by R. J. Price
“Thank you, for not leaving me in the dark like Rewel did,” Aren muttered.
“Likely forgot,” Danya responded.
“He also hit me.”
Danya approached Aren cautiously and held out a hand. Aren took the hand. The healer’s magic roiled through her hand like a distant burn, through her body and finally back out again. Danya made a sound as she pulled away.
“That’s different,” Danya said. “I’ve never seen him do that before. I will see if I can speak to him about his behaviour.”
“Or about releasing me?” Aren asked.
“Like the throne, the link is until you die. Unless you know how to destroy the link?” Danya asked.
“No one knows how to destroy the throne,” Aren said.
Danya sighed loudly. “Then I suppose we’re both stuck in the village for the time being.”
Chapter Nineteen
Av walked into his father’s house a good deal more humble than when he had left. The healer had held her own. Against a fully trained warrior. She hadn’t fought like an angry woman; she had put him on the defence and kept him there as she picked at him at her leisure.
“You’ve been training the local village?” Av asked his father.
“Just as a hobby, something for me to do to keep the boredom at bay,” Ervam responded, glancing once at Av before he turned back to the hearth where dinner was bubbling away. “You were supposed to lead with the explanation. You always have to lead with the explanation with healers.”
Ervam’s back might have been turned, but Av could still hear the laughter.
“You taught her to take down a warrior,” Av said, not daring to raise his voice because Mie and Anue had wanted to play with their new toys and Av knew the balls couldn’t come into the house. “Why did you teach her to take down a warrior?”
“The village is a twenty-minute walk away, Av.” Ervam turned from the hearth, spoon in hand. “By the time the messenger arrives here from there, the attack’s already been going on for twenty minutes, if not longer, and by the time I arrive, everyone is dead. Training the commoners to take down a rank is something you need to start young at and choose carefully.”
“What do you mean?” Av asked, confused. “Choose carefully?”
“Those families could not sustain the sort of kindness towards ranks that one who is trained to take down a rank would need. No need to spawn a darkness. You train a commoner to take down a rank and he decides halfway through his life that he doesn’t need, nor want, ranks. What then?”
Av felt a little cold. “Meaning you trained the healer to take down ranks so that the commoners couldn’t take her down.”
Ervam nodded and turned back to dinner. Av’s ring sat heavy on his finger. A sudden reminder of a greater burden.
“There was a time when commoners and ranks alike were taught to fight together, to fight one another,” Av said.
He watched his father stiffen, watched the spoon hesitate just slightly in the stirring.
“Is that what you want?” Ervam asked.
“Yes,” Av said.
“Only”—Ervam glanced back at Av and smiled— “if Jer and I could get you drunk.”
“Why?” Av asked.
He took a seat at the table and watched as Jer slunk into the living area and took the seat across from him. His brother frowned at the bruising on his face, the cracked lip.
“What did you do?” Jer asked.
“The healer, Nae, is upset and needed some resettling. Short of bedding and claiming her, I had to find another outlet, and making a woman cry could damage her,” Av said.
“Making a commoner angry could damage them,” Jer said pointedly. “It’s only ranks who can get pissed off, beat something into the ground and feel better about themselves.”
“True,” Ervam said, pulling dinner from the hearth.
“She needs a man,” Av said.
“We have the winter to consider that,” Jer said. “More importantly, what did she say about our guest?”
“Long-term physical abuse, but not the sort we feared. They had a conversation and the healer sent Anue along with some items, made her carry them as a reminder that it’s a woman’s burden to carry and men don’t need to be brought into it,” Av said.
“That could be good or bad,” Ervam muttered.
“Her point, I thought, was don’t expect special treatment. The ladies at court want to be pampered when their time has come. The servants don’t. Those that need extra help, simply get it, but it’s the exception, not the rule,” Av said.
“Women are in pain,” Jer countered.
“Spoken like someone who was beaten by a woman who wanted special treatment,” Av said. “It is the exception, not the rule. You want pampering, you find yourself with child and then I’ll pamper you.”
“Aren won’t take pampering when pregnant,” Ervam growled out.
Jer stood to help set the table, leaving Av sitting alone, twisting the ring on his finger.
The children came into the house, their new balls in their hands. The toys and the outerwear were hung up before they helped Jer finish setting the table. Dinner was served as Av sat in thought. Dinner was almost finished when Av caught a thought, something mentioned earlier.
“Why do you want to get me drunk?” Av asked.
Ervam looked up, startled. “I beg your pardon?”
“You said you and Jer want to get me drunk,” Av said.
“You have a link to the throne, the only one we’ve got at this point,” Jer said.
Av frowned, looking between the two men. “And you want to get me drunk to see if the throne will speak through me?”
“No,” Ervam said carefully. “We want to get you drunk to keep you from overthinking things. Your mother used to do it when she wanted to make a decision, but thought her own feelings were getting in the way.”
The brothers made eye contact across the table. They both recalled stumbling in on their mother when they had been told to go to bed early. Inebriated, talking to herself about something going on at court. Being children, they had assumed that adults sometimes drank for silly reasons. That some adults became silly when drunk.
That had been before Mirmae had been taken by the throne, before she was linked close enough to actually go through with the decision she came to during those late-night debates.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Av said. “Aren doing that, certainly, but I don’t sit the throne, she does, so she would need to partake in drink for it to come out.”
“The mate to the throne can have the same connection,” Ervam said.
“Especially if he’s truly claimed the one who sits the throne,” Jer said. “The throne will talk to you, to keep Aren safe. Or to produce the pairs it wants to see in order to create stronger ranks.”
“What exactly are you planning on asking the throne, if it’s willing to share?” Av asked.
“Where Aren is,” Ervam said.
“How to extract her safely,” Jer added.
“They’re probably going to do a lot more than that,” Anue said to Av. “You already know where she is and when she is. That tells you what you need to do.”
“She has a point,” Av said, motioning to Anue with his fork. “Aren is to the northwest in a little village that I’m going to raze to the damned ground it sits upon. Only this time it’s going to stay razed.”
“You do realize that you’re starting to sound like a queen?” Ervam asked.
“What?” Av asked.
“The comment there, alone. It’s what a queen would say. Why did you assume the ground the village is sitting on is damned, and that it’s been razed once already?” Jer asked.
“The”—Av motioned to their father— “the conversation we had the day you arrived. About the village. I thought we were working on the principle that the story was why she was headed where she’s headed?”
“At no point did I say that the ground itself is damned,” Ervam s
napped at Av.
“Or the size of the village,” Jer said. “It could have been a town nearly, for all we know.”
Av considered for a moment, turning the information over in his mind. “Let’s say I agree to this experiment. How drunk would I have to be, in order to have this conversation?”
“Your mother would be blackout drunk,” Ervam said. “Sometimes I would sit in on the conversations, but there were times when she had to do it by herself and she’d write notes in some kind of code.”
“Meaning I won’t remember any of this,” Av said.
“No, you won’t.”
“What are you going to do with the children?” Av asked.
“We won’t do it tonight,” Ervam said. “That will give me time to talk to the Renauls, our nearest neighbour, and put the children up for a night. Wouldn’t want them to hear any sort of bawdy songs that you like to sing when drunk.”
“Only when Perlon is around,” Av protested.
“Either way,” Jer said. “We’ll make the plans.”
“Drinking to further our own information and make our lives better,” Av muttered. “Sounds terribly dry.”
“Or terribly wet, depending on how you look at it,” Jer offered up.
“We will no longer be drinking when we hear word from Aren or about Aren,” Ervam said. “This would set a bad example for the children, that drinking could solve the problems, or that while in shock drinking is a fantastic remedy. With Aren infected, these events will continue happening.”
Av nodded. “Meaning we would be drunk most of the time. I can see the sense in that. Drink reserved for actually shocking revelations and needing to get straight answers out of the throne. Fair enough. How about in celebration? Can we still drink in celebration?”
Ervam and Jer both considered. They shook their heads at the same time.
“With her being infected, the celebrations could happen as often as the surprises,” Ervam said.
“The culture of drink at the palace is far too inflated,” Jer said. “With this, we have the perfect opportunity to cut it back, control how much drink is had by all. Once I become steward, I can even put a ration on the wine cellar. Drink should be had once in a while, not all the time.”
“Healers do swear by a drink or two every few days,” Ervam said.
“Of wine or ale,” Jer countered. “The lords and ladies aren’t drinking wine or ale, they’re drinking brandy and whiskey by the barrel.”
“What will I be drinking?” Av asked.
“Well, I need to get rid of my cupboard, what with this decision,” Ervam said, motioning to the cupboard where he kept the drinks. “So you have your choice of my entire stock. Except your grandfather’s mating scotch.”
“Why except that?” Av asked.
“For starters, because it’s aged forty years. Secondly, I’ve never heard of anyone actually drinking the mating scotch once it’s been made available for consumption. Folk usually pour it on the cremation pyre, let it soak into the logs while the body rests for grieving,” Ervam said, making a face. “It could taste wonderfully or it could burn your insides out.”
Chapter Twenty
She approached the lakeshore, eyeing Rewel warily. The man standing beside him had given her a start, but after a moment she recognized him as an Other. One of the villagers who forgot to pass over when the event had happened, whatever it was that had entrapped them in the village. The Others were rarely solid in form, whereas this one was.
Danya did not know names to put to the Others. She had only ever interacted with the healer and the woman she called Mother. She knew better than to fool herself into thinking that the woman who had come to teach her all about history had been her actual mother, but it comforted her to have something normal.
Rewel spoke at the Others, the Others would even speak back to him, but just as when they spoke to Danya, they could not answer direct questions. It was as if the Others could see Rewel’s lips moving, but could not hear his words. When his lips stopped moving, the Others chose then to respond.
“She’s hiding something,” she heard the Other say as she approached the pair.
Rewel turned to her, knowing she was there even though she had made no sound. He always knew where she was, even when she was completely silent.
The man’s eyes narrowed, icy blue. Like his heart. Sometimes his eyes were grey, sometimes brown, but normally they were a shade of blue that seemed to reflect how Danya was thinking of him at that moment.
“The lines are swelling,” Rewel said to her.
It had taken years for Danya to get the full breadth of the village’s destruction from Rewel. She had pieced it together from snippets from both Rewel and the Others.
There were lines of magic across the village that they could all feel; all except Danya that was. On these lines, the others could travel. Anyone who went beyond the lines simply disappeared, though no one believed they had finally passed on. Within the lines life was one of restriction and few supplies.
When a queen was linked to the village, the lines might only bloom a little or they might spread a little farther. Without a queen, the lines began to fade, along with the Others. The land on the lines responded much the same. With a queen there might be a small surge of growth, or even an animal caught on the lines. Without one, the land seemed to simply give up trying to grow.
Danya could not feel the lines, but she was aware that they were not direct lines. The lines did not radiate outward from the village, but instead straggled this way and that, as if they were imperfections within a stone.
“Swelling is good,” Danya said.
“I saw green just outside of the road’s line,” Rewel hissed at her through gritted teeth.
Everything tended to be grey, brown, or black. A queen had to be linked to the village for upwards of two months before green would be seen at a distance.
“There are rabbits over there,” the Other motioned. “Digging a burrow.”
“What did you link to the village, Danya?” Rewel demanded. “You said she was not a danger to us.”
“I said she was not a danger to the village,” Danya said quietly, clasping her hands before her as she gathered her courage. There was no need to lie any longer, not with the deed already done. Danya relaxed her control slightly and felt relieved. It had been months since the last time she had felt comfortable enough to let her guard down. “In fact, I believe Aren can be quite good for the village—perfect even. But she is a damaged young woman, and without proper guidance she will flounder. If Aren falls, so will the village. She’s strength enough to drag us darker than we’ve ever been before.”
“Why would you link her to the village, then?”
“I did nothing of the sort!”
And that was the end of her courage, she was certain. Questioning Rewel was not easy. When the man became upset with her, he would simply vanish, disappear into the woods for days on end. Leaving Danya alone and afraid because she had dared to speak out.
Now that she had Aren, she needn’t be afraid of being alone any longer. As long as Aren was alive, Danya would have a companion, someone she could speak to without worrying about Aren running off or punishing her for speaking out of turn.
“You linked her to this village,” Danya said, advancing on Rewel. “You were the one who didn’t bide your time, too damned eager to link a queen’s magic to us once more. I warned you. I’m certain I told you that she wasn’t like the others, I told you she was strong, and I damned well told you I don’t want to do this anymore!”
“What did you link to my village, you bitch?” Rewel demanded, coming towards Danya, standing toe-to-toe with her. “I will destroy you, if you’ve brought ruin upon me!”
“If you destroy me, you will be by yourself,” Danya responded, aware that her voice shook even though she wanted to sound firm. “And once more, I must remind you, Rewel, that you are the only one capable of linking someone to the village. Not me, never me. I have no hand
in them being forced to give their magic to you. I’m just the one you use, like you use them, like you use all women.”
“What are you going to do, cry?” Rewel snarled.
The tears were coming, Danya knew they were. Not because she wanted to cry, not because she thought Rewel was right, but because she had no other way to respond. She could control her tears no more than she could control the setting of the sun.
Danya swallowed, trying to swallow the tears at the same time. “You linked her to the village and, like it or not, she is here until she dies. You could kill her, but it will be spring before another comes through and do you think we can survive the winter without her magic?”
Rewel went a scarlet red colour. The man growled through his teeth at Danya, but she didn’t flinch because she didn’t believe he would lash out at her for being correct.
“You have to let me—” Danya paused and drew in a breath. She gathered the shattered remains of her courage back around herself. “You will let me go down and speak with her, you will not interfere. Aren is a troubled woman and if she must die here, then I will ensure that when she passes to the next world, she is settled and calmer of mind. If you don’t allow me to speak to her, I will kill her with my own hands.”
“You can’t—”
“Right to death,” Danya spat out, feeling a surge of anger at being told who she could and could not kill. She could kill anyone she pleased! “I will not suffer her to live in agony just because you were too stubborn to allow me to sit and speak with her for a few hours a day.”
How dare someone so small and pathetic tell her what she could do?
Danya gathered the anger around herself and wrapped her mind in it. Anger was brash and impulsive, but it could stand where courage had crumbled.
Rewel had given her commands most of her life, but he had never dared trespass on conflicting orders with Danya’s instincts. He had remained well within the rights, which he still believed in, in his own twisted way.
To tell a rank that they could not kill someone was tantamount to daring them to.
