"Endor will object just to prove that he can. He doesn't really care about me, since I won't take a position of power, since I can't ..." Nainan's eyes clouded and her mouth pursed as if in pain, then she shook her head. "I am not the important one. He will object just because the man I want to marry isn't the one he chose for me."
"Has he chosen someone?" Mrillis looked back and forth between the two. "He hasn't said anything to either me or Ceera."
"No. He's chosen no one, which is almost as bad as if he insisted I had to marry someone I disliked. It tells the world..." She sighed, and her eyes brightened with wry humor. "It tells the world that he doesn't really care, can't find any use for me. You have no idea what a relief that is."
Nainan's relief was short-lived. Emrillian was born just before dawn, and Triska and Endor arrived at the mist gates just before noon. The travelers barely had time to peel off their snowy cloaks and boots, have their saddlebags taken away and mugs of hot, mulled wine pressed into their hands, before a giddy teenager blurted the news of the birth, and related the plans for the celebration feast that were underway right that moment.
Mrillis had just stepped into the room to welcome the returning travelers and saw Triska's face fall. He almost felt guilty for the wide-eyed, betrayed, accusing look she cast at him. That feeling fled under the chill of uneasiness when Triska mastered her expression, blinked away a hint of tears, and responded with all evidence of great delight at the news. Mrillis didn't miss the fact that Endor watched his sister for her reaction, an assessing light in his eyes--like one of their teachers on Wynystrys, judging how well his students had learned their lessons.
Mrillis didn't like disturbing Ceera with what he had seen, but he knew protecting her now might work against them later. Triska's feelings had to take second place to her duties as Queen's Heir, or she would never mature enough to handle the duties of Queen of Snows.
"She has learned at least the appearance of control and maturity," Ceera murmured, after Mrillis had shared the entire scene, putting his memories and impressions directly into her mind. She glanced up long enough to meet his gaze and smile crookedly, then turned all her attention back to their sleeping daughter.
"I think she fears she has been replaced by Emmi's birth."
"Emrillian, love. I gave her a big, lovely, important name so she will grow into it."
"You see our daughter doing great things?" He tried to laugh, and settled down on the edge of the couch next to her. His arms itched to hold the baby, to touch the feather-soft curls, but a jittery kind of fear made him choke whenever he opened his mouth to ask if he could.
"No, actually, I don't. And that's rather comforting. I do know, though, that no Queen of Snows will come from our bloodline." Another glance, mischief sparkling for a moment through the satisfied weariness. "That's comforting, too."
"But Triska won't believe you if you tell her so." He thought about picking Ceera up, so she wouldn't have to walk back to bed, but decided he was too tired for that. They could both just stretch out here on the couch in the sitting room and enjoy a change of scenery. It would be convenient when visitors arrived. Ceera wouldn't have to move.
"She will be replaced, but only because she will turn her back on the seat of honor offered to her," Ceera whispered. Her eyes were closed, her entire body perfectly still, except for her lips, so Mrillis thought she had turned to stone.
"The seat of honor?" he asked, prompting her when the silence had stretched out too long and she didn't move, except to breathe.
"She will scorn the seat offered to her, like a child who is being punished scorns the position taken away. She will hunger for what she has thrown away and she will try to take by force what should have been hers, if only she had asked." She took a sudden, loudly indrawn breath, eyes fluttering open as she raised her head to meet his gaze again. "What did--"
"Later, love." Mrillis slid over next to her and lifted her up to sit on his lap. Even holding wife and daughter close, knowing they were safe, he couldn't escape the chill that crept up his spine and lodged a ball of ice in his belly.
* * * *
Triska greeted Ceera with smiles and seemed like her old self when the new mother and baby emerged two days later to sit in the common room. She said nothing about her marked absence from among all the visitors since Emrillian's birth, and ignored those who made pointed remarks, urging her to apologize.
Mrillis wanted to scold, but wasn't sure who should receive it. Ceera said she intended to have a long talk with her heir, and even share with her the details of the prophetic words. Mrillis wasn't present when the meeting occurred, Ceera didn't offer any details, and he decided it was better not to ask.
Endor left the Stronghold the day after returning Triska, after making only a token attempt to visit Ceera and see Emrillian. He left a handful of chains, each an unbroken circle carved from one piece of wood, as a gift for Ceera. Mrillis was comforted by this evidence that his friend had taken up his old hobby of carving and making lovely trinkets as presents. It reminded him of happier, innocent days of their boyhood.
When Endor did return to the Stronghold, Emrillian was nearly four moons old, and he only came to accompany the family to the Warhawk's fortress. He spared the baby no more interest than he gave any infant he had ever seen. That didn't feel right, to Mrillis, but what could he say? Scolding Endor for ignoring the baby struck him as petty, even arrogant. And he suspected he should have been relieved that Endor seemed to feel nothing toward Emrillian. He could have been furious with jealousy, because there were times when he still looked at Ceera with such longing, anyone could tell he was still in love with her. He could have hated the baby for his sister's sake, considering her a rival as Queen's Heir.
"I think it bothers me because Triska acts the same way. She acknowledges Emmi's existence, but doesn't pay much attention to her. Then again, she doesn't seem to care much about any child in the Stronghold under the age of ten," Mrillis admitted in the privacy of their tent, one night away from the Warhawk's fortress.
"Neither of them have any reason or right for feeling and reacting the way they do, about any number of topics," Ceera said. "I've spoken to them both--" She sputtered, fighting laughter so she wouldn't awaken Emrillian, when he showed his surprise. "And I've asked Nainan to talk to them, also."
"Do you think it will do any good?"
"We have spoken the truth. It is up to them to choose whether to believe or not. No matter what happens... We need peace, right now. Time for Emmi to grow up, time for Athrar to learn to be Warhawk. Time for Nainan to have her daughter." She inhaled sharply and for a moment, sorrow touched her eyes. "Love, whatever you do, protect Nainan and her daughter. From their blood will come a Queen of Snows with such power... If she chooses darkness, the World will suffer for eternity, and all we have fought for will be lost and wasted."
Mrillis silently sealed his promise with a kiss, and the sorrow melted from her face. Ceera smiled as she curled up next to him, with Emrillian in her cradle swing hung from the center pole of their tent. He knew he should have felt only contentment, because there would be peace for a while yet. But how long was a while? Athrar was a fine, well-grown young man and would take up his uncle's duties with honor and skill. The future whispered to him in the night quiet, the words unintelligible, the emotions unreadable. When he dreamed, it was of walking down a long, dark corridor through the ages, carrying a baby, and Ceera was nowhere to be seen or heard or even sensed.
* * * *
Riders met them the next morning, when they had been on the road less than two hours. Mrillis saw the black banners flying on the lances of the black-garbed warriors. Athrar rode in the lead. Mrillis sensed the young prince's presence, but when he tried to talk through the Threads to his former student, the roiling emotions blocked all communication. A groan escaped him, even as the sorrow and rage untangled in the mental atmosphere, giving him fractured images of what filled the young man's mind.
"What is it?" Ceer
a looked up, still laughing at Emrillian's newest trick of blowing bubbles as she fell asleep, safe in the traveling basket in front of her mother's saddle. Her eyes widened and the silver pupils darkened as she caught Mrillis' apprehension. With a soft cry of distress, she tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and reached for the Threads with mental and physical hands.
Mrillis didn't need her to tell him what she saw. The fragments of images from Athrar had resolved into an image of Afron Warhawk lying in a crumpled pile at the bottom of a stone staircase, a dark, congealed pool of blood all around him.
The fury cutting cold and jagged through Athrar's grief told Mrillis the Warhawk had been murdered.
Chapter Eight
"Strong, vicious magic," Athrar spat, after his party met theirs and the two joined groups doubled their pace, heading to the fortress. "Thick enough to cloak and muffle what they did. The few of us with any imbrose who still live, sensed nothing."
"Still live?" Mrillis barked.
"All the Valors assigned as guards to my uncle, on duty and off duty, are dead. Those off duty were smothered in their sleep, like my aunt. Those on duty... They simply stood there while someone strangled them and dropped them to the ground like rag dolls with their heads twisted completely--" Athrar choked, the sound turning into a growl. "I'm sorry, that's the last thing you should hear," he said, nodding terse apology to Ceera.
"I have seen far worse in the memories of soldiers, and read far worse in the journals of my predecessors," she murmured, and reached out a hand to the young man, who shuddered with rage and heart-sickness. "Who found them?"
"Baedron. He spent the night in the village." Athrar's mouth twisted in an unsteady smile. "He's got a sweetheart, just days away from wedding her. His guard duty started just before dawn, and he was in such a hurry to get back, so worried about the others teasing him for being late, he nearly tripped--" He swallowed hard, and fury tinged his pale cheeks. "He skidded and fell in my uncle's blood," he said, fighting to speak through the sickness. "It took three of us to keep Baedron from slitting his own throat in remorse."
"I doubt the death happened on his watch, even if he had been an hour late," Mrillis offered.
"They were all cold, meaning it was hours before, maybe around midnight. You can't tell Baedron that." The prince shook his head, and the look in his eyes was of a man three times his age, not a young man barely turned twenty. "Those of us who were spared are the most likely to be suspected of the murders."
"Who, specifically?" Mrillis snapped, instead of scolding his former student not to be ridiculous. Because he knew it wasn't ridiculous to suspect those surviving Valors. The Warhawk wore rings of star-metal woven with protective spells. It would have required imbrose to break through the watchfulness of the imbrose-talented and trained Valors assigned to protect him.
Mrillis reached across the gap between the horses and gripped Athrar's arm, offering mute comfort, as the prince stammered through the list of those who survived and where they said they had spent the night. Fortunately for Athrar's peace of mind, he had stayed late in his parents' quarters, playing a three-way game of Castles and Towers with the new set they had given him for his birthing day. He had slept on a couch in their outer room rather than go down the stairs and disturb his fellow Valors in their quarters. Two of Lyon's personal servants and the soldiers patrolling the corridors vouched for the young prince's presence, from the moment he lay down until the fortress awakened to Baedron's shouts.
"Everyone who survived was where they weren't expected to be," Ceera observed, when Athrar finished his recitation.
"Meaning the magic used wasn't aimed at specific people, but at locations." Mrillis nodded. "Someone who knew the fortress, but not the Valors well enough to envision their faces and make them targets."
"Is that helpful?" Athrar asked.
"It's too soon to tell." Ceera offered a grim, thin-lipped smile, and bent her head to tend to Emrillian, who chose that moment to awaken. Fortunately, she woke with her cooing little laugh rather than a cry, and Ceera was able to distract Athrar with the baby for the rest of the journey to the fortress.
Mrillis watched without really seeing them, as he pondered what Athrar had told them. He dreaded having to go into the fortress now, filled with the chill of death, the smell of spilled blood, the atmosphere bitter with anger and pain and loss. He prayed that all the survivors possessing imbrose had witnesses to where they were all night and what they had done. How long, he wondered, until someone in Afron's court realized imbrose did not require the magic-wielder to move around as they wove the Threads into a spell to do their bidding? It didn't take grand gestures and mystical words, chants or potent herbs to control the Threads, as many Noveni believed. Someone lying in his bed, pretending to be asleep, could accomplish the deed with the power of his will and his imagination. And no one would be the wiser, unless they interrupted him before the spell was complete.
Warlord Lyon and Lady Gretha waited for their traveling party in the gates of the fortress. Both were pale, grim, and gripped each other's arm for mutual support. Endor leaped off his horse before the beast quite stopped and dropped to his knees before the Warlord, holding out the hilt of his sword.
"I pledge the remainder of my life and all my imbrose, all my skill in magic, to find the villain who did this," he growled. "Those Valors who died were my brothers. Some of them trained under me. Some of them swore fealty on this very sword. I will not forget such a crime and the debt of honor I owe them."
Lyon stared down into Endor's blazing eyes, frozen, and Mrillis suddenly saw his friend and mentor as an old man. The loss of his brother had to be only slightly more painful than knowing only a matter of ceremony and ritual held the weight of the Noveni race and the safety of Lygroes resting on his shoulders, rather than on his son's shoulders. Mrillis imagined Lyon longed to keep that burden off Athrar as long as possible. The longer he delayed in crowning Athrar as Warhawk and High King, the less steady that reign would be from its very beginning. Yet what father would want such a burden thrust onto his son at such a young age?
Mrillis, Lyon and Afron had worked hard to make the boy worthy, trained and strengthened and tested, to take up the helmet and sword of Warhawk someday. They simply hadn't expected it to be so soon.
"I thank you. Our family thanks you," Lyon finally said, and grasped the hilt, visibly accepting Endor's pledge for everyone to witness. He turned the sword around to rest in the crook of his elbow, and presented the hilt back to Endor. "I value your sword and your magic almost as dearly as the loyalty you have long displayed to the land we all love so dearly." Lyon lifted his head and met his son's somber gaze. "With you and our faithful Mrillis standing beside him, I have no fear for our new Warhawk and the heavy burden of his inheritance."
Mrillis shuddered, deep inside. Sympathy and grief predominated, but a thread of uneasiness chilled the core of the fury he fought to keep in check. He thought of a rainy winter afternoon, the dormitory hut on Wynystrys, and a drawing an angry boy scratched in the dirt with a knife. Endor had viciously stabbed the Warhawk and his entire family in his drawing. True, it was a boy's passion and bitterness that prompted the action, and the years since then had proven him loyal. But what if...?
Mrillis put the thought aside for later examination and sharing with Ceera. He had more important things to think about, starting with examining the murder scenes for any clue to the culprit, any residue of magic that would lead them to the hand that manipulated the Threads.
That bitter duty would only protect them for a little while from a task even more painful--preparing for the funeral of Afron Warhawk, High King.
* * * *
Endor made use of the fury of the Noveni and the guilty anger of the Rey'kil warriors, and assembled a force that patrolled the shores of Lygroes that summer and into the fiercest fall and winter ever recorded. The seas lashed the shores of all three continents, devouring leagues of land, eating away at the breakwaters and inlets that once of
fered sheltered harbor. The scholars and enchanters on Wynystrys worked in shifts to hold back the worst of the destructive winds and sleet and ice, to prevent the island from being swamped and all signs of settlement washed away. When spring crept back across the continents, reports came that nearly a quarter of Flintan had been destroyed. No one crossed the turbulent waves to determine how much of the Encindi land actually remained, and what devastation had fallen on the population.
"We can assume the Encindi will now be doubly determined to claim Lygroes for their own," Athrar said, when all the Noveni kings and chieftains met in joint council with the Rey'kil elders, scholars and nobles. "Last summer, they were afraid to attack us, knowing our fury over the loss of Afron Warhawk. This year, they fear drowning and the destruction of their race more than they fear our retribution."
Ceera and Master Breylon attended the meeting, sitting as equals with Athrar, to decide on the defense of both continents. Mrillis didn't trust the seeming peace and brotherhood between Noveni and Rey'kil, simply because necessity once again forced them to shove aside their animosity and distrust. He wondered if there would ever be peace in the World, even if star-metal stopped falling and the Encindi vanished entirely.
He doubted it.
He recalled something Le'esha had told him once, when in his childhood ignorance and idealism, he had come up with what he thought a wonderful plan to destroy all aggression and fighting and stealing among the three races. She had laughed and hugged him, and with uncharacteristic weariness in her voice, warned him that as long as there were people living in the World, someone would always try to put his people in power over everyone else. Someone would always claim that his people were superior to all others. And someone would always try to take away what other people had, or destroy all the good things just because if he could not have them, he wanted no one else to have them, either.
I suppose there has to be a threat bigger than star-metal, coming at us from outside the World, for all of us to put aside our differences and work together as kin, he thought to Ceera, and shared his recent thoughts with her.
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