“I haven’t been back home since I was seven.” She changed the subject almost as if she knew his thoughts.
She might as well think so. They’re always the same thoughts.
“I’ve never been at all. I’ve always wanted to meet Queen Tristella.”
Flannery lips curved up slightly into a tiny smile. “She is a force of nature. I think you will like her.”
Tristella had done her best to care for Nylan from a distance. Politics and the instability of the shipping lanes, thanks to the Raids, had prevented her from ever risking travel to Serathon herself—even for her daughter’s funeral. But it would not keep Jarlyth from taking ship to see her.
Flannery had surprised him by wanting to go along. She’d only just achieved her journeyman status as a Templar and, without telling Jarlyth, had begged leave of her superiors to go with Jarlyth to Voya. She said it proved that not everyone stood against him when her request was granted so speedily.
They booked passage on the next ship bound for Voya and clambered aboard just before it made sail. Had the ship possessed a steam engine such as the one powering the train, the travel time from shore to shore would have been cut at least in half, but the Breach played havoc with any and all advanced technology—even that powered by magic—so with sails they must be satisfied.
Jarlyth did not travel well by water, and he stayed in his cabin below-decks as much as he could to hide from well-intentioned advice and teasing. All the while Flannery had the run of the ship. She kept up with her advanced studies, learned how to climb the masts in order to stay in fighting shape, ran through all her sword-work every day as if the ship’s deck were solid ground, and failed to realize several of the younger officers had fallen in love with her. Jarlyth almost hated her but was too busy throwing up or trying not to.
By the time they reached the famously-bustling port of Toharana Vail, the Voyan capital city, Jarlyth had lost more than a stone, and his clothes hung off of him as if he’d been starved.
Nylan was starved. It killed him to think it, and he looked out at the city as a distraction. He couldn’t allow himself to collapse under the weight of his continued failure.
Voya was renowned throughout the world for the peace that prevailed there. Jarlyth imagined this had something to do with the fact that Voyan kings and queens ruled for centuries, blessed with exceptional long life—another gift from Vail Herself. Tristella had been on the throne of Voya for over two centuries and had been alive for quite a bit longer.
She lived through the fall of the One Kingdom. He couldn’t remember if it was said she’d seen the world before the Breach tore through it. That would be something to have seen.
They found a hotel and sent word to the palace. Bairbre and Flannery had gone to the Voyan Embassy in Karona City in order to get the proper letters of introduction, though Bairbre had doubted this step would be necessary.
“As if she’d turn you away, Jary, for not having the correct paperwork.”
“It’ll ease things, in case her staff protects her as well as Teodor’s sometimes does,” he’d replied. Bairbre hadn’t argued with that.
Far from standing on ceremony, the queen herself arrived at their hotel the very next morning. Flannery stood at the window of their connecting parlor, watching the royal carriage as she called for Jarlyth to come and see.
Queen Tristella, dressed in what appeared to be a riding habit, jumped down from the carriage, giving her footman’s hand a pat as she did so. They could overhear faintly the hellos and comments called out to the queen by passersby and the easy answers she gave them.
“She certainly doesn’t stand apart from the public like Teodor does,” Jarlyth said. Flannery just smiled and shook her head.
Nylan would love it here.
A harried-looking servant arrived and announced the queen, barely beating the woman herself to their parlor door.
She swept in and hurried across the room to Flannery whom she caught in an enthusiastic embrace. “Mouse! Oh, my little Mouse! How you have grown!”
Flannery’s smile reached her eyes, and she blushed prettily. “No one’s called me that but Mum in years, Majesty.” She gave a very formal bow better-suited to her Templar uniform than a Court curtsy would have been.
“None of that, now.” The queen stepped back to take a good look at her expatriate subject. “Oh, but you do take after both your parents. I see your father in your eyes.”
“Thank you, Majesty.” The girl bowed again.
The queen turned and fixed her beautiful, direct gaze on Jarlyth at last. He could see where Nylan’s loveliness came from.
All the pictures he’d seen of Vedalanna had portrayed a considerable beauty, though his one in-person meeting with her had not shown her at her best—but Tristella’s looks—all long, bronze-colored hair and golden-hazel eyes—outshone even her daughter’s. But I think Nylan might one day outshine his grandmother.
In the way of the Voyavels, she didn’t show even a tenth of her true age. She looked maybe twenty; just old enough to be Flannery’s elder sister. This is Nylan’s destiny.
Vail, I’m so tired. He was glad she didn’t seem to expect any sort of ceremony or even normal ritual from him. He wasn’t sure he could manage even the proper “Your Majestys” at this point.
Tristella spoke, focusing his attention once more. “Lord Jarlyth Denara, Knight Templar and Warder to Crown Prince Nylan Voyavel SanClare of Voya.” She said this as if she were introducing him at a ball. “I have been waiting a very long time to meet you. Where have you been?”
He bowed to her, careful not to tumble over from the leftover affects of his sea-sickness. “I had hoped His Majesty King Teodor would continue his support of the search, but—”
Tristella narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, looking like a child imitating a disapproving dowager. “Teodor is so determined to be hurt and angry over Veda’s inconstancy—which, I will assure you, she never was. He knew from the start she loved another, but he wanted her to love him and so married her anyway.”
She looked around the room, her eyes narrowing even more, then she turned back with a too-bright smile. “Sit down. Both of you. Jarlyth, you look so tired.”
“He’s barely slept.” Flannery obeyed the queen’s request, sitting down in one of the overstuffed chairs with great dignity and seeming surprised and quietly delighted by its bounce. “He gets sea-sick.”
“I don’t know of many Sensitives who don’t. Something to do with the way magic moves through the water. Troubling to your senses, I’m told.”
She fussed around Jarlyth like the grandmother she was rather than like the girl she seemed and called for weak tea and crackers to settle him while she and Flannery ordered themselves a more robust morning meal.
They sat and talked of nothing for awhile. The queen watched him over the rim of her cup. Weighing my worth.
“SouthPort has a train now?” She seemed impressed by this, though her own country was crisscrossed by them. “Last time I was in Serathon, SouthPort was barely a port.”
Flannery eyes widened in surprise at this, too, though Jary only noticed because he was so attuned to her subtle expressions. But Jary didn’t mind asking the question. “When were you in Serathon, Majesty?”
“Tris will do, Jary. If I may call you that?”
Jarlyth balked. “You may call me what you wish, Majesty, but—”
“Is Tris too informal?” She turned to Flannery, her eyes wide.
“You shouldn’t tease him, Your Majesty,” the girl said, disapproving. “He’s so tired.”
Tristella laughed. “I am admonished, dear Mouse. Senna, then,” she offered, turning back to Jarlyth. “A nice, normal honorific for an ordinary woman.”
Though she teased and enthused and bustled, at her center, she was utterly calm and unruffled and steady. Jarlyth had never met anyone like her.
“And I was in Serathon back when the only people who called it that lived there. It was all just the One
Kingdom or whatever county you happened to be in—Lyra or Karona or Rataque or what-have-you. Serathon was its old name, dating back before the One Kingdom. They brought it back into use only after Savoni split the realm.”
“Then you were there during the war?” Flannery pressed.
Tristella opened her mouth to reply, then narrowed her eyes again. Jarlyth thought it must be a habitual expression of concentration or thought.
She held up a finger to stay their questions and slipped a chain from around her neck and held out the stone dangling from it.
“Silence,” she intoned. Then she relaxed back into her chair and pulled her feet up under her skirts, looking as calm and centered without as she had seemed to be within, and much more relaxed than she had since her arrival.
Surprised, Jarlyth said, “I didn’t know you were a wizard, Senna.”
She gave him an indulgent smile. “Not at all. This is a charm made for me by my wizards. It ensures privacy within a comfortable radius. We may speak openly now.”
Flannery raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t we before?”
“There’s open and then there’s open,” Tristella replied. “But we were speaking about the war. The Third Blood War, to be precise. And, yes. I was in Serathon then, but not during the war exactly.”
Jarlyth and Flannery exchanged glances, and she caught them and smiled again. “I was there right before it broke out. I was rather stuck in Karona City for its first few moons, until finally King Galen’s spymaster managed to smuggle me past the blockade. What an adventure!”
She knew King Galen—She must’ve known Valorian, then. The Prince of Charms. Nylan wanted that to be his prince-name. And it should have been.
“You were awfully young to have traveled so far from Voya,” Flannery said.
“Says the child who left her homeland at age three!” But the queen sighed, her hand opening as if to release something. “You are correct, though. It’s true. I was born very late in my father’s reign. He didn’t know how much longer I’d have before inheriting. He feared I’d be too young, and that Voya would be destroyed by invaders or dissension within due to my youth and inexperience.
“So I was sent to the One Kingdom to marry.”
Jarlyth gaped at her and saw that both of Flannery’s eyebrows were now raised—a sign of strong surprise, indeed. Neither had ever heard this story before.
“Marry?” Jarlyth exclaimed at the very moment Flannery blurted out, “Which one?”
Lucky she’s laughing.
“Savoni. My Prince of Sorrows.” She waited for their fresh shock to subside before she continued.
“He and I became fast friends. I thought, ‘I can marry him. He’s fun. We’ll have a good time together.’ And he was so smart, so ambitious. He only had one problem, but it ruined everything.”
“His father loved his brother more,” Jarlyth whispered. Everyone knew this story.
“Yes. So much more that he wanted the second-born to inherit the throne. Set everything in motion to make it happen. Even tried to convince everyone that Valorian was the first-born twin. That’s why Galen had agreed to the marriage contract between us. He thought Savoni might be bought off from fighting it if he had another kingdom to rule.”
Tristella sighed and poured herself a fresh cup of coffee. “Such a disaster! We’re all still reeling from it centuries afterward.”
Vail had declared—so long ago no one was certain of the date—that inheritance of position should always be from first born to first born. Male or female, bastard or true-born, foolish or wise—it mattered not. Anyone who dared trifle with this holy rule reaped the consequences. In the case of the SanClares, the consequences were felt by kingdoms and not just families or individuals.
After a thoughtful pause, Tristella continued. “Everyone went along with it, though—that’s where the disaster really began. Valorian was charming, handsome, strong. Everything a warrior-king should be. And Savoni was...different. He could be impatient with stupidity or foolishness. He lacked his brother’s diplomatic flair. He wanted people to be better and didn’t like it when they wouldn’t even try.”
“Did you love him?” Flannery asked. Jarlyth almost stared at her, unused to such stunning bluntness from the usually almost-silent, solemn girl.
The queen seemed unsurprised by the question. “In a way, I did. I was very young. He is a beautiful man and, at the time, very kind, very gentle. He didn’t want me to do anything I’d been bullied into.”
“Why do you think he did it?” Jarlyth dared this time. But he’d always wondered, and here was his chance to find out.
Her hand trembled a bit as she set down the cup again, an out-of-place tremor of age from the youthful queen.
“I sometimes think it was my fault. I was outraged on his behalf. I would rail at Galen behind closed doors. Shout how unjustly he was treating Savoni. Press him to petition Vail for a sign to be delivered to his father.
“He’d laugh it off. Tease me out of my black fury. But our formal engagement was set to last some many moons, and as time passed...he changed. He grew quiet. His patience thinned even more. His smile faded.”
Hers had faded, too. Jarlyth was sorry they’d made her recall such a sad time. I don’t know why we even need to know. Cruel, idle curiosity. He felt ashamed, but if she continued, he knew he wouldn’t stop her.
He’d heard the story told and retold from historical records. There were books and books based on just the incidents surrounding the fall of the One Kingdom. But she was there.
“We were all at evening meal. It was off-Season and relaxed, and I remember we’d been laughing over some silly joke one of the younger ones had made.
“Savoni hadn’t been there, and I’d noticed, but he’d been missing things more and more often, so it didn’t occur to me to worry.”
She paused again, her memories almost visible in the room with them. “I still don’t know how he found her. They were already very rare—you never see them now—and she was young.”
“Who?” Flannery asked. Jarlyth knew and swallowed back his sick feeling at what was coming.
“A Danae, dear,” she said. “One of the ancient folk—the magical people. The first waerloks got their power by stealing it from the Danae. Now they steal from their half-blood descendants, the wizards, and from the occasional Sensitive.”
“Aren’t there any Danae left?” Flannery sounded hopeful.
Tristella moved her shoulders in a gentle shrug. “There may be. I’ve never seen one since. I think they went away from us after all the bloodshed. And who can blame them? We were not kind.
“I didn’t know it, but Savoni had been trying to convince his father not to disinherit him for moons. Before I even arrived. He was respectful and argued in private. He went to Valorian for help, trying to make his brother see how disastrous this would be for everyone. But Valorian, for all his bravery, was full of his father’s spoiled love and proud and greedy and selfish and thoroughly SanClare in all the worst ways.”
Flannery barked a laugh and shot Jarlyth a guilty glance.
“You know what I mean, don’t you?” Tristella asked, startled from her memories into realizing what she’d said and to whom.
Jarlyth smiled. “No one knows better. Pride and obstinance are hallmarks of the breed. Even Nylan.”
Tristella echoed his smile, but hers seemed to hold a memory too dear to share, and it faded again. “He finally realized they meant to do it, no matter what. I think what he really finally realized was that neither of them loved him. It broke the Savoni I knew and changed him forever.
“He dragged that poor little thing into the dining hall and gutted her in front of everyone. So fast. It was so fast. You could almost see the power explode from the gash, and he took it all and turned and struck down his father with a look.”
“Valorian was across the hall with his sword drawn before the rest of us could even think, but he couldn’t get near Savoni. I realized then that this wasn’t the f
irst time he’d killed. He’d been a waerlok...for a long time already.”
She took a deep breath and blew it out, shaking her hair back. “The rest you know. He’d gathered many allies, and many of them waerloks, and the war tore that beautiful kingdom and its beautiful peace to shreds.”
Jarlyth felt exhausted just hearing the tale, but Flannery was busy putting the new pieces together with what she knew. “How could you let her, Senna? How could you let Veda—”
“Let?” the queen interrupted with a hard laugh. “Let. Child, do you not remember my daughter?”
Flannery blushed and muttered a dignified apology, but the queen waved a hand at her, dismissing it all.
“They met by chance, or so Veda thought. I’ve never been sure. He’d wanted me to go with him. Of course, I couldn’t—not after what he’d done. Not after what he’d become. But I think he may have held on to the idea of the SanClare and the Voyavel coming together. He was fascinated by power, a side-effect of his blood addiction, and we Voyavels are special. Even more so than the SanClares.
“He’d learned to be charming in the years since, and he charmed her. She was not young—about seventy when they met—but young enough for a beautiful, youthful, carefree girl who did as she pleased most of the time. She’d never been in love. We try to wait for that and not force our children to live out long, purposeless lives before they gain their thrones.”
The queen had lost many consorts over the years, but she’d never taken another—at least not publicly—after the death of Vedalanna’s father. This is also Nylan’s destiny.
“They were careful, and he had more than enough magic to hide his identity when they were seen. They were together for over fifteen years. I made dozens of excuses for her absences, lied and lied and lied to protect Voya. To protect her. But most of the time, she was in Edoran with him.”
SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) Page 17
