The Cedna (Tales of Blood & Light Book 2) (27 page)

I
had hoped
the depressing heaviness that dogged us all might lift when we arrived at Lake Tashriga, but if anything, the Ricknagel family became even more disheartened.

Jenesis was fit only for bed, and she would not let Sterling visit her sickroom. Ricknagel blamed himself for his wife’s illness, for pushing her too hard during the Brokering and after. Our first two nights at Tashriga he did not sleep, sitting up with his ailing wife.

Sterling and I sat in the hedged garden in the afternoon, soaking up the heat, too careworn to do much but lounge languidly on outdoor chaises.

“You had a daughter, didn’t you, Serafina?” Sterling asked out of the blue. I must have foolishly mentioned it to her once long ago. I wished I hadn’t.

“Yes,” I replied shortly, hoping my tone would cure her curiosity.

“And her father?” Sterling asked, turning the subject even further from where I wanted to go.

“What about him?” Onatos never left my mind these days. He should have written to me by now, or better, come to find me. Why didn’t he contact me? Had the magic failed? Was he hurt? I nearly asked Sterling to write me a letter.

Sterling had other ideas. “Didn’t you love him? Don’t you miss him? I am afraid my father will miss my mother horribly if she—”

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said to change the subject. “There won’t be many beautiful days like this after the season changes.”

The Ricknagel summer estate sat on the southeastern shore of a large, freshwater lake snugged in the peaks of the Tashriga mountain range that ran through the eastern provinces of Lethemia. All the families of the Ten Houses kept summer retreats here. The Ricknagels’ was one of the finest, rivaled only by those of the Galatien family, where Stesichore would stay. Costas Galatien had his own property, which bordered the Ricknagel lands to the east.

“Let’s go east today,” I suggested.

Sterling shrugged. “Stesi isn’t due to arrive until tomorrow. We’ll be trespassing.”

Neither of us thought the danger of trespassing urgent, so we walked the winding path that bordered the calm lake.

Costas Galatien’s mansion gleamed in the distance, bounded by manicured grounds filled with yellow fields of chrysanthemums. The blooms were in their first flush, full and bright. The gold and white house rose above the yellow field like a palace out of clouds.

“Let’s go into the gardens,” I said.

“Into the gardens?” Sterling echoed. “Costas isn’t there, but his household people will be. What if we get caught?”

“They won’t know us. We’ll say we were so enamored of the flowers we couldn’t resist.”

Sterling changed her course to head towards the house. I held my arms out above the yellow blooms, trailing my fingers over their petals.

“Have you ever seen anything so lovely? So many flowers!”

“I prefer our roses,” Sterling said.

I thought of the roses I had cared for so diligently for all those years in Vorisipor. They had been temperamental, difficult to coax into health. And thorny. I preferred these yellow blooms, open and bold as the sunshine, easy to touch.

I wanted to pick an armful, but I settled for snapping off one and cupping it in my hand.

“You! You there!” A voice called from the vicinity of the house.

Sterling spun. “Oh! We’ve been caught.”

“I’ll do the talking.”

A small figure made its way through the flowers, a silhouette in the bright sunlight.

“Stop in the name of the prince!”

I scowled at the woman’s pompous tone.

The flower field wasn’t gated from the lakeshore path. Any number of people probably wandered past throughout the summer, when people gathered by the lake for leisure. “Halt!” This time, the voice had a force behind it, a demand that hit me in the legs and extorted my flesh.
Magic!

I could not move, not even my eyes in their sockets. Breathless panic swarmed through me, a suffocating terror. I would have screamed if my lips could have moved.

The woman hurried up to us. She waved, and my breathing muscles eased. I took a gulping gasp.

“I haven’t done that in years,” the woman said. “I’m rusty. No harm done, I hope?”

I knew her face! I’d seen this round woman before, years ago, in a Galatien prison cell! I scrambled to recall her name, but it eluded me. Her eyes widened as she met my gaze; she recognized me, too.

“We’re fine!” I rushed to say. “We apologize for trespassing. We only wanted to admire the flowers. This is Lady Sterling Ricknagel.
My
name is Serafina. I am her companion.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed upon my charge, ignoring me. “Lady Sterling Ricknagel? Why, your sister and I have just arrived here.”

“But Stesi wasn’t due until tomorrow,” Sterling said. “Are you her new handmaiden?”

“I am Sienna, your sister’s companion,” she said haughtily. It was then that her name came back to me:
Ennis Angusina.
She smirked at me in a manner that suggested she would remain silent about my identity if I remained silent about hers.

“Can we visit Stesi now?” Sterling asked. “I’d like to see her.”

“I suppose. Come, follow me.” Ennis waved us up the path that led to Costas Galatien’s house.

“She’s a magitrix!” Sterling whispered as we waited in the back foyer of Costas’s mansion while Ennis alerted Stesichore of our arrival. “She—she compelled us! That’s illegal! You can’t compel a scion of the Ten Houses without due cause.”

“We
were
trespassing.”

“But—”

“It’s probably best we don’t reprimand her about her use of magic,” I said. “We shouldn’t have gone into Costas’s gardens.”

“It was your idea.”

My heart raced. Ennis Angusina had recognized me. My careful deceit as an anonymous household servant could come crashing down. How angry would Ricknagel be to learn of my lies of omission? He would not like to know he’d been harboring a fugitive to Lethemian justice. He was not the kind of man to be merciful about deceit.

“Sterling! What are you doing here?” Stesichore appeared in the hall, her mint-colored dress sweeping the beige marble floor tiles.

“We were looking at the flowers,” Sterling explained. “Your handmaiden found us and told us you had arrived.”

“I wish to go straight to Papa,” Stesichore said, heading for the door. “Come.”

We made an interesting parade as we traipsed back across the Galatien property towards the Ricknagel house, Stesichore in the lead, her dress rather too elaborate for a walk in the country, Sterling a pace behind, trying to fill the silence with a flood of words. Ennis Angusina and I walked side by side.

The magitrix leaned towards me to whisper, “Of all the faces I might have expected to find in Xander Ricknagel’s service, yours would be the last.”

“I’m equally surprised to find you serving Lady Stesichore.”

Ennis scowled. “Do you agree that we should both keep our true names quiet in this company?”

Part of me did not want to agree—it alarmed me, albeit vaguely, that Stesichore did not know that a magitrix once accused of serious Lethemian crimes now served as her handmaiden. I tried to recall what had come of Ennis’s charges of espionage and treason, but my memory of those final days in prison were fuzzy. I had been ill.

Ennis pushed her advantage. “The whole country is looking for you, you know. They believe the Cedna of Gante attacked Malvyna Entila at Costas Galatien’s Marriage Brokering. Is it true? Did you attack?”

I started in surprise. Sterling had told me they suspected someone else, Costas’s black-haired girl. To stay silent would incriminate me as much as an admission, so I lied. “No! Of course not.”

“Well, then,” Ennis said. “I suppose you’ve been leading a nice quiet life as a Ricknagel handmaiden all these years. I’m disappointed to learn you do not deserve the credit for all your infamy. They even say you seduced and enchanted Onatos Amar! Yet I cannot see him tucked away in Ricknagel’s entourage, enslaved by your magic. Where is he?”

“I did nothing to Onatos!” I snapped heedlessly. “It was Malvyna Entila who trapped him!”

“Blessed Amassis! Really?”

“I saw him in Entila myself, caught up in some wicked magic.” Why did this woman have the power to get me to speak secrets I should better leave silent?

Ennis gave a mocking smile. “Oh dear. And I thought the story of your romance so appealing. Onatos, giving up his hard-won title for magical love. Ah, well, reality is never as good as a story. Now, are we agreed?”

“Agreed?” The damned woman had flustered me.

“You will tell no one about me, and I will tell no one about you. I am known only as Sienna.”

“Very well. You should call me Serafina,” I said against my better judgment.

Ennis watched the Ricknagel daughters enter their father’s expansive country house. “How very unpleasant,” she remarked cryptically.

“What?”

Ennis sighed heavily. “I find my charge rather foolish. Do you find yours the same?”

“Who, Sterling? Not at all. She’s almost
too
clever.”

Ennis shook her head. “I cannot say the same of her sister. To visit her father at this delicate time ... it is not wise.”

I did not understand Lethemian marriage customs well, but the look on Ennis’s face only increased my sense of foreboding.

S
terling
and I sat on the sun porch adjoining her room the morning after Stesichore’s arrival, sharing a plate of fruits. “Papa’s letting Stesichore stay here at the house with us,” Sterling said as she picked through the sliced peaches. “But he told me that it would insult the Galatiens if she did that. That was why he suggested Stesi come to Costas’s lakehouse, was it not?”

Sterling frowned and peeled the fuzzy skin from her peach slice. “It turns out Sienna the magitrix—” she said the name with spite “—has healing abilities. She is going to treat Mama. I’m pleased she might help Mama, but I didn’t care for her demeanor, yesterday. Didn't you find her a little abrasive?”

A pounding on Sterling’s chamber door startled us up from our morning repast. I hurried to answer, leaving Sterling to find her own servlet to clean her peach-sticky hands.

Ricknagel stood in the hall, looking as cold and distant as Gante. “What is it? What’s happened?” I asked. His appearance sent a quiver of dismay through my body.

“Jenesis. My Jenesis.” He stumbled into the room, pushing me aside to get to his daughter. “Starry!”

Sterling threw down the servlet. “Papa?”

Ricknagel wrapped her into an embrace. “She’s gone, Starry. Your mother is gone. She died last night.” Ricknagel pressed his face into his daughter’s golden hair and wept.

I could only turn away in embarrassment, feeling that I witnessed intimacy I should not. The scent of ripe peaches permeated the room.

I
f I had thought
the Ricknagel lakehouse a somber place before Lady Ricknagel’s death, it became that much more depressing after. Sterling took to her bed.

The afternoon following Lady Ricknagel’s passing, I found Ennis in the servants’ lounge near the kitchen, drinking tea. I sat down beside her. I wondered many things about Ennis, but I did not dare ask lest she take affront and reveal my own secrets. But how had she attached herself to Stesichore Ricknagel? And did the Galatiens know her true identity?

“Terrible,” she said to me over the steam from her cup. “The poor lady had a growth in her womb. I had a look at her in the Aethers, but I could do nothing for the malignancy. Too far advanced.”

Her manner struck me as too casual, and her voice held no true sympathy. Might she be trying to cover up a mistake? Jenesis’s illness had apparently worsened when Ennis attempted to heal her.

“Lord Ricknagel is devastated,” I murmured. His grief twisted up my insides. Why did I care? Tears were nothing but water; Xander was only a man. “Sterling, too. How fares Princess Stesichore?”

“She is not well. What a sad, sad thing.” Ennis’s flat voice belied her words. I wished I could have such perfect detachment, and yet the Ricknagels had managed to inspire friendship from me.

“Should we make arrangements for ... the body?” I asked. I did not know how Lethemians handled such matters. Ganteans did not wait to ritual for the dead, for the Hinge required the blood to be as fresh as possible. In Vorisipor, the dead were also dealt with quickly. The heat rotted the body if it was not cared for promptly.

“I have sent to Golddam, the nearest town, to arrange a cremation and an urn,” Ennis said. “It seemed the prudent thing to do, as Lord Ricknagel appears incapacitated.” An inexplicable surge of jealousy rose inside me at her words. Ennis barely knew Xander. I should be the one to assist him. I was his friend.

“I must check on Princess Stesichore,” Ennis said, standing. “She hasn’t eaten anything today.”

She had not told me the full truth of the illness that had killed Jenesis Ricknagel. I knew that much.

I
knocked softly
on the door of Xander’s bedchamber. It opened a crack, and the manservant, Kyro, poked his nose out. “What?” he asked, his voice strained.

“Is he all right?” I whispered. “Does he need anything? Tea or food or someone to sit with him?”

Kyro leaned out the door. “He will not speak—”

“Go get him a tray with food and drink,” I said. “I’ll stay with him for a moment.”

Kyro looked doubtful.

“He needs to eat,” I pushed. “You must see to it.”

I slipped past Kyro into Xander’s chambers. They were surprisingly simple, a few round cushions beside a fireplace, a large bed bordered by a chest, and a looking glass across one wall.

He reclined in one of the hearth cushions, arms folded over his chest, eyes closed.

I hesitated, uncertain if he would want my company. I had no experience comforting the bereaved. Ganteans did not condone grief. Any death was an offering, and as much a cause for celebration as mourning. Or so we had been taught to believe, against all emotion. I patted Ricknagel’s arm. “Kyro is bringing you a meal. You must eat it.”

He said nothing.

When the tray arrived I prepared his plate, cutting the food into easy sizes as if coddling a child. Kyro stared at me as if I’d gone mad.

To my surprise, Ricknagel lifted his head. “Go on, Kyro,” he said in a gravelly voice. “Go sleep. Have a rest. I can manage.”

Kyro departed, though he radiated annoyance that I had been the one to rouse Ricknagel from his sad stupor.

I offered a slice of melon to Ricknagel.

However odd my ministrations were, they brought Ricknagel back to life. He suggested that Sterling and I join him for dinner.

Unfortunately, when Sterling and I arrived at Xander’s fourth floor solar we found Stesichore and Ennis both seated there, too. Xander paced his Vhimsantese carpet. Stesichore sat on her seat edge with her face twisting into a frown.

“Sterling and I will be departing tomorrow,” Ricknagel announced.

“Papa, no!” Stesichore exclaimed. “What about me?”

Ricknagel looked at her with sorrow and tenderness. “You know you cannot come with us, Stesi. It goes against tradition. Your presence here in my house is cause enough for concern. You must return to your husband’s house. You can get the Galatiens’ permission to come to Shankar for the memorial service, but you must go back to them first. You must. You know this, darling.”

“I want to go home with you, Papa.”

“Stesi, you begged me to make this marriage happen. You cannot back out now; it’s done! For better or worse, you are married to Costas Galatien. If you return to my house, it will be an insult too large for House Galatien to ignore. Customs matter, and this is an ancient one. The fact that you stayed here with me even a few days has likely caused damage enough. The whole country will be talking. The Galatiens will not take your actions lightly.”

“He rejected me first, Papa!”

“I know, sweetheart. But what can we do?” Xander ran his hands through his hair. “I am not in a position to offer insult to House Galatien. Yet.”

Sterling’s gaze flicked up from the hem of her sleeve, which she had been busy unraveling. She caught my surprised glance.
Yet?

A smirk flashed across Ennis’s face. I would need to warn Ricknagel about her sooner, rather than later. He should not say such things in front of her.

“It’s unbearable!” Stesichore sounded as though she might cry. “He has a mistress, some common girl he met at the Brokering. Oh, I hate him! Everyone looks at me and wonders what is wrong with me because of him.”

Sterling cocked her head at her sister, a curious expression on her face. “Stare back, Stesi, and make your eyes into ice cubes. Stare them down, and they’ll shut up.”

Stesichore whirled towards her sister. “What would you know about it? No one notices you, much less gossips about you.” It was a cruel thing to say to Sterling, and ignorant, too. Sterling knew plenty about facing down the shallow cruelties of society. She did it every time she left her room.

Sterling returned to her sleeve.

“Papa, the truth is I don’t want him. You should hear the rumors they say about him at court.” Stesichore clutched her hands in her lap.

“About Costas?” Ricknagel finally stopped pacing. “What do you mean? What do they say about him?”

“That he is a cruel, violent lover. That he cares for no woman. Even if he’d have me, I wouldn’t want his attentions. Oh, how could you have married me to such a man?” She made it seem as if she hadn’t spent the days leading up to the Brokering begging him to make the marriage by using his influence at court.

“Violent, Stesi?” Ricknagel had gone alarmingly still.

“They say he leaves his lovers bruised and bitten.”

“Amassis above, Stesichore! Has he hurt you?” Ricknagel flew to her side and grabbed both her wrists, searching as if he might find remnants of abuse.

“Once he—” She broke off at her father’s darkening expression.

“What did he do?” Ricknagel roared. Sterling started in her seat.

Ennis watched Ricknagel and his daughter with an inappropriate smile playing about her lips.

“He came to me once, Papa,” Stesichore whined in a voice too young for her years. “I was happy; I thought he’d finally decided to—to be truly married. I lay still in the bed just as Mama had told me to do, but he was angry. He—he told me to get up, and when I did he grabbed me and hurt me. I didn’t want him to touch me anymore. He left marks on my arms.”

Ricknagel grabbed a fine porcelain vase from the mantel and hurled it across the room. The vase shattered against the wall and everyone stared at the mess because we could not look at the man who had made it.

“You cannot go back to Galantia, Stesichore,” he said with ice in his voice. “I will not permit him to abuse you. It’s an outrage. You’ll stay here. I’ll leave Serafina with you. She can—”

“Not Serafina!” Sterling said, looking up again. “Serafina’s mine!”

Xander glanced at his younger daughter. “Stesichore needs protection, and Serafina can offer it.”

What did he mean by that? I almost opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong, but Stesichore beat me to it.

“I do not want the protection of a barbarian savage.” Stesichore would not even look at me. “Let me come home with you, Papa.”

Xander clenched his fists at his sides. “I cannot, Stesi. You know—”

“I will stay here with your daughter, my lord,” Ennis said in a sly, slippery voice.

“That’s a much better plan,” Stesichore added.

Xander looked from his daughter to Ennis to me, and back again. I wanted to shout out that he must not trust her, but Ennis spoke first. “All will be well, my lord.”

“Very well,” Ricknagel said too complacently. “Very well. Stesi, you will remain here with your Sienna. On no account are you to return to Galantia until I have written to Mydon Galatien. Do you understand?”

As her father spoke, Sterling snapped to her feet and beckoned me to follow her from the salon. I wanted to remain to hear the end of the conversation and to warn Ricknagel about Ennis, but I could only follow Sterling back to her quarters.

“I hate her,” Sterling said as she slammed her door. “I hate her.”

“Sienna?”

“Not Sienna. Stesichore.”

I thought of the older girl’s insensitive words to Sterling. So many little wounds Sterling suffered in silence.

“Don’t take what she said to heart, Sterling. She is unhappy. Don’t you think Sienna—”

“She isn’t unhappy,” Sterling interrupted. “She’s lying through her teeth, and I mean to find out why.”

“Stesichore? Lying? You mean about Costas’s abuse?”

Sterling imitated Stesichore’s girlish singsong, “‘He grabbed me and hurt me.’ When Stesi makes her voice go babyish, she’s lying. Always, since we were children. She and that magitrix are up to something. Why, Sienna almost attacked us over at the Galatien mansion!”

“What purpose could lying about Costas serve? He rejected her. The whole country knows. Do you really think Sienna is conniving with your sister?” I had not interpreted Ennis’s actions in this light.

“Stesi must be trying to get Papa so mad he’s willing to outright defy the Galatiens. Maybe she wants a divorce or an annulment.” She threw herself onto her bed, belly-down, her dress ballooning around her legs.

“Could she get a divorce?”

“Only if Mydon Galatien grants her one. And everyone knows he doesn’t believe in divorce. Daria Powdin-Amar sought a divorce from Onatos Amar after he abandoned her. Mydon would not even let her petition him, and she, if anyone, deserved a divorce. Her husband left her for another woman, abandoned his baby son, and deserted his duty as Lord Amar!”

“No one actually knows what happened to Onatos Amar,” I said in his defense.

“That’s beside the point. After over a decade of his absence, Daria reasonably wanted a divorce. King Mydon wouldn’t give it. He certainly won’t give one to Stesi, who’s married to his own son. Stesi never thinks matters through, and she thinks only of herself. Her staying here at Papa’s house is a mistake.” Sterling bit her lip. “Relations have always been tense between our houses because of the disagreement about how to handle the border with Vhimsantyr. Stesi’s marriage was meant to ease that discord, but I fear instead it will push us into an outright war.”