He began walking away.
“Roen?” Eloryn stood up faster than she meant to.
“I won’t be far,” he called without looking back. She sat down again and watched him go. He reached a mostly intact building half way down the road and sat against the shadowed wall, knees against his chest.
If this worked, he could go back to his parents, and no longer feel the responsibility of my presence. Eloryn remembered seeing a similar look of affliction in Alward’s face growing up. Wherever he was now, it was her fault. If anyone else was hurt because of her...
“May I see your knife for a moment?” she asked Memory, looking for a distraction.
“Sure.” Memory flicked it closed again and passed it to her.
As the knife came into her hands, Eloryn felt her spark of connection grow strong and a strange warmth in the metal. It wasn’t silver, as she’d first thought. It was something harder. “Could this really be iron?”
“I don’t know. Stainless steel or something.” Memory shrugged.
“No, it’s... this metal is poison to the fae. I don’t know how you could have this. There should be no iron in Avall. It was all removed during the Purge, at the forming of the Pact.”
“Is there anything that isn’t to do with whatever this Pact thing is?”
Eloryn frowned. She often had to remind herself how little Memory knew. Things even a child of Avall knew. “The Pact was a deal made over 1500 years ago between the fae and humans, to benefit both sides. It brought magic and prosperity to the people of Avall, and Avall became a safe haven for the fae in return. Part of the pact is the peace treaty. If a fae hurts a human they can be magically Branded, and vice versa, unless under certain conditions. The Brand is a death sentence. I’m sorry. I should have told you these things before now. If you hadn’t been acting in self defense when the banshee attacked, you could have been Branded. The iron itself isn’t a crime as such. It simply shouldn’t exist here any more.”
“You don’t think it means I could be from somewhere else, like Hell?” Memory asked, quiet and high pitched.
“I don’t think you’re a bad person Mem, or a demon.” If only she knew more, if Alward had let her study the Veil with him. He had been obsessed with its research, even travelling into the woods where he could perform spells and experiments unnoticed. But he never shared that research with her, never explained why. She had stolen peeks into his work, but not enough for this.
“There are always other answers. I just don’t have them for you, I’m sorry.” Eloryn had always felt so clever in her home with Alward, able to answer any question. Now she was just lost. Her eyes turned back down the street, searching for something, and found Roen gone. She looked to Memory, concerned.
“I saw him wander off just now. I’m sure he’ll be back. Don’t worry,” Memory said, despite looking worried herself.
Eloryn lifted her bottom lip in the semblance of a smile and handed Memory her knife. Memory slid down to the ground so she could lean against the well, and closed her eyes. They sat in silence, and Eloryn held her hands tightly in her lap to keep them still. She stared at the sky, her mind racing in circles after any trace of calm she could catch.
Hours passed before Roen returned. He carried a scrap of hessian folded into a bundle. He handed Eloryn a small apple he held in his hand, blushed red only on one side, small and perfect.
“Found one tree still fruiting. They’re small, but edible.” He propped the makeshift bag against the well, showing a feast of green apples. “Sorry for taking so long.”
“No apology needed when you bring food.” Memory smiled and bit into one apple, already holding a second in her other hand.
Eloryn stared at the apple, but had trouble bringing herself to eat it.
“You need to eat,” Roen told her in dull tone. “You’re losing a lot of weight.”
He turned back toward the road.
The world suddenly blinked out of Eloryn’s eyes. Light and vision vanished, leaving only formless black. She shrieked, echoed by Memory.
“What’s happening? I can’t see!” Memory cried.
“Nor I!” Roen’s voice.
Eloryn whispered a behest to let her eyes see again, and found they were surrounded by five old men in faded black and purple suits. They held knives in one hand, and scrolls in the other, held up ready to be read. When she looked them in the eye, no longer blinded, they turned to the youngest man for guidance.
“She can still see?”
“Look at her...” another muttered, dumbstruck.
The younger man with a narrow face and hooked nose unrolled his scroll. “It’s a trick! Finish this.”
“No! Stop please, we called for you!” Eloryn said, folding her fingers into the latticework triangle symbol of the Wizards’ Council.
Another age-stooped man hesitated. “They’re just children.”
“You think they wouldn’t appear in any way they could to trap us? Remember how many died the last time we received a message from ‘the heir’! Hesitate and how many will die this time?”
“Princess, what’s happening?” Roen stood statue still, taut with distress. Memory sat frozen, gripping her knife behind her back with white fingers.
“I can prove it’s who I am, let me prove it!” Eloryn cried.
This time four lowered their weapons.
The younger man, vocal against her already, sneered. “How?”
“She has the Maellan crested medallion,” Roen said, turning blindly to the voices around him.
“No, it’s still at Duke de Montredeur’s,” said Eloryn.
The man huffed at her.
“But I have the bloodline. I am Maellan!” Eloryn flicked through possibilities in her mind, looking down at the dead, bare ground around them. She spoke her words, a long string of pleading words, spoken loudly for the men to hear how she used them.
From the barren dirt, a meadow of grasses forced through, like green living hair. Wildflowers unfolded. Sprays of grass seeds and dander spread. The old men gasped audibly.
“No book, no scroll? She is Maellan! You cannot dispute that power, Hayes!” a bald, wide-bellied man said.
“You can see the Lady Loredanna clear in her behind the grime she wears,” said another.
“Seems so. In which case we all need to be out of sight. We’ve been exposed too long already. Apologies, Highness.” His lips twitched under his hooked nose, still skeptical. “You understand we must be cautious. These two are with you?” Hayes asked.
Eloryn nodded.
Hayes snapped his fingers to the aged man on his left, who began speaking words of annulment to the spell on Roen and Memory’s eyes. As he did so, Hayes unrolled his scroll and began reading words that must have been intended to follow the blindness on them. The patch of ground Eloryn had brought to life blazed and shriveled into grey ash.
Eloryn cried out in alarm.
“It had to be done. Your proof was not exactly discreet,” said Hayes.
The bald man tilted his head. “Common folk would just have thought it was the fae returned.”
“It’s not the common folk I’m worried about.”
Memory already didn’t like them. They were old. Really old. The kind of old that’s misshapen with bitterness and arrogance. Hayes was the youngest – forties or fifties, Memory couldn’t tell – but managed to be the nastiest of the lot. How she thought King Thayl would have been, the way people talked about him. She liked him way better than these guys.
The bald man, Waylan, wasn’t so bad. Still old, but more friendly than the others. To her at least, anyway. They were all eager to be friendly with Eloryn. Memory itched and squirmed in her corset. If she’d known she would be wearing this dress for so long, she would have picked something more comfortable. She doubted this group of old men would have any clothes for her, even if they cared.
They marched under the cover of a spell to one of the houses they’d passed on the street, which now appeared much larger, and more solid than
it had looked before.
Inside the building, the furnishing reminded Memory of Roen’s home, with rich items in a small space, but these had not been well cared for. Dust lingered and mixed with a sweet smell of mildew.
They came to a room on the second floor laid out for meetings with mismatched chairs surrounding a wide square table.
“Summon Lucan,” Hayes told Waylan.
“The others too?”
“Not yet, better not all be in the same place too soon.” Hayes turned his gaze onto Memory.
Eloryn had walked with him through the house, telling him as much as she could of how she’d gotten here. He had no news for her of Alward, or any interest, as far as Memory could see. What little Eloryn had told him about Memory made Hayes’s bottom eyelid twitch.
Lucan arrived. His back had the hunch of someone who tried not to be too tall and he clutched a thick tome with loose pages to his chest. He was younger than the others, more comparable to Thayl’s age, but not at all comparable in looks.
“The heir, truly we’ve found her?” he asked, his voice friendly and eager.
“Almost entirely certain,” Hayes said, indicating Eloryn. “Leave the minutes book, we’ll call council shortly.”
Lucan stood motionless, staring at the Princess.
Hayes cleared his throat. “And bring us some refreshments. The heir has had a hard journey.”
Lucan nodded, pushed the tome onto the table and slipped back out of the room.
Hayes, Waylan, and three more even older men, matching grey and bearded, sat across the table from Eloryn, Roen and Memory. Memory shifted in her seat.
“Thank you for coming to us,” Waylan started with a sincere smile.
“Although you should have come much earlier. You may have saved yourself some hardship from Pellaine’s follies,” Hayes said. “We had heard from him, once or twice through the years. We suspected he had the heir with him, but he kept his location secret from us for some reason.”
I wonder why, Memory thought. She shuddered to think what Eloryn would have been like if raised by these men.
Eloryn only nodded to them, politely stunned.
“Regardless, she’s here now. This will mean big changes. Something to rouse the resistance. Finally, a return to rightful rule!” Waylan pounded the table enthusiastically.
Eloryn stuttered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t come here for that. I only hoped you could help re-unite me with Alward. If anyone had the power to save him from his imprisonment, I hoped it would be the Wizards’ Council.”
Hayes shook his head and furrowed his brow, but the sympathy looked insincere. “Your Highness, I apologize, but we cannot risk ourselves for just one man. Not when your presence has given us some hope for the future. You must put him out of your mind. He’s no longer your concern or ours.”
“But he is my family.”
“Are you the child born of Queen Loredanna and King Edmund Maellan, or do you deceive us? You have a responsibility to Avall and its people that is greater than Pellaine’s fate.”
Eloryn nodded, her eyes glossy. Memory snorted air through her nose, anger in her rising. She glared down the table at Roen who stared blankly at the wall opposite, the thinness of his lips showing the tension otherwise kept hidden.
Waylan spoke more kindly. “Thayl is like poison to this land. Since his rule we’ve seen the fae leaving or causing more trouble across Avall. They were never such trouble with Maellan blood on the throne. Maellan blood signed the Pact. The fae honor that.”
Hayes locked his gaze on Eloryn like a hawk onto a mouse. “Your Highness, for the sake of Avall, will you forget Pellaine and begin work toward your rightful path?”
Eloryn bowed her head.
Memory bolted to her feet. “Quit it already! Can’t you see she’s been through enough?”
“Ah yes.” Hayes looked at her like he would a smudge on the wall that he was too arrogant to clean. “You’re not needed here. You should leave.”
Eloryn rose to her feet next to Memory. “Memory is with me. I had hoped someone here could help her with her problem.”
“Her problem is not ours, or yours. Respectfully, Highness, you need to grow up and start dealing with issues of greater importance,” Hayes said, moving calmly to his feet, his voice rising only a little, but still threatening.
“Fine. Let’s start talking about whose problems are whose, shall we?” Memory snapped back. “Like who caused all your issues with Thayl in the first place? Wasn’t it you wizards who made the Queen marry someone other than him? They were in love, and you knew it.”
“Of course we did,” said Hayes. “Thayl had no talent for magic when we chose the Queen’s partner and was never right for the kingdom, I think that is clear. If you had a thought in your head, girl, you’d know marriages for the Maellan line have always been arranged, to preserve a strong magic ability.”
“They were in love, and you destroyed them with that choice,” Memory whispered, the realization hitting her hard. It was true, what Thayl had shown her in her dream. And if it was true, what about everything else?
Eloryn’s face drained to white. “What? How did you-?”
“Just gossip, at the ball,” Memory cut in, looking away.
“So, what of it?” Hayes moved his words slowly, fixing Eloryn in a stare. “You know this is the way of the royal bloodline, your Highness. It is not our fault, but Thayl’s for bearing such villainous vengeance. Calm your guard dog here and show some pretence of your royal heritage, so we can do what is needed for the Kingdom.”
Hayes sat back down. Eloryn looked at Memory, stricken, then nodded and sat down too.
Memory wanted to leap across the table, claw Hayes’ tongue out and ram-
Lucan interrupted her thought, returning to the room carrying a tray of fine silver implements and pots for tea. Probably for the best. Hayes was a bastard, but she needed to start locking down her violent tendencies. If that was who she was before, she wasn’t sure it was who she wanted to be now. She sat down again and satisfied herself with glaring.
Lucan placed the tray on the table in front of Hayes. He began arranging cups and Hayes put his hand out to stop him.
“Call the rest of the council. It’s time we start making some serious plans.”
Lucan straightened back up, as tall as his hunch allowed.
“Actually, I’ll do it. You find the children somewhere to wait, outside the meeting room.”
Memory threw one final glare at Hayes as they left.
Lucan let them into a room across the hall. It was someone’s study, a table piled with parchment lit by a lonely, grimy window. With a shy smile and bow, Lucan left them alone.
“So much for getting some refreshments,” Memory muttered.
Roen’s face hung, pale and unreadable. His hair and shirt still stained with dry blood, he hardly looked alive. “Princess, I’m sorry for bringing you here.”
“It’s my fault, not yours,” said Eloryn. “For not going to Alward right away, for trying to let others do it for me. A fault it’s time I righted.”
Roen shook his head. “Too dangerous.”
“I have to try. No one else will.”
“Lory, how well do you really know Alward? I mean, how much do you really trust about him?” Memory asked. Do you know it was him who killed your mother? Would you still want to go to him?
“What? He is all I ever had!” Eloryn gasped. “I will go to him. Alone, if I have to.”
Memory and Roen shared glances of matching disapproval, then both agreed to go with her.
“Then we leave here now, and head back to Maerranton, where we last know he was held.”
Eloryn eased the door open and led them out, tiptoeing down the empty hallway. At the top of the stairs they were stopped by a voice.
“Don’t leave, please,” Lucan said.
“We were just going outside for some air. It’s stuffy in here,” said Memory.
“I was listening to what you sai
d. I’m sorry.” He shuffled closer to them. His eyes were pale and watery blue. Kind, if somewhat sad.
“Then you’ll have to let us go, because we won’t stay,” said Eloryn.
“Please, just listen. I know Hayes can be harsh, but you do have friends here. I’m a friend. It’s a miracle you’re still alive, and I’m just happy to keep you that way, not force you into leadership. I could even help you be with Alward again, if you like.”
Memory edged in front of Eloryn and looked the man up and down. “Why?”
“Pellaine... Alward was my friend too. We were invested into the council at the same time, same ages, only months before everything was destroyed. I was not even with the council when the Queen and King were married. All of this trouble, it’s not mine. The council, they’re old, they forget what is real and haven’t much of a life left to change. And no one here takes me seriously.”
“How could you help us?” Roen asked.
Lucan gave a weak, hopeful smile. “They give me all the tasks of book keeping and communications. I keep the Council’s Speaking Mirror. I am in touch with leaders of the resistance in all regions. I know of some within Thayl’s ranks, within his castle, even within his prisons.”
Chapter Twenty
Lucan hurried them down the street to another building that had appeared derelict before, but now revealed itself as solid and lived in. The council were using some very powerful glamour behests to keep themselves hidden.
Fumbling with his keys, Lucan opened the door and invited them into his home.
“Shouldn’t we leave right away? If the rest of the council realize our intentions, they might make us stay.” Eloryn asked.
Lucan replied with a crooked smile. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but I doubt they’ll even notice you missing for a while. They’ve called council. They’ll be so wrapped up in debating plans they wouldn’t notice if the house fell in around them. It could be days before they come to anything close to agreement or are likely to call on you again.”
Lucan’s house had been kept cleaner than the building Hayes had taken them to. An aroma of mulling spices awoke Eloryn’s stomach. Lucan sat them in a windowless room he’d made both library and sleeping quarters- the only place with seating enough for all of them. “Just stay here while I speak with my contact, but you are free to leave at any time. If we can find out first where you...” Lucan kept talking as he left the room, his voice trailing down the hall.
Memory's Wake Omnibus: The Complete Illustrated YA Fantasy Series Page 17
