“Firaz and Slate have expressed concerns about your plans.”
Jade frowned at him. Whenever her generals discussed things without her, she got jumpy. “Such as?”
“Such as, Taka Mal should present a stable appearance to potential allies.”
She could see where this was going. They wanted her to marry Baz and “consolidate” the power of the throne and the military. “I am glad, my beloved cousin, that you all agree you should present a united support of your queen.”
His gaze darkened. “They’re afraid you’re going to die without an heir.”
“But I have an heir.” Jade lifted her hand and curled it into a claw as if she were going to attack him. “You.”
“It is my honor.” He sounded more annoyed than honored.
“Then be satisfied with that honor.”
He didn’t miss her meaning. “I wish for you a long and satisfied life, Jade. I’ve no desire to take your throne.”
“I’m glad.” She believed his first sentence far more than his second. “I find myself with a certain antipathy to those who feel otherwise.”
“Long and healthy. For you. For me.” He regarded her steadily. “For our children.”
This seemed to be the day for the men in her life to take liberties. She couldn’t let her advisors push her around. If she showed any sign of self-doubt, Firaz and Slate would exploit it. Spearcaster would probably stand behind her, but she took nothing for granted.
“You presume much,” Jade said.
“I would do you honor,” he said, taking her hand. “For the rest of our lives.”
Jade pulled away her hand. “It is gratifying to know my kin wish to support me for all our lives.” Softly she added, “I mean it, Baz. I am glad.”
With no warning, he took her shoulders and kissed her, his lips full against hers. For the second time in the last hour, a man had caught her off guard in a most personal manner. But unlike with Drummer, where the kiss had sent the heat of the Dragon-Sun through her body, this was like having her brother kiss her. Mortified, she thumped him on the arm and pulled away.
“Baz, what are you thinking?” Her cheeks flamed. “Stop it.”
Anger flashed on his face. For a moment she thought he would claim he didn’t need her permission. If he set himself against her, the political upheaval could disrupt her government and destabilize their attempts to form an alliance with Jazid.
Then her cousin exhaled. “If I offended you, I offer apology.”
Relief surged over her. “Accepted.”
He spoke with reserve, avoiding what had just happened. “Shall we go meet the Zanterians?”
“Yes. Of course.”
As they walked to the palace, Jade’s thoughts roiled. He had shaken her this time, truly shaken her, and she didn’t think his patience would last much longer.
Mel found Cobalt about a fifteen minutes’ walk from the palace. He was sitting by an abandoned quarry that the sunlight turned gold. She had sought his mood, but she had felt only a vague sense of his disquiet. He was guarding himself too well for her to understand any more. She hadn’t expected her spell to reach this far; her efforts for Stonebreaker had strained her power. But each time she overextended herself, she recovered faster than before.
A forest had grown to the edge of the quarry, and trees hung precariously over its rim. The scent of box-blossoms saturated the air. Cobalt was gazing into the quarry, but Mel didn’t think he was looking at anything. He seemed to have aged a decade in one night. Neither of them had slept. The Bishop of Spheres had presided over the laying out of the king in his most regal robes, his hair brushed back from his high forehead, his body ready for cremation. They would hold the final ceremonies today, and at sunset they would invest Cobalt with the Sapphire Throne.
She paused a short distance away, reluctant to disturb him. He was nominally alone; this was part of the King’s Fields, and neither she nor Cobalt had brought their bodyguards. But sentries patrolled the area, and she glimpsed men in Chamberlight colors pacing through the woods and along the edge of the quarry. If Cobalt noticed, he gave no sign. He had withdrawn until she wondered if he no longer wanted her in his life.
“You don’t have to stand there,” he said, still staring at the quarry.
Startled, Mel walked over and settled next to his side. “I was worried about you.”
He turned to her with a gaze bleaker even than when he had told her how, in his childhood, he would have done anything, anything for a crumb of love from his grandfather. He had set out to conquer a world to prove he wasn’t worthless, but nothing had appeased the jealous king, and nothing Cobalt could do now would ever change that. Mel had hoped the king’s death would free Cobalt from the weight of his grandfather’s contempt, but it had made matters worse.
“Tonight you become queen of the Misted Cliffs,” he said.
A shudder went through her. He had once tempted her with dark promises of power and sworn to lay an empire at her feet. She didn’t want an empire, but telling him that was like trying to hold on to goose down in a windstorm. Yet now when he had come a huge step closer to his goal, he looked strangely defeated.
Mel spoke in a low voice. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing. A simple farewell.”
“He never did anything simply.” Not when it came to Cobalt.
He looked out over the quarry again. “It isn’t important.”
“Don’t let it get to you! That’s what he wanted. Don’t let him win.” She put her hand on his shoulder and turned him to look at her. “Whatever he said to you, it was malice. Don’t believe his lies.”
Cobalt spoke softly. “The problem, Mel, is that his lies usually have just enough truth to make you wonder.”
“What did he say?”
He gaze had a distant quality. “All my life, I’ve felt as if I were a fraud. A false prince.”
A chill went through Mel. “If he told you that, he lied.”
He spoke softly. “Go back to the palace, Mel.” He took her hand and kissed the knuckles. “Go on. I will see you at the memorial.”
She hated to leave him like this. But forcing her company on him would only make it worse. “I’ll be there.”
Cobalt barely nodded, this man who by day’s end would rule an empire. He sat alone, staring into whatever personal hell Stonebreaker had bequeathed him from his deathbed.
Mel ran to the stables. Ignoring the stares of the grooms, hay-sweeps, and light-bringers, she went to Admiral’s stall, and the great stallion neighed in greeting. He would let no one but Cobalt ride him alone, but he accepted Mel’s presence.
The man she sought, however, wasn’t tending Admiral, as he often did at this time of day. Mel left the stables, walking now, at a loss. She had checked the carriage house and training ring. She didn’t know where else to look.
A light-bringer came up to her, a youth about her age. He was holding a pole with the lamp dangling from the hooked end, which he would use to aid stable hands and grooms who had to work at night. On a sunny day, when no one needed their services, light-bringers mucked out stalls or did other jobs the stable hands found for them. This fellow had been cleaning the lamp and replacing its oil.
“Your Majesty.” He bowed to Mel as he had always done to Stonebreaker, and it troubled her to be treated in the same manner as someone she had so resented. It felt odd, too, that someone her own age treated her with the respect she associated with those much older.
“Are you searching for Master Matthew?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” she said, startled. “How did you know?”
“I have seen you come to Admiral’s stall before, seeking him.”
She did often ask Matthew for advice, not so much in caring for her horse, which she already knew how to do, but in trying to understand her husband, a far more difficult proposition.
“Do you know where he is?” Mel asked.
He motioned at a glinting white wall around the yard where st
able hands were walking the horses. A gilded tower rose beyond it, topped by a spire. “He is at the cathedral.”
“Ah.” Mel inclined her head to the light-bringer. “Thank you.” Then she smiled.
At her expression, the youth turned red, his ragged hair falling into his eyes. “You are most welcome, Your Majesty.”
Mel wasn’t sure why she unsettled people when she smiled, but it didn’t seem to have a negative effect, so she didn’t worry about it. As she crossed the yard, she wondered how it would be to live as a light-bringer. She had grown up on an orchard, and her mother had insisted she learn its workings. So Mel had cleaned stalls and fertilized crops, weeded and hoed and planted, and kept books. She had also trained as a junior officer in her father’s army and discovered she was better suited to swordplay and archery than to the balls, embroidery, and fashions expected of royal women in other countries.
Had Varqelle never invaded Aronsdale and lost his throne, Mel would never have been the daughter of a king. Her parents would have lived on a farming estate in Aronsdale, and she might even have married a farm boy. Instead she had wed a dark and driven warlord. And saints help her, she had fallen in love with him.
A groom opened a door in the wall for Mel, and she went into the plaza beyond. The cathedral stood in its center, an architectural wonder of arched windows, delicate gold and silver arabesques on its walls, and stained-glass windows. The spire that topped its tower cut a sharp line against a sky streaked with high clouds.
Inside, quiet filled the vaulted, airy spaces of the cathedral. Sunlight shone through stained-glass windows that portrayed many of the saints revered in the Misted Cliffs: Sky-Rose, who added blush to the sunrise or a girl’s face; Fire Opal, who brought flame from the mountains; Citrine, who dreamed the sun into the sky; Verdant, who gave life to meadows and forests; Aquamarine, who lifted the ocean into swells; Azure, who glazed the sky; Lapis Lazuli, who rode the wind on her great steed; Amethyst, who set lovers to yearning; Granite, who cracked the earth to create his thunder; and Alabaster, the celestial musician who strummed stars into the night.
Some legends claimed the saints were ancestors of the people, ancients so far in the past no histories remained of their family lines. Others named the saints as spirits of rainbows and the earth. In Aronsdale, they believed the saints had been the first mages, most of them born from the prismatic hierarchy of spells. The saints formed the court of the Dawn Star Goddess, namesake of the House of Dawnfield. Taka Mal had much the same mythology, though they called Sky-Rose the Sunrise. Instead of a Dawn Star Goddess, they revered the Dragon-Sun. Jazidians worshipped the Shadow Dragon and believed he and the Dragon-Sun fought an endless, daily battle for dominion of the skies.
Sunlight slanted through the windows and left pools of color on the cool stone floors. Dust motes drifted in shafts of colored light. The man Mel sought was kneeling at a railing. His head was bent, and his gray hair had fallen forward to hide his face, but she recognized the breadth of his shoulders, the length of his legs, his gray tunic and blue trousers, well made and well-worn. She went to him, her slippered feet muted in the cathedral.
Mel knelt on the cushioned strip of wood. “Matthew.”
He raised his head, his eyes dark with exhaustion. “You honor me with your presence, Your Majesty.”
“Ah, Matthew, it doesn’t feel that way.” Even her low voice seemed too loud in this place. “Have you spoken with Cobalt since this morning?”
He shook his head. “The Bishop of Spheres kept him busy. I went to see him afterward, but he had disappeared.”
“He went to the quarry.”
Matthew was studying her face. “What troubles you?”
“Stonebreaker told him something before he died.” The words were dust in her mouth. “Cobalt won’t speak of it. He says only that he has always felt like a false prince.”
Matthew’s shoulders hunched. “Did he say why?”
“Nothing. Stonebreaker may have lied to him, out of malice.” Quietly she added, “Or maybe he knew something.”
Matthew regarded her with a haunted expression. “Varqelle.”
Mel nodded. She had always suspected Stonebreaker gave Cobalt an army to free Varqelle because he had lost control over his grandson and hoped Varqelle would help him regain it. Instead Varqelle and Cobalt had formed a bond that shut out the late king. “I think he hated that Cobalt found acceptance with his father. He wanted to leave Cobalt a legacy of doubt, and he knew how much it meant to him to have his father’s love.”
Matthew looked as if his heart was breaking. “He has always had his father’s love.”
She laid her hand on his arm. “And that has made all the difference.”
“What Stonebreaker said—it changes nothing.” Matthew’s posture had the tension of a fighter ready to engage. “Tonight Cobalt will become the king of the Misted Cliffs. Nothing can stop it. Whatever Stonebreaker said to him—it doesn’t matter.”
Mel knew it should be true. But she also knew her husband. It mattered to him.
Matthew had been a stable hand at Castle Escar when Varqelle brought home his child bride, Dancer. And when Dancer fled a year later, Matthew went with her. Tales of Varqelle’s cruelty had proliferated. Mel had no fondness for the king who had led an army against her people, and yes, Varqelle was a hard man who considered kindness a fault in a king, a warrior, and a husband. But he was better than Stonebreaker.
After Dancer left Varqelle, Stonebreaker wouldn’t let her go. No matter where she fled, he sent his army for her. He didn’t care if she stayed with her husband; he had no use for Varqelle beyond the title he brought into the Chamberlight line. Dancer had given him what he wanted, an heir who could claim both the Sapphire and Harsdown thrones. And if he turned that heir’s days into a living hell, so be it.
Cobalt had never understood how Dancer could love him as much as she obviously did and yet let Stonebreaker raise him. She had never told him why, except to say she protected him. Mel knew she would never say more. Neither Dancer nor Matthew would take away his heredity by telling him the name of his true father.
Matthew was kneeling in the slanting light from a window above them with panels of blue and frosted glass. “I came here when I heard of the king’s death,” he told Mel. “I should pray for the late king, but instead I think of the man who will take the throne tonight. I pray the saints will help him—and us all.”
On the third night of summer, when heat lay across the land and weighted the air with moisture, people filled the Hall of Sapphires in the Diamond Palace, all the elite of the Misted Cliffs, their finery and hair glistening with jewels. Their garments shone like a mage’s spectrum: rose and violet and every color between.
Except blue.
Mel hadn’t seen Cobalt again until they met at this hall and walked with their honor guard down the ranks of gathered nobles. She hardly recognized the man at her side. Gone were his rough riding clothes and armor. The snowy tunic he wore had the blue Chamberlight sphere emblazoned on its chest. His cutaway sleeves showed darker blue cloth beneath, and his trousers pulled over blue knee-boots. Sapphires and diamonds studded his belt. Seamstresses had sewn Mel’s white velvet gown in only hours, with sapphires on the neckline, bodice, and train. Gems encrusted the two chairs on the dais where she stood now with Cobalt, as if they were in the icy center of a glittering, soulless gem.
The Bishop of Spheres raised his staff and spoke the formal words that invested Cobalt with the power of the Sapphire Throne. When it was done, the royal couple knelt before him, and he named them king and queen of the Misted Cliffs. Then they stood and looked out over the hall. The elite of the Misted Cliffs went down on their knees and bowed their heads to their sovereign—the same nobles who had stood by in Cobalt’s childhood while Stonebreaker battered their future king.
Cobalt watched with no emotion. Mel cupped the sapphire sphere that hung around her neck and created a spell that glowed with blue light. She didn’t care who saw; let them
spread tales of the sorceress queen. What happened within Cobalt mattered more. But she couldn’t heal his emotions. His pain went so deep, she questioned if his spirit could ever recover. He dwelled in darkness. She had already heard the whispers: the Midnight King would subjugate all the settled lands.
6
The Draped Room
The Atajazid D’az Ozar was in his study, standing by the bookshelf, when the tap came at his door. He looked to see Shade, his Master of Scrolls, in the entrance. Ozar’s bodyguards flanked the archway, but when Ozar nodded they let the elderly man pass. Hunched and gaunt, Shade wore long robes patterned with diamonds of white and black. He was past the age when most scroll masters retired to an easy life in the royal court or a country estate. Shade had never expressed a desire to leave, and Ozar valued his services, for his loyalty and for his expertise in keeping Ozar’s correspondence, both current and in the royal archives.
Even bent over, Shade was a tall man. Yet he came only to Ozar’s shoulders. Aronsdale kings married for mage power; Taka Mal for beauty; Blueshire for love; and the Misted Cliffs for political expediency. In Jazid, they selected for physical power. Ozar descended from a long line of sovereigns who chose queens for strength and height so they might pass those traits to their sons. They desired intelligent women, too, for the most successful warriors were also strategists. Ozar’s two wives had served him well in that regard, bearing him three strong, quick sons, and also five daughters.
In matters of pleasure, Ozar preferred his concubines. He had recently bought a young one from a merchant who sold only to royalty: himself, Stonebreaker Chamberlight, and, many years ago, Varqelle Escar. Varqelle was dead now, and Stonebreaker far away, so Ozar had his pick of the best girls. He would have been with his newest right now if he hadn’t had so much work.
Shade knelt with effort, his robes crinkling.