Hidden Truth

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  I

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  II

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Praise for First Truth

  “A beautifully told, simple story that looks unblinkingly at how prejudice unnecessarily reinforces misconceptions, misunderstandings, and hatred.” —Booklist

  “Dawn Cook’s First Truth is a fun book, sure to appeal to fans (like me) of Tamora Pierce or Robin McKinley. With characters to cheer for, vicious villains, and attack birds, First Truth has everything I need in a good read. I look forward to Alissa’s next adventure.”

  —Patricia Briggs, author of Dragon Bones

  “In her beguiling debut, Cook has woven together magical threads . . . a tale of courage and quest . . . a world rich with vivid detail . . . and characters, whether valiant or villainous, impossible to forget.”

  —Deborah Chester, author of The Sword, the Ring, and the Chalice trilogy

  “A refreshing, humorous take on the coming-of-age quest. The plot tightly builds empathy for the characters even as it makes fun of their foibles.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine

  Ace Books by Dawmn Cook

  THE TRUTH SERIES

  FIRST TRUTH

  HIDDEN TRUTH

  FORGOTTEN TRUTH

  LOST TRUTH

  THE PRINCESS SERIES

  THE DECOY PRINCESS

  PRINCESS AT SEA

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

  are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,

  and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  HIDDEN TRUTH

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with

  the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace mass-market edition / December 2002

  Copyright © 2002 by Dawn Cook.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form

  without permission.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-4406-1966-3

  ACE®

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Tim

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank the core members of my writer’s group, Nat for her above and beyond the call of duty critiques, my husband Tim for seeing it before I did, and of course, Richard Curtis and Anne Sowards.

  Dawn Cook

  I

  Alissa crept up the stairway, her skirts gripped tightly in her fists. Gaze fixed upon the landing, she felt for the next step, easing herself up in what she hoped looked like casual disinterest. This was not a good idea, she thought. She had been making Bailic’s meals all winter and knew risking his attention was asking for trouble. Taking a slow breath, she hesitated, the opposing feelings of curiosity and common sense teetering in her. Pulse quickening, she resumed her upward motion. Curiosity won. Not that that was a surprise, she admitted.

  She had woken as usual before dawn, pulled from her warm covers by a feeling of discontent. There was nothing different she could see about today than yesterday. The sparrows still pecked on the rooftops of the Hold, the ice mist rose as the sky brightened in a false dawn, the fires needed tending, and the mice ran when she turned corners.

  But an unexplained restlessness, an itching to do something, had filled her. Even worse, she was unable to tell what needed doing. It almost seemed she should have done it already, and the feeling of having been remiss tugged at her. This morning, as her feet touched the floor, a strange need to find out what Bailic wanted for breakfast filled her. It pulled her up the tower stairs when a healthy measure of caution urged her to go the other way, back down to the kitchen. Up until today, she hadn’t cared if the madman liked what she made for his breakfast or not. And she said mad, for anyone who claimed ownership of the Hold, when it clearly wasn’t his, had to be mad. The only reason she made Bailic’s meals was to keep him out of her kitchen. But now it seemed as if knowing what he wanted might end her discontent.

  Alissa drew to a stop as she realized her fingertips were tingling. She dropped her gathered skirts and stared at her hands, her disquiet growing. “By the Hounds of the Navigator,” she whispered, opening and closing her hands. Her fingers only tingled when she was near a dangerous ward, and then it was painful, not this warm sensation. This felt more like . . .

  “When I held my book of First Truth,” she whispered in dismay, leaning back against the stone of the stairwell. A sound of self-disgust slipped from her. “Burn it to ash,” she muttered. “Strell is going to have to pen me up like a nanny goat.”

  It was her book that had been filling her with this intolerable restlessness, enticing her to come and steal it back, not caring that if she were caught, Bailic would kill her. Last fall she had unknowingly followed its silent pull from her foothills farm across the mountains to the legendary Hold. Never would she have believed her papa’s stories about the Hold were true and that her papa, Keeper Meson, had been anything other than the foothills farmer he had pretended to be.

  Though she had found the Hold empty but for Bailic, a fallen Keeper, it had once been the home of the Masters, a race of winged scholars skilled in magic, posing as savage beasts called rakus. In return for small services and loyalty, the Masters taught a select group of people they called Keepers how to use their comparitively stunted magical abilities. The book of First Truth held the Masters’ most powerful secrets. Now that all but one Master had been lured to their deaths by Bailic, the First Truth was possibly the only way to become a Keeper. And Bailic had taken it the moment she found it in the Hold’s well, where her papa hid it fourteen years past.

  She would sooner die than let Bailic keep it, but she wasn’t going to steal it back today, and not under the guise of finding out what Bailic wanted for breakfast. That the fallen Keeper was going to use her book to put the foothills an
d plains at war seemed far away and distant next to her simple desire to possess its knowledge for herself. Her book was now resting in Bailic’s chambers, as inaccessible as if it were at the bottom of the sea. But having touched it once, its pull upon her seemed all the stronger.

  Alissa impatiently pushed her hair out of her eyes as she looked up the stairway, torn between being angry for not realizing why she was restless and being upset that she was so vulnerable to its call. “Maybe,” she breathed, clenching her hands to try to drown out the tingling, “I’ll ask Bailic what he wants for breakfast anyway, just to look at my book.” She gathered her skirts and took a step, unable to help herself. “I won’t go in. Just look at it through the doorway.” The First Truth was rightfully hers. How dare Bailic, Keeper or not, claim it for himself. He couldn’t even open it.

  A muffled twittering came from the stairway below her. Heart pounding, she spun, embarrassed for having fallen victim to the book’s call again so easily. Her kestrel, Talon, landed against the rough wall, gripping it awkwardly as the tight turn was too much to make in flight. Alissa’s resolve faltered. Talon hated Bailic, often hissing and threatening violence when he was within earshot. Carrying on a conversation with Bailic, however stilted and contrived, would be impossible with her tiny defender near.

  Her shoulders shifted, and she resolutely headed back to the kitchen. “Get off that wall,” she said sourly as she passed the robin-sized bird, still hanging by her claws. “You look silly like that.” The kestrel twittered and, as if understanding, half jumped to Alissa’s shoulder. Alissa ran a finger over the bird’s markings, now faded with age. Together they wound their silent way down to the first floor and the Hold’s great hall. The room stretched high to make a cavernous space overlooked by the open balconies on the second, third, and fourth floors. Alissa’s steps echoed against the barren walls. Passing through the empty, unused dining hall, she entered the Hold’s smallest of two kitchens. It was still larger than her entire home in the foothills.

  As she leaned to tend the long-burning fire, Talon jumped from her shoulder to land neatly on the chandelier. The metal and chain swung slightly, and the bird’s head shifted to keep Alissa in focus. Alissa went back to the sweet-roll dough she had started earlier. She pushed the dough down with a growing feeling of discouragement. Knowing her book had lured her into risking her life to try to take it did nothing for her confidence. Even now, that same jittery feeling had begun to nag at her, urging her to rise back up the stairs again.

  Alissa tucked a stray strand of hair back behind her ear as she glanced up at the kitchen’s one narrow window high overhead. Closing her eyes, she took three slow breaths as taught by her papa, willing her restless emotions away. Her eyes opened. The gray patch of light was noticeably brighter. The sun would be up soon. She was going to be late to the practice room with Bailic’s breakfast. Even worse, Strell hadn’t come down for his meal yet and was going to be late as well.

  Perhaps, she wondered, she ought to wake him? Flushing, she dusted the counter with flour and began coaxing the dough into a rectangle. Going to wake Strell wasn’t prudent. The one time she had, she caught a glimpse of his uncovered feet. Bone and ash, she would have thought a well-bred plainsman would have the grace to sleep with his feet decently covered. She may as well have caught him naked in the rain. Perhaps it came from being a wandering piper for the last six years. But if he didn’t come down soon, he was going to miss breakfast.

  Deciding she couldn’t wait any longer for Strell, she cut a slice of bread and set it over the fire to toast for her own breakfast. Talon shifted her feathers in an almost inaudible swish. “Why don’t you go wake Strell?” she whispered, half serious, and the bird jumped to the rafters.

  Thoughts of Strell pulled Alissa’s eyes to the mirror. There was flour on her nose, and knowing Strell would tease her if he saw it, she hurriedly brushed it off. He had found the reflection glass weeks ago, propping it up in the kitchen with the claim it added to the light. She hadn’t noticedany difference, but it did give her a good view of the dining hall when she was standing by the hearth with her back to the archway. The tall plainsman seemed to have taken it upon himself to see to her safety, something she insisted she could see to herself.

  Squinting at her reflection, fuzzy in the predawn gloom, she gathered her straight, fair hair and retied the ribbon holding it back. Her hair was driving her to distraction as Strell refused to cut it, holding a true lady had hair she could sit on. It was a plains tradition, one she didn’t subscribe to. She preferred it short, as her foothills papa had liked it. Her mother, though, would be pleased with its length. It was brushing the tops of her shoulders.

  The small pouch hanging about her neck peeped from behind her shirt, and she nervously tucked it back, glancing behind her at the dining hall. She wasn’t sure, but she thought the dust the sack held was her source, the sphere of power she found in her thoughts somewhere between her reality and imagination. One day she would use it and the silvery web she saw with her mind’s eye to make wards. If Bailic knew what the pouch contained, she was sure he would take it, killing her with no more thought than he had killed her papa.

  Alissa took a pained breath and resolutely pushed the memory of her papa to the back of her mind. He had died when she was five to prevent Bailic from discovering she existed. Bailic still didn’t know whose daughter she was, and if he ever found out, her life wouldn’t be worth the rolls she was making. Turning back to her dough, she spread a thin layer of honey across the even rectangle. Living with the danger for so long seemed to have dulled her fear of it.

  A faint scent of char slipped into her musings. But it wasn’t until Talon chittered that Alissa looked up from her dismal thoughts to find her breakfast burning. “By the Hounds!” she cried as she swung the toasting fork from the fire and vainly tried to brush the black scorch from the toast with a towel. Talon’s chittering sounded like laughter, and Alissa gave up. Plucking the slice from the toasting fork, she tossed it clattering onto the waiting plate. Ruined. She stared at it, wondering if she ought to eat it anyway. The last time she refused to eat burnt toast, she was half a mountain away from her home when the sun had set. Omens were useless if ignored.

  “Omens,” she said with a soft scorn, glancing up and away from her bird. She didn’t believe in such things. Alissa eyed Bailic’s half-prepared breakfast tray, briefly entertaining the idea of giving the toast to him. Knowing it would result in a series of degrading, half-breed slurs, she rose to throw it away. She had the plate with its crusted char tipped over the slop bucket when Talon chittered a cheery greeting.

  “Don’t throw that out!” came Strell’s voice from the open archway, and she spun around, embarrassed he had caught her throwing food away. His usual early morning, sleepy countenance was stirred to life with an indignant accusation.

  “I burnt it,” she said, holding out the plate as proof. “We’ve plenty of bread.”

  Strell was plains born and looked it, being almost awkwardly tall and thin despite the volumes of food he ate. His hair was dark and gently curling as was everyone’s from the desert, nearly as long as hers, and pulled back with a metal clip. Clean shaven, his skin was as brown in the dead of winter as the sun turned hers at the height of summer. They had met in the mountains: she following the pull from her book, he running from the tragic demise of his family in an unprecedented desert flood. Their different backgrounds dictated they were to hate each other, but somewhere, in their joined efforts to remain alive, she had forgotten how. Occasionally, in the deep stillness of the night, she dared believe he might be flaunting the wrath of both the foothills and plains and have grown to truly like her.

  Strell came forward, his brown eyes failing to hide his amusement for having caught her in an embarrassing moment. Saying nothing, he plucked the plate from her grasp. Strell never threw out food, often spending inordinate amounts of time making her toss-outs into something edible. It was probably a remnant from his chosen profession and
never knowing where his next meal was coming from. Settling himself at his usual breakfast spot, he pulled the jam pot closer. He ladled a huge helping onto the blackened bread and took a bite. “See? It’s fine,” he said around an ash-ridden mouthful.

  Alissa scrunched her eyes as she imagined the acrid taste. “You know, it would be less wasteful to throw out a single slice of bread than to use half a pot of jam to make it edible.”

  He gave her a half smile and arched his eyebrows. “Not nearly as tasty, though,” he said as he caught a drip of jam with his finger.

  Giving him a last, pained look, she cut a second slice of bread and set it close to the fire. Strell methodically devoured his breakfast, silent but for the obvious crunches. With a rush of air and warning chitter, Talon dropped from the rafters to Strell’s hastily raised fist.

  “Morning, bird,” he said gruffly, not seeming to mind the pinch of her talons as he offered her a crumb. Alissa watched, amusement pulling up the corners of her mouth, as the kestrel predictably refused. Seeing no meat forthcoming, the bird worried at his fingers, finally retreating back to the ceiling with a helpful toss from Strell. He rose to his feet as he finished his toast, clearly looking for something more to eat. Giving Alissa a sly look, he dipped a spoon in a pot set to warm at the edge of the fire and pulled out a thick, glistening strand of melted sweet. “M-m-m. What’s this?”

  “That’s my candied-apple syrup,” she blurted. It was supposed to have been a surprise for tonight’s dinner, and her brow pinched in feminine outrage as he stuck the spoon in his mouth. “Stop that!” she protested, knowing he was teasing her but unable to stop.