THREE DROPS OF BLOOD

by Michelle L. Levigne

  "Then you were defending their honor, and put no lie to the tale," Efrin said, nodding. "I will ask your forgiveness, Prince."

  "Me, Majesty?" He nearly got to his feet in shock.

  "I had the power and the duty to countermand your father's desires. I owe Lord Mrillis--I owe your grandfather, and your mother and grandmother as well, such an enormous debt of honor, it was an injustice to let their names be forgotten and hidden from you. You carry a proud heritage. I should have commanded your father, in my power as High King, to let your grandfather be known to you. See what convoluted tales we must tell now, to mend the wrong done so long ago."

  "I don't suppose there is some magic you can do, to undo the last hour, or keep the others from remembering what they heard?"

  "Or turn time back on itself, so you get us to shut our mouths before all this happened?" Megassa offered. She brightened when Pirkin nodded and gave her a crooked grin. Resting her hand on his fist for a moment, she said, "Truly, we're both very sorry. We wouldn't hurt you for the world, because Lord Mrillis loves you so much."

  "A baby who doesn't even remember you," he said, finally meeting Mrillis' gaze again. "That's what you love. You don't know me."

  "No," Mrillis agreed. "But I would like to get to know you." He stood and gestured at the door. "Will you walk with me, lad?"

  Pirkin nodded and stood slowly, stiffly, like all his joints had frozen. Meghianna ached in sympathy as he waited, shoulders hunched, for Mrillis to lead the way to the door before he took even one step.

  * * * *

  "I suppose I should thank you for...fixing things," Pirkin said, after he and Mrillis had walked in the inner courtyard for a few minutes, letting the quiet of the afternoon soak through them.

  "But you don't feel particularly grateful?" Mrillis said. He wanted to put an arm around those hunched shoulders and hold the boy, to ease away some of his misery with touch and silent sympathy and love.

  No, his grandson was a young man. Mrillis had to remind himself to think of Pirkin as a man, nearly grown, a Valor in training, strong in imbrose he hadn't even realized he possessed until a few moons ago, How many shocks did it take for a young, healthy mind to lose its grip on sanity?

  "Your father thought he was protecting you, and ensuring you a safe, peaceful childhood," he offered, when the young man just grunted and shrugged.

  "I think it would have been better for everyone if the truth had been known, however painful. People would have gotten used to it. Now... I understand why Mother stayed away for a few days, after they found out I could--" He spread his hands, visibly helpless to find the right words.

  "What exactly did you do, that revealed your imbrose?" Mrillis asked. Getting his grandson to talk was half the battle. Any kind of common ground, any understanding, would help them both.

  "We were hunting a boar, for the midwinter feast. It was a monster, the tusks nearly as high as my horse's shoulders. It gutted one man's horse entirely and knocked me out of my saddle. My weapons went flying." He caught his breath and his gaze went unfocused, indicating he relived that moment. "I felt something shift inside my head, and my chest, and suddenly I could see long, thin ropes all over the ground and in the air. I yanked on one, trying to loop it around my spear. The boar came after me, and I threw the spear, using the rope. I never touched my spear. And somehow I flung it hard enough to go right through the boar. The idiot beast didn't even stop, didn't even know it was dead. It just kept charging, and I wrapped more of those ropes around it, strangling it and stopping it, with just an arrow's length between us." He let out a long, rasping breath and shuddered. "I was so excited and proud and amazed by what I did, and then..."

  "And then someone announced you had magic, and they treated you as if you had deliberately rolled in filth?" Mrillis guessed. A knot formed in his chest, fury on his grandson's behalf, mixed with the hot, pulsing need to find that cruel fool and punish him for destroying what should have been a happy, proud moment in Pirkin's life. "Your mother would be so proud of you," he offered.

  "My mother would have sent me here for training years ago, when she saw the first signs of magic in me. I learned enough in the required studies before I came to Lygroes, to know about the testing for Rey'kil children. Especially for the descendants of those who forged the Zygradon." Pirkin took a deep, shuddering breath. "Is it truly lost?"

  "Your mother hid it, to protect it from treachery, and told no one where, before she died. Only those who made the Zygradon, and their descendants, can see and touch the bowl. Perhaps you will be the one to find it. Who knows what the Estall has planned for us?"

  "Lady Emrillian ny Ceera is one of the greatest heroines of our age," Pirkin whispered. "But my father was ashamed of her."

  "No, not ashamed--"

  "He should have been strong enough to stand against Mother--my stepmother's relatives, and all their fears of Rey'kil. He should have been strong enough to teach them their errors. If he hadn't been ashamed of her. But he was ashamed. It's the only reason why he wouldn't speak up and defend her. Why he kept your name secret from me," he added, with a brief, almost grudging glance at Mrillis.

  "We cannot change the past, though undoubtedly some enchanter somewhere has found a way to at least try," Mrillis added with a chuckle that didn't get any response from Pirkin. "All we have is this present moment and the future that lies before us. I hope you are... well, I won't hope for eagerness, lad, but I hope you are willing to try to become friends, so we can learn about each other."

  "I don't know," he whispered.

  "I won't ask you to call me Grandfather," he offered, though saying the words pained him, surprisingly. "Until you are ready."

  "Did my father ever love my mother?"

  "Oh, lad... I know he loved her greatly." Mrillis forced himself to look his grandson in the eye as he spoke, and not avoid the searching, aching need for truth and comfort. He remembered with a clarity that stabbed him, the pain Emrillian faced, her calmness, the dimming of her spirits as she spoke of leaving Pyris and coming to stay in the Stronghold to protect Pirkin's Rey'kil heritage and whatever magical talents and strength he had inherited from her. "It pained him," he said slowly, hunting for words that would be truthful without setting a knife's edge to their raw emotions, "when his fellows developed an unreasonable hatred and fear of Rey'kil. When a man is torn between love and long-held loyalties, between what he knows and what is sometimes mysterious to him, he sometimes makes decisions that seem reasonable, and yet in hindsight he regrets. Above all things, your father is an honorable man."

  "Sometimes honor isn't enough, is it?"

  "Sometimes it takes the wisdom of the Estall to see through the muddle that we make of our lives and basic principles," Mrillis admitted. It cheered him to see a tiny smile quirk up one corner of Pirkin's mouth. That was some progress, he supposed. And that was Ceera's wry little smile. "You are the same person you were before that boar attacked and awakened your imbrose. The only difference is that you have been given a new tool. You owe it to yourself, and to the Warhawk, to learn to use that tool properly, so it will do you and those around you no harm, at the very least."

  "At the very least." Pirkin nodded. That aching shadow slipped back into his eyes. "I supposed he is ashamed of me, despite all his fine words when he sent me off to training."

  "There is no shame in using the gifts the Estall put into your blood and bones before you were even conceived," Mrillis said, fighting not to growl, not to grab the young man--the sulky boy--and shake him.

  * * * *

  Meghianna found the pageantry and fuss of preparing for the ceremony of investiture as Queen of Snows tiring, at the best of times. She wondered what had happened in just a few days to make her daydreams of the ceremony seem childish and selfish now. True, she had dreamed of being the center of attention when she was a child, but why did all the visits with the seamstresses, the meetings to choose flowers and food and musicians, now feel like a tiresome waste of time and energy?


  "It's that wretched Pirkin," Megassa said, when her sister confided in her, only four days before the ceremony. "How can we enjoy ourselves when everywhere we turn, he's standing in a corner moping, or else getting teased by those other idiots and fighting with them? You don't feel guilty, do you? The truth was bound to come out sooner or later, so it really isn't our fault."

  Meghianna had to agree with her sister. She had heard of more than a dozen minor nobles and officials in the Warhawk's court who had approached Pirkin, clearly seeking favors and to cultivate friendship with the young man, long before the revelation of his pedigree. She had thought Pirkin was sensible enough to know who offered true friendship and who wanted to take advantage of his rank and connections. Obviously, thinking people cultivated him as the son of a minor king was far more palatable to him than knowing these same people wanted to be his friend because he was the grandson of Mrillis, the Warhawk's enchanter.

  She regretted asking him to be her primary escort. True, his position as Mrillis' grandson had been part of her consideration, but she had liked him, just from what she had observed and heard about him. Her position as Queen of Snows gave her the right, and perhaps the responsibility, to lecture him and try to talk--or slap--some sense into him. The problem was that he had an incredible talent for being invisible, or else moving with a swiftness that required magic to catch up with him. She refused to dash about the fortress in a vain attempt to catch him. Especially when she was more aware than ever of all the watchful, critical people waiting to find something to mock or condemn in her.

  "You and I must come to an agreement, Prince Pirkin," she said, when the day of the ceremony came and he arrived at the door of her quarters to escort her to the stable, where her horse, a son of Mist, waited to carry her to the meadow.

  "Lady?" He bowed--a little too deeply, most likely to avoid looking her in the eyes.

  "I will not require anything of you except a pleasant expression today, and you will not act like a child half your age, being forced to eat some noxious concoction your lunatic aunt insists will make you big and strong. Agreed?"

  Pirkin's head snapped upright and his eyes widened. Spots of color lit his cheeks and he seemed to struggle to take a breath for a moment.

  "How did you know my aunt--"

  "Everyone has a lunatic aunt, of one sort or another." She rolled her eyes and shook her head, and a moment later gave up the battle not to laugh. Pirkin took a step back, then he exhaled loudly... And laughed with her.

  "I've been a petulant whelp, haven't I?" he said, when they both had regained their breaths.

  "You make us think that serving the Warhawk is a matter of dishonor and an inconvenience."

  "No, I--" He swallowed hard and shook his head, and some stiffness left his shoulders. "I suppose that's what it looks like, doesn't it?"

  "Even more horrible, you're hurting Lord Mrillis, whom I adore. He has been a second father to me and to my sister, and I pity you for all that you have missed in not growing up knowing him."

  "It's different for you, having magic."

  "You have magic in your blood, much as you hate it. You can't get rid of it any more than you can get rid of the color of your hair or eyes. You can cover them up, yes, just as you can learn to restrain your imbrose and learn not to use it." Meghianna gestured into the hall and held out her bent arm. Pirkin colored and looped his arm through hers, to escort her. "You should talk to Megassa," she said, after they had taken a dozen steps and approached the stairway.

  "Why? She's likely to challenge me to a sword fight, or a race--and beat me," he added with a chuckle.

  "Megassa's imbrose has been restrained since birth. Because of her mother and grandmother, and the chance that some malevolent spell to control her mind and actions had been implanted in her at conception. When she was old enough to understand, she asked that her imbrose be hobbled even further, so she only had enough to allow her to be a Valor. You can likely do the same, if you find your heritage so offensive. Megs will tell you it doesn't hurt at all."

  "I'm not afraid of... Well, yes, maybe a little, afraid of it hurting. I imagine it would be like cutting off an arm or leg, or gouging out one of my eyes, to take away this magic I don't want. I wasn't brought up wanting or needing it. Why did it have to land on me all of a sudden? There's a girl... Well, her family isn't as bad as some of Mother's relatives, but they let me know I was welcome to court her, once she turned fifteen. After I discovered my imbrose, the door slammed in my face."

  "More important, did she welcome your interest?"

  "I don't know." He frowned, then a stunned look of dawning comprehension touched his eyes. "In the end, it wouldn't matter that they welcomed me, if she didn't like me, would it?"

  "Now, see? You're a much wiser man already." Meghianna squeezed his arm when they reached the bottom of the stairs and servants hurried to open the big double doors before them. Pirkin took the hint and said nothing more until they were mounted on their flower-bedecked horses and the rest of the escort surrounded them.

  Megassa rode behind them with Kaytin as her partner. Pirkin glanced over his shoulder at her twice, a thoughtful look replacing the scowl that had seemed to take up residence on his face. Finally he heaved a deep sigh.

  "I don't even know what I can do, so how can I decide if it needs to be... What was your word? Hobbled?"

  "Then common sense says to explore the limits before you decide if you want to add any. It could be your only gifts are throwing things with your mind, and that is a rather useful gift for a Valor who could be entrusted with the Warhawk's safety."

  "But with my...with the people I come from... Wouldn't I have enormous gifts?"

  "When are you going to speak their names? Ceera, your grandmother. Emrillian, your mother. Mrillis, your grandfather."

  "I don't even know what my mother and grandmother look like, so how can they be real to me?" He shrugged, and that pleasant, crooked little smile she liked brightened his face.

  "Lord Mrillis can show you easily enough. Casting illusions and showing you images from his memory is simple." Meghianna considered offering to share with him the memories of Emrillian and Ceera that others had shared with her, but she suspected that going to Mrillis for those images would help both grandfather and grandson draw a little closer.

  She congratulated herself on having taken the right approach with Pirkin, a little bluntness, a little teasing, a little humor, mixed with honesty. He asked her for three dances during the festivities after her ceremony--which was mercifully brief--and she caught him having a long, serious conversation with Megassa in the shadows of the open pavilion set up for the royal family. When she saw Pirkin approach Mrillis, she looked away, blinking away tears and laughing at herself a moment later.

  I do believe I will make a decent Queen of Snows after all, she decided. Please, blessed Estall, help me to find the right answers for every hurt and need that comes before me.

  * * * *

  Meghianna kept watch over Pirkin during the next two years of his training. He could never be fully comfortable when he came to the Stronghold for his lessons in the winter, but she took encouragement from his curiosity about his mother and grandmother, the places they frequented, their quarters, which had been kept as they were for Mrillis' use on his infrequent visits. Several of her older ladies, who had known her mother and grandmother, reported that Pirkin approached them several times, asking for stories about Ceera and Emrillian.

  Lord Rondell and her father both reported that Pirkin had more difficulty dealing with the people who tried to take advantage of his blood-ties with Mrillis, than with learning to control his magic. His imbrose was of a minor degree, allowing him to move objects, to light fires, and to give strength to healers. Pirkin never learned to take pride in his gifts, but he moved beyond feeling ashamed of possessing them. He never learned to move beyond his resentment for the people who saw him only as Mrillis' grandson, who judged him by his grandfather and tried to capitalize on
a relationship as flimsy as ancient, weather-worn cloth.

  When Pirkin requested assignment as a traveling auditor and judge on Moerta, rather than staying on Lygroes in the Warhawk's Court, no one was surprised. Meghianna suspected she would never see Pirkin again unless she traveled to Moerta, to participate in the yearly gleaning of star-metal to purify more of the poisoned land.

  * * * *

  "Queen Glyssani of Welcairn," Mrillis said, picking up a sealed message packet from Efrin's desk.

  "What about her?" Efrin turned away from the window looking out over Meghianna's garden.

  Meghianna had come to the fortress for a brief visit, and she and Megassa had taken themselves off on a tour of the grounds immediately after breakfast. Right now, they sat in her garden, talking and laughing, filling the air with music that pleased both men. Technically, the courtyard below his workroom window was no longer Meghianna's garden, since at age nineteen she no longer spent her springs and summers at the fortress. Years of habit would keep it her sanctuary for a long time to come, however. That pleased her father.

  "They're not our little girls anymore," Mrillis said with an indulgent smile.

  "Hmm, no they aren't, but it's good to see them laughing and chattering like old times." He sighed, seemed about to go back to the window, then dropped heavily into his chair. "What about Welcairn?"

  "Queen Glyssani has sent you a message. Most likely another polite explanation why she and her son cannot come to Court this year, either."

  "How old is Markas, now?"

  "Fourteen. Markas the Elder was a good friend and ally. From all reports, he would be very proud of his son."

  "At least he died knowing he had a son," Efrin murmured, his gaze focused elsewhere for a few heartbeats. Then he sighed, blinked, and held out his hand for the packet. A flick of the tip of his knife peeled the wax seal away and he unfolded the outer layer.

  "What is it?" Mrillis said, when the king frowned after only a few moments of reading.

  "She doesn't name him, which was wise, if she is right..." Efrin shook his head, glanced over the message again, then handed the parchment strip to Mrillis. "Markas and I had a private name for his overly officious, self-righteous bore of a cousin."