The Twelve Kingdoms (4 page)

“Are you saying she holds undue influence over the King?”

“No. Well, yes. You see, she—” He broke off and shook his head.

Had he grown so old that the dementia of age had touched him? “She . . . what?”

“ 'Tis unnatural, Ursula,” he said in a rush, seizing my hand, horror lurking in his eyes. “I'm afraid of what the days shall bring.”

His hands on mine trembled and he seemed about to tumble over. “Don't fret so, Uncle.” I hadn't called him that since I was a girl. “I'm home and I shall look into it. No one is stronger than Uorsin. I will talk with him. Amelia will turn up. We'll settle the matter of the heir to everyone's satisfaction and restore peace. Uorsin will see his throne secure and will send the Dasnarians home.”

Derodotur nodded and, shocking me, bent over my hands and kissed them. “If anyone can save us now, you can.”

I only wished I believed that.

T
oo unsettled to rest now, and since I was already in the barracks courtyard, I decided a light workout might do me the most good. Burn off some nervous energy and maybe loosen up my back muscles.

With the afternoon waning, most of the troops had cleared the practice yard. Finding an open corner, I stood quietly for a moment, centering myself and asking Danu's blessing for a clear mind and a bright blade.

Drawing my sword, I held it upright before me, hilt down and point up. This moment always gave me a measure of peace, the gathering pause before the flow of motion. Danu's spirit filled me and I moved into the first and simplest of her sword forms.

Most children begin with her first form, Midnight. I'd learned it younger than most, at five, clonking myself regularly with the wooden practice blade. Salena had just given birth to Andi and Uorsin had been raging through Ordnung in the hours since.

I'd heard his bellowing summons long before he burst into the nursery. Though I remembered little else about that time—other than feeling bereft, summarily dismissed from my mother's attention—that memory blazed bright in my mind. My father, who already frightened me more than a little, standing like a giant amidst the miniature toys of the nursery, his red-gold hair bright and blue eyes blazing.

“Curtsy for the High King,” my nurse prompted, poking me with a shaking hand, but I'd stood frozen, clutching the doll my mother had just given me, so I would have a baby to play with, too.

“What is this?” Uorsin yanked the doll out of my hands and threw it across the room. With contempt, he took in the little table and tiny teacups I'd set out for my doll and me to share and dashed a big hand through them, sending china shards flying. “You are my heir, Ursula, whether I like it or not—and here you are fussing about with dolls and fripperies.”

Even then I knew better than to let him see me cry. Mother told me to save the tears, tuck them away, and take them out later. They were for me, not for him. She did the same.

“Come with me, Daughter. It's high time you learned something useful, if you're to be a credit to the throne. Do you know how many people died so you can sit here in your pretty rooms playing with pretty things?”

“No, my King.”

“Thousands. Tens of thousands. Are you worthy of their sacrifice? Of
my
sacrifice?”

“No?”

“No. But you can be. Your mother has a new daughter now and has cast you aside. I'm all you have. Understand?”

I did understand. Then and in the days since. He took me down to the practice yard and started teaching me how to hold a blade. When I tripped over my dress, he ridiculed me. When I fell, he made me get up on my own. My dolls and dresses were packed away, replaced with practice daggers and wooden swords, pants and shirts better suited for drilling.

While Uorsin continued to oversee my progress, another instructor took over my daily training. A priestess of Danu, Kaedrin taught me the twelve sword forms, starting with the Midnight form. My father's brute-force techniques would never serve me well, she said. Kaedrin showed me how to use the strength of my lower body, the speed and flexibility of my lighter physique.

The twelfth form—the most complicated and demanding—finishes at Noon pose, one that took me two full years to master. It's one of Danu's tests that she demands the most strenuous postures and intricate maneuvers of the blade after you've already executed eleven other forms and your muscles are weeping from exhaustion.

I held Noon pose, up on the toes of one foot, the other leg poised in front of me to protect and deflect with a snap kick, my sword high above and behind, ready to slice into Snake Strike, my other hand palm out, steady. Danu's salute.

My back sang with the strain, but I refused to drop before the count of twelve, as Kaedrin would have expected of me. As I lowered body and blade, my gaze snagged on the intent stare of the Dasnarian captain. He showed no sign of overt aggression, but I moved my sword and self into a defensive posture, ready. A slight smile twitched at his somber mouth. He raised his short blade—a wide, bevel-edged hunting knife—and held the flat against his forehead.

Then he strode away, leaving me wondering. Challenge or salute—or both?

But the sun declined in truth now, and even with the delayed hour of the formal feast, I would run out of time if I did not move quickly.

When I at last achieved the sanctuary of my rooms, Dafne awaited me in the outer chamber. “I'm out of leisure time for conversation, librarian,” I told her. “Can it wait?”

She followed me into the bedchamber, watching as I unstrapped my sword and laid it on the bed. “Apparently I'm the one to wait—on you. You have no ladies to tend you and I have no chambers any longer. Ordnung is bursting at the seams, so you get to be stuck with me.”

I took her measure. “You are no lady-in-waiting.”

“Nor do you take much tending.”

I snorted at that and ran a hand ruefully through my sweat-drenched hair, which I'd chopped short to better fit under my helm during the campaigns of the recent months. “I do, however, take a fair amount of work to be made suitably feminine for court.”

She made a wry face. “As for that, one does not spend any amount of time with Princess Amelia without learning an extensive amount about grooming and beauty tricks.”

“You'll be relieved to know I don't aspire to beauty—adequate to pass the King's muster is a high enough bar. If you can assist, I'd be grateful.”

“I have hot water readied for a bath, if you care to start there.”

“Make that eternally grateful.”

She had arranged for wine and food, too, and I felt sufficiently drained to avail myself of hearty helpings of both before I stripped off the travel-worn fighting leathers and submerged in the tub.

“Too hot?” Dafne sent a maid off with my clothes for cleaning.

“Not at all. Could be hotter. No, don't trouble yourself to—”

“I had the maids heat extra.” Dafne poured in enough to make me hiss, then turned to examine my bookshelf. “You struck me as someone who'd like the extremes. Plus, you might be in far better physical condition than I, but that ride from Windroven was grueling. I feel I could fall over and never get up again.”

“You'll have to bathe next.”

“I already did. Have a good soak. After you're set, I need to find myself something to wear tonight.”

“If you're too tired, you could skip the feast.”

She came round the end of the tub and gave me a long look. “I don't think I should. There's much to witness, wouldn't you say?”

I closed my eyes against her inquisitive stare. “Much, yes, that I cannot tell you. Except that they are Dasnarians as you surmised. Mercenaries.”

“I did hear of the moratorium on leaving Ordnung.”

Cracking an eye at her, I confirmed what her voice revealed. “It won't apply to us. Once Uorsin is reassured of my loyalty, we'll be off to assist Amelia. Make no mistake of that. If she's not back at Windroven already.”

“You and I both know full well she won't go to Windroven. Especially not with Erich there.”

I sat up and soaped my hair. The short length made that infinitely easier. “Think you she'll take the girl to Annfwn first?”

“Yes.
Stella
,” she added with emphasis, as if I needed reminding.

“Even if she leaves the girl to foster with Andi and her Tala brethren, continues to keep the girl a secret, she'll return with Astar. It would be best for all if she came here,” I mused.

Dafne laughed. “You may be a brilliant strategist in a fight, Your Highness, but you do not predict your sisters as well as you might.”

I ducked my head, enjoying the sting of the hot prickling on my scalp. Being in the field meant bathing in a lot of cold lakes. Necessary, but I'd come to savor the luxury of warm water. Dafne had the right of it—my sisters never seemed to do the predictable thing. Very likely Ami and her convict would chase the child's kidnappers into Annfwn. If they survived the quest—the alternative nearly unbearable to contemplate—she couldn't stay there with Astar. Even Andi and Ami would know that much. If not, I would inform them in no uncertain terms. They might think I'd prefer Astar away from Ordnung and no competition for the throne, but they should know me better.

All I really cared about was seeing the High Throne secured and the Twelve thriving in peace. Too many people had died to see that happen—including Salena. I'd die myself before I'd let their sacrifices be in vain. The populace depended on us, on me. I would not let the people down while breath remained in my body.

“Did you note the woman—the female Dasnarian?” I asked Dafne.

She looked grave and turned down her mouth. “I did. Though I did not have the opportunity to speak with her.”

“Impressions?”

“I should say that I did not
try
to speak with her. She . . . unsettled me.”

“Me also.”

“That's even more unsettling. I thought nothing frightened you.”

I laughed. “Fear is like pain—it alerts us to a danger. That woman strikes me as dangerous. Though my sources did not explain more than that.”

“I can do some research,” Dafne offered. “Not until tomorrow, but there should be some scrolls and texts on Dasnaria in the collection.”

“That would be most appreciated. Everything we can know about them will be advantageous.”

“There's one problem.”

“Which is?”

“As you may or may not recall, the High King—at Andi's behest—removed the contents of Ordnung's library and sealed them in her rooms, part of the condition of her good behavior.”

I should have remembered that. So much had happened in a short time. And I'd been away, alternately chasing my sisters, various armies, and rogue Tala. “Are they still there?”

“I believe so. The last time we visited, the doors were still locked and no one knew otherwise. I couldn't, of course, ask directly, and Andi naturally never returned, so . . .”

“Uorsin will not be best pleased to be reminded of such, if he has in fact forgotten.”

“No. The books are as safe as they can be, if they're still there, but if we want to access that information . . .” She raised her brows at the problem.

“I'll mull it over and we'll discuss in the morning.”

“Thank you.” She nodded, then headed into the other room.

“Don't thank me until I've found a solution,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else. I leaned back, sinking deeper into the water, willing my back to relax. If only I could take my own advice and rest tonight. The heat seeped into my bones, lulling, soporific.

“Do you only have pastel gowns?” Dafne called from the other room, startling me from the edge of sleep.

“Oh, for Danu's sake—you don't have to do that!” I yelled back, then made myself get out of the tub. If I stayed too long, the warmth would make me groggy, and I'd spent any napping time running Danu's forms. I felt the better for the exercise, however. If the Dasnarian thought he'd spied my secrets from observing my workout, he did not understand Danu's way. “I can pick out my own thrice-damned dress.”

“Can you?” Dafne reemerged and gave me a dubious look. “Then why does your wardrobe consist of gowns that look as if they belong to Amelia?”

“Most likely because Amelia picked them. The idea was to reduce my harsh angles with softer colors and fabrics, as I recall.” That had been before Amelia married Hugh and moved away, when I'd been intended as his fiancée. They'd fluttered about for months trying to make me into proper princess material, Ami and all the ladies. A well-intentioned effort. As Andi had remarked, however, all such attempts to adorn us was wasted with Amelia, the most beautiful woman in the Twelve Kingdoms, in the room. There's a reason you can't see the stars when the sun is in the sky. “I doubt I've worn even a third of them. If you want any, help yourself.”

“I'd have to take up the hems and waistlines by a good eight inches,” Dafne mused, holding a buttercup yellow silk confection, “but I might just do that. This color would be terrible on you.”

“You
did
spend too much time with Ami.”

Dafne made a face. “All knowledge is worth having. My education shall now benefit you. You are still heir to the High Throne, and tonight you should look it.”

I finished toweling my hair dry. “I may not be as well read as you, librarian, but I've noticed that my father holds the throne just fine without a pretty outfit to wear.”

“Oh?” Her voice came muffled from the other room, so I pulled on a robe and followed her in. “Let me ask you this—why did the King wear his crown today?”

“He was holding court and he's entitled to.”

“Though he rather famously detests wearing it and frequently holds court without.”

True. Even I'd noted that his wearing the crown today meant no good for me, that he saw the situation as meriting a particular level of splendor. “I see your point.”

She emerged from the wardrobe with a red velvet dress. “This. Have I ever seen you in it?”

I frowned at it. “It was for a Feast of Moranu. But even I know not to wear midwinter gowns in summer.”

“This is the one. The claret will be perfect. And if you're wearing something the other ladies aren't, even better. You made an impression of one kind this afternoon. Tonight you'll underscore it. Today the noble weary warrior returned home. Tonight Her Royal Highness shines like a jewel in the heart of the Twelve. But first, let's trim your hair.”