Chapter Three
To celebrate the triumph at Blackthorn against the tribes of the Biski, the palace hosted a banquet. Johai, blessedly, declined to join us in the festivities. So it was that Damara and I entered the entertainment hall. The peers of the realm gathered in tight circles; their muted conversations and the sprinkling of laughter overlapped and turned to a buzzing in my ears. A flautist played a tinkling tune that weaved with the light air about the gathering. Servants circulated the room, gilded trays aloft, laden with wine and delicacies. At the far end of the room was a dais with two enormous chairs, presumably for the king and queen, and additional seats on either side, for the other members of the royal family and their guests, I assumed.
The court herald announced us, and his voice carried over the din.
“Now entering: her grace, Dowager Duchess Florett, and her charge, Lady Maea.”
Damara cut an elegant figure in her emerald gown. As she glided across the room, stares of admiration and jealousy commingled. I, attired in a muted grey, appeared as her shadow, eyes downcast, hoping to avoid the judgmental stares. I thought the lack of surname would cause a stir, but the courtiers either did not hear or did not care.
Under normal circumstances, I would claim the surname of the house that had fostered me.
Because I was not an official scion of a royal house, I was not given this luxury. My lack of title and surname marked me as an outsider and an invader in their world. Despite my dire thoughts, we crossed the hall without incident. The banquet hall hummed as we wended our way through the crowd. We paused to greet acquaintances and endured another round of polite inquiries about my heritage and family ties.
Perhaps my enigmatic entrance had not gone entirely unnoticed. I nearly missed Johai. At least he helped draw the attention away from me. Once or twice, as we made our way through the revelers, I caught people staring. Most of them stared sidelong at me, as one would assess a possible opponent, perhaps a bit curious. One man pointed at me, his ham fist was covered in jewels, and in a stage whisper he said to his companion, “That woman’s eyes, did you see the color? Violet! I have only heard the stories. You do not suppose she’s—”
I hurried out of earshot, not wanting to hear more. Betimes I hated the speculations and the stares; my eyes marked me as clearly as if I wore a brand upon my forehead. Violet eyes, the sign of a diviner.
It may have been over a century since the last Diranel Diviner walked these halls, but the stories had not died with the fall of my house. People remembered, and that meant my abilities would not stay a secret for long. We found a space at a table draped in white linen, close to the royal table. Servants filled our goblets as we took our seats.
Across the table, a man with a receding hairline and a full dark beard sat between two young women, who shared an uncanny resemblance to him.
“My Lord Thelron, what a pleasant surprise.” Damara smiled and reached across the table to him.
He laid his hand over hers and said, “My dearest Duchess Florett, you look breathtaking as always.”
She laughed, throwing her head back. She pressed her hand to her breast as if she were breathless from laughing. I noticed a bit of parchment that she slipped into her bodice as she did so. He had passed her a message. I regarded the lord, he seemed unassuming enough, but it was readily apparent he was one of Damara’s allies.
“I have heard your daughters have found service in the princess’s household.”
“They have.” He beamed at his daughters. The taller of the two looked down at the table, and his second daughter smiled back at her father. “I am most pleased. Queen Idella was kind enough to recommend them to her highness.”
“Her Majesty is very generous,” Damara replied.
“Who is your companion?” Lord Thelron asked.
“This is my charge, Maea.”
I bobbed my head in their direction. His daughters gave me a small hello each, and Lord Thelron smiled, but it did not light his eyes. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Maea.”
His words chilled me. As an ally of Damara, I was inclined to dislike him, but there was desperation in his gaze, a hunger that pierced me to the core. I sensed his ambition and moreover his desire to please those above him. We held one another’s gaze for a moment before I turned away, unable to look into the depths of his soul any longer.
An unfortunate side effect of my abilities was being able to see into an unguarded heart and feel their emotions.
I tried to avoid using it, but at times it came upon me unexpected.
Lord Thelron and his daughters excused themselves after that, and I remained staring at the tabletop. A weight bore down on my chest, and a thought pressed at the back of my mind, but no matter how I tried, I could not give it shape.
“I wonder if Layton has arrived,” Damara said, breaking my brooding thoughts.
She craned her neck, scanning the room for her son. I wondered how long they had been apart, and I tried to imagine her agony not knowing if he lived or died out on the battlefield.
“There he is.” She sighed, and I followed her line of sight.
Layton chatted with a group of young men, all of whom wore swords at their belts. Damara caught his eye, and he gave her a wave of acknowledgment accompanied by a smile. He shared a few words with his companions before turning and heading in our direction. Silver glinted on his breast, and as he drew near, I spotted a silver pin there, an encircled tree in silver upon a navy shield. The young men he chatted with also boasted similar emblems on their uniforms.
Damara rose to her feet as he approached and gathered his hands in hers in greeting. “My darling son.” She kissed him on each cheek before pulling back and scanning his face. “I trust you are hale?”
“Not a scratch to be found.” He smiled, furthering the resemblance to his mother. “And who is this charming creature?” He turned his gaze on me.
I bowed deeply, befitting a man of his station. “Your grace, it is an honor to meet you.”
He laughed and waved for me to stand. “Don’t bow; we are practically siblings.” He took my hand and helped me to my feet before enveloping me in a crushing hug. “It’s good to meet you finally,” he whispered in my ear.
My response tangled in my throat. It was an unexpected sentiment and racked me with guilt. His mother adored him, and I consistently harbored negative thoughts towards her. It did not seem right that her son would embrace me like a sister. I managed a strangled, “You too.”
“Come, sit. Tell me about your adventuring in the south,” Damara said as she motioned for him to sit between her and me.
“How can I say no to you, Mother.”
“You did when I begged you to stay behind,” she said with a smile and a tilted brow.
“I return a hero, and still you scold me like a child.” Layton pressed his fist to his chest.
Damara and Layton laughed, and I, too, found a smile threatening to curl my lips.
“Tell me, are the Biski tribesmen as wild and dangerous as the rumors say?” she asked in a hushed tone as if fearing the answer. I, too, was curious to know; the whole debacle had me puzzled. In studying the divining craft, I had also studied other forms of magic. The du-toath of the Biski were famous for their mastery of the natural world, and I had read accounts of attacks upon settlements that involved lightning and fog but never an organized siege.
“They are strange peoples, Mother, wild and uncivilized. They fight with blind ferocity I have never seen in battle before. It is as if they lose themselves to the bloodshed.” Layton’s eyes grew distant, and I imagined he was picturing the horrors he had witnessed. I thought of my visions of war and death and shuddered.
“If they are as wild as you say, it seems unlikely they would think to lay siege to a holding the size of Blackthorn.”
Layton turned to face me, and a curious tilt of his brow made it appear that he was considering my statement.
“I thought the same thing myself, and yet they did,” he sai
d after a short pause.
I would have pressed him for more information, but a trumpet blasted, and the room hushed. Damara and Layton turned their attention to the back of the room. I followed their lead, and at the far end of the banquet hall, a pair of double gilded doors that I had overlooked before grabbed my attention. A pair of servants in silver and blue royal livery approached the doors. Together they opened them, and a man in black exited. His shoes clicked on the floor and echoed across the banquet hall. He stood to the left of the door and in a ringing voice announced, “Now enters His Majesty King Dallin and Her Majesty Queen Idella.”
Cloaks and gowns rustled and shifted as all assembled fell on bended knee. The king, a man of late middle age, strode through the crowd. His expression was stiff, and white lines formed around his mouth as he looked forward. On his right arm, the queen, her hair in an elaborate coif, smiled and nodded to the assembled peerage.
She passed by our table, and her eyes met mine for only a moment before brushing past. They took their places at the head table, and the assembled were bid to rise. I glanced sidelong at Damara. I wondered about Queen Idella’s blithe words earlier that day. What had she asked of Damara?
The crier tapped his staff onto the parquet floor, and I looked back to the entryway.
“Now entering: His Highness Prince Adair, Duke of Ilore, and Princess Sabine D’aux of Neaux.”
A gentle murmur rippled through the crowd. I caught my breath in expectation. The prince held the latest clue to the riddle of my missing past. The diviner had led me to him. I was sure if only I could get close to him, I could find out. The prince and princess crossed the floor to the dais, and the malcontent grew palpable. He, dashing in the midnight blue of the royal house with accents of silver in the stitching and in the slits on his sleeves, seemed unaware of the heightened whispers.
Many spoke the princess’s name in a hiss. Princess Sabine, noticeably foreign, having olive skin and a profusion of black curls, wore a gown of crimson, dark as blood. I stared at the pair of them—eyes like sapphires and a crimson gown, two of the images from my vision. Her shoulders were stiff, and she stared past the crowd. Hundreds of faces glared as she took her place at the royal table. She faced the room full of malcontent without flinching, her posture erect and proud.
Despite her stalwartness, it did not deter the whispers.
“Does King Dallin honestly mean to wed his heir to a Neaux woman?”
“I have heard the Neaux ambassador has already made an offer of marriage betwixt the two of them.”
My head pounded to the beat of a drum. King Dallin rose to his feet and appeared blurred. The room swayed, and I clutched at a nearby chair for balance. Damara shouted my name, but her voice sounded muffled.
The diviner’s voice filled my ears. “Heed my warning.”
My eyes rolled back in my head just before the vision overwhelmed me. A long-limbed horse trotted up a cobbled street, parting a crowd of people. The man astride carried a tattered blue banner, a silver tree embossed upon it, and behind him a procession of grim-faced soldiers in tarnished armor sagged in their saddles. They surrounded a girl with sable curls and olive skin. Princess Sabine, not as I had seen her moments before, but as a child.
Hundreds of leering faces, filthy and disheartened, looked up at her. Her hands trembled on the reins as she attempted to ignore their contempt. The crowd hummed like a kicked hornets’ nest. Her horse stumbled and fell behind her careless guards. They pressed forward, swelling, growing larger and angrier by the second. People poured out from doorways and alleyways. Some carried crude weapons: sharpened sticks and metal candlesticks. I walked among them, avoiding the stomping of their feet and feeling their growing ire. Voices overlapped one another in indignation and fear.
“This isn’t peace!”
“Send her back where she came from!”
“The bloody, Goddess-forsaken, Neaux whore will never replace Princess Sarelle!”
They hated her, the child who had been traded for their beloved princess. An exchange for peace, the ultimate sacrifice made by both kingdoms. These people that lived in poverty did not see a scared child. No, they saw only the face of their enemy put above them. The crowd continued to grow until individuals lost detail and transformed into an undulating mass. I watched from above as they continued to writhe like a giant serpent coiling around Princess Sabine, who shuddered, terrified and alone. They crested like a wave until they broke over her, blotting her out as she cried for help.
I reached out but was powerless to intervene. I was only a spectator here. The inhuman mass transformed into a hand, a scarred and calloused hand, missing the index finger. The hand clenched my throat, and I gasped for breath, kicking and clawing at the arm that worked to end my life. I stared into the face of my attacker, and the specter’s hollow-eyed mask looked back as it laughed.
I awoke staring at an unfamiliar canopy. Dark purple velvet curtains were hung with silver tassels. My heart raced in my chest, and a pain pressing behind my eyes was an unfortunate side effect of my vision. What did it mean? I lay musing for a moment until voices carried from nearby.
“Damara, are you certain the girl is fit to serve?”
“I assure you she is more than capable.”
“She has yet to prove that.”
I lay on the bed, my head tilted in the direction of the conversation, fearing if I moved, the speakers would realize I had woken and cease their conversation.
The second voice I knew as Damara; the first woman took me a moment to place.
“We do not have much time. You saw what he did, without my consent, mind you; now we have even more to contend with, aside from his new position as a war hero.”
“Believe me, Your Majesty, my goals are yours, and I know the stakes we are playing with. I shall see it done, no matter the cost.”
“I think we are beyond formalities in private, my friend.”
I bit back a gasp. The other woman was the queen, which could only mean this was her bedchamber.
The two of them stopped conversing, and I feared they had heard me stirring.
“He’s here. Go back to the banquet. I shall see to Maea.”
“Remember your promise, Damara.”
“I have not forgotten.”
Footsteps creaked across the floorboards. I heard a muffled exchange but did not strain to hear it. Instead I rolled over and stared at a mosaic along the far wall. What did the queen want of me? What could she possibly gain?
The chamber door opened, and I pretended to sleep. A man mumbled to himself as he walked heavily about the room. I rolled over, recognizing the Magiker’s grumbles.
“You’re awake, then,” he said in a no-nonsense way as he extracted items from his bag.
Damara stood in the doorway, her brows pulled together in thought. She noticed me staring and forced a smile. “How are you feeling?”
I pressed my hand to my temple. “I have been better.”
“Pah,” the Magiker said and added something that sounded suspiciously like “youth.”
If only he knew, betimes I wished I were a normal young woman, worrying about gowns and attracting a suitor’s eye, instead of dreaming of destruction. I swore I could still feel the pressure of the hands about my throat. What did the vision mean? As soon as I thought I had found an answer, more questions were revealed.
The Magiker pressed cold hands to my neck, and I startled.
“Don’t expect the royal treatment when you call me out of bed,” he said.
“I apologize for your inconvenience,” I said without thinking.
I thought he would be offended, but a wry smile curled his wrinkled lips.
He flicked my necklace and then went over to his bag once more. “I told you not to scry, girl.”
“It was not intentional,” I said, curious as to how he had known, but with Damara hovering about, I dared not ask.
“Did you have a vision, Maea?” Damara asked and did little to disguise her curio
sity.
I was hesitant to reveal it to her. What right did she have to it? “I did,” I said and left it at that.
She did not press me further, but I thought I saw hurt in her eyes.
“Make sure the girl gets some rest. No more excitement.”
“Thank you, I shall see to it that she’s well cared for.”
“You would do well to take my advice on other matters, as well.”
“If it could be done another way, believe me, I would see it done.”
He huffed.
“I’ll see you out.” She motioned for him to leave, but not before the Magiker gave me a final long look before saying, “Be careful, girl, and don’t overuse that charm. It’s damaging to your health.”
From the way Damara frowned, I knew she did not like that bit of advice. I nodded, and they exited, leaving the bedroom door opened a crack.
“I cannot continue to treat her in this condition!” the Magiker snarled.
I jumped from the bed and padded over to the door, peering through the crack. Damara stood in the doorway with her back to me and the Magiker just outside it, so I could watch the two of them converse. “I need your discretion in this. She must not know.”
“I am not getting mixed up in your web. If you don’t want the girl to know, that’s your business, but that charm is dangerous. Leave it on too long and it will never come off.”
“I know, but it’s only for a little while longer.”
“Like I said, that’s your business.”
I turned away from the door and grasped my necklace. It soothed the anxiety that plagued my mind, and yet I could not deny the Magiker’s words. Had this been the source of all my problems? I tried to pull it off my neck but stopped just short of pulling it over my head. I let it fall to rest in the hollow of my neck once more.
The moment I had tried to remove it, panic crashed over me. Even now, I felt as if I could not breathe without it. A calming charm, Damara had called it.
I now suspected it was much more than that.
At least now I knew how they were controlling me.
Diviner's Prophecy (A Historical Romance Fantasy Series) Page 4