by Serena Chase
“Congratulations, Sir Rowlen!”
“Thank you, Rose. Er, Rynnaia, I should say.” He grinned. “I never dreamt of such a thing as this.” Turning to the King he said, “Your Majesty, I am honored by this appointment. Utterly and entirely honored. I will do my best to serve you and E’veria in this station with all that I am and for all of my life.”
“I look forward to it.” The King clapped an arm around the Storyteller’s shoulders. “The love and friendship you have given my daughter have served me better than any story ever could. I do, however, look forward to seeing more of her childhood through your tales.”
Rowlen laughed. “I can assure you, King Jarryn, I have enough of those to fill many a quiet evening.” He winked at me. “And I’ve no doubt that she will continue to provide many more adventures for our entertainment!”
The King chuckled and motioned to the orchestra, who had begun tuning their instruments again. I was unable to hear the rest of their conversation, though. Since protocol had been met before the orchestral break, I was instantly surrounded with young men who were grateful for the opportunity to bypass the Herald of the Dance.
The celebration continued well into the night, but eventually the crowd began to disperse. My father led me back to my chambers a scant few hours before sunrise.
Sir Kile was already there and he nodded when I thanked him for his service. The skin under his eyes was a bit dusky and I felt a little guilty that he had to stand guard, since he’d already been on duty for several hours keeping track of Tarlo de Veir. Other than offering that brief “Thank you,” I did not engage him in conversation.
My father was well pleased with the way things had played out, and after accepting my good-night kiss, he continued down the hall to his own chambers.
I shut my door with a wave of my hand. Exhaustion pulled at the very hairs on my head and I wanted nothing more than to shed my beautiful gown and crawl into the island that served as a princess’s bed.
I paused when I saw Erielle curled up on the settee. I assumed she had come to help me undress, but as it had taken my father and me a long time to send our guests on their way, she had likely arrived more than an hour ago.
“Dear Erielle,” I whispered affectionately. She was fast asleep. After retrieving one of the coverlets from my bed for her, I found Julien with my mind.
He was in the quarters reserved for his family, speaking with Gerrias. Suddenly he held up a hand and his brother quit talking.
Erielle is staying in my chambers tonight. I thought you should know.
He nodded once.
Good night, Julien.
A slow smile revealed a dimple so deep that I wanted to reach through my mind to touch his cheek. But that, of course, was impossible.
“Good night, Princess Rynnaia,” he said aloud. The look on Gerrias’s face was priceless, but I left them to seek their rest as I, most definitely, sought my own.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was a scent, borne across the filmy wave of a dream, that first alerted me to an unwelcome presence in my bedchamber. But it wasn’t strong enough to pull me completely from sleep.
I was dancing . . . in Julien’s arms . . . but when I caught a glimpse of my reflection as we twirled past a mirror, something was different. I was not the princess. I was, instead, black-haired Rose de Whittier. And each time Julien twirled me, my hair swept across my face, assaulting my nose with the putrid scent of the dye that had kept it black all those years in Veetri.
I wrinkled my nose at the offensive odor, but my hair swept across my face again. Hot like breath, it faded my vision to black, until suddenly, other colors filtered into my mind and my perspective switched. Or rather, I switched identities within the dream.
A goblet was placed into my hand, but when I spoke to thank the person who brought it, the voice was not my own, but deeper. A man’s voice. And the face of the one I thanked was blurred, as if a fog had formed between us. As I tipped the goblet to drink, the hand clutching it was not mine, but the larger, stronger hand of a knight.
If this oddly lucid dream had me playing the part of a knight, why was the smell of the dye still present, lingering, almost as if someone had stirred ebonswarth root powder into the very goblet from which I drank?
I gasped and tasted the scent on my tongue. It was in the wine!
The conscious part of my mind screamed at myself—or the knight, rather, whose eyes I was seeing through—to spit out the poisoned wine. To alert the guard. To defend the King! But he couldn’t hear me.
Moments later, unintelligible whispers tickled my ear. Instructions of some sort, but of which the lucid part of me could not comprehend beyond one particular command, “Disgrace her.”
You’re dreaming, I told myself. Open your eyes!
But it wasn’t until ebonswarth-scented breath neared my lips that my eyes obeyed.
The scent of ebonswarth was even stronger now that I was awake, carried on the breath of the man whose face leered above me, but whose identity I could not discern in the darkness.
I took a breath to scream, but he covered my mouth with one hand and placed a dagger at my throat with the other. I ceased struggling, lest the blade break through my skin, but my racing heart echoed the power of the scream I longed to release.
Who was this man, taking such violent liberties as to approach me in my bedchamber—nay!—my very bed? What was he doing in my room? How had he gotten past Sir Kile? Past Erielle, sleeping on the settee in the antechamber?
My mind raced toward his, seeking not only his identity, but some means by which to remove him from my person, but his mind was clouded with inky black and engaged in a struggle of its own.
“Noooo,” he groaned, as if in agony himself.
The dagger’s pressure lightened for just a moment, and then he was shoved off me and struggling with a person whose identity was much easier to grasp.
“Rynnaia, run!” Erielle’s voice was muffled by the sound of the gurgled groan produced when her fist struck my assailant’s windpipe.
I tried to obey, but not having removed my ball gown before falling into my bed, I was now constricted by a tangle of ribbons, linens, and the pressure of the two bodies struggling, trapping the coverlet beneath them and on top of me.
The assailant moaned, “Forgive me, Princess,” but the words were forced out like a stutter, as if spoken underwater, and he continued to struggle against Erielle. “Please.”
Suddenly, I recognized the voice, though, had I not been trying so hard to discern his identity through his mind, I doubt I would have, considering the inner torment that seemed to fuel his words.
It was Sir Kile. My night guard. Kinley’s friend.
My breath came in gasps, spots dotted my vision. Why would my personal guard, one of my father’s knights, attack me? Why was he, even now, struggling against my friend?
Fractured images crossed my consciousness, finally melding together within the Andoven awareness that sleep had robbed from me.
It was Sir Kile’s hand in my dream. His lips that drank from the poisoned cup. Even now, he was being controlled by the directive of whoever had drugged him with ebonswarth root powder.
It hadn’t been a dream. Not entirely. While in sleep, I had seen his thoughts, his most recent memory, and now, his struggle against the poison that stole his will to resist the instructions he had been given. Instructions to disgrace me. Perhaps even to kill me?
I barely caught his next whisper. “Do . . . what . . . you must, Lady . . . Erielle,” he said, spacing apart the words as if even exhaling the breath necessary to speak them caused him anguish. “Kill me before I hurt her!”
But even as he said the words, the poison and his powerful strength denied their meaning, overtaking Erielle’s diminutive size. They rolled to the edge of the bed and onto the floor.
As soon as they were off me I sat up and ripped the coverlet away, tearing at the ribbons still holding me captive while gracelessly throwing myself to th
e edge of the bed.
But they were between me and the door. Sir Kile had Erielle pinned beneath him. With one hand he stretched her right arm above her head and pressed it to the floor. Light from a lamp in the antechamber caught on the metal of his dagger as he raised his other hand.
I gasped. One downward thrust would end their struggle—and Erielle’s life.
Please! I petitioned The First with the only word that could escape my panic.
But Erielle moved faster than my mind could focus my gifts enough to try to defend her, not that I had the first idea of how to accomplish such a feat. Arching her back against him, Erielle slid her free hand behind her back and produced a dagger of her own. With a flip of her wrist, it spun in her hand until it was facing upward, and in a blur, she plunged it up and into Sir Kile’s chest.
A crash in the antechamber stole my attention.
“Rynnaia!”
Julien! “In here!”
Julien rushed in, his sword drawn. With his other hand, he grasped the back of Sir Kile’s tunic and pulled the knight’s dead weight off Erielle.
“Rynnaia!” My father rushed in, fear blazing out through his mind so powerfully that it stole my breath. “Guards!” he shouted. “Light the lamps! Search her chambers! Rynnaia, are you hurt?”
“No.” I shook my head. “But Erielle may be.”
She stood and straightened her skirts. Her bodice was covered in blood, but I knew it wasn’t hers. “I’m fine,” she said, but her hand trembled at her side. She quickly hid it in the folds of her gown.
Julien propped Sir Kile up, but his head lolled to the side. As the lamps around my chamber were lit, the vacancy in his eyes confirmed he was dead.
“Kile.” My father inhaled. His jaw clenched. “Would someone care to explain to me why the knight entrusted with guarding the Ryn is dead?”
“I killed him, Your Majesty.” Erielle took a breath and wiped her hand across her skirt, leaving a trail of blood behind. “I didn’t know it was Sir Kile at the time, I only saw a threat to Princess Rynnaia.”
My father’s eyebrows shot upward. “He threatened her? How?”
Erielle swallowed. “I was sleeping in the antechamber. I’m not sure how he got by me, but he did.” She took a breath. “When I heard the princess scream, I woke up and rushed in here.”
“I didn’t scream.” I shook my head, confused. “I couldn’t. His hand was over my mouth.”
“You did,” she said. “You screamed for Julien. I heard it as clear as if it were in my—” She paused. “As if it were in my head.”
“It likely was,” Julien said, placing a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “I heard it, too. And I was in an entirely different wing of the palace.”
“I heard it as well,” my father said. “I would have been here sooner, Rynnaia, but I thought, at first, it was a dream,” he apologized. “But when I sought you with my mind—”
A shudder passed through his thoughts. He closed his eyes. “But Sir Kile? Are you sure he was the perpetrator? Could the villain still be about?” Disbelief coated my father’s words as much as it did his thoughts.
“I’m sure,” Erielle said. “When I ran in here he was . . .” she paused and looked at the floor. “He was . . . on the bed, with a dagger to Princess Rynnaia’s throat.” She glanced at me. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry? She saved my life!
She lifted her gaze again to my father. “I tackled him. We fought. He said some strange things . . .” Erielle’s voice trailed off.
“Rynnaia,” my father’s voice shook with his fear that I might have been violated, “were you . . . harmed?”
“No. Erielle came before he could . . .”
I took a deep, shaky breath in through my nose, but with that inhalation, the smell hit me again. Ebonswarth powder. It was then that I started to shake.
Julien knelt before me and took my shaking hands into his own. “Rynnaia, look at me.”
But Julien’s voice seemed a thousand miles away. Instead the anguish of Sir Kile’s requests echoed through my mind. “Forgive me, Princess,” he’d begged. And to Erielle, “Kill me before I hurt her.” Even though Sir Kile was across the room, several yards away, I could still smell the putrid trace of the evil with which he had been used—and I could still hear the echo of how bravely he had fought its terrible control.
“Sir Kile—” I began, but the quiet gasp of a denied sob stole my voice.
“He can’t hurt you now,” Julien whispered. “Never again.”
“It wasn’t him,” I said. “Well, it was, but he wasn’t . . . himself. Someone else is at fault. Someone poisoned him with ebonswarth root powder.”
I shivered, remembering how Lord Whittier’s men, the guards Mrs. Scyles had poisoned, had so long remained haunted by what they had done while under the powder’s influence. I looked up and the first tears escaped my eyes. “He tried to fight it, Father, but he couldn’t.”
My father moved to sit at my side. His arm went around me and I leaned into him. “You are sure about the poison, Rynnaia?”
I nodded, wrinkling my nose. “Can’t you smell it?”
He inhaled. His brow creased. “No. But then again, I’ve not been around it as much as you have.”
His gaze rested on Erielle for a long moment and then his eyes closed and his hand rubbed down over his beard. “No one must know what happened here until a full investigation has been completed.” His gaze rounded the room. “Understood?”
Everyone nodded.
The King looked toward one of the guards. “Summon Dyfnel,” he said, “and see that a laboratory is set up to his specifications in the infirmary.” He moved his gaze to another knight. “Assign guards to the kitchens, pantries, and anywhere else that food or libations are stored.” He spoke to everyone then. “Until Dyfnel has ascertained the safety of our food and drink, I order a fast.” His gaze landed on another of the guards. “Make it known.”
The three guards nodded and left.
“Julien, Erielle, you will accompany the Ryn and me to my chambers. Risson?”
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“See to the removal of Sir Kile’s body to isolation in the infirmary. Unless proven otherwise, which I do not expect to happen, he is to be given all rights and honors due him as a knight of E’veria.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. He believes me.
“The rest of you are dismissed and ordered to silence concerning what has happened here tonight.”
A solemn chorus of “Yes, Your Majesty” followed us out of my chambers. I paused in the door and glanced back at Sir Kile’s lifeless body just as Sir Risson covered it with one of the linens from my bed.
Oh, the evil of it! A young knight, gone. His life forfeited to some traitor’s plot. Though his actions seemed to nullify the sacredness of the Knight’s Oath, Sir Kile’s words had held fast to it, fulfilling his sworn allegiance to me—to E’veria—to the very end, even though it meant his own death.
Kile died to protect me.
Erielle, too, had proved her loyalty. Without regard to her own safety, she had bravely fought and killed a fully trained and vested knight of the King, a knight whose size and strength dwarfed her own . . . so that I might live.
Could I ever hope to be worthy of such sacrifice? Such love? Such wondrous, selfless fealty as these friends—one now lost to us—had shown tonight?
As I allowed myself to be led away from my chambers and to my father’s, I wondered how many more friends’ lives would be forfeit for my sake, in the name of loyalty. And how would we discover who had been behind this evil?
For hours, my father, Julien, and a select few knights offered names of those whose loyalties were considered weak, but they could not seem to pinpoint one who seemed more likely to have arranged the treachery than another.
Word arrived from Dyfnel, who confirmed the knight had indeed been a victim of ebonswarth poisoning. As tragic and frightening as that validation was, it was not substantial enough
evidence to even give direction to an investigation—and certainly not enough to make an accusation of any sort. Erielle may have dealt the blow, but she was no more responsible for the knight’s death than Sir Kile himself.
But without more evidence, how would we find the villain and see justice served?
Eventually, I began to doze. I tried to fight the fatigue, but my father’s voice found my thoughts.
Rest, child. I will keep watch.
And I was reminded that not only was Jarryn E’veri the King and my father, he was a knight, as well. I closed my eyes and did as he suggested.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I awoke well past the midday mark, curled up on an oversized, cushioned bench in my father’s suite. My swollen feet ached and my head—oh, my head!—raged. With the ball of one hand pressed to my temple, I eased into a sitting position.
“You look terrible.”
“And good morning to you, too, Erielle,” I said, punctuating the greeting with a yawn. “Where is everyone?”
When I’d fallen asleep, my father and Julien had still been in the room and had been joined by Kinley and a couple of other knights for whom I could not place names.
“They went to the War Room once they realized you were asleep. They left three guards just outside the door, though. Here.” She picked up a goblet and brought it to me. “Drink this.”
“The fast is lifted?”
“Yes. Dyfnel tested the King’s private reserve first. He brought this himself.”
“Oh.” I sniffed it. Hmm. Sweet. Somewhat familiar, but . . . “What is it?”
“Eachanberry juice. Dyfnel said it would help restore your fluids and ease any anxiety you might feel due to last night’s . . . events.”
She paused and I detected the slightest tremble in her thoughts. “He brought me some as well,” she said finally. “I found it quite soothing.”
I laid a hand on her arm. “Erielle, I didn’t get a chance to tell you last night, but thank you. You saved my life, and in a way, you saved Sir Kile, too.”
