Senrid

  The hallway outside was empty. I paused at Senrid’s room, then remembered what the maid had said. Senrid had sent her, which meant he was already awake. What had we gotten, then, maybe six hours of sleep? It felt like six minutes’ worth.

  I rubbed my gritty eyes and looked around. Without Senrid, I’d have to make my way to the dining room on my own.

  What had Ndand said? I pictured her description of the castle in my mind, and bucketed down the hall to a very grand stairway. An instant of temptation to slide down the long, polished banister was easily squashed. Ndand would never do such a thing.

  Instead I plodded down, polishing those horrible spectacles on my skirt so I wouldn’t risk tripping on the stairs, until I reached the first floor.

  Past high carved doors that opened into somber but beautifully furnished rooms. The occasional guard or servant kept me from nosing into each. Ndand wouldn’t do that, either.

  As it turned out, my sniffer clued me in. I smelled coffee and hot bread and some kind of baked fruit. Shoving the spectacles into place, I walked into the room from which the food smells emanated.

  A long table hove into view, with two blotches at the far end, the big one pulling out a chair.

  Peek.

  Senrid at the head of the table, a half-eaten breakfast before him. He was dressed in his usual clothes—a plain button-shirt with long sleeves, and plain trousers and shoes. Tdanerend was in a uniform, though he didn’t have all the medals and junk on. He was sitting down, his face lined with ill-humor. He looked at Senrid, who returned his gaze with a bland smile.

  “Good morning, children,” Tdanerend said. It sounded like ritual.

  “Good morning Father,” I said.

  There was no reaction, so I’d done that much right.

  A moment later Senrid said, “Good morning, Uncle,” in a bland voice that matched his expression.

  Senrid then turned to me.

  I ducked my eyes behind the lenses, saw only a blob.

  “Good morning, Ndand,” Senrid said politely. “Sleep well?”

  “Mmm,” I replied, for I couldn’t lie without sarcasm.

  Quiet, efficient gray-clad servants set plates down before Tdanerend and me.

  Peek.

  Relief. Ndand’s breakfast foods, toasted oatcakes and eggs-and-cheese, were nothing I couldn’t stomach.

  Tdanerend started talking about the day’s plans. The way he described all he had to do sounded suspicious to me. Not like he was complaining, more like someone who talks in a foreign language in front of people—while making it clear he’s talking about them.

  I snuck quick peeks at them both, but I have a feeling I could have thrown the spectacles across the room and stood on my head for all the attention Tdanerend paid to me. His focus was completely on Senrid, who sat with his hands in his lap, his round face blank of any expression but innocent inquiry.

  I would not have trusted a kid with an expression like that for one second, but Tdanerend’s sharp looks slowly turned into complacency.

  After Tdanerend had made it clear how helpless and ignorant Senrid was of the crown matters pressing for the Regent’s attention, and how much incomprehensible work said Regent was doing on Senrid’s behalf, he rose with a dismissive gesture, promising Senrid that he could preside over the executions. If he finished his own work by then.

  Tdanerend had scarcely eaten half a piece of bread—but I’ll bet he had a big, tasty meal waiting somewhere else. Not that he was fat, but he wasn’t nearly as thin for a man as Senrid was for a kid.

  He left.

  Senrid gobbled down a few more bites of food. I noticed that his knuckles were splotchy pink.

  I was already done, since I hadn’t had to talk—or to hide my hands.

  Senrid jumped up. “Let’s go.”

  I didn’t ask where. Did Ndand already know? Probably. And in any case she wouldn’t ask.

  With quick steps Senrid led the way down more halls, and finally through a door. He didn’t speak until we were outside, out of hearing of all the guards. Then he laughed. “Don’t-tell, but I got real practice today, a training session with Keriam, not just the usual, but also with swords. Now I know for certain my dear uncle doesn’t want him doing it. Nothing he says, it’s what he doesn’t say. ‘Kings don’t lower themselves to using their hands. They have warriors to do that.’ Hah! Keriam told me my father fought three duels, one of them when he was not much older than I am now, and won all three. Three duels, yet I’m not ‘ready’ for serious training with steel. The masters’re all afraid of Uncle. But Keriam isn’t.”

  All this gabble rambled right past me. In the bleak early morning light Senrid looked really tired, his eyes marked almost like a grownup’s. ‘Practice’?

  I found out it meant training himself in stuff he could practice on his own, like rope-climbing, and knife-throwing, and archery. This Keriam (whoever he was, and I didn’t want to meet him) had seen to it Senrid also learned contact fighting, though he was reluctant to directly cross Tdanerend and teach Senrid sword fighting. When he couldn’t have Keriam, Senrid drilled himself on the ones he could do alone, every day, on his own.

  What it meant at the time was that Senrid had been up a lot earlier than I had.

  “You look awful,” I said. “Dead.”

  Senrid grinned. “You look worse.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Do.”

  “Don’t.” I said it flatly.

  “Do.” He seemed to enjoy being contradicted.

  “D-O-N-O-T,” I said, forgetting Ndand for a moment.

  Panic!

  But Senrid said only, “We’ll ask someone.” We reached the stables, which were enormous, and already a hive of activity. Beautifully bred horses were being led out and in, and everywhere in sight were black-and-tan-clad warriors, some with these sabers at their sides with a subtle and wicked-looking curve at the very end, and their helms, instead of having a steel point, like the guards’, had long horse-tails.

  Senrid walked up to one of the stationary guards. “Who looks worse, her or me?” he demanded.

  The guard looked expressionlessly from one of us to the other, then—of course—he pointed at me. “You,” he said. Senrid gave me a triumphant grin. “See?”

  “Bias,” I said—realizing that that was what had caused the grin. Senrid had been testing his status.

  When Kyale woke up in that dark cell, the first thing on her mind was Faline. The second thing was an aching elbow. With wincing care she felt the scab, then she turned to the wall.

  “Faline?”

  “Kitty!” The voice was faint but cheerful-sounding. “Get up close to the wall!”

  Kitty pressed herself up against it.

  “Can you hear me?” Faline’s voice was now much louder.

  “Yes!”

  “Then I can talk normal. You must be in the last cell, then, on the other side of me. Thought I heard ‘em stick someone in, but I didn’t know who. How are ya?”

  “Oh, Faline, I’m so sorry I got you and that warrior fellow into this mess.”

  “Kitty!” Faline laughed. “Yer a dumb cluck—though not as dumb or as clucky as these-here Marloven gaboons—if you think you have to apologize!”

  “But I’m the one who told Senrid how his plan was wrecked.”

  “Oh, he woulda found out anyway,” Faline returned comfortingly. Or, at least, she tried—and Kitty appreciated the attempt. “So. How’d you end up in this stinkpot?”

  “That Senrid,” Kitty exclaimed with as much disgust as she could muster. “I was standing in my room, and all of a sudden he was right there in front of me! I hardly got a chance to yell before he grabbed me—and the next thing I know I’m in that horrible throne room, and that disgusting slob Tdanerend spouted a lot of gunk at me about how my mother was black magic so I ought to rejoin the ‘right side’ and help join the kingdoms again—which means betraying Leander! And would I consent to a spell to ‘help’ me see the right way again!” She sigh
ed. “I pretended to go to sleep and he got mad, and stuck me in a closet…” She stopped, remembering what had happened afterward, and wondering if the guards listened.

  “Oh, Kitty, you don’t have to say any more. We all know Tdanerend is a footling clackbrain.”

  “That’s for sure,” Kitty said, trying to figure out what was safe to say—and what wasn’t. “So what happened to you?”

  Faline told her story, with lots of colorful insult added, so much that Kitty found herself laughing in spite of fear, and aches, and hunger.

  Then there was a pause; apparently the warrior in the far cell wanted to know with whom Faline was talking. Faline ran back and forth between walls, and so the three whiled away time having a sort of lopsided conversation with Faline in the middle.

  While they were talking, I was riding in the wind.

  The low hills around Choreid Dhelerei were beautiful, dotted with smooth, pale-barked winter-bare trees. Plains stretched away to the west so vast they met the sky without a bump, covered in the tall golden grass of impending winter. In the distance, to the north, was a line of slightly higher hills, like baby dragon teeth.

  The horses we rode were fast and strong and mettlesome, the saddles mere pads, the reins attached to halters and not bits. I was glad that I’d had plenty of practice at bareback riding, because Senrid liked going at breakneck pace. We raced, one horse pulling ahead and then the other. Senrid was by far the better rider, but I’d learned how to hold on through leaps and turns by riding Hreealdar, who has a tendency to turn into lightning and zap across the countryside—the horse form being an occasional diversion, not a natural form.

  The cold, clean-smelling wind revived me despite my lack of sleep, and got my brain racing again. We dared each other, doing stupid tricks. At first I was wary, not certain if Ndand ever did anything reckless, but Senrid never seemed to question, and I wasn’t about to let any boy out-dare me, especially a black magic clod.

  Not that he acted like a bully or a creep toward me. That was the weird thing. I enjoyed that ride, and so did he—I could see it—and he didn’t seem to mind when my horse pulled ahead. His company was almost agreeable as long as I didn’t think about how this cheery kid had cheerily nabbed one of my friends in order to have her put to death. I was glad I’d soon be gone. I didn’t ever want to see Senrid again. I felt guilty for enjoying his company—and I didn’t want to know what kind of horrible creep his skunk-stench of an uncle would twist him into being.

  His mood changed when, at last, it was time to go back to the castle. Senrid grinned occasionally, but it was a toothy, arrogant, challenging grin.

  At the time I didn’t know why his mood had changed, but I know now. He hated being kept out of the real work of ruling, but didn’t know how to learn what he knew was an enormous job. Tdanerend’s ‘teaching’, especially of late, was mostly sessions with magic books while Senrid, who showed a natural aptitude for magic, was assigned to come up with complicated wards, or spells to break wards.

  What I did figure out, from his running stream of words, was that magic protections spells of various types were his ‘chores’—and he’d already completed them while I’d been asleep. Before all that exercise with Keriam, whoever he was. Just so he could have time for this ride. It indicated a ferocious amount of self-discipline—much more than I had. It was all very unsettling, and I wanted to get away and forget them all.

  So at last the ride came to an end, and we trotted through the great city gates. I marked the way carefully, peering over the tops of those accursed spectacles. Senrid had actually stopped talking for once. He brooded in silence until we rode through the castle gates, and reached the stables.

  When we climbed down from our mounts, I felt exhaustion press on me again. Senrid tossed his reins to the stablehands who ran up.

  I could not prevent a gigantic yawn. Senrid laughed, and I shrugged. “I’d like a nap.” Surely Ndand would say that.

  “Yep,” Senrid said, squinting up at the blank windows of the castle. His eyes were marked underneath.

  “But Father—” I started to amend.

  Senrid cut in, saying in a low voice, “Don’t-tell, but I can hardly wait until I really am king. No more of his humiliating rules disguised as teaching. How I hate wearing the crown and knowing…and knowing that everyone else knows… that I have no power. That they think I strut around wearing the crown and don’t know the difference.”

  None of this had been in Ndand’s information about Senrid. She’d told us—and it was plain that she’d believed it—that Senrid loved wearing his father’s crown.

  “Almost as much as I hate standing there in an academy scrub’s rankless uniform. I don’t believe he’s ever going to let me train with the others. Just excuses and more excuses until…” He opened his hands. “Either I win, or die.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Senrid said, not with his usual careless cheer, but in a low, hard voice, and without the don’t-tell preface, “I’d send him up against the wall today instead of those others if I could.”

  Cold fear gripped me; we were in the main courtyard now, and what if someone overheard? Maybe Senrid had enough self-discipline for five kids, but he wasn’t any better than I am at regulating his moods when he was overtired.

  I said carefully, “So you don’t want to wear the crown today, is that it?”

  Senrid lowered his voice to a whisper, shaped by the angry snap of his consonants. “I’ll try to pull rank today, see what happens. And if it doesn’t work, back to the cheery little boy act. He doesn’t see through it yet—which is probably why I’m still alive.”

  “Hah,” I snorted.

  He gave me an odd look. “Why did you say that?”

  “Father’s gullibility.” I bit my lip hard.

  Senrid, luckily, didn’t think it worth worrying about. He shrugged, glaring up at the castle towers. The tiredness marks made his eyes look more gray than blue. “Second watch. We’ve got a bell or two to kill, since his scutwork got done long ago, so what’ll we do to look busy?”

  “You’re the boss,” I said.

  “Cut the sarcasm,” Senrid retorted. He turned to face me, his eyes narrowed with question. “Not that I mind, but…”

  I knew from his tone that ‘Ndand’ was acting out of character.

  Glad that Leander had thought to ask Ndand for any private lingo, I retorted back, “Don’t tread on me.”

  Senrid laughed. “Wow, last time I heard that was, what? You couldn’t have been much more than six, and I thought I was so old and tough, copying the academy boys’ slang—”

  “But you’re still just a little boy,” I said in a sappy voice.

  He laughed again, the subject successfully changed. “As long as Uncle keeps seeing me as a little boy I stay alive,” he said, still laughing. “What d’you want to wager if I’d sprouted up like Leander—” He drew his finger across his neck.

  I laughed too, because Ndand would, but it wasn’t really funny—it gave me the stomach-wheems.

  Meanwhile, in the cave on the border, both kids had sunk into fitful slumber. Little rays of sun fingered into the cave as the morning progressed, and eventually one touched the boy’s left foot.

  SEVEN

  The remaining hours before we had to get ready for the execution were not exactly relaxing.

  We ate lunch—or gobbled it—and then came Senrid’s idea of fun. I had to stand on guard at the door while he sorted through papers in Tdanerend’s study, and all the time the Regent was down the hall in the throne room, acting like the Big Cheese in front of a gaggle of his klunks. I could hear his voice echoing and booming away as he speechified. I dared a peek into the study once, wondering what Senrid thought he could possibly learn while pawing so quickly through the piles of papers, but it wasn’t my problem.

  When he came out, muttering about corruption, and how Keriam was outflanked by incompetent bootlickers, I ignored this babble and paid attention to where we were walking.
The castle was gigantic and confusing enough without Senrid always taking different shortcuts.

  Finally he declared it was time to get ready. By then I was really tense. The prospect of managing the execution rescue was scary, but I tried to console myself with the thought that if I succeeded my reward would be to leave this terrible place forever.

  If. A mighty frightening ‘if; this was not like pulling off a caper against an old bumbler like Kwenz.

  Senrid led the way, and we slogged upstairs for the usual forty-year trudge. At least this time I recognized a lot of the turns and stairways before we got to them.

  When we reached his room, I said, “Hurry up. I’ll wait out here.”

  Senrid looked critically at me, and I glanced down and saw horse-hair on my skirts, and my muddy hem. “There’s time for a bath, I made certain of that,” he said.

  The idea of having to be spruce for an execution annoyed me so much that I zapped him with 100-proof CJ-patented sarcasm. “Yeah, thanks, very thoughtful,” I snarled. “Gotta look nice to watch people die hideously.”

  As soon as it was out I regretted it. Too tired to think of a recovery, I blundered away and slammed into Ndand’s room, where I jellyfished onto the nearest chair and stared in horror at the floor. Had I ruined everything?

  “Nice work,” I snarled in Mearsiean. My home tongue was not comforting. “CJ the bigmouth. Arrrgh! Talk about squidbrains!”

  Deciding that I needed to soak my head, if not my self, I flung off my gown and got into the ever-ready steaming bath. Someone had laid out an especially fine gown of black with gold trim—their colors. Groaning, I got out, dried off fast, for the bath chamber was cold. I was busy lacing up the dress when Senrid called from the other room:

  “Ndand? Done? Come out.”

  Remembering the illusion, I flipped my hair back, and opened the door. All right, time to face the music.

  Senrid stood before me, his hair damp, wearing that black-and-tan uniform and the polished blackweave riding boots.

  “I know you’re tired,” he said. “I am too. So why try to pick a fight? And then run off like that?”