She didn’t know who that was or who Oria was, but she clung to the calming voice, as if it were shelter in a sandstorm.
“Yes. I will shelter you. Rest. Heal.”
No longer so afraid and alone, she allowed the sleep to rise up, grateful for the black to replace all that clinging gray.
“…what to expect…”
“…never before…”
The disjointed phrases cottoned through her mind. At first the words held no more meaning than the soughing of an afternoon breeze just before sunset stilled it. After a while, they began to retain their shape, sticking longer, with edges that signified something. “…no more mind than an infant’s…”
Hot rose light beat through her eyelids, burning away the last of the mist that had obliterated her senses, and she registered a breeze on her skin, the scent of day-blooming lilies.
“…prepare yourself for the worst.”
“I’ve already lived through the worst,” a voice she knew well cut through. She reached out for it, blindly seeking.
“Mama?” No sound came through her stiffened, dry lips, which cracked, bringing bright pain that she actually welcomed. She was alive. She fought to make that final escape. There were things living people did—opening their eyes, moving their limbs.
“She’s here, Oria. We’re both here. Try harder.”
“Mama!” she called, some part of her remembering that time when she’d been unable to feed herself, calling for this woman who—oh yes. There. That cool hand on her forehead, then slipping behind her neck, dribbling cool, sweet water between her lips.
“I’m here, baby girl. Wake up now.”
“It may not be wise to—”
“I’ll care for my daughter. Leave us now.”
The room went blessedly silent, of both sound and a certain anxiety that had strummed unpleasantly. A smoothly scaled tail wrapped around her wrist, caressing, affection flowing in as restorative as the water in her parched throat.
“Swallow the water, Oria.”
“Can you open your eyes? Come on now. Wake up for me. Chuffta is here.”
It took a monumental effort. One she had to carefully think through, finding the old nerve pathways, cranking at them like a servant girl working a well pulley. That helped, to imagine the stiff wheel turning, the rope pulling, tugging at her lashes painfully.
“Wait a moment, baby. Hold still.” The hands went away and Oria whined an inarticulate protest. They came back, a cool cloth on her eyelids. So much better. “There. Try again.”
They moved more easily this time. The light hurt, but she squinched against it, seeking her mother’s face—unmasked and lined with worry. “Mama.”
“Yes.” The familiar brown eyes filled with tears and spilled over, running down her face, choking out her next words.
“Why are you crying? Don’t cry.” The words only came out partially, mostly in a voiceless whisper. She tried to raise a hand to wipe the tears away, but couldn’t.
“She is happy, Oria. Grateful to have you back with us. As am I.”
“What happened to me?” The words came better this time, but with effort. She managed to move her eyes, though not her head, to spot Chuffta on her pillow, green gaze intent on her face.
“It may be best for the moment not to try to remember too much. Just know you’ve been ill and must recover. Slow and steady wins this race.”
She didn’t like it, the not knowing. But it also made her head hurt to think about it, a much less welcome pain.
“Swallow a little more water. You need to drink,” her mother urged.
Oria obeyed because it was the easier choice, and because she suddenly discovered a raging thirst, as if her belly, too, had only just awakened.
“Not too much. Not at first.” Her mother set the cup aside, then wiped her tears away. “Sleep if you can and I’ll wake you in a bit for more.”
Succumbing to the suggestion—or, more truly, giving up fighting the onrushing darkness, she did. “Love you,” she muttered before she went under.
“We love you, too, Oria. We’re with you.”
She sank again, with her mother’s hand stroking her forehead and Chuffta’s firm presence in her mind, tail wrapped around her wrist.
And a puzzling fragmented memory of granite eyes searching hers, asking some question she couldn’t answer, before strong arms swept her up, holding her close against his heart.
~ 12 ~
They’d been too many days at the negotiations. Stalled, in the most galling way.
The young king, hastily ratified by his people the evening of Bára’s crushing defeat, so they’d been told, proved cagey and stubborn in his arguments. Far too much so for the ruler of a conquered people. To Lonen’s ongoing puzzlement, his father seemed to be losing ground in this war of words. Certainly King Archimago had never had to debate in these subtly insidious ways before. Among the Destrye, his word was law—none argued with him, on the battlefield or off.
These sorcerers and priestesses, however, with their expressionless masks and endless picking apart of details—they wielded arguments as the deftest warrior would a set of sharp blades.
And the Destrye king…well, he wasn’t the man he’d been when they set out on this quest, much as Lonen hated to acknowledge that much, even in his darkest thoughts.
He’d learned a great deal in the past few days that would serve him well should he ever have to take the crown, an unlikely event with Ion heir before him. Still, he’d never expected Nolan to perish and leave him one step closer to the burden of rule, so he filed the lessons away as a precaution, trying not to fret over how his father seemed to fade with every passing hour under the desert heat. Beyond that, the disquiet of wondering what had happened to Oria nibbled at his peace of mind like the biting insects that came in the open windows in late afternoon, until someone thought to summon servants to draw the sheer curtains. He needed to step away from it all, clear away the nattering worries. So when they broke for a midday meal, Lonen went walking instead.
He followed the path along the gorge that separated the palace complex from the other parts of the city. Clearly some long-ago ancestor had set it up so the bridges could be quickly destroyed in case an enemy breached the walls. If the people supporting Oria the day Bára fell had been smart, they would have advised her to do just that, and to remain in her tower. Maybe they had and she’d ignored the advice—she seemed stubborn enough for it, even on brief acquaintance.
It’s not my fault the idiot left her tower.
Indulging himself, he squinted up at the structure, reasonably certain she must be up there somewhere. He hadn’t seen her at all since the surrender—and her subsequent collapse—and he couldn’t exactly ask after her health. Giving it up, he resumed his walk, nodding at the Destrye guards stationed here and there.
The Bárans had begun to emerge more with every passing day, slowly taking up the business of daily life again. Another strangeness, seeing the Destrye warriors and their enemy interact over such things as putting the city back to order, or even bartering for pretty objects to take home to their women. Lonen should think about getting something for Natly. Maybe some of that fine fabric that gleamed with its own light, for a gown or scarf.
Hopefully they’d hear from the Destrye women soon. Fast-riding messengers had gone out but had yet to return with word.
A few young Báran women passed him, bare faces tanned and hair streaked with sun, though none with Oria’s distinctive copper. Nor did anyone he’d seen have a pet dragonlet like hers. They nodded to him cautiously, one eyeing him with more boldness, then fell to whispering among themselves after he’d passed. King Archimago and Ion both had been firm in orders that the women of Bára were not to be touched. They’d leave no Destrye blood behind to be fouled with their witchcraft and magic.
To his surprise, he encountered Ion approaching on the path from the other direction. His brother lifted a hand in greeting, as if they hadn’t parted less than an hour
before. “I see we have the same idea.”
Lonen nodded ruefully at an elderly priestess he knew from their meetings by her tower of platinum braids, and who sat on a nearby bench, unmoving, nearly a statue in her stillness, only the midday breeze stirring her crimson garments, sun reflecting painfully off the golden mask. “I can’t bear to sit any longer. How do they stand it? I feel as if I’ve been moldering in my grave.”
Ion cocked his head in the other direction, indicating they should move away. After they made it a short distance down the walk, he said, “I’m concerned about how long this is taking.”
Lonen blew out a short breath—both relieved that he wasn’t the only one to be disturbed and bothered that Ion felt the same. “Do you think they could be deliberately stalling, that they’ve somehow called for aid that could be on the way?”
“It’s what I would do.” Ion had his hands clasped behind his back, brow furrowed. “We know next to nothing about these people. The Destrye have—or had—allies. Why wouldn’t the Bárans?”
“That’s my take, too.” Lonen hesitated before broaching the difficult question. “Then why is Father allowing them to drag their feet?”
Ion flashed him a dark scowl and Lonen braced himself for his older brother’s withering scorn. He should have known better than to question the king aloud. But Ion’s forbidding expression crumpled and he rubbed his brow with a sigh. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “The same is bothering me. Arnon has noted it, too, and pulled me aside last night with the same concerns.”
At least they all three agreed. “Do you think,” Lonen ventured, tentative in this new territory of being aligned against their father, “that they could be working some form of mind magic against him? Something subtler than fireballs, thunder, and earthquakes, but just as powerful?” If they could do such things, it might explain the way thoughts of Oria clung to him.
Ion’s dark brows rose as he considered that. “It hadn’t occurred to me. Arnon and I thought to blame it on Nolan’s death. That grief is still fresh.”
“It is for all of us,” Lonen pointed out, taking a moment to choke back the black emotion that wanted to rise at the very mention of his brother’s demise.
“Harder, though, for a parent to lose a child, a king to lose an heir, than for us to lose a brother.”
Was it? Ion had sons out there with his wife on the Trail of New Hope, so perhaps he understood something Lonen did not. In many ways, he had a hard time coming to grips with Nolan being truly gone. For long spaces, he could forget about it. Until moments like this one.
“Perhaps so.” He hesitated, then voiced one of the ideas he’d been mulling. “We’ve had no opportunity to say the prayers to Arill to guide Nolan’s feet to the Hall of Warriors. With his body lost in battle, it could be that his shade wanders until we do. It’s a plaguing thought.”
“Do you—” Ion cleared his throat, gazing into the chasm. “Has it occurred to you that he might not be dead? He could be down in something like that, hoping we’ll come find him. He could be hurt and…”
Lonen put a hand on his brother’s shoulder when Ion’s voice choked off, his own throat going tighter. “Yes,” he said. “In dreams, I see him, falling, lying there broken, calling to me.” A pall settled over them. Lonen had thought he’d be the only one to be plagued with such morose phantasms. Ironic that he and Ion should bond over this, of all things.
“Remember when he was seven?”
“And fell in the river? Yes.” Lonen shook his head, a smile alleviating the strangling grief. “And you jumped in after him, fully dressed, sword in hand.”
Ion laughed, which was better. “Father nearly skinned me alive for that one—for ruining good boots, nearly dropping my sword, and because I was supposed to be watching all of you, not flirting with that girl. I can’t even remember her name.” He’d gone back to sounding bleak.
“Nolan wasn’t a little kid, Ion. He was a grown man in charge of a battalion of Destrye who fought bravely to save our people—including you and me and that girl whose name you can’t remember. It’s not your job to watch us anymore.” A strange place to be, offering such comfort to his eldest brother.
From Ion’s sidelong glance, he thought so, too. “That’s not how it feels. But enough of this. Tell me why you think they’re working some form of mind magic on the king.”
He absolutely would not mention Oria. “I don’t have any good reason. More…a feeling?” Lonen waited for his brother’s disdain, but Ion said nothing, only listened. “I’ve told you how it was, killing the priestesses who stood on the walls that night.”
“Yes.” Ion’s voice and face were grave. None of them liked that they’d won the battle on the broken bodies of women.
“It seemed—this will sound strange.”
“Can any of this be stranger than it already is? We’ve already witnessed the unthinkable. Stop dithering and tell me straight.”
Lonen had to smile. Ion, back to being himself with his didactic ways, but also a changed man, wanting to hear the strange thoughts of his fanciful younger brother. Once Ion would have rubbed his face in the dirt for saying such foolish things. In a sudden glimpse, Lonen could see his brother as king after their father’s death. Something that had once been unthinkable. Now it seemed not only possible, but that Ion might make a good king.
“When I killed the first one, not knowing she was a woman, I did so because she faced out toward the battle. At least, I told myself it was only that. But—thinking back to that night, I must have felt something else at work. Something about those masks and… Have you noticed the way they seem to glow sometimes?”
“A reflection of the light,” Ion offered, but not dismissively, simply as an alternate argument.
“I thought that, too. Metal reflects and the gold is bright, highly polished.” Oria hadn’t worn a mask. So far every man and woman of higher rank who’d spoken in the negotiations did, while the bare-faced denizens of the city all seemed to be of lower status. But everyone who spoke of her freely acknowledged her as a princess. As if of their own will and not his, his eyes strayed to her high tower. He wrenched them away before Ion noticed. “It makes me wonder is all. Why do they wear them? It seems they shouldn’t be able to see, but they behave as if they can.”
“It’s cursed unsettling, I can tell you that.” Ion pursed his lips behind his thick beard. “He hasn’t said, but it could be that Father meant to leave them some measure of dignity by allowing them to retain the masks.”
“Or because none of us really wants to see what lies behind them,” Lonen said, before he rethought the jest.
Ion nodded to that, however. “That could be part of their trickery. Like the Xyrts who paint their faces blue to frighten their enemies.”
“It makes it more difficult,” Lonen said slowly, thinking it through, “to guess at their intentions when we can’t see their faces. I’m not adept at negotiations, but that bothers me.”
“None of us are skilled in this arena, which is why we shouldn’t have accepted their surrender and simply continued the battle until they could no longer fight.”
Lonen bristled at the implicity accusation. “I know you think you wouldn’t have done the same in my shoes, but—”
“But nothing,” Ion cut in, more the brother Lonen knew well. “You were swayed by a pretty face and a sorrowful smile.”
“What makes you think Princess Oria is pretty? You’ve never laid eyes on her and I certainly never said so.”
“You didn’t have to. It was writ all over your face when you defended her actions—to her own people, I might add. Besides, plenty of Destrye witnessed your conversation with her and described how you saved her from falling, all noble and full of concern. You have a soft spot for females and always have. Didn’t you consider how it might look, that you showed such care for one of the enemy?”
Lonen clenched his teeth, keeping his response measured. “No, I didn’t think at all. She fainted and I caught her. An
y man would have done the same.”
“Not any man. I wouldn’t have. But that’s always been your problem, Lonen. You follow your heart, not your head.”
“The big one or the little one?” Lonen snapped back, tired of this old argument.
Ion clapped a hand over the back of Lonen’s skull, hard enough to make his ears ring. “The one is empty and the other attached to your heart. See if you can figure it out. Still,” he said, while Lonen fumed, “your points are well taken and I will bring them to Father’s attention. We should demand they remove the masks or we will rejoin the fight and see who wins.”
“And if they don’t agree?”
“They will, because even their proud and stubborn boy king will see that they cannot prevail against us.”
“Unless they have aid coming,” Lonen replied, full of the foreboding that had plagued him these past days. Ion called King Nat a boy, but he was their age. He might seem younger and softer, not being a warrior, but that did not make him foolish or without weapons of his own.
“All the more reason to insist on this measure immediately.”
~ 13 ~
Oria lived in a world of alternations. Asleep. Awake. Dark. Light. Drink. Sleep. Eat. Drink.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Sleep.
Every time she awoke, her mother and Chuffta were there, ready to offer her a glass of cooled water and affectionate reassurances. A bouquet of lilies sat in a vase on the table beside the bed, wafting a sweet, thick fragrance. She’d gaze at their vivid colors, feeling as if she’d forgotten something, but she always fell asleep again before she could determine what it was.
Eventually she stayed awake long enough to string several thoughts together. Her mother attended her constantly. No one else did. Where was Alva?
“Don’t worry over these things. You have one concern—to rest and heal.”
“I’ve been doing that.”
“You’ve been doing what, baby?” her mother murmured. “Have some broth.”
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