by Dawn Cook
He stumbled as he was jostled from behind. “I’ll try to keep up,” he grumbled.
More shouts for news came as the space opened wider before us. Smiling with a lifetime of protocol, I made my steps slow to the guardhouse, feeling stronger with each foot.
“Telling them is a mistake,” Jeck cautioned as we neared the gate.
“My game, not yours,” I said softly, sure he could hear me over the surrounding babble beating on us. I smiled at a frightened young woman patting a fussy baby at her shoulder, trying to tell her with my eyes that her child would grow up to be a fisherman, not a soldier.
“Your master’s game,” he corrected, and I glanced to see his brown eyes were pinched from behind his salt-stained hair. “You don’t even know if he acted upon your queen’s note.
We passed into the capital, and the guard at the gate held a hand to me to help me up the ladder to the raised observation platform atop the wall. He was young, not old. Kavenlow had gotten Contessa’s note and emptied the guards’ quarters. My soldiers were probably scattered from here to the borders of the realm in search, leaving the area about the capital free of close scrutiny.
I said nothing to Jeck, my eyes lingering on the sentry who pulled me up the ladder. He looked frightened, and I gave him a calming smile. Jeck was quick behind me, and from the top of the wall, I looked down into the city. People had gathered there as well, alerted to my presence by those who had gone in before us. My gaze rose to the palace, safe on its hill. Word would reach them soon whether I intended it or not.
“Did you dispatch someone to the palace yet?” I asked the young guard.
He paled. “No, Your Highness,” he stammered. “I . . . I didn’t.”
“Good,” I said, putting my mittened hand on his shoulder to reassure him. “Do so now. Tell the chancellor I’m with Captain Jeck and will join him after I speak to the city. Have the runner talk only to the chancellor himself, and only where others can’t hear.”
My hand dropped to the knife dangling from my waist from its bloodred cord. I awkwardly cut a curl from the nape of my neck and handed it to him. “Use this as a token to get past the sentries.” The pirates had taken my rings; my hair would do.
“Yes, ma’am—I mean, Your Highness,” the young guard stammered, gesturing to another sentry as young as he.
I started when Jeck leaned over my shoulder and muttered, “Young whelp. He wouldn’t last three weeks in my king’s army.”
My brow furrowed in anger. The wind tugged at my hair, and I squelched it. “We don’t normally put new officers in charge of the gates, Captain,” I said tartly. “He’s green, yes, but he’s handling the situation well. No one is being crushed. No one is fighting. Everyone is calm.”
The runner went out, a way parting for him until he got past the worst of the crowd and could start a faster pace. Jeck leaned closer yet, and I refused to shrink back. “That wouldn’t have anything to do with those soothing thoughts you’re putting out, now would it?” he asked, his whiskers tickling my ear.
Shocked, I spun, almost hitting him in my haste and only now recognizing the warm tingle coursing through me as my magic.
Jeck’s smirk of satisfaction vanished as he saw my sudden fear. “Damn,” he swore softly. “You didn’t even know you were doing it.”
“No,” I whispered when the young guard started shouting for everyone to be quiet. I placed my hands atop the railing, my mind going to the woman who gave me her blanket. I had sent her an encouraging thought of calm expectation. And the man who gave me his mittens . . . My gaze fell on them, seeing again their unadorned but sturdy construction. I had wished him to be calm and watchful, too. And the girl with the baby. She had looked so worried until I had smiled at her, and the old woman who touched my shoulder. It had given me so much strength, I was sure I had given her back tenfold the reassurance she had given me.
Even now I felt their whispers of emotion in me as they spoke to their neighbors, calming them, crushing the rumors before they started. And those they spoke to did the same to those beside them. The ripples of calm were passing through the crowd almost visibly, stilling them, turning their questions into a patient waiting.
I looked behind me to the people inside the city, talking with their faces turned up to me. My magic had filtered inside, rising through the streets like a slow fog. God help me, I thought. What if I had given them fear instead? How could I wield this much power safely?
The breeze in my head recognized my fear. It seized my distraction and called the wind to play. A gust flowed from the distant woods, visibly pushing the winter-worn grass tops to me. It raced over the crowd, inciting cries of dismay as hats were blown off. My hair streamed behind me, and I wildly bound the voice inside my head to be still.
Jeck took my elbow, and I suffered his touch, too shaken to resist. “Careful, Princess,” he said softly. “Only happy thoughts. Lie to them.”
The wind had died, but the soft sound of the crowd had swelled to replace it. My mind went to Contessa, probably bound and gagged on a dirt floor somewhere. She wouldn’t be on the boat in the harbor but somewhere else, secreted away. I hoped Duncan was still free, waiting to move when he could be most effective. He was my best hope to get her back alive.
Steadying myself, I raised my hand. An uneasy silence rippled out, first outside the gates, then in. I smiled thinly, then made it real. “There was a squall three days’ sail from here,” I said softly but clearly, and a faint murmur of voices carried it back to the last person. “The Sandpiper floundered. Queen Contessa and Prince Alex were moved to an adjacent merchant vessel. Captain Jeck and I remained aboard, trying to save her when she took fire from a fallen lamp and ran aground upon the shoals. She went down.” It was a mix of lies and truth as two events were merged into one, and I felt not a twinge of guilt as my intent was pure.
“What of the captain?” someone called from the front.
I closed my eyes, and twin cold trails started down. My vision was blurry when I opened my eyes again, and I let them see my grief. They had been born beside the sea, and it was proper to show mourning to those lost to it. “I believe he perished trying to save his vessel,” I said. “As did many of his crew.”
A wailing of women rose, quickly muffled. I knew it would start again as soon as they heard it all.
“Princess,” Jeck warned, pressing close and threatening. “Be careful.”
“They are my people,” I said, angry not at him but at how cruel fate could be. “I won’t lie to them. I don’t need to.”
Questions of “What happened?” and “Where are they now?” were being put forth by worried, calm people pressing forward, their faces upraised in concern. No one asked about Duncan. Didn’t they know how much he meant to me? Didn’t they know he was risking his life to help keep their queen and prince alive?
“I’m not sure,” I said, forcing my bitter thoughts down. “I need to get to the palace quickly. She may have written, and I’m as worried as you. I have traveled myself into exhaustion to reach the palace and get word of them.” A hardness came into my voice, stilling them like a bell. “But my sister is as brave and resourceful as her mother, and Prince Alex is as honorable as my father. My sister will be returned to us unharmed, or I will hound those who dared touch her and my vengeance will tear the souls from their bodies and cast them into hell.”
And with that, they knew she was taken.
The crowd went silent. Jeck’s quick intake of breath for what they would now do was clear in my ear. His eyes went to the pirate ship in the capital harbor, and he shifted back a step. I was sure he thought they would whip themselves into a rage of vengeance and hatred. But they didn’t. He watched in obvious wonder when they turned to their neighbors, voices soft and intent.
I had given them the truth—and they knew it—but first, I gave them a lie to cover their fear with. They would wait with me, ready to act when I asked them to, knowing I wouldn’t keep the truth from them. Ever. And they trusted m
e to tell them the best time to act and how.
“You made a mistake,” Jeck said, looking from face to face as if he didn’t yet believe or understand. “They’ll attack the ship in the harbor looking for them. Telling them the truth, even couched in a comforting story, is foolish. You’ve just lost your master’s game, and probably your life.”
My face went stiff in anger. “I may have lost my master’s game, Captain, but not from telling my people the truth. Look again,” I said, when the young guard fluttered away to fetch horses. “I have gained a thousand ears and eyes. They trust me, and they’ll wait, knowing I’ll call on them if there’s anything they can do. I was honest with them and didn’t treat them as children who must be protected from the harsh truth. I gave them dignity, though it was bound with pain. Because of that, they won’t act against anyone on that boat, but they will tell me every single move they make down to how many men are relieving themselves every morning off the railing.”
Clearly not convinced, Jeck followed me down the steps with a frustrated, angry look on his face. The people around us kept a deferential four feet back, and I walked alone surrounded by hundreds. “It was that same trust that allowed me to steal the palace out from under you last spring,” I continued softly. “Open your eyes. Trust moves souls more surely than fear.”
The clatter of hooves drew both our attentions. A second gate guard was awkwardly checking and rechecking the saddles of his stationed mounts. He seemed flustered that there was no sidesaddle. But an eager man had come close with two of his own horses, mismatched in their springtime shedding, patchy and ugly.
“We’ll borrow these, officer,” I told the young guard. “Keep yours for an emergency.”
The common man broke into a wide grin, proud as he held the reins of the shaggy gray I lurched onto with Jeck’s help. I laid my hand atop the stableman’s and smiled. “Thank you,” I said softly. “They will be waiting for you at the palace stables,” and he stepped back, red and flushed.
Jeck’s lips were pressed into a thin line as he reined in his taller animal, now prancing with excitement. A way opened up before us, and we started when Jeck shouted at his mount.
An unexpected pang of fear resonated through me as we left the crowd at a pace that was heartbreakingly fast after the days of slogging on foot. My thoughts spun to my sister, the pirates, Duncan’s precarious position, and finally back to what I was going to tell Kavenlow.
As we raced upward through the busy streets, I looked at my borrowed boots to either side of the dirty animal I was on. My dress was torn and salt-stained. My hair was wild and had sticks and leaves in it. It hadn’t seen a comb or water for days. I was wearing borrowed mittens and boots, hungry, cold, and heartsick. Jeck rode silently beside me, his expression giving no clue as to where his thoughts were.
If this is to be my last game, I vowed silently, I will, by God, win it.
Twenty
The ceilings of the palace were lower than I remembered, and the walls tighter. After three weeks on a boat smaller than the palace’s main kitchen, one might think that they would seem spacious. But the time spent outside and the vistas that stretched to the horizon made the once-comfortable walls seem almost claustrophobic.
I put a hand to my cheek as I walked the familiar halls, feeling the false warmth from the motionless air. Heather was half a step behind me, the well-rounded young woman fussing as she alternately scolded me about the state of my dress and wailed that I had ruined my hair again. Jeck followed right after her, a false-deferential two steps back, quick on my heels. Resh, the captain of my sister’s guards, was beside me, meeting my rapid pace step for step.
Shortly after passing the palace’s front gate, a young boy in Misdev colors had brought Jeck a new coat, a sword and belt, a worn but clean pair of boots, and an overdone black hat with feathers that draped down over the back of his neck. The hat was in Jeck’s crushing grip. It was a Misdev officer’s hat, and I knew Jeck hated the gaudy thing.
The fresh clothes and dirty exterior made him a heady mix of rough and wild, clean and polished. Heather had been eying him between her fusses at me, the poor woman still not having wed, despite my assurances she wouldn’t forfeit her place beside me should she lose her unwed status before me. I knew for a fact she hadn’t been a maiden for almost five years; having lived vicariously through her for so long, I didn’t know if I could separate her fact from her fantasy.
I glanced at her, and my longtime friend and official handmaiden took a breathless half run to come even with me. She was the only woman in the palace who had the impunity to scold me, and she never missed an opportunity. “Look at your hands!” she exclaimed, seemingly oblivious to the real problem of Contessa’s capture.
“What about my hands?” I said, yanking them from her and halting. Jeck stopped, almost running me down. Fear took me. She could tell. She could tell I could use my magic to kill with my hands.
Heather stared at me. Her eyes went wide as if worried she had done something wrong. “Nothing!” she said, mystified. “They’re so brown. That’s all.”
Relieved, I pushed back into motion, ignoring Captain Resh’s soft murmur at my elbow. They were brown. That was all. Despite her surface impression, Heather was quick and intelligent, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if she had seen a difference in my hands other than their color. Her apparent flightiness was an act helped out by her curvaceous figure and deep blue eyes, and she used it to her advantage to all who were ignorant of it.
“And your hair!” she wailed, as we passed through the front entryway, heads turning and gossip rising like a boat’s wake behind us. “Lord love a duck, where have you been sleeping? The dirt?”
“Yes,” I said shortly, and she put a delicate white hand to her mouth. Captain Resh was trying to get my attention, and I came to a stop in the main receiving room. You could get to anywhere in the palace from here. “Where’s Kavenlow?” I asked Captain Resh, and he winced.
The man took a breath, but I could tell it was to placate me, not to tell me what I wanted to know. Heather and Captain Resh had been trying to get me to go to my rooms to be washed, combed, fed, and princessified. I wanted to talk to the brigandines, and Kavenlow was with them.
“Where is Kavenlow?” I repeated more firmly, and the man shifted his weight from foot to foot.
“Your Highness,” he began, coaxing.
Heather took my hand in hers again, clucking and petting it as if it was a sick kitten. “Oh, look at what you did to your fingernails!” she said, and my gaze followed hers. My nails were torn to the quick, and there was dirt caked in the cuticles. Seeing my sun-darkened hand lying in the cradle of her perfect white fingers, something in me snapped.
The zephyr inside me chattered and chortled, the trees past the high windows swayed, and the wind in me swelled. My pulse quickened, and the tingle of venom spilled into me. Feeling it, my heart gave a hard pound, and steeling my face into a careful blandness, I pulled my hand from my longtime friend before I accidentally killed her.
The young woman blinked as my hand jerked from hers. She started, meeting my eyes. I would talk to Kavenlow before seeing to my needs, and she knew it. “In the solarium,” she said, and I pushed into motion while Captain Resh started a soft protest.
“He’s been there all morning!” Heather continued, almost jogging to keep up. She had been my best friend and informant since we had met when she had been eight and I six. She could tell me what I wanted to know with impunity, having been labeled a fool since having been caught with two different men in a single night.
“They look like scoundrels,” she babbled, and Captain Resh’s look grew pained, “but they smell like fish. One is downright handsome. Rings and jewelry. I’ve tried to get in there, but the guards won’t let even a kitchen maid in with wine.”
Heather pouted breathlessly: a rare skill in itself, but she could do it while panting to keep up with me. I slowed so she could do it more proficiently. Jeck was watching in undisgu
ised fascination. “He’s a pirate, Heather,” I said dryly. “He tied me up and tried to kill me.”
A small gasp escaped her. The woman stopped stock-still. Jeck came to an abrupt halt to keep from running into her; just as she planned. His elbow bumped her chest, and he dropped his head and apologized, turning a surprising shade of red. I never slowed, intent on gaining the solarium. There was the jingle of metal and the creak of leather as Captain Resh and Jeck lurched to stay with me.
My face was calm, but inside I was seething. They had been here all morning while my sister languished. Duncan wasn’t with them, or Heather would have told me. God, please let him be all right.
“Tess!” Heather bewailed as she ran to catch up after disentangling herself from Jeck. “You can’t be presented. You’re filthy! Begging your pardon, but you are!” she exclaimed.
“Princess,” Captain Resh interrupted. “I must protest.”
“And I insist,” I said, never slowing. Jeck had caught up, and Heather’s brow was furrowed as she probably tried to find another way to get him to knock into her again. She was a very smart woman but badly in need of a husband. I would have to remember to tell her Jeck hadn’t the capacity to care for anyone except perhaps in how he might be able to use her. That she wouldn’t feel the security of his arms around her unless he saw a benefit to himself, that she wouldn’t know the comfort he could give unless he was trying to wrest something from her that she didn’t want to show him, that she’d never see how his smile changed him unless it was to lull her into misplaced trust. But seeing how attractive he looked in that uniform of his, all-powerful and foreboding, she probably wouldn’t care.
“Your Highness,” my sister’s captain of the guard tried again. “You’re in no condition to receive guests. I strongly suggest you meet with them at supper.”
Anger surged through me, quickly checked. I stopped short, and Jeck sidestepped Heather. Captain Resh’s eyes widened, and he halted before me. He knew he had gone too far.
