The Story Peddler

by Lindsay A. Franklin

  “The Dark People to the south became bolder and more prideful by the year, until they had truly forgotten their kind father to the north.”

  The red strand tightened into a circle then waved into a shape—a fish with glistening red scales.

  I saw Braith look over at Cameria’s frozen face.

  For the love of fluff-hoppers, I didn’t want to continue. But Gareth was staring at me. What else could I do?

  I swallowed hard. “For some time, this father nation had lacked a strong leader to enact discipline upon the disobedient, prideful child. But when its ruler succumbed to the plague, King Gareth Bo-Kelwyd came to power, and with him the strength and resolve of the father nation was renewed. The father to the north knew it was time to discipline his unruly child in the south.”

  The silver strand transformed to green satin, then it whizzed up into the air. With a sound that brought to mind the clash of two swords, the green strand formed itself into a blade, now silvery green. A beautiful greatsword, like those belonging to the knights of the high guard.

  “With King Gareth on the throne, Father Tir brought his child back under his wing to retrain and correct her as only a kindly father can.” Bile rose in my throat.

  The sword floated upward. Then in a swift thrust, it speared the fish through the mouth. The story shrank down and crystallized into a smaller version of itself. It dropped into my hand.

  I held it up toward the royal family on the dais, devoid of all feeling except the sickness washing over me. “For King Gareth, protector of the Meridioni people and benevolent ruler of the Tirian Empire.”

  “Ah. Thank you, storyteller.” Gareth took the story and handed it over to Braith. “For your servant, darling. Lest she or her fellows ever forget.” He raised an eyebrow at the princess. “Lest you forget, too.”

  The story—beautiful in form, wretched in symbol—looked heavy in Braith’s hand. She hesitated. Didn’t seem keen to hand it over to Cameria, and who could blame her?

  But Cameria stepped close. “It is all right, Princess,” she said. “Hand it to me.”

  Braith paused another moment. Then she passed the impaled fish to her trusted companion.

  Cameria gripped the story. For a moment, it seemed the crystallized words might shatter in her palm. But then she dropped the story into her apron pocket. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she said to the king. Just the slightest hint of a Meridioni accent rolled through her Tirian speech. And tears rolled down her face—silent, strong.

  Tears shed on account of Gareth Bo-Kelwyd seemed enough to fill the Menfor Sea.

  Chapter 43

  Tanwen

  I stared at the lump in Cameria’s apron pocket. It had never been my favorite story. I had always wished the fish would’ve crystallized without the sword. It was such a pretty creature, all glistening red scales and glittering black eyes.

  But now the symbol of the Meridioni fish run through with a sword was a hundred times worse than before. Now I knew Meridioni people like Dylun and Cameria. And now I knew the real truth of Gareth—what he’d done to Meridione, what he’d done to Tir.

  He took whatever he wanted and murdered anyone who resisted.

  Like Father’s friend, Bennati. He’d been the Meridioni ambassador, according to one of the journals. Obviously, he’d had to go. Probably even before a war was declared right and proper.

  I looked harder at Braith’s beautiful Meridioni maid. Father’s journals spoke of his helper as a dark beauty—someone he had known. Someone who had been connected to Bennati and who stayed in the palace after the Meridioni were enslaved. I studied Cameria’s face again.

  Could it be?

  I drew a sharp breath.

  Why hadn’t I made the connection last night? Braith’s maid had to be the woman who had kept my father alive in the walls—the daughter of Bennati. Who else could it have been?

  I wanted to run up to her and beg her to tell me exactly what had happened to Father. Maybe I could finally know the true story of Yestin Bo-Arthio. I had been after it my whole life.

  I felt frozen in time. But only for the space of a breath. Because suddenly, a huge commotion exploded at the back of the hall. Armor clanking, shouts, screams.

  Gareth and half the council rose from their chairs. King’s guard all around the room drew their swords.

  Gareth’s voice boomed above the racket. “What is the meaning of this?”

  A guardsman stumbled down the green carpet toward us. “We found them, Majesty! But they’re not coming easy.”

  A smattering of guardsmen burst into the room, my Brac among them. It took four of them to drag their captive before the king. It couldn’t have been worse if the ceiling had crashed in on us at that moment.

  Smirky-faced, dark-haired, gold-ringed Mor was clutched between four of the soldiers. My heart plummeted to my toes.

  On seeing me, his eyes went wide. “Tannie. You’re alive.”

  Brac stood rigid. “Tannie?”

  Too familiar for Mor to have been my captor, as Brac still believed him to have been. Maybe too familiar, period.

  I shut my eyes against the wave of dread swelling inside. Everything was fixing to crumble to pieces. And there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it.

  Chapter 44

  Tanwen

  “Mor,” I whispered through tears. “They found you.”

  Mor stopped struggling for a moment. “We didn’t know if they’d spared you. And if they had, we couldn’t leave you and Ifmere here alone in the dungeon, could we now?” He scanned my fancy getup. “Although . . .”

  Brac had drawn closer. “Alone? Now listen here, pirate. Tannie ain’t been—”

  But a shout from the back of the hall cut him off. “Let me go, you dirty, ruddy hunk of metal!” Zelyth writhed in the hands of a half dozen of Gareth’s men.

  Just behind him, Gryfelle, Karlith, and Dylun stumbled into the room at the shoves of their captors. And then my heart fell, for Aeron and Warmil also appeared—hands bound and weaponless.

  Hopelessness oozed from my very skin. All captured, totally defenseless. The Corsyth weavers were doomed.

  But if it was their time to die, I’d rather it be my time, too. If I didn’t have my allies on the outside, any thought of tearing down Gareth’s regime from the inside would be for naught. How could one lowly peasant hope to unseat a tyrant? I glanced at the princess. She’d gone white.

  I stepped away from the royals and toward the ragged band of prisoners—toward Brac in his palace guard getup. “Guess you better bind me, too.”

  “Huh?” Brac shook his head, like it was full of chaff that wanted clearing. “Tannie, what’re you—”

  “Silence, all of you!” Gareth’s voice fairly ripped the air in two. “I demand an explanation immediately.”

  The first guardsman spoke up. “They were sneaking into the palace, Your Majesty. Bo-Bradwir was making his rounds and saw one of them. He alerted his unit, and it wasn’t long before we’d nabbed them all.”

  “Where is my wife?” Zel shouted. He yanked an arm free and took a wild swing at the nearest guardsman. The soldier, who wasn’t wearing a helmet, took the blow to the jaw and stumbled backward.

  Zel twisted around to find another guardsman to clobber. “Where is Ifmere?”

  At the council table, Sir Dray lounged back in his chair, as though he were reclining in a palace garden. “Your wife’s chances would have been better had she not been in such a useless state.”

  If they could have, Zel’s eyes would have shot streams of flame. “What’re you driving at?”

  “You’re young yet, lad.” Sir Dray shrugged. “But soon you’ll learn that the uses for a country lass are few, and your wife’s advanced state of pregnancy made her profitable for none of them.”

  By the puzzled expression on Brac’s face, the meaning of Dray’s words had sailed over his head. But Zel got the point. His face reddened by the split-second. Nothing seemed lost on Princess Braith, and by the looks of he
r, she was absorbing the full implication of Dray’s words. Her face was ashen and she was shaking.

  “Your Majesty,” she said to the king, “have you killed this man’s wife—the one who was nearly ready to deliver a baby? The one I swore to protect by my blood?”

  Thundering silence followed, and my insides twisted. Would they have? Would they have taken the life of an innocent lass and her unborn baby?

  But I knew the answer.

  I looked at Brac. He stared back at me, eyes swimming with all the dozen things he must be feeling. If only we’d had a true moment alone where I could have poured out my heart to him. If only things hadn’t worked out just as they had, I might have found the right time to explain. Might have been able to make him understand what had really happened, danger be blazed.

  Couldn’t help feeling like I’d made an even bigger mess of things by not telling him.

  Brac turned to the king, and in what could only have been a moment of daftness brought on by his confusion, he spoke without being addressed first. “It ain’t true, is it, Majesty? Whatever these outlaws done, you wouldn’t murder someone’s wife and baby, would you?”

  Gareth rose, terrible and slow, like a great dragon taking a breath before spewing fire onto its enemies. “Boy, you might reconsider addressing your king thusly.”

  Brac’s throat bobbed up and down. “Apologies, Your Majesty. But . . .” He frowned.

  Poor lad couldn’t seem to clamp his mouth shut.

  So before he could say anything else, I opened mine. “Don’t you see now?” I forced Brac to meet my eyes, then nodded to the captive weavers. “They’re not the enemy.”

  Brac’s mouth opened a little, and he took a step back.

  Zel’s anguished cry cut through the tension in the room. “Where is Ifmere? What have you done to her?”

  I glanced at the princess. She’d risen beside her father. Her milk-white cheeks had colored pink. Seemed she wanted the answer to that question near as much as Zel.

  Sir Dray was laughing again, and I could only shake my head. Did he think he could ever make Princess Braith love him after such a display of callousness? Seemed he didn’t understand her at all, or else he was scheming greater designs at the moment.

  “Come now, everyone,” he said. “Unless something terribly unfortunate has happened, she should be locked safely in her cell.” He turned to a huge guardsman knight that always seemed to be about the king. “Isn’t that right, Baedden?”

  The knight grunted. “Aye. In ’er cell.”

  “Cell?” Braith’s voice pitched high and angry. “I arranged a guarded room for the girl, comfortable and well furnished with a midwife to attend to her. I saw to it she was placed there myself. Why were my orders disobeyed?”

  Gareth glanced at his daughter. “Last I checked, my orders superseded even those of the princess.” He snatched her arm in his heavy hand. “No matter how presumptuous that princess has become.”

  Braith winced at his grip. The courtiers looked to have turned to stone. Every fan stilled. Every whisper quieted.

  “Come, come,” Dray said, and even he looked uncomfortable. “The girl is well enough. Although . . .”

  Braith stared daggers at him. “Although what, Dray?”

  “Last I heard, her time had just about come.”

  Braith put her free hand to her chest. “That girl has been laboring in a dungeon cell? How long?”

  “As of this morning,” Dray said.

  Braith wrenched her arm from her father’s grip and gave him a look like she’d just seen him for the first time. “How could you?” She took a step away from him. “You’re a monster.”

  “Tanwen.” Mor’s low whisper barely caught my notice.

  I turned my eyes away from Braith and Gareth on the dais. Mor’s gaze burned into me, like he was trying to tell me something important without using words. He nodded to Zel.

  But Zel seemed defeated—bent double, body shaking—with big breaths or sobs, I couldn’t tell. What was Mor trying to tell me?

  But then I saw what he saw.

  Strands, curling through the air. Clear, almost invisible. But there, for certain.

  What was it Zel had told me about his stories—something about them being wild? I swallowed hard.

  It was like time slowed and every movement dragged as if through water.

  Zel sucked in a long breath. The other weavers fought against their restrainers and Mor’s eyes widened.

  Then his shout—odd, muffled, and slow—floated to my ears. “Tannie, duck!”

  I didn’t waste a second to consider Mor’s command. I dropped to my hands and knees on the green carpet. And just in time. Zel’s clear strands exploded into ribbons and ribbons of orange fire.

  No, not fire. Hair—sweet-root–colored hair, like Ifmere’s.

  It blasted into the air all around and knocked the nearby guardsmen onto their backsides and knees, some flat on their backs. Courtiers screamed, ladies fainted. Strands raced everywhere. Orange bedlam.

  “Tannie!” Brac’s voice reached me through the confusion, but I couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see anything through the swirling orange strands.

  I glanced behind me, and as a strand lifted, I saw Warmil wrestling with his captor. Trying to get the guardsman’s sword.

  “Brac!” I called. “Brac, where are you?”

  Then a strand waved away in front of me and I saw him. He had Mor around the throat from behind, and his sword was drawn.

  Chapter 45

  Tanwen

  “Brac!” Doubtful he could hear me through the din. “Brac, don’t!” I scrambled closer, but I didn’t think I’d reach him in time. Couldn’t possibly.

  Not Mor. Please, not Mor.

  Whether Brac heard me or not, something seemed to be staying his sword. He could have made the kill stroke many times over. But he hesitated with his blade at Mor’s throat.

  Just as I neared them, Brac released Mor with a bit of a shove. Then he turned his sword round and handed it to Mor, hilt first. “Better use it right, pirate.”

  Mor took it, mouth slightly open.

  A moment later, I stumbled to Brac’s side.

  “Tannie!” Brac embraced me, then held me at arm’s length. “Are you hurt?”

  I shook my head. “I should’ve told you. I’m sorry!”

  “So what in the blazes actually—”

  But he never finished his sentence. Instead, he hurled me to the ground and ducked under a guardsman’s sword seconds before it would’ve struck him. The clash of metal sounded. Mor crossed blades with the guardsman over our heads.

  Brac’s breath came in quick, frantic gasps as he worked to get his balance under him again.

  Our eyes met for a heartbeat. “Tannie, run.”

  “But, Brac—”

  “Go!”

  My heart lurched. I’d never made a habit of listening to Brac’s orders, and it didn’t seem like I ought to start now.

  Mor spared me half a glance before parrying another strike. “Tannie, please go!”

  Couldn’t ignore them both. At least I could try not to get sliced in two.

  I crawled under an orange strand toward what I thought was the front of the throne room. Weapons flashed in the sunlight streaming through the windows. I saw a strand of orange smash a soldier square in the chest. He crumpled to the floor, and my breath stopped in my throat. The soldier’s eyes gazed unseeingly. Open. Blank.

  Was he dead—from story strands?

  Wild stories, Zel had said. Boy, he wasn’t kidding.

  I scrambled away from the fallen soldier as quickly as I could. I heard a cry, the voice familiar: Aeron. But before I had time to find her, the body of her opponent crashed to the floor beside me. I accidentally stuck my hand right in a pool of his blood.

  I gasped and fell back. Without thinking about it, I wiped the blood on the plum-colored skirt of my gown. I stared down at the dark smear on the fine material.

  A scream nearby tore throug
h the sounds of battle.

  Braith’s. Unmistakable.

  “Let me go!” she cried.

  I spun around. Where was she?

  I finally managed to get my bearings—windows on my right, large entrance doors behind. The thrones, and hopefully the princess, should be straight ahead, and close. Probably just beyond the knot of fluttering ladies before me. I shoved through their screams and gasps.

  I finally saw Braith, and my heart stopped.

  Dray had her by the throat. His fingers dug into her flesh and he growled in her face. “I said, you’re coming with me. Don’t make me use force, because I will. I always get what I’m after.”

  Braith spoke around his grip with some difficulty. “Seems a bit late for threats, Dray.” The words came in spurts. “Is this not force?”

  “Even now you’d defy me, when I’m trying to keep you safe,” Dray growled. “Can’t you ever do as you’re told?”

  Braith clawed his hand from her throat and jerked away. “I’ll not be manipulated by you,” she fumed. “I’m not my father.”

  Then Sir Dray reached back and slapped the princess across her face.

  “No!” Cameria’s shout startled me. I hadn’t seen her on the dais. Blood trickled from one corner of her mouth, but whatever battle she’d been fighting couldn’t trump Braith being struck. She drew a dagger from a hidden scabbard beneath the folds of her apron and charged toward His Grace.

  Chapter 46

  The One in the Dark

  Racket sounded, and his fingers slipped around the bow. Arrows. Blades.

  Always a soldier.

  Keen ears were drawn to the noise. Body scaled the wall, fingers and toes in holds they had climbed hundreds of times before. Toward the noise. Toward the usurper’s throne room.

  The last place this face should be shown.

  Pause. Investigate? Take the risk? Perhaps not. Perhaps turn back.

  But the clamor. Men shouted. Women screamed. Metal clanged on metal, and a wild whirring sound. Like giant painted-wings had taken to air, whistling and whipping.