“You danced well tonight,” he said with a gentle smile. She could tell it was a relief for him to speak Elvish again after so long.
“And you also,” she replied stiffly. There had never been this awkwardness between them before.
“Why did you embarrass me that way tonight?” she asked gently and he frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. The dance of the ice is the dance of love. It is disrespectful to the mother Goddess to dance it badly; to dance it when you are not in love.”
Fern looked tired then. He sighed and shook his head, opening his mouth to say something but she forestalled him.
“You prance around without a care in the world, and it is no secret that you take pleasure from such freedom, from such a pick of lovers. I know it, and I have given you all the privacy you could have wanted, knowing that one day it would be different. We are to be married Fern, but tonight, you were so blatantly inattentive and unfocused that those watching us must be wondering strongly about your affections for me, if indeed you have any. Didn’t you think on how humiliating that would be for me?” She took a breath to calm herself.
There was a long silence. Fern stared down at the ground. The light in his eyes was gone and she was terrified for a moment that she’d gone too far. But then he took a breath, straightened his shoulders and looked up at her, and he was himself again.
“I am sorry, Athena,” he said. “I should have concentrated. In truth, I only did it badly because my mind was on other things. I was thinking about how ... I was going to ask you to be my wife tonight.”
She sucked in a breath—he was finally going to do it! She had been waiting a long time for this.
“Shouldn’t you have been even more attentive to me then?” she asked, but her tone was softer.
“Yes, Athena. As always, you are the one who rights my wrongs. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said playfully, and she could not help but smile. “I have already asked for your father’s permission, now I am looking for yours. Athena, you are a beautiful, kind, wonderful woman, and I would like to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” He had done it in the human custom, on one knee. Athena let out her breath—he was so handsome, and so lovely. But there was something wrong. His eyes had not been for her tonight.
“But do you love me?” she whispered, feeling tears come to her eyes. She’d wanted this for so long.
He looked at her, but remained mute.
“Please,” she pleaded. “I need you to tell me.”
So he nodded. “Of course I do.”
***
“Mother, please—I’ve just returned, I don’t have time for this again.”
Queen Liensenne looked at her son and shook her head. “I’m tired of your frivolity. It is long past time for you to be married. You will do so, or you will no longer hold a place on the Elvish throne.”
Fern stared at her.
“Tonight will be the perfect chance for you to announce your betrothal to Athena.”
“Surely there will be a better time for this when I get back?”
“Who knows when that will be?” Liensenne said, her tone deadly. “You come and go as you please, without a care in the world, and you leave the poor girl to wonder if she will ever be married.”
“Athena and I are—”
“Perfect for each other. You’ve been very close friends for many years. What is the problem?”
“I don’t love her!” Fern snapped suddenly. “At least not like that.”
The queen’s eyes flashed dangerously and she said, very softly, “Please don’t tell me you’ve suddenly acquired a conscience where love is concerned. How many hearts do you think you’ve broken over the years, Fern?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Well here is your chance to atone for some of the mistakes you’ve made. Don’t let your people down.”
There was a very long silence. Fern stared at his hands. He was having trouble breathing. This was it then. The trap that was finally going to catch him.
“Fine,” he murmured softly on the exhaling of a breath. “I will propose. But then I travel for Amalia. There are more important things in this life than marriage.”
Chapter 12
Satine lay on the tiny patch of straw they had given her. The stone floors were cold under her feet.
She had searched every inch of the cell, but it was impenetrable. There was no window, and the hinges were on the outside of the door. The door had a slit at eye level and another on the floor for her food to be passed through. Not a single crack pierced the walls, although she didn’t know what she would have done if there was—Gaddemar had taken all her belongings. She sat barefoot in a threadbare shift.
Satine was finding it hard to believe what had happened. Hard to believe Gaddemar could have turned on her like this. It was unthinkable. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. She had finished all the work she could do for him—she could gain no more information on Leostrial—he didn’t need her anymore.
Leaning back into the corner of the cell and shutting her eyes, Satine thought about Accolon. Her thoughts always went back to him, time and time again. She called up a memory she hadn’t thought about for a long time. She was thirteen, Accolon fifteen. It was seven years before he’d left and everything had changed.
They were in the armoury. Accolon was being fitted for new armour. He had been standing waiting for the armourer to return with a helmet when she had taken a sword (it was much too big for her then) and pointed it at his chest. She remembered the amusement in his eyes as he reached for a sword himself—a much bigger one.
“Be careful. Don’t swim out of your depth.” A rare grin had crossed his face, and then she struck—a quick blow to the shoulder, which was parried smoothly. They had fought then, a quick battle because she wasn’t really a match for him and the space was small. But that memory of their first fight was a precious one. She didn’t think she would ever see him again. Perhaps her last sight of him would be from the hanging pier.
Their love was a strange one—they had been very young, and most wouldn’t have believed that it was serious. But Accolon had been sent to study with her father for his adolescence—his own father didn’t have time for him—and they’d loved each other in that pure, untarnished love of youth. When she turned twenty, he’d been going to ask for her hand in marriage, Satine remembered. But before he’d had a chance, the tyrant from the sea had come and everything was changed.
Satine wished he’d known about their son. Wished she could have held the baby in her arms, even just once.
But she wasn’t about to delve into those sorrows. Not even now, before death. It was too hard, and she just wasn’t strong enough.
The thought of her death came as a regret to her. She was not afraid. The one despair was that she would never see anyone again.
Not even Leostrial, and that thought came as another pain. She’d worked so hard to see him defeated. Nothing was to be finished for her. Nothing ended, or closed.
But, she conceded, one could not always be granted one’s heart’s desire. Then she thought of her mother and father. Her mind didn’t stay on them for long though—that was an old wound, a numb pain. She didn’t want to think about how happy they’d been, so many years ago. Because that made her think of her father’s vacant eyes as he’d stared lifelessly up at her, and so too the way her mother had also died a little that day.
The eyeslit in the door slid open and a voice floated into the cell. “Your execution will be at sunset. Three hours.” The guard sounded apologetic.
“How is it to happen?” she cried out.
The slit opened again and the man on the other side hesitated before answering, “You are to be burnt.”
Burning was how they killed people who had done terrible things. It was agonising and slow. She would most likely choke on the smoke of her own burning flesh before she died from the flames.
It shouldn’t e
nd like this. Not after everything she had been through. Not just for calling someone a fool.
***
Luca stood with Anna amidst a huge crowd, waiting for the execution. Everyone was packed into a large square right in the centre of Amalia. Most of the city’s inhabitants were there, for it had been a very long time since there had been a public execution. And apparently they didn’t believe in trials in Paragor.
The sun was setting and Luca started to worry Accolon’s plan was hardly foolproof. It relied too much on chance.
He and Anna had only a few minutes to play their part. Harry even less. But Accolon was clever and trustworthy, and Luca knew that if they were ever to succeed, it would be with him.
A murmur rippled through the crowd as they caught sight of the prisoner. Satine was led out onto the pier by several guards. Her hands were chained behind her back. It seemed they didn’t want to take any chances. They hadn’t even given her a proper dress to die in. She wore a small white shift, ripped and dirty, and her hair hung down her back in a blonde tangle. Her face was cold, her expressionless eyes set in dark hollows. Satine’s head was held high and she looked straight ahead as they pulled her roughly into position.
Satine’s hands and feet were tied to poles on either side of her.
The guards piled sticks around her feet. Luca, a look of pain on his face, turned to where King Gaddemar sat in his throne. He had trusted him.
Luca turned to Accolon, sitting on the dais with the rest of the royal family, his face unforgiving. The two chancellors sat by his side; Tomasso quiet and still, his face impassive, and Vezzet, uneasily watching Satine.
The kindling was ready. Oil was poured over it. There was cold determination in the king’s eyes.
“You are entitled to speak, Satine. Do so now if you will.”
Her voice rang out over the square, clear and defiant.
“I called you a fool, and for that I must die. But now I see you are more of a fool than I thought. I will not plead for my life, but I will say this: you must fight with everything you have. Fight and destroy Leostrial, or the world will be immersed in darkness, as the words of The Great One state, and you will be remembered as the king who could have saved us, but did not. Treasure the Strangers above all else. If you do not, you will fail. And I will not be the only one who dies.” She paused and looked to the prince. Then she spoke to him in another language, a beautiful, flowing language that Luca didn’t understand. Just a few words, and then a smile and a shrug before she turned back to the king, and her face hardened again. Accolon did not have a chance to reply.
The king sighed and looked down at the floor, shaking his head. Without looking up, he gestured with his hand and two men came forward to light the fire.
But it didn’t light.
***
Satine hadn’t known the fire wouldn’t ignite. She knew nothing of the plan to save her. She had just been lead out of the cell and into the city square, through the crowd and onto the pier. She hoped her fear hadn’t shown on her face—she was determined to keep what little dignity she had left. So she had spoken her piece to Gaddemar, and then, with a heavy heart, had turned to Accolon. The words she had uttered were spoken in Elvish, the ancient language, because she hoped there would be fewer in the crowd who might understand it—the words were not meant for more than one set of ears.
Satine had seen the anguish in his eyes, and said, “Oh, dear one. Do not be sad for me. I will see you again in the end.”
But the fire had not lit.
“What is going on? Light it!” the king called.
One of the men turned to look at him, and holding up a stick he said, “My lord, the sticks—they are wet! It was not oil in the casket—it was water. They won’t light.”
Gaddemar clenched his fists, but his voice remained calm, “Then find dry sticks. The person who did this shall be punished.” The men hastened to obey. Satine could see Anna and Luca at the back of the crowd, but just then, as she looked at them, Anna fell straight to the ground in a dead faint. Luca looked down at her and gave a cry of shock. The people around them all turned to look at the commotion. Luca was calling out to the king—asking for aid, but to Satine’s horror, Gaddemar took one look at the two of them and turned back to the burning.
“Light it!” he snarled.
***
Luca was terrified. It wasn’t working. The king didn’t care about Anna, and was not falling for the diversion. It had only needed to be a second! Just a second that he was distracted, and it would have helped. Luca, panicked, turning to Accolon for some direction but the prince was no longer in his seat.
The men gathered dry sticks and again piled them around Satine. Gaddemar roared, “I’ve already told you what to do. Now do it!”
The men turned around to light the fire, and the sticks quickly burst into flames. They were about to turn back to their king for further instructions when there was a loud noise—like a gasp and a slight gurgle. When they looked at King Gaddemar, there were two arrows in his chest.
The crowd screamed as they realised what had happened. The queen stood and, with a shocked face, looked down on her dead husband. Then she screamed out, “Stop! Quench the fire! Look to your king!”
Two guards frantically tried to douse the fire with water, but the flames were not cooperative, and licked hungrily at Satine’s feet before going out. Shocked tears came to her eyes and she desperately blinked them away.
In the confusion there came the sound of hooves on the cobblestones and everyone in the square turned to see Harry charging through the crowd on a grey horse. People screamed and leaped out of the way, and in the chaos, Harry made it to the pier without hindrance—the guards didn’t know what their orders were, so all they could do was stand and watch in alarm.
At the pier, Harry used a swift movement to sever the ropes from Satine’s wrists and ankles, and then she was on the horse behind him. It took a moment for the queen to realise what was happening before she screamed out a command to seize the pair. But Harry was already well out of reach; heading somewhere they couldn’t be found. And in a moment, Anna was off the ground and hurrying with Luca to that same place.
Chapter 13
“Thrust, Jane!” Fern yelled as Jane feebly attempted swordplay. “Just stop,” he sighed and shook his head.
“Stop yelling at me!” Jane shouted, “I might be able to do it if you weren’t yelling!”
“If you would concentrate then I wouldn’t have to yell.”
Jane took a deep breath to calm herself. It was much easier than it would have been before she’d been given the pearl. It gave her a warm feeling every time she thought about it. Curiously, the power of the pearl didn’t seem to work on Fern though. He was just as infuriating as he’d always been, and too distracting.
She swung the heavy sword in a wide arc, landing it on Fern’s shoulder. At least, it would have landed on his shoulder if he hadn’t managed to parry the blow with laughable ease, even when he hadn’t been looking.
“Would you like to rest?” he asked.
She was about to reply with a resounding ‘no’ when something completely different popped out of her mouth. “Congratulations on your engagement.”
His eyes met hers briefly before he looked at the ground. “Thank you.”
“All your girlfriends will be pleased, no doubt.”
He didn’t rise to the bait, only shrugged. “I was never misleading with anyone. A royal marriage is not something one just walks into lightly, Jane. My bride has always had to be of a certain rank.”
Jane’s eyebrows arched and she nodded, thinking about this. “How long have you and Athena been together?”
He frowned. “You mean courting? Our parents have wanted the marriage for some time. We’ve known each other many years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about her?” Jane asked, making sure to sound casual.
He shrugged. “There are important things to be discussed other than marriages.”
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Jane continued. “You said ... you said your parents want the marriage...?”
“Yes.”
“What about you, Fern? Do you?”
He took a slow breath, and finally after a moment he looked up at her gently. “Does it matter?”
She stared at him. “What do you mean? Of course it does.”
Suddenly he was grinning again. “No, sweetness, not for me it doesn’t. Not for a prince. There are certain expectations. But in the end it’s all the same isn’t it? Marrying one girl from the next? What does it matter who she is?”
Jane opened her mouth, then closed it again. There was a long silence. Then, “I can’t believe you just said that.”
He winked patronisingly at her. “Don’t try too hard, lady.”
“How do you think Athena would feel if she heard you say that?”
He shrugged carelessly, and Jane shook her head in disbelief. Suddenly he was serious. “We’re wasting time. Raise your sword.”
She sighed and again heaved the enormous blade into the air.
“You’d do better to hold it higher,” a voice offered from beside them.
They both wheeled to see a small, slim figure leaning tiredly against a tree. She had a long matt of mousy brown hair, and a plain, thin face, which showed signs of stress. A strangely-shaped thing in a leather case was slung on her back. Fern leapt over to take the girl in a big hug that lifted her off the ground. She laughed, but there was something tight about the sound. After struggling out of his arms, the girl gasped for breath and said, “Careful, Fern, I’m not one of your soldiers.”
“Are you all right, girl? You do not look well,” he asked in a low voice that Jane could only just hear.
“I’m fine, Fern,” the girl replied, “You’re worrying over nothing.”
“Did you go home like I told you to?”
She nodded. “Did you make it to the wise man?”
“Yes, I found Jane on the way down,” said Fern. He turned towards Jane. “This is Ria del Torr, the best and most accomplished singer in the land. I’ve known her many years, ever since she sang at the palace and changed lives,” he paused briefly to note Ria grimacing at Jane. “This is Jane,” he hesitated and then went on. “She is a Stranger.”