by Cassia Meare
"Go ahead." Ty motioned to Delian's hand, which had stopped partway up his chest.
With a sigh, Delian touched his nape several times with index and pinky. He glanced out the window. "Look at that, it just began to rain like crazy. Maybe it's because you summoned her." He took a small blanket from the armchair and wrapped it over his shoulders, holding it closed with his arms as if it were a cape. "It's the end of the world."
"It's not. We won't let it happen. What are something-like-gods for?"
"It's not just saying stuff in Latin and it happens," Delian pointed out. "The Christian god had it easy."
"It wouldn’t have been Latin, but I get what you mean."
"Show-off. We have to make it to the hekas before Ahn. She has always hated to lose. Remember what she used to tell us when she played?"
"'I won't play less well just because you're children...'" Ty quoted.
"She hated to lose," Delian repeated.
"Who doesn't?"
"She cheated a couple of times, I think."
"You're imagining a lot of stuff now," Ty said, a little tiredly.
"We have to go home," Delian said, putting his forehead on the glass as the wind picked up outside. "And we have to tell Elinor why we're going."
"When will we tell her?"
"Tell me what?"
They turned, startled by the voice at the door. Elinor stood on the threshold in her red robe, Kent on her shoulder. She had probably heard them laughing and screaming and had come to see why. How long had she been standing there?
"We have to go back," Ty explained. "Home."
"Go back?" she asked. "You've just arrived. I thought you came to stay."
"It's just for a bit," Ty explained. Perhaps they could give the news in small installments.
But of course that magnificent big mouth, Delian, had to blurt it all out. "It's for a wedding," he said, wrapping the blanket more tightly about him. "Nemours is getting married."
11
From his window, Nemours had seen the bridal party arriving. The ship had sailed up the west coast to Highmere, sporting the burning eagle, the emblem to Lord Tayne. It had spewed out the courtiers from Stonemount, dressed in the somber colors befitting those living in the shadow of Dragonridge and atop dark mines of metal and ore.
Nemours had watched the party’s progress through the streets, where people threw flowers in the wake of their future princess. Some, he supposed, were even pleasantly surprised. Of all immortals, only Lamia had ever married mortals — a hundred times, at that.
It wouldn't do for him to greet the arrivals in person. He was Prince of the Morning, First Created. No wonder he liked Earth. There he was no one, jumping across centuries, seeing things, learning.
Here he could not hide, except in his islands of Ysil.
And now he was to be married; not for love, as it had been with Sibulla, but for duty.
"Lady Marget?" Delian had asked in a shrill voice. "The basilisk?"
Delian knew more gossip than Nemours — or even Ty. Or rather, Ty had more profound information about things, while Delian listened to tavern talk. Or would hear things from Lamia, who had the dirt on everything and everyone.
Nemours had been far from it all for so long ...
"Basilisk?" Nemours repeated.
"Not a real one. That's her nickname, though." Again, Delian grimaced. "Sure you want to marry her? You know what they say, 'Ladies from Stonemount, don't mount'."
"How elegant, Delian," Nemours said. "So the lady has a temper?"
"And a half, apparently."
"Lord Tayne dotes on her," Ty added. "Thinks she's Aya’s gift to the world."
"But what are the ins and outs of the union?" Delian wondered. "No pun intended. You're not blood-mingling with her, are you? Is she to be immortal?"
"No, even her father expects that," Nemours said. "She wants an immortal son. Will probably call him Sethe, in honor of the Blood Knight."
"Oh, he was something else." Delian nodded repeatedly in approval of Sethe but asked another question, "A child, then?"
"That's the bargain."
"Well," Delian said, "I suppose the child will be more like us? Learning fast like a cat and not like a painfully slow mortal? And not that needy? Then Lady Marget will eventually die, the child will go off to rule Stonemount, and you'll be free again."
Ty clucked his tongue at Delian. "Has it occurred to you he might feel something for the child, as you call it?"
"He never wanted to have any issue," Delian stated flatly.
"I’m saying he may develop feelings."
Again, a grimace from Delian — this time involving a severely downturned mouth and a horrified side glance. Wonderful, Nemours thought. I am to marry a harridan.
"Well," Delian rushed to say, "it’s not like she’s going to boss you around. It’s just—"
Nemours cut him short. "It doesn’t matter. If I want the man's army, that's what needs to happen."
By now, the retinue had arrived at the immense courtyard of High Hall. Highmere nobles, arrayed like peacocks, stood on the steps to receive Lord Tayne in their princes' stead. None of the immortals could so lower themselves as to stand outside; Delian reminded Nemours of the fact to avoid being sent to greet them. He hadn’t recovered from being treated like a servant, and that still made Nemours want to laugh, even in a morning such as that.
Lord Tayne dismounted, letting his squire keep the reins of his horse, and several other men in his party followed suit. A closed carriage had clattered to a stop behind him, and Tayne waited for the pages to open the door and pull down the steps.
A foot emerged, followed by a headdress and lace veil. Drawing herself up, there she stood, a spot of gray amidst the black clothes of her people: the lady who had come to be married.
Azure lifted her head at the sound of strange boots crossing corridors and climbing stairs. He touched her head in a brief caress when the page came to warn him that Lord Tayne awaited him in the reception hall. Custom dictated that Nemours should meet with him first, which he did.
Apart from his desire to have immortal descendants, Tayne was a reasonable man, and their meeting was brief and pleasant. Nemours thanked him for the gifts, carried in crates and exhibited on top of a long table. Daggers, shields and swords of Stonemount steel. His coat of arms, the panther rampant, had been expertly carved on breastplates and sculpted for pommels. The steel gleamed a blue deeper than sapphires.
Delian was already sending his brother greedy looks. Nemours could spare him some of all that, he supposed.
And finally it was time, as custom also dictated, for him to receive the bride's consent to the marriage from her own lips. A formality.
"Got a glimpse," Delian said, as he walked to the meeting with Nemours. "Good face, great body."
"She didn't turn you to stone, apparently," Nemours remarked.
"Didn't look in her eyes, just in case."
Outside the hall that held Lady Marget, Nemours dismissed his brother, making sure he wasn’t staying around to spy some more.
She was in the room alone, still in her dress of gray covered by black lace. Her headdress was no more than a tall, ornate comb stuck in her hair. Lady Marget was a dark beauty, with direct eyes and a mouth that, for the moment, refused to smile.
"Lady," he said, nodding. "Welcome to Highmere."
The lady, outrageously, seemed to inspect him from head to foot and nod back as if deciding he would do. She then remembered to dip in a small curtsy, unused to paying that respect.
"Thank you, lord."
Her voice was slightly grating, like stone. Everything about her was a little like stone — even her form, which was regal as a statue's. Basilisk indeed.
Perhaps understanding that she wasn't being courteous, she said, "It's not the first time I've been here, but I'm struck anew by how beautiful Highmere and your home are."
With a silent groan, Nemours thought he might prefer her rudeness to a politeness that didn't
suit her.
"Thank you," he said. "I know you are losing your home and hope you shall find a new and happy one here."
It was normal for a man's thoughts to turn to lovemaking when he was alone with a beautiful woman. Nemours did wonder what her hair would be like once it was freed from the headpiece, and whether she was slender or voluptuous under her rather shapeless dress; but her hard stare made him uninclined to any further curiosity.
There was something too much in her, and it was ambition. He knew the look of it. There was something lacking in her: laughter.
"In that case, Lady Marget," he proceeded, "I ask that you freely give yourself to me in marriage, as I am willing to give myself to you."
"And I accept," she said almost sternly.
"I can hardly wait," he could not help saying, although she would know it was an irony.
Nemours turned away from her frown and left, since nothing else needed to be said.
He wanted to be left alone before the long, long dinner that would take place in three hours, but Delian materialized behind a column on his way back to his chambers.
"Did she say yes?"
Nemours tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. "No, she came up the coast in that ship to tell me she would rather die."
Delian shrugged. "Just checking." He accompanied Nemours for a moment, running his finger along the wall as if inspecting it for dust before adding, "Well, there's a letter for you. I left it in your room. Maybe you don't want to read it."
He ducked through a doorway and ran down a flight of steps.
The letter could only be from one person, and Nemours didn't want to read it. Instead, he went to see Sibulla, who sat in her usual position, her eyes still lost in the distance. Their marriage had been dissolved a long time ago, and he had never thought there would be another.
The golden bird flew to him as soon as he walked in, and he gave it his finger to softly peck at as he sat by Sibulla, without saying anything at first.
"Can't you wake up for a moment and forbid this or something?" he then asked her.
"I like her so much!" Sibulla suddenly said.
You do? he almost said, but then noticed that the ceaseless motion of her finger had changed. It no longer made the shape of a circle, but of a star.
"You like ... the Star?"
Sibulla didn't answer.
Soon he retired to his chambers to prepare for the long dinner ahead. A fire crackled in the hearth, and on the mantelpiece above it Delian had left the letter. Nemours’ name was rendered in writing from a time long past. He opened it and read,
Nemours,
I write to aske for your forgiveness.
Nothing else is required, not e’en a reply.
The spell of unbinding demanded that I shoulde finde the grace of wishing you free and whole, and I did finde it. I founde it when I did stop thinking of myselffe.
I thought of all you suffered to protect your people.
I finally understoode all that you were readie to do to protect mine.
I knew that you had a greater hearte than mine, because I had only thought of my small life and the Father and Nurse I loved, whereas you had thought of everyone.
I believed then that you had taken me not only to help you, because you have never before asked for aide. You tooke me because I was dying, and you gave me new life.
I shoulde have died over five hundred years ago—
With a cry of frustration, Nemours threw the letter in the fire. He did not need to read any of it. Not today. Not any day.
But it was the letter of a witch, and as it burned, her voice rose from the flames to tell him the rest,
"I should have died five hundred years ago, and yet here I am. I have seen things, just as I longed to. I have done some small deeds and hope to do more. I have made friends and now love more people. I cherish your brothers and your good self.
Therefore, I beg your pardon for betraying you. I know that it is no easy thing to be a prince and hold the fate of two worlds. I was foolish and childish.
Now I know.
God bless your marriage, Nemours. May you find joy in it, besides the joy of knowing you are saving the worlds.
God bless you and keep you, Nemours.
Elinor Woodbrooke."
By the time her voice fell silent, he was sitting on the windowsill, looking at the same port and the same streets he had watched earlier.
Elinor had meant every word, and that was the worst part. She had meant every word said in that low voice of hers he liked so much — because hardly in the whole of two worlds was there a soul so generous. It took a soul like hers to undo a Binding. And that was why he could not let her go.
He was selfish.
He thought of the ship docking, and imagined that it contained Elinor, borne to him by the waves. He thought of her face, bright, bright, as she made her way to the castle, laughing as people gave her flowers. She would have loved the flowers of his world. He thought of her standing in that hall, waiting for him, her hair snatching all the light; he had liked her hair even when it was a mad ball around her head. He thought of her serious eyes and of the mischief on her lips. Sometimes it was the opposite.
Nemours did not believe in fate, even if Sibulla got an occasional glimpse of the future. Who knew whether any of it would ever come to pass?
But he had seen Father and Mother — their madness, and the mess they had created.
No, there was no fate. There were just events colliding in the dark, one after another, being contained or breaking out of control.
One such event had been the cracks in the worlds.
Another, the disagreement on how to heal them.
Another, his meeting a human girl with a mark like a star.
Another, the necessity of marrying a mortal when he had conceived an impossible tenderness for an altogether different one.
"Screw me ..." muttered Nemours.
For, if any, the fate of princes was to do what was needed — and not often what they desired.
12
It's all right, it's all right.
All things passed, good and bad, and this would too.
So a man — not even a man, really; a something-like-a-god — got married. That wasn't the worst thing happening.
The death toll from winds, ice, fire, water, lack of water, war had risen to over forty thousand since Elinor had started counting. That was only what she heard in the news.
How could a wedding make her sad, except for a brief moment? True, like a child one got sad if one wanted something and couldn't have it, even if it were something-like-a-man-like-a-god. She wanted Nemours, and she couldn't have him — so it hurt. But it would pass.
But it hurt like a spear through her side — a wound she would survive that still pierced and twisted and tore.
She hadn't been raised to pine after anyone. Not when in her world men left for years, and all women knew it. Not when often they never returned or returned only half themselves.
Love was something minstrels sang about, and the songs were always sad. Love was always impossible.
To love Nemours had been sweet — and bitter — while it lasted. A very short while, and that was all. She would stop remembering soon, no matter how keen the ache felt today. There were many other things to do, all of them important.
God bless you and your marriage, Nemours, she had written. Because what really mattered was that there should be no war. Half her life had been spent during war, and she knew it as well as she cared to know it. Her whole life had been spent with the idea that war could return, or the world could end. And now she knew it to be true.
A wedding could stop a war and save two worlds. Therefore, God bless the marriage.
"It's not all right," Ahn said, her throat tight. "Nemours should not have done this! We have never created an immortal without discussing it. And they have always been of the priestly class."
The columns in Ahn's room were many and exquisite. Each was decorated wit
h different, brightly colored motifs — flowers, stars, moons, suns, animals. In their shadow sat the Set-Tuii, Lotho, the black hand imprinted over his mouth. Lamia threw a brief, lofty glance at him and didn't even bother to hide that she was wrinkling her nose in distaste, as if something fetid had crawled inside and needed to be shooed out.
"Ha!" she cried, looking back at Ahn. "Nemours has his work cut out for him. They say the women from Stonemount have an anvil between their legs. They call this one basilisk and shrew."
Ahn opened exasperated eyes and hands in her direction. "How does that matter, Lamia?"
Lamia lifted one silky shoulder. "Just saying ..."
"He has won, do you understand?"
Sefira made a derisive sound. "No, he hasn't."
Pacing around the room, Ahn didn't even pretend to listen. "Now we have to go off to the Shadow World and get to the hekas first. And that means abandoning our world to him."
"And what is he going to do?" Lamia wondered. "He won't harm it."
"He'll grab all power," Sefira said. "Become king."
Rolling her eyes at Sefira, Lamia said, "Listen, darlings, I may not look like I'm paying attention, but I am fairly sure that's not a desire of Nemours'. I don't think he could care less about any of that — and I think that if we do get the Knowledge and restore the safety of our world, we'll all be friends again."
"Have you been paying attention enough to realize they know that world a lot better than us?" Ahn asked. "They have every advantage in this hunt. We have managed to get one heka, given to us by Lotho. The rest we stole from them, and that won't be easy anymore."
Lamia's body twisted around itself twice so that she could look at the priest. "Don't you have another heka?" she asked him.
"Stop being ridiculous," Ahn chided her.
Still staring at the priest with a wry smile, Lamia insisted, "No? Nothing up that black sleeve of yours?" She spun back to face Ahn. "Then what's the point of him, exactly? We need Might or Change or Bind-Nemours-Better or something."
"If wishes were harpies," Sefira observed, "idiots might fly."
