Gate to Kandrith (The Kandrith Series) (28 page)

“A lie.”

Sara was developing a serious dislike for the cheerful old man. He was going to get her killed.

“I’ve heard enough,” the Protector said flatly.

She was going to order Sara’s death. Sara turned to Lance. “I didn’t want your father to die!”

“Truth.” The Listener’s white eyebrows shot up.

Lance lifted his head hopefully.

His mother’s visage remained cold and angry. “And yet you led the blue devil straight to him.”

Sara didn’t risk a straight denial, appealing to Lance. “I didn’t want to go to the Hall, remember? I didn’t want to see the Kandrith.”

“Truth.”

“She begged me not to take her here.” Lance’s skin turned ashen. “I almost had to drag her.”

Sara winced at the heavy guilt in his voice. She hadn’t meant to add to his burden of grief, but she had no choice. She pressed her advantage. “Why would I want to kill the Kandrith? His death means my own.”

“Truth.”

Sara tried to catch her breath, marshaling her arguments. This was her only chance. If she stepped off the narrow bridge she trod, none would catch her.

“If a blue devil attached itself to my soul and killed your father, it was not because I wanted it to.” She spoke to Lance, desperate to convince him at least.

“Truth.”

The Protector frowned. “If that is so, why did you not warn Lance of what you carried?”

Sara tried again. “I didn’t know a blue devil hid inside me. If I had known, I would have warned him.”

“Two lies in a row. She just doesn’t learn, does she?”

Sara flinched. Once again the Listener had condemned her, but why? She was telling the truth.

The Protector’s expression grew colder. “If you can speak naught but lies—”

“Wait!” Lance held up his hand. “That doesn’t make sense.” He stared at Sara intensely. “Say that again. ‘If I…’”

“If I had known, I would have warned him.”

“A lie,” the Listener said.

“Yet earlier when Sara said she would have warned him if she could, the Listener named it truth.” Lance’s eyes shone with hope. “Say it again, Sara.”

“I would have warned him if I could.”

“Well, I’ll be hanged. She’s telling the truth.” The Listener looked stunned.

“
‘If I could,
’” Lance quoted. “The blue devil must have prevented Sara from warning me.”

She hadn’t warned him because she hadn’t known there was a blue devil inside her, but she dared not say so. “Yes,” she lied.

“Truth.”

The Protector frowned. “Why didn’t you say so? The blue devil is no longer attached to you.”

“I didn’t know the blue devil had…” she began.

“A lie.”

Sara shot a venomous glance at the Listener. Every time she said the word ‘know’ he proclaimed it a lie.

“Why do you continue to lie?” the Protector demanded.

“I don’t mean to,” Sara said desperately. “I am telling the truth as I—” superstitiously she bit back the word
know
and substituted, “—remember it.”

“Truth.”

“As you remember it?” Lance noticed her change of phrasing. “Are there things you do not remember?”

“No.”

“Another lie.”

The Protector’s nostrils flared with impatience.

Lance came to Sara’s rescue. He was on her side, despite the colors allying himself to his mother. She could have wept in relief. He had every right to hate her for contributing to his father’s death. “Perhaps you were magically made to forget, but somewhere inside, you do know the truth.”

Sara glimpsed salvation, but couldn’t quite grasp it.

The Protector turned to her. “Is this true? Were you made to forget about the blue devil?”

Sara had no memory of such. “Yes,” she said, not knowing if it was a lie. Not remembering.

“Truth, again.”

“Then you are innocent.” The Protector didn’t sound very happy about it.

Sara’s knees felt weak. But her relief lasted only a moment. The Protector wasn’t done with her yet.

“Now you will tell me who is guilty. Who did this to you?”

Sara shook her head. “I don’t remember. I don’t even kn—remember when it happened.”

“Truth.”

“The blue devil caused your headaches,” Lance said. “When did they first start?”

Sara thought back. “They began the morning after I met you. I’ve been prone to them the whole journey.”

“Truth,” the Listener said.

Lance looked encouraged. “It must have happened the night before, at the feast.”

“Thousands of people attended the feast. Who—?” Sara’s eyes widened. “Nir! He must have done this to me.” Conspiracies spun in her head. She knew Nir hungered to bring her father down—and get personal revenge on Sara for spurning him—

“A lie.”

Sara swore silently, then rallied. “One of the Pallaxes then. They could have done it.”

“A lie.”

She wracked her brains. Some other enemy of her father? “House Arranius—”

The Protector sighed. “Before you list everyone, let’s rule out the most obvious. Aleron Remillus, Primus of the Republic.”

“My father did not do that to me,” Sara said indignantly.

“A lie,” the Listener said, his eyes closed.

“It’s not true,” Sara said through numb lips, but her trial seemed to be over. The Protector was giving orders in a crisp voice, and everyone was scrambling to obey.

“Sara.” Lance steered her over to the wall, out of the way.

Sara barely noticed. “My father wouldn’t do this to me.” Cause her pain. Use her. Set her up to die. None of it. Sara blinked desperately. “He loves me.”

Lance said nothing.

Sara balled up her hand and hit his chest, hard. “He does!” she almost screamed.

Lance caught her fist before she could hit him again. He sat down right there on the floor and pulled her onto his lap, cocooning her in his strength.

“He does love me,” she whispered.

Lance sighed. “He left you alone for most of your life on a distant estate under the care of servants and a sick mother. Where was he, Sara, the day the stallion threw you?”

Sara was silent. Her father had been miles away. And really wasn’t that part of the reason behind her childish recklessness, the thought that if she were hurt her father would have to come home, that he would be sorry and spend more time with her? Instead of which, she’d received a stinging lecture on the value of prime horseflesh—by letter.

“When Wenda was whipped, only a stout chain kept my father from running to her aid,” Lance said.

Sara calmed. Her father might not have been there for her during her childhood, but he’d made up for it later. “He paid the ransom for me. He beggared the estate.” It had been the turning point of her life, when her resentment of him was replaced by a burning need to redeem herself.

Only she suddenly remembered the doubt on Julen’s face when she’d told him about the ransom.
If you had asked me, I would have sworn House Remillus was quite wealthy.

Julen was her father’s right-hand man, how could he not have known that their House teetered on the brink of financial ruin?

What if the House had never been beggared at all? What if it had all been a monstrous lie? “No,” Sara whispered. “It can’t be.”

But. But up until then, she and her father had fought like rachas. He’d wanted her to behave like other noble daughters, to marry well—something Sara hadn’t seen the need for until their House was in danger.

As lies went, it had been beautifully simple. Because it was a secret, Sara had never spoken about it to anyone but her father.

He used guilt to control me, to turn me into the biddable,
marketable
daughter he wanted.

And if that had been a lie… then House Remillus had never been in debt to the Temple of Nir. Her father had asked her to placate Nir…for nothing. For influence and power.

Sara’s gorge rose, a hot choking flood. Lance put his hands on her shoulder, and the feeling receded. He touched her face, wiping away tears she didn’t remember shedding.

“Why are you holding me?” Sara choked out. “G-go away.” She braced herself to reject his pity, but Lance surprised her.

“I just lost my father too,” he said simply.

She’d forgotten. His father was dead—murdered—and he was comforting
her
. Sara tried to scramble off his lap, but his arms held her fast. “I’m sorry. You can’t want to hold me—not after what I’ve done—what I brought.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Sara looked deep into his brown eyes. He seemed to mean it, which made her feel, conversely, worse. “My father…” she started.

“The father you knew is dead. The father you loved. Go ahead, let yourself grieve.”

His simple words shattered some dam inside her. Sara rocked back and forth in a storm of tears and faced the truth. Her father didn’t love her. He had handed her over to be killed. He had sacrificed her to blue devils. She couldn’t remember it, but deep inside she knew the truth: Her father had betrayed her.

* * *

Across the throne room, Lance’s gaze connected with his mother’s. Sara’s time was running out.

“I need to speak to my mother.” Lance gently disengaged himself from Sara. As much as leaving her was like ripping off his skin, he couldn’t afford to be outside his mother’s circle while important decisions were being made.

He approached the throne. “Mother.”

She and Donal, the castle steward and his father’s best friend, were consulting in low voices. After a glance at his face, Donal politely withdrew.

Lance cursed the man under his breath. For the first hour after his father’s death, his mother had wept. She’d even allowed Lance to hold her while they mourned together. And then Donal had come in to ask what she wanted done with his father’s body, and his mother had drawn back into herself to give cool, clear orders.

The composure was merely a shell, Lance knew, but it was rapidly hardening into iron. Only the Goddess knew how much time would pass before his mother allowed her barriers to drop again.

Lance loved Kandrith with all his heart, but its needs had eaten his father. He wished his mother would let it go, let someone else step forward and take up the burden, but he knew she wouldn’t—not voluntarily.

And in a way, he didn’t blame her. If she wasn’t Protector anymore, what was left to her but ashes?

Lance took a deep breath, readying his argument, but just then his mother said, in tones of surprise, “What’s she doing with the shandy?”

Lance followed her gaze and saw that Sara’s refetti had crawled into her lap. “That’s not a shandy, it’s a pet,” he said impatiently. “Mother, you can’t—”

“It’s no dumb animal,” his mother said, definite as always. Her greatest strength—and her greatest weakness—was that she never doubted herself. “The refetti spoke to your father…just before.” A crack appeared in her composure, but was swiftly mended. “It told him a blue devil was coming.”

The information diverted Lance. “Maybe animals can sense blue devils,” he suggested. Sara had fished the refetti out of the Vaga River. He’d never heard of a shandy living in the Republic. That didn’t mean there couldn’t be one, but— “Shandies can talk.”

“That’s true,” his mother said thoughtfully. “All I heard was a bunch of chitters and squeaks.”

If the refetti had warned his father, why hadn’t he and Sara been stopped at the door? And then Lance realized that he had been. The guard had asked Lance to leave Sara and bring his father a box. Lance had barely heard the man, so consumed was he with fear for Sara. He’d left Sara in the hall, but cut off his father before he could speak, begging for his help. And then Sara had come in, bringing with her the blue devil.

The only box Lance had was the small carved one Julen had found after the battle with the Qiph…the very same battle where the refetti had first appeared. Lance’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t a shandy, but perhaps it was something similar, a man transformed by Qiph magic.

It would explain how the Qiph assassin had vanished so thoroughly after jumping out Sara’s window. Lance had even healed the cursed refetti later.

Lance had a strong desire to snap the refetti’s neck, but the emotion was pushed aside when his mother said abruptly, “You won’t change my mind.”

They were once more talking about the main issue. “You can’t execute her,” he said.

“She may not be guilty, but she’s still the Child of Peace. Her father attacked us. Her life is forfeit. That is the law.”

“The Pact only works if the Primus loves the Child of Peace,” Lance said forcefully. “Sara’s father cares less for her than for a slave. I want to see the bastard punished, too, but killing Sara won’t hurt him.”

“You don’t know that,” his mother said coolly. “The blue devil may well have promised to save her life. Primus Remillus probably never meant to risk her at all.”

“Anyone who calls on blue devils is so steeped in evil, they’re unlikely to scruple over a daughter,” Lance argued. She had to see that he was right. Sara didn’t deserve to die for her father’s sins.

“It doesn’t matter,” his mother said with finality. “The law must be followed or the next Primus will think we’re bluffing. Kandrith will be threatened at every turn. Is that what you want?”

It wasn’t. Lance’s jaw clenched. “Why the farce of a trial if you meant to kill her either way?”

His mother hesitated, then said abruptly, “I hoped that she was guilty. I wanted you to feel…less regret.”

Regret? The thought of Sara dying made him feel like a mule had kicked him in the chest. How could she have come to mean so much to him in only a few weeks time?

“Mother, please don’t do this,” he gritted out, but the proud set of her shoulders told him she would not relent.

* * *

The Protector stood up. “Friends,” she said strongly, “today is a blue day.”

Sara looked up dully, one hand still in the refetti’s fur. Blue day?

“Blue, not only because of the death of my husband, but because the Republic of Temboria murdered him by foulest treachery.”

Angry murmurs arose. Close to sixty people thronged the room now. Sara hadn’t noticed them enter, drowned in grief. Instinct brought her to her feet.

“An act of war has been committed, and it is merely the first one. I have spoken to the Kandrith Seer.” The Protector pointed to the pale-eyed man in silver. “Cadwallader tells me the Republic’s legions will attack our citizens sometime today. Preparations must be made for war,” she continued, dark eyes full of fire.

Lance slipped over to Sara’s side and took her hand, squeezing hard enough to bruise.

A river of dread flowed into Sara as if their joined hands had opened up a connection. She knew what was coming next.

“But first,” the Protector said, “the Primus must pay the penalty for breaking the peace.” She looked straight at Sara.

Sara moved to stand before the throne, taking a deep breath. If she was to live through this she must sound calm and reasonable. “You intend to execute me.”

“Yes,” the Protector said.

“My father doesn’t love me.” Sara fought down a slight quaver at the raw admission. “My death will not hurt him, but it will kill me.” The words sounded ludicrous—of course her death would kill her—but the right words wouldn’t come. Her throat felt tight.

“Seventy years ago our two countries made a pact,” the Protector said. “Not for the first time, that pact has been broken. There must be consequences. If I allow the Child of Peace to live, there will be no peace again.”

Sara inclined her head to show that she understood the point. “May I speak to you in private?”

In answer, the Protector stalked forward. Lance tried to move away, but Sara caught his hand. She hadn’t meant he should go.

The Protector’s head only reached Sara’s chin, but she gave off the energy of bottled lightning.

“There is a middle way,” Sara said softly. “Order my execution, but do not carry it out. Tell my father, tell all of the Republic, that I am dead. I will take oath before a Listener to never leave Kandrith or communicate with the Republic again. The Pact will stand.”

Lance’s head lifted in hope, but the Protector’s expression grew flinty. “The Protector of Kandrith does not lie.”

“You don’t have to lie, just don’t deny it,” Sara spoke with forced calm.

“No.”

Your pride isn’t worth my life,
Sara wanted to scream. Had she sounded so self-righteous when she told Lance why she couldn’t free Felicia? Sara struggled to think of a more convincing argument, but white fog seemed to blanket her mind.

The moment passed. The Protector raised her hand, about to give the order—

“No,” Lance said harshly. “You don’t have the authority to order Sara’s execution. Father is dead, and your authority came from him.”

His mother took a step back as if he’d struck her, but swiftly recovered. “I doubt that the next Kandrith will be any more lenient, but you are right. Cadwallader! Who is the next Kandrith?”

The pale-eyed man in silver robes—
Gray is the color of Tomorrow
—stepped forward. He beamed as if delighted to be asked. “Your daughter Wenda will be the next Kandrith.”

Consternation. A buzz of talk rose. Sara caught the gist of it; Wenda was in the Republic, standing as the Child of Peace. How could she be the next Kandrith?

“Praise the Goddess.” Lance expelled a pent-up breath. “I thought…I thought she might already be dead.”

“Ah.” Sara nodded in understanding. “Since my father never had any intention of keeping the Pact, he could have killed Wenda upon her arrival in Temborium. No. I doubt he’ll kill her in retaliation, even if I’m executed.”

Lance’s head came up sharply. “Why not?”

“If the existence of the Child of Peace were publicly known, he would have to kill her to ‘avenge’ me. But since it isn’t, he’ll keep Wenda prisoner until he finds some advantage in her death—or life.” Sara had watched her father play the political game, and now she knew he was even more ruthless than she’d thought. “He’ll use her as a hostage.”

The Protector’s face hardened like clay fired in a kiln. “I will not surrender.”

Sara suppressed a sigh. Had the woman no political acumen at all? “That may be, but as long he thinks he can wring something from you, he won’t kill her.”

“Then there’s still time,” Lance said. “I can rescue her.”

“No,” the Protector said harshly. “It’s too dangerous. Without the title Child of Peace to protect you, you’ll be taken as an escaped slave long before you reach Temborium.”

Sara straightened, hope infusing her. “Not if he travels with me. Lady Sarathena Remillus and an anonymous slave will be able to move unhindered.” At least until her father found out she still lived. “Let me help.”
Spare my life.

“Help?” The Protector snorted. “You’d betray him the moment you crossed the border.”

“I wouldn’t,” Sara denied hotly.

The Protector opened her mouth, but was distracted when a stick-thin older woman ran into the room, her hands in the air, face frantic.

“Just heard…my uncle—new Farspeaker. Farm under attack… He says…” she gasped for breath while everyone hung on tenterhooks “…Republican soldiers climbed…over Saint Davvyd.”

“Thank you, Gwenn.” The Protector touched the woman’s bony shoulder. “Tell the kitchens to prepare. Donal—”

The blond man nodded, already on his way to the door. “I’ll send out runners with the word for every able-bodied man to head for the Mover.”