Crown of Destiny

by Bertrice Small

  “And when he gains them,” Amren said slowly, “he will become all-powerful. Aye, I see, Grandmother. But in the past the Twilight Lords’ powers were good, but never great. His father, Kol, must have wed with magic to produce such a strong son. Do you know who Lord Kolgrim’s mother is, Grandmother?”

  “I am Kolgrim’s mother,” Lara told him.

  “You!” Amren’s handsome face was shocked. “How…”

  “I was kidnapped, and my memories stolen. I was told I was Kol’s wife. The magic world had planned it carefully because I was meant to cause chaos in the Dark Lands. When my memory was restored I found myself with child, and my purpose in the greater scheme of things was explained. I used my own magic to split the child in two, so that I bore twin sons to Kol. Such a thing had never happened. I came back to my own world. Kol disappeared and has not been seen since. His chancellor hid the twins so no one would harm them. They grew up not knowing who they really were. Then one of Kol’s daughters learned the secret, found them, told them who they were and set them against one another. She planned to rule the Dark Lands herself, but in the end Kolgrim overcame her and his brother, Kolbein. That was over a hundred years ago, Amren. Magnus Hauk had only just died, and your father, Taj, become Dominus of Terah.”

  “Did Magnus Hauk know what happened?” Amren asked her.

  Lara nodded. “I could not keep secrets from him,” she said. “But as for the rest of our worlds, their collective memory of what had happened was erased. We wanted peace, and Kolgrim was too new to his position to cause difficulty.”

  “But now he is not,” Amren said. “Why not simply stop the wedding?”

  “Palben would not agree,” Lara told him.

  Amren thought a moment and then said, “Nay, he would not. The advantages to Hetar, to himself, are too great in his eyes.” He looked at her with admiring eyes. “I will keep your secrets, Grandmother. I am honored that you shared them with me.”

  Lara nodded her thanks then said, “You have served Terah with honor, Amren. I am proud of you, and know that Magnus Hauk would be proud, as would your father, my son, Taj. Do not forget your heritage, whatever happens. Terah has always walked in the light. May it continue to do so.”

  “And Hetar, too,” he replied. “They are not bad people, Grandmother. Just heedless lovers of everything that they can wrap their hands about.”

  She nodded at him. “Age has helped you become a good man,” Lara said.

  “Or perhaps it is the faerie blood in my veins,” he replied with an amused smile.

  Lara laughed. “Perhaps,” she agreed.

  “If you two are through chattering,” Ilona said impatiently, “there is much to be done this day.”

  “I will take Vaclar with me to the wedding,” Amren said, “and see he is introduced about to all the people he should know. His uncle Cadoc must be advised of the heir’s arrival. I will send a faerie post immediately.” He turned to his wife, who had just appeared at the door of the chamber. “Clarinda, my dear, see that Prince Vaclar is fed before we must leave for the festivities.”

  “What of these people?” the lady said, looking nervously at Lara, Kaliq and Ilona.

  The Queen of the Forest Faeries glared at the poor woman. “I am not people,” she said irritably. “I am a queen, you foolish mortal female.” Then with a clap of thunder and a puff of purple smoke, Ilona was gone.

  Amren’s wife staggered and held on to the doorjamb to keep from falling. “Oh my!” she said in a weak voice, her eyes locked upon Kaliq and Lara.

  The Shadow Prince stepped forward and gallantly put a hand beneath the lady Clarinda’s elbow. “Please do not let us distress you, my lady. We have but come to help.” He led her to where Prince Vaclar stood. “May I introduce you to your husband’s great-nephew, heir apparent to the throne of Terah, Prince Vaclar. Your Highness, this lady is your great-aunt Clarinda. She will see to your comfort before you must leave for the Lord High Ruler’s wedding.”

  Vaclar bowed with an elegant flourish and, taking the lady’s hand, kissed it. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, my lady great-aunt,” he said.

  Soothed by the Shadow Prince’s gentle voice and normal behavior, the lady Clarinda was eased in her mind. “Your Highness,” she said curtsying to Vaclar.

  “Dear great-aunt Clarinda,” Vaclar said, smiling at her, “we are family. You need not curtsy to me.”

  “Oh nay, dear boy,” the good woman answered him. “It must never be said that a Hetarian lady of rank such as myself forgot her manners in the presence of royalty.” Then she brought him up to the High Board and called to her servants to feed him immediately.

  “We will leave you to do what you must,” Lara said to Amren.

  “If I need you,” he answered her, “how can I find you?”

  “You have but to say these words. Grandmother Lara, hear my plea. Cease all else and come to me. If you call me, Amren, I will come.” Then she put a hand on his arm. “Thank you,” she said to him. Then Lara disappeared in a puff of lavender mist.

  Amren blinked. Her mode of transport always surprised him. He looked about for Prince Kaliq, but the Shadow Lord had also departed. Amren Hauk chuckled softly to himself. How foolish he had been. How foolish his whole nation was that they had put magic from them. Magic existed. And it was fascinating.

  RETURNING TO SHUNNAR, LARA immediately turned to Kaliq, who was by her side. “I believe we have begun this campaign well, my lord. We shall again defeat the Twilight Lord, and all his ilk. I will not let the darkness come! I won’t!”

  The Shadow Prince took her into his arms. “You are a brave faerie woman, my love,” he told her. She was brave, he thought. But her efforts this time were for naught. Still Lara was not a woman who would blindly accept a fate she could not live with for she was an optimistic creature of light and of hope.

  He stroked the soft gilt-colored hair beneath his big hand. Soon the exodus would start, and the magic would slowly slip away from Hetar, leaving it vulnerable to the darkness. Kaliq wished it were otherwise, but Hetar now must accept the fate it had carved out for itself. Lara would resist until the bitter end, he suspected. But then they would depart into the Cosmos. His beautiful faerie woman would help to create a new world. She would shed tears for Hetar, but she would also be happy again because they would be together.

  Lara looked up into his handsome face. “You are thinking,” she said with a small smile. “I can almost hear the cogs and wheels within your head.”

  “You have devised a clever plot, my love,” he told her. “If we can get Vaclar wed to the last of Grugyn Ahasferus’s granddaughters, the bond between Hetar, Terah and the Dark Lands will be unbreakable at least for the generation to come. Kolgrim will not be pleased. I’m certain he meant to pit Hetar and Terah against one another to their detriment. But now, my love, you must return his bride, Nyura, to him. Our time is short, and he will take his revenge upon Marzina if you do not.”

  “I know,” Lara replied. “I will go now. Do not come. He will not harm me.”

  And suddenly she was gone from his arms.

  “MOTHER!” KOLGRIM LOOKED UP from his throne where he had been seated. “Will you tell me now where I may find Nyura so we may be wed tomorrow?”

  “Release Marzina to me, and I will,” Lara said. “You know my word is good, Kolgrim. You cannot harm your sister by your own law.”

  “Allowing the chamber in which she is housed to drop into the endless abyss would only make it impossible for you ever to see her again. Nor could she escape for I have put a spell upon the chamber. Her magic does not work there. Now where is Nyura?”

  “Well hidden in a place you cannot find, Kolgrim. Now release Marzina, and Nyura will be safe in her own bed again. They will be coming soon to awaken her for her cousin’s wedding to the Lord High Ruler,” Lara said in a calm voice, but her heart was pounding violently. This was a battle of wills between them, and she knew her son did not like to lose such battles. Especially to a wom
an. She smiled encouragingly at him.

  Kolgrim laughed. “Very well,” he said. “Soon enough your influence over this world will weaken and then fade altogether. The power will be mine, Mother dear. I can afford to be generous to you this time.”

  Outside Kolgrim’s Throne Room the skies darkened from pale gray to dark gray. The clouds thickened as the winds rose. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and jagged lightning flashed. Marzina, to me!

  And there was her daughter standing between them.

  “Are you all right?” Lara asked the young faerie woman, putting her arms about her youngest child.

  Marzina looked dazed. “What happened?” she asked.

  Lara took her daughter’s face between her two hands. “Look at me, Marzina. Focus your eyes on my face. You’re still half-asleep.” She looked to Kolgrim. “A bit heavy-handed with the sleep spell, weren’t you, Kolgrim?”

  Marzina’s violet eyes began to clear. “Oh!” she said. “Yes! I came to see my brother, the dark one. Are you angry with me, Mother?”

  Lara sighed. “Of all my children you are the most impetuous,” she said. “Aye, I’m angry, but I’m also relieved.”

  “Kolgrim wouldn’t harm me,” Marzina said. “We’re blood kin.”

  “He thought nothing of violating the law to kill his half sister, Ciarda,” Lara reminded her daughter.

  “Ciarda was foolish, Mother. I am not,” Marzina replied boldly.

  “I have upheld my end of our bargain, mother dear,” Kolgrim purred. “What about your end?”

  “Look in your reflecting bowl, my lord,” Lara instructed him.

  Kolgrim walked over to the black onyx vessel, waved his hand over it and saw Nyura as she wakened in her bed. She wore but a thin night garment, and her breasts were quite visible to his eye. His cock hardened beneath his robes. Soon those breasts would belong to him, for his pleasure. He watched as two servant women hurried into Nyura’s bedchamber followed by her mother.

  Looking at his own mother, he said, “How can I be certain what I see is real?”

  “You will just have to trust me, Kolgrim,” Lara told him. “Come, Marzina.”

  “I can take her back at anytime,” Kolgrim said.

  “Of course you can,” Lara replied. “But so can I.” Then she and Marzina were gone from his sight.

  Kolgrim laughed softly. His mother was a magnificent opponent. He was almost sorry that this time he would win in the battle between the light and the dark. And when he did, he would take her powers for himself. She owed him a debt for having deserted him and his brother in their infancy. For leaving them to be raised by traitorous giants, and vicious Wolfyn. Aye! Her magic would be his. And when it was, he would make his mother love him as she had loved the children she had born to Kaliq, to Vartan and to Magnus Hauk.

  He knew the magic inhabiting Hetar even now plotted their departure. They understood that this world would now belong to him. But his mother would not leave Hetar. Lara loved this world, and she would be convinced that she could save it as she had saved it from his father. She would remain. He was convinced of it. Aye, Lara would remain. And if she did then Marzina, his little sister, would remain, too.

  “My lord.”

  Kolgrim looked down to see his chancellor. “What?” he demanded irritably. He disliked having his thoughts interrupted.

  “My lord, you must prepare to return to The City for the wedding of your kinsman, the Lord High Ruler, and the Lady Divsha. Palben has scheduled your marriage to the Lady Nyura for two days from now, not tomorrow. Will you remain in The City?”

  “I shall remain there,” Kolgrim said. “I wish to see the pleasures Hetar has to offer me, Alfrigg, for soon I will be a married man.”

  “Marriage should not deter you from your pleasures, my lord.” Alfrigg chuckled.

  Kolgrim laughed darkly. “It will not,” he agreed. He grew thoughtful for a few moments before posing a query to his chancellor. “Shall I impregnate Nyura immediately, or give her time to grow used to my attentions. She is a virgin, after all.”

  “But she is also a Hetarian,” Alfrigg said. “Once she has been introduced to the joy of pleasures she will become greedy for them. Time, however, is of the essence in this matter. The season of the mating frenzy is a short one. A few days, but no more, can pass before you must seed her with your heir.”

  Kolgrim nodded. “I agree. I shall grow quickly bored with her anyway. But once she has proved fecund, then I may depart her bed. Nothing can prevent her from bringing this child to term.” His dark gray eyes turned to look directly at his companion. “Do you take pleasures, Alfrigg?” he asked the old dwarf. “You have a wife?”

  “My wife is dead these many years, my lord, but I have three nubile concubines who serve their purpose well, and please me,” the chancellor answered. He was a little disturbed to have his privacy invaded by his master. But then Kolgrim was different from other Twilight Lords. “My lord,” he reminded his master, “the time grows short. Shall I instruct Drug to pack your trunk?”

  “Aye, and remind him my wedding garments must be carefully stored,” the young Twilight Lord said. He turned back to the onyx reflecting bowl, where Nyura was now being prepared to attend her cousin’s wedding. She sat before her dressing table admiring herself as a serving woman brushed her long reddish-blond hair. He observed her vanity, and smiled. She had the face of someone pure, but Kolgrim saw the wonderful darkness in her, and was excited by it. Sexually he was a creature who needed more than one woman to attend to his lust. Nyura would come to bore him, he knew. But intellectually she would be a delightful companion he decided.

  NYURA SMILED AT HERSELF in the looking glass. She sensed eyes other than those in the chamber upon her. It would be Kolgrim, of course. In just two days’ time she would be his bride, and she could hardly wait. Oh, let her cousin Divsha preen and brag about being the second wife to the Lord High Ruler. Divsha thought her position would be greater than Kolgrim’s wife. But then Divsha thought that only Hetar existence meant anything. Divsha, of course, was wrong. But she would learn that soon enough.

  “Enough!” she said to the serving woman plying the brush. “It is almost time for me to go and attend my dear cousin, the bride. Do you think she will like my gown?”

  “She will be most jealous,” the serving woman said, “for all eyes will be upon you today, my lady mistress.”

  Nyura laughed. “And that is as it should be,” she said, well pleased. For soon I shall be mistress of all the worlds, and Divsha will bow to me.

  9

  WHEN THE THE LADY LAUREEN, THE FIRST LADY of Hetar, stepped from her apartments, she found herself face-to-face with the Twilight Lord. “My lord!” she said, surprised. Her hazel eyes swept over him admiringly. He was certainly an extraordinarily handsome young man. He stood several inches over six feet, and his dark gray eyes were a most startling contrast to his golden hair. He was wearing a long silk gown of rich lavender embroidered heavily with gold threads and studded with small amethysts and diamonds of the finest quality. Lady Laureen was an expert on gemstones and recognized the excellence of the tiny jewels. How the creator of the garment had found so many perfect stones amazed her, and she was frankly envious.

  “I thought, perhaps, you might allow me the great honor of escorting you to the wedding, my lady,” Kolgrim said, smiling.

  Behind her Lady Laureen heard her ladies twittering with excitement. She smiled back at the Twilight Lord. “How very kind of you, my lord. Aye, you may escort me.” She took the silken-clad arm he offered. Her husband was taking a young woman for a second wife. How fitting that this handsome, powerful young man be her escort. “But perhaps you should be escorting little Nyura,” she simpered at Kolgrim.

  “The choice between a rosebud and an exquisite bloom is a difficult one, I will admit,” Kolgrim said gallantly, “but soon the bud will be mine to keep. For today I prefer the more mature rose. Besides you and I shall be the envy of all the guests, which is certain to irritate th
e bride.”

  “Ohh, my lord,” Lady Laureen giggled, “you are quite naughty.”

  “If you take pleasures with me later, my beauty, you shall see for yourself just how naughty I can be. And, how naughty I can make you be.” His gray eyes darkened, and fastened onto her hazel eyes.

  Though Lady Laureen blushed, she never lost the rhythm of their steps as they walked through the palace toward the great hall. But she did not answer him, for she had no idea what she could possibly say to such a bold invitation.

  Kolgrim hid his amusement. Aye, the fair Lady Laureen could be tempted, and she could be seduced. He would take advantage of her weaknesses tonight while her husband played with his new toy. Divsha would keep her new lord and master quite busy, for she was a greedy and ambitious girl. And when the morning came, all would awake satisfied. He chuckled softly, and the woman on his arm flushed a deeper hue as if she had heard his thoughts.

  THE GREAT HALL OF THE Lord High Ruler was built of snow-white marble. The round marble pillars holding up its domed roof were streaked with gold. The floor was made from squares of striated green marble ranging from a medium to a dark hue. Tall arched windows going from just a foot above the floors almost to the ceiling could be seen beyond the pillars. They offered views of the greenery, trees and lake within the Golden District. Gilded twisted poles were fastened to the tops of every other pillar, and from them hung silk tapestries depicting scenes from Hetar’s history both real and fictional. The entryway was hung with portraits of Hetar’s past rulers. Its only emperor, Gaius Prospero, and his beloved third wife, Shifra, who had mysteriously disappeared. The first Lord High Ruler, Jonah, and his first wife, Villia and his second wife, Zagiri, Princess of Terah. The second Lord High Ruler, Palben I and his wife, Coralyn. The bridegroom was already planning to have his portrait painted soon with both of his wives.