The White Mists of Power (36 page)

They went out into the courtyard. The sunlight had crossed the top of the east wall, casting cool shadows on the gray stone. Byron wanted to talk about Alma, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

“I’ve been thinking about how to approach this fight with Kensington,” he said. “I don’t want to attack him. And yet I don’t want him to strike first.”

“If he attacks first, he commits treason.”

“And may lose the support of the gentry.” Byron sighed. He wanted to go back to the garden, where it was warmer. “But we risk losing lives.”

“It’s too late for that now. We have troops all around the palace. Before dawn, two hundred of them went out to the fields by Anda for a special training exercise–”

“Alma opposed that.” Byron felt a chill run down his back. Alma knew too much about policy.

“She still asleep?”

“Probably,” Byron said. He turned away from the mention of Alma. “We could recall the men. Perhaps try to negotiate with Kensington further.”

“We had our chance at negotiation,” Seymour said. “You won’t agree to Kensington’s terms, and he won’t tolerate you as monarch.”

He stopped speaking and stared ahead. Byron followed his gaze. A thin column of men straggled into the palace gate. They were dirt-covered and many were bleeding. Most sat down as the gate closed behind them. Byron ran toward them, his heart pounding in his throat. Seymour ran beside him. The troops had collapsed in shadow, and as Byron left the sunlight, he felt as if the world had grown colder.

The men wore the tattered remains of clothes. They smelled of powder and burnt flesh, of blood and fear-stained sweat. Byron sent a guard for the healers. Seymour crouched beside the nearest man and unwrapped the bandage around the man’s arm.

“We were setting up–maneuvers, like we talked about–and then everything was–they were shooting at us, arrows, flaming arrows, some hand-to-hand. The ground was burning.”

“The two hundred? You were with the two hundred men near Anda this morning?”

“Yes, sire. Kensington’s men were waiting for us. They had his colors.”

Byron glanced around him. The other healers had arrived and were applying ointments, ripping away clothes, cauterizing wounds. The smell of burning flesh grew stronger. “There’s only twenty-five men here. Where are the others?”

Tears filled Ile’s eyes and ran down his cheeks, mixing with the blood until they fell to the ground in long red drops. Byron tightened his grip on Ile’s hands.

Ile nodded. “We brought a few of the bad ones with us, but they collapsed on the way. There wasn’t any movement on that field. None.”

“Nica?” Her features came into focus. Wide eyes. Innocent eyes. Not like Alma’s eyes. He touched Nica’s cheek. “Nica? I didn’t know you were here.”

“I came to help you.”

The smear his finger left on her face looked like Ile’s bloody tears. “It’s too late to help me,” Byron said. He pushed past her, but she caught his arm.

“Sire. Byron.”

Her voice was soft, affectionate when she used his name. He had loved her once. Thought he loved her once. Before Alma. Always before Almathea.

“I know what the Enos said.” The words still echoed in his mind.
They train you to be ruled, as your father is ruled, as your grandfather was ruled before him.
He grabbed. Nica’s wrists and pulled her hands from him. “I have to think.”

“But, Byron–”

“Help them, Nica.” He put a hand to his face. His palm smelled of iron, of blood. “I cannot.”

iii

Ikaner dug into the ground, ignoring the heat, the burning against her fingers. The young trees beside her shuddered and moaned. There was no wind inside the cavern, but the air smelled fetid. She touched the trees and felt a sickness: youth overcome by something more powerful, something forcing its way into the sap. Her fingers blistered as she dug, the heat almost unbearable. No one paid any attention to her. She had blocked the other Enos out. They were below, arguing about the white mists, planning destruction of the humans, trying to decide if the humans should destroy themselves.

Finally she found the trickle of blood. It whispered to her, the words faint and sing-song:
When I am a sapling, you will move me into the sun. The air will be young again, and I will be warm. I will bend with the wind and live forever.

She wanted to pull up the young trees and move them, plant them outside in the air. She grabbed the base of the nearest sapling. Beneath her burned palm, the tree screamed.

She backed away and almost fell off the edge. The hum of Enos voices in her mind stopped. She turned, and they were looking at her.
Come here,
she said.

They stared at her and then stood as a unit. She crawled back to the blood. The tree was still screaming, the blood coursing to the young tree’s roots. She shoved a rock between the blood and the tree. The blood boiled against the rock, tried to surge over it. The tree’s screams eased to a moan.

You cannot stop us,
the blood whispered.
We are stronger.

Ikaner said nothing. She was an Enos. She protected land. She would protect the trees as she had protected her bluff–with her life, if she had to.

iv

The blade glittered. Byron saw his reflection in it. The image wavered and faded, colors blurred against the light. It seemed to have found him, this dagger, and now it would not let him go. He liked the way it sparkled.

The door was heavy, but he opened it anyway. The guards let him do anything. So different from before. Never had he had such freedom. He closed the door gently, waiting for the snick of the latch. The main room was dark and he carried no light. He waited until the darkness faded into gray shapes.

The door to the bedroom was open. Light cracked around the edges, white light for a woman who wore nothing else. Inside the chamber she slept, her hair sprawled along the pillow. In sleep she was plain, young. The moonlight caressed her: she wore nothing else.

Her chest rose and fell with each breath. Her ribs were etched lightly under her skin. He could count them if he wanted to. He eased the blanket down, revealing her small, pert breasts. He didn’t want to mar such perfection, but two hundred men–the blood of two hundred men already stained her hands.

The dagger rose and his arm followed, waiting over the delicately etched bones, beneath the tiny breasts. Then it came down and the moonlight caught the blade, bathing it with white light. His ring, Diana’s ring, flashed, and an Enos’s voice echoed in the room:

A knife glistens in the darkness. A simple silver ring adorns the hand which guides the weapon on its deadly path, the path which seals the darkness forever.

He whirled but could not see her, this hidden Enos who spoke with the voice of prophecy.

He was alone, with the white lady, in the moonlight.

Chapter 27

i

The Enos crouched around the blood, watched it surge against the rock. Finally it quit and burrowed into the ground, going underneath.

Saplings and sunlight,
it whispered.
Move us.
The voice in her head made Ikaner shiver.

Zcava touched the stain on the rock.
It is the Old Ones. They go for their new home.

Behind her the young tree screamed.

They kill the tree!
An Enos reached for the tree, as if to save it. Zcava grabbed her hand.

It is the way.

Enos do not kill trees.
Ikaner dug for the blood again. She could feel the pollutant in the land, the thirst rising from the grove beyond the Cache.
Enos help the land survive. The Old Ones will kill this grove.

To save themselves.
Zcava pushed Ikaner away.
We cannot survive without the Old Ones.

Enos die for their trees. How can the Old Ones ask the trees to die for them?

We need the Old Ones. They are our wisdom.

Ikaner leaned back. That was why she was not allowed to stop the white mists. He was supposed to kill. The humans were supposed to die so that the Old Ones could live. They would travel on a river of blood to the young trees, replace the sap, remove the young tree souls, and live.
So many lives,
Ikaner thought.

We need the Old Ones,
Zcava repeated.

Even if the white mists did not kill, we would need human blood?
The land beneath Ikaner grew more and more thirsty. The trickle of blood did not flow, but she could feel land tendrils spreading, searching for more blood.

The white mists will kill. The humans will die. So the Old Ones have prophesied.

The trickle had disappeared under the ground. The young tree had stopped screaming. Ikaner felt it, felt its life force weak against the blood. She grabbed the tree, added her strength to its sap. The bark burned her fingers, the whistle-wood screeched, blood spurted from the hole beneath the rock. The little tree shuddered and clung to her in fear.

Enos died for their trees. She sat before the small grove. No one defended it, no one guarded it. The young tree’s branches held her close. She had become their Enos, and she would protect them.

ii

Byron sat at the top of the stairs, his back against the wall. One foot rested on the step below, the other leg extended before him. His eyes were closed, his breathing ragged. He still clutched the dagger.

“No. We turned the ambush around. We lost a handful, but Kensington lost almost everybody.” Seymour smiled. “We are going to succeed.”

“Yes.” Byron dropped his head onto his arms. Alma hadn’t known about that maneuver. She hadn’t known at all. He sighed. “I’ve made a decision.” His voice sounded hollow inside his arms. “Let Lord Kensington know I want to negotiate peace terms.”

“Negotiate? But we’re winning!”

“We’re all losing, all of us.” Byron made himself stand. He was dizzy. He put a hand out to steady himself. The wall felt damp. “Come with me. We can talk about it.”

Their footsteps echoed in the corridor. The guards standing outside Byron’s door nodded when they saw him. He handed one of them the dagger. “Keep this,” he said. “I don’t want to see it again.” Then he let himself in the door and froze. Alma sat on a cushion, her fingers toying with his lute. The notes she plucked were jagged and toneless.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “You haven’t been here for two nights.”

He couldn’t look at her. All he could see was her face as it had been on the pillow, bathed in moonlight. Fear surged through him again. He had snapped and nearly killed her.

“Byron? Are you all right?” Seymour put a supporting arm behind his back and led him to a cushion.

Byron nodded. The weakness had passed. “I haven’t slept.” He waved away Seymour’s concern and forced himself to look at Alma. “Why do you want to see me?”