Shadowforged (Light & Shadow) (15 page)

I could hardly see her as the same girl who had traveled to court with me years ago. That Miriel was so insubstantial that a puff of wind might have blown her away. She had been a girl of empty ambition, yearning for advancement without knowing why. She had known no true desire of her own. And now her soul had been sharpened against the grindstones of her uncle’s ambition and the court’s spite, she had been forged into something altogether harder and more deadly. Her childhood was wiped away, she had gone cold and found a conviction that they could not touch, could not dim.

And I, too, was unrecognizable. I was forged by her need and our shared danger. I would kill now, I knew how, and I knew I could. Last time I had been able to save us both without using my blades, but I knew without doubt that a time would come when I would not have such a choice. I would have to kill—not only to save her, for those who came after Miriel would come for me, too. The Duke had been true to his word: he had intertwined my fate with Miriel’s. He had laid the groundwork for our alliance. He had set us down the path to become something more, and something less, than two girls.

I wondered if this was how it was for him and Temar. And then I wondered if Miriel and I could ever change back.

“Things could change,” I said. I did not believe it. She might be a child by age alone, but Miriel had seen more of life and pain and fear than most courtiers twice her age. Now she smiled, narrow-eyed, and she looked like her uncle.

“I hope they will change,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding me. “I hope the great Lords will remember their duties to the people of Heddred. I hope that the King will remember that the powers granted to him are given by the church—and that the church may one day remember that it serves the Gods and not its own wealth. But that won’t happen on its own. The High Priest is turning the church back to its origins, and I am turning the court, and the King. And to do that, I need everyone. And Wilhelm supports the rebellion,” she added. “He’ll be a good ally for that reason alone.”

“You said you wouldn’t do more than writing letters until you were Queen!”

“I might not. But I might have to.”

“No,” I whispered, as much a plea as an accusation. “You said…”

“Don’t reprimand me. You’re on my side,” she reminded me. “You promised.”

“I’m on
our
side,” I retorted. “
You
promised. And this puts us both in danger.” I sighed at the look on her face. “You’re not going to give this up, are you?”

“I can’t.” For all that I knew her to be a consummate liar, a woman who could charm and dazzle thought out of any mind, I could not resist the sincerity in her voice. “Catwin, I swear to you, I cannot give this up. It touches my very soul—I feel that this is why I was born to this earth, to help them.” Her steely mask had slipped away, and as I puzzled, trying to see if this was only a quieter, gentler mask, I wavered. She saw my uncertainty.

“Please, Catwin. Can you not see that this is the most honorable cause that anyone could choose to serve? Of all people, I would have expected you to understand. You know that you are no less a person than a noble. You know that you have a mind as sharp, a soul as worthy. Why should nobles rule your life?”

I laughed; I could not help it. “Because I am oath-sworn to protect one of them. And even if not, I am not such a fool as to range myself against those who hold all the power and wealth in the world.”

She turned a hooded gaze on me, as lazy as a bird of prey, ready to strike. “You already have,” she pointed out. “You and I, we are allies to no one but ourselves. We have powerful enemies.”

I wavered again, unsure of myself and cursing my own stupidity. Miriel was a master of twisting an argument, but I had never been the target of her skill before, I could not deny her logic.

“It’s different,” I said uncertainly. “With a court, you can set the players against each other—they’re all working for the same prizes, they’d be glad to see one another fall. But if you fight for this, they’ll band together. This strikes at all of them.”

“We can still set them against each other,” Miriel said confidently. “If we play it right.”

“It’s too risky.” My tried-and-true response.

“Catwin…” Another woman would be frustrated by my refusal of her ideals. Miriel had a gentle, understanding smile. “The idea seems strange, I know. But if you cannot accept this cause yet for its own sake, can you not fight for it for love of me?” The question was so strange to me that even she could see my puzzlement. “You’re the closest to a sister that I have,” she said. “We’re bound to each other, we should work together—why are you smiling?”

“I’ve never had any family,” I admitted. “Only Roine, and I never even called her ‘mother.’ It’s strange to be a sister to someone.”

“We’re not quite sisters.” Miriel tilted her head to the side. “We’re more than that. We’re like sides of a coin.” Even knowing that she would say anything to get her way, I was drawn in.

“You think so?”

“Don’t you?” she countered. “My uncle named you my Shadow, so I am shaped to you just as you are shaped to me. I could not be what I am without you, and you would not be here if not for me. I give you cause to fight, and you caution me—you are my conscience, and I am yours.”

I giggled. “Your assassin is your conscience?” She was not pleased that I had interrupted her grand speech, but smiled despite herself, and then jumped when a knock sounded on the door.

“Catwin?” Temar opened the door and came in. He bowed when he saw Miriel.

“Ah, my Lady, I hope there is no trouble. I hear Lord Wilhelm Conradine was summoned.”

“Yes,” Miriel answered, readily enough. “He carries letters between the King and me. The King’s letters are on the table outside,” she added, gesturing, “if my uncle would like to read them.”

Temar stared at her, and I looked between him and Miriel, as if I might see their mutual dislike made manifest in the air. I had only seen the look in his eyes once before, and then it had been Miriel, staring at her uncle. Temar, too, hated to lose, and he hated Miriel for how easily she evaded his traps. He did not trust her in the slightest, and that made her his enemy. I saw the wedge, now, between Temar and the Duke: the Duke, wanting to believe that he had not made a mistake, wanted so badly to trust me and Miriel both that he did, and Temar thought him a fool for it. Now, Temar only bowed.

“I will ask the Duke,” he said, and he left without even a glance at me. I looked after him, and when I turned back, Miriel was standing with her arms cross and her shoulders tilted. In a moment, I recognized an impression of myself.

“You be careful,” she said, in a near perfect imitation of my reprimand. She had even caught the faint traces of my mountain accent. When I sighed, she smiled sunnily, and sat down at the desk to read.

Chapter 15

And then, just as quickly as Miriel had seen the threat, it all began to come apart for her. The Meeting of the Peacemakers had finished, Kasimir declaring loudly at any opportunity that only honorable allies were good allies, but both Kings doing their best to ignore him. Now the village was set to be deserted, and we were all to pack. When at last the King thought to contact Miriel, it was only a single sentence on a torn bit of parchment.

“What is it?” I asked curiously. Miriel was staring down at the scrap of paper, her face unreadable.

“He says he will see me when we are on the road again,” she pronounced. “He calls his work here a great victory for us both, and assures me that he is working to make my dreams for Heddred a reality.” Her tone made it clear what she thought of his assurances.

Here, I thought, lay the difference between Miriel and the Duke. The Duke gloated in victory, he enjoyed it to the fullest, he was smug when he triumphed. Miriel accepted victory only with a calm that masked relief. Each victory was only a step for her, at best, or more likely another moment of evading her own downfall. And I knew she was afraid: one letter, only, a single sentence in response to the dozen notes she had sent him as we stayed in the village.
Was
he slipping away, as she feared?

“How are we to meet him, then?” I asked, when a servant had come into the room for her trunk of clothing and then hauled it away.

“He will take a servant’s clothes and come to my tent.”

“Anyone could listen in,” I said at once.

“Well, you make sure He doesn’t,” Miriel said simply. I did not need to ask who she meant. There was only one man she was so wary of.

“He’ll hear it all, one way or another. Be sure of it. Especially after Wilhelm visited. He’s waiting to catch you out at something and take tales back to the Duke.”

“You can’t stop him?” she challenged.

“I could, but not without him knowing I did,” I explained. I lowered my voice, superstitiously afraid that he would know we were talking about him and come to check on us. “We don’t want this fight yet, do we?”

“Well, you don’t,” she said pointedly. I ignored her.

“Watch your words,” I told her. She accepted the advice without complaint and drifted out into the main room, where the servants were carrying away every bit of luxury we had brought with us, to be packed into the Duke’s cart. Some would be missing when we returned, I knew, and the guard stationed at the village would be unable to keep the servants from taking anything they could lay their hands on to sell: relics of the Meeting of the Peacemakers.

The minor nobles, those without their own estates, were already petitioning the crown to be allowed the buy the beautiful mansions. They would form their own enclave, rent out the inns, and rake in the sort of wealth that the higher nobles deplored.

As the week was drawing to a close, I saw the courtiers move through the village with drawn faces. They did not want to return home, where their entertainments were only draperies in the great hall, the dancing of men and maids they saw every day, dinners cooked by the same chefs. They wanted the fireworks and elaborate sets and glittering masquerades never to end. This was a magical place, where a courtier or a councilor could forget that the battles of the world forged onward. Life outside was filled with woes.

Of the courtiers, it was the King’s Councilors who fretted the most. Like Miriel, they had been locked out of the long discussions between Garad and Dusan. They and Dusan’s councilors circled each other warily, all suspecting the rest of knowing some vital scrap of information. They knew that decisions were being made, and treaties, and trade agreements—all the business of the realm that had been mismanaged, to great profit, by the nobles. They had controlled it since time immemorial, and now the King managed it himself. They could no longer claim credit for it, nor reap the profits. All they could do was wait to see how the dice had fallen, and they feared it—every one of them had something to lose.

“You had better hold his heart still,” the Duke had said, ominously, to Miriel. She did not betray by a single flicker that she was afraid of the King’s love slipping away. She only smiled.

“You saw his letters,” she replied. “I hold his heart, and when I am back in his eye, I will enchant him as I always have done.” Her voice was controlled, but I could hear her uncertainty. We rode in silence on the road back home, and on the first night, as we were waiting for the King’s arrival, she said to me,

“I have to change the rules.” She was staring into the brazier, watching the coals shift. The nights were cold on the plains, and even wrapped in furs, she was shivering. She did not seem to notice. “I have been too sweet.”

I was so slow at these things. “And?”

“He withdrew, on his own terms. Now I must withdraw to even it. It will leave a space, to lure him onward.” Her voice was dreamy; she was far away, strategizing.

“How will you do that?” I asked, and that jolted her from her reverie.

“I don’t know.” She squeezed her eyes shut, coming back to the present abruptly. “I’ve done so well, but now, when it matters most—I don’t know. I can’t think of anything.”

“My Lady?” a voice called, and Miriel rose to her feet, her hands running over her hair, pinching her cheeks, checking her gown. We were not ready for the King to come so early. We had not had time to prepare. A head poked around the makeshift flap: Wilhelm. He took our silence as an invitation, and slid into the room.

“My Lord,” Miriel said. She curtsied, as she always did. “Has there been a change of plans? Am I to dress in servant’s clothes, then?” She spoke with the flirtatious banter of the court, but Wilhelm remained grave.

“I regret to inform you, my Lady, that the King is going to be detained. He will not be able to see you tonight. He asked me to bring you his regrets.” Miriel’s nose flared, as if she could smell the danger somewhere in his words.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

“He is dining.” But Wilhelm looked down rather than meet her eyes.

“With whom, then?”

“Efan of Lapland, Nils Torstensson and his wife…and the Lady Linnea.” He named Nils’ daughter, a girl with eyes as blue as ice, skin like milk. High cheekbones, a beautiful smile, and the power of the West behind her. Miriel’s eyes flared.

“What are they discussing?” She had no right to know, and neither did Wilhelm. She should not have asked; he should have disclaimed and bowed over her hand. But his eyes were full of pity. He said the worst thing.

“I am sorry, my Lady.” There was an uncomfortable silence, and Miriel sank down onto her bed, amidst the piles of furs. Etiquette was forgotten, she was white as snow.

“I’ve lost him,” she said flatly, and I felt her fear. Speaking to the Council was one thing, declarations of interest in crowded banquet halls, open negotiations… But a private dinner, with the King himself in attendance rather than de la Marque—Miriel was right. The King had moved beyond his ploy. He had indeed pushed Miriel to one side, and now he would replace her with a woman who brought connections.

Wilhelm had been watching Miriel closely, now he knelt at her feet.

“My Lady, will you forgive the impertinence of a question?” The look she turned on him was at once hopeful, and chillingly cold. She was impatient, being distracted in her moment of fear, and she did not want him close for fear that her tightly-held composure would fail; but he might yet help.

“Yes?”

“You loved him once, did you not?”

“I loved him as soon as I met him,” Miriel said carefully, choosing words that she might defend to Garad. Wilhelm looked her straight in the eye, his jaw set against what he had heard, and I knew it took all of Miriel’s self control not to tell Wilhelm that she had only ever wanted to love the King, but that she knew now she did not—and that she loved another.

“And do you love him the same now?” Wilhelm asked her. She did not recover from her surprise fast enough. Her hesitation told him everything. “Then…is it that you wish to be Queen? That is why you fear losing his love?” He spoke as if he did not understand the pull of ambition, and had hoped for better from her.

“No,” she whispered fiercely. “And yes. I wanted to heal this country, bring it to enlightenment. What better way, than to have the throne?” That, he understood. He nodded.

“And so you court him and advise him—but you love him not?” His voice was thick with hope. Miriel bit her lip and nodded. “You do this only for Heddred?” Another nod. His voice dropped to a breath. “For the rebellion?” There was no mistaking the leap of joy in her eyes.

“I always hoped that you felt as I did,” she whispered. Then she remembered herself. Joy changed to ambition in a moment.  She leaned closer still. “I could help them, if I was on the throne,” she said urgently. “Will you help me, my Lord? For them?”

“Do you know what it is you ask?” he whispered back. This time, she did not pretend to misunderstand his words. Nor did she flinch from it. She nodded, drawing back and looking down at him, where he knelt.

“Of course. Would you not ask the same of me?” She held his eyes until he nodded, but anyone could have seen his misery. “Nothing matters more than this,” she pressed him. ”Nothing. If you feel the same as I do, you will know that. And so you must help me.”

“I will help you,” he said. He had been defeated with hardly a struggle, no match for her conviction and his own honor. Miriel had been right, after a fashion: Wilhelm Conradine knew what could and could not be, and like her, he was driven to help the rebellion. He would pursue that end all the more ardently, for having given her up. “I will do what I can, I will remind him of his promises to you. I will press him to meet with you. I will praise your wit and your intelligence. But I must go now, quickly—my father seeks me. I told him I would be gone only a moment.” Without letting his eyes leave her face, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. Then he left without a word, slipping out the opening of the tent and into the night.

Miriel’s face was almost laughable. Her lips were parted, she was staring after him longingly after the brush of his lips against her skin. But when she saw me watching, she remembered herself. Her gaze turned to one of triumph.

“I did it,” she told me. “I said I would take his loyalty, and now I have it.” She saw my face. “Oh, don’t say it again.” I felt a hot rush of anger at her dismissal.

“Fine,” I snapped. “Then I’ll say this: his love for you was only embers until you fanned it, and now you’ve made it a fire. And you’re a fool if you think you can hold it in your hands and not get burned. He thinks he’s giving you up for a great cause, doesn’t he? It’s very romantic, dreadfully romantic. Like a ballad. But that’ll wear thin. And then, he’s going to do something stupid.” I thought she would flare up at my impertinence, but instead I saw only fear.

“I don’t have any choice,” she said. “He’s the only weapon I have, Catwin.”

“And be careful of yourself, too,” I warned her. A shadow crossed her face.

“I don’t have any choice,” she repeated, and I sighed. There was a moment of silence as she struggled to push away the emotions I knew she wanted to savor. She said quietly, “So what do we do now?” At her sadness, I remembered what I, too, had forgotten in the face of her tryst with Wilhelm: the King’s infidelity.

“We could talk to the Duke,” I suggested, and at the instant denial, I insisted, “We should. He’s going to find out anyway.”

There was nothing she could say to that. We padded over to his tent, and it was hardly five minutes later that he leaned back from his makeshift desk and said simply,

“I told you to keep him. I told you that if you could not, we would need to discuss why you could not do such a thing.” We froze, both of us, unwilling to believe our ears. First the love of the King, then a sworn ally—the ally whose anger we had counted on, but whose ambition we had never doubted—going back on his word. It could not be so. Not all at once.

“I need your help to do it.” Miriel’s lips barely moved.

“I cannot enchant him for you,” he pointed out. “All I can do is pave your way, and I have done so. Every tool you needed, I have given you. I secured a place at court for you. Now you must do your part.”

“Make a bid for marriage.” Miriel’s face tightened when he laughed in her face.

“Oh, no,” he told her, still chuckling. “I won’t do that. It would be laughable. Surely you know that. We have merchant blood. We have no army. We make more enemies than allies for him. You are no fitting match for a King.”

“But you said…”

“I agreed that if the King was mad enough to defy the Council for you, I would back you. I hold to that. If he is not…” The Duke tapped the desk with his fingers. “I will not make myself a laughingstock to put you forward.”

“What will happen to us if he’s lost, then?” She challenged him. She got nothing for it.

“I believe you mean, what will happen to
you
,” he said coldly. “And the answer is that you will probably be ruined. They’re already saying that you let him have you and now he’s lost his interest, did you know? If you fail to get him back, the rumor will stick. And if the rumor sticks…” My blood turned to ice. Miriel swayed where she stood.

“What do I do?”