Authors: Deborah Chester
She listened a
moment, gazing about. Her father lay propped up on his tall pillows. His head
had fallen over to one side. She did not see Caelan.
Hesitating, she
opened the door wider, allowing more light inside. She even looked behind the
door. Caelan was not there.
Her hand went to
her throat in nameless fear. She looked at the
jinja.
“Is it safe?” she
whispered.
The
jinja
shook itself the way a dog shakes water from its coat. “Safe. No magic. No
bad.”
She could not make
herself believe it. Picking up a lamp from the antechamber, she went into the
room and closed the door firmly after her. She went first to her father.
He lay so quiet
and still she feared he had died. But when she touched his hand, it felt warm
with life. Some color had returned to his cheeks, and she realized he was
breathing normally, with none of the rasping struggle of before.
Hope made her draw
in a sharp breath. She opened his sleeping shirt and ran her fingertips
delicately across his side. Much of the bruising had faded. His ribs felt whole
beneath her touch.
Albain stirred
slightly, frowning, and she drew the covers higher, smoothing them and stroking
his forehead. He no longer had fever. Clearly he lay in a healing sleep,
already on the mend. The miracle she had asked for had been achieved.
Tears stung her
eyes, welling up through her lashes. She blinked, and twin tears ran down her
cheeks. Grateful, she sank to her knees beside him and clung to his hand.
“Oh, Father,” she
whispered through her tears of relief. “Oh, Father.”
Caelan did not
return. No one had seen him. No one could explain how he had left Albain’s
chamber without being seen.
Frustrated and
worried, Elandra retired to her apartments. By lamplight she undressed herself,
wary of even the servants. She put her knife beneath her pillow and stretched
out beneath the soft curtains of insect netting.
Her dreams were
troubled and restless. She moaned and tossed in the humid darkness; then a
sound close by awakened her. Opening her eyes, she found herself dazzled by
lamplight shining over her. a shadowy silhouette stood by her bedside, holding
the lamp aloft.
Elandra gasped and
sat bolt upright with one hand on the knife under her pillow and the other
gripping her jewel pouch.
“Begone from me,”
she said.
Her voice sounded
quivery and afraid, not strong like she wanted it to be.
The figure lowered
the lamp until her face was also illuminated. As she saw the features of the
woman standing beside her, Elandra’s fear was replaced by anger.
She flung aside
the insect netting and scrambled out of bed. Dressed in shapeless linen that
kept slipping off one shoulder, her hair flowing around her like a veil, she
glared at her visitor.
“You pick a poor
time to come calling,” she said to the woman who had borne her. “Or do you
always prowl in other people’s rooms in the middle of the night?”
Her mother glared
back, looking haughty and regal in robes of dark green. “Is that all the
greeting you will give me? Is there no respect in you?”
“Do you deserve
more?”
“Do you know who I
am, Elandra?”
Elandra drew in a
sharp, angry breath, but her mother raised her hand.
“I have the right
to address you by your name, whether you wish it or not.”
Slowly Elandra
mastered her anger, controlled it. Her mother was correct, but she did not have
to like it.
“Do you know who I
am?” her mother repeated.
“Your name is
Iaris,” Elandra said coldly. “You gave me birth.”
“I am your
mother.”
Elandra swallowed.
As a child she had dreamed of her mother, longed for her mother. Now all she
felt was rage and such pent-up resentment she thought she might explode. Again,
using all that the Penestricans had taught her, she struggled to control
herself.
“Yes,” she said
finally, “you are my mother.”
Iaris waited a
moment. “Is that all you have to say?”
“What should I
add?”
“A word of
greeting. A smile. Perhaps a remark expressing your feelings at our reunion.”
“Is that what this
is?” Elandra asked. “A reunion? The word implies that there was a previous
relationship, does it not? I don’t recall one.”
Iaris’s nostrils
flared. Even in middle age, she was beautiful. Her cheekbones had a sharp,
sculpted quality that would last all her life. Her eyes were tilted ever so
slightly at the corners, like Elandra’s. Their color was exotic, compelling.
Her thick lashes swept down and up as her gaze locked again on Elandra.
“So it is to be
like that,” she said.
“Yes,” Elandra
said flatly. “It is to be like that.”
Iaris frowned. “I
tried to speak to you earlier. You refused me. Now we must talk.”
“It can wait until
morning.”
“No, this privacy
is better.”
“I need my rest,”
Elandra said.
“You owe me this
audience,” Iaris told her.
Elandra shot her
an angry look and raised her brows. She said nothing, but Iaris refused to be
stared down.
“I am Lady Pier,”
she said harshly. “You owe me audience.”
Surprised, Elandra
studied her for a moment; then she gestured at the nearby chairs.
They sat in the
gloom, facing each other like civilized ladies, but there was something unreal
about the hour of night, the quiet in the room, the utter privacy. Elandra
wondered if her guards at the door had gone to sleep, to allow Iaris her
surreptitious entry. Could anyone come and go as they pleased in this palace?
It did not used to be so.
She held her knife
openly in her lap, and Iaris pretended not to notice it.
Silence stretched
between them. Elandra was the one who broke it.
“You have my leave
to speak,” she said.
Iaris glared at
her, obviously resenting Elandra’s superior position, but she wasted no more
time. Leaning forward with her hands clamped on the arms of her chair, she
said, “What manner of man have you brought to Gialta? What is he?”
“He is the future
of the empire,” Elandra replied coolly. For a moment it was almost amusing.
Being questioned separately by her parents about the man she had chosen. Did
they expect her to grieve publicly for Kostimon? Did they expect her to drape
herself in the veil of widowhood and hide for a year of official mourning?
She would not do
it. Kostimon had been her husband in name only. Now she belonged body and soul
to Caelan. She would make no pretense of it. She would not act the hypocrite.
“The future of the
empire,” Iaris repeated with a disdainful smile. “A very grand endorsement, but
a vague one at best.”
Elandra was tired.
This had been a long day of shocks and worry. Her emotions had been pulled in
all directions since her arrival, and she was very worried about Caelan’s
disappearance. She had no patience for games and verbal sparring. She wanted to
end this interview quickly.
“Caelan is a
king,” she said, “from a land you do not know. A land where Choven—”
“Those creatures!”
Iaris said scornfully.
Elandra met her
eyes, understanding that Iaris used her pride to shield her ignorance. “Caelan
is both man and Choven, his lineage both of this world and of the spirit. His
destiny is that he will break the world. There is more, but I will not tell you
all.”
“These words are
fanciful indeed,” Iaris said. “Who could believe such stories?”
“You asked a
question. I have answered it.”
Iaris frowned.
“Will you now state the truth?”
Elandra said
nothing.
Iaris’s frown deepened.
“This is ridiculous. Pier says he is nothing but a gladiator, a former slave
who was bought at auction by Prince Tirhin.”
“Lord Pier should
be grateful for what Caelan did for him today.”
“Nonsense! That
humiliation—”
“He saved Pier
from the darkness.”
Iaris gestured
this away, plainly not believing anything Elandra said. “This Caelan is no one,
an upstart with ambitions who has bewitched you. Oh, I am sure it is his
excellent body which attracts you. He is handsome, in a brutish way. But why do
you make yourself a spectacle by consorting openly with this barbarian? Can you
not play with him in private and stop trying to proclaim him the next emperor?”
Elandra’s hand
tightened on her knife hilt. “I have not seen you since I was four. Prior to
the day you cast me out, you were a stranger who came but occasionally to look
at me and see if I thrived. You did not even suckle me at your breast, and I
understand that at my birth you cried in relief that I was finally gone from
your womb. Based on this, I do not accept advice from you. I do not hear your
words. I grant you no right to offer them.”
Iaris rose to her
feet. “Stop playing the wounded heroine,” she said scathingly. “You were not
hurt. You grew up to become empress of the land. You have fulfilled your
destiny. You have prospered. There are no complaints you can offer.”
“I am not
complaining,” Elandra said through her teeth. “I know that your affair with my
father came against your will, that the Penestricans forced your union so I
could be born.”
With widened eyes,
Iaris stared at her.
“Yes,” Elandra
said, her tone flat and unyielding. “I also know that Albain loved you—”
“Men are such
fools,” Iaris said with a dismissive gesture. “He mistook a spell for his own
emotions.”
Anger crawled
through Elandra’s veins, but she concealed it. More than anything she would
have liked to shout at her mother, to accuse her and shame her into even a
slight amount of contrition or regret, but she restrained herself. She could
not judge her mother. She had not stood in her mother’s exact circumstances,
but she had been married against her will to a man old enough to be her father,
a man who was a stranger, a man who never loved her. To that extent, at least,
she knew what it must be like to have others meddle with your emotions, meddle
with your life. She could understand her mother’s resentment and coldness. What
humiliation had her mother faced in explaining her pregnancy to her returning
husband?
Lord Pier, the man
who had picked a fight with Caelan today, and lost.
Elandra gazed up
at her mother, saw the tight clamp of her lips, saw old battles still raging in
her eyes.
“Albain still
loves you,” Elandra said. “He will love you to the grave.”
Iaris was pacing
back and forth behind her chair. She thumped the back of it with her fist.
“That won’t be long.”
Elandra shot to
her feet. “You are wrong. He recovers.”
“Impossible.”
“When he calls
this court to heel, you will see it is not impossible.”
Iaris frowned at
her. “Albain is finished. Everyone but you accepts that.”
“My father will
live. Already he—”
“Don’t delude
yourself! Gialta looks to new leadership even as the empire prepares to accept
a new emperor. Albain has held back this province long enough, but that is
over.”
“My father will
not support Tirhin on the throne,” Elandra said furiously. “Nor do I.”
Iaris laughed
scornfully. “Do you expect the warlords to support your claim? They will not do
it. Nor do you have Albain to make them do it.”
Frustration filled
Elandra. “Tirhin betrayed the empire. Can your husband not see that’? Or
doesn’t he care?”
“Pier cares about
avoiding a bloodbath,” Iaris said through her teeth. “He plans to give his oath
of fealty to the new emperor.”
“Tirhin is a
traitor!”
“Turn red in the
face and make fists at me like a spoiled child if you wish,” Iaris said
scornfully. “Your throne and your privileges have been swept away. That is what
you cannot forgive. But your time is over, daughter. Whatever the Penestricans
meant to accomplish with you did not come to pass. We face a new age, and a new
emperor who is bold enough to take what he wants. Pier respects that, as do I.
As do others. Don’t start a civil war, Elandra. You and your pet gladiator have
no chance of winning.”
Elandra met her
mother’s eyes, and it was like staring at a wall. She knew further argument was
futile.
“Are you
finished?” she asked through lips that felt like wood.
“Yes, I think I
have said enough.” Iaris drew up her robes and walked to the door. She paused
and glanced back as though she meant to say something else, but then did not.
As soon as the
door closed behind her, Elandra threw the knife. It thunked deep into the wood
panel of the door and quivered there.
A guard peered
inside, his gaze widening as he saw the knife sticking out of the door. “Is
everything well, Majesty?”
“Why did you admit
that woman without my permission?” Elandra asked him.
The man’s eyes
went blank. “Admit who, Majesty?”
Elandra frowned,
and she knew then that the Gialtan balance of power was shifting into different
hands. Even the guards’ loyalties were going to Lord Pier, who as the second
most powerful warlord in the province after Albain was poised to seize the
reins of leadership. If Pier convinced the other warlords to accept Tirhin,
then Elandra’s reign would be over before it began.
She pulled her
knife from the door and held it a moment, thinking hard. There had been
something strange about Iaris’s visit, something almost triumphant.
If Albain
recovered, he would not let Pier support the new emperor. There would be no
shift of power, no redistribution of the Albain estates. That meant Albain’s
rivals could not allow him to get well.
Fear spiked
through Elandra. She must have cried out, for the guard looked at her
worriedly.
“Is something
wrong, Majesty? Are you unwell?”