The Queen of Storm and Shadow

by Jenna Rhodes

  Chapter

  Twenty

  “EVARTON, that honeycomb is better on the inside than out. You’re making Merri all sticky.” Nutmeg dropped her mending in her lap for a moment, eyes narrowed, daring the two children to turn and look at her stern reprimand although neither did. In fact, Evar scooted over on his bottom so as to present a broader view of his back. Merri raised a chubby arm in the air and then let her hand fall on her twin’s auburn curls, golden honey dripping from between her fingers. Nutmeg closed her eyes for a moment, envisioning a sooner-than-later bath time.

  She put her mending aside and got to her feet. Her slim dress fell in graceful folds to her ankles as she made it to the children’s sides in three quick strides, grabbed each by an ear, and called for their Auntie Corrie. Evarton tried to squirm away from her fingers pinching his ear. “Don’t need Auntie Corrie.”

  “Possibly, but you do need a bath. Rotten apples, but you’ve got honey from head to toe.”

  He danced about, giving her a crooked grin and a look. “I smell sweet!”

  “Me, too!”

  Nutmeg bent over to give each a kiss and smacked her lips. “And taste good, too!” She straightened. “Corrie?”

  No answer. Gryton, one of the Vaelinar guards on duty, poked his head in from the threshold. “The auntie is not about the household.”

  “Oh. That’s a long walk she’s taking.” Never mind that it was afternoon, with sunlight blazing its way into the farmhouse windows, illuminating her two mischief-makers and making their honey coating sparkle here and there. Merri giggled and waved her free hand at the erstwhile guard who saluted back before retreating to his guard position.

  “That’s it for the mending for a bit, then,” and she leaned down and picked up Merri.

  Evar’s brow knotted. “My turn for carry!”

  “Your turn was yesterday, aye? So today is Merri’s turn.”

  He folded his arms over his chest and his lower lip stuck out. He countered. “Auntie carry both us.”

  “Well, Auntie is a good bit taller than I am, is she not? I’ve got shorter arms as well as legs.”

  “Mum’s better.”

  Nutmeg smiled down at Evar. “That’s a sweet thing to hear! But you’re still getting a bath. Keep up with me now.”

  Evarton threw a beguiling look up at her. “Outside?” he suggested.

  “In the trough?” Nutmeg hugged Merri a bit closer, shifting her weight. “I suppose it is warm enough. Outside it is!” And she marched them out the backdoor to the horse trough, sitting in the sunlight next to the sweet water well that Rivergrace had restored their first years in Calcort. On the way out the door, Nutmeg reached out to snag a bar of soap and a rough towel from the kitchen shelves. She dumped Merri into the trough, clothes and all, as Evar grabbed the wooden side and swung himself in as if he were mounting a horse. She dared not help him, but the effort was touch and go until he got past the tipping point and literally fell in. After the splash, he emerged with a triumphant grin on his face.

  Bath or not, she had both children laughing and squirming as she washed. Evar, as was his habit, loved the water and the splash more than the soap, but Merri took the bar from Nutmeg and scrubbed herself, little face scrunched in concentration as she did. Then Nutmeg ran a dipper of clean water over their heads. The clothes came off midway to be draped over the next hitching post, and when they were all done, the children helped her tilt the trough to let the dirty water run off. She lifted both out and set them on the ground. “Now, don’t be getting yourselves all dirty again!”

  Two shiny faces grinned up at her. Evarton huffed and puffed as he pumped the trough full of clean, fresh water. The water ran through their toes and Merri stomped until she had a mud puddle squishing up through her toes.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Nutmeg told her and grabbed her up, holding those little feet under the pump as Evar gave it a few pulls “for Merri.”

  “A’right, then, that’s done it. Clean clothes and blocks for you two.”

  He marched beside her, wiping his bare feet on the reeds covering the back steps, his mouth pursed in attempts to whistle, a skill he’d not yet learned but kept trying, inspired by Verdayne’s melodic skills. His wheets and whoots trailed behind Nutmeg as she led the children in and quickly redressed them. She sat back on her heels before using the same rough towel to quickly wipe down their play area where tiny drops of honey glistened on the floorboards. It seemed her whole day was filled with the care of these two, something she could never have imagined before. Before, she filled her days working at her mother’s tailoring shop and early mornings and evenings at her father’s vineyards and presses. Not to mention the adventures and mishaps that often followed Rivergrace and their friends.

  Friends like Jeredon. Nutmeg sat back and watched her two children play. She wouldn’t be able to hide Evarton much longer as their auntie’s son. Every moment that passed, he grew more and more into the likeness of his father. His bloodline showed not only in his physical features, the high elven blood obviously, but in his coloring so like Jeredon and then the most telling—his attitude. He walked like the man he’d never seen, he laughed like him, he looked on life as Jeredon had with a zest for the dangerous as well as the humorous. He charmed everyone around him, especially his sister. He would never be as tall as Jeredon, but Evar walked in his shoes, no doubt. And he could brood as his father did—deep, dark moods that no one, not even the sister he adored, could dispel. She also saw his stubbornness (that would be her), his dogged determination to accomplish what he wanted (Tolby), and his love of colorful things (Lily).

  She saw a multitude of wonderful things in Merri, too, but it wasn’t Merri who worried her. Who put those few silvery strands in her own hair that would no doubt turn to all silver in its own good time without Evar to hurry it!

  Would she still have loved Jeredon if he hadn’t been who he was? She couldn’t imagine how he might have been as a father. He had had little patience with himself when he had been injured and she had spent a season nursing him. If she hadn’t, perhaps he would still have been too crippled to fight at Ashenbrook and Ravela, where he met his life’s end. If . . . if . . . if.

  She felt as petulant now as Evarton could get.

  She watched as Merri attempted to soothe him over some imagined slight. Perhaps she had taken more than her share of the building blocks, for her peace offering was to slide a few over toward him, especially two of the bright red ones that she favored. He slapped them back. Merri’s face crumpled up for a moment as if she might cry. Instead, she shrugged and took them back, adding them to a pile in her skirted lap. Nutmeg bit the inside of her cheek trying not to laugh at the two of them. But that was the way to treat the pouter. Shrug off his emotion in indifference after trying to give him what he wanted. She wondered where her small but capable daughter had learned that. Surely not from—

  “Nutmeg?”

  “Hmmm?” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Dayne looking into the room.

  “Brista said you were looking for Corrie?” The second of their two Vaelinar guards.

  “If anyone around here wants their socks darned and their buttons replaced, I am.” Nutmeg nudged her basket of mending.

  “She’s walking home now.” Dayne stepped in and grinned at the two who were now head to head, playing and chattering to each other in childish nonsense although Evar still carefully had his back to his mother. “Want me to spell you?”

  “No, I’ll wait. She shouldn’t be long.” The stout Kernan woman worked from sunrise to sunset to help with the twins, and she lived in a comfortable, newly built corner room of the farmhouse, constructed after the place had been half-burned down by an attack from the ild Fallyn, seasons ago. Nutmeg had been carrying then, big as a house, and yet she and Dayne had nearly eluded capture even as pregnant as she was. That, they hadn’t escaped until days after, but they had. Oth
erwise, who knew where the children would be today, or if Tressandre would even have let them live. The ild Fallyn did not treat for ransom. It was power or death, to them.

  Dayne put his back to the wall, settling comfortably. He stayed silent, as if unwilling to disturb her thoughts and did they show, tumbling around in her stubborn head? She could often see Merri working things out, but she also had this way of sticking her tongue slightly out of the corner of her mouth as she did. Little pink tongue and apple red cheeks.

  “Do you think it’s writ in the blood?”

  “It has to be, doesn’t it? That and how we raise them,” Dayne said easily.

  “We won’t be able to hide him much longer.”

  “Hopefully, we won’t have to. I have had some news that a Kobrir has come to Larandaril.”

  “The one that tried the last assassination?”

  “No, no. My brother says that one was one of Tressandre’s and he doesn’t say such things lightly or without proof. No. He’s been looking to the Kobrir for a cure. Perhaps one is on its way.”

  “Or they’re giving up entirely.”

  “Now I don’t know who in your family tree is such a gloomy pessimist, but I wouldn’t have said it was you!”

  The two of them suddenly became aware that the room had gone very silent, and they turned their faces to see both children, quiet and still, listening.

  Dayne chuckled. “I think, Mistress Nutmeg, that discussions are best held at naptime.”

  “In matters of state, I think I must agree with you.” She stood and straightened her skirts, and bent to pick up her basket. “Watch them for a few while I see if Corrie is in sight?”

  “Most certainly.”

  But Dayne did not stay with his back to the wall as he had been. Instead, he crossed the room and got down on his knees, to examine whatever it was they had been building, and the children started talking again, to each other and to him. Meg smiled as she went out the doorway, he and the children passing blocks back and forth.

  Evarton drew back and let his sister work on whatever it was she was concentrating on making, her little mouth drawn into a bow of total attention. He leaned against Dayne’s elbow quietly for a moment or two. Then he announced, “Wanna dog.”

  “What? A dog? Ah, lad, but no. No, no. Your mom’s got enough trouble to take care of, without bringing a pup into it. Maybe when you get a bit older, I’ll find us a hunting dog or maybe a good pest runner.”

  Evar’s lip trembled. “Wanna dog now.”

  Dayne put his hands about the boy’s shoulders. “Not today, lad. But I’m not saying no forever, you understand? In a while.”

  Evarton sighed and leaned forward, intent once more on gathering up his fair share, and then some, of the building materials. Dayne sat back on his heels, watching. If there was one fault Nutmeg had, it was that she hated to say no to either of them, which made the occasional denial hard for them to take. Merri would often find some other amusement to make herself laugh, but Evar could be quiet and dark about it for days. Verdayne didn’t know what his father had been like, so he couldn’t agree with Meg if it had been writ in his blood or not, but it worried him. Life would be stuffed with nos along the way, and it was best to know when to be stubborn about it and when to accept it.

  • • •

  When Corrie returned, she smelled of the sun and citrus. Evar immediately knew that she’d eaten a sweet fruit without bringing them one back, too, as their mom or Dayne would have done, but he didn’t belong to Auntie, not really, even though he had to say he did. She often didn’t share. She came in with a cheery “Allo” to Dayne and lowered her bulk on the wooden rocking chair, which creaked ominously as she did. Dayne eyed it and made a mental note to check the joints on it the following day, whenever it was unoccupied. She waved him off. “I’ll take charge from here.”

  “Did you have a pleasant outing?”

  “Bracing. Fair bracing it was. Passed a brawl out by the tavern.” She shook her head. “Some men simply cannot hold their drink. But I’m back in one piece, so all’s well.”

  “Get a letter, did you?” Dayne smiled as though his face might break.

  “I did and enjoyed every word of it. Now go on wi’ you. This is my job here,” and she looked fondly on the two playing somewhat quietly in the corner near their beds.

  Dayne nodded and stepped out before she could commandeer him for some task or other, as she was wont to do. Without looking at their auntie, Evar said to Merri, “Sleepy.”

  “Nuh-uh!”

  He put his slender hand over her full lips. “Ssssh. Sleepy,” and he looked at their auntie this time.

  “Oh,” Merri mumbled from behind his hand. Then she thrust it away from her face and shook her red block at him.

  He pinched her knee lightly but not enough to hurt and they went back to building towers as high as they could get them, which, with their dexterity was not very. After a few moments and a nudge to the ribs from her brother as a reminder, Merri began to hum a little song. She could carry a tune, surprisingly, and her pleasant little choice mimicked the one both Lily and Nutmeg sang while at their looms. It paced the movements of weaving nicely, with a repetitive cadence that soothed as she sang it. Before long, Auntie Corrie let out a snorting snore and then settled in to a steady, rhythmic noise of her own.

  “Sleepy,” noted Evar in satisfaction. He took up one of the red blocks, wrapping his hand and fingers about it, the block nearly too big for him to hold. He stared at it for long minutes, until a frown mark deepened in his forehead, like a wrinkle come to stay. He gave a little grunt. When he opened his hand, he smiled at a shiny red apple which he handed to his sister.

  She took it and promptly crunched her pearly little teeth into it. It sounded like a crisp apple being eaten, but she made a face and spat it onto the floor. “Yuck.” She dropped the apple on his lap.

  Evar picked it up, eyeing it closely. He finally sniffed it. Then he took a tiny nibble from it himself. “Ugh. Taste like dirt.”

  “Dirt better,” Merri told him, and went back to constructing her tower. She tapped the apple. “Empty. No life.” And she sat it on the top of her structure where it wobbled a bit and then steadied and she grinned.

  Evar went on his belly to pull something out from under his bed. It scraped along the floorboards with a horrible noise that almost disturbed their auntie’s snoring. He positioned it proudly, a stone statue of a war dog half the size of Merri. He patted it on its head. “My dog.”

  Merri nodded. She pointed at her blocks. “Mine.”

  Evar laughed at her, a soft indulgent chuckle. He drew his stone dog closer and wrapped both hands about it. He murmured, “Wanna dog.” He looked at it, into it, and drew his forehead together tightly. For long, long moments he did not move, his breathing quieted, his heart pounding so loudly that Merri tilted her head to hear it.

  The stone began to change under his fingers. It went from stone gray to clay red, then the dappled chestnut sheen of a living coat. The pelt spread, slowly at first and then rapidly, covering the entire sculpture. Then nails, black-and-ivory ones, sprang from the feet. A black nose. White whiskers. Eyes grew out of the stone and opened to look at him. The dog . . . for dog it appeared . . . the Vaelinaran war dog, took a shuddering breath and opened its jaws. White fangs showed from lips curling back.

  Evarton sprang to his feet and backed off as the beast snarled. He grabbed Merri by the elbow and shoved her behind him. The thing lived. It breathed. Its tail went down as it clambered to its four legs. It swung its head back and forth, opening its jaws wider. A tongue flopped out, but it was not a wet red tongue. It had withered and blackened. Its breath stank as it panted anxiously. The dappled coat rose in hackles along its neck and shoulders.

  Evarton could hardly stay on his feet, the effort to transform it had drained him so badly, but he staggered back in shock. This
was not a dog anyone would want. He didn’t know what he could do. It began to growl deeply, its tail down at its haunches, its eyes flat and dark as it slunk forward.

  Evarton gulped, but it was Merri who let out a piercing scream.

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  CORRIE CHARGED TO HER FEET, and the war dog swung its massive head in her direction.

  Before Merri could gasp for breath and start another yell, she grabbed up her immense shopping bag dropped by the side of the rocking chair and swung it at the beast as it pivoted to leap at her. “Run, fast as you can!” She looked about and reached for the chair itself to fling.

  Gryton lunged through the threshold and barreled past the auntie, his short sword down and aimed at the creature’s chest. Evar stumbled to one side, carrying Merri with him as the guard and dog clashed. The beast shied away, a shrewd intelligence in its coal-black eyes, snapped its head about, and grabbed the spear shaft behind its point to shake it violently. Gryton, off balance, went to one knee to keep hold of the weapon. He gave out a shrill whistle to signal Brista, the other guard on duty, to come to his aid even as the dog spat out the spear shaft and launched a twisting charge into the curve of Gryton’s neck before he could get back on his feet. He plunged into the guard’s shoulder, twisting him around on his knee, and doubled back with a slavering growl to sink his fangs deep into his prey.

  Crimson spurted. Gryton yelped, as did the dog, as his free hand swept up with a wicked short knife buried in his fingers, scraping across the dog’s skull. Blood, thick and dark, welled up from the cut as though the beast did not wish to bleed. The dog gave no sign of pain. Did it even know it had been knifed? He managed to shake his attacker loose, but his neck wound gaped open, blood flowing freely. Gryton grappled with the animal as it plunged again and again at his neck, blood slicking both of them and splattering the floor. The dog’s toenails scrabbled against the floorboards for traction as it dug in, jaws snapping and slashing at Gryton’s hands, the guard frantically trying to protect himself, his lifeblood spurting out with every heartbeat. Corrie found the courage in her to haul up the rocking chair and approach the fighting two, all the while crying, “Get back, get back!” The dog grabbed hold of the chair’s runner, his jaws splintering the wood before spitting it out and gathering his legs under him for balance. The beast returned to Gryton, determined to keep his prey down and helpless.