Echo in Amethyst

by Sharon Shinn

  “Elyssa—” Jordan said.

  She shook her head wildly. Her fingers dug like claws into my flesh. “Oh, no no no no no,” she repeated. “If I can have none of it, neither can you.”

  She flung my arm aside but immediately imposed her will on me again, so that I was once more copying her slightest motion. With a pivot and a lunge, she dove toward the side of the bridge and wrapped her fingers around a decorative metal curlicue. The echoes and I rushed to the railing beside her, our own hands gripping the metal border, our own muscles bunching in anticipation.

  “We will all die together in the shadow of the Garnet Reach,” she declared, tightening her grip on the metal. With a single scrambling leap, she brought her feet to the flat edge of the railing and hauled herself upright. The three of us jumped up next to her, our skirts tearing on the metal ornamentations. “If I cannot have Marco, Jordan cannot have you.” She released her grip and swayed forward.

  “Hope, no!” Jordan cried. My own hands were open—there was nothing to hold on to—there was nothing before me but a three-story drop onto unforgiving brick. My body tilted forward and I felt every muscle simply let go—

  Then rough arms hauled me back; I was almost torn in two by the ungovernable desire to leap forward and the unyielding iron grip that forced me in the opposite direction. All around me was a confusion of wild motion and straining bodies and shouts both near and far.

  And then the pain. The pain. As if all my bones shattered, as if my skull snapped from my spine. My soul fled my body in one fleet, unraveling shot. I dissolved into dust, into liquid, into nothing, and my mind went blank.

  I felt Elyssa die.

  The world emptied out and there was only white silence.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Life slammed back into me with such force that my body spasmed and doubled over. The world swam with color, with sensation; heat poured through my veins like rivulets of lava. My chest heaved as I panted for air. I felt the rich chill of the winter wind against my skin, the close and comforting weight of Jordan’s arms around my shoulders. I heard his voice chanting my name over and over, as if he had no other vocabulary, as if there were no other words.

  Using almost all of my remaining strength, I pushed myself to an upright position and stared at him. “I’m alive,” I whispered.

  “Goddess have mercy on my soul,” he breathed, crushing me in his arms. “When she leapt—when she leapt—”

  “You thought I would fall after her,” I finished, the words muffled against his jacket.

  His arms tightened briefly, then loosened enough for him to gaze down at me. “No,” he said fiercely. “I had you and I knew I wouldn’t let you go. But when an original dies …”

  “The echo dies with her,” I said. “Always?”

  “I only know of one instance in recent history when that has not been the case,” he said. “Every other time, the noble’s death means the echo’s death, even if there isn’t a mark on the echo’s body.”

  I shook my head. “She’s dead. I can tell.”

  He pressed his mouth against my hair and whispered, “I’m not sorry.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. Since my dramatic reprieve from death, I had not looked beyond Jordan’s face. I hadn’t glanced over the side of the bridge to see the crumpled body below. Crumpled bodies, I was assuming, since the two echoes had surely followed Elyssa’s heedless plunge.

  And yet.

  I could feel them. Shadows at the back of my mind. Flickers of motion, comforting weights just behind me, to either side of me. I didn’t dare look, I just tilted my head up and said in the quietest possible voice, “My echoes?”

  “Safe,” he replied.

  “How?”

  “My own caught hold of yours when I took hold of you.”

  My bounding relief, my dizzying joy, made me push free of Jordan’s embrace and look around. Yes, there they were on either side of me, disentangling themselves from the arms of his echoes, looking just as stunned and unsteady and whole and alive as I was. I was so glad that it took me a moment to realize something was wrong.

  “Jordan—where’s your third echo?”

  His face crumpled with grief; now he folded me back into his arms. “I grabbed you—it grabbed Elyssa—and neither of us let go,” he whispered. “It fell with her to the bottom of the bridge.”

  I felt my whole body clutch in a paroxysm of pain. “Oh, no no no no,” I said, just like Elyssa had when confronted with her own proof of loss. “Jordan—I’m so sorry—I don’t know how you will bear it.”

  His grip tightened, but I could feel his body shaking. “I will bear it—I will endure it,” he said, intense and determined. “I have you. I choose you. I would make that trade every day if I had to.”

  “But, Jordan—”

  “It hurts,” he acknowledged. “Hope, my dear, my darling, it hurts.”

  Now I was the one to tighten my hold; now I was the one to try to offer comfort. When he started crying, I started crying, as if we were as bonded as echo and original. As if we were one person. As if we shared one heart.

  But we did not have the luxury of time for grieving, not here, not now. I could hear murmuring from the square below us as onlookers clustered around the fallen bodies, checking to see if, improbably, either jumper had survived. Closer to hand, there were urgent footfalls as heavy boots rang on the bridge’s curved ascent.

  “Your Highness?” asked a voice, respectful but resolute. “Prince Jordan? Are you all right?”

  I felt Jordan take a moment to compose himself and assume his usual demeanor, then he lifted his head and let me go. I, too, tried to settle my thoughts and adopt a serene expression. The man who had addressed Jordan was a royal guard; I quickly noted three more at his back and two down below, trying to keep the curious away from Elyssa and the dead echo.

  “Yes, thank you, Sergeant, I am well, but there has been a tragedy here today,” Jordan said solemnly. “Lady Elyssa received disquieting news and was much overcome. She stumbled against the railing and almost fell, but I was able to catch her before she went over. Unfortunately, one of her echoes, and one of mine, could not be saved.”

  The soldier gave me a sketchy bow. “My lady,” he murmured. From his cool tone, I gathered that he had no favorable opinion of Elyssa. Perhaps he had been assigned to guard her at some point during her current visit.

  I was barely able to summon the presence of mind to nod in return. Lady Elyssa? Was Jordan seriously going to attempt to pull off this masquerade? It was a good thing that no one seemed to expect me to answer because I found myself bereft of speech.

  The sergeant returned his attention to Jordan. “I understand that losing an echo will be a terrible blow to you, Your Highness,” he said. “Perhaps it would be best if we got you back to the palace right away.”

  “Yes—I think you’re right,” Jordan said a little unsteadily. “Is there a carriage stand nearby? Can one be hired for the two of us and all our echoes?”

  The sergeant glanced over his shoulder. I didn’t hear him give an order, but one of his men broke free and bounded down toward the plaza. “It’ll be here in a moment. It might best if we hired a wagon to bring the bo—bring the echoes back to the palace as well.”

  “An excellent notion. Thank you,” Jordan said. He straightened his shoulders, put his arm around me, and began urging me toward one of the downward ramps.

  “Do you want assistance, Your Highness?” the sergeant inquired. “You can lean on me.”

  “No,” Jordan said. “Elyssa is all the support I need.”

  Truth be told, we were both a little shaky, but we made it safely down the arch and onto the brick of the plaza. We both hesitated, then turned as one to make our way to the bodies and fall to our knees beside them. The other onlookers cleared away in respect for our obvious grief.

  Jordan put one hand to his echo’s chest, as if feeling for a heartbeat that he already knew would not be there. I could tell he was biting
his lip in an effort to stave off another round of tears; this was a wound from which there might never be a complete recovery.

  In contrast, I stared at Elyssa’s face and felt no sadness whatsoever. But neither did I feel elation. There was horror and disbelief and lingering confusion and even a little pity. But I could not be sorry she was dead.

  After a moment, Jordan lifted his hand and rested it on his knee. I saw him glance at Elyssa—then glance again with a slight frown.

  “My dear,” he said in a slightly artificial tone pitched so that others could overhear. “I will take the ring and pin from my echo’s body—you must take the necklace and earrings from yours. They have no need of such adornments now.”

  I caught my breath. For this clandestine outing to confront a rogue echo, Elyssa had chosen to wear her signature jewels, including the pendant with the interlocking circles and her finest amethyst earrings. Anyone who knew her would recognize those pieces—and would know they did not belong on an echo. “Of course,” I murmured. “I will keep them always to remember her by.”

  It was a slightly gruesome task to lean over Elyssa’s body and fumble with the clasp of the necklace, slide the hooks from her ears. The two rings she wore weren’t as immediately identifiable, but I confiscated them anyway. Trima would know them, if she happened to see this corpse; there was no point in taking chances. I had just dropped all the pieces into the pocket of my cloak when I heard the clatter of wagon wheels approaching, and the sergeant came over to let us know our conveyance had arrived.

  “I’ve sent a man ahead to the palace,” said the soldier, holding out a hand and helping each of us to our feet. “The king will know what’s happened before you’ve made it back. That’ll make it easier.”

  That’ll make it more confusing, I thought, but Jordan only thanked the man and assisted me into the carriage, which was just large enough to hold the six of us. The minute the door was closed and the vehicle started moving, Jordan and I fell into each other’s arms. On the other seat, all our echoes did the same.

  “I came to the inn this morning,” he said, his voice ragged, “to tell you Marco was dead. But you had already left.”

  “I saw her on the bridge,” I answered, my voice almost as rough as his. “With her cloak on and her hood up. I thought she was him. And then she turned and—and—”

  “I came right here, but I didn’t run,” he went on. “I didn’t realize you were in danger. If I had known— But then I got here and I saw you— I saw her—” His arms closed so convulsively that for a moment I couldn’t breathe. But it was a much more welcome form of suffocation than when Elyssa had wrapped her hand around my throat.

  “It’s fine—it’s all right,” I managed to murmur against his chest. But I was clinging to him so tightly he might not have believed me.

  We sat that way another moment, and then Jordan sighed and loosened his hold. “Now, quickly. We don’t have much time and we must sketch out our story,” he said in quite another tone. His voice remained very low; there was little likelihood the driver could hear us even if we shouted, but I felt the same impulse to stealth.

  “You want to pretend that I’m Elyssa?” I demanded, my voice almost soundless. “For how long?”

  He took my hands in a hard hold and gazed down at me. “Forever,” he said. Despite the shock and sorrow marking his face, he looked oddly excited. “Don’t you see? If you’re Elyssa, I can marry you! The treaty stands—there is peace in the realm—and you and I can be together.”

  “But I—I—I thought you were just saying those things to make her angry—so she would let me go—”

  “I was,” he admitted. “But now that she is dead—what an opportunity the goddess has handed us! Unless you don’t want to marry me.”

  “It might be the other way around,” I said in a low voice. “You might find you do not want to be married to me.”

  “I—” he began, but I freed one hand and held it up to silence him.

  “You scarcely know me,” I went on. “All told, we have spent what probably amounts to less than a day together. You find me fresh and intriguing now—but in a few months? A few years? You may find me so dull and wearisome that you deeply regret this hasty bargain.”

  He took hold of my raised hand and kissed it. “I suppose it may happen, though I don’t think so,” he said. “I do believe I have a much greater chance at happiness with you than I did with her, and I was willing to marry her for the good of the kingdom.” He couldn’t hold back a smile. “If I must marry someone who looks like Elyssa, I would much rather it be you. Now, if there is someone you would rather marry—”

  I answered that with an emphatic kiss. “I cannot imagine that the world could permit me so much happiness,” I said. “But goddess have mercy on my soul! What a deception we are committing ourselves to! I must pretend to be Elyssa—now and forever—”

  “No one knows her better than you do,” he said. “Her mannerisms, her tone of voice, the way she flirts, the way she mocks. If you could fool Marco, you can fool all the nobles in the kingdom.”

  “But I don’t think I can do that,” I said honestly. “I don’t think I can maintain her—her level of cruelty.”

  He shook his head. “Then don’t. Slowly become a kinder person. Tell anyone who asks that love has given you a change of heart.” He laughed and lifted our clasped hands to kiss my knuckles.

  I was thinking it over. It might work. Why wouldn’t it work? There might be a few people from Elyssa’s early life that I wouldn’t recognize because she hadn’t seen them since I had been conscious, but all the royals? The high and low nobles? The servants in Camarria and Alberta? I knew most of them—and how Elyssa treated them.

  “Trima,” I said. “Her maid. She’s the only person who actually seems to care for Elyssa. She’ll know I’m not her.”

  “I can have her released from your service,” Jordan said. “I can tell her it’s my decision—that I want my bride to start over with servants who are loyal to the crown. I’ll pay her a handsome severance, of course, but I’ll make sure she never sees you again, not even today. Unless you think that’s too unkind.”

  I thought that over, too. Trima had been genuinely devoted to Elyssa, and I thought a summary dismissal would distress her greatly. But Trima had never shielded me from Elyssa’s casual torture, never even made sure I was properly fed or cared for. She was the one person who had had a chance to make my life bearable, and she hadn’t bothered to do it. “No,” I said in a hard voice. “Let her go.”

  Jordan gave me a speculative glance but did not follow up with questions. “What about Elyssa’s father and her aunt? Should I forbid them the palace and refuse to let you visit them? Anyone would find it believable that the crown doesn’t trust them.”

  I shook my head. “They won’t realize that I’m not her. Lord Bentam ignored her until he thought he might get some use out of her, and Hodia only wanted to be sure that Elyssa dressed and acted like a lady. Neither one knew her. Neither one cared.”

  Now his gaze softened to something like pity. “You paint a very sad picture. I always found Elyssa unlovable, but maybe she was just unloved.”

  “She was both,” I said softly. “And it is sad.” Now I brought his hands up to my mouth and kissed them. “But I find I can’t be sorry she is dead. I am only sorry that you have paid such a heavy price for it.”

  He nodded, his face instantly grave. “The ache is so raw and deep that I cannot even describe it,” he said. “I think—when I am alone tonight and finally have time to understand what happened—the pain will bring me to my knees. I have been grievously wounded—but not mortally wounded. I will recover, I am sure, but I will bear the scar forever.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He squeezed my hand. “It is the price,” he said. “The price for you. I would pay it over and over again, until I ran out of echoes.” He managed a very small smile. “And perhaps it will turn out to be a fortunate thing.”

  “I
n what way?”

  “In marriages among nobles, it is thought to be best when the couples have the same number of echoes. When there is symmetry in their lives—and in their bedrooms.”

  That made me laugh and blush at the same time. “I confess I had not gotten quite that far in my thinking. Now we each have two.”

  He glanced over at the echoes occupying the other bench. “And you do have Elyssa’s, do you not? I have seen them follow you, but can you bind them to you absolutely?”

  I nodded, and the echoes nodded with me. “Even when I wasn’t consciously trying to control them, they would attach themselves to me if Elyssa wasn’t nearby. Now—as soon as she died—I felt it. That transfer of allegiance. We might fail in many other aspects of this mad charade, but it won’t be the echoes that give us away.”

  “I would like to tell my father and brother the truth, unless you think that’s a bad idea,” he said.

  “No, I think it’s best that they know! Otherwise, they will undoubtedly find some of my behavior very odd.”

  “And we will have the wedding as soon as it can be arranged.”

  I shook my head in a wondering way. “Married,” I said. “And to you. I still cannot make myself believe it.”

  He kissed me again, and then he laughed. “The only thing I find distasteful—the only thing!—is that I will now have to call you Elyssa,” he said. “And because I have despised her so much, I have come to hate the name.”

  I shifted position so I could snuggle against his shoulder. I had to think we were almost at our destination; we didn’t have much time left, and I just wanted to soak up some of his heat and strength before I had to start playing my new part at the palace. “I hate it, too,” I answered. “But ‘Hope’ sounds nothing like ‘Elyssa,’ so we cannot even pretend it is a pet name you have for me.”

  “No, we shall have to come up with a word that sounds like Elyssa but is something else entirely.” He glanced out the window, where the great curving wings of the palace were coming into view; in another minute, we would be pulling to a halt in the courtyard. “Something that both of us— Wait, I have it! Amelista!”