Ally of the Crown

by Melissa McShane

  “Fiona, you have to go inside. Fiona. Stay with me.” Sebastian once more picked her up, making her head throb painfully enough that she almost heaved again.

  The next moments were a blur: moving from the peaceful darkness of midnight to the brightly lit entrance hall that burned her eyes and sent pain shooting through her head, jogging up the stairs in Sebastian’s arms and convulsing with dry heaves halfway up, lying on her bed that was so much more comfortable than the carriage bench she didn’t know why she’d ever protested leaving it. Someone removed her sandals and the North blue robe. Her head and stomach were fighting it out for which hurt more, and her body ached as if she had influenza—but it had come on rather suddenly for influenza, so it couldn’t be that.

  Sebastian was having a low-voiced conversation with someone in the doorway. Fiona couldn’t open her eyes to see who the other person was. The twisting ache in her stomach rose, telling her dry heaves were imminent. “Have to…immediately…poison,” Sebastian was saying.

  Fiona’s eyelids twitched. “Poison?” she croaked. She rolled to one side and vomited again, this time bringing up nothing. The convulsions wrung her out, and when they were done, she clung to the edge of her bed, too weak to roll onto her back.

  She heard someone approach the bed, and then Sebastian’s hands supported her back onto it. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “The ambassador has sent for a healer. You’ll be fine.”

  “Gizane,” Fiona gasped.

  “Yes, with that damned ring,” Sebastian said. “I don’t know—” He went silent, then said, “You just have to endure a little while longer.”

  “You don’t know if this poison is fatal,” Fiona said. Her throat felt scratchy, like she’d had a coughing fit. “Sebastian—”

  “It doesn’t matter. I won’t let you die,” he said.

  He stood, and Fiona fumbled for his hand and held onto it, squeezing tightly. “Stay. Please.”

  She heard him kneel next to her, and he put his other hand over their joined ones. “I won’t leave you.”

  Fiona swiped tears away with her free hand as her stomach once more tried to turn itself inside out. If she was dying… She whispered, “Someone turn out the lights. They hurt.”

  “Georgette,” Sebastian said.

  A moment later, the lights dimmed and then went out. Fiona tried once more to open her eyes and discovered she could. Sebastian knelt on the floor beside her bed, his head bowed. She reached with her free hand to touch his shoulder, but her arm shook too much, and she had to let it fall. Sebastian shifted, looked up. She could barely make out his features. Her head felt as if it might split open at any moment. She wiped away more tears of pain. She was dying, and Sebastian would never know how she felt about him.

  “Sebastian,” she whispered, “I…”

  Sebastian leaned closer. “I can’t hear you.” His warm breath stirred the hair hanging over her forehead. “You probably shouldn’t try to speak.”

  Fiona closed her eyes again. “I wanted…to ask…Sebastian, I…”

  The lights went on, causing Fiona to cry out weakly in pain. “Excuse me, pardon me, I need you to move, young man,” a querulous male voice said. Sebastian released her hand and stood, stepping back from the bed to make way for someone who moved ponderously, like a mountain or a boulder dislodged from a rocky peak.

  A dry, rough hand took hers and turned it over, examining the palm. “Clever poison,” the man said, his voice slightly less querulous and more dispassionate. “This will take time.”

  “But she’ll live?” Sebastian asked.

  “I can’t promise that. But I will do everything I can to make it happen. Now, all of you, out. Yes, even the husband. And I’ll need food in about two hours—food for me, healing takes it out of you. Shoo.”

  Fiona wished she could ask for Sebastian to stay, but her lips felt numb and pain shot through her head whenever she moved it even a little. She heard a high, keening sound coming from nearby, and realized she was the one making it just as the healer said, “You won’t remember most of this. Sleep, now, and I’ll wake you shortly.”

  Her eyelids felt suddenly leaden, and she knew nothing more.

  36

  Gray mist surrounded her, bulging and roiling like a laundress’s pot. Shapes loomed in the distance, drawing near only to dissolve before they were identifiable. Fiona took one step, then another, her feet in their silver sandals making no noise on the floor shrouded in mist. It could be wood, or stone, or tile, but it felt like all of those and none of them.

  “Fiona,” a soft voice said. Mother. Fiona spun around and saw what might have been her mother’s slim form, disappearing into the fog. She ran after her, her feet clinging to the unseen floor as if it were an inch deep in molasses, but it was too late; her mother, if that’s who it was, had disappeared.

  She heard more voices now, all of them calling her name: her mother, her father, her aunt and uncle, others she barely remembered and some she didn’t recognize at all. Roderick’s voice rang out, briefly, above the rest: “You’re lost, Fiona. You’ll never find the way out.”

  His familiar, mocking words brought her to a halt. “Shut up,” she cried. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore, you bastard!”

  Her voice echoed in the sudden silence. The voices were gone. She turned in a slow circle, straining to see anything. There was only the mist, and the clinging floor. When she looked down at herself, she saw the mist drifting around her, obscuring her clothing so she seemed to be wearing nothing but fog. It was cold, and clammy, and she shivered, and then couldn’t stop shivering. She wrapped her arms around herself and took a few hesitant steps. She had no idea where to go—no idea whether there was a place to go—but she couldn’t bear to stand still and do nothing.

  Another voice echoed through the gray mists. It was a man’s voice, a querulous, elderly-sounding voice, and she couldn’t understand his words. She stopped moving and strained to hear, feeling certain the unseen speaker was the key to her salvation. Again the man spoke, and again she couldn’t make out what he said. “Please!” she shouted. “Where are you? Where am I?”

  Silence.

  Fiona shook from cold and fear. Clutching herself for whatever scant warmth that might provide, she once more shouted, “Where am I?”

  “The embassy,” the old man said.

  Fiona was so startled at understanding him that she blinked, opened eyes she hadn’t realized were closed, and drew in a deep breath of warm air. She lay in her own bed in the embassy, with the canopy draped high above. The room was dim, the lamps unlit, and wan sunlight came through the drawn curtains.

  Beside her, an elderly man stood, his skin dark as ebony and his hair stark white. He looked Veriboldan, but when he spoke, his accent was pure northwestern Tremontanese. “You were hallucinating. It’s a side effect of the healing.”

  “Am I…healed? No more poison?”

  “No more poison,” the healer agreed. He took her hand in his dry, rough one and felt her pulse. “It was a close thing. If his Highness hadn’t realized you weren’t just ill, it might have been too late.”

  Fiona shivered again, though she wasn’t cold any longer. “Then I was lucky.”

  “Extremely. That’s not a poison I’ve seen often. Somebody wanted you painfully dead, Lady North.”

  Gizane. Fiona tried to sit up and the old man restrained her easily. “You need to rest. Your nervous and digestive systems were severely damaged, and you nearly lost your eyesight. More strain on those systems could cause permanent damage. Just lie still. I’ll leave instructions for your care with your lady’s maid. Twenty-four hours bed rest in a darkened room, with soft foods, and then limited exertion for a week.”

  “What day is it?”

  “I arrived at nearly midnight, and it’s afternoon now. The healing took about sixteen hours.” The old man patted her shoulder. “You survived, Lady North, and there’s no reason that should change. I’m going to speak to your husband now, an
d to the ambassador. Make sure you eat. You won’t want to for a while, but you need nourishment.” He smiled and left the room.

  Fiona drew in another deep breath and let it out, slowly. She didn’t hurt anymore, didn’t feel hungry—didn’t feel much of anything except so relaxed the idea of moving felt like too much work. Gizane had tried to kill her. That ought to be enough to get her disqualified as a candidate, maybe tried for attempted murder. Fiona wasn’t sure that was worth nearly dying for. She tried to stretch, but again found herself too relaxed to move. It didn’t matter. She was alive, and she’d never felt so at peace.

  The door opened. “Fiona,” Sebastian said. He crossed the room to sit on the bed next to her and take her hand. “Fiona, I thought—I swear I will kill Gizane.”

  “Can’t we let the Veriboldan government do that?” His hand was warm and firm and she clung to it like an anchor. He looked terrible, like he hadn’t slept, and he was still wearing his formal robe from the night before.

  Sebastian’s lips compressed in a tight line. “We have no recourse,” he said. “It’s our word against hers, and a candidate for Election is practically unassailable, particularly when her accuser is a foreigner. She’ll have gotten rid of the ring, and with you healed, there’s no evidence of poison. Even the testimony of Mister Keswick—the healer—won’t mean anything in a Veriboldan court of law. You probably know better than I do how it would fall out.”

  Fiona closed her eyes briefly. It was true, Veriboldan law was prejudiced against foreigners. She might not know much about the Election, but she could guess it would be doubly so when it came to protecting their candidates. “Then we have to get her some other way.”

  “I think it’s time for planting the Stones and arranging for her to be found with them.”

  Fiona shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not? You can’t possibly care anymore if it gets her killed. Fiona, she nearly succeeded in taking your life!”

  “It’s not that. Think of everything that has to go right to make that successful. If we plant the Stones in her quarters, for example, and she finds them first—we’d be back where we started, with her in possession of them and capable of doing heaven knows what.”

  Sebastian swore under his breath. “I hadn’t considered that.”

  “What did Holt learn?”

  “What did—oh. I’d almost forgotten.” He frowned. “Holt was in and out without being seen, no problem. But he didn’t find anything we could use against Gizane. If we wanted to put the Stones securely in her quarters, we could do that.”

  “Except it’s a bad idea.”

  “Except that.” Sebastian put his other hand over their joined ones. “Fiona—”

  “Yes?” Fiona said when he didn’t immediately complete that sentence.

  “It’s nothing I haven’t said before. I love you. I’ve never felt so helpless as I have these last few hours, waiting to learn if you would live. Please…” He let his words die away, bowing his head as if he was watching them go.

  Fiona’s heart beat hard enough that she could hear it. Almost she told him yes. She had survived nearly dying, and what were her objections beside that? But nothing’s changed, she thought.

  “Sebastian,” she said, and waited for him to look at her. “Sebastian, I love you. If I could, I would spend the rest of my life with you.” She couldn’t bear the joyful expression that crept over his face, and hurried on. “But you haven’t been listening. All of this, us being together—it’s all one-sided. You don’t lose a thing. You don’t have to sacrifice. You’re asking me to change who I am and become someone I don’t want to be so you can have what you want. And it’s not fair to me.”

  Sebastian’s face went very still. She clasped his hand more tightly and said, “What if everything were different? What if you were the one who had to change? Would you be willing to leave your family for my sake?”

  His mouth fell open slightly in astonishment. “I,” he began, then fell silent. Fiona waited. Sebastian turned his head away. “I can’t,” he said. “Even with everything that’s happened, I’m still a North. I can’t give that up.”

  Fiona blinked away tears. She’d hoped, for the briefest moment, that he might…but no. “You see why it’s impossible,” she said.

  “I guess I do,” Sebastian said. “I apologize for trying so hard to change your mind. You’re right, I wasn’t fair to you. I just—” He shut his mouth again.

  “Love is like that,” Fiona said. “But it’s not enough to build a life on.”

  “I wish to heaven you were wrong,” Sebastian said. He let go of her hand and stood. “Mister Keswick said you needed rest. I’ll make your excuses tonight.”

  The challenge of cunning. Fiona had forgotten about it. “I’ll be sorry to miss it. It’s supposed to be an exciting game.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.” Sebastian turned to go, then said, “You won’t hold it against me, will you?”

  “Hold what against you?”

  He had his back to her, his hand on the doorknob. “That I’ll never stop loving you,” he said.

  She couldn’t hold the tears back. “Sebastian—”

  “Sorry. Try to get some rest. Georgette will bring you food in a little while.” He left the room, softly closing the door behind him. Fiona managed to roll onto her side, clutched her pillow to her face, and wept.

  Bed rest turned out to be more difficult than Fiona had imagined. She took the healer’s warning seriously, forcing herself to eat the bland gruel Georgette brought her every couple of hours, and didn’t leave her bed except to relieve herself. Except for a continued light sensitivity and unexpected occasional tremors, she didn’t feel ill. The lassitude passed, leaving her restless and wishing she could be up. She ate, read a few lines before realizing it might hurt her eyes, ate another small meal, and fell asleep before Sebastian returned. When she woke, it was morning, and she was finally hungry.

  She finally saw Sebastian mid-morning, when he instead of Georgette brought her the familiar platter. Not so familiar, she discovered; instead of gruel, there were a couple of poached eggs on toast with a light sauce. She sat up eagerly, making him laugh.

  “Georgette said you were getting sick of porridge,” he said. He settled the tray over her lap and handed her a knife and fork. “I didn’t want to wake you last night, especially since the news isn’t good.”

  Suddenly the eggs lost their appeal. “What happened at the challenge of cunning?”

  Sebastian grimaced. “Gizane won. Not just won, she trounced her competition. And the awful thing is I’m sure she didn’t cheat. She was just that good at the game.”

  Fiona made herself take a bite of her breakfast. It was delicious, and some of her hunger returned. “But she failed miserably at the challenge of wisdom. That has to matter, right?”

  “I have no idea.” Sebastian leaned against one of the columns holding up the canopy. “We have to hope she loses the challenge of charisma, because I can’t imagine she can succeed if she loses two challenges.”

  “The voting is tonight, yes?”

  “It is. And you’re not going.”

  “But I’m well!”

  Sebastian’s dark eyes fixed on hers. “We are not taking any chances with your health. Mister Keswick said limited exertion, and I want you well enough to be there for the final challenge. If you overexert yourself tonight…Fiona, what the hell are we supposed to do?”

  She didn’t ask what he meant. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about how to return the Stones and I haven’t come up with a solution.” That wasn’t entirely true. She’d come up with part of a plan that morning. It just wasn’t a plan Sebastian would like.

  “I think Holt can sneak into the Temple. He can leave the Stones somewhere inside where they’ll be found.”

  “Sebastian, Holt is good, but he’s not that good.”

  Sebastian grimaced. “I know. But I’m grasping at anythin
g now.”

  “We have until tomorrow morning to figure it out.” Fiona finished off her eggs. Her stomach felt content for the first time since she’d been poisoned, not at all as if it wanted to empty itself out. “Maybe…we should look at this from a different angle. Maybe we need to enlist heaven’s help.”

  “You mean pray? I don’t know if heaven ever feels obligated to answer prayers from people who got themselves into trouble.”

  “We didn’t mean any harm. And…” She felt uncomfortable telling him what she and Hien had discussed. It felt personal, and private, and while she knew Sebastian wouldn’t make light of the conversation, it still felt as if sharing it would make it tawdry.

  “And what?”

  “I just think we acted in innocence, and maybe heaven cares about that.”

  Sebastian sighed and stood, taking the tray from her. “Maybe. I guess I don’t have that kind of faith.”

  “I’m not sure I do either. Will you come to me as soon as the challenge tonight is over? Even if you have to wake me?”

  Sebastian eased the door open. “I should let you sleep, but I don’t think I could bear the news alone. All right. Now, promise me you won’t get up no matter how bored you get.”

  “I promise.”

  As soon as he’d left, Fiona slipped out of bed and crossed the room on trembling feet. She collected the little velvet bag from where she’d hid it deep inside the armchair and collapsed back into bed. As soon as the shakes passed, she smoothed out the counterpane and emptied the contents of the bag across it. The Jaoine Stones gleamed dully, their colored runes all faded to gray in the low light. Fiona stirred the Stones with her fingertip. They clacked against each other pleasantly.

  One by one, she turned them to lie flat on the bedspread so none of them touched. She counted them: forty-nine little round ceramic chips. As far as she could tell, each rune was unique. In the dimness, she couldn’t distinguish the colors, but she remembered red, green, orange, and purple when she’d first looked at them. She didn’t know how many there were of each color, but it couldn’t be an equal number if there were forty-nine stones in total. They looked like game tokens, really, not anything mystical.