The Demon King

by Cinda Williams Chima

  The last occupant’s possessions lay as she’d left them. A doll dressed in an old-fashioned gown gazed out from a shelf in the corner. She had a porcelain head with vacant blue eyes and long flaxen curls. Combs and brushes cluttered the dressing table, their bristles frayed by mice, and crystal perfume bottles stood arrayed on a silvered mirror, their contents evaporated long ago.

  Gowns from a lost age hung in the wardrobe, made for a tall willowy girl with a very narrow waist. Some of the fabrics crumbled under Raisa’s eager fingers.

  Carved wolves graced the stone facing of the hearth. Bookshelves lined the public rooms. More books lay piled on the stand next to the bed. The ones in the bedroom were mostly romances, stories of knights and warriors and queens, written in a Valespeech with archaic phrasing. In the public rooms were shelved biographies and treatises on politics, including A History of the High Country Clan and a first edition of Adra ana’Doria’s Rule and Rulers in the Modern Age. Raisa herself was just then plodding through it under the strict eye of the masters.

  Hanalea or not, the suite had been occupied by a young girl, probably a princess. Perhaps she’d died, Raisa thought, and her parents had kept her room preserved as a shrine. That idea gave her delicious shivers.

  Since the apartment was in one of the turrets, it was smaller than the rooms originally assigned to Raisa. But it felt spacious, since she had a view of the town and the mountains on three sides.

  She’d dragged the bed into the space between the windows, and when it snowed, she felt like the fairy princess in the snow globe her father had brought her from Tamron years ago. On clear nights she pressed her face against the glass, pretending she was soaring in a winged ship among the stars.

  Best of all, she’d discovered a sliding panel in one of the closets, which revealed a secret passageway. It snaked within the walls for what seemed like miles. The passageway led to a stairway, and the stairway led to the solarium on the roof, a glassed garden that was Raisa’s favorite place in all of Fellsmarch Castle, even though it had fallen into disrepair.

  When Raisa pushed open the door to her rooms, she found her nurse Magret Gray waiting for her. Magret was a formidable woman, tall and broad, with a lap that could accommodate several small children.

  Magret wasn’t really her nurse anymore, of course, but she still wielded an unwritten authority that came from changing royal diapers and scrubbing royal ears and even swatting royal behinds. Raisa’s bath was already steaming on its little burner, and fresh underdrawers were laid out on her bed.

  “Your Highness!” Magret said, looking aghast. “You are a terrifying sight, to be sure. The Princess Mellony said you were worse off than she was, and I did not believe it. I do owe that young lady an apology.”

  Right, Raisa thought. If there ever comes a day that I can’t get into more mischief than Mellony, I’ll cut my own throat.

  Raisa’s gaze fell on the silver tray just inside her door on which Magret left messages and mail and calling cards. Suitors had begun buzzing around like flies on a carcass as Raisa approached her sixteenth name day. On any given day there’d be five or six elaborate gifts of jewelry or flowers, mirrors and vanity sets, vases and works of art, plus a dozen engraved invitations and letters on embossed stationery, mostly proclamations of undying love and devotion, and proposals that ranged from bland to indecent.

  Some of the gifts were too elaborate to accept. A pirate prince from across the Indio had sent a cunning model of the ship he proposed to build for her so she could sail away with him. The queen’s secretary had answered on Raisa’s behalf, politely declining.

  Raisa kept the ship model, though. She liked to sail it on the pond in the garden.

  Truth be told, Raisa had no intention of marrying anyone any time soon. Her mother was young—she would rule for many years yet, so there was no need to rush into the confinement of marriage.

  If Raisa had her way, her wedding would be the culmination of an entire decade of wooing.

  Which made her think of Micah. He would be at dinner. Her heart accelerated.

  Centered on the wooing tray was a rather plain envelope.

  “Who’s this from?” she asked, picking it up.

  Magret shrugged. “I don’t know, Your Highness. It was outside your door when I came back from the midday. Now sit so I can get you out of those boots.” She said those boots in a decidedly disapproving way.

  Raisa sat down in the chair by the door, still studying the envelope while Magret tugged at her boots. They left smears of mud and ash on the nurse’s pristine white apron.

  Raisa’s name was written on the front of the note in a neat, upright hand—naggingly familiar. She tore it open and unfolded the page inside.

  Raisa, I’m home. Come find me if you get this before dinner. I’ll be in the usual place. Amon

  “Amon’s home!” Raisa cried, surging to her feet, one boot off and one on. She gripped Magret’s elbows and danced her around the room, ignoring her outraged protests. She felt rather like a tugboat towing one of the big ships in Chalk Cliffs Harbor.

  “In the name of the sainted Hanalea, stop, Your Highness,” Magret said, struggling for dignity. Wrenching her arms free, she began pulling off Raisa’s jacket.

  “No!” Raisa said, twisting away. “Hang on, Magret, I need to go find Amon. I need to find out what he—”

  Magret planted herself in front of the door. “You need to get into that bath and scrub off. If he sees you in this state, you’ll scare him half to death.”

  “Magret!” Raisa protested. “Come on. It’s just Amon. He doesn’t care about—”

  “Amon’s kept this long, he’ll keep a little while longer. You’re expected at dinner in two hours and you smell like you just came out of the smoker.”

  Still grumbling, Raisa allowed herself to be stripped of the rest of her clothing and climbed into her bath. She had to admit, it felt wonderful. The hot water stung her many cuts and scrapes, but soothed and relaxed her aching muscles.

  Magret dangled Raisa’s charred shirt and leggings out at arm’s length, wrinkling her nose. “These are going straight to Ragmarket,” she declared.

  “Please, Magret,” Raisa protested, horrified. “You can’t throw them away. They’re the only comfortable clothes I own.”

  Scowling, Magret pitched them in the laundry basket.

  It took all of the two hours for Magret to make Raisa what she called “presentable.” Magret produced a new dress that she’d made over from one of Marianna’s old ones. It was a pleasant surprise—less fussy than the dresses Marianna chose for Raisa, a simple fall of emerald silk that draped her body, cut low enough at the neck to be a bit daring.

  Magret coaxed Raisa’s still-damp hair into a coil and pinned it up on her head, then set her gold circlet on top. To finish, her nurse added Raisa’s briar rose necklace—a gift from her father, Averill Lightfoot. Briar Rose was her clan name. He called her Briar Rose, he said, because of her beauty. And her many thorns.

  When Raisa finally entered the dining room, it was already crowded. A string quartet tuned up in one corner, servers with trays circulated through the room, and the usual court grazers swarmed about a side table laden with cheeses, fruits, and wine.

  She quickly scanned the room for Amon, though she didn’t really expect to see him there. Unlikely that he’d be invited to mingle with the aristocracy.

  Across the room, Raisa saw her grandmother, Elena Demonai, Matriarch of Demonai Camp. She stood with a small group of other clan, wearing the flowing, elaborately embroidered robes they reserved for special occasions.

  She went and took her grandmother’s hands, bowing her head over them in clan fashion.

  “Good day, Cennestre Demonai,” she said in Clan.

  “Best to speak the lowland language here, granddaughter,” Elena replied. “Lest the flatlanders think we’re passing secrets.”

  “Have you heard anything of my father?” Raisa persisted, still in Clan. Annoying flatlanders was one of
her few sources of entertainment these days.

  “He’ll be home soon,” Elena said. “For your name day feast, if not before.”

  Her father had gone south on yet another trading expedition, crossing Arden to We’enhaven and beyond. Risky in wartime, but in wartime, trade goods brought high prices.

  “I worry about him,” Raisa said. “They say the fighting is fierce in the south.”

  Elena squeezed her hand. “Your father was a warrior before he was a trader,” she said. “He knows how to take care of himself.”

  Take me back with you to Demonai, Raisa wanted to say. I’m already tired of being here, displayed like a jewel in an ill-fitting setting. But she only thanked her grandmother and turned away.

  A dozen youngling courtiers had claimed space by the fireplace. Since Raisa’s return, more and more of the nobility were sending their offspring to court, putting them under the nose of the princess heir, hoping to make—if not a marriage— connections that would benefit the family in the future.

  Big-boned, gregarious Wil Mathis overflowed a chair by the hearth. The eighteen-year-old wizard heir to Fortress Rock, an estate along the Firehole River toward Chalk Cliffs, he was easygoing, unambitious, and a bit lazy, and so more charming than most of his kind. He preferred to spend his time hunting, dicing, playing at cards, and chatting up girls, avoiding the realm of politics.

  Next to Wil was Adam Gryphon, who had parked his wheeled chair next to the fireplace. Adam was also heir to a powerful wizard house, but an accident in childhood had left his legs shriveled. He got about by using a wheeled chair or a pair of arm canes.

  Raisa didn’t know Adam very well. He’d been away at school at Oden’s Ford for three years. Even when he was home, he seemed to prefer the company of books. His acid tongue drove off those who might otherwise pity him. His parents must have dragged him back to court for the season.

  Raisa’s cousins Jon and Melissa Hakkam were there, and Raisa’s sister, Mellony, whose royal status gave her standing with the older crowd. The handsome, blond, vacant Klemath brothers, Kip and Keith, were stuffing down cheese, laughing loudly at nothing in particular. Their parents probably had hopes that one of the two would catch Raisa’s eye. They’d been courting her with a clumsy enthusiasm, like a pair of sloppy-tongued golden retrievers.

  “Could I bring you a glass of wine, Your Highness?” Keith asked.

  “I’ll bring you one too,” Kip added, glaring at his brother. They bounded off.

  As if she would marry anyone named Kip.

  Micah leaned against the fireplace, flanked by his twin sister, Fiona, and surrounded by his usual coterie of admiring girls. Melissa and Mellony hung on his every word. Raisa had to admit, he’d cleaned up well—he wore a black silk coat and gray trousers that set off his falcon stoles. His hands were bandaged and he still looked rather pale against his mane of blue-black hair. As Raisa watched, he set an empty wineglass on a table and grabbed a full one from a passing server. Fiona leaned in and murmured something to him. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it. He shook his head, scowling, and turned slightly away from her.

  Both wizards, Fiona and Micah were like negative images of each other, each striking. They were the same height and shared the same lean bone structure, angular facial features, and acerbic wit. Fiona’s hair was stark white, down to her eyelashes and eyebrows; even her eyes were a pale blue, like shadow on snow.

  Fiona and Micah quarreled constantly, but cross one and you’d have both to contend with.

  “Weren’t you frightened when you saw the fire?” Missy asked Micah, her blue eyes wide and horrified. “I know I would have turned tail and run right back down the mountain.”

  Raisa struggled to keep from making a face or mimicking Missy’s vapid demeanor.

  A lady keeps critical thoughts to herself.

  “I was frightened,” Mellony put in, blushing. “But Micah came riding right into our midst and told us the fire was coming, that we should make a run for it. He was already burned from trying to put the fire out, but he wasn’t scared at all.”

  Micah seemed uncharacteristically reluctant to talk about his exploits. “Well, good it came out all right in the end. Would anyone else like more wine?”

  “Didn’t Mellony say you came late to the hunt?” Missy said, putting her shoulders back to better display her oversized bosom. “How did you get between the queen and the fire?”

  Good question, Raisa thought, amazed that Missy had come up with it. Keeping next to the wall, she sidled closer.

  Micah seemed to think it was a good question too. He took a long swallow of wine, thinking about it. “Well, ah, we saw the fire from below, so we took a shortcut, hoping to catch them and . . .” Micah looked up and saw Raisa, taking full advantage of the distraction. “Here is Princess Raisa now,” he said, sweeping down into an elegant bow.

  Raisa extended her hand. Micah grasped it and raised it to his lips, then lifted his head and gazed into her eyes, sending a whisper of power through his fingers. She flinched and withdrew her hand. Young wizards sometimes leaked magic, but he smiled in a way that said he was showing off.

  Raisa stepped on his foot and smiled at him in a way that said that wasn’t an accident either.

  Fiona glared at Raisa, somehow making herself even taller while delivering a chilly curtsy.

  Well, all right, Raisa thought, feeling guilty. Perhaps your brother’s had a little too much wine. To be fair, he did save my life, he deserves to celebrate, and he’s probably in some degree of pain.

  “Micah is being too modest,” Raisa said, in a kind of backhanded apology. “The fire came on us like a downhill stampede. We were trapped in a narrow canyon with flames on all sides, and I thought for certain we would all burn to death. If not for Micah and his father and the Mander brothers, we would have. They put the fire out completely. It was amazing. They saved our lives.”

  “Oh, Micah,” Missy exclaimed. She reached for his hands, recoiled at the sight of the bandages, then wound her arms around his neck and gazed up into his eyes. “You are a hero!”

  Micah looked flustered enough to be charming, and untangled himself as soon as he could, shooting glances at Raisa.

  Don’t worry, she thought. I’m not jealous. Only annoyed with Missy.

  “How do you suppose the fire started?” Missy asked, flicking her elaborate curls back into place. “It’s been raining for weeks.”

  “Father thinks the clans might have had something to do with it,” Micah said. “They’re always keen on keeping people out of the mountains.”

  “Wizards,” Raisa said. “They’re keen on keeping wizards out of the Spirits. But the clans would never set fire to Hanalea.”

  Micah inclined his head. “I stand corrected, Your Highness,” he said. “You are familiar with their ways and I am not.” He forced a smile. “It’s a mystery, then.”

  “Well, I don’t trust them,” Missy declared, glancing about to locate the Demonai delegation before she continued. “They slip around like thieves, and they’re always muttering to each other in that foreign language so you never know what they’re saying. And everybody knows they steal babies and replace them with demons.”

  “Don’t repeat nonsense, Melissa,” Raisa snapped. “Children are fostered with the clans for their own good, to teach them the old ways. Besides, the clans were here first. If there’s a foreign language spoken in the Fells, it’s Vale-speech.”

  “Of course, Your Highness,” Missy said hastily. “I meant no offense. But Valespeech is a more civilized tongue. We use it at court,” she added, as if that settled that.

  The quartet had completed its warm-up, and now the first strains of real music floated over them.

  “Would you care to dance, Your Highness?” Micah asked abruptly. Beyond him, the Klemaths were practically slapping their foreheads that they hadn’t thought of it first.

  Wil quickly offered his arm to Fiona. “Lady Bayar, it would be my honor.”

  Missy scowl
ed, having been overlooked. She glanced around for other prospects.

  Adam Gryphon smiled crookedly. “Would you care to dance, Lady Hakkam?” he said, making as if to swing his canes into position.

  “Well—ah—perhaps I’ll go and fetch some punch,” Missy said, fleeing in the direction of the punch bowl.

  Too bad Missy’s disablity is between her ears, Raisa thought. She wanted to say something to Adam, but knew he’d come back with a cutting response.

  Micah offered his arm, leading her to the small dance floor. She put one hand at his waist and cradled the bandaged hand carefully with the other.

  They circled the floor, floating on the music. Raised at court, Micah was an excellent dancer, despite his several glasses of wine and stomped-on foot. But then, he did everything relentlessly well.

  “How are your hands?” Raisa asked. “Do they hurt very much?”

  “They’re all right.” He seemed tense and unusually inarticulate.

  “What happened this morning?” Raisa persisted. “Why were you so late?”

  “Raider came up lame. We had to pull a shoe, and it took longer than expected.”

  “You must keep a dozen horses at court. You couldn’t ride another?”

  “Raider’s my best hunter. Besides, like I said, it took longer than expected,” he said.

  “Your father was really hard on you today,” Raisa said.

  Micah grimaced. “My father is hard on me every day.” And then, in the manner of someone who’s intentionally changing the subject, he said, “That’s a new dress, isn’t it?” When she nodded, he added, “I like it. It’s different from your other dresses.”

  Raisa glanced down at herself. Part of Micah’s appeal was that he missed nothing. “Because it’s not all layered with ruffles?”

  “Hmmm.” Micah pretended to think for a moment. “Perhaps that’s it. Plus the color sets off your eyes. Tonight they’re like pools in a forest glade, reflecting the leafy canopy overhead.”

  “Black sets off your eyes, Bayar,” Raisa said sweetly. “They glitter like dying stars cast from the heavens, or twin coals from the bowels of the earth.”