Lost in the Dawn (Erythleh Chronicles Book 1)

by Catherine Johnson

  She followed a servant through the corridors that she could have once negotiated blindfolded. The rainbow of shadows thrown by the stained glass, which had once seemed so magical to her, now seemed gaudy and overdone. She was shown into her father’s suite, and the servant went back to resume whatever task he’d had to abandon to be her escort. Initially, it seemed that the rooms were empty. Serwren made her way to the dining room, hoping that she might be able to find a pitcher of water and a goblet. She stopped in the doorway, dead still, as a mouse might when it encountered a snake ready to strike.

  Erkas was lolling in the chair that her father usually occupied at the head of the table. He had a goblet of wine in his hand. She recognised the vessel with the design of ivy leaves as a set she had drunk from once. She should have expected that Erkas would be here, and yet somehow she had not realised that he would be. Serwren had made such a great effort to not think of him at all, that now, she did not see her brother, her twin, in the room. She saw a stranger, a dangerous, unpredictable stranger. She hadn’t seen her brother since his induction to the Forum. She hadn’t spoken a word to him for much, much longer than that.

  She didn’t want to speak to him now. If it hadn’t been for the summons, she would have turned and walked out. Erkas looked up, and his expression widened with delight when he saw her. Serwren didn’t want to think about what had piqued his enthusiasm so completely. She doubted very much it was the love of one sibling for another; more likely he wanted to torment her.

  “Sister! How good of you to join us, at last.”

  Erkas made no move to rise, and Serwren made no move to walk further into the room.

  “I came as soon as I was informed of Father’s predicament.” Serwren hated that she sounded so defensive, but she was unprepared and scrabbling to retain her composure.

  “Yes, I suppose that you made that effort should count for something. Better late than never. Of course, if you had been in the city, where you should be, you would have known about this much sooner.”

  Serwren took a deep breath, while trying to keep the rise of her chest from being too obvious. She straightened her spine. She was a grown woman, she had a son. She was mistress of her own domain and destiny. She was not the frightened girl that Erkas had violated. She would not be that girl again.

  “I prefer the peace and safety that I find in the country.”

  “I’m sure that it’s very peaceful, very quiet, very... boring. I would have made the effort to visit, but the life of a consul is so demanding, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Or you could, if you had remained where a wife is supposed to be, by her husband’s side. It’s so barbarically hot in the country, so uncivilised. Maybe when its cooler I’ll come and stay with you awhile.”

  Erkas’ smirk made Serwren want to stab him where he sat. Her fingers felt for the knife that she always wore at her belt. She hadn’t heeded Jorrell’s warning when he’d uttered it all those years ago, and she had suffered for that ignorance. She had taken it to heart since, though, and even now slept with her little blade underneath her pillow. She hadn’t given in to the compulsion of the habitual gesture to touch the knife to make sure that it was in place in years, but she did so now. She saw that Erkas noticed that she checked her weapon.

  “You are not welcome in my home.”

  “It’s not your home, though, is it, sister? I believe, when all is said and done, that it’s your husband’s house.”

  If her brother was trying to make her blood boil, he was succeeding. Serwren badly wanted to refute that claim, but in all honesty, she could not. But she would not gift him the victory of seeing how he affected her. She kept her face impassive, and was saved from the need to make any further response by the appearance of the apothecary.

  “Ah, lady Serwren, you father is in his bedroom.” The healer smiled brightly, seemingly oblivious to the thick tension in the room.

  “Is he able to accept visitors?” If her father wasn’t well enough to see her, she was not going to spend one more moment in the palace until he was.

  “Oh, yes. Go through. I need to update your brother on his condition and the treatment, but he’s well enough to see you.”

  “Might I ask what ails him?” Serwren was distinctly unimpressed that the doctor was excluding her from the discussions about her father’s health.

  “He’s had a mild seizure of the heart muscle.” The doctor smiled as he said it, but at Serwren’s panicked expression he went wide-eyed and held out a hand as he assured her. “No, my lady, it sounds much worse than it is. It’s amazing, really, considering the weight of the burden of leading the country, that it hasn’t happened sooner. But he’s as strong as an ox. A few days rest and he’ll be back to himself, you’ll see.”

  Serwren muttered her thanks and went through the various ante rooms until she was walking into her father’s bed chamber. He was in the middle of the large bed. He was dressed in a nightgown, propped up on a mound of pillows and had the covers folded at his waist. A scribe was by the side of the bed taking instructions. So much for her father relaxing for a few days.

  When Serwren took him in, when she really looked at him, she saw that he was old. His greying hair was curling carelessly down to his shoulders, because he hadn’t bothered to cut it, and obviously no one had nagged him to do so. The lines and wrinkles in his handsome face had deepened. Her father had aged in her absence.

  Dimacius looked up to see who had disturbed his work. When he saw that it was Serwren in the doorway, he sent the scribe out of the room.

  “You came. I didn’t think that you would.” Her father’s voice was a little rough, but not weak.

  Serwren experienced a twinge of memory, an errant pang for a time when her father had been the centre of her world, but she pushed the futile emotion away.

  "You sent for me, so I came. Why would I not?”

  “You haven’t seen fit to visit the city in a long time.”

  “I haven’t felt that I was lacking anything that the city had to offer.”

  Her father looked about the room, as if trying to see around her. “Where is my grandson? Did you leave him in the country?”

  That Dimacius should refer to Ulli so galled Serwren to the point of nausea. “No, my son travelled with me. But as I had no clue as to the true state of your health and your strength for company, I thought it best to leave him in another’s care.”

  “I should like to see him. He’ll be quite the young man by now.”

  “I think that it would be best if he does not visit. His chatter can be quite exhausting, and the doctor specified that you were to rest.” Serwren would rather have lain on hot coals than chance Ulli being subject to Erkas' bile or her father’s delusions.

  Her father’s face hardened. “There’s no need to be petulant, Serwren. Regardless of who his father is, he is your son, which means that he is my grandson. I would like to see him.”

  As far as Serwren was concerned, Ulli's developing features and colouring had left no room for doubt about the identity of his father. “And I say that he will not be used as a pawn in our family affairs.”

  “You speak as if there is no accord here.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “I see no reason for there not to be harmony in our family.”

  “And that, Father, is one of the many reasons why there will never be harmony in our family. I am glad that you are not seriously ill, for your sake. I will visit again tomorrow, but we will not stay in the city long. I am eager to return to our routine.”

  Serwren turned to leave, but she was halted by her father’s voice, which wavered, slightly, with emotion. “Thank you... for coming.”

  Serwren paused, and half-turned, but she did not look at her father. She waited to see if there would be more. There was.

  “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed my daughter, our conversations, the time we spent together.”

  Serwren turned then, but only as much as she needed to so that she could look her father in th
e eye. “No, Father, you miss the ideal of a daughter that you imagined. That girl ceased to exist when her father refused to believe her, to protect her.”

  “How could I accept...?”

  Serwren had no need of his excuses, not anymore, and interrupted him. “I will return tomorrow. You should follow your doctor’s advice.”

  Serwren turned and left the room with rapid steps. She returned to the dining room only because she wanted to know what the healer had advised. Every instinct in her screamed to get away, from her family, from the palace, from the city. To her dismay, she found that only Erkas remained in the room, the doctor was nowhere to be seen.

  “Ah, sister. I thought you’d be longer.”

  “Erkas, what did the healer say?” She was impatient to leave, and her tone reflected that.

  Her brother tilted his head to one side. “Really, you won’t give me the title of ‘brother’?”

  Serwren felt as though she was going mad. It seemed all her family had wiped out the memories of the wrongs they had done her, and expected her to carry on as if they had never happened. But she could not forget, and she could not forgive. They had altered her life irrevocably, against every desire that she had ever expressed.

  “No, you lost the right to that title a long time ago.”

  “Such a grudge you hold,” Erkas said almost gently, almost wonderingly. Then he physically shook himself and continued. “You will have to excuse me for a little while before I can relate the good doctor’s prognosis to you. I need to speak with father about some of the medication that has been prescribed.”

  Even though Serwren stepped back, not shrinking back, simply making room, Erkas managed to brush her arm as he passed her. It was a deliberate caress; he had plenty of space to pass by her clearly. Serwren barely hid her shudder, although she hated herself for having any reaction at all. She determined that, in the future, she would not demonstrate if she was affected at all by anything her brother did or said, especially when the strains of his chuckles floated back to haunt her.

  Serwren waited, and waited... and waited...

  She was about to go to her father’s room and demand the information from Erkas when he reappeared. He looked smug, which was not an expression that Serwren could fathom he had any reason for.

  “What did the doctor prescribe?”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Erkas was helping himself to more wine. Serwren was sure she’d misheard him somehow. “Excuse me?”

  Erkas finished pouring his wine and took a sip from the goblet. “It doesn’t matter because our father is dead.”

  The words that Erkas had said made no sense. Her father was aged, but not ancient. He was ill, but not dying. She’d seen his health for herself. She swiftly returned to her father’s room, and her world fell away beneath her feet. Her father lay on the bed; the covers were askew, and one of the pillows lay on the floor. He was on his back, and his hair was in much more of a disarrayed state that Serwren remembered it being. His sightless eyes were staring blindly at the ceiling. Serwren ran to the body and checked it for breath and the beat of his heart, but there was nothing.

  Erkas appeared in the doorway, still sipping from his goblet of wine.

  “What have you done?” Serwren asked in a horrified whisper.

  “It is my time, sister.”

  “I don’t understand.” She did, but to admit that she understood would be to admit that her brother was capable of far more evil than even she had known.

  “It’s my time. My turn to be the First Father of Felthiss. It was time for him to make way, don’t you see?”

  Erkas was insane, he had lost his mind. There was no other explanation.

  “Your ambition knows no bounds. But I should remind you that you need to be elected to the position of First Father.”

  “That has all been arranged, dear sister – will you congratulate me?”

  No, she would not. She pulled the knife from its sheath. Erkas seemed to find that act of defiance amusing.

  “You can’t kill me, sister.”

  She could, but whether she should or not was another matter. It was the thought of Ulli that stayed her hand. If she were to be arrested or executed, there would be no one left that she truly trusted to protect Ulli until he became a man.

  “You’re right. I hope you paid that physician admirably. He’ll need to keep his mouth shut if you want to get away with this.

  “Oh, I did, and he will.” Erkas took several steps closer. Serwren mirrored his steps, moving away, but she bumped up against her father’s bed and found herself trapped. “Now, unless you want me to start screaming for the palace guards, and to accuse you of this heinous crime, you will agree to move back to the city before this moon is over. I want you where I can see you. No more plotting in the wilderness.”

  “I haven’t been plotting.”

  “Really? You’ve built yourself quite the base of power. It looks like plotting to me.”

  “If you’re referring to what I’ve achieved in my time away, it wasn’t for ambition’s sake. It was only what any decent person would do.”

  “Of course. Of course.” Erkas nodded in mocking sympathy. “I’ll have a rider sent to your estate today to tell them to pack up your belongings and bring them back to Thrissia.”

  “You have to give me some time. I need to find somewhere to live.” She needed time to find a way out, and escape, to find passage on a ship to another country, anything.

  “But you have somewhere, dear sister.”

  “I won’t sleep another night under Bornsig’s roof.”

  “Of course you won’t. The man is an oaf and an imbecile. You and your son will live here, in the palace, with me. Those are my terms. Do you agree to them, or would you prefer the painful death of a traitor?” Erkas voice was sweetly brutal. “I can arrange for Ulli to be tortured right along with you, if you feel you should like the company. I know he’s not Bornsig’s child. I note that he doesn’t much look like me, either. It will not cause me to lose any sleep to sign the death warrant for the offspring of that bastard.”

  He’d been watching them. Somehow, he had spied on them, enough to know who Ulli resembled. Erkas would do it. Serwren could see the truth of his depraved madness in his eyes. He could easily carry out this plot. He was a respected consul. She would be painted as the heartless woman who abandoned her husband and had taken his son from him. A woman capable of that could be capable of anything, even murder.

  She was defeated.

  “Very well. I agree.”

  Erkas leaned closer, and for one awful moment she thought he was going to try to kiss her, but he only smiled, a smile of pure evil, and then turned and left the room. Serwren was left alone with the body of her dead father and a future that boded only terror and pain. Serwren realised that she was still clutching her knife; the little blade had been forgotten under the tide of malice. She wondered how soon she would need to unsheathe it again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Serwren entered the palace ballroom for the first time since the evening that her betrothal to Bornsig had been announced. It was the middle of the night. The silent sky glowered beyond the glass panes of the many windows, and both were reflected in the mirror of the polished floor. Without the chandeliers and their candlelight it was an eerie place, haunted by memories and the whirling ghosts of happiness.

  She had chosen this time, knowing that the room would be empty. Her father’s body was lying in state in the centre of the great room. He had been laid in a shallow box of olive wood, and was cushioned by padding that had been lined with black silk. The silver handles positioned around the sides of the box would be used by the bearers to carry him up to the eastern point of the bay in the morning. The trestles that the coffin was resting on were hidden by mounds of fresh flowers. They were decorative, but also necessary. The sweet scents shrouded the scent of decay until it was only slightly unbearable. The body had been resident in the ballroom for a week, eno
ugh time to allow almost all the residents of Thrissia, and any who cared to make the journey from further inland, to pay their respects.

  Serwren was still dressed in the formal outfit that she had worn to attend the Forum that day. Although there had been a celebratory air to the proceedings, she had worn a simple black shift. The dress covered her from her neck to her feet, but left her arms bare. The waist was defined by loops of iron grey braid which fell loose to the floor, almost lost in the folds of material. Her little knife was attached to one of those lengths.

  She stared at the face of the man she had once called father, the man she had trusted implicitly with the faith of a daughter, the man who had so callously thrown that trust away. She stared at the evidence of the burden of his position that had been etched onto his face in every line and wrinkle, and remembered the day that was now drawing to a close.