Tiras lifted his hand from the water and touched my jaw with the tips of his fingers.
“You are easy to overlook. Slim and pale and so quiet. But now that I’ve studied your soft grey eyes and traced the fine bones of your face, now that I’ve kissed your pale pink mouth, I don’t want to look anywhere else. My gaze is continually drawn back to you.”
Without hesitation I gave him another truth.
You . . . are . . . impossible . . . to overlook.
His breath caught, and for the first time, I was the one who leaned in, the one who pressed my lips to his, the one who cradled his face in my hands. He allowed me to lead for several long seconds, letting me taste him and test him. Then he rose and brought me with him, scooping me from the water like a nymph from the sea.
And I was consumed once more.
My father left Jeru City without a word. Maybe he was resigned to the fact that he would never be king, or maybe he simply went home to plot and plan beyond the king’s easy reach.
The lords from Enoch, Janda, and Quondoon left two days after the wedding, but Lady Firi, Lord Gaul, and Lord Bin Dar remained in Jeru City for a week, making everyone uncomfortable and making Tiras take precautions with my safety and his own that he would not otherwise take.
Why must we tolerate them at all? I asked Tiras, sitting at his side, watching Jeruvians dance and minstrels perform the evening’s entertainment, wishing I were free of my crown and the secret looks and the words that slid around the lords like snakes.
“They are members of the council. They are lords of Jeru. Lords of lands that have been passed down through their bloodlines since the children of the Creator came to be. Do you want me to murder them in their sleep, my bloodthirsty wench?” Tiras murmured with a smirk.
I thought of Tiras, chained and naked in the dungeon of his own castle, and was tempted. Tiras asked Kjell if he’d been the one to lock him in the dungeon on our wedding day. I was not present, but I’d felt Kjell’s flood of betrayal and outrage rise up through the walls, even as he pledged his loyalty to his brother. Tiras believed him. I believed him. I wished I didn’t.
They want to oust you.
“I am king, but I am subject to the support of the provinces. If the provinces rise against me, against Degn, then my kingdom ceases to be. They will put a puppet on the throne. Someone they can easily influence and control.”
Like my father.
“I have a powerful army. I have loyal soldiers. But they come from every province, and they are sworn to protect all of Jeru, not just the king.”
We were interrupted by Kjell, accompanied by the ambassador from Firi. She curtsied before the king then curtsied to me, giving us both a brief glimpse of her beautiful breasts. Kjell moved to Tiras’s side, and the ambassador extended her hand to me.
“My queen, will you join me?”
I looked beyond Ariel Firi to the long line of ladies assembled to engage in a traditional dance, and immediately started to shake my head.
“It is custom,” she said, dimpling prettily and grabbing my hand. “You must.”
I don’t know how, I pleaded with Tiras to intervene.
“You are Jeru’s queen, of course you must participate in the dance,” he said, his grin wicked. “Lady Firi will take good care of you.”
Drawing more attention to myself with my hesitation than I would by simply going along and blending into the bright fabrics and spinning women, I stood and followed Lady Firi to the floor.
“Have you done the dance before, Majesty?” she asked innocently.
I shook my head.
“Follow me. It’s quite simple.”
The music began, a song I’d known once, long ago, a song my mother had sung, and her mother before her, and her mother before that. It was the maiden song of Jeru, a song of celebrations and rituals. A song for women. But there’d been so few opportunities in my twenty summers to celebrate or sing, tucked away from the world where I would not harm or be harmed, that the song was like a long-lost sister—part of me, but a stranger still.
I did my best to copy the graceful sway of hips and arms, the steps and the turns, but my mind was captured by remembrance, and as the words to the maiden song were sung, I knew them, though I couldn’t have pulled them forward on my own.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
He is coming, do not hide.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
Let the king make you his bride.
I heard the words in my mother’s voice, lilting and sweet, as if she sang my future from my past. I spun without knowing the steps, and danced without knowing what came next. My eyes found Tiras, visible in slivers and pieces as I whirled with Jeru’s daughters, and the voice in my head became a voice of warning.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
Wait for him, his heart is true.
Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter,
‘Til the hour he comes for you.
It was a silly song, an ancient song, a song of being rescued by a powerful man, of becoming a princess, as if a princess were the only thing a Jeruvian daughter might want to be. But it disturbed me, as if my mother, a Teller of considerable power, had made it all come to pass. She had sung me to sleep with that song—Daughter, daughter, Jeru’s daughter, ‘Til the hour he comes for you.
‘Til the hour.
Curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour.
‘Til the hour he comes for you.
The maiden song and the curse my mother whispered in my ear the day she died became one in my head.
“Are you unwell, Highness?” Lady Firi touched my arm lightly. I realized I had stopped dancing, making the line bunch around me.
I fanned myself, signaling a need for water and air, and she nodded agreeably.
“Let’s step into the garden, shall we?”
I followed her gratefully, keeping my chin high to keep my crown from sliding around my ears and over my eyes. I knew it made me look haughty, but haughtiness was preferable to bumbling.
The garden was fragrant with the last of the summer’s blooms. The leaves were falling and the air was starting to grow crisp and cool. Jeru City didn’t get much snow like Corvyn, or Kilmorda, or even Bilwick to the east, but the days were growing darker and shorter, the light fading faster, taking Tiras when it fled.
“You lied to me,” Lady Firi said breezily. “You knew that dance, and you did it very well. The king was pleased.”
Her choice of words made me flush. Pleasing the king brought to mind other things. I shrugged carefully and smiled a little, pleading innocence without a word.
“You are quite lovely. I didn’t think so at first. I do now. Shall we be friends, Lady Lark? That is your name, isn’t it?”
I wondered if I could trust Ariel of Firi. She had spoken up for me as I waited at the altar. She had stood with Tiras against the northern lords. Kjell seemed smitten, and I would love to have a friend. But her eyes often lingered on Tiras, and the silent words she exuded were guarded and stiff, as if she were wary of me too.
I nodded, allowing the use of my name, and she leaned in and whispered in my ear.
“I can hear you, you know.”
I drew back as if she’d slapped me. She laughed, a lovely, tinkling sound that made the flowers tip their heads toward her.
“When you speak, I can hear you. Just a word . . . here and there. At the feast you asked me if I wanted more wine. You thought I didn’t know it was you.”
I stared at her blankly, revealing nothing, and she pressed a gentle finger against the thundering pulse on my neck.
“Don’t worry. The Firi are descended from the Gifted too. I have my own shameful secrets. Your mother was a noblewoman from Enoch, yes?”
I confirmed nothing.
“All of Enoch is descended from the first Teller. Enoch and Janda. There were Gifted in Kilmorda, though many of them were destroyed by the Volgar. Some say the Volgar are descendants of the first Changer—th
ough he was a wolf and the Volgar are . . . birds.” Her voice was light, informational, but she didn’t remove her hand from my neck. She held it there, softly, like a caress.
“And some say the Volgar were spun from vultures. I tend to believe that, having faced them in battle. The Bin Dar descend from the Spinners, the Quondoon as well. It is all part of our history,” Tiras spoke up behind us. I hadn’t heard or felt him approach with the blood roaring in my ears and Lady Firi’s knowing fingers at my throat.
Lady Firi dropped her hand and turned with a demure smile and welcoming eyes. Kjell trailed after Tiras, a constant shadow since the king’s wedding day abduction.
“The king speaks truth.” Lady Firi inclined her head in agreement. “But the Corvyns and the Degn descend from the warrior who slayed the Dragon Changer. There is no Gifted in their blood, which is why the throne has remained in the Degn line for over a century, with a Corvyn always waiting in the wings. Pure blood. No taint.” She looked at me and winked.
“But then we marry and mate. And things become messy. Don’t you agree, Kjell?” The smile she tossed toward Kjell was flirtatious. Or provocative. I wasn’t sure. She was friendly and relaxed, but the words she said and the words she hid were different. Something was bothering her. I had a feeling it was me.
“Indeed. But the king is of Degn. I am of Degn. We should both be without . . . taint,” Kjell said with a hint of bite.
Lady Firi walked toward him, turning her back on me and the king, as if we were all old friends. When she drew near, she raised herself on her toes, letting her lips touch Kjell’s ear. Maybe she didn’t intend for me to hear, but the words found me anyway, the way they always did.
“But we all know differently, don’t we?”
The lords and ladies eventually left, leaving relative peace in their wake, but in the days and weeks following our nuptials, the king was tireless, as if time was slipping from him. He slept very little and was almost always in motion, and when he wasn’t, he was listening carefully, ruling judiciously, and instructing. Always instructing. He kept me by his side, demanding my attention and my focus, and when I grew weary or resistant, he would level his black eyes on me and remind me that I was now the queen, and I had “much to learn.” He made me seethe even as I sought his approval.
There were nights he couldn’t stay with me and long days when the paltry light of winter didn’t make him a man again. I did my best to fill my time with reading and writing, but I missed him with an intensity that made his absence painful and his return a celebration. In the dark or the light, in the great hall or in our bedchamber, he was gruff but gentle, arrogant yet attentive, and he made love with a ferocity and focus that made it impossible not to bend myself to his will, even as I found ways to challenge and defy him.
Once a week, when the change didn’t take him, I sat with Tiras during the hearings as he listened to one Jeruvian after another state his case, only to come to a swift decision before beckoning another forward. His subjects respected him, though there were a few who argued, and one who spit at his feet before being dragged away.
Two full moons after we were married, a young woman was brought before the king, her hands chained, her face and clothes filthy, as if she’d been dragged through the streets. A man stepped forward with her and accused her of being a Healer.
I looked at the chains around the woman’s wrists and the defeat in her face and interrupted the questioning, pushing an order at Tiras with such adamancy that he winced.
Tell the man to let her go.
“What is your proof?” the king asked, ignoring me.
She heals? That’s her crime? I raged. Tiras did not even turn his head. He listened patiently as the man described two different instances when the woman had lain her hands on dying children, and they were miraculously cured.
“Is this true?” Tiras asked the woman, who hardly raised her head.
“Yes,” she answered wearily.
The man who held her chains dropped them at the foot of the dais.
“She has sorcery in her, Your Highness,” he murmured fearfully. “I want nothing more to do with this.”
“Where are the children now, the ones she healed?” Tiras asked.
The man pointed behind him, to a woman who stood with two children in the line waiting to be heard.
“They are yours? Why have you brought them here?” I could feel Tiras’s incredulity, even as my anger began to tint the air around me. It was a wonder no one could see it.
“They were healed unnaturally. I want you to command her to remove the curse,” the man insisted.
He wants his children to die? I asked, and Tiras shot me a look that demanded I be silent.
“I cannot do that. I heal. I don’t harm. It is not in my power to make them sick again,” the woman said, as if she’d said it a thousand times before.
“Why did you heal them if you know the law forbids it?” Tiras questioned her.
“Because I . . . can. It would be wrong to see suffering and not alleviate it if I have the power to do so, wouldn’t it?” the healer pleaded.
“Bring the children forward.” Tiras demanded.
The woman, who was clearly the mother, walked forward with trepidation, the children at her sides wide-eyed and clinging to her skirts.
“Are they completely healed?” Tiras asked the mother, who looked at her husband and then back at the king.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you want them to be sick again?” Tiras asked.
“No, Majesty. But I’m afraid,” the mother answered.
“What are you afraid of?” Tiras pressed.
“That she took something from them,” she replied.
“In exchange for her cure?”
She nodded.
“What do you think she took?” Tiras asked.
“Their souls,” the mother whispered, and began to weep.
“Did you exact a price for your healing?” Tiras asked the healer, who was shaking her head in horror.
“No, sire. I only have the power to heal. I am not a teller. I cannot curse,” she answered.
Tiras, let the woman go.
The healer’s head jerked around, and her eyes grew wide. She had clearly heard me.
“What does justice demand?” the king asked the mother, even as he laid his hand on my arm, warning me again.
“She should be stoned!” the father cried, and the mother winced.
“Did you ask this woman to heal your children?” the king asked the trembling mother.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The father moaned and began to implore the king with frenzied words. “She bewitched my wife! We were afraid. We thought the children would die.”
“It is illegal to be a Healer . . . and it is illegal to seek their services,” the king reminded him. “The punishment is the same.”
The Great Hall grew quiet, and the man before the dais began to shake.
“What does justice demand?” Tiras asked again, and this time he addressed the father. “I will let you decide, but whatever punishment the healer receives, your wife will receive as well.”
The man seemed stunned by the turn of events, and his eyes touched on his children and his penitent wife before glancing off the healer who was at his mercy.
“I . . . will . . . not seek . . . further retribution,” the father babbled. “The Healer is free to go.”
“As you wish,” Tiras nodded. “Remove the chains.”
The man did so, his eyes cast downward, and with several subservient bows, he ushered his family from the hall.
“Go now, Healer. And do no harm,” Tiras cautioned, a common phrase, but his eyes found Kjell who stood at attention nearby and something passed between them. When the Healer left the hall, Kjell followed her.
That night, Tiras did not come to bed, and I lay in the darkness, my eyes focused inwardly. I knew where Kjell had gone. He’d gone to the Healer and offered her sanctuary and sustenance i
n the castle walls. At this moment, she could be tucked away in the tower room where I had learned to read and Tiras had drawn pictures on my walls.
Beneath her tattered clothing and the layer of grime, the Healer had been pretty. Maybe beautiful. Her hair had been long and dark, her skin a deep olive. Kjell had once taunted the king with mentions of both, as if Tiras preferred women who were nothing like me.
She would be of use to him. Perhaps she could heal Tiras where I could not. And maybe this time, the Healer would exact a price. Maybe instead of his soul she would demand his heart. I shot up from the bed and dressed, not caring that my hair was unbound and my emotions untidy. I commanded doors and lit sconces as I walked, flinging spells and searching even as I prayed that Tiras was in eagle form so that I wouldn’t find him in the state I was in.
I found him in the library with Kjell, a room towering with books from every land, a room I had frequented often since becoming queen. It smelled of wisdom and words and Tiras, who greeted me with an outstretched hand. When I didn’t move forward to take it, he withdrew it, and Kjell looked between us with an awareness I resented.
“Lower your gaze from my wife, Kjell,” Tiras said suddenly, as if he resented it as well, as if my appearance was provocative. My rumpled hair tumbled down my back, and my feet were bare, but I was dressed. I would not be shamed and I would not apologize for the interruption, though out of courtesy, I shared my words with both of them.
If you seek the Healer, I want to be present.
“What are you talking about?” Tiras asked slowly.
The Healer . . . the one at the hearing today.
Tiras’s brows rose as if I’d surprised him, and my heart twisted in my chest, interpreting his surprise as confirmation.
Kjell followed her from the hall.
Kjell cursed, and Tiras sat back in his chair, regarding me with hooded eyes.
Is she here? In the castle?
“No,” Tiras admitted. “But we know where she is.”
Kjell cursed again, and Tiras dismissed him with a terse command, his eyes never leaving mine. When the heavy door closed behind Kjell, I continued.