by R. K. Hart
Lida had promised Alys a glimpse of the palace, so she led them to the end of the Port Royal Trade Road and along the Southern Way. As they rode past the city’s public gardens, Lida lifted her chin to look up into the ancient Eilin pines; she had expected the sight to comfort her, but it had the opposite effect and she had to force herself to keep moving forward, fighting the urge to gallop Sacred straight back to Maya.
The Southern Way led into the city forum. The square was crowded with shoppers, but nothing like it had been for the summer market. Even so, after the quiet of the Illarum, which was interrupted only by the sea, the noise was almost deafening to Lida, and she saw Alys squirm uncomfortably in the saddle. She pushed Sacred into a trot and led them swiftly past it and towards the beginning of the palace complex, turning back to seek the far-away smudge of green and white that were the wild roses flanking the door of Jorge’s shop. Her brow furrowed; she wondered why Ava had chosen to embroider that pattern on the emerald ribbon.
Past the forum, the road smoothed from cobbles to proper brick, edged with marble columns, supporting the huge aqueduct that snaked its way through the city. Between each pair of columns stood the statue of a god, each twice as tall as a man and brightly painted. Some were draped in jewellery, others in flowers; full offering bowls stood before each, overflowing with coins and feathers and fruit. Behind them were carefully clipped hedges, and, beyond that, rows of full-grown acer trees, their leaves just starting to yellow, a green and gold living backdrop to the gods.
Alys and Dylan gaped and whispered to each other as they rode, their eyes wide. Ella was harder to impress, but she blinked when they walked past a statue of Eianna, entirely gilded and crowned with a circlet of emeralds, two matching jewels shining from her eyes. Katrin and Lorcan were talking quietly, unconcerned; Lida noticed that Lorcan was carefully taking in everything as he spoke, as if he was trying to memorise the scene. Katrin’s face was impassive.
The road veered to the right as they crested a small rise; the front of the palace came into view.
‘Bon Andastra!’ Alys exclaimed.
The palace was Eilin sandstone, with white marble trimming and gold leaf detail breaking up the imposing square facade. It stretched up for four storeys and back as far as they could see, with rows of arched windows and a matching entranceway two storeys tall, flanked by sentries dressed all in black and holding wicked-looking spears. The front gardens were carefully tended, patches of lawn alternating with riotous flowerbeds, broken by clipped hedges of Eilin lavender and slashed down the middle by a straight sandstone path.
‘Can we go in?’ Ella said, pulling Bright Eyes to a stop next to Sacred.
Lida nodded. ‘We can see the public atrium and the gallery, and where King Triste hears petitions. We can’t take the horses, though.’
They tied the horses near one of the public troughs and wandered as a group up the wide sandstone steps leading to the arched entranceway. The sentries ignored them entirely as they went through; Dylan straightened unconsciously, pulling his shoulders back in an unknowing imitation of the sentries’ rigid stance.
Lida led the group into the atrium, which was open to the autumn sky. A central pool, shallow and tiled in blue, took up most of the floor. Small fountains lazily trickled water, and lilies bloomed in shades of cream and pink upon wide green leaves. There was an occasional ripple as one of the many black fish inhabiting the pool broke the surface, chasing an insect too small to see.
The pool was ringed by columns, the walls beyond them home to the scenes of gods and history and everyday things that made up the public gallery. It was almost empty, with only a handful of people scattered wide before the huge paintings. Lida wandered to look at a favourite of hers, leaving the others to disperse as they wished.
The fresco was of the goddess Amivere, reclining on a couch, draped with wisps of silk, her attendants waiting in the shadows behind her. In Eilan, Amivere was the goddess of love; she oversaw handfasting and marriage vows, and would-be parents left her gifts of flowers and fruit when they were trying to conceive.
Most Eilin depictions of Amivere showed her with her body bared but her eyes modestly lowered. In this fresco, Amivere looked straight out, her face at once alluring and fierce, challenging and beautiful; her hand brushed her hip, where there was the merest impression of a hilt under silk, of a scabbard resting obscured on her thigh. There was no false modesty here: the goddess’ eyes were wide open and her chin was raised high: do you deserve to gaze upon me? her face said. Lida loved it not just for Amivere’s fierceness, but because the green eyes and the tight curls the long-dead artist had chosen were ones she had often given to her imagined Siva. I was closer than I knew, she thought, swallowing as she tried not to cry again. Today, Amivere looked curiously compassionate, as if she could see out and into Lida’s soul.
Lida heard a step behind her. ‘I found something,’ Lorcan said quietly. ‘Do you wish to see?’
She gave Amivere a last lingering stare and nodded, following him silently to the opposite side of the atrium.
She had been to the gallery more times than she could count, but had never taken much notice of the scene before. A stern, black-haired Eilin King sat on his gilded throne, draped in a purple robe, the lushness of the colour faded with time. He cradled a severed head in his lap; the severing must have been fresh, for the neck was still dripping blood, the mouth open in a soundless scream, the eyes wide and staring in terror. Lida shivered.
‘That’s awful,’ she whispered. Lorcan nodded, and gestured to the inscription in the corner.
August and the Dreamers.
Lida looked again, more closely. Behind the throne, a row of spears thrust into the ground; upon them were impaled several headless corpses, naked and contorted and covered in wounds. She stared at the bodies, which were, she thought, unnecessarily realistic: one had clearly been whipped prior to death, and the flesh around the angry cuts was raised and bruised. Lida wondered if the artist had worked from life to show such meticulous detail. As she wondered, she realised that the bodies all belonged to women; at the same time, it occurred to her that it was possible one of them was an ancestor of Siva’s, and therefore of hers. Her stomach churned.
‘Yes. He was a monster.’
She spun to see Rikard standing behind them, looking at the fresco with a frown. Lida bowed her head, hoping it was enough; Lorcan merely nodded, greeting the Prince by name.
‘It’s not in the official histories, of course, but he cut off their heads to ensure no healer could help them,’ Rikard went on. ‘There was a belief at the time that some healers could bring back the dead. Perhaps they could; we were more powerful then.
‘The journals say that August employed extra sentries to guard him continually, with strict instructions to wake him every hour of the night, on the chance an Illara managed to slip into his dreams. He reasoned that it would give less time for his dreams to be turned against him, and avoid what the dreamer Dana had done to his father.
‘But I think it was that which drove him mad - the lack of sleep, I mean, though the paranoia can’t have helped matters. I do worry sometimes that it may be hereditary,’ he finished, contemplating his ancestor and reaching up to touch his own night-black hair. He glanced at Lida. ‘The northerners call us green, did you know? They say we are soft green Eilins, living comfortably in a land of plenty, unused to and unprepared for hardship. Eianna gifts us with peace and abundance, while they fight from birth to tame their lands and each other. But when I look at August - when I look at my ancestors - I cannot see them as green. There is too much blood on their hands.’ He studied the severe King again and shook his head.
‘You should return home, frere,’ Katrin said, coming up behind them. ‘This place makes you maudlin and tedious.’
‘Perhaps this is my true self.’ Rikard kissed her on the cheek. ‘Perhaps I am playing a part at the Star Seat.’
‘If that is true, you should consider a better character,’ Katrin
answered dryly.
‘Star Seat?’ Lida repeated.
‘The Illarum,’ Lorcan answered, his eyes on the next fresco, which showed Queen Attia signing the Law of Tolerance. ‘There are two words for star in Brinnican. One is illa. Illarum means place of stars. Illae means star gift.’
Lida opened her mouth to ask more, but Katrin cut her off. ‘I wish we had longer, but we must go,’ the Brinnican woman said. ‘The Yoss River is at least fourteen days’ ride. I do not want us crossing the mountains when the ice is starting to form.’ She pulled something from her pocket and gave it to Rikard. ‘Will you send this onto Tiernan, cil frere?’
‘Of course,’ Rikard said. ‘If my uncle ever lets me go, I will take it myself.’
Katrin nodded and kissed him farewell, ushering Lorcan and Lida out before her like baby chicks. Lida cast a glance back at the awful fresco; the scarlet blood and the faded purple of August’s robe seemed to follow her, disrupting the peace of the gallery.
‘Do not dwell on it, cila,’ Katrin said softly as they walked back down the sandstone stairs. Lida could not take her advice; the rest of her day was filled with contorted limbs and imagined screams. Her dreams that night - her own, although she wished it otherwise - were of Amivere. The goddess’ long hair was tucked up under a battle helmet, her brown skin sheathed in beaten metal armour. Lida watched her stride through a dim, damp stone hallway, her chest and face and hands splattered with blood; Lida did not think it was her own. As the goddess moved frantically from door to door, she called out a name; Lida woke when she heard it, gasping for air, but as soon as she looked up at the sky the name fled from her mind and she could not remember it, no matter how hard she tried.
Chapter Fourteen: Selkie
‘Lida! That’s it!’ Alys shrieked. ‘Hold it!’
Lida concentrated fiercely, sweat trickling down her back. Alys brushed against her thinned mindshield and her voice rang, almost clearly.
Lida!
Alys, Lida thought tiredly. Go. I can’t do this much longer.
Lida felt Alys withdraw and slumped her shoulders, letting herself relax and her mindshield ripple back to its normal golden links.
Alys clapped her hands. ‘You did it, Lida!’ she enthused.
Alys had taken over Lida’s training, and for the past week had been working to help Lida master her mindshield. It had taken seven straight days of trying for Lida to thin it for a handful of seconds.
Lida found that she responded better to Alys’ seemingly endless enthusiasm than she did Lorcan’s pointedly patient instructions or Dylan’s barked directives. At the end of lessons with them, she had ended up skittish and sullen with Lorcan, and in more than one outright shouting match with Dylan, so Katrin had tactfully suggested that Alys take over to give the Brinnican woman experience in teaching. It had been working well so far; Lida had made far more progress with Alys than she had with either of the men.
It was nearing nightfall, and they had set up camp on the edge of a small wood surrounded by farmland. The sky was cloudy and the night promised to be almost properly cold. Lida had started wearing a thick jumper and scarf during the day, for which the hardier northerners thoroughly mocked her: it was still summer weather to them, and Dylan and Ella were still wearing short-sleeved tunics, even at night.
They were all fatigued, and a little low in spirits, excepting Alys’ euphoria at her success. Katrin looked especially tired, with dark circles marking the pale skin under her eyes, her hair dull. Inadequate food, missing friends, broken sleep, and the rapidly shortening autumn days had dampened the initial excitement of the journey, leaving them irritable and exhausted. Dylan and Lida were the worst; the long days spent trying to master her shield left Lida drained and cross, and Dylan became more bad-tempered the further they got from the Illarum.
Lida collapsed in a heap, leaning back against a fallen log, trailing her fingers through leaf litter until she disturbed a nasty-looking bug with far too many legs for her liking. She kept her hands in her lap instead. They made meals on a shift basis, as they had at the Illarum; it was Lida and Alys’ turn to clean after the meal, so she took the opportunity to rest as she watched the others work. Lorcan had been collecting firewood; he held his hands over the pile he’d made and within a few moments, the wood caught in a roaring blaze. Dylan was making flatbread, shaping disks of dough on a makeshift table of bark. Ella settled a frying pan over the flames of Lorcan’s fire, adding generous spoonfuls of the butter they’d bought at a tiny village market.
In half an hour or so, the trio had made a delicious-smelling vegetable stew and fried flatbread. It was their first hot dinner in three days and Lida’s mouth started to water.
Ella served and delivered bowls of food, and all was silent as they ate. Lida looked up as Katrin, who was sitting directly across the fire, rose and fled into the woods, one hand over her mouth.
Lorcan was sitting closest, perched on the log with his long legs stretched out before him, staring at the fire. ‘I hope she’s not coming down with something,’ Lida murmured to him quietly.
He frowned, looking into the woods after Katrin. ‘It is not like her to be unwell. Perhaps we can stay in a tavern when we get to the Yoss.’
Lida nodded towards Ella and Alys, who hadn’t noticed Katrin’s flight into the trees. ‘No one else seems too concerned,’ she said under her breath.
Lorcan snorted. ‘Have you not realised why?’ he said with a glint in his eyes. Lida frowned at him, and he pointed his chin towards Dylan.
‘They are both distracted,’ he whispered. ‘There is only one problem.’
‘What’s that?’
He leaned forward, so close that Lida felt his breath on her cheek. ‘Dylan has been hopelessly in love with Jed for three years now.’
Lida raised an eyebrow at him. ‘You’re a worse gossip than Maya.’
He gave her a slight smile and sat back once more. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Although it is not gossip if it is true.’
Lida looked after Katrin. ‘Lor,’ she said tentatively, ‘could you ask Jakob?’
‘About Katrin?’
‘Mmm.’
He studied her face. ‘You are worried.’
‘Yes.’
‘Siur. J’va. I will have to do it now - I really do not know how much longer I will be able to reach him.’ He put his empty bowl down carefully and disappeared into the darkness.
Katrin came back after a few minutes, white as a sheet and wiping her mouth on her sleeve with a grimace. Lida took her a flask of water and gained a grateful smile in return as Katrin sipped at it quietly. Lida didn’t wish to pry, so she helped Alys collect the plates to wash. A moment later, she felt Lorcan push on her mindshield and, after muttering that she’d be back, she slipped into the woods to find him.
He had nestled in the exposed roots of an old oak tree, and he pulled Lida down next to him. There wasn’t much space, so her shoulder pressed against him and all she could smell was his hair. She had been trying to work out the scent for weeks: honey, she’d decided, underlain with a spice or herb she didn’t recognise. He’d been considerably warmer since they’d left Kingstown, so she’d had a lot of opportunity to mull over what it might be.
Lida shook her head and drew illae to reinforce her mindshield as Alys had taught her, shivering as she felt the power sing through her. She could almost do it properly after Alys’ lessons, closing her eyes to sense the gold all around her and drawing it in as she might draw breath. She loved the feeling of it, warm and light as it ran over her skin and rushed through her blood, as much a part of her as her heart. It made her feel strong and it made her tremble all at once, and she’d begun to crave it, which Alys assured her was normal. Like being warm on a winter’s night, Alys had said dreamily. Like a cup of tea or a hot bath. Like a kiss.
Lida pushed the memory away. ‘So?’ she said to Lorcan.
He gave her an odd look, his eyes half-hooded. ‘So. Jakob and Mikal say hello. Mikal said that you may stop u
sing the sling.’ He raised an eyebrow at her, as she’d foregone using the sling more than a week previously. ‘He also said that there are a few different viruses that could account for Katrin’s symptoms. If it is a virus, she may also develop a fever and a chill, and have aching joints as well. There is also the possibility of food poisoning.’
Lida shook her head. ‘We’ve all eaten the same thing. Wait - if it’s a virus?’
His shoulder shifted up slightly, but he didn’t move away. ‘Mik asked a lot of questions about when she had been ill. He was quite interested to hear that she was sick at mealtimes, but that she seems all right - if tired - during the day.’
Lida frowned at him. ‘Just tell me, Lor.’
‘They both think she could be pregnant.’
Lida was surprised, but not enough so for Lorcan. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You knew.’
‘No!’ she protested.
He watched her face. ‘You know something, though.’
She shook her head and he laughed.
‘You have to be the worst liar I have ever met.’
Lida bit the inside of her cheek and flushed, realising that didn’t bode well for other things she’d been thinking about. Ella and Alys weren’t the only ones distracted. When she wasn’t grappling with basic illae-skills, there was time left over to daydream, and it seemed that it was all too easy for bow-shaped lips and messy black curls to become a particular staple of them. It had happened so quickly and so smoothly that she found herself in the middle of something that she didn’t remember beginning. There was no respite from it, either; he had started to appear in her dreams at night as often as she ended up in his. She had thrown herself from his subconscious more times than she cared to admit, determined not to make things worse for herself.
