The Story Raider

by Lindsay A. Franklin

  Mor’s gaze lingered on me—impassive, impossible to read—and then he turned to my father as if I hadn’t spoken. “I understand you’ll be joining us, General Bo-Arthio.”

  “Please.” Father held up a hand. “Yestin.”

  For some reason, their polite conversation irritated me. “Hey!” I snapped. That got their attention. “Gryfelle is my friend and she’s desperately sick. I want to go. It could just as easily be me.”

  If only they knew.

  Mor glanced at me again, but I still couldn’t read him. First time that had been the case since I had known him. He turned back to my father. “The queen’s orders have moved up our timeline a bit.”

  Brac’s tone was vicious. “Well, we wouldn’t want anything to foul up your precious timeline.”

  “I’d accept your kind words if they weren’t laced with venom, guardsman,” Mor replied coldly.

  “Enough.” Father sounded like he was scolding a couple of farm boys. “I’ll be ready before the afternoon’s out, Captain Bo-Lidere. We’ll travel via the king’s road—that is, the queen’s road—I assume?”

  “Aye. Queen’s road to Physgot. The queen’s navy has prepared the ship for us, and we’ll set sail from that port.”

  “Very good. As I said, I’ll not hold you up.”

  “Um . . . anyone?” I waved my hands. “Anyone care to speak to me? Because we seem to have a problem here. I say I’m going, and that’s tha—”

  Never finished my thought. Next thing I knew, I was on the stone floor of the castle hallway.

  “Tannie?” Brac’s face appeared over me. Then Mor and Father beside him. All brows furrowed; frowns everywhere.

  I couldn’t find my voice to answer him, or to address Mor or Father.

  And then the room splintered into pieces.

  Rips opened up in the fabric of reality. Mor’s face wavered and then disappeared. Brac, Father, and the walls of the palace hall ribboned to shreds and vanished.

  I wasn’t on my back anymore. I stood alone in an empty, black room.

  “Hello?” I took a step forward but stumbled in the darkness. “Is anyone here?”

  No reply. No echo. Only the sort of black silence that swallows you from the inside out.

  “Where am I?” I called out.

  Nothing. Just dark. And silence.

  But then silvery strands began to trickle down around me from the ceiling of blackness above. Pale light emanating from the strands struggled to break through the pitch dark. I stepped toward one of the strands.

  “There are words in them,” I said aloud to no one.

  And true as the moon, the strands weren’t wisps of story. They were actually made of words themselves. I watched them scroll by.

  Yestin Bo-Arthio, First General under Caradoc II, was the sole witness to the confession of Gareth Bo-Kelwyd.

  Tanwen was a lonely little girl who found solace in the company of her best friend, Brac Bo-Bradwir.

  In the deepest, most honest part of her heart, Tanwen had to admit that Mor Bo-Lidere was something special.

  Tanwen was a gifted storyteller, but she often doubted her ability to create something truly worthwhile—something all her own.

  I stared at the dripping silver words. Puzzled. Confused.

  Who was this Tanwen? And what was a storyteller?

  All at once, light exploded around me—crashed down onto my head and body. I blinked against it. Blinked into several faces, all peering over me like I was a prize grazer being auctioned at market.

  “Are you all right?” The oldest of the faces, covered in a close-trimmed, grizzled beard.

  “Sakes, Tannie, what were you on about? You was havin’ a fit, or somethin’. You all right?” A young, sunburned face. Blond hair.

  The third face had gone pale as a noonday cloud, and I couldn’t place the expression in his eyes. Horror?

  I sat up, only then realizing I’d fallen over at some point.

  Stone walls. Tapestries. Arched windows, torches in brackets along the wall. “Where am I?”

  Looks passed between the men.

  I frowned at them. “And who in the blazes are you?”

  Father passed me another cup of brisk-leaf tea across the table in our front room. “Are you sure you’re well, Tannie?” The concern hadn’t left his eyes since I collapsed.

  “Of course.” I buried my face into my cup as best I could.

  It had only taken a few reminders—their names, who they were to me, what we were doing in the palace, what we’d been talking about—and then I’d come back to myself. I told them I must have fallen and bumped my head. They were worried, of course, but seemed to take my word for it.

  At least, Father and Brac did. Mor pretended to.

  I got the sinking feeling Mor had witnessed such collapses far too many times to buy what I was peddling.

  How long before he would corner me and force me to admit what had truly happened?

  I sipped my fire-hot tea and barely noticed the roof of my mouth scald.

  “It seemed we lost you for a moment.” Father was staring at me, no matter how I tried to hide my face behind my cup. “And you look shaken now.”

  “I’m fine.” The lie tasted like a pile of ashes in my mouth.

  Because, truly, there was no question about it now: Gryfelle En-Blaid’s mind wasn’t the only one that had begun to slip away inside these palace walls.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TANWEN

  I shoved an extra tunic into Father’s traveling trunk. “There. You’re done.”

  The lid banged closed, and I flopped onto Father’s bed beside the trunk.

  “Tannie.” He gave me a look. A look that said, Grow up, little one. This is for the best.

  A look that made me want to scream in his face.

  I immediately regretted the harshness of my thoughts. Maybe I should try one more time.

  “Father, if we could just—”

  “No, Tannie.”

  “But—”

  “Tanwen.” How did he make his voice so firm and uncompromising without raising it? “I don’t think it’s safe for you. You need to stay in Urian.”

  “Because it’s safer with rioters banging down the front door?”

  He gave me another look.

  I tried again. “Gryfelle is my friend. I . . . I want to help.”

  “I know, my girl.”

  I hopped up from the bed. “Then why won’t you let me go?” I had not inherited his trick of keeping my voice calm in an argument.

  “I think you are ill.”

  My heart tripped. “What do you mean?”

  He stared hard for a moment. “Your episode.”

  What did he suspect? My stomach pinched, and I squashed down whatever truth wanted to rise and explode out as story strands. Almost immediately, dizziness overtook me, and I had to sit back down.

  If I didn’t want to end up next to Gryfelle in the infirmary before suppertime, I was going to have to stop keeping so many secrets from everyone.

  “Tannie?” Father’s eyes were like swirling gray pools of heartfelt concern.

  “I just . . . swooned, is all,” I offered lamely.

  “Swooned?”

  “Aye, you know. Fainted.” I flopped back onto one of his feather pillows. “It’s a thing ladies do, I’m told.”

  “Tannie . . .”

  “No, it’s perfectly fine.” I jumped up and strode for the door. “I’ll stay here, do what I’m told, just like everyone wants. But no matter what you say, I’m coming to Physgot with you. I will see off my friends, even if I’m being kept captive in Tir while you get to go around the world with them.”

  I moved past him, through his bedroom, and toward our front door.

  “Tanwen!” His voice followed me, but I didn’t turn around. Even though he sounded wounded and I already wished I could take back my barbed words. Even though I knew I was making a greater mess than everything already was.

  I did my utter best to slam
the heavy front door like I meant it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  TANWEN

  It took three seconds of running down the palace hallways for the tears to start.

  Frustration. Anger. Hurt. Remorse.

  And fear.

  They coursed down my cheeks in a muddle of conflict.

  I should turn around. Apologize to Father. We were both dumber than difflesnouts at this father-daughter thing. It didn’t sit comfortably. We weren’t used to it. He didn’t need my poisoned-dart words. He needed my compassion—my love—just like I needed his.

  But I didn’t turn around. I didn’t go back and tell him I was sorry. I wanted more than anything to be on that ship when it set out from Physgot, and he wouldn’t allow it. For some reason, I found myself unable to defy him.

  And that infuriated me.

  A strand of crackling lightning shot from my hand and exploded with a snap on the stone floor.

  Blast. I needed to get control of myself.

  Suddenly there was only one place I wanted to be. One person I wanted to talk to.

  I turned into a stairwell and took the spiraling steps two at a time. Down, down to where I knew he would be.

  The palace libraries.

  “I can’t work like this, Mor!” Dylun Bo-Ino’s frustrated voice met me before I reached the library door. “How do you expect me to create a proper route when you cut my timeline in half?”

  I eased to a stop beside the doorway, just out of view.

  “Dylun, I don’t know what you want me to do about it.” Mor, equally frustrated. “Should I tell Queen Braith to hold her royal horses?”

  A big thunk sounded—like a heavy book dropping onto a wooden table. “I don’t care what you tell her. Just give me more time! You understand what I’m up against. This is like trying to nail color strands to the wall. I have scraps of rumors, pieces of a story that may or may not be a myth. And most of it in languages no one speaks anymore. I’ll remind you that Tirian is my second language. Old Tirian is my fifth, and I’m barely proficient by scholarly standards. Have you ever seen Ancient Meridioni? There’s a reason it’s a dead language, Mor!”

  Mor sighed. “I know, mate. I’m sorry. You have been doing an excellent job. I don’t mean to push. But we have the queen’s orders. And Gryfelle had a bad episode today.”

  “How bad?” Aeron En-Howell’s voice. I hadn’t realized she was there.

  “Very.” Weariness drenched Mor’s words. “She wasn’t fully back yet when I left her with Karlith.”

  “Dylun, look at this.” Another voice. Warmil Bo-Awirth, former guard captain. “It’s the Ancient Meridioni symbol for ‘cure,’ isn’t it?”

  Dylun grunted. “I believe so. If only Master Insegno were here. He would know for certain.”

  “An old friend of yours?” Warmil again.

  “Yes. Well, my teacher from Meridione. A scholar. My father had me educated here in the palace by Tirian tutors for many things, but for Meridioni customs, history, and languages, I learned from a true Meridioni. I never knew if Insegno got out before Gareth’s crackdown. Probably dead now.”

  Dylun said it matter-of-factly, but I had felt enough loss in my life to hear the pain behind his words.

  “If he lives still,” Warmil said, “would he know about this ancient cure? Seems we’re traveling in circles here.”

  “He would know if anyone would. It is finding Insegno that would be the challenge. Unless . . .” Dylun’s voice brightened. “I suppose it could be as simple as that. He may have just returned to Meridione, peaceful as you like. He came from the capital, Bordino, like my family. It’s right there on the coast. He could be living there still. Reading books on the beach while we breathe dust here in the library.”

  “Then that will be our first stop,” Mor declared. “We’ll see if we can’t find your old friend.”

  “Ho, Tannie!”

  Stifling a scream, I jumped at the hand on my shoulder. I spun around to face the intruder. “Zel! Zelyth Bo-Gwelt, you scared me half to death!”

  “I see that.” He grinned. “If you wasn’t sneakin’ about the palace, eavesdroppin’ on conversations, you wouldn’t be so prone to a start.”

  You could have fried an eaglet egg on my face. “Aye, thanks for the advice.”

  He waggled his eyebrows, then pushed past me into the library. I had more than half a mind to slink back down the hall without facing the others, now that they knew I was there. But Zel grabbed my hand and pulled me into the library after him.

  “Tannie’s here.” Like it needed to be announced.

  Dylun barely glanced up from his stack of dusty tomes. “Hello, Tanwen.”

  Warmil nodded. “Tannie.”

  Aeron seemed to be biting back a small grin—a grin that knew far too much about the swirly turmoil in my heart these days. I shot her a look—half pleading, half irritated, with just a dash of amusement. Like she was one to throw stones about awkward non-romances. She’d been pining for Warmil since he was her captain in the guard, ten years past.

  And then there was Mor, the one I’d come to see in the first place. The one who would comfort me about my banishment from the trip. The one who would tell me how to apologize to my father. The one who would soothe the ache in my heart.

  But I found none of the warmth I expected. Instead, Mor’s face might have been carved of marble, hard as it was.

  “Tanwen,” he said, and his voice was ice. “Can we speak privately?”

  I nodded. Numb, unable to form words.

  Mor led me into a nearby room. There was no door on it, so it wasn’t exactly private. But I guessed it was good enough for Mor’s designs.

  He turned toward me. “Tanwen, I—”

  “Stop calling me that.” I frowned at him. “You never call me that.”

  He held my gaze for a moment, then dropped it.

  “Mor, what’s wrong with you? You’re acting strange.”

  “No. Just focused. Ready for my task.”

  A few days ago, he might have said our task. Our quest. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.”

  “Me first, please. If you don’t mind.”

  “I do mind. What’s the matter with you?” My stomach pinched again. Whatever emotions simmered just below the surface were going to boil over.

  “Nothing is the matter. I’m just anxious to get underway. Gryfelle doesn’t have much time left.” And then he met my eyes again. The ice had melted, but he looked . . . angry?

  “My father says I can’t go,” I blurted.

  I don’t know what I expected or hoped for. Understanding. Comfort. Outrage on my behalf. Something that mirrored all the frustration and disappointment I felt. Something that let me know I wasn’t utterly alone in the world.

  Instead, Mor nodded. “I don’t think you should go, either.”

  I stared. “Wha . . . what?”

  “You should stay here. With your betrothed. I was going to tell you so, even if your father hadn’t.”

  “With my . . .” I spluttered around the words. “Mor, are you serious?”

  “Staying home with your engaged beau is strange to you?” He arched an eyebrow. “I don’t think it is, Tanwen.”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “Unless, of course, you have no intention of marrying the lad. Then, naturally, staying home to be near him might be a strange concept.”

  And now we’d gotten around to it, finally. Mor was angry about Brac.

  “Is that what this is about? Are you jealous of Brac?”

  Mor snorted. “Hardly.”

  His words pierced my heart. He might as well be throwing ice daggers.

  “I know you well enough to see what’s going on, Tanwen.” He ignored my dark glare. “You have no intention of marrying him, but have you told him so?”

  “Um . . . there . . .” I fumbled. “It hasn’t been the right time yet.”

  “But you thought you would leave on a journey—one that could take weeks or mont
hs—without finding that right time? You thought you might escape to the sea, is that it?”

  “Look who’s talking about escaping to the sea! I guess you don’t like me stealing a line from your play.”

  For the second time in the space of an hour, I wished I could suck my words back in. I had hit Mor in the tenderest spot beneath his armor, and his hurt was plain in his eyes. For he had escaped to the sea instead of going after his little sister, Digwyn, when Gareth had taken her away and turned her into a slave. Mor had spent the past four years regretting it, trying to erase it, trying to redeem himself.

  That was part of what his tie to Gryfelle was all about. Mor had decided to stop choosing what was best for him—to stop choosing what he wanted and instead think of what was best for others. So no matter how sick Gryfelle got, no matter how much of her mind was erased, no matter how little she even remembered of the adolescent romance she’d shared with him, Mor would never leave her. He would never stop trying to save her.

  And he would never choose to be with me because of it.

  The air between us heated—warmer than a summer midday. Strange and out of place in the dank, dark palace library. After a moment, I could make out nearly invisible strands swirling around us—the source of the warmth.

  But fried if I knew what these strands were. Once I might have guessed they were the feelings Mor and I shared. Now I wondered if it was only anger.

  The impassive mask slipped back over Mor’s face. The strands evaporated. “Quite right, Tanwen. I suppose I do have experience escaping to the sea. And maybe that’s why I don’t want you to do it.”

  “Or is it just easier when I’m not around?” Tears stung my eyes, and I tried to force them back. Last thing I needed was to dissolve into a blubbering mess right in the middle of Mor casting me out.

  “Tannie . . .”

  I looked up, and the tears spilled. But he had called me Tannie.

  He lifted his hand like he might reach for mine, but then he let it drop. “I think it will be easier for everyone if we are not around each other. Don’t you?”