The Lord-Protector's Daughter (25 page)

Just before midday on Quinti,
Mykella and her sisters led the family procession, including Joramyl, Berenyt, and Cheleyza, to the family's hillside mausoleum behind and slightly to the northwest of the palace, beyond the private gardens. Waiting for them were an honor guard and the three senior officers of the Southern Guards—Nephryt, Demyl, and Areyst. Once there, everyone took their positions, the mourners facing the mausoleum, the honor guard in front and to the right, and the three officers to the left, opposite the honor guard.

Under a clear silver-green sky, her head lowered, Mykella studied the mourners standing in the sunlight facing the gray stone arches of the open stone structure, in the middle of which stood the narrow granite memorial table on which rested an ornate gold-trimmed urn that held Jeraxylt's ashes. Her father radiated sadness in a distant way, and Salyna had trouble holding in sobs. Silent tears ran from the corners of Rachylana's eyes, as Berenyt stood beside her. Neither of Mykella's sisters looked directly at the urn.

To the right of Feranyt stood Joramyl, his head bowed. Within him, Mykella could detect, not so much a sense of triumph or gloating, but a feeling of acceptance and inevitability. Arms-Commander Nephryt actually seemed saddened, but Commander Demyl held within himself a sense of righteousness and duty.

A mournful trumpet fanfare echoed through the cool air, and Feranyt stepped forward from the mourners facing the mausoleum, then turned to face them. “We acknowledge that Jeraxylt, beloved son and heir to the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona, has died, and that he has left a legacy of love shared by his family. We are here to mourn the loss of what might have been and to offer our last formal farewell in celebration of his life.” While sadness tinged every word, his voice did not falter or break. After a moment of silence, he stepped back, rejoining his family, and nodded to Arms-Commander Nephryt.

The Arms-Commander stepped forward, and half-turned to face the family. “Jeraxylt was a young officer of noble character and warmth of personality. Even had he not been the heir of the Lord-Protector, he would have distinguished himself by his honor and his devotion to duty. All who knew him respected and liked him. His death is a loss beyond words and beyond measure.”

Mykella sensed regret, of a sort, behind Nephryt's words, as he bowed his head, then stepped to the side to rejoin the other two officers.

Another moment of silence followed before Undercommander Areyst stepped forward to deliver the final blessing. “In the name of the One and the Wholeness That Is, and Always Will Be, in the great harmony of the world and its lifeforce, may the blessing of life, of which death is but a small portion, always remain with Jeraxylt, son and heir of the Lord-Protector. And blessed be the lives of all those who have loved him and those he loved. Also, blessed be both the deserving and the undeserving, that all may strive to do good in the world and beyond, in celebration and recognition of what is and will be, world without end.”

His words had been offered with dignity and a clear sense of sadness and mourning, for which Mykella was grateful. She didn't know if she could have concealed her rage if either Nephryt, Demyl, or Joramyl had offered the blessing.

Then one of the honor guard raised his trumpet and played the haunting “Farewell to Arms.”

In the moment of silence that followed, Mykella eased over to the undercommander. “Thank you for the blessing. You offered it well, and in a spirit of honesty that reflects the past heritage of the Southern Guards.”

She could sense him stiffen inside.

“I know you embody that spirit, and that made the blessing meaningful. Thank you.” She inclined her head as if in respect, and murmured, “Take great care of yourself.”

From his internal reaction, she could sense he had heard.

Areyst inclined his head in response, then straightened. “I could do no less in serving Tempre and the Lord-Protector.”

“It was still appreciated, Undercommander.” Mykella eased back toward her father.

“Mykella?” inquired Feranyt, his voice betraying an irritation at her breach of formality before the procession back to the palace.

“I just thanked him for the blessing. He offered it well, and he meant it.” She stepped back and waited for the honor guard to begin the long walk back to the palace.

That night, unsurprisingly, Mykella knew
she would not get to sleep soon, nor sleep well. Had her actions led to Jeraxylt's death? Would the “accident” have occurred had he not accompanied her on her visits to the factors? She had the clear feeling that, although she had not intended it that way, at the very least her inquiries had been indirectly responsible.

Standing there in the darkness of her unlighted chamber—with the night-sight conveyed by her Talent, she now seldom lit the lamps unless she wanted to read—she felt torn between a near-uncontrollable urge to sob and a desire to rip and smash everything she could see or sense.

She didn't even have a single thing by which to remember her brother. Fool that she'd been, she'd thought that mementos were only for those far older than she was. A grim smile crossed her lips. Although Jeraxylt's chambers were sealed—for the moment—that presented no problem for her.

She reached out to the darkness beneath and then used the granite walls as her pathway into her brother's chambers, for as heir he had possessed two, a study and a bedchamber.

In the end, she returned to her chamber with but two items—the brilliant blue vest he had worn at various ceremonial events to signify that he was the heir of the Lord-Protector, and an oval medallion of gold, bearing a Dramurian crest, that he had received from their mother when he had turned ten. The medallion went into the hidden back of the jewelry box whose contents she almost never wore, and the vest into the bottom of her armoire, under several sweaters she also never wore, one of which had been her mother's.

While her theft—or reclamation in the case of the medallion—helped reduce some of her anger, it wasn't enough. She had to do
something
.

Again, she touched the cold granite, but this time, she did sink into the depths of the palace, emerging before the Table. There, she stepped closer and looked down, concentrating on trying to see Joramyl in the mirrored surface. When the swirling mists cleared, she found herself looking at the image of the Ifrit. At least, she thought it was the same Ifrit.

You have returned once more. Most excellent
. The violet eyes burned, and immediately, she could sense the misty purple arms rising out of the Table, out of a Table that held an aura more pinkish than she recalled.

Mykella only took one step back, throwing up her shields against the arms, yet those arms did not move toward her as they swelled with purplish power and malevolence, but toward her life-thread where it passed through the solid stone floor toward the greenish blackness below.

Instinctively she extended her shields to protect it, and the arms lunged toward her midsection and that node where the fine lines of her being joined to form her life-thread. The arms still pressed, and she could feel her shields buckling.

She managed a second set of shields, behind the first, but she found herself being pressed back by the expanding force of the arms. The Table itself was glowing an ever-brighter purple, so bright that she wanted to close her eyes, although she understood closing them would do nothing because the glare was in her senses, not in her eyes.

Did the arms have a node, something similar to what the Ifrit sought to attack in her? She made a probe, like a saber, extending from her shields, angling it toward a thickness in the leftmost of the arms facing her.

Just as suddenly, one of the arms hurled something at her. Her shields held as the object shattered against them, but Mykella found herself being thrown back against the stone wall of the chamber. Her boot skidded on something, and she went to one knee. She put out a hand to steady herself, and found the stone floor wet, with fragments of ice chips.

Ice? The arms had thrown that icicle with enough force to disembowel her, had it not been for her shields.

I will not be defeated by something attacking me from inside a stone Table. I will not!
She forced herself erect and called on the darkness, and the greenish depths to which her life-thread was somehow attached.

A purplish firebolt sprayed against her shields, and she staggered, but moved forward, calling…drawing on the greenish blackness of the depths, the green that recalled the Ancient.

The entire chamber flared greenish gold, and under that flood of fully-sensed but unseen light, the purplish arms evaporated into mist and haze, and then vanished.

The Ancients…still there…

There was a sudden emptiness around the Table, as it subsided to the faintest of purplish sheens. Then, that too, vanished.

Mykella realized, belatedly, as it vanished, that there had been an undercurrent of pinkish purple around the Table for weeks, if not longer. Had the Ifrit been watching, scouting out her weaknesses, and preparing for the attack he had just made?

Mykella felt a smile appear on her face. Exhausted as she was, she had learned two things. Her shields were proof against weapons, some of them, at least, and she could stand up to the distant Alector. And if she could stand against an Ifrit, surely she could hold her own against Joramyl and his scheming supporters, could she not? Could she not?

On Quattri, Mykella was nearing
the Finance chambers in late afternoon, after returning from carrying a summary of recent expenditures to her father in his study. She'd taken to doing that after she had realized that Joramyl had only been verbally briefing her father and that Maxymt had not continued Kiedryn's practice of providing such weekly summaries.

Feranyt had seemed tired, almost gray, and had taken the sheets from her with a weary expression. “Thank you, Mykella.”

While he had not actually dismissed her, he might as well have, for his eyes had dropped to the papers on the table-desk before him. Mykella had slipped out, nodding to Chalmyr as she left, once more asking herself what she could do. Sooner or later, she feared, either Joramyl or Berenyt would become Lord-Protector, and with the weariness she saw in her sire, she feared it would be sooner, and that was her fault.

With Jeraxylt's death, her father had become quieter, more withdrawn, as well. Why was it that everything she tried to do had made matters worse? She'd tried to warn her father and only succeeded in warning Joramyl. She'd let Jeraxylt know, and that had made him a danger to Joramyl, and now her brother was dead; and then her going to see Commander Nephryt had surely alerted both Nephryt and Joramyl to her suspicions about their plotting. Would she be next?

She shook her head. They would marry her off and be rid of her.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of an officer in a Southern Guard uniform standing outside the Finance door, waiting. It was Berenyt.

She forced a smile as she neared. “Good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Mykella. You're looking well.”

“After all that's happened, you mean?”

“It's been a difficult time for everyone,” he replied.

What bothered her immediately was that he clearly believed that. Why had times been difficult for Berenyt? He hadn't been all that close to Jeraxylt, and he certainly hadn't cared anything about Kiedryn.

“It has, but we'll manage. Life does go on.”

“It does,” he nodded, “often for the best, although we don't always see it that way. You know, Mykel the Great lost his entire family in the Cataclysm? You have to wonder if he'd been so good a Lord-Protector without suffering that loss.”

“I'm sure he wouldn't have wished that.” Mykella barely kept her voice pleasant. Rachyla had lost her entire immediate family as well, but Berenyt wouldn't have cared about that in the slightest.

“You know, Mykella, it's too bad that Jeraxylt had that accident.”

Mykella had doubted that Berenyt's words were ever anything but carefully chosen, and this was no exception. “It was a surprise to all of us. He was always so careful in arms practice.”

“He wasn't always as careful in other matters. He could have been a great Southern Guard and Lord-Protector, if he had concentrated on arms. That was his strength.”

Mykella managed to keep her expression puzzled. “Jeraxylt was always careful, and he certainly did concentrate on arms.”

“He should have. He should have concentrated on those more, rather than using you as a front for his calculations.”

Mykella wasn't sure from the swirl of feelings within Berenyt whether he actually believed that Jeraxylt had been the one to discover the diversions of golds and bring them to the Lord-Protector's attention or whether Berenyt was not so indirectly offering her a way to disavow what she had discovered. Although she felt frozen inside, she managed to offer a sad smile. “We all have different talents.”

“With all of your abilities, Mykella, it's too bad we're cousins,” said Berenyt, not quite jokingly.

“I like you, too,” Mykella replied politely. “And so does Rachylana.” Always implying, never saying, that was Berenyt's style. He never really used words that committed to anything, even as he was implying the unthinkable.

“It really is too bad you and your sisters and I are related,” insisted Berenyt.

Even though his eyes remained fixed on her face, Mykella could sense the physical appraisal…and the muted lust. She barely managed not to swallow or show her disgust. “We are cousins. Nothing will change that.”

“You might wish otherwise.” Berenyt smiled brightly.

“What I might wish, Berenyt, has seldom changed what is.”

“That's true, Mykella, but often what I've wished has.” With a pleasant smile, he nodded, then turned and walked down the corridor.

Within herself, she shuddered.

Then, for a time, she stood outside the Finance door before reaching out and opening it. Had Berenyt decided that she'd be a better consort than Rachylana? Or was he merely feeling her out? Whatever he might have been doing, for whatever reason, it only reinforced her opinion of him.