by Brandon Barr
“Ah-ha! Lost in her eyes are we? That’s an honest man!”
Mica laughed lightly as he moved with Augel to get the next barrel.
“Now think upon this,” said Augel, “had you not married Praseme—as sweet and lovely as she is—you might have gone from the stables to being a sort of…prince.”
“You may think she’s coming to see me because of some burning love, but if you knew what she said, you’d see it differently.”
“If you’d ever tell me what she says, then I might change my opinion, but you keep secrets from me.”
“Only because what she says involves a large amount of trust in me. I wouldn’t want to compromise it.”
“Ah-ha!” said Augel, then grunted along with Mica as they set the second barrel down. “So, she’s coming to you and sharing things that demand your trust. Sounds to me like she’s warming you up. Tell me, honestly, you don’t feel all buttery inside when you see her. You’ve already admitted she’s exceptionally beautiful.”
Mica stopped and smirked at Augel. “I apparently have to watch what I admit to you. Help me get this last barrel.”
“Your heart is like melted butter in her soft hands, you just won’t say it.”
The third barrel rattled as it hit the floor of the hall.
Mica glared at Augel with a humorous curve on his lips. “I’ll say this. I respect her. I hope she is appointed Luminess. She has a heart for the kingdom, and I truly sense in her a genuineness rarely seen among the Regents or any of the other people of position that pass through our stables. I admire her.”
“Landslides!” said Augel, taking the reins of the horse. “You’re as smitten as a pup in her lap.”
Mica came along side him and slapped him on the back of the head. “And you my friend are as incorrigible as you are brash.”
With that, the two led the horse cart out of the hall, and the sound of their voices trailed away. Meluscia stood, face flushed, wishing she could somehow follow and hear more, but she’d heard enough.
Her hand came against her chest—her heart was singing. She felt as if she were aglow with the praises she’d heard from Mica’s lips.
. . . I hope she is appointed Luminess. She has a heart for the kingdom…
. . . I admire her.
. . . She is exceptionally beautiful.
Yearning burned in Meluscia.
She stared at the doors and her insides churned with ache.
If only he were not taken…
The possibilities coalesced like a swirling wind inside her, stirring her imagination.
Mica believed in her. In her cause. In her leadership. Would he have agreed to…
Adulyyn’s shocking advice hung prominently before her thoughts.
Would Mica have agreed to be her…secret lover?
The idea grated against the knowledge gleaned in the Scriptorium, and warred with her principles. And yet, it passed like a sword thrust through her heart.
As she stood, staring at the large wooden doors, closed at the far end of the hall, the true reality of her situation settled back onto her.
Why torture herself with daydreams? Though Mica’s attraction to her was thrilling—and his words showed that he admired at least her heart for the kingdom—the reality was he had accepted Praseme’s proposal, and her reward was his smile and warm embrace. After Praseme finished her work this day, he was her joy to return home to.
Stop it, she scolded herself. Her fingers clutched the furry pouch of books. By force she reined in her thoughts and emotions.
She had her father’s throne to worry about, and thoughts of Mica were a distraction. That’s why she had Jonakin, she reminded herself. Jonakin was there to pacify her need for love.
But, she remembered, in bittersweet turmoil, the long time lover of her mind was fading away, losing strength under the sway of a heart burning powerfully for Mica.
After the words she’d heard Mica speak only moments ago, she would need Jonakin more than ever if she were going to keep her focus.
“The throne, Mel,” she whispered, pointing her thoughts down the path she needed them to travel.
Adulyyn’s response from the Regents.
The result of her letter to king Feaor.
. . . the possibilities of these lit a different kind of flame in her heart. More than ever before, she felt hopeful of the results.
CHAPTER 20
SAVARAH
The gleeful shouts of children rang off the sheer slate rock, but their strange noises were quickly swallowed in the roar of the falls at the lower plateau of the Hold. Savarah reclined against a tree at the edge of the emerald pools, and watched the children’s faces with a touch of the same bitterness she’d felt the first time she’d been confronted with the sight of such stupid happiness. Only now, she understood it was a good thing, that kind of innocence and blind trust of the world. Games that did not have the consequence of death if one lost. Sport simply for fun.
She could not imagine herself out there. Eight or nine years old, laughing, splashing in the water and jumping off the top of the falls.
She’d killed so many other children, but none had worn expressions like these. They had looked back at her with murderous eyes, though some had traces of fear or uncertainty that were perhaps a detectable remnant of weak, childish emotion. Of course, those ones were always the easiest to kill. And the faces of the children Isolaug deemed worthy to resurrect and piece back together always burned with fear and envy when they locked eyes with her in the education sessions or behind the curtain of the theater. Never again would they have the chance to face her in the arena. Few would have dared to if they could.
The loud clanging of a bell broke Savarah from her recollections of the past. The four quick tolls marked an urgent call for the physicker.
It would be a futile effort. Aszelbor, the royal undercook, and secret assassin, was no more than a spiritless bulge quivering on the floor. The poison Savarah had used was the well-aged spoor of a blacktooth mushroom; the forest had many poisonous plants and fungi to choose from. Blending the blacktooth spoors into the undercook’s morning glass of ale was easy enough, but it was the way in which the poison crouched for hours, waiting like a cat, then pouncing on its victim’s heart. Aszelbor, even with the training of their master, had no more than a fleeting moment to guess at what was happening to him before he dropped dead to the floor.
And who would suspect foul-play? Aszelbor was as fat as a sow on her birthing day.
Poisons were far easier than maladies. Four years ago, when she passed Aszelbor the vial of sunweed blight, it had taken months of slowly exposing the Luminar and his wife before the sickness took root in their bodies.
Thinking on it now, she felt no remorse. She’d performed her simple task of transferring the vial from Orum’s hands into Aszelbor’s. What was done was done. Before long, she would atone, in her own way, for her role in killing her mercy mother, and, one day soon, the Luminar, her mercy father.
She would attempt to rid the Hold of Isolaug’s influence. If she survived that, there were other kingdoms she could purify, and if she survived those encounters, she would turn her bloody knife and arrows toward Praelothia, Isolaug’s only visible city, the once prized possession of the Star Garden Realm, but now ruled by an Aeraphim.
She didn’t know yet how she would get in or what she would do, only that she would use the skills and instincts her master had sharpened in her to bring to ruin as much of his work as she could before she was killed.
That was a penitence far better than mere sorrow and regret.
The tolling of the bell ended, and she rose. Before she left the mountain pool, she scanned the shoreline as she had when she arrived. There were no terrapin to be seen. Either the ruckus of the children had sent them into hiding, or it was too high up on the mountain. Still, she looked.
She hoped the razor arm was eating and resting where she’d left it chained in an old bear den. Of all the spies at the Hold, Osiiun,
one of Trigon’s ten riders, would be the most difficult to kill.
She’d seen him in the arena when she was a child and he nearly an adult. Osiiun was a vicious display of power and energy.
She would need surprise as her advantage. A fair fight was unlikely to end in her favor.
_____
MELUSCIA
Meluscia entered her father’s bedchamber and saw his form in the far corner of the room. He lay under a pile of blankets so thick, even a dignitary from the sunniest region would be kept hot and sweating in the frigid mountain depths.
“He’s been sleeping for hours,” said Heulan, who had been attending her father ever since he’d become bedridden. “Have you heard the physicker’s opinion on your father’s condition?”
Heulan’s words came with a gentleness. His presence in times like these was always a comfort. “How much time was my father given?” asked Meluscia.
Heulan sighed. “The physicker says he may have as little as a week left.” He placed his hand lightly on her shoulder. “But maybe as much as a month. I’m sorry, my dear.”
Meluscia nodded. She remembered her mother, Rhissa, close to death, feeling the cold like never before, the blankets piled high.
She walked up beside the bed where three candles lit her father’s face, and took his frail hand in hers. It was so hot, she wondered how it was possible he felt so cold. She glanced around the room, memories tugging from her past…sitting at the large hearth, the crackling fire warming her face while her father, back from one of his long journeys, told her stories of the Hold and its glorious history, or her mother singing songs in praise of the Makers while the smell of burning wood drifted like incense to her nose. These things felt so long ago. The malady had changed their lives too quickly, as if a thief had come and stolen the affection and warmth from their hearts. While death’s touch slowly took her parents’ lives, the strained relationships between the neighboring kingdoms and the constant invasion of Nightmares deepened their aches and wore on their besieged minds. It was as if all that could go wrong had done so, in cruel harmony.
A prayer formed in Meluscia’s mind, and she breathed it out in a whisper. Ever since her mother’s passing, her supplications felt as if they vanished with the steam of her breath, the cold swallowing them before they reached the ears of the Makers. More recently, it felt like the gods were spurning her—her and all the people of Hearth. It had made praying more difficult. Her childhood love and devotion in them was unraveling. Where had all the prophets gone? It felt as if the Makers had decided to abandon her world in the last half century.
Reading the sacred writings was now the only bridge between the gods and man. Her prayers may well be only logs consumed in the fire but, at times, she couldn’t help but speak, even if she was not chosen. Even if her words were like wisps of smoke, too frail to reach the cold stones above.
A shadow passed by Meluscia. She glanced up, startled. Savarah passed around the foot of the bed, stopping on the opposite side of their father.
Savarah’s eyes met hers, but there was no softness there. Only pupils made of rock, untouched by human emotion.
Then Savarah winked, and a glimmer of soft light glowed deep within her eyes. Meluscia was startled by it—captivated. A reminder that something strange had happened to her sister.
“Valcere mustn’t be the next Luminary,” said Savarah, the strong muscles of her neck flexed and tense. “Father must choose you. Or there will be nothing but blood and misery throughout the Blue Mountains.”
Though Meluscia feared that very thing, the confidence behind her sister’s words was unnerving. And as far as she could remember, she’d never heard Savarah address their father as such. It was always, “Trigon,” or, “your father,” but never just, Father.
Meluscia gave a dry smile, “I have the same concern, but it’s not me presently seated on the onyx throne. I fear Father’s favor rests heavily on that man. But I am hopeful. The Regents’ Council meets today.”
“If he’ll listen,” said Savarah, rubbing the back of her hand over the blankets. “I wish his poor reasoning could be blamed on the sunweed blight.” She turned her head toward their father’s face, her sharp eyes pouring over his cracked, pale features. “Trigon, I know you are listening to us. Your breathing quickened when I insulted you, and from the very first, your lips began twitching as Meluscia and I spoke of your pathetic choice for successor.”
Meluscia cringed in horror.
Savarah’s lips slid into a smile at the sight of her face. She leaned forward, her mouth close to their father’s ear. “Get Valcere’s warmongering ass off the throne and put the rightful heir where she belongs.”
Meluscia had forgotten she was holding her father’s hand when she felt his fingers grip firmly around hers. A low growl rumbled from his throat and he coughed. A hollow, painful cough.
Slowly he opened his eyes. “I lay here dying,” said their father through gritted teeth, “and my daughters can only think to insult me. Is this how I am to end my days? Scorned and unloved?”
Meluscia squeezed her father’s hand warmly. “I’ve always loved you,” said Meluscia. “But I’ve learned to love the kingdom more, just as I must if I am to convince you to appoint me as Luminary. A Luminary must put the needs of the kingdom before their own; that includes their family’s. It is the wisdom of scripture that I saw you live out, and which mother explained to me when you left for months on end to broker treaties or raid the Nightmares’ camps. I loved you then, even though you were gone so often, and I love you now, despite your lack of confidence in me.”
A sigh hissed through his closed teeth before a fragile smile stretched the corners of his lips. “Landslides, Mel! You’re not supposed to be so perfectly reasonable. I’m trying to protect you, but you keep pushing me to send you to the wolves and I won’t do it.”
Meluscia straightened. “That’s absurd. You would sacrifice the good of the Hold to spare me from the challenges of ruling? Perhaps Savarah was wrong about the sunweed blight. It has gone to your head. I’ve never heard you sound so irrational.”
Her father coughed, nearly choking as he tried to clear the phlegm from his throat. “That’s enough!” he finally garbled out. “Valcere is my choice. And I don’t care to hear anymore of your complaints. If you won’t sit by my side as my beloved daughter, then go your way.”
Meluscia let go her father’s hand. He’d said it plainly. The words she’d feared all along. Valcere would be the next Luminary. The candlelight continued to flicker at her father’s head, but the flame of hope inside her was nearly smothered by his words. The Regents’ Council…the letter she’d sent to King Feaor…would these matter any longer? If King Feaor requested her, would her father deny him? Had her maneuvering been in vain?
“The Regents are meeting today,” said Meluscia angrily, fighting to hold back her tears and rage. “A delegation will arrive tonight. What then? What if I am favored by the majority?”
Her father closed his eyes. “They will not choose you. For the same reasons that I have given. If I could live another five years, to see you wed and with children…you would thank me then. You were meant for another kind of life, Mel. Not the life of a Luminary.”
She stood; anger she hadn’t known existed rose from deep within. Unwanted tears ran down her face. “Savarah can comfort you. You’re not the father I want to remember. Your failure to reason with your own daughter explains why the Hold is in the mess it is.”
Meluscia glanced at Savarah and noted a shadow of a smile. Then she was moving toward the door, her head dizzy with rage, and her heart as cold and barren as a winter storm.
_____
SAVARAH
“Your blood daughter’s words are as sharp as my arrows,” said Savarah, “And just as accurate.” She drew her hands to rest behind her back.
Trigon looked at her uneasily. “You know as well as anyone what we’re fighting against,” he said, his words sounding coarse. “I’m surprised you are
encouraging her.”
“Why? Because I’ve seen the horrors of patrol? Because I’ve heard the chief woodcutter’s reports? The real reason you won’t put her on the throne is that you’d rather die than make peace with King Feaor.” Her eyes held fixed on the man who had shown her compassion so many years ago by bringing her into his family. She’d never loved him. Never pretended to. It hadn’t been a role she was capable of playing, but now, a seedling desire inside her whispered otherwise. The man whose kindness to her she’d repaid with a slow death, and numerous lies and half-truths. Could she, in her own way, show him some form of kindness in return before he died?
The type of compassion she could muster would feel like a fistblow to Trigon’s frail state of mind. But if she could spare the kingdom’s ruin with a few harsh words, that was all the kindness she could offer.
“You trust certain men far more than you should,” continued Savarah coldly, “and you surround yourself with useless councilors who howl the same song, Valcere being loudest. You are a fool if you choose him over Meluscia.”
Trigon’s face was pale, as if a phantom stood before him. “What is this?” he said in a quiet, hollow voice. “Six years you’ve ridden with me. Never have you spoken like this. You know more than Meluscia will ever know. I will not have her appeasing the man I suspect of poisoning Rhissa and I.”
Savarah bent her head down close to Trigon’s. “And what if you’re wrong?”
“You saw the note Harcor found.”
“A ploy,” said Savarah, agitated. “You must have considered the possibility.”
“Ploy?” wheezed Trigon. “By whom?”
A part of Savarah felt pleased at his ignorance. The note, accompanied by years of worsening reports from Harcor, and the disguised work of brutal Praelothian warriors, had brought the Hold and the Verdlands to the brink of war. And all involved were as blind as ever.
“Who would benefit most from this conflict?” asked Savarah.
Trigon’s eyes moved to the ceiling, her words working slowly through his brittle mind.