by Gwynn White
Tao had the measure of Kestrel.
Still, Lynx wasn’t going to let him get away with an attack on her family. “She also happens to be my sister,” she said. “Please show her some respect.”
“Yes,” Tao agreed. “And Lukan is my brother. But that doesn’t mean I’m blind to his faults. Trust me, he has plenty, as you have also seen.”
“Whereas you and I are perfect?” Lynx asked with an arched eyebrow.
Tao snorted a laugh. “Of course. That goes without saying.”
Lynx was rather pleased Kestrel had bolted. The rest of the crowd had also disappeared into the labyrinth, and she was alone with the enigmatic Tao Avanov. It was time to see if he could be trusted to get her letter safely through to Norin.
She cracked her sweetest smile and whispered, “I have two questions for you, Tao. Firstly, are we being watched? And, secondly, how does electricity work?”
Without missing a beat, Tao responded in perfect—but accented—Norin, “Watched? Definitely.”
Lynx’s hand flew up. “Whoa. You speak Norin?”
Tao laughed and said, still speaking Norin, “I look so much like you lot that I figured I’d teach myself the language.”
Lynx grinned. “Well, you certainly are a marvel.” She frowned. “Anyone else—”
“If you mean Lukan? No. He never bothered. If you can stand my accent, we’ll continue this discussion in Norin, if you don’t mind.”
Lynx laughed, delighted with an ever closer link to Tao. “Your accent is probably as bad as mine, but as long as we understand each other, who cares?”
“My point exactly.”
A thought struck. “Were you the ‘friend’ Axel used to translate my conversation with my uncle?”
Tao nodded. “Quite a discussion that was.” A quizzical smile. “Now, you’re asking about electricity. It’s like a river of cool heat flowing along special pathways, never stopping, never ending. Open a door to the pathway, and it can energize anything you want. That’s the poetic explanation, but if it’s technical specifications you need, ask Lukan.” He paused. “But I doubt he’d tell you. He’s not as forthcoming as me. Another of his faults I was telling you about.”
Stunned by his frank answer, Lynx fell against the wall, sending up a cloud of dust from the tapestry. She shot forward, choking out a cough. Tao patted her on the back until she cleared her throat. “Well, that put me in my place.”
Tao grinned at her. “Axel danced with you last night. He must like you a lot if he not only spared you the consequences of that conversation, but told you our deepest, darkest secret.”
“You have secrets far worse than that.” Lynx pointed to the diamond next to his eye.
Tao responded by touching it. “True. But it all starts with power.” Despite speaking Norin, his voice dropped. “Care to take this conversation into the labyrinth? We’re less likely to be overheard there.”
Doubt flared in Lynx’s chest. “I thought no one else but you spoke Norin.”
“I’m not willing to take a chance on that. Are you?”
He had a point. But Lynx had no love for dark, dank places. “What about getting lost? The last thing I want is to spend the rest of the day wandering around a maze.”
“There are enough escape routes to stop it being a spectacularly awful experience.”
Lynx followed Tao through the archway into a narrow walkway. The black brick walls and low ceiling had no distinguishing features. Randomly placed candle sconces cast the only light. About fifty paces in, the passage branched, one going straight, another to the right, and the final one to the left.
Tao led her left. The path soon split, with more identical corridors forking off. Again, Tao chose without hesitation. Despite counting their steps, Lynx became disoriented. The passages were deserted, even though shouted voices echoed back at her. After walking in silence for almost five minutes, she noticed Tao watching her with an air of expectation.
“What?”
“We can talk here.”
Nothing indicated that this eerily dark passage was any different than the others they had passed through.
“Axel and you?” Tao asked.
“Don’t get excited. As much as I like your cousin, I am marrying your brother.”
Tao’s face was all sympathy.
It prompted Lynx to say, “It seems your father heard and saw Axel telling me about the cameras.”
Tao rocked back on his heels, whistling. “You have had an education.” He paused, looking her up and down. “It adds to your charm.” Grinning, he held his hand out to her. “We haven’t met properly. Tao Avanov. Care to be friends?”
Lynx put her hands on her hips and made a show of checking him out, too. He had the most open face of any Chenayan she’d ever met, and his eyes were gentle. She could be friends with Tao—even if he was an Avanov.
She took his hand, giving it a firm handshake. “Why else would I follow you into a maze?”
“Good point. You don’t strike me as the trusting kind.” He started walking, leading Lynx deeper into the labyrinth. Then he said, “I hope you don’t think Axel told him. It’s not his style.”
“No, I don’t. Your cousin is arrogant and snarky, but I don’t have him down as a deceiver.” She cocked her head. “And you, what can you tell me about yourself?”
Tao laughed self-consciously. “As you have seen, I don’t always approve of what goes on around here.”
Lynx’s heart fluttered with all the possibilities Tao’s words opened. “I happen to like that about you.” She paused, thinking, and then asked, “So if Axel is going to be Lukan’s Lord of the Conquest, what happens to you? Lord of the Household?”
“I won’t get a position of power. According to my brother, I lack the killer instinct necessary to help him govern Chenaya when our father dies.” Tao gave Lynx a wry smile. “I’ve always seen that as an advantage. He and I had a different set of nannies growing up. Mine actually cared. As a result, I see our subjects differently than he does. I happen to like them, and that’s why Lukan and the Fifteen will never allow me any influence.”
“More’s the pity. So what will you do with yourself?” When Tao shrugged, looking embarrassed, Lynx cajoled, “Come on, I’ve told you things about me and Axel. Now it’s your turn to share. It’s what friends do.”
Tao hesitated, then he blushed. “Laugh and—lack of killer instinct notwithstanding—I may just slap you.”
“Glad you’re a perfect gentleman.”
“There aren’t too many options open to failed Avanovs. So, I want to try my hand at parenting, hopefully doing a better job than my father did. It’s the only reason I let him force me into marrying Kestrel.” Tao gave a hollow laugh. “Before I met her, I consoled myself with the idea that a rebellious Norin would make me a better wife than a high-born chasing rank and power. But now, I’m not sure. She pretends to like me, but I know it’s Lukan she wants. It’ll be even worse when she learns I’ll never be powerful.”
Lynx’s heart went out to him. “I understand how my sister may seem like a . . . disappointment.”
Tao looked glum. “Nothing I can do about it now. The wedding announcements have been sent out, and my father would slit my throat before he’d let me back out of it.” Then, his face brightened. “Maybe motherhood will change her.” His face fell again. “No, my children will probably end up horrible.”
“That’s what aunts are for, to help raise their nephews and nieces. It’s what I did at home with my little nephew, Raven. He’s a great child, but you’re going to have to work much harder with your children, Tao. Honestly, the world desperately needs some decent Avanovs.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.”
Lynx was about to broach the letter when Tao opened a door she hadn’t noticed in the brickwork. “Through here. It’s a shortcut to the other side of the labyrinth.”
She stepped into a very different type of passageway. More like a tiny room, four walls and ceiling ma
de of mirrors reflected her image into infinity. The stuffy air forced her to breathe through her mouth. She swirled around, starting to complain to Tao, but he had vanished. Worse, the door had disappeared.
Lynx sucked in a breath, both confused and disoriented. “Tao? This isn’t funny. Open up.”
There was no reply.
The urge to pound her fists against the glass was overwhelming, but she resisted it. Lacerated hands were the last thing she needed. Fighting claustrophobia and panic, she sucked in a breath, telling herself there had to be another way out. She slid her hands across the closest wall, feeling for a concealed door.
Nothing presented itself.
As she turned to tackle the next wall, a cool draft brushed her face. She squeaked with relief. Somewhere, there was an opening; she just had to find it. She turned a full circle, scanning the walls, trying to focus on the glass behind her reflection. No easy task, she quickly discovered. She had been hard at work for a few minutes when someone spoke.
“That is what you have to do in Chenaya. Look beyond the illusion to find reality.”
Lynx spun to find the speaker, but there was no one there. Her skin prickled with fear. “W-who’s there?”
“Perhaps this will help,” the speaker said. Laughter sounded, reminiscent of a bubbling stream, as a winsome girl about Lynx’s age stepped out of the mirror.
Lynx almost jumped out of her skin. She slumped back against the mirror, hand clasped to her wildly beating heart. The girl looked like a shiny version of her. But as she shimmied closer, Lynx noticed she was taller than her visitor. There were slight differences in their faces, too, the most notable being their eyes. The girl’s were a gentle gray. Apart from that, her visitor looked as if she had arrived here straight from Norin.
Recovering from her fear, Lynx put her hands on her hips. With as much flippancy as she could muster, she said, “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d actually talk with one of Emperor Mott’s fantastical creations.”
The girl raised a perfect eyebrow. “Is that what you think I am? A hologram?”
“A what?”
“A hologram. That is what the Dreaded are made from. Light reflections designed to deceive.”
More technology from before the Burning? It had to be. “Is that what you are?” Even as Lynx asked the question, she doubted she would get a truthful answer.
“Lynx, you face illusion at every turn, so you can no longer trust what you see.” The girl waved her arm at the mirrors. “Now you have to rely on your heart.” She stepped up to Lynx and dragged a finger down the line of her cheekbone, making her gasp. “I’m as solid as you are.”
Lynx gripped her wrist. It was tangible and warm, nothing like the light that had come from Axel’s informa. Nor, Lynx realized, did she look like the Dreaded. More than one had jumped out at her since her first night here. She shoved the girl’s hand away. “Stop messing with me. What are you? You can’t be human, because you stepped unscathed through glass.”
“Oh, I’m human, just like you. Only I’m resurrected from the dead.”
Lynx swallowed hard, wishing she could dispute it, but she had never seen a living human with pearlescent skin. She eyed the mirrors again, desperate to get out. Still nothing, so she edged away from the girl, asking, “So why are you here?” A thought struck. “Does this have anything to do with the Dmitri Curse?”
“Of course it has. Nothing is more important than the fulfillment of that curse.” The dead girl clicked her fingers, and an image of Axel flickered to life before her. “I’m here to talk to you about your choices in regard to that cursing.”
Lynx took another quick step back. She bumped into the wall. With nowhere to go, she studied the image before her.
Axel was dressed in the casual clothing he had worn that morning. His strong face drew her in. His lips twitched with a smile—derisive, of course—making his honey-brown eyes dance. She drank in his body, powerful chest, narrow hips, and athletic legs. She lingered on the curve of his bicep and the muscles of his forearm, rippling under sun-bronzed skin. Her eyes trailed to his hand and fingers.
Enough! She turned to the girl. “How did you do this?”
“It’s a simple vision created by manipulating light waves. In fact, this whole room is a manipulation of light. I suppose you would call it a miracle. I call it power derived from Dmitri, the great prophet and seer who once experienced visions of the future of Chenaya.”
Lynx reached out and touched Axel, but her fingers passed through him, as they had with the informa. “He’s no different than anything Felix can create.”
“Perhaps. But he serves a purpose.” The dead girl fixed Lynx with her gentle gray eyes. “You would love to take Axel up on his offer to be your lover, wouldn’t you?”
Lynx buried her face in her hands. How could she admit her longing for Axel Avanov was almost greater than her disgust for his empire and his place in it? And what about her mission in Chenaya?
Not the one in which she mothered the man who destroyed the empire—far more pressing problems confronted her. She had already let her father down by fighting with Lukan. How was she ever going to put that right, especially if Lukan refused to speak to her? That made the Dmitri Curse moot, anyway. It was all a mess—one she had helped create.
Still, the idea of being with Axel, feeling his arms around her again, sharing his bed . . .
The girl waited.
Lynx finally whispered, “This is a pointless discussion because Mott will never allow me to have Axel.”
“Play along with me, Lynx. Imagine for a moment that Mott were not an issue. Who would you choose, Lukan or Axel?”
Play along with me . . . How many times had Lynx used that game to cajole Raven into believing things he thought impossible? He’d loved it. But she? No, not when she was the one being forced to believe the impossible.
She said grumpily, “Axel. Of course. But it’s not that simple. What about my promise to my father? And the Dmitri Curse?”
The girl brushed Lynx’s hair away from her face with a gentle hand. “Put those concerns aside for a moment.”
“How, when I’m bound by conflicting oaths?”
“Sometimes you have to break one oath to obey the other.”
Lynx sighed. She had never broken an oath in her life. She wasn’t about to start now.
“Lynx, tell me, would you like to see what would happen if you chose Axel over Lukan?”
“You can tell the future?”
“More than you can.”
Lynx blinked in surprise as a scrolling text appeared on the mirror before her. It read: “In defeat, victory. In victory, defeat.”
In a blur, an image of a girl with icy blue eyes and long, silvery-blond hair appeared. Lynx sucked in a breath, recognizing herself. She stood on a grassy field, facing an army flying Chenayan banners. A cloud, dark as a dragon’s wing, encircled it, protecting the army’s rear. On the grass between her and the host lay a man with a hand axe embedded in his skull. Two children, twin boys, lay across him, their little frames wracked with grief. Lynx recognized the man’s face and gagged.
It was Tao. The children, his sons.
Lynx shot her head around to face the girl. “How dare you manipulate me like this? You must have overheard Tao telling me his dreams.”
“Tao’s dreams were known long before he was born.”
None of this made sense, so Lynx paced the room, more desperate than ever to escape.
“The Dmitri Curse is older and bigger than any one person’s dreams, Lynx,” the girl pressed on. “I can tell you in all sincerity that you and Axel have loved each other for as long as Tao has dreamed of fatherhood. But not even a love that long and that pure is enough to transcend the Dmitri Curse.”
Did Axel actually love her? It didn’t matter because, despite this game she was playing, she could never have him. Dmitri’s marriage treaty, Mott, Kestrel, Lukan—they had all robbed her of choice.
Her voice was bitte
r when she spoke. “So, even if we love each other, we have no choice? Even if Mott and the oath to my father weren’t an issue, as you say, we can’t be together? Am I understanding this cryptic stuff?”
“It’s cryptic for a reason, Lynx, so you can use your heart to guide you. And you always have choice—with consequences. You were chosen for this role because you understand consequences—and sacrifice—better than most.”
“So if I choose Axel, Tao will die?”
“You have not asked about you and Lukan. I’ve shown you what will happen if you reject Lukan and choose Axel. It’s only fair I show what will happen if you sacrifice Axel and choose Lukan instead.”
Lynx put her hands on her hips again. “Okay, dead nameless person who refuses to answer straight questions, show me what will happen.”
“My name is Cricket, and I was the first of the Norin girls to marry a crown prince.”
“Good for you. Now get on with the show, because I’m running out of patience.”
Cricket seemed to take no offense at Lynx’s sharpness. At her smile, the image changed again. This time, Lynx saw Lukan standing with his back to her. Only, it couldn’t be him because, despite the same height and hair color, this Lukan was dressed in a tattered guardsman’s uniform. Lukan would never be seen dead in clothes as old and battle-worn as these. His head turned, as if looking at her over his shoulder.
Lynx gasped, and her pulse quickened.
He had eyes the color of a glacial lake, the color she saw every time she glanced in a mirror. Feathers were braided into the long dark hair that fell across his handsome face. Lynx’s heart soared. They weren’t ostrich feathers, but some other bird she didn’t recognize.
It didn’t matter—he was a Norin at heart. He smiled at her, and Lynx reached out to touch him. Disappointment bit as her hand passed straight through the light.
“Does he have a name?” Lynx whispered, almost reverently, knowing without doubt that he was her son.