Winter's Crown

by Alexandra Little

  I liked the look of them. Even so, something weighed heavily in me. Even if I had an enitre army of their mettle at my back, would it really be enough against Adhannor?

  “This is Firien,” Eliawen said, gesturing to the man who had stood. “He is the captain of our ship.”

  “Sir,” I said.

  “Inheritor,” he said, with a strange combination of reverence and suspicion.

  I wasn’t thrilled with either of those feelings. Nor was I certain I wanted it known I was an inheritor until I had some idea of what an inheritor actually was. I raised an eyebrow at Dalandaras.

  He stood as well. “I have been explaining the new circumstances,” he replied unapologetically.

  “Singael wants to go to Tal Anor,” I said instead to Firien.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You listen to a madman?”

  Dalandaras held his tongue, which surprised me. “He has recovered his sanity,” I replied. “For the moment.”

  “No sane person would go to Tal Anor. Even those of us trained in the old magics do not go there unless there are no other options.”

  “This is our only option,” Dalandaras replied sternly.

  Firien inclined his head. “If the inheritor wishes it.”

  “Evalandriel, sit, please,” Dalandaras gestured.

  “I’ll pass, thanks,” I replied. “Whatever needs to be said, let’s keep it short.” They had a cozy little arrangement up here. There were benches and cushions scattered around the hearth, and a low table with strange pale fruits. The newly arrived elves had indulged in some of them.

  “Short it will be, then,” Firien replied. “How prepared are you for Tal Anor?”

  None whatsoever. “I’ve already tangled with Adhannor and survived.”

  The elves—Eliawen and Lorandal included—exchanged glances among themselves. Dalandaras didn’t meet my eyes.

  “Tell me, inheritor,” the woman with the neck scar asked. “Has Singael told you of Tal Anor? Have any of them?”

  Dalandaras, at least, had the courtesy to shift uncomfortably.

  “What is your name?” I asked in return.

  “Nogoriel,” she replied.

  “Nogoriel, I know enough to know that I will probably not find a pleasant place to be,” I replied.

  “She is not prepared for this,” she murmured in elvish to the man sitting next to her.

  “You will be surprised,” I replied in the same tongue. “What I am prepared for.”

  Dalandaras very nearly smirked, but he managed to smooth his face into impassivity. “I really would not underestimate Evalandriel,” he said in the common tongue.

  “Have you ever seen a fouling, Lady Evalandriel?” Firien asked.

  “Once.” Briefly. It had been during the slow crawl up through the mountain passes to Winter’s Crown. There was nothing to do in the heavy lumbering carriages but stare out the window into the snow-covered trees. Dry land did not agree with Aerik’s sea legs, and we had to stop frequently enough for poor Aerik to calm his stomach. But one time, our guards unceremoniously shoved Aerik back into the carriage and whipped us off at the most frenzied pace we had ever been. Through the window, from under the leather flap, I saw our guards aiming their muskets into the shadows of the trees even as they rode alongside us.

  And as we rode by, in those shadows, I glimpsed a thing. There were eyes that reflected sharp silver, and the sunlight just caught a hint of long fangs and curled lips that shined with spit. There was the outline of a hunched back, and at the borderline between the light of the road and the shadow of the trees, I could see mangled claws and long, sharp nails.

  The soldiers had called it a fouling, and said the name like a curse. They rarely came down to the Fort, much less farther south along the trade route. The men and women had been shaken, and had shortened our usual nighttime rest in order to press on to the Fort.

  “There are the dreadwolves,” one man added. “And the wretched beasts. Have you encountered them?””

  “No,” I said honestly.

  “Then you are not ready,” another man replied.

  “Malarin,” Eliawen warned.

  “She fought a conjuring,” Dalandaras said. “And summoned a guardian.”

  Malarin seemed surprised.

  “You did not tell us that part,” the other woman said.

  Dalandaras inclined his head. “Tal Anor will solidify her strengths as an inheritor. After Tal Anor, she will be able to do that one hundred-fold.”

  If Dalandaras was lying in order to calm whatever discontent they had about the job they were given, he showed little sign of it.

  “It is interesting,” Firien said. “You mentioned that, in his appearance as an apparition, Adhannor wore a crown. While he was a prince in life, he was never a king.”

  I remembered the crown of my own, and bit my tongue before I could blurt it out.

  “That is old magic,” one of the other men replied. “Very old. Nearly forgotten, but for rotting scrolls locked in vaults and bard’’s tales to sing around a campfire.”

  “What is your point?” I asked.

  “Our point, Lady Evalandriel,” Firien said. “Is that we have been commanded to lay down our lives for Prince Dalandaras. And it appears that Prince Dalandaras is following the inheritor. I would like to know that we are ready to die for reasons other than sheer folly.”

  He had a point, but even if I could ignore Adhannor, and hope that the elves could take care of him, I was an inheritor, and I couldn’t just let that go unchecked. Nor could I ignore that I was the Lord Governor’s daughter, and my mother’s, and that Adhannor had human help to murder Zarah’s father. “What do you think stands between Adhannor and your home?” I asked.

  No one answered.

  “Your armies? Your mountains? Your oceans? Your magic? Us—humans?” I asked. “Did Dalandaras tell you of Sir Aros’ murder, of the four bodies in the dead city out there? It means Adhannor has help, and there is nothing to suggest that only humans are helping him. Adhannor is coming, and all you’ve got is me, and all I’’ve got is all of you. We can end it now, or we can leave Adhannor alone until he is so strong, he will slaughter all your armies. Your choice.”

  Firien inclined his head.

  “Are we done here, then?” I barely waited for an answer before I turned to the stairs and headed back down to Zarah. She hadn’t stirred from how I had left her. I sat on my bed and took a breath. The sleepless nights were starting to catch up to me. I could feel the tiredness creeping up behind my eyes and closing my lids. But before I could lay down, I saw that Zarah’s eyes were open and on me.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  “I…” Zarah paused, then took a deep breath. “Like you, I haven’t gotten along much with my father.”

  I hadn’t noticed. Maybe I had spent too much time looking at myself. “It sounds as if we still have a long journey,” I said. “”If you want to stay here, or return to the Fort, I am sure that it can be arranged.”

  She shook her head. “No. My father was right when he told me that I was safer with you.”

  “The closer the apparition gets, the less safe it is.”

  “No apparition plunged a knife into my father’s heart.”

  “No, that must have been a human hand.” I didn’t mention Crowndan.

  “We have an army of magic-wielding elves at our sides. And the apparition is the one truly responsible for my father’s death, isn’t he?”

  “Most likely.” There wouldn’t be any dissuading her. “Try to get some sleep. I don’t know how long the journey will be tomorrow.”

  “You too,” she replied. She smiled a watery smile, before she rolled over to face the wall.

  I couldn’t even bother to strip off my boots or slip under the blankets. I wrapped my cloak around me and closed my eyes.

  Though I slept, I could feel a fever creep upon me, and during the night when I could crack my eyes I was shivering and hot to the touch. And I thought that D
alandaras came to me at night, whispering healing words in elvish, but I would drift again, and he was gone.

  I woke suddenly. The faint morning light was starting to come through the tiny window. I was still tired, but there was no fever. Instead, there was the lingering scent of sage and the cooling touch of balm about my lips and skin.

  Zarah’s breathing was deep and even; there was no point in waking her until we were ready to leave.

  I slipped back out, but didn’t know where to go. The hall was silent; the door to my father and Aerik’s room was closed. I headed up, back towards the sitting room. But at one of the landings I heard footsteps. I hesitated, then followed them. At the end of a narrow hallway I saw Dalandaras turn a corner. I followed.

  As I turned the corner, I found myself at another set of stairs; I followed them up, and found myself in one of the towers. It was wide open to the elements on all sides, but for a stone railing and an arched roof. The mountains rose tall and sharply to my right; to the left, Dalandaras looked out to the dead city and the sea.

  He turned. “Evalandriel,” he said, surprised.

  “Dalandaras,” I replied.

  “I could not sleep,” he said.

  “I slept a little, I think, but I don’t seem to need much of it.” I came up beside him, glad to have the wind in my hair.

  “How is Zarah?” Dalandaras asked.

  “Stunned, I think,” I replied. “She wants to continue on with us.”

  “And how are you?”

  “I am better than I was yesterday.”

  “That is good.”

  “I know you were there in the night.”

  Silence ensued. I felt awkward. I was too aware for some reason that he and I were alone; no others came, no footsteps echoed in the hallway, and even the gulls seemed to have silenced their early morning cries of hunger.

  “Have you spoken to your grandfather any more?”

  He smiled. “My grandfather and I had much to talk about.”

  “Is he still determined on Tal Anor?”

  “He is. Can you tell if Adhannor is nearby?”

  It was easy now to slip into that place where I could no longer feel my body. It was easy to reach out into that void and find the creature that only truly existed in that void. And it was far too easy for his oily taint to reach out and touch me back.

  I shuddered, and found myself back next to Dalandaras. “He’s not in the city,” I said. “But he’s…close.”

  “Then you can loosen your grip on your sword,” Dalandaras said.

  I had forgotten that I hadn’t taken it off. My knuckles had turned white. I loosened my fingers around the pommel. Even so, I couldn’t let go of it entirely. I found the weight of it comforting even though my mind told me that I should have felt safe with the additional elves to assist us. Maybe it was Singael’s insistence that we go to this Tal Anor place, and Dalandaras’ objection to it. Maybe it was that Dalandaras didn’t kill me when he should have. Or maybe it was Crowndan.

  I wanted it to be him. It would make things that little bit easier if I could point the finger at him. But my father trusted him.

  “If Singael could sense that there were inheritors in existence,” I asked. “Wouldn’t I have been able to sense if Crowndan was one?”

  “Would you have known what to sense?” Dalandaras replied. “You had just lost your mother, and the ruins called to you and gave you something to focus on. But I think that Crowndan the man is not appealing to you, so if you had felt anything you may not have noticed.”

  That made sense enough. How could I feel drawn to him, when I didn’t like him? But I had had no intention of exploring the mountains that I wanted to hate so much, yet the ruins had called to me enough that I had done so anyway.

  “You do no like Crowndan for this?” he asked.

  “I do like Crowndan for this,” I replied. “That’s the problem.”

  “I see. You do not like him, then? As a friend.”

  “He was never my friend.”

  “What was he?”

  I shrugged. “My father’s aide. Father…wanted him for me.”

  “Are you not…I understand you are young, for a human.”

  “For my age, it is common enough. Human noble houses still make alliances with each other.”

  “As do we,” Dalandaras said.

  We fell silent. Where were the gulls? I missed their cries. It seemed so empty without them. There was only Dalandaras.

  “You didn’t kill me out of any idea that you are not a monster,” I said suddenly.

  He frowned. “I do not know what you mean.”

  “When I said you had orders to kill me, you said you couldn’t do it because you’re not a monster. But that’’s not true. You’re like Firien – you’re a warrior who would do what needs to be done. Your Queen would not have sent you otherwise.”

  “What is your point?”

  “I want to know the real reason why you didn’t simply kill me. And it’s not because you had some idea that I’’m an inheritor, either, so don’t try that lie.”

  He took a breath. “Alid is my sister, and yet she hates me. And this is the first time in years that my grandfather has been sane enough to mutter two coherent words. Firien and his people will take orders from me, but there is no friendship. Eliawen and Lorandal I would count as friends, but their friendship with me costs them at Tal Uil.”

  “I didn’t even like you when we met. How am I so different?”

  “You…what is that phrase humans use? You have spirit. You were not afraid to stand up to me, or to leave the Fort behind and come with me, or to charge onto the field against a supernatural creature even when you were being fired upon by your own people. Every time I might have killed you, you did not act as I expected.”

  “Are you saying…?” but I could not finish the question.

  I had spent seven years without a father, seven years where I had been purely my mother’s heir and apprentice. There hadn’t been time for love or sex when I had a merchant empire to learn inside and out. I couldn’t just learn about ports, I had to learn about cultures. I couldn’t just concern myself with the profits, I had to understand which spices were valuable where, and which peoples preferred wool to silk. Some traders preferred to trade solely with men, and other traders trusted women to provide the better deal. And then there was seamanship. Mother was Admiral of the Fleet. I started at seaman. And I was happy with the rigorous apprenticeship, and had no need of men and boys who saw me only as a means to power or privilege. Or men like Crowndan, who were obeying orders.

  I didn’t have time now, with a prodigal father and an apparition that wanted me dead, with inherited powers and talk of armies and war. And my mother’s ghost haunting me. But now there was Dalandaras, who didn’t seem to mind following after me when I charge into dangerous situations.

  “I don’t trust you, you know,” my voice was barely above a whisper. “You’re keeping more secrets.”

  “I know,” he replied quietly.

  “And even now I don’t entirely trust what you’re telling me now.”

  “I know.”

  And I have to ask…”

  “Anything,” he said. “And I will answer it if I can.”

  “Do you…” love me? “…like me because I am an inheritor?”

  “It is a fascinating part of you, but it is not why I would like to kiss you.”

  He didn’t blink and didn’t look away. I believed him.

  His hand slid over mine. I forgot about the apparition out there, and my father and Aerik and Zarah downstairs, and the battle at the Fort, and my home on the sea. I forgot about five-pronged crowns, and I forgot that none of that really mattered anyway, because it was likely that Dalandaras and I were going to die at Adhannor’s hand.

  I turned my hand, and our fingers entwined. It was nice to touch him.

  “…well?” I asked.

  “…what?” he asked.

  I raised an eyebrow.

&n
bsp; “Oh,” he replied, and gave me a bashful smile. I returned it, and he leaned in.

  Just for a moment, the briefest of moments, our lips touched each other. It wasn’t a kiss. There wasn’t enough contact for it to be a kiss. But it was almost a kiss, and it was nice.

  And then I felt the apparition.

  “He’s here,” I whispered.

  Dalandaras spun. “Who?”

  “Adhannor.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “In the outpost?”

  “Nearby.” I turned, seeking out where I felt his taint. No, he wasn’t in this outpost, but he was close. I looked down the steep slope of the mountain, and to the sea. But he was just a little farther still, at the city.

  I no longer needed a spyglass to see the distance. I was too connected to Adhannor. I could not only see him, but inhabit him as well. I could be standing there myself, my body in a curious state of half-spirit, half-flesh that was only just beginning to recollect what the sting of a cold breeze felt like, or the smell of salt and seaweed. He was even starting to feel his feet beneath him, heavy, cumbersome things that he had no choice but to use when he was in this form. But the crunch of snow beneath his toes did not bring about a fear of frostbite, because cold had no affect on a creature like him.

  “Where?” Dalandaras asked.

  “In the dead city,” I replied.

  He stared out into the early morning light. “He is,” he murmured. “But he is not moving.”

  Adhannor didn’t have the strength. I could feel that too. The battle at the Fort had taken much from him. And he had been foolish to even contemplate summoning an army of his own, so soon after he had been given his freedom. He knew that now. Not when the inheritor had gained more control over her powers than she should have at this point. But Singael had not helped her, not at his prison, and not at the fortress. No, that had been her own power.

  My own power.

  “Maybe you should get the others,” I said.

  “I’ll raise the alarm,” Dalandaras replied, and hurried down the stairs.