by Serena Chase
“Not to worry, Princess,” he said with a smile. “You can’t help who you are and you shouldn’t be ashamed of your gifts.” He returned to his packing, freeing me to look at the parchment in my hands. The characters on the page were entirely foreign to me.
“I forgot it was written in code.” I sat down, frowning at the page. “Why would Aunt Alaine think I could read this?”
“One of Queen Daithia’s Andoven gifts was the ability to decipher unknown languages. Perhaps Lady Drinius assumed you inherited that gift?”
I looked at the parchment. It was of a language I did not know, comprised of an alphabet I’d never seen. I was just about to give it back to Julien when the shapes on the page seemed to take on motion. I stifled a gasp and peered closer. As my eyes adjusted to the odd, strained feeling it produced, a queasy sense of dizziness assailed my mind, but I was too curious to stop.
As I concentrated on the foreign shapes, they rearranged themselves into readable print. “This is a strange bit of magic,” I whispered. Moving to a chair, I sat down and focused, surprised to find the page suddenly quite easy to read.
Dear Alaine,
I pray you receive this letter while safety yet holds you.
I have become aware of certain scrolls that, once deemed lost, have been recovered. Gladiel and Drinius were sent to retrieve them from Fyrlean Manor and, from there, they were to collect Rynnaia and transport her to Tirandov Isle to be trained in the use of her gifts. If you are receiving this message, Drinius and Gladiel never reached their destination and Rynnaia does not yet know who she is. Deception has been our guard until now, but my daughter’s existence and location may soon be discovered. The time has finally come that Rynnaia’s safety depends upon truth, however difficult it might be for her to hear it.
Sir Julien will accompany you and your household to Fyrlean Manor, collect the scrolls, and take Rynnaia on to Port Dyn where my most learned scribe and dear old friend, Dyfnel, hastens now to escort them to Tirandov Isle.
Though I would much rather have Rynnaia at Castle Rynwyk with me, Dyfnel assures me that she must be tutored at Tirandov before becoming known. Though it pains me, I trust his judgment. Dyfnel will translate the scrolls while Rynnaia is engaged in her Andoven studies and we will then know what steps must be taken next in this war against the Cobelds.
You must travel with the utmost speed using every precaution. E’veria is no longer the safe land of our youth. Lady Gladiel will be glad of your company at Fyrlean Manor, and you and Lily may stay there at your leisure until I send for you. Gladiel’s home is well fortified. You and Lily shall be safe within its walls.
My heart goes out to you and to Gladiel’s family. I pray my friends are merely delayed. I can never repay the debt of service and love I owe to your family and to the family de Whittier. I long for the day I can, in person, express the overflow of my grateful heart. I now look forward to finally knowing the daughter I have been forced to love at a distance for so long and to protecting Rynnaia under my own roof in her true home.
Please give Rynnaia the assurance of my love, though she may doubt it, and know that your King and friend remains forever in your debt and at your service.
I hold on to the Hope I have carried these many years. May that same Hope strengthen you in the difficult days ahead.
Please allow Rynnaia to read this missive when she is ready. What follows is for her:
Rynnaia, remember.
It was as if the words were a command to the deepest recesses of my mind. Of their own accord, my eyes closed and a scene appeared to me as if from a dream.
I was in my bedroom at Argus Keep, the last place I’d lived with Uncle Drinius’s family before he’d taken me to Veetri. I was in my bed, the window dark with night, but the wick of the bedside lamp turned up bright. Aunt Alaine stood beside the bed, wringing her hands. Across the room I caught my reflection in the looking glass.
I was still a little girl. A little girl with freckles and curly red hair.
The wooden door shuddered. Aunt Alaine hurried to answer the knock. My breath caught in my throat as the man entered my room.
He wore dark, close-fitting riding breeches and a matching hip-length tunic was open, revealing a white shirt beneath. A short-trimmed moustache met the telltale triangular beard that identified him as a knight.
“Are you my father?” My own lips utter the question, but my voice was every bit as young as I’d appeared in the mirror.
“Yes.”
“You’re tall.”
He smiled. “As, I’ve been told, are you.”
But he did not share my coloring. This knight had dark hair. It was hard to tell if it was brown or black, but it was certainly not the same flaming hue as mine.
Aunt Alaine quietly exited the bedchamber, shutting the door behind her. The knight hesitated just inside the door as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. When he approached the bed his step faltered. Inhaling sharply, he whispered a word I hadn’t recognized then, but I did now.
“Daithia.”
“What did you say?”
“Your mother’s name.” He pulled a chair next to the bed. “Sir Drinius told me you resembled her, but I had no idea it was such a striking comparison.”
He reached forward to stroke my cheek and I flinched. An emotion crossed his face that reminded me of physical pain. “Eight years is too long for a man to be separated from his daughter,” he said as he dropped his hand, but his eyes caressed my face as if memorizing each feature.
“Am I to go with you now?”
“Not yet, love,” he sighed. “Not yet. Your safety is the most important thing in the world to me and I have instructed Sir Drinius to keep you hidden in order to ensure that safety.” He paused. “But I believe I have devised a way by which you may be seen by more than just this household. I’ve made arrangements for you to live in Veetri.”
“Veetri?” The youthful heart within me leapt. “Where the Story People dance in the hands of the Storytellers?”
My father chuckled. “Yes, the very same. And I’ve no doubt you will see be able to watch them dance whenever you’d like. I have it on good authority that a Master Storyteller resides at the very house in which you will live!”
I clasped my hands at my chest. “Lily will be so excited! We’ve read of the Storytellers in our lessons!”
His smile fell. “I’m afraid Lily will not be accompanying you. When the time comes, your uncle and Sir Gladiel will be delivering you to the home of the Duke and Duchess of Glenhume and you will stay with their family.”
“Without Lily and Aunt Alaine?”
“I’m sorry, love. It will be difficult, but I believe it’s the right path for you. At least for now.”
His tender tone broke my thin, young reserve. Tears welled in my eyes, blurring my vision. A moment later, strong arms surrounded me and pulled me into his lap. His arms felt warm and safe around me, and the soft fabric of his tunic absorbed my tears as he murmured words of comfort and love.
“Believe me, child. If there was another way, I would find it.” He increased the strength of his embrace. “If I could have you with me, I would move the Sacred Mountain itself to see it done.”
A light knock on the door turned both our heads toward it.
“I have already stayed longer than I should have,” he said, “and I do not wish to compromise you or this household, further. Please know you have always had my love and you always will.” He paused and put his finger under my chin, lifting it so he could look directly into my eyes. “With all that I am and for all of my life, I love you.”
My father placed his right hand on my head but kept the other arm wrapped around me. I watched, wide-eyed, as he angled his face toward the ceiling. “Loeftryn de Rynloeft,” he petitioned. “Embral e’ Veria.” He spoke several more words in a language I couldn’t understand, but I knew he spoke a blessing over me. “I commit this child to you. Please wrap my daughter in your care in the days to come and give her the c
omfort and peace that she can only find in you, our Mighty First King.”
He took a deep breath and kissed the top of my head. “I love you,” he said. “You will not remember my love for a long time, but it is forever yours.”
He stood and placed me gently back in my bed, almost as if he had tucked me in every night of my life. When he spoke, his voice was layered with pain.
“Guard this night deep within your heart,” he whispered. He touched his hand gently to my forehead. “But do not recall it until you’ve gained the truth of who you are and I’ve given permission.”
At once, swirls of gray invaded my mind and he disappeared within them.
I opened my eyes. The letter in my hands—my full-grown hands—was signed simply, Jarryn.
“He’s my father,” I whispered. “King Jarryn really is my father.”
The sweetness of the hidden memory from my childhood lingered, tightening like a fist around my heart. I was suddenly overcome with a desire to make some connection with the man within it. Like a child calling out in the night after awakening from an unsettling dream, I whispered the word that was so unfamiliar to my upbringing.
“Father.”
That one whispered word loosed wave after wave of color over my mind. I closed my eyes and lost all perception of where I was. Outdoor scenery moved past my eyes as fleet as quicksilver across my consciousness.
It was as if I was flying through Mynissbyr Wood and across the plains of the Stoen province at an alarming speed. I passed over villages, through a large city, and into a massive building in the space of time it would take to draw a deep breath. I had only seen the movement, however. I’d not felt even the slightest breeze through my hair. A vague awareness told me that my body remained still, but a part of my consciousness had traveled far away.
My travel halted. Directly before my line of vision, a man sat at an ornately carved desk, writing on parchment. His russet-brown hair was tinged with silver at the temples and his knight’s beard was salted with a few silver-white whiskers as well. Across his forehead a simple circlet of gold rested. He looked up and I was arrested by the bright blue of his eyes.
Something deep within me recognized his face and traces of mine within it. Our eyes locked and I felt the truth of his love and the grief that gave him such profound fear for me.
The intensity of that moment was stronger than anything I’d felt in my life. My mind and my heart were barraged with such a powerful rush of feeling that I could barely take it in. It was as if I was there, with him. My father! But I was not there. Not really.
The King blinked. “Rynnaia . . . ?”
The surprise in his voice made me think he could actually see me. I gasped and felt as if my body was thrown back, but I knew I had not moved. His eyes captivated me. Intense in the depth of their blueness, the King’s eyes were not quite as bright as my own, but nearly. Andoven eyes, I thought with surprise. But as clear as they were, I detected a cloudiness of sorts. Though I couldn’t give it a name, there was something in his eyes, something just as strong, just as true as our kinship, but it was hidden from my view.
A sudden rush of gray swirled and fogged until I could see little else but flecks of the colors that, for a moment, had been so bright.
It is intentional, I realized, not knowing from where my knowledge came. He’s hiding something from me. Something dangerous. Something . . . important.
The fog cleared, but before I could see past it and into the secret he still kept, a tidal wave of brilliant, undiluted love poured from the King.
As if a battering ram assaulted my gut, I hurtled backward. With a loud noise the air was knocked out of me as if I’d been punched in the stomach and landed, many feet away, on my back.
I opened my eyes to find that I was, in fact, on my back. The chair had tipped over. Above me, Julien’s face was drawn with concern.
“Julien?” I blinked. “What happened? Where’s my father? He was just over . . .” The desk, the chair, the King . . . they were all gone. “Where am I?”
“You’re at the Bear’s Rest.”
“Oh.” I blinked. “Of course I am. I’m sorry.”
“Do you feel as if you can rise?”
I nodded. Worry marked his handsome face as he lifted the chair, with me in it, and set us both upright. “You were reading the missive from the King,” he said. His brow furrowed. “I’m not sure what happened. You fainted, I think. And rather violently.”
I could not address the questions in his eyes. My mind was too overwhelmed to put words together.
“Perhaps you should lie down for a bit.”
I tried to stand, but my legs gave out. Catching me before I hit the ground, Julien picked me up as if I was as tiny as Lily and took me up the stairs to my bedchamber.
“I’m so . . . tired.” I couldn’t even thank him, so heavy were my eyelids. Too exhausted to move or think, I slept.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Princess Rynnaia.”
Could it be morning already? No. Hadn’t I just gone to sleep?
The room was cold, as if someone had let the fire go out. I tried to burrow deeper under the blankets, but even though a part of me knew I should get up and see to the fire, it would have to stay unlit. I was too tired to care about the cold.
“Princess Rynnaia.”
I pulled the pillow over my head and wished that whoever the man was talking to would answer him so I could sleep in peace.
Someone forcibly removed the pillow from my grip.
“Princess Rynnaia.” The man spoke again. He cleared his throat. “Ah . . . Rose?”
I opened my eyes. Julien’s face was just inches from my own. I reached my hand to his cheek and brushed a golden curl from his forehead. “Good morning, Bear-knight.”
“It’s not morning.” he straightened. “It’s time to leave. You must rally yourself, Princess.You need to eat something quickly. The others await us by the stream.”
Aunt Alaine. Lily. Eneth. The stream.
Fyrlean Manor.
I shook my head. The last thing I remembered was reading my father’s letter. And that had happened in the morning hours. “I thought you wanted to travel at night.”
“It is night. You were asleep for some time. The King’s letter had a rather profound effect.”
I sat up and ripped off the blanket as I swiveled my legs to the edge of the bed. I stood up a little too quickly and my knees revolted by turning to mush.
Julien’s hand was there to steady me. And it was a good thing. It was as if I had no strength in my body at all. “Julien, I don’t think I can . . .”
He settled me into a chair and handed me a piece of bread with butter and jam on it. “Eat, Princess.I will carry you if necessary.”
I managed to eat the bread only by giving it my full concentration. When I finished, I looked up—and screamed.
Julien quickly lowered the hood of the Bear-cloak. “I’m sorry. I thought you saw me put it on.”
I waved a hand to silence his apology, feeling terribly foolish for forgetting about the cloak. I was unable to focus my mind clearly enough to dwell on my embarrassment for long, however, because a moment later Julien had me in my boots and cloak.
“Julien, what’s wrong with me? I feel so—”
Before he could answer, my mind filled with a swirling tornado of gray and black flecked with gold. Somehow I knew that Julien had picked me up and was carrying me, but I could barely feel him. I was lost in the swirl.
Cold air assaulted my face. I opened eyes I hadn’t even realized were closed. Pinpricks of starlight seemed almost blinding to my overindulged mind. I turned my face toward Julien’s chest, but felt dizzy nonetheless.
Julien said, “The princess is not well.” The next moment I was high on a saddle with him behind me. “Don’t look down,” he said a moment too late. I started to fall, but he caught me and I was gone again, amid the black and gray and gold, not even feeling the horse beneath me.
I awoke
some hours later. My head had cleared and my sense of balance was restored enough to realize I was no longer on horseback. A moment of panic choked me when I was unable to move, so tightly was I bound. I squirmed and the hold loosened, but did not allow me to sit up.
“Julien . . . your cloak.” The bear-cloak was wound tightly around me, cushioning my body from the hard, frozen ground. The knight was immediately by my side. The moon was high, and even through the branches of the trees it gave enough light that I was able to see the worry etched on his face.
“I’m better now,” I assured him. “Thank you.” Without the fur, the raw cold of the air bit through my cloak, but as Julien wore no cloak at all, I was glad to relinquish it.
We were deep within the Wood but appeared to be on a trail of sorts. I cautiously took to my feet as Aunt Alaine came toward me.
“I am so sorry. I had no idea how powerful your father’s words would be! I assumed you would be able to read the code, of course. Your mother’s Andoven abilities were so strong. But I didn’t know it would affect you so terribly.” She wrapped her arms around me. “I am a poor teacher, I’m afraid.”
“I’m feeling much better now.” I returned her hug. “It was strange, Aunt Alaine, as if I stood in the same room with him! He looked at me and said my name, my real name, and it held so many powerful emotions. So much . . .” I paused, searching for a different word but could find none, “truth.”
“I don’t know what this means.” Aunt Alaine gazed at me with a strange, bewildered expression. “But now I understand why you must go to Tirandov Isle. The Andoven will be able to explain it. They will help you, Rose.” She faltered. “I suppose I should get used to calling you by your real name, shouldn’t I?”
“Perhaps not yet.” My laugh seemed to release a well of pent-up emotion. “No one even knows I exist!”
Eneth’s familiar chuckle, deep and throaty, came from where she hobbled out from behind a tree. Her face bore half-healed scratches and she wore her grief about her shoulders, stooping her to a position much older than her fifty-some years. A lump formed in my throat as I remembered the loss of Walen, who had served Uncle Drinius’s family for longer than I had been alive.
