by Jill M Beene
Samiris smiled at the memory, then glanced over to Artem. If there were vicious rumors circulating about the two of them, he didn’t seem to have heard them yet. He was as implacable and stalwart as ever. Cyra was greeting them, opening the door to her sitting room wide.
Samiris searched Cyra’s face for signs of paleness, for the tell-tale waxy sheen that was the travelling companion to infection, for any sign that she was not up for the visit. Samiris was intent on Cyra’s face, and that is the only reason she saw Cyra’s slight frown when the girl noticed Samiris standing behind the Crown Prince.
It was a small, sharp frown that Samiris felt in her heart. Cyra didn’t want her there, didn’t want her around, even though she was the one who had bound Cyra’s wound the night before, helped her into bed, tucked her in gently, then set about burning the bloodied towels and cleaning the bathroom so Calluna wouldn’t see it.
Samiris frowned as she entered the room, barely noticing the low fire in the grate, the window shades thrust open to show the full moon, and a sitting room similar to her own. She barely heard the polite greetings that Artem and the Crown Prince directed at Cyra. Samiris pretended she was nothing more than a servant, and went to stand with her back to the wall. Artem came to stand beside her after Fitzhumphrey and Cyra were seated and talking.
“What’s wrong?” Artem murmured, his eyes searching her face.
Samiris shook her head, a small jerk back and forth to encourage his silence. “Nothing.”
Fitzhumphrey had his back to the room. He was at the mantel, trying to jam the stems of the huge bouquet he had brought in a vase far too small. Artem was watching Samiris closely, his eyes narrowed on her expression. Samiris was looking anywhere but at Artem. She didn’t want him to see the rejection she felt.
So it was only Samiris who saw Cyra draw the knife.
It was like every other time adrenaline had flooded her system: time didn’t slow, but Samiris saw everything in clear detail, all at once. She saw Cyra’s lips move in a silent recitation, she saw the blade--bone-white and intricately carved with a sharp edge and a wicked curve, she saw Cyra stand gracefully, lift the dagger high overhead...but most of all, Samiris saw Cyra’s eyes. They were narrowed in concentration and intent... and they were focused on the Crown Prince.
Samiris inhaled a gasp, her mouth dropping open, her eyes going wide. Her feet were propelling her forward before she heard her gasp mirrored by Artem beside her. Then Samiris was between Cyra and Fitzhumphrey’s exposed back, her arms outstretched in supplication, in defense, her eyes meeting Cyra’s gaze. There was a half-instant flicker of regret before Cyra started to bring the blade down, and Samiris’ eyes widened.
Cyra would not stop for her; no, Samiris would just have to be first.
Samiris was tackled roughly from behind, somehow landing on top of Artem as they fell against a velvet chair in an inglorious heap of limps. Samiris pushed off of Artem’s chest and was up again in an instant, but Fitzhumphrey had turned toward the crash, and Cyra sheathed the blade solidly into his heart.
Samiris cried out, a harsh, discordant noise.
Fitzhumphrey staggered and fell with a moaning cry. Cyra stepped back, her eyes wide, chest heaving, and slumped back onto the couch. Artem rushed forward to lean over the Crown Prince, and Samiris stood stock still as blood poured down over Fitzhumphrey’s gold-embroidered waistcoat, looking like crimson syrup as it pooled on the floorboards.
There were several moments filled only with Fitzhumphrey’s low moans and ragged breaths, and Cyra’s low keening. Samiris’ hands fluttered uselessly by her sides like two injured birds as Artem gripped the dagger. With white face and gritted teeth, Artem pulled it from Fitzhumphrey’s chest. The knife finally came free with a grinding squelch. Artem pressed his palm into the fresh flow of blood.
“It’s alright, friend,” Fitzhumphrey murmured. “Just give me a moment. I’m alright.”
At his words, Cyra’s head jerked up, her eyes round. “But...but the ritual. I followed the instructions… I stabbed you… It was supposed to work.”
There was a furious pounding at the door.
Fitzhumphrey clasped Artem’s hand and gasped, “Don’t let them take her, Artem. Don’t tell them what happened. If they take her...”
“Samiris,” Artem snapped, his hands still on Fitzhumphrey’s chest. “Answer the door. Tell them something to make them go away.”
“Can’t you...” Samiris started, looking blankly at the door.
She thought she might be in a bit of shock. She had killed numerous animals, had heard countless gruesome stories of battle and death at the bar in Faro, but she had never seen one person try with all their might to kill another. Stories were just stories until you saw firsthand that they were true.
“I’m covered in blood, Samiris. Please,” Artem said, desperately.
It was the ‘please’ that rousted Samiris from her shocked, dream-like trance. She scurried to the door in the foyer and opened it a few inches, coming face to face with three soldiers.
“Yes?” she asked, trying for a calm tone and a smile. Her lips quivered with the lie, but the soldier in front was looking over her shoulder, trying to see into the room, and didn’t seem to notice.
“We heard a scream,” the soldier said.
“Yes,” Samiris said, nodding.
The soldier’s face crumpled into a confused frown. “What was the matter?”
“Nothing is wrong. We...we’re practicing a play.” The lie sounded stupid the second she spoke it, but she was committed now.
“A play?” the soldier said, going on tiptoe to try and see past her. “Who’s putting on a play?”
“Myself, Lady Cyra, the Crown Prince and Captain Trego,” Samiris lied smoothly. She was feeling steadier every moment. “It’s about the rise and fall of the fae kingdom. We’re performing it before the next formal dinner.”
“Captain Trego?” the soldier repeated, his eyebrows high. “Captain Trego is performing in a play?”
“Yes, of course,” Samiris said, trying her best to sound impatient. “He is the one who wrote it, after all.”
The soldier could not have looked more shocked if Samiris had told him that Captain Trego had suddenly sprouted wings and was currently flying out to sea.
Go away, go away, go away, Samiris thought.
“He...he wrote a play?” the soldier stammered.
“Yes. And he’s playing the main part, too, that of the fae Queen, Ericacea. I’m afraid we must return to practice. Captain Trego is having problems with his costume. It’s the troublesome tiara, you see. It’s too small.”
“Yes, of course...” he said, looking a bit dazed.
The soldiers’ expressions ranged from wide-eyed shock to giddy amusement. Samiris gently shut the door in the soldiers’ faces and bolted it. The instant the door shut, she heard the furious hissing of a whispered conversation start up on the other side.
Samiris returned to the sitting room. Fitzhumphrey was now propped in a chair, the bloody dagger sitting beside him on the side table. Cyra was sitting on the sofa, shaking with silent sobs, her knees pulled up to her forehead. Artem was pressing a folded cloth to Fitzhumphrey’s chest.
He looked at Samiris with a horrified expression on his face. “A play? The Crown Prince was just stabbed, and you still managed to make my life more difficult. How? How do you do that?”
“You told me to get rid of them!” Samiris hissed. “It was what came to mind, alright? It sure got their minds off the scream they heard.”
Artem’s eyes were wide as he looked at Fitzhumphrey. “I don’t know what is worse...you being stabbed, or my soldiers thinking that I wrote and am starring as a fae Queen in a play.”
Fitzhumphrey chuckled weakly. “On my end, the stabbing was much worse. But it still might have been worth the cover story.”
They sob
ered immediately, their eyes focusing on Cyra. Artem’s eyes looked hot enough to throw sparks, but Fitzhumphrey’s gaze was full of compassion.
“Do you know what the penalty is for trying to kill the Crown Prince?” Artem said, his voice a barely-controlled storm of rage. “Do you know what they would do to you, what I should do to you?”
Cyra just tightened her grip on her knees and sobbed harder.
“Stop it, Artem,” Fitzhumphrey said sharply, for once sounding like he was royalty giving a command. “You and I both know that I am not going to condemn her to a terrible death for trying something that I have already attempted.”
At his words, Cyra lifted her head and met his eyes.and snot dripped ingloriously from her nose.
“Oh, yes,” Fitzhumphrey said. “I certainly have tried. Now, why did you try and kill me?”
Cyra burrowed her face back into her knees and shook her head.
After long moments of silence, Fitzhumphrey said, “That wound on your back... it wouldn’t happen to be self-inflicted, would it?”
Cyra stiffened, and her head jerked up. Samiris tensed.
“You see,” he said, still sounding out of breath, “I can’t help noticing that it is the full moon and you mentioned a ritual. Also, your people are from the Southern wastes, and you stabbed me with a ceremonial bone dagger. It all makes me think that you are one of the Omani. Am I correct?”
“How do you know that?” Cyra whispered.
“I read. Reading is the only real way for me to escape this life. I’ve tried all the other ways. But tell me Lady Cyra, did you actually want to kill me?”
“I wanted to break the curse,” Cyra murmured.
“Yes, yes,” Fitzhumphrey said, waving his hand in the air as if to shoo away an inconsequential bug. “But did you plan it? The assassination, I mean.”
Cyra shook her head.
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “The Omani are known for their backwards rules about women.”
Here, Samiris wanted to interject with a proclamation about Leiria’s backwards laws about women, but she didn’t think it was the appropriate time.
“Do you want to go back to them?” Fitzhumphrey continued. “Your father, or brothers, or uncles, or whatever males commanded you to kill me?”
Cyra shook her head ‘no’, her eyes overflowing with tears once more.
“No, I should think not. For now you are not only an Omani woman, which by all accounts is terrible, but you have failed a task they gave you.”
Cyra shuddered in response to his words. She looked small, lost.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We will find a place for you, somewhere. But I think it’s safe to assume that since you got up the nerve to kill me that you probably aren’t going to fall in love with me.” Fitzhumphrey chuckled darkly at his morbid joke. “Artem, help me back to my rooms so I can get changed.”
Artem nodded, although his eyes were still dark on Cyra’s face. Cyra hid her face once more.
“Samiris,” Artem said. “Go back to your chambers and wait. Do not tell anyone what happened here. I will be along shortly.”
Samiris nodded.
“And you,” Artem growled at Cyra. “Clean up this mess. Don’t leave your chambers. Don’t speak with anyone. If you do, the Crown Prince himself won’t be able to save you.”
Artem joined Samiris in her sitting room hours later. By that time it was well past midnight, but Samiris was still wide awake. She had bathed and changed, and was staring intently into the depths of her crackling fire.
Orange and red and black and white, sometimes with surprising little pops of blue or green as sap in the wood burned...this was fire. Samiris thought that trying to fully understand Cyra was like trying to understand fire. There were too many facets, too many different aspects to fully grasp. Cyra had told them the why, and it was good enough for Fitzhumphrey. He was the one who had taken a dagger to the heart, so his was the only opinion that truly mattered.
“Well,” Artem had said, propping his feet across from Samiris’ on the plush ottoman before the fire. “That was interesting.”
“How is Fitzhumphrey?” Samiris asked.
“Tired, mostly. Tired and sad.”
Samiris nodded.
“I never pegged Cyra for an assassin,” Artem said, staring into the fire.
Samiris snorted. “Have there been others?”
“More than you’d think. Her people are not the first to think that if the curse was not broken by the fae princess’ death, then maybe it would be broken by Fitzhumphrey’s.”
Samiris looked at Artem’s profile, lit by the flickering flames. “Then why not tell the nation that he cannot be killed?”
Artem met her gaze and gave a wry smile. “How long would the people stand for that, do you think? The idea that Fitzhumphrey very well may rule forever? That they all may live and die without seeing the nation’s rulers do the same? Being the Crown Prince is perilous enough without announcing that he is for all purposes immortal.”
“How can it be perilous, if he cannot be killed?” Samiris’ forehead wrinkled.
“Fitzhumphrey cannot be killed, but that does not mean the nation is immortal. It does not even mean that the Crown is immortal. A normal ruler only has to worry about keeping order for a lifetime. Fitzhumphrey has to worry about keeping order forever.”
Samiris watched the firelight flicker across the worry lines in his forehead and thought for long moments.
“Is that it, then?” she said. “Is that the reason you are so worried about change? Because any change, good or bad, might be the beginning of the end for the current system?”
He frowned, still staring at the fire. “I’m concerned with who the next ruler would be, if there is ever a revolt. Fitzhumphrey has his faults, every man does. But as you saw tonight, he feels compassion for his people.”
“Compassion is all well and good,” Samiris said, turning back toward the fire. “But action is far better than emotion.”
Artem sighed. “After everything you saw tonight, you still believe that he is heartless? He is sending Cyra to Brizelle, to his seaside palace, when most rulers would be arranging for her execution.”
“For how long? How long will she be welcome there?”
“Until she decides to leave, finds someone to marry, throws herself into the sea... whichever.” Artem didn’t sound like he cared which option she chose. “She will not be harmed.”
The crackling fire was the only sound for several minutes.
Artem said, “You have to remember that it was only five years ago that Fitzhumphrey watched his true love burn to death. A wound like that runs deep. He is doing the best he can.”
Samiris squinted at Artem in the low light. “So you believe it, then? That the curse cannot be broken? You believe that Beatrice loved him?”
“Oh, she loved him, alright,” he said, running a hand over his weary-looking face. “We all thought that the curse was over. We were sure of it. I had five hundred pounds of firecrackers lined up and ready to go at the top of the castle battlements. There are no words to describe the hope that died that day.”
“Maybe I have been too hard on Fitzhumphrey,” Samiris said, haltingly. Admitting that she was wrong did not come naturally to her. “But I still think that there are things that could be done....should be done, to improve the nation. We cannot stay the same for the sake of staying the same. Not all change is bad. Things should change. They have to.”
Artem looked at her, but she couldn’t read his expression.
Finally he said, “I guess you are right.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Cyra left the castle the next morning, as the first rays of the sun tipped the castle towers in gold. Samiris sat on the stone ledge, and watched from her perch high above the castle as the carriage departed. It was cold,
but she had endured colder without complaint, so she wondered if the shivers she fought back were from the chill or from the memory of the assassination attempt.
Samiris had never seen someone’s eyes so cold, so full of determination to kill. She shivered again at the memory. She understood now that she had never really known Cyra at all. Samiris hoped that the girl was headed to a much better life, one where she could map out her own destiny, choose which roads to take and at what pace, instead of being driven down an unchosen path by her male relatives.
Samiris hopped down off the parapet and faced the other direction. Her eye traced the route to the patch of garden that she had seen the other day. Today was a good day for a long walk.
The air was crisp and clean in the gardens. The thick hedge she was following would provide an excellent screen to hide her from anyone on the back veranda, if she could find a way through. She had been walking for what felt like an hour. As she began to give up, there was an opening to her right. It appeared as suddenly as a jackrabbit popping its head out of a hole, and if she hadn’t been looking for it, she never would have seen it.
Samiris ducked through the opening and walked into a sight that was as familiar and comforting as if she were back home. This was the kitchen garden for the palace. Or, rather, she thought, it was one of the kitchen gardens. Because surely a garden this small couldn’t provide for the entire castle. The garden was set into orderly rows, and set to the side of a much, much larger expanse.
Samiris recognized many of the vegetables as she walked through. There was a vibrant tangle of green beans, here an orderly row of corn, next a patch of wheat, a low cluster of gourds, a ripe, portly watermelon nestled in verdant leaves, ruby-red strawberries tucked under leaves. The next row was lettuce greens; ruffly edged kale rubbed shoulders with a curly frisee, a rounded purple radicchio huddled next to watercress and endive.
As she toured the green expanse, soaking in the sunshine and the content humming of working bees, something felt strange. When she reached the end row, she turned and walked back the way she came, trying to pin down the feeling of unease as if it were an elusive butterfly and she a collector. When she saw the orange bulge of a pumpkin next to a tree heavy with ripe apricots, it hit her.