The Bird and the Sword (33 page)

I
awoke to a different set of hands in my hair, hands that caressed with careful strokes and eyes that reminded me that time was fleeting.

“I should have let you sleep, but I missed you,” Tiras whispered, apology written all over his face. I would have smiled at his sweet remorse, but he looked so desolate I reached for him instead, pulling his mouth to mine and relaxing his bleak expression with soft kisses. He returned them eagerly, and for a time we lost ourselves in the desperate reacquaintance of our mouths.

“There is much to do,” he whispered finally, and I sighed against his lips, hating those words, hating even more that I could feel his anguish and his desire to remain exactly where he was, with me, lying in our shadowy chamber, hiding from everything but each other. There was much to do, and my king did not want to do it. Yet he did, and it was one of the reasons I loved him so desperately.

If there is much to do
,
then we must do it.

He pressed his forehead to mine, and his gratitude and relief billowed around me, making my eyes prick with tears.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

When do we leave for Firi?

He stilled, raising his head slowly. His relief became trepidation once more.

“I cannot take you to Firi, Lark. I will not take you into battle again.”

Tiras, you know you must.

“I won’t,” he shot back, adamant. “Do you really believe I would take you to Firi to face the Volgar? That I would let Lady Firi huddle in my castle whilst I sent my wife into battle?”

Yes.

“No, Lark.”

We dressed for dinner in silence, and when we descended the stairs toward the Great Hall, he held me back and drew me close for the space of a heartbeat before letting me go again.

Kjell was waiting for us, pacing restlessly, and when we entered the hall and Tiras pulled the heavy doors closed behind us, Kjell glowered and folded his arms across his chest.

“What is the plan, Tiras? Firi is under attack, and we dress for dinner? We sleep yet another night in our own beds?”

“Quiet, brother,” Tiras said without heat, and Kjell sighed heavily.

“I will go,” Kjell said. “I will take two hundred of my best men. The Volgar cannot have recovered their numbers in so short a time. We will secure Lord Firi’s fortress and gather what information we can on the Volgar’s numbers. We will burn nests and destroy eggs. And you will stay in Jeru City with the queen. It makes the most sense,” Kjell summarized neatly.

“I am going with you,” Tiras said, and Kjell’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He eyed me speculatively then searched his brother’s face once more.

“What if you don’t come back?” Kjell asked softly. Tiras closed his eyes and bowed his head, as if searching for the courage to continue. Dread coated my hands in perspiration. When he opened his eyes, they were as blank and hard as gold coins.

“Tonight I will acknowledge you as my brother,” he said to Kjell. “I will claim you. You will be Kjell of Degn, and as my brother, you will be in line for the throne.”

There was a moment of blaring silence. Then Kjell began shaking his head, and he took a step back.

“I don’t want to be king, Tiras. I won’t do it.”

“It is not about what we want, Kjell,” Tiras exploded, his calm sizzling in the face of his desperation. “Bloody hell! Save us all from our desires! None of us here can have what we want. None of us! This is about the future of Jeru. Do you want Corvyn or Bin Dar or Gaul to get their bloody hands on the throne?”

“I don’t care,” Kjell snarled. “I have
never
cared. My loyalty is to you, brother.”

“And my loyalty is to Jeru. I have sworn an oath to protect her. I can’t protect you or Lark if I don’t protect Jeru. I can’t protect my child if I don’t protect Jeru. Don’t you understand?”

“You don’t have to atone for your father’s sins,” Kjell said, pointing a shaking finger at his brother.

“Yes, I do!” Tiras answered. “Since I was thirteen years old my life has been about nothing but atonement.”

“So you married a Teller. Put a child in her belly. Outmaneuvered Corvyn. And now you want to position me in the wings?” Kjell raged. His eyes shot to mine, and I read the apology even as I flinched, scalded by his fury.

“I don’t want you in the wings. I want you at the helm. You and I will go to Firi to fight the Volgar. And I will meet my end,” Tiras said evenly. “It is time.”

Kjell and I both stared back at him in horror.

“What are you planning, brother?” Kjell gasped.

“I can’t continue to disappear and reappear. You’ve said it yourself. The people will lose faith in me, and eventually—sooner rather than later if my hands are any indication—I am going to change and never come back again. What then?”

“Your queen will rule, just as you intended. And when your child is of age, he or she will rule,” Kjell retorted.

“I have left Lark unprotected. I have left her vulnerable,” Tiras said.

I began to shake my head. No. No. No. This is not what I’d intended at all.

“She can protect herself, Tiras. She brought down the Volgar with mere words,” Kjell argued.

“She has no voice. You will give her one. And you will give her the protection of your presence. You will give my child a father.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“You will be king. And she will be queen.” Tiras didn’t even look at me. My legs became liquid and my belly floated away. I wrapped my arms around the small mound of my abdomen, sheltering the life that grew in me, even as Tiras was being ripped from me.

“No. I won’t,” Kjell whispered, incredulous. “You can’t do this, Tiras. You can’t manipulate and maneuver and
will
me to comply.”

My voice felt heavy and black, and it pulsed behind my eyes.
I have bowed to your will over and over again, Tiras. But I will not be passed to your brother like an inheritance. I am going to Firi
.

“No Lark. You aren’t. Kjell and I will go.”

We will all go! I’ve faced the Volgar. I will do it again.

“That was before.”

Before what? Before you accomplished all your designs?
The words sparked furiously in my head.
You need me.

“Jeru needs you more. Our child needs you more! And it is not safe. You aren’t a sword. You aren’t a weapon. Remember? What if something happens to Kjell, and I’m a bloody bird? Will you lead the men into battle alone? You will stay here, and you will do as I say!” He was so adamant. So sure. So cold and hard. Telling me what to do. But I was a Teller. And I would not be told.

I flung out my arms angrily, splaying my fingers in time with the words that shrieked through my head.

Winds outside this castle come,

Sweep away the king’s own throne.

The windows suddenly shrieked and shattered in the Great Hall, and wailing gusts filled the space, whipping my skirts and tangling in my hair. Tiras’s throne toppled and crashed against the gleaming, black floor before flying across the space and smashing into the far wall, burying its two rear legs in the colorful fresco of Jeru’s history.

“Lark! Enough!” Tiras bellowed, but I was far from finished. My agony howled in my chest like the winds I’d summoned, and the tears I rarely released flooded my throat and filled my head. I called down the water from the skies to wash them away.

Rain that gathers in the clouds,

Wrap me in your velvet shroud.

I was caught in a torrent, spun up like a sea God, and the tears from my eyes merged with the rain soaking my skin and drenching my robes. I was floating without sinking, without drowning, without being submerged at all. Even the walls wept, paint dripping in long sorrowful streaks, destroying what once was.

“Lark!” I heard Tiras again, only this time his arms coiled around me, anchors in the storm, and his lips were on mine, warm and insistent, coaxing the war from my words.

“Be still,” he urged, and the shape of the plea made his mouth a weapon.

You cannot give me away!

“Forgive me,” he entreated.

“By the gods, Lark!” Kjell shouted, his voice whipping in the gale. “Stop!”

I’d forgotten where I was. I’d forgotten
who
I was.

Wind and water, glass and tears

Leave us now, disappear.

All at once the room was still. Tranquil. Almost remorseful.

But I was not.

The only sound in my head was my own ragged inhalations. My breath burned in my chest as if I’d run a great distance, chasing what I could never quite reach. I didn’t raise my head. I didn’t need to see my handiwork or survey the damage. Tiras was as silent and motionless as the air around us, his hands cradling my head, his mouth still pressed to the whorl of my ear. His clothing clung to his chest, and I could see the warmth of his skin through the fabric made sheer by water.

“For once I agree with the queen,” Kjell muttered, and without another word he strode from the hall, his boots squelching with every step. The great oak doors moaned, opening then closing behind him, and I heard him reassuring a servant—or many—in the corridors beyond.

You cannot give me away, Tiras.

“I cannot keep you,” he whispered, his voice as tortured as my breaths. “And I can’t continue doing this to you.”

My hands rose and fisted in his shirt, wanting to hurt him and heal him simultaneously. My nails scored his skin but he held me fiercely, his arms almost constricting, for the space of several heartbeats, pressing his mouth into my hair, and I beat my hands against his back, furious and heartbroken, even as I burrowed my face in his throat.

If you cannot keep me,
let me go.

I felt his heart pounding against my cheek, but
his arms fell to his sides, and he stepped back, as if he were truly mine to command.

“Where? Where do you want to go?” he asked, his voice so heavy I longed to call the wind again to lift us up and carry us away.

Wherever you are.

“I can’t do that either,” he whispered. “Where I’m going, you cannot follow.”

I wanted to rage, to compel, to call down heaven and summon hell. But though the words trembled on my lips, I could not release them. I couldn’t weave the spell that would give us a future or change the past.

Promise me you will remember and obey
, my mother had whispered so long ago.
Promise me you will remember.

I remembered.

I remembered the way the king’s sword sliced the air. I remembered the heat of my mother’s blood seeping through my dress. I remembered the words she pressed into my ear. I had never forgotten.

Swallow daughter, pull them in. Silence daughter, stay alive.

I took a step back from Tiras, then another, making myself let him go. He was right. He could not keep me. I could not keep him. My sopping dress wrapped around my limbs, slowing me, but I gathered it up in shaking hands and turned away from the king. I left him there, standing in the center of the Great Hall, the history of his kingdom streaming from the walls and puddling around him. It was a history I would do anything to forget.

A
t sundown, trumpets pierced the air, and the people stepped out of their homes and leaned out of upstairs windows, listening as the castle crier began to wail from atop the tower beside the castle gates.

“His Majesty, King Tiras of Jeru and Lord of Degn, has claimed the honorable Kjell of Jeru, Captain of the King’s Guard and son of the late King Zoltev of Degn and Miriam of Jeru, as his brother in blood as well as in arms, from this day forward, henceforth and forever. What the king has sworn let no man dispute. What blood has joined let no man destroy.”