Ally

by Anna Banks

  Just then, Anku quietly opens the great door to the bedchamber and allows herself in. She carries with her a lighting torch. The only acknowledgment she gives us is a slight nod as she proceeds to light the sconces around the immense set of rooms. Darkness creeps in from the balcony and settles over us as if a haze of kohl dust has wafted in. Mother yawns, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

  Standing, she says, “My darling, it is wonderful to see you again. I must go and ready myself for the evening meal now. And it looks as though your face paint could use some touching up.” With this, she embraces me once more, the way a person might embrace a muddy child, all angled and without affection. A show of decorum although Anku is not watching.

  Perhaps our meals will be less awkward with Mother here. She knows how to entertain Father, and she is an exceptional hostess. For a reason I cannot explain, I want her to impress Tarik, to show him that Serubel is not a kingdom of crude barbarians with primitive customs. If there is anyone who can prove this, it would be my mother.

  Oh, but there is one thing I’ve forgotten. Perhaps the most important thing. I grab Mother’s arm before she gets to the door left open by Anku. “Mother, do you know what a Lingot is?”

  4

  TARIK

  Tarik isn’t sure what he expected of Queen Hanlyn, but this is not it. Perhaps he expected her to be ornery and unpleasant with forced manners, as King Eron is. Or perhaps he expected her to be quiet and submissive, merely an ornament at her husband’s side. More important, he expected her to leak puzzling untruths and deceit with every word, as the king of Serubel does—or, at the very least, emanate insincerity through body language alone. He had hoped to garner more clues as to what the two of them truly have planned for his union with Sepora.

  But the queen’s body language is straightforward and confident, and her words strike true to his ears. The only thing she seems to be hiding is how tired she is from her journey to Theoria. She is so bent on hiding it, in fact, that she has taken over the dinner as though she were the hostess and he were the guest.

  And he finds that he doesn’t mind at all. Entertaining Eron for so many nights has been exhausting in its own right. The king of Serubel speaks only of war, of the need for cratorium, or of the importance of forcing Sepora to Forge. In so doing, he has admitted to beating her when she resisted back in Serubel. “Sometimes she needs more punishment than encouragement, you see,” the king had said. “Nothing a good rod couldn’t fix.” If it had not been for Rashidi placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, Tarik would have had his own hands around Eron’s neck before he could take his next breath. Even now, it is an easy thing, for his mind to wander with thoughts of doing the Serubelan king harm.

  It is a wonder Sepora did not desert her father sooner.

  Yet, Tarik enjoys a sense of relief that Queen Hanlyn seems to be of a completely different nature altogether. She speaks highly of Sepora, assuring him that she will one day make a great queen. She slides glances of encouragement to her daughter when she thinks no one is looking. She compliments Tarik on the food, the décor, and the well-appointed fleet of servants attending them. She has even tried to coax Sethos into conversation more than once, which is twice as many times as Tarik. Yet Sethos seems impervious to the enchantment of Hanlyn, setting upon moving food around his plate instead of inhaling it for once.

  In more ways than one, she reminds him of a girl who once escaped his harem and led his palace guards on a merry chase. A girl with effortless courage and a penchant for solving problems.

  Of course, it should not surprise him that Sepora should resemble one of her parents. And for all the physical traits Queen Hanlyn passed on to her daughter, such as her full figure and lips, it is the quieter traits he admires the most about them both, such as their shared unapologetic confidence and their strategic wit. Already this evening, Queen Hanlyn has put Rashidi in his place and handled Sethos’s intolerable mood with an ease and a smile that suggests hospitality is an art to her. Too, it is not lost on Tarik that Sepora studies every move her mother makes, hangs on her every word, eyes filled with pride.

  Tarik is thankful Sepora has one even-minded parent, since the other seems to be quite mad.

  “When Sepora first learned to ride Nuna, she would sneak out at night to practice,” Queen Hanlyn is saying. “When it was time for her studies the next morning, she would fall asleep at the table.” She shakes her head in mock exasperation. “Even I would not dare fall asleep in the midst of a lesson from Aldon. It was not long before he made her stand for her lessons, and she learned very quickly that sneaking out at night would have to stop.”

  “You knew she was sneaking out and did nothing?” Eron says around a scowl.

  Hanlyn smiles at her husband—her first disingenuous action this evening. “Of course I did. A mother always knows what her daughter is up to. Oh, don’t be angry with me, dearest. It was not important enough to bother you with. Besides, I had faith that Aldon would straighten her out, and he did.” She takes a dainty bite of her honey cake, effectively ending any further commentary on the matter.

  So. The queen is not fond of her king. The word “dearest” rang solidly in Tarik’s ears as false. As did the bit about not wanting to bother him. Curious, though, that she apparently does know everything her daughter is up to, or so she believes. Tarik is left feeling envious of this revelation, of how it must feel to have experienced firsthand all there is to know of Sepora.

  It also makes him wonder what Sepora has told her—and in how much detail—so much so that he very nearly squirms in his seat. Some things are better kept private, surely Sepora knows. A number of their kisses come to mind, but Tarik forces the memories away as soon as they appear. Blushing in front of his guests will simply not do.

  “Queen Hanlyn,” Rashidi says, his face full of diplomacy. His adviser is ever diligent, it would seem. “Princess Sepora tells us you are from Pelusia.”

  The queen takes a sip from her chalice, and Tarik wonders if this is a stall. Curious, that she would need to suspend before answering such a simple question. After a moment, she says, “Indeed, I am. My father was Serubelan, my mother Pelusian, but I was raised in Pelusia. Until, of course, I married Eron.”

  “And do you still keep up correspondence with your home kingdom?”

  Another moment passes before she nods. “Yes, I do. Quite often, in fact.”

  The truth. But Rashidi is digging for more than just that, Tarik can tell. The older man says, “Do you suppose it possible that if we were to war with Hemut over this marriage alliance, that Pelusia would offer their support?”

  Tarik pinches the bridge of his nose. The queen has only just gotten here hours before and now she will be interrogated at dinner? It will be an unpleasant thing, to chide his oldest friend later in private.

  “Of course they would,” Eron cuts in. “Pelusia has been our ally since the splitting of the kingdoms. We would have their full backing.”

  To Tarik’s relief, the king trusts in his words. It is good to know that Pelusia, a neutral kingdom by decree, would support their efforts, were Hemut to pursue war with them. Thus far they have heard nothing from that kingdom, which could mean a swift retaliation is underfoot. Hemut will not catch Theoria by surprise, but they may well catch them insufficiently prepared. The Majai are ready at all times, of course, but Anyar’s other means of protection are not quite in place. Orders have been given and projects set in motion, but will they have enough time to complete all that has been set forward? Tarik doesn’t know. His highest commander does well to pledge with words his loyalty to his king, but his body language suggests he agrees with Eron—they need cratorium, and as much of it as they can get.

  Tarik glances at Sepora, wondering if he should not share more of that pressure with her. She is to be queen one day. She must be able to view unpleasant situations more objectively, he thinks. But at the moment, his most pressing issue is to ensure that she is queen at all. For all the ways they interact,
she seems more likely to run away again than to wed him.

  “Pelusia could provide ships, in fact,” Eron is saying. “With ships, we could attack Hemut’s border from the north, where they go whaling. They would never see us coming.”

  This could be true. Like Pelusia, Hemut is situated on the northernmost part of the Five Kingdoms, bordering the ocean. Because of Pelusia’s notorious neutrality, Hemut would not likely suspect an attack from them at their own northern border.

  Tarik remembers one visit to Hemut when he was very young, when Sethos was too small to travel. His father and King Ankor had taken Tarik whaling one day, and though they came back to shore empty-handed, Tarik had found the experience exhilarating. He had never been upon a ship before; the only boats he was familiar with were the small, slender fishing vessels used to navigate the Nefari. The whaling ship had ropes and sails that creaked and groaned with each hearty wave of the ocean. He’d been unsteady on his feet at first, but by the end of the trip he was climbing the ladder to join the lookout far above deck. He wonders how a Pelusian trading ship compares with a massive Hemutian whaling vessel.

  “Yes, well,” Rashidi is saying, “of course, our hopes are that we will not need to bother your Pelusian friends with the burden of war. I’m confident King Ankor can be reasoned with. After all, our kingdoms have been strong allies for centuries as well.”

  “Yes, well,” Eron says, mocking Rashidi. “You’re quite the optimist. I do hope you’re not so idealistic that you aren’t actually preparing for the worst—and as far as I can tell, you are not. That, friend, is a folly.”

  Tarik sighs. Another of Eron’s attempts at steering the conversation toward preparing for war—and one likely to turn into a plea to pressure Sepora into Forging. He’s curious to know how Queen Hanlyn will handle this delicate situation and if she is of the same opinion as her husband.

  Still, Tarik knows how he will handle it. Sepora already views her marriage to him as an obligation, and he’ll not ask her for more than that at the moment. Perhaps he is the optimist, but he wants Sepora to trust him enough to Forge of her own volition, not because he demands it of her. And he’s willing to wait a little while longer for that to happen. As it is, fresh spectorium is not needed so badly for the plague now that the nefarite works so well combined with the dying supply they have of the other element. And pride of the pyramids, he’ll dismantle every Forged piece of spectorium in Theoria if he has to, in order to give Sepora the time she needs to trust him again. And then he will show her how much he has entrusted her with already; he will tell her of his own father’s pyramid.

  Yes. Like pyramids, trust takes time to build. Time and patience.

  Which is why he’ll not allow King Eron to bully Sepora further. “There are many ways other than creating cratorium to prepare for war, King Eron,” Tarik says. “And we are doing those things in abundance.” Indeed, they are. In fact, just today, he signed a ruling for his engineers to construct ten more Slingers. Normally, the mechanism that rapidly dispatches dozens of arrows per second runs on the power of spectorium, but his chief engineer showed him a design where the thing could be set in motion by springs, though it would now require two men instead of one to operate it. Still, using more manpower is a small price to pay for not depending upon an element that he may never see again.

  That the Five Kingdoms may never see again.

  Eron waves his hand in dismissal. “Yes, yes. You’re doing exactly what Hemut expects. But we need the element of surprise. And they will never suspect—”

  “You speak as though we will be attacking them first, which is not the case,” Tarik says.

  “I can assure you Hemut will meet with surprise if it intends to go up against our Master Majai,” Sethos interjects, no doubt on Sepora’s behalf. If Sepora does not want to Forge, Sethos will defend her right not to, probably to the death. With Sethos, everything is to the death. “The Majai are not going to tickle them with pitchforks, you see.”

  Tarik winces. Sethos means to insult Serubel—a kingdom whose army Sethos often jests is made up of volunteer farmers. If he were sitting closer to his brother, he would kick him under the table. Putting Eron in his place is one thing; insulting Sepora’s home kingdom is quite another.

  “Speaking of the Majai, how goes your palace duty?” Eron returns with a sneer.

  “It goes well,” Sethos says, lifting his chalice. “Though, I had wanted to tell you, sending secret messengers to your advisers in the middle of the night is not necessary. This is a palace, not a prison. I’m sure my brother would hope that you felt comfortable in corresponding with your own men.”

  Eron slams his fist on the table. “If this is not a prison, then why am I being watched?”

  Hanlyn brings his fist to her mouth and kisses it gently. Tarik is forced to note that despite his like for the queen, she is an exceptional liar with her body language. He’s quite sure only he—and perhaps Sepora—can discern that she detests the man she shows such adoration for now.

  “Dearest, I’m sure at this sensitive time, everyone is being watched, is that not so, King Tarik? It’s a precaution we should all strive to observe. The line drawn between peace and war is fragile at the moment.”

  Tarik nods. “I couldn’t agree more. And I assure you Sethos has not been assigned to watch you.”

  “No,” Sethos drawls. “I do it strictly for entertainment.”

  Sepora, for all her show of silent disinterest, actually giggles, earning her a severe look of disapproval from her mother. In an effort to please, Sepora tucks her lips together in a straight line. Tarik hides his own smile behind his dinner cloth as he dabs at the corner of his mouth.

  “So then,” Rashidi says, pressing his fingertips together over his plate. Tarik dreads what he could possibly bring up next. But to his surprise, his adviser merely seeks to lighten the mood. “Now that we’ve discussed alliances and battle plans, perhaps we could steer the conversation toward a more happy occasion: the royal engagement procession tomorrow, of course.”

  At this, Sepora stands. “I’m not feeling well.” A lie. And one she doesn’t even bother to try to hide from Tarik’s knowing ears. She has a way of evading that he’s never seen before. Her bluntness simply shows her disregard for his feelings in the matter. He chooses not to take offense.

  Sepora holds up her palm to her mother, who had begun to stand as well. “I must excuse myself. But please, finish your meal, all of you. I’m just going to rest in my chamber.” Not the entire truth.

  Will she be sneaking out with Nuna again tonight, then? It would seem Sepora had taken up old habits of late; it has been reported to him that she flies Nuna out of her stall almost every evening. Since she has always returned, Tarik has not intervened. He hopes he does not regret that decision tonight. Standing him up at his own royal engagement procession could be a slight Sepora may well not be able to resist.

  “I’ll have a servant bring you the rest of your dinner, in case you feel well enough to eat it later,” Tarik says, standing as well. If she is going to beg off, he will let her. If discussing the royal engagement procession makes her uncomfortable, he’ll not force her to listen. But if she intends to evade the procession itself tomorrow morning, or the marriage altogether after that, he will have to take action. “It is good that you rest up. I’ll not have you swooning during the procession, unless of course, it’s over me.”

  He earns chuckles from around the table, but from Sepora, he receives a dire look. “Trust me when I say, Highness, that I do not swoon.” She turns and leaves the great dining hall then, her long sheer cloak trailing behind her with the lie.

  5

  SEPORA

  Nuna follows my commands, landing us gently in the majestic main garden of the palace, sliding us smoothly along the grass so as not to make too much of a trail. Coming to the garden is bittersweet for me. It is here, in this spot, that I first saw Dody, the Seer Serpen I trained for Tarik. The beast’s motionless body had lain in the gra
ss by the grand marble fountain, having been shot from the sky by Tarik’s wall guard. Though Dody was the Serubelan general Halyon’s Serpen, I had come to accept him as my own. And how could I not? I saw him every day. Had been the one to feed him and exercise him and coo words of endearment into his ears before putting him away at night. Having Nuna back helps soothe some of the sting of his loss. But the memory of Dody still pierces my heart now and again.

  With Nuna, I will be more careful. I will protect her, the way I couldn’t protect Dody when we fell from the sky together. In fact, as a precaution, I’ve already taken steps to ensure that Nuna and I would not be shot down when we sneak out at night. I am not supposed to leave the palace walls by order of the Falcon King. Yet, Sethos was more than happy to help me maneuver around that rule. He has somehow persuaded the guards to let me and Nuna fly away unbothered, and though he couldn’t promise that the king would not be notified of our nightly escapes, so far Tarik has not acted upon this information.