by Serena Chase
He stared at me, his fist still poised in the air. He stood like that for several breaths.
“Your Highness.” He finally lowered his hand and bowed. “You are . . . stunning.”
“It’s the dress.”
“The dress is lovely.” His eyes swept over me. “But it is the princess within that honors my eyes. May I escort you to the dining hall?”
Julien led me through the complex corridors as if he hadd lived in Tirandov Castle all his life. As we rounded the last corner I heard the clinking of crystal and silver along with soft laughter and the muted din of many quiet voices.
My stomach clenched with anxiety and my grip tightened on Julien’s arm.
“You are the Ryn,” Julien whispered in my ear. “Remember who you are and no one can make you feel less.”
We crossed the threshold into a huge dining hall filled with circular tables. A hush moved through the room as all eyes turned to me. Gray, gray, gray. I recognized the act of hiding thoughts and concentrated on blocking my own from the brilliant mind readers that filled the hall.
Julien guided me to the far end of the room and the only rectangular table. Soon I was seated at its center. Julien sat on my left and Dyfnel, to my relief, was at my right and he introduced me to his wife, Argeena. Also at the table were Celyse, Edru, and, to my dismay, three quite dour old women and two men who certainly matched them in age and expression.
Directly across from me sat the most ancient person I had ever seen. I also thought him the most severe. I had not marked his face earlier in the crowd. Perhaps his age had kept him in his chambers.
The buzz of conversation returned, but the ancient Andoven did not participate. His brow only furrowed with what appeared to be centuries of concentration and worry under the thick crest of shoulder-length white hair. He seemed to find little pleasure in the occasion.
Perhaps we had that in common.
An attendant had just finished filling our goblets when the scowling Elder pushed back his chair and raised his glass.
I looked to Dyfnel for a clue.
Here we go. He spoke silently into my thoughts and rolled his eyes. I had to cover my mouth to avoid letting anyone see my amusement.
“We come together this evening,” the ancient man’s voice rasped like a cold, wet wind, “to honor Princess Rynnaia E’veri, Heir of E’veria, daughter of King Jarryn and Queen Daithia, Granddaughter of King Rynitel and Queen Olina, Great-granddaughter of Queen Tifryn and King Drysdin, Great-great Granddaughter of . . .”
Good fortune! I thought. Is he going to recite my entire genealogy?
It appeared so. I tried to turn my attention back to the speaker, but found my mind wandering. Vaguely, I wondered if even the glowing plates would keep our dinner warm through the verbosity of his toast.
Through sheer willpower I focused my mind on his words for three more generations, ending with, “ . . . whose direct line can be traced back to the very Successor himself, the second King of E’veria, Stoenryn E’veri.” He took a long, wheezing breath. “As Regent of Tirandov, I bid Your Highness welcome to our table and pledge to you the loyalty and resources of the Andoven, here and throughout the known world, that same which we have also pledged to your father, the King. We now lift our goblets to you, our long awaited and long unknown . . .” at that he speared Dyfnel with his scowl, “hope.”
The Regent lifted his goblet and the rest of the room followed.
I lifted my goblet, conscious of the unnerving reminder of this afternoon. “Thank you, Honorable One,” I replied and gave him a gentle smile. “It is I who am honored by your hospitality.”
As the Andoven tipped their goblets to drink, I sent the Regent a personal, silent greeting. He gave a nod and a dim light entered his eyes for the first time since my arrival.
I am called Jezmyn. He offered friendship. I accepted.
Conversation flowed a bit more freely and I made a special effort to include Jezmyn, but every once in a while I caught furtive glances in my direction, and when I noticed them, swirls of gray filled my mind.
The gray swirls became thicker as the meal wore on, almost as if everyone knew something I didn’t . . . or couldn’t. Eventually I found it difficult to even concentrate on conversation, let alone stomach the rich food brought out, course after course. My head throbbed. With each turn of my head, my vision smeared as if I was rolling through fog with wheels attached to my feet. Somewhere along the way, the swirls of gray had taken on a murmur of their own. Weaving a low hum through every conversation, they buzzed inside my head.
“Dyfnel.” When Jezmyn spoke, the conversation at our table ceased. “You are, indeed, the greatest secret keeper in this room. Not everyone is as adept at your particular gift and the princess is feeling the strain of it.”
Dyfnel’s eyes fell on me.
“You were charged with these secrets, Dyfnel.” Jezmyn wheezed. “It will be up to you to reveal them. See to it.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Dyfnel sighed, looked down at his empty plate for a long moment, and then looked my way. “If you are finished with your meal, Princess Rynnaia, I would like you to accompany me.”
Without a word, I stood. I could hardly wait to escape the dining room and the suffocating deception swirling about it.
When Jezmyn caught my eyes, his were full of sympathy. “The deception you feel is not born of hostility,” he explained, “but out of loyalty to a promise made to your father. If my people knew the depth of discomfort it has brought, they would rather leave the isle than continue to inflict such upon you.”
That eased my mind at least a little, but still . . . whatever Dyfnel had been charged to tell me, it couldn’t be good. I swallowed hard.
“Should you have need of an ear, dear one,” Jezmyn added softly, “I would be happy to provide it. Regardless of the hour, my friendship is at your disposal.”
“Thank you.”
Julien stood. “Might I accompany you?”
“There will be a certain point where we must go on alone, Sir Julien,” Dyfnel replied, “but the princess may desire the comfort of your friendship when we return. It will be good that you are near.”
I was not comforted at his words, but every second the swirls of gray grew denser. Julien or no, I was leaving the dining hall. Now.
With Julien at my elbow, I followed Dyfnel out a different door and through a new system of corridors. At last we reached the top of a long stairway.
As we descended into the bowels of the castle I relaxed the guards I’d placed upon my thoughts in the dining hall. Slowly, the gray swirls faded until they were little more than background—static noise. Each level we descended seemed to lessen their throb. We turned down staircase after staircase. It seemed to go on forever, but we finally reached the bottom.
Though dimmer than the higher floors of the castle, the walls still retained enough of the natural glow of the stone to give sufficient light. We passed through a few more archways and corridors before coming to a halt in front of a door like none I had seen so far in the castle.
Whereas the other doors were carved from wood, this was stone and engraved with the—I had to stop and think of the name Celyse had given it. Oh, yes. The Emblem of the First. The door, of course, glowed, but the emblem shone with a glare so blue, so fierce, that my eyes ached to look at it. Dyfnel paused facing the door. His shoulders drooped.
“Dyfnel?” I placed a hand upon his shoulder and opened my mind to his thoughts.
I wasn’t prepared for what I found therein. My breath caught on waves of grief. Uselessness. Failure. I dropped my hand, as if the lack of physical contact would lessen the tumult of emotion, but when it did not, I reached for the gray I was becoming more adept at finding by the hour, and blocked his thoughts. But the memory of them remained and fueled my fear.
I took a step back from the door . . . and into Julien’s broad chest. “I—I can’t.”
“Princess Rynnaia?” Julien’s voice was soft. Calm. I turned and he reached for my hands
and held them to his chest.
“There is something behind that door that you need to know,” he said.
“But what if it—” I didn’t know how to put so many questions into words other than to ask, “What if it hurts?”
I didn’t fear physical pain, but from Dyfnel’s thoughts I couldn’t help but fear that whatever was behind that door could break my heart.
Julien rubbed his thumb over mine. “When it touches your soul, truth is like fire,” he began. “As you know, when we rest too close to the fire we quickly become uncomfortable. Too close and it even becomes painful. But that doesn’t always mean we should try to elude its flames.”
He lifted two fingers to his forehead. “Perhaps if you look at my thoughts, it will be more clear?”
I nodded. In low and halting words he continued to speak, but in his thoughts the layered colors of a candle’s flame separated into different layers—orange, yellow, blue, white—and then conjoined again.
“When you experience truth it will leave its mark upon you,” he said. “Like a brand upon your soul. But even when it is painful, it is always for your good.”
“I’m scared,” I whispered.
He squeezed my hands. “I know.”
“Will you wait for me?”
“Always,” he vowed. “With all that I am and for all of my life.” He lifted my hand to his lips.
Dyfnel shifted beside us. “Are you ready, Princess?”
I held Julien’s gaze for another long moment, drawing strength from his conviction. “No, I’m not ready,” I admitted. “But as I doubt I will ever be, lead on.”
Dyfnel turned and, when he opened the door, the sweet, warm scent of roses enveloped me.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The long, narrow chamber was quite warm and every bit as humid as the hothouse where Lady Whittier kept her seedlings. And like a hothouse, the space was filled with plants, mostly roses, which explained the scent, as well as many species I could not identify.
“How do you keep them alive this far removed from the sun?” I whispered, but even that seemed loud in the chamber’s deathly quiet.
“The mountain from which the castle is carved receives its light from the sun and expels similar properties in the stone,” he began. “We’ve learned to augment the stone’s glow with proper soils and waters.” He paused. “But we are not here to see the plants.”
The far end of the room was partitioned on three sides with heavy curtains, and even though I wondered what was beyond them, I couldn’t stop looking around, taking in the beauty of the roses, some as large as my head, others as tiny as a thumbnail.
“As I told you earlier, I am a physician.” As my eyes roved the space, Dyfnel spoke hesitantly, quietly. “It is the most developed of my gifts and one that’s been used in the service of your family for many years. I have studied the healing properties of plants, minerals, waters, and medicines for most of my life. For the past nineteen years, without success, I have tried to invent—or discover, rather—a Remedy for the Cobeld curse.” He sighed. “And although I have failed miserably, my research has not been in vain. I have discovered ways to use what the earth offers in combinations that can reduce pain and often prolong the lives of the ill, the injured, and . . . the poisoned.”
My eyes stopped roving the room at once, focusing on Dyfnel as I took on the full import of the words both said and unspoken.
The implication flooded my mind and dizzied me. I reached out a hand to steady myself, but my finger caught on the thorn of a rose. I gasped, but the momentary pain from the prick of the thorn cleared my head.
My breath fled to where I couldn’t quite reach it. My eyes focused on the curtains, seeking a crack through which I might see what lay beyond them. No. It couldn’t be. But my pulse thrummed the truth of it into the back of my skull, pounding two syllables, into my brain: Mother.
My mother!
“She’s . . .” I paused on a hitched breath, “alive?”
“Yes.” Dyfnel gestured to the far end of the room. “The medicines keeping her alive cause her to sleep for many hours each day, but she feels little pain other than the drain of constant fatigue. Her decline became a bit more pronounced recently, of course,”
“Why ‘of course’?”
His eyes filled with tears, even as a weak smile forced his lips to move. “Because her blessing upon you was finally delivered. Come, child,” he said. “You’ve both waited long enough.”
Her blessing?
My head spun as I followed Dyfnel to the dark-curtained area. Gently, Dyfnel pulled back one of the curtains, allowing light to fall upon the sleeping form beyond. My stomach leapt into my throat and I regretted what little dinner I had eaten.
Even with the light so dim, I could tell the woman’s hair, though faded by illness, had at one time been a brilliant and fiery hue. Her face was remarkably smooth with only a few faint, fine lines around her mouth and eyes. She was thin, and her skin was thinner, still—frailer than the delicate flower petals so prevalent throughout the room.
If I was twenty years older and dying, I thought, I would look almost exactly like her.
Her eyelids fluttered. Cautiously, I approached the bed. I reached for her hand and covered it with mine.
Her hand was cold, and the skin stretched thin. Fingers I imagined had once been graceful were now emaciated and bony, as if barely able to cling to the feeblest threads of life.
My free hand covered my mouth, blocking the keen that threatened to escape as I sank to my knees at her side.
“Dyfnel?” Her voice was dusky. Her eyes remained closed.
“I am here,” he said, his voice thick. He placed a hand on my shoulder. “Lately she is able to experience only short bursts of wakefulness, child. Use the opportunity.”
I swallowed hard. What should I say?
“Queen Daithia?” I began. “We’ve never met, officially, but I’m—” I broke off, took a breath. “I’m Rynnaia. Your daughter.” I slid my right hand beneath her cold fingers and placed my left hand gently over her hand as if to impart some of my warmth to her. “I’m here.”
The Queen’s eyes fluttered open, but even as she whispered my name, her eyes closed. I despaired that she had fallen asleep again, but then she spoke. “Dyfnel? I dreamt of my daughter being carried by a bear,” she whispered. “A good bear. He took her on a giant silver horse through the Great Wood.”
She was quiet for a long moment, and then she whispered, “This is not a dream.” She winced, as if making a great effort, and, finally, she opened her eyes. “Rynnaia, you’re here.” She nearly choked on a sob. “You’re here!”
“Yes, M-mother.”
Looking into her eyes I saw not only features of my appearance so clearly inherited from her, but love that left no room to deny who she was to me.
Mother. Although I had referred to Lady Whittier as such while traveling from Mynissbyr, I’d never had the opportunity to call anyone by that name before. I never thought I would.
“I’m here, Mother. I’m going to fulfill the prophecy. Julien will help me find the Remedy and you can return to Castle Rynwyk.”
“Julien?” She blinked, fighting to keep her eyes open. “Of course. The bear.” She smiled. “He would be a knight now, wouldn’t he? Jarryn sent him for you.”
“Yes. Julien is the best of knights.” I swallowed. “He’s everything a knight should be, Mother. Noble, loyal, true. I—” I broke off, feeling a blush creep around my neck and onto my cheeks. “He has become a dear friend. I am honored to have his service.”
The Queen smiled and there was such beauty, such love in her face that my eyes filled with tears. With each word she spoke, she seemed to awaken a bit more. “I too once felt so moved by a knight. Of course he was also known as the Prince at the time.”
“We mustn’t stay long, Daithia,” Dyfnel broke in. “I don’t want our visit to tire you.”
“Yes, it would be a pity for me to become tired.” A note of sarca
sm tinged her voice, but the cynicism did not reach her eyes. She weakly squeezed my hand. “I wish things had been different . . .”
She closed her eyes and I feared she’d fallen asleep, but they reopened. Moisture glistened on her lashes. “This is the life we have been given, Rynnaia, and we must use our gifts as well as our pain to serve a greater cause. You are here. You are alive and safe. That is what matters.”
“I don’t know what to do!” A sob broke through my lips. To finally meet the woman whom I’d always thought dead was life-altering, but to see her so weak and ill wrenched my heart.
I swiveled my head to look at Dyfnel. “It’s my fault, isn’t it?” His words finally made sense. “Her weakness.”
“It’s no fault of yours,” Dyfnel replied as he leaned in and assisted the Queen to a sitting position. “It was a gift, given for your benefit.”
“Yes, Rynnaia,” Mother said. “My blessing was freely given and nothing in the world could convince me that it was a mistake.” She leaned forward and embraced me with a strength that belied the frailty of her condition, enveloping me in the fathomless depth of her love. “I would give up my last breath for you.”
“Please don’t!”
She chuckled and rubbed a hand over my hair, much as Lady Whittier and Aunt Alaine had done when, as a young girl, I’d scraped a knee or had a fright.
“You have had truth thrust upon you, Rynnaia, rather than growing gently into its center,” she said. “It is a heavy burden to carry. One I wish I could take from you.” She paused to draw a shallow breath. “But I cannot. Before you leave Tirandov you will have been taught all that can be told. The rest can only be experienced and absorbed into your heart.”
“The center of the flame.” I recalled what I had seen in Julien’s thoughts outside the door. “The white heat. The layer that causes the most irreparable damage.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “And the most complete healing.”
I drew back and tilted my head at the contradiction.
“Rynnaia, you will find that wounds caused by the sear of that purest, white-hot truth, though they will forever leave their scar upon you, will make you stronger if you let them.”
