Mel had her most unbearable expression, the one full of compassion. He loved it desperately, and it terrified him, for he didn’t deserve it. He always feared he would lose control and hurt her, and she would leave him. To have her love was painful, for when he loved her, he became vulnerable to losing her.
She was watching his face with those eyes of hers that saw far too much. With tenderness, she said, “You will be a wonderful father.”
“No.” He spun away and strode across the room. The door was closed. He wanted to hit it, not in anger but in fear. He yanked it open and strode outside.
Cobalt didn’t know where he went. Walls passed in a blur. He kept going, up narrow stairs, back stairs, seeking a place to hide from himself. He finally came to a balcony that circled a watchtower. He clenched the rail and looked out to the Blue Ocean and the beach where he had found Mel earlier, lying in the sand.
Cobalt didn’t know how long he stood there staring and seeing nothing. Gradually he became aware he wasn’t alone. He turned and found her a few paces away, watching him, one hand on the rail, the wind tugging at her clothes and hair. His wife, the mother of his heir. He, the false king, would become a father.
Mel spoke quietly. “You aren’t Stonebreaker.”
“I am what he created.”
“You are a good husband and you will be a good father.”
He remembered the things she had said during his campaign to reclaim Shazire. “I thought you considered me a warmonger.”
“I never called you that.” She paused. “Not exactly.”
“You certainly implied it. Quite eloquently.”
Mel came over and took one of his hands. “I didn’t agree with your decision to invade Shazire and Blueshire. But I do not think you are a warmonger.” Lifting his hand, she pressed the back of it against her cheek. “No matter how much you insist otherwise, I think you will be a wonderful father.”
He rubbed his knuckles against her soft cheek. “You would have more luck convincing me I could pull clouds from the sky.”
“But look.” She motioned at the beach. “The fog comes in.”
The fog was indeed rolling in from the ocean. He sighed, stymied by her refusal to see the truth. “Mel, when you look at me, your vision is clouded.” He drew her near, holding her hand between their chests. Then he told her something he would admit to no one else. “I am afraid.”
She held his hand tightly. “I, too.”
“You’re really going to have a baby?”
“Really. Probably a little less than eight months.”
“A boy, do you think?” He blanched. “What if it’s a girl, and she is like you? I will be the most henpecked man alive.”
She laughed softly. “If it’s a boy, I will be surrounded by people who grunt at me.”
Cobalt embraced her, his head bent over hers. He was still afraid, but the knot had loosened enough for wonder to soak into his heart. The Sapphire, Jaguar, Alzire, and Blueshire thrones—and any others that became his—would soon have an heir.
His child.
Baz came to tell her about the disaster.
It was late afternoon, and Jade was in her study with the city builders going over plans to extend the aqueducts that brought water into Quaaz. Ozar’s visit had slowed their work, but now her coercive suitor was gone and she had a great deal of business that compelled her attention.
Baz, however, compelled attention even better than aqueducts. He strode into her study in the middle of the meeting, holding his helmet under his arm, his uniform dusty from riding, and his face flushed by the sun.
“Your Majesty,” he said crisply.
The moment he entered, Jade went as tense as a coil. “What happened?”
He spoke bluntly. “We’ve sighted the Harsdown envoy. They will be here tomorrow morning.”
Jade stood slowly, her hand clenched on her stylus. “And Drummer?”
Sweat beaded on Baz’s temples. “My men haven’t returned.”
The stylus snapped in Jade’s fist. She looked down with a start, then let the pieces fall on the table. If the envoy discovered Drummer wasn’t here, they would have reason to assume the worst. Jade doubted they would believe he had betrayed a Topaz Pact and run off. They would assume she was trying to cover up reprehensible acts carried out against the brother of their queen.
Her aqueduct team sat still and silent, their gazes going from Baz to her. Jade spoke with an even tone that belied the tumult of her thoughts. “We will have to reconvene tomorrow. My scroll master’s clerk will arrange a time and let you know.”
“Certainly, Your Majesty,” the head of her team said. They all rose to their feet and bowed.
When Jade and Baz were alone, she spoke without preamble. “We must get Drummer back.”
“I never expected him to last this long.” Baz shifted his helmet restlessly from hand to hand. “He has no experience traveling in these lands.”
“He makes his living as a wandering entertainer. He’ll be fine.” She spoke more to convince herself than him.
“Aronsdale is not the Rocklands.” His scowl darkened his face. “When we get him back, I swear, I will personally see—”
“Baz,” she warned. “We want our guest alive and well.” The thought of Drummer traveling alone in the Rocklands shook her deeply. That journey had killed far more seasoned travelers.
“And if we don’t get him back?” Baz said.
“If he reaches Aronsdale, we lose our negotiating tool.”
“We will look foolish if he outwits us.”
“Better he outwits us,” Jade said grimly, “than he dies and the envoy takes it as an act of war.”
“My men have been out for three days,” Baz said. “Even if they catch him tonight, they won’t get back until at least a day after the envoy arrives.”
“We will put off the envoy.”
“And if we can’t?”
They both knew the rumors, that Cobalt coveted Taka Mal and Jazid. So far he hadn’t shown signs of attacking, perhaps because he wasn’t the relentless conqueror of his reputation—or perhaps because he wasn’t ready. He knew he would have a hard-fought war if Taka Mal and Jazid joined forces.
Jade grimaced. “I may have to marry Ozi.”
“Only in a flaming hell!” Baz clunked his helmet on the table. “Ozar knows our countries can’t stand against Cobalt if we don’t unite. You think he will refuse the alliance if you refuse marriage? You are a lovely woman, cousin, but I doubt he considers you worth losing his throne.”
“No, he doesn’t. He wants mine.” Her anger flashed. “Ozar is gambling with me. He wants to see how high I will push the stakes. If we do it his way, combining forces, we may dissuade Cobalt from war regardless of what happens with Drummer.”
Baz was looking at her oddly. “Is that the only reason you would join with him?”
She frowned at him. “What other reason would I have?”
“If you marry Ozar and your armies vanquish Cobalt Escar, you could become the queen of Taka Mal, Jazid, Shazire, Blueshire, and the Misted Cliffs.”
Jade stared at him. It was a heady thought—and dangerous. She could envision such an empire, but she also knew Ozar would never stop trying to break her spirit. She longed for something far simpler than those grandiose dreams—something much farther beyond her reach. Happiness.
She couldn’t imagine achieving that goal.
Marry Ozar, go to war, lose her throne, lose Drummer. She loathed her choices but she saw no others.
11
The Tawny Barrens
Drummer slept fitfully through the night. Knowing he had no water, he couldn’t stop thinking about his thirst. At first he felt chilled, but then he felt as if he were burning up. As soon as the sky lightened, he was up and about, preparing to leave. His body ached. Muscles hurt that he hadn’t known he possessed. His thighs were chafed raw, and he couldn’t walk with his legs completely straight. The last thing he wanted was to get back on Vim. But he need
ed water and food, and he wasn’t going to find them if he didn’t escape this eerie landscape of jagged stone.
As he saddled Vim, the horse stamped and snorted angrily. Drummer spoke soothingly. “I’ll get you food and water soon. I promise.” He walked Vim to a shelf of rock and stepped up on the flat area. It took a while to settle the horse, but finally Vim let him mount. Drummer groaned as pain stabbed his muscles. Then he rode out into the predawn murk.
When Drummer reached the caravan trail, he headed west. A dark line rimmed the horizon, the greenery he had seen yesterday. A river should be there and settlements where he could purchase supplies. He hadn’t expected it to be so far. In Aronsdale, with its swells and dips, he never saw a distant horizon, just the next ridge or valley. Things were closer. Here, the open sky and endless, barren land bewildered him. He obsessed over the distant greenery and its promise of water. Water and food. Water and rest. Water and…water.
He mentally shook himself. He needed to think. It wouldn’t be long before Baz’s men came over the ridges Drummer had crossed yesterday. From the top, they could easily see these flatlands. He had nowhere to hide. He would have to be so far ahead they couldn’t catch him before he reached cover. Normally Vim could probably outrun most any horse. But nothing was normal this morning. Without food, water or enough sleep, neither he nor Vim could last long. And he felt as if he were burning with fever.
Drummer leaned over Vim’s neck. “I’m asking a lot, I know. But I need for you to give me everything you have.”
Vim snorted, but he did speed up. They galloped through the cool morning. As the sun rose behind him, the day heated up. He wished his spells could conjure water, but he couldn’t create something out of nothing. A red spell could only provide light or heat, which he needed right now about as much as a mallet to the head. Orange and yellow soothed pain, but they didn’t fix anything. Green spells were useless here. In fact, he saw little use in them at all. Knowing how people felt just got him in trouble. Were he powerful enough to make a blue spell, he could heal his injuries. In his current condition, he would be lucky to manage even orange. He had to try, though.
He needed a shape. Weary, he rummaged in his bags until he found the clothes Jade had given him. The faceted gems were flat compared to true shapes, but a little cube dangled off the vest. A larger cube would give more power. If he remembered correctly, though, the shape determined the strength of the spell more than the size. Chime claimed that invoking three-dimensional shapes was as far beyond most mages as scaling a mountain in one jump. He didn’t see what mountains had to do with it; that sounded like one of his sister’s daft ideas from their childhood. He knew she was greatly respected by her people, but he remembered the tomboy he had chased through the orchards.
“It can’t be that difficult,” he told Vim. He had used cubes in the past, after all, to enhance his interaction with his audience.
He considered the small cube in his palm. “Red.”
Nothing happened.
Drummer imagined red light—and the cube glowed.
“Ha! Chime was wrong.” He wasn’t certain, though. Chime was usually right about mage matters. But if that were true, then he was a more powerful mage than he had ever imagined.
Drummer tilted his head, considering. Gold was a shade of orange, the color of soothing. He imagined gold light. Nothing visible happened—but the ache in his legs receded. Although he knew it was there, it no longer bothered him as much.
“Think I can do blue?” he asked Vim. Chime said that was even beyond her. He had managed the cube, though, so maybe he could also manage blue. If he could heal himself, it would be a gift from Saint Azure.
Blue sky. He imagined it flowing into the cube—
Hai! Fire lanced Drummer’s temples and he cried out. Sagging forward, he bent his head and squeezed his eyes shut while pain surged over him in waves.
After a few moments, the pain subsided. Drummer blew out a gust of air. So much for a healing spell. He opened his eyes and slowly straightened up. They were still traveling toward the line of green, which looked no closer than it had yesterday when he had come down off the ridge.
With no warning, a spell flared through him, unexpected and indistinct. A green spell. Belatedly, he realized he still held the cube. He didn’t seem to have much control over his spells. But he definitely felt someone’s mood. Triumph.
“Where is that?” Drummer muttered. He looked around the barren lands but saw no one.
Then it hit him. He reined in Vim and stepped the horse around to face the way he had come. Silhouetted against the sky, three riders sat on horses atop the now distant ridge. The distinctive sunrise plumes on their helmets rippled in the wind.
Baz’s men.
“No!” He wheeled around and prodded Vim forward. “Come on, Vim! Run!”
The horse took off with a fluid gait that devoured the land. Drummer bent low over his neck so he would drag less against the hot streaming wind. He didn’t know how long Vim could keep this pace in his depleted condition, and he didn’t want to injure the Jazidian. But he had felt what Baz wanted to do to him the night before last—and that had been before Drummer slept with Jade.
A thought came to him. Was that why she had let Drummer go? She realized Baz would kill her lover. He didn’t want to believe she would tell the general what she did with their hostage, but he didn’t doubt Baz had riddled the palace with spies. Frantic, Drummer looked over his shoulder, nearly losing his balance on Vim in the process.
The soldiers were sweeping down the ridge after him.
“Cobalt can’t be gone,” Matthew said. “I overheard his secretary talking to a scribe when I delivered the stable reports to his office. Cobalt is expected to meet with the Historian of the Realm today. Then with the High Judge.”
Mel walked with him past the stables, where she had hoped to find her husband. “You haven’t seen him at all?”
“Not today. He has much to occupy his time.” The lines on Matthew’s craggy face had deepened since Cobalt assumed the thrones of Blueshire and Shazire, and now the Misted Cliffs. Although Matthew had spent the last year in Applecroft with Dancer, he often visited Alzire. He saw how Cobalt was spreading himself too thin. So had Mel. Her husband had to learn to delegate his growing authority before he drowned in the deluge of responsibilities. He was a warrior king, not a statesman: He needed to bring people into his government who had the expertise he lacked. She thought he should appoint Baker Lightstone, the former king of Blueshire, as its governor. She had liked and trusted Lightstone all her life, and he had been more like a governor than a king, anyway. His country was so small a person could cross it on horseback in less than two days. But she had made no headway with Cobalt on the idea. He had met Lightstone only twice, first when the king surrendered to him and the next day when Cobalt had sent him into exile with his family.
She stopped by a well with a peaked roof. The liquid inside rippled with a reflection of the roof, the sky, and the filigreed edge of the palace, as if it were a dream place reachable only through the water. It was a bittersweet fancy, for in dreaming of enchanted places, she could imagine a simple life without the crushing mix of power, duty, aggression, and love she dealt with in Cobalt. And she did love him, despite everything.
The stables at the Diamond Palace housed more horses than anywhere else Mel knew, including Applecroft, the Castle of Clouds, and Alzire. Many riders walked their animals in and out of the courtyard; grooms tended Jazidians, cooling or exercising them; stable hands ran in with water; and hay-sweeps cleaned. The place bustled with life, yet a buffer existed around Mel and Matthew, as if a glass sphere isolated them. It had been this way since Mel had become a queen, in Shazire after Cobalt assumed its throne and even more here. She missed the days when people treated her like a normal person.
“What time does Cobalt meet with the Historian?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Matthew said. “He doesn’t talk to me much anymore.”
> “He’s grieving.”
“For his lost childhood. Not for Stonebreaker.”
“For both,” Mel murmured, gazing into the dark well. “I wish I knew what Stonebreaker told him that night.”
“He hated knowing his grandson could be a better king.” Matthew scowled. “He wanted to undermine Cobalt’s confidence. He probably told him he would fail as a king.”
She considered him. “Or about you.”
“Cobalt has given me no reason to think so.”
“You’ve hardly seen him.”
He paused a moment before answering. “I would like to think he would seek me out, if he suspected our relationship might be more than king and stable master.”
Mel leaned against the well, facing the courtyard. “Cobalt needs your guidance. He will listen to me in some things, but he needs a man he trusts.”
“I’m a horseman,” he said gruffly. “Not a king’s advisor.”
“You’re far more to him than a horseman.”
Longing came over his face. “When he was a child…” Then he stopped himself. “No. It is not my place to play the role of Varqelle.”
“No, you cannot be Varqelle. Be Matthew—who comforted a terrified child, who hid him from the king even knowing you could be executed if Stonebreaker found out, who taught Cobalt the good in himself.” More quietly she said, “You were more a father to him than anyone else alive. You and Dancer are the reason Cobalt isn’t a tyrant. Perhaps me, also. But he doesn’t want to talk to his mother or his wife. He needs you.”