by Kallysten
Bradan could hardly have been any happier if she had said she loved him. He cupped her face in one hand and drew her to him for a kiss. Breakfast and the king could wait a little longer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The King
This time, when Vivien Passed Through, she was ready.
Terrified, but ready.
She didn’t stumble, merely stepped through the portal Brad had opened, so that one second she was in the round room in the castle—the Passing Room, Aedan called it—and the next she was in a similar room in Rhuinn’s palace. It was similar in shape, and yet, while the other room had been solemn and stately with the stone spirals inlaid in the walls, this one was gaudy, even ostentatious. Gemstones of all colors were set in the walls in the shape of triangles, with four smaller triangles inscribed in each large one. Torches burned bright all around the room and caused the gems to glitter as though they were in full sunlight.
She would have liked to look back at Brad where she knew he stood one step behind her to her right, while Aedan was one step behind to her left, but Aedan had drilled into her the do’s and don’ts of the court. If she wanted to look like she belonged, she had to pretend her bodyguards were invisible to her. One more reason to be afraid: how would she know whether she was doing all right or messing up if she couldn’t look at Brad or Aedan for cues? But her fear was something else she wasn’t allowed to show.
Aedan had given her a bottle of perfume and suggested she apply more after at first she had only dabbed some on her neck.
“The vampires around the king will pick up on your fear in your scent,” he had warned her. “They have ways of letting him know what they smell, and he’ll prey on any perceived weakness.”
Even now, all she could smell was that scent, floral and light, and it didn’t help her mood much. The aroma made her feel...small, somehow. Like she needed loving arms to pick her up and hold her close. She suspected that, like the dress and shoes, the perfume had belonged to her mother. She hadn’t asked; there hadn’t been time while Aedan kept thinking of new things to tell her about the court or Rhuinn.
She had listened closely, and she knew exactly what to tell the man waiting by the door, his ruby-toned suit identifying him as some sort of majordomo.
“I am Vivien Te Celden, answering the king’s summons.”
On her left, the sound of shuffling feet spoke of irritation. ‘My king,’ Aedan had wanted her to say, but Vivien had refused to use the possessive. This man had kidnapped Anabel and caused her death; Vivien wouldn’t call him her king, not if she could help it.
If the majordomo was offended on his ruler’s behalf, he did not show it. His face remained blank as he bowed at the waist.
“Blessings upon you, Dame Vivien Te Celden. King Rhuinn is holding court in the throne room. Please allow me to guide you.”
Aedan had provided her with an answer for that, too.
“Only peasants and those too new to the court to know their way around are escorted through the palace,” he had said. “You don’t want to appear like an outsider, not to the king or to the high families who will be there. Some will wait in the hallways to watch you from the moment you enter the castle. They will judge every move you make, every word you say.”
It wasn’t a particularly reassuring thought.
“That will not be necessary,” she said in a firm voice.
The majordomo’s expression cracked, showing alarm. Surely, he had been instructed not to let her wander in alone. Vivien was already striding toward the door, though, stopping two feet in front of it to allow Aedan to sweep forward, open the door, go through, and give a small bow after he was satisfied no enemy lurked in the next room. When Vivien passed by him, he murmured so quietly that she had trouble making out the words, “Very good.”
She let out a slow, quiet sigh with her next breath. She’d passed the first obstacle. The course was still long, though, starting with the long corridor, so much like the one from the round room to the main house in her mother’s castle. Vivien took the opportunity to practice her walk some more. After she’d dressed and put on shoes that were a little too big, Brad had suggested she walk around for a while to get used to the whole outfit.
“Even your prom dress wasn’t that long,” he’d said, with enough confidence to remind her how long he had watched over her. “And my guess is, it’s been a long time since you wore heels that high.”
He’d been wrong about that. She had never worn heels like these, and even though they were only about two inches high, at first she had felt like she tottered with every step. She was beginning to get used to them, but she still had to pay attention to the way she walked.
It didn’t help that the dress, made of a pale blue fabric that resembled satin, with metallic embroidery along the full sleeves, bodice, and hem, fell in long folds around her and all the way to the floor, tangling around her legs when she took strides that were too long. The dress was a little tight across the stomach and looser at the bust, but Vivien must have been the same height as her mother, because the dress barely brushed the floor with each of her steps, as though the length, at least, had been tailored for her.
When she reached the other end of the corridor, she stopped again, and this time Brad stepped forward for the door-opening ritual. When he turned to bow her forward, he met her eyes for the briefest of instants, and while he kept his countenance and did not smile, his eyes held all his love, all his strength, and all his confidence that things would go well.
Comforted, Vivien entered the palace proper. A hallway stretched on either side of her, at least ten feet wide, and the ceilings higher still. Vivien didn’t hesitate and started down her left as though she had been there many times before.
“He’ll either be in the throne room or the reception hall,” Aedan had said. “I would guess the throne room, as it’s more formal and he’ll want to impress you. The throne room is easy to find. Just turn left when you get out of the corridor, and continue down the hallway until you reach the very end. There’ll be guards on both sides of doors as wide as this room.”
Vivien could already see those doors now, far down the corridor. Her throat tightened, and she tried not to look that far ahead. She’d get there soon enough.
Narrow windows just below the ceiling featured panes of glass in bright red, green, and blue, so that the hallway seemed to be bathed in a rainbow. The effect was odd, especially when Vivien walked past a few people, their faces taking unnatural colors as they observed her while pretending they barely noticed her, exactly like Aedan had said. Vivien inclined her head every time she saw someone who wasn’t wearing the bright red livery of the king’s service, but she didn’t smile, nor did she slow down, again following Aedan’s recommendations. She wasn’t there to meet people; there’d be time for that and recruiting allies later.
A long carpet ran down the hallway, thick and plush enough to make walking in unfamiliar heels that much more complicated. The same triangle motif was repeated over and over in brightly colored thread, and again on the throne-room doors, the triangles engraved in the dark wood. She guessed it was the king’s family symbol, like the entwined spirals were hers. While she was getting ready, Brad had pulled the silver pendant from somewhere, but Aedan had vetoed it.
“Wearing that now would be as good as declaring you intend to reclaim the throne.”
He hadn’t actually said that there’d be time for that later, too, but she’d heard it in his tone anyway. She didn’t want to think about that now, not when there were already so many things she had to keep in mind, so many mistakes she could still make—including standing frozen and silent in front of closed doors and frowning guards.
Like before, she gave her name and the reason for her presence there. The guards barely glanced at her, but they did give Brad a long, gauging look. Aedan, for his part, received fierce glares. She didn’t need to look at him to know he would return them in kind.
“What if they don’t let you two
come in with me?” she had blurted out moments before they Passed Through, her nerves getting the best of her.
“Anyone in the court is entitled to up to three bodyguards.” Brad had assured her, squeezing her hand gently. “We’ll be there.”
She wished she could hold his hand now.
A handful of seconds seemed to turn into an eternity before the guards finally opened the doors, pushing them in and revealing the throne room behind them. Vivien’s heart skipped a beat, and she forgot to breathe.
Three or four houses from her neighborhood on Earth could have easily fit in this one room, yards included. Rows of stone pillars stood on either side of the room, each wide enough that three people might have had trouble holding each other’s hands around one. They tapered slowly as they rose, accentuating the impression of height as they burst into arches that crisscrossed the vaulted ceiling. Vivien couldn’t have said if they were the work of talented masons or equally talented channelers; either way, she was sure a lot of work had gone into building this room—into making it breathtaking and awe-inspiring, which of course had to be the entire point.
She tried to appear cool and unimpressed as she started forward, keeping an even, unhurried pace, but her thoughts were swirling as she took in more details. Windows surrounded the room at the junction of wall and ceiling and were draped with yards and yards of sheer fabric in the same omnipresent jewel colors. The drapes fell almost to the floor, plain at the top, but heavily embroidered in shimmering thread from about halfway down to the bottom.
Vivien wished she could stop and look at the embroidered scenes, or at the paintings hanging between the drapes, each more than six feet tall and half again as wide. All she could do, however, was sneak glances without turning her head, all too aware of how many eyes were on her.
A wide path lay open in the center of the room all the way to the dais at the other end, but the room was hardly empty. On both sides, people stood in pairs or small groups between the stone pillars: women in beautiful long dresses, their hair set in elaborate curls on their shoulders; men in suits of all colors, all of them talking quietly and watching her. Behind the groups, here and there, men and women stood still, dressed all in black, armed, attentive to everything: bodyguards.
Vivien could barely hear the buzz of voices over her thundering heart. She’d never been afraid of speaking in public, mostly because she’d always prepared for such occasions. She was prepared now, too, as much as she could possibly be, but there was something about being the focus of so much attention when so many things were out of her hands.
The thought drifted through her mind that if she tripped now, she would embarrass herself in front of what looked like at least two hundred people. As though by self-prophecy, her toe caught the edge of a paving stone, and she stifled a gasp as she struggled not to lose her balance without flailing wildly. She heard a sharp inhale on her left: Brad’s. He couldn’t help her now. Her next step was a little hurried, but she didn’t fall on her face or lose her calm; good enough, she supposed. She tried to be more careful after that, and also tried not to think about falling again.
Crossing the hall took almost two full minutes. By the time she came close enough to the dais to see the people on it, the crowd had fallen silent, and all Vivien could hear was the sound of her heels striking the stones in a rhythm as steady as a metronome’s; her heartbeat was faster.
From the end of the room, the dais had seemed tall, the throne upon it imposing. Now that she was closer, she realized they were oversized to fit the room perfectly. Four tall steps led up to the dais, three feet above the floor. Two guards stood on either side, dressed in the same black uniform as Aedan and Brad. The ones on the left wore swords at their sides; the ones on the right, including the woman the king had sent as a messenger, carried knives.
All four guards tensed visibly as Vivien approached, their eyes darting from her right to her left and back: they worried about Brad and Aedan and what they might do more than they worried about her. They were right, of course. Vivien carried no sword.
Aedan had vetoed that, too.
The throne at the center of the dais, gilded with a wide triangular back pointing upward, could have fit three people easily, yet the one man sitting on it managed by his sheer presence not to be dwarfed by his seat. He was dressed in an opulent cobalt suit with gold trim, and the thick sides of a long coat spread around him on the throne like a cape. He looked tall, even while seating. She would have expected him to wear a crown, but his hair fell unfettered to his shoulders, a blonde so bright it shone like gold.
For some reason, she had thought he would be old, but he looked to be in his forties, maybe early fifties at most. His features were sharply defined, with a strong jaw and bold nose; she might have thought he was handsome if not for his slight sneer. His fingers tapped an absentminded beat on the throne’s armrest as he watched her approach. She wasn’t sure she liked that calculating look in his dark eyes.
She stopped, like Aedan had said, beyond the second paving stone counting from the steps, and offered Rhuinn the best curtsy she could manage after having practiced for an endless ten minutes in front of Aedan’s unforgiving eyes. By the end, she had been ready to yell at him and make him swallow back his ‘constructive’ criticism.
“King Rhuinn.” She tried not to wince at the small squeak that slipped in her voice and continued as steadily as she could. “I am Vivien Te Celden. I am honored to answer your majesty’s summons—”
This was it. The moment when she won this battle or trusted Brad to get her the hell away from there, and quickly.
“You have to make your plea before he even says a word,” Aedan had warned her. “If he starts to say something negative before you ask, he’d appear weak by agreeing. He still might agree, but he’d humiliate you first to make sure you appeared deserving of scorn and pity.”
She dropped to her knees. The three of them had debated this particular part of the plan for a while, none of them happy with it, but in the end it had seemed safer. Somewhere in the room, Aedan had said, on one of these oversized paintings, a woman knelt in front of a king, making the same plea that now tumbled from Vivien’s lips.
“—and would beg that your majesty grant me his protection as a child and orphan.”
Two dozen words, a couple sentences, and the die was cast. All Vivien could do now was wait to see if it would be enough for Rhuinn, like it had been enough, long ago, for one of her ancestors when confronted by the last surviving child of his enemies. He had not only granted the girl his protection, he’d courted her when she had come of age, and ended up marrying her. Vivien would be more than happy if all Rhuinn did was let her leave.
Complete silence had fallen over the throne room. It felt like people were afraid to even breathe too loudly. Long seconds passed before the king shifted on his seat and spoke in a loud voice edged with irony.
“You claim to be a child, Dame Vivien? You hardly look or sound like a child to me, demanding to be received in front of the high families, striding in here with bodyguards, one of them stolen from my own.”
Vivien had no script for this part, nor could she take counsel from the two men at her back. It wasn’t as easy as they had hoped, but the battle wasn’t lost yet.
“If I may explain, your majesty?” Her knees were beginning to ache, but she tried to stay still as she waited for a gesture from Rhuinn to continue. “These guards were sworn to me when they were children not much older than I was myself. When years passed and I remained away from Foh’Ran, Aedan believed me lost and entered your service, but his first oath still binds him to me.”
Rhuinn did not react. Two feet to his left, the woman—Ciara—jerked, and her mouth opened, but Rhuinn’s fingers stopped their tip-tapping on the armrest, and she closed her mouth without uttering a sound.
Vivien wasn’t sure whether she imagined that barest nod from Rhuinn before he abruptly asked, “How old are you, child?”
That last word was as blunt
as a backhanded slap. Vivien tried not flinch.
“My Naming Day is in eighteen days.”
“Eighteen days to your twentieth Naming Day,” Rhuinn mused aloud. “And still you call yourself a child.” He stood, his coat billowing behind him, and looked to the left of the room, then to the right, as though taking his audience to witness. “Most children would demand to be called adults, so close to their last Naming Day.”
Vivien could feel sweat forming on her back, making the dress stick unpleasantly to her skin. Should she explain that she knew so little about Foh’Ran she might as well be a child? She struggled to find words, but in the end Rhuinn started again before she did.
“Lahien the Great—” he intoned, and Vivien held her breath.
This was good. It had to be. Right? Unless he had realized they were trying to manipulate him, in which case it could be bad. Very bad. Her entire body hurt from the strain of not looking back at Brad.
“—once was confronted to the same request, voiced by a child whose family had caused a terrible war. Like yours did.”
Vivien blinked and tried hard not to frown. Her family had done what, now?
“He was kind enough to forgive and grant his protection,” Rhuinn continued. “And I...”
When he met her eyes, his gaze was pitch black and void of any feeling. Vivien shuddered.
“I can also be kind. Rise, child.”
His large, sweeping gesture invited Vivien to get back to her feet. She stumbled a little when she did; her knees felt as numb as the rest of her.
“In eighteen days, you will be an adult. Until then, you shall be under my protection, and my guards will keep you from those who would make you pay for your mother’s mistakes.”
What mistakes, Vivien wanted to ask, but this was not the moment to forget the last of what Aedan had told her. He had thought the king might try to plant guards in her castle—spies that would discourage anyone from approaching her for a potential alliance.
