The Misted Cliffs

by Catherine Asaro

  Varqelle glanced at his son. “She speaks well.”

  Cobalt squinted at him. “She speaks a lot.”

  “Women do that,” Varqelle said.

  Mel wished they would speak to her instead of about her. With Cobalt, she doubted the slight was deliberate, but Varqelle was another story. Nor could she forget: This was the man who had almost brought Aronsdale to its knees eighteen years ago. Had he succeeded, he would have killed her uncle Jarid and her father as well, possibly her mother, too, or taken Chime as a prize. Mel could think of nothing positive to say to him, so she said nothing.

  Thinking of her cousins made Mel remember Aron, and her heart seemed to lurch. She had put him out of her mind, knowing she must, but now memories flooded back. He was full of life and mischief, with his brown hair sticking up over one ear. They had known most of their lives that they would marry. He had written her poetry. Now all of that was gone. Instead, she had lain with the son of the man who had tried to kill Aron’s father. Even worse, she had enjoyed it. Guilt washed over her and she wanted to sink into the flagstones.

  Mel looked away, past the guards, horses, and grooms to the open area beyond the entrance in the great wall. Men were cranking the gate closed, turning huge wheels wound with ropes as thick as her arm. The massive portal rumbled into place and cut off her view of freedom.

  From a distance, the bridge looked like frozen lace carved in ice. It arched between two towers. When she and Cobalt reached the span, Mel realized it was white marble flecked with silver. Its walls came up to mid-torso on her. Holes shaped like heptagons were carved into them, and her mage power stirred.

  The wind pulled at her braid and tossed Cobalt’s hair around his head and collar. By the time they reached the top of the span, midway between the towers, Mel was chilled through her tunic. The courtyard was five stories below. A cloud had drifted under the bridge and obscured the view. She thought of Fog. Matthew had promised to see the kitten safely put in Cobalt’s suite, fed, and closed in so he wouldn’t run away. She hoped Fog was all right. Mel had so little else left of home.

  At the end of the bridge, Cobalt opened a door and they entered a chamber tiled in circles and squares. This entire castle was full of shapes. Everywhere. The Misted Cliffs had no mages, but they favored tessellated mosaics similar to those in Aronsdale, interlocked geometric shapes that mesmerized. It had oversensitized Mel’s mage talents until a low-level mood spell surrounded her. Dark emotions saturated this tower.

  “Who lives here?” Mel asked.

  “On this level, no one.” Cobalt wouldn’t look at her. “My grandfather lives on the top floor when he visits.”

  “Oh.” The mood she felt didn’t speak well of Stonebreaker. She wondered if the emotions came from Cobalt.

  They followed halls tiled in blue and white mosaics, crossed another bridge in the clouds, and entered another tower. Her spell stirred again; the moods here were warm, especially toward Cobalt. He took her to a large room hung with translucent drapes that shimmied in the breezes coming through many open windows. He disappeared through a door behind the drapes, and Mel waited, feeling vulnerable. Alone. This tower might be better for Cobalt, but she sensed no welcome for herself.

  He pulled aside the drapes. “Come.”

  Mel followed him through another horseshoe arch. In the study beyond, a slight woman with black hair was sitting at a desk. Silks draped her body in pale yellow layers, and gold-rimmed spectacles lay on the table next to her. She had exquisite skin, almost translucent, but her dark eyes seemed too large for her face. Gray streaked her hair and fine lines showed around her eyes. Her features were delicate, including a rosy mouth, straight nose, and the high curve of her cheeks.

  Cobalt drew Mel over to the woman. “Mother, may I present my wife, Melody Dawnfield Escar.” He turned to Mel. “My mother, Her Majesty, Dancer Chamberlight Escar.”

  Mel bowed deeply to the queen. Compared to Dancer, she felt clumsy and crude.

  The queen spoke softly. “So you are Melody.”

  Mel straightened up. She saw no welcome in her mother-in-law’s gaze. She wanted to create a better mood spell, but she had no shape to touch and she feared to relax her concentration. Everything in this fortress seemed saturated with warnings, unspoken and unwritten, like shadows that would swallow her and leave no trace that she had existed.

  She said only, “A good morn, Your Majesty.”

  “Have the staff treated you well?” Dancer asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Mel hadn’t actually met any of them yet. At home, they would have gathered in the front parlor to greet a new member of the household, but here everyone seemed to take their cue from Cobalt, and she had a feeling he had no clue how to introduce his new wife to the staff. Since she had nothing to add about them, she said, “It is beautiful here.”

  “Yes,” Dancer murmured. “Let us hope it stays that way.” She took her son’s hand and touched the end of his finger. He still had a trace of blood under the nails. Dancer tried to scrape it off one finger, then gave up and set his hand back by his side. He didn’t pull away, but neither did he explain.

  Dancer put on her spectacles and studied Mel. “Bring no bloodshed into my home.”

  “Mother.” Cobalt frowned at her. “The only thing my wife has brought into our home is herself.” Then he added, “And her cat.”

  “An animal?” Dancer took off her glasses. “I hope it does not get underfoot. I can’t guarantee one of the men won’t step on it and break its neck.”

  Mel blanched. No wonder Cobalt was so strange, with this charming family of his.

  “For saints’ sake,” Cobalt said. “No one is going to step on her cat.” He put his hand on Mel’s shoulder. “Perhaps we should see to your things in my suite.”

  His servants were taking care of her belongings, but right now Mel would have agreed to anything to escape the queen. She bowed to Dancer. “My pleasure at your company, Your Majesty.”

  “Is it?” Dancer asked.

  Mel flushed. She had no answer to that, either.

  They left as they had come, through the rippling drapes that veiled the room.

  Mel sat on the cushioned bench of a window seat in the Airlight Room of Cobalt’s suite. She held Fog in her lap and petted the kitten while she gazed out the window in dispirited silence. Cobalt lived at the top of the East Tower, which afforded a spectacular view of the borderlands far below the cliffs. The land stretched out for many leagues until, at the distant horizon, it blended into the Tallwalk Mountains.

  The room was an expanse of white stone with no furniture. Breezes wafted through the open windows and rustled the gauzy drapes. Cobalt had fewer of the curtain-walls than Mel had seen in other rooms, but these were enough to give the room an airy feel, as if she were among clouds even inside the castle.

  A scrape came from behind the hangings and a blurred figure appeared across the room behind the hanging cloths. Then Cobalt pushed aside a drape. He was dressed in black, as always, and he cut a stark contrast against the white marble and diaphanous curtains.

  He came to stand by her at the window. With his hands behind his back, he looked out at the borderlands. “Would you like to eat supper up here tonight?”

  From what Mel had overheard among the staff, the family ate on the ground floor of the Storm Tower where Stonebreaker stayed during his visits. Right now, it was only Cobalt, his parents, and her. “Won’t we be expected downstairs?”

  “Not tonight,” he said.

  She thought of her reception here. “Maybe never.”

  He shifted his gaze to her. “Why do you say that?”

  “Your family doesn’t like me.”

  He leaned against the wall and folded his arms, watching her now instead of the view. “They don’t much like me, either.”

  Mel couldn’t imagine what sort of life he had, that he could speak that way with such casual disregard. “Your mother does. She doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”

  “
Ah, well.” He shrugged. “My mother thinks you married me only to stop me from attacking your country, that you have no love for this place, and that you wish you were home instead of here. She thinks I should have married a woman who loves me.”

  “Oh.” Mel reddened. She could hardly deny any of it.

  “That is why she distrusts you,” Cobalt said.

  “She’s afraid I’m going to hurt her, too.”

  His forehead furrowed. “Why do you say such a thing?”

  “All the shapes.” She traced the pentagons carved into the stone frame of the window. “They’re everywhere. It sensitizes my mind to spells.”

  His face seemed to shutter. “Mage spells.”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps you should unpack,” he said.

  “Cobalt, don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Shut me out.”

  He just looked at her. She wasn’t certain he even knew what she meant.

  She bent her head over Fog. Here in his home, Cobalt had receded from her. She touched a pentagon and concentrated on a green spell. It was a weak one, fed only by a five-sided, two-dimensional shape, and it told her very little, only that Cobalt was guarding his emotions from her. Especially from her.

  She didn’t see how she would bear to live in this ice castle for the rest of her life.

  Cobalt didn’t know what to do.

  Mel sat by the window petting her absurd cat, which was small enough to fit in his palm. Although it batted at her hand, she didn’t play with it today. The sunlight made her hair shine and brought a glow to her cheeks—but not to her eyes. They were full of tears.

  He had done this to her and he had no idea how to fix it. His father wanted her gone. His mother objected to her. None of the staff trusted her. He thought Matthew liked her, but the stable master lived in the clock tower by the stables and didn’t often come into the castle. If everyone here followed Stonebreaker’s dictates, then the only person who would even speak to Mel, aside from her husband, was Dancer, and his mother had made her opinion on that excruciatingly clear. Mel had good reason to bend her head over her cat and cry.

  She was sitting sideways on the seat, her back pressed against the window frame, with the window on her right. She had stretched her legs across the short bench, and her feet hit the opposite side. It wasn’t a large seat; she took up most of it. When he sat on the edge next to her knees, it left no room at all. His leg pressed her thigh, penning her against the window. Her hand jerked and the cat mewled in protest. Cobalt hadn’t meant to corner her, but he couldn’t make himself less large. He scratched Fog’s ears the way he had seen her do. Perhaps if he could make her cat like him, she might like him, too.

  “Mel, listen,” he said.

  She managed a misty smile. “Are you going to talk?”

  “Yes.” He gave Fog one last scratch, then laid his hand on his thigh. “Tonight I must meet with Varqelle and discuss the treaty I signed with your father.”

  “What will your father say, do you think?”

  “That he hates it,” Cobalt admitted.

  “Oh.”

  “You should stay in my suite,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere without me for these first days, until people know you better.”

  “Do you think someone will hurt me?”

  “I don’t know.” Cobalt wished he had better things to tell her. He lifted his hand, intending to touch her cheek, but he stopped when she flinched. He felt as if someone had socked him in the stomach. Did she think he would hit her? If he could have taken back that moment when he had raised his fist after the battle, he would have done so a hundred times. But nothing could change it. He couldn’t even swear it would never happen again. He had never struck a woman or a child, but he had brawled with many a man. Outside a tavern one night, years ago, a thief had tried to rob him. Cobalt had sought only to defend himself. He hadn’t intended to kill the man.

  They had buried the thief the next morning.

  He looked at his nails. He had cleaned away the blood, but he could never clean the stain from his soul.

  Mel touched his fingertip. “Does it bother you?”

  He knew she meant the killing. “Yes.”

  Her voice trembled. “I—I couldn’t tell if it did.”

  Don’t fear me. He wanted to say it, but he couldn’t form the words. They would be false. She had good reason to fear him.

  “I am not a good man, Mel. I never will be.” He met her gaze. “But I can vow this—I will always protect you.”

  “Goodness and gentleness aren’t the same.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “They have much in common, but you can have one without the other. A man’s life may harden him. It may make him harsh. But that doesn’t mean he is evil.”

  He couldn’t face her words. They skirted dangerous territory. He touched a tear as it ran down her face. “Don’t cry, Mel.”

  “Don’t you ever cry?” she asked. “Does anything soft remain behind all that armor?”

  “It was never there.”

  “Cobalt—” Another tear rolled down her cheek.

  He was breaking inside. “Does my home sadden you so much?”

  “I don’t cry for your home.”

  “Then for what?”

  “You,” she whispered.

  He wanted to run from her. “Don’t.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Go talk with your father. I will be here when you’re done.”

  His heart stuttered. His empty suite was empty no longer. But he feared she wouldn’t stay.

  10

  The General

  Dancer lived on the top floor of the West Tower and Cobalt at the top of the East Tower. It hadn’t surprised Cobalt that Varqelle chose the South. The compass towers at the corners of the castle were the largest of its eleven, except for the Storm Tower in the center where Grandfather sometimes lived.

  Cobalt strode through dusky corridors in the Sphere Tower. He held a long metal tube capped at each end. Torches on the walls sputtered and cast oversize, misshapen shadows of his body against the stone walls.

  At the end of the hall, he pushed open a door. Wind blasted him. He crossed the bridge between the Sphere and South Tower with no light except from the stars and a crescent moon. Inside the South Tower, he followed the hallway that circled its girth until he reached the stairs. Those took him to his father’s suite, which occupied the top level. The ceiling was open to the onion dome and its graceful curves arched over Cobalt’s head. In the past, this room had been partitioned by gauzy drapes, but Varqelle had had them removed. It was all open space now, airy and full of light during the day.

  Varqelle’s study was to Cobalt’s left, with a desk and wingchair. The canopied bed stood on a dais far across the room. A table with several chairs occupied the center of the tower. Cobalt and Mel weren’t the only ones who had dined alone; platters from Varqelle’s dinner remained on the table. Now the king sat at a darkwood table by a window, relaxed in an armchair, gazing at the night. A crystal flask of red wine and two goblets waited on the table.

  Cobalt crossed the room. When he was several paces from Varqelle, he paused. “Father?”

  Varqelle glanced up at him. “Ah!” He motioned to a chair across the table. “Come. Sit. Have some wine.”

  Cobalt settled in the wingchair and stretched out his legs under the table. They reached all the way to the other side. He set his tube on the table between them, then filled the goblets with wine and offered one to his father.

  Varqelle accepted the drink. “Did you settle her in?”

  Cobalt knew he meant Mel. “Yes.”

  His father sipped his wine. “Enjoy her now, while you can.”

  Cobalt took his goblet. “While I can?”

  Varqelle’s face seemed shadowed. “Before she betrays you.”

  Why did Dancer leave you? Cobalt hardly knew Varqelle, but he could already see how much he and his father had in common. Varqelle didn’t seem a monster. Hardened, Mel might say. P
erhaps she would say worse; Varqelle had tried to conquer her people. But Cobalt didn’t see why Dancer had fled. How did she think this man could have been worse than Stonebreaker? He couldn’t ask outright, but perhaps he could probe.

  “Mel would not take my child from me,” Cobalt said.

  “I didn’t believe your mother would, either.”

  “Did you ever think of having another?”

  “Another child?” Varqelle seemed startled. “Of course not.”

  Cobalt spoke with care. “One might acknowledge a child born in less than auspicious circumstances.”

  His father took another swallow of wine. “If you mean, did I take comfort elsewhere, I certainly didn’t spend all those years alone. But even if I had other children, which I don’t to my knowledge, I couldn’t recognize them. You are my heir, son. I would have it no other way.”

  His words warmed Cobalt. “Nor I.”

  “I am pleased.”

  “I would have my child know you, too.”

  Varqelle inclined his head. “I would like that.”

  “Or my children,” Cobalt added.

  His father blinked. “You can have only one.”

  “King Jarid is royal. He has several.” Cobalt had thought it odd, too, but now he wondered. “The stars did not clatter out of the sky.”

  Varqelle snorted. “Mad King Jarid.”

  Although Cobalt had heard rumors about the eccentricities of the Aronsdale king, he also knew many considered Jarid a good ruler, if somewhat taciturn. Cobalt didn’t know him, but he found it hard to credit the stories of Jarid being a mage.

  His father leaned forward. “If your wife takes your child home to her father, we will fetch him back. Whatever it takes.”

  Whatever it takes. As he had done to free Varqelle from the Citadel of Rumors. “Did you ever consider coming here to reclaim me, after Mother left?”

  Varqelle regarded him steadily. “Every day of my life.”

  Cobalt wished his father had succeeded. But he had no way to know if his life would have been better with Varqelle. “I would have welcomed the chance to know you sooner.”