Chapter Two
In
the Cold
Sherwin lay face down in the powdery snow and clenched his fists. He hardly felt the cold. The moisture was his native element. On the inside, he was warm. He was raging on the inside.
He was angry at both himself and Rafen. He knew he should have stayed. He knew he was meant to follow the Fledgling. He had seen it in dreams, and the idea had possessed him for as long as he could remember, even before meeting Rafen. But to Rafen, Sherwin was just anyone. There was no particular reason why Sherwin should be his companion if Sherwin failed to please him.
Sherwin pulled himself to his knees and stared at the metallic sky above, flecked with dingy-colored moths. Of course, Francisco and Etana mattered far more to Rafen now. That position in government the Fledgling was supposed to have mattered far more now. Rafen was pursuing everything he really wanted these days. Sherwin had merely been a convenience when he was lonely.
He had come here because he was attracted to the place. Although the Haer Mountains had always looked grim, they were really a refuge.
He rose and wandered up the steep ascent through the snow, deliberately shuffling so as to get more moisture into his boots. On either side of him, whitebark pine trees and sagebrushes dwindled beneath the treeline. He hadn’t eaten for a day, and was discovering he could do without food. All he really needed was water. Here, he craved water. He ate snow, even though common sense told him he should have warmed it first, so that he didn’t freeze. Yet inside him, it felt like fire.
Sherwin scanned the white landscape that was blank except for the occasional mountain goat, and he knew he had been here before. It had been a while ago, before meeting Rafen. He struggled to remember. He had come here for escape, shortly after he had tried to do something stupid.
Sherwin froze, his boots deep in snow. In his mind’s eye, sequences played: scenes of a battle on a rocky plain in which Naztwai and Ashurites contended with the Sianians. He was doing it again. He was dreaming about Alakil… the Lashki.
It was all his imagination. He was obsessed with Alakil, the same way that people were obsessed with Hitler or Rasputin. It was simply a fascination with horror, that was all.
He felt the need to move to higher ground and started to run headlong up the slope, past rocks and withered-looking sagebrushes. His feet beat a rapid tattoo on the ground, and he enjoyed his own speed. The wind did nothing to hold him, giving before him as he moved, his agile movements aided by willing, fluid muscles.
He came to an easy halt, his breathing free. Above the treeline, a wooden shack stood five steps from him, creaking in the wind. A great horned owl’s call echoed in the night. The air was more frigid up here, but Sherwin could only tell that by the shape of the clouds, the fog, and the sound of the wind. He scarcely felt it. He had no coat either. Inwardly, he knew that this invincibility of his, the ability to confront the freezing cold and go without food, only came when he was in a particular mindset. It was this mindset that he had taught himself to fear and avoid, especially when he was around Rafen. Without Rafen, he found it overtook him so quickly that it was impossible to fight.
As if at his behest, Etana’s grandmother Adelphia appeared in the shack’s open doorway, wrapped thickly in shawls. From between the folds of thick, homespun material, a gleam caught Sherwin’s eye: the phoenix heartstring that marked her identity as Fifth Secra. Her perfectly white hair hung past her unlined face with its high, severe cheekbones and down even to her waist. Her cold blue eyes rested on him.
“Sherwin,” she said.
“Adelphia,” Sherwin whispered, the name slipping over his lips. He remembered seeing her directly after they had won the New Isles palace. She had known his name without having to ask.
“You remember me from other times also,” she said in a voice neither old nor young: the voice of a seer.
“I don’ know,” Sherwin muttered.
He was about to turn away and head back down the slope.
“Wait, Sherwin,” Adelphia said. “We have much talking to do.”
“Abou’ what?” Sherwin said, trying to sound innocent. Then he said loudly: “I didn’t murder yer husband.”
“I know that,” Adelphia said. “But do you? Come inside.”
She stepped back from the doorway, motioning for him to enter. Against every scruple he possessed, Sherwin walked through the door into the dark interior. He had to know. He had to understand. Now was the time.
*
“We’re invited… to a ball?” Rafen clarified.
He and Etana sat amid the blue grama grass, listening to the squeaking of pocket gophers. The sky was blackened with clouds that were bloated with spring rain. Etana had arrived half an hour ago on horseback with a sizable escort. She had demanded a moment with Rafen, despite Roger’s fretting. Roger couldn’t stand Etana spending so much time with Rafen; he felt Rafen was pushing his connections, aiming for something that could never be. He harassed Rafen endlessly every time he returned from a lesson with Etana.
“Yes,” Etana said, brushing some dark red hair from her face. “You, Roger, and Francisco are all invited, because of your services to the kingdom, Rafen.”
“What is the purpose of the ball?” Rafen asked, tearing grass up as he spoke. He couldn’t stand the idea of trying to dance in a stuffy hall crammed with lords and ladies and odd, sickly sweet food. And he would likely be isolated from Etana during the evening anyway, simply because of his bloodline.
“That is a worthy question,” Etana said, “as balls are not a Sianian custom at all. It is Sartian tradition to have balls in honor of certain nobility or notable guests. And we are about to have a very notable guest in Siana.”
“Who?” Rafen asked, turning to Etana. In the distance, a bison snorted loudly.
For the first time, he noticed she was wan. The corners of Etana’s mouth were turned down, and she steadily avoided his gaze. Her hands were balled into fists at her sides.
“It’s Richard,” Etana said. “He’s coming back.”
“Your father wasn’t going to hand the throne over to Sarient,” Rafen said.
“No, he wasn’t… at that time. There is nothing anyone can do about this. This was planned a long time ago. The Sartians and the Sianians agreed that when Richard was nineteen, Father would groom him for the throne in Siana. Only… we’re beginning to realize that Richard will often act on his father King Albert’s orders and is able to overrule my father in many things because he is a representative of our sovereign Sarient, and because he is the Fourth Runi. In resisting him, we’d be going against Zion Himself, Rafen. As Runi, Richard has been chosen by Zion to lead His people in the battle against Nazt. His preexistent spirit was incarnated for that purpose.”
“Why was I never told this?” Rafen demanded, ripping his hands from the grass beneath him. He remembered Queen Arlene mentioning to him that the Runi were men born to be kings. If only Richard’s Runiship was some mistake…
Zion, let it be a mistake.
“Oh Rafen,” Etana said, “no one wanted to tell you. But we did the right thing in telling Father to keep the throne. Nearly a year of peace has resulted, and even now we are not giving away the throne entirely.”
Rafen clenched his teeth. “Why does he have to rule Siana?” he said, rising. “Why so soon? Isn’t there some fairer province for him to control?”
The spiraling spirits in his vision were bothering him again; he could hear their whispers in his ears. He faced the Woods. Etana scrambled to her feet, smoothing out her silk dress and brushing grass from it.
“Rafen,” she said, “Siana is a critical country. It is positioned closely to Fritz’s Current, so that he who rules it can travel quickly to other countries in the southwest and raise support for himself. It is also one of the world’s most fertile countries. I don’t know if Mother told you this when she taught you, but—”
“—Siana provides the majority of the world with its grains and wheat,” Ra
fen cut across her. “I know.”
“Good, you understand!” Etana exclaimed, straining to be enthusiastic. “Siana is one of Sarient’s greatest provinces, as a result. It’s natural the Fourth Runi would want to protect her. And lastly, according to prophecies, Siana is where the battle for the world will begin. Besides, all the Runi discovered their identities in Siana. It does make sense. I’m in Siana partially for those reasons.”
Rafen felt Etana was purposely avoiding the point. “You were born here.”
“Yes, and I’m a Secra, the female equivalent of a Runi. You see, I meant what I said about the Selsons not giving away the throne entirely. I’m supposed to help Richard fight the Lashki and Nazt. I will be joint ruler with him.”
Rafen started to walk purposefully toward the Woods, his hands deep in his tattered pants’ pockets.
Etana hurried after him. “Rafen, please don’t,” she implored.
Waving a hand before his face to dispel spirits, Rafen broke through the first screen of leaves and plowed through the cottonwoods. Etana pursued him, sobbing. “You knew it wasn’t forever, didn’t you? I know I never told you, but everyone in Siana knew it.”
Rafen shoved through greenery and sent clouds of painted bruntings into the air, hearing Etana’s voice in his head, years younger, yet as distressed as it was now: “I’m tired of it, Richard, tired, tired, tired. I didn’t realize what they’d betrothed me to.”
At twelve, Rafen had overhead her arguing with Richard one day in the palace armory. He had never forgotten she was joint heir. However, some irrational, hopelessly hopeful side of him had thought that maybe that was over. Maybe after they had re-won Siana together, something had changed. Perhaps Richard would decide he didn’t want to be in Siana anymore, because the Lashki frequented it (not that he had been seen after Rafen had wounded him over six months ago). It had seemed so logical to Rafen when they had been fleeing through Siana together, mud-streaked and hungry and in and out of hiding.
In helping win back his country, Rafen had lost the only woman, besides his mother, whom he had really loved.
Etana caught up to him in a little clearing, where he had startled a deer. She grabbed his shoulder and halted behind him.
“Please, Rafen,” she said. “We can still be friends. I thought that was all you wanted.”
“No,” Rafen panted. He threw off her hand and pressed his shoulder against an oak trunk next to him, glaring unseeingly at the foliage ahead. “You knew that wasn’t all I wanted. You wanted it too. I would never have thought it was possible if you hadn’t.”
“I know,” Etana said tearfully.
Rafen inhaled and moved away from her.
“Rafen, don’t you understand?” she said, wringing her hands. Something in her voice paralyzed him. He stood with his back to her, a reluctant listener. “It’s worse for me than for you. I never had any choice. My parents and his betrothed me to him when I was four. And because of someone else’s choice, I shall have to live with him for the rest of my life. He was unbearable back then. What do you suppose he will be like now?”
She leaned against a tree and sank into a sitting position, her hands over her face.
“You have a choice of who you will wed,” she said. “I have no choice… in anything. My life has always been planned for me. As a Secra, I must rule. I must help him fight the Lashki and heal him when he is hurt, and wouldn’t I rather leave him to die! I must face Nazt and follow him to death – and Zion knows what kind of decisions a fool like that is going to make. I have to support the Sartian rule, which I’d much rather resist. Oh Zion..!”
Head bowed, she shook uncontrollably. Rafen had turned around, trembling to see her cry. He stooped and sat before her, one hand on her shoulder.
“I’m not angry at you, Etana,” he whispered. “Zion knows I’m not. Can’t you break the betrothal?”
“No,” Etana said, her head snapping up. “It was sealed with kesmal and with both my blood and the blood of the previous Secra, my grandmother. In fact, according to Father, it means I should never be tormented so. I should naturally fall for Richard, because of the kesmal… But I never have. I never have.”
“Then it must be wrong,” Rafen murmured, reaching out gently to brush away her tears.
“Of course it’s wrong,” Etana choked. “I know it’s wrong. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“You can run away.”
“Rafen,” Etana said, raising her brimming eyes to his. “I couldn’t run from my responsibilities.”
That thought gave him pause. “Don’t run away then,” Rafen said. “Tell him you won’t marry him. Tell Sarient you won’t. Stand up to them! Why should they have everything? Why shouldn’t Siana be independent? Surely someone can do some negotiations. We could boycott Sarient until they give you your way.”
Etana shook her head. “No, it would be wrong. It’s wrong to even be talking with you.”
She got up abruptly, and Rafen sprung to his feet too.
“I have to go,” she said, turning to head back through the trees.
“Etana, wait,” Rafen said, bursting through leaves behind her, overtaking her, and blocking her way. “Do you really think Zion wants you to marry Richard?”
Etana stared at him, lost in dismay. “Yes, Rafen. I really think He does. Richard needs me.”
“And I don’t?”
“Not as much, Rafen,” Etana said tenderly. “You’re not as much of an idiot.”
When she made to walk past him, Rafen caught her in his arms and kissed her fully on the lips. She broke away gasping.
“Rafen, you mustn’t, you really mustn’t!” she cried. “Let go of me. I have to go back. The escort will wonder where I am.”
“I love you,” Rafen told her in a hopeless voice. “Etana, I can’t let you go.”
“You have been a wonderful friend, Rafen,” Etana said, almost unintelligibly, “but I really think we shouldn’t be together anymore. It’s for your own good. Richard would have your head if he knew about this.”
She pulled free of his grasp and ran through the trees, her kesmal making her unnaturally fast.
Rafen stood between the fiddlewoods, his hands sweaty and his eyes burning. How could Zion do this? The spirits were motioning to him, crowding the color out of his vision; he fought them as best as he could.
The sound of hoofbeats caught his attention. He broke through the trees and onto the small stretch of grassland in time to see her departing with the escort, her white horse leading the train of ten men. He imagined she looked back at him, yet it was really too far away to see.
Servant of the King (The Fledgling Account Book 3) Page 38
