by Penelope, L.
This illusion of peace would be short-lived.
The True Father would destroy the Mantle—if not tomorrow, then next month or next year. And what then? Being right would not save his people.
The knots in the wood of the table kept their silence, though they stared back at him in accusation. He did not blame them.
War.
Silent versus Songbearer.
Blood in the streets.
Silent outnumber Songbearers more than ten to one, and while Eero has not turned them all against us, he has managed to bring many more than I ever imagined over to his side.
I always thought he was able to wrap me around his finger because of my weakness for him, my love. But it is a talent of his. He is charming. When he talks, people listen. They believe and trust him. They follow him, taking up arms against their neighbors, rending our land in two.
Our Songs make us a fearsome foe, though Earthsong cannot be used to kill. Besides, none who have felt the energy of a million lives strumming in his or her veins can rejoice in sending any living creature to the World After.
Early on, we healed any Silent harmed in an attack. The Assembly believed this would bring them to our side. But it did not. I cannot understand if the Silent are jealous of our Songs or fearful of them. The truth likely lies in a combination of the two.
Swords clash. The Silent fight through the rain and ice, the mudslides and fire. They are pelted with rocks, tumbled with earthquakes, but they persist.
It is within the power of the Songbearers to entirely unmake the land from the fabric of its being, in the same way that our grandparents did the reverse, creating a beautiful landscape where once a desert stood. But we think of the future—a future of peace.
Eero knows my weaknesses. He knows me too well. I should never have been made Queen to lead the fight against him. I am the last person that should have been chosen.
Yllis studies with the Cantors day and night. His guilt is an anchor around his neck. It pulls him away from me. I have not allowed him to answer for his part in the scheme to help Eero sing. And I have not agreed to marry him. How could I with things the way they are? I thought I was protecting him by accepting all the blame, but that and my repeated refusals of his offers have changed things between us.
The hurt in his eyes when he looks upon me cuts deep. So deep I do not believe I have a heart any longer. My heart was never my own. It belonged more to the ones I loved than to me.
War.
It drags us under.
It tears us apart.
Jack padded into Jasminda’s chamber well after midnight, glad to find her still awake. She sat by the fire, staring into the dancing flames. She startled as he drew near, before recognizing him, then her face transformed with joy.
“I’m sorry it’s so late,” he said, transferring her to his lap as he took her place on the chair. He rubbed circles into her back, noting the tightness in her muscles.
“It’s all right.” She collapsed against him. He exhaled the breath he’d been holding all day. His body relaxed, at home with her in his arms.
“How did it go?” Her voice was so small he strained to hear. “They voted to send them back, didn’t they?”
A great hollow space opened in his chest. He could not bear to affirm it aloud.
“What will happen to me?” Her voice was empty as an echo.
He shifted her on his lap so he could peer into her eyes. Misery suffused the beauty of her face. “Jasminda—”
“Half-breed. Mongrel. That’s what the papers say, right? I cannot stay here. And didn’t the True Father’s letter say every Lagrimari must be sent back?”
Jack’s lungs compressed as if he was at the peak of a mountain sucking in air too thin to quench his need. “You are not Lagrimari.”
“Am I not?” Her eyes were almost wild. “I may have been born in your land, share half your blood, but I’m not one of you. I’m not one of them, either. I don’t belong anywhere, Jack.”
“No,” he said, voice steely. “No, you belong with me.” He held her tighter, his chest vibrating with the racing of her heart.
“For how long? How long until you must find an acceptable princess? One that you need in order to regain the peoples’ trust? We were only ever going to be temporary.”
He crushed her to him and stroked her soft, springy hair. “Are you saying you want to leave?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“But I cannot stay.”
He shook his head rapidly, desperate to shake some solution into his brain. “If being prince is good for anything, then I should get to be with the woman I love.” He pulled away and clutched her hands to his chest. “Do you hear me? I love you.”
Saying it out loud took the edge off the panic building at the thought of her leaving. “You are strong and intelligent and fearless and beautiful. I had never even hoped a woman like you existed. I love you, Jasminda.”
Tears traced her face. “I love you, too. You must know that. You are my whole heart, Jaqros Alliaseen. My whole heart. I never thought I would—”
She looked away, and he wiped her streaming cheeks.
“You are a good man, a good prince.” She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him lightly. “You must be strong for your people.”
Sad eyes surveyed him, and though the exhilaration of her declarations of love thrummed in his veins, a warning bell rang deep in his heart.
She kissed him again, so gently it made him anxious. He did not deserve such tenderness. He deepened the kiss, grabbing hold of her waist and stroking her side. The tightness she’d held melted away as her arms came around his neck.
Jack lifted her and carried her to the bed. She kneeled on the mattress as he stood devouring her mouth with needy kisses. She slid her palms down his chest and began working on the buttons of his shirt. Her expertise at removing men’s clothing had grown, and she had the shirt hanging open and trousers pushed to his knees in record time.
As he was undoing the ties of her dress and sliding it over her head, a blade of awareness sliced into him. Jasminda was soft and pliable, her body receptive to his touch, but something was different. There was a distance present between them that had never been there before, even as she discarded her slip with a seductive smile and lay back, inviting him between her thighs.
Vowing to make this night, this lovemaking, more memorable than any other, he set upon her with a fervor, licking and stroking his way up her legs. He reached her core and lapped at her, stroking her entrance teasingly with his finger. She panted and cried out his name, begging for more, but he continued the foreplay, holding off giving her what she wanted. He brought her to the brink of climax, then eased her back down, ignoring her protests.
Satisfied when her limbs shook with need, he kissed his way up her belly. One hand glided to her breast, and with the other he plunged two fingers into her center, causing her to buck, her back arching as moans of pleasure escaped her. She was more than ready. All it took was a thumb flicked across the right spot and she went over, cresting the wave.
When her cries gentled, they kissed and she guided his erection into her. The indefinable sensation of sinking deep inside her was so much more than lust. The gentle rhythm of their lovemaking sped up to a pounding beat as he fought to chase away the nagging worry, guilt, and fear. She loved him. She would stand by him in this dark time.
He drove into her, spurred on by her nails digging into his buttocks and her mewls of pleasure. Losing himself in her skin, her scent, her cries, he could almost outrun the gloom of what was to come.
Afterward, she lay in his arms stroking his skin, not seeming to mind the sweat and stickiness after so much exertion. He held her tightly against him, as tight as he dared without crushing her. For even though she had been right with him the entire evening, a voice in the back of his head told him she was slipping away.
Jasminda awoke alone. It was just as well. She would rather remember Jack as he was las
t night, holding her close, whispering how much he loved her. She had already said good-bye to him with her body. His words of love would strengthen her in the days and nights to come, through whatever the future brought.
She scoured her wardrobe until she found her own dress, the one she was wearing when she had arrived. It had been washed and pressed and was the only thing she truly owned here. She grabbed the serrated knife she’d managed to nick from her dinner tray and strapped it to her thigh using one of the garters supplied with the palace clothing. After stroking the fine fabrics one last time, she snuffed out the fledgling hope they could ever truly be hers. The dream of a life surrounded by beautiful things and beautiful people who loved and accepted her was a fantasy that would never come true. The impossibilities only strengthened her resolve to leave, no matter the fractures and fissures forming on her heart.
Jasminda would never be a princess. There was a residue of dirt under her fingernails that could never be scrubbed away. Lizvette, on the other hand, was born for it. She hoped one day Jack would come to realize that.
She pulled on her sturdy coat, buckled her boots, and took a final look around—the tapestries, the plush carpeting, the enormous bathroom, the soaking tub. Part of her wished she’d never come here at all. It was impossible to miss what you did not know. But she could not wish for a life without having met Jack, no matter the consequences.
The palace hallways were quiet. She made her way to the office nearest the vehicle depot and asked for Nash. Within a few minutes he appeared, a newspaper tucked under his arm. With a nervous glance to the paper, she wondered what today’s story was. Expecting accusation from him, she was surprised to find Nash’s green eyes twinkling at her, a warm smile on his face.
“Back to the camp again today, miss?” he said, tossing the paper in the wastebasket.
“No, I . . . I just need to get away from here.” She looked around and the sad truth descended on her. “I just don’t have anywhere to go.” She blinked, thinking hard. Could she try her grandmother’s house again and expect any less chilly of a reception? Unlikely. Vanesse had mentioned some secret place where people were discreet, but Jasminda didn’t know the location. She just needed a quiet spot to continue her work with the caldera until it revealed whatever additional secrets it possessed.
“Can we just . . . drive for a little while? Away?”
Nash’s face softened. “Of course.”
He opened the door leading outside and ushered her through. She matched his long stride down a row featuring an impressive array of vehicles to the town car he’d driven before. Just as he opened the rear door, rapid approaching footsteps caused her to turn.
Four Royal Guardsmen marched up, stiff and imposing.
“Miss,” one of the Guardsmen said as she backed toward the auto. “I need you to come with us.”
She had never before been summoned by the Royal Guard. Usher had brought messages from Jack, but he’d never sent anyone else. She cast a glance at Nash, whose brow was furrowed, before turning and following the Guardsmen back into the palace.
They descended a staircase, then followed a hall leading to another staircase. She wondered if Jack was visiting the chamber of the Queen Who Sleeps again, though this did not appear to be the route she’d taken before.
At the end of a sparse hallway, a fifth Royal Guardsman stood before an elaborate brass gate that he unlocked as they approached, then ushered them through. Jasminda froze when the iron bars of the dungeon cells came into view.
“What is this about?” she asked, whirling around.
The door to a cell hung open, and the Guardsmen all stopped walking, blocking every direction except into the cell.
“I’m being arrested?” Her gaze darted around the small space, sparse but clean. “By whose order?”
The young, bland Guardsman did not look at her as he spoke. “Miss, by order of Prince Jaqros you are remanded here for your own protection.”
“My protection? From what?”
“Please, miss,” he said, pointing to the cell.
“Why am I here? Why won’t you tell me?”
“Miss Jasminda,” a familiar voice said. Usher stepped out from behind the row of Guardsmen. “I assure you, this was not his first choice.”
“This is how he plans to stop me from leaving?” she whispered, shaking her head. “Treating me like a criminal?”
Usher’s voice was low. “There has been a threat made against you. And he doesn’t know who to trust. He’s trying to protect you.”
She shivered. Lizvette had hinted as much the night before, but an actual threat turned her blood cold. “Then perhaps I would be safer elsewhere. He should just let me go.”
With no other options, she stepped inside the cell and shuddered as the door clanked shut behind her.
“He is not strong enough to do that.” Usher stepped to the bars and slipped a thick, warm blanket through a gap. Jasminda accepted it, lay down on the thin cot, and cried.
That is impossible, Vaaryn says through his Song.
Then how would you explain it? replies Deela. Yllis’s mother, Vaaryn, and I sit in the Great Hall of the Citadel. There are still loyal Silent working as servants here, but there are no doubt also spies for the other side, as well. No important conversation is held out loud any longer.
No Songbearer would gift Eero their Song. There are only two who even know the spell. Deela looks at me, and I shrink a bit more inside.
So you believe he has learned to steal Song from a bearer? Vaaryn’s forehead wrinkles in disbelief. That would be . . .
A disaster, I finish. But it must be true. Eero is singing again. Through the window, the battle for the skies is clear. Only hours ago, the placid, clear day was interrupted by sudden, unnatural clouds. Songbearers on the front lines had to fend off tornadoes, hurricanes, snow, and ice all afternoon.
Who has he stolen from? Deela says.
I shake my head. We are still accounting for all of the Songbearers in the city.
Will all the Silent want Songs now? Vaaryn wonders.
I frown, considering. I do not think he will want to share. My brother was never generous.
How do they still follow him? Do they not find him a hypocrite? Especially when his demands are for a separate land for the Silent. Deela’s face is so like Yllis’s, even moreso when working out a difficult problem. He has split us apart and wants to make it official, by creating a land just for them, yet he steals the Song of a Songbearer.
His gift is winning the hearts and minds of others, I say. Logic is not always required for that. And as for his demands, perhaps we should give him what he wants.
Vaaryn’s rheumy eyes go wide.
Hear me out. If we take the abandoned land east of the mountains, we could reform it and rebuild, just as our grandparents did this land, I say. We could leave the west to the Silent and rebuild to the east.
I let them mull over my suggestion for a while. The thought of leaving my home sickens me, but this war must end.
We must bring this to the Assembly, Deela says.
I nod, certain I can convince them.
At least once he is separated from the Songbearers, he will not be able to steal what the Silent do not possess. Deela seems reassured by this.
Eero has already stolen so much from the Silent—their peace, their stability, their future—but I keep these thoughts to myself as we take our leave.
Yllis finds me before sunset as I pace the floors of the Citadel, awaiting updates from those on the front lines. He is rumpled and creased, his hair is lopsided, but he is as beautiful to me as ever.
“You must come with me,” he says. I startle at hearing his voice aloud, but I am so grateful he has spoken. He leads me to his office in the laboratory of the Cantors.
“I think I have found a way —”
“Do you think it wise to speak?” Though I love to hear his voice, I too have been seized by the paranoia affecting the other Songbearers.
&nbs
p; “You too, Oola?” He pins me with a withering glare, one I must grow used to seeing from him. What once was soft and cherished between us is now all hard edges. “No Silent are allowed within the walls of the Cantors.”
“Very well. You think you have found a way to do what?”
He points down to his leather-bound notebook. Tight handwriting fills every page obscuring the color of the original paper.
“I have studied everything we have on the ancient ways of the Cavefolk. They were Silent but managed to harness a vast power different than Earthsong—from a different source. Just as powerful but not as limited. Cantors have long used the Cavefolk techniques, but only with Earthsong. They have never attempted any of the more robust spells because they all require one key ingredient.” His finger stops below one word, written boldly, traced over and over.
Blood.
I meet Yllis’s eyes, which gleam in the lamplight.
“With blood magic, we can create a spell to silence any Song,” he says.
“Blood magic?” I shake my head and step away. “We cannot.”
He steps toward me, his eyes on fire. “We must.”
“No, there is another way.” I tell him of the plan I shared with the others. “What he wants is his own land. The war will end once we give him this.”
Yllis stares at me for a long while and shivers run up my spine. “You were always blind when it came to him.”
“What do you mean?”
For a moment, the hard shell he’s constructed around himself cracks, and I see a glimpse of the man I fell in love with. Yllis moves closer to me, placing his hands on my shoulders. “He wants what he has always wanted: power.”
I shiver. Both from the truth of his words and his close proximity.
“So this spell . . . how does it work?”
“It is a binding spell to prevent connection with Earthsong.”
“And we will need someone’s blood?”
His eyes darken, and he nods. “Let me worry about that. Link with me, and I will teach you the spell.”