by Sharon Shinn
I was still feeling brave—and consumed with curiosity. “Is there someone else you would prefer to marry?”
He shook his head. “I have met most of the eligible noblewomen of the realm and found many of them charming and many of them silly and all of them eager to wed into the royal family,” he said. “I have formed no aversion to any of them—except Elyssa—but no particular attachment, either.”
“Not even one of the triplets?” I asked, gently teasing.
He smiled. “I enjoy them,” he admitted. “I think they would be easy lifelong companions. Though it is hard to imagine them ever separated. I think they are more likely to find three hapless low nobles and carry them off to their manor in Banchura and keep them there like pets of whom they are exceedingly fond.”
I did not know the triplets well, but I could instantly envision that scenario. “I think that would be a happy household,” I said.
“Much happier than mine is likely to be,” he agreed.
“How certain is it that this marriage to Elyssa will go through?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I do know my father is constantly negotiating with the rebel factions of the western provinces. Some of his advisors recommend force instead of diplomacy—but that would lead to civil war, and so many lives lost! If bloodshed and violence can be averted because I have agreed to marry a woman I cannot stand … Well, what does my happiness count against the safety of the realm?”
“That’s a noble sentiment.”
“My father informs me that the life of a royal appears to be one of privilege and indulgence, but, in fact, it is bounded by sacrifice and selflessness.” He took a deep breath. “And so, if it is demanded of me, I will marry Elyssa.”
“Maybe it won’t be as bad as you fear,” I said. I was sure it would be worse than he imagined, but I didn’t want to say so.
He glanced down at me again, his face very sober. “I don’t know how I will bear it,” he said quietly. “It was bad enough before. But now—knowing about you—it seems impossible. The only advantage might be that if we are in the same household, I will be able to shield you in some fashion. But to carry out the duties of a husband while knowing you are nearby—even in the same room—” He shook his head.
I felt a little faint. Somehow I had not put all those pieces together—that if Elyssa married Jordan, I would be spending the rest of my life just a few feet from him. Unable to talk to him, unable to touch him. A mute and miserable witness to their most intimate moments—
Which was when I remembered the last time Elyssa had shared intimate moments with a man who possessed three echoes. I had successfully fended off Lord Roland’s echo, but would I want to submit to Jordan’s? Someone who looked so much like the prince but who was completely devoid of his soul? Would I be able to pretend the echo was actually Jordan? Would that make the experience better or worse?
I spoke in a strangled voice. “You might be glad to know that Elyssa probably would prefer to carry out marital relations without the echoes as witnesses. She would no doubt banish us to another room.”
He gave me a crooked smile. “I suppose that would make it better, but only a little,” he said. “I have my doubts that I will be able to perform at all.”
I could not help myself. I laughed, though I was able to smother the sound with a hand across my mouth. “I feel certain this is not a proper conversation for you to be having with anyone, let alone the echo of the woman you are supposed to marry,” I said.
He looked shocked and guilty. “No! It is not! I apologize most profusely! Normally I am the most decent of fellows and I never say anything remotely inappropriate. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. It’s just that you—” Another glance down at me. “You’re different,” he ended lamely.
“I’m glad.”
“And it won’t be strange to be married to Elyssa, because you will not be there,” he said with renewed energy. “My attention has been taken up with this business with Jamison, but I will look into your situation. I promise.”
“Has the inquisitor learned anything new about Jamison’s death?” I asked.
I felt Jordan’s body grow tense beside me, and then he relaxed and made another gesture. This time, when he dropped his hand, it was to the space between our bodies. Right next to my own hand. His knuckles brushed against mine, and my fingers uncurled just a little in response. He bent his own fingers back and intertwined them with mine.
I sat there absolutely motionless, absolutely speechless, in an ecstatic trance.
It was a long moment before Jordan spoke, but he did not disengage his hand. “Malachi has learned something with potentially devastating consequences,” he said, staring straight at the stage where the lord from Sammerly and his echoes were setting up stringed instruments. “Jamison most likely was killed by a high noble.”
It was difficult to care about Jamison’s murderer when Jordan was holding my hand, but I managed to summon a shocked tone as I said, “How dreadful! What makes him think that?”
“Because they found a second body in the lake next to Jamison’s. And it appears to be the body of an echo.” He glanced at me, then back at the stage, where the lord was tuning his strings. “That information is not generally known yet, but it will be shortly. The thought is that perhaps Jamison argued with a noble and they came to blows. Jamison was knocked into the lake, but brought an echo into the water with him. So whoever is missing an echo is the likeliest suspect.”
“But—an echo looks exactly like his or her original! It would seem to be an easy mystery to solve.”
“Ah, but there is a strange feature to echoes. As they die, they start to lose their differentiation. If our dead echoes lay side by side, apparently, within a couple of days you would not know which one was mine and which one was yours.”
“I do not have an echo,” I reminded him. “I am one.”
Unexpectedly, he lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed the palm. “No,” he said. “You are an original.”
I could not speak. I could only stare at him and wish he would never relax his grip.
There was a slight noise behind us, and Jordan quickly looked around. Two figures stood in the doorway, quietly talking. I thought one might be the inquisitor but the room was dark enough that I could not be sure. Was it also dark enough to conceal how closely Jordan was sitting to an echo?
I freed my hand and murmured, “You must go.”
“I must,” he said regretfully. “But I promise you, I am thinking about you every day.”
You cannot possibly be thinking about me as much as I am thinking about you. “I am glad to hear it,” I said quietly.
He hesitated, as if he would say more, then merely nodded and stood up, his echoes all rising beside him. In a moment, they had filed out of the row, out of the room, out of my life.
But he had kissed my hand.
Kissed my hand.
Oh, if I hadn’t felt real before, I certainly did now.
For the next few days, I felt like my skin had taken on an extra layer, a thin sheen of crushed diamond that sparkled with a sensation that was either scalding heat or numbing cold. I couldn’t tell. I just knew that I almost gasped every time I touched some new material, whether it was the velvet of a rose petal or the silk of bath soap. All my senses were on high alert; it was like I could hear a low, continuous murmur all around me, all the time, from every argument and whispered conversation of every single soul residing in the palace. I could stand at the window and look down at the street and read the denominations of the coins in the hands of passersby.
I was so alive. I could see and feel and hear everything.
Every other visitor to the palace was irritable and bored, but I was delighted by every new detail that came my way. I noticed the buttons on the livery of the footmen, the pattern woven into the dinner napkin, the scent of wax on the freshly polished bannister. To me, nothing was dull, nothing was insignificant, nothing was ordinary.
Ove
r those next few days, I watched ceaselessly for Jordan’s appearance at every meal, on every excursion. Each time I saw him, my heart started beating with a riotous delight. I had to look away, focus on the floor, so that my eyes did not convince my mouth to break into an ungovernable smile. But I always had to look up again, to be ready to meet his gaze when he glanced my way—and he always glanced my way. Every day. Every time.
There were no more chances to talk at any of those meals, any of those encounters in the hallway. A few days after the musical evening, Cormac arranged for another ball. I almost fainted from the excitement of imagining the possibility of another waltz with Jordan—but I was not the only one who remembered the last time he had solicited Elyssa’s hand for a dance. She was determined not to be supplanted again, and the two times he approached us that night, she made sure her echoes were safely behind her. He could do no more than flick swift, rueful glances in my direction while he bowed over Elyssa’s hand and I curtseyed to one of his echoes.
But I could still stare up into the face of his echo and dream.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The morning after that second ball, Cormac invited his guests to accompany him to the botanical gardens. Even the reclusive Lady Marguerite, who often opted to skip events, joined the others for this outing. Elyssa did not bother to mention that she had been to the gardens only a week ago; she just accepted the invitation with every appearance of enthusiasm.
The day was warmer than usual and many of the nobles seemed to find the stroll through the gardens less enjoyable than they had expected. Before we had even made it to the reflecting pool at the center of the garden, several of the women had settled onto decorative benches and expressed the intention to merely sit and enjoy the sunshine.
Lady Vivienne offered to share her bench with Elyssa, but Elyssa shook her head. “I have been idle for too many days. I will walk for a bit,” she said, striding on at such a lively pace that no one else was tempted to keep up with her. After a few bends in the pathway around tall ornamental grasses and fat blossoming bushes, she was out of sight of the rest of her party.
As she wended her way past a small trickling fountain, she was abruptly joined by Marco, falling in step beside her. She must have been expecting him because she didn’t start in alarm.
He said, “Did you need to bring a whole entourage with you to protect yourself from my importunities?”
“I didn’t invite them, I accompanied them,” she retorted. “But I thought, as long as I was here, I would try to separate myself and see if you had any news.”
“Some, though you may have already heard it. They’ve found a second body in the lake. Near Jamison’s.”
She nodded. “My maid tells me it was the body of an echo. Apparently this has convinced the inquisitor that a noble was involved in Jamison’s death.”
Marco nodded in turn. “The theory I’ve heard is that Jamison must have tried to seduce a noblewoman, she resisted, and both Jamison and one of her echoes tumbled into the water.”
“It sounds plausible enough,” Elyssa said dryly.
“And apparently the echo has rotted so much that they can’t determine who her original is,” Marco added. “So the king’s inquisitor will be interviewing every noblewoman in the Seven Jewels and counting the echoes at her back.”
“I’m not worried,” she said. “I have my three.”
“I only see two,” he said.
That made her laugh. “Oh, Marco! My dear! Have you been fretting about me? How impossibly sweet. But I assure you, my third echo is even now moping in my bedroom, nursing a hurt ankle. And if that evil little inquisitor wants to go nosing about in my room to make certain of it, I will hand him the key myself.”
Marco watched her a moment, his expression serious. “Would you tell me?” he asked. “If Jamison had tried to harm you and you had pushed him to his death?”
She seemed to debate the point. “Would I tell you I had accidentally killed the king’s son? No, I don’t believe so. But I’m not surprised to find someone else did it. He was a dreadful man.”
“And he was never called to account for his actions,” Marco said. “That is one reason we need revolution, so that the powerful are forced to pay for their sins.”
“I thought your rebellion was on hold for the moment. Didn’t you say security had grown so tight around the palace that you wouldn’t be able to get in?”
“I did. But I’ve learned about a way in that might offer easier access. There are always guards at the front, of course, and so many servants at the back entrances that no one could slip in unobserved. But there’s another door on the north side, close to the stables. It’s only used by servants getting carriages ready for their masters, so it doesn’t see much traffic. And it’s never guarded because it’s always kept locked from the inside.”
She just cast him a sideways glance and shrugged.
He came to a halt, put his hand on her shoulder, and turned her to face him. “But someone could unlock it at a predetermined time to allow a friend inside.”
She stared at him. Forgetting to train my vacant gaze on the ground in front of me, I stared at him. The echo beside me, seeming almost as shocked as the rest of us, stared at him, too.
“You want me to unlock this secret door for you?” Elyssa demanded. “For what purpose?”
“I think you know.”
Now I felt shock ripple through Elyssa with a force that sent all three of us a step backward. “So you can murder Cormac?”
“It would change the stakes dramatically. It would force Harold to acknowledge how serious we are.”
“It would ignite civil war! And be the death of a man I have no reason to dislike.”
Marco frowned and closed the small space she had opened between them. “You know there will be bloodshed if the western provinces are to obtain their freedom. You know there is a cost to liberation.”
“I never said I favored this war of yours! I don’t care if Harold sits on the throne. I don’t care if Alberta gains its independence or continues to swear fealty to the crown. Do you understand me? I don’t care. And I’m not about to assist in the murder of the prince. I can’t believe you would even ask it of me.”
With a flounce, she turned to go, but Marco caught her arm and stopped her before she could take three steps.
“Then do you plan to tell the prince of the plots being hatched against him?” he snarled. “If you won’t help me, will you betray me?”
She jerked her arm away and kept moving. “I will not be involved in your scheming one way or the other,” she said over her shoulder. “I will not help you—but I will say nothing.”
His voice revealed his frustration. “That’s how it always is with you! You will not commit to one action or another! You will not say if you are with us or against us.”
She walked on faster. “I am for me,” she said in a hard voice. “I do not care about causes or countries.”
He came to an abrupt halt. “Do you care about me?” he demanded.
She continued on a few paces, then swung around to face him. “Show me the life I could have with you—show me it could be a good life—and I will allow myself to care,” she said. “Until then, I will fight only for myself.”
She spun around and continued down the pathway so rapidly that the other echo and I almost had to run to keep up. Marco did not come after us, but I fancied I could feel the weight of his despairing gaze following us past the fountains and statues and rustling trees.
Elyssa was making some effort to calm her agitation, but I was nearly beside myself. Marco was still making plans to break into the palace and assassinate Cormac! Elyssa had refused to help him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t find another way in. I knew that, all this time, Marco had been plotting revolution—I had overheard enough of his passionate speeches—but I had never exactly put the pieces together. War. Assassination. Jordan’s brother.
Like Elyssa, I hadn’t cared.
But that
was before I knew Jordan.
That was before I knew I could speak.
Jordan had not accompanied the group to the garden, so there was no chance of bumping against him and whispering a warning in his ear. Maybe tonight at dinner, or during whatever entertainment had been planned for the evening. But if I could not catch his attention, if I could not signal how important it was that I speak to him—and if he could not find some way to separate me from Elyssa—how could I ever let him know what the rebels were plotting?
I fretted all the way through our return journey to the palace. For these group excursions, we always took carriages, though I knew full well the distance to the garden was walkable. On the trip over, we had shared a vehicle with Nigel and his echoes, but for the ride back, Elyssa had managed to snag a smaller carriage that we had all to ourselves. She seemed lost in thought during the entirety of the short ride, staring out the window as if memorizing the layout of the city. I gazed out my own window, but my eyes were as blank and unseeing as any echo’s should be, and I didn’t notice a single sight or landmark.
When our caravan pulled up at the palace courtyard, I straightened in my seat in anticipation of climbing out, but Elyssa sank against the cushions and shut her eyes. What’s more, she suddenly exerted control over the other echo and me, so that I felt compelled to lean back and feign sleep. I couldn’t imagine why, but I could neither ask nor disobey.
All around us, we could hear the commotion of the other nobles exiting their carriages and calling back and forth. I kept waiting for one of the footmen to come open our door, but since none of our faces appeared impatiently in the window, they must have thought our vehicle was already empty. Soon enough, the nearby voices faded away and our carriage lurched into motion again with a slow, lumbering turn. I was still held by Elyssa’s will, so I couldn’t sit up and look out to see where we were going next.
Wherever it was, the trip didn’t take long, because a few minutes later we came to another halt. I heard men’s voices speaking in heavy country accents, caught the clanking and hammering sounds of people at work. When I inhaled, I breathed in the strong scents of manure and horse. My best guess was that we had arrived at the stables behind the palace.