Noble Beginnings (16 page)

"She was knocked out and drugged, but Berta
said she should be fine." Dorran shook his head. "I just can't
believe that it was her. I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised,
but the thought of Myriel being put in danger like that..." He
trailed off. I hate it, he thought privately, surprised by the
vehemence of his reaction. Was it because he hated the idea of
innocents being harmed, or because he knew Myriel in particular? He
knew a lot of people who were put in danger over the attack why was
the fact that Myriel involved so bothering to him?

"She was aware of the danger," Adhara said.
"Myriel may not be a fighter, but she may well volunteer to
continue doing dangerous things in the future. She is a valuable
asset to us, so we're not going to deter her."

"What do you mean?" Dorran knew that she was
an ear to the ground for the Duchess, but this sounded like
something on an altogether different level.

"Myriel's...well, the blunt way to put it
would be spy," Adhara explained quietly. "She doesn't do anything
too drastic, for the most part, but Thea trusts her with affairs
she wouldn't entrust to anyone else. She's an extra set of eyes and
ears for the whole family. She has spent years making friends with
the townsfolk. When we need to know what is going on with our
subjects it is Myriel who we turn too."

Dorran was taken aback. "Then..."

Adhara continued, her voice gentler. "Didn't
it ever seem strange to you that Myriel was the one who always knew
when meetings would be held?"

Dorran frowned. "I knew that she was
extremely loyal and knowledgeable, but..."

"Myriel is one of our most valuable agents in
the castle," Adhara said. "I can't explain everything that she's
done for us; I suspect that even I don't even know all of it. What
I do know is that she has Mother's full trust, and that's enough
for her to have earned mine, as well."

Dorran thought for a moment, and then nodded.
"Yes, I can understand that."

He already trusted her implicitly, he
realized, and had done so for a long time.

One thing he hadn't expected, he reflected as
he lay in bed that night staring at the dim canopy of his bed, was
how calmly Myriel had reacted to the situation as a whole. He
hadn't gotten any sense from her that she was trying to recover
from the shock of having been attacked in the castle where she
worked, just for having overheard part of the wrong conversation.
Indeed, he hadn't seen any surprise from her at all, or at least
not any related to what had happened. He suspected, in hindsight,
that she had considered the possibility of being harmed beforehand.
Dorran knew that it couldn’t be easy to spend all your time with
the knowledge that at any moment you could be killed for simply
knowing the wrong thing.

It occurred to him for the first time how
much courage it took to live in a situation like Myriel's. She
willingly served the ruling family and, through that, put her own
well-being in danger without knowing how to fight. He imagined it
would take a great deal more bravery than he himself
possessed..

Indeed, when viewed from that light, it
wouldn't be hard to argue that the unassuming but loyal servant was
one of the bravest people he knew. Dorran laughed as he thought
about her stern face giving him her famous stare. As he drifted off
to sleep Dorran’s mind remained on Myriel and what all she must
have went through over the years.

CHAPTER XIV

It was slightly before dawn when Dorran was
awakened by a knock on his door. As wearying as the previous day
had been, Dorran found the strength to rise from his bed and
stumble to the door in seconds. When he yanked the door open,
bleary-eyed and disheveled, he found Adhara on the other side,
looking at him strangely.

She was fully dressed, if pale and red-eyed,
remembering that he was only covered by his smallclothes he
instantly felt embarrassed. "Yes?" he mumbled.

"Mother wants to talk to you," she said
quietly, not meeting his eye. "It's not an emergency, so you can
make yourself presentable first."

"All right," he said, surprised for the
second time in as many minutes. "Do you, uh, want to come in?"

She waited a long moment before finally
nodding, the action seeming almost automatic, and he ushered her in
before realizing this meant he would be changing in front of her.
It was too late to worry about that now, though, and he'd changed
in rooms with women before, so he turned to his wardrobe and
shrugged out of his nightshirt and into a simple, neat shirt and
breeches.

"What's going on?" he asked as he fiddled
with the laces down the shirt's front. "Do you have any idea?"

He finished tying off the laces in the
silence that followed; when Adhara still hadn't answered, he turned
back to look at her, wondering if she hadn't heard him. She was
staring at a corner of the room, and looked reluctant to speak. "I
do," she said slowly. "But I...I'm sorry, brother, but I don't
really know how to explain."

He felt anxiety flutter in his chest as he
ran his fingers through his hair hurriedly to straighten it. "Well,
I'm ready," he said.

She stood immediately and led him out of his
chambers and into the hallway. Despite being half a head taller
than she was, he almost struggled to keep up. He almost wanted to
ask again, to beg her for any hints about what was going on, but
found himself holding his tongue.

They rounded several corners until they came
to their mother's private chapel. It hadn't been used for religious
purposes for generations, and was now mainly used, so far as Dorran
had heard, for very small or private counsels. He didn't know
whether to feel more or less tense.

Adhara rapped three times on the door and
then opened it, moving her head inside. If she said anything,
Dorran couldn't hear it from out in the hallway, but a few moments
later Nora joined them, slipping past Adhara and then holding the
door open behind her. Both of his sisters looked at him
expectantly.

"I..." he looked between them, confused. Why
couldn't they give him some warning about what was going on? His
right hand flexed with the desire to grip the sword at his hip for
security, but then forced himself to relax and rest it against his
hip. "Seriously, you two…"

"Mother will explain it to you," Nora said
quietly. "I know it seems suspicious, but you'll know the reason
for our silence soon enough."

Dorran noticed a dim glimmer of metal in her
left hand, and saw that she was holding a small dagger, turning it
over and over deliberately in her fingers. He repressed the urge to
swallow nervously and instead looked at them, nodded once, and
walked pass them into the room. Nora quietly shut the door behind
him; he fought to not flinch at the soft and normally
nonthreatening sound.

His mother was dressed in the plain gown she
had changed into the previous afternoon, after the attack. She
looked tired, but not at all disheveled; not a hair was out of
place, and her face was utterly unreadable. There was no table in
front of her, only a single high-backed chair. He stepped in front
of it to kneel before her, counting the seconds by force of habit,
and then stood and sat in the chair at her glance.

There was a long silence, during which his
mother examined him and he felt himself start to sweat.

Finally, able to take it no more, he decided
to speak. He kept his voice carefully quiet and controlled, as
respectful as he could manage. "Mother. If I may ask, why have you
summoned me here?"

She didn't respond right away, but she didn't
look disapproving, either. Dorran took as deep a breath as he could
and tried not to fidget visibly as he waited.

When she did speak, she startled him.
"Dorran...what are your thoughts on the King?"

Dorran's heart thudded. How should he answer
such a dangerous question? And yet she seemed to expect an answer
immediately. "I...I believe, from what I have heard, that his
dearest interests are far removed from ours. Honestly I believe he
is madly chasing after things that are no longer possible."

She nodded approvingly. "A wise answer. But I
suspect that growing up, you expected to fight for him."

It wasn't really a question, but Dorran
nodded respectfully anyway. "For the honor of my people, I did,
Mother."

She seemed to measure him for a long moment,
and then sighed, shaking her head. "I must imagine that you have
foreseen death on a battlefield, like your father and grandfather
before you. This war is too cruel to our sons."

He didn't know how to answer that, but he
sensed that speaking slightly out of turn would not go amiss.
"Mother...are you planning to go against the King?"

Her look was sad. "Yes, and quite a bit more
than that. You have told me that you intended to fight for the
honor of Farlan, son, and that makes me more proud than words can
say. But I have another question for you. Will you fight for Farlan
itself?"

Yes, he cried inwardly, but knew it would be
wisest to check what she meant before saying anything. "Against the
King?" he checked.

"Yes."

It wasn't what he had expected. He was
surprised, even with all the hints of discontent culminating in the
attack earlier that day. But he decided to answer with the simplest
truth he knew. "I will fight for Farlan," he answered. "But most of
all, I will fight for you, Mother...and for Addie, and Nora, and
Myriel, and Father, and Grandfather, and everyone that has come
before you and will come after. Though my opponent may change, I do
not believe that my allegiance ever will. I stand for Farlan now
and forever."

"Strong and honorable words," Thea said more
emotion in her voice than he had ever remembered hearing before.
"My son, you have already made me proud. But what I would ask of
you would try even the stoutest son's loyalty."

"What is that?" he asked carefully.

She paused briefly, as though trying to
determine how to phrase the question. "If you had to give one
reason for the reason we are at war, what would it be?"

"The succession," he answered promptly. That
much, from what he had read and heard, was obvious.

"Yes. I wish to free Farlan from this dispute
by breaking off its ties with all parties involved; my intention is
to declare Farlan an independent nation. I have talked with enough
advisors to be confident that we can support ourselves, though the
first few years may be difficult it cannot be as difficult as
allowing the king to continue to bleed us dry. But as a ruler..."
she paused. "I must consider what options lie before me to ensure
that Farlan does not make the same mistakes as the empire it was
born from. Consider Lyrre; it was likely that an aspiration for my
place influenced her involvement in today's attempted coup. Is
there anything I can do, from where I stand, to begin a precedent
more certain than that of the former Empire, than that of our
current King?"

Dorran thought for a moment, but knew it
would take him too long time to figure out what his mother was
aiming at. "I don't know, Mother."

"Bloodlines." She said the single word
quietly, decisively. "What if the questions of parenthood and
legitimacy were to disappear, if the validity of inheritance could
not be questioned?"

He was taken aback. "That would be...amazing.
But..." He was supposed to know what she was getting at, he sensed,
but he hadn't figured it out yet. "What are you suggesting?"

"Dorran...do you love your sisters?"

"Of course," he answered immediately. Several
of his oldest memories involved his father telling him that it was
his duty to protect his sisters.

"Would you do anything for them?"

Not anything, but he couldn't imagine them
asking anything of him he would be unwilling to give. "Just as I
would for you, Mother."

"That is a wiser answer than you know. Dorran
Farlane..." Thea took a deep breath, and Dorran felt his shoulders
tighten in preparation for what was coming. "I would ask you to
relinquish your title as my heir apparent."

The room echoed with silence for a long
minute as Dorran's mind raced, considering the implications of what
his mother had just said. It felt as though there should be a
greater impact tied to the sudden realization that your entire
life's purpose was about to change, but at the moment the only
thing running through his mind was one practical consequence after
another.

"Well," he said numbly, almost without
thinking, "I always figured I would be giving control off to Addie
sooner or later anyway, to go and fight. This isn't really all that
different...and," he added, looking his mother in the eye, "if I've
learned anything in the past few months, it's that Addie and Nora
are far more capable than me when it comes to affairs of state.
Honestly the country would be far better off in their apt hands
than my clumsy ones."

Thea sighed. "I hope you know that I think no
less of you for that."

"No...It would have been better if I had
taken more initiative and studied politics and diplomacy," he
admitted. "If I really believed that I'd be taking over for you
someday, I should have prepared better. It was irresponsible of
me."

"Your father never had much patience for such
things, either," Thea murmured. "I wonder whether he suspected how
convenient I found that in him."

"How many years have you been planning this?"
The question was more frankly curious than Dorran would normally
have asked, but at the moment neither of them seemed to care.

"I've been planning it in the back of my mind
for longer than I can really remember," Thea said. "I wonder
whether my own father had hoped Farlan would end up taking this
path, but there's no real way to know."

"I think he would approve, Mother," Dorran
said. "Your reasoning seems sound, and no one can deny that you act
in the best interests of the people."