I did as she asked, keeping it hidden for the most part, carrying it in my pocket. Especially after she died. The warm, round weight reminded me of her, that she really had lived, no matter what that empty throne declared. Then, when little Ami was about six, she ferreted it out of my pocket and—as she did with everything—demanded that I give it to her.
She begged prettily, with wide violet eyes and many kisses pressed to my cheek, a technique that admittedly usually worked on me. I found it difficult to deny her anything. We all did. When I refused, she threw a full temper tantrum, complete with tears and screams, threatening to tell our father to make me give it to her. She was just a little girl, so lovely and so terribly overindulged. I’d gotten angry enough that I came close to slapping her.
Until Lady Zevondeth intervened. She’d seemed old to me then, and that was more than ten years ago. My mother’s faithful servant and our adviser on all things for proper young ladies to know, she calmed Ami with another jewel and slipped the topaz away, out of Ami’s sight and grasp, promising to take care of it. Days later, she called me to her rooms and presented me with a new sword—the topaz firmly fixed into the pommel. Never since had I been parted from it. Over the years, though, I’d grown so accustomed to touching it that I sometimes forgot to look, to admire its deep and brilliant beauty.
Andi and Ami called it a cabochon and I never corrected them. Only I and Zevondeth knew how much of it lay beneath the surface. My personal star.
I didn’t think Amelia remembered that day, though sometimes I caught her looking at the jewel with a speculative eye. I never told her or Andi where it came from. A piece of our mother that was mine alone. Which wasn’t fair of me, because I’d had far more of her than either of them had. Andi barely remembered her and Ami not at all. I’d tried to be a mother to them, as best I could, and had not succeeded very well.
My list of failures seemed to be growing of late.
Dafne had left me a stack of scrolls and books, with salient passages on Dasnaria thoughtfully marked with ribbons, Danu bless her. Instead of diving into them, however, and with that long-ago memory heavy in my mind, I took advantage of the solitude to pull the doll Salena had given me from its hiding place. Maybe the Star had some significance I’d forgotten or never known. Find the doll, Ami and Andi had both nagged me multiple times, insisting our mother had somehow left them messages in theirs. They didn’t know that looking had been unnecessary for me. I’d known exactly where it was, since the day my father yanked it from my hands and threw it across the nursery. I kept it behind some particularly heavy and uninteresting tomes on obsolete shipping laws in the Isles of Remus. Carefully hidden away, so he wouldn’t find it and break it any more than it already was.
It was the one pretty thing I’d kept, though she’d suffered from the passage of time. The porcelain hands and feet had broken that long-ago day and had mostly crumbled away. One hand remained with a sharp fragment I used to like to poke my finger with, just to see how much pain I could stand. The little crown on her head had dented but still sat atop her bloodred hair. Though the painted-on features had blurred and faded, her queenly face was vivid in my memories.
I smoothed her dress, made of shining silver, dulled from all the times I’d done that very thing. Why I liked to pet it, I didn’t know. It soothed me. Anchored me in a way little else did.
After Andi told me to, though I had been skeptical at the time, I’d of course gotten the doll out and examined it. Removing the gown and petticoats reminded me of being a little girl again, when I’d had many outfits to dress her in. I’d even gone so far as to cut the doll open, searching the packed cotton innards. The slit remained open still, as I hadn’t had time or opportunity to sew it up again and I didn’t want to hand it off to anyone to fix. The slice had distorted her shape, though, and it annoyed me to see her less than she should be.
To be diligent and thorough—after all, Ami insisted she’d found a message, too—I unlaced the gown, removed the undergarments, and unpacked the stuffing yet again. And found nothing more than I had the other times I’d looked.
It shouldn’t make me sad. Ridiculous, the sting of disappointment. After all, Salena had given me other gifts. And she’d told me things to remember, as she’d been unable to with Andi and Ami so young. I didn’t need special messages.
I was simply in a melancholy mood. Shaken by Illyria’s unexpected question, which annoyed me. Work would help me shake it off and calm my nerves.
Putting the doll back together as well as I could without taking the time needed to mend her correctly, I hid her away again, in the little bed I’d made for her as a foolish girl. Nevertheless, feeling both nostalgic and vaguely silly, I still tucked her in under the doll-sized satin comforter, as if by doing so, I could safeguard us all. Folding the gown neatly beside her, I hid her away again in the shadows behind the big books.
Then I dutifully reviewed the documents I needed to, saving the Dasnarian research for after. Tax revenues. Crop reports. A plague outbreak in Noredna. Deployment of troops. So many recruits sent to Mohraya—where were they all? I’d fallen months out of touch and puzzled over many of the changes. Some of the numbers simply didn’t add up. Deep into summing a column of figures, I barely registered a knocking at the door to my rooms.
It came again. Who in Danu’s shadow had come to see me this time of night? Any of the likely candidates wouldn’t bother to knock, and the outer guards would have stopped any threat or opportunistic courtier. Maybe Dafne had found something interesting and hesitated to disturb me, for whatever reason. “Come in already!” I called out, noting down my last calculation so I wouldn’t forget my place. That total definitely did not match the one I’d seen on another report. Where I had I put that?
Someone cleared his throat and I looked up to see Captain Harlan standing on the other side of my desk. Why had the thrice-dammed guards let him in? This mercenary contract had all the protocols upset. I would have to talk to the Hawks about standing duty. People I could count on.
“Did you kill my guards?” I asked.
He indicated his empty sheath. “No, but they did relieve me of weapons.”
At least they weren’t complete idiots. “How can I help you, Captain? It’s quite late.”
“I waited for you.”
“I can’t imagine why. I told you not to.”
“Nevertheless. I have several important things to discuss with you.”
I sat back in the chair. “So you mentioned. What’s on your mind that couldn’t be said in court or the practice yard?”
“It needs privacy.”
I gestured at the quiet rooms. “This is as private as it gets, inside Ordnung.”
He hesitated, angling himself so his back wasn’t entirely to the door. “It’s not inappropriate—for me to be alone with you in your chambers?”
I couldn’t help it—a laugh bubbled from deep within. “No, Captain. If there ever was a time that anyone fretted over my virtue, it has long since passed. What are your Dasnarian women like, that they don’t fight and they can’t be trusted on their own?”
“Not like you, Your Highness,” he said with a wry smile, casting his gaze over the unruly piles of scrolls and books on my desk. “You’re doing paperwork? Don’t you employ scribes for such things?”
“I’m not much for hired help.”
“Or trusting anyone else.”
“That, too,” I agreed easily. “Certainly not blindly.”
“And yet you won’t give me the opportunity to prove myself.”
“Why should you care what my opinion is? I have no need to rely on you. It’s not my name on this contract.” I nudged the parchment with my quill.
“You did read it.”
“Of course.”
“And your conclusions?” His expression dared me to express doubts, knowing full well I’d found nothing untoward. Except the raw fact that Uorsin had never hired mercenaries before.
“I concluded that this Illyria, M
istress of Deyrr, is not mentioned.”
“Deyrr,” he corrected, rolling the r. “In your tongue it means ‘death,’ after a fashion.”
Not news to relieve my worries. “What can you tell me about her?”
“What can you tell me about the Star of Annfwn?” he shot back.
“I told you I don’t know what it is.”
Harlan made a growling sound, a rumble of growing impatience. “Your problem, Your Highness, is that you put faith in all the wrong people.”
“I don’t recall soliciting your opinion on the matter.”
“Well, you get it. If Illyria wants it, whatever it is, that can’t be good. She won’t give up.”
“Why don’t you give me a reason to put faith in you by telling me what you know?”
He looked grim, gestured at the wine goblet on my desk. “It’s not a comfortable tale. Have any of that to share?”
10
I contemplated him a moment. It had been some time since I’d indulged in a late-night conversation over wine. Since before Andi left. Perhaps he’d have something useful on this Illyria. “Why not? Make yourself comfortable in the sitting room. I’ll fetch the wine.”
He chose one of the chairs by the fire—not my favorite chair, which made me wonder if he’d noticed the signs and made the choice out of consideration—and accepted the goblet I handed him. I settled into my chair, stretching my feet to the fire. Though the days stayed high-summer warm, at night the snow-cooled air slid down from the mountain peaks, adding a chill. The blaze felt welcome.
“I’ve served a number of royal families in my career.” The mercenary likewise made himself comfortable. “I have never known a princess who keeps no attendants and pours her own wine.”
“I like my privacy, when I can have it. And there’s not much luxury in the field.”
“I expected grander chambers, also.”
I shrugged a little. “They’ve been mine since I left the nursery. I had no interest in moving.”
“Shouldn’t you have taken over the queen’s rooms?”
“You’ve been quite busy, watching and drawing conclusions.”
“You like to imply that I’m a spy. Understanding the politics in a given situation can be crucial to being on good working terms with a client. One disadvantage of being a mercenary is coming into conflicts with many unknown parameters. I like to know what I can.”
I mulled that over. A legal scholar’s brain inside that thick skull. He probably had written that contract, after all. Besides, anyone could—and likely would—give him the answers he sought. “Fair enough. Yes, I could have taken Salena’s rooms. I chose not to. They’re Amelia’s when she visits now—appropriate for her rank as regent mother.”
“Queen Andromeda would outrank her, would she not?”
“Yes. But that presupposes Andi would ever return to Ordnung, which she won’t. And, if she did, she’d prefer her traditional chambers, as I do. Ami will have the throne of Avonlidgh soon enough, regardless, as Old Erich can’t have many years left.” Particularly if he persisted in stirring up civil war.
“And when you ascend to the High Throne?”
“That’s not something I contemplate and neither should you. Uorsin is High King and I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that remains the case.”
He didn’t comment on that. Rather he took a swallow of wine, studying me. “You’re not what I expected.”
“You have the advantage of me in that I didn’t expect you at all.”
“No, you couldn’t have. I advised the High King against secrecy, but he seemed quite determined.” He shrugged over the vagaries of clients. “You read the contract, so you know we agreed to it. I would have thought he would have communicated our presence to his heir, however.”
I elected not to respond to that. Of course he should have told me. I hated how much it pained and concerned me that he hadn’t. “I also know that there are omissions in the contract. Glaring ones. As I mentioned earlier.”
“Not so much. Illyria is not one of mine, nor did she travel with us.”
“Then how did she come to be here?”
He caught my gaze with his. “I don’t know. She was here when we arrived. That’s one of the concerns I wished to bring to your attention.”
I waited for him to say more, but the moment stretched out. The mercenary regarded me calmly. Maintaining his defense against my next move.
“Have you shared this concern with anyone else?”
He shook his head, a slow silent swivel that reinforced how unusual this move was for him. Telling me without saying that there had been no one else before this to speak of it with. What did he intend by telling me?
“I’ve heard tell that she has been closeted with the High King.”
“Even as we speak.”
“He’s had many lovers. More than can be counted. It’s his right.”
“She is no simple lover.”
“What does it mean, then, ‘Mistress of Death’?”
He sat forward, elbows on knees, the empty goblet dangling from his hands between them. I refilled it and he gave me a nod of thanks. “The translation isn’t quite accurate, which is why I use our word deyrr. It means more the impermanence of life. The fragility of it in the face of a world that falls into decomposition and decay.”
“A cheerful lot, you Dasnarians.”
“You have no idea. The Practitioners of Deyrr are a . . . sect, if you will, that honors an old religion. They worship a god long since shunned by decent folk.”
“A god? Not one of the three goddesses?”
“No. Though Dasnaria acknowledges Glorianna, Danu, and Moranu, they are considered minor deities.” He glanced at me, a bit of a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. I didn’t bite. “The practices of this group go far back, with roots before King Orsk established the Dasnarian throne, when our ancestors lived in warring nomadic tribes. He is the god of the hunt and also of hunger, of death through starvation. He rules over the transmutation of the living animal into death and death recycling back into life through consumption of the meat.”
“I suppose I see the logic there. But that’s a fact of life. Hardly dire.”
“In most instances, this is true. The Practitioners of Deyrr, however, take his dominion over transmutation to a terrifying place—if the stories can be believed.”
Something in his deep voice sent a shiver down my spine that recalled the way I’d felt when Illyria looked at me with her coal-dark eyes. Captain Harlan seemed a most practical man. Though most warriors carried a healthy respect for the whims of fate and the blessings and curses of the goddesses—or gods, in his case—most had a strong grip on the real and relevant.
“Do you believe the stories?” I asked.
“I do. I have reason to. Though the rites are kept secret, tales have leaked from the temples. Blood sacrifices. Torture. Vile arts based in dark magics that muddle the line between life and death.”
“I take it we’re not talking about hunting deer anymore?”
“The higher the being, the more magic it carries. We’re talking human beings.”
“And this worship is legal in Dasnaria?”
He sipped his wine, contemplating me. “First, our governance is different. Our king does not hold absolute power. We have a number of ruling bodies that must debate and agree upon the laws. Second, though not precisely legal—kidnapping, murder, and torture of human beings are not—what cannot be proved cannot be prosecuted. The Temple of Deyrr is powerful. As long as they prey on those without consequence and support the ambitions of the ones with it, they are left alone.”
“I cannot find that admirable about Dasnaria.”
His even stare reminded me that not all in the Twelve Kingdoms went admirably at the moment. But we endured a time of trial that would soon be resolved. The High King would see that and take action soon. I had to have faith in that. If he didn’t, I didn’t know what I could do.
“I don’t disagree,”
the mercenary finally replied, yanking my thoughts back. “You’ll note I am not living in Dasnaria.”
“So what are you telling me? That this Illyria is a priestess of this practice and she is here to attempt to start her religion? Glorianna’s temple won’t sit idly by.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. The rites gain the priests and priestesses the magic they wield. She seeks to use her power to gain more.” And Uorsin made a fine path, he didn’t say out loud. His meaning, however, hung in the air.
“How?”
“It’s theoretically within her abilities to raise an army by animating the dead.”
He returned my incredulous stare, not giving any sign of teasing. In fact, he looked dead serious.
“How is that even possible? I’ve never heard of such a thing. It sounds like a wild tale to me.”
“You have a history of the Dasnarian kings on your desk. You’ll find mention of all I’ve relayed here in the chapter on the foundations of the Orsk dynasty.”
Sharp eyes on him. Sharp mind behind it. I would not underestimate him again.
“Presupposing this is true—where would she obtain the dead?”
He rolled his shoulders, shrugging off a tension he didn’t otherwise reveal. “Tombs, crypts, mausoleums. I don’t really know. I’m guessing at her plans—I am far from being in her confidence.”
“Slave trade?”
“Not as far as Dasnaria is officially concerned. The temple does what it may in the shadows. Suffice it to say the dead have little protection from slavery.”
“Mohrayans burn their dead,” I mused to cover my chill. “But not so in some of the other kingdoms. So she has no other unusual powers—shape-shifting, wizardry, anything like that?”
The mercenary narrowed his eyes, set the goblet aside. “Are those stories of the Tala true, then?”
“Some, certainly. It’s not easy to sort truth from hysteria. In the thick of a fight, much can seem mystical that isn’t.” Except that I’d stood on the opposite side of an invisible barrier that my sister controlled with her mind. “That said, should we battle the Tala again, be prepared for the extraordinary.”
The Twelve Kingdoms Page 9
