by Penelope, L.
Pugeros passed around mimeographed copies of the treasury reports. “The numbers do not lie, gentlemen. The Principality simply cannot afford to continue providing food and care for the refugees. In a few more weeks, we will have run through our reserves entirely.”
Jack reviewed the documents in front of him. “How is there no money?”
Pugeros widened his arms and lowered his head, the motion indicating that he was not to blame for the dire financial straits.
“Then we take out a loan.” Jack turned to Stevenot. “And we work to educate the people on why ejecting political refugees is not only a callous move but is fundamentally un-Elsiran. We would send these women, children, and elders where, exactly? Back into the grip of a madman?”
“They could go to Udland. It is closest to the climate they’re used to. Or perhaps Raun,” Stevenot said.
“Udland is a wasteland of superstitious tribes. They would never allow outsiders entry. And Raun . . .” Jack shook his head. “You would send women and children to a nation of pirates?”
“Your Grace is surely not suggesting that we destroy what’s left of our economy and plunge ourselves further into debt for a handful of savages?”
Jack slammed his hand on the table. “What of our honor?”
“Honor is not about doing what is right in a vacuum of consequences. Honor is doing the hard thing and letting history determine your legacy.” Calladeen’s voice was low and measured. He quoted words Alariq had said many times. Jack wanted to punch the man. “Besides, we have no knowledge that their safety is at risk if they are sent back to their home.”
Jack’s teeth ground together. “Why exactly do you think they risked their lives to leave?”
“I believe Prince Jaqros is right,” Nirall spoke up. “The people are jumping to rash conclusions not borne of fact. Perhaps if His Grace were to give a speech? Take to the radio waves with a formal address and assure our people that we hear their concerns. That may go a long way toward assuaging them.”
Jack considered. The idea of a speech made him antsy, but he had not formally addressed the people since gaining power. Maybe that was just what everyone needed, to be reassured he wasn’t just the reserve prince, though that’s how he felt every day. A strong statement could put things on the right track, acknowledging that though times were hard, Elsirans overcame.
He nodded, filled with gratitude for Nirall. The speech could change their minds. Even as he agreed to the plan, the faces looking back at him were less than convinced. Pugeros shuffled his papers, and Stevenot blinked his round, watery eyes rapidly. Calladeen seethed, glaring at his uncle.
“There is another matter, Your Grace,” Stevenot said, some color returning to his features.
Jack kneaded the bridge of his nose, wary of whatever else the man had on his mind. “What is that?”
“High Commander of the Armed Forces.”
“Is that a question?”
Stevenot swallowed. “The Prince Regent generally does not hold both titles at once.”
“Minister, the eve of war is not a time to change the leadership structure of the military. I’m leaning on my top generals while I deal with things here, but it would be foolish to make a formal switch now. Besides the High General is only months from retiring, someone else must yet be groomed for the position.”
Calladeen leaned forward, propping his chin on steepled fingers. “The option of a choosing a High Commander from outside of the military has been broached.”
The air in the room changed as Jack met Calladeen’s gaze. “And whom do you propose?”
No one spoke for a long moment, but Jack waited them out.
Nirall broke the silence. “Minister Calladeen focused on military science in university and even spent a year abroad observing the Fremian Warriors. He would be a suitable candidate for the interim.”
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Observed and studied, but never fought, is that correct?” No one at the table would now look at him. “You gentlemen honestly believe our country is safer with the military led by an untrained novice who’s never looked a man in the eye in battle and shot him where he stood?” He turned to Calladeen. “Or have you, Minister? Is there some secret life you’ve led of which I’m unaware?”
Calladeen’s jaw tensed. “No,” he gritted out.
“I trained for nine years before taking over the title I was born to. I lived side by side with the men whose lives would be affected by my decisions. I fought next to them in the last breach.” He leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table so hard his knuckles cracked. “I have bathed in the blood of the men who gave their lives for this land, and I will not allow you to disrespect their memories with your ignorance or incompetence.”
Outrage had his blood moving faster. He stood suddenly, the heavy wooden chair in which he sat screaming as it slid across the floor. “Is there anything else?”
Downcast eyes met him from every seat at the table. He stormed from the room, rubbing his chest where his wound had suddenly began to ache.
Or maybe that was just his heart.
In the distance, the clouds have not yet begun to form, but I feel them coming. A raw wind races across the mountain ridge, but I want to feel it so I do nothing to block its bite. The sensation of the air whipping against my skin grounds me.
Above my head, Eero turns circles in the air. I briefly wonder who taught him the trick, but no one needed to. He has been a quick study. He swoops before me, hovering just out of reach. I grab for him anyway, knowing it will make him smile, and he races away.
“You will burn yourself out,” I call up to him, making sure my voice carries as his form becomes smaller and smaller. Within minutes, I sense him weakening. He has just enough Song left to land gracefully by my side, laughing, his face full of joy.
“A little more please,” he says, holding out his hand.
“More? So you can waste it flying through the air like a deranged bird? There is a reason you do not see any other Songbearers tearing through the skies disturbing the clouds.”
He snorts. “Because you are stodgy curmudgeons with no sense of adventure.”
I roll my eyes. “No, because we respect the energy and do not squander it on frivolity. If you needed to fly to escape danger or forestall some terrible event, that would be one thing.”
His resonant chuckle echoes off the mountain peaks behind us. “If you give me a little more, I will endeavor to seek out some poor soul in peril and give aid straightaway.”
I turn away from him and cross my arms.
“My dearest, most beautiful and talented sister.” He leans into me and makes his most pitiful face to engage my sympathy.
“Your only sister.”
“Yes, and a more wonderful sister there could never be. I promise not to squander it. I shall give the Song the respect it deserves. Please?”
I want to hold my ground against him. But in the weeks since Yllis discovered the spell that allows gifting a portion of a Song from one to another, Eero has been happier than I have seen him since the loss of our parents. Perhaps happier than I have ever seen him.
We thought it best not to make the spell widely known, and so we are all sworn to secrecy. Eero and I come up into the mountains above town to let him practice so as not to be spotted. When I gift it to him, I give him just a little, but he has been using it up faster and faster, asking for more and more. Some part of me advises caution—having been born Silent, there is no telling how the power will affect him—but it brings him such joy.
With a sigh, I turn back to him and hold out my hands. The power is always there, humming inside me, a leashed beast waiting for release. I set a trickle free and sing it into my twin, deep into the core of him where it would last him quite a while if he didn’t waste it.
“No more until tomorrow,” I admonish. His eyes shine as he nods his understanding.
With a flick of his wrist, he pulls the moisture from the air until it forms a tiny dense cloud hovering
above his palm.
“What are you going to do with that?” I ask, holding back a laugh.
His grin is mischievous, and he winks at me. “Just a bit thirsty is all.” He opens his mouth and the little cloud becomes a stream of water that arcs, landing on his tongue.
I shake my head and turn back toward the ocean. “The storm will be here in a few hours,” I say. “We had better head back down.”
He squints into the distance unable to see what I see. “You cannot stop it?”
I shrug. “If we stopped every storm, nothing would ever grow.” A greater unease pushes at me, but I brush it away. One storm at a time is all I can deal with.
Jasminda opened her eyes and sat up from where she’d sagged into the bench on the balcony of her room. The view of the ocean was beautiful, almost exactly the same as the one she’d seen in her vision. But the city of the vision had been only one-tenth its current size. Rows of small, wooden structures lining dirt roads stood where the clusters of magnificent stucco buildings with red-tiled roofs were today. She’d seen the Rosira of another time, a past where Earthsingers were called Songbearers and were vastly more powerful than they were now.
She knew without a doubt that if Oola had needed to cross a mountain during a snowstorm, she could have easily stopped the snowfall to do so safely. Or even flown across, if needed. Little Osar who had saved them from the avalanche was one of the most powerful Singers any of the Keepers had seen, except for perhaps Darvyn, and even the boy could not control the weather.
The glimpses she saw of the past made her long even more for that faraway time when life seemed calmer and easier.
“Miss?” Nadal called from inside.
“Out here,” she replied, wrapping up the caldera and placing it in her dress pocket.
“Would you like lunch on the balcony, miss?” the maid said, already searching for a place to set down her tray.
“No, I’ll eat inside. And can you arrange for a driver for this afternoon? I need to make another trip to the refugee camp.”
“Certainly.” Nadal nodded and breezed back through the door.
Jasminda tried to mesh the Rosira of her vision with the one that lay out before her. When had everything gone wrong? Why had the city and the country transformed into a place that feared magic and hated anyone who could perform it?
A foreboding cadence tapped out a rhythm in her head. It matched the gentle vibration of the caldera pulsing at her side.
Somber men in dark suits with even darker expressions lined the streets. A few women were scattered among the group, as well, many waving hand-painted picket signs with slogans like Wages not Witchcraft!and Feed the people not the refugees!
Jack’s motorcade wound its way back to the palace from the radio station. The speech he’d recorded would play tonight, but he’d lost any hope that it would make a difference. He did not begrudge the people their anger, if only they would focus it in the right direction. They wanted him to do something, but what did they expect? For him to pull food from the parched ground? Produce ships from thin air? Had they forgotten he was not an Earthsinger? They needed someone to blame for the misfortunes of late, and the Lagrimari refugees were simply convenient.
A smaller group of refugee supporters stood closer to the palace and lifted his spirits somewhat. Not everyone in his land was so callous. Then a woman with a sign reading Why Now? rapped on the window as the limo slowed for a sharp turn. Yes, why now? Why him?
When he reached the palace, he headed straight for his office, each step heavy. Perhaps he could take an unscheduled break and sneak off to see Jasminda. The thought brightened him. However, Nirall was waiting for him outside his office door, banishing all fantasies of sneaking away. The man’s normally jovial face was grim. Jack forced out a warm greeting and led him inside where Usher was tidying up.
“You’ve seen today’s paper, Your Grace?” Nirall asked.
That very paper was now in Usher’s grip. Jack suspected the valet of trying to remove it before Jack saw it. He held out his hand; Usher frowned before relinquishing it.
The front-page article featured an interview with an eyewitness to the massacre at Baalingrove who told how Jack had threatened one of his own men with a pistol in order to save the lives of a group of murderous settlers. The term “grol sympathizer” was used by the anonymous interviewee. Jack seethed. The settlers hadn’t done anything to deserve the farmers’ attack. He needed to call Benn to find out how the inquiry into the massacre was progressing. He’d heard little about it during his week in Rosira, though it hadn’t been far from his mind.
“What passes for journalism these days is offensive,” he said, tossing the paper to the ground. Usher picked it up.
Nirall shook his graying head. “I have no doubt this was just a soldier with an axe to grind, Your Grace, but this refugee business has the people on edge.”
“And they blame me? For seeking to punish those who would murder innocent men? For failing to turn away these threadbare women and children? Is that what the people are saying?”
“Your Grace, the people simply want to know that their Prince Regent and their Council hear their voices and have their best interests at heart. They’re afraid helping the refugees is taking away vital resources from our own people.”
“And the rest of the Council has their interests at heart?” Jack shook his head. “If we could get more of them to see reason . . .”
Jack closed his eyes, wearied of the task in front of him. Whenever he dropped his lids he saw Jasminda’s face smiling back at him and the thought soothed him. The cares of the world disappeared every evening in her arms, but he would have to wait. With his plans of seeing her early now thwarted, he longed for nightfall and the comfort of her touch.
“What do you think Alariq would have done?”
Nirall exhaled slowly. “He would have examined all sides of the issue very carefully. Measured them twice to cut once.”
A hint of a smile cracked Jack’s bleak face. “He would have measured them no less than four times. That’s why he was a good prince.”
Nirall leaned in, resting his elbows on his knees. Round spectacles and a gray-streaked goatee in need of trimming gave him a professorial air. “Alariq was also very good at deflecting.”
“How do you mean?”
“Sometimes, when people are up in arms about something, they need their attention to be redirected elsewhere.”
Jack frowned. “What could redirect them?”
Licks of fire reflected in the man’s spectacles, setting his eyes aglow. “The people have been displeased over the shortages for some time, but the royal wedding was going to be the perfect distraction. The right mix of glamour and austerity, of course, but an event to capture the public’s imagination all the same.”
With a sigh, Jack slumped further in his chair. “I’m sure that would have done the trick. It’s too bad they could not have wed. I hope Lizvette’s spirits are not too low.”
“She’s quite well. And she would still make a very fine princess.” Nirall’s gaze held Jack in its grip.
He was dumbstruck. Several moments passed before he could respond. “You can’t be suggesting . . .”
Nirall reached for Jack’s arm. “Our two families are still a good match. A strong princess will go a long way to improve your public perception. A wedding, an heir, it would be—”
“That is ludicrous!” Jack stood. “Lizvette loved my brother. How could I . . . It would be extraordinarily inappropriate, not to mention in very poor taste. I’m not sure how you could even think such a thing?”
Nirall stood and bowed his head. “I did not mean to offend you, Your Grace. I was simply trying to offer a potential solution.”
Jack backed away. “The title Minister of Innovation fits you too well. But this is outlandish. I could never do such a thing to the memory of my brother, nor to Lizvette.”
“You could honor him by maintaining his legacy. He chose my daughter for a reason
, and you and she have always been friends. I do not believe the idea would be as unappealing to her as you think.”
Jack held up a hand. “Please stop. I do not want to hear any more of this. I cannot.”
“Forgive me, Your Grace. I won’t speak of it again.” Nirall bowed formally and took his leave.
Usher shut the door and came to stand by Jack’s side.
“Has everyone gone mad, Usher?” When he did not respond, Jack looked over. “What? You can’t think that lunacy makes sense?”
“Alariq was popular with the people. He had the luxury of waiting to marry. An unpopular man is aided by a well-loved wife.”
“Don’t spit platitudes at me, old man. How could she be well loved, jumping from one brother to the next?”
“Your grandmother did the very same thing to much regard when her first husband died. The people like continuity.”
“The people are idiots.”
Usher set a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m sure the feeling is mutual.”
Jack scowled and shrugged off the contact. “I do not love her.”
“Many things will be required of you in your new position, young sir. Unfortunately, falling in love is not one of them.”
Jack’s gaze fell upon the newspaper. He stormed over to the bureau, snatched up the offending sheets, and threw them into the fire.
That afternoon a different driver met Jasminda at the outer doors of the palace. He looked to be in his early thirties and greeted her with an affable smile. As she settled in her seat, instead of the stony silence she’d received from the first driver, this one asked about her day and commented on the probability of rain.
“What’s your name?” she asked, leaning forward in her seat. In the rearview mirror she noticed his eyes were a sparkling shade of green. She’d never seen eyes that color.
“I’m Nash, miss. Pleasure to meet you.”
“Have you lived in Rosira all your life?”
He chuckled. “Oh no, miss. I’m Fremian. I’ve been here . . . going on three years now. I reached master level in the Hospitality Guild, and when I passed my Level Ones—that’s the exam—I had my pick of positions. Most go to Yaly, but I’ve always liked living by the sea. I started in the resorts up north and let me tell you . . .”