“Never,” said King Haikor in a low, threatening tone.
“She will go to the continent,” said Kellin, stepping forward. “And I shall make sure she can never return. For she has injured me as much as she has you.” His voice sounded harsh, as if he truly hated Ailsbet.
Issa almost believed it herself.
“Make sure she is gone, then.” King Haikor snapped his fingers at his remaining guards and gestured toward Issa. “Make sure this one is gone, as well.”
Issa followed the guards out of the Throne Room, but when she looked out into the courtyard, she could see a hint of green poking out of the gray dirt, and she knew that whatever King Haikor thought about her actions, what she had truly done was to bring the neweyr back to the palace grounds, where it belonged.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Ailsbet
KELLIN FOUND AILSBET near the crumbling walls on the west side of the palace. She was heading toward the docks. Toward Ambassador Belram’s promise and the flag of the swan of Aristonne, if she could still depend upon on it.
She started at the touch of his hand on her arm, then turned and let out a small gasp of delight. Clutching tightly to his shoulder, she asked, “How?”
“Issa claimed she had the taweyr herself,” said Kellin. “She used neweyr, disguised as taweyr, to destroy the Tower as proof.”
“Truly?” Ailsbet did not understand how it had been done. She suspected she would never know. “And now?” she asked Kellin.
“She will return to Weirland and prepare for what comes next,” he said. “But I came to tell you about Edik.”
“What is it?” asked Ailsbet.
“Edik is dead,” said Kellin. “Poisoned in the night.”
Ailsbet swayed, her stomach twisting like hot metal. Her taweyr had suddenly come back to her with a vengeance, and she wished to use it for precisely that. “My father,” she said.
“He seems ready to go to war against Weirland,” said Kellin. “I must do what I can to stop him.” He sounded bleak and hopeless.
Ailsbet replied, “He is bloodthirsty, selfish, full of moods and passions, and unpredictable. He does nothing but what suits him at the moment, and he is getting worse, Kellin. There is only one way to stop him. You must see that.”
Kellin shrugged. “For now, I promised him to see you gone from Rurik.”
“I could battle him with my taweyr. I could be queen in his place.” Hadn’t Kellin said exactly that?
“You are drained,” said Kellin. “And newly come to your taweyr. You do not know how to use it properly. Your father has years of experience, as well as hundreds of men he can call on to give him tawyer in taxes. I thought that in time, you might find allies, and prepare for the right moment. But now?”
Ailsbet knew he was right. By showing her taweyr when she had, she had made it impossible to have any future other than one in Aristonne, banished from Rurik forever. She had been planning to choose it anyway, but it was less sweet knowing there was no other choice.
“And if you were to lie to him, to tell him that you had seen me off?” she asked.
“Why would I do that?”
“To keep me safely hidden away, in a place where you could come and teach me about the taweyr, and find supporters against him. There are many of his nobles who hate him.”
“There are,” Kellin agreed.
Ailsbet felt a stir of eagerness at the thought of fighting her father. “And would you take the risk with me?”
“Is that what you want?” asked Kellin.
It was a heady sensation, to think that she could rise up against her father and perhaps defeat him. The scenes of the battles her father had won came to her, depicted on stained-glass windows and tapestries all through the palace. She could be the one fighting him, but she could win. It was a strong temptation.
“I brought you this,” said Kellin, and handed her her flute.
She took it from its case and put it to her lips. It immediately soothed her senses and dampened her pleasure at the thought of death. Was that why Kellin had brought it to her?
She stared at him. “Would you be loyal to me instead of to my father, if I asked it?”
He held out his hand. “Give me the flute and all your music, and promise me that you will give yourself wholeheartedly to the kingdom of Rurik and its people, and I shall,” he said.
But music was the one thing she could never give up, and she had never cared so fervently about the people of Rurik and the kingdom as Kellin did. “I will go to Aristonne,” she said at last. She would have her music and give up being princess. It was what she had always wanted.
And so Kellin took her to the dock.
Ailsbet nodded at the unweyr who were working there. She had never seen more than one at a time, but here were dozens all together, the rarest people in the two islands. They did not look so very different on the outside, but they were different. She would be like them soon enough, once she was out on the ocean.
She watched their concentrated faces, their strong muscles. They needed no weyr to add to who they were.
Yes, that was what she wanted.
This was who she was.
With Kellin at her side, Ailsbet approached the boat that flew the Aristonne flag and thought of Prince William. Ambassador Belram was waiting for her on the deck.
“King Haikor sent you this to help speed your journey,” said Kellin, offering her a small bag of gold.
Ailsbet suspected this was from Kellin himself, but she did not argue with him. She loosened the purse and let one coin fall out into her hands. Her father’s head was there, standing out in relief, worn very little.
“Thank you,” Ailsbet whispered. “Thank you so much.” She would have sent him away then, but Kellin insisted he must wait until he had seen her board the ship.
“To report to the king?” said Ailsbet.
“He is still my king,” said Kellin.
The ship was much larger than Ailsbet had imagined it would be, but when she stepped on board and felt the tip of the ocean for the first time, she could feel the pressure of the taweyr begin to ease inside of her. It took some time for the sailors to pull in the anchor and prepare to leave, and all that time, Kellin stood on the docks, watching her.
At last, the wooden deck of the ship seemed to come to life, and Ailsbet had to put a hand out to keep herself steady. Then she stood on the deck and watched as Kellin and Rurik grew smaller in the distance, and the ocean tore at her taweyr until she took out her flute and began to play.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Issa
THE NIGHT AFTER THE TOWER had been destroyed, Issa was ready to leave for Weirland with her few remaining servants. She and Kellin met just outside the palace gates, but his hands were empty of belongings, as if he had decided to leave everything of this life behind him.
He smiled at her, and she ran toward him. It was dark and unusually cold for early autumn, and she wished that she were already long gone from here, safe with the man she loved.
Breathless, she reached him and flung herself into his arms. It felt so good at last to be able to be with him without guilt. Edik was dead. Ailsbet was gone. Neither she nor Kellin could be held to their old betrothals. Issa wished she could have saved Edik, but she would not throw away her chance at happiness because of that.
She leaned into Kellin and kissed him. This time it was a tender kiss, soft and deep. There was passion in it that grew as the kiss continued, and Kellin pulled her closer. He seemed intent on proving how much he loved her, all in this one moment. But they had time together, she thought. They would have the rest of their lives.
He let her go at last, and she leaned her head against his chest in companionable silence.
“I have to tell you something,” he said.
“What is it?”
“I cannot come with you immediately.”
“Why not? Of course, you can, Kellin. You cannot stay here, not after you spoke up for Ailsbet in open court after King Haikor deni
ed her name as his daughter. King Haikor might have looked on you as a favorite before, but not any longer.”
“Just for a little while,” said Kellin. “There are a few last things I must do here.”
“A few last things? What are they? I shall help you do them, then, and we shall go together.” Issa did not want to go back to Weirland alone, did not want to wait for him there.
“You cannot help me. I must make sure Rurik does not immediately descend into civil war. Issa, you must go back to Weirland now, with your servants to protect you. You are no longer safe here, now that King Haikor realizes you are a threat. Whether or not he discerns that you used the neweyr instead of the taweyr, you showed power against him that no one else ever has, and that may embolden others.”
“How long do you think he will believe that it was taweyr?” asked Issa.
“As long as it suits him, I suspect. But I swear I shall come soon. Unless you are tired of waiting for me and ready to find another man who would be better suited to Weirland?”
“Of course not,” Issa said. “I will never love anyone else but you. You must know that.”
He kissed her again. “I like to hear it even so. And Issa, I will never love anyone but you. Promise me that you will trust me.”
“But it is dangerous here in Rurik,.” she said. “Now more than ever, with King Haikor so angry and anxious to prove himself.”
“You must trust me. I have the taweyr. I know how it must be wielded for the best of both kingdoms. Do you argue with me on that point, now that you claim to have the taweyr yourself?”
“No, Kellin,” said Issa.
“Then do not argue with me now. Trust me. I shall come to you. Nothing can stop me from doing that. I have hoped for too long to give up my chance with you now.”
“King Haikor will try to stop you,” said Issa.
“Let him try,” said Kellin, and he kissed her one last time. Issa would have been glad for it to go on forever. She did not need to breathe so long as she had Kellin in her arms.
But he pulled away and helped her on her horse, and she rode off with her servants, leaving Kellin behind to prove that their love would be stronger than King Haikor’s hatred.
Over the next few weeks, the company made its way north through Rurik to the land bridge and then home to Weirland. The weather was cold and wet as autumn marched on, but to Issa, the journey home seemed shorter than the earlier one. Word traveled ahead of her, and she was greeted by many people who had gathered at the gates to see her return. It was such a relief to be home that she had only just passed through the gates when she slid off her horse and let her feet touch the ground.
She let her sense of the neweyr spread out to include the whole palace, and then the kingdom beyond. There were her forests. There were the fields of grain ready for harvest. There were the streams and the sun-drenched orchards. There was her sky, her clouds, her winds. Her world. She had not ruined it with her misuse of the neweyr, after all.
But the castle, when she turned to it, looked smaller than it had been. Her father, too, seemed smaller as she greeted him formally. They retired to his chambers later, and she told him all that had happened in Rurik with Haikor and Edik and Ailsbet. Only what had happened privately with Kellin she left out. He did not interrupt her once, nor ask her questions when she was finished. There was a new relationship between them. She was no longer merely his daughter and a princess. She was not a queen, either, perhaps, but she was something else. It would have to be seen how useful she would be to her people and her kingdom now, and if she would ever again use the neweyr as a weapon.
Lady Neca was waiting outside her father’s chambers to take her to her own.
“I am glad you have come back,” said Neca.
“Am I back?” Issa asked.
Neca looked at her. “I think you will be, when I’ve put your hair into a proper braid,” she said.
Issa laughed ruefully and put her hands to her hair, which she had worn loose since she left King Haikor’s palace, all through the journey north. It had bothered her, but she had not wanted to braid it in case it gave away too much of her identity. She had told the female servants in the party to wear their hair loose, as well. Such a simple thing, but it mattered so much. She had missed the single plait down her back. “Oh, Neca. You know just what to say, don’t you?”
Neca spent the next hour teasing Issa’s hair gently out of its tangles, sometimes with neweyr, sometimes with her own hands. Then she plaited it tightly and handed Issa a mirror to look at herself. The sight of herself in the mirror only added to her sense of being at home and at peace, at least for now.
“Do you truly have the taweyr?” asked Neca in her blunt fashion, which only made Issa realize how she had forgotten this way of speaking while in Rurik.
“No,” said Issa easily. It felt good to tell the truth again.
She told Neca about Kellin now. Every detail, from their first meeting to their last one, and his promise to come after her.
“Does your father know?” asked Neca.
“Not yet, but I will tell him.” She hoped her father would not object. She would tell him, in time.
But in the morning, she took Neca first with her to see Kedor. The young man had grown several inches since Issa had seen him last and looked full-grown now. Certainly, Neca seemed to treat him so, and as a consequence, Kedor paid very little attention to Issa at all.
She told Kedor that Kellin had promised to come to Weirland to see them both, and that he loved her.
“Trust him, then,” said Kedor. “He has never broken a promise in his life.”
“I must trust him.” He must come back to her. She would wait however long she had to, so long as she knew that he was coming, and that they would be together at last.
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