Determined not to run into anyone else he didn’t want to speak with, Andreus ducked into one of the back hallways used only by servants. Footmen and maids bowed and curtsied as he hurried through the torchlit areas of the castle where power was no longer provided. His father believed that during a time of war there was no benefit in using the wind resources to illuminate areas most lords and ladies never would think to tread.
“Prince Andreus.”
Andreus cringed. Then smiled when he recognized the small boy coming down the hall, carrying a vase of winter jasmine. “Max! How are you feeling?”
“I’m well, Your Highness.” The boy skipped and almost dropped the vase. When he righted himself, he gave Andreus a gap-toothed grin. “The remedy Madame Jillian made me fixed my breathing. It tastes bad, but she says I gotta keep taking it.”
“Listen to Madame Jillian,” Andreus counseled.
The woman was waspish, but when it came to healing she knew what she was doing and she never failed to come running when Andreus had her summoned. She was also discreet, which was equally valuable.
“Oh, I will, Prince Andreus. I need to grow up strong if I’m going to be a Master of Light like you.” Before Andreus could correct him about his status as Master, Max was off again. “Did the test you was doing go all right, then? I wanted to come up and see for m’self, but Lady Yasmie had me running lots of chores. It wasn’t till she asked me to fetch these flowers that I got to look out a window at the city. The lights are on. Bright as the sun! That means it worked, right?”
The boy gulped air and Andreus laughed. “Yes. It worked. If it keeps working, the Masters of Light will change the entire system. With any luck, this winter there will be no part of the city wall that stays dark when it’s night.”
Max sighed and kicked his newly made boot against the ground. “I wish I coulda seen it today, Prince Andreus.”
“How about I take you up to the battlements so you can see it for yourself?”
“Really? That would be—” His face fell as he looked down at the vase in his hands. “I gotta get these flowers to Lady Yasmie now or my backside’ll get tarred.”
“Let me know when Lady Yasmie and her friends give you a moment to yourself.” Andreus snapped off a stem of tiny yellow flowers and said, “And tell her that Prince Andreus said the flowers pale in beauty in comparison to her.”
Max frowned. “Do girls really like when you say that kind of silly stuff?”
He thought of the way he and Lady Yasmie had spent the day in her rooms a few weeks ago. “Yes, Max. They really do. Now hurry off and keep the sass to a minimum. I don’t want you to get thrown out of the castle just after I got you in.”
“Don’t worry, Your Highness.” And with a half bow, the kid bolted down the hall, almost barreling into two very young servants as they rounded the corner. Whatever Max said to them had one of the girls blushing. Andreus laughed. A quick study, then. Good. Max would need his wits if he was going to make a go of it in the castle. The boy glanced back toward Andreus, gave him a jaunty salute, and hurried off.
Hard to believe Max had been lying in the dirt, barely breathing, just a few short weeks ago. Andreus had spotted him when he was riding back from inspecting the wiring on the city’s outer walls. The child was almost blue under all the grime by the time Madame Jillian got her hands on him.
Despite her care, and his obvious cure, his family didn’t want him back. They believed devils were possessing him every time he struggled for air. If they could believe such a thing, Andreus had thundered, then they didn’t deserve him. Breathing condition or no, Max would serve in the castle as a page. When he was old enough he could act as Andreus’s squire. He would make sure the child had a place—just like his mother and sister made sure Andreus retained his, despite his own secret. It was the just thing to do.
By the time Andreus had climbed the narrow servants’ staircase to the third floor and reached the double doors of his parents’ solar, he was out of breath. He leaned against the wall for several minutes and waited for the tightness in his chest to dissipate. When it did, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and made sure his cloak was arranged to hide the worst of the grease stains marring his white shirt. Then he knocked. Less than ten seconds later, Oben, his mother’s longtime chamberlain, opened the dark wooden doors and Andreus stepped into the room that he and Carys had spent much of their childhood avoiding.
The rug on the floor had been replaced at least a dozen times since those years, his mother always searching for the perfect style. This one was yellow. Blue velvet-covered chairs he didn’t remember being here on his last visit as well as several lounges were scattered throughout the room. When his father was out of the castle, as he was today, the seats were almost always filled with women knitting or doing needlework. Mother liked to monitor the gossip circulating through the palace and use the best bits as she saw fit. Now, however, the only people in the room were his mother, Oben, and two of the Queen’s attendants pouring tea.
“You summoned me, Mother?” Andreus said as his mother turned.
Her dark brown hair was the same color as his, but her eyes were the deepest of browns—very different from his hazel ones. Right now her dark eyes shimmered with anger. Perfect since she was wearing a dress of red. Still, his mother’s voice was controlled as she spoke. “The word summoned implies that I had to compel you as your queen to visit. One might assume you would not have come had it simply been your mother who asked for your company.”
“I misspoke. Summoned was the wrong word.” He changed tactics. “Forgive me, Mother. Of course I enjoy your company.”
“Do you?” She looked at him as she crossed to the table and took a seat. “I can’t help but notice that you have only visited with me three times since your father and brother went to observe the guard fighting the war.”
“I’ve been busy, Mother.” Andreus slipped into the seat across from the Queen and presented her the stem of flowers. “Besides, Micah told me you were going to be spending time with Imogen. Something to do with wedding plans and picking out dresses. Activities not aligned with my enthusiasms.”
“Lady Imogen has no need of my help, and if I have my way she won’t be around long enough to become the next Queen.” His mother sniffed the flower before placing it on the table. She then picked up her tea and downed the entire cup in one gulp. She gave a contented sigh and signaled her maid for a refill. “Would you like some, dear?”
“No.” He put his hand over the cup. He’d learned from his sister’s troubles that it was best to be cautious of his mother’s brew. One was never certain what it might contain.
His mother looked down at his hand and stared long and hard. The silence was deafening with condemnation. When he looked down he realized why.
The grease. It not only streaked up the back of the hand, but was dug under his fingernails.
Quickly, he gave his mother his best boyish smile. “My apologies for my appearance, Mother. I was heading to clean up before I got your message. I figured it was best not to keep you waiting just because of a little dirt.”
It was a lot of dirt, but at the moment he failed to think quantity mattered.
“Your father is right. You shouldn’t be working as a commoner. It makes you look like one. People look to their kings and queens for inspiration, especially in times of war. No one is inspired by soil.”
Clearly, his mother hadn’t met Max.
“I’m sure you didn’t call me here to discuss the dirt under my fingernails. You were talking about Imogen. Did the two of you have a falling out?”
His mother took another long drink of tea as she studied him over her cup. Finally, she sat the delicate cup down on its saucer and signaled the maids to leave. As soon as they closed the door, she leaned forward and said, “I’ve asked Imogen several times to look into the future and tell me what she sees. Do you know what she says?”
“No.” Now that Imogen had made a point of asking him to keep his d
istance, he knew very little what was in her mind or her heart.
“She says there will be darkness. When the darkness fades, two paths will appear in front of our kingdom and there is no telling which one will be chosen.”
“Sounds like the same kind of mystical nonsense Seer Kheldin used to say. You were always happy with his fortune-telling.”
“Fortune-tellers guess at the future,” his mother snapped as she pushed back her chair and began to pace across the yellow carpet. “Seers have true powers. How else do you explain Seer Kheldin’s ability to shift the position of the windmills to perfectly capture the winds?”
The Masters of Light’s observational abilities sprang to mind as well as about a dozen other nonmystical rationalizations, but Andreus held his tongue. His mother was a firm believer in the magical powers of seers, their ability to call the winds, read the stars, and therefore know the future. She loved to lecture him on the legend of the Artis root, and how it had been used for centuries to test seers. While it made for a nice story, Andreus had a hard time believing anyone could speak to the wind and call it to obey, let alone get glimpses of the future from staring at the night sky.
He believed only what he could see with his own two eyes.
But his mother had faith, especially after the prediction Seer Kheldin made before Andreus and Carys were born. Andreus had lived his entire life in fear that one of the four members of the Council that served back then would remember the prediction, made years before his birth, and take action against him. If any of those Council members shared that information, someone else could spot his secret. If he was condemned for it, what then? Andreus didn’t wish to find out what darkness would come. So, outside the walls, he made sure to keep out of sight of the Council. It was how he began studying the windmills. And fortune had it, the Council wasn’t the type to get their exercise walking on the battlements.
“So Lady Imogen gave you a glimpse of the future and you aren’t happy with what she saw?” he asked. “That hardly seems like a fair complaint. Akin to hating the sky because it sometimes contains clouds.”
“No,” his mother chided as she walked to the table and poured another cup of her tea. “I’m concerned because that is all the girl has seen. For the last six weeks, I’ve asked her to give me a reading and she keeps repeating the same vision over and over. I hate to say it, but I fear your brother’s intended is a fraud.”
Andreus waited for his mother’s next salvo, but instead of continuing to rant as she often did, she just sipped her tea as if waiting for him to speak. About what, he had no idea. Had he missed something? After several long moments under his mother’s dark-eyed stare, he shifted in his seat. “Is that all, Mother?”
She put the cup down with a clatter. “Of course, it isn’t. Do you not see what I am about? Your brother’s marriage will put our entire kingdom in jeopardy. We are at war. If the winds fail us and the Xhelozi attack throughout the cold months, Eden will be greatly weakened and our enemies will rally their troops and advance. With Imogen’s lack of skill, we won’t even see the onslaught coming until they are at our gates. It is up to you to do something about it.”
“Me?” He stood, pushing his chair back. “What do you want me to do? Shove her off the North Tower?”
The way she stopped and thought about it before shaking her head made Andreus shudder. “Of course not,” she said. “Micah needs to understand that he’s making a terrible mistake in marrying someone so weak. We have been at war with Adderton for years—with the guard fighting our neighbors, none could be spared to hunt the Xhelozi. Now we have a seer who cannot help us harness the power we require to keep the beasts away. Your brother needs to change course—before it is too late.”
“Micah won’t listen to me.” In the last few months he’d barely listened to their father or the Council. “And even if he would, he can’t remove the seer of Eden from power. Only the King has the power to order the seer’s death and appoint another.” Which Father wouldn’t do because removing Imogen would be akin to admitting that a mistake had been made.
“You misunderstand me, Andreus.” Mother walked slowly across the room and stared out the window at the darkness beyond. “I wasn’t asking you to talk to your brother. Trust me, I’ve tried. No, I want you to illustrate for him his lack of judgment in a way that only you can.”
Andreus frowned. “I’m not sure what you are asking of me, Mother.”
His mother turned from the window and faced him. “I’m not asking this of you as a mother. I am asking it as your Queen. Until Micah returns from the battlegrounds, I want you to spend as much time as possible with the fair Imogen. Tell her that you wish to hear her opinions on your new designs or whatever blandishment you think flatters her most. Then use those talents my maids say you’ve employed on them with great success. Convince her to make a mistake your brother cannot forgive.”
“Mother, you’re not suggesting . . . ” But she was. A mere glance at her expression made it clear. She was suggesting exactly what her words implied. His mother—his queen—was instructing him to seduce his brother’s fiancée into his bed.
Carefully, he put his hands on the table and said, “I believe, dear mother, that you’ve had too much tea.”
He glanced across the room at Oben, but his face was expressionless. After all these years of attending the Queen, Oben had become proficient at masking his thoughts.
Before this got any worse, which was hard to imagine, Andreus said, “I’m going to leave now and forget we’ve had this conversation.”
“You won’t forget,” she insisted, crossing the room to stand at his side. “You cannot forget because I am not asking. This is a command, and if you expect the Council to allow you to continue the work you like so much, you will do as I bid. And while you do, think of what happens to our windmills if there are no winds to keep them turning. Think about the war your father has us fighting with no second sight to guide his choices. Despite what you might think, we need a seer who can help the kingdom survive.” His mother took his hand in hers and looked at him with love. “Your sister and I have made so many sacrifices for you. It is time for you to repay that with some sacrifice of your own.”
No. He couldn’t do what she asked.
Because he already had.
Careful to keep the memories of Imogen in the windmill from showing on his face, he kissed his mother on the cheek and replied, “If that is all, Mother, I have an appointment to keep.”
His mother sighed. “Fine. But we shall talk again soon, and I expect to hear that you have done what you must for the good of the realm.”
When he turned toward the door she added, “I love you, you know.”
“I know.” He felt the same tug at his heart as always when she said those words. For all his mother’s faults, she did love him. The fact that he was still here in this castle, threatening all of their futures, proved it. “I love you, too, Mother.”
As soon as Oben closed the doors behind him, Andreus stopped and sagged against the wall.
Seduce Imogen.
He’d like nothing better. That night had played over and over again in his mind. The wind howling through the night. Her gentle hand on his as he coaxed a rare laugh from her. That touch was like fire that burned away the rest of the world until there was only the beating of the blades, the cranking of the gears, and her.
She was a seeress. One of the fakes that threatened his very life because of made-up predictions. Just days before she’d agreed to marry his brother.
And Andreus hadn’t cared.
Her mouth.
Her skin.
Her shy voice and downcast eyes that seemed only to come alive when she stood on the battlements and looked up at the sky. Or at him.
But she was marrying Micah because Micah wanted her and what Micah wanted, he got. Andreus had wanted to hate the seeress the day she told him that Micah had instructed her not to spend time alone with him again. He’d tried to hate her. But whenever he
saw Imogen standing on the battlements alone or cringing as his brother barked commands at her, he felt the same tug of desire to take her in his arms and protect her from harm.
With the Queen’s sights set on her, acceptance would not be easy to come by for Imogen. If his mother didn’t get what she wanted from him, then she’d employ others. Maybe she already had.
He didn’t care.
He wasn’t about to get involved. Imogen was just a girl. And he had lots of those. Wasn’t one waiting for him right now in the stables, ready to say yes to whatever he wanted?
Andreus cast one last look at the double doors of his parents’ rooms and headed for the stairs. He’d wash, change, and bring Mirabella a present so she wouldn’t sulk over his tardiness. Sulking took away from—
Andreus stopped.
The lights flickered—
and suddenly everything went black.
3
Carys sucked in air as the lights at the top of the enormous white stone staircase flickered once . . . twice . . . and then went out. For a second everything was still. Then people began to scream.
Spinning, she looked down at Garden City spread far below her and watched as the wall surrounding it, too, plunged into blackness.
“Highness, you have to get inside the castle,” the most experienced of her two guards yelled as the other stood frozen at the top of the stairs. “We might be under attack. You have to go.”
Attack? She squinted into the dimness as people screamed. No bells tolled to signal that the guard had spotted a foe. But if they were under attack, she had to find her brother. She had to get to Andreus.
Now.
Since she hadn’t carried her stilettos with her into the city, Carys turned toward the young guard who was standing still as stone. She reached out and yanked free the knife the guard wore at his belt.
“Your Highness—”