Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) (27 page)

Temar was not dissuaded by my abrupt
tone.

“
Think, Catwin. You were a
child born to a peasant, you were to live and die as one of them,
never knowing anything more than cold and hunger. Yet, you are
here, a girl risen far beyond her station, more educated than some
Kings. Such a divergence does not happen by accident. Something has
chosen you. At every branch, your life has led you
here.”

“
The Duke chose me.” He
sighed at the look on my face.

“
Laugh at it if you want,”
he said. “But one day you will wake and know that it is true. You
will look back and see a pattern. You will see that you are tied,
irrevocably, to Miriel—as I…”

His voice broke, and he covered it with a
cough.

Realizations are strange things. They are
composed outside of the conscious self, they are the ends of paths
we cannot tread in our waking minds, and for this reason, the most
shocking realizations may stab across one’s mind, and yet be gone
in an instant, fleeting, known-and-unknown. Roine told me once that
in the old religions, seers breathed in the smoke of strange plants
to bring on the visions of their sleeping minds, and that their
words were recorded so that the dreams would not be forgotten.

I had no such luxury, and so in the years to
come, I realized and forgot the most important truth about Temar
more times than I could count, the truth I had first seen on a
Summer’s day on the ride to Penekket:

Above all things in his life, Temar hated
the Duke.

In an instant after the realization, the
thought was gone, and all I could remember was a vague sense that I
should know more than I did.

“
Now you are bound to
Miriel by blood,” he told me. “You can mock it, you can tell me
that it is nothing, but it is true. Once you have killed to save
another, the two of you are bound to each other. It is nothing new.
Your fates have been intertwined since you were born, and it is
only now that it is becoming clear.” He sighed. “You should go
early to your lesson with Donnett. I must run an errand for the
Duke. I wished only to see if you were well.”

He waved me away, but I
lingered. I watched his eyes stray back to the map he had laid out
on the table, and thoughts clustered together in my head.
You were born a peasant
—
those whom fate has touched…well,
let us say that they are drawn to one another
.
I looked at Temar’s smooth brown
skin, at his dark eyes.

“
Where were you born?” I
asked him, and he grimaced. Temar hated questions about himself. If
I had thought he might answer me today, I was wrong.

“
Figure it out for
yourself,” he said lightly. “And while you’re figuring, go to your
lessons. There’s no time for rest. Not anymore.”

I did not go to see Donnett. Feet dragging,
I walked to Roine’s rooms. It was as if I was walking in a dream; I
could not stop my legs from carrying me forward, even as I shrank
from seeing her. Roine was the closest thing I had ever had to a
mother. How could I hide this from her? And yet, she was the woman
who had raised me, a healer by trade, the woman who had taught me
right from wrong. How could I ever tell her what I had done? I had
not gone to my lesson yesterday, I had hidden in Miriel’s rooms
with my arms around my knees, curled into a little silent ball near
Miriel, who sat as if she was carved from stone, the terror still
showing in her eyes.

I pushed open the door to Roine’s room and
it was clear at once that she already knew what had happened. When
she looked up from her worktable, I saw that her face was white and
her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. I looked over to the corner
where she prayed, and saw the little altar disturbed: the low table
was out of place, and the candle lay on its side on the floor.
Before I had time to fear that she could never forgive me for what
I had done, she ran to me and enfolded me in her arms. At her
tears, I began to cry myself.

“
Please don’t hate me,” I
whispered, and I felt her shake her head.

“
Never, never. I could
never hate you for what you did,” she whispered. “Not even…” She
shook her head again. “Not ever,” she promised me. She took my
shoulders in her hands and held me away from her, looking into my
eyes. I waited for words of comfort—Roine was always ready with
wisdom—but she was determined, not comforting. Her jaw was
set.

“
You have to go,” she told
me.

“
What?” I felt my stomach
drop. Even now, I feared that she had changed her mind. She truly
thought me a monster, and she wanted me gone from the
palace.

“
You have to leave,” she
said earnestly. “You cannot stay here.”

“
The Duke is hiding it,” I
said uncertainly. “I don’t have to go. Temar said no one would ever
know.” A shadow of distaste crossed her face, but she shook her
head.

“
Not because of that,” she
said impatiently. “You’re in danger, Catwin.” I shook my head, but
she gripped my arms. “
Listen
to me, Catwin. The Duke is the greatest enemy of
the rebellion, he is their target, and they will not hesitate to
hurt Miriel. And now they know that someone is protecting her—that
will lead them to you.”

I could not breathe; I felt a rush of fear.
I had woken up time after time last night, my dreams one endless
nightmare of the man’s surprised face, his legs twitching, Miriel’s
scream. I had been so consumed with guilt that I had not been
afraid. I had not once stopped to think, but Roine had. She was
afraid, and she was right to be afraid. The rebellion had sent an
assassin, and he had been killed. They would want to know who had
killed him, and how. If they were willing to kill Miriel, they
would not hesitate to kill me.

For a moment, I was ready to run. Roine
would help me, she could help me and we would run away. This life
at the palace had been a terrible dream, but we could still get
away. I knew enough that I could escape Temar. Roine and I would go
where we could be safe.

Then I remembered what Roine clearly had
not:

“
But if I leave, who will
protect Miriel?” I was frowning. How could Roine have forgotten
this? Sometimes it seemed that she was the only one who cared for
Miriel’s welfare. But Roine shook her head so impatiently that I
realized this was no oversight.

“
You have to think of
yourself,” she said earnestly. “No one would think less of you for
protecting your own life.”

“
You said yourself they’ll
come for her again,” I protested. I spread my hands out. “If I
left, she would have no one. They’d kill her.”

“
Miriel makes her own
choice to stay or go,” Roine said fiercely. “I only care about
keeping you safe. I thought when we came here that I could do that,
but I cannot, and I cannot live everyday knowing that you are in
danger.” Once, such an admission would have pleased me—I had sought
such an affirmation from her for months. But now I felt my frown
deepen. There was a sense of wrongness.

“
You can’t think it would
be right to leave her defenseless,” I protested. “Not
you—
you
taught me
right and wrong. You know I can defend myself. Roine, I can’t go,
not knowing that she would be in danger with no one to protect
her.” Roine wavered, and I pressed on. “It would be like not
healing her if she were injured.”

“
It’s not the same,” Roine
protested. “Last time, you surprised them. Next time, they’ll be
prepared.” She shook her head. “Miriel is no friend of yours,” she
reminded me.

I swallowed. I knew that Miriel was not my
friend. I knew it very well. I remembered her speech about trust,
word for word, and I still felt raw inside when I thought of it. I
also knew my answer: the same answer I had given Temar.

“
I would never want her
dead.”

“
Catwin,
please
.” Roine’s voice
was tight. “For me.” I hesitated, but shook my head. There was a
shape to the wrongness now. If I left, it would eat away at my
heart as long as I lived that a young womanr had died because I
would not help to protect her.

“
I know you want to keep me
safe, but I can’t just leave her to die. It doesn’t matter…” I
shook my head. “I could never forgive myself if something happened
to her.” It was true, I could feel it right down to my bones.
“Please tell me you understand,” I pleaded. Roine enfolded me in a
hug.

“
I do,” she said quietly.
“And I’m proud of you. I want you to know that. And I love you.” I
smiled.

“
I love you, too. And you
taught me to be this way. It’s because of you that I’m staying.” I
tried to crane my neck to smile up at her, but she would not let me
from her embrace.

“
I know,” she said, her
voice choked. “I just wish I could know you would not suffer for
it.”

Chapter 23

In the cold weeks approaching winter, the
Duke’s household had sunk into waiting, once more, for the axe to
fall. The disappearance of his assassin must have unsettled Jacces.
The Duke had sent a note back, stating only that his obligation was
to root out violence in the King’s realm. If Jacces would not end
the rebellion, the Duke would march southwards. The violence, such
as it was, seemed to disappear overnight; the rebellion was once
more composed of murmurs.

No one, from the Councilors to the scullery
maids, believed that the peace would hold, but the King was
determined he would not send his army to put down a rebellion that
no one could find, and that had sunk once more into waiting.
However his Councilors pleaded, he put the march south on hold
indefinitely, instead sending spies to the Norstrung Provinces to
root out the identity of Jacces.

And then the King made a bold move: he sent
an invitation to the court of Ismir, asking for a representative to
be sent, that the courts might work together in peace for the
future. He wanted, he said, to begin a golden age for Heddred and
Ismir. Together, with their differences set aside, the two nations
might find peace and prosperity beyond all dreams.

I was at my lessons with Roine when I found
out. We had finished with the earlier lessons, naming and
identifying different plants, and making specific poisons and
antidotes. Her latest task for me had been to create antidotes for
a series of four liquids she gave to me. I was to determine,
however I could, their composition and strength, and determine the
precise counter to each, and we would have no more lessons until I
could do so.

The liquids sat in little stoppered vials at
the back of her workroom, and each day for the past week, I had
come to sit for hours and decipher clues. We worked in silence when
we could, disturbed by the steady stream of servants coming to ask
Roine’s aid; more than once, she had asked me to interrupt my work
to splint a broken bone, or bind an open wound. In a palace nearly
as large as the city itself, there was always someone to heal, and
Roine had become known for her abilities. What I did not understand
was why I was being drawn into it.

“
Injuries don’t wait,” she
said sharply, when I asked why I must interrupt my lessons. “And
you need this practice.”

I knew that there was no reason to complain.
She had given me a little table of my own to work at, a luxury by
any reckoning. Luxurious, too, were the candles I burned when I
worked late into the night, and the paper and ink I used to keep
notes. Just because this luxury was paid for by the Duke did not
mean that Roine permitted me to squander it: my notes were to be
neat and my writing small, and I was not allowed to burn candles
unless I worked after my dinner.

I was working on the second of the four
liquids when Temar arrived, and I had unstopped the bottle to sniff
cautiously at it. The potion was thick, but the fragrance was so
faint that I could barely make it out. If I closed my eyes and
blocked out the world when I smelled it, I could imagine a clear
mountain day, with sunlight glinting off snow. But I could not put
a name to the scent. I was close to thumping my head onto the desk
with frustration when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“
The Duke called for you,”
Temar said without preamble, and my stomach gave the weird drop it
always did when I knew I had been summoned. I steadied myself by
nodding, very dignified, and then restopped the bottle, dried my
quill carefully, and made sure the notes for each potion were laid
out by the bottles.

“
She’ll be back when she
can be,” Temar said to Roine, and she nodded without looking up
from her own work. Roine and Temar barely spoke, although I had
noted that they were scrupulously polite to each other when they
did. They existed in a state of quiet enmity, both tolerating the
other out of convenience, and Temar seemed to find this more
amusing than Roine did.

Out in the hallways, there was the steady
buzz of conversation, and at once I picked out the undercurrent of
energy that accompanied new information. It was in the pitch of the
murmur, in the way people inclined their heads to listen, in the
way nobles and servants lingered to speak to each other.

“
What is it?” I asked,
dreading the answer. Why would the Duke care enough about a rumor
to summon me? What could Miriel possibly have done to engender this
type of talk?