The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala (11 page)

For her part, Amelia looked wan and subdued, not her usual effervescent self. She rode in the curtained carriage, clutching her rose pendant, violet-shadowed lids closed while her rosebud lips moved in silent prayer.

Because Hugh made me ride in the carriage, too, I had ample opportunity to observe this. She prayed for me, so I shouldn’t feel irritated. But the argument with Hugh, that odd encounter with Rayfe, the sudden bloody fight, had left me out of sorts. I wanted to ride. Being out in the open wouldn’t make me any more vulnerable than being within Rayfe’s reach. He wasn’t going to try to capture me against my will.

Only as a last resort, perhaps.

I caught myself short in midthought. Why had he changed tactics? He would clearly continue to fight this war, but he wouldn’t force me.

No matter how I knew, it was clear to me that the danger truly threatened everyone but me.

But no, Hugh wouldn’t budge. In his ever-charming way, he insisted. Then Amelia wept. And I rode in the stuffy carriage, unable even to see the landscape of the adventure that had been thrust upon me.

Dafne glanced up from the book she read and raised an eyebrow at me.

“Is there anything I can do for you, Princess Andi? You seem . . . restless.”

I narrowed my eyes at her and she smiled, all innocence. Amelia still prayed, oblivious.

“Yes, there is, Lady Mailloux. Why don’t you read to us—to pass the time.”

That gave her pause. Her gaze flicked to Amelia and back to me. “This tome is quite dry. I don’t know that you’d be interested.”

“Is that so? What is the topic, then?”

“It’s a, ah, bestiary of sorts. A catalogue of animals.”

Amelia’s eyes flew open. “Wolves? Does it discuss those enormous black wolves?”

I grinned at Dafne. Never think Amelia isn’t paying attention, for all her pretty flightiness.

“It does, Princess Amelia,” Dafne replied carefully. “However, the text is archaic and not meant to entertain. I do not think you would find it amusing.”

“Nonsense.” Amelia turned coaxing. “We would love to hear you read it. I find wolves most interesting—especially black ones.”

She sat back, wrapping her fingers around the pendant again, lids fluttering closed. Dafne looked at me in question, and I lifted my shoulders. What she read could hardly be worse than what Amelia had already witnessed. Besides, Amelia had always been good at getting her way.

Amelia opened her eyes and pinned Dafne with a violet glare. “Please read, Lady Mailloux.”

Dafne sighed and flipped to find the section Amelia demanded. She wore white gloves, I now noticed, turning each page with her careful reverence. I wondered how many books she’d managed to bring.

“Black wolves, which are substantially larger than commonly observed gray wolves, derive primarily from the region north of the Crane Isthmus, west of the mountainous spine that defines the western boundary of the Kingdom of Avonlidgh, and south and west of the Kingdom of Branli, encompassing the land of Annfwn.”

“You found it,” I breathed.

“Annfwn?” Amelia broke in. “There is no such place.”

Dafne nodded at me. “The older texts use that name for the Wild Lands. Sometimes interchangeably; sometimes the Wild Lands seem to be referred to as a sort of buffer zone. A no-man’s land.”

I smiled my gratitude. She hadn’t forgotten my question.

“But if they’re Wild Lands, how can they have a name? I thought no one lives there,” Amelia pressed.

“The Tala live there,” I pointed out.

“The Tala are not people.”

“How do you know?”

“Andi! You’ve seen them—they’re demons and animals. People don’t do the things they’ve done.”

Never mind the things our people had done. I sighed and repressed the impulse to respond.

“I thought you wanted to hear about the wolves.”

She pressed her pretty lips together. “Yes. Yes, I do.” Amelia sat back again and waved her hand at Dafne to proceed. Dafne, face carefully blank, cleared her throat and continued reading.

“The term ‘black wolf’ is likely a misnomer and appears only in nonscientific texts. It’s thought that the pigmentation in these wolves is almost certainly a cinnamon form that appears black in most lights. As most reports insist that blue irises often co-occur, which is a nonmelanistic trait, this reinforces that the fur pigmentation cannot be a true black.

“It’s long been commonly accepted that the Law of Geophysical Transposition explains the unusually large size of these wolves. However, the range of the common gray wolf overlaps the reported range of the black wolves, with the black reported to be far greater in height, girth, length, and mass. It should be noted that the gray wolf size does align with this law, with specimens in Elcinea much smaller than those found in the far Northern Wastes.

“This curious disparity leads many researchers to conclude that these two variations are, in fact, separate subspecies. However, physical examinations and necropsies have been performed on only the gray variety, so it has remained impossible to verify this theory.”

“Why?” Amelia interrupted. “Why couldn’t they examine the black wolves?”

Dafne raised her eyebrows. “Apparently one has never been caught.”

My head swam and I realized I’d been holding my breath. The midnight-blue eyes. Really, I’d known it all along. In and out of dreams, he was the same.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Amelia’s eyes glittered hard like amethysts in the weak light.

“Who?” I tried.

“Rayfe. I’m not a fool, Andi. Don’t treat me like one.”

“I don’t know, but I think so.”

“He shape-shifts. They all do, don’t they?” She turned to Dafne on that one.

“No one knows for sure,” Dafne replied, even and soft.

“Glorianna knows.” Amelia nodded at me. “She appeared to me in my dreams last night. She says you’re in grave danger, Andi.”

“Are you sure that dream wasn’t just a reflection of everything that happened last night? It’s hardly news that I’m in danger.”

“Don’t condescend to me, Andi. I know a vision when I have one. Glorianna appeared to me—so radiantly lovely, surrounded by sunshine. She waved a sword and killed the black wolf, pinned it through the heart. She spoke to me then and said that if I was to save you, we must kill the wolf.”

The words chilled me; the headache that had lingered since the night before blazed back. I saw the wolf stabbed through. With a sound like shifting sand, the wolf became Rayfe. I shook the image away and said the first flip thing that came to mind.

“I didn’t know Glorianna carried a sword.”

“Are you mocking me?”

I sighed. Dafne studiously examined her book, staying well out of it. I shouldn’t have let my restlessness goad her into reading aloud.

“Amelia, I think you’re overwrought. I think we all are.”

Her lower lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears. She groped for my hand. “I can’t lose you, too. Not having Mother was awful enough, but if you—”

I squeezed her hand. “Nothing will happen to me. See? I’m fine. And soon we’ll reach Windroven and we’ll all be safe. Hugh will see to it.”

A smile glimmered through her weeping, wobbly but full of love. “He will, won’t he? He promised.”

“Yes. He promised me, too.”

She sighed and leaned against my shoulder, happily drowsing now.

Dafne looked up from her reading finally and caught my eye with her somber cinnamon gaze.

Really, there was nothing more to say.

We arrived at Windroven in triumph.

An almost absurd amount of triumph, since we clearly hadn’t won anything except escape. Still, Castle Windroven, perched as it was on the craggy side of the dead volcano, rearing dramatically against the blue early-autumn sky and silhouetted against the white-capped sea below, made a reassuring sight. No wonder Amelia felt safe here—nothing could make it up the steep hillsides without being seen.

They’d built the castle into the rock itself, carving away at the mountain, polishing the stones they pulled out and using those to build the walls and turrets. I remembered now Violet telling me about it, though she thought I wasn’t listening. It looked almost as if the castle had grown from the mountain, stately and magnificent.

With a greasy turn of my stomach, I recognized it immediately from the vision that had flashed through my mind. Only without all the dead bodies.

All along the winding narrow road that led up to the fortress, people cheered, waving pennants in Avonlidgh’s festive greens and purples. Musicians played, a hodgepodge of music that changed every few minutes as we left one group behind and passed another.

This was Amelia’s element.

She wore her amethyst gown again, which draped glamorously over the pure white mare she rode. Her bright hair tumbled down her back and over her horse’s flank. She laughed, a pure song of loveliness, while she handed candies to children and accepted posies in return.

Hugh rode beside her, the golden prince, handsome as the sun that beat down on us.

Maybe it was the heat on all that bare rock, but it seemed that shadows wavered around him, blurring and distorting his heroic outline. Or it could be that the last several sleepless nights in fortified, airless outposts had left me drained and exhausted. It seemed I felt worse every day, and I worried over it—and Rayfe’s dire warnings.

I followed them on my borrowed horse, whose trot felt unbearably stilted after Fiona’s smooth pacing. I missed her with an enduring ache. This place felt all wrong, too far from the forests, too full of people who celebrated too easily. I began to regret that I hadn’t brought more of my own things. Amelia had insisted I looked perfect in the rose-pink gown she’d lent me—which was far too tight around my waist and bosom, so I could barely breathe—but I felt silly and wrong.

I couldn’t even quite be as invisible as usual, because the stories had preceded us.

People waved to me and shouted out encouragement and vows that I would be safe with them. Young men brandished weapons, promising death for any that might threaten me. I smiled and waved, imitating Amelia’s gracious bearing, but when I looked at all those merry people, I kept imagining them dead, collapsed and bleeding out over the unforgiving mountain. The headache pounded through my temples.

It was a relief to reach the cool shadows of the massive arched gates. Hugh helped Amelia down with a grand flourish. Soldiers who ringed the turrets above tossed down more flowers, and the two of them waved to the gleeful cheering.

Stiff from my horse’s unbalanced gait, I started to climb down, but she danced irritably away.

“Whoa, there!” A man’s strong hand grabbed her halter and stopped her bad-mannered dancing. “Let me help you, Your Majesty Princess Andi. This is a spirited horse for such a lovely young lady.”

I finished sliding down, resisting the urge to smack the mare between the ears. Or whoever was calling me “Your Majesty.” Only Uorsin should be called that.

“No, she’s poorly trained,” I told the tall man, who handed the horse off to a passing lad without a glance. How I missed Fiona.

He swept me a bow, chestnut locks flopping down and back again, and grinned with perfect white teeth. “I shall make it my personal mission to secure a well-trained steed for you, Princess Andi. From my own stables, I assure Your Majesty.”

“Princess Andi.” Hugh stepped up to my side. “I see you’ve met Lord Einsly, governor of this region.”

Einsly bowed again, if possible even more ostentatiously than before. “I am at the service of the daughter of the High King. Your Highness will be safe in our midst. We shall protect you like the most delicate of hothouse flowers, shield you as the most precious jewel in the treasury.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Where was Ursula’s sharp tongue when I needed it? She’d know exactly what to say back to this guy. My head pounded.

“Princess,” Dafne murmured at my elbow. She handed me a goblet of blessedly cold water and rolled her eyes.

“Moranu bless you, Lady Mailloux.” I gulped the water, grateful for both it and the save.

“You appeal to Moranu, Your Highness?” A frown knit Einsly’s high forehead. “I believe High King Uorsin outlawed such superstitious nonsense.”

“My father,” Amelia said sweetly, offering a graceful hand to Einsly, “is a wise and tolerant king. He allows his subjects much freedom, treating them not as children. My sister, Princess Andi, however, is a follower of Glorianna, as are we all, in our hearts. Pay no attention to her childhood phrases. See? She wears Glorianna’s rose.”

“So she does.” Einsly looked tremendously pleased. “My household follows Glorianna in all ways.” He waggled his eyebrows in what could only be called a leer. “She is the goddess of love, you know, Your Highness Princess Andi.”

“How nice for her.”

Undeterred, he plowed on. “As governor of this lovely corner of Avonlidgh, I will lead our gallant soldiers in all battles. I hope to prove myself to you, that I might be worthy of your hand.”

Suddenly every other man wanted to marry me. It would be funny if I didn’t feel so ill. The cold water sat heavy in my stomach and my teeth ached. Dafne took the goblet from my hand with a concerned look.