Fool's Errand (57 page)

T
HE KING WAS DYING
.

That much was clear to Persephone the instant she laid eyes upon him. Though his hair was as thick and dark as ever, his face was skeletal—his lips pale, his eye sockets shadowed, the waxy skin pulled tight across the bones beneath. The arms that lay upon the covers were blue-veined and thin as sticks; each breath he took was shallow and laboured and made it sound as though he was drowning in his own fluids.

Almost worse than any of these things, however, was that Finn's beautiful blue eyes were as bright and luminous as if they were already looking past this world of pain and into the shining light of the next.

“Oh,” said Persephone in a choked voice as she ran to his bedside. “Oh,
Finn
.”

Though he was too weak to lift his head, he managed to turn it toward her. A desperate hope leapt into his already bright eyes. “Did you … find it?” he gasped, his bony hand groping for hers. “Did you find the healing pool?”

Persephone opened her mouth but was too devastated to speak. She was too distraught to tell him that she'd failed, too shattered to tell him that she'd thought she'd be able to save him by bluffing and improvising.

Finn smiled wanly, understanding everything and wordlessly telling her that she had nothing to be sorry for. “It's all right,” he said as the hope slowly faded from his eyes. “It … brings me peace just to know … to know that you are safe. Especially since Zdeno was supposed to—”

A wracking fit snatched away his words; stringy black blood bubbled at his lips. Jumping to her feet, Persephone frantically rolled him over so that he could try to spit out that which was strangling him. After an agonizing minute, he finally stopped coughing. When Persephone eased him onto his back, she saw that his lips were tinged blue.

“Where are your physicians?” she demanded agitatedly as she wiped the blood away from his lips. “Why have you no attendants to nurse you?”

“I sent them all away … even Meeka,” he wheezed. “There is nothing they can do for me, Persephone. There is nothing … anyone can do for me. Except you.”

Her heart leapt. “What can I do for you, Finn?” she asked, snatching up his hand once more. “Tell me!
What can I do for you?
”

“You can … promise me that you will be Queen of Glyndoria after I am gone.”

This was so far from anything that Persephone had expected him to say that without thinking she loudly blurted, “I
CAN'T
!”

Smiling faintly as though amused by her lack of tact, Finn said, “You can.”

“No, really—I can't,” she insisted, struggling to lower her voice. “I wouldn't know how to be a queen and besides, the Erok would never accept a Gypsy as a prince consort—”

“You … married Azriel?” asked Finn in surprise.

“Yes!” exclaimed Persephone. “So you see why I couldn't possibly—”

“I'm glad you did,” coughed Finn, nodding his approval of her marriage. “Azriel is. a good man. He will stand by you.”

Persephone grimaced in frustration. “Finn,
please
,” she begged, gripping his cold hand tighter. “On that very first day we spent together as brother and sister, I told you that I'd lived my whole life as a slave yearning for freedom. I told you that ruling a realm was its own kind of slavery. I told you that I'd not do so for anything. Nothing has changed!”

“Everything has changed,” countered Finn, who paused to cough and gag and spit out another mouthful of bloody mucus before continuing. “I am
dying
, Persephone.”

“No.,” she said, trying to snatch her hand away from his so that she could cover her ears.

“
Yes
,”he gasped, holding onto her hand with surprising strength. “Now. stop arguing and listen, for I think that I … haven't much time. I've had copies of my will delivered to several of … the great lords with instructions that … the seal not be broken until after I am dead. Among other things, it names you as my heir.”

Persephone ground her teeth together to keep from crying out that what he was suggesting was impossible for a thousand different reasons!

“As you may have heard,” continued Finn, “I was recently married to Lady Aurelia—”

“
What
?”exclaimed Persephone.

“Lord Bartok will want people to believe that Aurelia is carrying my child, but it is impossible. I was too sick and weak to perform the act, and even if I'd not been, I'd have found some excuse. Though … I'd have liked to know that … I had fathered a child—even with her—it would not have been fair to the kingdom
or
the child. For … regardless of whom
I
might have named Regent, it would have turned into a battle between Mordecai and Bartok.”

“Finn,
please—
”

Giving her hand a barely perceptible squeeze to silence her, he concluded. “You may … have to fight for your throne, Persephone—”

“Fight for my throne?” she burst. “Finn, in all likelihood I'm not even going to be able to fight my way out of this
chamber!
The Regent is out there waiting for me and—”

“There is … a secret passageway,” he interrupted, gesturing to one of the beautiful tapestries that hung on the far wall. “One that … even he … doesn't know about.”

Feeling something beyond panic, Persephone opened her mouth to tell her twin that even if she escaped the castle alive, she wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do next, but Finn cut her off before she could utter a word.

“You … once told me that you were a loyal subject,” he gasped as an ominous rattling noise began to issue from his chest. “You vowed … to obey me even unto death. I am calling upon you to honour that vow. Take the throne that was yours by right of birth, Persephone. Unite the realm. Finish the job I never got a chance to start.”

Persephone stared down into the blue eyes that were growing brighter and more luminous with each passing second, even as the hand she held grew colder. In those eyes, she saw the strength, the brilliance and above all the kindness that made Finn the great king he was.

It was no use.

In failing to find the healing pool, she had denied him life.

She could not deny him this.

And so, unable to speak for grief, tears streaming down her cheeks, Persephone nodded and watched as the brother she'd known so briefly but loved so well breathed his last.

FIFTY-NINE

P
ERSEPHONE STARED
at the body on the bed in disbelief.

Finn was dead
.

Dead
.

Dead
.

Dead
.

Her body felt so heavy she was sure she'd never be able to move again. When she heard a soft shuffling sound on the other side of the bedchamber door, however, the survival instincts that had kept her alive even when she'd longed for death kicked in.

Rising to her feet, she silently ran to the far wall and ducked behind the tapestry. It took her a moment of feeling around, but at last she found the door to the secret passageway of which Finn had spoken. Forcing down her panic at the thought of what might lurk within, she plunged into the narrow, dusty darkness.

Her overloaded mind must have had the mercy to blank out because the next thing Persephone knew she was tumbling out a small door in one of the outer walls that faced the royal garden where she'd first met Finn. She stood transfixed by the sight. Not having any idea that he was her brother and not recognizing him as the king, upon their first meeting she'd flown at him in a rage! She'd called him a beast for trying to get Ivan to behave as a hunting hawk should—and when he'd hopped about in pain after Ivan pecked him in the side of the head, she'd chastised him for his tiresome theatrics.

Tears welled in Persephone's eyes again as she remember how good-naturedly Finn had laughed in the face of it all and the earnestness with which he'd offered to lecture the horse who'd tried to kill her.

Then she blinked the tears out of her eyes and forced herself to turn away. Any moment now, the Regent would discover that Finn was dead and she was gone.

She didn't have much time.

She kept her head low as she hurried across the courtyard, through the watchtower passageway and into the streets beyond. The harbour storage shed where Azriel and the others were waiting was not far away. Part of her wanted to run to it as fast as she could and hurl herself into Azriel's arms in the vain hope that they might shelter her from her battering grief. She knew that he'd be furious with her for having given him the slip
again
—but she also knew that the moment she told him about Finn, he'd do everything in his power to fulfill his vow to be the rock upon which she might stand in times of trouble.

As tempting as all this was, however, another part of Persephone desperately wanted to run as fast as she could
away
from the harbour storage shed. She wanted to run away from everything and everyone; she wanted to return to being a nobody with no one and nothing—nothing but the dream of a destiny that belonged to none but her.

Persephone slowed to a walk, and then she stopped.

Heart thudding against her rib cage, she looked toward the harbour—then she looked in the opposite direction.

Then she started walking again—toward the harbour.

Because even if I could run away from everything else
, she thought a few minutes later as she stumbled over the gangplank of one of the many ships anchored along the docks,
there is one thing I would not be able to run away from no matter how hard or how far I—

Sudden shouts from up ahead caught her attention and the attention of everybody else in the busy harbour. With a gasp of horror, Persephone saw a small band of sword-wielding New Men running down the harbour front. What horrified her was not the way they were callously shoving aside people and crates as they did so.

What horrified her was that they were heading straight for the storage shed in which Azriel, Rachel and Zdeno were hiding.

Even as she realized this, the door of the shed opened wide enough for Azriel to look out to see what was happening. Persephone saw him take in the sight of approaching danger before abruptly jerking his head in her direction.

For one forever instant their eyes locked.

Then Persephone was grabbed from behind and a pungent-smelling cloth was pressed hard against her nose and mouth.

She remained conscious for just long enough to drive her heel down onto the toe of her captor and to hear Azriel shout her name once.

And then she knew no more.

EPILOGUE

M
ORDECAI WHISTLED
as he lurched into the Council chamber to attend the emergency meeting that had been called by Lord Bartok. Though Mordecai had been displeased when he'd realized that the princess had managed to slip away from the castle undetected, thanks to a quick-thinking New Man, his displeasure had not lasted long.

Unlike times past, none of the great lords jumped to their feet when Mordecai walked into the chamber. With the king dead, he was no longer the Regent Mordecai. He was back to being Simply Mordecai.

As he shuffled toward the chair at the head of the table that had been his since the death of the old king all those years ago, Lord Bartok stepped forward to bar his way.

“This is not your seat anymore,
Mordecai
,” he said.

Mordecai smiled up at him, his black eyes glittering like polished obsidian.

“It is not your seat, either, my lord,” rumbled the ponderous Lord Belmont, who was already seated.

Tapping his fat finger against a piece of parchment on the Council table before him, he said, “I have here a copy of the late king's will. In it, he names his sister, the Princess Persephone, as his heir.”

“I am certain he'd not have done so if he'd known that Aurelia was pregnant,” insisted Lord Bartok.