by Ellyn, Court
Before the highborns could begin shouting ‘yea’ and ‘nay,’ Keth pointed to Master Yorin, staunch in his post beside the double doors. The Master Steward called first upon the king’s sister, the Princess Rilyth and her consort, Lord Erum of Brimlad. “We are deeply grieved,” Rilyth said. “The White Falcon’s attempts on my brother’s life will be the gravest mistake Shadryk has ever made. Brimlad is for war.”
When she sat, Yorin said, “The Lady Rhoslyn is not entitled to an official vote, as she is not come into her inheritance. However, as representative of the Duke of Liraness, she is entitled to be heard.”
Rhoslyn looked like the spring sky in pale blue silk. Considering her words carefully, she might’ve been the sky ready to rain. “Windhaven will follow His Majesty wherever he leads us. I’m certain my father would say the same. Evaronna’s archers and her ships are yours to command.”
“Lord Kassen of Thyrvael,” Yorin called.
The Minister of Finance bowed regally and coughed into a kerchief. “We have ample means to conduct a sufficient offensive, sire. I may even be able to convince Brugge to rally his kinsmen to our cause. The dwarves would be mighty allies.”
“Princess Mazél, Lady of Lunélion.”
Mazél looked to her daughters. Genna’s face was bruised and a sling supported her arm; Maeret’s jaw was set firmly and her fists knotted upon the tabletop. The old princess said, “I had hoped to live my latter years in peace, sire. But the threat is clear. Shadryk has some greater design upon us all. Maeret will lead my cavalry with courage and honor.”
“Athlem, Lord of Locmar.”
Even from the dais Keth could hear Athlem’s teeth grinding. “Destroy them,” he said. “Wipe Fiera from the face of the continent.”
In the end, only Davhin of Vonmora voted against war, despite a disapproving glare from Rhoslyn.
When Galt of Helwende lowered himself ponderously into his creaking chair, Yorin announced, “The majority has it at seven Houses for war and one against.”
Alovi groaned into her hand. Last night, when she had learned of the action that Keth urged Rhorek to take, she had shouted and sobbed for more than an hour. “Have you no desire to see your sons marry and die old? Would you leave me a widow? A stranger will deliver me your ashes in a tiny leather pouch, and I’ll spit on them.” Keth had assured her that neither he nor the twins would come to harm. But the promise was empty; Keth remembered too well the chaos of battle, the random pattern in which men fell. He was wrong to try and fill her with false hope. Now, with the decision made, she cast one long aggrieved look at Kelyn where he stood under the window, then fled the Hall.
Rhorek took his seat at last. He didn’t appear sorry for forcing the highborns to stand for so long. They sank into them with grateful sighs. “Very well. War you desire, war you shall have. On the morrow, after the Last Day banquet and knighting have concluded, you shall have leave to depart and prepare your hosts. Further, as business has been cut short, we will give our final judgment now.” He worked his way down the list of highborns, addressing each complaint and need they had presented, and concluded with Lander, Athlem, and Rhoslyn.
“My Lord Tírandon,” he said, “you will now receive the troops you requested, not in the hundreds, but in the thousands, and you’ll get your vengeance, too, not in the number of sheep you steal, but in the number of Fierans you kill. How does that suit you?” The king’s words scathed like a razor upon raw skin. Lander used the excuse of a bow to duck his eyes.
“My lord of Locmar, your desire for blood is understandable. You, too, shall receive more men. The quantity of lumber your people process must be multiplied and shipped quickly to artisans who can forge it into war machines.
“And my Lady Rhoslyn, you will receive the silver you requested, but instead of building ships for your pirate patrol, your shipwrights will turn their skills to building vessels for war.”
He paused, and the crackling silence caused the highborns to wriggle and fidget uncomfortably. The Black Falcon stared them down, and Keth thought he must surely loathe them, his War Commander first and foremost. Rhorek sipped his wine, drawing out their unease. When their torment satisfied him, he resumed, “Our last item of business concerns a preparatory measure, should your war take a turn for the worse. The decision is mine alone. It is non-negotiable. I have chosen my successor.”
~~~~
7
The silverthorn was wearing off. Kieryn winced as the fire in his fingers flared and ebbed. With the highborns occupied below, he crept across the corridor unseen and pulled the library doors shut. Rain pelted the skylight. Lightning flashed beyond the windows, spearing Mount Queensaddle. Kieryn flinched, his nightmares full of lightning lately, and gripped the bandaged hand to his chest. Thunder rumbled against the storm-swathed peaks and echoed over the meadows and the stones of Ilswythe.
“Finally get tired of the sick bed?” Etivva’s warm voice was a balm to his nerves. He eased himself into a chair across the table from her. Etivva’s black eyes and bald head glinted blue as lightning flashed.
“Had to get away from Master Odran,” he explained. “That old man’s been poking and prodding on me all morning. Laral was practically shoveling food down my throat. I feel like a toad I’m so full. And Laral keeps staring at me, as if he expects my fingertips to spout flames. When they left, I got out of there.”
He shook a growing wave of pain from his hand and glowered suspiciously at his tutor. Etivva lowered her eyes. “You’re not surprised or amazed or curious at all about what’s happened. You knew.” He lunged to his feet, towering over her. “The other day when the entourage arrived, we spoke of elves. You said you knew how special I was. You knew then, didn’t you? Tell me what you know of me, Etivva.”
Unwilling to succumb to intimidation, the shaddra stood, shoulders squared, and met his glare. “Your mother would be better able to explain.”
“My mother?”
“But since she is likely caught up in the debates, I will oblige you.” A brown hand gestured casually. “Make yourself comfortable. Do you want a drink?”
“I want you to tell me … ,” he insisted, but Etivva rustled to a sideboard, slid open a cabinet and poured a glass of ruddy liquor, then set it before him.
“You may already have had your greatest shock,” she said, “but I suggest you drink it.”
Scared, Kieryn sat and sipped the bittersweetness, glad of the warmth sliding down his throat and fast into his blood.
“When I arrived here,” Etivva began, “your mother confided something to me, though she did not yet know me. When you were three, she said, you had an imaginary friend. You claimed she was a tiny fairy, I cannot remember the name you had given her. This might have been no more than the workings of a child’s active mind, but your mother confessed that one day she walked into the nursery where Kelyn was playing with a wooden sword in one corner and you were sitting in the light coming through the window … and she saw it, Kieryn. Or, rather, saw her. Your friend, the fairy.”
Kieryn’s mind flitted with golden wings and sunlight hair. He saw the lavender eyes lacking pupils. But it had been just a dream. Hadn’t it?
“Your mother grabbed you from the floor, and the fairy vanished. She told your father what she had seen, and they forbade you to talk of that creature again. They were afraid, you see, because, well, you know why.”
Yes, he had read of it somewhere, in an old bard song from the time of the Elf War: fairies were the direct servants of Ana-Forah, allies of elves and avedrin.
“Your parents feared what this fairy’s presence and her friendship with you might mean.”
“Oh, Ana,” Kieryn whispered, recalling the anger in his parents’ voices, the fear that he had done wrong, that he had lost their love. Was this when his father first grew cool and distant towards him? Kieryn thought it was. He swallowed the liquor in two great gulps and shuddered at the cloying sweetness. “She said goodbye to me. I remember, Etivva. That night, she came to
me in the cool blue of the nursery and told me she mustn’t appear to me again. She didn’t want to cause a rift in our family. Then she left, and I learned what loneliness was. I cried all night, begging her to come back. And she did. She touched my cheek, and I fell asleep. And then she was nothing but a dream. Why didn’t you tell me before, Etivva?”
“Because your mother forbade me. ‘He is never to know,’ she said. ‘We hope he has forgotten by now. We admonished him harshly, and he has not spoken of the creature since.’ Quite frankly, I was not sure I would stay. I had no intention of tutoring an avedra, you see. The sect of Shaddra’hin I belong to loathe avedrin as much as your father loathes elves. When I lived in the monastery at Tsagriat, I believed as the Brothers Superior do, that the avedrin are a corruption of the Points of Flesh and Magic. Humans and elves are dissimilar beings, of different spheres. They should never mingle, just as they should not mingle with the Point of Divine. And an avedra’s unnatural abilities lend credence to that belief. An avedra’s adversaries are at a great disadvantage, as you have learned. The advantage is not fair. It is not honorable.”
“Not honorable … ?” Kieryn flexed the tightening skin of his burned fingers, felt the fire as he’d felt it in the Hall, bright white and enveloping his vision. He wondered if the Duke’s avedra had made use of a similar skill to save Harac and his duchess from the highwaymen.
“Of old,” Etivva added, “the avedrin threatened to usurp the functions of the Shaddra’hin. Who better, they claimed, to serve as spiritual and intellectual advisers to highborns than the Mother’s chosen few who can make fire and call rain? The avedrin’s claim was merely an injury to our pride, and the advocates of the avedrin told us so. In Buadachan, in the north of the Valley, the Shaddra’hin had come to accept the union between the two corporeal Points as a blessing from Ana. If elves and humans could live in accord, then hope lived in this hostile, war-loving world. They argued that if the avedrin used their powers for the benefit of man and elfkind alike, then they should be welcomed. But just as a few humans can tarnish the reputation of all humankind, so it was with the avedrin. And the half-bloods quickly earned distrust.” She shrugged a flaxen shoulder and breathed deeply. “But, obviously, I did stay. How could I not when I saw the two of you, big blue eyes staring at me, so curious? How could I nourish a loathing of what you are when you showed such promise and dedication and innocence? I was forced to admit to myself that you had stolen my heart. At times, I even thought of you as my own. And I forgot what blood flowed in your veins.”
“Then all this while, after all the late-night discussions and frustrating debates, you’ve allowed me to believe the half-bloods were a myth, a fiction, a fancy.”
“I was afraid to tell you otherwise,” she admitted. “Afraid of betraying your parents’ trust.”
“By betraying mine?” He pushed himself to his feet, overturning his chair, and strode to the window. His mother’s garden drooped under the onslaught of the storm. Rain dripped heavily from the eaves, from the tongues of irises and the leaves of the andyr tree. The splashing fountain had become a small redundancy. Beyond, the night blossoms had begun to open in the gray half-light. “Everyone knew. On some level even I must’ve known, or how else explain what I did?”
“The only question is this,” Etivva said, joining him. “What do you intend to do about it?”
“Did you know His Grace of Liraness houses an avedra?”
Etivva shook her shaved head. “I only knew of avedrin, my lord, until I happened upon you.”
“Oh, stop!” he demanded feebly.
“Stop what? Stop equating you with the forbidden word? You do not intend to deny what you are, do you, remain hidden in this library forever? I thought you might tell me you mean to go to His Grace’s avedra and learn to use your skill.”
“Learn to hide it, you mean.”
“No, I do not mean. I could not deny my spiritual and intellectual gifts. Had I, I would be buried in the desert sand by now, with two men’s marks rotting on my cheeks, and one man’s litter having widened my hips. Your brother cannot deny what he is without dropping a sword forever and burying himself under a pile of parchment. And let me tell you, my lord, you may think this library is less of a prison for you than for Kelyn, but I assure you it is not. I know you, Kieryn. You will go to this avedra. You will learn to conceal what you are, so as not to scandalize your father, then you will return to this library and accomplish exactly nothing for the rest of your life.”
“But my history of the world. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“As enormous as the world is, Kieryn, such an undertaking is too small for you.”
Kieryn stared at his tutor a long time, trying to see in himself what she saw. But he recognized only the scholar, frightened, awkward, disappointing.
Strong, confident men like his father and his brother ventured out into the world and forged the events of history. Men like himself watched and recorded what they witnessed. Wasn’t that the way things worked? Wasn’t that the balance of things? Weren’t both kinds of men necessary?
Strangely, Kieryn felt as if he no longer belonged to either category. He had always drifted on the fringes, but he had made a few plans, felt he knew where he belonged. Only, now …
“My lord Kelyn,” Etivva announced, smiling.
Turning from the window, Kieryn found his brother on the threshold. Kelyn had a dazed quality to his eyes, as if someone had punched him in the nose and he couldn’t quite believe it had happened.
“Is it dinnertime already?” Kieryn asked. “I’m not going down to the Hall, Kelyn, forget it. Laral stuffed me like the midwinter goose. And I refuse to go back to bed.”
“I didn’t come to fetch you,” Kelyn replied. “The Assembly’s over.”
“Over? Is it even noon yet?”
“Just past, I think.”
“What happened?”
By now, voices and hurried steps echoed along the corridors. Kelyn secured the double doors, enclosing the three of them. “Rhorek … ,” he began, hesitant. “He’s going to declare war on the Fierans.”
Etivva moaned softly and sank to the window ledge.
The burning in Kieryn’s hand suddenly became irrelevant. “Goddess,” he said, prayer and curse both. “And you’re to be knighted tomorrow.”
Kelyn swallowed and nodded.
“Is Mother all right?”
“I don’t think so,” Kelyn said. “She walked out after the vote was tallied. I haven’t gone to see her yet.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’re her son but not her child. Not anymore,” Kieryn replied. “Going to her would comfort her for now, but later it might make you seem like a child who came running. You understand? Stay close to Father and Rhorek, and when you leave with them, bid Mother farewell—not goodbye.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s the best thing to do, but it might keep you and Mum from becoming more afraid than necessary.”
Kelyn’s eyebrows leapt up. “You think I’ll be afraid?”
“Father says every soldier is afraid. Believe it. Use it. Master it. He says that, too.”
Kelyn grinned. “My scholar brother telling me of a soldier’s fear?”
“Even Tallon the Unifier was afraid,” Kieryn defended. “He wrote about it. Battle of Slaenhyll. You might benefit from reading it.”
He expected a jibe in return, but Kelyn’s grin fell flat. “There’s something else, too. Rhorek named his heir.”
“Who?” asked Kieryn and Etivva together, the shaddra surging off the window ledge with a rustle of linen.
Kelyn looked sick. “Father.”
Kieryn choked on a howl of incredulous laughter. “Our father?” Kelyn’s face didn’t crack into the grin as Kieryn expected, and he realized his brother was serious.
“Rhorek said if the Fierans achieved their aim and spilled his blood, Da would be the most able man to lead us into a reign that began in war. Da threw a fit in
front of everybody. He said he wasn’t related to the royal line, Tallon’s blood isn’t in his veins. But no one else argued with the decision. Not that arguing would’ve done any good.”
“But Da will be going into battle,” Kieryn said. “What if—”
“If Da’s slain too, Rhoslyn is next in line.”
Kieryn’s face crumpled. “Rorin will redouble his efforts now. As will every other eligible fool.”
“Like you?”
“Go rot, ogre spawn.”
“That’s a new one. We sink to ogres now, eh?”
Kieryn snarled and stepped around his brother. “I’ve got to find her.”
Kelyn seized his arm. “To do what? Rescue her? Leave her be. She may be a queen one day, and you think she’s beyond your league now? She’ll only bring you pain.”
“So you’ve said.” Kieryn retrieved his arm. In the corridor, he saw Laral’s dark head bobbing up the stairwell. He called the squire to him. “Do you know where the Lady Rhoslyn is?”
“Well, she’s not in the Hall,” Laral replied. “She left as soon as the Assembly was let out. Hey, did you hear—?”
“I heard.” He didn’t care to hear again. “Start with her suite. If you find her, ask if she’ll see me. Go!”
Laral fled back down the stairs, dark curls bouncing as pretty as a girl’s. Kieryn started down at a more dignified pace, but a whisper as soft as a mouse’s sigh called him to a halt. Rhoslyn peered out from Kieryn’s own chamber door. Pink-nailed fingers beckoned him.
“Kelyn just told me,” he said, closing the door behind them.
“Oh, why did he choose me?” she groaned, wringing her hands. “Of all possible contenders, why me? Why not Princess Rilyth and her son?”
“Because Drem’s a weakling, everybody knows that.”
She paced, near panic.
Kieryn laid a stilling hand on her shoulder. “My lady, you are intelligent, open-minded, strong-willed. Am I wrong? One day you will govern Evaronna. Why not add a little more territory to it? Aralorr would double your holding, is all.”