by Jayla Jasso
“One false move and you’re a dead man,” she heard Yavi say.
Terijin laughed. “I’m not afraid of you, usurper.”
Yajna’s voice interrupted brusquely. “Face the wall.”
Jiandra heard what sounded like a brief scuffle, then Terijin yelped in pain, cursing in Nandalan. His voice sounded muffled, as if he were being pressed against something.
Yavi appeared around the door to the cell and motioned her to come inside. She entered carefully, holding the Omaja in her palm. Yajna was twisting Terijin’s arm behind his back, forcing his cheek against the wall of his cell, face turned away from the door so he couldn’t see Jiandra come in.
Yavi went to place himself in Terijin’s line of sight. “We have a few questions for you before you stand trial tonight. The sentence for treason is death, and you’ll face your executioner on the morrow if you’re convicted.”
“I’m not telling you nothing!” the cook spat through gritted teeth.
Jiandra focused Knowing.
Uman is all powerful. He’ll show these two bastards up for the usurpers they are.
“Who was Uman? Who did he work for?” Yavi demanded.
Terijin made no response, but Jiandra was reading his every thought with the stone.
He’s a free agent, a powerful force to be reckoned with on his own. He needs no master. Jiandra saw Uman’s face through Terijin’s eyes, a terrifying, cruel face lit by torches. White skin was stretched over his gaunt cheekbones and marred by angry red scars, his teeth were sharpened into points and stained black, and thin, greasy-looking gray hair was slicked back over his skull.
Terijin was at some kind of ceremony. Uman seemed to be standing over an altar in a stone fortress, surrounded by followers. Five men knelt before him, chanting an oath in Nandalan while Uman grinned wickedly.
Yavi glanced at Jiandra, who gave him a quick nod to continue.
“Where did the treasury money go? We know you stole two bags from us.”
For an answer, Terjin snarled, “Usurpers!”
Jiandra saw Terijin hiding a bag of money in his cart, the one he took to market once a month to buy supplies. At the market, he handed it over to a shifty-eyed fellow who stowed it under a blanket in the back of his own cart. She tried to see where the second cart was headed, but lost the picture as Terijin started imagining himself hanging from the gallows in the morning. Strangely, he seemed to be gloating over his own death, looking forward to it. Uman’s face appeared in the torchlights again, handing Terijin a vial of some dark, inky liquid. Terijin drank it down as Uman chanted over him and the others.
When Terijin looked up at Uman, Uman’s eyes had become solid black disks, soulless and frightening. Jiandra almost gasped aloud, but managed to keep quiet. She pressed her lips together and nodded at Yavi.
“How did you break into the palace vault? There is only one key.”
That’s what you think, you dolt, Terijin thought. Jiandra saw him hiding the key under a corner of the rug in his room.
“Where is the key now?” she asked aloud, still focusing Knowing.
Terijin tried to jerk around to look at her, startled to hear her voice behind him. Yajna twisted his arm a little higher, and he yelped in pain.
“She’s reading my mind with that blasted stone, isn’t she?” Terijin snarled.
“Where’s the key?” Jiandra demanded.
A picture flashed through his mind, of himself dropping the key into the planter just outside the back door leading out of his quarters before trying to make his escape.
“Got it,” she told the twins.
Terijin struggled to free himself from Yajna’s grasp, spitting obscenities in Nandalan.
“Let him go for now, brother,” Yavi said. “Come, Your Highness.” Yavi grasped her elbow to escort her out of the cell before Yajna released the cook. Yajna followed, and they slammed shut the door, locking the padlock to secure it before they left.
“Let’s head up to my study,” Yavi suggested as they headed back inside the palace.
Once there, Jiandra closed the door and told them what she’d seen. “Uman was some sort of wizard or magician. He had a group of followers who met with him inside an old stone fortress. Terijin seems to have sworn some kind of death-pact with Uman, because I saw him drink a potion while Uman prayed over him, and Terijin is looking forward to his own death. I think he thinks he’s immortal or something.”
“Fool.” Yavi shook his head. “And the stolen money?”
“He handed it over to a stranger in the market. I couldn’t get an identity on the man, nor see where his cart was headed. Perhaps he was connected to Uman’s little group as well. Oh, and Terijin’s extra vault key is in the planter outside the back door to the kitchen.”
“Good work, Jiandra,” Yajna said proudly, caressing her shoulder. “Brilliant as always.”
§
In his cell, Terijin chuckled to himself. It didn’t matter that the queen had read his thoughts. They could never defeat Uman anyhow. By executing Terijin, the usurpers would only be playing right into Uman’s capable hands. And they would be giving Terijin exactly what he wanted.
The transition to new life.
Three
The palace courier struggled to free himself from the bandit who had pinned his arms behind his back, while another bandit fished through his satchel and withdrew the message he was supposed to deliver to the queen’s sister in Villeleia.
“Blast! It’s written in Villeleian,” the thief complained.
“Let me see that,” an unnaturally gravelly voice interrupted. A tall, pale-faced creature stepped forward, and his henchman held up the letter for him to take.
The leader skimmed the parchment, then re-folded it and pressed the seal back together. He stuffed it into the courier’s satchel, his solid black eyes narrowing. “See that Miss Stovy receives this letter personally.”
The courier nodded, swallowing. “You—you’re letting me go?”
“Of course.” The leader smiled coldly, revealing sharpened teeth. “We’ve no interest in you, unless you try to go back to the palace to blab about this little encounter. If you do, I will personally hunt you down and devour you alive. Now, off you go. South, to Villeleia.” He shoved him back toward his nervous horse.
The courier scrambled onto the saddle, kicked the horse into a gallop, and rode south as fast as he could, not daring to look back to see if they were following him.
That creature with the black eyes had made him uneasy, and he prayed he’d never have the misfortune of crossing paths with him again.
§
Jiandra wrapped her cloak around herself a little tighter, blinking against the cold winter wind that blew through the courtyard. It was snowing lightly, and the skies were a gray and forbidding backdrop for the grim outline of the palace gallows. She stood with the twins, watching as the guards hauled the cook out of the dungeon to face his punishment.
Terijin wore the crazed smile of a maniac as the guards pulled him up the steps of the platform. It sent a chill through Jiandra that had nothing to do with the cold. They made him stand on a large wooden crate while the executioner secured the rope around his neck, and two guards pulled the crate out from under his feet. Within minutes, it was over. His body ceased convulsing and swung limply in a circle, like a macabre pendulum.
“Come, Lahdli,” Yajna whispered near her ear, caressing her arm to warm her. “There’s nothing more to do here. He’ll hang until the afternoon, to make sure he’s dead. The guards will keep watch.”
Jiandra nodded, allowing him to escort her back inside the palace. They went upstairs to the library, where Yajna busied himself building a fire while Jiandra stood shivering in her cloak.
Shandri arrived with a tray of tea, leaving it on the low table in front of the couches.
Soon the fire was blazing high in the tall fireplace, and Yajna came to Jiandra’s side. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tightly to his chest, and kissed he
r hair. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.
She rested her cheek against the black leather armor that covered his chest. “Yes, fine. There was just something about the expression on his face that was unsettling.”
Yajna caressed her back. “He had clearly gone mad. But I’m here, Lahdli. I know the Omaja protects you from physical harm, but I am here to protect your compassionate heart.”
Jiandra smiled, comforted by his warmth and his words.
“Terijin received his due punishment, and he won’t be here stealing from us and betraying our confidence any longer.”
“Yes. I’m relieved about that.”
“I love you, my precious wife.”
“I love you too, my valiant husband,” she replied.
§
Jiandra and the twins were finishing cleaning up the kitchen with their servants that evening when a guard rushed in. “Mahajin!”
Jiandra turned to see what was the matter, wiping her hands on a cuptowel.
The guard bowed to Yavi and Yajna. “The body is gone.”
“Whose body?” Yavi demanded, even though they all knew the answer.
“The cook, Sire. We cut him down a couple of hours ago and put him on a cart, and covered him up with a blanket so we could take the body outside the city and bury it tonight. Now it’s gone.”
Yajna frowned. “What do you mean? The entire burial cart is gone?”
“No, Sire, just the body. The blanket was rolled into a ball and shoved to the side.”
Yavi swore in Nandalan. “Now we’ve got grave robbers on our property? Why wasn’t anyone guarding the cart?”
“Sire, the cart was sitting by the gate. The gate guards were there, but they didn’t see anything.”
Yavi tossed his scrubbing cloth into the water bucket. “Let’s go. I want to see the cart.”
Yajna followed his brother, and Jiandra stayed behind with the servant girls to finish putting away the dishes. She suppressed a shiver. If Terijin’s body had truly disappeared, none of the possible explanations was a happy one. Either someone had stolen it—and in that case, who?—or he wasn’t really dead when they cut him down. It had been ten hours since they’d hanged him that morning. Had Terijin faked that whole time? Was that why his face wore a leering grin, even as he faced his own death?
The memory of Uman’s chillingly cruel, pale face as she’d seen it in Terijin’s thoughts loomed in her mind for a moment, causing the hair stand up on the back of her neck. She almost felt a presence in the room, as if Uman—or perhaps Terijin—were haunting her. She shook her head to dispel the feeling and refocused her attention on tidying the kitchen.
“All right, everything looks to be in order, girls.” Jiandra untied her apron. “You may retire for the evening.”
The three silver-haired serving girls curtsied with prim smiles. “Thank you, Your Highness,” they called out in lilting Nandalan accents, hurrying off to their quarters.
Suddenly Jiandra worried about sending them off alone, three young girls wandering around the darkened palace with such strange happenings afoot. She stepped into the center of the Great Hall. “Ciren? Are you there?” she called up to the balcony.
A guard’s face appeared over the railing. “No, Your Highness, it’s Tor. Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing serious, I just… Is there a guard posted outside the women’s quarters tonight?”
“No, Your Highness. But we make rounds by there a couple of times a night.”
“Would you send someone to stand watch outside their quarters? At least until we know what happened to the cook’s corpse?”
“Yes, Your Highness. I’ll send Jorak right away.”
“Thank you, Tor.” Jiandra breathed a sigh of relief. They were blessed with the best guard detail any palace could ask for, and she wished they could afford to pay them better, as well as fill out their ranks with more men so they could have more time off.
But things were as they were for now, and they would get better eventually. She would live to see Nandala prosper someday, and become as rich, peaceful, and happy as her home country of Villeleia—that was her goal and her prayer.
The twins came back inside and found her sitting by the fireplace in the library, waiting for them.
Jiandra rose to her feet. “What did you find?”
“Let’s go to my study where it’s more private,” Yavi suggested.
Once there, the three of them went inside. Yavi shut and bolted the door before turning to face her and Yajna. “Someone must have stolen the body. There is no other explanation. As much as I hate to consider the possibility, we have another traitor among us, an accomplice to Terijin.”
Jiandra took a deep breath. “All right. But who? It isn’t Liel, Shandri, or Kitran. I already used Knowing on them yesterday.”
“I say you check everyone,” Yavi said. “Every last serving-girl, stable boy, guard, and the cart driver. We’ll round them up in the Great Hall tonight, see who knows something about this missing body. Someone must have seen or heard something out of the ordinary.”
Jiandra nodded. “All right. Let’s get moving, then. It’s getting late.”
§
Thirty minutes later, twenty guardsmen, three serving girls, three stable boys, the cart driver, the horse caretaker, and the dungeon keeper were all lined up in the Great Hall, their nervous faces lit by the torches hanging on the side pillars.
Jiandra stood near the throne with Yavi and Yajna.
Yavi spoke to the staff in Nandalan, then repeated it in Villeleian so Jiandra could understand. “The body of Terijin has been stolen from the burial cart. I have asked the queen to find out who among you may have had something to do with its disappearance or knows something about it. This isn’t the way I would have liked to accomplish this task, but no one is going to bed tonight with a possible enemy or enemies living among us. And no one leaves this room until the queen has an answer. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Sire,” many of them murmured, bowing their heads to him. They stood and waited while Jiandra palmed the Omaja stone and moved along the line, focusing Knowing on each person one by one.
She learned several surprising, personal things about their staff—one of the guards had a lover in town who was expecting his baby, a stable boy had big dreams of raising race horses on his own ranch someday, and two of the serving girls had crushes on Wolfan. But none of them, from the strongest guard to the skinniest serving girl, knew anything about how or why Terijin’s body had disappeared.
Jiandra went down the row again, just to be sure. She saw that every last one of them was loyal and faithful to the Zulfikar twins, and innocent of any knowledge about Terijin’s disappearance. Their expressions of concern and obvious love for Yavi and Yajna brought tears to her eyes as she returned to the emperors’ side.
“There is no traitor here,” she announced, loud enough for all to hear. “These people are completely loyal to the Zulfikars. None of them knows anything nor had anything to do with Terijin’s body going missing.”
Yavi frowned at her in puzzlement, then looked out at his staff, his expression softening. He pressed his palms together and bowed to them. “I thank you for your faithfulness and patience tonight. I am sorry we had to test you this way.”
“Sire, we understand,” Liel responded for the group. “You are protecting us.”
“Long live the Zulfikars,” one of the guards called out, and the other guards echoed his sentiment. “We are with you, Mahajin.”
Yajna spoke up. “All right. It’s nearly midnight, and we are all exhausted. Everyone to bed except for the night watch. Wolfan, be vigilant at the gates and on the walls tonight, and wake me and my brother immediately if you notice anything out of the ordinary.”
Wolfan stepped forward and placed his fist over his heart. “As you command, Emperor Yajna.”
As the palace staff filed out of the Great Hall, Yavi motioned his brother and Jiandra to follow him upstairs. The thre
e of them ducked into the library, and Yavi closed the door.
He turned to Jiandra. “You’re certain about what you saw down there?”
“I am. I read everyone twice. I saw far more about them than anyone should, and I can assure you that every last one of those people is loyal to you down to their boots. None of them knew anything about the body.”
He put his hands on his hips, sighing. “All right then. There is nothing else to do but seek Tejeshwar’s help in this matter. I will seek him at the temple tomorrow.”
“I will go with you, brother,” Yajna said.
“As will I.” Jiandra smiled, touching Yavi’s arm. “Rest tonight. You are very tired.”
He met her gaze, the weariness in his face making him look older than his thirty years.
“Good night, brother,” Yajna added, placing a hand on Yavi’s other shoulder.
Yavi nodded. “Tejeshwar guide us.”
§
Once he was alone, Yavi walked over to the fireplace, braced one hand on the mantel, and stared down at the glowing embers, all that was left of the fire Yajna had built earlier to warm his wife. The image of the two of them holding one another, silhouetted by the flames, came to his mind. Yavi suddenly felt an intense wave of longing to feel a woman’s arms around him, to bury his face against her warm neck, and to savor her solace and comfort.
But it wasn’t to be. Not now, and perhaps not ever, and he had resigned himself to that. His fate was to rule Nandala, to serve and protect her, to lift his failed state up from its desolation, help it rise to glory as in the days of old. It was the task of a strong, hardened man, a wise warrior. Not a youth who couldn’t resist temptation and overcome his weakness for women.
Yavi turned away from the fireplace and left the library, heading for his bed, alone.
§
Graciella put her three nice dresses, some work dresses, her lavender-lilac soap, her coin box, her journal, and a collection of her mother’s recipes in her traveling trunk. On top of that went her nightgown, robe, and slippers, ready for the night at the inn in Frocklin Grove.
