Canes of Divergence (31 page)

If you have this letter, it means you've not only discovered who you really are, but that you have also chosen to return to our world to attempt to assume your rightful place.
When I dreamed that day might come, the dream always included my standing beside you – you returning as a real princess, and not the affectionate nickname I use in this world – and myself as the king. But clearly that wasn’t to be.

The reason I’m writing this letter now is because some things have happened recently to make me fear
that our safety has been compromised.

I wonder if you think I’m a coward for leaving my kingdom and coming and hiding in this world. It’s all right if you do; I wonder the same thing myself.
I don’t know what you’ve been told of the events that led up to my decision, but there are parts I never told anyone.

I’m sure that at this point, you have been told of Dalphius’ prophecies. I wish I could tell you that I was never young and vulnerable to such nonsense, but I was. The day Dalphius predicted that my son would never live to sit on the throne, I allowed fear to dictate my decisions. My childhood had already been torn apart, my siblings and I lived in fear, and I wanted none of that for my child.

Imagine my surprise, though, when I discovered Dalphius’ prediction was correct. My son will never sit on the throne. Instead, by the grace of the Maker, it will be my beautiful, strong daughter who lays all of this to rest.

I should never have given myself to fear. It is a vicious, soul-destroying
weed. Had I told others of the prophecy, instead of fearing it, I wouldn’t be writing this letter now. You wouldn’t be the first to know.

My stepfather, Hec
tor, is a frightening and determined man, who is capable of great damage. His greatest asset, however, is a man named Rahas. Rahas is, unofficially, Hector’s most valued guard. The title is unofficial, however, because most people don’t even know he exists. Rahas has always moved like a shadow at my stepfather’s side, obeying his every command, carrying out deeds that Hector either takes credit for, or ones he wishes to have no association with.

It is Rahas who killed my father, and who
, after my father’s other guards failed, was tasked with murdering me.

And he’s here in our world.

Earlier this week, when I went back down to Bristlecone for a couple of days to check on the store, I saw him. It was early evening by the time I got there. I was driving, down near the bridge like I always do, there’s just a part of me that has to check every time, and there he was. I’ve only ever actually seen him twice in my life, but I would recognize his midnight-black hair in any world.

The next thing I did was the worst decision I’ve ever made in my life,
but I didn’t stop to think about it, Quinn. I drove straight to the store and got the gun we keep under the counter, and I drove back over there and confronted him.

At first, he was much more worried about the car I drove up there in than anything. Once he was between me and the car, though, he laughed, and wouldn’t answer my questions. That was when I pulled out the gun and shot an unlucky rabbit that was foraging nearby.
I think that in the end, though, the rabbit may get off easier than I will for that choice.

I got
most of the answers I was looking for. I still don’t know how Hector knew about the gate, but he hasn’t known for long. He only suspected I might be here, but he didn’t know for sure – oh what a mistake it was for me to confront Rahas and reveal my position. He’d been here for five days without learning anything. He still doesn’t know about Nathaniel, and most importantly, he has no idea about you.

Using the gun, I was able to convince him to leave and go home, but I’m afraid the damage has been done. While I never saw Rahas return in the three days I spent in Bristlecone, this morning, my store manager, Felipe, called to tell me that someone broke into the store overnight. The only thing
s missing are the gun and the spare keys to our delivery truck.

I asked Felipe not to call the police. There are t
oo many things that would be difficult to explain if they were involved. This may, of course, prove to be another of my many mistakes.

My most important task now is to make sure Rahas stays out of our world, and that he never finds out about you. I need to also protect Nathaniel if I can. He is expected to return to this world in just two days. I can’t allow him to be discovered here. Tomorrow, after I have spent every possible second I can with you and your mother, I am going to leave the two of you here go back to Bristlecone and return to Deusterros.

I don’t know what the result of my trip will be. My most fervent hope is that I will reach Nathaniel in time and seek help from Stephen and from Marcus whom I trust with my life. But if you are reading this letter, you already know that, for whatever reason, I didn’t succeed. Maybe you know why, but it’s possible you don’t. Hector and Rahas are both dangerous and stealthy. And if Rahas has my gun …

Whatever happened, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t make better decisions. I’m sorry I ran from a ridiculous prophecy. I’m sorry I didn’t seek help sooner. And most of all, I’m sorry I left you.
You are the child of my heart, Quinn. The thing I wanted most in my life. I wanted to be there, to watch you grow, to teach you to ride, to tell you about the strong princess you truly are, to provide you with a pack of siblings and a home full of love.

If your mother remarried, please let her know that she has my absolute blessing. I never wanted her to be anything but happy. I hope she was able to give you those brothers and sisters – at least one of each. If she didn’t, tell her it’s time now.

I wish I could help you more, tell you what to do, and more than anything I wish I could protect you. All I can say is trust Nathaniel, Stephen, and Marcus. Seek help when you need it, but don’t rush into things, especially not a confrontation with Hector or any of those who serve him. If I had taken any of that advice, my story would have ended with my burning this letter and eventually telling you all of these things myself.

More important than any move you make, though, sweetheart, take the time to cherish those you love. Spend every moment you can with them. Hug them and kiss them, dance and play. It’s the one thing I know I did right with you and your mother, and I will carry that with me forever, wherever I go.

I hear you stirring in there now, so I will end this, because the most important thing on my mind at this moment is a tiny princess who needs a very sound tickling.

Love Always,

Your Father

Quinn’s vision was blurry as the letter fell from her hand onto her lap. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even wrap her thoughts around what she’d just read.

After several moments of silence, William stretched his hand toward the sheets of paper. “May I, love?”

She must have actually managed to nod, because he reached for it, though she still couldn’t move the whole time he was reading it.

On the other side of her, Owen continued to quietly rock the baby, snuggling him close. Samuel was content – as he always was in Owen’s arms – his blinks growing heavier by the second.

“Wow,” William finally breathed.

She looked at him now, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeves. Both of them were too stunned to bother digging out a handkerchief.

“Are you all right, love?”

“I don’t know.”

He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “We need to show this to Nathaniel.”

“We do,” she said, “but not right now. Right now I just want to snuggle with you and Owen and Samuel.”

Wrapping his arm around her, he leaned in and kissed her on the temple, taking a long time to hold his face against hers.

Mistle Village, Eirentheos

Z
ANDER WAS SURPRISED
when there was a knock on his door shortly after he’d returned from eating breakfast. As far as he knew, everyone was busy. The last three days in the castle had been strained with all of its occupants preoccupied with the news brought by Quinn’s uncle.

Ben and Thomas had both been considerate about carving out time for him – enough so that he’d started avoiding them. As much as he was enjoying the sword fighting and horseback riding lessons, not to mention how much he was really liking getting to know both of them – he knew they had more important things to do right now than entertain him.

If the knock had surprised him, it was nothing compared to the shock of opening the door and seeing Doctor Rose standing there.

“Hello, Zander.”

“Hi.”

“I apologize for not getting that chance to catch up with you that we talked about a couple of evenings ago.”

“I know you’ve been busy.” Zander mostly felt useless. He
wanted
to do something to help, to find some answers, but he didn’t know what to do.

“Yes, busy is one word for it. Today, though, I was going to go out to Mistle Village where we’ve been making the other vaccine. My friend there, Jacob, sent me a message this morning; he thinks it might be ready.”

“That’s good news.”

“Yes. Good news is something we could use more of, but I’m happy to take what I can get right now.
Anyway, I was wondering if you’d like to come along with me on the trip.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I thought it might be nice for you to get out of the castle for a while, and also, then we could go ahead and give you the vaccine there without worrying about transporting it and delaying it even further. I know I told you we have time, but it makes me nervous.”

Zander nodded. He’d had some really wicked dreams about rabies the last couple of nights. “You don’t know the results of that antibody test do you?”

“No, not yet. It takes several days to complete. That’s why I want to do this as soon as we can. I was going to take a wagon out with me so I could bring some supplies along. You could sit on a pillow in the back if you’re not up to riding that far again.”

A wobbly, ashamed feeling rose in
Zander’s chest and his arms; he fervently hoped it wouldn’t show in his face. He hated feeling incompetent the way he did here. “How far is it?”

“About two hours one way.”

He frowned; he was feeling much better, especially after William had stopped by his room that first night with some salve – and no judgment. He’d never expected that he’d have so much respect for William Rose, but it was creeping up on him.

Yesterday, he’d been able to ride
around the paddock – albeit slowly – with Thomas for close to an hour without issue.

Four hours of riding in a single day, though … that might be a little beyond him. “I don’t think I need a pillow,” he finally said.

“Dress warm,” Nathaniel said, “and I’ll have someone bring you a coat. Our spell of Indian Summer seems to have come to an end.”

“You call it Indian Summer here?”

“No. We call it Eternolis Interlude – we get a lot of spells of it in our fall season – sometimes for a moon or more at a time, and even quite a few of them in our winter but you wouldn’t have known what I meant.”

“
We must be at a different latitude in this world than Bristlecone is in ours.”

“That’s a good observation, Zander. Yes, Eirentheos is closer to our equator and lower in elevation, too. We’re also closer to an ocean. The weather here is more mild than what you’re used to at home. It does still get quite cold, though, and we do get snow. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw some of that later this week.”

“I hope I’m back home before that happens. We just finished winter in Bristlecone.”

Doctor Rose chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do.”

*          *          *

He was a little surprised when they reached
the little yard in front of the castle clinic and Thomas was there, loading supplies into the wagon.

“Are you coming, too?
” Zander asked.

“Yes. I’m coming and
William and Marcus are as well.”

“
I guess the king must have guards wherever he goes?”

Thomas tilted his head to the side. “
Well, yes, although Marcus is only sort of a guard these days. I know he’s been acting like one, with Quinn here. But that’s more habit and needing to keep himself busy than anything. I think he feels better knowing he and Ben are the ones in charge of the guards when they’re away from their castle. He’s actually Quinn’s advisor now. Although today, with Quinn and the baby safe, and no new information coming in, I think he just wants to spend time with Nathaniel. They’ve been good friends for a long time.”

Zander
could see them now – William was headed toward them with more crates, while Marcus and Nathaniel – he surprised himself by thinking of Doctor Rose by that name – busied themselves with the horses.

“Oh, good,” William said when he reached them. “Nathaniel talked you into coming.”

“Yeah, how can I help?”

“You don’t have to…” Thomas started to say, but William shook his head at his brother.

“There are a couple more crates stacked up there on the porch. Want to help me grab them?”

“I would have thought you’d be staying here with Quinn and Owen,” Zander said, as they carried the wooden crates down the steps.

“She could use a day with him without me, too.”

“You just didn’t want to miss an opportunity to watch me be a medical experiment.” He set his crate on the tailgate of the wagon
, and then climbed up beside it so he could organize the crates snugly along the sides.

“Well, there’s that, too,” William said, chuckling.
“You’re getting close to your last chance to back out on being a guinea pig.”

“Nah, I’m interested in the whole thing now.
I may never get another chance to sacrifice my immune system for science.”

“You could always go to medical school.”

“I’ve been tempted before, but I don’t know. After watching that guy the other day … I’m not sure I could handle seeing that kind of thing on a regular basis.”

“That might make you better at it.” Thomas had joined them again now, and he jumped up in the wagon beside him. “It’s the people who enjoy seeing those things that you have to worry about.”

“Yeah, I still think I’d rather watch from the sidelines. Maybe build things that would help people instead of actually interacting with them.”

“We could use more people like that here,” William said, pushing the gate closed. “Especially someone who was educated on Earth and knows what some of the differences are and how things work there.”

“As tempting as that is,” Zander said, glancing up at the gray sky and pulling his hood up against the sudden breeze, “I think I’m going to have to run, not walk, back to the world where a twenty-mile trip would take me half an hour in a heated car in this kind of weather.”

“I don’t blame you.” William was laughing again. “I wasn’t exactly inviting my wife’s ex-boyfriend to stick around, anyway.”

It didn’t even sting anymore, to hear William refer to Quinn as his wife.

Som
ewhere in the past week, all of the animosity between Zander and William had disappeared. Maybe it was because he was in such a strange world, and
everything
was so different that he could barely even think about Quinn in that way anymore. Perhaps it was because it felt like he’d been here so much longer than just a week – as if time had stopped and he’d had an entirely different life here. The Quinn he was getting to know here was not the same girl he’d known at home.

Thomas was looking at him funny, though. “Did Nathaniel tell you how far we were going?”

“Um … he said it was about a two-hour trip one way. Horses go … what? Maybe ten miles an hour or less?”

“Less, usually, it’s not quite twenty miles from here,” William said. “But you got it pretty close.”

William and Thomas were driving the wagon while Nathaniel and Marcus rode. Zander huddled in his coat in the middle of the stacks of crates, watching first the capital city and then the rolling hills go by.
Riding in the wagon was easier than it had been several days ago. He was learning how to hold himself steady, to not be slammed against the saddle with every bounce and jostle.

Or perhaps his muscles were getting stronger, enabling him to do more.

“Did I hear right that they found more rabid animals?” he asked after a while.

“Yes,” William answered, turning around to face him. “I don’t know how unexpected that is after what you and Ben found. They’ve been sweeping that
area and the surrounding forests for the past few days, and have turned up another deer and several capiyas. My father expanded the clear zone quite a bit yesterday. Then, this morning, a family in Mistle Village reported finding bite marks on their dog from something that it must have fought with in the night.”

“Despite warnings all over the kingdom to keep pets indoors at night,” Thomas added, sighing.

“Yes. Despite that. Anyway, that’s another reason we’re all going out there now – to determine if we’ll have to kill the dog, and to vaccinate anyone who may have been in contact with it after it was bitten.”

“Would you really have to kill the dog?” Zander asked, aghast. “You don’t even know if the animal that bit it was sick. Can’t you watch it or something?”

“In your world, that’s what we would do,” William said. “Cage it and observe it for a few weeks. But there are safe ways and safe places to do that there. Where would we keep it here?”

“You have cages here. I’ve seen them.”

“Yes, but most pet dogs in our world have some outdoor freedom and hunt for themselves. Dogs aren’t ever in cages. It’s already been a strain on most dog-owning families in the clear zones. Nathaniel’s fiancée and her children have a dog and it got out one night a week or two ago in the clear zone where they live – it was a very stressful situation.”

“Wow.”

“Exactly. And escaping is the other thing. We’d either have to take the dog from the family – and I don’t know where we’d keep it or who would be responsible for it without traumatizing the dog and turning it completely wild – or we’d have to trust a family with small children to keep an unhappy dog locked up for weeks on end.”

“Risking killing people and spreading rabies across the whole kingdom if they couldn’t do it.” Zander could see the problem now.

“Right. Now, Mistle Village is just outside the perimeter of the clear zone. We haven’t had any reports of rabies near there, so we haven’t made a final decision about what will be done with the dog. We might be able to take the risk, depending on what the dog was attacked by. Jacob hadn’t gone to take a look at it before he sent the message to us, and I guess the family didn’t know. If it just got into a fight with another dog, we might be okay if they can just try and keep it quarantined for the next moon or so. There haven’t been any reports of problems with dogs in the area.”

Zander nodded. “If it was a capiya or something, though, it’s probably toast.”

“Probably.”

He understood it – why they would handle the situation this way. He’d watched that guy with the rabies, had helped Ben and Nathaniel carry his body out of the clinic the other day and load it into a wagon so it could be taken out of the city and cremated away from where anyone might come into contact with it. A dog wasn’t worth that.

Still, it was someone’s pet. There was a whole family who was likely to be traumatized if it had to be put down. A family that would also lose its protector against the wild animals that roamed in the night.

The thought preoccupied him so much that he lost track of time, and he was surprised when the wagon slowed and Marcus and Nathaniel fell back to come alongside them. He looked around for a moment, wondering if they were simply stopping to water the horses and let them rest, but then he saw it – the little building with a sign hanging from the covered porch.
Mistle Village Clinic;
Jacob and Essie White, Healers.

“Is it new?” he asked William as they rode into the yard. Everything about the place, from the richly stained wood of the porch to the freshly painted fences around the paddock behind looked as if it had been recently built.

“Yes. It was only finished a couple of moons ago, after the old clinic burned to the ground.”

It didn’t seem like a story William was very interested in discussing, and there wasn’t time, anyway.
A young man, maybe around Ben’s age, had stepped out onto the porch and was waving at them in welcome.

As soon as Zander stepped down off the wagon, he was there to greet them.

“Zander, this is my cousin Jacob. Jacob, this is Zander.”