Shadow Over Kiriath (15 page)

Outrage blasted through him in a red heat of energy, enough that his arm twitched violently on the bed beside him. He tried again, wanting nothing so much as to knock that hideous orb out of his sight . . . but the blackness overtook him first.

The jangle of keys awakened him in time to hear the door creaking inward. Light stabbed his eyes so brightly he could only perceive his visitor by squinting. The man was cloaked and cowled. Gillard caught only a glimpse of his form before the door swung shut again. And now an irrational terror swept over him. It was Abramm come to murder him in his bed—just recompense for all the evil Gillard had done against him.

His visitor swept up to his bedside as silent as a spirit. The light of the Terstan orb illumined the rough weave of the cowl—but not the face. And then the man bent toward the table and made a sharp movement, and the light winked out.

Which for some reason only added to Gillard’s terror. He opened his mouth, felt his tongue move and his throat flex, and somehow managed to croak, “Please!”

The man’s hand pressed against his arm, and he felt its coldness even through blanket and sleeve. “Fear not, my lord,” came a low musical voice. “I am a friend.”

A friend? Why don’t I recognize your voice?
Gillard swallowed nervously, but a thread of hope tempered his fear. He opened his mouth to speak again, but the hand tightened on his arm. “No, Your Highness. Let them think you sleep on. You must regain your strength before we can move you.” The hand patted his arm. “Take courage, sir. And wait.”

CHAPTER

8

The next day, sunlight finally broke through the early morning fog to flood the hills across which Lady Madeleine and Princess Carissa rode, igniting the muted gray landscape to vibrant emerald. Against the green flared new-blooming patches of brilliant white summersnow, while thickets of lavender gullberry shimmered along the road, their sweet scent gilding the freshening breeze. Here and there rafts of yellow daffodils nodded amid stiff green leaves, and out on the hillsides, newborn lambs gamboled under the watchful eyes of their mothers. Overhead, white-and-gray gulls soared on the updrafts against ever-widening patches of blue.

It was as if all the world had suddenly awakened, amazing Maddie by how much a simple change of lighting and the feel of the sun’s warmth seeping through her woolen garments could lift her spirits.

Maybe things weren’t as bad as she had thought.

She’d passed another night plagued by unsettling dreams that, this time, had obviously originated from Leyton’s grim report on the state of her homeland. Finally driven from her bed, she’d stoked up the fire and pulled one of the overstuffed chairs into the corona of its warmth, where she’d huddled under a throw, reading the Words of Revelation and praying for guidance until dawn.

Carissa had arrived that morning during breakfast, sliding into the chair across the table from Maddie to declare without preamble, “It
was
him. At the coronation, at the banquet, and again last night after the ball. I’m sure of it.”

Maddie set down her teacup and regarded her friend with concern. “Rennalf, you mean. Here. In Springerlan.”

Carissa claimed to have seen her ex-husband—Abramm had granted her a divorce six months ago—three times while they’d been in Stormcroft waiting for Abramm to heal, then twice within two weeks shortly after they’d returned to Springerlan. Unfortunately, no one but Carissa had seen him, and with no other evidence to support her story, some feared the sightings were no more than the product of terrible memories and the lingering fears that he would yet return to abuse her. No one had come out and said as much to her face, but it was clear Carissa knew she was not wholly believed.

“It was him, Mad,” she repeated fiercely. “He was in the little alcove with the flying horse on the way back to my chambers, and he
wanted
me to see him. Stepped out of the shadows right when I’d get the best look. He’s shaved his beard and pulled back his hair, but it was him.” She paused, then added, “Hogart saw him, too. I told Captain Meri . . . er, Duke Eltrap, last night, and he said he’d tell Abramm . . . but I’ve had no word yet.”

Maddie picked up her teacup again and sipped. “Hogart saw him?”

“Running away. He can’t say it was Renn for sure, but he’ll confirm someone was there. Maybe I should just go rouse Abramm and tell him myself.” Carissa sagged back in the chair, winding a ringlet of golden hair around her index finger.

It was at that point a messenger from Carissa’s apartments arrived with a large hand-inked invitation card for the princess. She untied the lacing and opened the flaps to scan the contents. Her expression soured. “Oh, mercy,” she murmured. “A breakfast invitation from Oswain Nott. What a way to start one’s day.”

“He certainly does have his eye on you.”

“I don’t want to offend him—especially not on the heels of Abramm passing him over for First Minister. . . . You want to come?”

“I very much doubt Nott would appreciate my presence. Besides, I’m about to leave for a morning ride out to Treasure Cove.”

Carissa’s eyes brightened. “What a splendid idea! I’ll come with you.”

Not exactly what Maddie’d intended, but how could she refuse the crown princess?

Thus she now found herself riding in the early morning beside the king’s sister—across the southeastern leg of the royal preserve, then along the eastern headland toward the cove—heading in a direction directly opposite Graymeer’s. Hogart and several of Abramm’s armsmen attended them.

At first Carissa was driven to talk out her anxieties, speculating as to how Rennalf had gotten to Springerlan with the passes still snowed in, why he’d come at all, and what he’d been doing in Mataian robes at the coronation yesterday. Of the three, only the first had a likely answer: Rennalf had reopened the etherworld corridor Abramm had shut down in Graymeer’s six months ago.

The more she talked, the more certain she became this was the case. But when she suggested they return to the palace to insist Abramm go up to Graymeer’s and make sure, Maddie pointed out that Abramm was certainly already up there.

“Already up there?” Carissa protested. “But he has that foreign dignitaries’ tribute—”

“Not until two. Plenty of time to ride out and back, especially if he set out early.”

Carissa’s eyes narrowed. “Is this what you two talked about in the garden last night?”

“No.”

“Then how did you—”

“I know him, Carissa. So do you. After what happened yesterday, is there any doubt he would go out there first chance he got?”
Especially having seen those galleys moored at the base of the Graymeer’s outcropping in his vision. . . .

Her thoughts caught on the realization that he’d seen them in actual time. Maybe it hadn’t been a vision at all. Leyton’s tales of the regalia claimed the crown gave a man the ability to see for leagues. Abramm had claimed no unusual ability to see a long way, but what if it wasn’t straight distance? What if, like the corridors that took you to distant places in the blink of an eye, it enabled him to see places that were leagues away as if they were right in front of him?

Her heart constricted. He’d also seen Esurhite galleys streaming out of a bank of fog he thought might hide the Gull Islands. If that was present time, too, it would not only support Leyton’s story about the dire situation in Chesedh but give weight to his theories about the regalia, as well. And reinforce the need to unlock their secrets as soon as possible.

Oh, Father Eidon! I don’t want to stay here. Surely it would be better for everyone if I left
.

Carissa had fallen into her own musings, and now, inevitably, thoughts of Abramm’s coronation triggered memories of what Maddie herself had seen. A vision sufficiently similar to what Abramm had described that she couldn’t think she had made it up wholly.

She had soared on the winds above a fortress by the sea where a wedding ceremony was being performed on the uppermost ramparts. Spectators filled the tops of the wallwalks as well as both inner and outer wards: men and women dressed in silken finery, yet bearing with them the banners and weapons of war.

She’d spiraled downward toward the bridal couple, who faced one another with joined hands. The groom was tall and blond, his face marred by two red scars, and the bride seemed inexplicably unfamiliar, though it had to be Briellen. Maddie had circled closer as Kesrin looped the long white ribbon of Chesedhan wedding tradition around the couple’s joined hands. The bride’s veil lifted from her face, and she still did not look like Briellen for all Maddie tried to make it so. Then, as she passed behind Abramm’s broadshouldered form, she realized it was not her sister at all, but Maddie herself.

The realization had catapulted her into the very body she had just recognized, so that now she stood looking up into Abramm’s smiling blue eyes as the ribbon twirled round and round their joined hands, binding them in law and custom and fact for the rest of their lives. . . . It was then, as comprehension dawned and disbelief was chased by sudden, howling protest, that all grew hazy, colors and shadows bleaching out into a strong white light.

The next thing she knew she was pushing herself off Leyton’s shoulder, aware of his arm pressed against her back, his hand gripping her waist as he held her upright on wobbly knees. She remembered Simon coming around him, the old duke’s hawkish features narrowed into a frown, his blue eyes fixing upon her sharply as she strove to regain her senses and her poise.

A terrible fear had gripped her as she realized what she’d seen. Such a thing could only come to pass if Briellen had died, for she was First Daughter and given already to the king in treaty. For a moment her agitation grew so intense she thought she might become ill. Then rationality reasserted itself. No sense leaping to horrid conclusions with so little real evidence. Indeed, her own vision might even be the proof of Briellen’s survival. Since Maddie had served as stand-in for her sister in the coronation ceremony, the vision could simply have been a reflection of that role. Her middle had finally unclenched, and her breathing eased as the fear fell away . . . leaving sorrow of a different stripe in its wake. . . .

“Are you all right, Mad?” Carissa’s low query now broke into her thoughts. “You look even wearier than you did yesterday.”

“I’m fine.” They were coming down over the eastern headland, heading for the beach, a great column of gulls circling ahead of them against a sky of tattered clouds.

“I noticed you didn’t eat much this morning, either,” Carissa persisted.

Maddie exhaled a long breath and looked at her companion evenly. “But not because I’m sick.” She snorted, recalling Leyton’s suggestion. “Or with child.”

“Of course
I
know you’re not with child!” Carissa frowned at her. “Plagues, Mad! I nearly came to blows with Leona last night defending you! You weren’t the only one to faint during that ceremony, after all.”

“Well, for that I thank you.”

They rode on in silence, watching the gulls dive and circle up ahead. Then Carissa said, “You didn’t answer my question. And ever since your brother arrived with that treaty, you’ve been particularly out of sorts.”

“Leyton has a way of doing that.”

“I was thinking more of the treaty.”

Suddenly Maddie could hardly breathe. She kept her gaze fixed upon the rutted road before them but felt Carissa’s eyes upon her.

“You’re not jealous, are you?” the princess asked.

Madeleine barked a short laugh and spoke in words that sounded strained even to her own ears. “Jealous? Why would you think that?”

Carissa held silence for a long moment as the horses’ plodding hoofbeats rose up around them and the distant squawks of the gulls drifted to them on the wind. Finally she said quietly, “You’ve fallen for him, haven’t you?”

Surprise and renewed alarm whipped Maddie’s head around, denial poised on the tip of her tongue. But the moment she saw her companion’s grave and vaguely sympathetic expression, she knew it would be pointless. She looked away, catching her lower lip between her teeth as she found herself fighting back tears, and disgusted anew by the emotional wreck she had become these last few days. “Is it that obvious?”

Carissa chuckled softly. “The way you look at him? I’m afraid so.”

Maddie winced and turned her eyes to a pair of long-winged kytes floating among the gulls over the green slope ahead. A puff of gullberry-scented breeze caressed her face. Then she groaned. “I can’t believe I’m humiliating myself like this. Especially knowing he doesn’t care a whit.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. . . . He’s just worked harder at not seeing it than you have.”

It took a moment for Carissa’s words to register. Then Maddie looked around at her in surprise, and the princess met her gaze with a rueful smile.

“I want
you
!”
Abramm’s words rang in her memory as vividly as when he had spoken them, and they still had the power to make her hope that somehow, some way, he had meant more by them than just his concern for her research. She quashed it grimly. “That is not a possibility I have any business considering, Riss.”

“Why not? You’d rather let him lock himself into a loveless marriage? To your own sister?”

“It has to be this way. Our countries need this treaty.”
Especially if things are as bad as Leyton says
.

“We may need the treaty, but we don’t need it to be sealed with a marriage.”

They came over a gentle rise, hearing the sound of the breakers now as they got their first glimpse of the sea, visible beyond the grass-covered rise ahead of them. Out beyond the surf line, vegetation-crowned sentinel rocks stood amidst pulsing fountains of white spray, encircled by rafts of squawking gulls.

“I don’t think it’s a wonderful idea,” Maddie said. “But it is what it is. No matter how much you rail against it, they’re still going to do it. And frankly, I doubt Abramm will mind at all. My sister is everything I’m not: beautiful, charming, stylish. Men fall in love with her the moment they meet her. You’ll see.”

“If he’s already attracted to you, Mad, it’s highly unlikely he’ll be interested in a woman who’s everything you’re not.”