Thorn (37 page)

Filadon greets me quietly. I cannot tell from his voice, from the faint smile and nod, whether he found anything in his search. I dare not ask him here. He keeps up an animated conversation with the nobles seated beside him through most of the meal, while his wife engages the man across from me. She is young with a quick smile and quicker wit. I do not attempt to join them, for I know that Filadon does not want these men to know who I am yet. I take little of the food, and eat even less.

As the last course is cleared, the king turns to Valka. “I have an interesting question for you, my dear. Would you mind my asking it?” He speaks in our language, but at his nod the interpreter standing at Valka’s elbow translates his question to Menay, capturing the full attention of the table.

Valka smiles. “Of course not, Your Majesty.”

“There is a story that accompanies it, and the story is simply this: a princess and her companion were traveling one day on their way to some unknown land. During the journey, the companion betrayed her mistress; furthermore, upon their arrival in that land she went to great lengths to turn all who were there against her lady. She brought false charges against the princess, and sought to undermine her authority. She even claimed to be the princess herself. My question is this: what punishment would such a woman deserve?”

He leans back in his chair, smiling amiably at Valka. I realize that I am shaking.
 

Valka glances down the table to me as the translator speaks, and in that look I see a terrible fate. Meeting the king’s gaze, she answers slowly, savoring each word. “Such a woman deserves no more than to be placed in a barrel that has been pounded through with nails and be dragged through the streets behind a brace of horses until she is dead.”

The horror of it takes a moment to sink in. “No,” I whisper. Filadon turns towards me, but the rest do not hear, focused on the translator. I watch the king, willing him to refuse this sentence. My brother’s words whisper through me, speaking of the death Kestrin would mete out to me. His prophecy will come to pass after all.

“That is the punishment you decree?” the king asks, as if she might rethink it.

“Yes,” Valka says firmly.

“Very well. You have chosen your death. Take her away.” At the king’s words a pair of guards step forward from the back of the room. As alarm spreads across Valka’s features, relief floods through me, leaving me lightheaded.

“Your Majesty!” she cries, as the guards raise her from her seat. “What can you mean by this? I am the Princess Alyrra!”

“On the contrary, lady, you are not.” The guards drag her from the room, still protesting, leaving behind a stunned silence. The king, at its center, seems utterly unconcerned.

It is Melkior who speaks next. “Your Majesty, if that was the impostor, who is the true princess?”

The king nods down the table, meeting my gaze. “The Lady Thoreena.”

The table turns to stare at me. If I look at them I will lose what little composure I have. Instead, I hold the king’s gaze and say, “Your Majesty, the sentence that was chosen is far too brutal a death. I would ask that you ease it.”

Even as I speak my plea, I remember the king’s words to me this morning:
the fate you will suffer will be much worse than a burning.
I doubt he will hear me.

“The sentence chosen was for you. It is only just to visit it upon the traitor herself.”

“Your Majesty,” I say, but I cannot find the words to make my argument.

He shakes his head. This is Valka’s payment for betraying Kestrin. “Let it be, lady.”

One of the ladies seated at the table leans forward. “Your Majesty, how could this happen? How was it not found out?”

The king has not yet looked away from me. Now, instead of answering the lady, he says, “Lord Filadon, the Princess Alyrra has been through much today. Will you help her back to her rooms?” He stands as he speaks, forcing all those present to rise as well. Filadon’s hand comes under my elbow, urging me up.

“Come,” he murmurs. I let him lead me out, aware that no one makes any move to follow us.

In the hallway, I pause, bewildered. My quad is gone. “I don’t remember the way.”

“It’s alright,” Filadon says. “The king wants you closer to the royal wing. I will take you there.”

I glance back as we turn down a stairwell. “The rest have not left.”

“The king will have to answer a few questions; he deemed it best that you not be there.”

The words rub against me like flint against steel. “Why?”

Filadon frowns. “He does not want them to question you until he has spoken with you.”

“There are too many secrets to keep,” I say wearily, my anger dying.

“There are, Your Highness.”

I wince, the title jarring against my ears. I want to tell him to call me Thorn. Instead I ask, “My lord, did you find any sign of the prince?”

Filadon’s face grows sober. “We found his tracks easily enough, and yours leading back. The prince’s end where they meet yours.”

“Yes.” I swallow. “I know you have the Family’s trust. If you know—if you are that closely in their confidence—then you will know how Kestrin can be helped.”

“There is nothing to be done,” Filadon says, his face bleak. “She will never let him go. He went of his own volition; he cannot fight her now.”

My stomach gives a lurch. He cannot die. Not like this. Not for
me.
“But surely there must be some way,” I plead.

Filadon stops before a door, releasing my hand to open it. “She has taken the whole Family, one by one. If there were a way, we would have found it. I am sorry, Your Highness.”

***

I cannot sleep. I lie awake in the great bed, listening to the silence that hangs in the suite of rooms, and I miss the sound of horses shifting and snorting somewhere nearby, of Laurel’s occasional snore and Violet’s sweet laughter. They are lost to me now. Violet is gone, and though I might visit the stables again, I will never again be the goose girl, able to share an evening in the common room or sing Laurel and myself to sleep.

No, I am princess now, though what that means I have yet to decide. I wonder if Falada would be proud of me, and I think of his head hanging in the city gates. Even in death, he is a better friend to me than I have ever been to anyone. And, inevitably, I think of Kestrin, visiting me in the guise of the Wind since my childhood—his youth. Kestrin promising me a protection I did not believe he could provide, and coming to my aid in the goose pasture, knowing as he must have that the Lady would take his help as a sign of his concern for me. She must have known all along; she was only waiting for him to recognize the cost of his friendship. And, as with Falada, he had chosen death rather than betrayal. But this time there is something I can do.

I stand up and go to the window, throwing open the shutters. Moonlight streams down. I close my eyes, breathe in its cool wash, the night breeze. “Lady,” I call, standing with my hands loose by my sides. “Lady.”

I wait, listening to the faint sounds of the palace, voices drifting to me from far away. I step back from the window. In the moonlight that streams in something flickers and strengthens.

“Lady,” I repeat. She looks as I remember her from that first night, her face white as bone, her dress shining as if it were itself woven of light. “What have you done with Kestrin?”

She holds her hands out to me, palm upturned. I study her features. In the corners of her mouth, the tilt of her face, there is a deep and dreadful weariness. I take her hand. The moonlight flashes once, bright and yet painless, and then we stand together on a gravel walk, sunlight streaming down on the garden surrounding us.

“Where are we?”

“In my gardens.” Here, the Lady wears clothes as any mortal might: a simple white gown with white-embroidered bodice and flowing sleeves. Her darksheen hair has been braided back tightly.

“And the prince?”

“He is here. Come; I will show you.” I follow her down the walk into a small square. At the center stands a statue of a man. “This is the first of my collection,” she tells me. The man must have once been quite powerful, both physically and intellectually. But his massive shoulders had slumped in defeat by the time the likeness was made, his once strong features wasted into a haggard, desperate mask. He wears the traditional Menaiyan armor of metal and leather, and at his side hangs a sword in its scabbard.

“He was your prince’s great-grandsire. What do you think?”

I study the face and my breath catches in my throat: every detail stands out exactly, each eyelash, each lock of lank hair that falls across the high brow. “This—this was truly him!”

“Of course. Do you think I would put up a statue of such a man? No, it is he, exactly as he came to me. Do you not like him? I think he cuts a fine figure.”

“You’ve turned him to stone,” I say stupidly, staring at the frozen features. “Why?”

“Come along, princess. There is more for you to see.” The Lady starts forward once more, towards the next gate.

I stay where I am. “How could you do such a thing to someone—anyone?”

She turns back to me, her eyes glittering with anger. “Do you truly wish to know?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will show you.” The Lady reaches up and catches my face in her hands, and the world drops away.

***

The soldiers drag the prisoner through the brush to the clearing, throwing it at the feet of a mounted rider. He swings down from his horse, his armor glinting in the sunlight, and kicks the prone figure onto its back. The soldiers laugh at its muffled cry.

A child begins to shriek somewhere behind me, but I cannot turn my head to see who it is. The rider pulls off his helmet, tossing it to one of the soldiers. His features leap out at me—the high brow, the cheekbones, the dark skin.

He reaches down and grasps the captive’s clothes in one gauntleted fist, dragging the person up. The child’s wails turn to a high keening. A woman, I think, staring in shock. The woman’s face is battered and scratched, but as she looks up at him her features twist and she spits. He laughs, a hearty, booming laugh that fills the clearing, and drags the woman to a tree, shoving her up against it. I look around frantically, but the soldiers all watch with lazy amusement. I cannot find my voice to scream for help. With a sickening
thunk
, he thrusts his dagger through her palm, pinning her hand above her head. She cries out, a hoarse sound, and then with a gasp she snaps her jaw shut. Tears spill from her eyes, trickling down her cheeks. She looks towards me and smiles.

I am screaming silently, mindlessly, unable to look away as the man impales her right hand beside her left. He steps back, considering his handiwork. Then, with the same genial laugh, he draws his sword and slits her belly open. If I could move, if I could breathe, I would be sick with horror. I cannot even look away.

The man sheathes his sword and returns to his horse. Mounted, he watches the writhing, jerking agony of the woman until her hands tear themselves free of the daggers, and she collapses on the ground. She twitches a few times, her body shuddering, the tattered remnants of her hands pressed against the gaping wound of her belly, and then she lies still in a spreading pool of blood.

The man turns his horse towards me. I can hear the clump of the horse’s hooves in the rich earth, can hear it through the gasping keen of the child behind me. He looks down at me, his lips curling back in contempt. His booted foot lifts from the stirrup and snaps out, slamming into my face and sending me reeling back, the child’s weeping abruptly stopped.

***

“The prisoner was my mother,” the Lady says, dropping her hands from my face. I shiver uncontrollably, my teeth chattering as my stomach roils. “I woke up alone with her body—they left me to tell my people what had become of her. She was one of our leaders, a great general. But she was betrayed into the hands of our enemy. They caught me, you see, and used me as bait to catch her.” I close my eyes, shaking my head. As if I might deny this, might rattle these images free. Over and over I see the daggers impaling the callused palms, the shine of the sword as it slices through the woman’s stomach.

“I swore I would kill him, destroy his line, for what he did.”

“He was…” I say hoarsely, and a deep shudder runs through me. Dark hair, eyes the rich brown of earth...

“Your Kestrin’s great-grandsire. Now do you understand?” The Lady does not wait for my answer but walks to a wrought iron gate set between two high hedges. I stumble after her.

“Lady,” I call, trying to regain my footing. My focus.

“Little princess.”

“That was—not the prince. Why do you punish him for his ancestor’s cruelty?”

“I swore to end his line.”

“But if Kestrin himself has never harmed anyone, then to kill him for something he has no control over—”

“It is in his blood.”

“But, Lady,” I say, unable to argue and yet knowing she is wrong—surely she must be wrong.

“Enough. Here, then, is your prince.”

The garden shifts, whirling soundlessly to resettle in a different pattern. I find myself in another square surrounded by high hedges, but at the center the stone figure does not stand. Instead, he kneels, leaning back on his feet to look ahead. One hand is curled into a tight fist pressed against his leg, but the other reaches out in front of him, curving around the air as if resting on it.