The following evening, I was primped and adorned and escorted to the hall once more, seated to the left of the king as if all was well. The delegation seemed slightly less travel-weary, and eyes were sharp and conversation stilted. My father hadn’t left for Corvyn. His face was just as drawn, his gaze as fleeting, but the death that had hovered around him the day before had fled.
The king neither ate nor drank, but engaged the gathering in trivial conversation and mild discussion of the happenings in the kingdom. As the meal was consumed and the hour passed, Lord Gaul rose, and with a weighted look around the gathering, he addressed the king with false solemnity.
“There are ten provinces—Kilmorda, Corvyn, Bilwick, Bin Dar, Enoch, Quondoon, Janda, Gaul, Firi and of course, Degn.” He inclined his head toward the king when he said Degn. Degn was the province of Tiras’s family, the province that surrounded the capital, the province of kings. “There are five representatives here tonight.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Firi, Corvyn, Bilwick, Bin Dar, and Gaul.” He inclined his head again. “Six, if we count Degn. If we count you.”
The king waited.
“The representatives from Janda, Quondoon and Enoch, to the south, don’t feel as threatened by the Volgar as those of us farther north. They weren’t interested in . . . attending . . . this summit.”
“They weren’t interested in a coup?” The king asked, his mild voice dripping with false calm. “And the rest of you?” Tiras moved his eyes around the table, lingering on every member of the council, one by one, demanding a response.
“If this is a coup, then I have no interest in it either,” the lovely ambassador from Firi interrupted, rising from her chair. “I am here to support King Tiras in his efforts to push back the Volgar. I am here to commit my province to the defense of Jeru. All of Jeru.”
The king rose to his feet, bowing slightly to the young ambassador. Kjell rose alongside him, his hand on his sword, his eyes on the woman. When the king started to speak once more, Kjell’s eyes swung back to Tiras. I wanted to stand too. It would have been ridiculous. I was no one. But still, I wanted to stand. If there were sides, I did not want to be on the side of people like Bilwick and Gaul and the smug ruler of Bin Dar who even now, was rising at the far end of the long table. I did not want to be on the side of those who thought people like my mother, people like me, were the real enemy.
“Kilmorda is in ruins,” Tiras said, pinning the gathering with his black gaze. “Lord Kilmorda and his family are dead. The Volgar have been pushed back, but they’ve left behind destruction. The people of Kilmorda have fled to Firi, some to Degn, a few to Corvyn, though it is harder to access due to the mountainous terrain. The valley stinks of rotting corpses, and the waters are tainted with death. Unless you want all of Jeru to share the same fate, you will leave your political machinations for another time.”
“But Your Majesty, that is why we are here,” Lord Gaul insisted with cloying sweetness. “I think I speak for Lord Corvyn, Lord Bilwick, Lord Bin Dar, as well as myself, when I say your leniency on the Gifted has given rise to these attacks. The Gifted have fled north, and they have bred with beasts, giving rise to the monsters that now attack Jeru.”
“One would think that if I were truly lenient on the Gifted they would have no reason to flee. Wouldn’t they just stay here if I am so welcoming?” Tiras snapped.
“They must be destroyed, Majesty. And you have failed to destroy them. Now they rise against us with the Volgar. Lord Bin Dar stood beside Lord Gaul. Slowly, one by one, every lord was standing, including my father. Those of us who had no influence or title remained seated. I fought the urge to stand once more.
“How do you know this, Lord Bin Dar?” The king leaned forward, his arms bracketing the plate of food he’d hardly touched. “I have been in Kilmorda fighting winged beasts, killing them by the hundreds, and I’ve never seen what you allege.”
“We have questioned the Gifted, Your Majesty,” Lord Bilwick shot out, his voice a self-satisfied sneer.
“What Gifted?” The king’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“The Gifted we’ve captured, of course. The Gifted in our own provinces. Before they are put to death they are questioned. Extensively. They all tell us the same thing. They are in league with the Volgar,” Lord Gaul supplied smoothly.
Satisfaction rose from Lord Gaul, Lord Bin Dar, and Lord Bilwick like the cheap scents the vendors sold at the weekly bazaars. Their line of attack had been clearly orchestrated. My father exuded greed, his avarice creating a stench almost as thick as the plotting of his fellow lords.
“You’ve captured and tortured people, your own citizens, until they confessed to your allegations,” the king bit out.
Lord Bin Dar’s oddly-shaped brows rose until they disappeared into the sweep of his black hair. It was a flat, bluish black, a color achieved through tonics and dyes, and it only succeeded in making his pale face look older and more lined.
“Your father, King Zoltev, struck down Corvyn’s wife without a trial . . . over nothing more than a kerchief fluttering in the air!” His hand mimicked the fluttering with an effeminate wiggle of his fingers, and he sighed as if the memory pained him. “At least we allow the Gifted trials before we put them to death.”
Deception. Blame. Power. Destruction.
The words made a thick soup in the air, and I wasn’t sure which words belonged to whom. My head began to swim, memories of my mother, of her blood on the cobblestones, of her body pressing into mine as she breathed her warning into my ear. I closed my eyes and bowed my head. Lord Bin Dar’s voice echoed oddly, like I was submerged in water.
“The people are losing confidence in you, Tiras. The council is losing confidence in you. If you will not protect Jeru from the Gifted then we must protect Jeru from you.”
The king’s eyes narrowed, and something dark skittered across his face. His jaw was granite, and his hands gripped the edge of the table so hard the ends of his fingers were white like talons.
“I see. And who will protect all of you from me?” the king hissed, his eyes glowing fire. Lord Bin Dar blanched, and there was a collective gasp around the table.
“We are simply concerned!” Lord Gaul huffed. “It is our responsibility, our duty as Council of Lords to see that Jeru does not fall into enemy hands.”
“It is my duty as king to vanquish Jeru’s enemies. Whoever they might be.”
“We will reassemble in one month’s time. If the Volgar have not been defeated, the lords from every province will ask you to relinquish the throne. Corvyn is next in line, so Corvyn will be king. You will be Lord of Degn, a member of the Council of Lords, but you will not be king,” Lord Bin Dar shouted, and the protests and dissent, along with cheers and jeers, rose as well.
“Corvyn is in line for the throne upon my death, and only upon my death. Do you mean to kill me? So far your attempts—all of your attempts—have failed. You have sought to take my life.”
“You have taken my daughter!” My father cried out, finding his courage amid the clamor.
“And I intend to keep her, Lord Corvyn,” Tiras roared, and my father visibly quaked even as my insides trembled. “I intend to keep her close by, to keep her next to me at all times. She will drink from my cup and eat from my plate to protect me from your poisons. She will sleep beneath me and hover over me and never leave my side. In fact, I leave in three days for Kilmorda, and she is coming with me. She will ride in front of me, astride my horse, clinging to me as I go into battle, a human shield against those you send against me.”
Heat rose in my cheeks, and flames licked at my breast. I spelled out the word I-C-E, focusing on the slick, cold shape of the word, building a frozen barrier between my heart and the roaring cauldron in my chest, willing myself not to flinch, not to care that I was a pawn in a very dangerous game.
“If I die, she dies,” Tiras said, just like he’d said the day he took me from my father’s keep. I’d confessed so easily. I’d told the king my secr
et, my father’s secret, and he used it without compunction. I refused to release the words that bubbled inside me. The king would not have my words. He was no different from my father; neither loved me and both used me for their own purposes. I suddenly hated them both with a fury that blinded me. I didn’t even need to close my eyes to keep them out.
When the king took my arm and rose from the table, I rose with him without resistance, but I kept my face blank and my eyes unfocused as he dismissed the gathering, dismissed the lords and their ladies who retreated obediently, quietly, their words blurred and their thoughts tangled. Lord Bin Dar and Lord Gaul were already plotting—I could feel their icy contempt and their intent to betray even as they bowed in obeisance. My father, who quivered in fear and doubt, his emotions bouncing off my icy façade like tiny bubbles, followed behind them, and he didn’t look back.
Tiras took me to his chamber and left me with Pia, who helped me remove my gown and take down my hair. She was breathless and beaming as she pulled a pale white shift over my head, as if I were being given some sort of honor, sleeping in the king’s room. She didn’t know that I was simply a weapon. A tool. There were guards at the door once again, and I could feel their tired thoughts.
But I didn’t try to escape. I had nowhere to go.
I lay on Tiras’s giant bed, the bed where I had soothed his fevered skin and slept at his side once before, but he didn’t return. I heard him arguing with Kjell in the hallway, but he never came inside. I’m sure they thought I couldn’t hear, but words managed to find me, whether I wanted to hear them or not.
Kjell was against bringing me to Kilmorda, against my presence in the castle and my nearness to the king. “You should banish her. She’s dangerous, and she can’t be trusted,” he argued.
“She can help us. When we fought the Volgar, I didn’t know it was her, but I could feel her influence pounding at me. She told them to fly, and they obeyed,” Tiras answered, his tone slightly awed. “You saw it too. It was her, Kjell.”
“She is a Teller!” Kjell spit out, as if the word was bile.
“She is a Teller,” the king confirmed. “An incredibly powerful one. If she tells them to die, to fall from the sky, to throw themselves into the Jyraen Sea, they will.”
“And what if she turns that power on you, Highness? Will you become her puppet? Will I?”
“That is a risk we must take, Kjell. And so far, she’s not used her power on you. Obviously.” Tiras’s tone was so dry it crackled with mirth.
“You are different with her. You are almost . . . gentle.” Kjell said the word gentle with hushed disdain. “It’s . . . strange, Tiras!”
“I can’t help but be gentle with her, because she is gentle with me.” Tiras sounded embarrassed, and I felt the ice at my heart begin to thaw, even as Kjell scoffed loudly.
“She isn’t even beautiful, Tiras! She isn’t tall and strong. Bearing your sons will likely kill her.”
“She is strong in a different way. And your definition of beauty isn’t mine,” Tiras argued. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I sat up in the bed, my chest pounding.
“You don’t like big breasts and full hips? You don’t like brown skin and thick, dark hair? Since when, Majesty? She is a pale wisp of nothing.”
I winced.
“She is of use to me, Kjell. Who else can boast the same? I know no other woman who is of any use to me at all.”
Kjell was silent, and my pounding heart slowed to a sad slog. I cursed myself for listening in. It served me right. I thought of the wishing well and the silly people who threw their voices down into the murky depths, hoping the God of Words would hear them and grant their desires on a whim. I had been foolish too. I had given my words to a man who could use me. And use me he had. Use me he would. Until I was no longer of use. Silence daughter, stay alive.
I told myself I should be grateful I knew the truth. I laid back down on the big empty bed and I hugged the edge like a sculpture formed from buffeting winds and constant rains, impenetrable and hard. I refused to make words or entertain thought—to feel at all—until blessed sleep took me away on downy wings.
For three days the castle walls rang with preparations, and the city beneath my balcony geared up for yet another battle. The sounds from the forge filled the air, and the clanging of weapons and the sharpening of swords seemed never-ending. Horses were shod and fitted, supplies gathered, and carts and carriages filled as soldiers flirted and wives prayed and the line to the wishing well doubled.
The air crackled, like a storm was approaching, and I felt it gathering even as I tried to ignore the flurry and scurry outside the king’s chamber. I had nothing to prepare for, no duties to attend to, so I read and wrote and pretended that I was master of my fate instead of a virtual prisoner of war. I didn’t see the king again, not even once, though I’d seemingly been permanently moved to his room. Some of my clothing and all of my books, as well as my paint and writing supplies, were neatly arranged in an empty boudoir.
The day before the army departed, a feast was laid out in the square, table after table laden with roasted meats, figs and fruits and breads and sweets, and the food kept coming as each family in Jeru city brought an offering, and all shared in the spoils. The people ate all day, singing and dancing as if they would never do so again. I observed the party from above, spinning a spell every once in a while, just to prove I could. A horse reared and pawed the air, and I sent him a calm command before he upended an apple cart. A growling dog lunged at a child, and I banned him from the square. He retreated obediently, his tail between his legs.
I watched as the colorful skirt of a pretty maid snagged on a sharp corner and ripped straight up the back. She heard it tear and looked around in horror only to breathe in relief when she found it undamaged. It took a word to repair it, and I smiled at my handiwork.
Objects were easy, animals almost as easy, but people were harder to influence. So I tried my hand at simple solutions and what I deemed “helpful acts.” A man in silks strode through the square amid the tables groaning with food, taking and never giving in return. I watched him eat three sticky rolls from a woman selling bread, only to tell the woman they were barely edible and refuse to pay her. The money on his belt clanked as he walked, and the woman watched him strut away with helpless anger.
Rip and tear, Pay your share.
The man’s money made a trail behind him as he walked, the coins streaming from his torn money pouch, falling silently onto the hard-packed dirt. The baker followed behind him and took the coins she was owed, leaving the rest to fall by the wayside for others to find. I felt a twinge of guilt, judging him so completely, and repaired the tear before he lost everything.
I saw Kjell in the square. Boojohni too. I called to him in my mind, and he glanced up, waved, and did a little dance that made me laugh. He seemed happy and free, and I was glad for him, even as I wished to walk beside him and see the festivities up close. I never saw the king—it was as if Kjell had assumed the responsibility for directing the arrangements for the upcoming departure—and I wondered if Tiras was shut away somewhere, dealing with the business of the kingdom, plotting a way to defeat the Volgar and the Council of Lords. Or maybe he was ill and had given up on my ability to heal him. I thought maybe he’d forgotten all about me, though a guard remained at the door at all times, and I never went without a meal or a bath.
When the sun went down, the party moved from the courtyard and into the dwellings of the townspeople, and a pervasive silence slipped over the city, a silence that warned of an early morning and a long journey. I sat in the dark on the king’s balcony, listening for anyone or anything that might keep me company, desperate to escape, if only for a while. Before I came to Jeru City I’d had little freedom, but I’d stolen what I could. I would steal it again if I had too. I looked around for a solution to my problem and spotted a horse cart teeming with straw near the path to the stables. It was too far away to serve as a soft place to land, but I could remedy t
hat.
Cart of straw, against the wall, move below me, catch my fall.
The cart began to move, slowly, as if it had been released at the top of a small hill and was rolling back to the bottom. It came to a teetering stop beneath the balcony, a stack of glorious gold forty feet below me. I laughed, my shoulders shaking and my hands pressed to my mouth, almost giddy with the opportunity I’d made for myself.
But it was so far. And what if someone saw me jump?
I peered over the edge, down, down, down to the cart of straw and quickly reconsidered. I needed to get closer, somehow. I would never dare make that leap. The castle walls were lined with smooth stone, not especially ideal for climbing . . . unless I created foot holds.
I didn’t stop to question the wisdom of the plan but climbed up onto the balcony ledge, balancing on the edge with my hands against the castle wall. I touched a stone near my head and demanded it fall.
Smooth rock, beneath my palm,
Move so I can climb this wall.
The rock immediately loosened and fell, creating a perfect divot for my fingers to cling to. I tapped the wall with my toe and repeated the spell, to create an opening for my right foot. The rock obeyed, and I started my precarious descent, creating hand holds and ledges all the way down, until the cart was a mere handful of feet below me. Then I let go.
It was a fortunate thing I couldn’t scream, because I would have given myself away. The cart wobbled and began to tip, and I scrambled for the side and catapulted over it, skirts twining around my legs, as the car teetered and groaned. Thank goodness I hadn’t dropped from forty feet—the cart would be in pieces. I would be in pieces. I dusted myself off, heart pounding, nerves quaking, but I smiled too. Victory was awfully sweet, and the act of rebellion gave me a surge of self-confidence that had me stealing along the town square and into the quiet city, not at all sure of where I was going, caring only that I was free to go.