The Twelve Kingdoms (21 page)

Good thing I'd cut his pursuit short when I had. I should have nipped it in the bud.

“This is for me.” Dafne took a breath, clearly squaring her resolve. “I want to come with you up the pass.”

“No.” I checked the saddlebags and moved a few things to a pack I'd wear on my back, just in case I became separated from my horse.

“Your Highness.” Dafne looked less hesitant, more determined.

“What? You asked, I answered. It's not safe. There's a reason I'm leaving most everyone here or at the base camp. We're not going on a picnic, librarian. You'll stay here.”

“Don't insult me,” she snapped back. “I'm aware of the dangers and will be responsible for myself. This is important to me and it's my life to risk. Didn't you say much the same thing last night?”

“It doesn't work that way. Anyone not a trained fighter will be a liability. Your presence would force the rest of us to focus energy on your safety instead of keeping our attention where it should be, on ourselves and the mission. I can't afford any distractions. You're staying behind.”

“I'll be responsible for Lady Mailloux.” Harlan's smooth baritone grated on my nerves. Tempting not to look at him at all, but I would be better than that. And would have to practice, regardless. I gave him a cool, dismissive glance, making my displeasure at his interference clear. He returned the gaze with apparent neutrality, his expression set as it had been when I first saw him standing guard at Uorsin's side. But I knew him better now. A glint of anger in his pale eyes, challenging me. A hunger, too.

Part of me answered to it, warming, and I ruthlessly froze that away. I would not feel it.

“You're lucky I'm letting
you
come along,” I informed him, taking a savage pleasure in goading him with an imperious tone. “Don't forget who you answer to here, mercenary.”

“Shall we confer privately, Your Highness?”

“No. We need to set out and there's nothing to discuss. Lady Mailloux stays with the main group.”

“You're being stubborn for the wrong reasons, Ursula.” Harlan's eyes glittered with building emotion, that impassive shell showing cracks. “You can't shut us all out.”

“Actually, I can do that very thing. Lady Mailloux understands my decision.”

“No, she doesn't.” Dafne stepped between us, making me abruptly aware that we had closed on each other so we stood nearly nose to nose. Not good that I'd forgotten something as basic as maintaining a perimeter outside his reach. If it came to a fight between us, I needed to be outside that range to have a chance of winning. He'd lulled me into forgetting those boundaries. Repeatedly. Reestablishing my distance, I gave Dafne my attention.

“Do we need to have that conversation about insubordination after all?”

“You said you didn't expect military obedience of me.” Her brown eyes snapped, brimming over with more emotion than I'd seen in her before. “Have I ever asked you for anything?”

I considered her, how her petite body vibrated with the strength of her feelings. And no, she'd really asked nothing of any of us, but had given a great deal. True loyalty. To Andi, then to Amelia, and now to me.

Blowing out a long breath, I acknowledged to Danu that I'd let the situation with the mercenary affect me too much and prayed to her for clarity. “Why do you want to go so badly?”

“I want to see Annfwn.”

She phrased it simply, but her fingers had knotted together, her voice full of a lifetime of yearning. So much more than simply wanting it.

“You might not be able to cross the barrier,” I told her gently, not liking how hope suffused her face that I seemed to be relenting.

“If I can't, then I'll know and go on with my life. But I might never get this close again. Please, Ursula—let me try. I truly don't care if I lose my life in the attempt.”

“You have a lot of life still ahead of you.”

She laughed, a bitter sound that came out of a deep unhappiness, stabbing at my own raw heart. “An empty life. A meaningless one in most ways. Sometimes I feel like a ghost living on the edges of everyone else's lives—yours, Amelia's, Andi's, even the people in the books and histories. I have no family, no prospects, no real value to anyone. The only thing I've ever really wanted was to see Annfwn.”

“You have value to me.”

“I could make a life of that, yes—be Derodotur to you, give my days to that service and be happy doing it.
If
you survive to take the throne. But I want to make that choice, not be forced into it because I have nothing else, because I believe nothing more than that is possible for me.”

I pretended to think, studying the brightening cloudless sky, using the moment to master my own turbulent heart. Why her words affected me so, I wasn't sure. I certainly didn't want Harlan's far-too-keen gaze to see how unsettled I felt. He'd no doubt think it had to do with him and it didn't. It couldn't.

“Fine.” I nodded. Then had to look away again from the bright joy that flooded her countenance. I fixed my eyes on the mercenary instead, annoyed that my fingers itched to touch him, that the hard look in his eye pricked my conscience. Let him be angry. I'd withstood worse. “You're responsible for her, Captain Harlan. See that you don't fail me in this.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed, but he simply bowed. “As you command, Your Highness. I would never fail you, in any way. Maybe one day you'll do me the honor of not questioning that.”

I glared at him, torn between calling him out for his barbed words and refusing to give him the satisfaction of an answer.

Dafne looked back and forth between us. Stepped back as if easing herself from the line of fire. “I'll go get my things and be ready to leave.”

Neither of us replied—or even glanced at her.

“Your move, I believe,” Harlan said. A smoothly voiced taunt.

“I don't know what you want from me, Captain.”

“Yes, you do.” Now he let the desire show, the love he claimed to feel. Naked and raw. It thudded into me like an arrow, piercing, unexpected. Somehow I'd lost the ability to shield myself against him.

Determined to master this situation, I took in a long breath. Centered myself. “I'm sorry if your pride is offended. Surely a woman has turned you down before.”

“Don't give me that, Ursula. This isn't about pride. I gave you my heart and you tossed it back like so much rotten meat.”

“Because I don't want it. I never asked for it.”

“Because you're terrified you want it too much.”

“That sure sounds like pride to me,” I snapped back.

He fingered his sword and I swiped my thumb over the topaz in the pommel of mine. Warm, smooth, and reassuring. “Do you plan to draw on me, mercenary?”

“I should. Then you'd be forced to deal with me, one way or the other.”

“Don't do it,” I warned him. “I will kill you if I have to.”

“Do you really believe you could?”

“I'm fast enough.”

“No doubt of that.” He leaned in, deliberately trespassing on my careful perimeter. “I'm asking if you really think you could bear to strike me down. You might be successfully lying to yourself, but I know better.”

“You know nothing about me, mercenary.”

“That's where you're mistaken. Tell me what Lady Mailloux meant about there being a question of you surviving to inherit the throne.”

The swift change of subject almost caught me off guard, though I shouldn't have been surprised he caught that. “She worries too much. The pair of you are alike in that way.”

“I'll guess then. She believes Uorsin will kill you if you carry out your plan to assassinate Illyria. It's logical. Why shouldn't he? Particularly if you deliver your nephew into his hands. Your replacement. The boy he truly wanted all along.”

The edges of my vision went gray and I pressed my lips against the tremble that threatened. “He's the High King. Only he can choose who best should succeed him.”

Harlan lifted a hand and I stepped back, though he wasn't close to touching me. “I apologize. I meant to make you see, not to hurt you.”

“You didn't. You've said nothing I didn't know. Nothing everyone doesn't know. My father desperately wished for a male heir, but more than that, his accomplishments deserve someone worthy to follow in his stead. If Astar better serves in that role, I trust in the King's judgment. I told Dafne and I'll tell you: this is not about me. I don't understand why
you
will not see that.”

“Maybe we see what you don't, Ursula,” he replied in a patient tone. “As stubborn, hardheaded, and abrasive as you can be, you are the shining star we look to. All of us.”

“Save the flattery, mercenary.” I managed the dry tone I wanted. “Better get ready to go or I'll leave you behind.”

Harlan broke into a small, inscrutable smile and touched the backs of two fingers to his forehead. “
Elskastholrr
, Ursula. When we ride out, I'll be at your back. Today and always.”

I
n the end, seven of us ascended Odfell's Pass—two Hawks, two Vervaldr, Dafne, Harlan, and me. I still didn't like having Dafne at risk, but she positively glowed with anticipation. Both of my Hawks knew to keep an eye on her, despite what I'd told her.

Not that I didn't trust Harlan's expertise. He didn't know the Tala like they did. Like I did.

After a few hours of riding, we paused at the last wide spot until the summit, before the path narrowed too much for us to ride abreast. Harlan had been quiet since our exchange at dawn, but he spoke up when I said I'd take the lead.

“Is that wise, Your Highness?”

“I lead from the front,” I told him.

“It's my job to see that you're protected also,” he pointed out.

“I don't need coddling. I'll take care of myself.” I'm not sure what it was that made me enjoy poking at him, but it gave me a perverse pleasure to pierce that implacable expression he used as a shield, just enough that some irritation leaked through.

Dafne gave me a narrow look, then smiled at Harlan. “I'll take any coddling you're up to providing.”

“You're most gracious, Lady Mailloux.” He gave her a grave nod. “I propose Dafne rides in the middle, Her Highness's Hawks behind Ursula, my men behind Dafne, and I'll bring up the rear.”

The second-most dangerous position. He met my gaze steadily, daring me to argue. I couldn't ride them both, however, so I shrugged, as if I didn't care in the least. “All of you, keep your ears, eyes, and any other sense you possess wide open. High alert from here on out. Just because nothing's happened so far doesn't mean it won't. You notice anything at all, tell me.”

I raised a brow at Harlan, daring
him
to argue. He didn't. Instead he gave me that particular look, as he had when I finished the sword form and he'd kissed me like a starving man. Provoking and distracting, if I let it be.

We rode up and I set a measured pace. The first time I'd made this ascent, full of worry for Andi, forced into marriage and abducted faster than I could follow across this border, I'd hurried too much. That was how we lost two Hawks, and I was determined not to let that happen again.

Now I felt certain that she expected me, that the lack of trouble reflected her tacit, if not overt, welcome. Still, it felt odd to be wary of her. The last time, I'd figured to be battling the Tala to rescue her. This time, Andi was one of them and wielded abilities I had no way to measure. Or possibly even understand. Up through the dense forest that lined the treacherous trail, bounded by a steep cliff on one side and a chasm so deep it might as well be bottomless on the other, the snow-clad peaks rose, daunting in their remoteness. Above their sharp white crests, the sky deepened into the achingly clear blue the high altitudes brought.

The sense that I somehow looked into Andi's gaze unsettled me greatly.

Birdsong rustled through the trees, followed by a sinister shadow sound that crawled across my nerves. Glancing over my shoulder, I noted that none of the others had heard or sensed anything. Harlan, of course, caught me checking and raised his brows, scanning the woods for the threat. I shook my head slightly and he returned the gesture, a bare dip of the chin, speaking as clearly as if he'd said it, as if we'd been working together for years, not mere days, that he had sensed nothing but readied himself to act on what I had.

The higher we rode, the greater the sense of pressure. It seemed that a storm loomed, lightning poised to strike, though the sky remained cloudless. Keeping my spine straight, I refused to hunch against it. My stallion's withers flickered with the same foreboding.

A shadow in the trees.

There and gone.

“Captain?” Lynn asked. Second to Marskal, who I'd left in charge of the base camp, she had a levelheaded seriousness I appreciated. Which made the fact that I'd stopped without warning or apparent reason more embarrassing. It hadn't gotten to me this way on the last trip.

“Nothing,” I said, sending a prayer to Danu that I spoke the truth, and urged my stallion into motion again.

A whisper of warning brushed against my skin. My sword leapt to hand, but the thing—whatever it might be—flowed over and around me like a cloud of birds, shrieking in my ears, bypassing me entirely. Unable to turn my steed, I spun in the saddle, standing as I did so. Ready to fight.

Too late.

The two Hawks and two Vervaldr had disappeared as if they'd never been. A stunned Dafne and murderously grim Harlan met my gaze.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“I should ask you the same.”

“If you ask what I saw, it seemed a cloud of starlings suddenly descended, then lifted, and our men were gone. It makes no sense.”

“Tala magic,” I snapped.

He glowered at me, as if I'd done it. “Where are my men?”

“With mine!” It grated at me that I might have lost two more. We both had to put it out of our heads.

Harlan nodded, seeming to hear my thought, and scanned the now silent trees. “So I take it we three have been selected to continue?”

“One would hope,” I replied in a dry tone, glad at least that nothing had happened to Dafne. She gave me a shaky half smile, a toast to mutual survival.

We continued on, and though no further magic occurred, it seemed that ghosts plagued me. Hugh had taken second position on our last trip, so determined to serve Andi by rescuing her. Being back in this place, I imagined he rode behind me again. I fancied that I might turn and see him, pure of purpose in a way I'd never been. Full of noble good intentions.

And I'd killed him for it.

The memory, the guilt I'd never shed, lodged like steel fragments in my spine, making it ache. Amelia might have forgiven me. Andi might have taken the blame. But I couldn't forgive myself. The impulse of a moment.

I knew the clearing the moment we entered it. Recognized it but did not expect the assault of such vivid memory. That day had been full winter chill, freezing to the bone. And Hugh, after I'd slain him, had lain in the snow, bleeding crimson across the white, spilled like Madeline's blood, pooling on the marble floor of Ordnung. Their ghosts chased me, skeletal fingers of foreboding plucking at my nerves.

Today, though the ground cover bubbled frothy and green with late summer, I spotted the shrine Ami had mentioned. She'd seen it as an incongruous living flower in the dead winter landscape. For me, it shimmered in the same way the shadows had, as blue as the mountain sky, vivid and luxuriantly alive. Nothing moved. No Tala forces awaited us, as they had before, as I more than half expected this time. Wind soughed through the trees like a man's heavy breath, the timber creaking. I dismounted and crouched to see the blossom—the forget-me-not under a dome of magic.

I tapped it, unsurprised when my hand did not pass through. The same material as the border barrier. It would be nearby, probably reflective. I'd touched the barrier only the once, when Andi invited me to try it. All those times nearing it in Branli, I'd had that same prickling across my skin that I did now, but we'd been bounced away, time after time.

If I'd managed to find a path through on that side, I might not have to be here, facing my past self. The turmoil of guilt rising to choke me, my joints aching with the cold.

“What do you look at so carefully?” Harlan crouched beside me.

“You don't see anything?”

He studied the lay of the grass. “Nothing of note.”

“Hidden by magic, then. It's a memorial. To my sister's husband, who I murdered.” I managed to say it baldly, for what it was. Taking the responsibility as I should have to begin with.

Dafne made a sound of protest, and he gave me a long look, searching my face. “Knowing you, it couldn't have gone down that way. Your honor would never permit it.”

“She did it for me.”

I spun, sword leaping to my hand, and Andi stood there. Garbed in a silky white slip of a gown, hair falling around her in a glorious rusty black cape, and eyes like a summer thundercloud, she looked so like Salena she took my breath away, the grief flashing sharp through my other tumbling emotions. So much sorrow tied to her—losing my sisters, my mother. I wanted to beg her forgiveness and rage at her for betraying us.

“I apologize for the disappearance of your fighters,” she added. “I promise they're fine. Just . . . relocated for the moment, as I did not care to have other witnesses.” Andi held out her hands, an invitation, a question. “Ursula, I'm so, so happy you're here.”

Sheathing the sword, I strode to her. Then bypassed her hands and, impulsively, overcome, seized her in a hug. She choked a little in surprise—had I really so rarely embraced her?—then squeezed back, tears wet on my neck.

Wiping her tears away, she put her hands on my cheeks. Belatedly I recalled the broken nose, the vicious bruising. “What in the Twelve happened to you? I assume whoever did this is dead now. Did he die fast or slow?”

“It's nothing.” I brushed her off, automatically. “I failed to block a parry swiftly enough.”

“King Uorsin did it.” Harlan moved to my side, giving me a sidelong accusing look. I glared back coolly. We would have words about this. Andi should not be burdened with such concerns.

Sure enough, she blanched. Not, however, I observed with interest, in fear, but in uncharacteristic rage. At least, not within her previous character. Another way she'd changed. “Moranu take him,” she hissed. “Say it's not so.”

“It is so.” Dafne moved up on my other side. “The entire court witnessed it this time, among other distressing developments. Hello, Queen Andromeda. It's so good to see you again.”

Andi stopped her curtsy with a hug. “Don't ‘Queen Andromeda' me! I'm so happy you're here, too. I've missed you so and I have many things to tell you.” Her gaze slid over to Harlan, a subtle change coming over her as she studied him, the magic gathering about her more dramatically than her cloak of dark hair, reminding me again, forcibly, of our mother. Long-forgotten memories of Salena surged up, triggered by the woman Andi had become. “And you are?”

“Captain Harlan of the Vervaldr, late of Dasnaria,” I told her, before he could reply. “The High King contracted them to provide extra security.” I raised an eyebrow at her, on the side away from Harlan, and she gratified me by widening her eyes fractionally. An old gesture, one she used instead of rolling them, because I'd make her run ten laps around the stables for doing it.

“Captain Harlan.” She inclined her head, far more regal and self-possessed than my little sister had ever been before.

“Queen Andromeda.” He bowed deeply, then straightened. “Forgive me for not speaking to you with the proper respect previously. You are much like your sister, so I should have known who you were.”

Andi and I exchanged bemused glances. Even the most glib court minstrel had never attempted to compare us.

“You don't think so?” Harlan rumbled with amusement. “The problem with your people is they fail to look under the skin. I imagine when I meet Princess Amelia, she will also have that same shimmer of power about her, will share the way you are all more vividly colored than the rest of the world.”

Andi reassessed him, contemplating. “
When
you meet her?” She phrased the question neutrally, so I wasn't certain if she meant that he should have met her already, which indicated Ami wasn't in Annfwn or an otherwise known location, or that meeting her would be an unlikely event.

“Captain Harlan, Dafne—would you excuse us a moment?”

“I'll step away,” Harlan replied, not sounding happy, “but I'll keep you in my line of sight. Apologies for any implied insult, Queen Andromeda.”

“You believe I'd want—or be able—to harm my sister? Despite her many efforts, Her Highness was never able to make much of a fighter of me.” She smiled, amused, but also interested that he'd implied as much.

“From what I understand, you wield magic as easily as Ursula does her blades. I'd be failing in my responsibility to protect her, were I not to take that seriously.”

“Captain Harlan suffers from the delusion that I need protecting,” I commented.

“As it's not the appropriate company to discuss the various delusions you suffer,” he replied, “I shall withdraw for the moment. Lady Mailloux?”

“He called you by your name,” Andi mused, after they moved out of earshot. “And teased you.”

“Yes. These Dasnarians are an incorrigible thorn in my side. What news of Ami? Are she and the babies alive?”

She gave me a look that made me think she would not drop the subject of Harlan so easily, then sighed. “I suppose your questions are more pressing than mine, so I'll answer yours first. But promise you won't brush me off later?”

“I wouldn't do that.”

“You would if I let you. We'll discuss this Captain Harlan and our father, both.”

“There's nothing to say about either.”

“Ah, now I'm sure there's plenty or you wouldn't be clamming up like that. Besides, I knew there was something between you just from looking—which is why I let him approach.” Andi smiled with genuine affection, but sadness in her eyes. “I hate that Uorsin hurt you. And I'm going to be very angry if I discover this wasn't the first time and you hid it from us.”

“Never mind that. Is Ami all right?”

She pushed her hair back off her shoulders, allowing the topic change and settling into the business at hand. “She's alive and so is Astar.”