seems a dreadful waste of effort.
Lying on the cold stone floor, coughing from her smoke-seared lungs, weeping until there are no more tears, breathing until there is no more air. Around her, wailing like the mournful moans of the winter wind around the cabin chimney, she hears howling as the wolves voice their despair. Little person, pale flame, soon just so much meat.
She is fading, doesn't even flinch when one arm, then the other is grasped between fanged jaws. Pain can't seem to get through the dying. Astonishment, maybe, just a touch, feeling that the breath of the wolves is warm.
The wolves drag her through the autumn woods, big moon heavy and orange watching from the horizon. Her feet trail behind her, legs as limp as those of the rag doll Blysse carried with her nearly everywhere. She gave it a new name each week, usually the name of some wonderful heroine from the Old Country stories Sweet Eirene told around the fire each night.
Is she become a rag doll? Are the wolves become children? It seems quite possible, there on the twilight fringes of dying. With some faint spark of herself, the little girl holds on to the idea. Even a rag doll has more life than does a dying child.
The moon stops moving in the sky. Then she realizes that the wolves have lowered her to the ground, released her arms. She feels a flicker of regret for the loss of their hot breath. Her own breath is cold and thick, full of slime. The effort to draw in air is not worth the pain. She stops.
Relief is temporary. Something presses against her mouth, forces her to draw in air. She struggles but a heavy and furry weight pins her legs. Eventually, she loses all sensation except for the searing ache of her lungs being forced to draw in breath.
Upon waking she discovers herself bathed in warm mist. Rough hands, coarse but not unkind, rock her gently. Silence wraps her but for a faint hiss of steam and a terrible hacking that she realizes is her own coughing. Distantly, she feels each curving rib fragile as a twig, bending beneath the racking coughs. The sensation is sufficiently distant that she can dismiss it as unconnected to her relative comfort.
Timelessness passes. Vaguely she knows snowfall and blizzard wind. More immediate is warmth, the caress of those coarse hands. Sometimes voices.
She cannot be permitted to die. We will need her.
Someday someone must speak our talks. Cross between worlds. Separation forever is impossible.
Nearly dead. If she comes back, she will be strong enough to venture into life.
Purpose. And we will teach her, though never will she know our presence. You will be good parents to her, but she is too weak to survive without other aid.
A long journey, this one. Moons will die and be born before it ends.
Awakening into spring. Pale hazes green and yellow on the branches. Scent of blossoms in the warm air. Birdsong and joyful plashing of running water. Running outside on trembling legs, just barely firm enough to bear her weight. Falling. Tumbling against a furry flank that cushions her descent. Strawberries and fish. Warm blood drunk from a rabbit's throat. Crunching stems of watercress. Hot liver.
She has always been a wolf.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT that Lady Elise Archer was to be formally betrothed to Jet Shield was met with excitement and glee by most, a delightful new twist in the engaging entertainment surrounding the selection of an heir by the king. In tavern and shop, market stall and street comer, the towns-people gathered to gossip about this new development. The politically savvy gladly explained to their slower comrades how this gambit would enhance the chances of either Elise or Jet (or one of their fathers) being chosen as King Tedric's heir.
In the manses and suites occupied by the potential heirs of King Tedric, the news was greeted more soberly. Grand Duke Gadman consulted with his son, Lord Rolfston, and daughter-in-law, Lady Melina, about how best to exploit this new twist without completely invalidating Sapphire's claim—should King Tedric not choose to travel down the road that Jet and Elise had made so inviting for him.
GADMAN's SISTER, Grand Duchess Rosene, sat alone in her private rooms, denying audience to both her son, Ivon, and her daughter, Zorana, steeling herself for the unpleasant but seemingly necessary task of favoring one of her children over the other.
It had not been maternal love but expediency that had kept her from
doing so for this long. As long as King Tedric showed no clear favorites, her case was stronger for having two potential candidates in her line. Now Ivon, through Elise, had made a clever play. She hoped that prospect of having Lieutenant Purcel Tmeheart succeed in time to the Archer Barony would soothe Zorana.
EARL KESTREL TOOK the news from Valet with the same calm with which Valet presented it. Privately, Norvin Norwood admitted to himself that this plan was a cunning one—one that anticipated a move he had been prepared to make if King Tedric did not acknowledge Blysse his heir. Delay had seemed wise since Tedric had seemed interested in the girl.
Now Norvin Norwood wondered if he had waited too long. In passing, he felt a sudden gladness that his own four children stood between his adopted daughter and the Kestrel duchy. It said something about his own nature that he was unaware of the irony in this thought.
SAPPHIRE SHIELD, SUDDENLY ousted from a position she had viewed as favored, locked herself in her room in the castle. In the hours since her too well informed maid brought her the mmor of Elise's engagement to Jet along with the breakfast tray, Sapphire's mood had shifted from disbelief, to spiteful anger at this betrayal by both parents and brother, to full-blown rage.
Even the trepidation Sapphire had felt when Earl Kestrel had unveiled Prince Barden's presumptive daughter was nothing to this. She dreaded herself discarded, had nearly invaded King Tedric's private rooms to beg him not to forget her claims, put aside that plan as childish, flung herself onto her bed screaming into her pillow and kicking her feet against the feather padding.
Outside the stone walls of the room no one could hear her, but inside the room her maid stood pale and trembling, watching the fit and fearing that her mistress's wrath would be turned against her.
IN YET ANOTHER ROOM there was fury so great as to diminish Sapphire's into nothing by contrast. Lady Zorana Archer tasted the bitterness of certain defeat. There had been times that she had almost felt the crown upon her brow, heard herself proclaimed Queen Zorana the Second. Rolfston's chances had never been as good as he had believed. King Tedric despised him as a crawling worm just like his father, Gadman. Melina Shield ran that family and no one in Hawk Haven would accept a witch as queen.
Ivon was a good enough man, but he had only one heir. Privately, Grand Duchess Rosene had admitted to her daughter that Ivon lacked tme regal fire—unlike Zorana, who had been named for Hawk Haven's first and greatest mler and had modeled herself after her achievements. Since Princess Lovella's death Zorana had even imagined that her ancestress favored her, was guiding her fortunes from the world beyond. This latest announcement—and her mother's refusal.to meet with her—was a betrayal not only of Zorana's hopes but of her private mythology.
Zorana was alone in her chambers when a knock came on her door. Since she had dismissed even her maid, she must answer it herself. Smoothing her hair—though not a bit was out of place, her rages being internal rather than external—Zorana opened it. Prince Newell Shield stood without.
“May I beg admittance, Lady Zorana?”
She opened the door wider in reply. The corridor without was empty. When she sent Aksel away an hour before he must have given orders that she was to be left undisturbed until she herself summoned companionship. Aksel, for all his weakness, had moments of wisdom. He knew that Zorana was not one to lock herself away while secretly craving that others seek her out. Newell, though, Newell she found strangely welcome.
They had been playmates once upon a time, he Lord Newell, son of the duke of House Gyrfalcon, third son, unlikely to ever be the heir. She had been even lesser ranked, a noblewoman, yes, but not even heiress to her lesser house. When her niece Elise had been bom, Zorana became merely Lady Zorana, third in line for the Barony, her title a courtesy she could not pass on to her children. Ambition to be more had germinated then, an ambition unlikely to be achieved through politics but attainable through other avenues.
Some three years or so after Newell Shield had married Princess Lovella there were rumors among the women that there were times the princess, unwilling to trust only in potions and herbals, banned her husband from her bed. At that time, Zorana herself was betrothed to Aksel Trueheart, a marriage arranged for the satisfaction of their houses, not from any affection. Some almost formal pawing in dark corners had awakened in Zorana the terror that she would never feel passion. Then she had seen Newell's gaze upon her, a pale thing that wrapped her like spider's silk: soft and insidiously strong.
They had become lovers during those moon-spans before her wedding, and Zorana had discovered that she was indeed capable of passion. But Newell had turned from her after her wedding, saying he could not risk fathering another man's heir. Zorana had wondered if the loss of Newell had not been what made her coupling with Aksel sofierce.Certainly Purcel was conceived within a few moon-spans and born slightly before his parents’ first anniversary.
Newell had never returned to Zorana's bed, though after a while they had eventually become something like friends. By the time Deste was bom, Zorana was feeling some satisfaction from mothering a dynasty that might earn the honors that had been stolen from her.
On this day, though, Zorana forgot what honors young Purcel had already earned, what promise the younger three showed. In the loss of a crown she had dreamed upon her brow, these achievements were ashes. And in this moment of despair, Newell returned to her.
“I thought,” he said, crossing to a chair and sitting uninvited, “that you might want some friendly company, company from someone outside of this mess.”
He looked older now than when they had been lovers some seventeen years before, his skin showing the lines drawn by long days in sun and weather on land and at sea. Princess Lovella had thought to earn some fame as a naval commander and her husband had voyaged with her. Now the brown hair that had often been bleached tow by the sun was showing grey at the temples. His sideburns and beard were almost completely white. As with some men, this made him more attractive, not less, granting character to his lean features.
Zorana saw the changes and tingled. Here was the face of a stranger, but the eyes that looked out of that face were the same that had once met hers, wild with the passion that sealed their bodies into a single sweaty whole.
“I am grateful for your company,” she replied formally, hoping her face did not give away her thoughts. “This engagement is an… interesting complication. But you must be delighted, Jet is your nephew.”
Newell pursed his lips thoughtfully, as if testing his words before uttering them even in this private place.
“I have never cared for my sister's children as an uncle should,” he admitted. “They are too much her creatures, too tightly under her control for me to feel comfortable with them.”
His words were so close to Zorana's own thoughts that she did not question them.
“I see,” she said softly. “Melina is a strong woman.”
“A spoiled youngest,” Newell said bluntly. “Always given her way when small and now married to a man who cannot rale her. No wonder the common folk think her a sorceress.”
Zorana smiled. “She isn't?”
“No more than I,” Newell laughed. “But she has the benefit of the reputation just the same. Or the deficit…”
He let the words trail off, but Zorana followed his thought without effort.
“Not all the common folk would be comfortable with a sorceress queen, would they?”
“Nor the noble folk,” Newell added honestly. “I have heard words among the mlers of the Great Houses. They think such would be too much like the dark days when the Old World nations mled their colonies with dark arts as well as honest statecraft.”
“Yet Rolfston will not divorce her?”
“For no better cause than ambition?” Newell laughed heartily. “I doubt he could get the king to permit such a divorce. Moreover, I believe he is devoted to Melina in his own way. Their fortunes are hitched together.”
“Far easier,” Zorana said bitterly, “for
them to wed a younger son to a rival and so consolidate two claims.”
“To the crown?” Newell asked.
“Of course!”
“More than one family can play at that game,” he said, tentatively.
She glared at him. “Impossible!”
“Perhaps I speak too quickly,” he said, making as if to rise. “I just thought…”
She stopped him. “It is I who speak too hastily. What do you mean?”
“I… “Newell paused. She saw him swallow as if the next words were stuck in his throat. “I have always been fond of you, Zorana, in memory of those days we shared so long ago. Childless myself, I find myself looking on others’ children as if they are my own.”
Zorana felt her face growing hot, thinking how easily—had Newell been less honorable—this might have truly been the case.
“I have just returned from a voyage with our navy. Our kingdom's fleet is small, but we were fortunate and captured a Bright Bay vessel. The captain invited my assistance in questioning our prisoners before they were ransomed. From these I learned how well Allister Seagleam is thought of by his peers. What surprised me more was learning how well he is thought of by our own people. Did you know that he is viewed by some—-especially those who have reason to journey between our rival nations—as a pledge child, born to end the wars between us?”
Zorana was cautious. “I have heard some such thing.”
“He has children of an age with your own, dear Zorana,” Newell said caressingly. “Their grandmother was King Tedric's own sister—they are his grandnieces and grandnephews just as your own children are.”
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