The Silver Siren (23 page)

A door opened several yards away. I
did everything I could to keep my nerves in check and not start
sniveling like a coward. I stood up, wiped my face with the sleeve
of my shirt, and tried to appear strong, like my father would want
me to. A flame flickered outside the door and keys rattled. The
door opened a with a creak and then was abruptly pushed wide. A
short balding man stood before me. He hardly looked like he could
be a threat, but you never knew.

Appearances could be
deceiving.

“
Miss?” he called into my
cell. “Ah…yer uh supposed to follow me…this way.” He beckoned up
the stairs with his candle. “Gideon is waiting
upstairs.”

I looked at the stairs and back to him
and walked out quickly, trying to not show my eagerness to escape
the prison. The chains around my wrists jangled as I held my head
high and walked slowly up the steps, being careful to keep an eye
on the man behind me. I was hoping I could find chance to run
away.

A man—Gideon, I assumed—waited at the
top of the stairs. His white hair stood out like a beacon in the
shadows. As I approached him, his strong hand wrapped around my
elbow, directing me until I silently followed his lead. We walked
down a long stone hallway. The air became fresher, sweeter. Then we
stepped through a door into a large, mostly empty courtyard in
front of a towering castle. The bright moonlight illuminated guards
half hidden in the shadows, wary of people like me.

I could see the main gate, a secured
pulley system, and the guard tower. Keeping my head lowered, I
scanned quickly but didn’t see a way out. My heart dropped a
little, but I knew better than to give up so easily.

We came to wide stone steps and I
slowed my gait. He lugged me onward. More guards greeted us but
they didn’t even blink when we passed them. Either we were
invisible, or they just couldn’t bear to look at the intimidating
Gideon.

Once we entered the main hall, the
extravagant beauty of the halls took me aback. From the Citadel,
I’d only been able to see Queen Lilyana’s palace from afar.
Tapestries of unfamiliar wars hung upon the walls, and tables were
laden with gold candelabras and bowls of food. A set of double
doors towered at the end, and I could only assume they led to the
throne room.

We turned down a side hall, and I
could smell the familiar scent of bread baking. My mouth watered at
the smell and I became distracted. When I looked up, I was in an
unfamiliar room with a giant wooden tub. I stared, confused, and
hands reached up to touch my back and remove my garment.

I jumped backward and screamed. A
small woman walked in front of me and held her hands up and to show
that she meant me no harm.

Gideon gestured to the warm water.
“You should wash before you meet King Tieren. You don’t want to
take the chance of offending him.”

I held up my manacled hands to him and
he laughed.

“
No those stay on. The
maid will help you.”

I waited for him to leave, but he
appeared as if he was going to stay.

Well, that wouldn’t do.

“
I’m not changing in front
of you!” I challenged.

“
You have no choice. I’m
not leaving a prisoner in an unsecured room.”

“
Then you leave
me
no choice,” I shouted
in return. Turning my back on him I stepped toward the tub and
before the maid could undress me, I leapt into it fully dressed,
making sure to send a huge wave of soapy water sloshing over the
tub and onto Gideon’s feet. His horrified expression as the water
soaked his boots was enough of a reward for me. The poor maid
squealed and jumped out of the way as she raced for towels to
dredge up the water across the floor. I did a poor show of
pretending to wash, dunking my head a few times before standing up,
jumping out, and purposely re-trailing suds and water across the
wooden floor.

“
Okay, I’m clean. Let’s
go.” It took every inch of control I had to keep from
grinning.

“
You good for nothing
wildling. No wonder your clan lives in the mountains. You have no
manners,” he seemed more put out than enraged.

“
I have enough manners to
not keep a king waiting, so as soon as you’re ready to escort me…or
perhaps I should just go find him myself.”

I made a move toward the door, but he
quickly stepped out, slammed it, and said, “Not before you take a
proper bath and get dressed. I will wait here. No
further.”

I started to laugh and the poor maid
stood in the corner shivering, whether from fear or cold I didn’t
know. Quickly, she helped me bathe and get dressed in a simple
green gown. After she braided my hair, he held a mirror up to my
face and I inspected the results. I had a slight bruise on my face
from the altercation in my village.

“
We should get this looked
at,” she whispered nervously.

“
Don’t waste your time. I
don’t know yet if I will even survive the night.” The words came
out sharper than I had anticipated, but they were sharp because
they were the truth.

No matter how the meeting with the
King played out, it would end very badly for one of us. But if the
Elite were on guard, then there would be a good chance I wouldn’t
make it out alive.

Surprisingly, I was extremely
calm.

~~~

“
Ah, Thalia! We finally
meet.” The words came from King Tieren himself. The oddly high
timbre of his voice made him seem much younger than he probably
was.

I stared at the King of Sinnendor with
open distrust. He was of medium build and average height, with a
closely cropped sandy brown beard peppered with gray. His mouth was
thin, and his teeth were even. He was, for all intents and
purposes, very average looking. If he weren’t sitting on the
throne, I would never have guessed him to be the King of
Sinnendor.

“
I would have thought you
wouldn’t want to see me, especially after I was treated to a stay
in the dungeon.”

“
Ah you have to forgive my
men. They got a little carried away. You are here as a guest,
child. I mean you no harm,” he smiled making his beard
twitch.

“
Do you mean to tell me
that—after generations of my family’s exile—you would invite me
back? I find that hard to believe.”

“
No, what’s hard to
believe is that your father would refuse my invitation. After all,
I have always asked nicely.” The king stood up and strode to a side
table to pour himself a goblet of wine. He was humming under his
breath. At first I didn’t recognize it, but then its melody reached
my ears and I cringed. Tieren was humming a children’s song about a
plague. The dissonant notes made my skin crawl, but he didn’t seem
to notice its affect on me.

I used the momentary distraction to
gauge my surroundings. The room was dark and stuffy, as if he were
afraid to open the windows and let in the air. Incense burners hung
from the marble columns clouding the air with the smell of
sandalwood. The wooden throne itself was polished and inlaid with
silver. The king’s standard—a silver wolf upon a black
background—hung from posts above the throne. My skin prickled with
irritation, noting again that it was the same standard as our own
clan’s. The king even wore a silver wolf ring with emerald eyes.
Every time he took a sip, the jeweled eyes seemed to taunt me, to
tease me about what could have been.

Frustrated, I turned my head to look
at his bodyguards. Two more of the Elite stood in the darkened
shadows watching us carefully. Like Gideon, they too sported the
white hair.

The king noticed my curious staring.
“Ah, I see you’ve noticed my guards. Only the purest of blood serve
me.” He raised his goblet of wine as if to salute them before
taking the tiniest sip. “They guard that which is precious to
me.”

“
Which is?” I asked
politely.

“
Me,” he laughed. He
cocked his head to the side as if listening to something and then
began to whisper angrily to no one in particular. King Tieren
turned his back on me and continued to whisper and sing.

I lost my patience. “Why am I here?
Why did you attack my clan and kidnap me? And then you have the
nerve to pretend I’m an honored guest.”

Tieren turned back around, his eyes
focused on me. “Ah, now that is where you are wrong. I don’t want
to kill you or your family. In fact, I keep trying to bring us
closer together.” He put his goblet down and seated himself upon
his throne, looking down on me through lowered lashes. I wondered
briefly if he was slightly inebriated. “Every year on the same day,
I send a messenger to your village for your father. And every year
I receive the same answer in the form of another dead messenger. I
sent more messengers, more frequently with the same result. So you
see, you left me no choice. I had to resort to a more permanent
summons.”

“
So it is my father you
want to come, not me.”

“
No, this has nothing to
do with your father. It has always been about you. Perhaps if I had
chosen a different date to summon you, I might have received a more
positive reply,” he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“
I don’t understand how
one day would make any difference in his answer.”

“
Nothing and everything.
What do you know of your mother’s family, where she came from?” he
leaned forward, waiting.

His words, though harmless, began to
tear a whole in my confidence. I refused to answer, instead turning
my back to him.

“
Ah, see? You don’t know.
Or your mother never told your father. Shall I tell you about
Thelonia, your mother?”

“
What does she have to do
with this?”

King Tieren leaned forward in his
chair, bracing his elbows on his knees. He spoke
slowly…deliberately. “Thalia, your mother—Thelonia—was my
sister.”

Chapter 22

I
blinked at King Tieren, unable to whole process the mind-blowing
news he���d just shared with me. It couldn’t be possible. I tried to
picture my mother but could only grasp flickering memories. The
sound of her laugh, the color of her hair.

The rest eluded me. She couldn’t be
the king’s sister. I felt myself digging my nails into the palm of
my hands to keep back the anger that billowed inside me. I felt
betrayed. I knew he had to be lying, but I couldn’t understand
why.

“
You lie.” I tried to
sound brave but the words came out a whisper.

“
I never lie.” King Tieren
stood up and beckoned for me to follow him. My feet felt leaden,
but I slowly followed after him as he descended the dais and exited
a small door hidden behind the giant throne. We came to a stone
hallway filled with hand-painted portraits that were, unlike the
tapestries, well taken care of.

“
Perhaps I should explain
a little more. That was a lot for you to take in, and you just got
here. Ah, here we are.” He stopped in front of a portrait of a
younger version of himself, standing next to a very tall thin woman
with wavy brown hair. A small tiara sat upon her pale brow. The
younger Tieren was seated as the stoic woman stood behind
him.

She wasn’t my mother. I knew that. The
corner of my mouth begin to curl up in triumph.

“
This is Queen Andia, my
first wife and mother to Prince Sevril.” He stood before the
picture with his hands clasped behind his back reciting information
like it was out of a textbook. “She was born to be queen. Her
parents and mine arranged the marriage when we were young. We
weren’t in love, but we didn’t need to be to rule a country. Sadly,
she died twenty-four years ago during childbirth.”

I tried to not roll my eyes. He seemed
to enjoy keeping me in suspense.

He walked to the next portrait and a
different woman stood next to him. Her fiery red hair, high
cheekbones, and pert nose made her very fetching. In this portrait,
the woman sat in a smaller chair next to King Tieren. “This is
Queen Beryl, my second wife. We were married only three years, and
she bore my second son, Tomac. She died from the crying
plague.”

“
I’m sorry.” The words
felt hollow coming from me, but I could tell from the picture that
they loved each other.

He bowed his head in silence before
walking to the last portrait on the wall. He stopped. Unlike
before, he actually walked forward and touched the painting by
pressing his forehead against it. I couldn’t hear him but could
tell from his shaking shoulders that he was silently crying. I was
so fascinated by King Tieren’s reaction to this particular portrait
that I actually forgot to look.

Quickly, I glanced over his brown head
to see—my mother.

I recognized her. There was no denying
the pale as starlight hair, her bright blue eyes, and her beauty,
even at a young age. She couldn’t have been more than ten in the
picture. I choked back a sob as well, shocked at the sight of my
mother. There was no refuting it. Just as there was no denying the
royal crown that sat upon her brow and the exuberant joy that
radiated from her face as she sat next to a very young Tieren. Both
Thelonia and Tieren were seated on smaller stools at the feet of
their parents, the King and Queen of Sinnendor.