Han tried to prevent surprise from splashing over his face. “She has?” he blurted. He couldn’t help looking around for Raisa on the dance floor again.
“Easy,” Fiona snapped, jerking her arm away from his hand. “You’re leaking.”
“Sorry,” he said, getting his flash under control. “I’m just surprised is all, after everything that’s happened. Why would she do that?”
Fiona smiled grimly. “Why do you think? Micah is handsome and charming and quite persuasive himself. And he works fast. So if we want to prevent a betrothal or elopement, we need to work fast. I’m willing to snarl up Micah’s plans in my own interest, but it could get very complicated if my brother marries her.”
Complicated? You could say so, Han thought, his belly twisting into a knot. It could get complicated when I murder your brother.
The song ended and they coasted to a stop. And, there, so close he could have spit on them, Han saw Micah Bayar shooing off a glowering Nightwalker. Micah gripped Raisa’s elbows like they belonged to him, smiling down at her, ready to claim the next dance and more. And she was smiling back at him as they glided away.
Micah works fast, Fiona had said. Han’s temper flared. It was bad enough watching her with Nightwalker. How could she even stomach Micah after all he’d done? What was she thinking?
Micah and Raisa swept past again. Micah’s hand was at Raisa’s waist, pressing her closer, his head bent down so he could whisper lies in her ear, his lips practically touching her skin.
I should have killed him when I’d had the chance, Han thought, flexing the fingers on his blade hand. I need to put the Bayars out of the wizard business for good.
“Will you control yourself?” Fiona snapped, jerking away and rubbing her arm. “What’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing,” Han said, refocusing on Fiona’s face. “It’s nothing.”
Fiona eyed him as if she didn’t quite believe him. “We’ll talk soon—I’ll find a way.” She took a step back from Han. “In the meantime, think about what I said.”
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - F O U R
SECOND
THOUGHTS
Magret Gray was as good as her word. She did her best to smooth away Cat’s ragged edges and teach her the basic duties of a chambermaid. With Magret’s backing, Cat forged links with the upstairs staff and learned the names and ranks of nearly everyone who frequented the palace on a daily basis. Both Cat and Magret seemed to be determined to make a go of it.
Still, it wasn’t easy. Raisa’s Mistress of the Queen’s Bedchamber wasn’t used to having her authority questioned when it came to protocol and manners. Though Cat’s year at the Temple School had shaped and rough-polished her, she didn’t take criticism well. She always had to know the why and wherefore along with the who and the what.
Sometimes Raisa returned to her suite to find Magret and Cat icily ignoring each other. Once, they were so caught up in a shouting match that they didn’t even hear her come in.
Magret? Shouting?
Raisa didn’t have time to referee. Her coronation was officially scheduled for her seventeenth birthday. Guests poured into Fellsmarch as the date drew closer. At first it was mostly homegrown nobility and wizards from all parts of the Fells. Every scrap of guest space in the castle and all of the other buildings within the close were filled to capacity. Those of lower rank found themselves stranded outside the walls, pining to be inside.
Some of the choicest apartments inside the close were still empty, reserved for royalty arriving from the down-realms, including the king of Arden. Most would arrive immediately before the coronation, and stay through the ball and the receptions that followed.
Micah Bayar and Reid Nightwalker attended nearly every party, each dancing with Raisa as often as possible and keeping a weather eye on his competition. Han was always there also. She often spotted him standing against the wall, his eyes following Raisa and her suitors around the room.
It couldn’t have been easy to focus, with all the distractions. Han received considerable attention from the ladies of the court, as well as foreign visitors. A ruthless streetlord, a thief, a gifted member of the Wizard Council, and heartbreakingly handsome—what more could a lady want—in a paramour, anyway?
He danced constantly—with Missy Hakkam, with his classmates from Mystwerk, and with Pearlie Greenholt, since Talia was still convalescing. He was always at the center of a fluffy crowd. Raisa couldn’t help noticing whom he danced with, and how often, and how gracefully he circled the floor, his golden hair gleaming in the torchlight.
Especially since he never danced with her.
Missy Hakkam was a glittering planet in orbit around Han, when she wasn’t flirting with this or that minor prince from the down-realms. Raisa’s cousin seized every opportunity to touch Han, to hang on him, and she giggled furiously at everything he said.
But that wasn’t the worst thing. At a party two nights before the coronation, Raisa saw Han dancing with Fiona Bayar. As Raisa circled past with Nightwalker, Fiona had her arms wound around Han’s neck, her head resting on his shoulder, pressed in so tight you couldn’t get a hand between them.
Find a back hallway somewhere! Raisa thought crossly.
On second thought, no, don’t, she amended.
As Raisa watched, Fiona tilted her head up, smiling at something Han said. She didn’t have to tilt far, she was so bloody tall.
Don’t you know how risky it is, getting that close to Fiona? Raisa thought. She’s just after your amulet, you know. Anyway, I thought you hated the Bayars. Don’t you even know how to hold a proper grudge?
Traditionally, the princess heir spent the night before her coronation ball sequestered, praying to the Maker and her ancestors for guidance. Raisa dutifully dressed in temple trousers and a tunic and instructed the guards outside the door to admit no one.
After Magret left, Raisa knelt before the altar in her sitting room and tried to focus. It wasn’t that she couldn’t use a little divine intervention, given her present situation. But her mind kept straying to other things, bouncing from present to past.
Raisa couldn’t help thinking of her name day, almost exactly a year ago. Waiting with Magret for her father to come, to escort her to the temple. Gavan Bayar had come instead, which had precipitated a whole chain of events that was still playing out. She would be seventeen tomorrow. She’d been just a year from name day to coronation.
Raisa felt claustrophobic, much as she had a year ago. It was as if once again a trap was closing around her, doors closing on possibilities. She was suffocating. She needed fresh air.
Pushing to her feet, Raisa hurried through her bedroom, past the elaborate temple robes laid out next to the bed, past the dress form in the corner draped in her ball gown. She plunged straight into her closet, raking aside dresses until she reached the back wall. Clawing open all of the latches and bolts Amon had insisted on installing, she pressed her hands against the hidden door. It swung silently outward.
Raisa flew down the dark tunnel, finding her way by touch, not bothering to light a torch. Finally the corridor widened, and she knew she’d reached the bottom of the staircase to the garden.
Groping blindly, she found the ladder and began to climb.
When she reached the top, she pushed with both hands, wrestling aside the stone covering the entrance. When she emerged in the garden temple on the roof of the castle, it was full dark, though the moon was on the rise.
Raisa walked out into the garden, under the glasshouse roof, breathing in the moist air of the conservatory, redolent with summer hyacinth and mountain jasmine. The great starry dome of the sky soared overhead, making Raisa feel very small. Too small for the job she’d taken on.
Moving to the edge of the terrace, she looked down on the city below. Wizard lights embroidered the streets, pooling in doorways. Carriages rattled along the Way, no doubt bound for one party or another. A wisp of music floated up to her—a basilka, it sounded like, playing Hanalea’s Lament.
&nb
sp; Raisa shivered and turned away.
Returning to the small temple, she knelt again on the stone floor and began the Meditation of the Queens in a low, fierce voice.
“Hail Marianna ana’Lissa ana’Theraise ana’Adra ana’Doria ana’Julianna ana’Lara ana’Lucinda ana’Michaela ana’Helena ana’Rissa ana’Rosa ana’Althea ana’Isabella…” She continued through all thirty-two queens since the Breaking, ending, as always, with Hanalea ana’Maria. “Hear me! Your daughter Raisa calls on you.”
As she continued with the words of the prayer, the temple around her shimmered and faded into mist. The familiar lupine forms of the Gray Wolf queens came forward, sitting in a circle around her, curling their tails around their feet.
Here was green-eyed Althea, and gray-eyed Hanalea. And the blue-eyed wolf Raisa had seen at her mother’s memorial—slender and graceful, with pale fur and small delicate paws. Her form shimmered, pale and insubstantial. For a moment, Raisa thought she saw the image of a woman.
Raisa came forward on her knees. “Mother?” she whispered, her voice trembling.
The blue-eyed wolf ducked her head, as if ashamed, then turned tail and disappeared into the mist, her tail pluming behind her.
“Yes,” Althea said. “That was Marianna. She has not yet accepted her wolf form, I’m afraid.”
“But…” Raisa extended her hands as if she could drag her mother back. “I need to talk to her. I want to find out what happened. If—if it was an accident. Or if—”
“She won’t be able to speak to you,” Hanalea said, her gray eyes kind and sad. “Not for months. What we do—communication across the veil—it’s unnatural. It takes time to master.”
The implications of this penetrated slowly, like a chilly draft under the door. “Well, I need to know—did she kill herself? Was it an accident? And, if not, who killed her?” Raisa looked from Hanalea to Althea, hoping to read something in their wolf faces.
The Gray Wolf queens looked at each other. Althea put her ears back and showed her teeth at Hanalea. Hanalea shrugged, if wolves can be said to do such things.
“We’ve been given the privilege of remaining in the Spirits,” Althea said. “We watch over the City of Light instead of crossing to the shadowlands. With privileges come restrictions. We cannot change history by giving you information you wouldn’t know otherwise.”
“That’s not helpful,” Raisa snapped. “I was promised the gift of prophesy. I can’t govern with a pocketful of platitudes and vague warnings and reassurances. You told me the Gray Wolf line is hanging by a thread. I want to know how to keep it from breaking.”
Hanalea and Althea looked at each other.
“All we can do is help you recognize what is in your own heart, Raisa,” Hanalea said softly. “You have access to all the knowledge and all the gifts you need to survive, if you will use them. You will have the chance to right a great wrong.”
“What about my mother?” Raisa asked. “Did she have everything she needed? Theoretically, anyway?”
Once again, they looked at each other as if they were straying close to the boundary of what was permitted.
“You must use all the strengths of the Gray Wolf line in order to win,” Althea said.
“The time will come when you will be forced to make a choice,” Hanalea said. “When that time comes, choose love.”
The Gray Wolf queens rose as one, turned, and trotted into the mist.
Raisa slumped back on her heels, head bowed, seized by a fear of failure. What use was it to know that she could win if she only knew how to go about it? Losing would cut that much closer to the heart.
Choose love! As if that were an option for the Gray Wolf queens.
Though she’d learned a tremendous amount in the past year, it was still too short a time. She’d thought she would have years to prepare, years to work with her mother as a queen in training.
Tears burned in her eyes. There’s likely never been such a weepy queen, she thought.
A thought struck her. She could run away, like she had a year ago, when her mother had tried to marry her to Micah Bayar. She could be halfway to Delphi by morning, and continue on to Oden’s Ford. She could enter the Temple School and become a dedicate.
And the Gray Wolf line could unravel in her wake.
It’s just as well, she thought dispiritedly. What kind of dedicate would you be? You can’t even manage to meditate for a night, let alone a lifetime.
It’s not fair, she thought. I should be going to parties. I should be kissing lots of boys. I’m too young to be queen. Too young to be sparring with wizards.
Relax, she told herself. There’s not a wizard in sight.
And then something made her look up to see Han Alister standing in the doorway of the temple.
She didn’t know how long he’d been there staring at her, but it seemed to take him by surprise when she looked up and caught him. His usual street face was gone. In its place was a wistful vulnerability, a kind of feverish and hopeless desire.
Magret had said he had a hungry look about him. Was that what she’d meant? And what exactly was he was hungry for?
And then it was gone, replaced by what he called his street face, and Raisa thought maybe she’d imagined it.
He walked toward her, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in black, a frequent choice for him these days. But tonight his clothes were uncommonly elegant. Lace cuffs drooped over his hands, and his coat was finely tailored.
“Your Highness,” he said, bowing stiffly. “Almost Your Majesty. Having second thoughts about climbing onto the Gray Wolf throne?”
Raisa rocked to her feet, swiping away her tears. “How did you get up here? How did you find me? I’m supposed to be alone.”
“I came up the side,” Han said, nodding toward the edge of the roof as if she should have figured that out on her own. He made a show of looking around. “I thought maybe I’d find Micah Bayar up here,” he said.
“Why would Micah be here, of all people?” Raisa snapped.
“Last night, at the dance, you two were snuggled in so close I worried he might strum you on the fly,” Han said.
“Just stop with the thieves’ slang, all right?” Raisa said furiously. “I have no interest in taking up with Micah Bayar again.”
“Again?” Han raised an eyebrow.
Raisa folded her arms, lifted her chin, and said nothing.
“Anyway, that’s not what I hear,” he said. He paused, and when she volunteered nothing, added, “I can’t believe that you would let him put a hand on you again.”
“It’s complicated,” she said, in no mood for confession. “I’m putting on a show, and not for you. Anyway, what about you and Fiona?”
His eyes narrowed. “Fiona? What about Fiona?”
“At the dance. I never saw two people so wrapped around each other—who were standing up, that is.”
“I can handle Fiona,” Han said.
“That’s exactly what you were doing,” Raisa said sweetly. “Handling her. Why is it that I should be reassured that you can manage Fiona, but you have no confidence that I can manage Micah? That’s condescending, Alister.”
Han shook back the lace and counted off the reasons on his fingers. “Because he has the morals of a flatland slave trader. Because he’s a wizard and you’re not. Because he’s a Bayar. Because no girlie that catches his eye is safe from him.” He paused. “Because I think you still have feelings for him, and he will use that against you.”
“You are wrong,” Raisa said flatly. They stood glaring at each other for a space of time, and then Raisa sighed. “Let’s not fight about the Bayars tonight, all right? Did you really come up here to talk about them?”
“No,” Han said. “I wanted to see you one last time before the coronation.” After a moment’s hesitation, he took her arm and led her over to the bench by the fishpond—the same bench Raisa and Amon had shared the night he’d returned to the Fells from Oden’s Ford more than a year ago.
Rai
sa sat, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. Han sat next to her, staring out at the pond, seeming at a loss for something to say.
At least the cold, distant Alister was gone, temporarily, at least.
“Tomorrow night, there’ll be fireworks,” Raisa said, to fill the silence. “At the end of the ball. This would be a good place to watch from.” She chewed on a fingernail, then dropped her hands quickly. It wouldn’t do to ruin her hands for tomorrow.
Probably a lost cause anyway.
“Remember the night we met at Oden’s Ford?” Han said, still looking straight ahead. “There were fireworks that night, too.
“I do remember,” Raisa said. “It seems like a long time ago.”
“Not so long,” Han said.
A breeze swept down off Hanalea, rattling the glass, carrying the sting of high country snows. Raisa shivered, and Han slipped an arm around her shoulders, drawing her close. The heat of him soothed her, loosening the tight coil of worry wound up inside her.
“There’s something about a roof, isn’t there?” Han said. “It makes you feel like it doesn’t matter what’s going on below. All of those things that get in the way of your dreams—you’re above them. Anything is possible.”
“Anything is possible,” Raisa repeated. Once again, her eyes welled with tears.
What was the matter with her? She wanted to be queen. She’d fought for it, struggled to get back to the Fells to protect her right to the throne. Was she just weepy over her mother’s death, all those lost opportunities, or was it something else?
Was she closing a door that could never be reopened? Was she making a trade she would eventually regret?
Choose love, Hanalea had said. Raisa was acutely aware of Han’s presence next to her. Once she was queen, that door would be closed forever.
“You know, this is where Queen Hanalea used to meet with Alger Waterlow,” Han said, shocking her out of her reverie.
“What?”
“They used to come up here and make love in this rooftop garden,” Han said, stretching out his long legs. “Before they ran off to Gray Lady. Now there was a queen who wasn’t afraid to take a chance.”
The Seven Realms- The Complete Series Page 129
