The Twelve Kingdoms (10 page)

“Your Highness, may I present Illyria, Mistress of Deyrr.”

Her bloodred lips thinned ever so slightly at the title. No, they were not friendly, by any stretch. He'd spoken the truth.

“Illyria,” I acknowledged. Then waited pointedly.

“I wonder if you might grant me a boon, Princess.”

I didn't reply, letting the nerves that shouted to pull my sword translate as impatience.

She smiled, displeased that I made her chase what she hoped to gain.

“I'm interested in an ancient artifact rumored to be found in Ordnung. The Star of Annfwn.”

Only iron control kept me from reacting to that. No one but Salena and Lady Zevondeth had ever used that name. Our secret. How in the Twelve did this Illyria creature know about it? Locking down the flare of unaccustomed panic, I kept my hand unmoving on the hilt of my sword and my face as bored as possible.

“I have never heard of such a thing. But then, I rarely concern myself with artifacts. Perhaps you should consult our archivists? You'll forgive my hasty departure. I've a number of things to see to before supper.”

Illyria's white face chilled, but she acknowledged that I'd dismissed her with a flicker of her dead eyes that promised retribution. Who
was
this woman?

I strode out of the hall, not the least bit surprised that the mercenary followed, pacing me easily with his longer stride. I stopped at the archway to the arcade, placing myself squarely in the middle, to make it clear that going farther would be counted a trespass. Unfortunately that put me face-to-face with the man.

“What's the Star of Annfwn?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“As I said—no idea.”

“I think you do know. We must discuss this.”

“Must we? I doubt I have time for that.” Deliberately, I yawned, though I lacked enough sleep that it overtook me, cracking my jaw. “My pardon. I had a late night.”

“Have you reviewed the contract yet, Your Highness?”

“One of the things on my schedule.” I hoped. I'd sent the request via page, for that and several other documents that would create the overall impression that I was simply performing due diligence and catching up on the affairs of the Twelve. Which, in truth, I needed to do.

“Good. You can give me your take on it when we meet tonight. Note the section that binds me to act to protect you, if you will.”

“I doubt that will change my mind—about anything, Captain.”

He caught my elbow as I turned to leave, as he had the night before, angling away just enough that I couldn't jab it into his gut as I'd been halfway to doing. Absorbing the energy behind it, he used my momentum to propel me against him. I recovered fast, but he made a show of steadying me. “Watch your step, Your Highness. Meet me again tonight in the courtyard,” he added under his breath.

“Thank you, Captain.” I gave him a steely look that had leveled lesser men. “When Danu grows pink roses.” I turned my back and strode away, aware of that low, nerve-caressing chuckle following after.

W
ith no word—official or otherwise—about Ami, Ash, or any of them, I resigned myself to waiting as best I could, and I spent a few productive hours reviewing the Vervaldr contract before dutifully descending for supper. It steadied me that the scrolls I requested had been delivered so readily. It indicated that the King had not given any formal orders to cut off my access.

Derodotur had described the terms fairly enough and the document impressed me in its thoroughness and logical clarity. Had the brutish Captain Harlan drawn up the contract himself? It seemed unlikely. Though he might be more articulate than the typical hired thug, I doubted he had that sort of education. Else, why be a mercenary?

Supper was a quiet affair, as Uorsin did not show. Whispers implied that he closeted himself with the Dasnarian witch. I knew well how much the court at Ordnung loved to throw that term around, so I told myself to take it with a grain of salt. Still, from seeing the woman, I wondered how much of that might be accurate. She made my skin crawl. The mercenary captain had called her the Mistress of Deyrr—clearly a Dasnarian term that might not translate to Common Tongue.

She was not mentioned in the Vervaldrs' contract, unless I'd missed the reference. I didn't think so, however, as all other specifics had been very clear. An unusual and concerning omission.

The mercenary captain didn't show for supper either, for all his insistence on talking with me, which meant I sat alone at the head table. Usually I minded that not at all, but the quiet on top of the growing worry over Ami ate at my nerves. Truth be told, I missed the minstrels. They added a welcome distraction when conversation became scarce. And nobody was conversing. As if all possible topics carried too much gravity, given the tension in the air. We all waited for further developments, as if under siege.

I ate quickly, with thoughts of making an early night of it. Some more time with the documents I'd requested—due diligence meant more than an excuse, after all, and I worried over what besides today's petitions might have gone neglected—some wine and peace, and I might be able to sleep. The best option, as I wouldn't be wearing myself out with a late-night workout, since I had no doubt the determined captain wouldn't hesitate to seek me out in the private courtyard again. The contract damnably gave him and his designees access to all of Ordnung, even the family quarters, in the name of personal protection and security.

On one level, it made sense, to use the otherwise idle mercenaries so. On the other, our personal guard had nothing else to do. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around what Uorsin was thinking. Either he played a deep game that I hadn't sorted out, or . . .
Or he's gone out of his mind with paranoia.
The traitorous thought made me feel ill and I left the table without finishing my meal.

It worried me deeply, in a vague, formless dread that added to my uneasy stomach, that Illyria had asked after the Star of Annfwn. Walking through the hallways alone, I let my fingers pass over the round of the topaz embedded in the hilt of my sword.

Mother had given it to me for my seventh birthday. That had been a good day. Andi, still a toddler in the nursery, had stayed behind, and Salena took me for a rare outing, pulling rank to get me excused from the practice yard. She rarely did so, but when the Queen took it in her head to require something, no one stood in her way. Even Uorsin, though he fumed, backed off when she gave him a certain look.

Though no one spoke of it outright, power had hung about her like a rumble of far-off thunder that's felt, not heard. When she pinned Uorsin with that storm-cloud glare, the hair prickled on the back of my neck, standing up as if a lightning bolt might stab from the sky at any moment. Though his face turned signature red, he'd backed up a step and then flung up his hands, ordering us out of his sight, as if that had been his idea all along.

My gut had twisted with a blend of terror at disappointing him and sheer awe that my mother could accomplish what no one else could.

So, for that birthday, I'd had my mother all to myself. The best of her, too. She'd been happy, with her hair brushed and hanging loose. We took a picnic and rode up into the hills above Ordnung. She sang songs in the oddly liquid Tala tongue and told me stories of Annfwn.

“I wish we could go now,” she'd said, her gaze focused west. “If I could, I'd take you and Andi and we'd ride over the mountains. You should see it. The water is bluer than aquamarines and as warm as a bath. You can run or ride on the beach for days, whiter than snow and brighter than diamonds. No need to bring picnic food, because you can pluck fruit from the trees.”

I laughed. “Fruit doesn't grow on trees!”

“You are so like your father, with all his fire and certainty. I want you to keep the best of him and discard the rest. Do you understand what I'm telling you?” Her gray eyes had turned serious, the air thickening with the ominous pressure of a summer storm, though the sky remained pure, cloudless blue.

I didn't understand, but the way she seemed to look through me, seeing something else, filled me with apprehension. “Let's go, then,” I urged her. “We'll sneak Andi out of the nursery and go tonight.”

“Ah, my brilliant and brave daughter. If only it were so easy.”

“It can be,” I insisted.

“I have to stay this course I committed to long before you were born. One more daughter for the world. And you”—she stroked my hair, long like hers then—“you have to stay in Ordnung, with your father. It won't be an easy path. The one of duty and honor never is. I want you to remember that, in the long years ahead, that I understand what you'll go through, that it's a path I myself chose. In that way, you are the most my daughter. To help you remember that, I have a gift for you, to honor your natal day.”

She'd wrapped it in a piece of silk tied with a ribbon, and I untied it eagerly, catching my breath at the sight of the orb. Perfectly round and smooth, flawlessly golden, like the sun at high noon. I held it up to the sky and it seemed like a second star, glowing from within. My mother wrapped my hands around it, folding its light into my palms.

“I brought this from Annfwn. It belonged to my mother and her mother before her, back more generations than I can count. Keep it with you, always. Remember that you are the daughter of queens as well as of a king. A star to guide you. The Star of Annfwn. I hope you get to see Annfwn, but . . .” Her voice caught then, silvery eyes glistening, and for a terrified moment I thought she might break our rule and weep. She stopped herself, however. “But if you don't, you'll have this piece of it. Don't let anyone take it from you. You will need it someday. Follow your dreams when you do. And remember my love goes with you, always.”

I did as she asked, keeping it hidden for the most part, carrying it in my pocket. Especially after she died. The warm, round weight reminded me of her, that she really had lived, no matter what that empty throne declared. Then, when little Ami was about six, she ferreted it out of my pocket and—as she did with everything—demanded that I give it to her.

She begged prettily, with wide violet eyes and many kisses pressed to my cheek, a technique that admittedly usually worked on me. I found it difficult to deny her anything. We all did. When I refused, she threw a full temper tantrum, complete with tears and screams, threatening to tell our father to make me give it to her. She was just a little girl, so lovely and so terribly overindulged. I'd gotten angry enough that I came close to slapping her.

Until Lady Zevondeth intervened. She'd seemed old to me then, and that was more than ten years ago. My mother's faithful servant and our adviser on all things for proper young ladies to know, she calmed Ami with another jewel and slipped the topaz away, out of Ami's sight and grasp, promising to take care of it. Days later, she called me to her rooms and presented me with a new sword—the topaz firmly fixed into the pommel. Never since had I been parted from it. Over the years, though, I'd grown so accustomed to touching it that I sometimes forgot to look, to admire its deep and brilliant beauty.

Andi and Ami called it a cabochon and I never corrected them. Only I and Zevondeth knew how much of it lay beneath the surface. My personal star.

I didn't think Amelia remembered that day, though sometimes I caught her looking at the jewel with a speculative eye. I never told her or Andi where it came from. A piece of our mother that was mine alone. Which wasn't fair of me, because I'd had far more of her than either of them had. Andi barely remembered her and Ami not at all. I'd tried to be a mother to them, as best I could, and had not succeeded very well.

My list of failures seemed to be growing of late.

Dafne had left me a stack of scrolls and books, with salient passages on Dasnaria thoughtfully marked with ribbons, Danu bless her. Instead of diving into them, however, and with that long-ago memory heavy in my mind, I took advantage of the solitude to pull the doll Salena had given me from its hiding place. Maybe the Star had some significance I'd forgotten or never known.
Find the doll,
Ami and Andi had both nagged me multiple times, insisting our mother had somehow left them messages in theirs. They didn't know that looking had been unnecessary for me. I'd known exactly where it was, since the day my father yanked it from my hands and threw it across the nursery. I kept it behind some particularly heavy and uninteresting tomes on obsolete shipping laws in the Isles of Remus. Carefully hidden away, so he wouldn't find it and break it any more than it already was.

It was the one pretty thing I'd kept, though she'd suffered from the passage of time. The porcelain hands and feet had broken that long-ago day and had mostly crumbled away. One hand remained with a sharp fragment I used to like to poke my finger with, just to see how much pain I could stand. The little crown on her head had dented but still sat atop her bloodred hair. Though the painted-on features had blurred and faded, her queenly face was vivid in my memories.

I smoothed her dress, made of shining silver, dulled from all the times I'd done that very thing. Why I liked to pet it, I didn't know. It soothed me. Anchored me in a way little else did.

After Andi told me to, though I had been skeptical at the time, I'd of course gotten the doll out and examined it. Removing the gown and petticoats reminded me of being a little girl again, when I'd had many outfits to dress her in. I'd even gone so far as to cut the doll open, searching the packed cotton innards. The slit remained open still, as I hadn't had time or opportunity to sew it up again and I didn't want to hand it off to anyone to fix. The slice had distorted her shape, though, and it annoyed me to see her less than she should be.

To be diligent and thorough—after all, Ami insisted she'd found a message, too—I unlaced the gown, removed the undergarments, and unpacked the stuffing yet again. And found nothing more than I had the other times I'd looked.

It shouldn't make me sad. Ridiculous, the sting of disappointment. After all, Salena had given me other gifts. And she'd told me things to remember, as she'd been unable to with Andi and Ami so young. I didn't need special messages.

I was simply in a melancholy mood. Shaken by Illyria's unexpected question, which annoyed me. Work would help me shake it off and calm my nerves.

Putting the doll back together as well as I could without taking the time needed to mend her correctly, I hid her away again, in the little bed I'd made for her as a foolish girl. Nevertheless, feeling both nostalgic and vaguely silly, I still tucked her in under the doll-sized satin comforter, as if by doing so, I could safeguard us all. Folding the gown neatly beside her, I hid her away again in the shadows behind the big books.

Then I dutifully reviewed the documents I needed to, saving the Dasnarian research for after. Tax revenues. Crop reports. A plague outbreak in Noredna. Deployment of troops. So many recruits sent to Mohraya—where were they all? I'd fallen months out of touch and puzzled over many of the changes. Some of the numbers simply didn't add up. Deep into summing a column of figures, I barely registered a knocking at the door to my rooms.

It came again. Who in Danu's shadow had come to see me this time of night? Any of the likely candidates wouldn't bother to knock, and the outer guards would have stopped any threat or opportunistic courtier. Maybe Dafne had found something interesting and hesitated to disturb me, for whatever reason. “Come in already!” I called out, noting down my last calculation so I wouldn't forget my place. That total definitely did not match the one I'd seen on another report. Where I had I put that?

Someone cleared his throat and I looked up to see Captain Harlan standing on the other side of my desk. Why had the thrice-dammed guards let him in? This mercenary contract had all the protocols upset. I would have to talk to the Hawks about standing duty. People I could count on.

“Did you kill my guards?” I asked.

He indicated his empty sheath. “No, but they did relieve me of weapons.”

At least they weren't complete idiots. “How can I help you, Captain? It's quite late.”

“I waited for you.”

“I can't imagine why. I told you not to.”

“Nevertheless. I have several important things to discuss with you.”

I sat back in the chair. “So you mentioned. What's on your mind that couldn't be said in court or the practice yard?”

“It needs privacy.”

I gestured at the quiet rooms. “This is as private as it gets, inside Ordnung.”

He hesitated, angling himself so his back wasn't entirely to the door. “It's not inappropriate—for me to be alone with you in your chambers?”