In Dreaming Bound

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  A young woman emerged from behind the walls of a large household two down from Gasanen’s, her clothing giving away her status as a servant—likely a kitchen maid. She crossed the street to where Pamini waited and sat next to her on the bench, not quite touching. The pair talked softly under the sunlight like a courting couple.

  Mikael smiled. It was a brilliant cover, since it gave Pamini a reason to be waiting there.

  Unfortunately, it couldn’t last forever. The girl would surely have to return to her employer’s home shortly. But a quarter hour passed before Pamini’s maid got up and dashed back toward her employer’s house. Pamini made a discreet gesture behind her back, and Mikael spotted a carriage slowing to turn into the gates of Gasanen’s estate. A burly armed guard came out to speak to the driver, opened the side door and peered inside the carriage, and then waved them on. The gates opened, and the carriage rolled inside.

  Mikael hoped that meant he would have answers soon.

  After almost an hour, the carriage rolled back away from Gasanen’s estate, a man leading the questionable horse emerging behind it, along with two other men. The horse was apparently to be guarded like the king. The carriage moved away at a normal clip, the horse’s train began walking slowly along the road.

  Mikael still didn’t know who was in that coach, but Pamini got up and strolled away, lazily following in the wake of the horse. Eventually they would know.

  He was considering leaving his hidden spot when the estate gates opened again and the large bodyguard walked out. He looked toward Mikael and then gestured sharply.

  Mikael sighed, used his shoulder to push away from the tree, and walked that way. Never good at hiding.

  Perhaps this way he wouldn’t have to wait for Pamini’s answers.

  The bodyguard gestured for Mikael to stand still before the gate, then searched his pockets, his sash, and his boots. “No weapons?”

  Given that the man in front of him had one pistol visible in the sash about his waist, a knife in his boot, and a suspicious lump in one pocket of his overcoat, Mikael suspected he found that scandalous. “No. Why would I?”

  The man peered at Mikael through slitted dark eyes, then gestured for him to walk on up the drive to the house. A separate guard closed the gate behind them. The drive to the house was level, wide enough for two carriages, and snowless. The cobblestones were patterned, waves of dark and light, and he pondered that choice as he strolled silently up to the house. The guard was clearly not a man who believed in talk.

  The house itself was not much larger than the colonel’s, of pink granite with accents of pale marble. It was attractive, but not in any way distinctive even though it seemed a newer place. Mikael decided that was Gasanen’s way of not revealing anything about his personality other than his guardedness. It put him in mind of the Family’s refusal to have any indicators of locations on the Fortress’ inner walls, so invaders wouldn’t know where to find things. That bizarre parallel caused him to laugh aloud, drawing another odd glance from the bodyguard.

  The man led him up to the front door of the house—a rarity for Mikael. A large-boned woman in beige servant’s garb opened the door, her hair braided back from a very dark Larossan face. Young and very strong, Mikael judged. She glanced once at the bodyguard, then let Mikael pass inside. She claimed his overcoat from him and walked away, no doubt to search his pockets more thoroughly.

  The bodyguard led him down a beige stone-tiled hallway where beige wool runners softened their footfalls. The wall hangings, chairs and benches, and paintings along that hall seemed expensive, well coordinated, and impersonal, as if this were a hotel. None of the pennants that Larossans used to designate their hopes and dreams, no red for luck, and no Anvarrid trappings among them, either.

  The bodyguard stopped him with one hand to his chest, then passed him and opened one of the white-painted doors. “Wait inside.”

  Mikael walked into a pleasant library that smelled appropriately musty, the hearth lit with two comfortable-looking chairs set before it. The books on the shelves that filled the room were all bound in leather with gold-imprinted spines. He peered curiously at the selections for a time, more and more convinced that these books were never read. Not because there was dust on them or the spines looked stiff . . . but because they were the sort of books that a man of consequence should have in his library. Histories, philosophy, the great poets—no doubt a book of his ancestor Jan Lee’s poetry was on these shelves somewhere. It was a façade.

  “Mr. Lee,” Gasanen said from behind him.

  “Mr. Gasanen,” Mikael inclined his head. “Thank you for taking time to see me.”

  Gasanen regarded him as if he was a particular annoyance, a faint hint of the matching emotion flaring about him. “You arrived too early. I can’t have a member of the Family lurking outside my home. My neighbors would ask complicated questions. Please sit down.”

  This was an office, Mikael decided, for all that it was dressed to look like a library. He sat where Gasanen indicted, in one of the leather chairs. It was quite comfortable. A small table sat next to the second chair, into which Gasanen settled. The man regarded Mikael with an untroubled brow.

  He pointed to a case that sat on the table. “Hedraya left all his files on Faralis’ activities with me. I assume you’ll hand them over to Anna, who will know how best to use them to edge Faralis out of office and into a prison. I’ll let you take it with you.”

  So he definitely knows Anna. Somehow Mikael wasn’t surprised. Perhaps the two of them met regularly for spiced tea and exchanged gossip in these very chairs. “Thank you.”

  “We had a deal,” Gasanen said. “I uphold my bargains.”

  “Then who killed Aman Jusid?”

  A quick curl marked Gasanen’s upper lip. “One of my employees, Aron Ledesine, did that. He was my contact with Lieutenant Messine and thought to impress me by his initiative. If you go down to the police station in the Old Town, you will find that he turned himself in this morning. I don’t appreciate initiative as much as he believed.”

  Mikael had no doubt every word of that was true. He would track down that name and information later—the given name Aron hinted that Ledesine was Family raised. He also suspected that the charges against Ledesine would be dropped in short order and the man would be freed. His insistence on working with Gasanen had given him the name of a man who would likely not even stand trial, and the Hedraya, who were already under the tightest watch the Daujom could manage. He hoped he could salvage something out of this fiasco. “Do you know why the Hedraya were willing to destroy their ties to Faralis?”

  Gasanen regarded him with a dry expression. “I am paid for information like that.”

  Well, no harm in asking, was there? “How much?”

  Gasanen’s head tilted. “I want to know how the girl is faring. Since they’ve placed her in the Family, Cerradine’s man no longer has access. You do.”

  “Are you talking about an ongoing agreement?”

  Gasanen’s lips lifted at one corner. Not a smirk exactly. “Once a month, and I’ll answer your questions as far as I see fit.”

  Mikael kept his features neutral. He was not good at games, and he had the feeling that this man was. “That’s acceptable for now. The girl is in with the nines—the children who are nine-year-olds, I mean—and from what I’ve heard, enjoying herself spectacularly. She apparently wants to learn to fight.”

  “Is she healthy and safe?” Gasanen asked.

  “Yes. I saw her last week, on her first day.”

  Gasanen inclined his head. “Hedraya correctly thinks that Faralis’ little empire is about to collapse anyway. He’s taking advantage of that by getting rid of Faralis before any candidates other than the one he’s selected can prepare to take the commissioner’s place.”

  That was a great deal of information. Mikael tucked it all away in his head to pick apart later. “So they’ll have a new police commissioner in their pocket, and they’ve gotten . . . a racehorse? D
oes it say in here to whom Faralis intended to sell the girl?”

  “No,” Gasanen said. “But your answer is that Hedraya arranged the whole thing, to sell the girl to some of his foreign friends.”

  Mikael swallowed. “Pedraisi?”

  Gasanen smiled. “We have been so frightened of the Pedraisi for so long that we’ve forgotten our older enemies.”

  Older enemies? This echoed Cerradine’s revelations, although that didn’t mean it was true. “The Cince?”

  “The whisper is that the Cince have been experimenting with people captured from all over the world. Very secret, very worrisome, and possibly false.”

  Mikael felt sick to his stomach. “Would they take these people to the empire?”

  Gasanen shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps you should discuss it with Anna, then you could tell me.”

  Mikael felt his jaw flex. Anna again. “And they are Hedraya’s foreign friends?”

  Gasanen laughed softly. “Friends might be an overstatement. Hedraya is merely their man here in Larossa. Any House that follows Hedraya is dangerous to your Miss Anjir, though.”

  My Miss Anjir. “Are you among those I shouldn’t trust then,” Mikael asked, “since you seemed to know Hedraya?”

  Gasanen smiled. “When you talk to Anna, ask her who I am.”

  “Does your birth make that much of a difference?”

  “Let’s say I have reason to despise the Hedraya.”

  “Ah,” Mikael said, wishing Anna had been more forthcoming with him. He hated looking like an idiot even when he was one.

  “And no, I’m not a child of that House,” Gasanen volunteered, handing over the case from the table along with that tidbit.

  Mikael wished Gasanen wasn’t enjoying this quite so much. “Is there anything else?”

  Gasanen smiled secretively, another burst of pleasure accompanying that. “A reminder that when you need that question answered, I have the proof.”

  The man loves his secrets. Mikael shook his head and rose. “I don’t know which question you mean.”

  “Your half-brother,” Gasanen said, dark eyes amused. “There is proof of his parentage, and I can lay my hands on it.”

  Numbly, Mikael collected the case, took his coat from the servant at the door, and when he got outside, settled into the private coach that Gasanen’s man insisted he use to get back to the palace. He held the case on his lap, mind whirling tight and angry. He didn’t want to upset Shironne, though, who could surely feel his reaction, so he concentrated on breathing slowly to calm himself.

  That was the secret.

  All along he’d thought his father had wanted him to know something. Reaching out to his son in death . . . it had to have had a purpose. Otherwise Mikael had spent the last decade annoying every sensitive in his proximity, entrapping a young Larossan girl to serve as his dreams’ interpreter, and coming closer to death with every dream for no reason. If there was no purpose, he would have thought it cruel.

  But now he knew.

  I have a brother, and my father wanted me to know.

  NOT The End

  To be continued in

  Dreams from the Grave

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  Some Notes on the Families

  * * *

  TO DIFFERENTIATE Family assignments:

  The Military

  A Guard is a member of the military charged with protecting a specific person. Guards are generally part of a team, with one being the Primary and coordinator of that team.

  A Quarterguard is a member of the military charged with protecting the quarters or residential areas of the Anvarrid House, and are required by treaty to be sensitives.

  A Sentry—the bulk of the military—is a member of the military charged with protecting a place, such as the Keep itself, or the Fortress. Sentries are further divided into Rifles and Hand-to-Hand to indicate where they would usually stand duty. (Rifles on the rooftops, for instance, but Hand-to-Hand guarding doorways.)

  Fightmasters—train the military to fight

  Battlemaster—coordinates the defense of the Keep

  Engineers

  Engineers are charged primarily with maintaining the Fortress.

  Oathbreakers are engineers who speak with the Fortress in a forbidden language and can access the Fortresses memories.

  Infirmarians

  Infirmarians run the infirmary. It’s worth knowing that many of them must speak some of the Family Language in order to interface with the Fortress’ instructions. Despite that, they aren’t considered Oathbreakers since they only have access to a limited set of commands.

  Carers

  Carers is the broad category of non-military personnel who support the Family: Quartermasters (which includes Laundry and Mess), Chaplains, and all manner of caregivers: Children, Elderly, Livestock, among others.

  HOUSE AFFILIATIONS:

  Each Family (and their Fortress) is tied to one specific Anvarrid House, although political pressures can cause that House to change.

  At the time of this novel; it goes as follows:

  Lee Family—House of Vandriyen (Master of Lee Province)

  Lucas Family—House of Valaren (King of Larossa)

  Andersen Family—House of Gasanian

  Jannsen Family—House of Montaris

  Halvdan Family—House of Alaharen

  Horn Family—House of Horn (in this last case, the House has changed its name to Horn, so we have Lady Horn or the Mistress of Horn Province)

  Those are six of the Anvarrid Houses, of which there are approximately eighty-five. Several of those do not vote in the Senate because they are considered to have “gone into the Family” which is the Anvarrid way of saying the remaining heirs are too pale to pass as Anvarrid. (This is what caused the transition from the previous Royal House, Anaracin, to the House of Valaren—the only two Anaracin Heirs were too fair to pass, and therefore the Senate would never confirm them as heirs.)

  The treaty between the Anvarrid and the Six Families keeps the Families in the Anvarrid’s political pocket. It forces them to act, in essence, as a small standing army for each respective Lord or Lady. Jannsen and Horn, by virtue of historical accident and geography, were never invaded, and therefore didn’t need the treaty in the same way the other four Families did. This is a source of constant tension, since there were some serious downsides to the treaty.

  Cast of Characters

  * * *

  Mikael Lee/Mikoletrion: Aide to Daharion, heir-apparent of the House of Vandriyen and the station of Master of Lee Province, twenty-three, mixed Family and Anvarrid

  House of Valaren

  Shironne Anjir: Previously worked for the army (Colonel Cerradine), seventeen, Larossan/Anvarrid

  Savelle Anjir: Shironne’s mother, illegitimate child of the previous king, half-sister to Dahar and Khader

  Perrin Anjir: Shironne’s younger sister, sixteen

  Melanna Anjir: Shironne’s youngest sister

  Khaderion/Khader: King of Larossa, Dahar’s older brother

  Amdirian/Lady Amdiria: King’s consort

  Daharion/Prince Dahar: Head of the Daujom, Kai’s father, House of Valaren

  Kai/Khandrasion: First of the twenty-fours, Dahar’s son
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  Rachel: Dahar’s elder daughter, Engineer and Oathbreaker, twenty-three

  Amserian/Lady Amseria/Sera: Kai’s younger sister, eighteen

  Lucas Family

  Deborah: Lucas Family’s Head Infirmarian, Dahar’s sister-in-law

  Elisabet: First of the twenty-fives, Kai’s primary guard and now wife

  Elias, Master: Eli’s father, Lucas Family’s head legal counsel

  Sixteens

  Eli/Elias: First of the sixteens, runner in the royal household

  Gabriel: Eli’s cousin, Second for the boys

  Tabita (Janssen): Second for the girls

  Hanna: Larossan-born yeargroup member

  Hedda: Runner for infirmary

  Norah: Runner for carers

  Theo: Runner for the chaplains

  Maria: Eli’s foster sister

  Iver: Yeargroup member

  Other members of the Lucas Family

  Rebekka: First of the seventeens, Eli’s girlfriend

  Frida: Sponsor for the sixteens

  Clara: Sponsor for the sixteens

  Jakob: Infirmarian

  Liam: Trainee in infirmary

  Jannika: Sentry, twenty-two

  Ruth: Carer, Gabriel’s mother, wife to Nicanor and Joanna’s sister

  Joanna: Fightmaster, wife to Master Elias and mother of Eli, elder representing the Fightmasters

  Noah: Head Chaplain, elder representing the chaplains

  Nicanor: Records, elder representing the Records department, Gabriel’s father

  Benjamin: Fightmaster, forty-four

  Vilde: Elder representing the elderly

  Seth: Battlemaster, head of all Lucas military, elder representing military

  Daujom

  Anna: Chief officer in the back rooms of the Daujom

  Liva: Aide to Anna

  Army

  Cerradine, Jon: Colonel in Larossan Army

  Aldrine, Kirya: Army lieutenant

  Kassannan, Aron: Captain, field surgeon, medical examiner in the morgue