The Beauty of Darkness

  She stared through the trees, her eyes clouded in thought. “Nothing is ever simple,” she finally said. “But I have no other choice. Lives depend on it.”

  She shifted on the blanket and faced me fully. “Which is why we need to talk.”

  She shot questions at me, one after another, a methodical urgency to them. Now I knew at least some of what occupied her thoughts as she rode. I confirmed her suspicion that the Komizar would begin marching after first thaw. As I doled out answers, I realized how little I actually had to give her. It made me see that, for all of my conspiring with the Komizar, he had kept me in the dark more than he had confided in me. I had never been a true partner in this plan of his, only one of many to help him accomplish it.

  “There must be other traitors besides the Chancellor and Royal Scholar. Didn’t you deliver any other messages?”

  “I only delivered the one message when I was thirteen. He mostly kept me out of Civica altogether. I tracked down deserters, or he sent me to deliver retribution to outlying garrisons.”

  She chewed on her lip for a moment, then asked me something odd. She wanted to know if we would pass any place where messages could be sent.

  “Turquoi Tra. There’s a relay post of messengers there. They’re fast but costly. Why?” I asked.

  “I might want to write home.”

  “I thought you said the Chancellor would intercept all messages.”

  A fierce glint shone in her eyes. “Yes. He will.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  On the fourth day, we hadn’t gotten far when Kaden said, “We have company.”

  “I saw,” I answered sharply.

  “What do you want to do?” Tavish asked.

  I kept my eyes straight ahead. “Nothing. Just keep going.”

  “She’s waiting for an invitation,” Jeb said.

  “She’s not going to get one!” I snapped. “I told her she couldn’t come. She’ll turn around.”

  Orrin smacked his lips. “If she made it through three nights alone, I doubt she’ll give up that easily.”

  I growled with all the fury of Griz, and snapped my reins, turning my horse around to gallop back toward Natiya. She stopped her horse when she saw me coming.

  I came alongside her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Riding,” she said defiantly.

  “This is no holiday, Natiya! Turn around! You can’t come with me!”

  “I can go where I want.”

  “And it just happens to be in the same direction I’m going?”

  She shrugged. Her audacity appalled me. “Did you steal that horse?” I asked, trying to shame her.

  “It’s mine.”

  “And Reena said you could come?”

  “She knew she couldn’t stop me.”

  She was not the same girl I had met in the vagabond camp. I hated what I saw in her expression. Her cheerful innocence was gone and replaced with alarming hunger. She wanted more than I could give her. I needed her to go back.

  “If you come along, you’re probably going to die,” I told her.

  “I heard you’re going to do the same. Why didn’t that stop you?”

  Her eyes were clever and sharp like Aster’s, and I looked away. I couldn’t do this. I wanted to strike her, shake her, and make her see how very much she was not welcome here.

  Kaden rode over. “Hello, Natiya,” he said, and nodded like we were all out for a spring ride.

  “Oh, for the love of gods! Tell her she has to go back! Make her listen.”

  He smiled. “The way you listen?”

  I looked back at Natiya, a bitter gall climbing up my throat. She met my stare, unblinking, her decision shining in her eyes. Moisture sprang to my face and I was afraid I might lose my morning meal. She was so young. Almost as young as Aster and far more naïve. What if—

  I wiped the sweat from my upper lip.

  “Come along!” I snapped. “And keep up! We aren’t going to coddle you!”

  Journey’s end. The promise. The hope.

  Is this the place of staying Ama?

  A vale. A meadow. A home.

  A scrabble of ruins we can piece together.

  A place far from the scavengers.

  The child looks at me, her eyes full of hope. Waiting.

  For now, I tell her.

  The children scatter. There is laughter. Chatter.

  There is hope.

  But there is still no promise.

  Some things will never be as Before.

  Some things you cannot bring back.

  Some things are gone forever.

  And other things last just as long.

  Like the scavengers.

  One day, they will come for us again.

  —The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

  CHAPTER FORTY

  RAFE

  The sun.

  Had I mentioned the sun?

  Maneuver your opponent so the sun is in his eyes, not yours.

  Dodge and undercut. I hadn’t gone over that. But it wasn’t as if she didn’t already have good sword fighting skills. Maybe I should have given her a lighter sword.

  There were so many things I could have said—and not just about swords.

  I knew I was second-guessing myself. I had been for most of the journey.

  “Your Majesty, we’re almost there. I’ve been talking for twenty minutes, and you haven’t heard a word I said.”

  “I heard you say it yesterday, Sven. And the day before. Kings do this, they don’t say that. They listen, they weigh, they act. They take, but they give. They push but aren’t pushed. Does that sum it up? You’re acting as if I didn’t grow up in court.”

  “You didn’t,” he reminded me.

  I frowned. For the most part, he was right. Yes, I’d had weekly meals with my parents, and I was included as a matter of protocol in most official functions, but for the many years I was under Sven’s tutelage, I had lived with cadets, pledges, and most recently, with other soldiers. Dalbreck’s kings were soldiers first, and I had been raised no differently from how my own father had been raised, but in the last year, he had been pulling me closer into the fold. He had me sit in on high-level meetings and counseled me on them afterward. I wondered if he had seen his reign coming to an end.

  “We’re still a good ten miles out,” I said. “I’m ready, I promise you.”

  “Maybe,” he begrudged me. “But your mind is elsewhere.”

  My hands tightened on my reins. I knew he wouldn’t let this go.

  “You did what you had to do,” he went on. “Letting her go was an act of courage.”

  Or stupidity.

  “She’s on her way to a kingdom riddled with traitors who want her dead,” I finally blurted out.

  “Then why did you let her go?”

  I didn’t answer. He knew. He’d already said it. Because I had no choice. And that was the biting irony. If I had forced her back to Dalbreck, I’d have lost Lia just the same. But as long as Sven had opened the door to what occupied my mind, I ventured further, asking a question that had circled in my head like a mad crow pecking at my flesh.

  “I know the Assassin loves her.” I swallowed, then added more quietly, “Do you think she loves him?”

  Sven coughed and shifted in his saddle. He grimaced. “That’s not my area of expertise. I can’t advise you on—”

  “I am not asking for advice, Sven! Just your opinion! You seem to have one on everything else!”

  If he had knocked me off my saddle it would have been within his rights. And it wouldn’t have been the first time. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Very well. From what I observed at the Sanctum, and the way she interceded on his behalf when we captured him, I would say … yes, she does care for him. But love? Of that, I’m not so sure. The way she looked at you was—”

  A trumpet sounded. “Troops!” the flag bearer called.

  We were too far out to be greeted by a squad yet, but when Sven and I pushed our horses forwa
rd for a better view, there it was. Not just a squad but what looked like a whole Dalbretch regiment heading our way. Double the numbers in our caravan. To stop us, or escort us in? It was not customary for outpost caravans to be greeted this way—but then challenged kings were not usually part of a returning caravan.

  “Arms ready,” I called. The order rolled back along the caravan like a war chant. “Move forward.”

  As we got closer, Captain Azia shouted more orders and the caravan spread out, creating a wide, formidable line. Shields were raised. We were facing our own—not exactly how I had envisioned beginning my reign. The kingdom was more divided than I’d thought. Sven rode on one side of me, and Azia on the other. Faces came into view, General Draeger foremost among them.

  “I’m not liking this,” Sven grumbled.

  “Let’s give him a chance to do what’s right,” I said. I turned and yelled, “Hold!” to those behind me, then moved forward with my officers to meet him and his officers.

  Several yards from one another, we all stopped.

  “General Draeger,” I said firmly, and dipped my head in acknowledgment, trying to avoid a bloody outcome.

  “Prince Jaxon,” he returned.

  Prince. The heat rose on my neck. My eyes locked onto his.

  “You’ve been out too long in the field, General,” I said. “You must not be aware, my title has changed—and yours has not.”

  He smiled. “I think you’re the one who’s been gone too long.”

  “Agreed. But I’m here now to take my rightful place on the throne.”

  He returned my stare, neither correcting himself nor backing down. He was a young man for a general, no more than forty, and had been in the highest military position for three years, but perhaps he felt he had already outgrown it. He glanced at Sven and Azia, then briefly to the long line of soldiers behind us, assessing their numbers, and possibly their resolve.

  “And now you think you’re here to stay put and rule?” he asked.

  I answered him with an icy stare. He was pushing his limits and mine. “I am.”

  He made a move, reaching for the pommel of his saddle, and Azia’s hand went to his sword.

  “Steady,” I said.

  The general swung down from his horse, and the troops behind him did the same. He looked into my eyes, sure and unafraid, and nodded. “Welcome home then, King Jaxon.” He dropped to one knee. “Long live the king,” he called. The soldiers both before and behind me, echoed his shout.

  I looked at him and wondered, was he a truer subject to Dalbreck than any of us, willing to challenge me and risk his life to ensure stability for his kingdom, or had he judged the loyalty of those behind me against those behind him and decided to take the more prudent action? I would believe the former for now.

  He rose and embraced me, and after some quickly offered condolences, the caravan continued, General Draeger riding between me and the captain. Tension still ran high. I saw Sven eyeing the general and exchanging glances with the officer on his right. Keep an eye on him. Stay close. Be aware. All the hidden messages I had learned to read in Sven’s eyes from years under his tutelage.

  As we neared the gates, the general rode ahead to direct his troops, and I turned to Sven.

  “Here,” I said, reaching behind me into my pack, rustling blindly through the contents until I found what I needed. “Take this to Merrick at the chanterie first thing. Judging by Draeger’s greeting, I’m not going to get a chance to slip away for several days. It’s a little something I lifted. Don’t show it to anyone else, and don’t tell anyone else. Merrick will know what to do.”

  Sven looked at me incredulously. “You stole this?”

  “You of everyone, Sven, should know that kings don’t steal things. We simply make acquisitions. Isn’t that in your bag of royal maxims?”

  Sven sighed and mumbled almost to himself. “Why do I feel that this acquisition is only going to bring trouble?”

  It already has, I thought, and now I was hoping it might bring the opposite, some sort of peace. I wondered if, in the list of royal truths, a king was allowed hope.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Lessons were learned, miles covered, messages sent, days of rain endured, arguments settled, weapons mastered. Natiya was exhausted, as she should have been. I had promised her that this would be no holiday, and I made sure it wasn’t. At times she stared at me with loathing, and other times I held her while she choked back sobs. I taught her everything I knew and made sure everyone else did the same. She had as many bruises, knots, and blisters as I did. Her arms ached from throwing a knife. I made her use both until one arm’s aim was as good as the other’s—and then I prayed she’d never have to use any of her newly acquired skills.

  Natiya made an uneasy peace with Kaden, because I told her she must if she was to ride with us. I saw how it needled Kaden. The small bit of tranquillity and acceptance he had found in the vagabond world was forever lost to him. At times, he seemed lost to everything, his eyes squeezing shut when he thought no one was looking as if trying to see where he fit in with a different kind of eye, but then he would speak about some part of Venda, a part that didn’t belong to the Council or the Komizar, and I saw the strength in his gaze again.

  Dihara’s death came when we were two weeks out. I had just finished my remembrances when I saw her on the crest of a winter brown hill. She sat at her spinning wheel, the treadle clicking the air, tufts of fur and wool and flax turning, long tendrils swirling, lifting on the breeze. They became the dusky colors of sunset, pink, amethyst, and orange fanning out above me, a warm blush coloring the sky, brushing my cheek, whispering, Greater stories will have their way.

  Then others gathered on the hill, watching her. Those I had seen before, their numbers growing each time they came. It began with my brother and Greta. Then a dozen clanspeople on either side. Effiera and the other seamstresses. A platoon of soldiers. Then Venda and Aster—Don’t tarry, Miz—the faces I had seen and the voices I had heard many times these past weeks. All of them little more than a rustle of air, a glint of lost sunlight, and a hush beating through my veins. A madness, a knowing, circling, repeating, a swath cutting deep into my heart.

  It had to be someone. Why not you?

  Voices that wouldn’t let me forget.

  They are waiting.

  A promise, a vow spilled from my lips in return.

  No one else saw them. I didn’t have to ask. The routine sounds of making camp missed no beats. No heads ever turned. No steps faltered.

  Ah, you again, Dihara said, turning to face me. The spinning wheel still whirred, the gifts swirled, the tendrils reached. Trust the strength within you, and teach her to do the same.

  I looked over my shoulder at Natiya, just loosening her boots, ready to fall into her bedroll. I walked over and grabbed her hand. “We’re not done.”

  “I’m tired,” she complained.

  “Then go make camp elsewhere. Let the pachegos eat you right now.”

  “There’s no such thing as pachegos.”

  “When they’re chewing off your foot because you’re not prepared, you may think differently.”

  * * *

  I was surprised at how little Natiya understood the gift. How was that possible when she had lived with Dihara? But I remembered what Dihara had told me. There are some who are more open to the sharing than others.

  “The knowing is a truth that you feel here and here,” I told Natiya. “It is connection. It is the world reaching out to you. It flashes behind your eyes, it curls in your belly, and sometimes it dances along your spine. The truths of the world wish to be known, but they won’t force themselves upon you the way lies will. They’ll court you, whisper to you, slip inside and warm your blood, and caress your neck until your flesh rises in bumps. That is the truth whispering to you. But you have to quiet your heart, Natiya. Listen. Trust the strength within you.”

  After a few quiet moments, she yelled in frustration, “I don’t understand!” br />
  I grabbed her by the wrist as she turned to storm off. “It is survival, Natiya! A whisper that could save you! Another kind of strength the gods have blessed us with. The truth you need doesn’t always come at the end of a sword!”

  She glared at me. I could see in her eyes that, for now, sharp-edged steel was the only kind of power she sought. I felt something give within me. I could understand that kind of truth too.

  “It is good to have many strengths, Natiya,” I said more gently, remembering the cold fullness of the knife in my hand as I plunged it into the Komizar’s gut. “Do not sacrifice one kind of strength for another.”

  * * *

  One night, when Natiya and I were both too spent to practice anything, and I sensed it might be our last camp before reaching Morrighan’s border, I emptied out my saddlebag to get the ancient texts I had packed away. It was time to teach her about what had come before, not just what we were heading into. All I found was the Last Testaments of Gaudrel. I ruffled through the contents again, shaking out my folded shirt and chemise. The Song of Venda was gone. I went on a rampage, asking who had gone through my bag. I knew I had carefully tucked both thin books into the bottom.

  “You sure you packed them?” Tavish asked.

  I glared at him. “Yes! I remember when—” I caught my breath. The bag had been in my possession for the entire journey—except at the beginning when I’d handed it to Rafe. He’d insisted on carrying it. It had been less than a few minutes while we walked, but then I had looked away while I checked my horse and supplies. He had stolen it? Why? Did he think stealing it would make the truths disappear too? Or that it would shake my resolve?

  “Lia?” Natiya looked at me with worried eyes. “Are you all right?”

  Stealing the book would change nothing. “I’m fine, Natiya. Come help me make a fire. I have some stories to tell you, and I expect you to remember them word for word in case anything happens to me.”

  Jeb looked up from what he was doing, the same worried expression crossing over his face. “But nothing is going to happen,” he said firmly, his eyes locked on mine.

  “No,” I answered to reassure him. “Nothing.” But we both knew that was a promise that couldn’t be made.