“I dinna intend tae lie tae you. But first we had tae nou.”
“Had to know what?”
“If you be the one.”
Mariana grabbed his wrist. “This isn’t the time, Tergen.”
“Red hae every righ tae nou the truth, Mari. Why the border be closed for all these centuries. What they turned their backs on.”
“No. He doesn’t. He’s not ready.” Tergen opened his mouth to argue, but her finger found his lips unerringly despite her handicap. “Trust me.” He subsided with a grimace as Mariana said, “Lord Eadred, a difficult decision lies ahead of you. Stay at the university and die. By sheer number of attempts, her people will soon succeed. Or leave Arnil Wale and your entire life behind.”
Thinking I’d ask Tergen more about it later, I rejected her suggestion. “I’ve never run from anything.”
“Is that so?” Despite the cloth bound over Mariana’s eyes, they seemed to bore through me.
Discomforted, I took another drink of the tea only to discover I’d already finished it. “Tell me where I might find the woman. I’ll make an end it.”
“If it were that easy I would, believe me, Lord Eadred. But you can no more touch her with Divine flames than destroy her with a sword. How can you kill what’s never really here?”
More riddles. I was sick of them. “Speak plainly,” I demanded.
“You’ll soon witness it for yourself if you make the wrong choice, for you’ve run out of chances. This is the only way. But take heart in knowing it won’t be forever. The life you leave behind will always be there waiting for you to take back.” She gathered all the delicate cups and put them on the tray. A clear dismissal.
I grunted, withdrawing my legs awkwardly from below the table to stand, the entire encounter leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Tergen stayed seated, refusing to meet my gaze, but Bogmrig dashed over to hug my ankle. I patted his head hesitantly and waited for the creature to let go, uncomfortable at such a display of affection.
Mariana stood, picking up the brownie and perching him on her shoulder. Before we reached the opening, I said, “If that woman is behind the attacks, why did I find a note from my cousin on the dahlia assassin? She sought to lay the blame on him. To what purpose?”
Mariana’s face swivelled around to mine. “What makes you so sure the King is not a part of it? You’ve seen the anger in his heart, how easily he might murder you himself. Why doubt his involvement?”
“It wouldn’t make sense.”
“Because he’s family?”
“Yes. If Edmund wanted to kill me, he’d have done it already and claimed it a horrible accident.”
“Even those closest to us can hide betrayal in their hearts. Remember that, Lord Eadred.”
“I never said we were close.”
She smiled and astonished me with a kiss to the cheek. “I’m well aware.”
At the round aperture leading to the staircase, she asked me to open my hand. When I did so, Mariana dropped a glass bauble on my palm. I picked it up to study it. Inside was a tiny sovereign butterfly, crystallised into the sphere. I’d never seen a butterfly that small before.
“What’s this?”
“A reflection only.” The bauble faded from view. I rubbed uncomfortably at my fingers to take away the lingering heat there. “You must remind the one who has this of what has been forgotten. Tell Queen Anne that your ancestor Siana named such butterflies.” I frowned, dismayed that she guessed at my closeness with Anais. She laid a gentle hand against my arm. “And Lord Eadred, I’m sorrier than I can express for what’s ahead. If it were within my power to save them, I would have done so.”
Sudden fear jangled in my bones. I wanted to ask what she meant, but she retreated, somehow taking the light with her. Blinded, I forged through the narrow tunnel. I found the first step by kicking into it and swore at the stinging pain in my toes. The climb took forever.
It was not the expected rain that greeted me when a creeping glow bathed the steps, nor the cold of a blustery storm. Candles burned on wall sconces, providing enough light to recognise the familiar sight of the uppermost level of the palace. Somehow, I’d emerged not in Arnil Wale, but in Sidem, a ride of two or more days away. I’d come out through a service stairwell, the one to the left of the grand staircase. If I turned and went around the corner, I would find my room. If I walked straight ahead, I could knock on Anais’s apartment door.
Sorely tempted, despite everything, I talked myself out of it.
I hazarded a guess there were still a couple of hours remaining before dawn. There were no guards in the hallway; if I was quick enough I might get away before anyone saw. Mariana’s ominous words wouldn’t leave me. Who couldn’t she save?
I hesitated, trying to come up with a plan. It was into this hovering silence that Anais made herself known, stepping out of dim shadows, a vision in a white nightdress, loose and billowing. Stunned, I froze as she whispered, “Eadred … how are you here?”
She didn’t give me a chance to say anything, throwing herself against my chest. I hugged her, breathing in her scent, floral with a hint of apples, and closed my eyes. Her dress was so thin it seemed I touched skin despite the material between us. My hands ran down the arch of her spine, memorising every contour. Warmth bloomed under my fingers as all thoughts of Arnil Wale disappeared.
I was home.
Anais trembled, making a small sound. Worried that she cried, I unwound her arms and moved away, only to discover she was quietly laughing, a lopsided smile lifting those bow-like lips. She winced at the movement. I noticed a faint smudge across her jaw, but the candlelight was too wavering to make it out properly.
“I cannot believe it.”
Raised on the tips of her feet, her mouth searched for mine. I shifted, remembering my turmoil in the months after our first kiss. Her soft lips grazed my cheek instead. I sucked in a swift breath at that tender caress, the way it dredged up emotions I’d tried my best to suppress.
Being with Anais was a bad idea. I needed to leave. My hands firm, I pushed her away even further. “Don’t.”
She frowned, hurt and confusion reflected in her green gaze.
God, she was stunning. It pained me to keep my distance. Her feet, bare of shoes, curled under my stare. My look travelled up, over the slim dress, the swell of her breasts, the expanse of skin above, free from jewellery, only adorned by tumbling, messy curls of blonde. I swallowed, acknowledging how easily I might give in to temptation.
Oblivious to the peril, she whispered, “One moment you felt so far away. The next, you were within reach. How is this possible?”
I was asking myself the same thing. “I can’t explain it either, but I shouldn’t be here. It isn’t safe.”
“I asked you to come home. I waited for you, but you never did. Yet here you are. How?” she pressed.
After a quick glance around, I drew her onto the stairwell landing. Disorientated, I rubbed fingers at my temple, trying to formulate a reasonable explanation. It all came out sounding inadequate in my head. Deflection was the only option. “What’s wrong? You mentioned a delicate matter, but with everything else in your letter, I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have.”
“Is that why you are here now?” The light of the candles, fainter beyond the circle of their glow, provided just enough illumination to cast shadows along her face and reveal the sorrow in her eyes.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“My papa is dead.”
The news came as no surprise. I wasn’t sure why. When she reached for me I didn’t resist, holding her close and murmuring how sorry I was to hear it. Anais spoke of her grief for a long while and I listened, heart aching as her steady tears soaked into my tunic. I kissed her soft hair, unbound and disorderly from sleep, and even more precious because of it.
Her body shifted under my palm with a
shuddering inhale. “There is something else.” She withdrew from my embrace and wiped the moisture from her cheeks.
A cold draught, seeping up the stairs, swept between us, chilling the wet patch on my chest. Her hand fell to her stomach. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air in the stairwell to breathe. I absorbed the image of Anais, standing before me, palm cradling her navel. My fingers curled into fists, short nails digging into skin, a base emotion rearing its ugly head. I quashed it, ashamed of the thoughts that came with it.
“Something is wrong.” Her words took a second to sink in. “I need you to heal me.” She waited, but I was still recovering from the shock of imagining her pregnant. Anais let out a ragged sigh. “My monthly bleeding is heavy and painful …”
“Why are you telling me this? We shouldn’t discuss such matters.”
Undeterred, she continued, “It hurts, like knives, when Edmund …”
“Stop!” I pleaded, voice low and urgent. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Offended by my response, she jabbed my chest with her finger. “You do not want to hear it? Well, I do not want to live it, but I must! All I ask is that you heal me, Eadred.”
Reaching for the wall behind me, I fell against it. I understood all she was saying, even with everything that was left unsaid. “You ask too much.”
Her mouth opened and then closed, settling into lines of disappointment. “And you have no idea what is asked of me. Every day. What my life is like. Trapped in this palace. Married to a man I do not love and never will. A man you know full well is anything but kind or good!” My eyes widened at the accusation. “Someone you still give such blind loyalty to.”
I stirred from the dark jealousy gripping me. “No. It’s not like that, Anais. I am loyal, but not to him. I’m loyal only to you.”
“Then show it. Help me. Heal me.”
Despite the cost to myself, images of her in bed with Edmund chipping away at my sanity, I was unable to resist her plea. She deserved more than this and better from me.
“Come here,” I said, moving from the bracing comfort of the wall and into dangerous territory. My fingers splayed across her stomach, the soft curves of it exposed under my touch. Even in her night clothes, emerald gaze alight with pain, she’d never been more beautiful. Anais placed her hand over mine, clinging to it. Eyes closed, I sought to discover the source of her ailment.
The first was easy to find and my eyelids flashed open. Without any thought, by instinct alone, my palm cradled her jaw. I healed the bruise there. “He hurt you?” At her nod, I wanted to destroy him. She didn’t deserve to be treated this way. “I need to get you away from him.”
There was so much worse ahead. I tried to say more, but the words wouldn’t come. The visions I’d struggled to accept my entire life filled me with a despairing rage. Why couldn’t I just tell her? Shield her? Why was God so cruel as to show me the future but prevent me from doing anything about it?
“Where could I go where he would not find me, Eadred?” A single tear slid down her cheek. “You have your trials to bear. This is mine.” She lifted her chin. “And I promised my papa. Even though he is gone from this world, I cannot destroy his faith in me, can I?”
Her brave smile did little to reassure me. “Leave with me. I’ll protect you.”
“Edmund would kill you for it. No. This is the only way.” With implacable intent, she brought my hand back to her stomach. “Please.”
Who was I to deny her request? I found the thing wrong inside of her, a lining that coated organs within her body in a manner it never should: the cause of her bleeding and pain. As my power coursed through her, I sensed how all the hair on her arms and legs lifted.
Anais grabbed my shoulders, head falling back, a glow infusing her slender frame, more imagined than seen. She gasped, a shuddering breath of relief. “Thank you.”
“I should go,” I said, putting distance between us.
“Eadred, please stay.” That was all it took; I was powerless to leave her. At the mercy of the same force, she moved closer. “The message I deciphered, what do you think it means?”
“I’m still trying to understand it. The person who I thought might have answers was of no use.”
“Could it truly refer to us?”
Frustrated once more by thoughts of it, I raked fingers through my hair. “I don’t know. Maybe. Instinct tells me it could be true.”
“And mine,” Anais confirmed. At the admission, we peered in hesitation at each other, both unsure of what we were to do about it, if anything.
The draught returned, gusting up the stairs until the candles in the hallway sputtered. She reached for my hand. Fool that I was, I held hers tight. Anais took another step forward, closing the gap further, her face lifting to mine. Head lowering, all reason leaving me, I was aware only of her soft breath and my longing.
A door slamming shut near the courtier’s rooms returned good sense, and we sprang apart at the same moment.
She gathered her composure faster than I did, enough to say, “You never answered my questions about how you got here.”
“I can’t explain it. One minute I was in Arnil Wale and the next back in Sidem.”
“Will you leave the same way?” Anais showed a ready acceptance of something I still struggled myself to define.
“I don’t believe so.” It brought to mind all that happened before I found myself at the palace. “Tonight, I met a woman who called herself a Sancto Seer. Her name was Mariana.”
“Mariana? She wrote an essay, the one the Mother left for me to find.”
“Yes, I believe it’s the same woman. She had a message for you, something to do with a glass bauble.”
“With a butterfly inside?”
“Yes. Mariana said Queen Siana was the person who named the butterflies.”
“Oh,” she whispered. Her head tilted, focus drifting to stare over my shoulder. “I remember a dream.” She tugged on my hand, coming back to herself. “Let me show you the bauble I found.”
“Wait!” I hissed, but she was too eager and pulled me from the stairwell landing.
Down the hallway to our left, Edmund adjusted his pants, a smile on his face and a swagger to his steps. He weaved a white cloth through his fingers and then tucked the material into his belt, patting it into place with a chuckle of satisfaction.
The guard walking behind him saw us first, his mouth opening in a soundless gasp of shock.
Seconds later, the black hair on Edmund’s wig swung across his shoulders with sudden movement, smile fading into a scowl as his gaze speared us. Caught like startled rabbits in the glare of a hunter’s torch, we froze.
I envisioned what he saw. His wife with another man in the early hours of dawn, standing before him in her nightdress. And not just any man. The one person he despised more than anyone else.
My hand squeezed hers in reassurance before I let go. I wished I could do more, mind spinning in frantic circles, trying to think of what to say to protect her, convince Edmund our being together was in every way innocent.
“Well, well. What do we have here?” he drawled. His expression was tight with rage. “Cousin, this is an unexpected delight. Especially as, of all the roses you could pluck, you chose my wife.”
The hair prickled on the back of my neck. I reached for a sword or dagger, forgetting for a second that I wasn’t wearing my weapons belt.
“Arrest Lord Eadred.” The King’s Guard hesitated, giving another disbelieving gape. From his reaction, I deduced he could hardly believe what he found himself involved in.
“Edmund, of what do you speak?” Anais dared ask.
He didn’t take his eyes off me. “High treason, my dear, duplicitous wife. Adultery with the Queen is a hangable offence, didn’t you know?” Fear jolted through every part of my body. “You will both hang for this!” he spat out, any lingering restrai
nt disappearing. “Arrest him!”
She spun, hair flying in a halo about her head, and mouthed, “Run!”
It was the height of folly to believe I could get away, but still I tried. Panicked, I leapt down the stairs as fast as possible, imagining any minute I would lose my footing and tumble headfirst. The guard shoved Anais aside and she cried out. The man gained on me with every second. I rushed through the door leading into the dining hall, bolting from the stairwell and running a good way before I noticed falling rain.
Bewildered, I stared at the white statues and cobblestones gleaming wetly. Somehow I’d returned to Arnil Wale. Behind me, the opening beside the statue of the Triune was already closing until only puddles remained on the ground.
An excruciating spasm shook my entire body, more intensely around my head, knifing into my eyes and crushing my ears like a vice. I clutched at both temples, knees buckling and torso seizing. The agony intensified, ripping away every thought as the sound of a thousand shrill cries battered against me. A scream clawed up my throat only to die off as the seizure suddenly passed, leaving me lying on wet cobblestones, scrambling for air.
Slowly, lucid thought returned. How was any of this possible? And then true terror struck. I should never have left her. God only knew what Edmund would do once he discovered I was gone. If he hurt her again …
Anais needed me.
Her final cry reverberated in my head and I forced myself to get up. I ran, skidding and splashing through deepening puddles, wanting only to gather my belongings and ride to her. Feet leaving damp outlines on the steps, I raced up the stairs of the university and into my dormitory.
The smell hit first. Unexpected and horrifying. I knew it well.
No one breathed loudly or snored. None of the men shifted in their sleep. The silence hung thick and oppressive. There was something sticky under my feet as I walked across the room, using memory to find my way.
Beside the pallet in the corner, I felt for the chest, finding steel and flint. A few strikes into the tinderbox and the spark took hold. I used it to light a candle. It was the hardest thing I ever did, forcing myself to turn and see the visual evidence of what my other senses already told me.
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