The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala (13 page)

“Wait—where is Moranu’s chapel? I’d like to pay a visit. With an escort, of course, and—”

Hugh had started shaking his head before I’d finished the second sentence.

“I can’t let you do that, Andi. Even if it wasn’t outside the walls. It doesn’t look good for you to pay homage to anyone but Glorianna, especially with this current conflict.”

“I’ll go in secret. In disguise.”

He shrugged me off. “It’s outside the walls. It pains me to refuse you, but it’s impossible.”

“I could go now, before the siege begins.”

“Ah—that’s where you’re not listening to me, Sister. The Tala have already arrived. The battle will engage by morning.”

If nothing else, Hugh and his generals could predict the onset of battle.

I awoke with a start in darkness. For a moment, I couldn’t be sure where I was. The muffled rhythm of surf reminded me, but the other roar had me confused. Then I remembered and sat up. The crash of arms and angry shouts tumbled outside, though I couldn’t see it. When I’d returned to my chambers after a mind-numbingly long feast the night before, I’d found my own windows bricked over, with only small slits remaining to let in air. I supposed I didn’t have to worry about Rayfe or his creatures visiting me now, though he hadn’t appeared in my dreams since our encounter outside the chapel. A good thing, I reminded myself. Though it just indicated a new phase in his strategy. My trunks had arrived, thankfully, so I pulled on my practice leathers and affixed my borrowed dagger to my belt. Even if Hugh wouldn’t let me fight, I’d be happier having better agility. My door guards trailed after me with grinning anticipation. They wanted to see the battle too. We climbed to the upper walls and found a viewing spot in the press with everyone else who lived in the castle, new and old.

The drawbridge was up, the gates of the castle down and barred. Spilling over the mountainside around the outside walls, like a patchwork gown, were Hugh’s troops. Our defenders. No longer human looking, they formed phalanxes distinguished by flags and colors, Glorianna’s pink predominant over Avonlidgh’s purple and green. They guarded the narrow road, making ascent impossible.

Below that, the valley teemed with an encamped army in somber colors. More streamed in from the distant forests, which had been cut back to make the fertile fields of Windroven. Fields now stripped bare of everything their owners could carry into the castle and now bearing only the fruit of Rayfe’s armies.

How could there be so many of them?

Perhaps their movement fooled me, for they constantly shifted, horses galloping about, manes and tails streaming along like the wild black hair of the Tala themselves. Where our troops stood in disciplined ranks, theirs tossed like an angry sea. The small ratlike creatures teemed over the ground like ants. Wolves as big as ponies wove in and out, circling the fields like a hunting pack surveying their trapped prey. Birds of all sizes, all black, clouded the skies, flocks changing direction in a flash of movement while enormous raptors soared high above.

I imagined the birds in my blood flapping their wings in the feral desire to join them, and my fingertips burned. Refusing to look, in case claws were indeed sprouting, I scanned the assembled enemy, trying to count but somehow unable to focus on any group long enough, like clouds that dissipated if I stared too hard.

“Who knew there are so many of the Tala? I thought they were a wild and scattered people.” I said it to myself, but one of my guards answered.

“Black magic, Princess. ’Tis said they multiply overnight, like insects.”

“Aye. And if you cut one down, two more grow in its place,” the other guard added.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” I turned my back on the unsettling sight below and assessed the two brawny men. They exchanged sidelong glances, edging slightly away from me.

They were afraid of me. Just another creepy insect.

“Andi! Andi, over here!”

I followed Amelia’s voice, not caring if the guards kept up with me or not. Of course they would. They’d give their lives to protect me, a woman they couldn’t quite look in the eye, for the odd dread curling in their guts. All for a chance to prove their mettle in battle. For the glory.

Amelia and her ladies were perched in a makeshift grandstand. Dressed in daffodil yellow, her hair flowing loose down her back, Amelia looked like rosy morning. Her ladies were all in pastels, too. Dafne sat with them, dressed like me in fighting leathers. She raised a sardonic brow at me but shifted aside so Amelia could scoot past to embrace me.

“Hugh said you were exhausted, so we let you lie in. The battle hasn’t started yet, so you haven’t missed a thing. Why are you dressed like that? It’s not like Ursula will show up to make us practice.” She wrinkled her pretty nose, seized my hand, and pulled me to the seat next to her. “I begged Hugh to let us watch. I’m never sitting in a dark, closed-up safe room again where I can’t see what’s happening! He says it’s safe here for now, though we might have to go in later. Something about catapults. Anyway, I’m sure it will all be over soon. Did you see all of those horrible creatures? So dreadful!”

Amelia talked when she was nervous. She wasn’t as carefree as she liked to appear, but I knew her well. She clutched my hand and chattered about Hugh, his generals, how brave they all were, and how she’d arranged for a lovely midmorning snack for us.

The sun rose higher and beat down on us. Still nothing happened.

Servants erected a striped silk awning over our heads. Still nothing. Even Amelia grew bored and huffed about the delay.

The crowd on the parapets thinned as people went off to do necessary chores. Several of Amelia’s ladies begged off, citing fatigue and a desire to work on sewing. Dafne moved to sit next to me while Amelia flirted with one of Hugh’s courtiers, one of her favorite pastimes.

“Now everyone discovers what siege is really like,” Dafne murmured.

“You’ve been through one?”

She nodded, face carefully blank. “My family’s castle, when I was young. Weeks of boredom punctuated by stark terror.”

“I admit, I thought more would happen today.”

“You’re right to dress in leathers—you never know when things
will
happen. Right now they have no reason to engage. Avonlidgh’s local forces are all within the bounds of Windroven, and it will be days or weeks before others can be mobilized. Patience is their weapon.”

“And what is ours?”

She flicked a glance at me. “Fortitude.”

Midafternoon, something did happen. A stir ran through the field below, surrounding a streaming white pennant. Two horsemen made their way through the teeming army and halted at the bottom of the road leading up to Windroven. They waited.

After a bit, we could make out Hugh’s glittering form, riding down the mountain on a palomino stallion. Einsly rode beside and a little behind him, carrying the flag of Avonlidgh. He glanced up and saluted us. Hugh kept focused on the men below.

The four met, a wide circle cleared around them.

They were far enough away now that I couldn’t make out faces, but surely the lean man on the black horse was Rayfe. His hair would be tied back for battle, so no wonder I could see no sign of it beneath his helm. Not like Hugh, in his bareheaded and confident glory.

At one point, Rayfe offered a package to Hugh, something wrapped in a dark silk with fluttering ends. He and Einsly unwrapped and examined it, then Hugh dropped it on the ground.

After a time, Hugh and Einsly spun their horses about and left Rayfe and his man in a cloud of dust. Rayfe dismounted, picked the thing up off the ground, brushed it off, and held it, looking up toward where I stood—though surely he couldn’t pick me out in the crowd from that distance. A fleeting headache pulsed behind my eyes. He seemed to nod at me, and tucked the package in his pocket. Then he and his man were swallowed up in the crowd on the field, white pennant folded away. Hugh and Einsly took their time winding up the road, stopping to visit with various lords and generals. Encouraging the troops, most likely.

With an impatient sigh, I stood. Amelia glanced up, gave me a little shrug, and returned to listening to some story about a nine-day fox hunt. Dafne went with me down to the main gates to wait for Hugh’s arrival.

He came through a smaller door, so narrow he had to turn sideways to pass through. Einsly must have stayed in one of the outer courtyards, with the horses. Hugh’s glance flicked over us. He seemed resigned but unsurprised to see me there.

“What did he say?” I asked without preamble. Wound in my own way, I couldn’t bear to take time with polite greetings.

Hugh seemed to understand, though he looked pained. He took my hand in both of his, stripping off the chain-mail gloves to do it.

“Just what you’d expect, Andi. Rayfe renewed his demands. Exactly the same. Made threats. Nothing has changed.”

I wanted to ask him how Rayfe had looked. If he seemed angry. Or . . . something about him. A message for me. Anything. Hugh’s face revealed nothing of what he’d thought of the man. Maybe men didn’t think that way.

Hugh sighed. “He’s promised not to attack, if that makes you feel better. He seems confident he can wait us out. So that’s where it stands.”

“I see.” I waited. Hugh said nothing more. “What did he give you?”

“Give me?”

“That you threw on the ground.”

“Ah, nothing of importance.”

“But—”

“Let it go, Andi.” He kissed my hand and dropped it. Suddenly he no longer looked like the cocky, handsome boy who’d walked into our court. Under the blazing confidence, he looked drawn, with shadows under his eyes.

He looked angry. And afraid.

T
he other thing I learned about sieges is that it’s impossible to maintain a high state of alert for very long. And that sooner or later, people get tired of the waiting and have to do something.

That’s when it gets ugly.

The first night, we barely slept, waiting for the attack to come. I lay restlessly in my stuffy room, listening to the guards calling out their positions and status. A series of shouts brought me bolt upright, pulse pounding, dagger in hand. The all clears that followed spoke to my brain but not my heart, which insisted on believing only the alert, not the stand-down.

When I managed to sleep, I dreamed of him. This one, though, was more truly a concoction of my own mind. A dreadful one.

Rayfe stood in that acid-green meadow, wolfhounds milling around him while a wind I couldn’t feel tugged at his black cloak and hair. He held out a hand to me. The black silk package rested in his palm, the wrapping fluttering in the same way.

“I can’t,” I whispered.

He only smiled at me. Tempting my curiosity. The restless pacing in my heart accelerated.

I took a step toward him, and his smile widened, pleasure lighting his midnight eyes. But before I could take another, Fiona screamed behind me. I spun and there she was, tethered to a pole atop a blazing pile of books, writhing while the flames ate at her crackling flesh, while she cried for me. I tried to reach her, to save her, but my feet wouldn’t work. They crumbled off my ankles, turning into scales and feathers as I walked, so I left a bloody black trail in my wake. With every step, more of me fell away, becoming other. Fiona screamed and I echoed her terror.

I sat bolt upright before I knew I was awake.

Not difficult to interpret that one.

We repeated our new siege rituals for the next few days, dutifully assembling on the parapets to watch nothing at all. Amelia’s ladies began to bring their various sewing and tapestry projects with them. Dafne brought her books. Every morning, nothing happened. Every afternoon, Rayfe and his man rode up under the parley flag and offered Hugh the package. Every time, Hugh tossed it away and refused to speak to me of it.

Every day, I felt more strange to myself.

After a time, we stopped holding vigil. Amelia declared it more comfortable in her usual chambers. Dafne stayed in her makeshift library. She was deep into some sort of research, and her thoughts tended to drift off in midconversation. I didn’t have anything to say anyway, so I let her be.

My blood and muscles restless, I paced the parapets, alone but for all the silent guards keeping their endless alert.

I discovered that it’s possible to be both bored and on edge. You wouldn’t think so, but they become one state of being. One that eats away at your peace of mind. I looked forward to the one moment every day when something changed, when Rayfe rode forward, when he searched me out on the parapets.

I dreaded the dream that recurred every night.

One midday—hours yet from the one interesting event I could count on—on one of my circles around the tops of the castle walls, I spotted Rayfe’s now familiar form riding from the edge of his encampment into the forest. I knew him by the headache flashing behind my eyes, if nothing else. Holding up a hand to shield against the sun, I watched, fascinated, but he did not reemerge. The sentries had grown used to my rambles, barely paying attention to me as I made my way up and down, from tower to tower, along walkways wide and narrow, so I had to tug the sleeve of one to get his attention. I pointed.

“That road that leads into the forest—where does it go?”

He shrugged. “Nowhere.”

“You all are in the habit of maintaining roads that lead nowhere at all?” I asked drily.

“He means,
Princess
”—another guard threw the first a reprimanding look—“it leads only to a series of villages, an old chapel few visit. Nothing of interest, he means.”

“Moranu’s chapel?”

He scratched his scalp under the metal helm. “Aye. Seems my granny went there from time to time, Princess. Of course, the people of Avonlidgh are loyal to the High King and have forsaken Moranu’s worship now.”

I thanked him and stood there studying that road I could never go down. No more than I could go to Rayfe and put an end to all this, no matter how the birds in my blood sang piteously for it. From this point, the castle wall fell straight down, a dizzying sweep to bare rock below. That would be one way out, it occurred to me. I could fling myself over the edge before the guards could move. I’d be dead before I felt it.

Then everyone could just go home.

Annfwn needs you.

A chill wind swept over me, from a different direction than usual, promising of long nights and winter snows. I shivered at it.

“Weather’s turning,” one sentry commented.

“Aye,” another grunted. “See the forest? Leaves are starting to change.”

“We’ll see how long the Tala stay camped through one of our Mornai storms.”

“What’s a Mornai storm?” I asked. “Storm off the ocean, Princess,” my talkative sentry explained. “Water-heavy clouds blow in and hit the cold winds you all send down from the north. Snow like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Those Tala will be buried alive by it.” A guard chuckled in glee.

“No, son.” The guard squinted at the sky. “Our forces won’t wait for that. They can’t afford to. I hear King Erich’s troops have rounded up the escaped prisoners and the Mohrayans have done the same. Reinforcements are coming in from Aerron and Duranor to join with King Uorsin’s and King Erich’s armies at Castle Avonlidgh. This stalemate will end. Mark my words.”

I looked down at the rocks below and thought about endings.

Among the dreams of poor burning Fiona, the image of Rayfe dead in the snow, the slopes of Windroven covered with dead bodies, and the constant, sliding sensation of my body coming apart, I often thought I might be losing my mind. I felt like I had the pieces to a puzzle in my hands, but I couldn’t fit them together. Every time I tried, an edge fell off and shattered on the floor.

That night, though, the dream changed. It wasn’t the acid-green meadow, or any of the others, to my relief.

This time I walked along a road through a dark forest—familiar, yet one I’d never seen. To confirm my suspicions, I looked over my shoulder. In the distance, across fertile farmlands, stood Castle Windroven, pennants flying in the coastal breezes. I could pick out the spot where I’d stood, watching Rayfe travel this very road.

Unerringly I followed his path, where the road branched into smaller trails, hemmed in by trees so huge I wouldn’t be able to wrap my arms around them. But I wasn’t in this dream to look at trees. My feet took me down the trail until a clearing opened up at Moranu’s chapel.

It was built of the shell-encrusted volcanic stones from the seashore, much like Windroven, but the forest had gone far to make its mark, covering the charming garrets with ivy and moss. Dark where Glorianna’s chapels were bright, the chapel had Moranu’s moons arching in progression over the humble door, inlaid with now tarnished silver.

Rayfe waited there, of course.

Though I halted at the edge of the clearing, I was much closer to him than in the usual dreams. His blue eyes intent on me, he nodded, showing me the package but not holding it out. He opened the door and went into the chapel, glancing back over his shoulder, reminding me of the wolf leading me out of Glorianna’s pink candy chapel.

Uneasy, I glanced into the shadows, waiting for the apparition of Fiona to appear. But all stayed quiet, except for a soft soughing of wind through the upper branches. Unlike on the path, I had a choice now about whether to follow Rayfe into the shadowed interior. A choice he’d very deliberately handed me.

I probably shouldn’t have, but I simply couldn’t stand it any longer. I had to make a decision, even if it was the wrong one.

I took a step. Then another. And another.

A feeling of clean liberation poured through me.
Follow your path to the end
. By Moranu, I would.

Inside the chapel, round windows ringed the ceiling. The moon shone through one, a gleaming opal in a sky the color of Rayfe’s eyes.

He waited by the stone altar. When I finally looked at him, his face was carved in somber lines, almost sad. He knelt and moved a stone at the foot of the altar. After placing the package in the hollow, he fitted the stone back in place.

Abruptly, he stood and strode toward me, cloak flaring with the movement. I tried to step back but hit up against a stone bench. He started to pass me, paused, turned a bit. Had his eyes been so darkly blue in waking life? He raised a hand, framing my cheek with it. Not touching, yet I could feel him. I couldn’t breathe. His lips moved without sound, saying something I couldn’t hear.

He smiled, an affectionate curve that seemed out of character for his stern mouth. He mouthed the words again and left.

Come to me.

In the morning, the mood of the castle had shifted.

I felt it even before I went down to breakfast, like a storm approaching. Amelia’s violet gaze caught mine as soon as I walked in the room, and she held out a hand to me. Bad news?

“What’s happened?”

“Several battalions disappeared during the night,” she whispered to me.

“Left?”

“No. Their gear, tents, everything is all lying there, but the people are gone. Hugh has taken troops to investigate.”

“He must think they’re dead, then. Or taken prisoner.”

“Well, it
is
a war, Andi. That’s what happens.”

I didn’t have to reply to that because Hugh and his men returned just then, to a loud commotion in the courtyard. Amelia and I, along with all the ladies already at breakfast, rushed to the open balcony that overlooked the inner courtyard. Hugh and Einsly shouted at each other, while Hugh’s page stood nearby, arms loaded with black scarves that dangled silver coins.

By the time we ran down the curving stairs, Einsly had departed, along with a goodly portion of the men. Hugh caught sight of us and sent his page in the other direction, taking the scarves with him.

Glad I wore my fighting leathers, I put on a burst of speed and chased the boy down, seizing him by his scrawny arm. He blanched, cringing away from me, fawn-brown eyes wide.

“Andi!” Hugh barked behind me. “Leave it be!”

Beyond listening, I yanked one of the scarves from the page. The coin attached shone prettily, a wolf carved on one side, on the other, three words:
Come to me.

I dropped it as if burned, my fingertips alive with a sharp ache.

Hugh’s hand fell on my shoulder, squeezing warmly. “Princess Andi—Sister—this is not for you to see.”

“It’s clearly a message to me. Who else should see it?”

“He seeks to manipulate you. To turn your emotions.”

It was working. I felt like crying. Like falling to my knees in the dusty courtyard and keening out my grief and fear. Hugh seemed to see this, watching me with troubled eyes.

“These were in place of the missing soldiers?”

He hesitated. Nodded.

“Prisoners, then. And I am the ransom. Exchange me for them and this ends.”

“No.” The noble line of Hugh’s jaw firmed. “Einsly has already left to organize a rescue mission. Enough of this waiting. Enough of these games. Rayfe wants a war, by Glorianna, he shall have one.”

“But—”

He’d already turned, gone to Amelia, and swept her up in a fervent embrace. Hugh kissed her and Amelia clung to him, passion shimmering in the air around them. Feeling unaccountably old and ugly, I had to look away. The silver coin at my feet winked up at me. Taunting.

Hugh’s page darted in, snatched up the scarf, and dashed off.

Hugh released Amelia and paused a moment, cupping her cheek and whispering something to her. It speared me—how the movement recalled my dream. Amelia’s face shone with love, all rose and gold, though. Not at all like my own moment, in Moranu’s nighttime chapel, with dark Rayfe and the swirling portents all around.

But then, I was never meant for Amelia’s life. Nor she for mine.