The Beauty of Darkness

by Mary E. Pearson

  Gwyneth helped Pauline get the baby latched and feeding at her breast, then stood back proudly with her hands on her hips. “Look at that. He takes to it like a champion.”

  “Have a name for him yet?” Berdi asked.

  A brief cloud passed through Pauline’s eyes. “No.”

  “Plenty of time for that later,” Berdi said. “I’ll see if we have something better than that old torn shirt to wrap him in.”

  “Maybe one of those two-headed sweaters you knitted?” Gwyneth winked, and she and Berdi went to the opposite corner and began unpacking the bag they had brought.

  I reached out and touched a tiny pink toe that peeked from Kaden’s swaddling shirt. “He’s beautiful,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Well enough,” she answered, rolling her eyes, “considering I just paraded my lady parts to a killer barbarian.” She sighed. “But I suppose, compared to what you’ve been through, it’s a small indignity to bear.”

  I smiled at the baby. “And look at the prize. He was worth it, no?”

  She beamed at her son, gently running her finger over his cheek. “Yes,” she said. “I still can’t quite believe it.” She looked over at Kaden, her smile fading. “What happened to him?” she whispered. “His scars?”

  Kaden lay curled on his side, his back to us. I had become used to his scars, but I was sure they had been shocking to the others.

  “Betrayal,” I answered.

  And I told her about who he had been and what he had endured.

  * * *

  When Kaden woke, he awkwardly stood, his hand skimming his bare chest, and he said hello to Berdi and Gwyneth.

  Berdi frowned, her hands on her hips. “Well, you’ve got all kinds of surprises in you, don’t you, pelt trader?”

  “I suppose I have a few,” he answered, a slight blush tinging his temples.

  Gwyneth snorted. “Not the least of which is delivering babies.”

  Kaden turned, looking at Pauline. “How is he?”

  “Fine,” she answered quietly.

  He walked over, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, and gently nudged the blanket aside so he could see the baby’s face. Pauline leaned back, lifting the baby protectively to her chest. Kaden noticed her retreat, and his smile disappeared. He stepped away, a small movement that stung with disappointment, and my heart ached for him. But I understood Pauline too. After all she had been through, trust was as slippery as hope.

  “Anything else you plan to surprise us with?” Berdi asked.

  He looked at me. “Lia, I need to speak with you privately.”

  “Not so fast, soldier,” Gwyneth intervened. “Anything you have to say to her, you can tell us all.”

  I nodded. At some point, we all had to start trusting one another.

  He shrugged. “Have it your way. I know another one of your traitors. My father is no longer lord of County Düerr. He sits on the king’s cabinet.”

  Pauline drew in a sharp breath. Kaden didn’t have to say a name. It was immediately apparent to her, much as it was to me. There was no one else in the cabinet with Kaden’s white-blond hair, or his warm brown eyes. Even the sound of his calm steady voice was the same. Everything that should have been obvious had eluded us and I realized there were assumptions we made about people, and once we did, that was all we could see—Kaden was a barbarian assassin, the Viceregent a respected lord descended from the Holy Guardians, and surely one could have nothing in common with the other.

  Berdi and Gwyneth didn’t know the Viceregent and remained silent, but Kaden glanced from me to Pauline, wondering at her reaction. “Lord Roché,” he added to confirm his assertion.

  For a moment I planned to lie to him, say there was no Lord Roché in the cabinet, afraid that he would storm off and get his head bashed in again, but he was already reading my eyes.

  “Don’t lie to me, Lia.”

  I braced myself, knowing he wouldn’t take this well. “I know who he is. I met with him two days ago. He’s a member of the cabinet as you said. He may have been a terrible father Kaden, but there’s no proof he’s a traitor.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  I had watched Kaden stomp toward the mill to check on the animals. I could almost see the steam rising from his shoulders.

  It’s a lie! I have no relatives. My mother was an only child. The people who took me in were professional beggars.

  I saw the rage in his face, but I also remembered the genuine grief in the Viceregent’s eyes. He was only eight, a grieving child who had just lost his mother.

  If there was one thing I had learned, it was that time could twist and shred truth like a forgotten sheet battered in the wind. Now I had to piece the shreds together again.

  I told Natiya I had another job for the priest, and at the first break in the weather, she was to go to him. A record of trained governesses was kept in the archives. Somewhere there had to be some information on one named Cataryn.

  * * *

  Dieci’s ears twitched with satisfaction as I scratched between them. I gave Nove equal affection and wondered if they missed Otto. The mill was dry, but one wall had tumbled away long ago, leaving the old building cold and drafty. Owls roosted in the high rafters. Natiya sat in a far corner, drawing a whetstone over her sword. We had sparred this morning. She was the one who had reminded me of the need to keep our skills sharp. The habits I had taught her across the Cam Lanteux remained deeply ingrained.

  Pauline had watched with what I thought was a doubtful eye and later questioned me again about the Komizar’s army.

  “They’re going to destroy Morrighan,” I said, “and traitors here are going to help them do it. We have to be ready.”

  “But, Lia—” She shrugged, her expression full of skepticism. “That’s impossible. We’re the favored Remnant. The gods have ordained it. Morrighan is too great to fall.”

  I looked at her, not sure what to say, not wanting to shake her world further, but I had no choice.

  “No,” I said. “We aren’t too great. No kingdom is too great too fall.”

  “But the Holy Text says—”

  “There are other truths, Pauline. Ones you need to know.” And I told her about Gaudrel, Venda, and the girl Morrighan, who was stolen from her family and sold to Aldrid the scavenger for a sack of grain. I told her about the histories we never knew and the thieves and scavengers who were the bricks and mortar of our kingdom—not a chosen Remnant. The Holy Guardians were not holy at all. Saying it aloud to her felt cruel, like I had snatched a cherished piece of crystal from her hand and smashed it beneath my foot, but it had to be said.

  She stood, dazed, walking around the cottage, trying to absorb this news. I saw her mind ticking through texts.

  She whirled. “And how do you know the histories you found are true?”

  “I don’t. And that’s the hardest part. But I know there are truths that have been hidden from us, Pauline. Ones we each have to find with our own hearts. Truth is as free as the air and we all have the right to breathe as deeply of it as we wish. It cannot be held back in the palm of any one man.”

  She turned away and stared into the loft where the owls roosted. With each shake of her head, I knew she was trying to dismiss it, weighing my truths against the only other truth she had ever known—the Morrighese Holy Text.

  Scavengers.

  If it was true, this history robbed us of our elevated status among kingdoms. As I watched her, I understood with clarity why the Royal Scholar had hidden Gaudrel’s history away. It undermined who we were. What I didn’t understand was why he hadn’t just destroyed it. Someone had tried to once.

  Pauline took a deep breath and wiped her hands on her skirt, smoothing it out. “I have to get back to the cottage,” she said. “It’s time for the baby’s feeding.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  PAULINE

  During the night, after feeding the baby, I had lain on my side for a long while, watching Kaden sleep, still wondering at his s
cars. Now when he looked in a mirror, he would see another mark—the one I had left—alongside the ones his father had laid. Back in Terravin, a simple shirt and a few kind words had covered up everything about who I had believed he was. Mikael had done the same, but he covered up his true nature with a few flowery words. I let those words wheedle into me until they were all I saw.

  Was it possible to ever really know anyone, or was I simply the worst judge of character in all of history? I rolled over, looking at the shadows flickering on the ceiling. His seeing my lady parts was the least of my distress. I was still haunted by his expression when he first held the baby in his hands. That seemed real. His eyes were filled with wonderment, but then as he reached out and laid the baby on my chest, he faltered, as if he already knew I would never allow this child in his arms again. One part of me knew I needed to thank him for helping me, but another part was still angry, and a greater part, afraid. How could I be sure if any of his kindness was real this time? What if he was still using us for another purpose the way he had before? I knew Lia trusted him. That should have been enough for me, but trust was out of my reach.

  I knelt on the porch, scrubbing the crate he had found in the mill. It might make a passable cradle for now, he had said when he offered it to me this morning. He hadn’t met my gaze. He just set it on the porch and walked away. He was almost out of earshot before I called after him. When he turned I said, “Thank you.” He stood there, studying me, then finally nodded and left.

  It had poured for four days straight, rivers of water rushing down hillsides, more leaks sprouting in the cottage roof. I wasn’t sure if the deluge had been blessing or curse, trapping us in such small quarters, but it also forced Lia and Kaden to work out the argument between them: Kaden wanted to go to the Viceregent himself. Confront him. Lia said no. Not until the time was right. I was surprised that he listened to her at all. There was a strange bond between them that I still didn’t understand. But when she implied there was the possibility that the Viceregent had changed, that eleven years could change a man, and she pointed to Enzo as proof, Kaden became incensed. I got a glimpse of the Assassin he had been. Maybe the Assassin he still was, and I understood that when he said “confront,” he didn’t mean talk. “People don’t change that much!” he yelled and stormed out into the rain. He returned an hour later, soaked, and they didn’t speak of it again.

  I had said myself that people didn’t change, but I pondered the possibility. Lia had changed. She had always been fearless, oblivious to threat when something rankled her greatly, impulsive sometimes at cost to herself, but I saw a calculating, colder steel in her now that hadn’t been there before. She had suffered. All my months of worry for her well-being weren’t unfounded. She tried to brush past details, but I saw the scars where arrows had pierced her back and thigh. She had nearly died. I saw the thin line on her cheekbone where the Komizar had beat her. But there were other scars that couldn’t be seen on her skin. Those were the ones I worried about—a vacant stare, a curled fist, a defiant lip twisted at some memory—deeper scars from seeing people she loved murdered and knowing more had died after her escape. I saw that she cared about the Vendan people. She often spoke in their language with Kaden, and her remembrances included their traditions as well.

  “Are you one of them now, Lia?” I had asked her.

  She looked at me, surprised at first, but then some memory flickered in her eyes, and she didn’t answer. Maybe she wasn’t sure herself.

  It was her remembrances that had changed the most. She didn’t say them by grudging obligation anymore but with a zealous power that stilled the air, calling up not just the gods, but it seemed the stars and generations too. A fullness grew in the air as if the breaths of the world kept time with our own, and I saw her stare into the darkness, her eyes focused on something the rest of us couldn’t see.

  She didn’t fear the gift any longer but embraced it. She coaxed, demanded, trusted. She spoke of the gift in ways I had never heard before, its ways of seeing and knowing, and trusting, ways that made me reach deeper inside myself.

  I had seen a glimpse of her brokenness too. She hid it well, but when Natiya began describing to Berdi and Gwyneth what the Dalbreck army and outpost were like and she merely mentioned Rafe’s name, Lia walked out onto the porch as if she couldn’t bear to listen. I followed and found her leaning against a post watching the downpour.

  “She seems fascinated with the Dalbretch army,” I said. “She’s very young to be carrying all those weapons. I didn’t think vagabonds—”

  “They don’t carry weapons,” Lia said. “Natiya tried to help me by sewing a knife into the hem of my cloak. Her camp paid dearly for it.”

  “And now she wants justice.”

  “The very people she had welcomed into her camp betrayed her. Her way of life—and her innocence—have been robbed. One she may get back, the other, never.”

  I tried to gently nudge the conversation. “She thinks highly of the king of Dalbreck.”

  Lia didn’t respond.

  “What happened between you two?” I asked.

  Her cheekbone glowed with light from the cottage window and she faintly shook her head. “Whatever happened was for the best.”

  I touched her shoulder, and her gaze met mine. The best wasn’t what I saw in her eyes.

  “Lia, it’s me. Pauline. Tell me,” I said softly.

  “Leave it. Please.”

  She tried to turn away, and I grabbed her arms. “I will not. Pretending you aren’t hurting won’t make the pain disappear.”

  “I can’t,” she said. Her voice was hoarse. Her eyes puddled, and she angrily swiped at her lashes. “I can’t think about him,” she said more firmly. “There’s too much at stake, including his life. I can’t afford distractions.”

  “And that’s all he was? A distraction?”

  “Surely you of all people know these things don’t always work out.”

  “Lia,” I said firmly, and I waited.

  She closed her eyes. “I needed him. But so did his kingdom. That is a reality that neither of us can change.”

  “But?”

  “I thought he’d come,” she whispered. “Against all reason. I knew he couldn’t. He shouldn’t even, but I still found myself looking over my shoulder, thinking he would change his mind. We loved each other. We made vows. We swore that kingdoms and conspiracies wouldn’t come between us—but they did.”

  “Tell me everything from the beginning. Tell me the way I told you about Mikael.”

  We talked for hours. She told me things she hadn’t shared before, the moment she first realized who he really was, the tense minutes before they crossed into Venda, the note he had carried in his vest all those months, the way she’d had to pretend to loathe him when all she wanted was to hold him, his promise for a new beginning, the way his voice kept her pinned to this world when she felt herself slipping into another—and then their bitter argument on parting.

  “When I left him behind, I marked every day between us by writing his last words to me in the soil—it’s for the best—until I finally believed them to be true. Then I found my wedding dress where he had hidden it in the loft at the inn, and it tore everything loose inside of me all over again. How many times do I have to let go, Pauline?”

  I looked at her, unsure how to answer. Even after everything Mikael had done, every day I had to let go again. He was a habit in my thoughts, not any more welcome than a rash, but I’d find myself thinking of him before I even realized what I was doing. Banishing him from my thoughts was like learning to breathe in a new way. It was a conscious effort.

  “I don’t know, Lia,” I had answered her. “But however long it takes, I will be here for you.”

  I sat back and looked at the crate. The wood was smooth and sturdy. I stood and hung it from the porch rafter to dry. Yes, Kaden is right. Once a soft blanket is added, it will be quite passable.

  A scream splits the air.

  The pachegos have capt
ured something,

  The children cry,

  The darkness too deep,

  Their stomachs too empty,

  The howls of the pachego too close.

  Shhh, I whisper.

  Tell them a story, Jafir pleads.

  Tell them a story of Before.

  But Before was never mine to know.

  I search my memory for Ama’s words.

  The hope. The journey’s end.

  And I desperately add my own words to them.

  Gather close children,

  And I will tell you a story of Before.

  Before the world was brown and barren,

  When it was still a spinning blue jewel,

  And sparkling towers touched the stars.

  The scavengers around me scoff.

  But not Jafir.

  He is as starved for a story as the children.

  —The Lost Words of Morrighan

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  RAFE

  “She’s holed up in a little cottage not far from the citadelle with three women and Kaden. A vagabond girl too,” Tavish said.

  “You disobeyed orders.”

  Jeb grinned. “You knew we would.”

  “And you’re glad we did,” Orrin added.

  “What are those for?” Jeb asked, nodding toward the handler and three caged Valsprey.

  “In case things don’t go well for us. A parting gift from General Draeger. He insisted on them. He doesn’t want us to fall off the edge of the continent again without any word.”

  Tavish surveyed the details of our company with a suspicious eye and turned to Captain Azia, perhaps figuring he’d get more information out of him. “How’d you get so many horses with Morrighese tack?”

  Sven cleared his throat, preempting an answer from Azia. I knew the question created as sour a taste on his tongue as it did mine. “It’s a long story,” he answered.

  “I’ll explain later,” I told Tavish. “Ride back and tell the rest it’s time to split off to the eastern and northern roads into the city. And to stay in groups of no more than three or four. We can’t all descend into the city at once.”