by Jayla Jasso
“Elio! You can’t flirt with Solange.”
“Why not? I like her.”
“She is the queen!” Jiandra growled.
“Today she’s just ‘Brigetta,’ isn’t she? Thank you for your concern, Sister; now please stop hitting me so I can go attend to our guest.” Elio grabbed the cheese block and headed back to the dining room.
#
Jiandra and Solange sat on the stone fence-row overlooking the fruit orchard, while Elio stood leaning against the trunk of an apple tree. He had admitted to the queen that he knew who she was after lunch, and Solange seemed relieved that it didn’t matter. The three of them had been chatting outside for a couple of hours, and the afternoon sun was beginning to sink behind the trees.
Jiandra slid to her feet. “Your Highness, it’s getting late. We should take you home.”
“Yes—I suppose they will be looking for me.” Solange let herself down off the fence, dusting off her breeches. “My thanks to you both for allowing me to spend the afternoon here, and for your hospitality.”
Elio straightened and smiled down at her. “The pleasure is all ours.”
“Your sister’s porridge and bread were delicious, and your younger siblings are delightful. Rafe looks like you, Jiandra. He has your green eyes and chestnut hair. Why is Gracie’s hair so dark? She doesn’t look much like the two of you.”
Jiandra smiled. “Gracie took after our mother, who had lovely dark hair and the same pale hazel eyes.”
“Yes, my sister took after our blond-haired mother as well.” Solange fell silent momentarily. “And pardon my intrusion, but…how did your parents die?”
Elio looked away and cleared his throat gruffly, so Jiandra explained. “They were on their way home from a journey to Falcondell, and their carriage was ambushed by bandits.”
“Six years ago…when you were seventeen? And you were only thirteen, Elio?”
Elio nodded, meeting her gaze.
Solange thought a moment. “May I call you cousins? We are cousins, distant though the relation may be.”
“Yes, of course,” Jiandra replied, and Elio agreed.
“Jiandra, will you come to the Castle and visit me tomorrow? I—I have need of—family, just now.”
Jiandra held her hand out to her and smiled. “Yes, I will come visit you. Cousin.”
Solange squeezed her hand. “I will tell the guards and my steward that I am expecting you.”
Elio stepped close to Solange and took her hands in his, grinning. “It was truly a pleasure meeting you, Your Highness. I mean, Brigetta.”
She smiled sweetly. “Yes, and you, Elio.”
Elio held her hands far longer than necessary, and Solange didn’t seem to mind.
They walked to the stables and Elio helped them both into the cart, then got in and took the reins. They drove the queen back to the castle, returning home just in time to help Gracie with supper.
After the kitchen was cleaned and put back into order and Gracie and Rafe were sent off to bed, Jiandra climbed the stairs to her own bedroom. She stripped off her clothes and went to her washbasin to scrub off the day’s grime. Then she donned her nightgown, blew out her candle, and crawled into bed.
Ben Farro’s pleading look from earlier that day in the square floated into her thoughts. Jiandra sighed and stared at the beam of soft moonlight streaming in through her window.
I do want a husband, she admitted to herself. Just…not him. She thought about Elio’s reaction to meeting Solange. Of course it wouldn’t be to the queen, but someday Elio would want to wed, and then Jiandra would be a third wheel at the farm. She had no desire to end up a crabby old spinster, gadding about Stovy farm, meddling in her younger siblings’ lives as they raised their own families. The truth was, she longed to snuggle into bed and into the arms of a handsome, honorable, brave husband. She would be warmed through the winter cuddled next to him, in their own little cottage, free from any responsibilities to anyone but him.
So why not Ben, Jiandra? He certainly seems willing. She thought again about Elio and Solange’s smiles and glances today over lunch and during their stroll afterwards.
The answer was simple. She wanted to feel like that about the man she married.
#
“I cannot trust anyone,” Solange confessed to Jiandra the next day as they walked along the garden path behind the castle. “I know that Lyren killed my sister, but I don’t know if he acted alone. After my father’s death, the Royal Council was so eager—too eager—to take over for her, make all the decisions for her. And I’ve never told anyone this, but I always thought that there may have been foul play with my father’s death as well. He wasn’t ill before he died. My mother, yes. She’d been ill for years. But even at the age of sixty, my father was too able-bodied and robust to just have died naturally in his sleep.”
Jiandra frowned, pondering her words. “Solange, I think you need a constant bodyguard detail. Isn’t there anyone among your guards you can trust?”
“Well…Nelson, perhaps. Cornwall, too. They were both very loyal to Father, and I’ve known them since I was little.”
“Why not assign those two as your personal, round-the-clock guards? Have them outside your chambers as you sleep, follow you all day.”
“I want to lead a somewhat normal life. Not the life of a prisoner, confined in a cage.”
Jiandra felt a stab of compassion for her.
“I am quite jealous of you,” Solange said. “You are free to live your life as you so choose, and you have your siblings.”
“Don’t be jealous of me; my siblings are all troublemakers. Giving me gray hair before my time!”
Solange didn’t laugh. “I think they are wonderful.”
Jiandra wondered if she meant, especially Elio.
“You will think me silly,” Solange spoke again, “but I have always wished I could marry a farmer and live in a cottage just like yours, tend my own garden, learn to cook, and raise lots of boisterous children.”
“In truth?”
“In truth, cousin.”
Jiandra suppressed a smile. Yes, she’s thinking about Elio. His head would swell up to the size of a bushel basket if he knew.
They were approaching the pond. They came close to the water’s edge, and Solange stopped.
“This is where they found Riselle.”
“Oh.” Jiandra didn’t know what to say, so she stared at the ground.
Something in the grass glinted in the sunlight. She went closer to investigate, leaning down to inspect. It appeared to be a polished stone with a dark blue luster, partially embedded in the moist earth there amongst the grass. She reached down to brush the dirt away, pulled it free and held it in her palm.
“Solange, look at this.”
Just as the queen stepped closer, an arrow sailed past Jiandra’s ear, splitting the air as it zinged by and stuck into a nearby tree. Jiandra pulling Solange to the ground and covered her with her own body. “Guards!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
There was silence except for the pounding of the girls’ hearts, and then heavy footsteps quickly approached them, crunching in the grass. Jiandra blinked up into the face of a castle guard, who stood over them with his sword drawn.
“It’s—it’s Cornwall.” Solange gripped Jiandra’s forearms as they both struggled to their feet.
“What happened, Your Highness?”
“I’m not certain...I thought I heard an arrow…”
“Someone shot an arrow at her. I think it came from up there.” Jiandra pointed at the northeast turret of the castle.
Cornwall started in that direction.
“No, Cornwall—stay with me.” Solange halted him. “We shall call Nelson to investigate.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Nelson!” he shouted up at the balcony on the second floor. A guard’s helmeted face appeared over the wall. Cornwall motioned to him and then quickly escorted the girls inside.
FOUR
Nelson climbed up to t
he northeast turret to find it vacant. He scanned the castle grounds below as well as the forest behind the castle for any sign of movement, finding only silence and stillness. He paced the wall of the turret, searching the stone pavement for clues. There on the floor lay a tiny, thin sliver of metal, and he picked it up and held it in his palm to examine it. It was iridium, the kind used in Nandala to make tools and weapons.
#
Jiandra sat beside Solange’s bed as the maids waited on her, delivering tea and attempting to bathe the girl’s forehead with cool, wet cloths.
“Enough,” Solange shooed them away. Once they were gone and her door was shut, she tossed the wet cloths aside. “Jiandra, let’s see that stone you found.”
Jiandra removed it from the pocket in her skirt, polished it on her apron, and held it up to the daylight filtering in through the window for inspection. It was a perfectly round disk, about an inch and a half in diameter and a half-inch thick, and it glowed with a purplish-blue iridescence. “It’s beautiful.”
Solange sat up to peer closer. “For something like this to be merely lying out there on the ground near the lake, in the spot where Riselle was found…there must be some connection to her death.”
Jiandra turned the stone. “I think it’s some sort of crystal. Look how the color changes in the light.”
“I believe there is a reputable gemologist in Rockrimmon. I could have it sent there; perhaps he could tell us what it is.”
Jiandra shook her head. “That would take several days, and you would have to entrust the stone to a courier. I know of someone closer by who might be able to help us. I can take the stone myself.”
“Who?”
“A wisewoman called Zafira. She lives in the woods west of Cobbleton, just a couple of miles from our farm.”
“Is she a witch?”
“Perhaps. It is rumored so.”
Solange fell silent.
Jiandra laid the stone on the bedcovers beside Solange. “She’ll know what manner of stone this is, I’ll wager.”
Solange thought a moment. “Can she see the future?”
“They say she can.”
“I want to go with you.”
#
Inside her manor outside Caladia, Gerynwid stared into her scrying pool, watching as a tall, hooded figure cursed under his breath, replaced his bow on his back, and vaulted over the ledge of the turret wall of the castle down to a lower balcony. He slipped over the side and dropped to a grassy area, where he was joined by a second dark, cloaked figure. The two of them scaled the courtyard’s outer wall, leapt gracefully over the top, and quickly disappeared into the forest outside Castle Villeleia. They mounted a pair of black horses and rode through the trees away from Kingston, heading north. Gerynwid touched the water with a long, sculpted fingernail, trying to make out their faces, but they were completely obscured by their hoods.
The two strangers rode hard until nightfall, pausing to rest the horses once before resuming their flight north. Eventually, Gerynwid saw them stop not far from an abandoned shack in a secluded wood and set up camp for the night. They were a few miles east of the village of Frocklin Grove, half a day’s ride south of Caladia. She stepped away from the pool, shapeshifted into the black griffon vulture, and exited her manor through an upper window, flying southeast.
Eventually, from high above, she spotted their fire in the distance in a small clearing in the dense forest and headed toward it, dropping lower in the sky. Soon she could make out two men seated on the ground there, their horses tied nearby. Gerynwid flapped her wings in the still night air, landing gently on the leaf-strewn ground. She shifted to her human shape and rose to her full height, then made her way toward them.
Her foot snapped a small twig.
Both men leapt swiftly to their feet, each drawing his dagger with a silent, fluid motion. Gerynwid continued to approach, staring back at them calmly. They stood nearly six-and-a-half feet tall; both of them had massive shoulders, lithe, muscular limbs, and spiky grayish-silver hair. The man in front regarded her with icy-cold, exotic pale-silver eyes, his chiseled face unexpectedly handsome. Her gaze shifted to the other man, who stepped up from behind him with the same steely, silver-eyed glare.
Their faces were identical.
“Twins,” Gerynwid crooned, giving them a salacious smile. “How very interesting.”
The men stood poised, as though they were ready to leap and slit her throat at any moment.
“I mean you no harm. I am Gerynwid of Caladia. I have been watching you in my scrying pool for several hours.” She moved closer, scanning their attire and weapons. “Mercenaries?”
Without warning the man closest to her lunged, grasped her body, spun her around, and pinned her back against his hard, muscular chest, his dagger at her throat.
“Assassins,” he clarified in a deep, silky, Nandalan-accented voice, his warm breath fanning her ear.
“From Nandala,” Gerynwid noted, meeting his twin brother’s gaze. “May I ask your names?”
Her captor muttered, “I am Yavi, and this is Yajna.”
Gerynwid smiled. “The Old Nandalan words for ‘heaven,’ and ‘worship,’ I believe.” Her gaze slid over Yajna’s muscular torso, down his leather-clad legs, and back up again. “Hmm, yes. Appropriate.”
“What do you want?” Yavi demanded near her ear, pressing the tip of his dagger against the pale white skin of her exposed neck.
“I want to know who sent you to kill our queen.”
“No one of importance.”
“Meaning—someone considerably important.” Gerynwid smiled. “Well, I wanted to have her killed myself, but my emissary was unsuccessful as well.”
“Why do you want her dead?”
“I do not care for her,” she returned coolly.
“Meaning—you desire her power,” he countered.
Gerynwid pressed her lips together in a half-smile of defeat. “Well, Yavi and Yajna of Nandala, you will not be successful at killing me either, so—be so kind as to release me before I am forced to use stronger measures.”
Yavi tensed behind her. “I could kill you now.” He tightened his grip on the dagger at her throat.
“No, you see…” Gerynwid shapeshifted into a plume of smoke, slithered from his grasp, and re-formed as human a few feet away, facing them both. “I am a shapeshifter. I mean no offense, but you would have a difficult time killing me with conventional weapons and hand-to-hand combat, which I am sure you are both skilled at.”
Yavi scowled. “You allowed me to physically detain you just now, for what purpose?”
“Yavi, my dear, being physically detained by you is not entirely unpleasant.”
A grin spread across his chiseled face. “What do you want from us, witch?”
“Well,” she returned smoothly, “let me see.” She looked first at Yavi, then at Yajna. “Where to begin?”
#
Jiandra rapped on the door of the small, secluded cottage nestled among the oaks and dogwoods of Cobbleton Wood while Solange stood waiting quietly next to her, wearing her boy-disguise.
The door swung open, and a beautiful young woman’s face appeared. “Yes?” Her curly, light brown hair was half-piled on top of her head, and her soft brown eyes studied Jiandra curiously. She was very slender and dressed all in white. A pleasant, spicy aroma emanated from her little cottage.
Wrong cottage, Jiandra thought. “Oh, ah—pardon me, Miss. We were looking for the wisewoman called Zafira.”
“It is I.”
“You? Oh, I…”
“Thought I would be older?”
“Yes, in fact,” Jiandra smiled. “I am Jiandra Stovy, and this is—”
“Queen Solange,” Zafira supplied, smiling and curtsying. “Welcome, Your Highness. Come in, both of you. Have a seat at the table. Tea?”
They followed Zafira inside, finding a cluttered but cozy kitchen just inside the door, furnished with a small pine table and three chairs.
“Tea wou
ld be wonderful,” Jiandra spoke up as they seated themselves at the table.
“I only have goat’s milk for the tea. I have trouble getting cow’s milk delivered all the way out here in the woods.”
Zafira bustled around the tiny kitchen for a few minutes. Her cottage was uncomfortably warm, and Jiandra loosened her neck scarf a bit.
“There now.” Zafira served the tea and joined them, folding her hands together and resting them on the table. “Why have you come?”
“We found this stone.” Jiandra withdrew it from her skirt pocket and laid it on the tablecloth.
Zafira stared at the stone for a second, then picked it up and weighed it in her hand. She pressed it to her chest and hummed a bit, closing her eyes. Finally, she held it up to the light and inspected it. “Where did you get this?”
“We found it half-buried in the ground near the lake where Queen Riselle was murdered.”
Zafira turned to Solange. “You think that it has something to do with her death. And you are right, Your Highness.”
Solange regarded her soberly.
“But you are the one it came to,” Zafira said to Jiandra. “You are the one who saw it there in the mud.”
“Yes.”
“I believe this is the Omaja stone,” Zafira whispered reverently, holding it up to the light again. “If so, it is very, very ancient and powerful. My mother told me heroic stories about it when I was little.”
“What does it do?”
“It is said that with this stone one may use the powers of the Old Gods.”
Jiandra swallowed.
Zafira addressed Solange. “Your sister’s murderer was carrying this stone. I sense greed, jealousy, and death on it. Bear with me a moment.” She rose and rummaged around in a closet near the back of the kitchen. She emerged with a shallow silver bowl, set it in the center of the table, and filled it with water from a silver pitcher. She placed the stone at the bottom, then went to a slotted shelf under her small kitchen window and selected a particular vial from a row of them perched there. She uncorked it and tapped a few drops of a rose-colored liquid into the water, which immediately began to swirl slowly around the stone.
