Phoenix Ashes (The Landers Saga Book 3)

by Nilsen, Karen

  “Of course I do--I’m a woman and a Landers and your friend. What do you expect?”

  “I saw you and Peregrine leave the salon together today. Are you his friend too?”

  “He thinks I am.”

  “You’re a two-faced wench, aren’t you?”

  “No, Your Highness. I’m a three-faced wench. On my best days, four-faced, even five-faced.”

  His smile widened to a laugh. “You can keep a lot of men happy, with that many faces.”

  “You know, Peregrine wanted me to join him tonight.”

  “Really?”

  “I told him I only spend my nights with victors.”

  “Because future kings are always victors until there's a revolt,” he added, the melancholy returning with a chill. “I’m always a victor, Eden, but it doesn’t mean anything, not really. These courtiers are afraid to challenge me publicly but they'll backstab me privately . . .”

  I went over to sofa and knelt before him. “Your Highness, I saw the match today. Yes, they do let you win sometimes. But not today. He was angry, and he wanted to beat you. He would have--he’s a skilled swordsman. But you beat him anyway. Not only beat him but surprised him. You surprised the whole court.”

  “You’re just saying that because you must as my subject.” His fingers felt hot and fumbling in my hair. He’d had too much wine himself.

  “If you won’t believe a word I say, how am I supposed to convince you?”

  Suddenly, he leaned down and caught my lips under his, a sloppy kiss that tasted of mulled wine and spiced desperation. Too shocked to move--we hadn’t kissed in months--I let him do as he wished, passive as any terrified virgin. He must have felt as if he were kissing a wax doll.

  He drew away after a moment. “It’s not working,” he said, as if he spoke of a complicated algebraic formula he couldn‘t quite puzzle out.

  “Your Highness . . .”

  “We used to tumble, and it used to work. What happened?”

  “You shocked me, for one thing.”

  “I shocked myself.” He shoved himself into the corner of the sofa, his arms crossed against the world.

  I sat on the sofa beside him and tentatively reached out to stroke his knee. He didn’t protest or move away, so I continued, speaking only after we’d both been silent for a minute. “It’s not you, Your Highness,” I said. “The truth is, I have a lover.”

  “Eden, you always have a lover.”

  “Never one like this man.”

  “Who is he?”

  I shot him a knowing grin. “Not so quick. I must keep some of my mystery.”

  “Will you marry him?” Segar’s gaze was intent--he had a woman’s ear for gossip and scandal.

  “No--I can’t marry him. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. My dearest wish is to be a spinster.”

  The prince grinned in spite of himself. “How admirable--I can see you now, with your countless embroidery hoops and your baskets of food for the poor. I could offer you a far more exciting future, if you’d accept.”

  “Your Highness, we both know you’re due to marry Princess Esme this summer. Don’t play loose with my heart.”

  “Esme, mess-me, the great beautiful pawn in her parents‘ chess match with each other. If Queen Jazmene hadn’t gotten herself in trouble with her lover Toscar, King Rainier might never have managed to betroth Esme to me. Jazmene had Esme practically married to Prince Tivon of Numer, had even announced it. Then a week later, Jazmene's banished, her lover dead by Merius's blade. Whenever did Merius become the sword of the very fates, the prize knight on Rainier‘s famous chessboard?” His gaze bore into mine like acid.

  He had a better grasp of politics than Mordric gave him credit for. “I’ve been wondering the same thing, Your Highness, but I’ve been able to pry nothing out of either Merius or Mordric. Most ungenerous of them, considering I‘m such a loyal kinswoman.”

  “What about that little red-headed wife of Merius’s? She was there with them, and she looks like she might have a loose tongue.”

  “You’d think that to look at her, wouldn’t you? But she‘s proven unexpectedly . . .” I paused, “sensible.”

  “I’m such a pawn of this court and my father’s whims, it’s ridiculous,” Segar declared.

  “It’s not unknown for a pawn to win the game, Your Highness.”

  “I told you already--I’m tired of winning. I don’t want to win. If I must marry, which apparently I must--this tiresome business of getting an heir and a spare, you know--then I want to marry a woman who understands, not some doe-eyed princess.”

  “That’s a proposal to win any woman’s heart, Your Highness.”

  “Eden, don’t mock me. All I want is your friendship and understanding, and I already have those.”

  “You certainly do.” I ran my fingers along his jaw. Really, Prince Segar was fine-looking as princes went. His face was a bit long in the jaw and his teeth too prominent, but he had a handsomely even bone structure otherwise, with a straight nose and high cheekbones. His large hazel-green eyes shone like sunlight in a woodland pool when he laughed, my favorite feature. Although not particularly athletic, he attended arms practice and rode his horse a considerable amount, and in the past year, he had finally outgrown the last of his adolescent lankiness, his muscles filling in his heavy court doublets nicely. “There are many princesses who would be on their knees in gratitude to marry you,” I said.

  “Grateful until they figure out I’m looking at their bodyguards more than them.”

  “Your Highness, do you think princesses go into marriage for love any more than the rest of us? You have numerous charms and a fine throne and country to rule--no sensible wife will object to your other interests. Especially if she has a lover of her own to conceal. I hear Esme is quite the doe-eyed flirt--she was certainly giving Merius the eye when I visited the Sarneth court.”

  “Most give Merius the eye,” Segar said quietly.

  I grinned. Whatever would Mordric say? “Merius? Merius is completely oblivious, Your Highness. You should have seen Princess Esme trying to flirt with him. She practically chased him around the ballroom.”

  “Oblivious? That’s a large part of his appeal. He‘s no dandy, for certain.”

  “No--he has eyes only for his books and swords and that red-headed wife of his.”

  Emboldened, the prince continued, “I considered having him assigned to my guard duty after he returned from Marenna.”

  “Really?”

  “I never would have approached him, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s obvious he prefers the company of women, and it would be ill-advised, considering his position. Still . . .”

  “Have you approached anyone, Your Highness?”

  Segar shrugged. “No man of consequence, of course. Not even the court servants knew him before he came here.”

  “How did you find him, then?”

  “When the high court went to Marenna to attend my royal sister’s wedding a few years ago, I saw him working in the stables. He was a blacksmith’s apprentice, and he was shoeing horses, stripped to the waist, all his muscles moving under a shimmer of sweat. I’ll never forget it. He noticed me watching him, and he paused and looked back for the barest instant, long enough for me to know he understood what my stare meant.”

  “Your steward?”

  The prince nodded absently, lost in thought. “I started a fad for foreign servants, and none of these fools who emulate my every public move understand in the least what they’re emulating.”

  “That’s clever--he’s a mute too, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Segar finally looked at me, a wicked humor sparking his eyes. “A mute, and he only understands Marennese, except for a few Corcin words he’s managed to pick up here and there.”

  “I want a man like that--tractable.”

  “What about this new lover of yours? Is he,” the prince gave a delicate pause, “tractable?”

  I laughed until my eye
s watered. “Oh, Your Highness,” I managed finally.

  Chapter Six - Safire

  Corcin, Eastern Cormalen

  May, 3 years ago

  The colors on my palette gleamed like jewels in the morning sunlight--ruby red, topaz yellow, emerald green, sapphire blue. I added one last drop of oil to the blue to give it the same consistency as the other colors, then glanced over my brushes. I had started with a fairly broad brush for the background, one that made nice, bold strokes and soaked the paint into the canvas. I had layered the paint many times over the background until the colors were so bright and deep that I heard crackles when I looked at them. Today I would finish all the detail work, so I selected a thin brush, then squinted at the canvas. Sometimes when I squinted, almost to the point of closing my eyes, I saw things, vague shapes emerge on the canvas I would never have seen with my eyes wide open.

  “It makes my eyes hurt, those colors are so bright,” Merius said, echoing my thought. “What are you painting? A peacock?”

  “Sort of--you’ll see.”

  Merius sat in the armchair on the other side of the easel, the back of the canvas to him so he couldn’t see what I was doing. I was shy about him seeing my works in progress, why I wasn‘t quite sure. He loved everything I painted, which made him a good husband and a great audience, or at least an uncritical one, which was what a fledgling artist like me needed sometimes. Perhaps my hesitation had something to do with the secret delight I took in the first raw stages of creation, a delight that seared too deeply to be shared at first, even with him. Perhaps I’d let him see it today before he went to court.

  I had met the subject of this painting at court when we arrived in Corcin. She was Cyranea of the Helles Isles, one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, a thin, pale creature with a gorgeous aura, all jewel tones. She probably thought me rather dull, as I had been so taken with her aura I had been unable to speak beyond the bare pleasantries in her presence. She had become the unwitting inspiration of my painting, her aura surrounding her like wings. It was safe to paint her here, in my private studio in this house we had rented to be near court but not actually at court. No one besides Merius and perhaps Elsa and the Rankins would ever see these paintings.

  I dabbed some red on the wingtips, a splash of heart’s blood. Although I had envisioned the wings to resemble bird wings, on canvas the bold patterns and colors made them look more like butterfly wings. Butterfly wings comprised of feathers, which gave them an interesting texture, like Korigann’s kaleidoscope when they moved. Korigann was the painting master at the Sarneth court, my tutor in the ways of the brush. He’d shown me his kaleidoscope during one of our lessons, and it had transfixed me for a good quarter hour. I’d stared at the dance of colors so long that my head had started to ache. At the memory of pain, I touched my temples--it would be more than a memory if this canvas moved any more. Already, even before the painting was done, the wings had begun to flap on the canvas, the feathers stirring and shifting into new patterns.

  “Damn it,” I swore then, trying to follow the tip of one wing with my brush. “Stay still for a moment.”

  “If you wanted me to pose, you should have said something before,” Merius remarked, rattling the dusty collection of papers and parchments in his lap as he propped his long legs over one arm of the chair.

  “I spoke to the canvas, not you.”

  “You should watch that--with your talents, it might actually answer you one of these days.”

  I glared at him around the edge of the easel. “Next time you‘re writing, I‘ll make the words move around on the page and chase your pen tip. See if you make wisecracks then.”

  His eyes crinkled as he gave me one of his wickedly infectious grins. Then he turned his gaze back to the small black book he held. The binding looked odd, large, crudely done cross stitches. “What are you reading?” I asked.

  “This,” he held up the book, “is the journal of Talus.”

  “The Landers warlock you told me about?” I asked. “Anything interesting so far?”

  His brow furrowed. “All of it is interesting. But it’s in fragments--there are whole pages missing. And then he mentions this unseen flint in the same sentence with weirfish . . .”

  “Weirfish?”

  “The ancient name for merfolk.” Merius tossed the journal down suddenly in a seeming show of irritation, though I noticed he was careful to toss it on the cushion beside him and not on the floor. “So how can I know if what he writes is true or not, when one moment he’s using this unseen flint to burn out his enemy’s camp and the next moment rhapsodizing about some mythical mermaid? It may not be his journal at all, but a made-up story. Maybe he aspired to be a verse writer . . .”

  “You don’t believe mermaids exist?” I asked.

  Merius regarded me silently for a moment, his arms crossed. “Sweetheart, you’re the most adorable lunatic I know.”

  I flung down my brush. “Don’t condescend to me when you’re the one who married a witch.”

  “There’s a world of difference between a witch and a mermaid, Safire. What you can do--it’s an inherited talent, like my ability with a sword. In order for a woman to be a mermaid, her whole skeletal structure would have to be capable of shifting shape the instant she touches water. You expect me to believe that’s possible?”

  “Would you have believed our mind bond was possible a year ago? You’ve become such a skeptic . . .”

  There came a soft knock, and Elsa poked her head around the edge of the door. “May I enter?”

  “Of course.”

  She bore a tray with a flagon of sweet cider and crusty bread and butter. Even at this mild repast, my stomach knotted, sourness rising in my throat. “Elsa, that’s thoughtful of you, but I don’t think I can eat it now.”

  “Nonsense, my lady.” Her eyebrows thickened, a sign of the quiet will of steel I was just beginning to appreciate. “You had no breakfast this morning for retching, and you barely touched your food yesterday.”

  “I’ll eat something later. My stomach still feels sour.” I felt Merius’s eyes on me, his mind tiptoeing through mine as he tried to find what I was hiding. The ass--didn’t he know I could sense him coming a league away?

  “Well, I’m leaving this,” Elsa muttered, setting the tray on the table near the door. “You can’t paint if you don’t eat, you know.” And with that, she stomped out.

  “Safire . . . you’re hiding something from me.” Merius’s voice rose and fell in a teasing singsong, but I could feel his aura shift from silver to a tense pewter without even looking at him, heard the dry rattle of the old parchments as he set them aside and concentrated on me. Although I could meet his eyes and still hide some things like Peregrine‘s wicked lust, I couldn’t hide this. My joy was too great. As long as I didn’t look at him, didn’t meet his gaze, I could still block him. I smiled to myself, laced my fingers over my girdle. This reminded me of my paintings, how I kept them a delightful secret before I showed them to anyone.

  Finally when I was ready, I looked up and met his unblinking gaze. “I’m with child, dear heart.”

  A stillness came over him. His usually frenetic aura froze like thick ice over a lively stream in winter. A few glints darted far under the surface like tiny fish, my only hint that he was still capable of breathing. I wiped my hands on my smock and stepped around the easel toward him, slowly, as I had never seen him in this state and wasn‘t quite sure what to do. I couldn’t even read his thoughts--he wasn’t able to think apparently. Poor dear heart. He had been trying so hard, being so careful, so unlike his normal slapdash self, and all for naught. Sudden laughter welled up inside. I managed to force back the first ripple, but the second overwhelmed me, and I found myself giggling and snorting around the hand I’d cupped over my mouth.

  “Is this a jest?” he asked finally, almost hopefully. “Is that why you’re laughing?”

  “No, love.” I hiccupped my last laugh before I reached out and slid my hand under his jaw, thrill
ing at the stubble. “I’m at least two months gone with your child. The morning sickness is no jest.”

  “Two months?” His voice rose. “You’ve known about this two months?”

  “No, of course not. I didn’t suspect anything until about a week ago.”

  “Are you sure then? We’ve been so careful.”

  “I’m sure, Merius. I know you’ve tried, and I love you for it, but no method is fool proof when it comes to nature. And we’ve certainly tested it plenty of times--it was bound to fail at some point.”

  He twisted around in the chair, Talus’s journal sliding to the floor. He didn’t notice, his gaze intent on mine as his hand curled around my waist. I could feel the gentle warmth of his other hand through my smock and skirts as he touched my belly.

  I combed my fingers through his hair. “You can’t feel anything yet, you know.”

  “That’s not true--your aura’s been different lately. Usually it‘s a cloud but lately it’s more intense, a thick purple line around you and hot with sparks--the other night I thought it would burn me when we joined. Now I know why.”

  “For such a skeptic, you talk just like a warlock sometimes.”

  “Only because of you,” he retorted. “Witch wife.” He pulled me down on his lap.

  "This smock has paint on it--it’ll ruin your doublet . . ." I managed before his lips found mine. Our auras twined around each other--it felt as if we lay together in a sunlit meadow, the grass soft as the sky shifted overhead and the earth turned beneath. I could stay here forever, cozy in his familiar warmth.

  Finally he drew away a little, just enough to meet my gaze with his. "You’ll have to see the court midwife soon."

  “Reti?” I grimaced. “She’s an old gossip. It’ll be all over court in no time.”

  “So? This is good gossip. I bet it happened on the ship,” he continued. “Remember that night with the rough waves--I lost my concentration.”

  I grinned and kissed him again. "So that’s what you call it."

  “Don’t mock me, hot-blooded witch, not when you‘ve done your utmost to test my restraint. You have no idea how difficult it’s been. And all for naught, apparently.” He sighed. “Well, Father will be happy for a change.”