“I’ve been here,” I said, unobtrusively struggling to free myself. This didn’t work. Keeping one arm around me, Bryan pulled me around to view his fellow riders. I recognized one or two of them, most of them young lords about Bryan’s age, a few of them grinning at me, a couple looking bored or ill at ease.
“You know all these impressive scions of their respective noble houses, don’t you?” Bryan cried, still in an overexcited voice that suited neither the hour nor the setting. “There’s Max. There’s Holden. That’s Lester and Borgan and Hennessey—”
I tried to pick out Borgan of Tregonia, but no one was responding to the names Bryan was reeling off so fast. “And Jude is somewhere, but maybe he’s ahead of us, because I don’t see him at the moment—”
“Back at the stables,” one of the young men interjected. “Worried his mount may have taken a pebble in the hoof. He’ll be by any minute.”
Bryan squeezed my shoulders and finally dropped his arm. “So, will I see you at the ball? Will you reserve a dance for me?” he demanded. “None of this pretending to be shy with me—you’ve known me your whole life, after all, or most of it.”
“I’d be glad to dance with you, Bryan,” I said. For it was still true that he remained the most beautiful man at the castle, and the thought of dancing with him made me a little breathless.
He swept his hand out to indicate the men of his riding party. “All of them will want to dance with you! Right—eh, Hennessey? For this is Elisandra’s sister—Jaxon Halsing’s niece, you know. You’ve heard my father talk of her.”
The man called Hennessey gave a start of recognition and came forward. He was dark-skinned, dark-haired, with close-set eyes and a close-cropped beard. Older than Bryan by a decade at least—and not the sort of man I would have expected to enjoy an outing with the prince.
“Lady Coriel,” he said, taking my hand and bowing over it. “Yes, Lord Matthew has spoken of you often. I had hoped to meet you before this.”
“Back to the castle,” Bryan called, “for luncheon is on the table!” The whole untidy party began to jostle back down the path. The whole party except Hennessey, who stood before me, blocking my path.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as prettily as I could. “I did not catch your name. Lord—Hennessey?”
I had caught the name, of course, but I wasn’t sure of his lineage. He obligingly gave me the details. “Hennessey of Mellidon. I’m Arthur’s middle son.”
Ah, yes. Hours of studying with Greta over the past three summers helped me fill in the rest of this story. Viceroy Arthur was old, sick, and feeble but not yet ready to relinquish his authority; his eldest son did most of the actual administrating and was known for his swift dispensation of justice. That son had married young, but his wife failed to produce the desired heir, so he had divorced her and married again two years ago. This new bride had also so far proved infertile, leading to some speculation about the man’s virility. The youngest son, who hated his oldest brother, had married more successfully and had sired numerous offspring, two of them boys. Hennessey, always allied with his older brother, was looking to find his own wife and, if possible, cut out the younger brother in the succession.
It seemed someone might have suggested me as a possible match.
“Of course,” I said, offering my hand again and giving a formal curtsey. “You’ve come for the summer festivities, I take it? How do you like Auburn so far?”
He tucked my hand into the crook of his arm and proceeded to escort me slowly back to the castle. “Much better—now,” he said. “I had heard that Elisandra’s sister was her rival in all things, but I had not thought it possible. Until I laid eyes on you.”
The heavy gallantry came awkwardly from his mouth. I could not imagine any set of circumstances that would induce me to relocate all the way to Mellidon. I smiled nonetheless. “How flattering. Tell me how you have spent your days—hunting, I take it? What’s the hunting like in your part of the world?”
This, as I had suspected, was a topic he was quite comfortable with, so we passed the rest of the brief walk in a discussion of hawks and hounds. Once we stepped through the great doorway, I clapped my hands to my cheeks.
“Oh, no!” I exclaimed. “I’m late—I’m so sorry—you can finish your story some other time.” And I dashed down the hall and up the first stairwell before he could ask about sitting with me at dinner that evening or dancing with me at the ball. A temporary reprieve only, and I knew it, but it made me gleeful nonetheless.
That evening, I waited in Elisandra’s room as Daria fixed her hair, and I related some of the incidents in the garden. A flicker of distaste crossed Elisandra’s face and was quickly gone.
“I do not care much for Hennessey myself,” she said.
I teased, “Oh, then, I should not marry him just to please you?”
She met my eyes in the mirror. She was not laughing. “Do not marry to please anyone except yourself.”
I tossed a sachet ball in the air. Greta wanted me to tuck it in my pocket, to create “a perfumed air of mystery” as I walked, but I hated its smell and refused to carry it. “I don’t think I shall marry anyone,” I said nonchalantly. “And I don’t know that I will flirt with any of them, either. It’s not as pleasant as I always thought it would be.”
Now Elisandra permitted herself a small smile. “Perhaps you have not flirted with the right people.”
I shook my head. “Even Bryan—it feels so odd when he takes my hand and says such things. He never did anything like that before. I can’t believe how he’s changed.”
Now Elisandra’s eyes were on her own reflection. “Bryan has not changed,” she said in a low voice.
Am I the one who changed, then? I wondered. But perhaps that was not what she had meant. Daria gave Elisandra’s hair a final pat and said, “Done, my lady.”
Elisandra nodded gravely. “Thank you.” She came to her feet, lovely in a silver-blue gown, and said to the maid, “You need not wait up for me tonight. I believe there’s entertainment after the meal, and I don’t want you to be up till all hours.”
“Thank you, my lady,” Daria said, dropping a small curtsey. I could not keep a quick resentful thought from crossing my mind: With what attractive guardsman will you be spending your free hours? But, of course, I did not ask the question aloud. It was too absurd.
Downstairs, the seating was more formal than usual, which I instantly knew spelled trouble for me. Indeed, the servants directed Elisandra to the head table, while I was placed at the second of the perpendicular tables—a fairly high honor, which I knew, and which I did not appreciate. For Hennessey of Mellidon was already seated in the chair next to mine, and he smiled as he watched me approach.
WE MADE IT through dinner amiably enough, though Hennessey’s conversational abilities did not improve much with familiarity, and I made absolutely no replies to his attempts at gallantry, which he must have found discouraging. I managed to elude him as the guests all filed into the large salon for the evening’s entertainment. I had no idea what this might be, so I caught up with Angela as people began to seat themselves in rows of chairs set up before a low dais.
“What’s going on? Is someone performing?” I asked.
She grabbed my arm and led me to the row where Marian had already settled. “Corie! You were seated by Lord Hennessey! What an honor for you! There’s talk that he might be the next viceroy, once his father dies and his brother proves impotent—”
“I thought he was a little boring,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s boring! A husband doesn’t have to be interesting to make you wealthy and powerful.”
I wanted to get off this topic. “Well, you didn’t fare so badly yourself,” I said, for I’d noticed. This matchmaking game was new to me, but I was beginning to make out its intricacies and arabesques. “Wasn’t that Lord Lester seated beside you?”
This she was just as happy to talk about. Then we discussed Marian’s dinner partner as well, wh
ile the rest of the guests filed in and made themselves comfortable. I still had no idea who would be performing, so I was amazed to see a half dozen aliora enter the room and climb to the small stage. Three were creatures I had never seen before, a very old woman, a fair-haired young man, and a young woman with absolutely luminescent skin. With them were Andrew and two of the other aliora who lived at Castle Auburn.
“What is—are the aliora going to sing?” I asked, dumbfounded, for I had never witnessed such a thing.
Angela shook her head. “They don’t sing, but they play music—it’s unearthly beautiful. You’ve never heard them?”
“No.”
“Actually, it’s rare that they perform anymore. Those two—the old woman and the young one—apparently were part of some, I don’t know, musical clan in Alora before they were captured. The old one lives in Tregonia and the young one in Mellidon, so they’re rarely together. When they are, they always perform concerts. My mother said it was the best reason to invite Hennessey here.” She giggled.
I was incapable of even the smallest smile. The image conjured up—aliora torn from their homes, separated, reunited in bondage and only then being able to enjoy one of their simple, essential pleasures—suddenly made me mute and horrified. How had such a thing happened? I knew the answer to that—I had almost been part of it, just three years ago. How could my uncle do such things? How could I have thought they were permissible? I could not fit my mind around the answers. I could not dream up an acceptable solution.
While I wrestled with guilt and anger, the aliora arranged themselves on the stage and took up their instruments. Three of them carried long, thin tubes that appeared to be hollowed-out tree limbs; but their own arms were so long and thin, and so carefully placed around the tubes, that at times it looked as though they held not one but three of the attenuated instruments. The two visiting women seated themselves and unfolded metal boxes in their laps. From where I sat, I could not tell if there were strings inside the boxes or some other device for creating music. Andrew idly juggled a handful of glass cylinders which made a loopy crystal chiming as they struck together.
The old woman addressed some question to her fellow musicians and they all grew still. Then, on some signal that I could not see, they all began playing simultaneously.
It was as if the trees in the forest suddenly sat down and began to speak; it was as if the river pursed its lacy lips to tell a tale. The aliora did not produce music as I was used to hearing it, but sounds, voices, the whispers of the woodland animals in a language suddenly ordered and comprehensible. Except that it was not comprehensible—there was no story—but there was the sense of communication, of mysteries made clear and universal truths unfolded. I sat there under the patter and sigh of their windsong and thought, Yes, now I understand. Of course. Why did I not know before? I was spellbound. I was ecstatic. I was ensorceled.
When the music abruptly halted, I literally gasped—as did half the humans in the room. I felt stupid and heavy, as if I had dragged myself from a woodland pool where I had lain all day letting the water take my weight. The room seemed to close in, the walls were too dense and the air was too thick with the scent of nearby bodies. Someone near me began to speak, but I could not understand her words.
Before I had time to panic, or even wonder, the music started again. Once more I was buoyed by its soothing explanatory rhythms. The world seemed huge, suffused with sparkling diaphanous lights; every single creature, every single object within it, swayed to its preordained melody. There were no lapses, nothing did not fit in. The castle, the surrounding countryside, the provinces stretching farther away than I could even imagine, seemed part of one harmonious whole, laid out in a pattern that was beautiful and complete. I lifted my hand, as if I could stroke the weave of the tapestry. Even the fact that there was nothing substantial to feel did not lessen my understanding of the canvas. Everything was brilliantly clear.
The music stopped again, and again I was disoriented and at a loss. I had enough clarity of mind to think, in that wretched interlude, If everyone feels as I am feeling, why would they ever allow the aliora to play for men? Then the music began again, and I did not care that without it I was forlorn and confused; I just wanted it to continue for the rest of the night.
I couldn’t say exactly how long the concert continued in this fashion. It seemed like days that we were hypnotized by the aliora, but it might have been only an hour or two. And who knows how long they would have continued playing, if not for a sudden interruption at the back of the salon. The door was flung open and a loud voice cried, “This concert can go on all night! Because I’ve brought another one to join the orchestra.”
And with that sudden, sickening cessation of sound, the aliora stopped playing. The human crowd produced equal numbers of protests and cries of astonishment. Some people leapt to their feet and pointed. I heard someone laugh. More distantly, I heard a soft, keening sound as if a child was crying. Slowly, because I knew what I would see, I turned in my chair.
To see my uncle Jaxon filling the doorway, his hands on his big hips, his smile breaking the dark riot of his beard. He was wearing travel-stained clothes and looked as if he had just this minute ridden in through the gate. Crouched beside him on the floor, scantily dressed and whimpering over the gold chains around her wrists, was an aliora girl who looked scarcely older than a child. She was so small, and so thin, that the strands of her long full hair seemed more robust than her arms and legs. I could have lifted her with one arm and cradled her against me, and still had room left in my arms to hug my sister.
The gentry around me were greeting this astonishing sight with low exclamations of delight. “Another aliora! Jaxon, you promised me first bid.” “Look at how small she is! She’ll be wonderful with children.” “The greatest hunter of our generation.” “Congratulations, Jaxon! Well done!”
I could not listen to them. I could not look at my uncle. Heedless of how I might appear to anyone who saw me, I struggled to my feet and hurried past the stage to the small servants’ door nearby. I had not gotten very far down the hallway when I came to my knees and became sick right there in the corridor.
8
Later, of course, it was Angela who told the tale. It’s possible I could have had it from Jaxon himself, except that there was no way I could have asked him the story. During the days following his arrival, I was not sure I would ever be able to speak to him again.
I don’t know at what keyholes Angela listened to come by her information, but since it tallied with what I already knew, I believed her. Although I wished with all my heart that I did not.
According to Angela, Jaxon had spent two weeks in the forest by Faelyn River, hunting for aliora. He had been incredibly patient, making an almost nonexistent camp where he would lie for hours, night and day, unmoving on the forest floor. He became so familiar to the birds and wild creatures that lived in this part of the forest that they no longer feared him; they chattered in his ears and built their nests in his beard. The creeping ivy that twined around all the great oaks wrapped around one of his ankles with a slow and spiraling motion. Seeds took root in the creases and pockets of his clothes.
He stayed there so long that eventually even the aliora grew careless. Groups of three and four came wandering by, chattering as excitedly as the squirrels and the crows. He made no attempt to snare one of these travelers, but he had an idea: He would follow them back to their home and finally see the fabled boulevards of Alora.
He waited another three days until a party of five aliora passed through—a group so large, he reasoned, that they would travel slowly and not listen for sounds on the trail behind them. Indeed, this band of travelers included two very young aliora, so young they could scarcely walk on their spindly legs, and the adults evinced much merriment as the toddlers tripped and waddled down the paths. Jaxon rose stealthily from his hiding place and followed them through the forest.
They had not gone far before the aliora he was trai
ling disappeared.
Jaxon stood on the path and stared about him, wondering if he might have imagined the whole thing. He had eaten very little in the past week, after all, and the forest could induce hallucinations. But he had absolutely believed they had walked before him, laughing and gesturing. Perhaps they had crossed some invisible boundary. Perhaps they had stepped through a warded door.
So, he took a deep breath and continued in the same direction, stepping boldly where the aliora had stepped—and he felt a feathery tingle along his whole body as he crossed into wonderland.
This was not the forest he had traversed so many times and slept in for half a month. This was a place of glancing white light, open blue skies, fantastical dwellings in riotous colors, and streets cobbled in alabaster. He stood on the edge of paradise and stared. Aliora were everywhere, congregating at open doorways, spilling out of the fanciful windows, calling to each other across the white streets. He could not see to the edge of the city. He could not count the aliora.
As he stood there, gaping, he became aware of a soft, incessant noise—a humming or a buzzing or a rapping—it changed as he listened, changed in pitch, changed in quality. It was as if bees flew by, then birds caught the melody and changed it to a unison trill, and then hundreds of kittens overtook them with their rough and boisterous purring. It seemed to be communication of a sort, though he would not call it language.
He would learn, in the next few days, that it was the sound of the aliora. It was their collective voice, the harmonious reverberations of their subconscious, attuned to each other and playing back the mood of the whole.
He would say, later, that he stood there an hour watching the streets of Alora, incapable of moving forward or stepping back into the familiar emerald forest. But perhaps it was not that long; he would also learn that time, in Alora, was fluid and hard to segment. He might only have been standing there five minutes before a completely unexpected figure bounded up to him.