Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles Book 1) (25 page)

Most Thirds lived only a few years past their two-hundredth birthday. Fourths less than that, and Fifths barely made one hundred. The Silent were old at seventy.

“But it is because of me that we face war with the Silent. It is because of me—” I choke on the words as a sob rises to my throat. Yllis is there with an arm around me, steady and stable, my rock in the storm.

Yllis’s mother, Deela, rises. “So it must be you to lead us through. We have lived in peace for hundreds of years with the guidance left by the Founders, but perhaps it has been too easy for us. We have never been challenged in this way before.”

“Eero and those who follow him have poked at a sore that has been dormant for a long time,” Yllis says. “The Silent have no voice in the Assembly. Their parentage is not claimed. If it was not Eero now, it would have been someone else in the future. It is not all because of us.”

He wants to take more of the burden of Eero’s fate away from me, absolve me of some guilt, but it is mine to hold. Yllis developed the complex spell, which allowed me to share my Song with my twin, but I was the one who used it. Who kept using it and ignored the truth for too long—giving Song to the Silent would cause them to go mad. The Silent were so for a reason.

“Very well,” I say. “I accept.”

It is as if the Assembly takes a collective breath. “Be it so.”

And with three little words, I have been made Queen.

The pounding of
rain against the window lulled Jasminda into a state between sleep and wakefulness. She sat in the palace’s Blue Library, books spread around her, all of them on Elsiran history. Her mother had begun teaching them history, but after her death, Papa continued their lessons on more practical matters. Math and basic engineering, biology and horticulture—things that would be useful in maintaining the farm.

In the royal library, the options were limitless. Wanting to start at the beginning, she’d pulled down dozens of books from the shelves, growing more and more uneasy with each one she read through. Elsiran history before the war was treated like a fairy tale or a parable. Tales of the Founders were little more than children’s stories written for adults. There were no dates, no names or locations—just stories of wonder and generosity from the esteemed Founders.

Even their eventual fates were never mentioned, only that leadership eventually passed to one of their descendants, the Queen Who Sleeps, who continued their wonderful work. Then, inevitably, each book would contain a short and very vague passage on her betrayal by the True Father and the spell he cast that placed her into an endless sleep. A sleep that could only be broken when he is sent to the World After. His true identity or where he came from were never touched upon. Nor were his motives.

It was as if history and myth had intertwined somehow, and vital facts had been lost or obscured. And now she was beginning to understand the truth through the visions. She wasn’t sure if she could trust what she saw, but there was nothing in the recorded histories that could disprove what the caldera showed. And the emotions she felt when she was Oola, the Queen, were all too real. Every sorrow, every bit of angst and guilt and fear became hers, and lasted long after she came back to herself.

The time between the visions was shortening, as well. This morning she’d seen a brief vision of Yllis asking Oola to marry him. It was not the first time he’d asked, and she again denied him. Her emotions had been unstable—finding her brother and restoring peace to their land had been all she could think about—but her Song sensed Yllis’s frustration and pain. The vision had ended abruptly, almost in the middle of a thought, and Jasminda hoped she would be strong enough to try the caldera again later that night.

She looked up from her spot on the floor and stifled a gasp to find Lizvette standing before her, willowy and elegant in a cream-colored gown.

“I didn’t mean to shock you. Please forgive me,” Lizvette said.

“No, I’m sorry. You haven’t been standing there long, have you?”

“No.” The generous way she smiled made Jasminda think that wasn’t precisely the case.

Jasminda rose and tiptoed her way out of the prison of books she’d created, motioning to a set of chairs at one of the study tables. Lizvette perched in her seat, back straight, hands folded neatly in her lap. Jasminda copied her pose, but her body didn’t take to it naturally.

“My maid told me you were often found here. I’d meant to visit earlier.”

“Well, I thank you for thinking of me. I don’t get many visitors.”

Lizvette looked around. “I never come in here. It’s so odd that I’ve lived in the palace all my life and rarely take advantage of its resources.”

Jasminda shrugged. “It’s easy to take things for granted. Hard to believe the things that seem permanent can ever be taken away.” She sank in her seat like a deflating balloon.

“You have had a great many losses?” Lizvette’s body was rigid, but her voice kind.

“I’ve lost everything. Everything I’ve ever had.” Jasminda snapped her back straight again and refused to give in to the melancholy. “But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my sorrows.”

“I cannot imagine what it must be like.”

“You’ve had your share.”

Lizvette’s only response was a thinning of her lips. Jasminda opened herself to a trickle of Earthsong, becoming better at shielding each time she tried. Lizvette’s emotions swirled in a storm of grief and longing. Surprised at their strength and depth, Jasminda lost her hold and the connection slammed shut. The other woman’s placid, controlled face hid a maelstrom of pain.

Jasminda’s heart went out to her. “Would it . . . help to talk about him?”

Lizvette’s eyes widened, and her hands clenched in her lap.

“Prince Alariq?” Jasminda prompted. “It’s said talking about our departed ones keeps them alive in our hearts.”

Lizvette released her hands to the arms of the chair and took a deep breath. “Oh, Alariq. Yes. I mean, no, thank you. I—” She smoothed out the fabric of her pristine dress and smiled. “I came to see you to give you a warning. I’m afraid it might not be safe for you here in the palace. Things are becoming quite strained with public opinion regarding the refugees. Jack is doing his best, but he faces heavy opposition.”

Jasminda’s slippered foot tapped the floor as tension seeped into her limbs. “As long as your father votes against sending the refugees back, Jack will be fine, right?”

Lizvette brushed imaginary lint from her gown. Jasminda counted to three before the other woman met her eye.

“He’s changed his mind?” Jasminda asked. “He cannot believe the True Father will keep his word of peace?”

Lizvette shook her head. “But the business owners, the aristocrats . . . the Council answers to them even more than to the Prince Regent. And they want the refugees gone. They are threatening not to sell food to the Principality if any of it is meant for the refugees.”

“They would starve all the people over this?”

“And blame the prince.”

Jasminda fell back in the chair. Lizvette’s words hammered against the inside of her skull. The intolerance and cruelty of people should not surprise her anymore. She had seen so little of the world but much pain wherever she went. Too much pain.

“And you think someone will harm me?” Calladeen’s vicious face popped into her mind.

Lizvette’s long neck stretched impossibly longer. She stood and crossed to the shelves, holding the most recent newspapers. “Have you seen today’s paper?”

When Jasminda shook her head, Lizvette brought it over, smoothing the pages on the table.

Lagrimari Ambassador Has Prince in a Twist

The royal ambassador to the Lagrimari refugee camp, a Miss Jasminda ul-Sarifor, age and birthplace unknown, is noted for her rare command of Elsiran, as well as the Lagrimari tongue. But apparently His Grace the Prince Regent has tongues around the palace wagging with his reported admiration for the woman. Prince Jaqros has turned down the social invitations of several lovely young women in the Elsiran inner circle, purportedly to further his relationship with the exotic and interbred ul-Sarifor.

Her stay in the palace is said to be ongoing, and while officials are tight-lipped as to her other assigned duties, our eyes and ears remain open.

“The
Rosira Daily Witness
is not much more than an extended gossip column,” Lizvette was saying, though the oceanic roar of blood rushing through Jasminda’s ears made it difficult to hear. A bubble of despair burst in her chest as she read the headlines and scanned the other articles. She pushed the paper away, not wanting to read any more.

Lizvette’s eyes were glassy, her face sorrowful. “The press has always bothered him. They’ve never cut him any slack. Ever since his mother’s . . . emigration. And now it’s worse than it was then.” She clucked her tongue. “She was too young and possibly too delicate for the demands of palace life. It broke her.”

Lizvette did not mention anything of Prince Edvard’s treatment of her, but maybe that was not common knowledge.

Eyes the color of dying embers singed Jasminda. “He needs to be seen as strong. He needs to fill Alariq’s shoes and be loved by his people and not hated. Do you understand?”

Jasminda nodded, fighting the approaching tears.

“Father says if he marries well, he can put these troubles behind him.”

Cold fingers gripped Jasminda’s heart. Lizvette’s head lowered as she stared at the carpeting. A chilling knowledge bit Jasminda. She reached out for Earthsong again, this time prepared for the woman’s hidden emotions. The longing pervading her Song was not a futile thing as it would be for a departed lover. It was vibrant, vigorous, and full of life.

“Are you in love with him?” Jasminda asked, her whole chest numb.

Lizvette blinked, momentarily taken aback at the question. A crack of vulnerability broke through her poised demeanor. In an instant, it was gone. She rose. “I only offer you advice. Please be careful. It would break him if anything happened to you.”

She left the room in a cloud of soft perfume, completely extinguishing the dying cinders of hope still clinging to life inside Jasminda.

The Council Room
emptied, leaving Jack the sole occupant. Staring at the wood grain of the table. Sitting in the chair his brother had occupied. And his father. And his grandfather and great-uncle. A member of the Alliaseen family had been the Prince Regent since the loss of the Queen. The blood in his veins was noble, royal. That was supposed to mean he possessed the best qualities of an Elsiran.

Honor. Loyalty. Dependability.

Calladeen had said that honor was doing the hard thing and letting history determine your legacy.

Jack asked himself what Alariq would have done, what his father would have done. And they would have done exactly as he had.

They would have sent the refugees back.

Back to a life that was not a life. Back to die.

He could not save them, any of them.

His mother, gone without a word. His brother, determined to pilot that wretched airship, no matter how foolish. Jasminda, harassed by a member of his own Council. The press would soon follow.

He was unworthy of the crown, the responsibility, the power.

Even unworthy of the woman he loved.

When she’d walked away from him at the ball, the pain in her face seized him like nothing before. He could not deny he loved her. As Prince Regent, it should have been within his power to give her the world. Instead, she had to remain hidden, denied.

What would his legacy be? Would the pages of the history books be kind? Or would they only remember him for dooming hundreds of innocents? For the loss of an entire nation?

This illusion of peace would be short-lived.

The True Father would destroy the Mantle—if not tomorrow, then next month or next year. And what then? Being right would not save his people.

The knots in the wood of the table kept their silence, though they stared back at him in accusation. He did not blame them.

War.

Silent versus Songbearer.

Blood in the streets.

Silent outnumber Songbearers more than ten to one, and while Eero has not turned them all against us, he has managed to bring many more than I ever imagined over to his side.

I always thought he was able to wrap me around his finger because of my weakness for him, my love. But it is a talent of his. He is charming. When he talks, people listen. They believe and trust him. They follow him, taking up arms against their neighbors, rending our land in two.

Our Songs make us a fearsome foe, though Earthsong cannot be used to kill. Besides, none who have felt the energy of a million lives strumming in his or her veins can rejoice in sending any living creature to the World After.

Early on, we healed any Silent harmed in an attack. The Assembly believed this would bring them to our side. But it did not. I cannot understand if the Silent are jealous of our Songs or fearful of them. The truth likely lies in a combination of the two.

Swords clash. The Silent fight through the rain and ice, the mudslides and fire. They are pelted with rocks, tumbled with earthquakes, but they persist.

It is within the power of the Songbearers to entirely unmake the land from the fabric of its being, in the same way that our grandparents did the reverse, creating a beautiful landscape where once a desert stood. But we think of the future—a future of peace.

Eero knows my weaknesses. He knows me too well. I should never have been made Queen to lead the fight against him. I am the last person that should have been chosen.

Y
llis studies with the Cantors day and night. His guilt is an anchor around his neck. It pulls him away from me. I have not allowed him to answer for his part in the scheme to help Eero sing. And I have not agreed to marry him. How could I with things the way they are? I thought I was protecting him by accepting all the blame, but that and my repeated refusals of his offers have changed things between us.

The hurt in his eyes when he looks upon me cuts deep. So deep I do not believe I have a heart any longer. My heart was never my own. It belonged more to the ones I loved than to me.

War.

It drags us under.

It tears us apart.

Jack padded into
Jasminda’s chamber well after midnight, glad to find her still awake. She sat by the fire, staring into the dancing flames. She startled as he drew near, before recognizing him, then her face transformed with joy.

“I’m sorry it’s so late,” he said, transferring her to his lap as he took her place on the chair. He rubbed circles into her back, noting the tightness in her muscles.

“It’s all right.” She collapsed against him. He exhaled the breath he’d been holding all day. His body relaxed, at home with her in his arms.

“How did it go?” Her voice was so small he strained to hear. “They voted to send them back, didn’t they?”

A great hollow space opened in his chest. He could not bear to affirm it aloud.

“What will happen to me?” Her voice was empty as an echo.

He shifted her on his lap so he could peer into her eyes. Misery suffused the beauty of her face. “Jasminda—”

“Half-breed. Mongrel. That’s what the papers say, right? I cannot stay here. And didn’t the True Father’s letter say every Lagrimari must be sent back?”