The Dreaming Land I: The Challenge (The Zemnian Series Book 5)

by E. P. Clark

  “Why would they do that!”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps to make him more malleable to their will? Or perhaps because they are arrogant and fearful? Or perhaps both? I’m afraid it is not for the likes of us to understand the workings of their minds, Sera. But whatever their reasons, Ivan Marinovich has no thoughts of courtship, is heading into this alliance with glum resignation, and does not consider himself a real prince. But if we act fast, I believe we stand a good chance of winning him over.”

  “If you act fast, you mean.”

  “Yes,” I said. “If I act fast. So I did. He’s unsure of me, Sera, but I think he finds me fascinating, and he wants to break free from his mother’s grip, even if he doesn’t know it yet. So there is a good chance that your plan will succeed.”

  “And what about you, Valya? Do you want it to succeed? Is he an acceptable choice for a husband? Or should we find you another one?”

  “No,” I said. “He will do just fine.”

  Sera smiled a knowing smile. “I believe you are taken with him, Valya.”

  I shrugged again. “Possibly.”

  “He is quite handsome, isn’t he? In a very wholesome, boyish way.”

  “Perhaps, but that’s not why…” I began, and stopped as Sera’s eyes lit up. “No?” she said. “Then what is why, if I may ask?”

  “He blushes so easily,” I said, blushing a little myself at the memory. “And…he seems so quiet and biddable on the surface, but you can tell, there’s a temper there underneath it all, just waiting to burst free.”

  “I see,” said Sera, grinning. “Hidden fire, just waiting to be tamed or unleashed or whatever, and all that sort of thing, is it?”

  “I suppose,” I said reluctantly.

  Sera grinned even more broadly. “Why am I not surprised that you find it irresistible, Valya? You’ve always gone from one flame to the next, ever since, well…anyway, I knew this would be too much of a challenge for you to pass up. Well, I’ll leave how to proceed to your best judgment, but if you need, say, the word of the Empress that this is her express desire, let me know.”

  “I will,” I told her. “But let’s see if we can do it without that just yet, shall we? I think it would go much more smoothly if it appeared to be his genuine desire—if it actually were his genuine desire—rather than a command from the Tsarina being forced down his family’s throat.”

  “Genuine desire, is that what you’re looking for, then?” said Sera with a flick of her eyebrows, but on seeing the expression that crossed my face, she backtracked and said, “Of course you’re right, Valya, and I shouldn’t make fun at your expense, especially when you’re doing what I asked you to. I’m sorry; it’s just that I’m feeling much better today and it’s making me act silly. Carry on as you think best, and if you need anything, ask immediately. But what was the third thing? About Princess Velikokrasnova’s trading partner?”

  “Ivan Marinovich said that the Eastern woman his mother wants him to marry is the daughter of a Zemnian man—and a trader from the Hordes. According to him, his mother says she is richer and more powerful than any princess in Zem’, or at least any that will take him.” I paused for a moment to let both of us wrinkle our noses at that thought. “Can you think of anyone who would fit that description?” I asked when we had brought our distaste back under control. “I can’t, but I don’t deal directly with many traders.”

  “Neither do I, but I know who some of the most important traders from the East are, and I can’t think of any with a Zemnian husband and a half-breed daughter of marriageable age,” said Sera. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist. Of course, Princess Velikokrasnova could have exaggerated her importance to Ivan Marinovich, or he could have exaggerated her importance to you.”

  “True enough. But doesn’t it strike you as suspicious?”

  “How so?” asked Sera.

  “That Princess Velikokrasnova would want to marry her only son off to a ‘half-breed girl,’ as you called her, the daughter of an Eastern trader? And don’t you think there has been a lot of…something…surrounding trade with the East? Trade is disrupted this summer, the black earth princesses are marrying off their children into trading families, we are about to hold a session of the Princess Council to discuss the slave trade in Zemnian children…it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that message from your informant on the coast was about something strange with the trade situation, maybe something odd from the North or from Seumi.”

  Sera’s mouth rounded open in surprise. “You read it,” she said. “You read the scroll.”

  “What? No, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. How could I have done that? I’ve been standing right here in front of you the whole time. It was just a lucky guess. But it proves my point: something is up with trade.”

  “I am a fool,” she said. “Here I’ve been lamenting the lack of gifts in our family all these years, worrying that they might be dying out—and my own sister’s gifts have been right under my very nose! We are fools, Valya, fools!”

  “Well, yes, but not because of that. I told you: I don’t think it’s a gift.”

  “Our foremothers said the same thing. They claimed they were just seeing the world naturally, as it was meant to be seen, and that anyone could do it. But the fact remains that no one could do it but them. Face it, Valya: you’re gifted.”

  “Now you’ve made me nervous,” I complained. “Every time I go to think about something, I’ll be wondering if I’m really seeing it properly, or if I’m manifesting some special talent.”

  “Valya! This is serious! We should announce it to the Princess Council tomorrow.”

  “Because that will go down so well,” I said. “That will make the princesses love me for sure.”

  “It will at least give you a little more legitimacy in their eyes!”

  “Sera, Miroslava Praskovyevna herself could appear before them and declare me her chosen heir, and they would still argue and find fault. They’re princesses. It’s what they do.”

  “They should be told,” said Sera stubbornly. “They should know that at least one Zerkalitsa of this generation has been gifted.”

  “Perhaps, but if we tell them tomorrow, when we’re already trying to convince them to go along with this investigation into the slave trade, which is not going to be popular, I doubt they’ll believe us. After all, I don’t believe us, and it’s my gift we’re talking about. We should…break it to them gently.”

  “How, Valya? How are we going to break it to them gently?”

  “I don’t know! We should…allow the gift to manifest itself in some obvious way. So that even I am convinced.”

  “You just don’t want to believe in your birthright, Valya! You never have!” Sera snapped her mouth shut, her cheeks flushed, and looked almost as surprised as I was at her outburst.

  “That’s not true,” I said, as mildly as I was capable of doing, which admittedly was not very mildly. “If it were true, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “I’m sorry, Valya,” she said after a pause. “I didn’t mean to shout at you like that. But it is true. You’ve always taken more pride on the steppe side of the family than in ours. For some reason you’ve always aligned yourself more closely with your father’s line than with your mother’s.”

  “That’s not true. Krasnoslava Tsarina was also of steppe descent.”

  “Through the male line. I don’t know why you feel this way, Valya, why you keep turning away from your mother’s line, but you do. You’ve chosen to spend as much of your life as you can far away from Krasnograd and from me, hidden on the steppe, pretending to be a simple steppe warrior and taking pride in, in your tracking skills and your prowess at arms. I would even be glad of it—so many in your position would be seeking to take my throne away from me at every opportunity—but soon you, you, you may have to face up to your birth and take up your birthright, Valya, and I want you to be ready. You must be ready. You must not crumple and fall under this burden, or run away from it and leave it
in clumsier hands, guided by weaker minds. Zem’ may need you, Valya, and when it does, you must be ready to answer its call.”

  There was a silence in the room. I could hear a fly droning against the window, and maids moving around down the corridor. Sera stared at me, her cheeks still flushed and her chest heaving.

  “I know,” I said. “But you see, I always…I never wanted to give even the slightest appearance that I was trying to get in your way, claim for myself what was rightfully yours. I was content to be a Stepnaya, and I didn’t want to give anyone any ideas about wanting anything more. I am sorry if you thought I would fail you. If the call comes, I will be ready. But…”

  “Good.” She cut me off. “Because like it or not, Valya, you are a direct descendent of Miroslava Praskovyevna through the female line, you bear her gifts, and you have already borne a daughter.” She smiled. “Who would have thought that the scandal that rocked Krasnograd nine years ago would turn out, perhaps, to be its salvation? I was so angry with you back then, Valya, so angry with you for being thoughtless and impulsive and selfish like you always are, or rather like I always thought you to be, for ruining a good man’s reputation and turning the black earth princesses against us, but it turns out you were acting for the good all along.”

  “No I wasn’t,” I said. “I was being thoughtless and impulsive and selfish, ruining a good man’s reputation and turning the black earth princesses against us because I could, because I thought I would win and that it would make me happy, but that wasn’t so. Any good that came of it was just dumb luck.”

  “Like the dumb luck that allowed you to guess the provenance and contents of that scroll, you mean? No, Valya, you were right when you told me to trust you. I don’t know what it is you see, but what looks like foolishness to others always seems to turn out well for you. It must be another manifestation of your gift.” A thoughtful expression crossed her face.

  “Don’t try and use that argument to convince the princesses,” I said. “Telling them that my…indiscretion was a manifestation of our family’s gifts will probably just drive them straight to treason.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she admitted. “But you have to admit, it’s an enticing thought, isn’t it?”

  “Their treason?”

  “No, Valya, that what seemed like a colossal error in judgment was actually…you discerning the will of the gods and working towards the greater good of Zem’.”

  “I don’t care whether it was a colossal error in judgment or the will of the gods. It got me Mirochka. It was worth it just for that. Even if it turns out that it wasn’t actually for the greater good of Zem’, I don’t care. Mirochka is worth everything to me.”

  “I know, Valya,” she said soberly. “But you see, right now she’s worth everything to me, too, and to the rest of Zem’. And you can’t forget that, no matter how much you might wish to.”

  “I know. But…perhaps it won’t come to that. Perhaps it won’t matter at all whether she or I are gifted, or that we’re both direct descendants of Miroslava Praskovyevna through the female line. Perhaps things will take a different turn. Perhaps what I thought was a colossal error in judgment on your part will turn out to be the will of the gods, working for the greater good of Zem’.”

  “Why thank you, Valya,” she said with a rueful smile. “We can only hope, can’t we?”

  “Yes, we can,” I said, with an answering smile. “But in the meantime we have the Princess Council and this situation with our traders going on. What exactly was in the scroll?”

  “You’re not going to guess?” she asked, her smile changing from rueful to arch.

  “I’d rather skip that step and hear it straight from you,” I said. “I take it it’s something that confirms my suspicions?”

  “Yes…although I’m not really sure what your suspicions are.”

  “Neither am I. Other than that something is up. So what is going on along the coast?”

  She shrugged uneasily. “I don’t know exactly, and neither does Yevgeniya Arinovna—that’s Princess Primorskaya’s third-sister, who, as you guess, has been spending her time lurking in various taverns and waystations and reporting back to me what she hears. Our relationship with the Primorskiye and the Pristanogradskiye is…contentious right now, even though they’re our close kin.”

  “Close kin can be funny like that sometimes,” I said.

  “Well…yes.” Her smile changed back to rueful. “So I have been using Yevgeniya Arinovna to keep informed on what is actually going on in the coastal provinces, since I know better than to trust what Princess Primorskaya and Princess Pristanogradskaya tell me. According to Princess Primorskaya, trade from the black earth district and from the East has dried up or is being ruthlessly strangled by the other princesses’ greed, and according to Princess Pristanogradskaya, not only is trade from the West poor as well, but raiders from Seumi have been sailing across the Breathing Sea and stealing our goods, our flocks, and even our people. When she last wrote me, it was to seek permission to launch counter-raids against them.”

  “But?” I prompted.

  “But I wrote to Yevgeniya Arinovna to ask what she knew of the situation, and she replied—the scroll you just saw—that while yes, little is coming from the black earth district and from the East, she has heard nothing of any raids against our people by the Seumi, that in fact the taverns and waystations of Pristanogradskoye and Primorskoye are filled with Seumi traders who have been denied permission to trade there or who have had their goods seized, and that there are rumors rising that children from Seumi villages have started to disappear.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “And rumor has it—only the faintest whisper, but still some are whispering—that the people seizing those children are Zemnian.”

  ***

  The fly droned. And droned. I knew I should say something. I should be shouting out angry denials or something. But instead I was silent.

  “Don’t look so shocked, Valya,” Sera said eventually. “You already heard how Zemnians were selling their own children, and you were about to accuse Princess Velikokrasnova of being part of the trade, I could tell. This is merely the logical continuation of that pattern.”

  “How reliable are the reports?” I managed to ask.

  She shrugged. “They are nothing but rumors, rumors being spread by disgruntled Seumi traders, but Yevgeniya Arinovna has heard them from several different sources. That was why she thought it worthwhile to inform me of them.”

  “And…do we know what happens to the children, after they are taken?”

  She shrugged again. “They rumors say they go East, but they are very vague on that score. It is the logical conclusion, though. After all, we know the East buys slave-children, while I have not seen any Seumi children, enslaved or otherwise, on the streets of Krasnograd. Have you seen or heard of any on the steppe?”

  I shook my head. “No.” I cleared my throat. “Only…all the children we rescued last year, they were Zemnians. But…the steppe is huge. It would be easy enough I suppose, with the right kind of caravan, to avoid the main trade route and still make it to the mountains.”

  “So, two trade routes, then, at least?”

  “At least,” I agreed. “If what we hear is true.”

  “If what we hear is true,” she repeated. “Do you really think it is? For that would mean that Princess Primorskaya and Princess Pristanogradskaya could be involved.”

  “And Princess Velikokrasnova,” I pointed out. “If it is true, then the trade route would go right through Velikokrasnovskoye as well as Pristanogradskoye. Which would explain a lot.”

  “If it’s true,” she said again. “I for one…I know you have little love for Princess Velikokrasnova, and frankly speaking I don’t care for her either, nor for Princess Pristanogradskaya, and I don’t even particularly care for Princess Primorskaya, who is our own kin and third-sister to Vyacheslav Irinovich as well, but to think that they could be involved in something like this…”r />
  “It is hard to believe,” I agreed. “We will need proof.”

  “Proof, and it will have to be gathered quietly. We certainly can’t accuse them of it in the Princess Council tomorrow.”

  “Will the coastal princesses be there?” I asked.

  “No, but their representatives will be, and they’re hardly any better—in fact, they might be even worse. And the youngest Pristanogradskaya is in town and may be there as well. And not only that, but according to you, Princess Velikokrasnova is expected to arrive tomorrow morning. Some princesses would claim the fatigues of the journey and not attend the session in that situation, but we can be certain that Princess Velikokrasnova, if she arrives in time and is still able to stand, will be there. So we mustn’t—I can’t stress this enough, Valya—we mustn’t do anything to anger them or even suggest that we suspect them of having anything to do with this. After all, we could be wrong and they could be innocent of everything. And even if they’re not, even if they’re up to their ears in it, they’re sure to deny it vociferously and use it against us any way they can.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’ll keep my suspicions to myself, and content myself with watching them closely.”

  “Good,” said Sera. “And try not to antagonize them or anyone else at the Council either, will you? I know they can be trying at times—” I snorted, and she smiled wryly “—but we need this to go smoothly. All we need is for them to agree to our proposal, and if they do that, who cares what they say?”

  “Sure,” I said. “What is our proposal, anyway?”

  “That you go to the mountains with a small group of hand-picked companions to investigate these reports of Zemnian children being taken. We present them with Aksinya Olgovna’s report—she’s still here, isn’t she?—and then we make our proposal, we say whatever we need to say to get them to agree to it without any fuss, and then, oh, shall we say, the day after Midsummer you set off East? Will that suit you?”

  “Admirably. Hand-picked, you say? So I get to choose them?”

  “Within reason, of course, but yes. Does that sound like a good strategy?”