Magic Under Stone (27 page)

Why?
he mouthed, for lack of being able to ask better questions.

“Oh ... well ...” She looked around as if making sure no one would catch her talking. “Belin just—he never had Tamin’s charisma or Ilsin’s talents. Belin does have talents of his own, but ... he’s good with animals and plants. Making things. Not people. His family and the court just didn’t value him, and it tore him up. He really wanted his share of the accolades his brothers receive. I can’t entirely blame him, but those ambitions of his ... they don’t take him to the best place, I think. So that was that.” She sighed, clearly done with the topic. “Do you know how to brush a horse?”

Ifra knew how to brush horses back home, but he let her show him the fairy grooming tools. His mind was no longer on the horse, however. It was naïve to think he could persuade Belin to step down from the throne and go back to his horses and a girl in muddy boots, but such an insight into Belin’s character was a treasure.

But what good were insights when he couldn’t speak? He kept circling back to that trouble. Belin had given him such hope earlier, and then shut him up again. It was almost impossible to reason with someone who would choose to silence anyone who said the slightest thing he didn’t like.

Ifra felt almost as if he had become the embodiment of Belin’s own conscience, so that when Belin ordered Ifra around, he was really just shouting at himself. Maybe all jinn felt this way when they were bound to one master for life—maybe it was their lot in
life to reflect some aspect of their master. Of course, there were no other jinn around to ask.

Another night, Ifra wandered to the Hall of Oak and Ash. A guard paced outside, but when Ifra motioned that he wanted to go inside, the guard cracked open the door for him. “It’s always been a tradition that when our people are in need of wisdom, they may sit beneath the ancient trees when the court isn’t in session, but it’s been a long time since anyone came.”

Ifra lifted his brows, wondering why.

The guard didn’t quite understand. “You can go in. I don’t think it matters if you aren’t one of us.” He paused. “Watch out for ghosts. Some say it’s haunted. They bury the old kings beneath the trees.”

Ifra’s heart beat a little faster.

It was a cloudy night, and the trees blocked much of the feeble light coming in through the windows. Even the keen night vision of a jinn was nearly useless. Yet, Ifra heard the trees rustle and sigh in an imperceptible wind, as if they were speaking to one another. Ifra didn’t feel any wiser. In fact, he felt considerably unnerved. He recalled the time his tutor had asked him to bring a parcel to the family that lived past the Ujer River. On the way back, Ifra was reluctant to return home, so he wandered down another path that led up into the hills. He intended only to go to the summit and see what the land beyond looked like, but the path led not to the summit, but to a burial cave filled with ancient bones. Some were arranged as if nestled into sleep, others were in disarray, bones left at strange angles, skulls set off by themselves, yellowed paper and broken fragments of wood and bone tools and bowls strewn
around. There were remnants of a fire, and from the scattered objects, he guessed that at some point over the ages, someone had looted the burial cave. The walls were covered in faded paintings of unfamiliar figures with staring black eyes, and he felt as if they were the faces of the dead, demanding to know who had disturbed their bones.

Ifra had turned around and started running for all he was worth. Death was a part of life on the farm, but not like that—not heavy and ancient death.

Now a forest, in a throne room, with the air of a tomb.

And yet somewhere, amidst the whispering darkness, like a faint light in the distance, Ifra thought he sensed a small pocket of warmth.

He followed it to the throne itself, a solid mass of stone on a dais formed from equally solid stones. The heat seemed to grow almost nonexistent when he drew near, but it was close. He crouched. Beneath him. It was beneath the dais. The heat of life.

Erris? It had to be Erris.

Buried alive, under the throne? At least, hopefully alive.

Ifra pushed and pried at the stones with his fingers, but they were too solid to move.

Erris?
he mouthed.

Even though Ifra couldn’t speak, the trees whispered back. They whispered without words, and yet, somehow he felt like he caught a wisp of meaning. He stepped off the dais behind the throne, onto the flagstone, and he felt a slight sense of hollowness when his foot touched down. He wouldn’t have even noticed had he not been looking for it. He got on his hands and knees. Behind the throne, under the stones supporting it, was a hole, just the size for a snake to slither beneath.

Ifra stepped off the flagstone and dug his fingers around the edge. It was two feet wide, solid and heavy, but with effort he was able to move it aside, revealing a narrow passage. He could hear the echo of the space within. He summoned a little flame to the tips of his fingers. Summoned flame didn’t like to sit still; he had to keep twitching his fingers to keep it alive, but in the flickering light he could see a cramped, dim little chamber beneath the throne. The entrance was barely wide enough to fit Ifra’s shoulders. He stripped off his shirt to avoid getting suspicious dirt on it, and squeezed feet first into a space not quite tall enough to stand upright in.

A narrow hall extended on either side of him, off into darkness, sometimes sloping down to avoid the massive roots of trees poking through ceiling and walls. Even from here, he could see niches where skeletons rested in eternal repose, clad in tattered, ancient garments. Was Luka buried down here? Ifra wasn’t about to follow the paths and look for him. He didn’t want to spend another moment in this place. But what caught his attention were the rather substantial-looking feet visible in a hollow just beneath where the seat of the throne would be, almost eye level with Ifra.

Ifra could sense life in those feet, which were clad in embroidered shoes with red heels. Hesitantly, he touched the stocking-clad ankle, and his fingers met cool, soft, living flesh.

He jerked back. His hand was dusty and dirty.

Ifra put out his fire to free his hands. His breath came choppy as he grabbed the ankles and pulled—dragging out calves, sliding his hands up to knees, now supporting Erris’s legs with his right arm and sliding him out, his utterly limp body uncomfortably intimate in the utter darkness as Ifra rested him on the ground and crouched beside him. He flicked the fire in his hands alive again.

Erris was pale as a corpse but still gently breathing, clad in gaily embroidered frock coat and breeches of a cut no one wore anymore, and seemed shockingly young to be trapped in such a hideous way. He was covered with dirt. Ifra brushed it away from his face and then gave his shoulder a little shake. Even though Ifra couldn’t speak, he whistled softly, trying to reach Erris through some sense or another.

Nothing Ifra did provoked even a change of breath or a twitch of the eyelids. When Ifra lifted Erris’s hands and let them go, they flopped like a doll.

Even if Ifra did wake Erris, what could he do with him with a guard standing at the sole exit?

The catacombs reminded Ifra of the ruins of the jinn, where he himself had rested, waiting to be woken by his next master. He took a deep breath. He hated to leave Erris here, but Ifra couldn’t stay with him forever. The guard might grow suspicious.

Ifra crawled back up, replaced the flagstone and his shirt, and left the room on shaking knees.

The guard saw him, and pitched his voice low. “Did you see something in there?”

Ifra glanced back at the door, warily and curiously, hoping the guard would elaborate.

“My friend Gwydain ... he saw a ghost once. The ghost of the queen.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “She was calling for Prince Erris. During the war, you know, he disappeared, and his body was never found.”

Ifra nodded, but he knew now—that wasn’t true.

TELMIRRA

Ifra could not stop thinking of Erris, trapped in the eerie Hall of Oak and Ash, nearly every moment. He wandered every inch of the palace and its grounds, searching for any underground entrances or secret passages where he might smuggle Erris out, and found nothing. He couldn’t ask any questions. He still hardly saw Violet, except briefly or distantly—passing in the hall, exchanging fleetingly desperate looks, or at the dinner table, next to Belin, picking at her food. He couldn’t even visit her at night; four ladies-in-waiting slept in an outer chamber, with her bedroom beyond, and he didn’t dare try and sneak past them.

For that matter, he saw little of Belin. Every day when Belin met with his council, he asked Ifra to stand guard, but he forbade him from standing near the door, so Ifra’s only sense of what was going on came from snatches of conversation he heard in the halls or at dinner. Ifra remembered how Luka had promised him the life
of a hero when he returned from that awful mission to destroy Erris and kidnap Violet.

Instead, he was mute and isolated. His only interaction was that with the servants who changed his linens or brought him breakfast, or the passing glances of the court—intrigued, nervous ladies, frowning men. His silence seemed to make him more ominous, more suspicious.

One day, after Belin’s meeting with the council, he approached Ifra, looking cross. “Follow me, please. I need to speak with you.”

Belin led the way to a sitting room, a more sumptuous space than the room with the wood carvings—the walls were painted a luxurious creamy color, with a massive imported rug on the floor. Flowers obviously aided by magic grew from fussy painted china containers. Ifra’s own lamp sat atop the mantel.

“Please sit, jinn.”

This time, when Ifra sat, Belin took the chair across from him.

“A week from now, I am having a ball for Princess Violet. I have invited every lord from every corner of my kingdom. My purpose in this is to give the people what they so desperately want—a Tanharrow on the throne. She isn’t the impressive figure I hoped for, but she
is
a Tanharrow. We’ll see then if they really think ancient blood is all you need to rule, or if they’re hoping for something that doesn’t exist. But Tamin feels ...”

Belin drummed his fingers on the table, frowning. “He feels we should also send a stern message to the people to quell any potential rebellion. We have a man in prison, one of our own, who led an uprising against the tax collectors and killed two men some months ago. We think he’s one of the leaders of a rebel group called the Green Hoods. Tamin wants to hold a public execution.”

Ifra couldn’t help the shudder that ran through him, and then the way every muscle in his body seemed to calcify.
Don’t make me kill him, please ... please
... It wasn’t a command yet, but he was perhaps seconds away from that wish becoming a part of him. Ifra’s body would kill while the desires of his heart and soul would vanish until it was done.

Tamin
, he mouthed, grasping at anything. Belin said Tamin wanted the execution, which must mean Belin himself was unsure.

Jinn weren’t supposed to persuade their masters, weren’t supposed to clutch their master’s arm and meet their eyes, but Ifra did those things. He mouthed words, made wheezing noises. He was starting to sweat.

Belin jerked back, looking disturbed. “Speak, then,” he said. “Speak softly.”

Ifra was so overwhelmed by the things he wanted to say that he was briefly rendered speechless. He had to be very, very careful.

“Master, I went to the stables the other day,” he finally said. “I met a girl who wears a carved bear around her neck.”

Belin looked so angry that Ifra made an effort not to flinch. “Why were you poking around there in the first place?”

“I’m trying to understand you,” Ifra said. “My life—no, not even just that—my
choices
are in your hands. And so I want to know what you will choose. I want to know what sort of person you are. What sort of king you will be. Compassionate? Cruel?”

Belin frowned at his hands, and then frowned more fiercely at Ifra. “What kind of trick are you trying to play now?”

“Nothing! Why do you always think I’m trying to trick you?”

“When I was in the city of the jinn, everyone warned me about your kind. If I managed to capture one, they would do anything to
trick me into setting them free. Why should you be any different? If I were in your shoes, I’d do the same thing.”

“I do want to be free,” Ifra said. His heart was still beating fast, but he had a gut feeling that he needed to be honest to get through to Belin. “If I knew how to trick you into letting me go, I would, but I don’t. I’m seventeen years old—”

“Old enough,” Belin interjected. “My brothers and I were well versed in manipulation at a younger age than that.”

“Maybe it’s just not in my nature. I spent part of the year with a tutor who tried to train me in dealing with my masters ... how to serve them, yes, but more importantly, how not to grow attached to anyone or anything. I understood, on a logical level, but I couldn’t feel it deep down, because I had people who loved me and I loved them, and I couldn’t
not
care.”

“Who do you love?” Belin asked. “I don’t even know where jinn come from.”

Ifra resisted answering. When he thought of his mother, his tutor, Arkat and Hami—all the people of his childhood—he felt anger at them, that they couldn’t have somehow protected him or prepared him for this. At the same time, he missed them so terribly. He didn’t want to tell Belin about the people he loved. Belin could have his magic and his strength, but not his memories. “Please,” he said. “Don’t force me to answer that. They’re so far away, it hurts to remember.”

Belin was looking at his hands again. “People must think I didn’t love my father, if they think I could kill him. Sometimes I was angry at him, but I would never kill him.” He looked at Ifra as if daring him to deny it.

“I believe you,” Ifra said.

“Never,” Belin repeated fiercely. “Why would I spend years of my life trying to bring him a treasure if I wanted him to die?”