Mistwood (2 page)

Isabel liked the audience chamber, and thought she had always liked it, though she had no specific memory of it until she stepped through the narrow doorway. The room managed to be cozy and stately at once, with two vast windows and olive curtains pulled back to let light flood in. The space between the windows was filled by an ivory couch that didn’t quite fit the room but did appear to be the only comfortable seat in it. Clarisse went straight for the couch. Isabel, who had been headed there, too—
where I always sit
, a small, angry voice inside her whispered—stopped and focused instead on the painting above the fireplace at the far end of the room. It was a portrait of a man wearing an ermine cap, with small, narrow eyes below thinly arched brows, a long, large nose, and a short black beard. Though he had been painted in half-profile, something about the man’s gaze was unnervingly direct; he seemed to be weighing the painter’s worth and finding it wanting. It stirred a sharp memory in her, though she didn’t know who the man was.

Clarisse flung herself onto the couch, reclining on her side as if posing for a painting, her head propped up by a small hand buried in her mass of hair. Almost reluctantly, Isabel tore her eyes away from the portrait.

“Well, well,” Clarisse drawled. “That was very impolitic of you. You gave Rokan a real scare.”

“She did not!” Will snapped. “She wears the bracelet, the Shifter’s Seal. He had nothing to be afraid of.”

Clarisse raised her eyebrows. “When reason starts having anything to do with what Rokan feels, let me know.”

“Just because you don’t agree with his reasons—”

“Be quiet, Clarisse,” Rokan said tiredly. Instead of sitting, he leaned against the wall near the door, his head coming to rest against an elongated yellow tapestry. He was clean-shaven, but the resemblance to the man in the painting was unmistakable.

Four faint scratches marked his left cheek. Isabel felt a hot rush of shame. The instinct that had guided her to declare her allegiance in the throne room drained suddenly away, and with a spurt of panic she wondered what she was doing here. She didn’t belong. She didn’t know how to act, or even where to sit. And worst of all, she had hurt him.

“I wasn’t talking,” Clarisse pointed out. “Will was.”

“But you were about to interrupt him. I’m tired of arguing all my decisions with you. I decided to seek out the Shifter, and I did.”

Isabel tensed, feeling vulnerable and exposed in the center of the room. There were cushioned wooden benches at both ends of the room, but she found herself reluctant to move that far from Rokan.

“Of course, Your Most Royal Highness,” Clarisse murmured. “And how has she helped you so far?”

“That,” Rokan snapped, “is what I’m going to discuss. With Isabel.”

Clarisse shrugged. She clearly had no intention of moving.

Everyone looked at Isabel.

Isabel held her head up, swamped by a swirl of confusing, conflicting feelings. Chief among them was a fierce urge to protect her prince, but from whom?

Her prince…
The possessive came to her mind without forethought, and she accepted it without question. He had summoned her to him, and she would keep him safe from any danger that threatened him. Even if she still had no idea why, or what that danger might be.

Rokan took a deep breath. The directness of his gaze strengthened his resemblance to the man in the painting, though there was nothing cold or judgmental in his eyes. He was trying to appear as regal as he could, but uncertainty was written all over him, and his face was flushed from his argument with Clarisse.

“I wasn’t able to wake you earlier, or I would have warned you. Nobody knows I went to the Mistwood. We think it would be best to keep your true identity a secret for now. I hope you’re not offended.”

“Of course not,” said Isabel, who had no idea what her true identity was. “That seems wise.”

Rokan ran his hand over his hair and clutched the back of his neck. “Oh. Good.” He hesitated again, then blurted, “I don’t actually know that much about the Shifter.”

Then you know more than I do, Isabel thought, and saw an opportunity. She gave him her most enigmatic smile and said, “Tell me what you do know.”

“Most of it is legend. An immortal creature who protects the kings of Samorna with her wisdom and magic.” He massaged the back of his neck. “When the realm is peaceful, the Shifter sometimes leaves the castle and goes to the Mistwood. Then there may be no Shifter for twenty, fifty, once even a hundred years. But when she is needed, she always comes.”

“There’s even a song about you,” Clarisse put in. “It’s very pretty, if you like the high notes.”

Isabel ignored her. Based on her brief experience, that already seemed like the best way to deal with Clarisse. She stepped closer to the door and turned sideways, so that she could be closer to Rokan without allowing Clarisse or Will out of her line of sight.

Rokan dropped his hand to his side and continued. “You left ten years ago, and at the time you were called Isabel. I was a child then, but…” He faltered and glanced at his sister. “We weren’t sure you would come back. When you left…there were circumstances.”

Running through the snow, blood trailing behind her. Tears falling, not leaving a mark like the blood, and that seemed wrong. Pain. Terrible, terrible pain…

“Yes,” Isabel said without thinking, “there were.”

Rokan straightened, pulling away from the wall. He, Will, and Clarisse looked at one another. They were afraid. Rokan and Clarisse both hid it almost well enough, but Will’s face was near white.

Rokan recovered first, leaning back gingerly against the wall, trying to act casual. “So why did you leave?”

Isabel lifted her eyebrows. “I am not going to tell you that, Your Highness.”

Rokan’s hand tightened against his leg, but all he said was, “I understand.”

Isabel highly doubted it. She changed the subject. “You were speaking of hiding my identity. How will that be possible, if people remember me from last time?”

Rokan let out a breath. “Not everyone knew who you were. For the past hundred years or so, you’ve always pretended to be an ordinary mortal—a sorceress, an adviser, once a nursemaid. There were always rumors, of course, but only a few people have ever known for sure.”

Isabel lifted her eyebrows. “Won’t there be rumors this time, too?”

“Of course, especially after your rather dramatic entrance today.” He grinned at her, and Isabel’s lips started to curl upward in response. Then Clarisse snorted, his smile died, and Isabel pressed her mouth into a straight line. “But we don’t have to confirm them until we know…until you’ve had a chance to grow accustomed to the court.” Isabel wondered if he truly thought she couldn’t tell he was lying. She only wished she knew what he was lying about. “Isabel is a common enough name. We’ll say you’re from the Green Islands, one of those merchant’s daughters whose father bought his way into the nobility. There are so many of them that no one can keep them straight.”

Isabel nodded, then walked past him and Clarisse to take a seat on the plush wooden bench near the fireplace. Some of the tension had drained from the room—or from her—and she was getting tired of standing. As she sank into the cushion, though, she remembered something else. “What about the bracelet?”

The royal siblings exchanged another look she couldn’t decipher. Were they afraid she was going to ask them to take it off? The bracelet felt comforting circling her wrist, the tiny, cool crystals rubbing against her skin.

“Nobody outside of the royal family knows about the Shifter’s Seal,” Rokan said. “It won’t give you away. Many of the women at court wear jewels, so you won’t stand out. I’m afraid you’ll have to wear gowns, too—”

“Oh, no,” Isabel said sharply. “I won’t wear a skirt I can’t walk in.”

For a moment Rokan seemed startled. Then he laughed. “Oh, those aren’t in style anymore. Women haven’t worn straight skirts for years. They’re all sort of—you know—flowy. Like Clarisse’s.”

Clarisse lifted one leg to demonstrate. Her gown was more slinky than anything else, but clearly she could move in it. Not the most practical garment for fighting in, but Isabel could manage if she had to. She nodded, careful not to let anything but resignation show on her face.

Don’t you remember me?
Clarisse had said. If both she and Rokan had been just children when the Shifter left, Isabel couldn’t possibly have recognized her on sight. But Isabel had reacted like it was a normal question, revealing how little she knew about her own past. Clarisse had smiled because she had discovered that Isabel didn’t remember.

“Fine,” Rokan said. He straightened, and for a moment—with his chin thrust out and his short purple cloak flung back over his doublet—he was every inch a prince. “I’m glad you’re here. I want to be a good king, and you can help me. Your wisdom is legendary.”

Isabel smiled thinly, wondering if Rokan had sent Clarisse to ask the question. She had been right to trust her instincts and not reveal the depths of her ignorance. Little as she knew about Rokan, she was already sure he had not called her here because he wanted guidance. If he had gone all the way to her woods on the small chance he might catch her, he’d had better reasons.

Isabel met the prince’s gaze, glowing despite herself when he smiled at her. She lowered her eyes when he turned away, then raised them again to watch him go.

She didn’t know who she was or what exactly she was doing here, but one thing was perfectly clear. His safety was the single most important thing in the world, and if she had to die to protect him, she would do it without thinking twice.

But she was not a fool, and she didn’t trust him one single bit.

When
Isabel got to her room later that night, the high sorcerer was waiting outside her door.

She stopped several yards away from him in the dimly lit corridor. Annoyance flickered over his face as she regarded him warily, and after a second she realized why: he was invisible. She could sense the wavering outlines of the invisibility spell, like transparent flames cloaking his body, as easily as she could see him. He seemed to be a young man, but Isabel knew better; no one she had spoken to that afternoon could remember a time when he had not been high sorcerer. Nor was he particularly imposing, with a short beard and rather pudgy face. Sorcerers could make themselves handsome as easily as they could make themselves look young, but maybe in a century people got over vanity.

I didn’t, Isabel thought. I cared about my hair. She pushed the thought out of her mind. The high sorcerer crossed his arms over his chest. He was wearing his formal sorcerer’s robe, red and richly embroidered with a thick white stripe running down the center.

Isabel had spent the afternoon and evening circulating around the court, first in the throne room and then at the banquet that marked the end of the Challenge Days. Rokan had been right about the Shifter’s legendary wisdom; her instincts had guided her unerringly to the most useful people, even in a court about which she knew nothing. Twice she had started a political argument between two people who hated each other, then faded into insignificance and listened while they became indiscreet. One of the things she had learned was that the high sorcerer was considered one of Rokan’s strongest supporters, and that people were afraid of him.

What surprised her now was that
she
seemed to be afraid of him—or at least, not quite as confident as she had felt around the other members of the court. She said coolly, “Did you come here to tell me something, or—”

The high sorcerer flexed his fingers ever so slightly. A blaze of blue fire erupted from his open palm and hit her full in the face.

The fire sizzled through her, through skin and bones and blood. It
hurt
. Lines of power zigzagged through her body, tiny explosions of pain trying to tear her apart. For a moment, just a moment, she thought it was going to work; she saw in her mind’s eye how her body would dissolve, come apart into wisps of mist and fog, swirl among the shadows and be gone.

Then, abruptly, it was over. The malevolent energy burst out of her, though she had done nothing to repel it; and the magic, not her, scattered into the dim shadows of the stone walls.

Before the last blue wisps had dissipated, the high sorcerer reached into his robe and flung out his hand. The knife flew across the few yards between them. Isabel caught it by the hilt, stopping the blade inches from her eyes. Her heartbeat didn’t even bother speeding up. She flipped the knife around to hold it by the blade, made a move to throw it, then tossed it to the side instead. “Anything else?”

The high sorcerer was shaking. She could hear his breath coming fast and harsh; he clearly had barely enough strength to remain standing, let alone follow up with another attack. Isabel shook her head sympathetically. “That must have been a difficult spell. How much time did it take you to create it?”

His mouth tightened. Isabel raised her eyebrows. “Oh, was it not just
you
? How many sorcerers worked on it, and for how long?”

He said nothing, but his expression told her she was correct. Suddenly her mind was almost overwhelmed by a flood of information about sorcerers—knowledge that must have been there all along, but that she hadn’t bothered to think about. She knew where the spell must have been created: at the School of Sorcery, an isolated stronghold on one of the South Sea islands where anyone with magical ability was trained and indoctrinated.

Isabel crossed her arms over her chest. “It must have taken a lot of power; it tingled a bit. What a waste of resources. You honestly thought one of your spells could work on me?”

“It did once,” the high sorcerer snarled.

“What?”

“Only for a second, but
that
spell worked, didn’t it? We sent you fleeing back to your woods with your tail between your legs. You’re not as invulnerable as you pretend.”

A sudden memory, sharp and swift. She was standing in a courtyard, in a light gray mist of rain, turning to watch an arrow fly at her from a narrow window. She reached out almost languidly to catch it. Her hand closed around the rough wood, and the arrow broke in half in her grasp; it dropped as she whirled to catch the next one, and then the next. A torrent of arrows, and she danced among them, letting them fall broken around her feet.

And then all at once her body turned to stone, refusing to obey her mind’s commands. Arrested in mid-turn, she watched as the arrow she had been about to catch went right between her open fingers; a moment later she felt a sharp, tearing pain as it thudded into her side. Another arrow went past her, and another.

Isabel heard herself scream, and took a moment to realize that the sound was just the memory, that she was still standing silent as the high sorcerer smirked at her. She shoved the memory away and faced him, though the scream still beat at the inside of her clenched teeth. She would not show weakness. Not to
him
.

Not to anyone.

“Well,” she said, striving to appear unconcerned, “
this
spell doesn’t seem to have succeeded quite as well.”

“We haven’t had as much time to work on it,” he growled.

“Then I suppose I’ll be on my guard in twenty years.” She hesitated, though probably not long enough for him to notice. She was shaken, and wanted to make her escape. But she also wanted to know what the memory meant, when it had happened, and why she had cared more about the arrows whistling past her than about the one that had pierced her side. “In the meantime,” she finished, “I won’t hold this against you. Know that the Shifter never disdains any assistance in protecting her prince.”

No matter how insignificant
, her tone proclaimed, and she watched the tiny clenching of nearly-invisible muscles beneath the smooth fat of his cheeks. It was a moment before he could speak, and then he couldn’t manage it without spitting.

“Don’t be so secure in your power, Shifter. You think Rokan trusts you—a creature without a heart, without a soul? I told him exactly what you are when he came to me for help, with his delusion that a bracelet might protect him from one such as you. I warned him what he was inviting into his castle.”

“Really?” Isabel said, adopting a curious tone. “Did he take your advice?”

Albin drew himself to his full height—which was still only a few inches taller than Isabel. “He heard what I said, and he won’t forget. When you eventually turn on him, he’ll remember. He’ll know that I was the only one who tried to protect him from you.”

“How kind of you to take matters into your own hands.” She moved suddenly, first kneeling to swoop up the knife, then coming to a stop only inches from the sorcerer. She was faster than any human, and Albin had no time to summon up a spell. He stumbled back several steps, and she smiled demurely as she held the knife out to him, hilt first. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Rokan about this charming demonstration of your power.”

Not yet, she amended silently as the high sorcerer turned on his heel and walked down the long hall. After all, why make Albin into Rokan’s enemy? Let him be hers. She, clearly, could handle him.

What made her heart pound against her ribs, so that she lay awake for a long time staring at the green canopy stretched above her bed, was the possibility of a similar attack against Rokan. Her own safety could wait until his was assured. Her own safety, in fact—she realized with neither surprise nor resentment—was of no concern at all.

Isabel spent half the next day exploring the castle; she was determined to be so familiar with it that she could walk through it blindfolded and know where every step and turn would take her. The castle was a maze of passageways and rooms and inner courtyards tiled with flagstone, halls blending into one another on most of the ground floors, upper floors crammed with narrow corridors and closed doors. She soon discovered that she had an instinctive sense for where she was, no matter how confusing the twists and turns she had taken to get there; something within her responded to a pull from the ground itself, disregarding the structures built upon it. It was a helpful sense to have.

That afternoon Rokan went to the practice ground to work on his swordplay—part of his daily routine, Isabel was pleased to learn. Today the ritual had been transformed into a semi-festive event, with all the members of the guard and a few of the nobles coming out to watch their soon-to-be king. Isabel went, too, so she could judge his skill for herself.

The practice ground was little more than a large open square between the stables and the kitchens. She was the first spectator to arrive; the only people in the square were those members of the guard who had been consigned to setting up benches to accommodate the viewers, and Rokan, who was running through some standard exercises in the center of the square. He wore loose breeches and a black silk tunic embroidered with silver threads—not, Isabel suspected, his usual practice clothes.

As she took a seat on one of the already set-up benches, he sheathed his wooden sword and walked over, plopping down next to her and leaning back on his elbows. “Are you planning to participate? Because if half of what’s said about the Shifter’s skill is true, your identity wouldn’t stay secret for long.”

“I’m just here to watch,” Isabel said a bit coolly. The prospect of her prince being under attack—even fake attack—made her tense and edgy, not in the mood for human banter. “Is that permitted?”

“Of course. Daria’s going to be here, too.” Rokan’s face softened when he said her name, and he glanced around the square with eager eyes. “She’ll arrive any minute now. You should sit with her and talk to her. After all, she may also be under your protection someday.”

The prospect of spending the next hour with a demure noblewoman did nothing to alleviate Isabel’s edginess. “My time would be better spent sitting with those who might pose a threat to you.”

Rokan shrugged. “The guard is loyal. They wouldn’t threaten me, even if they don’t particularly respect me. I wouldn’t worry.”

“
You
wouldn’t.” Isabel noted the tightness around his mouth. He didn’t want her talking to the guard. Why not? “But even if they are loyal, it will be useful to know my allies.”

Rokan bit the side of his lip, still looking out at the square. “You need allies?”

“Did you think I would spend all my time acting as your personal bodyguard?” He blinked, and she knew that
was
what he had thought. But based on the skills she was constantly discovering she had, that couldn’t be the case. “It’s more subtle than that. I prefer to prevent attacks before they’re launched, to dissolve conspiracies before they’re formed. To help you keep Samorna in order so that there’s no cause for discontent against you. I need to know everything about your allies and enemies to do that effectively.”

Rokan stood, drew his wooden sword, and swung it in a slow arc above his head before moving swiftly through a series of practice slashes and parries. Isabel admired the efficient economy of his movements, though he would have appeared more graceful if his shoulders hadn’t been set so stiffly. “Daria will be one of your allies.”

Spirits
. She did not have the patience for this. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Rokan executed a complex series of feints, ending with an underhanded thrust, before he turned to her and rested the point of the wooden sword on the ground. “And she could use a friend.”

“The other women don’t like her much, do they?” Isabel leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees, trying to sound sympathetic. “They have good excuses. She’s a northerner, and the southerners wish you had chosen one of them. And she’s illegitimate, which insults all the highborn northern women you might have chosen instead.”

Rokan’s eyebrows lifted. “You figured that out in less than a day? Members of the court must be chattier than they used to be.”

Isabel didn’t know how chatty they used to be, but she shrugged and said, “Not really. I can learn a lot from people even when they’re not talking.”

He nodded, admiration clear on his face, and pride welled up in her. She was only half-bluffing; she
had
been able to learn more than she would have believed possible from her few hours at court, relying on techniques and instincts she couldn’t remember acquiring. She still hadn’t managed to unearth the source of the threat to Rokan, but she wasn’t about to mention that to him.

“That’s not all there is to it, though.” Rokan rolled his head from side to side and lifted the sword again. “They didn’t like her even before I began to show interest. She’s different. She’s not hard-edged and ruthless and manipulative like the rest of them.”

Hard-edged and ruthless and manipulative. All words that applied very well to the Shifter, though Rokan didn’t seem to disdain them in her. Well, one sought different qualities in a bodyguard than in a wife.

But Isabel couldn’t help saying, “It can be helpful for a queen to be all those things.”

“I’m not thinking about that.” Rokan transferred his sword to his left hand, then back to his right. “I didn’t set out to fall in love with her. Not at first. I just…I felt sorry for her. And the other women were so outraged when I started paying attention to her. And she was the only woman in the court who
wasn’t
out to snare me so she could be queen.”

Either that, or she was better at it than all the rest of them. Isabel sat up straight. “Does it matter? Last I heard, kings don’t marry for love.”

“I’m going to,” Rokan said.

“Even if Daria—”