Green Wild (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 2) (10 page)

Seandri leaned over. “It’s a bit like we’re late to a party.”

“Uninvited guests, more likely,” she said back, then shifted her weight to send her spectral mare into the courtyard. Seandri and his stag followed behind. The Vassay within joined in with the staring.

Three of the Justiciars, flanked by their guards, stood at the entrance to the inn on the far side of the courtyard, welcoming the leadership of the Vassay contingent. Their expressions were delicious, worth the trouble of arranging the visit. Both the sneer on Lord Warrane’s face and the look of irritation from Lord Aubin were especially fine. Then the man who had been clasping Lord Warrane’s hand extracted himself. He strode toward the Blood, a broad smile on his face.

He was a big, bald man, well muscled even under his loose clothing and somewhat older than her father had been. He was certainly much older than any of the other Vassay Jerya had so far seen.

“Hello!” he called. “Hello!” He wore a short cape pinned with a series of large brooches: a quill pen, a sequence of interlocking bronze, gold and silver rings, and an open hand. He fingered the last brooch as he said, “Hello!” a third time. Then he looked around, possibly for backup.

Jerya regarded the top of the man’s skull. Lord Jasper, the youngest and least antagonistic of the Justiciars present, strode after the possible dignitary and said, “Your Highness, may I present Ambassador Smith of Vassay?” Jerya inclined her head fractionally again and Lord Jasper went on. “Your Excellency, her Royal Highness the Crown Princess Jerya, accompanied by Prince Seandri.” Lord Jasper scanned Jerya’s retinue but chose not to introduce the rest of the Blood present, since neither Gisen nor Yithiere were paying any attention to him. “He has come to aid us in the reconstruction, bringing some of Vassay’s legendary engineers with him.”

“My students, yes,” said the big man, smiling. “I’m delighted to finally meet you. The reports—” He caught himself and stumbled, then changed direction. “We’re eager to get to work. We were discussing some ideas as we came through your city. The bridges—” and then a young woman tugged at his elbow. “Oh yes. Must introduce Landry and Cutter, my assistants.”

Jerya stared at them in amazement, wondering at the temerity of assistants who inserted themselves into their ambassador’s first introduction. Landry was a tallish girl with big eyes, a long nose and an expressive mouth. She smiled absently at Jerya before her gaze drifted over to Seandri and stayed there as she said, “So pleased to meet you.”

Jerya promptly forgot to notice what Cutter looked like. She didn’t like it when young women paid too much attention to Seandri. She never had, but it was especially bad now, with Tiana gone, Iriss lost, and her world teetering on the edge of chaos. She needed
something
she could rely on. One day Seandri would have to be given up to another woman. One day, but not any time soon. She couldn’t afford the distraction.

Frostily she said to Ambassador Smith, “Good afternoon. Have the Justiciars been doing a pretty job of welcoming you?”

The ambassador chuckled. “Pretty enough, indeed. They’ve mentioned a feast but I don’t know about that. It seems inappropriate under the circumstances.”

“Maybe if we offset any shortages from our own wagons, sir?” said Landry brightly. “We have more coming over the next few days,” she confided in Seandri’s direction. “This is most of our people but we’ve brought, oh, all sorts of stores to help the evacuees.”

Neither Seandri nor his stag mount shifted beside her, and it was only that rock solid stability that kept Jerya from displaying her own agitation. This friendly informality was too strange and too unexpected. She thought she’d have to shove her way into a conversation with the Vassay leadership, but here he was, abandoning the Justiciars to talk to her. It was wrong, somehow. She had to make unexpected decisions quickly. And this assistant girl was staring at Seandri like he was a dessert she’d been anticipating for a long time.

“Let them welcome you,” she told the Ambassador. “It will make them feel useful. They do like their pomp and ceremony.” The Ambassador laughed again, as she went on. “If you come to my Court tomorrow, I will explain how you can most benefit the city.”

“Eh? Excellent, we’ll do that.” He looked around again. “Not all of us. My assistants and I. And my clerk. That’s him over there.” He gestured at a thin man around his own age who had stayed beside the Justiciars and was now talking with Lord Aubin. “Scriber Stone. That all right?”

“As you see fit,” said Jerya graciously. As his annoying female assistant guided the Ambassador away with Lord Jasper, it occurred to Jerya that perhaps she was the equivalent of a Regent. That didn’t make ogling Seandri any more acceptable, but did explain the way she kept inserting herself into the Ambassador’s conversation. It was odd, even so. She’d never heard anything about Vassay using any kind of Regency system.

She watched them return to the conversation she’d interrupted with her arrival, then she cultivated her most dignified look and let her attention drift to the fledgling still on Gisen’s shoulder. It was close enough that she could hear what it heard if she concentrated.

Gisen and Yevonne skipped between the wagons and Vassay within the courtyard, staring openly at everything that caught their interest.

“What’s that?” Yevonne asked, pointing at a wagon’s contents.

“Wood for bridges, houses,” said the young man sitting on the wagon side.

“Oh,” said Yevonne. “What’s that?”

“Fabric for tents, clothing.” The young man’s accent was terrible.

“Oh. We have wool and silk, you know. And linen. We have trees, too.”

“You don’t have fabric like this,” said the wagoneer positively.

“Show me,” demanded Yevonne.

The wagoneer eyed her. “Not right now. You’ll have plenty of chances to see later.”

“All right.” Gisen immediately moved to a different wagon, where three girls sat together on the driver’s seat. They spoke rapidly in their own language. Jerya had studied the Vassay tongue but couldn’t follow them through the fledgling. Gisen apparently could, because when Yevonne went to move on, she caught her hand and they lingered.

“Jer,” said Yithiere, and she focused back on herself. Her uncle stood at her knee, his eyes darting around. “Don’t do that here. There are assassins in this throng, I’m sure of it.”

“That’s why I have you, uncle,” said Jerya sweetly. “Can you point them out?”

“I’m looking,” he said grimly.

“Did you have a moment to observe the ambassador? Wasn’t he
odd
?”

Yithiere snorted and shook his head, like a dog that scented something unpleasant. “He’s a decoy. Oh, he probably believes he’s the ambassador. But the one behind the mission is the scribe, or clerk, or whatever he said he was.”

Jerya looked again at the man identified as Scriber Stone. He didn’t have the deference she expected in a clerk among nobles. But she’d already noticed few of their guests seemed to think much about relative rank.

Still, she thought she could see what had set her uncle off. Scriber Stone’s gaze roved the crowd as he chatted with the Justiciars. Nothing seemed to escape him. Gisen certainly didn’t; his gaze lingered on her so long that Jerya felt her temper rising. But when he realized Jerya was staring at him, he lowered his eyes and suddenly he was very much a clerk.

She leaned over to Seandri. “I’m saying something trivial and funny. Maybe I’m making fun of their clothes. Aren’t I funny? Let’s laugh.”

Seandri said, “I think their clothes are charming, but their wagons are very strange. Not a scrap of decoration.” And Seandri laughed, rich and deep, as if genuinely amused by her, so that her laugh was genuine as well.

But she watched, too. Scriber Stone raised his gaze when she directed her gaze elsewhere, but he didn’t look at her. She followed the direction of his gaze and found herself looking at an ordinary-looking man moving a crate on a wagon.

“Him, yes,” said Yithiere, following her gaze. “He’s been moving the same boxes since you arrived. I’m trying to spot the others. There’s something odd about the girl assistant but I don’t think she’s a killer. Noble born, though.”

Seandri pointed out, “But they don’t have nobles in Vassay anymore.”

Yithiere snorted. “Hah. Privileged, in any case.”

“She’s certainly not trying to avoid notice,” said Jerya tartly, then slid off her mount. As soon as she did, it dissolved into an invisible vapor that trickled back to Gisen. Seandri dismounted his own stag and the eidolon burst into golden motes around him.

Then he held out his arm to Jerya. “Where are we going?”

“To mingle with our guests. If they want to be friendly, we should let them.”

“Ward yourself, Jerya,” Yithiere growled.

“I’m prepared, uncle. Ward my back.” She watched the man moving boxes, walking slowly in his direction. She offered faint, vague smiles to several of the Vassay, and said to one nervous looking young woman, “Be welcome here.” None of them were as friendly as Ambassador Smith had been, but they all stared at her with varying degrees of undisguised interest and curiosity.

Except for the man moving boxes. He never looked up at her even once. He was as muscular as the Ambassador. Most of the contingent wasn’t, she noticed. Most of them were on the scrawny side.

She asked a man with a strawberry blond ponytail, “Have you no guards? How did you protect the convoy from bandits as you crossed the border?”

The young man gave her a startled, wary look. “Many of us are wordweavers. Logos-workers? We weave various protections tied to the caravan. And our colleagues at Home monitor us. They are able to lend a hand from a distance, yes, if we encounter any kind of problems, sending their own words. That can be very helpful!” A grin flickered on his face. “Though not for any bandits.”

Jerya tightened her hand on Seandri’s arm and she thought distantly,
I must control myself. Say something nice.
“Ah. Like a mother cat watching as her kittens creep from the nest. That must be reassuring.”

The young man smiled brightly, as if relieved. “Yes indeed.”

Jerya inclined her head and pulled Seandri on. The initial shock faded, replaced by fear. For a moment she couldn’t see anything, her inner vision awash with the horror of what had just driven into the heart of her city. Magic all the way from Vassay could follow these visitors? They didn’t fear bandits because of that magic? It was hard to breathe calmly. When she looked up again, she was in front of the alleged assassin’s wagon, and he was looking down at her.

His face was smudged with dirt, but he had a fine bone structure and swarthy skin underneath. His eyes were deep brown, with a striking fringe of lashes and sweeping eyebrows. They were utterly without expression: no surprise, no curiosity, no humor, no trepidation.

“Did you lose something? You keep moving boxes around,” Jerya blurted, then cursed silently. She sounded just like Tiana and the little girls: no self-control, saying the first thing that popped into her mind. She couldn’t
focus
. Magic from another country could reach into her city.

He stared at her for a long moment. Then his mouth quirked up, although the expression didn’t touch his eyes. “Yes.”

Was Vassay watching her through those eyes? Jerya nodded, squeezing Seandri’s arm. “I hope you find it.” She spun around quickly, her anxiety growing into panic. The idea that Vassay magic could reach into the heart of Ceria was too much. She couldn’t talk anymore; she’d ruin everything. She couldn’t be here with all these people, either. She wanted the phantasmagory, and Iriss. She had to get away before she lost control and started shouting at all of them, or worse.

She straightened her spine and forced herself to release Seandri. He caught at her hand as she pulled away. “Jer, you’re fine—”

But she shook her head and stepped away from him. She’d hurt him more. She’d pull him in. All she had to do was walk out, walk back to her inn, and she’d be fine. She had to do it, before she lost control of her mouth again and triggered something terrible. Before she ruined everything.

Seandri let her go, but Yithiere caught her arm. “What is it?” he demanded.

“You’re right,” she began. “They’re all—” And she caught herself. “I need to get out of here.” She knew, distantly, that she should mount a summoned steed again, whirl it around dramatically and canter out of the inn. Her departure should be victorious. Stumbling out like she’d become ill was ignoble and damaging.

But setting Yithiere to kill them all would be more damaging.

She made it to the street, the sound of the Justiciars’ laughter cutting through the noise of the crowd to sink into her brain. She covered her ears and ran.

T
WO DAYS AFTER the storm
, Kiar finished reading the books she’d borrowed. Well. She finished rereading them. She finished the first time huddled in the farmer’s barn, sitting against a dairy cow’s stall and reading by Logos light. By four days after the storm she’d studied them enough that she knew there was no point in going through them yet again.

That meant she had nothing to do but brood about unpleasant things, and play with the Logos. Boredom was an unfamiliar experience for her, but riding by endless fields of broccoli and cabbage day after day introduced her to the idea.

Twist hadn’t caught up with them yet, which was... annoying. That was the best word. Troubling, worrying, nerve-wracking,
why
hadn’t he found them? Was he all right? Would he bring her more books? Had she finally utterly alienated him?

Annoying. That was definitely the word.

Thinking about the enemy was no better. She kept seeing the way the armored andani’s eyes had changed, and wondering if it was still inside her somewhere. No, those weren’t good traveling thoughts either.

Even Lisette wasn’t as companionable as Kiar would have expected. She had the uncomfortable suspicion that both Lisette and Tiana were chatting with the fiend, which made her feel peculiarly left out. She didn’t even want the damn fiend in her head, and he wasn’t good for her friends, either.

The books were useless, too. They kept her busy but they didn’t provide a single answer. The Light of the Firstborn was mentioned occasionally, as something that would come ‘someday’ when Ceria had ‘urgent need’.

It was nice, she thought in irritation, to know you were living in prophesied times. It would have been nicer if they’d told her where the Lights could be found.

“The road is turning here,” said Tiana, stopping her mount. “Slowly, but really turning. I can tell. Where’s a map?”

Kiar dug around in her saddlebags for the map she’d acquired when they bought their remounts the day before at a horse fair. They’d picked up a pair of adventurous stable girls there, too, because, as one of the stable girls had said acidly, they were all rubbish at doing more than basic horse care. “Yes,” she said, unrolling it and looking. “You’re right.”

“The pull isn’t turning.” Tiana pursed her mouth.

Kiar gazed at the fields of, oh, look, it was cauliflower now, and then studied the map again. “There’s a river ahead,” she explained.

Lisette leaned over from her horse to look at the map and said, “I know where we’re going.”

“Good,” said Kiar. “I’m glad somebody does.” She scowled at the river. “We have to stay on the road unless you want to ford the river, Tiana.”

“What if we miss it?” Tiana put a knuckle to her mouth to chew on it.

“Then it’s very close and we’ll be able to find it by sweeping the area. Do you think we’re close?”

“I don’t know,” wailed Tiana. “How would I know? I just know I’m being pulled, and if I think about it too much I get confused. I have to shut down and just drift.”

“I think we’re going to Fel Dion,” continued Lisette, talking determinedly as if nobody else had said anything. “The forest of Fel Dion, I mean. It’s associated with Atalya in some old stories.”

Kiar looked down at the map again. It was in the right direction, but almost all the way to the northwestern coast. “There’s a lot of land between here and there. A lot of estates. Tons of shrines to Atalya, if we’re assuming we’re looking for a place dedicated to her.” Atalya worship wasn’t centralized like the worship of Niyhan and Keldera. Instead local priestesses organized village festivals and trained the heirs to their shrines.

“I’ve been remembering stories all day,” said Lisette stubbornly. “I’m sure that’s where we’re going.”

Kiar shrugged and folded the map again. “Well, it’s unlikely to be farther unless it’s under the ocean. Let’s at least stay on the road until we cross the river, Tiana.”

Tiana sighed, but nudged her horse into motion again. Berrin rode up to join Kiar and Lisette saying, “I beg you’ll forgive me, but I hope you’re wrong, my lady. I’ve heard bad things about Fel Dion.”

Lisette looked at him in surprise. “There are stories of a place sacred to her deep within the forest. Legends I read as a little girl. She emerged from the wood when the world was young to guide us. She protected the innocent who came there. And there’s a story about a sleeping prince who—”

“Every forest has that story,” interrupted Kiar. “That orchard the other day probably had that story. Roots of trees are a good place to hide things, even princes.” She’d found a fiend hiding in a root hollow once. It hadn’t been a dream come true.

Lisette’s brow furrowed. “Really? Oh. But we’re headed straight for Fel Dion, if you look at the map.”

“The stories I’ve heard are definitely about Fel Dion,” said Berrin. “And of more recent origin than the nursery tales, and from closer to the forest. Dark stories that imply dark and deadly things.” He paused for effect. “Human sacrifice, for example.”

Kiar snorted. “That’s a step up from simply stealing children, which is what I heard about Fel Dion. I never believed it.”

Berrin shrugged. “The stories always reference one particular legend. I could tell the tale, though a storyteller I’m not.”

“Please,” said Lisette earnestly.

Kiar noticed a twinkle in Berrin’s eyes before his dark brows swooped down to hood his eyes. “Here is what I’ve heard, from the village of Sinethca, on the edge of Fel Dion. Once it was a flowered meadow where Atalya held court with her handmaidens. But when a great fiend came out of the forest and carried her off while her handmaidens fled, she cursed them, binding them to the meadow until she pardoned them. One by one, they took husbands among the heroes who came to rescue Atalya, and for one reason or another, none ever ventured deep enough into the forest to find her. That’s how the village came to be. But for Atalya herself, she was imprisoned by thorny branches and plaits of children’s’ hair, and guarded jealously by the fiend or his servant, a giant raven. She convinced the thorns to soften themselves with blossoms, and the knotted hair to smooth itself out, but she couldn’t escape the raven’s gaze, for it loved to look at her shining hair. Finally, she sheared her hair and used it to adorn a mannequin of herself. Thus hidden from the raven, she fled the forest. She passed through Sinethca in the night and did not stop to pardon her handmaids, because she didn’t approve of the way they settled.”

Slater, riding close at hand, said, “I heard she did stop but they didn’t recognize her without her hair, and laughed her out of the village.”

Berrin gave the other soldier an unfriendly look and continued without acknowledgement, “Later, the fiend brought the mannequin of Atalya to life and sent it to torment the villagers. And so it goes to this day. The fiends of the forest steal children, eat them, and don their skins to torment the family of the lost child. And the villagers punish any fiend they can capture.”

Slater said, “I thought Atalya herself asked them to hunt down the mannequin and destroy it, and others like it?”

Tiana tore her gaze away from the road. “That doesn’t sound very much like the Atalya I know about. I was always told Atalya had golden hair.” She sighed and touched her own black-brown hair. “And I read that she made dogs by distilling everything good out of the wolves in a forest. And that she was the first tamed falcon on a prince’s arm.”

There was a speculative silence for a moment and then Lisette said wistfully, “Atalya has always been my favorite of the Firstborn. When I was little, I used to wish she’d come play with me. She always seemed so... sweet and gentle.”

Berrin said, “Hah, and that’s why we chased her when we were little. Well, my sister pretending to be her. No offense to your ladyship.”

Indignant, Lisette said, “You chased her? To do what?”

Berrin shrugged and grinned, unabashed. “Rub mud in her hair, usually. What else do you do when a girl runs from you in the spring and you’re eight years old? That’s what we thought the point of Maidrunning was.”

“You—you—” Lisette struggled to find words, her face flushing. Kiar hid a snicker behind her hand.

Then the world yawned around her and her amusement vanished. The Logos twisted and snapped, like the ache of an unexpected cramp.

Slater noticed and moved closer to steady her. She muttered, “A sky fiend, somewhere close. I think it just arrived.” She closed her eyes and focused herself as best she could. “We should deal with it, before it serves as a gateway for other enemies.”

Tiana moved her healing arm restlessly., “This is ridiculous. Distracting us is as bad as stopping us, if he does it enough.”

Kiar frowned. “We can’t let more of them just wander the countryside if we can stop it. The soldiers are bad enough but if he releases something like the plague beast...” She shuddered and tangled her fingers in Spooky’s mane. “Better we strike now.”

“I’ll do it, stormy weather,” said Cathay abruptly. He’d been so quiet during the earlier discussion of Fel Dion that Kiar had assumed he was asleep. “I’ll take Kiar and a few of the guards and deal with it, and then we can catch up.”

“And what if it’s another ambush?” asked Slater.

Tiana hesitated, looking at Cathay. Then she shook her head. “Kiar’s right. So is Slater. Temporarily splitting up won’t help. I just...” She shook her head and passed her hand over her chest. “I’m sorry. Can you tell where?”

Kiar whispered to the Logos, and then said, “On a huge rock left behind by ice, a galloping from here in the direction of the Citadel.” She made a face. “Cabbage grows around it.”

Tiana’s shoulders slumped. “I’ve been trying not to think about the cabbage.” Begrudgingly, she turned her horse, and then urged him into a run. Spooky stomped his feet and shook his head, and Kiar let him have his head until he’d taken the lead from Tiana’s Moon. Then Kiar led the way down the road and between fields until they arrived at the source of the Logos quivering.

They dismounted at the edge of the cabbage field, leaving the horses with a pair of guards and the new stable girls. The stable girls immediately started fussing over the horses and one of them said loudly to the other, “They’ll need a bit of a rest now.”

Tiana paused at Kiar’s side, Jinriki naked in her hand, and said quietly, “Jinriki wants to examine one while it’s actively connected to the other world. He wants to see if he can understand how to cut the connection permanently. He wants to free them if he can, from Ohedreton, and from their madness.” She hesitated. “He said you’d know what he meant.”

Kiar did. She knew exactly what he meant. She chewed her lip, thinking about Jinriki’s ulterior motives. “Do you
want
another one around?”

Tiana shrugged. “I don’t know. They scare me right now. But... they used to be like Jinriki, like the Secondborn in stories. This is a horrible fate.”

Like the Secondborn. Kiar’s gaze dropped to the blade in Tiana’s hand, and thought about that. It was more flattering to fiends than she liked, and more frightening. Jinriki alone was proof that encountering something out of stories wasn’t anything to be wished for.

Carefully, she said, “I don’t trust him, Tiana. The fiend you fought the other day, the one he was so determined to destroy that he ate it—it was one of the ones he released—”

“I know,” interrupted Tiana, her fingers white-knuckled around Jinriki’s hilt. Her gaze searched Kiar’s face in a scared, needy way that made Kiar want to hug her tight and put a shield around them both. “I know he’s not.... safe. But he’s on our side. He’s trustworthy that far.”

“I don’t know if he is. He’s wild and chaotic and selfish, Tiana.’

Tiana’s face closed off. “So am I, if it comes to that. Believe me. You trust me, don’t you?”

Kiar didn’t know how to answer. She was silent for a moment, maybe too long. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Consider it logistically,” said Tiana, and Kiar could tell Jinriki prompted. “If we can destroy whatever binds them to Ohedreton’s world, at the very least we’ve cut off a method for moving troops around swiftly. We may even gain more; if they return to their senses, they will obey Jinriki and swell our own ranks. And they need not travel with us to do so. They could serve as messengers...” Tiana shook her head. “Can’t you just talk to her directly?” She paused and scowled. “He says you’ve never touched him. That doesn’t matter with those trained to obey but he can’t do that with you.”

“Good. I’ve seen what he’s done to people who touch him,” said Kiar dryly.

Tiana glared down at the blade. “He’s behaving now. But I don’t blame you.”

Kiar sighed and rubbed her nose. She looked at Cathay and Lisette, both close enough to hear. Lisette was grave, expressionless, while Cathy only shrugged. Kiar said, “I do understand what he wants, anyhow. I’ll see what I can do. It’s better than him
eating
another one. That can’t go anywhere good.” She turned and regarded the fiend’s den.

A huge stone jutted out of the other side of the cabbage field, twice the height of a man at its peak, and half again as long. It was gently rounded except the top, where it hollowed and rose like a giant soup spoon.

“There’s something in there,” said Cathay. Kiar could just make it out, some sort of creature flattened against the surface of the rock.

She glanced around, her senses twanging. “No eidolon folk yet, I think.”

Tiana said, “What should we do? Jinriki says we have to follow your instructions and, once you have it controlled, he’ll investigate curing its madness.”

Kiar blinked. Suddenly everybody was looking at her. “Um. I’d like to uh, interact with it on the ground. Maybe if we can get it down and over to me?”

Tiana nodded, and Slater barked out instructions to his men. They spread out in a circle around the big stone. Kiar added, “It hasn’t attacked yet so... I don’t think it’s ready to fight. They don’t seem to be aggressive when they’re... um... serving as a door.”

From the other side of the stone, Cathay said, “I’m going up.” A moment later, he bounded up the side of the pinnacle, emanations supporting and balancing him, and eidolon claws gripping the stone. “Ugh,” he announced. “It’s part human.” He poked at it with his sword. “Move it, fiend. We’re not any worse than what you’re already doing.”