After about an hour of traveling, as they were passing a few poor farm houses just off the road, Emilie stirred in her blanket and told them she was home.
“There it is.” She pointed at a small thatched-roof building among a couple of others, none of them enough to comprise a settlement that was large enough to be called a village, and all of them partially buried in snow, with only one cleared path leading off the main thoroughfare.
Percy tightened Betsy’s reins, and the draft horse came to a graceful stop, snorting loudly. The knight and his soldiers slowed down also, watching casually as Emilie clambered down from the cart, holding her small travel sack and blanket, and then said her farewells to everyone.
“Get well, my friend Emilie Bordon, please!” Marie spoke warmly, in her heavy accent, waving to her.
“Yeah, don’t wanna hear you dropped dead, and then woke up again an undead scarecrow,” said Niosta, chortling. Then, realizing what she was saying, she put her hand around her mouth in some chagrin, and glanced in the Infanta’s direction.
“Thank you for everything, Percy,” Emilie concluded, wiping the side of her reddened nose. “Sorry I was sick so much of the time . . . and no good to anyone. Just a dumb bedwarmer.”
“Don’t be a ninny-fool,” said Percy. “Not your fault you got sick. And you were more useful than you can imagine, even as a bedwarmer! Can’t have too many warm bodies when sleeping in the cold. Besides, you were there for all of us, the best you could. And you got lucky too, not being a Cobweb Bride.”
Emilie grinned, then immediately sneezed.
“Eeow! Now, off to your own warm bed with you and your snots!” Percy said gruffly. “Hurry! And I promise, I’ll see you when I come around back this way.”
“You better!” Emilie smiled again, then waved one more time, and started running slowly, as well as she could, up the cleared path, nearly stumbling in the icy spots underneath the snow. They watched for a few seconds, making sure that she got inside safely, and the door of her home closed behind her.
“At last,” said Lizabette, with a brief ingratiating glance in the direction of the Infanta. “More room in the cart for our betters, and of course now that poor creature can get some proper help for that nasty sneezing illness, in her own home.”
“Whoa, Betsy,” said Percy, taking up the reins, and ignoring the comment. They were moving again.
After a few moments of silence, the Infanta, Claere Liguon inhaled a deep breath of crisp air in her mechanical doll lungs, and she spoke suddenly. “I have decided,” she said in a soft voice, and at first to no one in particular.
Everyone in the cart turned to look at her. And the black knight, riding a few paces ahead, gave away the fact that he was apparently paying very close attention to everything indeed, and heard every word, by turning around immediately to look.
“What is it?” Vlau Fiomarre was staring closely at her.
But Claere ignored him, and turned her head directly to address the one driving the cart. “Percy Ayren,” she said. “The next time we stop for a rest, I have one thing to ask of you. I want you to grant me my final death.”
Chapter 3
The Kingdom of Tanathe reposed in the southeast region of the Domain. Its western side bordered with the Kingdom of Solemnis—which in turn connected with distant Spain in the southwest—and on its northern side was the Kingdom of Serenoa. To the east lay Italy, and directly south, the balmy seawaters of the Mediterranean.
Tanathe was a verdant sun-filled land, with orchards of succulent peaches and figs, olive trees in abundance, and great dark grapes ripening on laden vines. There was never winter here, no snow, only a brief season of crispness in the air, and a deeper chill at night.
The small southern peninsula known as the Tanathean Riviera was considered to be heaven on earth. In its heart was the city of Riviereal—land-bound and yet built upon the last outflow of the great river Eridanos as it ran all the way from the distant northern Kingdom of Serenoa, cutting through Tanathe and emptying within the peninsula—not into the great sea, but somewhere on a southern plain, into the earth itself.
Eridanos never reached the sea. And yet, legend said, it continued flowing beneath ground, through caverns and deep crevices of the land that knew no sun, until it found the Mediterranean.
Some said it continued to flow through the underworld.
The Island of San Quellenne was visible from the shore. In the cream and milk haze of the balmy delicate overcast, it looked like a large floating slice of white chocolate upon the silvery-mauve waters of the Mediterranean.
The young boy stood on the sandy beach of the Tanathean Riviera, watching the seagulls circle over the island. He was skinny, no older than seven, and wore nothing but baggy cotton pants that were rolled above his knees to keep the surf away. His olive skin was tanned to a brazen glow, and his unruly black hair curled in the breeze.
The boy blinked from the spray, and raised his hand to shield his eyes from the general glare.
In that moment the sun came out, and the haze fled. The seawaters were suddenly deep resonant blue, as though the eye could focus at last and the world achieved proper hue and contrast.
“Flavio!”
The boy did not turn at the sound of an irate female voice.
“Flavio San Quellenne! What is wrong with you? How many times must I go chasing you around the sand dunes? Mother says to come home or be spanked!”
The boy turned around and then cheerfully waved at his sister.
The girl calling his name was older, at least eighteen, and a proper young woman. She wore a long simple sleeveless dress of similar white cotton, and her hair and skin were both a rich darkened bronze. The long hair was gathered in a plait, which streamed like a dark plume of fire behind her, down her back and to her waist. She had the airs of a nobly raised maiden.
“Come! Come here, Jelavie!” he replied. “I have something funny to show you!”
“What?” The girl waded through the sand, her woven sandals sinking with each step, until she stood at the child’s side on a more solid section of beach right at the water’s edge, that darker stripe which had been moistened by the sea into firm consistency.
A mere stride away from the tip of her sandals, the foam rolled in.
The boy pointed to the island, its whiteness blazing in the sun.
“Look! The mountain is gone!”
“What?” The girl shook her head in frustration at her brother, but then glanced into the distance, squinting against the sun.
And then drew in her breath. . . .
“No,” she said, blinking. “It cannot be. That is merely the haze, a mirage . . .”
“What’s a mirage?”
“Nothing, just an illusion from the heat in the summer.”
“But it’s not that hot today.”
“It is hot enough. . . .”
The girl continued to stare and observed only the flat whiteness of land where there would normally be a small double-headed mountain with jagged pale cliffs on the right side.
“Saga Mountain is gone!” repeated the boy.
“Silence, Flavio!” The girl’s voice was troubled now, but not in the usual way. “I tell you, it is but the mist and the haze, nothing more. . . .”
“Then why can you see the sky there? Only blue sky, Jelavie! And look, a bird!”
Jelavie stood looking, perfectly quiet, forgetting to reply, as the wind whipped her plait of hair into a metallic frenzy, and set loosened curling tendrils around her temples.
“Saga Mountain! Saga Mountain is gone! It is hiding!” the boy intoned, making it into a song, and then looked away, seeming to forget, and ran to pick up a shell and some bits of turquoise sea glass.
His sister continued to stand, frozen in place, looking at the strange changed topography of the island, refusing to believe her own vision. She blinked repeatedly, rubbed her eyes. Long moments passed, and there was no longer any remainder of haze or morning mist upon which to blame
the disappearance of something as impossible and large as a mountain.
Eventually, as the boy continued to make small happy chatter and collect treasure from the sea as it was washed upon the shore, Jelavie turned away and strode after him, throwing occasional wary, puzzled glances back at the island and the new line of the horizon in place of the missing mountain.
“Enough, let’s go home, Flavio,” she said at last, taking him by the hand which was clutching a greedy handful of polished rocks and shells.
“No!” The boy began to frown and pull in her grasp.
“Let’s go!” his sister said, raising her voice to the commanding level of a high-born lady, namely the Lady San Quellenne, their mother.
But as they struggled lightly in the customary manner of siblings, and she managed at last to pull him along, Jelavie threw one glance in the direction of the sea—just one more time, as though to make sure. Just one more time. She had purposefully occupied herself with normal concerns for the last few moments, just so that she could allow herself this one secret peek . . . in case the world itself needed that time, a magical pause of sorts, long enough to conceal and reveal. And then, just maybe, she hoped the world decided to cooperate and “put things back” the way they always had been.
But it was not to be.
This time, as her gaze hungrily searched the line of the horizon, there was still no mountain.
Furthermore, the entire Island of San Quellenne was gone.
In its place there was only the sea.
Many leagues inland, at the very spot where the Kingdom of Tanathe ended, precisely at its northwestern corner, lay the Supreme Seat of the Domain, known as the Sapphire Court. Neither a true city nor an isolated citadel, it incorporated elements of both. And in its overall structure and purpose it mirrored its northern foreign counterpart, the Silver Court of the Realm.
The Sapphire Court was a jewel of civilized urban splendor, with a Palace of the Sun to rival the grandest edifices in Europe. It was said that the King of France was inspired by it to such a degree that he too became the Sun King and commenced building architectural wonders. Meanwhile, Rome took one look at the Catedral D’Oro y Mármol and was duly humbled upon comparing it with Rome’s own lesser Basilica di San Pietro.
There were other wonders in the Sapphire Court, structural miracles such as the Triple Aqueduct that spiraled and ascended upon itself into a three-decked tower, which then pressurized and fed all the fountains in the city and outlying estates for miles around. The great Dome of the Stadio Soffio di Dio, or the “Breath of God,” was made of polished flat pieces of mirror glass, layered and assembled into infinite reflective facets—in truth, a divine, breathtaking sight, as though a luminary cousin of the sun descended to earth and perched upon a mortal building. As a result, the entire Stadio shone so brightly in the sunlight that it was impossible to look at it directly, except on overcast days.
Other structures were similar works of art, sporting exquisite stonework, mosaics of Venetian glass, sculpted reliefs and cornices, veined marble overlaid with gold. And indeed there was so much gold in the place, that if one ascended the highest towers or took a bird’s eye view, the Sapphire Court was a golden morass of light.
Why then, such a name? Why not a “Golden” Court in the south to parallel the Silver Court in the north?
The answer was ensconced within the Palace of the Sun. For inside its grandest hall stood a throne carved of a single giant gemstone, a pale blue sapphire that undoubtedly had immortal origins, and must have been a divine gift upon the first Sovereign of the Domain.
The present Sovereign, Rumanar Avalais, sat upon this impossible throne that was the color of wind, if wind had swept down from the icy north and, while still in motion, turned to solid glass, achieving an earthly hue—just a breath of color, an ethereal hint of distance, a ghost of faint blue fading into lavender.
And yet, when she sat upon the Sapphire Throne, no one noticed its jeweled glory. They noticed only her.
Rumanar Avalais was their greatest queen and their ultimate mystery.
The noble line of Avalais was rumored to have its roots in classical Hellenistic antiquity, hailing from the shores of the Aegean, where the gods walked in the shadow of the lofty Parnassus, in groves of olive and cypress. And as her forefathers, Rumanar Avalais was ageless.
She was youthful, of indeterminate age; at times appearing a virgin maiden, at other times a mature voluptuous matron worthy of being the mother of the Domain. It seemed, one looked upon her and always saw a different thing, fluid from moment to moment. But it was always the one ideal vision that felt precisely right for that particular instance of perusal.
And somehow, once the onlooker’s gaze fell upon her softly leashed splendor, it never occurred to question anything of her nature—age, origins, ancestry, not even the subtleties of her will, her desire, or her intent. Nothing mattered once you saw her, and from that instant forward she merely was, and in her being, she fulfilled the purpose of any gathering. Her presence within a room was the most natural consequence of all lives, of all expectations.
It seemed that Rumanar Avalais had always ruled, and no one knew or could recall her not being the Sovereign. Her regal Sire was long-deceased, the oldest quavering duchesses at court informed in rheumy whispers, when prompted. Or possibly it was her mother, or grandmother, they added. In short, none could remember the precise details, only that the glorious Sovereign of the Domain appeared no older than thirty, and had been thus for as long as one could recall.
Rumanar had skin as flawless and fair as milk, painted with a rosy blush of Balmue wine. Her hair, when undisguised by powdered wig or other headdress, was gold wedded to persimmon, that rare intermediate hue of deep blonde or pale red that makes the most brilliance. Her eyes were blue, as blue as the sapphire upon which she sat, with a clear or languid look. When she stood up and walked, she was statuesque and commanding, large and overwhelming, yet pliant with a lithe grace of the wilderness. And when she smiled, or spoke in her soft articulate voice, breaths were held all around. . . .
To call the Sovereign a beauty would have been a tawdry falsehood. It was best to admit that in her perfection, she was terrifying.
On that one particular day the Sovereign sat down upon the Sapphire Throne to grant Court Audience to an agent of the King of Solemnis and a few noble others, and to hear reports from abroad as relayed from her various clandestine operatives.
The Sovereign wore a crinoline dress of crimson, threaded with black, with midnight lace at the ends of her long sleeves and around the delicate whiteness of her plunging neckline. A cabochon jewel of blood-black, filled with tiny golden embers of what appeared to be captured light, was suspended on a fine gold chain around her throat, and rested in the deep crevice between her succulent breasts. Her eyes were outlined in smoky exquisite kohl, and her lips, like ripe bronzed plums. Not a hint of other courtly paint anywhere else upon her face, its skin retaining the unblemished perfection of matte alabaster. And her own bountiful hair, free of wig or powder, was artfully twisted, wound, threaded with jewels, and sculpted into a tall, intricate headdress upon which rested the Sovereign Crown.
The grand Hall of the Sun was around her, with its gilded ceiling and embroidered brocade curtains, its molded walls and support columns of alabaster and marble, and its infinite garlands of crystal suspended from hundreds of chandeliers and sconces. At her feet was the polished floor of deep red semi-precious stone inlay.
At her side was her favorite advisor, Ebrai Fiomarre.
Ebrai was the eldest son of the traitor to the enemy Realm, the Marquis Micul Fiomarre. After having been banished, in ignominy and upon pain of death, from the Realm by the Liguon Emperor himself (each man having received a discreet, last-moment stay of execution only after the upper clergy intervened with the Emperor upon a technicality of clemency—circumstances which only a few in the Realm properly knew or understood, for it was an ugly, muddled affair, the details of which the Sover
eign savored), the two Fiomarre noblemen made their home here in the Sapphire Court. And here, they generously shared their in-depth political knowledge and common hatred of their former homeland with their new Avalais liege.
The Realm and the Domain were ever at odds with each other, the Fiomarre were notorious exiles or believed to be dead by most of their former countrymen, and the Sovereign found much amusement in having them thus at her side.
After unburdening himself to the extent that he was able in the early days, spilling his personal and political bile before the Sovereign and her advisors, Micul Fiomarre soon turned into a recluse and was rarely seen at Court functions. Fortunately his son had no such desire to hide from the world. And thus Ebrai Fiomarre became a fixture at the Sapphire Court.
“Your Brilliance, I am entirely at your service,” often spoke the younger man, Ebrai, looking directly in her eyes with his steady gaze of half-concealed dark intensity. It was always there, the simmer just under the surface. . . . And the Sovereign was not entirely sure if it was a neutral passion fueled by general anger at everything, at his bittersweet lot in life (bitter for the loss of his homeland, and sweet for the gain of his place at her Court), or if it was also a secret warm passion toward herself.
This made Ebrai entirely fascinating.
“And yet—” he always concluded his opening declaration thus, with astounding bluntness—“Your Brilliance, I would not place your full extent of trust in one such as myself, or my noble father. For we have betrayed once. . . . And as such, you must know that we are both unreliable.”
And in answer to such commendable rhetoric, the Sovereign merely smiled. But first she observed the dark-haired, fiercely handsome man before her with an unwavering gaze of her own. And she willed her gaze to consume him. He was either playing a remarkable game of political expediency to gain her trust by a display of frankness, or he was indeed remarkable. It mattered not; for the moment he continued to pique her curiosity.