Green Wild (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 2) (13 page)

Sora slipped in past her bodyguards and under Cutter’s arm, coming face to face with Julina. She looked at Julina, and then past her at Shanasee and Iriss in their parallel beds.

“There’s two?” she said, dismayed. “I thought there was only one.”

“The other one is the princess who saved the city from the mudslide, Sora,” said Cutter, grunting as he pushed one of the bodyguards back again. Then he spoke rapidly in Vassay to them, and Jerya caught several bad words.

“Would you like to see my daughter?” asked Julina gravely. “I think the injury is in her mind, not her body, but perhaps you can tell us for certain.”

Jerya turned away from Julina and Sora, leaving them to their conversation. Instead she advanced on Sora’s bodyguards. “What is going on here?”

“Sora is frightened of your magic’s corruption,” said one of them, with bushy eyebrows and jowls more suitable for a man twice his age.

“We hear your monsters attack people. That they attacked this lady of yours.” The second man, who had the face of a fairy tale prince and the voice of a pre-adolescent youth, gave her an ugly sneer.

Ah.
This was more like what Jerya had been expecting since Vassay arrived.

“And just what are you going to do if such a monster attacks in my Court?” Jerya demanded.

“Protect her. Shield her with our bodies if we must.”

Jerya heard Sora give a tiny sigh behind her and changed what she was about to say accordingly. “Did she
ask
you to protect her?”

“No, she didn’t,” answered Cutter, amused. “They attached themselves to her back on the road. Poor Sora.”

Jerya took a deep breath. “You are guests in my city and I’m sure you have some... useful function to serve as part of your expedition. Go serve it, or I will introduce you to monsters who will physically escort you from the building, give your pretty cloaks a brush down, then throw you into the mud.” They both stared at her, goggle-eyed. “Should I use smaller words? Go, now!”

“Landry!” called Sora, and the other woman pushed past the two bodyguards and turned to face them.

“Sora volunteered to be here, oafs,” she said, and pushed one of them in the chest. “Go away.”

“She doesn’t take care of herself like she should,” muttered one of them. They both took a few steps backward, running directly into Jerya’s guards.

She smiled at Raffey. “Lieutenant Monster, escort these men back to their wagons. Don’t let them return.”

Landry and Cutter both looked at her, eyes wide, as the bodyguards were manhandled out of sight. Cutter seemed amused, and Landry surprised. Jerya gave them the same smile she’d given the guard. “They’re all rather big and strong, my guardsmen, and there are so many of them. They make much better monsters than my eidolons.”

“Landry!” called Sora again, impatiently.

Landry jumped. “Coming.” She hesitated, clearly unwilling to shove past Jerya, which Jerya approved of. Graciously, but pointedly, she let Landry through as she turned to watch the healing.

Sora sat beside Shanasee’s bed, her fingers lightly resting on Shanasee’s chest. Landry pulled a chair over, sat down, and put one hand on Sora’s hair. Both of them began to mutter to the Logos. Even quietly done, the sound of it scratched against Jerya’s ears. It buzzed and twisted and she heard sounds surely no human throat could make.

Cara stood beside Julina, her hands clasped and her heart in her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping much, and she’d taken Shanasee’s withdrawal much harder than anybody else. Jerya knew Cara blamed her, but what else could she have done? So many would have died without Shanasee’s sacrifice.

Jerya glanced around at the sensation of Twist’s arrival and found him in the corner near the door. When she caught his eye he joined Cutter and Jerya. Cutter brightened, recognizing him, and said, “Shall I tell you what they’re doing, sir?”

Shrugging and waving a hand, Twist said, “I’m sure the Crown Princess would be interested.” He leaned against the wall, watching the work with a narrow gaze that didn’t fit his usual temper.

“Of course, sir,” said Cutter, glancing at Jerya. “Ah... are you interested? Do you understand the basics of the Logos?”

“Yes, of course,” said Jerya pleasantly. “Are they working together? How exactly is that done?”

Cutter grinned. “Landry is what we call a foundation specialist. She narrates a set of terms built on top of the Logos that Sora uses to do very precise tasks. It fades when Landry stops working, but it’s really useful.”

Twist’s eyebrows climbed to his hairline. “Do your secondary workers rely on the foundations your Landrys create? Or can they work independently?”

“Uh... Landry is her name, sir. And we can all work independently, of course. Sora practices a lot because in a crisis there isn’t always a foundation specialist around. I’m guessing she’s studying the Princess’s brain now, that’s pretty delicate work.” Cutter swelled with pride. “At the University hospital, sometimes they build pyramids four levels deep to perform certain operations. We can’t do that here because everybody above the foundation layer needs to be pretty good at medicine, and there needs to be a couple of coordinators keeping everything synchronized.”

“Ah,” said Twist, as if he suddenly understood something. “An interesting master trick. And on the strength on one trick, your people have climbed so far.” He sounded almost sad, and Cutter gave him a bewildered look.

“Is the Vassay weather-working also one of these pyramids? I always thought it was a trick, like Twist’s skipping,” asked Jerya.

“Oh yes. It—” Cutter stopped as the babbling from the two women came to a stop. Sora sagged and wiped her mouth. Cutter hurried forward, pulling several clothes and a vial from a pocket in his billowy pants. He gave each of the women a cloth that they held to their mouths. Then he opened the vial and dispensed small tablets.

Only after Sora had swallowed hers and patted her mouth did she turn to the observers. She addressed Julina. “She is mostly healthy. There was some pressure in her brain, which I lessened. And—” she hesitated.

“Yes?” asked Julina quietly. “Please tell me.”

Slowly, Sora shook her head. “Something old and healed badly. Something I might have been able to repair but I’m not sure it matters anymore.”

Cara crossed her arms and stared at the floor.

“What are you talking about?” asked Jerya, intrigued. She’d never noticed any significant scars on Shanasee before, and her cousin never mentioned any old injuries. The trauma from her final battle with Benjen had been entirely psychological, supposedly. But if she had physical scars from that, perhaps they could help Shan deal with her darkness.

Sora gave Jerya an unhappy look. “It isn’t proper to discuss things like this with anybody but her closest family.”

Indignantly, Jerya said, “We are Blood! And cousins!” She caught herself and added, “I’m responsible for her. If we don’t know, we can’t help. And when she wakes up again, I need her to be healthy.”

“This won’t matter—” Sora stopped herself and shook her head. “At some point—years ago, judging from the markers on the tissue—this woman had a massively traumatic miscarriage. It didn’t heal properly, which means she’ll never bear children without exceptional magical assistance. Just getting pregnant could be very dangerous for her.”

Jerya blinked, then looked at Julina and Cara. “When was Shanasee pregnant?”

Lady Julina glanced down at her daughter and sighed. “Years ago. It’s an old story, and she never confided the details to me, only came to me for comfort when the pain became too much to bear.” She didn’t look at Cara, and Cara, who should have known everything about her charge, didn’t say a thing, or lift her gaze from the ground.

After thinking about Sora’s story and about Cara’s silence for a moment, after wondering what had happened that made Cara stay so quiet when surely she knew something, Jerya shook her head. Whatever it was wouldn’t be worked out here and now, especially with foreigners present. She said, “Yes, you’re right, Sora. That doesn’t matter now. Thank you for telling me, and thank you for what you’ve done for Shan. Can you examine Iriss now?”

Tension went out of Sora’s shoulders and she moved around the bed lightly. “It was so interesting having a chance to examine one of your kind closely, although there’s always more to see. The corruption—I know that isn’t a good word, I am so sorry, is there a better word? The corruption is present on so many levels. It creates a bubble I can’t see into. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to, it’s not the Logos—but the thought of what that bubble contains is just dizzying. What the Princess did was phenomenal and it must have come from those tiny bubbles.”

Jerya swayed backward, buffeted by the sudden force of Sora’s chatter. Then she said firmly, “What she did came from here,” and touched her heart. “She was very frightened and she overcame that for the good of our people.”

Sora stopped, dismayed. “Yes, of course. I hope she finds her way out of the darkness again.” She lowered her eyes, fidgeted with the hem of her blouse, then turned to Iriss and began to mumble. After a moment, she sank into the chair beside the bed and held out her hand toward Landry.

Landry maneuvered past Jerya with a faint, concerned smile. “I’m sure your cousin will improve, Princess. She has a strong heart, as you mentioned. All your family seems so brave and fierce.” Her eyes flickered past Jerya to the door, where Jerya knew Seandri observed.

She managed a curt nod, and got out of the way, joining Seandri as the women started work and Cutter hovered nearby. The room was so crowded. She wrapped her fingers around Seandri’s arm and he whispered, “I’m glad you’re letting them try to heal her. Harthen misses her. We all do.”

Jerya leaned her head on his shoulder. “I feel so unbalanced without her,” she responded in a low voice. “I feel so... violent. I want to murder people sometimes. I ran away from the Vassay before.”

Seandri put an arm around her shoulders. “You have a strong heart,” he said. She glanced up at him sharply, but he showed no sign of noticing he’d repeated Landry’s phrase.

“I don’t know how Yithiere bears it,” she muttered. “Since Zavien died. Jant has Julina but Yithiere is all alone.”

“We should talk about that at some point. He’s relying on Alanah right now, which seems... dangerous,” Seandri said meditatively.

Jerya glanced up at him. “Alanah is an old friend. I trust her; the Chancellor trusts her. If spending time with her keeps him stable, where is the danger?.”

“Alanah has three small children despite being unmarried,” Seandri pointed out. It was true. Alanah liked children, but had never wanted a spouse and her Royal appointment allowed her to make eccentric choices. “And Yithiere gets obsessive and short-sighted when he thinks he’s protecting those he cares about. Especially children.”

“Oh.” In the war with Benjen, the bastard had stolen and murdered Jerya’s infant cousin. Jerya’s generation had all been tiny then, and while Math and Shonathan had returned to war to bring Benjen down, it had been Yithiere who’d stayed behind to protect the remaining children.

Jerya chewed on her lip, her gaze on the two women working magic while she thought about Yithiere. Sora was grimacing. She’d never grimaced while inspecting Shanasee. “What else can we do, though? Alanah just came out of confinement and Zavien died months ago. How has he been managing?”

“Well, the other Regents helped. Lisette...” he began, then trailed off and shook his head. “He doesn’t trust Harthen the same way. I think the phantasmagory helped him. He was connected to all of us; he could hide his fears in there and redirect his fire. It was an outlet, and safe.”

Jerya ground her teeth. “That doesn’t help.” She wrapped both arms around his chest and pressed her face against him. “Lord of Winter, Seandri. We’ve lost so much. The Regents, the phantasmagory. We’ve lost so much and we’re still losing. I don’t know what will be left of us if I—”

“I can’t!” said Sora sharply. Her chair clattered as she stood so fast she knocked it back. “I can’t do this. There’s something
in
her. I repair the damaged tissue and the corruption grows out of what I’ve done, like it’s taken root. I think I’m making it worse.” She looked around wildly, then found Jerya. “I’m so, so sorry. But I don’t know enough. I can’t understand what’s going on and it frightens me.”

In a distant, clinical way, Jerya was very glad she’d sent Sora’s bodyguards away. Her distress would have frightened them and that would have complicated things. “I see—” she began, cool and controlled, then took a deep breath. Seandri’s grip on her hand helped hold back her shattered hope.

Landry swore in Vassay, low and amazed, before leaning over Iriss. “You did do it, Sora! She’s waking up.”

Instantly, Jerya was at Iriss’s side, half-knocking Sora onto Shanasee’s bed and stepping on Landry’s foot in her haste. Iriss had moved her hands from her chest to her face and shoulder. She shook her head fitfully, as if emerging from a bad dream.

Jerya took Iriss’s thin, pale hand in her own, and their fingers laced together. That hadn’t happened since the attack. “Iriss, I’m here,” she breathed. “Come back to me.”

Iriss opened her eyes. They shimmered with a pearly sheen, just as the Blood’s did when they were in the phantasmagory. “Jerya?” she whispered, and turned her head blindly. “Jer, I’m so cold. What happened?”

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Jerya took her place at the Tabernacle of Broken Hearts. She wanted to stay with Iriss, but she’d made the Tabernacle of Broken Hearts her duty and she wasn’t going to shirk just because she felt like it. Still, when she saw that the Plaza was almost empty, she indulged the hope that maybe she could return to the inn early.

Only a moment after she’d seated herself, a small boy came tearing into the plaza. He skidded to a stop near her chair and looked around wildly. “Where’s the Princess? I need the Princess!”

Raffey moved forward and caught the child. “She’s right there, lad. What’s going on?”

The grubby boy gave Jerya a blank look. “Princess Gisen, I mean. Where is she? I need her to come to the new levee now, now, or—” The expression of fright on the boy’s face compelled Jerya to rise.

“I’m not sure where she’s at, but I’ll come.” She glanced at Seandri.

He shook his head. “The Plaza’s empty. Let’s go.”

The boy’s expression didn’t allow time for an argument. Raffey released him and he took off like a slingshot. Jerya ran after him, sending eidolon birds from her hands to help her track him and find out what waited ahead.

They didn’t have far to run before they encountered a crowd. The little boy beat on the legs of the people in front of him, trying to force a path for Jerya.

Jerya glanced at the crowd, and then looked beyond with her bird’s eye view and saw the source of the child’s panic. The engineers from Vassay were adjusting the old levees. The river was slowly rising as it adapted to the damage done to the whole river system by the mudslide, and it was clear the old levees, designed for spring thaws, weren’t going to survive.

The Vassay were using their magic to reinforce the existing levees and raise new ones. Far down the river, Jerya’s hawk saw another team working near the edge of the city to broaden the river’s bed in a controlled fashion. Possibly that project was going well. But this one had descended into chaos. One of the levees was leaking and two people were in the turbulent river, hanging onto ropes, their heads barely above water.

The Ambassador stood at the base of the raised levees, shouting orders. More than one of the Vassay engineers had blood streaming from their mouth and many of the rest were chanting fiercely. When the levee sprang another leak, the crowd of observers started backing up.

Seandri scooped up the small boy as somebody almost stepped on him. He couldn’t see what Jerya could, even with his advantage of height, but he could still help her.

“Lend me your strength, Seandri,” she said, and held out her hand. He put the boy down, placed his hand in hers, and opened the power in his blood to her. With a tingle as their magic merged. Jerya closed her eyes and remembered what it was like to fly and dive and
strike
. In response, a giant eidolon eagle spread its wings and separated from Jerya’s form.

They’d practiced this many times before as part of training; it was part of the magic of eidolons. They’d always had the phantasmagory before; it was even taught that one
had
to be in a phantasmagorical combat trance to call a gestalt eidolon. Yet even without the phantasmagory, Jerya felt Seandri’s mind close to hers: his affection, his worry, his omnipresent appreciation of a beauty she could never see. It twisted her heart and she didn’t know why.

But the people in the river were drowning.

She and Seandri occupied the giant eagle together as it soared into the sky and dove. One foot closed over one individual, one foot over the other. Then she dropped them again, because they were tied to their ropes and she couldn’t begin to estimate the damage she would do by pulling them into the sky. She circled above, gathering her focus to send a cutting emanation from the eidolon. But before she was ready, both people started bobbing down the river. Somebody else had cut the ropes first.

She swooped down again and caught them, one, two, and into the air, ignoring their screaming, and down again, depositing them in the dry street beyond the crowd.

Jerya exhaled and let the giant eagle dissipate. Looking up at the embankment the ropes had been tied to, she saw the man Yithiere had identified as an assassin—Thorn—standing there, a small knife still held in one hand. He gazed at the two people she’d rescued, and after a minute, she did too.

They’d collapsed in the street, exhausted and overcome by emotion. One was sobbing, the other whimpering. She watched impassively as the crowd engulfed them. Some of her own citizens saw her, and there were a few tentative cheers—and then the magic of the Logos-workers took hold and the water on the street began to flow backwards, into the river again.

Seandri’s fascinated gaze was fixed on the water, in the way he had when he was coming up with an idea. Jerya squeezed his hand and said, “I’m going back to the Plaza. Will you stay here and keep an eye on them?”

He nodded, distractedly. “Yes, I think that’s a good idea. Their magic is very slow to take effect, isn’t it?”

“That’s why a wizard could never defend Sel Sevanth,” Jerya agreed. “I’ll come if I’m needed.”

As she walked back to the Tabernacle, people smiled as she passed them, and several congratulated her. She smiled back, nodded at their congratulations, and wondered how word of the rescue could have spread faster than she moved.

Then an old woman hanging out washing on the line over the street called down to her, “What are you doing out on the streets?”

Jerya looked up inquisitively. “What do you mean?”

“Your Regent is awake, Princess! You should be with her.”

Bemused, Jerya said, “I should be at my Court. There are people waiting on me.” But there hadn’t been many, she recalled.

“Princess!” chided the old woman. “She’s our Regent too. I mourn for Lord Tomas, but last night, old though I may be, I danced in Lady Iriss’s honor. You must take care of her, for all of us.”

Jerya realized: she thought of Iriss as
hers
, her friend, her helper, her center. But the Monarch’s Regent was
the
Regent of Ceria, with far more potential civil power than the monarch herself. The murder of Tomas, her father’s Regent, had crackled across Lor Seleni. The attack on Iriss had been another wound to the city. Nobody was comfortable with the idea of a monarch without a Regent. Her recovery became a sign of hope, and a return to normalcy.

Jerya took the woman’s advice in the spirit it was meant, sent one of her guards to the Tabernacle to notify anybody waiting, and went back to the inn.

Iriss sat in the parlour with Julina and Siana, bundled up in blankets. Her eyes still glowed with phantasmagory light. She had trouble seeing, too. Jerya didn’t care; she was awake, tilting her head to listen in that familiar, beloved way, and that was everything that mattered.

She sat down on the sofa beside Iriss and greeted her. “How is the chill?”

Iriss leaned on Jerya. She had so many blankets on that it was hard to make out a human form under them. “I’m still so cold. These blankets don’t do anything.” She placed any icy hand on Jerya’s cheek and sighed after a moment. “This is the warmth I need.”

Jerya obligingly dug her hands into the blankets and pulled Iriss close. They’d slept in the same bed when they were children, snuggled together just like this. They stayed like that, clasped in a timeless circle where Jerya could pretend everything was all right and everything she’d lost would return to her the same way.

Eventually, when a maid brought tea in, Iriss said, “I dreamt of you while I slept. Not often. I wished more. But I could see you when you came near me, a flickering bird of fire and shadow. I wanted to reach out for you, but my body was so cold I couldn’t move.”

“You can move now, though,” Jerya pointed out, resting her chin on Iriss’s hair. “The Vassay healer fixed you.” She ought to do something nice for the healer, she thought. It was hard not to feel affection for the Vassay woman. “Do you want some tea? It’s hot.”

“I still dream, though. I woke this morning—I was so glad to wake! And I remembered my dreams.”

Jerya pulled back enough to study Iriss. She didn’t talk quite the same way she used to. She’d always been a little dreamy but now she sounded half asleep. Maybe she was; maybe that’s what the phantasmagory eyes meant. She said she only saw darkness with her faraway eyes: a darkness that Jerya and the other Blood moved through like creatures of fire.

“What did you dream?”

“In the dark place, there’s a man’s voice. Harsh, angry. He instructs his people, but I can’t see them. Possibly they aren’t real?”

A handful of thoughts flickered through Jerya’s mind: things Kiar had said, stories Twist had related. The image, forever seared on her mind’s eye, of one of the andani engulfing Iriss’s head. “I hope not.”

Iriss pursed her lips in an annoyed pout. “He wants me to obey him, too. But I shan’t, I shan’t. I’m here to look after you. As soon as I can get warm again.” She snuggled closer. “Also, I shall need to make a new dress. Siana has been telling me about the mountain waking up, and how all my belongings were swallowed up.”

Jerya shot a look at Siana, sewing quietly. Siana glanced up and then lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. Jerya hadn’t told Iriss about the disaster; she couldn’t see where she was and Jerya didn’t want to distress her. But maybe Siana had been right.

Iriss certainly seemed to be taking it well. “I’ve a vision of a gown in my head,” Iriss confided. “I’m happy to make it. I suppose we won’t be having any receptions for a while, but I’m sure it will help me feel more myself.”

“It will,” said Jerya firmly. “I’ll find you some fabric somewhere, and help you.”

“That would be lovely! Would you like to see my sketches?”

Jerya’s eyebrows went up. “You made sketches?”

“She’s been quite engaged by drawing,” observed Siana, with a faint smile. “She’s been humming for us, too, brightening everything.”

Iriss blushed pinkly, and then pulled away from Jerya and turned to the table beside the couch. Her hand went unerringly to the stack of papers and she plucked several up.

“Can you see them?” asked Jerya, intrigued.

“Oh yes,” said Iriss. “The room is dark but I can see what I draw perfectly. Once I understood how to find the edges of the paper, it was easy. I can even see them now. Well, faintly. Enough. Here, look.” She put the sheaf into Jerya’s hand.

Iriss had indeed been drawing a dress: a floating, ephemeral thing, descended from Lor Seleni summer sundresses but with many more layers, and interesting shaping on the bodice. But under the firm clear lines of the dress, Iriss had sketched in other things that made Jerya feel as cold as Iriss’s hands.

The dress itself was on the shape of one of the andani. It was only that the andani looked like a basic sketch of a human, Jerya told herself at first. But that oversized smile on the figure’s face made her look away, elsewhere through the sheaf of papers.

That didn’t help; there were more dress variations and in some of the pictures, Iriss had sketched a background for the figure. It bent to pick flowers and in the distance loomed the fortress that had clawed its way out of the earth. Jerya had seen the sketches from the scouts and the eidolon miniatures made by Kiar; she recognized it. But Iriss had been unconscious when that particular nightmare emerged. What was going on?

Somebody coughed at the door and Jerya looked up sharply. Raffey stood there, waiting for her attention. “Your Highness, Ambassador Smith and some of his retinue are outside. They hope for an audience.”

Jerya jumped between annoyance and an involuntary rush of pleasure. Perhaps they wanted to talk about what had happened at the levee—but she wasn’t happy they were invading her private space to do so, especially not today.

She took a deep breath, looking at Iriss’s face and steadying herself. Then she said, “Aunt Julina, would you take Iriss into my bedchamber? She doesn’t need to deal with politics while she’s recovering.”

Julina rose, gathering up her knitting, and said, “Come, child. We can sit close to the fire and see if you can work the needles still.”

Iriss looked wistful, but stood as well. She moved lightly toward Julina, but didn’t see the end table in her way and slammed her knee into it. Jerya wasn’t able to catch her before she went sprawling.

“Ow!” said Iriss, and “Ow! I’m all right, I think. Ow!” She rolled over and sat up to inspect her leg under her dressing gown. “Oh. I can’t tell. Am I bleeding?” She lifted fingers daubed with red to her eye level, frowning in consternation.

“Just a knock, dear,” said Julina. “We’ll clean it up in the other room.”

Silently, Jerya helped Iriss to her feet, biting her tongue to stop herself from saying something that would communicate her sudden fear to Iriss. She’d been so happy to have Iriss back—back from the dead, it had seemed. And she was undeniably Iriss. But while she was back, she wasn’t healed, and the bright splash of blood on Iriss’s knee drove home just how fragile she was. The last two days felt like a dream that would vanish soon, if it didn’t turn into a nightmare first.

Siana paused in passing by and said, “Jerya? It will take time but she’ll adapt.”

Jerya woke from her introspection and said, “Aunt Siana. Don’t go, please. I was hoping you’d stay with me while the Ambassador visits.”

Siana’s eyebrows rose. “Of course, sweetling.” Something warm moved in Jerya’s heart; Siana hadn’t called her that for years.

Jerya seated herself again and gestured Siana to retake her place. “This is my home for now,” she explained. “I don’t know why they couldn’t wait until I was at the plaza but I am not here at their convenience. On the other hand, they did do me a very great favor. I want to be friendly.” She picked up one of the books on the end table Siana had just restored, and opened it. “There. Do I look suitably relaxed?”

Siana started laughing helplessly. “You haven’t ever looked relaxed, Jerya. You look like you’re going to devour that book if it doesn’t go along with your plans.”

Jerya glanced up, startled, and then back down at the book again. “Well. Maybe I am. You may bring them in, Lieutenant.”