Blackveil (98 page)

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Authors: Kristen Britain

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #fantasy, #Epic

BOOK: Blackveil
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Laren learned that Estora had been inspired by Karigan’s actions in the fall when the Rider had rescued her from kidnappers. Karigan had disguised herself as Estora, then created a diversion that led the kidnappers away on a merry chase, allowing the real Estora to escape without harm. It had been a dangerous plan on Karigan’s part, but it had worked.
Estora modified the plan to fit the situation in the north. Birch used trained soldiers to raid small, underprotected civilian settlements. She ordered the settlers of a few villages to evacuate and replaced them with Sacoridian troops—well trained and well armed—but had the soldiers disguise themselves as civilians in such a way that they appeared to be yet another underprotected settlement ripe for the plucking. Their watchers would alert them to Birch’s movements so they wouldn’t be taken by surprise, and they were instructed to carry on like settlers so all would appear normal to Birch’s scouts.
A trap meant that Sacoridia’s troops didn’t have to chase Birch’s all over the north, although there was a troop that continued to do so to maintain the illusion so Birch would not suspect anything. Estora was apprehensive, but anticipated positive results.
While Estora explained the plan, Zachary, who had already heard the details, nodded off where he sat. Laren called over Fastion and Willis to assist the king to his apartments.
“I will walk on my own,” Zachary protested when they lifted him from his chair. When they set him down, he did leave under his own power, pausing only to kiss Laren’s cheek. She hugged him fiercely, but carefully so as not to hurt his healing wound.
When he was gone, Laren turned to Estora. “My lady, I wish to thank you for your protection, though I did not know ultimately what might have become of me had things gone poorly for Zachary.”
Estora smiled. “I know what it is to be a game piece on an Intrigue board, Captain. One has to move carefully. I would not have allowed you to come to any harm.”
Laren bowed her head. “That is what I hoped, but I could not be sure.”
“You’ve my full confidence, Captain.”
“Thank you, and you’ve mine.”
Estora sighed. “I fear your Riders may not think much of me, however.”
“If that is the case,” Laren replied, “it shall be remedied.”
Estora nodded her acknowledgment. “There is one Rider I inadvertently placed in additional danger.”
Laren then heard about the loyal Coutre forester Lord Spane had insisted join the company Zachary sent into Blackveil.
“I gave him my blessing,” Estora said, “not knowing what his true purpose was in going.”
Laren vaguely remembered the man. Very ordinary, rather humble. “Which Rider was his target?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Karigan. Richmont wanted nothing to threaten the marriage contract. If Ard kept Karigan from returning home, it eliminated one of those threats.”
“You know about . . .”
“Zachary’s feelings for Karigan? I do. It explains much.”
Laren nodded, not sure what to say. “I tried to keep them apart.”
“I do not believe it worked.” Estora said it without irony, but with acceptance. Often state marriages were just that—a legal union to produce heirs and solidify alliances, not unions of love. Estora would know this. “For a moment, I . . . I wished Karigan would not come back. Only for a tiny moment,” she added hastily, and she cast her gaze down at her feet.
“You love him,” Laren said.
Estora nodded. “But Karigan is my friend, and I allowed an assassin to follow her into Blackveil.”
“You did not know,” Laren replied quietly. “And though she is beyond our help, she is resourceful, and the other two Riders in the company will watch out for her.”
“I pray it is so,” Estora said, and Laren believed her.
Laren hesitated, then recalling something Ben had said earlier, she asked, “My lady, did you, by any chance read to Zachary while he lay unconscious?”
“I did.
Tales of the Sea Kings.
It allowed me, in a way, to speak to him, give him comfort, while taking more dire matters off my mind.”
It pleased Laren that Estora had cared for Zachary in such an intimate way. “May I make a recommendation?”
Estora looked curious. “You may.”
“Go to him. Go to Zachary and spend time with him. You are his wife. He may claim to be busy, but he is always busy, and always will be. You must insinuate yourself into his private world. I think reading to him is a very fine idea.”
“But he is tired . . .”
“A perfect time to read to him, when he is too exhausted to do anything else but sleep or listen to your voice.”
Estora nodded, taking in the advice. “Yes, I shall do this. I shall go to him now.”
Laren smiled, much pleased. “He is very partial to the poetry of Tervalt. It’s full of manly deeds of slaying dragons, hunting the highlands of Hillander, admiring fair maidens, and going to sea.”
“Excellent. I shall have Tervalt’s poems brought to me from the library.” Then Estora returned her smile. “Though I myself prefer the nature poetry of Annaliese of Greywood.” Her smile deepened. “I can see, Captain, that you have already become my essential counselor.”
 
Laren took her leave of the queen. She would do what she could to encourage a strong union between Zachary and Estora, to bring them closer together. The fate of the realm did not require the two get along, just that they produce heirs. Laren, however, loved Zachary too much to not wish for his happiness and promote it in anyway she could.
Now that her interview with the queen was over, Laren was confronted with the fact she would no longer be kept under guard and confined to her luxurious prison. The first thing she would do was seek out Connly and Elgin and get updated on the doings of her Riders, then she’d visit her beloved Bluebird.
However, when she stepped through the throne room doors, she found herself faced with two columns of green clad messengers standing at attention in the corridor. Elgin stood to the side with a grin on his face. Overcome, she could not find her voice at first. Word that she was released had reached them fast.
“At ease, Riders,” she said finally.
They broke out in cheers and clapping, and Laren’s cheeks practically hurt from smiling so hard.
Connly came to her and shook her hand. “Captain, I’ve never been so glad to see you. I gladly relinquish all responsibilities back into your keeping.”
“Not so fast, Lieutenant,” she said. “Some while ago I received an invitation to visit a friend in Corsa. Do you know it’s been years since last I took leave?”
Connly’s expression fell. He looked absolutely horrified. “But . . . but, all those meetings, those brain-deadening meetings . . .”
Laren smiled at him, and left him so she could greet each of her Riders individually. Yes, some leave time would be marvelous and she did not think Zachary would deny her.
Her smile faltered, however, when she realized that when she reached Corsa, she’d have to explain to her friend, who happened to be a certain merchant, why his daughter had been sent into Blackveil. He would not, she thought, ever forgive her for that, especially if Karigan did not return.
THE
DRAGONS
A
mberhill stood in the crow’s nest, exulting in the wind that streamed through his hair and filled the sails into billowing clouds beneath his feet. He felt he walked in the sky. The horizon tilted around him as the
Ice Lady
plowed through the waves of the Northern Sea, the green cluster of islands that was his goal discernible in the distance.
In Midhaven, he and Yap had disembarked from
Ullem Queen
to take passage on
Ice Lady
, a sealing vessel headed for the arctic ice, a course that took them near the archipelago. They’d not lingered on land for long before they found
Ice Lady,
but Amberhill had taken what little time they had to climb the Seamount Lady Estora had once so lovingly described, and he found the vistas not wanting. It seemed years, and worlds away, that day he’d sat with her and Zachary talking of Coutre Province and his plans to take a voyage.
His initial seasickness after leaving Corsa Harbor, too, was a dim memory, for he’d flourished at sea, his cheeks burnished bronze with the sun, and he felt alive in the salt air as he’d only felt when inviting danger as the Raven Mask. He’d taken to climbing to the crow’s nest and along the yardarms to maintain his trim and challenge his balance. His training as the Raven Mask made him as nimble as any sailor, if not more so. Captain Irvine had invited him to join the crew of
Ullem Queen,
and he’d only been half-jesting.
Amberhill also exercised with his rapier, repeating lessons once drilled into him by Morry. Yap was pulled into these sessions as an awkward sparring mate, using a practice sword carved for the purpose by the ship’s carpenter, and a lid of a pot as a buckler. The crew was much amused.
As for Yap, he was permitted to assist the crew, but Amberhill made sure he did not revert to his pirate ways, ordering him to maintain daily ablutions and to launder his clothes as frequently as he did Amberhill’s. The sealing vessel was far from luxurious, but Amberhill had personal standards that must be maintained.
When gray-blue clouds intruded on the horizon and the sails slapped fitfully against line and timber, Amberhill climbed down from his perch and sought out Captain Malvern on the bridge. She gazed through her spyglass to the north, then turned east toward the building clouds. The captain was a small woman, but no less imposing for it. She kept her dark hair, peppered with gray, shorn short, and she looked at him with eyes that seemed creased in a perpetual squint from too many years of sun. She was another of those uncanny women, like Beryl Spencer, or the G’ladheon woman, that made him uneasy. Like the others of this ilk, she did not fall for his charms. Not that he’d tried to charm her, but he was well-aware of his own natural attributes, which were, he thought with a smile, enough to attract women like ants to spilled sugar.
“We’ve a storm bearing down on us,” she said. “Can see it, smell it, and my aching bones confirm it.”
“Will you take shelter then? The archipelago is ahead.”
“Nah. That’d be a trap. The currents around the islands would tear up the
Lady.
We’ll ride it out at sea, but it means we go now.”
“Now?”
“Aye. Ready yourself and Mister Yap, or prepare for a season of seal hunting with the
Ice Lady.”
Amberhill did not doubt the captain’s weather sense—she’d not been wrong once since leaving Midhaven, but the plan had been to leave him and Yap closer to the islands. She had refused to take him into the archipelago itself, citing the perilous currents and the more superstitious clap-trap about witches and bad luck. Now he’d have to rely on Yap’s experience as a seaman to get them there. Amberhill had picked up a thing or two along their voyage, but little in the way of practical knowledge. He had left the sailing to the sailors.
“Mister Yap!” he cried. “Prepare the gig!”
“Aye, sir!”
When Amberhill had sought passage from Midhaven to the archipelago, it had proven clear that no captain desired to venture among the islands, not even for a large purse, claiming them too far off course, or the currents too hazardous, but underlying all these excuses, like those of Captain Malvern’s, was superstition.
So Amberhill took matters into his own hands, purchasing a sloop that had been the gig of a merchanteer captain. The small vessel, Yap said, would sail well around the reefs and currents of the islands. Captain Malvern had not argued about hoisting the gig up alongside
Ice Lady
when Amberhill paid extra. Her voyage was proving profitable even before she reached the sealing grounds.
Odd, Amberhill thought as he watched Yap and crew secure their supplies in the gig, that others should be so repelled by the very islands that lured him. He was drawn to them like he was coming home. His true home. His ring sent a pulse of warmth through him.
Captain Malvern joined him at the rail. “Remember to steer clear of the Dragons—that’s where the currents are the worst—and we’ll look for you on our return from the ice. Otherwise, Spring Harbor is your closest port in Arey.”

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