Authors: Elaine Isaak
LYSSA KNELT
on the floor of her little chapel, carefully scraping away the ruined patch of tiles. She worked in studious silence, her entire being focused on the task. Not far away, the cracked bust of King Rhys lay on the floor beneath a cloth. She had moved it aside but did not lift it from the floor, as if letting it lie in state.
“Lyssa.”
She flinched, dropping the fine chisel, and turned her head to glower at Fionvar. “Don’t surprise me like that.”
He frowned. “I said your name three times, Lyssa; is something the matter?”
She gazed up at her brother, whose dark eyes seemed a few shades darker than they had been. “I think I should be asking you that question.” She rose, wiping the dust from her hands upon her work apron.
Fionvar took her place on the floor, touching the bare patch where she had removed the broken tiles and filigree. “Was it the refugees? They’ve been hanging about the temple lately.” His eyes lit upon the covered sculpture, and he twitched aside the cloth to study the damaged face. Suddenly he sprang up, hands balling into fists. “It was that Asenith, wasn’t it?”
“Who?” Lyssa frowned her puzzlement.
“Who else would have so much against…” he trailed off, looking down at the face again.
“I can name one, Fion.”
His shoulders fell. “Oh, Lyssa, we’ve made a mess of it, haven’t we?”
“Some of us have, anyhow.” She sighed.
He jerked as if she’d struck him.
Quickly, she touched his shoulder. “I didn’t mean you, Fion. Last night, he came to talk to me and—” She broke off, eyes narrowing. “Wait a minute, why did you come down here? Something’s happened.”
“It’s Wolfram,” Fionvar began, but she cut him off.
“He’s run away, hasn’t he? Bury it!” she exploded, pounding a fist on the table.
Fionvar shook his head. “Kidnapped,” he blurted, “early this morning.”
Lyssa froze. “Kidnapped? But I—” Again, she broke off, considering. “Tell me everything.”
Fionvar told her in a rush of words all that they knew—the refugees who had been spotted, then vanished, the terrible death of the prince’s manservant, his own visit to the quiet room where Dylan had still not awakened. Lyssa leaned against the workbench, listening, watching Fionvar pace the tiny space behind the curtain. He didn’t need to know what she had said to Wolfram; it had become meaningless beside the greater tragedy. Even as that little fear was soothed, the weight of what he said flowed over her. The crown prince—the only heir—missing, presumably at the hands of this band of foreigners. Perhaps he had meant to go, been followed by his friend and servant before being carried off. Perhaps it was not she herself who had destroyed him.
It took her a long while to realize that Fionvar had fallen silent, and stood, eyeing her suspiciously. “Why did you think he might have run away?”
Lyssa gave her one-shouldered shrug. “He was furious with both of you.”
“He generally is. It would have to be more than that.”
She gestured to the fallen statue. “He cut off his hair, Fionvar, and we fought. With this on top of everything, it seemed likely he’d want to escape.”
“He can’t escape from everything,” Fionvar growled.
“Out with it, Fion. What haven’t you said?”
“Wolfram had a lover, Lyssa; she’s here at the castle.”
“He said he’d left her.”
“Not far enough. The woman is with child.”
“Great Lady! I suppose it was bound to happen, but—”
“Bound to, you say? I take it you’ve known about her for some time, then, sister.” Fionvar folded his arms across his chest, staring her down. “But wait, I haven’t told you the best—or do you already know?”
“Wolfram is my friend. If he wants to keep secrets from you, who am I to reveal them?” She met his steely gaze.
“Asenith,” Fionvar said simply, watching for a change in her face, but the name meant nothing to her. “His lover was the former princess Asenith yfEvaine duThorgir.”
“I knew we should have killed them all.” She smacked her fist into her palm.
“Harsh words for one of the Goddess,” Fionvar observed.
Lyssa shrugged again. “We were at war, there were crimes to be redressed. Remember when that Faedre tried to kill the king? She and Asenith were tight at the end. We’d no evidence, of course, but I tend to doubt the little bitch was innocent!”
“She certainly isn’t now, Lyssa, she’s been knocked up by my—” His face froze a moment, and he finished more quietly, “my prince.”
Just for a moment, she saw the anguish on his face, then his eyes snapped away, lips set—the Lord Protector once more. “There’s no one to hear, Fionvar,” she offered, quietly. “Say what you will to me.”
He let out a long breath, arms crossed a little tighter to hold himself in. “It’s disaster all over again, Lyssa. I can see it happening, and I can’t do a thing.”
“Say it, Fionvar,” Lyssa urged. “It isn’t disaster you’re afraid of, big brother.” She hesitated a moment, but he did not look up. “It’s Orie.”
A shudder ran through Fionvar’s body. “Brianna won’t let me talk to Wolfram the way I need to, the way he needs. Elyn spoils him with one hand and slaps him with the other. And every year, every day, he gets more and more angry. It’s
like he’s trying to live out Prince Alyn’s curse. Great Lady, I don’t know what to do.”
Lyssa straightened. “The first thing is to find him and bring him home.” She swept a dagger from her belt, clutching the blade in her left hand.
Fionvar’s chin shot up, as Lyssa squeezed her fist tighter. Blood dripped down the metal onto the floor.
“By the blood in my body, Fionvar, I swear to you that I will bring him home.” She drew the dagger from the sheath of her flesh and pressed her bloody palm to the gap in the floor. “Let this work remain undone until I have fulfilled my oath. Nothing, and no one, will stand in my way.” Her eyes gleamed with emerald fire.
“I do not want to lose you, Lyssa, not like the rest.”
She smiled grimly. “But I am not like the rest, Fionvar. I am a lady of the Goddess, I am a Sister of the Sword, and I am sworn to find your son”—she met his shadowed eyes, and repeated—“
your
son, and bring him home. When he gets home, you’ll tell him the truth, all of it.”
“As I should have done years ago.”
Lyssa began to gather up her tools, laying them out neatly on the workbench, covering the lot with a drop cloth. She glanced down to the covered bust but let it stay.
“Where will you go?”
“The infirmary first, and the west gate. After that, to find the refugees.” She paused, gazing into the distance. “Across the mountains, or the ocean—all the way to Hemijrai, if that’s where he is.” To Bernholt first, she thought, in case they were wrong, in case Wolfram were tracking the legend of King Rhys, and their web of lies could lead him there.
EXHAUSTED, HEAD
and neck throbbing, Wolfram slowly rose to consciousness. Something damp and dark lay over his head—cold upon the heat within. His palms and knees stung, and he vaguely recalled staggering into the trees, falling more than once, and a final tumble down a rocky slope. As he shifted, the bruises on his back and legs,
too, cried out, and he winced. Branches were poking into his shoulders. For a moment, he thought he lay in the gully where he’d fallen. He wriggled his fingers carefully about, and found that the branches beneath him were padded with animal hides of some sort. He raised a hand to his face and pushed aside the cloth over his eyes. More darkness, and a pale, looming shape, its mouth flapping, its guts—
Wolfram screamed and bolted upright.
Hands seized his shoulders, and the figure swam into view. Enough light seeped in around an unseen door that he could make out the rough features, the moving lips, and finally he noted the harsh voice that tried to mold itself into soothing sounds.
Wolfram frowned. Had he knocked his head? He didn’t remember—but then, he wouldn’t, would he? He focused again on the figure, struggling to make out what it was saying, but he couldn’t understand a word of it. Whoever it was backed away and flung aside a flap, letting sunlight stream in.
Blocking his eyes with his hand, Wolfram faced away until he’d grown used to light again. Then he turned to the figure.
The woman, her dark hair braided and falling over her shoulder, smiled. She pressed a palm to her forehead, then to his. She was one of the Woodfolk, the nomads who hunted in the mountains between Lochalyn and Bernholt, and wore a shapeless garment made from leather, with a necklace and belt of beads. She called out the doorway and came back to kneel beside him on the dirt floor.
The hut appeared much larger when she’d settled again. Another pile of branches and hides lay on the other side of a fire pit lined with stones, and several leather bags jumbled together by the doorway. A bow and quiver of arrows fletched with hawk feathers hung from the interlaced branches of the ceiling.
The woman reached out and removed the cloth from Wolfram’s forehead, still smiling. Tentatively, Wolfram smiled back. “Thank you,” he tried, his voice barely escaping the
band of pain about his throat. He touched his neck gingerly. Another cloth wrapped the wound, and his fingers came away smelling of herbs and animal grease.
“You speaking tongue no?” She managed to ask, watching him expectantly. Her face and hands were deeply tanned, her teeth chipped and stained, but she was younger than he’d thought at first.
“Do I speak your language?” Wolfram interpreted. He shook his head, but quickly thought better of it when the pain snapped through him. “No.”
She lost her smile momentarily. A shadow crossed the light of the door as a tall man stooped to enter. He and the woman touched each other’s foreheads, then he squatted beside her, glowering at Wolfram.
“You are from stone place?”
“Thank the Lady!” Wolfram brightened at hearing his own language. “Yes, from the city, but—” He broke off, considering what to tell them.
“But leaving?” the large man supplied, rubbing his finger on his scarred chin.
“Ah, yes. There are people who would kill me,” he finished lamely.
The man grunted. He spoke a few words of their growly language, and the woman answered at length, with many sweeping gestures and an animation of expression that let Wolfram follow the whole story of how she had found him and brought him here to tend his wounds.
The conversation turned quickly to argument, both of them pointing at Wolfram, shouting across the few inches between them. The man slapped a hand to his own throat, his voice a roar, as he jerked upward.
Wolfram realized the man thought he had been hanged. Again, he shook his head, and quickly regretted it. “Excuse me,” he said, but the argument rolled over his interruption. “Shut up!” he shouted, thrusting his arm between them.
Both turned to stare, the man glaring in fury.
“I’m not a criminal,” he protested. “Somebody tried to kill me.”
The woman cocked her head, then, when he gestured to his neck, she seemed to understand. She reached into the empty fire pit, and brought something out of the ashes, shaking it off, and holding it up for the man’s inspection. The thin chain glinted dully in the sunlight except where ashes still clung to Wolfram’s blood.
This gave the man a moment’s pause. He took it between his fingers, turning it this way and that. The delicate golden chain had a large knob of lead on either end, providing a grip for his would-be murderer.
Wolfram shivered, then let out a little ironic grin. At least the bastard had tried to kill his prince with gold, not some base metal or tradesman’s twine. Actually, with that chain, his attacker should have had his head off before he could even struggle. He must be quicker on his feet than even he knew.
The woman gestured then to the sky and spoke more quietly.
Eyebrows leaping, the man looked from her to Wolfram and back, his craggy face breaking into a grin.
“Can you please tell me what she says?” Wolfram pleaded, certain these two were deciding his fate.
“Last Fishing Moon, her man die, in that place where she find you. Two years together, and he gives her no baby. No man of our people would have her.” The man let out a thunderous laugh. “She think you her new man, give from spirits, to show she worthy.”
Wolfram smiled his surprise. “The spirits did not deliver me in good condition.”
The woman asked an eager question, and the man replied, gesturing to Wolfram’s injuries.
She shrugged.
“What’s her name?”
“She called ‘Morra.’”
Understanding this, the woman grinned, starting off a wave of excited chatter.
Wolfram waved her into silence. “Morra,” he said politely, “I’m Wolfram.”
“Wolf Runs?” she echoed in puzzlement.
“Close enough.” He turned back to the man. “And you are?”
“Gorn, Great Hunter. Morra is—” he frowned over the word—“sister.”
Eyeing the thick features and bushy brows of the Great Hunter, Wolfram muttered, “No family resemblance, thank the Lady.”
“You say?”
“Nothing important. Look, I’m starved.” He patted his stomach. “Can I get something to eat?”
Morra immediately scrambled up and slipped from the hut.
Once she had gone, Gorn leaned in close to Wolfram. “You from spirits?”
Wolfram considered how to answer this. His only thought last night—or had it been several nights since then?—had been to get out, away, someplace where he could do no more harm. Perhaps this woman’s “spirits” had brought him here. Castle folk rarely had dealings with the Woodfolk, and he knew enough about them to know they traveled frequently, packing up their few possessions and trekking miles into the wilderness, far from the reach of Lochalyn’s queen, or its justice. He had killed a man, brutally and knowingly, and even a prince could not completely escape a charge of murder. He needed a refuge, a place to heal, plan, and rest. She needed a man, preferably a baby, to appease the tribe. It could be the spirits brought him to her after all. “I don’t know,” he answered at last, “but will you let me stay until I am sure?”
Gorn leaned back again, rocking slightly, rubbing the tangle of scars on his chin.