But now whoever had initiated the attack upstairs was coming down the stairs-a man in front with a sword at the ready, a redhaired woman with a bow and arrow poised to shoot-both in green capes.
“Drop your weapons now, you lot of traitors,” the woman shouted. “Two of your comrades are already dead and there are ten of us here with more on the way.”
“You call us traitors? You’re traitors to your king,” the woman shot back, but she sheathed her knife.
“We’re waiting for the true king,” the Green Hood woman said. “Or queen. Whichever it may be. Now, lift your hands and come up.”
I went over to Annalie. “Are you all right?”
Her hand was clamped over her upper arm, but she nodded. “It’s just a scratch. A nasty scratch, but not much worse than the Captain’s given me on occasion.” The Captain was her old cat, and having encountered him once, I could believe it.
Tamin’s spies went up the stairs in surrender, and the two Green Hoods came down to us.
“I’m Keyelle,” the woman said, untying my bonds. “And that’s Esmon. Ifra, the jinn, he told us to expect you. I’m not sure he really had all of this in mind, but we couldn’t wait for a convenient time to act. You’ve come looking for Erris, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry it took us so long to intervene,” she said. “We thought Rowan was one of us, and he volunteered to go to the gate and look out for you after Ifra told us you might come, but we know there’s been a traitor in our midst because that’s how Calden was captured.” She nodded at the man in shackles. “Another one of our people who works the gate suspected Rowan, so we’ve been following him, hoping he’d lead us to Calden.”
“Nice work,” Calden said. “I hope there’s food around. They’ve been giving me nothing but porridge.”
“You’ve got bigger worries than porridge. There’s a rumor that Tamin wants to have you executed at Belin’s ball this very night,” Esmon said. “And we’d better clear off right away. We’re only half an hour from the palace on horseback and we don’t know who’s watching the place.”
“Where are we?” I asked. “We came blindfolded.”
“You’re in Tamin’s lodge. He comes here in the fall for his royal hunt,” Esmon said.
“Half an hour from the palace,” I said. Half an hour from Erris’s body, if my hopes and suspicions were correct. I could almost taste both success and failure. “Where will we go now?”
“Ifra told us to be very careful coming after Erris or Violet,” Keyelle said. “But Belin’s hosting a ball to introduce Violet. He’s hoping his engagement to a Tanharrow will calm everyone down, but a lot of them are Tanharrow sympathizers, and… well, if we could sneak in tonight and find Erris…”
“Do you know where he might be?”
Keyelle glanced at the men.
“I’ve some idea of the layout of the palace,” Calden said. “But I’d rather not have anything to do with this, if those Graweldin brothers are out for my head.”
“I confess I was hoping you might have an idea,” Keyelle said, looking at me.
Just as Keyelle glanced at the men, I glanced at Annalie.
“The spirits might help,” Annalie said. “But you might be able to help too, Nim. Your magic has improved so much, and you know Erris’s spirit better than anyone. I wonder if you’ll be able to sense him.”
“Well, let’s get away from this place and figure it out then,” Keyelle said, waving her hands. “My family is already upset that I just had to go put myself in danger, but if I end up getting ambushed at Tamin’s house, it will be particularly mortifying.”
When we came upstairs, I laid eyes on Rowan’s corpse. It was just there, on the ground, eyes open, an arrow in his chest. One moment he’d been leading me down the stairs and now he was dead.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to cry for him. He’d kidnapped me and been a traitor to the Green Hoods, but when he told me he needed money and had a family to feed, I believed him. I didn’t think he deserved death.
“Don’t bother,” Esmon said, sensing my mood. “He was a traitor.”
Annalie squeezed my hand. “I understand,” she said. “I don’t think he was a cruel man.”
Keyelle shook her head. “He took a dangerous job for financial reward and paid the price. That’s why I hate war, and I hope to be done with it as quickly as we can.”
I couldn’t agree more. It didn’t seem fair at all that King Luka, the one who inflicted such torture on Erris, had died in his bed past the age of fifty, having seen all his sons reach adulthood, while Ordorio held on to life by a thread so he could see his daughter in the summer.
THE COURTYARD GARDEN, TELMIRRA
“I’m really doing you a favor, Belin,” Tamin said. They stood beneath the bower. The stars were beginning to come out above them, and all the fairies were still in the dining hall except Belin, his brothers, and a shivering Violet.
“A favor?” Belin cried. “How can you possibly say you did me a favor? You just implied to the entire kingdom that I killed our father!”
“As if they aren’t already wondering,” Ilsin said. He opened a case tucked in his waistcoat and took out a cigarette.
“I keep telling you, Belin, a king can’t simply hide off in his own house and carve deer. Especially us. Father was ruthless, and you’ve got to be ruthless too, and that’s all there is to it. If you can’t stand up to me, how are you going to stand up to the half of the room who want to follow a Tanharrow?”
“That’s what she’s for!” Belin clapped Violet rather roughly on the shoulder. She jerked away and shot him a fierce look. Ilsin chuckled.
“That isn’t enough, and you know it. You know the rumors. There are more uprisings… talk of a whole network of rebels. They may have started here and there without much threat besides singing some old ballads, but look at that man Calden. He killed two of our tax collectors. Sure, the old ballads make such a deed sound heroic, but I doubt their widows think so. Father wouldn’t have tolerated that. You need to show them you won’t tolerate it either.”
“I’m supposed to drag him out here and have him killed in front of all those people after you made them think I killed Father?” Belin’s voice was quite a bit louder than Tamin’s. Any lurking spy would have had no trouble with him.
“So what if you did kill Father?” Tamin said. “Not to sully his memory, but think about the things Father himself has done. If they don’t fear you, you won’t last a day. None of us will. Ilsin and I will follow you if you show us it’s worth our while, all right? But we’re not going to let them get rid of us and put this imp on the throne.” He gave Violet the briefest condescending look.
Ifra dreamed of strangling Tamin. Belin could say the word, and Ifra could wipe that smug expression off his face in a moment.
Violet’s bottom lip was trembling.
“Oh, don’t take it personally,” Tamin said. “It’s just politics, you know.”
“I’m not marrying Belin!” Violet burst out. “I don’t want anything to do with any of you! I don’t care if every fairy in the world rots! I just want to go home!”
“Shh!” Belin jostled her again, cowing her into silence. There were three men, so much older than her, none of them sympathetic. And silent Ifra. He couldn’t even let them see that he cared for her. He just had to look to the distance, a silent bodyguard.
“All right,” Belin said. “Bring Calden. My jinn will kill him.”
Ifra’s fingers coiled into fists. It was all he could do not to show further reaction.
“But if I hear even a whiff of betrayal from you again, my jinn will kill you next.”
Tamin actually grinned at this. “That’s exactly what I want to see.” He turned to go, while Ilsin lingered, but Belin shooed them both away.
Violet started crying, but Belin didn’t pay her any regard. He watched his brothers walk away. Tamin left through the side of the garden, while Ilsin strolled slowly, smoking his cig
arette, glancing back a few times as if to make sure Belin wasn’t going to change his mind. Time seemed to crawl, so slowly, and Ifra forced his mind blank. He would not think about killing a man in front of hundreds of eyes. In front of Violet.
The door shut behind Ilsin.
Belin was pacing the garden path, but now he turned to look at Ifra. “I thought this was what I wanted,” he said. “To be king. How grand it sounds. A chance to make everything right. But I can’t, can I? It doesn’t matter what my father did right. My brothers and I can never be good kings because of what he did wrong.”
Master, Ifra mouthed, a silent plea. Did Belin finally understand?
“Erris?” Violet whispered, looking between them. “Are you talking about Uncle Erris?”
“Yes,” Belin said. “Father wanted me to kill Erris after I married you, and… Tamin doesn’t believe I’m ruthless enough to do it. Well.” He looked to the door of the Hall of Oak and Ash. “He’s right.”
Chapter 26
The lights of the palace of Telmirra loomed ahead through the dark woods. I recalled how Hollin had described this place to me so long ago-an attractive city with gardens but no gas or electricity or other modern amenities.
Telmirra, in fact, hardly seemed like a city, surrounded by miles of woodland. I assumed the residential and shopping districts were removed from the palace so the nobles could have forest to roam in, but it gave it the feel of a storybook castle one might stumble across, except that it wasn’t stone like a storybook castle, but wood. Elegant silhouettes of spires and neatly stacked stories were dark against the moon, but golden light shone through windows.
Five of the Green Hoods had accompanied us, including Keyelle and Esmon. We stayed off the paths, and when we heard horses pounding nearer, we crouched behind brush. A rider on a lovely white horse, much like the one the jinn had ridden, was heading the way we had come, followed by four more men. They carried magic lanterns, casting a soft light that caught the fair flax and copper tones of their hair but did not reach us. I hunched still lower.
“That’s Prince Tamin,” Esmon whispered. “They must be coming for Calden. I hope he’s had enough time to put distance between them. That means we have to hurry.”
“Do we have enough time?” Keyelle’s eyes gleamed wide in the moonlight.
“Yes, yes, let’s just go,” I said. I could hardly bear looking at the palace where Erris had grown up, knowing I might be so close to finding him. I crept forward, and the Green Hoods moved with me.
We hovered at the edge of the woods, taking stock of the situation. A guard roamed the side of the building, and perhaps more looked from the darker windows-we had no way of knowing. The guard paced, occasionally glancing up at the moon.
“How do we get past him?” I asked.
“A diversion?” Annalie said.
“Nothing that will attract too much attention,” Keyelle said.
“King Belin invited people from all over the realm to this feast,” Esmon said. “Do you think we could just pretend to be late-comers?”
“Not the way we look!” Keyelle said. “Glamours?”
Esmon shook his head. “No, they’ll be trained to see through them, or what sort of guards would they be?”
“I could divert him with my spirits,” Annalie said. “Diverting one man is easy. If there are more guards watching from the windows, then I can only give you that long. But I might be left behind, and I won’t be able to help you find Erris.”
I shut my eyes a moment, almost in prayer-begging my magic to become a beacon to Erris. Familiar frustration crawled over me-that I had to study magic on my own, that I had no teacher and few books, that even if I wanted to learn magic in a proper way I would be forbidden from practicing. I had to grope and claw my way through each technique, learning more often from desperation than proper instruction.
The first spell I had ever done had come with my breath. I had learned to move and summon heat and fire, even to warm Erris. I could so imagine how it felt to share my own warmth with him, the warmth of my life. I had touched him then. If only I could connect with him now.
If our hopes proved right, he was alive here. He would have his own warmth and life. Could I feel it? Could I find it?
“Nimira?” Annalie said. “Are you all right? What do you think?”
“I can’t feel him,” I said, feeling as frustrated and angry as the first day I tried to move flame. I kept thinking how the jinn had tracked Erris, and how jinn magic was supposed to come from fire. Of course, he was a jinn, and magic came easily to him, but it maddened me, how my own powers didn’t come to me.
The jinn. I had felt his magic once. Could I draw from it? Even if I could just sense him, maybe he would know where Erris was. It was terrifically risky, considering he was the same person we had come to fear, but I needed to take some action. I didn’t want to die, but we were here. Something had to be done.
I closed my eyes again, inhaled and exhaled, and reached for Ifra.
THE HALL OF OAK AND ASH, TELMIRRA
Belin pushed open the heavy carved doors.
“Your Majesty? Aren’t you wanted in the dining hall?” the guard said.
“Did my father pay you to ask him questions?” Belin snapped. “I need a moment to speak with my betrothed.” He pulled Violet into the dark room. Ifra followed. Just as before, the room was almost pitch-black with the thick branches of ancient trees blocking the scant light the windows might have provided, and the whispering of leaves was even thicker than the darkness.
“We have to hurry,” Belin said. “I don’t know if I can trust those guards anymore, and as he says, they’ll be wanting me to start the dancing soon enough.”
Violet suddenly clutched Ifra’s hand in the darkness. “What is this place?”
Ifra hoped Belin couldn’t see her hand clutching his. “The Hall of Oak and Ash,” Belin said.
“Can you hear them?” she said, her grip almost painfully tight.
“The trees?”
“Yes. They’re sick. I’ve never heard anything like that,” she said. “Oh no. Please, hurry, where is Erris?” She sounded almost frantic. “It’s awful. They want to die and they can’t die, and we can’t let them die.” She sniffed. “Won’t you let Ifra talk now?”
“Not yet,” Belin said, making Ifra feel almost as frantic as Violet. For a moment he’d almost forgotten about Belin lifting the wish, and he subconsciously assumed Belin had too, but apparently not.
“Jinn, can you make a light?” Belin said.
Ifra extracted his hand from Violet’s grip and summoned a flame, casting ghostly shadows along the massive trunks of the trees.
“Follow me.” Belin rushed to the throne, which was at the far end of the room, in front of two of the massive trees. He went around the back-Ifra and Violet following-to the farthest edge near the wall, and started prying up the flagstone to the underground passage. He was having trouble on his own, so Ifra quickly moved to assist with his free arm, the one that wasn’t holding the light.
Just as they moved the stone aside, Ifra had the sensation of someone touching him-or looking over his shoulder.
He turned to look at the shadows behind him, but wherever he turned, he felt the presence just behind him. It wasn’t a body, he realized, but the feather-light touch of a warm spirit. He prodded back.
Nimira. It was Nimira. She was tugging at him from somewhere nearby, with uncertain little magical tugs.
He didn’t know what to do. She could be in danger, wherever she was, but how would Belin react to her? Of course, Belin was freeing Erris, but Ifra still didn’t quite trust him. Even so, Belin was surely safer than Tamin.
Ifra exhaled sharply, making an alarmed noise to catch Belin’s attention. Belin was climbing into the catacombs. Ifra tapped his shoulder and then ran to the door, tracing Nimira’s spirit.
“Is it Tamin?” Belin was struggling out of the passageway again.
Belin’s question tugged at Ifra, demanding a
n answer, and yet, Belin hadn’t told him to speak, so Ifra had to leave the request unfulfilled. He ran out into the garden just as Nimira came through the side door that led to the forest, an expression of considerable alarm on her face.
Chapter 27
The moment I slipped through the garden gate, I was greeted by the sight of the jinn running up to me, and guards off to the left and right, posted at doors. I could have turned around and dashed back, but obviously I’d already been spotted, so instead I froze, praying Ifra was a friend now.
It was terribly hard to shake the image of him destroying Erris.
He put a finger to his lips and motioned with his hands. Was he asking me to be quiet? I was confused. He’d certainly had no trouble speaking the language before, but now he seemed tonguetied. He motioned for me to follow him, back to the door at my left, set in a wall covered in climbing vines.
“Who is that?” the guard demanded. “What’s going on?”
Ifra opened the door and shoved me into a dark room. He didn’t follow, just shut the door on me.
“Who’s there?” a man called. “Ifra?”
“He’s-he’s still outside.” I reached behind me, finding the door handle, but I didn’t think fleeing would do a bit of good.
“Ifra?” Now, that voice I recognized.
“Violet?”
“Nimira?” I saw a shadow flutter, and Violet threw her arms around me as if we’d been the best of friends. “Why didn’t Ifra come back in?”
“Well, the guards were asking who I was… Maybe he’s… taking care of them. What’s going on?”
“Erris is here!” Violet cried. “Under the throne. In the death sleep. We have to help him before Tamin gets back-Tamin’s one of the other princes-and Belin’s the king and he’s going to set Erris free so we can show him to the people, and the trees are dying!”
Magic Under Stone Page 23
