by R. J. Price
Nae was younger than bout Av and Jer, but had been a rambunctious girl from the start. Any time her mother looked the other way, Nae would toss off the skirt and hair ribbons and tackle the closest boy she could find. Only the boys, because the girls never fought back, just screamed bloody murder. Av hadn't remembered her for that, though.
No, the first thing he recognized were the green eyes that so reminded him of his mother. Nae's hair was a light brown colour, though her mother's had been a bright red. The strands of grey, obvious amongst the brown, attested to the fact that Nae had, in some ways, inherited her mother's hair.
If she had been a red-head, at least a man might have a proper warning as to her temper.
Her skin was pale, taking after her mother, and there were freckles across the bridge of her nose and starting to work down her cheeks. Av recalled the flesh often having bruises on it, even bruising easily, before she came into her own as a healer. The frame behind that skin was anything but soft, however.
“Av, in case you forgot,” Av said.
Nae had the temper of a great healer, with a strong, solid body to back the magic, but Av couldn't recall what her magic was like. For her own body it worked fantastically, what other healer could boast healing still fresh bruises, even on themselves?
“I didn’t forget you,” Nae said with a headshake, then motioned to Anue. “Is this your daughter?”
“No, this is Anue.” Av watched the smile widen and decided he had to nip that in the bud. “My soon-to-be sister by mating. Her sister Aren sits the throne.”
Nae shook her head and made a face that wasn’t quite as annoyed as she tried to seem. “All you warriors just go and chase the one who sits the throne.”
“That is not what happened,” Av said.
“Maybe you two could talk about it over a drink while Mie and I play?” Anue offered.
The adults were silent for a moment. Nae frowned ever so slightly.
“Are they getting manipulative at a younger age now?” Nae asked Av.
“Queens are not manipulative; young women are,” Av corrected. “No, I brought Anue because she is maturing rather quickly and she is spending the winter with me, my father, and my brothers.”
“Where’s her sister?” Nae asked.
“In a little village in the northwest that I’m going to raze to the ground come spring,” Av responded cheerfully. Again, the adults were silent as Anue attempted to stifle a giggle. “Sorry, I don’t know where that came from. Could you possibly check Anue over to ensure she’s a healthy young woman and explain to her what a young woman might need to know about that sort of thing? We aren’t certain her mother did or if there are holes in her knowledge. How do we answer those questions, right?”
“By thinking,” Nae muttered, then motioned to Anue. “Come on in.”
Av was shown to a sitting room and told to wait. There he waited for well over an hour until Nae escorted Anue out of the house. The healer smiled all the while, as she locked the door. The smile vanished when she turned back to Av. An angry healer—not an annoyed or frustrated rank—but an angry healer marched over to him.
“Explain to me your relationship to that girl,” Nae snarled.
Av held up his hands in surrender. “I have only been near her when my father is around.”
“For how long?” Nae demanded, sitting across from Av.
“How long, what?”
“How long has she been under your care?” Nae pressed.
“Oh,” Av considered. “I suppose about five days now. She left her home about eleven days ago. I think, I don’t know for certain. Why?”
“Someone has been beating her,” Nae said through gritted teeth.
“Should I have started the conversation with the fact that my father insists on training her?” Av asked.
Nae relaxed, but only slightly. “That would explain the change in the pattern.”
“Long-time abuse,” Av sighed out, running a hand through his hair. “I knew Aren was abused, but she’s never mentioned physical abuse. It’s all word and behaviour.”
“Where are Anue’s parents?” Nae asked.
“At this time, they are back at their estate,” Av said. “They were at the palace for a while before Anue came.”
“This is long term, not short term.” Nae shook her head.
“Look, I…” Av trailed off when he saw Nae go still. “My father wanted to approach the midwife about seeing to Anue but the elders sent me to you. I didn’t want to ask for a midwife without—”
Nae’s look made Av’s throat constrict. “You think she was raped?”
“It’s the way she reacts to males,” Av said.
“She’s virgin,” Nae growled. “When a person is abused only by one gender, that person tends to react towards that gender as one. One reaction for all of you. That will limit your search in finding the one who beat her.”
“It will, and my father will be happy to hear that Anue is…” He trailed off, “Intact.”
“Why?” Nae asked with a snarl. “Is he pandering virgin queens now?”
“No,” Av growled back. “But he seems to believe that if one sister is abused in such a manner, likely another has.” His rage boiled up, uncontrolled, and Av growled at nothing in particular.
“I see.” Nae forced herself to relax, all emotion draining from her face. “I thought perhaps you had gone chasing the one to sit the throne.”
“She is mine.”
Nae nodded slowly. “Of course she is. No one is questioning that. No one would question that. Aren is yours, you are Aren’s.”
Av tried to relax. “Anue’s fine, which means Aren is fine.”
“Sometimes the bigger sister takes on the darkness so that the younger sister might live in the light,” Nae said quietly.
Av drew in a breath through his nose slowly, filling his lungs as he tried to contain his emotions. “That does not help me, Nae.”
“Do you want the truth in order to face the world and save innocents, or would you like everything coated in honey and rainbows?” Nae asked.
“I think for the sake of keeping me sane for the winter, people could dance around the point at the very least,” Av snapped out.
The healer stood, marched up to Av and flicked him between the eyes. The thump made Av wince. His eyes closed and he pulled his head back. Staring at Nae, he shook his head.
“You’re a moron,” Nae shouted. “You ignoring something doesn’t change whether it exists. You whine about having to deal with that trouble for a few months. Try living with it forever. Try having to sit in the dark, by yourself, with only that to keep you company.”
“That’s not fair to say,” Av said.
“What are you going to do? Go cry to your mother about it?” Nae snapped.
“That was one time and you made me eat fire ants. They bit me on the way down,” Av shouted back.
“Oh, boo-hoo. Precious little Av can’t handle the big wide world not being honey and rainbows,” Nae shouted back.
“I told you that in confidence!”
“You pulled down my pants in front of Terrel and now he’s mated to that whore Poya!” Nae shouted as Av stood. The healer gave Av’s shoulder a shove. “So I don’t care.”
“Maybe you should try looking for a decent man instead of settling for the village idiot!” Av said, raising his volume to match Nae’s.
Nae slapped him, slapped him hard.
During his time as master, Av had been slapped, poked, and even stabbed by annoyed ranks. Though the stabbing was purely accidental. It had been his duty to settle the ranks back into place. There weren’t enough of them. They weren’t strong enough, to risk life and limb settling their differences as the ranks of old had done.
He had stepped down as master, and as master had only been in control of palace lands.
Which really only meant that while Av considered stopping Nae and contacting his father to come in and handle the healer, he decided against it. Av worked
his jaw and turned back to Nae. The healer didn’t even look sorry. Most ranks at least looked surprised when they struck him.
“What was that for?” Av asked.
“How dare you say that,” Nae said, jabbing a finger at Av. “I have not settled, I am not settling.”
“Obviously you aren’t settling, you haven’t even got a man to speak of,” Av said. “Or a woman. A dog, even. Not even a dog.”
“There is nothing wrong with me,” Nae said.
“Nothing that a good tumble wouldn’t fix,” Av responded. “Too bad you can’t find someone to bed you in this village.”
He had meant it simply as a comment, not an insult. Nae had grown up in the village, so if she hadn’t found someone by the time she became an adult, she wouldn’t have found someone later in life.
Nae took it as an insult, though. The healer made a sound like a kettle boiling. Av watched the healer’s hands clench and wondered what was going on.
“What?” Av asked. “Why do you look like that? It really makes your face look older. Try relaxing a little bit. It’s nothing to get so worked up over.”
“How dare you,” Nae said through gritted teeth.
“Dare I what?” Av asked. “Give you some advice?”
“How dare you just waltz in here with a future planned out with a younger mate as if everything is all right!” Nae shouted at Av.
“We never courted,” Av said.
“I know that, I knew that!” Nae bellowed. “But it’s not like you can just show off and expect everyone to be all right with it!”
Obviously something else was going on. Nae was the only rank in the village. The others would understand her to a point, but only another rank could understand how secluded one could feel when surrounded by commoners. Av cleared his throat quietly, deciding to speak with his father when he returned home.
An upset healer could sour an entire village.
Until then, he had two options. Talking Nae down wasn’t going to work. He had to calm her down somehow, put her on a different line of thought. He could either make her cry, or take a beating.
He knew a great deal more about dealing with angry women, than he did about crying women.
“Is now a bad time to mention that you’re getting a little fat?” Av asked.
Chapter Eighteen
When the tears stopped coming, Aren sat in numb silence.
Nothing moved in the darkness; no water dripped into her prison. Time passed. She knew it passed, but had no idea how long she sat in the darkness. Her tears made her weary, and she must have drifted off at some point.
Jerking awake, she was confused, not understanding why everything was dark.
He had left her in darkness. That Rewel man was going to pay.
For a moment Aren’s anger flared, immediately pulled away by the conflicting forces. The throne and the manacle. She shook her wrist—the only motion she could manage—and glared at where she thought her hand was in the dark.
“You’d think one of you would be capable of making some damned light,” Aren said, trying to muster whatever emotion she could.
A light came down the steps. Slow, hesitant. Danya stepped into Aren’s prison, a light orb in her hands. Her eyes were wide when she spotted Aren, travelling slowly to the manacle on Aren’s left wrist.
“Why?” Aren asked as Danya came towards her.
The healer sat just out of reach of Aren, setting the glowing orb to the side. She looked at Aren and smiled just slightly.
“Who sits the throne, Aren?” Danya asked.
“I do,” Aren said.
The smile grew. “And Av is bound to you?”
“Yes,” Aren said, frowning at the healer. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No.” Danya’s head shook as she spoke. “This has happened many times in the past and could happen in the future.”
“I can’t keep this up; it’s hard to feel,” Aren said.
“You may just be in shock. Most are when they are first captured.” Danya reached for the glowing orb and pushed it gently towards Aren. “He knows I’m here but believes I am looking you over.”
“What is going on?” Aren snapped.
“I don’t know,” Danya said. “I’m sorry, Aren. I was very young when whatever happened, happened. Rewel is a little older than I am. He still doesn’t know what happened, only that we need your rank linked to the village.”
“And why me?” Aren asked.
“Because you are linked to the throne and I am so tired of this village, of this life,” Danya said. “If not you, then the next young woman to come through and you are the only one who might have a chance of getting out of here alive.”
“So I just sit here?” Aren demanded.
Danya nodded twice. “Yes, you sit there and think about whatever ladies from palace lands think about. The others had no problem sitting about.”
“I don’t want to sit about with nothing to do—that is not something I am interested in doing,” Aren said, lifting her manacled wrist. She stared at it for a very long time before the reality sank in. “There’s no chain on this. I’ve been sitting in the dark and there’s no chain attached to me.”
“Instinct,” Danya said. “You won’t get very far with that on you. Rewel can somehow control how far from the wall you can go. I don’t know how—sorry. He drags the queens down here and I told him I wouldn’t help him again. If we need queens to live, then perhaps we should just die.”
“He’s thinking about the village,” Aren said.
“The village is already dead,” Danya said.
“What?” Aren asked. “I heard others.”
“Everything is dead, the land, even the well is basically dried up. Rewel and I are the only living ones left. There were seven others, but they’ve passed.” Pain passed over Danya’s features. “The worst part was that even though they died, they are still here.”
Aren grimaced. “And I thought my childhood was unpleasant.”
“We could talk about that,” Danya offered.
“For starters, I don’t want to talk about that,” Aren said. “Secondly, don’t you have something you need to do up above in the village?”
“No. I could bring in wood, except no matter how big my fire, it would still be cold. Or I could boil already boiled bones in the hopes of getting something more out of them before I break them open for the marrow, but I was planning on doing that tomorrow and the next day.”
“Cleaning?” Aren asked.
“I clean after I work because I need something to do,” Danya said.
“Read a book,” Aren countered.
“I’ve memorized the books,” Danya said far too calmly. Surely the other woman should have been irritated with Aren for countering each excuse with another suggestion. “That reminds me, I can bring you the ones on the rights. We have a set of honour books, but they’re from around the time scribes started trying to label honour. They’re very confusing to read.”
“Telm says tradition says obey, and honour asks why,” Aren said.
Danya frowned. “Telm? Who is Telm?”
“She’s my head of house and house master, about…” Aren paused to think. “twenty years older than I am? I’m bad with the ages of older women. Men just want to boast about their age, but women like to hide it.”
“Like you like to hide your rank?” Danya asked.
“I had to hide my rank,” Aren said. “If I didn’t, my mother would have killed me, literally. And only if I were lucky. If I was as unlucky as the rest of my life has been, she would have ended up controlling my magic and using it for whatever it is she wants from life. But who needs her when I’ve got Rewel?”
The healer almost smiled. “Do many at the palace know how strong you are?”
“I don’t know how strong I am,” Aren said. “Jer said that’s because I don’t have a stick with which to measure myself by. If you think you know how strong I am, that means the healer who saw to me knows. She’d be about t
he only one. Av caught a glimpse once or twice.”
“Meaning your parents didn’t know at all?” Danya said.
“No, they found out when—” Aren stopped. “What kind of a healer are you?”
“There are kinds?” Danya asked. “I thought types only came about when multiple healers grew up around one another.”
“That was my reaction when I was told there were kinds of queens!” Aren exclaimed. “Apparently I’m an honour queen and there are types of rank, and apparently everyone knows that as well. Except the archivist who insists that even if others claim there are different types, we are all the same. Sometimes.”
“Like different breeds of dog are the same?” Danya asked.
“Perhaps. I’m wondering why you ask questions I wouldn’t normally answer, but for some reason I am answering.”
“That always happens,” Danya said. “Rewel would use me to get information out of queens, until he realized that I was telling him they all had people coming for them.”
“If I’m linked to the throne, they know and will come for me,” Aren said.
“No.” Danya shook her head. “The snows this way are very deep, Aren. If they tried to come before spring, they would get stuck. I’m amazed you arrived safely.”
“But I’m upset, and when I feel things, it goes through the throne and those at the palace react. They’ll come for me.”
Danya motioned to the manacle. “Your rank can direct the magic created by emotion into something specific. Direct it into the manacle.”
“That would fuel the village,” Aren said.
“If you directed your emotion into the chair you sat upon, would it go to the throne?” Danya asked.
Aren considered for a moment. “No, I don’t believe it would. The seat is a symbolic representation of the actual throne.”
“Push magic into the manacle. It has a magic of its own, but it’s not…” Danya struggled with an explanation, “in the manacle exactly, more of around it.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Aren said.
“And I will go up now. I’ll come back and visit when I can,” Danya said. “Rewel spends most of his time talking to the Others. He doesn’t much notice whether I come or go. Keep that light.”
