“But Papa, I could help! I could do so much more if I stayed here and we both know I’d make a much better Tora-in-Waiting than Kylan,” Sarene insisted. She’d been pleading with her father for over an hour, yet he gave no signs of changing his mind this time anymore than he had the last.
“Sarene, dearest, your mother and I appreciate your enthusiasm, but the decision is final,” Brinon said gently, reaching for his daughter’s hand. She snatched it away angrily and he forced down a sigh of frustration. His middle daughter had always been the most difficult and headstrong of his children and she had become particularly so over her impending marriage. He missed the sweet girl who’d followed him about, asking questions a mile a minute, and wondered if she’d ever return to him.
“You just want to get rid of me!” she accused, “You’re marrying me off to some nobody in a backwater country so that I’m out from underfoot.”
“Sarene, you know that isn’t true. Your marriage to Torin Reord will secure an important alliance between Davaria and Egalion, an alliance we desperately need with Tahir on his deathbed. You will be helping, more than you can imagine.” He smiled at her. “Your mother and I plan to live a long time yet and Reord’s father is old. Wouldn’t you rather be tora in a year or two rather than a Tora-in-Waiting for who knows how many years?”
Sarene folded her arms petulantly. “It isn’t fair. I don’t want to marry Reord!”
Brinon let slip a little of his exasperation. “Who would you rather marry then, daughter mine? A nobleman’s son? Battlemage Xander?”
Her eyes gleamed and she sat up a little straighter. “Yes! He would be much more to my liking and—”
He held up a hand, cutting her off. “It was a rhetorical question. He is a good man, but not a suitable match.”
“Why not?” she demanded, “I think he’d make an excellent tor someday, and the physicians say he’s going to live. He’s clearly hearty enough to provide a strong heir, probably even more than one.”
“First of all, the Grand Council would never approve your union. He’s fatherless, a commoner, and worst of all in their eyes, a mage. Granted, those qualities are no clear detriment to his character, but I can’t say that most would agree. Things are far too delicate to be upsetting sensibilities right now, my dear.”
“Our family has married both commoners and mages,” she reminded him, “and there have even been bastard tors before.”
“You know I don’t like it when you use such coarse language, Sarene.”
“You use it!”
He had nothing to say to that.
“Why does it matter what the Council thinks?” she pressed, “What‘s the good of being monarch if you can’t make your will into law?”
“It simply isn’t done that way. This isn’t Atromore, for Consorts’ sake! Tors and toras in Egalion have not had exclusive power in centuries. The Grand Council was formed so that the entirety of the kingdom has a say in what happens to it.”
“I still think it’s a ridiculous waste of time. If I were tora, I’d make a decree and enforce it. My will would be absolute and the country would have no choice but to obey me.”
The declaration sent a chill through Brinon. It was that attitude above all that had influenced their decision to marry Sarene to the Torin of Davaria. Reord was an honorable man of strong moral inclinations and an even disposition. Brinon and Aelani secretly hoped that the pairing would instill a little more temperance in their daughter.
That same tendency, however, was also what had prompted him to consider a match with Min Ha at one point. Sarene would be more than capable of handling him with or without Nareina’s meddling. Aelani had been firmly against the idea and so an envoy had been sent to Davaria in the end.
“Sarene, there’s no use arguing about this anymore. Our decision has been made and you have been promised to Reord. Egalion will not break faith in such a manner, just to suit a passing whim.” Brinon stood up. “This discussion is over. I love you with all my heart, and I’m sorry you are unhappy, but there is no turning back.”
Sarene burst into furious tears. “If you truly loved me, you wouldn’t do this!” Still crying, she stormed from the room and slammed the door hard enough to knock several portraits askew.
* * *
The muffled sound stopped her in mid-step.
Laying her hand on the cool metal of the ornate handle, Enari pressed her ear to a door that looked very different from the others she’d passed in this hallway.
She’d regained consciousness to find herself sprawled on the floor of Jex’s sick room, head pounding and eyes burning. After assuring herself that he slept, she’d begun to wander in search of Vasi. It hadn’t taken long for her to become hopelessly lost in the maze of halls, and she at last found herself in a part of the Imperial palace that seemed much older than the rest. She’d been roaming up and down the deserted corridors for hours now.
She listened intently, but only for a moment. The beautiful singing called to her, tugged at her senses, and she pushed open the heavy door just enough to allow her to step inside.
Large, longer than it was wide, and paved in black and white marble, the space felt unusually open, though the dimness shrouding the corners made it hard to judge exact dimensions. Benches of dark, lustrous wood lined both sides of a central aisle, and tapestries hung on the walls. There were twenty-seven benches and twenty-seven tapestries on each side, and every one of the latter depicted a well known legend in great detail. Single candles, each in their own small niche, shone at intervals between the scenes of dragons, knights, and divine beings before which mortals knelt in supplication and worship.
When she squinted, she could see tiny white stars embroidered in the plush weave of the black runner that carpeted the aisle from where she stood to the head of the room. The vaulted ceiling high overhead was all but lost in shadow, with a glimpse here and there of old and carefully maintained paintings on the smooth plaster. The chamber was warm, but not as hot as the rest of the palace, and was lit only by the flickering of candles and the light of a single window, an enormous masterpiece of stained glass set in the wall behind the altar. The soft light filtering through the abstract pattern illuminated the floor in panes of color too numerous to count. When she took a deep breath, she could smell incense, beeswax, and more faintly, wood polish.
As beautiful as the chamber was, it was the haunting voices that captivated her full attention. She slipped into the closest pew, listening.
Seven men in cassocks so gray they were almost black knelt in a semicircle before the altar, just outside the fall of multicolored light. A statue of the Goddess stood upon it and a lit censure was at her feet on each side, the smoke drifting forth redolent of myrrh, frankincense, and something more subtle that she couldn’t place. The monks were chanting to the image, heads bowed, hands clasped on their knees before them. Though she didn’t understand the words, the voices were in perfect harmony, rising and falling in steady cadence. A quiet peace stole over her and she felt all the pent up confusion and desperate homesickness fade away. The room had the same kind of serenity she’d come to know in the sanctuary at the Temple and she found longed-for comfort in this sacred place.
“Lovely, is it not?”
Enari glanced up at the speaker, too relaxed to be startled by his sudden appearance at her side. He was dressed in the same cowled gray as the others, but his hood was pushed back to reveal his face. She had to look up a long way to see that face; he stood well over seven feet tall. Broad shouldered and flaxen-haired, the man was a giant.
He was of indeterminate age, but not old, she guessed. His weathered features had seen much sun and wind, his skin darkened by exposure to the elements. His faded blue eyes were gentle and there were deep crow’s feet at the corners. These were matched by pronounced laugh lines etched around his slightly thin mouth. His most prominent feature was a large and bulbous nose, the bridge crisscrossed with broken capillaries. When he turned his head, she saw a gold hoop dangling from his left ear.
The monk was not really a handsome man, but he was certainly not ugly. He looked, Enari thought, like one would imagine a comfortably retired general to look. And despite his size, he had an air of tranquility about him that immediately put her at ease.
“It is the ‘Lux et Tenebris’ they sing.” He looked to his brethren. “Though it is sung in Old Egali, and not many now understand it. Are you such a one, my child?”
Enari indicated she was not, her fascination divided equally between the song and the man beside her.
When he smiled, it brought a kind light to his face. “I shall translate. It is a song of mourning meant for the departed, but the words are well worth contemplation and may help with whatever is troubling you. May I sit?”
She moved down the bench to make from for him and he settled next to her, folding his large hands before him and closing his eyes.
His singing voice was deep and husky, smooth and mellow as sage honey, and the words flowed from his tongue with the ease of long practice.
“Light beside Darkness, gain within loss,
Strength mixed with weakness, life and death cross
The sweet with the bitter and hope between fears
Andehai after wandering, honor through tears
Harvest and sowing, the sun follows rain,
Knowledge from mysteries, peace despite pain
Joy tempers sorrow, calm comes from blast,
Rest after weariness cometh at last.
Near after distant, bright beyond gloom,
Love from longing, life from the womb
After long anguish, hurt turns to bliss,
Noble the course that led you to this.”
A sudden lump blocked her throat and Enari couldn’t breathe.
When the monk opened his eyes and regarded her, he was not surprised at her reaction to the prayer. The conflict within this small creature called to him, and if he could but bring her a small measure of peace, he would gladly do so.
“You are Enari, apprenticed to Kvinna Vasi of the Cyrilan Temple, are you not?” Seeing the puzzlement on her face, he continued. “Your coming was much discussed in the palace before you actually arrived. I know your Sura from…well, from long ago. I am Brother Lucrisen.”
It took her a moment to place the name, but then she remembered. This man was the Master Librarian and his domain was where the bodies of several Grand Council members had been found earlier that day.
As she’d wandered, Enari overheard more than one group of servants excitedly discussing the murders of the three powerful individuals. They’d been discovered torn to pieces in a locked reading room just after daybreak. Adipem Porcus, Hera Wastrel, and Hrivaldi Le’Quar were identified only by their crests, left hanging on a peg in the wall beside the door. The room was locked from within and the single window still bolted shut. Most unsettling of all, the words ‘Conspirators’ and ‘Traitors’ had been scrawled on the wall in what was presumably blood and a weird design marred the floorboards.
Theirs was not the first violent death to occur in the palace of late. Nearly a week before a young boy had been found in a cellar storage room, and people were still reeling.
From the details she’d been able to gather by eavesdropping in the shadows, it seemed both a tragic and mysterious event, if almost certainly unrelated to the murders of the councilors. The High Mage and even the Duque of Darmiad had been summoned to the scene, though no one else had been allowed to enter the room rumored to contain that body. The boy’s mother was said to be inconsolable and Cook had given her a whole week to go to her family in the city so she could grieve. Now that such an elaborate funeral was in the works for the dead council members at dawn the next day, with a mourning feast to follow, the kitchen staff was shorthanded.
But of everything she heard, the description of the wounds seen on the body of the black-haired, green-eyed little servant boy were unnervingly familiar. Scratches and bite marks, just like Jex, and from the state of the body when it was discovered, the poor thing had been dead for days. That put his murder quite close to when Jex began to get sick. There were too many similarities for there to be no relation between the two, especially since it was also being whispered that the boy had been a blood sacrifice for some dark ritual.
“I know not what troubles you, my child, but may an old man offer some advice?” He’d been watching her expression darken as she thought and it was clear that more than home sickness was bothering her. He took her silence as assent.
“Trust your gut, girl. If you think something is wrong or unnatural, then it probably is.” Tapping a finger against her temple, he continued. “And trust your mind as well. You’ve been trained by one of the most brilliant healers I’ve ever known. Let her lessons serve you in your task, but don’t be afraid to follow your own intuition. That may make the difference between life and death.”
His words were cryptic, and she chalked them up to the musings of a pious man who spent his days amongst the whisper of books. Little did she know that they would one day be words that saved her life.
* * *
“I didn’t think it would go that badly,” Brinon told his wife later that night as they lay side-by-side in bed. “She’s so angry, Aelani. Did we make a mistake, go wrong with her somewhere along the way? Our other girls are so sweet…”
She turned onto her side, her back against his chest. “I don’t know, Brinon. She’s not the happy, loving child I used to hold in my lap and I wish I knew what happened. You aren’t actually considering breaking the engagement, are you?”
“No,” he sighed, “Even if I were, you know the Council would never stand for it. They’d riot en masse and we have trouble enough as it is.”
“Is Undabe still making a fuss over Ibiran?” That wasn’t the trouble he meant and she knew it, but she had no desire to bring the unpleasantness of the past days into their sanctuary.
“When isn’t the man making a fuss? I’m convinced he couldn’t continue breathing otherwise, but I’m still more concerned about Sarene. You’re her mother. Where did I go wrong in this and what can I say to make it right? She seemed contented to the idea, excited even, not so long ago and yet today she told me that I didn’t love her.” The hurt in his voice broke her heart.
“She didn’t mean it, my love. I think she’s just at that fickle age. Every other day, a new young man catches her fancy, but she’ll grow out of it. As for what to say to her, I’m not sure. I don’t feel like I know her anymore and I worry. She’s so headstrong and wants everything her own way. I pray to the Goddess that marriage and motherhood will make her see things in a different light.”
“Perhaps she inherited more from her grandmother than just looks,” he grunted, putting an arm around her. He stroked a hand across her belly, feeling the strong movements of the baby beneath his palm. The little one seemed particularly active tonight.
Aelani reached down and playfully swatted his thigh, “My mother was certainly headstrong, but never to the detriment of her kingdom, and she loved you almost more than I do, so I don’t know where you’d get such an opinion of her.”
“Riane was a fine woman and an even better tora, but I’m still glad you got your father’s temperament.” Brinon pressed his lips to the place where her neck and shoulder met. “I love you, Aelani. Have I told you that today?”
He heard her smile in the dark. “Only a dozen times since dawn.”
“Then I shall have to tell you two dozen times tomorrow.”
“Hush and go to sleep.”
* * *
“Sarene, why are you crying?”
She sat up swiftly, wiping her eyes on her sleeve and glowering darkly at her younger sister.
Kylan stood in the bedroom doorway, dressed in her nightgown and holding a raggedy bear by one arm. With her hair unbraided and brushed out, she looked like a miniature of their mother and Sarene felt a stir of anger and loneliness.
“Go away.”
Instead of leaving, Kylan came into the room and climbed up on the bed. She reached out and wiped a tear from Sarene’s cheek. The older torina’s expression softened.
“I wish you didn’t hate me,” Kylan said, finally breaking eye contact. “I love you, you know, and it makes me sad when you cry.”
With a sigh, Sarene put her arms around the girl and rested her chin atop her soft, baby-fine hair.
“I don’t hate you.”
“Then why do you always yell at me and send me away?”
Sarene squeezed her tighter. “You’re just little, and sometimes you irritate me to no end, always turning up in places you shouldn’t and listening in on private conversations. You’re a pest, Kylan, but I love you, too.”
“So why were you crying?”
“It’s not important.”
Kylan pulled back and looked at her solemnly. “You never cry, Sarene. Something really, really bad must have happened. Are you worried about Jex, too? I know you like him.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Sarene said with a shrug, releasing her sister and giving her a little push away. “Assuming The Mute doesn’t kill him, that is. What was mother thinking, entrusting his care to an untried novice from the backend of nowhere?”
“Enari is nice, and she’s taking good care of him. Better than that grouchy Master Illyrian, anyway.”
“Master Illyrian has been formally trained.”
“So has Enari.”
“By the equivalent of a witch-doctor. I don’t like it.”
“He’ll get better, Sarene, you’ll see.”