The Changeling

by Jennifer Lyndon

  Two long years earlier, on the battlefield, at the start of the first conflict, the Darthrues had tried to put an end to this civil war before it truly started, by attempting to kill my uncle. Through some lapse, the treachery of a poor distant cousin, or so I was told, the false king was alerted, and the Darthrue numbers cut to a quarter through a surprise assault within my uncle’s formation. In hindsight, I would have called them to me before the war started and had greater numbers, rather than wasting their lives so senselessly. Still, second-guessing ones decisions rarely does one good, especially on the eve of a potentially disastrous battle.

  I had been leading my warriors into battle almost from the start, and had somehow earned a reputation as brave and fierce. Truth be told, I was beginning to lose my nerve. Not that I was uneasy for my own sake. I knew by that point that I was untouchable. My concern was for those around me. I’d come to care about several of my soldiers. Lord Roland, for example, was a favorite of mine, always riding at my horse’s flank and employing his dry humor in an attempt to make me forget the myriad horrors of the field. After enduring such grisly butchery, I doubted my ability to ever sleep soundly again. In that moment, as I walked alone, I began to wonder if any throne could possibly be worth the shocking agony I’d witnessed, or the loss of so many Vilken lives. Questioning our purpose would only have brought more suffering to those who followed me, however, so I pushed the thought from my mind and walked on.

  It was a cold night, as I skirted the perimeter of our camp, a habit I’d formed from that very first battle. I was deep in thought, and therefore unconcerned with the frost forming in my hair, when I heard the strange call I recognized from that morning, two and a half years earlier. For a moment I considered the possibility that it was an actual bird calling, but then I heard the snort of a horse not ten feet from my left shoulder. I spun to face her, my heart hammering my chest, blood rushing in my ears.

  “M’Tek,” I spoke her name eagerly, smiling, though I could not yet see her through the darkness. “You’ve finally come to rescue me,” I observed. I heard a light footfall before she appeared, with neither her black horse nor her entourage, simply stepping out of the shadows as if she’d always been there behind me. She gripped a sapphire encrusted locket with one dark gloved hand as she appraised me.

  “Walk with me, Lore,” was her reply.

  When I stepped forward to meet her, the Fae Queen draped an arm across my shoulders, easing me closer to her, and guiding me farther from the perimeter of the camp. Though we were then hidden from the guards posted, and therefore their protection, I never questioned her purpose. Honestly, I liked the warmth of her too well to consider much else. I must have been slowly freezing to death before she found me. Obviously she noticed, because in the next moment she removed her cloak and spread it across my back. I was too distracted to thank her, but simply accepted her kindness without remark. She returned her arm to my shoulders to draw me close again.

  “You need my help,” she said gently. “Since you refuse to ask for it, I’m here to persuade you to take it.” I nodded.

  “Would you really fight for me?” I asked. M’Tek nodded once to acknowledge she would. “You must realize, my own people, even those closest to me, would likely abandon me if they knew of our friendship. Still, you’re the only true friend I’ve known in this life, the only person who hasn’t asked for anything from me.”

  Clouds parted slightly and the moonlight reflected in her pale eyes, for only a moment, before the night sky darkened again. In that flash I read an expression of sincere concern on her face, stirring longing deep within me. I wanted to press my head against her chest and allow her to comfort me for all of the horrors I’d witnessed. I wanted her arms tight around me. I resisted the urge even to touch her, realizing my thoughts were likely inappropriate, and caused by that strange isolation I felt among my people.

  “Are we truly friends, Lore?” she asked. “Do you trust me as you would a friend?”

  “I trust you completely. If you’re not my friend, M’Tek, then I’m lost,” I replied. “You’ve saved my life a hundred times already by what you did to me in the apple orchard that morning.” I stopped walking and turned to meet her gaze. The clouds moved away from the moon again and her silver eyes captured the light brilliantly. “What is it you did that morning? Was it sorcery? Why can I not be killed?” I asked.

  She shook her head in answer. “I likely know as much about how your shield works as you do at this point. All I’ve been able to determine is that certain words, more ancient than even Old Noge, can be used to protect, or to harm.” I nodded. “You’re surrounded by those words now, and protected by them.”

  “And those who try to kill me?” I pressed on.

  “I suppose they feel the harm those words can cause.”

  “You suppose?” I asked.

  “I know they do,” she corrected. “Your shield was given to me when I was a young queen, with no future to look forward to, only pain, shame, and death awaiting me. It altered my destiny, keeping me alive when I was vulnerable. Now, it keeps you alive.”

  “I should have died a hundred deaths,” I observed. “Why do you want to keep me alive?”

  “Because you’re going to change the very nature of our world,” she said in reply. “Your reign will usher in the peace we so desperately need.”

  “You said that before, and yet all I’ve done is start a civil war. How can you believe I’ll bring peace?” I asked, startled by her obvious faith in me. M’Tek laughed.

  “Because I know the power within you. I know why you were born, Lore. I’ve known you since long before you took your first breath,” she replied.

  “Now you’re speaking nonsense,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Does it matter why I’m here? If you want my army, it’s yours,” she offered. “That’s what I came to tell you.”

  “You think I’ll lose tomorrow,” was my reply.

  “Without my help, of course you’ll lose. You must know your enemy well in order to defeat him. I’ve been watching your uncle very closely. He’s planning a surprise for you. I see only one strategy that can win this, and you don’t have the cavalry for it.” She smiled as if softening the blow. “Still, you don’t have to accept my help. If you prefer to do this on your own, gather what’s left of your forces, and retreat during the night. You won’t die, or even be captured, but...”

  “But my uncle will keep my throne a little longer,” I finished for her. “I’m so tired, M’Tek. I’m no longer even clear about why I’m fighting. I never wanted this, all the death and gore,” I said, feeling sorry for myself. “It’s so brutal and ugly, and for what?”

  “You could regroup,” she replied. “You might disband your army and leave with me tonight. You’d be comfortable in Faeland. You could rest, and live as you’re meant to live, surrounded by love and luxury. There’s an apartment adjoining mine in my palace, fit only for my consort. It’s yours if you want it. My dressmaker will create exquisite dresses for you to wear. I’ll drape jewels over you, if you’ll allow me. You can sit at my side for elaborate feasts, and savor sweet berrywines and rare torppa. You won’t miss that austere Vilken throne, but if you do, I’ll offer my more lavish one.” She grinned, her eyes dancing over me, making my heart skip.

  “We’re in the midst of our season in Faeland. You’d be welcomed, feted even. We could spend the next few years building a mixed Fae and Noge force, eventually recall your Vilken supporters, and then take the Vilken throne with a display of force beyond your uncle’s wildest fears. A delay of a few years doesn’t really matter, Lore. You’ll be older, more experienced with the world. It would be easier. I can be at your side if you want me, helping you every step of the way, commanding your army, and building your government. Whatever you need or want of me, I’ll gladly give.”

  “Is that what you would do?” I asked, musing over the beautiful, comforting alternative she painted for me. I saw her answer in the flash of passion in he
r eyes. Still, I waited for her response.

  “It doesn’t matter what I would do,” she said gently. “This is your decision.”

  “But you’d fight at any cost,” I observed. A tight smile reshaped her features.

  “My sweet Lore, I’d fight until the last soldier, whether Fae or Vilken, lay broken and bleeding on the field,” she replied in a lilting, almost soothing voice. “Throughout the battle I’d protect that false king, and keep him safe, without a scratch on his soft, pampered skin. After I defeated his army, I’d take him back to my palace, and slowly, methodically, extract vengeance for what he did to those I called parents. I’d start by removing bits of him, possibly an eye or a finger, maybe his teeth…whichever frightened him most. I’d then work painstakingly to discover where the utmost pain could be drawn from his delicate, coddled body.

  “His crimes would be nothing compared to his fate at my hands. That is if I were you, if he’d had the woman I loved as a mother repeatedly raped and slowly killed, if he’d maimed and then slaughtered my father, publically, and if he’d hunted me my entire life, all to claim that power he was unfit to wield,” she finished sweetly, her gaze one of concern, her white hair billowing around her in the frozen wind. “But I’m not you, my sweet girl,” she added. “It only matters what you’ll do.”

  She was challenging me. Whatever I chose to do, she’d support, as promised. I could still run away to Faeland, and hide in comfort. But backing down would make me weak in her eyes, and in the eyes of my followers. Her gaze moved over me, amusement obvious in her expression, as she awaited my reaction. Without thinking, I gripped her shoulders tightly, pulled her against me and covered her lips with my own. I felt her stiffen, as if startled, but then she softened, her arms easing across my back beneath the cape I wore, as her lips parted to accept my kiss. I pulled back to look into her beautiful pale silver eyes.

  “I want your army,” was all I said.

  “Of course you do,” she replied in hardly more than a whisper. That impish smile spread across her features again, her bright white teeth reflecting the moonlight, as she leaned close to whisper in my ear. “And I’ve brought you four regiments, my darling girl. If you look there you’ll find my first three lines of ten cohorts just over that rise to the south. And there is my border division, all cavalry, behind those hills to the east. A third division is waiting to the west. And finally, you’ll find my elite infantry over there, beyond the enemy line.” She turned me indicating their positions as she named them, ending with a hill a few miles distant to my right.

  “So many,” was my only response as I calculated the number of soldiers, more than twice what remained of my own army. “How is it possible? How did you move them into Vilkerland without being noticed?”

  “Sleep well tonight, Lore. Tomorrow your nightmare ends,” she said, rather than explaining.

  I half-nodded, stunned by my own actions, and especially by my own desire for vengeance. Her arms fell away from me. In the next moment I turned to ask her a question about her intended strategy, but she had vanished as swiftly and silently as she appeared.

  I made my way back to my camp slowly, still wrapped in her dark cloak, the hood covering my head. The reality of such an immense, alien, military force so unobtrusively assembled within Vilken borders made me uneasy. The soft scent of her, like a meadow in the forest, clung about her cloak, still draping my shoulders. I pulled her cloak tighter around my body, needing the sense of protection and safety her presence evoked in me. I was noticed crossing the perimeter, and challenged by a young soldier from my own newly minted royal guard. I dropped the hood of M’Tek’s cloak. The guard stepped away, cautiously lowering her weapon, but still scrutinizing me, as if my sudden presence, wearing a Fae cloak no less, might be a trick of some sort.

  -CH 3-

  Of course I won the following day. M’Tek effortlessly furnished me with my victory, before disappearing into the foothills from which she had emerged, without a trace. Still, I was to learn that winning a throne is one thing, while sitting it is quite another. Taking my throne back from my uncle meant more than just defeating him in battle. I would also have to build a stable and efficient government. Not surprisingly, at seventeen years old, I hadn’t a clue how to do that.

  The first step, I was informed by Uncle Toblin, was returning to the home of my infancy. I was born in Vilkerdam Palace, and lived there for a little more than three years before the attack that removed my parents from power and made a fugitive of me. At that point I still recollected very little of the events of those early years.

  The treasured memory of my childhood home was a small cabin a few miles into the Pale Mountains of the Western Noge Territory. I lived six years with Aunt Kessa and Uncle Toblin in a perpetual state of peace, tending to goats from sunrise to sunset with my Uncle Toblin, helping Aunt Kessa make cheese and bread, all the while learning my lessons by candlelight in the evening. When asked where I was born, I would have assumed I was native Noge, except that Aunt Kessa continually reminded me of my Vilken heritage. Still, as a child, when I informed others of my Vilken blood they usually scoffed. It was repeatedly pointed out to me that while my hair was dark enough, my eyes were far too light to belong to a Vilkerling.

  That peaceful period of my childhood came to an abrupt end with the arrival of a stranger in the dead of the night, spewing warnings of danger in feverish, hushed tones. Rushed packing, and the abandonment of almost everything I’d grown to love in my few years, namely my coddled goats, followed. From that time forward, until I reached fourteen years of age, I lived a nomad’s life, moving from great house to great house all over Vilkerland. Usually Uncle Toblin found work in the stables, where I helped him, while Aunt Kessa toiled in the kitchens. Finally, at our last place, I’d been taken on as a squire, due to my keen ability with the High Lord’s horses.

  I had finally found a home again, I thought, until yet another stranger arrived in the night, and Uncle Toblin took me away without a moment’s planning. Aunt Kessa found us two weeks later, hiding in an abandoned hut, deep in the woods near the Faeland border. It was she who managed to gain a lease on the orchard and lodge where we lived when I learned the truth about my heritage, and the long ago fate of my parents.

  All of this moving around and hiding instilled in me a sense that no place was home. Every roof was temporary. I grew uncertain of the people around me, learning trust was dangerous. Even Aunt Kessa and Uncle Toblin had motives for keeping me safe, motives that had little to do with their love for me, and everything to do with their own positions in Vilkerland, and their own ambitions of power. Honestly, I didn’t blame them. My value was based on that strange blood coursing through my veins.

  These revelations did not make me bitter, but wary, and at times exhausted, as I worked to set up my own government, after deposing my uncle. I imagined M’Tek would be available to me, to advise me, and tell me in whom to place my trust, but I’d not been within sight of the Fae Queen since the night before the final battle for my throne. M’Tek provided the military support she promised, and I owed my victory to her, easily as much as to my own loyal Vilken subjects. Still, she was nowhere to be found after the battle. I was forced to write my thanks to her in a letter, sent by a courier.

  I later learned she and her royal guard had vanished after capturing my uncle on the field, a move that left half of his forces in chaos. In reply to my letter of gratitude, she explained the false king’s whereabouts, in the prison beneath her palace. Generously, she offered to return my uncle to me. Uncle Toblin raged at the idea that the false king would live on in the safety of a Fae prison, and warned of M’Tek’s likely treachery in keeping the pretender alive. A public execution was wanted, he advised, but the idea of more bloodshed left me numb. I wrote to M’Tek asking that she keep him.

  My coronation went quite well. Tens of thousands of my subjects appeared outside the walls of Vilkerdam Palace for the chance to witness part of the procession. I wore the clothes I was inst
ructed to wear, and read the speech Uncle Toblin prepared for me. It all felt hollow. I wanted to speak my own words, and I wanted M’Tek to witness my rise. I wanted her beside me, the way I imagined that long ago morning, riding the road outside my palace to visit my people for the first time. I wanted her lilting voice at my ear, telling me I’d done well, that she knew I’d be the greatest of queens. Instead, I was forced to content myself with the rare letter, written in her neat, left sloping, hand, distractedly relating the more amusing occurrences of Lareem Palace, and her lively people.

  I was surprised, a few months into my reign, at the offer of a Fae Ambassador. At that point I was quite exasperated with Uncle Toblin, not to mention my council made up of the older men he had handpicked. Nothing I believed relevant was addressed. As for diplomatic relations with Faeland, they scoffed at the idea, reminding me that Vilkerland and Faeland had been natural enemies for all of recorded history. I wanted to write a treaty, or at least a draft to send to M’Tek. She wanted not only peace, but friendship between our realms. I hoped an attempt at actualizing that desire might deliver her to me for a visit. As it stood, our two countries were very nearly at war. Of course I jumped at her offer of a Fae Ambassador. Somewhere deep down in my heart I hoped M’Tek would personally escort this person, but that was asking too much.

  When she arrived, my new ambassador was not at all what I expected. I’d anticipated another older man to add to my crusty collection, or an older woman at the least. Instead, surrounded by a contingent of fourteen of M’Tek’s own personal guard, was a girl who appeared to be not more than twenty years old. She had a similar build to M’Tek’s, long limbed and elegant, and a straight, longish, nose similar to the Fae Queen’s. From these observations I determined the girl was a near relative of the Fae Queen.