“He’s in Aerie House. That’s a powerful wizard family,” Willo said. “And not one to cross. Did they ask your name?”
Dancer lifted his chin. “I told them my name. I said I was Fire Dancer of Marisa Pines Camp.” He hesitated. “But he seemed to know me as Hayden.”
Willo closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. Her next words surprised Han. “What about Hunts Alone?” she asked. “Did he speak? Do they know his name?”
Dancer cocked his head, thinking. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t remember him introducing himself.” He laughed bitterly. “They probably won’t remember anything but his arrow, aimed at their black wizard hearts.”
Willo swung around, facing Dancer, so Han could no longer see her face. “He turned a bow on them?” she said, her voice cracking on the word bow.
Dancer shrugged. “The one called Micah, he had an amulet. He was jinxing me. Hunts Alone made him stop.”
Han held his breath, waiting for Dancer to tell Willo that Han had taken the amulet, but he didn’t.
Willo sighed, looking troubled. “I’ll speak to the queen. This has to stop. She needs to enforce the Nǽming and keep wizards out of the mountains. If she doesn’t, the Demonai warriors will.”
This was astonishing, Willo talking about what the queen needed to do. She made it sound as if speaking to the queen was an everyday thing. She was the matriarch, but still. Han tried to imagine what it would be like, meeting the queen.
Your Exalted Majesty. I’m Han Plantslinger. Mud-digger. Former streetlord of the Raggers.
Willo and Dancer had moved on to another topic. Willo leaned forward, putting her hand over Dancer’s. “How are you feeling?”
Dancer pulled his hand free and canted his body away. “I’m well,” he said stiffly.
She eyed him for a long moment. “Have you been taking the flying rowan?” she persisted. “I have more if you—”
“I’ve been taking it,” Dancer interrupted. “I have plenty.”
“Is it working?” she asked, reaching for him again. As a healer, she used touch for diagnosis and for healing itself.
Dancer stood, evading her hand. “I’m well,” he repeated, with flat finality. “I’m going to go find Hunts Alone.” He turned toward the doorway where Han was lurking.
“Tell him to eat with us,” Willo called after Dancer.
Han was forced to beat a hasty retreat, ducking back into the sleeping chamber, so that was all he heard. But for the rest of that day, all through the evening meal, and sitting by the fire afterward, the conversation weighed on his mind.
He studied Dancer on the sly. Could he be sick? Han hadn’t noticed anything before, and he noticed nothing now, save that Dancer seemed less animated, more somber than usual. But that could be left over from the afternoon’s confrontation and the argument with his mother.
Han knew rowan, also called mountain ash. He gathered the wood and the berries, both of which were used in clan remedies. The wood was said to be good for making amulets and talismans to ward away evil. Flying rowan was especially valuable at clan markets. It grew high in the trees, and Han had learned better than to try to pass off regular rowan as the treetop kind. To the clan, anyway.
Willow had asked, “Is it working?” Had someone hexed Dancer? Were he and Willo worried that someone would? Was that why Dancer had a grudge against wizards?
Han wanted to ask, but then they would know he’d been eavesdropping. So he kept his questions to himself.
C H A P T E R F O U R
A DANCE
OF SUITORS
It was late afternoon when Raisa finally climbed the curving marble staircase to the queen’s tower. She ached all over; she was filthy and stank of smoke. Mellony was already in her bath. Raisa could hear her singing and splashing as she passed by her sister’s chamber at the top of the stairs. Mellony was always so damnably cheerful.
Raisa had moved into new quarters since returning from Demonai Camp—larger, more elaborate, befitting a princess heir who was almost sixteen and so of marriageable age. Originally she’d been assigned a suite of rooms close to the queen’s quarters, shrouded in velvet and damask and furnished with a massive canopied cherry bedstead and wardrobe. It felt crowded even when Raisa was all by herself.
Raisa had begged her mother to reopen an apartment at the far end of the hall that had lain barricaded and unused through living memory. There were many closed-off apartments in Fellsmarch Castle, since the court was smaller than it had been, but not many in such a prime location, with easy access to the queen.
Some longtime servants said the apartment had been abandoned because its walls of windows made it cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Others said it was cursed, that it was from this very room a thousand years ago that the Demon King had stolen Hanalea away, the incident that led to the Breaking. In this version, Hanalea herself had ordered the apartment sealed, vowing never to set foot in it again.
Legend had it that the ghost of Hanalea sometimes appeared at the window on stormy nights, hands extended, her loose hair snaking about her head, calling for Alger Waterlow.
That was just silly, Raisa thought. Who would wait at a window for a demon, let alone call his name?
When Raisa’s mother finally gave in, and the carpenters broke down the barricades, they found a suite of rooms frozen in time, as if the previous occupant had meant to return. The furniture was huddled under drop cloths to protect it from the brilliant sunlight that streamed through dusty windows. When the drapes were removed, the fabrics gleamed, surprisingly vibrant after a thousand years.
The last occupant’s possessions lay as she’d left them. A doll dressed in an old-fashioned gown gazed out from a shelf in the corner. She had a porcelain head with vacant blue eyes and long flaxen curls. Combs and brushes cluttered the dressing table, their bristles frayed by mice, and crystal perfume bottles stood arrayed on a silvered mirror, their contents evaporated long ago.
Gowns from a lost age hung in the wardrobe, made for a tall willowy girl with a very narrow waist. Some of the fabrics crumbled under Raisa’s eager fingers.
Carved wolves graced the stone facing of the hearth. Bookshelves lined the public rooms. More books lay piled on the stand next to the bed. The ones in the bedroom were mostly romances, stories of knights and warriors and queens, written in a Valespeech with archaic phrasing. In the public rooms were shelved biographies and treatises on politics, including A History of the High Country Clan and a first edition of Adra ana’Doria’s Rule and Rulers in the Modern Age. Raisa herself was just then plodding through it under the strict eye of the masters.
Hanalea or not, the suite had been occupied by a young girl, probably a princess. Perhaps she’d died, Raisa thought, and her parents had kept her room preserved as a shrine. That idea gave her delicious shivers.
Since the apartment was in one of the turrets, it was smaller than the rooms originally assigned to Raisa. But it felt spacious, since she had a view of the town and the mountains on three sides.
She’d dragged the bed into the space between the windows, and when it snowed, she felt like the fairy princess in the snow globe her father had brought her from Tamron years ago. On clear nights she pressed her face against the glass, pretending she was soaring in a winged ship among the stars.
Best of all, she’d discovered a sliding panel in one of the closets, which revealed a secret passageway. It snaked within the walls for what seemed like miles. The passageway led to a stairway, and the stairway led to the solarium on the roof, a glassed garden that was Raisa’s favorite place in all of Fellsmarch Castle, even though it had fallen into disrepair.
When Raisa pushed open the door to her rooms, she found her nurse Magret Gray waiting for her. Magret was a formidable woman, tall and broad, with a lap that could accommodate several small children.
Magret wasn’t really her nurse anymore, of course, but she still wielded an unwritten authority that came from changing royal diapers and scrubb
ing royal ears and even swatting royal behinds. Raisa’s bath was already steaming on its little burner, and fresh underdrawers were laid out on her bed.
“Your Highness!” Magret said, looking aghast. “You are a terrifying sight, to be sure. The Princess Mellony said you were worse off than she was, and I did not believe it. I do owe that young lady an apology.”
Right, Raisa thought. If there ever comes a day that I can’t get into more mischief than Mellony, I’ll cut my own throat.
Raisa’s gaze fell on the silver tray just inside her door on which Magret left messages and mail and calling cards. Suitors had begun buzzing around like flies on a carcass as Raisa approached her sixteenth name day. On any given day there’d be five or six elaborate gifts of jewelry or flowers, mirrors and vanity sets, vases and works of art, plus a dozen engraved invitations and letters on embossed stationery, mostly proclamations of undying love and devotion, and proposals that ranged from bland to indecent.
Some of the gifts were too elaborate to accept. A pirate prince from across the Indio had sent a cunning model of the ship he proposed to build for her so she could sail away with him. The queen’s secretary had answered on Raisa’s behalf, politely declining.
Raisa kept the ship model, though. She liked to sail it on the pond in the garden.
Truth be told, Raisa had no intention of marrying anyone any time soon. Her mother was young—she would rule for many years yet, so there was no need to rush into the confinement of marriage.
If Raisa had her way, her wedding would be the culmination of an entire decade of wooing.
Which made her think of Micah. He would be at dinner. Her heart accelerated.
Centered on the wooing tray was a rather plain envelope.
“Who’s this from?” she asked, picking it up.
Magret shrugged. “I don’t know, Your Highness. It was outside your door when I came back from the midday. Now sit so I can get you out of those boots.” She said those boots in a decidedly disapproving way.
Raisa sat down in the chair by the door, still studying the envelope while Magret tugged at her boots. They left smears of mud and ash on the nurse’s pristine white apron.
Raisa’s name was written on the front of the note in a neat, upright hand—naggingly familiar. She tore it open and unfolded the page inside.
Raisa, I’m home. Come find me if you get this before dinner. I’ll be in the usual place. Amon
“Amon’s home!” Raisa cried, surging to her feet, one boot off and one on. She gripped Magret’s elbows and danced her around the room, ignoring her outraged protests. She felt rather like a tugboat towing one of the big ships in Chalk Cliffs Harbor.
“In the name of the sainted Hanalea, stop, Your Highness,” Magret said, struggling for dignity. Wrenching her arms free, she began pulling off Raisa’s jacket.
“No!” Raisa said, twisting away. “Hang on, Magret, I need to go find Amon. I need to find out what he—”
Magret planted herself in front of the door. “You need to get into that bath and scrub off. If he sees you in this state, you’ll scare him half to death.”
“Magret!” Raisa protested. “Come on. It’s just Amon. He doesn’t care about—”
“Amon’s kept this long, he’ll keep a little while longer. You’re expected at dinner in two hours and you smell like you just came out of the smoker.”
Still grumbling, Raisa allowed herself to be stripped of the rest of her clothing and climbed into her bath. She had to admit, it felt wonderful. The hot water stung her many cuts and scrapes, but soothed and relaxed her aching muscles.
Magret dangled Raisa’s charred shirt and leggings out at arm’s length, wrinkling her nose. “These are going straight to Ragmarket,” she declared.
“Please, Magret,” Raisa protested, horrified. “You can’t throw them away. They’re the only comfortable clothes I own.”
Scowling, Magret pitched them in the laundry basket.
It took all of the two hours for Magret to make Raisa what she called “presentable.” Magret produced a new dress that she’d made over from one of Marianna’s old ones. It was a pleasant surprise—less fussy than the dresses Marianna chose for Raisa, a simple fall of emerald silk that draped her body, cut low enough at the neck to be a bit daring.
Magret coaxed Raisa’s still-damp hair into a coil and pinned it up on her head, then set her gold circlet on top. To finish, her nurse added Raisa’s briar rose necklace—a gift from her father, Averill Lightfoot. Briar Rose was her clan name. He called her Briar Rose, he said, because of her beauty. And her many thorns.
When Raisa finally entered the dining room, it was already crowded. A string quartet tuned up in one corner, servers with trays circulated through the room, and the usual court grazers swarmed about a side table laden with cheeses, fruits, and wine.
She quickly scanned the room for Amon, though she didn’t really expect to see him there. Unlikely that he’d be invited to mingle with the aristocracy.
Across the room, Raisa saw her grandmother, Elena Demonai, Matriarch of Demonai Camp. She stood with a small group of other clan, wearing the flowing, elaborately embroidered robes they reserved for special occasions.
She went and took her grandmother’s hands, bowing her head over them in clan fashion.
“Good day, Cennestre Demonai,” she said in Clan.
“Best to speak the lowland language here, granddaughter,” Elena replied. “Lest the flatlanders think we’re passing secrets.”
“Have you heard anything of my father?” Raisa persisted, still in Clan. Annoying flatlanders was one of her few sources of entertainment these days.
“He’ll be home soon,” Elena said. “For your name day feast, if not before.”
Her father had gone south on yet another trading expedition, crossing Arden to We’enhaven and beyond. Risky in wartime, but in wartime, trade goods brought high prices.
“I worry about him,” Raisa said. “They say the fighting is fierce in the south.”
Elena squeezed her hand. “Your father was a warrior before he was a trader,” she said. “He knows how to take care of himself.”
Take me back with you to Demonai, Raisa wanted to say. I’m already tired of being here, displayed like a jewel in an ill-fitting setting. But she only thanked her grandmother and turned away.
A dozen youngling courtiers had claimed space by the fireplace. Since Raisa’s return, more and more of the nobility were sending their offspring to court, putting them under the nose of the princess heir, hoping to make—if not a marriage—connections that would benefit the family in the future.
Big-boned, gregarious Wil Mathis overflowed a chair by the hearth. The eighteen-year-old wizard heir to Fortress Rock, an estate along the Firehole River toward Chalk Cliffs, he was easygoing, unambitious, and a bit lazy, and so more charming than most of his kind. He preferred to spend his time hunting, dicing, playing at cards, and chatting up girls, avoiding the realm of politics.
Next to Wil was Adam Gryphon, who had parked his wheeled chair next to the fireplace. Adam was also heir to a powerful wizard house, but an accident in childhood had left his legs shriveled. He got about by using a wheeled chair or a pair of arm canes.
Raisa didn’t know Adam very well. He’d been away at school at Oden’s Ford for three years. Even when he was home, he seemed to prefer the company of books. His acid tongue drove off those who might otherwise pity him. His parents must have dragged him back to court for the season.
Raisa’s cousins Jon and Melissa Hakkam were there, and Raisa’s sister, Mellony, whose royal status gave her standing with the older crowd. The handsome, blond, vacant Klemath brothers, Kip and Keith, were stuffing down cheese, laughing loudly at nothing in particular. Their parents probably had hopes that one of the two would catch Raisa’s eye. They’d been courting her with a clumsy enthusiasm, like a pair of sloppy-tongued golden retrievers.
“Could I bring you a glass of wine, Your Highness?” Keith asked.
&nb
sp; “I’ll bring you one too,” Kip added, glaring at his brother. They bounded off.
As if she would marry anyone named Kip.
Micah leaned against the fireplace, flanked by his twin sister, Fiona, and surrounded by his usual coterie of admiring girls. Melissa and Mellony hung on his every word. Raisa had to admit, he’d cleaned up well—he wore a black silk coat and gray trousers that set off his falcon stoles. His hands were bandaged and he still looked rather pale against his mane of blue-black hair. As Raisa watched, he set an empty wineglass on a table and grabbed a full one from a passing server. Fiona leaned in and murmured something to him. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it. He shook his head, scowling, and turned slightly away from her.
Both wizards, Fiona and Micah were like negative images of each other, each striking. They were the same height and shared the same lean bone structure, angular facial features, and acerbic wit. Fiona’s hair was stark white, down to her eyelashes and eyebrows; even her eyes were a pale blue, like shadow on snow.
Fiona and Micah quarreled constantly, but cross one and you’d have both to contend with.
“Weren’t you frightened when you saw the fire?” Missy asked Micah, her blue eyes wide and horrified. “I know I would have turned tail and run right back down the mountain.”
Raisa struggled to keep from making a face or mimicking Missy’s vapid demeanor.
A lady keeps critical thoughts to herself.
“I was frightened,” Mellony put in, blushing. “But Micah came riding right into our midst and told us the fire was coming, that we should make a run for it. He was already burned from trying to put the fire out, but he wasn’t scared at all.”
Micah seemed uncharacteristically reluctant to talk about his exploits. “Well, good it came out all right in the end. Would anyone else like more wine?”
“Didn’t Mellony say you came late to the hunt?” Missy said, putting her shoulders back to better display her oversized bosom. “How did you get between the queen and the fire?”
The Seven Realms- The Complete Series Page 6
