The Dawn Star (5 page)

“You certainly have a high opinion of yourself.”

“Only when I'm inspired.”

Baz spoke tightly. “Take your blighted inspiration elsewhere.”

Jade knew
that
tone. If Drummer didn't watch out, he would end up with a knife between his ribs. She motioned to his guards. “You can take him back to his suite.” Inclining her head to Drummer, she added, “It has pleased me to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mutual,” he said. “It would please me even more if you would let me go.”

Ha. Now he told the truth. “Why? I thought I inspired you to create great music.”

His voice softened. “More than you know.”

Jade blinked.
That
sounded more genuine than calculated. Flustered, she spoke formally, distancing herself from him. “Goodman Headwind, I hope you enjoy the hospitality of my court. You may go now.”

Before Drummer could say anything more, the guards swept him off down the hall. At the doors, he paused to look back at her. Then Kaj grabbed his arm and pushed him out the doorway.

“That one is trouble,” Jade said. She had never met anyone like him. Men in Taka Mal glowered and strode boldly and menaced with their dark ferocity. Drummer's differences fascinated her.

“If he doesn't take care,” Baz said, “he will never see home again.”

Jade could almost feel him seething. She turned to her cousin. “Baz, he is my guest.”

He scowled at her. “He's not a toy. If you dishonor a queen's brother, her family could consider it an act of war.”

“Dishonor him?” She had to laugh, though it hurt. “An odd proposition, given how most men view women in this country.” Like property, though she wouldn't say it aloud. She didn't want to encourage such thoughts. “But I've no such intention.”

“Well, you can't marry him. He's a commoner.”

“Oh, for saints' sake. I just met the man. Stop worrying.”

He scowled at her. “Admit it, Jade. You liked him.”

She didn't know which irked her more, Baz's assumptions or the idea that he might be right. He and Jade had grown up together, he the son of her paternal aunt. He knew her better than anyone.

“Baz, listen,” she said. “I'm no naive girl to be swayed by a minstrel's flattery. I think we should stop worrying about Queen Chime's brother and work on our plans for Jazid.”

He looked as if he wanted to keep arguing. After a pause, though, he said, “All right.”

But as they headed to her study, where they plotted strategy, he fell silent. It made Jade uneasy. Drummer she could handle.

Baz was the one who worried her.

A pounding roused Mel from a fitful sleep. She peered groggily at the unfamiliar canopy overhead. Someone was knocking. As she sat up, a door opened in another room somewhere, followed by an urgent murmur of voices.

Cobalt rolled toward Mel, restless even in his sleep. When she touched his shoulder, he sat up fast, knocking away her hand. She was used to his abrupt awakenings. His men thought it came from battle readiness, and perhaps that was part of it. But Mel knew the full truth; it was the legacy of a child who knew he could be dragged from his sleep and thrashed if he transgressed in the slightest against an endless and impossible set of rules.

Cobalt pulled her into his arms and held her hard. Gradually the fast beat of his heart slowed. Finally he drew back, calmer now, though he never said a word. He rarely spoke of his nightmares or fevered wakings.

“Someone was knocking,” Mel said.

He nodded and left their bed, pulling on a robe he had tossed across the footboard. As he strode from the room, Mel dressed more carefully in a silk sleep tunic and pants, conscious of the rigid customs here for women. Then she went into the Silver Room of their suite. The moment she saw their visitor, her pulse stuttered. It was Quill, Stonebreaker's scribe. He was speaking to Cobalt in a low voice while one of Mel's sphere-maids hovered nearby. Cobalt had a strange look, as if he were ill.

Mel went over to them. “Is it the king?”

Cobalt turned to her. He seemed to have trouble breathing. “Another stroke.”

Mel couldn't imagine worse timing. Cobalt's last words with his grandfather had been spoken in anger. If Stonebreaker didn't recover, Cobalt would torment himself with guilt. Mel wanted to tell Cobalt that it wasn't his fault, it had never been his fault; Stonebreaker was a monster who never deserved a child to raise. But Cobalt would resent her for speaking such words in front of others.

So instead she asked, “May I come with you?”

Something gathered in his eyes, moisture, from Cobalt the Dark who supposedly never wept. But Mel had seen him holding his dead father with tears pouring down his face.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Come.” Then he turned to Quill. “Wait here, please, while we dress.”

Quill bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

A chill went through Mel. It was true Cobalt had that title, for he ruled Shazire. But it was a less powerful country than the Misted Cliffs. The heir to the Sapphire Throne outranked the king of Shazire. But as the Chamberlight heir, Cobalt was a Highness; only a king and his consort carried the title of Majesty. Mel remembered how Stonebreaker's staff had responded when Cobalt first arrived at the palace, as if they feared to acknowledge his status. That Quill used the title now spoke volumes about Stonebreaker's condition. Mel wondered if Quill even thought the king would survive the night.

Mel didn't know which she feared more—that Stonebreaker would live and continue to destroy his grandson, or that he would die and make Cobalt king of the Misted Cliffs.

Dancer Chamberlight Escar had hair the color of a raven's wing. Streaked with silver, it framed her alabaster face and fell to her waist. Faint lines creased the corners of her eyes, and her delicate cheekbones gave her an ethereal aspect. Tonight, a pale silk tunic and trousers draped her graceful build. The intelligence of her expression made it hard to look away from her face. As a girl, Dancer had been pretty; at fifty-one years of age, she was a great beauty.

In the dark time of morning, three hours before sunrise, Mel and Cobalt joined Dancer. She had already arrived in the foyer outside Stonebreaker's suite. Cobalt embraced his mother with awkward gentleness. She was small and fragile next to his massive form, and her head came only halfway up his chest. Tears leaked down her face. Then she pulled away, restrained again, and wiped away her tears with the heel of her hand.

It was only the second time Mel had seen Cobalt and Dancer hug each other; the first had been when he returned from the war in Shazire. Now they stood together, the only kin of the man dying in the next room. Mel didn't intrude on the complex waves of their grief. She folded her hand around the sphere that hung from her neck on a gold chain. It was as perfectly round as metalworkers could make the shape. Dancer and Cobalt had to decide if they wanted the nebulous aid she could offer as a mage.

They spoke quietly for a while and then came to her. Cobalt stood behind Dancer, a wall at her back, and the former Harsdown queen regarded her daughter-in-law with dark eyes. She spoke in her moonlight voice. “My son says you are a mage. A healer.”

“A little,” Mel said.

“Can you cure my father?”

“I cannot give him life if his illness is fatal,” Mel said. Only a violet adept had the power to heal mortal wounds. Only such a mage could use spells to give life—or take it.

The queen spoke quietly. “I understand you helped my husband after the Alzire battle.”

“I tried.” Mel's voice caught. “I failed.”

“Cobalt says you eased Varqelle's pain as he died.” Her gaze never wavered. “And that the attempt nearly killed you.”

Mel just nodded, unable to speak. She had poured her last resources into the dying king, but his wounds had been too severe. Her best spells hadn't been enough.

“You had every reason to hate my husband,” Dancer said. “Yet you offered your life in an effort to save his.”

“It is my oath as a mage,” Mel said. “To bring light. To heal.” No matter how much she abhorred the person.

Cobalt spoke raggedly. “If you help Grandfather—” He either couldn't or wouldn't continue. But Mel knew his question; would she live?

“I was too drained then,” Mel said. “I am rested now.” It was true. She didn't say she had no more training in using her mage powers now than she had that night, for she couldn't assure him it wouldn't hurt her to use her ability.

“I have heard other tales of your deeds that day.” Dancer's voice had a distant quality, as if her words came across a field. “They say you walked through the battle wielding a sword of flame that touched the sky.”

The stories had grown until Mel hardly recognized herself. She had done no more than create a simple red spell. She made light. But she powered it with a catapult ball. A sphere.

The Chamberlight army had already won the battle—but then a Shazire warrior broke through to Varqelle and struck him down. In his enraged grief, Cobalt would have massacred every Shazire soldier on the field. To stop him, Mel had made her desperate spell. She held her sword high, and a pillar of light stretched from it into the sky. In the dusk, it lit the entire battlefield, throwing fighters into sharp relief. She walked among them and no one touched her. It stopped the fighting. Cobalt knew the truth, that she had created no more than light, but the tales of her “sorcery” burned far brighter than her actual spell.

“I don't know how much I can help His Majesty,” Mel said. “But I can promise I will do no harm.”

“No harm?” Bitterness saturated Dancer's voice. “He would live. What greater harm could you do?”

Mel froze. Whatever Dancer thought of the king, she had never spoken of him in such a manner.

Cobalt laid his large hand on his mother's shoulder. “If we don't try, we will regret it.”

The former queen's posture sagged. To Mel she said, simply, “Please try.”

A solitary light burned in Stonebreaker's suite, a lamp on the nightstand by his canopied bed. He lay on his back among voluminous covers, his eyes closed, his breathing shallow, his body seeming to have collapsed in on itself.

The elderly physician was in a chair by the bed, dozing, his bag open in his lap. With his white hair and wrinkled face, he seemed as frail as his patient. Quill touched his shoulder, and the doctor opened bleary eyes. “Eh?”

“His Majesty's family is here,” Quill said.

The doctor squinted past him to where Cobalt stood with Mel. He rose to his feet, awkward with sleep and age, and his bag fell to the floor. Grabbing for it, the doctor lost his balance. Quill put out a steadying hand to catch him, then retrieved the bag.

“How is my grandfather?” Cobalt asked.

The doctor spoke heavily. “He barely lives.”

The dim light gave Cobalt an even darker aspect than usual. “Do you know why he had another attack?”

The elderly man blanched, and sweat beaded his forehead. “Your Majesty, please believe I have done my absolute best for him.”

Mel knew Cobalt wasn't blaming him. But Stonebreaker's staff lived in fear of censure. Nothing could always go perfectly, and when mistakes occurred, Stonebreaker always assigned blame regardless of whether or not it was deserved. In his reality, he never erred; he only meted out punishment, anything from dismissal of his staff to the whippings Cobalt had endured as a child.

Mel spoke gently to the doctor. “I can tend His Majesty.”

The physician's gaze flicked to Mel and back to Cobalt. He stumbled over his words. “Your grandfather—I…I have done what I can. But he—please give him his last hours.”

Then Mel understood. The doctor feared she meant to speed Stonebreaker's death. She held her medallion, concentrating on a spell to soothe emotions, and yellow light surrounded her hand. The doctor stepped back, his gaze panicked. Then the spell began to affect him, and some of the fear left his eyes.

“It's all right,” Mel murmured. The light remained around her hand, but the spell enveloped the doctor, Cobalt and Dancer, Quill, and the bodyguards. “I can help him,” she said. “Ease his pain. Give him more time.”

The doctor stared at her, his eyes like silver coins, flat and hard. Then he took a breath and his shoulders came down from their hunched position. Dancer stood with Cobalt, her face drawn and pale. Aware of them watching, Mel went to the bed. No one stopped her. Stonebreaker was near this side, and she sat down by his still figure. She imagined a luminous sky, wildflowers scattered across a meadow, her mother's blue eyes, and the deep, deep lakes of her home. Blue light spilled over Stonebreaker as Mel gave her spell to him. His body glowed in the radiance.

Slowly, so slowly, his lashes lifted. He stared at the canopy, his gray eyes pale in the blue light. His whisper rattled. “Dancer?”

“I am here.” Dancer stepped forward, her silks rustling. Mel moved away from the bed to give her privacy. As Dancer sat by her father and gently brushed the hair back from his forehead, blue light flowed around them.