The Misted Cliffs

by Catherine Asaro

  “I also.” Varqelle spoke quietly. “I tried to send men here secretly, to take you back. But your grandfather guarded you too well.”

  Cobalt stiffened. “You would have had them kidnap me?”

  “Does that horrify you so much?”

  Cobalt didn’t know what to think. To be ripped away from Dancer—he would never have wanted that, as a child. But to escape Stonebreaker would have been a gift. “Just me? Or Mother and me?”

  “I tried both. And just you.” Varqelle exhaled. “Neither worked.” He set down his goblet. “So I tried another method.”

  “Conquest.” The word had a dark appeal.

  “I had intended to take Aronsdale first,” Varqelle said. “I thought I had the best chance of defeating their military. Then Shazire. By that time, I might have had an army strong enough to face the Misted Cliffs.” His gaze took on a fierce intensity that called to the restless energy within Cobalt. “Eventually I would have had all the settled lands.”

  A heady thought, that, sweeping across the land at the head of a force that would conquer the world. “A powerful vision.”

  Varqelle sat back. “Yes, well, it failed.”

  “Not completely.” Cobalt thought of the tube before them on the table. It contained his copy of the treaty. He knew he should take it out. He and his father had much to discuss. But this matter of heirs was unfinished.

  “I have thought lately on how a father might be to his son,” Cobalt said. He had no one to base his approach on except Stonebreaker, and he would die rather than use the Chamberlight king as a model. He intended to discuss it with Matthew, when he found a good time, but the subject seemed appropriate now.

  “You must be strong with him,” Varqelle said.

  “So Grandfather says.”

  “Your grandfather raised you, didn’t he?”

  “With Mother, yes.”

  “I would never have chosen it that way.” Varqelle paused. “But he seems to have done well.”

  Cobalt felt ill. “He had a heavy hand.”

  “It didn’t defeat you.” His father nodded with respect. “You have become a fine man. I am pleased.”

  Cobalt felt cold, then flushed. The father approved of the son. He hadn’t expected this, hadn’t even imagined it could be possible. He had spent decades laboring under the weight of his grandfather’s censure, until it became a way of life, a necessity to deal with but never escape. Although he had hoped his father might be different, it had been too far outside his experiences to imagine Varqelle might look on him with high regard. Cobalt would do anything, descend from the cliffs and spread his father’s rule across every settled land, from the western coast through the Misted Cliffs, Harsdown and Aronsdale, through Blueshire, Jazid, Taka Mal, and Shazire, anything at all, to keep that approval.

  He had no idea how to express any of that. So instead he said, “I descend from a strong line.”

  “The House of Escar goes back a millennium. It has known greatness.” Varqelle leaned forward. “It will again.”

  Cobalt’s pulse quickened. “Yes.”

  His father’s eyes glinted. “Together, you and I can make it happen.”

  “We are already.” But the more Cobalt thought of their peace treaty, the less satisfied he felt. It had been necessary, yes; what point in ruling a broken land? He wanted Harsdown whole. But it didn’t appease the hunger within him, the drive to push outward, sword in hand, his men at his back, challenges ahead of him.

  Varqelle touched the tube as if probing a disappointment. “The treaty?”

  “Yes.” Cobalt opened it and pulled out a scroll. A red string tied the parchment. He undid the string and unrolled the scroll in front of his father. “The agreement stipulates that neither the Misted Cliffs nor the House of Escar will raise an army against Harsdown or Aronsdale. Nor will the House of Dawnfield attack Escar or Chamberlight. The marriage will put my heir on the Jaguar Throne.”

  “Your son.”

  Cobalt cleared his throat. “Actually, it says ‘heir.’”

  Varqelle scowled. “That is why these mage countries are so perverse. Their women do too much.”

  Cobalt had no problem with that stipulation of the treaty. Had he been able, he would have made his mother heir to the Sapphire Throne of the Misted Cliffs. He thought of Mel, who had rescued herself during the assault on the carriage. He had ultimately killed her attacker, but if she hadn’t defended herself, she wouldn’t have survived.

  “The Dawnfields breed strong children,” Cobalt said.

  “They certainly don’t look strong.” Varqelle scanned the parchment. “This all seems in order.”

  “It is a good agreement,” Cobalt said. “We maintain peace and your House inherits the thrones of both Harsdown and the Misted Cliffs.”

  “So it does.” Varqelle looked up at him. In a shadowed voice, he said, “Why stop at Harsdown and the Misted Cliffs?”

  Cobalt’s pulse surged. Why stop?

  He had prepared an army. Catching bandits and mercenaries who preyed on farmers wasn’t enough. After the engagement at the Citadel of Rumors, he had grieved for the deaths. But they had achieved a worthy goal—the rescue of the true Harsdown king. For the first time in his life, Cobalt had operated to a greater purpose. He had freed his father to reestablish the House of Escar, and he had thought that would be enough, but it hadn’t eased the edgy hunger that drove him every day, always challenging, always striving, always pushing.

  Cobalt said only, “The treaty is signed.”

  “So it is.” Varqelle’s gaze never wavered. “You have the makings of a great general, Cobalt. Would you let a marriage weaken you?”

  Cobalt didn’t realize his fist had clenched on the table until his nails bit into his palm. It wasn’t from the rage that too often took control of him, though. He had subconsciously been gripping the hilt of a sword, prepared to do battle, not with Varqelle, but with…he didn’t know.

  “We gave our word,” Cobalt said.

  Varqelle rolled up the treaty and tied it with the string. “You and I are of a kind.” He regarded Cobalt steadily. “Remember that.”

  Cobalt felt the truth in those words. The restive spirit he had hoped would calm after he rescued Varqelle had instead intensified—and found an answering spirit within his father. Cobalt felt hungry and fierce, filled with a fire that nothing seemed to quench. For the first time, in his father, he had met someone who sparked an answering fire.

  He returned the scroll to its tube. “I will remember.”

  Mel was walking through the round chamber at the center of Cobalt’s suite, holding Fog, when she heard a tap. It sounded like it was in the hallway stretching from this chamber to the corridor that circled the outer wall of the tower. Almost instinctively, she thought of the straight hall as the radius of a circle and the hall that ran around the tower as its perimeter. As soon as she envisioned the circle, gold light filled the chamber all around her. It wasn’t only the lights from the lamps in the wall sconces; this illumination came from a well deep within her. The spell happened without her even trying to make one. Fog nuzzled her arm and purred loudly.

  In the past month, her mage abilities had come to life more than in all her previous eighteen years. She wasn’t sure why, but perhaps it related to the fact that she had matured late physically, too.

  The tap came again.

  Mel’s spell slipped away and the gold radiance faded until only torchlight remained. She went down the hallway to the outer wall of the suite. The main entrance was a horseshoe arch eight feet tall, bordered by marble columns tiled halfway up with blue and white mosaics in sphere designs. She remembered Cobalt’s warning about not leaving this suite tonight. Fog wriggled, seeking freedom from her hold, and gave an annoyed mewl. Mel was so tense, she hardly noticed when he dug his claws into her sleeve.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  A man answered. “Matthew, Your Highness.”

  Relief trickled over her. Matthew she liked. Sti
ll cautious, though, she only opened the door a crack. “Yes?”

  Matthew stood outside, his arms full of scrolls. He bowed to her. “I am sorry to disturb you, Your Highness. Her Majesty finished with these and Prince Cobalt wished to read them.”

  Mel hesitated. She didn’t know which would cause more offense, if she refused to let Matthew complete a task Dancer had given him or if she let him enter Cobalt’s suite when she was here alone. She couldn’t ask him to bring a female servant. She had seen no women on the staff here. It was bizarre. The men even did the cooking and cleaning. Mel could believe Dancer might have sent Matthew to vex her new daughter-in-law, but she found it hard to believe Matthew would offer to bring in the scrolls if he shouldn’t be here. She didn’t know him well, so she could be wrong, but he struck her as the type who would have let her know if this could get her into trouble.

  Mel moved aside. “Come in.”

  “Thank you.” Matthew entered and Mel closed the door, then followed him down the hallway. Fog struggled in her arms, and she let him jump down. When Matthew reached the center chamber, he turned to her with a kindly expression on his weathered face. Fog ran around him once, batted at his foot, and then tore off into another room.

  Mel smiled. “I think he likes you.”

  Matthew laughed good-naturedly. “He has good taste.”

  “Do you know where to put the scrolls?” Each room in the suite was a wedge in the circular tower, six in all, with entrances on their narrow ends that opened into this chamber.

  He indicated an entrance to his right. “The library.”

  Mel went to the horseshoe arch. She had yet to explore many of the rooms here. A single lamp illuminated the library, gilding the shelves of varnished darkwood that lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Scrolls and books filled them, with gilt titles on the spines of the tomes and gold ribbons tying the parchments. To her left, a desk was pushed into the corner where the curving outer wall met the straight wall. Windows in the curving section let in starlight. A large globe on a stand was set in the right corner, with its continents painted in gold, the seas in blue and green, and the lettering in black. Globes were rare in Harsdown, but she expected they were more common here, in the only country with a coast where visiting ships brought news of other lands. A telescope stood next to the window. At least Mel thought it was a telescope. She had never seen one before.

  “It is a nice room,” she said.

  Matthew sighed. “One could wish he spent more time here.”

  “Does he read much?”

  “He likes history.” Matthew entered and set the scrolls on the desk. “It is an interest he and Dancer share.”

  Mel thought of her icy mother-in-law. “She was reading when I met her.”

  “She has much interest in the history of her people, especially the women.” He spoke in a confidential tone. “I think she would like to write her own treatise. She feels the histories of the Misted Cliffs ignore the contributions of women.”

  That didn’t surprise Mel, given what she had seen so far. “It seems like a good idea. Does Cobalt read about women, too?”

  Matthew chuckled. “Ah, no, I don’t think so. He reads about wars. All the battles and strategies.”

  “Military history.”

  “It fascinates him.”

  She could well imagine. “Well, I will let him know you brought his scrolls.”

  He bowed. “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  After Matthew left, Mel wandered back to the library and looked at the materials he had brought. Fog dashed out of a hiding place under a nearby table and jumped up on a chair, and from there to the desk. He batted curiously at the scrolls, and Mel nudged him away, lest he harm the parchments. They were inked in beautiful calligraphy with colorful borders, apparently modern copies of works several centuries old. It took her a while to decipher the antiquated language, but she could tell they were histories of campaigns from the days when Shazire had been part of the Misted Cliffs instead of a separate country. Eventually she retied the scrolls. Her husband, it seemed, had many facets she had yet to learn.

  Fog stalked around the desk, looking for something else to bedevil, since she had denied him the scrolls. He swiped at a paperweight shaped like a blue cube, and it skittered off the desk, then clattered to the floor. He jumped down and pounced on it with all the ferocity a kitten could muster.

  “Oh, Fog, honestly.” Mel bent down and rescued the paperweight. “You’re going to get us into trouble if you reduce my new husband’s library to shambles.”

  Fog seemed unconcerned. He ran off to explore one of the bookshelves, which had just enough space for him to crawl under the bottom shelf.

  The cube fit easily into Mel’s palm, and she gazed at it thoughtfully. She didn’t know if her failure with her pendant had come about because she didn’t have the strength to use such a high-level form or because she lacked experience. Skylark wouldn’t have given her the pendant if she didn’t believe Mel could use the shape. Perhaps she needed to build her strength with spells much as she built her muscles when she practiced with a sword. A six-sided cube might offer a good test of her developing skills.

  Mel took a deep breath to settle herself. She concentrated on the cube, imagining strawberries, and roses with their red petals drifting on the wind. Her temples throbbed, but the pain wasn’t unbearable—and red light glowed around her hand. Excited, she carried the cube to the windowsill, where an unlit candle stood. Outside, the night shed cold starlight across the ghostly towers of the castle.

  “Everything is chilly here,” Mel murmured. She held her hand with the cube above the candle, and her spell expanded until its red glow enveloped the wick. She focused harder, intensifying the spell. Unlike when she used circles or other two-dimensional shapes, she didn’t have to strain with this cube to find the power she wanted.

  The wick burst into flame.

  “Ha!” Mel grinned. Bringing the fire had felt almost effortless with the strength of a cube behind her spell, and she had controlled it much better than her last fire spell, the mistake in the orchard back home.

  The red light soon dimmed, but the candle stayed lit. She returned to the desk and set down the cube. Although she was tired, and her head ached, she also felt invigorated, full of unused power. After a hesitation, she folded her hand around her pendant. This time she imagined oranges, sweet and succulent. Pain sparked in her temples and she struggled to keep her focus—

  Suddenly orange light flared all around her. She hadn’t realized her sword arm was sore until the ache receded now. The library was warm with orange radiance.

  “Incredible,” Mel murmured.

  The pain in her head spiked and her spell slipped, then crumpled. As the light winked out, Mel groaned and let go of the pendant. Standing before the desk, she pressed her fingertips into her temples and rubbed hard.

  A plaintive mewl came from the floor, followed by a body rubbing her ankles. Mel looked down as she lowered her arms. Recognizing the kitten’s tone, she couldn’t help but smile. “I just fed you, you foggy scamp.”

  Fog jumped up to the desk and sat there, posed with his feet together and his tail curled around his body, as regal as a statue. Laughing, Mel scooped him up in her arms. “You’re beautiful,” she crooned, rubbing her cheek against his fur. “My head hurts like the blazes, though.”

  Fog settled into her arms and purred.

  “Time for sleep, eh?” Tomorrow she would practice again, both her mage skills and with her sword. After the attack on the carriage, she couldn’t risk letting down her guard.

  What unsettled her most about the fight, though, were those few moments when she had felt exhilarated rather than terrified.

  Cobalt’s suite was quiet when he returned. Unlike his father’s tower, this one had solid interior walls. A lamp glowed in the center chamber and its light trickled into his bedroom, but the other rooms were dark. Standing within the horseshoe arch, he couldn’t tell if Mel was in his bed or n
ot. If she made a mound, it was too small to see from here.

  He thought about his father’s words. Did she weaken him? Had he lost sight of greater goals because of her? No, he was the one who had suggested this marriage. She couldn’t have ensnared his heart and weakened his resolve before he even met her.

  Cobalt walked to his bed. As he neared, he saw a low ridge on one side. It didn’t look big enough to be a person. He sat next to the ridge and lifted the blue quilt. Mel was underneath, on her side, her cheek against the pillow, her eyes closed. Fog was curled in the crook of her arm.

  He scratched Fog behind the ears. “Cat,” he admonished. “You may not replace me here.”

  Fog mewed drowsily.

  Cobalt slid his palm under its body and lifted it carefully out of the bed. It blinked sleepy eyes at him. The animal felt fragile and soft, and he didn’t want to hurt it. He brought it closer to his face so he could see it better.

  “You are small,” he said.

  The kitten butted its nose against his wrist.

  Cobalt smiled. “Yes, well, in this bedroom, she is mine.” He looked around for someplace to put it, but he saw only the floor. The stone would be too cold and hard. He opened the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out the shaving things he had put there, except for the towel he used to wipe his face. His razor and soap wouldn’t mind a cold floor. He set them by the bed, then put the kitten in the drawer on top of the towel. It looked up at him and mewed.

  “I know she is warmer,” Cobalt said. “But I need to be warm, too.”

  The kitten sat for a moment considering him. Then it yawned, wide and large, showing him its small fangs. It turned around a few times on the towel and settled down, curled into a ball. Then it closed its eyes and appeared to go to sleep. Cobalt didn’t know enough about cats to guess if it really was sleeping or just ignoring him, but it seemed content.

  He turned back to Mel. She hadn’t stirred at all. He undressed and left his clothes in a heap on top of the razor and soap. Then he went around to the other side of the bed and slid in behind her. She was wearing a filmy nightdress. He moved his hands over the cloth, tugging here and there, but he couldn’t see how to get it off.