by Ellyn, Court
“Fiera’s regent?”
“The same.”
As King Arryk’s Lord Chancellor, Raed had gained notoriety for defending Brynduvh from the ogres by kicking out all the children and old women. A man without mercy; a man made of iron. “Goddess. I’d hate to meet him across a battlefield.”
“My thoughts exactly. Let’s hope the poor sod we vote in is good at making friends, eh?”
To that end… “I hope you did your research.”
“Research?” Eliad nearly choked. “Are you joking?”
“This hasn’t happened in two hundred years. We want to get it right.”
“Easy. The nearest in line for the crown is Lady Maeret.” Eliad’s eye twinkled. “Or your mother.”
“That’s not how it works,” Kethlyn insisted, more heatedly than he intended. “The crown isn’t an estate to pass carelessly to brothers or cousins.”
“Yes, well, remind these hotheads of that.”
“I intend to.”
Kethlyn had learned his lesson. This time, he had reviewed the ancient laws. In the monarchies of the Northwest, it was the parent-to-child succession that mattered. If that direct line of descent was broken, the crown wasn’t given automatically to a more distant relation. A king had the right to name a non-relation as his heir, but if he failed to do so, it fell upon the highborns to elect a new dynasty to govern them.
“Look at us, slavering over a fancy hat.”
Eliad poked him with his elbow. “Happy to hear you say that.”
The irony stung.
Word was, however, that the Falcon Crown had been destroyed. An extra gold ingot and chips of onyx had been discovered in the treasury vault. The throne, too, had been stripped of silver. The dais at the far end of the Audience Chamber was currently, conspicuously empty. Lothiar had been thorough in dismantling the symbols of Aralorri sovereignty.
Eliad huffed. “Aye, who wants a stupid hat made of solid gold? It only comes with a kingdom.”
Kethlyn surveyed the highborns who effortlessly slipped back into old habits of greed. “It’s power these people covet, not proper governance.”
Eliad clapped him on the back. “Give them the benefit of the doubt, will you? Now, stop evading and tell me how your family is doing. I’ve not been invited to Ilswythe for weeks. I’m getting worried.”
Kethlyn shrugged, a gesture of surrender. “Carah spends most of her time in Avidan Wood. She comes home for days at a time, then she’s off again. Apparently she’s done something wondrous with the trees.” He no longer bothered trying to puzzle out avedrin or his sister.
“No doubt Rhian being there is an enticement.”
“He’s gone. Back to his island. Left without a word, so Carah tells me. She cried about it, but she’s a big girl. Beyond deluding herself, I think.”
“Sorry to hear it.” Genuine sorrow marked Eliad’s face, and Kethlyn realized he’d been hoping Carah might have what she wanted.
“Anyway, Mother may join us later. She wanted the preliminary arguments out of the way.”
“But not your father?”
Kethlyn wrestled to swallow his bitterness. Da’s absence was a major breach of duty. He was regarded highly enough that one word from him might settle this entire affair. “He’s … unable. It’s been months, Eliad, and he won’t talk to any of us. I think he’s lost his mind.”
“Should I go shake him?”
Kethlyn was considering the offer when Laral found them conspiring. “There you are!” He grabbed Kethlyn’s hand. “Tawdry business, this. I’ll have to hunt for weeks afterward to cleanse myself.”
“Not without me, you’re not,” Eliad insisted.
“Your place or mine?”
Laral’s family trailed him like ducklings. He no longer left home without them. His daughter had grown into a formidable beauty. Her gaze was sober and direct, belonging to a woman thrice her age. Her hand was on the arm of a young man Kethlyn had not met. His dark complexion and wide cheekbones gave him the look of a foreigner, but his accent reached only as far south as Fiera.
Lady Bethyn drifted like a ghost, inward-gazing, joyless. She greeted Kethlyn with a dutiful smile.
The excitement of the occasion was not lost on young Jaedren. He was unable to stand still. He searched the crowd, enthralled by the finery, the grandeur of the adults whisking past.
Kethlyn took the boy’s jaw in hand, turned his face to the light. He wore a simple black patch over his left eye. The scar fingering up his brow and down his cheek had still to fade from a bruised purple color. “Classic,” Kethlyn lauded. “You look splendid, old son.”
Jaedren’s right eye sparkled with sheer orneriness.
“Where’s your father?” asked Laral.
Groaning inwardly, Kethlyn realized that unless he made an official announcement, which he didn’t dare, he’d be forced to answer the question at least two dozen times. For Laral alone he was bluntly honest. “He’s dead-drunk and locked behind a door.”
If only Alyster were here. He would fearlessly, unapologetically dunk their father back to sobriety.
~~~~
Rhoslyn placed the swatch against the stone wall beside the window. The heavy rust-red silk brought out the warmer tones in the austere gray stone. “I think we’ll go with this one.”
“Very good, Your Grace,” said the draper, scribbling down the order in his ledger. “Your eye is impeccable.”
She doubted that. She was merely tired of looking at fabric when more important matters awaited her attention. “All the downstairs windows. Nothing too frilly. We’ll talk about the upstairs at a later—”
A crash echoed in the corridor. Rhoslyn’s heart jumped against her ribs. The draper dropped his stylus. Peering out from the parlor, Rhoslyn saw a boy scrambling to extricate a ladder from among shards of colored glass. The master craftsmen hissed profanities at his apprentice. “Last one, it’s always the last one. Careless little shit. Better rejoice we have a spare, lad, or I’d…” He spotted Rhoslyn glowering at him and bowed clumsily. “Pardons, Your Grace.”
Mounted to each side of the Great Corridor, twin rows of new stained glass lamps flickered happily. Seeing the globes lit from within, Rhoslyn immediately regretted her choice. Was that a rosette? Hadn’t she ordered something more … somber? What had she been thinking?
Perhaps it was only her mood spoiling the effect. She felt foul this morning. Downright cross. Nothing was right. She was sick of making decisions, second-guessing herself. Deciding which rugs to buy and which footman to hire was easier with Carah’s help, but Carah was rarely home anymore. A housekeeper would see to most of these details, but Rhoslyn had yet to find anyone she trusted to fill Yris’s shoes.
In the days after returning to Ilswythe, Rhoslyn often sought Kelyn’s opinion, but she no longer bothered. If she could find him, he was usually insensible, ranting ugly accusations that had no grounds in reality, or crashing around looking for something he would never find. Rhoslyn dreaded the day he’d emerge from the recesses only to go rampaging about the house, insulting the workers, tarnishing his reputation.
The rhythmic stamping of feet drew Rhoslyn to the bronze doors and out into the sunlight. Two dozen soldiers marched under the critical eye of their captain. He bellowed orders, and they about-faced, marched the opposite direction. The red sword-wielding falcon blazed across their black surcoats. Their breath puffed in the chill air. Their footsteps echoed in the courtyard’s confines.
Rhoslyn opened her mouth to bellow her own order, then realized she couldn’t remember the captain’s name. So many new faces. Who was anybody these days? It was Kethlyn who had rigorously interviewed this particular soldier, but Rhoslyn who had approved him to lead and fill the garrison. What was his bloody name? “Captain!” she called. Yes, that would do.
He turned sharply and saluted. So formal, so determined to get off on the right foot.
“The bailey is the place for that.”
“Yes, Your Grace. The, er,
gardeners have piled soil in the bailey.”
Ah, yes. Rhoslyn herself had advised them. She grit her teeth, pressed on a smile. “Then drill them beyond the walls. His Lordship is under the weather. You’re disturbing his rest.”
The hammers were just as maddening as the feet. Workers monkeyed along scaffolding and roof beams. Slowly Ilswythe’s burned outbuildings rose anew. The oily stink of fresh paint wafted from the stables.
Rhoslyn trailed the soldiers to the gatehouse, then turned up the wall-side steps. Blinking against the cold wind barreling up the battlements, she observed the changes made to Ilswythe Town. The overturned mill’s wheel had occupied the top of the list of repairs. Bright new slats churned happily in the Avidan. Hammers tatted there too, the staccato reverberating off the castle walls. New thatch gleamed on roofs. Smoke rose from chimneys. Vendors set up wares beneath colorful awnings. Women drew from the well. Children played in the streets.
Rhoslyn had saved them. Gotten them out through the tunnel, sent them to safety in Thyrvael’s deep mountain halls. Good to see them back. Watching them rebuild their lives with such alacrity lifted Rhoslyn’s mood.
So what was next on her list? The gardens? The granaries? A peek at the books and a painful tally of the coin going out and the lack coming in?
She headed back to the keep and found Etivva stamping out into the sunshine—fists knotted, mouth pinched tight, wooden foot beating the flagstones. Coming for her. “Your Grace! Have you a moment?”
Rhoslyn’s mood deflated, fragile as a cloud in a gale.
“He has done it this time.”
The shaddra didn’t need to explain who she meant. Grief settled in Rhoslyn’s chest. “What now?”
“He has locked me out of the library!”
This was new. The library was the last place Rhoslyn expected Kelyn to turn up.
Etivva wrung the front of her robe in white-knuckled hands. “If I was given to violence, I would slap him.”
“You can’t enter through the records room?”
“Locked as well. Which means I can’t access my bed or my shrine, my bath or my privy. Really, Your Grace. How long can this go on?”
Indeed.
Rhoslyn unlatched the housekeeper’s oversized keyring from her belt. “Perhaps it’s time I stop being so understanding.”
She tested the door’s latch for herself, hoping Kelyn had come to his senses and unlocked it or fled entirely, saving her the trouble. No luck. She leant an ear against the door, heard soft rustlings, gruff grumblings. She knocked assertively. “Kelyn? Open the door.”
Something struck the planks near her ear. Glass shattered.
Etivva huffed. “Violence is looking more and more appealing, Your Grace.” The lift of her eyebrows told Rhoslyn, “Do something, or I will kill him.”
She plied the key and cautiously cracked open the door, ready to slam it shut if another tumbler came hurtling. Books, scrolls, bottles of ink, sheaves of paper were scattered on the floor. The door scooted them aside.
Etivva gave a wounded cry. “I just put these shelves in order!” She leant a shoulder into the door, ready to beat Kelyn upside the head.
A firm touch from Rhoslyn stopped her. “Perhaps it’s best if I speak to him alone.”
The shaddra clenched her hands together, whispered a prayer for self-control, then nodded. “Give him a wallop from me.”
Rhoslyn slipped into the library, stepping wide over books and glass.
Kelyn slouched at the writing table, legs splayed under it, arms splayed atop it. His left fist was clenched tight. His right squeezed the neck of a bottle. He’d started with wine. But that was weeks ago. He was drinking sintha these days. The liquor sloshed a venomous green. Between his arms lay a journal or notebook of some kind. His shirt was rumpled, his hair unwashed, his beard grown out, his face flushed with the heat of the liquor. He wore no shoes. The room was icy.
“Go ‘way,” he slurred.
Rhoslyn crossed her arms and positioned herself across the table. “No. No more, Kelyn. You’re a disgrace, and I won’t accept it any longer.”
He bared his teeth and lunged for her. She danced aside easily and tore the bottle from his fingers. With a solid crack, she shattered it on the edge of the table. Sintha splashed them both. Maybe glass in his bare feet would sober him up.
She wielded the jagged neck like a dagger in case he flew at her again, but he fell back in the chair, too numb to maintain his rage or his balance.
His glance fell on the notebook. “No!” he wailed. “No, no.” His sleeve wiped at the liquor that had splashed the pages. Ink smeared. “Goddess, no. I can’t … can you read this? Is it lost?”
Had he ever been so pitiful? The ice Rhoslyn had piled around her heart melted. She fished a kerchief from her pocket and dabbed the ink carefully dry. “What are you reading?”
“Kieryn wrote it. On’y thing I could find. Hoped for something wise, something useful. Jus’ a measly journal. He was thirteen, fourteen. I had no idea. He … he wanted … he wanted to be me … so Father might love him too.” He gazed up at her, pleading. “Rhoz, what did I ever do for him? There must be something. Tell me. One selfless act, one sacrifice. He gave and gave and what did I do? Not one damn thing.”
Rhoslyn pressed her hand to his cheek. “You must stop this.”
He tossed her touch away, looked around belligerently. “Where’s my glass?”
He didn’t remember flinging it at the door? Rhoslyn grunted in disgust. “Kelyn, listen to me. This must end. People are asking for you. For months, I have lied to everyone we know. I won’t do it anymore. I’ll tell them you’re a worthless drunk. I’ll let scandal and rumor spread as it will.”
He laid a hand flat atop the smeared writing. Was he listening?
“Responsibilities, Kelyn! They are piling up. Your banner flies atop the roof, but I’ve half a mind to take it down. There is no lord in Ilswythe.” There. Let that taunt bring him around.
His head wobbled on a boneless neck; his eyes narrowed as if he was trying to make sense of the words bombarding him. Wasn’t he going to defend himself? Fly into an indignant fury? Rhoslyn was flabbergasted.
“Do you know what’s happening outside your gate?” she demanded. “We should be at Bramoran, Kelyn, fulfilling our duty. Do you know what time of year it is? Winter is upon us. I travel west for Windhaven shortly.” Duty would carry her south to Bramoran first. She was obliged to inspect the state of the election, volunteer an opinion or two. The detour would lengthen her travel by three or four days. She dreaded it. In truth, she should’ve left a week or more ago. Snows likely buried Windgate Pass already. “Do you understand me, Kelyn? I will be gone. For months. Leaving you in this condition. How can I do that? Yet I must go. My own people require me, but I’ve been stuck here seeing to yours.” Rhoslyn claimed a wastepaper basket and scraped the remnants of the sintha bottle into it. “Did you know I was away? I returned to Windhaven for two weeks, reinstating Kethlyn as my heir, setting the record straight. Hmm?”
“Someone … someone tol’ me,” he muttered.
“Yes, it would’ve been nice to have you there, backing me. The great heroic War Commander. You should’ve heard my people singing your praises. I thought surely when I returned to Ilswythe you would have pulled yourself together, but I found you worse off than before.” She crouched with a scrap of paper to sweep the specks of glass away from Kelyn’s feet. She didn’t truly want him cutting himself, if for the sole reason that the physician would ask why the War Commander was dancing on glass. And there were the new rugs to consider.
Having collected all the slivers she could find, she set the basket aside. “Your son offered to dunk you in a horse trough. I think now I should’ve let him. Your children look at you and see a stranger. Have you thought of them?”
Kelyn winced, turned his face toward the window. Petulant as a child.
“Is it any wonder Kethlyn has preferred to risk the spite of Windhaven’s people than stay
here with you? And Carah needs you to help her mourn. But she’s run off to the Elaran city, whatever it’s called. She’s trying to fill her uncle’s shoes, that’s what. She has very small feet and no one to help her. You’ve abandoned us all, Kelyn. Can you even comprehend what I’m saying?” She was losing her temper. She breathed deeply, hoped for a more tender tone. “Dearest, I know you miss him, but—”
“Miss him?” he cried, more quickly than she thought him able. “Rhoz, I need him! I can’t function, can’t think, can’t stand the fact that he’s not … that he won’t … that I’m …” His eyes clenched shut, and he drew himself into a huddle as if he curled in a dark corner cowering from night-monsters. “He’s supposed to be here!” he declared suddenly. His finger punched the reading table. “Here where it’s safe, where he would outlive me by decades. How can I grow old without him telling me how? Rhoz … Rhoz, I was trying to remember the last thing I said to him. Wracked my brain. You know what it was? You know?”
She shook her head, jolting a tear loose.
“If I am, so are you. That’s what I said.” The twins’ old joke. The insult, the endearment Rhoslyn had heard them toss since they were boys. “If he is, so am I. If he is not, I am not. Rhoz, how can I be without him?”
“One day at a time, one hour, one breath.”
He reached for her, like a drowning man reaching for the shore. As he did, his left hand forgot it harbored a treasure. The onyx ring skittered across the table and tumbled over the edge. Kelyn dived from his chair. On hands and knees, he frantically shoved aside books and papers.
Silver winked at Rhoslyn. She didn’t know Kelyn had kept Kieryn’s ring. All this time he had clutched it, like a child’s gaze clinging to a single flame in a dark room. She fetched it from the floor and held it out for Kelyn to see. He seized it and was instantly calm.
Rhoslyn sat beside him on the floor and took up his hand. His fist opened for her, and she slid the ring onto his finger. “You wear it, love. For safekeeping.”
Kelyn stared miserably at Kieryn’s ring on his own hand. The onyx like a stone eye glinted back, seeing him a drunk and chiding him.
