Shadow Over Kiriath

by Karen Hancock

  The thought quickened Maddie’s pulse and sent warmth flooding through her again. . . .

  Leyton leaned against her to murmur something, and she flinched, embarrassment flaming her face. Thankfully, he was looking toward the back of the stage, and she could gather her scattered thoughts without having to field questions about what was wrong with her.

  Then she saw what he was looking at and realized she needn’t have worried: the regalia. Or, more specifically, the Crown of State, looming above the other implements on the white silk cloth. To hear Leyton talk about the crown, you’d think the thing had been sent by Eidon himself, when it was clearly just an ostentatious monstrosity designed by men to impress other men. Its heavy gold base and transverse arches were cluttered with jewels of all shapes and sizes—its maker obviously ascribing to the “more is better” aesthetic. But Leyton was obsessed with it and oblivious to the way his constant talk of it only increased the paranoia of a court that had already openly suggested he’d come to steal it. She’d tried to warn him, but as always, he’d waved her off.

  Disgusted, she returned her attention to Carissa, who was now halfway down the aisle. Behind her, blue-tunicked royal guardsmen lined up in double ranks along the first quarter of the aisle in preparation for the king’s arrival, while on the narrow balconies in the side walls overlooking the crowd, trumpeters moved into position, their brass instruments flashing against all the gray. Very soon, assuming the disaster of the broken carriage had truly been absorbed and accounted for, the trumpeters would blare out a fanfare and Abramm himself would appear up there where the guardsmen were now.

  As her heart stuttered into double time again, she took herself to task. He’s got a coronation to worry about. He’s not going to be paying attention to you, so how could he possibly learn about that ridiculous dream? You’re being silly.

  Unless it wasn’t just nerves and embarrassment she was feeling. Unless the dream revealed more about her true desires than she wanted to admit, and some of this was actually—

  It was just a dream, she told herself firmly.

  So why did you dream it? Where did it come from?

  I don’t know. Maybe Leyton’s harangue from yesterday morning set it off. He’d run afoul of the rumors that she’d been one of Abramm’s paramours and had taken her to task for three long hours, undeterred by her repeated and fervent denials. Or maybe . . . maybe the rhu’ema put it in my head.

  Why would they do that?

  I don’t know. But they must’ve. Because it wasn’t me.

  You’ve been attracted to him since the day you laid on eyes on him.

  Only because he was the White Pretender. And the killer of the kraggin—

  And strong and smart and honorable, and not too bad looking, either.

  No, not bad looking at all . . . but so what? I’m not some Lovesick Sessily looking for her man. I don’t even want a man. Least of all a king. Which is precisely why this dream couldn’t have come from me. It was all out of character. Where would I even get the material for it? I’ve hardly ever been kissed, let alone—

  Plagues! Her thought veered away from yet another all-too-available memory as embarrassment choked her. Why do you keep thinking about this? It was only a dream and it means nothing. Put it out of your mind and leave it there!

  The wooden planks of the temporary box shook under her feet as Carissa climbed the outer stair and stepped into the royal box to claim the last velvetcushioned chair. The musicians reached the end of their selection, and everyone looked up at the trumpeters. But the men did not move, and after a brief hesitation the orchestra launched into yet another piece.

  Carissa sat down, and everyone else followed her lead in a great rustling of satin and silk. As the music spilled into the vast hall, the princess leaned against Maddie’s left shoulder and asked quietly, “How did you know the axle would break?”

  Maddie turned to her. “I didn’t.”

  “They’re saying you did.”

  “And I suppose they think I caused it, too.”

  “Well, it was extraordinarily prescient of you to have gotten that horse ready.”

  “After everything that’s been going wrong, it only made sense to have a backup. And I had the time to do it.” She said this last quietly, lest Leyton hear her. He had been furious at his inability to track her down yesterday after his morning harangue—naturally it hadn’t occurred to him to look in the work stable for her.

  Carissa cocked a brow. “Every other noblewoman in the land is about to gasp herself into a fainting fit with the pressure of preparing for this day and you had time to bathe a horse.” She shook her head. “It’s a good thing you’re the Second Daughter and not the First. You wouldn’t last one day as queen.”

  Maddie snorted and turned her gaze to the rank of stone statues across the stage from them. “I wouldn’t even try.” Her sister, Briellen, was the one who had been groomed for that position, and Maddie well remembered all the lessons on language and diplomacy and deportment. She remembered the restrictions as well: princesses who would be queen did not climb the masts, or swing out of the stable loft on a rope, or play in the mud by the catfish stream. Certainly they must never ride a horse bareback and astride, nor milk a cow, nor clean up manure. Princesses were not to speak their minds, must not read too much, or talk too much, or be too silent. Singing in public was unacceptable, and the making of songs was beneath them. Above all else they must be obedient. Or else learn how to manipulate those in authority over them so they might look as if they were obeying.

  “You dreamt of Abramm last night, didn’t you?” Carissa said, breaking into her thoughts.

  Maddie had no idea how she managed not to flinch. Oh, Eidon, please. She didn’t share it, did she? I will die of shame. I will absolutely die.

  Shortly after Abramm had slain the morwhol, the two women had discovered their mutual connection to his dreams. Maddie had not thought this was one of them, and now she felt about to choke on the fear she’d been wrong.

  “After what Meridon told him yesterday,” Carissa went on blithely, “it’s hardly surprising he’d dream of fencing. Even that bizarre contest for your sister’s hand makes sense.”

  Horror prickled across Maddie’s skin, for her own dream had involved her sister and the fencing practice room, too.

  “What did Meridon tell him?” Maddie asked warily.

  Carissa was frowning at the white-robed Mataians seated in the front row of the main audience and now turned back to Maddie with raised brows. “You didn’t see Abramm this morning?”

  “I barely made it to the palace entryway in time for the procession. You would not believe the troubles I had this morning.” Troubles facing my maid, troubles getting out of bed, troubles looking at myself in the mirror, troubles being here at all. . . . “What happened?”

  Before Carissa could answer, a muffled boom that sounded as if it had come from up in the anteroom drew their attention. It was apparently nothing, most likely a door slamming or some partition falling over. But long after Maddie had made that deduction, the crown princess continued to stare toward the main hall. Just as Maddie was about to ask her what was so interesting, she turned back and finally answered Maddie’s question.

  “Last night after practice Abramm made Captain Meridon tell him what he really thought about him getting back use of his arm.”

  Maddie gaped in horror. She knew very well what Meridon thought about Abramm’s chances of a full recovery.

  “Abramm asked him outright,” Carissa said. “It wasn’t like he had a choice.”

  “Certainly he had a choice. He knows the future no more than Abramm does. And neither he nor Channon are even remotely objective about it. They act like he’s made of glass.” She shook her head, trying to calm the fury that gripped her. Of all the stupid, arrogant, impossible things to say! How could he have done such a thing? Bad enough to think it, but to actually— She groaned aloud as a new thought hit her. Abramm had probably seen the scars on hi
s face this morning, too, which would only make it worse.

  Guilt at not having checked in with him assailed her with bitter force.

  “They’re just afraid he’s going to get sick again,” Carissa murmured.

  “Well, it’s ridiculous. His illness was spawn-induced. He’s over it now. Why don’t they back off and let him be who he is?”

  “It was hard seeing him so close to death, Mad.”

  Maddie kept her eyes fixed upon the coronation chair below, its dark Hasmal’uk stone peeping out from the shelf beneath the cushioned seat. She knew far too well how hard it had been to see him like that. Harder still having no one to share her terror with.

  “I think it shocked them to realize how close we were to losing him,” Carissa said. “And then to find he’d lost so much. . . .” She glanced back toward the Mataians again.

  “Well, locking him in a closet is hardly going to change anything.” Maddie frowned and craned her head around Carissa’s form. “What are you looking at over there?”

  The princess sat back sheepishly. She hesitated, then let out her breath and said, “That man there at the end of the row of Mataians—the big one sitting all hunched over. Does he look . . . odd to you?”

  “No more so than any of them. Except perhaps for his bold and flawless posture.” Sarcasm sharpened her tone.

  Carissa snorted agreement.

  “Why do you ask?” Maddie pressed.

  “I think he’s watching me.”

  “I doubt he can even see you from where he’s sitting. Besides, his face is hidden in that cowl, so how would you know?” Maddie glanced again at the big man, who was, she realized now, sitting directly aligned with Carissa, his line of sight unobstructed by the royal box. But why would he be watching her? Just to unnerve her?

  In point of fact, High Father Bonafil’s young apprentice, Brother Eudace, was watching them, his weird blue eyes driving a chill up her spine. Big and luminous, they reminded her of fish eyes, cold and almost inhuman.

  Her thoughts returned suddenly to something Carissa had said earlier— about expecting Maddie to have gone to Abramm this morning to repair the damage Trap had done. The truth was, even if she’d known about it, she wouldn’t have gone. Because of the dream.

  Meridon had no doubt cursed his loose lips all night, for it was truly not the sort of thing he was given to saying. And it was unusual for Abramm to have pressed him so insistently. Abramm knew how important it was that he himself go into this coronation with confidence and courage.

  Her breath hissed softly over her teeth. I knew that dream didn’t originate with me. It was the rhu’ema. They wanted her flustered and off balance so she couldn’t go to Abramm this morning. . . .

  They’re manipulating all of us to get to him, she realized. He is going to be attacked today. Somehow, someway, in this place.

  She glanced again at the Mataians, most of whom were apparently praying now, amulets glowering at their throats. She knew what sort of beings lived in those amulets. Her eye flicked up to the hammerbeam ceiling. Were more of them swirling around up there?

  Suddenly another part of all this came clear to her, another reason why she’d been assaulted with that dream. It wasn’t simply her visits with Abramm in the morning that distinguished her relationship with him. There was also the link through Eidon’s Light they shared, something stronger even than the dream connection he shared with Carissa.

  But . . . Oh, Eidon! How can I possibly reach out to him today? She didn’t think she’d even be able to look at him without thinking things she had no business thinking. And to get that close . . . Oh, please. Don’t make me do that.

  At that moment the musicians completed their air and paused again. Conversation melted away, and as the last notes faded to silence, a roar arose from the square outside. She glanced again at the ceiling and shivered with foreboding.

  Then on the balconies above the crowd, the trumpeters snapped to attention, their long brass horns held lengthwise before their bodies. The roar grew louder and her heart flew into her throat.

  He’s here!

  CHAPTER

  3

  As Abramm rode into the people-packed square outside the ancient Hall of Kings at the northwest end of the Mall of Government, the crowd’s roar buffeted him like a flock of birds, wings beating at him from all sides. The moist low-hanging clouds reflected their cheers so loudly his ears rang and his insides quivered. Warbanner pranced and sidled beneath him, shaking his head and snorting at the fluttering hats and kerchiefs and homemade shield-and-dragon banners. A roped cordon had kept spectators at bay until now, but here the crowd had squeezed passage down to the bare minimum.

  A coach would have kept them back and eliminated the worry of someone being injured by the temperamental warhorse, but Abramm wouldn’t have changed it for anything. Riding Warbanner was the best thing he could have done. His left arm might not be able to button a doublet or clasp an orb, or even hold a dagger firm against the incoming thrust of a sword, but he could still ride, could still control the fiery young stallion with ease. That, coming after Haldon’s challenge and the words of the dry mental voice whose origin he wasn’t quite sure of, had done much to right his thinking and restore his confidence—if not in himself, then at least in Eidon. For Eidon was the one who had brought him to this day, and he knew that, whether anyone else did or not.

  He followed the path through the surging crowd, winding around a central statue clogged with onlookers and on to the bank of stairs ascending to the portico of the Hall of Kings. There he dismounted, bemused to find himself wishing he could ride into the building and all the way to the stage. As if a dumb beast can help me where the sovereign God of creation cannot. . . .

  Once inside he stopped midway across the Hall’s narrow antechamber so his attendants could remove his fur-lined outer cloak and pull out the train of scarlet velvet that had been pinned up for his ride, the whisper of their movements echoing in the well of its empty, high-ceilinged space. Directly ahead of him stood the velvet-hung corridor beneath the temporary balconies, framing a glimpse of the Hall itself. The audience there would receive him far more critically than the one he’d just passed through, many of them still angry about the marriage treaty.

  His train in place, Abramm’s attendants stepped back and the men at the door looked to him expectantly. Dread shivered through him. Then, drawing a deep breath, he straightened his shoulders, lifted his chin, and strode forward. The men ahead turned to signal others, and as he stepped through the opening at the end of the balcony passway, the trumpets blared and the entire audience in that vast hall stood and turned toward him.

  A sea of wide-eyed faces stared at him beneath descending ranks of long white banners, and suddenly he could hardly breathe. The steeply sloping central aisle seemed half a league long, the Receiving Throne on its stepped pyramidal dais at the end of it shrunken with distance. Having to march with agonizing slowness to keep time with the orchestra’s majestic processional, he saw over and over the dropped jaws and the widened eyes of surprise, and with every step grew increasingly aware of his uneven gait and the way his arm kept curling up at his side. His scars burned so fiercely he thought they must be glowing.

  It was daunting and suffocating and overwhelming . . . and yet there were moments when his awareness shifted off of himself and the people reacting to him and onto the hall in which he walked and the fact he was here to be crowned king of the land in the full glory of Kiriathan tradition. Something as unthinkable as this had seemed impossible not even a year ago. Eidon had brought him here, no question of that.

  Finally the end of the long aisle drew near, white-robed Mataians on his right in the front row, Trap Meridon in the aisle seat across from them: the place of honor for a man who had stood by his king through betrayal, slavery, and civil war, and would for that service be elevated to the peerage today. He met Abramm’s glance evenly, no sign of guilt or wavering, despite the rift between them. But that had always been Tr
ap’s way.

  Abramm angled past the Receiving Throne and on toward the granite mount, noting the Mataians’ glares as he passed them. That they were present and so openly hostile gave credence to his fear Bonafil meant to challenge him today. Might as well prepare himself to meet it, for all the ugly marring of this ceremony that would produce.

  With the royal box looming ahead to his right, he climbed the short stair and stepped onto the ancient granite stage. The moment he did, he felt the unmistakable sense of unseen, malevolent eyes opening in grim welcome. His Terstan advisors were right: it wasn’t only the Orb and Bonafil he’d have to deal with today. . . .

  At the mount’s edge, he turned back to face the great hall, his gaze flicking up to the shadowy network of beams overhead as the chief herald’s voice boomed through the heights, announcing his arrival and asking if the people would accept him.

  They were supposed to burst out with a cheer of acclamation at this point. Instead, the herald’s voice faded into an accusatory silence that instantly returned Abramm’s attention to the crowd. The Mataians stood in the first rank across the forestage from him, closed-mouthed and smirking, their arms crossed upon their chests. His gaze drifted to the people beyond them, shock stealing his breath. Would they refuse to accept him? Would this crowning be over before it even started?

  Then a single voice rang out: “I accept him.” A few echoed it, then more, the numbers gradually increasing until the majority of those present had approved. But it was a lukewarm acclamation, more dutiful than heartfelt, and it left him profoundly shaken. He turned to cross the granite toward the Robing Station just below the royal box, where the Keeper of the Regalia and his deputies waited. His train hissed loudly in the silence, and hostility pressed at him from every quarter, so that his stomach churned and his scars burned hotter than ever.