The Misted Cliffs

by Catherine Asaro

  It didn’t fool Cobalt. It never had.

  He should have known Stonebreaker wouldn’t respect Dancer’s wish to face Varqelle in private. Saints forbid you might show sympathy, Cobalt thought, wishing he could pierce the king with his anger. Dancer should have sat in the queen’s throne; as her mother’s heir, she had the right. But she came nowhere near Stonebreaker. She stood by the door on the opposite side of the chamber, ready to escape.

  Cobalt waited below the dais while Varqelle paced back and forth up by Stonebreaker. “Some of the soldiers in the Harsdown army would probably come over to us,” Varqelle was saying. “I had good men.”

  “We cannot count on this,” Stonebreaker answered. “It has been eighteen years. Many of them will no longer be in the army. Others may have genuinely changed allegiance to Dawnfield.”

  Varqelle considered him from the other side of the empty throne. “My men are loyal.”

  “It has been a long time.” Stonebreaker tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Muller Dawnfield is reputed to be a good commander. He also has Sphere-General Fieldson.”

  Varqelle didn’t argue. Cobalt approved of his restraint. Stonebreaker detested people who challenged him, and neither he nor Varqelle had any liking for the other. However, Varqelle had no military force, nor was he likely to get one by angering Stonebreaker. If they did raise an army, Cobalt knew his father expected him to act as his general. Why else free Varqelle? Why, indeed. Cobalt wanted answers to questions that had driven him all his life. He was part Chamberlight and part Escar, and he needed to know what that meant. If finding answers meant he would sweep down from the Misted Cliffs at the head of an avenging army, so be it.

  “Dancer.” Stonebreaker beckoned to his daughter. “Come.”

  Cobalt gritted his teeth at his grandfather’s condescending tone. He turned toward his mother, ready to intervene, but she shook her head slightly at him. She walked forward and her silks drifted around her body. Varqelle watched her with an intensity that burned. When Dancer came onto the dais, Stonebreaker glanced at Varqelle. Cobalt knew then why the king had come here; he wanted Varqelle to see that nothing had changed. Dancer belonged to the Misted Cliffs, not Harsdown. Cobalt wondered why his grandfather had ever agreed to any marriage, given how much he resented anyone taking Dancer’s attention. If it was because he wanted an heir and couldn’t get another one himself, no sign of that showed in his attitude toward Cobalt.

  By tradition, royals had one child. In ages past, the custom had been slightly different: they had one legitimate offspring. With infant mortality rates so high, a king made sure he had plenty of progeny available. If something happened to his heir, he legitimized his favorite “spare.” Historians placed the origins of the custom in a distant past when resources were few and a sovereign concentrated them on his heir. The supposed experts of those ancient times also claimed the blood of the king and queen was somehow purer if it wasn’t “diluted” among more than one child. Cobalt thought his ancestors must have been daft to believe such a theory. More likely, they used it as an excuse to dally with their mistresses.

  In this modern age of physicians and advanced herbal lore, children were far more likely to reach adulthood, and society was less tolerant of an adulterous monarch. Some royals had more than one legitimate child, such as King Jarid in Aronsdale. Cobalt would have liked siblings, a younger brother or sister he could love. But he always pushed away the thought. He would never wish his miserable childhood on anyone else.

  Dancer mounted the dais and stood before Stonebreaker. “Yes, Father?”

  He sat relaxed, his manner deceptively casual. “You have been quiet during this discussion.”

  “I have nothing to add.”

  “Really?” He indicated Varqelle, who had gone completely still, like a statue. “Have you no opinion as to whether or not your husband should reclaim his throne?”

  Her face showed no expression. “My opinion is that you and my husband are better able to judge matters of war.”

  Varqelle spoke. “You have nothing to say?” More to himself than her, he added, “You never did.”

  Cobalt almost retorted that of course a woman of half a century would be more articulate than a sixteen-year-old child bride. But he held back. He knew Dancer; she would answer for herself or not at all. She often kept her silence for the same reason Cobalt kept his: Stonebreaker. Denied the chance to use his fists, the Chamberlight king turned his words into blows. They had long ago learned that fighting his verbal sallies only invited more. And despite Cobalt’s warning, even now Stonebreaker sometimes became violent. Better never to speak. However, Cobalt remained on guard, ready to intervene if necessary.

  “She has always prattled.” Stonebreaker motioned idly at Cobalt. “At least he never talks. It is one of his few redeeming qualities.”

  Dancer flushed and Cobalt stiffened.

  Varqelle looked from Stonebreaker to his wife, his gaze narrowed. Assessing. He spoke to Dancer. “If I regain my throne, will you join me in Harsdown?”

  Cobalt felt suddenly shoved off balance. He hadn’t expected that question. But he had hoped. Saints, he had hoped. Would they try again, incredibly, after all these years?

  Dancer glanced at her father. His steel-gray eyebrows drew together. It was a simple expression, but Cobalt knew what it meant. In his youth, it had preceded the king’s rages, when he used his fists. Now it warned of other retaliation, such as his coming here when Dancer had requested otherwise.

  She turned to Varqelle. “I have my life here.”

  His voice tightened. “Thirty-four years ago you swore a vow to me, Dancer Chamberlight Escar. Hardly more than a year later you broke it. You have a chance now to make amends. I would think well before you refuse.”

  Why must you all threaten her? Cobalt thought. Just tell her you want her back.

  Stonebreaker rose to his feet. “She has given her answer.” He grasped his daughter’s arm, his large hand clenching it so hard that Cobalt could almost see bruises form. Even as Dancer flinched and tried to pull away, Stonebreaker reached for her other arm.

  Cobalt went up the dais, his step firm. He stood closer to Stonebreaker than custom allowed, deliberately intimidating with his height. Cobalt was one of the few people alive who could look down at Stonebreaker.

  “I can escort Mother to her suite.” Cobalt almost said the queen, but he stopped, knowing Stonebreaker would hear it as a taunt, a reminder that she “belonged” to Varqelle.

  For an instant, Cobalt feared his grandfather wouldn’t release her. Then Stonebreaker dropped Dancer’s arm and turned to Varqelle, dismissing his daughter and grandson.

  “You and I can continue this over wine,” the Chamberlight king told his son-in-law.

  Varqelle was watching them all closely. It was a moment before he said, “Yes. Certainly.” He didn’t look pleased.

  Cobalt offered his arm to his mother. She set her palm on his forearm in the traditional gesture of a queen escorted by a male relative. Her hand shook, but his body hid it from the two kings. Cobalt and Dancer descended the dais and crossed the chamber, going past the guards, neither of them looking to either side. When they came outside onto the landing of the staircase, Cobalt closed the door, leaving the others in the room, and he and his mother out here in relative safety.

  “Saints.” Dancer leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

  “I should have guessed Stonebreaker would come,” Cobalt said, angry with himself. “I should have taken Varqelle straight to the Diamond Palace instead of letting them come here to bother you.”

  She opened her eyes. “Don’t castigate yourself. It isn’t your fault that neither of them are easy men.”

  He grimaced. “To say Grandfather isn’t easy is an understatement of magnificent proportions.”

  “I would have wished a different life for you.” Moisture gathered in her eyes. “I can bring to you the Chamberlight Throne, the most powerful in these lands, but I cannot give yo
u something as simple as the unfettered love of your family.”

  “Mother, don’t cry.” Cobalt spoke awkwardly. “You gave me yours. That is what matters.”

  She wiped her cheek and tried to smile. “When will you find yourself a wife? It is well past time. You need a lovely young sweetheart.”

  He couldn’t imagine one that would want him. In fact, he could hardly imagine women at all. He had gone to courtesans in the past, but he found little comfort in it. He rarely interacted with anyone. In his youth, Stonebreaker had isolated him from other children, and Cobalt didn’t know how to form friendships. He had grown up with no one to talk to except Dancer, Matthew, a few other servants, and the bodyguards who protected him from assassination. If only they could have protected him from the king. Although those days of violence had mostly ended, Cobalt sometimes thought words did more harm than blows. He had little to give to a wife, even if one would have agreed to endure his presence for the rest of her life, which he found unlikely.

  “I would inflict myself on no woman,” he said.

  “Why do you talk like that?” She spoke firmly. “You are a fine man, strong and loyal. You should not lose confidence in your heart or your goodness.”

  “Goodness?” Only a mother would have such a deluded view of a man like him. “I killed many men to bring Father here. That is hardly goodness.”

  “You didn’t imprison him. Nor are you responsible for his decision to invade Aronsdale.” Her hand gripped the stone wall. “His sins are not yours. The same is true of my father, no matter how hard he tries to make you believe otherwise.”

  Cobalt couldn’t talk about Stonebreaker. His emotions there were shards of glass that cut. “Why did you leave my father?”

  She went rigid. “Please don’t.”

  “You never answer me. Why?”

  “I did what I believed best for you. This will always be my answer.” She pushed a tendril of hair off her face. “My life with your father is private.”

  “You brought me here.” To hell. “I deserve to know why.”

  “Because it was better here than there.”

  “Varqelle is no monster.”

  “Let it go, Cobalt.”

  “I cannot.”

  “I did my best.” She took a shaky breath. “Someday you will be king, possibly of two countries. It is small recompense for this life, but it was the best I could do.”

  Cobalt didn’t want to argue. It hurt too much. He gestured toward the stairs. “Shall we go down? I believe the chamber musicians have a concert planned for this evening.”

  Dancer hesitated, searching his face. “All right.” She stepped past, her silks rustling, and headed down the stairs.

  Cobalt followed, brooding. Varqelle and Stonebreaker would plot and discuss, until finally they laid the plans for a war that would demolish all three countries, a war where Cobalt would go out and prove to Dancer beyond any doubt that he was, truly, the irredeemable monster the world believed.

  The envoy from Aronsdale arrived at the Diamond Palace in the morning of a cool summer day. The fog had burned off and no longer shrouded the lowlands. Fertile countryside started at the base of the mountains on the eastern border of the Misted Cliffs and stretched out to the west in rolling hills of green. The palace sparkled on a hillside, hard and brilliant, its spires translucent, its gilded bulb towers reminiscent of Taka Mal, a country of scalloped architecture and bridges, or of Shazire, land of silk and silver.

  Lord Brant Firestoke led the emissaries. He had lived all his life in Aronsdale, more then seven decades, and had served as an adviser for the last two kings. His shoulder-length gray hair swept back from his face, accenting the widow’s peak on his forehead. He had deeply set gray eyes. His austere presence had made many a young man feel callow, but beneath Firestoke’s sober exterior was a man known for his integrity, humor, and loyalty to the House of Dawnfield.

  He rode with an honor guard from the Aronsdale army, thirty men on horseback in ceremonial armor. They wore the colors of Dawnfield, indigo and white. At the border between Harsdown and the Misted Cliffs, a company of fifty Chamberlight men met them, and escorted them through the cliffs to the lowlands beyond.

  Now the travelers clattered into a courtyard of the palace, eighty mounted men armed with swords. Although no one had forced the Aronsdale warriors to disarm, the men in the Chamberlight company were at least as heavily armed and they easily outnumbered Firestoke’s men.

  So the representatives of Aronsdale arrived to negotiate with the Chamberlight king.

  Stonebreaker met with the emissaries in the Hall of Sapphires. It was a larger affair than the Gales Chamber in the Castle of Clouds. Diamonds and sapphires encrusted the gilded chairs on the dais and left no doubt as to the wealth of the Chamberlight king, who sat on one of the two thrones. He reigned over a country rich in resources, including the farmlands where most of his people lived and the prosperous mines in the eastern cliffs. His country exported far more goods than it imported, and it was the only settled land with a seacoast and thriving merchant trade. Even after losing a third of its territory two centuries ago, the Misted Cliffs remained the strongest and wealthiest of the settled lands.

  Today Stonebreaker gave the second throne on the dais to Varqelle. Cobalt had no doubt about the message his grandfather intended for the envoy: the House of Chamberlight considered Varqelle Escar a full sovereign. It also sent a private, colder message to Dancer. By rights, she should have sat in the second throne—and Stonebreaker knew she would have done so here in the Diamond Palace rather than lose face before the royal court. But he forestalled her. He would of course say he assumed she wouldn’t sit with him after she had declined at the Castle of the Clouds. Maybe that was even true. But Cobalt suspected this was retaliation. Dancer had avoided Stonebreaker when he had wanted to make a point with Varqelle, so now he shamed her in front of the royal court and the Aronsdale emissaries.

  Cobalt stayed in the columns to the right of the dais, near the wall, inconspicuous. One could learn much by fading into the background. Dancer stood by another column. She had draped herself in blue silks, and she wore a long silk scarf over her head. A veil covered her face. Although she had told him she could see through the veil, it hid her face from everyone except those who looked too closely for courtesy. She wore it often at the Diamond Palace, and it let her watch while she remained hidden.

  Lord Firestoke came to the dais and went down on one knee to King Stonebreaker. After a pause that stretched out longer than necessary, Stonebreaker said, “You may stand.”

  Firestoke rose to his feet. He was lean and fit, with the well-developed shoulders and arms that implied he had wielded a sword often in his youth and continued to practice now. He had an aspect of intelligence, though Cobalt couldn’t define exactly why. The best he could say was that the lines of Firestoke’s face looked as if they had been set by a man who thought a great deal and acted on his principles.

  “The Misted Cliffs bids you greeting,” Stonebreaker said, giving a traditional response that indicated welcome tempered by wariness.

  Firestoke inclined his head. “King Jarid sends his greetings and salutations.”

  Stonebreaker raised an eyebrow. “But not himself.”

  “He wished to come,” Firestoke replied. “However, his advisers didn’t consider it safe for him to travel.”

  Cobalt thought it an acceptable answer, neutral without being coy. Everyone in this room knew why Jarid hadn’t come. Even with a promise of safe passage, which the Aronsdale king didn’t have, he would have been ill-advised to enter a country whose crown prince had just perpetrated an act of war against him.

  Stonebreaker, however, narrowed his gaze. “How convenient.”

  Cobalt gritted his teeth. What did his grandfather expect, that Dawnfield would be stupid enough to come here himself? Fortunately, Firestoke didn’t respond to the dig. He and Stonebreaker continued the formalities and expected protocols, always with subtle jabs from the C
hamberlight king.

  As a child, Cobalt hadn’t wanted to believe his grandfather acted with malice. Every time Stonebreaker had given him some crumb of approval, his hope had surged. Perhaps the king would finally accept him, praise him, even love him. He knew better now. Stonebreaker lacked a crucial trait: He couldn’t interpret emotions, neither his own nor those of others. That alone didn’t make him cruel. But he also had no moral sense in how he treated people. Combined with his inability to judge the impact of his words or actions, it left him unable to comprehend the harm he caused. He simply didn’t care. He was intelligent, however. He knew that to rule successfully, he had to deal fairly with his advisers, officers, and royal court. But he gained some perverse satisfaction in setting people against one another, perhaps because it drew attention away from his own flaws.

  Cobalt doubted anything could prevent this war that couldn’t be won. His father and grandfather wanted it too much. What unsettled him even more was that a darkness within him welcomed the specter of battle.

  “The answer is clear,” Varqelle told Brant Firestoke. “A pretender sits on my throne. If your king does what is right and removes his cousin, we will avoid hostilities.”

  Firestoke met his gaze. “Harsdown attacked Aronsdale without provocation, Lord Varqelle.”

  Lord. Not king. Cobalt could almost feel his father bristle, though Varqelle showed no outward reaction. They were seated around an oak table in Stonebreaker’s Sapphire Chamber, a circular room deep within the castle. It had a recessed floor and maps of all the countries on the walls. Cobalt had met here with his men to plan his expedition against the Citadel of Rumors, and it was here where they would design strategy against Harsdown. This war was madness and they all knew it; Stonebreaker might have a bigger army, but not by much, and the Dawnfields had their cursed mages. Such an offense, that they sent women into battle; even worse, it worked. Cobalt didn’t believe those women were sorceresses, but they did possess an uncanny ability to predict strategies of the opposing army.