Circle of Reign (39 page)

“Father,” Kathryn whispered. He did not respond. Leaning over, she tugged at his arm. “Father, I must speak with you.”

Hoyt turned his head. “What is it?”

“Not here,” she whispered. “But please, now. It’s urgent.”

Lord Hoyt exited the throne chamber through a door behind his chair with his daughter, leaving his court to continue their debates without him. He hoped their discussions would turn toward preparations rather than useless stammering. The antechamber was quiet and empty except for Hoyt and his daughter. He waited expectantly for Kathryn to start.

“You’re not going to like what I have to say, father,” she began. It was hard for her to meet him eye to eye. “I have been seeing someone.”

Calder Hoyt’s facial expression changed slowly from intent to the beginning of a smile.

“Well, I’m not so sure that’s something to be nervous telling me about. But Kathryn, daughter, perhaps this is not the best time. You have heard the news and my attention needs—”

“I’m not finished,” Kathryn said. “He has been visiting me for nearly a year.”

This did take Hoyt back. He held his breath and blinked a couple times before speaking.

“A year? My dear, that’s not really possible…” He cut off as something came into focus for him. His voice turned sterner. “Kathryn, there’s a boy who keeps attempting to break into the hold to see you. Tell me this has nothing to do with that.”

She gathered her courage. “They are not mere attempts, father. He has seen me at least a dozen times, sometimes for days at a time.”

Lord Hoyt was dumbfounded and his face paled. “Ancients take me,” he cursed beneath his breath.

“Are you with child? Is that what this is really about? Who is it?” he demanded, straightening up with his hands on his hips.

“No! Of course not! You don’t understand. Nothing improper has occurred.”

“Other than you allowing a prowler to visit you repeatedly under cover of night! Was the romanticism of it all just too much to resist?”

“Father, stop it!” she snapped, matching his tone. “I have not begun to tell you what you must hear. Be silent!”

Calder turned away and crossed his arms, head bowed. Pursing his lips, he asked, “You are not spoiled?”

“No.”

“You swear by the Ancient Heavens? Perhaps I should call for Healer Naveen to examine you.”

Kathryn approached her father and put a hand upon his forearm. “I have maintained my innocence, father. Neither you nor I have anything to be ashamed of.”

Lord Hoyt exhaled and looked up at nothing in particular.

“Thank you,” he finally said.

“Now, will you listen to the rest?”

Hoyt nodded.

“You promise to not be upset?”

“No, but I will listen.”

After a moment of hesitation, Kathryn continued. “Who the boy is will surprise you, but his identity is also the point of why I must tell you. Especially now. I pray that you will understand. Not my actions perhaps, but what this means.”

The patience of Lord Hoyt, something revered throughout the province, was being ground down to the bone.

“Do you intend to kill me by a thousand cuts of anticipation?” he asked.

“You cannot go against the Arlethians.”

“We do not make that decision.”

“You
must
not. There is more at play than you know.”

Lord Hoyt raised both his eyebrows this time. “That’s quite a statement coming from a fourteen-year-old girl. Do you find yourself in possession of greater knowledge of the situation than my advisors? And, pray tell, how were you made aware of such vital information?”

“This is no childish joke I speak of and I’ll thank you not to treat it as such. Betrayal and treason are not the part of the wood-dwellers in this masquerade.”

Calder Hoyt looked around at that statement to ensure himself again that they were alone and then knelt down with his hands upon Kathryn’s shoulders. He briefly remembered it had not been so long ago that she was still shorter than him, even when he knelt. Now he looked up into her eyes more seriously.

“If you know something, part with it now, quickly. Many lives hang in the balance.”

Kathryn took a deep breath and exhaled.

“The High Duke assassinated Lady Kerr and murdered those of her hold. It was some of the servants that came after Lord Kerr’s death, people Lady Kerr had trusted in her vulnerable state. They were Khansian Guards.”

Lord Hoyt blinked more rapidly and shook his head slightly. He opened his mouth.

“Wait, there’s more,” Kathryn said. “The things that were spread throughout the Realm of Lord Kerr and his wife—that they were traitors and usurpers—are all false. Many believed this but it was accepted by most eventually from the constant onslaught of misinformation. You know this, but it was all to divert attention.”

“I know no such thing, daughter.”

“It was all to divert attention!” Kathryn repeated in a vehement whisper. She did not bother to argue what her father actually believed about the Kerr family.

Lord Hoyt sighed. “Divert attention from what?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I know that what I’ve said is true. Now with the denouncement of Lord Therrium, you must see it as well. Some plot is afoot and I see the High Duke at the head.”

Calder Hoyt recalled the meeting he had been summoned to six years earlier, an emergency session of the Council of Senthara. He had been a voice of dissent in that meeting where they declared Thannuel a traitor, but eventually gave in. He was never fully persuaded, however, but for the fear of his family’s safety, he agreed to a motion he felt was abominable. His daughter’s words seemed uncannily accurate and were disturbingly finding a small hold in him.

“It is probable that something similar happened to Thannuel as did to his wife,” Kathryn continued.

Lord Hoyt shook his head. “No assassin could have bested Lord Kerr. The man was beyond any other man in the Realm in skill of steel, not to even speak of his natural wood-dweller abilities. A much greater force would have been required to take him down, one that would have been impossible to sequester or even infiltrate into his woods. No, it’s more likely those he plotted with turned on him. What was he doing outside the walls of his hold at such a late hour? Something had to have taken him by surprise.”

“And what of his daughter, Reign? Did Lord Kerr have her tag along to his secret traitor’s meeting? Was she, still under the age of innocence, part of it as well?

“We don’t know what befell his little girl. It may have been completely unrelated.”

Even as he spoke the words he knew he did not believe them and he saw Kathryn’s facial expressions confirm what his own could not hide. He also knew there was someone, or some
thing
, that could have overcome Thannuel… something he kept secret by an oath he made when becoming Lord of the Southern Province, something he never wished to face.

Calder knew Kathryn was pointing out the inconsistencies in the account as told by the Granite Throne’s pronouncements. And, she apparently knew something more than he did, or at least thought she did. His daughter was gifted at seeing issues at many levels, a gift that he was often proud of. At this time, though, it had grown frustrating. He knew this was because he himself did not have answers for her questions, the same questions that had plagued him but for fear’s sake had let them settle like stale dust. He had a feeling that old dust was about to be kicked in his face.

“Yes, the young girl. Reign was her name, you are right. Good memory. You are only a year younger than she would have been now. I don’t believe they ever found her body.”

“There’s a reason for that,” Kathryn said solemnly.

Lord Hoyt glanced down and then back up quickly to his daughter’s eyes. They were locked on his. He stood up and took a step back.

“Kathryn, what do you know?”

“A great many things.” Her voice was steady and confident. “I am betrothed, father, to Hedron Kerr.”

“I have something to show you,” Lord Hoyt announced to his daughter. The past few hours since Kathryn revealed that Reign and Hedron Kerr were still alive had been the most hectic and stressful of his life. No clear direction presented itself, and every path discussed was perilous in its own right.

“What is it?” Kathryn asked.

“Not here. Follow me.”

The sun was setting in the west. As they made their way across the hold grounds covered in stone and copper tiles, Lord Hoyt looked southeast to see the reflection of the orange and purple sky off the Schadar’s burning sands over a hundred miles away. The mirage was beautiful to behold and gave the illusion of being level with the skies as one looked out toward where the horizon should have been. None was discernible in the twilight hours looking east on clear evenings.

They arrived at the stables and Lord Hoyt dismissed the stable boys who were mucking the stalls and brushing the horses.

“Father, what are we doing here?”

“Patience. Isn’t that always what mother is telling you?” He didn’t see her expression but heard the scoff that escaped her lips.

They came to one stall that held a large, dark brown horse with a patch of white along its snout that ended just before its nose. The animal’s tail wagged sporadically, shooing away flies from its hindquarters. After they stopped at the stall, the horse held its head high and straightened up to its full height. It looked proud.

“This horse,” Lord Hoyt began, “was found the morning after Lord Kerr was slain. I didn’t know he had been killed until a couple days later, but that’s not why I’m telling you this.”

“Why, then?”

“It was obvious the horse had been running all night. His movements were lethargic and he was matted in sweat. Some of the hold guard found him on our side of the Roniah, drinking from the river. Muddy horseshoe marks on the bridge at the Roniah Crossing indicated it had crossed from the other side, from the wood-dweller’s side. Master Gernald brought it to my attention and we brought him to our stables.”

“I am not sure I follow. He’s beautiful, but—”

Hoyt entered the stall with the horse and kicked some hay from a corner, revealing a small wooden hatch. He lifted it and reach down inside. Pulling out the items hidden under the covering, Lord Hoyt asked, “Do you know what this is?”

Kathryn took the material and spread it out. “It looks like a horse blanket or skirt of some kind.” The blanket was a dark rich blue with a green trim. Thinly woven but extremely fine workmanship.

And then she saw it. A golden shield with a white four-pointed star flare that would rest directly under the horse’s neck.

“Wellyn’s sigil!”

“And this,” her father said, handing her a saddle.

She took it and found the same symbol stamped in the leather on either side of the saddle near the stirrups.

“This blanket and saddle were on this horse when he was found. We know he came from the Western Province and we know he had been sprinting for some time, probably covering a decent amount of ground. He was found the morning after Lord Kerr was mysteriously killed and his daughter went missing.”

“What does it mean?” his daughter asked.

“I was never sure, but needless to say it was curious. Adorned as he was, and as well trained as he is, it led me to believe he belonged to a member of the Khansian Guard.”

Kathryn went pale.

“Not wishing to be hasty or rash, I instructed Master Gernald to hide the saddle and blanket and keep him in the stables until we could figure things out. Well, that never happened and he just became part of the cavalry.”

Lord Hoyt paused. “But, if what you have shared with me tonight has merit, then maybe this horse’s appearance some six years ago makes sense.”

“It is true, what I’ve said! I swear it by the Ancients themselves!”

Lord Hoyt looked down and shifted his weight. “I know.”

“What are you going to do, father?”

He swallowed hard. “Something that I am sure will mean our doom, my daughter.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Holden and Ryall

Day 15 of 1
^st
Dimming 412 A.U.

RYALL REALIZED HIS CHAIR WAS ABSENT
an instant too late to prevent him from falling to the ground and landing hard on his backside. Even as he hit the solid ground in the Changrual monastery he knew this was reprisal for putting wine in his best friend’s inkwell yesterday. Several hours of transcription work had been lost before Holden noticed.

“Blast the Cursed Heavens, Holden!” Ryall swore when his breath returned to his lungs. He noticed his chair about a foot to his left. Holden was failing in his effort to look innocent where he sat directly across from Ryall’s writing desk, stifling a laugh. The small commotion had generated some small laughter from the other adherents in the hall.

“I know it was you!” Ryall snapped after standing up and brushing himself off.

“Why, whatever could you mean?” Holden retorted with mock innocence while holding up his hands in a guiltless gesture. Of course, his right hand held one end of the string that had its other end tied to a leg of the chair in question. Holden’s shock of red hair looked as disheveled as ever, adding to his mischievous appearance.

Seeing his enemy in the prank war holding the weapon of his embarrassment in such a taunting way brought out the best in Ryall.

“That was useless,” he said. “I’ve got a small bruise but you lost hours of work thanks to my last prank. I’ve lost nothing.”

“Just your pride,” Holden retorted. “Oh wait, you understandably never had any. Why be proud when you’re…you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think my overwhelming wit is reason enough.”

“More like lack of wit!” Holden countered and started to laugh with the crowd the contest had attracted, other adherents leaving their writing desks to gather around. Ryall did not laugh, but instead stood silent just staring at Holden with a slight grin. Becoming aware of his friend’s unfaltering gaze, Holden’s laugh quieted. He knew that look, having seen it for most of his childhood, and began to sense something was amiss.

“What?” he asked, more wary as the moments passed. He tried not to appear anxious, but his eyes were darting about the room everywhere. Ryall just continued to stare.