Dreaming Death

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  Shironne set aside the man’s book of his god, a book that was mostly a book about himself. Her own perception of the true god probably couldn’t stand too close an examination, something she should consider later.

  She looked instead for his more recent decision, whom to kill and when, and tucked that information away within the pages of one of her own books so she would remember it for the colonel. She found a book with everything Ramanet knew of the poison he’d used on Kai, what he’d perceived as an improvement on his father’s plans. Snail poison, imported from the drowning islands far to the south.

  That was what she’d come after, wasn’t it?

  Then she looked into his book that delineated everything he knew about his powers, the history of his clan, and how they’d used their powers through the centuries. It was likely half legend and half lies, but she took that information and hid it deep inside, to view someday when she felt more ready than she did now. She wasn’t sure that day would ever come.

  For a time she simply remained there in his dead mind, watching it crumble about her, the wood of the shelves rotting and collapsing. It was tempting to stay there to watch it all crumble down until it was dust and, after a few days, was nothing. But she pulled away, imagining that she wrapped her hand around her focus, and threw herself back into the real world, where Mikael waited and worried.

  Shironne drew her hand from the cooling flesh under it. “I’m done.”

  • • •

  “Why are you not injured?” Deborah asked Mikael in a vexed tone. “Usually you show up with blood all over your face, dear.”

  Three coaches had arrived by that time, dispatched from the fortress as soon as the sentries received the message Mikael had relayed via the cab driver. A dozen lanterns cast a glow about the area, illuminating a bustle of activity. Sentries wrapped the three priests’ bodies under the watchful eye of the Family’s battle master. Mikael directed him to where he’d left the driver whose nose he’d broken, uncertain whether the man was alive or not. He was simply too tired to care.

  The doctor had patched up Elisabet first, judging her the worst off. Deborah crouched next to Shironne now, bandaging her cut ankle. Shironne sat mute under the doctor’s ministrations, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She’d been quiet since her foray into the priest’s mind, not ready yet to tell Mikael all she’d learned. Mikael thought he understood; he never told anyone everything about his dreams. It was too personal.

  “Is Kai going to be all right?” Mikael asked.

  “We’re not certain,” Deborah said. “Jakob is with him.”

  “Shironne says you have to keep him breathing,” he told her. “If he keeps breathing, he should live.”

  “I suspected that might be the case, but I’m glad to have it confirmed, dear.” Deborah used a clip to secure the bandage about Shironne’s ankle. “We have ways to do that. Kai’s tough.”

  “You must not have wanted to leave him.”

  She licked her lips. “His father and sister are with him, and all the twenty-fours want to sit with him. They don’t need me there. At least here I can be doing something.”

  Mikael spotted Colonel Cerradine emerging from his own carriage. Cerradine grimly surveyed the bodies now laid out on the ground. As Mikael came near, he flicked a blanket back over the face of the priest, Ramanet.

  “Is this him? Are we sure?” Cerradine asked, frowning.

  “Yes, sir.” Mikael squatted down across from him. “Shironne read his memories, sir, but she’s really too tired to—”

  “Is she hurt?” Cerradine interrupted.

  “She cut her ankle,” Mikael told him. “She’ll be fine.”

  He shook his head. “Her mother is going to kill me,” he muttered. “Did she find out why he . . . why David’s dead?”

  “Ask her later, sir, not now. She’s done too much already.” Past wanting to argue, Mikael headed back to the coach.

  Inside, Elisabet leaned against the bolsters, Deborah next to her. Elisabet had a mild concussion after all. Mikael had no fear that she wouldn’t survive it. What did scare him was learning that Elisabet had shot past his head when she couldn’t even focus her eyes properly.

  Shironne waited for him next to the coach, sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. In the light of the lanterns, she looked half-asleep already. Some people did that—fell asleep after a crisis. Mikael reached down, helped her up, and lifted her into the coach. He settled next to her across from Deborah. Shironne’s fingers wrapped around his, and her head drooped against his shoulder.

  “I think it would be wise to get you cleaned up before your mother sees you, Miss Anjir,” Deborah told her.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Shironne said, her eyes drifting shut.

  Mikael put his arm around her, only to keep her from falling off the seat. He felt too worn and filthy to sleep. Shironne, evidently, did not.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The moment they arrived at the palace, Deborah put Shironne back into the hands of Lady Amdiria’s staff. The consort’s quarterguards spirited Shironne away to the upper levels of Above, where her mother and sisters waited.

  Mikael decided to go down to Below, to the infirmary, to check on Kai and Elisabet. Cerradine located him there, anxious for his promised explanation. Since Mikael would rather the colonel interrogate him than Shironne, he sat down with a cup of hot tea to answer the colonel’s questions.

  When he’d finished, Cerradine walked with him past the empty rows of beds to the back room where Kai lay. His breathing sounded ragged and whispery. Dahar sat next to the bed, his head lowered to his hands. Cerradine went, crouched down by his chair, and spoke to him quietly. Deborah walked up behind Mikael and set a hand on his shoulder. When Kai fell ill, she took it nearly as hard as Dahar did. “Will he make it?” he asked.

  “It’s been three hours and he’s still breathing. I think he has a good chance.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Deborah shook her head, edging past him to peer in the doorway. “Thank you for offering, dear. Bringing Elisabet back alive was the best thing you could have done for him.”

  “Dahar looks terrible,” Mikael whispered.

  “I know. He would give his life for Kai’s. It’s killing him not to be able to do anything.”

  Cerradine spotted Deborah then and rose to talk with her, pulling her just outside the doorway again. “Dahar needs you to stay with him, Deborah.”

  “I have other patients.” Deborah protested. “I have to keep an eye on Elisabet. She has . . .”

  “Someone else can take care of Elisabet,” Cerradine interrupted. He touched Deborah’s cheek, giving her a stern look. “He needs you right now more than you need your pride.”

  Frowning, Deborah pulled away from his light touch, but after a moment she crossed to stand next to Dahar’s chair. From the doorway, Mikael watched as Deborah whispered something meant only for Dahar’s ears. He held one hand to his face, his shoulders shaking. Deborah wrapped her arms around him, and he pressed his face into her body, stifling his sobs.

  Suddenly feeling like an intruder, Mikael turned away but saw Jannika standing in the entryway of the infirmary, hands folded tightly before her. He took a couple of deep breaths, knowing his control was already frayed. He went to talk to her anyway. Her expression seemed neutral, but as Mikael got closer, he could see her clenched jaw.

  “Is it true?” she asked. “They said you killed the men who killed Iselin.”

  “Between Master Elisabet and I, we got all of them.”

  Jannika nodded once, turned halfway away, and then glanced over her shoulder with glistening eyes. “Thank you.”

  He never knew what to say when someone thanked him for ending another person’s life.

  “What I said before,” Jannika added, coming back to take his hand, “about not seeing you a
gain. I didn’t mean it. I was letting the ambient move me, and I said things I shouldn’t have.”

  He was glad of that, at least—that she didn’t hate him. But he knew what she wanted him to say, and he couldn’t. “The time’s not right anymore,” he told her. “Too much has changed for me, and—”

  “And you’re expected to marry the prince’s daughter anyway,” Jannika finished with a rueful shrug, revealing that she’d known about Sera all along.

  “It’s not that,” he began, but couldn’t think of where he could take this conversation that wouldn’t end up with him in trouble.

  He closed his eyes for a moment and concentrated, and realized that Shironne was sleeping, somewhere far above the fortress. That was what would keep him from pursuing Jannika . . . or marrying Sera, for that matter. There was a profound link between him and Shironne Anjir, and even though he wasn’t ready to marry anyone, that tie warranted careful consideration. He liked Shironne Anjir—he had from the moment he met her. It would be easy to fall in love with her. As things stood, that path was forbidden. She was a child, and not Family, and he had no idea what she wanted for herself other than to be useful.

  He schooled his thoughts to calmness again. “I need to take some time to consider what I intend to make of my life.”

  Jannika shook her head again. “And I’m not going to be part of it, you mean.”

  As much as he hated to say it, he did so anyway. “No, I don’t think so.”

  She turned his hand loose, lips trembling, but leaned closer and kissed his cheek. “If you need someone to talk to, I’ll still be your friend.”

  Then she turned and walked away, leaving him feeling like a traitor. He went and sat with Elisabet in one of Deborah’s other back rooms instead, watching her sleep. Her yeargroup was notably absent, mourning three of their members already: David, Paal, and now Tova. Mikael wasn’t sure whether they’d stayed away by choice, or if Deborah was holding them at bay. He hoped the latter.

  Elisabet’s blond hair streamed unbound across the pillow. She wore one of the infirmary’s shirts in place of her ruined one. It covered both the new injuries and the old, although Mikael spotted a bandage around one exposed wrist. Her face was bruising now, more evidence that she’d fought her captors.

  Mikael wondered vaguely what she’d been like as a girl, before the priests of Farunas had come to her home and destroyed her family, if she might have been cheerful and friendly like Shironne. He doubted it. She had come out of that experience a blade forged in steel, but she had to have been made of iron before that.

  Elisabet woke at one point and regarded him blearily, which told him that Deborah had dosed her. “Mr. Lee? Is he . . . ?”

  “He’s still alive,” Mikael told her. “They think he’ll live.”

  And shockingly, Elisabet began to cry.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  The rain had passed when Shironne woke, feeling as if it had all been a dream. A chilly finger jabbed at her cheek again. “Hurry, wake up,” Melanna whispered.

  The heavy bedding tucked tightly about Shironne held her captive. She struggled into a sitting position, trying to recollect where she’d washed up last night. The weight on the bed bounced away, Melanna going to tell Mama that she’d finally awoken.

  Shironne recalled ending up in this incense-scented bed somewhere on the third floor of the palace. Lady Amdiria’s two guards had placed her in a room not used for years. They’d found her a nightdress, made for Lady Sera but never worn, and even dug up new linens for the bed. Then she’d had a hot bath. Isolated from everything by the muffling water, she usually didn’t care for baths, but this once she’d relaxed in its comforting warmth; safe, unlike the cold grasp of the river.

  Her cousin Kai would survive. Shironne knew that without asking, because Mikael knew it. She had a distant sense of him now, busy with some errand or assignment. He’d gone down into the city, she realized, tying up loose ends.

  Her mother entered the room, and Melanna jumped up on the bed again, exuberant in her curiosity. Mama sat down next to her and took Shironne’s hand in her own. The familiar scent of vanilla and sandalwood surrounded her.

  “Are you all right?” Shironne asked, sensing her anxiety.

  It frightened Mama to have everything spun so far beyond her control, Shironne could tell. Savelle Anjir could no longer deny her relationship to the king—not given the fact that they sat in the king’s household in the palace and that her daughter wore a princess’ nightgown.

  Shironne fingered the gown’s silk embroidery. She wanted to reassure Mama but couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound childish.

  A brisk presence entered the room, one of the guards returning. Perrin trailed her. Even from the doorway, Shironne could feel her sister’s confusion and exultation. Now that Perrin knew of their royal uncle, she was probably going to be insufferable.

  The quarterguard took command of them, driving Perrin and Melanna back into the sitting room and bullying Shironne out of the bed. Half an hour later, Shironne had been tidied, dressed up like a doll in more of the absent Sera’s unused garments, and set down to a very belated breakfast in the next room over. Since she’d never eaten dinner the day before, she slowly consumed most of the meal laid before her, Melanna cheerfully joining her in a second breakfast. Fortunately, someone had told the kitchens to keep their presentation simple.

  When Shironne finished eating, she spent a long while with her mother and sisters, relating some of what had passed the day before. The story made Perrin afraid and grateful it hadn’t been her. Melanna enjoyed the tale, particularly relishing the fact that Shironne had turned the priest’s gift back on him. Clearly, she didn’t understand the implications of it.

  Her mother worried, being wise enough to know that Shironne had left a great deal unsaid.

  Afterward Melanna insisted that Shironne finish her book with her. With nothing better to do than wait, Shironne sat next to her, listening to her sister’s childish voice as she struggled her way through the very last chapter. Rather predictably, their hero won out and then swore his undying love for the wailing heroine. Shironne suppressed laughter at the disgusted tone of Melanna’s voice.

  Later in the afternoon Dahar arrived, the colonel behind him. Both men radiated exhaustion, which made Shironne want to return to the bedroom and crawl into the overlarge bed with its clean sheets.

  “Eli, would you take the two young ladies out to the courtyard?” Dahar suggested to someone outside the room. “Perhaps you could show them the gardens.”

  The self-satisfied runner Shironne had met the previous day—Gabriel’s cousin, Eli—entered the hall, immediately capturing Perrin’s attention. He asked if Miss Perrin and Miss Melanna would come with him. He must be handsome, or Perrin wouldn’t be so eager to go. Her sisters followed him from the room. Shironne felt gratified they hadn’t sent her away, a tacit admission that they didn’t consider her a child, or not too much of one.

  “We do have a few things we need to discuss,” Dahar said then.

  Shironne grasped her mother’s hand, and even through her gloves read her mother’s resignation.

  Her mother sighed. “Very well.”

  “I don’t know if you are aware,” Dahar began, “that your husband’s mother came from the same clan as the priests of Farunas. We aren’t certain how close their relationship actually is.”

  “Shironne told me,” Mama said. “I’m not surprised—that Tornin might have had such an ability, even if he denied it.”

  “He would have gathered information by touch, Savelle,” Cerradine said. “A sensitive would probably have noticed if he tried to tamper with them, but others wouldn’t.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I’ve . . .”

  Shironne didn’t say anything. She’d always suspected Mama knew far more about Father than she’d ever admit.

/>   Cerradine went on. “Our concern is that we don’t know whether any of the priests sent word back to their clan about Shironne and her powers, or if your husband told anyone before he died. I’d like to keep my people where they are in your household until we’ve had time to assess the risk that they might come after her.”

  Shironne didn’t flinch. She’d known from the moment she’d touched Ramanet that it was a very real possibility.

  “We could move your family here, into the palace,” Dahar offered. “This wing is mostly empty. The House of Valaren also owns several estates, if you’d like to leave the city for a time.”

  Her mother considered the offer, mind spiraling in uneasiness. “There will be talk,” she said hesitantly.

  “Doubtless,” Dahar said. “My aide has gone down to speak with the editors at the various newspapers. He’ll make certain Shironne’s name stays out of the press, I promise.”

  Ah, so that’s where Mikael’s gone.

  Her mother reflected relief. “Thank you.”

  The colonel came then and took Shironne’s hand, suggesting in a whisper that they leave her mother and Dahar alone for a time. He led Shironne from the room under the curious attention of the quarterguards and down many stairs until they came to the stone steps that led from the back of the palace down to the courtyard. Shironne could smell the stables and sun-warmed stone.

  “I’m glad Kai is doing better,” she said when they stopped on the landing.

  The colonel laid her hand on the wall, indicating they should wait there. “Yes, I don’t know how Dahar would manage losing him.”

  While Kai would be physically well soon, Shironne doubted his heart would heal quite so quickly. “He’ll blame himself for Tova’s death,” she said.

  “He should,” Cerradine said bluntly. “He could have caused yours as well. There’s enough blame to go around for everyone this time, except for you.”