Green Wild (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 2)

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  Iriss gave her a little smile in return. “Of course. I’m still your Regent even if I have trouble with my eyes now. I’d still be your Regent even if my leg was cut off. Or I lost my hearing.” She considered, tapping her finger on her chin with her head tilted to the side. “But not if I lost my head. I think you’d be on your own then.”

  She glanced up and apparently saw enough to recognize Jerya’s sour expression. Instantly she took Jerya’s hands. “It’s all right. It’s my head, I can make that joke.”

  Jerya squeezed her hands. Iriss had always been cheerfully morbid. This wasn’t new. It was just... uncomfortable.

  “You’re right.” Pulling away, Jerya returned to pacing around the room. Alanah attended a meeting with the marshals in command of the Royal Guard in Mousame. Jerya had also sent a special dispatch of the Guard with the Regency Scouts, to locations pinpointed though the craft of dressmaking. She apprehensively awaited word of Yithiere and the Vassay caravan he escorted. She expected messages on all of these missions imminently. The suspense kept her tense and moving.

  “Did you hear from Tiana yet?” asked Iriss, sitting down decorously. She picked up some yarn to untangle.

  “Twist came by this morning while you slept. She didn’t bother to write me a letter, but she’s alive. Near the army marching on Biaxin.” Jerya brought her fingers to her mouth, then stopped herself from biting them. She’d broken herself of the childish habit almost a decade ago, dammit.

  Somebody asked her today, in the Tabernacle of Broken Hearts, if Yithiere led troops from Vassay to protect them from the darkling army. He’d been a young man, with a child in tow, and eager for reassurance. Stories of the two armies outside the Blight were circulating. Overnight Jerya had gone from feeling on top of the situation to nearly helpless.

  It was all the fault of the duchies, for being so stubborn, for clinging to old fears and cultivating new ambitions. She’d thought the Justiciar’s Council’s animosity was personal, but it turned out they represented their lands admirably.

  She wanted to break something. The Justiciar’s Council would be preferable. Alanah had gone to meet with the marshals because of the Council; they sent to the marshals every day asking if they needed anything; advice, supplies, weapons. Leadership. Jerya, the thinking went, was just an inexperienced girl.

  But she knew she was inexperienced, which was why she didn’t send to the marshals everyday, why she waited on their word as to when she’d be needed to defend Lor Seleni. They were soldiers with experience fighting Benjen. She was inexperienced, so she delegated.

  A horse galloped up and a moment later a messenger hurried in. It was one of the Regency Scouts, not one she’d seen before. “Your Highness,” he—she, it turned out when she spoke—began, then paused to wait for permission to speak.

  Jerya acknowledged her with an impatient gesture and she went on. “I was with the force you sent to the location Lady Iriss pinpointed. We found a disorganized gathering of the darkling troops, ma’am. They were arriving through...” She swallowed, her scarred face twisting. “Through a fiend of some sort. It was birthing them.”

  Jerya clapped her hands together. “Of course. I remember Twist and Kiar both mentioning such a thing before.”

  The scout gave her a dark look, and said, “We dealt with it, and scattered the darklings, but for a high cost in soldiers, ma’am. Two thirds casualties. Fiends are even harder to kill than the darklings.”

  Tapping her mouth with her finger, Jerya regarded Iriss and her dress. “Well done. There are others, though. Other fiends. This is important.” She opened the door and told a guard, “I need Twist.” Then she directed the scout to the writing desk, to write a report while Jerya waited.

  It didn’t take long, but Jerya was already lost in planning the possibilities when the sound of Twist’s arrival jerked her to alertness. He was just in time, and she wondered if he’d skipped in by the clock.

  “Your Highness,” he said. He looked tired and worried. Everybody did these days, but she was so used to seeing laughter in his eyes that it hurt a little more.

  “Twist. Walk with me while I go to the Ambassador’s meeting?” He nodded and fell into step beside her as she left the inn. “Are there any Logos-workers in the city who can banish fiends like you can? Of our own people, I mean.”

  Twist hesitated, thinking. “I doubt it. They’re craftsmen, specialists. They might manage it if their life depended on it. Kiar did, but...” He shrugged, his mouth twisting sardonically.

  “But Kiar is gifted, yes.”

  “Most of the fiend hunters work out of the Citadel,” Twist offered. “But the Citadel is distracted right now. They have their own fiends to manage.”

  Jerya raised her eyebrows. “Can’t they just put them down?”

  Twist tsked. “They’re not going to abandon a holy duty and simply execute their prisoners, Princess. And a hint? Don’t even suggest it to them. Once one holy duty has been abandoned, there’s much less incentive to cleave to the rest.”

  Jerya glanced at him as she stepped around a cart. He met her gaze guilelessly. “Yes, I know. But we need wizards, wizards who can banish fiends. Ohedreton is using them to move his forces around.”

  Twist hesitated, then said, “Vassay.”

  “I didn’t want you to say that.” Jerya nodded at a familiar face in the crowd. “If I was crowned, could I command the Citadel to help us?”

  “Don’t ask,” Twist repeated, and his voice was harder. “Don’t make them choose between two holy dictates.”

  As they approached the door to the Song Garden, the theater where the new meetings happened, Jerya sighed. “Ask them for me? Now? It’s important.”

  Twist rolled his eyes in exasperation and vanished.

  The table had changed; it was now big and round. “We built it,” said the Ambassador, beaming. “I thought it might help people communicate better.”

  “I think we communicate just fine,” said Lord Aubin. “But I’m pleased to see you’ve decided to reduce the number of voices. Your kindness is appreciated. Perhaps now we can get something done.” All the Justiciars attended, of course. So did the Mayor and the nobles, but most of those lower in station had vanished. Given how Vassay operated, Jerya wasn’t nearly as sure as Lord Aubin that this was a good thing. She wouldn’t put it past them to hold another meeting for the commoners.

  Seandri and Landry already sat at the table. She tried not to think about how they’d been spending their time. And—oh yes, Thorn sat high in the balcony. Jerya wondered sourly if he’d shoot her if she did something he didn’t like. They’d placed her chair so that her back was to him. Of course. She sat down next to Seandri.

  The meeting started with the business of the reconstruction. This time, it did go better. She offered her opinion whether or not anybody requested it, and the Ambassador made sure they listened to her, using a rough good humor to smooth over awkwardness. Sometimes the others wanted her thoughts; she heard tidbits from the petitioners at the Tabernacle that the Justiciars and the nobles didn’t, They definitely preferred hearing the news from her over hearing accusations from some upstart citizen mistakenly invited to sit at their table. It wasn’t right to be pleased by so little consideration but part of her, weak and small, enjoyed it anyhow.

  Partway through a discussion of the bridgework and the southwest expansion, Jerya heard the whisper of Twist’s arrival on the far side of the stage. He glanced at her briefly, then lifted his gaze to look at the balcony where Thorn lurked. He frowned for a long moment, his eyes narrow with dislike, before he finally dropped his gaze to Jerya again.

  Once Jerya held his gaze, he shook his head clearly and decisively. Then, with another whisper, he vanished.

  Jerya gnawed on her lip, thinking about the Vassay. Seeing the Ambassador beside the Justiciars, it was clear who she preferred to work with. It wasn’t all bad, having Vassay’s help in the reconstruction. They had ulterior motives as a nation but the engineers were just peop
le, and the Ambassador was genuinely interested in helping. Ceria had suffered catastrophe after catastrophe; without Vassay’s help, things would be much worse. She didn’t like seeing children playing with Vassay dolls, but that was a problem to be resolved later.

  But there had to be a later first.

  “Well,” said Lord Aubin. “That’s enough about Lor Seleni for now. We must turn our attention to the bigger picture. Your Highness, have you heard from your father recently?”

  Jerya raised her eyebrows. “Nothing meaningful,” she hedged. Every time somebody asked she prepared herself for their discovery of her father’s death, or the absence of the phantasmagory.

  “Ah, well. Tell him we do miss his presence,” said Lord Aubin with a kindness that was never real. “And have you word from your uncle Yithiere?”

  Twist hadn’t been able to find him the last two times he’d checked, which meant that Yithiere had changed the caravan’s route. Still, that didn’t have to be bad.

  But the Ambassador shifted his weight and looked down at the table, his eyebrows drawn together, and Jerya knew it was bad.

  “No,” she said flatly. “He hasn’t been available. Have you heard from the caravan, Ambassador?”

  The Ambassador coughed. “Ah, yes. We have. Prince Yithiere seems to have.... guided it off track.”

  Lord Warrane snorted and said, “Stolen it, you mean.”

  “My uncle is a formidable man, Justiciar,” said Jerya dryly, “But I think carrying off an entire caravan is beyond even his skills. Come now, what has he really done?”

  “Led them east instead of west,” said the Ambassador heavily.

  “East. Ah. Toward Morning.” Jerya looked over the Vassay. “Did he abandon the supplies?”

  The Ambassador blinked at her in astonishment. “Many of them, yes. I don’t wish to offend but he’s been, ah, intimidating my students into following his orders. He’s apparently treating them like soldiers, which I assure you they’re not. One of them managed to communicate with us very early this morning to let us know what’s been going on. He was extremely upset. And dirty.”

  Jerya looked around, then craned her neck to see up into Thorn’s murder balcony. Twist was having a quiet little conversation with the assassin. “If your poor student provided a clear location, I can send Twist to go and find out my uncle’s motivation. I’m sure he has a good reason.”

  “I thought,” said Lord Aubin, his voice chilly, “It was your task to monitor your far-flung relatives as they engaged to deal with events. Tell me, do you have any news of your sister? Meaningful news? Or is your phantasmagory completely bereft of information these days?”

  Lord Warrane said, “Oh, I’m sure all her informants have gone elsewhere.”

  Jerya’s teeth clicked together. They knew. “Yes. And as it has nothing to do with anything in your purview, my Lord, I will spare you the details.”

  “If I could just drag the conversation back to my students,” the Ambassador said apologetically. “I’m afraid we need more than Twist’s assistance. Or rather, we need a different kind of assistance from Twist.”

  Jerya felt Seandri shift position beside her. She glanced at him and gazed back at her earnestly, his hand on the arm of her chair.

  “We need to convince Twist to teach the Vassay his skipping, Jerya,” he told her. “If more wizards could move as he does, that would make so many things easier. It would be easier on him, too. He’s burning himself out trying to keep up with our errands.”

  Jerya sat back, startled by the request, and shocked by who’d made it. They’d planned this conversation in advance, Vassay and Seandri. Her Seandri. “I can’t make him teach anybody. We can’t even pin him down.” She looked over her shoulder again, but the balcony was empty.

  “But you can ask him,” Seandri said. “You can talk him into it. He’s loyal to you. We’ve been talking about it and it would be such a help to everybody. It could turn the tide of the war.”

  Jerya hesitated, looking at Seandri. Sweet, gentle Seandri. Her Seandri. Her favorite cousin. She wanted to protect him, so she’d kept him here. He’d made himself useful by supervising the Vassay, and now he argued their case for them. Somewhere she’d made a terrible mistake, but she wasn’t sure if it was a week ago or years ago.

  It would hurt Twist if she told him to give up his secrets. It would be giving more power to those who were, despite all their kindness, her enemies. But the Regency Scout’s report weighed on her mind. If they didn’t take advantage of Iriss’s insight, if they didn’t deal with the fiends before they could transfer armies from the dark world, then everything would be lost.

  “I’ll talk to him,” she said to the Vassay Ambassador. “If I convince him, those he teaches belong to Ceria, not Vassay. We have need of them, and I will direct them.”

  The Ambassador stared at her broodingly. Scriber Stone gave a tiny nod, which the Ambassador didn’t seem to notice.

  “I don’t like that very much,” he told Jerya. “Because of your uncle stealing my students and abandoning the supplies, we hardly have a choice.”

  “Really? I could have said the same thing about you demanding my uncle escort your supplies. Perhaps,” she tapped her chin, “Perhaps your students kidnapped him.” She gave him a little smile she didn’t feel. “If neither of us believe we’re winning, that’s probably for the best, don’t you think?”

  Chapter 26

  A Shape of Dazzling Complexity

  Kiar announced, “A troop of soldiers spotted us from one of the hills. They’re coming this way.”

  It took a moment for the words to penetrate Tiana’s fog of worry about Fai and the green light. She blinked, looking around, remembering where they were.

  The cleared woodlands in what used to be the duchy of Biaxin looked abandoned but wasn’t quite the case. Faces peeped from the windows of cottages and farmhouses, but people never came out to greet them. Kiar borrowed a trick from Jerya and crafted her eidolons into birds, sending them into the sky to scout the surrounding area. Many companies of soldiers, in a few different tabards, patrolled the countryside.

  “Which kind?” asked Tiana.

  There were other kinds of companies, too, ones far less human. Cathay’s cats spied at least two of them, hidden in underbrush and in a bit of remaining forest, hiding from the sun peeking between the scudding clouds.

  Kiar gave her an exasperated look. “The human kind. I’d be giving more of an alarm if Ohedreton found us again. They’re moving quickly; they’ll be here soon.”

  “Well, we’re not exactly hiding. We’re on a road,” Cathay said. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

  **They’re nothing to worry about. Ordinary men.** Jinriki paused for a moment and as the hoof beats of the soldiers’ mounts grew louder, added, **They’re apprehensive about us. How clever of them.**

  Tiana furrowed her brow. “Why would they be worried about us?”

  But worried they were; when the other group came around a bend in the road, they were moving cautiously and they had crossbows out. A man with ornamental armor and a plume in his helmet commanded the rest of the troop to halt while he rode close enough to shout, “Declare yourself!” He had a personal crest painted on his shield, which marked him as a local knight; Tiana couldn’t remember enough heraldry to tell which Count he served.

  **Look at how careful they’re being,** sneered Jinriki. **That’s so sweet. Forty of them, terrified of sixteen men and a handful of girls.**

  Tiana pulled her mouth to one side and glanced around for Slater. When she met his gaze, he nodded at her and rode over to meet with the knight.

  The conversation started out calm, but the plumed knight didn’t seem reassured by Slater’s quiet statements. After a moment, his expression became belligerent and Slater’s shoulders stiffened so much his horse danced backward.

  Then Slater whirled his mount and galloped back to Tiana, his face so hard that Tiana watched the crossbowmen anxiously to make sure none o
f them would shoot him in the back.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “They don’t believe it’s you,” said Slater bluntly.

  Tiana looked past Slater, astonished. The plumed knight stared back at her, fear and bravado both showing in every inch of his carriage. “Should I show them?”

  Slater shook his head, short and sharp. “Not yet.” He glanced at Kiar and Cathay, then said, “But you may as well come to speak with him, if you can fend off any stray arrows. I’m not getting anywhere.”

  “We can,” Tiana said, and sent Moon into a canter across the intervening space.

  The plumed knight waited, holding his horse steady with an absent skill that reminded Tiana of Jozua, although she couldn’t imagine Jozua showing the same apprehension. None of her own soldiers had been raised as horsemen; this knight clearly had been.

  “Do you really doubt I am Tiana, Princess of the Blood?” she said, as Moon came to a halt only an arms width from the knight. Slater stopped behind her.

  “I don’t know what to think, ma’am,” he said. He had a thin mustache and young eyes. “I know Benjen the Black’s been spotted with the main of the darkling army, or at least his standard has. And I know good men have been tainted by the darkling magic and turned against us.”

  “Benjen’s dead,” said Tiana, automatically.

  “Yes. And he’s not the only dead man walking, either,” said the knight. “So if you are the Princess Tiana, I hope you’ll forgive my prudence.”

  “Of course,” Tiana said uneasily.

  He went on. “But we can’t be thoughtlessly trusting anybody with the darkling powers these days, and—”

  “Darkling powers?”

  The knight plunged on over her interruption, doggedly, “—and so I have to insist you allow me to escort your party to my commanding officer, so he can verify your identity.”

  Hesitating, Tiana asked, “Where is he?”