A Time of Darkness (The Circle of Talia)

by Lister, Dionne

  Don’t worry. Everything will be fine; you’ll see. Both of them knew Zim was stretching things with that statement, but Agmunsten stayed silent, trying to give hope to the lie.

  As they flew towards Bayerlon and King Edmund, Agmunsten turned his mind to the problem of Leon. The “gods” theory would have to wait because Leon was the dragon’s claw in their side right now. Agmunsten sighed as he tried to figure out how to tell King Edmund they would have to go in and kill his brother as soon as possible if they had any chance of saving the princess—if indeed she was still alive. Hey Zim?

  Yes, Agmunsten.

  Are there any warm islands we can go to at this time of year? I think I need a holiday. Zim laughed as they flew towards war, his black scales absorbing the early morning light.

  Chapter 12

  Gabrielle stood staring out of a northeast-facing window, absently playing with the heart-shaped gold locket at her neck—a present from Verity on the queen’s last birthday. She looked, although not seeing, in the direction her daughter had been taken—towards Inkra and her evil brother-in-law. At least Edmund finally knew what Leon was capable of, but what a hard way to learn. Gabrielle prayed for the millionth time that her daughter was alive and unharmed, and she wondered if she should have told Edmund about what Leon had done to her—maybe he would have believed she’d been raped and would have dealt with Leon then. Now it was too late. Verity might be lost to them forever. Her face paled to white, and mute tears followed a worn path down her cheeks.

  “Excuse me, Your Highness?” The queen turned and looked down at Boy, who held a bouquet of bright-yellow tamsin lilies. They were one of the first flowers to bloom when the snow of winter subsided. He raised his arm and smiled when Gabrielle accepted them with melancholy fingers. She held the blooms to her nose for an instant before calling Sarah to put them in some water.

  “Now, Boy, come sit with me and tell me all about your lessons.” Boy had been sitting in on Verity’s lessons, and since she had gone, the queen had insisted things be as normal as possible—it gave her hope that Verity would return. Every night Gabrielle went to bed and hoped to wake up the next morning to find it was all a bad dream. Waking up was the worst; in the time when the last mist of sleep cleared, and the first remembrance of why she didn’t want to wake up insinuated itself upon her consciousness, her heart felt constricted, and she wished it would stop beating. The only thing that got her up was her husband’s assurances they would see their daughter again, that she needed to be strong for when Verity returned. She tried to stay strong for Edmund too, knowing that not only had he lost his daughter, but had also suffered the stab of betrayal from his only sibling—he was wounded almost beyond cure.

  Boy fidgeted under the queen’s questioning. Each day the guilt gnawed on him until his insides felt like an infected sinkhole of puss. But he couldn’t confess—confession meant death, and he wasn’t ready to die, at least not until he had figured out a way to make things right. It was an effort to keep quiet about what he knew, especially when he saw the dark circles under Gabrielle’s eyes and the wet sheen that constantly coated her cheeks. He prayed every night that Verity was alive—Leon couldn’t be that evil, could he? Boy shuddered.

  “Are you cold? Do you want a coat?” The queen’s concern astounded him—he was nothing, had always been nothing, and if she knew what he had done…. Before he could answer, a scuffling of boots and tumult of voices sounded in the hall outside. The queen jumped to her feet, hope lighting her features. She rushed to the door, meeting King Edmund as he came in; Zim, Arie, Arcese, Agmunsten, Fendill, and Pernus came marching behind. “Oh, my. Welcome, welcome.” Everyone bowed to Gabrielle. She embraced the dragons before greeting Agmunsten and Arie with a kiss to both cheeks. Arie noticed Boy standing behind the queen, gaping at the dragons.

  “Hi, Boy. Didn’t think I’d see you again so soon. Do you want to show me the rest of the castle?”

  “Sure.” Boy tore his eyes away from the giant beasts and managed a small grin. He thought spending the day with Arie was much better than spending it wallowing in regret. “I know the perfect place to start.”

  Agmunsten nodded to Arie, and the boys ran out.

  Edmund spoke, “I think we should adjourn to my private reception. I want to get things sorted by tonight. We’ve had some time to get the army ready, thanks to Pernus’s quick actions before I returned. If we decide, we will be ready to march out in two days. Anyway, I don’t want to discuss this here. Let’s go.”

  Gabrielle watched her husband lead the others away, and a small spark of hope kindled at his straight-backed confidence. Finally something was happening, although it could end in war if Leon didn’t back down. Her short laugh sounded more like a snarl as she thought how silly her hopes were—of course he won’t give in. He is Leon, and his brother is going to kill him either way. He has nothing to lose. How many soldiers would die so she could save her daughter? She knew she should feel selfish for condemning many families to heartache so she could assuage her own, but no matter what others may think of her, she would get her daughter back. She would kill Leon with her bare hands if she had to. Shaking her thoughts off, she made her way to the kitchen—there was a counsel of war to feed.

  ***

  They sat around the spiderwood table, its dark-red timber crisscrossed with gossamer threads of white. The spiderwood tree was rare and the timber difficult to work with, but any furniture made with it lasted for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The table had occupied this room for twelve generations of King Edmund’s family—he drew strength from it, feeling the support of his ancestors, imagining what they had endured so the Laraulen family could retain the throne.

  “I will ask Pernus to fill you in on where we’re at.” Edmund sat at the head of the table. Pernus stood.

  “We’ve sent scouts ahead with Fendill, who is no longer Leon’s realmist. They’ll report back on the weather and the situation. I’ve drawn a map of what I can remember of the layout of the city and castle, which is more than I thought.” He rolled out the map on the table’s burnished surface and stopped the corners from rolling up with silver-colored paperweights—they looked like smooth river pebbles with the Laraulen family crest of a snow-covered oak engraved on the top.

  “Your training’s coming in handy.” Edmund was proud of his man and at this point, extremely grateful.

  Agmunsten interrupted, “I hate to say this, Edmund: I never trusted your brother, but I don’t think I expected him to be so ambitious and ruthless as to kill the Inkran king and kidnap his own niece. This has taken us all by surprise. It’s safe to say we can’t put anything past him, and I need to ask if you’ve given thought to what happens after we catch him.”

  This was as delicate as the head realmist could be—there wasn’t time for subtlety.

  Though the king looked tired, there was no mistaking the icy shards of fury embedded in his eyes. “He will be tried and executed upon our return. He is no longer my brother, and no one is to address him as such. He is the ‘blackhearted betrayer.’” Edmund’s composure slipped with each word: his face reddened, and he gripped the edge of the timber table, his fingers bent and strained with anger. “He has betrayed more than my family or Veresia; he has risked Talia for this. He knows the prophecies. How would he think to unite Talia like this?”

  Agmunsten turned a thick obsidian ring around on his middle finger. “Maybe his arrogance has finally given way to insanity. You know he’s been on the edge for a few years. They say jealousy is a curse, and it seems Talia is about to learn the truth of it.”

  “If I may go on?” Pernus drew their attention back to the map. “As I was saying, this is what I could remember of Inkra and the palace. The red doors I have marked out are those working on what I can only assume is Second Realm energy. The only people who can open them are those with knowledge of Second Realm power. Fendill can explain it in your terms when we catch up to him, Agmunsten. So, we need realmists with us when we go in.
>
  Something else we’ve been worried about is the snow—it slows things down, and if we get stuck out there with dwindling supplies, the ‘blackhearted betrayer’ will win without even trying. We have to be smart about this.” Pernus turned to his king. “I know you want this over with yesterday, but it’s going to take a few more days of planning before we can move. I have a couple of ideas I need to discuss with Zim, Agmunsten, and Arcese. My feeling is that this will be a war more about Second Realm power than might, but even then we don’t know what resources the ‘betrayer’ has. King Fernis is gathering his army—he has Elphus with him—and Queen Alaine, from Wyrdon, will be ready in two weeks, although they’re staying put until they hear from us.” Pernus stopped talking when servants entered the room with trays of fruit, cold, spiced meats, and freshly baked bread.

  Agmunsten hadn’t eaten breakfast and was quick to speak at the sight of food. “Okay, roll up that map Captain; it’s time to eat. My ears don’t work well on an empty stomach.”

  The realmist at least elicited wan smiles from the highly-strung audience as they set aside planning while they ate and considered the situation. When they finally emerged the next morning, grainy-eyed, they had two plans to choose from, and neither was perfect. Either way, they would leave in few days with an army ready to fight. Whether any would return was a question they didn’t ask—no one wanted to know the answer.

  ***

  Pernus sat in his saddle and frowned at Perculus, the king’s advisor. He was grateful they’d managed to keep him out of their plans for Leon. Edmund realized he was Leon’s man, but they didn’t let on they knew. They set up a “fake” counsel of war and fed him false information. It was impossible to hide the dragons, so they covered by saying Zim and Arcese were there to give advice and had been forbidden to go anywhere near the war—which was partly true. They considered killing Perculus on the road, but if he was still in touch with Leon, it might alert him to what they were doing. The fat man couldn’t ride well, and as his horse trotted to the gates, his chins jiggled and his stomach slapped on his thighs as he jounced around. Pernus and Edmund considered betting on how long it would take him to fall off.

  When Perculus, and his soon-to-be sore bottom, cleared the gates, Pernus surveyed the twenty new king’s bodyguards. They had lost a large number of elite soldiers to the swords of Suklar’s murderers. When Pernus returned, his first task, other than relaying the horrifying news, was to find twenty of the best men from the army. One of the men he chose was Chisholm, the young soldier who had survived the massacre, because he would know what to expect, and he followed Pernus around like a loyal puppy. The veteran tolerated it because he knew what it was like to owe someone, and he was a good soldier—certainly someone he could trust. The girl they had brought with them, Karin, was under close watch, although free to roam the castle and its grounds as she pleased. She was learning Veresian and proved to be a capable student. Karin and Chisholm were still enamoured of each other, and she was seeing him off with a wave and a tear.

  After Karin went inside, so she wouldn’t cry in front of everyone, the queen explained, Pernus prodded the soldier. “She’s reserved, lad. You’re not even going to get a hug?”

  “You know where she comes from. They’re not into talking in public, let alone hugging. And besides, we said our proper goodbyes earlier.” His cheeks reddened. Pernus nodded, unsuccessfully hiding his smile behind pursed lips.

  The captain didn’t have a special someone to say goodbye to—it’s not that he didn’t like women; he just didn’t see the point of marrying and leaving a widow with ten kids when he was killed in battle. He had chosen his job and the Laraulens over love. Gabrielle smiled, watching as Pernus gathered his troupe—he seemed oblivious to the stares of two of her staff and at least two eligible young nobles. Even the queen couldn’t deny that his imposing physique, chiseled face, and commanding manner were enticing. She spoke to Sarah. “We’ll have to get Pernus a woman when he gets back. It’s such a shame to see such a good man go to waste.”

  “Indeed, my lady.” Sarah giggled.

  King Edmund strode over and swept Gabrielle up in strong arms. He leaned his face down and looked into the green eyes he loved so much. “We’ll get her back; I promise.” He caressed her smooth cheek with his thumb and kissed her lips.

  “Just make sure you come back, too.” Their kiss this time was almost frantic: a promise. The soldiers averted their eyes, not wanting to intrude on this moment that was more than their king and queen saying a common goodbye—it was the goodbye of a soldier and his lover when both knew it could be the last.

  The clop of hooves on the flagstones as the soldiers left the palace courtyard was to Gabrielle a lonely sound; it was the sound of her husband leaving for war.

  The queen turned, and Sarah followed her inside to where Agmunsten, the dragons, and Arie sat. Two tables had to be brought into the larger reception room to accommodate Zim and Arcese. Arie, Boy, and Agmunsten sprawled on an upholstered lounge that featured blue and white stripes—the Laraulen colours. They stood and bowed. Gabrielle sat, and Agmunsten returned to the seat next to her. “Are you all ready?” she asked.

  “Yes, my queen. We’re leaving tonight. Darkness will hide our whereabouts. We should reach Klendar in three days—a lot earlier than King Edmund. We’re hoping this will be over with before the army even gets there. Sending the army out is a ruse that will hopefully fool Leon into thinking he has more time. With a bit of luck, we’ll have Princess Verity out of there before Leon knows what’s happened.”

  Gabrielle’s jaw tightened. “I prefer the name Edmund has chosen.”

  “As you wish.” Agmunsten nodded. “In any case, I don’t think old Blackheart just woke up one morning and thought, ‘I might go and kill the Inkran King today.’ If he’s had this planned for a while, there could be other spies in the castle. Do not trust anyone, and if anyone asks, Zim and Arcese have flown us back to Vellonia.”

  Gabrielle nodded. “I’m going to miss you. At least I’ll have Boy and Sarah to keep me company.” Boy kept the disappointment from his face. It’s not that he disliked the queen, but he wanted to do something to help get Verity back, and staying with Gabrielle was a constant reminder of his betrayal. He wished he could ride on the dragon with Arie; that was something he dreamed of but dared not ask—those dragons had sharp teeth.

  Boy looked at the queen. “Is it okay if I say goodbye to Arie now? I don’t feel too good.”

  “Oh, no. Are you sick? Come here.” Boy kneeled at the queen’s feet, and she touched his forehead with the back of her hand. “I don’t think you have a temperature. Maybe it’s something you ate. Very well. Say goodbye now and go and have a rest.”

  Boy embraced Arie. “It’s been fun. See you soon, I hope.”

  “Me too. It’s a shame you can’t come to Inkra.” Arie looked hopefully at Queen Gabrielle. She shook her head.

  “I won’t risk another child, and if I had my way, you’d stay here too.”

  Arie shrugged at Boy. “Sorry. I tried. I’d better shut up before I’m stuck here too.”

  “I miss out on all the fun.” Boy sighed before bowing to the dragons. “It was an honor to meet you, Sir and Lady Dragon.”

  Zim laughed, a deep vibration Boy felt as well as heard. “You can call me Zim, and my sister is Arcese. We’re friendly, you know.” He winked, and Boy smiled.

  “Bye.” With that, Boy shuffled out and made his way to his room where a packed bag waited under his bed. He didn’t like lying, and he knew the queen would be angry when she found he was gone, but that was a small thing compared to what he’d already done. He would help get Princess Verity back if it was the last thing he did.

  After the queen left them, Zim spoke in the realmists’ minds. I’ve scried Boy’s symbol. There’s something about him I don’t trust. If we need to know where he is in the future, I’ll be able to find him.

  Arie felt he had to defend his friend, He’s okay. He’s had a tough c
hildhood, which he won’t really talk about, but I can’t see him being a danger to anyone. He’s loyal to the queen because Leon saved him somehow.

  And that just supports what I’m saying. Where does his loyalty lie, hmm? With Leon, or the king and queen? Wasn’t he there when Princess Verity was taken?

  You’re not suggesting…. Arie’s eyes widened.

  Agmunsten rubbed a finger across his brow and spoke aloud. “He’s right, Arie. If it smells like dragon poo and looks like dragon poo, it probably is dragon poo.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Arcese pinioned Agmunsten with dangerous dragon eyes.

  “Oops, sorry. Forgot you were there.”

  “I don’t know what’s more insulting.” Arcese folded her scaly arms and swished her tail back and forth like an angry cat.

  “Sorry, Arcese; you know I was only joking, right?”

  “I’m not known for my sense of humor, Realmist. Watch I don’t burn you to a crisp.” Agmunsten’s mouth twisted down as he contemplated whether he was about to become charcoal, and then Arcese laughed—the smooth, musical laugh Arie loved. Zim’s chuckle vibrated the chair on which the realmists lounged.

  Agmunsten looked sideways at Arcese. “Hmph.”

  “Laugh it up, old man,” said Zim. “It could be the last one you have for a while.”

  “Thanks for reminding me, dragon boy.” Agmunsten smiled at his own joke. “I’m hungry. Where’s lunch?”

  “I’m looking at it,” said Zim, staring at Agmunsten. Agmunsten pretended to be horrified, eliciting more laughter.

  Zim was right—what they were about to do was dangerous, and even if they came back alive, no one wanted to be the one to tell the queen that Verity was dead. Agmunsten let the laughter wash the negative thoughts away. They would get there in time: yes indeed, they would.