Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) (37 page)

It was painful, to watch her. She tried to
speak to him of the principles of the rebellion, but he would not
listen, he would not be led, he refused even to consider the High
Priest’s point of theology. At my side, Wilhelm would nod at her
points, draw breath as if to speak. He was her partner in this
argument; but he could not intervene here, and the King refused to
hear her.

“
Can you not let it be?” he
snapped at her, once. He was apologetic at once, but she had
learned her lesson. She did not speak of it again, only looked
hurt, like a dog that has been cuffed about the ears and cannot
understand why.

She did not speak of her disappointment to
me, but I thought I could understand it, a little. I had been
thinking on the King’s quest for a Golden Age more and more over
the past days, as I heard the him expound on his dreams for the
future. He had never expected to live, to have any legacy at all
except as the Boy King, tragically dead at a young age. His mother
had coddled him, she had not told him that he must plan for the
future.

Now, he did so with obsessive focus. His
grandfather’s coup had left the country unstable, and the nobles
hungry for power. He was right to call them fighting dogs, for they
circled one another and fairly growled, no more dignified than
animals. The King was determined that the peace with Ismir, won at
such a high cost, should not be thrown away. He had sent for the
Ismiri envoy against the advice of all his Council—save the Duke,
who had wisely absented himself from that meeting—and he was driven
to prove that he had been right to do so.

An uprising in the south, aimed not at him
but at the whole of the nobility, was nothing he wanted in his
kingdom. It meant that the common people doubted him, they did not
long for the golden age he had promised to give them. His pride was
hurt, and there was something more to it as well, the siren call of
power that had taken his mother’s good sense, and de la
Marque’s.

Miriel no longer smiled in repose. I thought
she looked sad all the time, even when dancing. Had she noticed the
same thing—that the King seemed to care less about a golden age for
the happiness and peace of Heddred now, and more for the fact that
he would be remembered as a great king? He spoke of Evan III and
his great buildings, Wilhelm IV and the libraries and ports. He
wanted to know how he would be remembered.

“
Why
can’t
you let it be?” I asked her
one evening. We had just returned to our rooms, and I put out a
hand to keep her in the main room, away from the sleeping maid. I
had seen the faint frown on her face as Garad expounded on peace
and prosperity, and the folly of rebellion. If only I could unravel
that secret, I thought, I could make her stop talking to him about
it. I could stop the constant arguments that were so painful to
watch. She tilted her head to the side.

“
I don’t know,” she said
finally. “Well. I do. I can’t find words for it.” She stared down
at the table, her lips pursed in thought. “It’s the first thing
I’ve ever believed in. It’s like being drunk. It’s…” Her lips
curved in an involuntary smile. She was soft, her gaze faraway. For
a moment she had forgotten herself. “It’s like being in love. With
an idea.”

I said nothing. I only bit my lip. I did not
know how to argue her out of this, and she leaned forward across
the table.

“
It could be wonderful,”
she said. “Roine was right, you know. Not all nobles are wise, not
all of them take good care of their tenants.” I drew back; I did
not want this conversation. It was a danger I could have done
without. Sudden fear made me speak sharply.

“
Well, you had better not
let him hear you say that,” I said roundly. “You know he doesn’t
like it.”

All at once she remembered whom she was
talking to. The wondering girl was gone. Her face closed off, she
looked away from me. Before her eyes left mine, I saw something
different in her face, something I had never before seen: she was
betrayed. She had spoken to him of her ideas and he had brushed
them aside, and because he was the King, she must yield.

Miriel had woven such a lovely fantasy that
she and the King could be equals together, sharing ideas and ruling
Heddred justly, that she had begun to believe the fairy tale
herself. She had forgotten, for a few days, that ensnaring the King
was her purpose, and she had viewed it as a joy, and half fallen in
love with him. Now she saw the man she had idolized for nothing
more than a man, and unlike other women, who could turn away when
they wished, she was bound to continue on.

I had known that Miriel hated to lose, and
now I saw her realize that, in success, she faced a life where she
would lose every single day, and be expected to smile throughout.
It had not been so bitter to walk past all of the other men,
Wilhelm among them, when she thought that she had found the finest
of them. Wilhelm had taught her that there were those who might
view her as an equal, those she might adore for their own sake
alone; then, she had met the King, and she had done her best to
believe that he was one of those men.

No matter what I had wished, she had
realized her mistake before she had the crown on her head, before
she had a son and heir in the cradle. She was not surrounded by the
comforts of a Queen—no, she must still devote her time and her
skill and her beauty to attaining something that brought her no
joy. She had no escape. She was bound to the very man who had
disappointed her, and she could not think what to do.

Chapter 31

The news came in the very dead of night by
messenger, a man who had been so long in the saddle that he seemed
half-dead. He gasped out his message from horseback before
collapsing onto the cobblestones, and the moment the news was
known, pages were sent flying to wake the members of the Council,
to wake even the King himself.

I knew none of this. I knew of his presence
almost before any of the great men, but I knew only that a man had
ridden hard from my homeland with urgent news. The rider was from
Voltur, and the moment the guards had seen his standard, they had
sent for the Duke. Temar sent a runner for me, not knowing the
nature of the danger, and I was awake and crouched in the darkness
by the outer door within minutes.

“
What is it?” Miriel asked,
sleepily, from the door to her privy chamber. I could hear her
companion’s snores even from here; I thought briefly that someone
should make sure Miriel had a better chaperone, and then realized
that it was better for the woman to be a deep sleeper. Best for as
few people as possible to notice Miriel’s nightly
disappearances.

“
Nothing,” I said. “Go back
to sleep for now.” To my surprise, she did not nod and disappear
back into her bedroom, to nestle under the covers. She wrapped her
robe tighter over her nightgown and came to sit near me on the
floor, tucking her feet up under her to keep away the cold. As I
had told her always to do, she sat with me between her and the
door.

“
Can I light a candle?” she
whispered.

“
Best not,” I said
uncertainly, after a moment. “I don’t know what’s going
on.”

In the dim light that filtered under the
door, I saw her nod. She did not get up and go to one of the chairs
by the fireplace, nor back her bed, but sat quietly beside me on
the cold floor instead.

We huddled in the darkness together for a
few minutes, listening to the commotion in the halls. The tension
made a knot in my belly, and I focused to keep my breathing deep
and even. Enough tension to help me move quickly if I needed to,
not so much that I would falter. I wished Temar would come to tell
us what was happening. We heard more shouts from the courtyards,
more footsteps pounding down the hallways, and I grew more and more
fearful.

“
Roine says there’s a
prophecy about you,” Miriel said unexpectedly, out of the
dark.

I looked over at her. She had clasped her
hands and sat with her head bowed. I felt my usual flicker of
grudging respect for her, sitting quietly in fear instead of
crying. I wondered what news she was steeling herself against, as
she waited beside me in the dark. What news could there possibly be
from Voltur? I reckoned that she was thinking of the same two
possibilities that I had come up with: the border had been overrun,
or the Lady was dead. Perhaps both.

Then I remembered her question, and I
frowned. I did not want to answer her. I felt a twinge of
self-consciousness that I should speak of this, so personal, so
close to ridiculous, with her. The dreams of it had been growing
more frequent; I knew my mother’s face perfectly, I could speak
every word of my parents’ conversation by memory; I did not want to
bring the dream into the waking world. But I knew what it would
mean to Miriel to be able to talk of something else, think of
anything other than the messenger. I hunched my shoulders and tried
to find words.

“
My mother said when I was
born, that I had been born to be betrayed. She said that when I
was, there would be an ending, and the balance would tip.” Here in
the dark, with the shouts of the guards and the clank of weapons,
with the terrible fear that something had gone terribly wrong, the
words felt less ridiculous than they ever had before. I added
defiantly, “Then she gave me away, because she didn’t want to raise
me.” Perhaps if I said it, Miriel could take no joy in mocking me
for it. But she did not respond to that at all, and she did not
snort in derision at the prophecy, as I had expected.

“
Do you believe it?” she
asked instead.

I opened my mouth to say what I always said
out loud: that no, of course I did not believe it, it was only
childbed fever that had caused my mother to speak nonsense, but
this time I could not say the words. Close to sleep, close to fear,
I admitted the truth to myself.

“
I don’t know,” I said
slowly. The strangeness of the conversation loosened my tongue. “Do
you know, I used to feel special, like I would wake up in a
fairytale and be a great hero. But now…” She just waited, quietly.
“I don’t know if I want to be in a story anymore,” I admitted.
“It’s like I am already, and I don’t think I like it. And what
would it mean if it were true? What would it mean for
you?”

I asked without thinking, and she bit her
lip. “Like driftwood in a river,” she said dreamily. “I’d rather be
right at your side than in your path.” I looked over at her, and
she shrugged and pulled her robe tighter around her. Her eyes
glittered, and she said, almost a breath it was so soft, “Sometimes
I think this is all a dream, and I’ll wake up and be back
home.”

It was so close to my own thoughts, and my
own hopes, that I could not find anything to say. I was still
puzzling over it when we heard footsteps in the hall, slowing as
they approached our door. I motioned her back, and she slipped over
to the window, crouching down where she might run and lift the
shutters and jump, or duck behind one of the chairs. I nodded to
her and slipped into the shadows near the door. As a knock sounded,
I tensed, my palm very sweaty against the haft of my dagger.

“
Catwin?” Temar’s voice.
“News from Ismir. Miriel is safe. You should come with
me.”

I stayed silent for a moment, warring with
myself. I always did, now, with Temar. I knew I was playing him,
and I might never know if he had figured out the game, too. Was it
a trap? Was he trying to lure me away from Miriel? But the
messenger had been real enough—

“
Open it,” Miriel said
softly, pushing me towards the door. I drew back the deadbolt and
let the door creak open. Temar poked his head around.

“
What is it?” Miriel asked,
standing up from behind the chair. Temar raised his eyebrows at her
as he slid into the room. “Nothing that need concern you,” he said,
mildly. “You may return to bed, my lady. The Duke has sent men to
guard the door.”

Miriel did not even glance at me, nor did I
flick my gaze sideways at her. We both looked to Temar with the
open, biddable faces of youth. “Thank you,” Miriel said, with the
brilliant smile she directed at male servants, and she yawned as
she walked back to her bedchamber, slipping off her robe. It was
only when Temar had preceded me into the hall that I saw her look
back over her shoulder and shoot me a look under her thick lashes,
and I smiled back at her, one conspirator to another.

Temar would play his game, as the Duke bid.
And we would play ours.

“
What is the news?” I asked
Temar, as I trotted down the hallway at his side. He spared a
glance at me and held his tongue as we passed a group of servants,
chattering excitedly.

“
The heir to Ismir has been
killed,” he said shortly.

I tried to remember, and scraped a name out
of my memory. “Vaclav?”

Even now, he took pride in my learning. He
gave me a flash of a smile. “Yes. Brother to…”

“
He has no brother,” I
said, frowning at him to show that I knew it was a trick question.
“Eight sisters, Marjeta and…I can’t remember all of them. But it’s
his cousin, Kasimir, who will inherit now. Yes?”

“
Very good. Now tell me
what the Council should advise the King.” His voice had dropped to
a murmur as we began to navigate the wide corridors that led
towards the heart of the palace, to the council
chambers.

“
I’m going to see the
Council?” He looked at me; now was a time for lessons. I sighed,
and thought. “Wouldn’t it be best simply to send condolences to
King Dusan?” Temar said nothing. I thought for a few moments,
saying nothing even when Temar stopped outside a side door into the
Council chamber. He watched me as I thought. Finally, I said,
“They’ll be worried that Kasimir wants war.”