Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles (49 page)

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Authors: Katya Reimann

BOOK: Prince of Fire and Ashes: Book 3 of the Tielmaran Chronicles
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Elisabeth she did not acknowledge. It was as though, for Dervla, she did not exist.
“What are you trying to do?” Dame Julie asked levelly.
“Protect Tielmark,” said Dervla. “That one’s arrogance …” She pointed at Tamsanne. “She sent the boy away, and there is no time left to go after him. Andion’s Moon has touched its course in the sky. Because of what she did, this is the only chance left.”
“Hold,” Tamsanne called. “Hold your hand. You know I want to see Benet made King. I as much as anyone. Where do you think I sent Tullier? To Benet’s side. They may be together, even now, and they will certainly be together before the month’s close, when Andion’s eyes swing closest to us, and there is another chance for the ceremony. If anyone has the power to make this sacrifice work, it is Benet, standing as Prince at the head of his army—not a passel of old women offering prayers in a hidden room. Leave the choice to Benet. Tullier will reach him soon. We could travel there, and arrive in time to bring the knife to Benet before the month’s close. Let the choice be in the hands of the Prince.”
“Benet?” Dervla’s voice was ice. “Do you think I would have concealed
that I had the
Ein Raku
if I believed he had the stomach to put the boy down? He would never do it. Not even for his own country.”
Elisabeth turned to Dame Julie. “I thought we did not know how to make Benet King,” she whispered. “Why have we been listening to the ballads, if we already know?”
Julie shook her head. “The Common Brood’s charge is to make Benet King. Ultimately, our lives will be forfeit if we do not fulfill it. We have two chances this summer: today, with Andion Sun-King’s moon half-triumphant, or at month’s end, when the moon is full. Then not again, for fifty years.” She grimaced. “But a human sacrifice—that price is too high. We have been trying to discover a way to do it without bloodshed. But you have heard the bards. So far they have been useless. I do not like our chances—”
“Our chances are nothing with the boy in Benet’s hands!” Dervla shrieked. Elisabeth quavered, glad not to be the focus of that cry. “Benet will never be strong enough to strike the boy down with his own hands.”
“That is so,” Tamsanne said grimly. “He does not have the will for it. But do you really imagine I would betray my granddaughter’s trust, and send her ward west to be killed? Great Twins above, give thanks Benet does not have the heart for such a betrayal! Flip the coin, High Priestess—and remember what Gaultry’s boy has been trained to do. To protect this child’s future,” she pointed at Lily’s naked belly, “Benet would willingly put the
Ein
Raku
in the assassin-boy’s hand, and offer his own throat. The Gods, I think, will accept that as a pledge worthy of Kingship.”
Dervla gasped. “You would see the assassin-boy crowned our King? Treachery!”
“Only if you are a fool,” Tamsanne said, “and you eliminate Benet’s heir here today. If Benet dies, the King will be this unborn child, not Tullier. So you see, High Priestess. I am not opposing you. Truly our hearts are set to the same course: Benet and his line can be made Kings. We do not have to suffer another turning of the cycle without that change-ofrule.”
For a moment, Elisabeth thought Tamsanne had convinced her. Dervla hung her head, confused, staring into the face of the helpless woman who lay beneath her. “Perhaps—” she said hesitantly.
Dervla’s acolyte, unexpectedly, was not so easily swayed. “You would see the boy honored as Kingmaker?” the woman said, dangerously soft. She had a gentle-looking, meek sort of face, but the tone of her voice was iron.
“Honored?” Tamsanne said sharply, shifting her focus from Dervla. “Outcast forever, and stained with blood is more like.”
“History always honors the Kingmakers.” The softness of the acolyte’s voice was fearful. “You would see that child-murderer raised to such eminence? That cannot be. I will not allow it.”
“It is not for you to stop it,” Tamsanne said bluntly, less careful with her words now that Dervla was seemingly won over.
The acolyte’s round face lit with incandescent rage. “I surely can,” she said. “Do you think I have no power? I am born to a warrior race. Marie Laconte, Countess of Tierce, is the greatest of my ancestors.”
Elisabeth could not be sure, but at these words from Palamar, Tamsanne and Julie passed a quick look toward her,
Elisabeth,
as if they expected her to respond.
Tamsanne spoke again when she did not. “Marie was like us all: prophecy-bound to protect Tielmark’s interests over those of her own family.”
“It is not in Tielmark’s interests to have that boy play Kingmaker!” Palamar screamed. “The sacrifice will not be in that boy’s hands. Not while I live. I will see myself cursed and make the King myself, if that’s what it takes to stop him.” The acolyte flung down the clay pot. It shattered on the floor, the blood within spattering and overwriting the mystic figures.
“Palamar,” Dervla said caustically, the girl’s tone drawing her back from her confusion. “Be quiet. These are not matters for you.”
Instead of backing down, as Dervla had obviously expected, Palamar answered with a unexpected pulse of dark power. The High Priestess was driven to her knees, almost atop the pinned-down Princess, a look of shock on her face.
“I am done with quiet!” Palamar shrieked. “My grandmother’s power moves within me. I will see vengeance for my kin!”
The bloody runes on the floor blazed with green fire as she stepped into the circle with the High Priestess and the Princess, and began to emit a high-pitched singing noise.
“Treachery!” Dervla screamed. “Trespass! This circle is for the High Priestess alone!”
Palamar, ignoring her, lunged. The High Priestess parried the blow clumsily. For Dervla, this attack was like a thunderbolt. Her defense of the young Princess, a reflexive act, was all she had time for—self-protection,
from this young woman whom she had so obviously trusted, so obviously mistaken for her obedient pawn, was beyond her, and Palamar, as she threw her former mistress down, was unreasonably, unexpectedly strong.
Within the dancing circle of green fire, there was a confused tussle. Then, with a triumphant cry, the young acolyte drew the
Ein Raku
clear from her mistress’s robes. Elisabeth was surprised to see how old, how worn, how plain the blade’s appearance. It was narrow, dull grey, inscribed with glistening runes.
“For my sister’s lives!” Palamar cried. “For all my kin! Goddess-Twins! Andion above! Take this sacrifice, and make it yours!”
She drove the knife down. Dervla got in the way, taking the knife in the thick padding of her robes. Palamar, thwarted, struck again, and once again missed her mark. Seeing Dervla’s determination, the acolyte’s next strike was with her magic, an ugly, searing green-black blaze. It knocked Dervla back from Lily’s body, throwing her outside the rune circle. When she attempted to recross the line of magical flame, it rejected her. Palamar, smiling weirdly, took a stance above Lily and raised the knife. “Tielmark will have its King,” she said. “From sacrifice. From the sacrifice made by one who will freely accept the taint of cruelty, that Tielmark may be set free.”
“Elisabeth.” Tamsanne propelled her forward roughly. She almost fell over in her surprise, but the old woman, with startling strength, jerked her up. “Julie and I cannot breach that circle. This is your moment: You can do what we cannot. Lily needs you. Call the Twins, and step within the flames.”
Elisabeth stumbled forward, more by the old witch’s force than by her own will. She stumbled against the spell-shield. The singing of the green flames rose as she impacted against them. Then, to her surprise, she sank into them, passing through. The green fire sent up by the runes sheathed her body, cloaking her with cold green light, but it was not at all painful. Rather, it made the entire room seem clear and light, the focus more intense. Across and outside the circle, Dervla’s eyes grew wide—as though she had been blind to Elisabeth until this very moment, and Elisabeth’s ability to step into the circle had stripped that blindness away. “What is this I see?” Dervla cried. “New trespass? How is it that she can pass the shield, and I cannot?”
The domed curve overhead sang with power. Even Palamar looked
up. Great arcs of green light lanced across the room, tumbling over piles of paper, collapsing the ancient stacks of books. Elisabeth, certain this apparent disaster was her fault, tried to withdraw.
“What is happening?” she screamed. “What is happening?”
Tamsanne was behind her, just outside the magic wall. “Forward!” she urged. “Forward still! Take the knife! Elisabeth—remember—for you
every door is open
!”
Right in front of Elisabeth’s eyes, a shimmering halo of light opened, then expanded, broad enough for her to step through like a door. Through it, Elisabeth saw the figure of the pinned Princess, Palamar straddled atop her. That image was a frozen tableau, Palamar driving downward with the knife.
Elisabeth—she alone had the power to change that picture. She stepped forward through the halo of light, into the frozen picture, time-suspended as she made up her mind to move, and bent and twisted the grim blade from Palamar’s hand. There was no strength in Palamar’s fingers to resist her. With a savagery Elisabeth had not known she possessed, she picked up Palamar’s body by the front of her dress, and bodily threw the young woman clear of the Princess. With a frozen, wrathful expression on her face, the acolyte flew backward and away, like a mannequin stuffed with straw, sparking as she breached the magic wall, then falling back into a tottering pile of paper.
“Princess,” Elisabeth said, kneeling in fright to free the girlish, unmoving body. “Speak to me. Tell me you are not hurt.”
The halo of light snapped shut, and the magic’s effect dissipated. Lily turned and met Elisabeth’s gaze. “I am alive,” she said wonderingly, as Elisabeth pulled the pins of her bonds free to allow her up. There was an ugly bruise below her right eye, and her mouth was cut in two places. “What are you?”
A scuffling sound drew their attention. Dervla and Palamar, panting behind the invisible wall raised by the glyphs. “What have you done?” Dervla ranted, turning to Tamsanne, who stood, along with Dame Julie, also outside the green fire-wall. “What have you done? What have you done to me?”
Elisabeth, staring curiously at the High Priestess, realized that Dervla was trying to call forth a spell—and failing.
“Ask better, what have you done to yourself?” Tamsanne replied. “By your own acts of treason, you are no longer High Priestess.” She glanced at Palamar, who was cowering back from the green flames of magic that
marked the spell-shield, panic suffusing her features. “And you are no longer heir to Marie Laconte. You and your acolyte together—you no longer possess the gift of magic. Elisabeth has earned it of you both.”
“I don’t understand,” Elisabeth said. She felt dizzy and weak, yet the grey blade was still clutched in her fist, and no one, it seemed, could come at her. She leaned against the tiny Princess, whether for support or to support her she could not have said.
“You are that woman’s half-sister.” Tamsanne pointed to Palamar. “For whatever purpose of her own, your mother got herself with child by Rivière Laconte, Countess Marie Laconte’s son and heir. You are blood of the Common Brood—and now you are Tielmark’s new High Priestess. The power has moved from Dervla and become vested within yourself, and with it has come all the power that was vested in your family.
“Sometimes the gods are ages slow, acknowledging the shift of human power—and sometimes they move like lightning to countenance change, as they have done here today.”
Elisabeth could hardly take in all Tamsanne was telling her. “How do you know this?” she asked helplessly. “Why would you choose me for such an honor?”
Julie, with a touch of her earlier bossiness, pushed Tamsanne out of her way. “Tamsanne didn’t choose you. The gods did.” She glanced up to the apex of the dome. “Child, this room, from now, will be your personal sanctum. Listen to its voices, and you will know we speak the truth. Close your eyes, and listen for the music.”
The stacks of paper, of junk, of vellum, seemed to loom in from all sides, encroaching on her powers of concentration. “What am I to hear?” Elisabeth whispered. But even as she spoke she heard it: her own voice, reverberated back to her, from the great vault. “Hear,” came her own voice. “Hear.”
After that, it was like a harmonized flood. Elisabeth did not know if it was images, or song, or the scent of past days. She saw the turning spiral of the seasons, saw her place in that dance. She lowered her head, humbled, as it almost overwhelmed her. Yes. This was her place. Fouled with paper and boxes though it might be, this was her place to stand and listen.
She looked down at the dull grey knife that she held in her hand, the
Ein Raku
, the knife that could kill a god’s own child. Held in her hand, she could recognize it for what it was: a human soul. Trapped within the blade there was a human soul, bound with magics dark and fell. It was ancient and alive together, one emotion left to it: the desire for
release, for the end that would come to it when it was ritually driven into a man or woman’s heart. “The gods no longer give us the power to make such an evil thing,” she whispered, staring at the foul weapon she held in her hand. “Elianté and Emiera, bless them for that.”

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