The robes bore an insignia over the left breast, done in black and red twine. I couldn’t quite make it out until I viewed myself in the mirror. Then the dancing flames became apparent. I traced the crimson points with my fingertips, wondering what the High King saw in fire that I didn’t.
“Destruction,” I said to myself as I braided my hair into a circlet on the nape of my neck. Satisfied by my preparations, I looked in the mirror. I wore no makeup, and a few errant freckles splashed across my cheeks and nose. Grandmother used to say they were angel kisses, and when I lay in the sun as a child, they multiplied because the angels were smiling down upon me.
I’d never believed her, because if angels existed my father wouldn’t have died and my mother wouldn’t have left to bring him back.
I watched my eyes widen and blink; watched the rise and fall of my chest. I didn’t seem like someone qualified to train legions of magicians. My pale skin made my hair appear dark as midnight, but that wasn’t a desirable quality in my experience. Greta was forever adding color to my face, not trying to take it away. Beauty was not found in skin the color of bleached bone, nor in too-light eyes and lips as pale as moonlight.
Oake had said my features spoke of great power, but I hadn’t believed that either. His hair shone like gold, and his eyes rivaled the spring grasses in their depth of greenness. He didn’t appear washed out, faded from view, transparent.
“My lady?” Matu’s voice sounded from the bedroom. “The magicians are assembled in the outer courtyard.”
I turned away from my reflection and went to find what awaited me in the outer courtyard.
#
Matu left me on a set of cement steps at one end of the courtyard and took his place at the end of the first row of magicians. He stared straight ahead, like the others who’d gathered. Ten rows stretched before me, each with ten men or women, all with identical charcoal robes with the fiery insignia.
“We’ll begin with a test,” I called, my voice bouncing off the smooth marble and cobbled stones in the courtyard. No one responded, though my words sounded threatening to me.
I opened my mouth and sang one clear note low in my register, mixing the sound with a mental chant that would induce complacency. Anyone too weak to ward off a simple passivity spell shouldn’t be performing magic until their mind was sufficiently strong enough to combat such attacks. Grandmother had taught me this before sending me to Oake for lessons, so I figured it would be a good place to start here as well.
More than half the magicians sank to the ground, their eyes half-open, a dreamy smile plastered on their faces. It pleased me to find both Castillo and Matu still standing, though Castillo wore a nasty glare to broadcast his displeasure.
I quieted the note, feeling a rush of vertigo as I did. I breathed through the side-to-side movement of the courtyard until it stopped. “If you’re sitting on the ground, you’re dismissed.”
The magicians on the ground simply got up and wandered away, smiling or exclaiming about the brightness of the sun as it crested the mountains and bathed the High Castle in daylight.
“Those of you who remain, tighten in, please.”
After they had reassembled the box, this time eight rows of five people each, I descended the steps and maneuvered through them. No one seemed frightened of me. None moved. None spoke.
I returned to the steps and gestured to the sun-drenched cement. “Come, sit. We will sing.”
Forty-Two
Castillo acted as if he hadn’t met me before, that we hadn’t bonded. Even when I walked directly in front of him, he let his eyes slide over my face without truly acknowledging me.
I’d never been happier than when the session ended. I’d felt strengthened by Castillo’s magic, used it as I spent my own. His snubbing of me stung, but I found I didn’t care as much when I saw Cris waiting for me outside my door.
“You look like you could use lunch.” A genuine smile graced his lips and the autumn sun added auburn to his dark hair.
“Lunch sounds fantastic,” I said. “Let me get rid of this robe and change my clothes.”
“No need for that,” he said, reaching for the robe as I shrugged out of it. He held it toward my door. It opened and someone took the robe and closed the door. “Shall we?”
He offered his arm, and I took it, feeling very self-conscious in the black tunic and trousers. “Where are we lunching?”
“I asked my chefs to set up the stage.” He led me away from our wing, back through the outer courtyard, where two or three magicians lingered in conversation, and up the steps into an orchard. Trees stretched as far as my eye could see.
“How far is the stage? I’m starving.”
“Starving? I heard you ate quite a few muffins at breakfast.”
“Hey!” I elbowed him, sending my body away from his. He grasped me as he laughed and pulled me back to the safety of his side.
“Singing is hard work.”
“It’s not far.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek. He let his lips linger longer than necessary, and I turned my head and met his mouth with mine. A thrill shot through my core, awakening a sleeping store of magic.
We broke apart and leaned our foreheads together. I kept my eyes closed as I tasted him on my lips, breathing quickly through my nose.
“I love you, Echo,” Cris whispered.
It felt like the right time to say it back, whether I knew for certain if I loved him or not.
So I did.
#
The last person I wanted to interrupt our peaceful orchard luncheon was the High King. Yet he stomped through the trees, causing me to drop my fork.
“Echo?” Cris asked.
“Your father.” I peered at the High King, just beyond the makeshift stage. We’d eaten and had a lovely lunch complete with glorious sunlight and conversation about my grandmother.
Cris laid his napkin on the table in a carefully controlled manner. “I’ll go with him.”
“Go where?”
“He’s been summoning me since the council meeting.” He pushed away from the table and stood. “The Heonian ambassadors wish to meet with me, as they believe you to be too ill.”
“Do they know I’m here, in Nyth?”
“Yes.” He smoothed an invisible wrinkle from his jacket as I stood. “But they believe you to have the walking plague, which will take several weeks to recover from. They believe that’s why we didn’t arrive together.”
“What does Heona want?” Twisting fear made my insides feel like jelly. “Why shouldn’t I meet with them?”
Cris leaned in until his cheek pressed against mine, and whispered so no one could overhear. “We’re trying to steady the situation between Nyth and Umon before dealing with Heona.”
“You shouldn’t go.” I moved to position myself between Cris and the approaching High King. His black cape billowed behind him as he all but ran forward.
The High King stopped a few feet away. His demeanor testified of storm clouds and unhappy endings. “Cris! There you are. I must speak with you.” His gaze flickered to me and back to his son. “Alone.”
“Now?” I asked. “We’re just finishing lunch.”
He squinted at me, his mind working hard. “When you train my magicians, we can discuss the timing of my private discussions with my son.”
I lifted my chin to look down on the High King. “I spent four hours with your magicians this morning. Some of them have never had a day of training in their life.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
“Wrong,” I said, snarling out the word. “I’m here because your son asked me to marry him, and I said yes.”
“Echo, I’ll be back for dinner.” Cris put both hands on my shoulders and turned me away from the High King. “Now is not the time for your mouth.”
“You’ve never had a problem with it before,” I whispered.
“And I don’t now,” he said, just as quietly. “But he does, and this doesn’t play into our plan.”
br /> I studied him for a moment, seeing the depth of our plans in his eyes. I nodded, realizing there would come a time when I could use my mouth against the High King.
Cris nodded. “Sometimes a distraction is needed, and I know exactly how to orchestrate such a thing.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“Cris,” I started, but he shook his head.
“Echo, do not worry. I know what I’m doing. Trust me.” He buttoned his suit coat and embraced me one last time. “Train the magicians. If I don’t return, search for me. I’ll always come back to you.”
A lump rose in my throat as he stepped off the stage and followed his father into the orchard. He didn’t look back.
#
I waited alone in Cris’s suite until night fell. I sat on the balcony in my mauve silk, wondering if something had gone wrong. I’d seen very little of Nyth, and even less of the castle. I doubted I could find my way back to the council chamber without singing a spell to make it so. Worry gnawed at my insides, and I kept swallowing in the hopes that it would cease.
Nightingales sang joyful songs to one another, and still Cris didn’t return. Dinner sat on the cart, untouched and cold. My heart raced, and then slowed into an irregular rhythm that felt funny in my chest.
The moon arced through the sky. Cris didn’t return.
My eyelids grew heavy. Still, Cris did not return.
I fell asleep alone, on Cris’s balcony, in the wee hours of the morning, when even the nightingales had returned to loved ones in their nests.
#
I woke just before the sun, returned to my suite, and scrubbed my face back to its usual paleness. Olive handed me set of black clothes and helped me pin my hair back.
“You need to return to Iskadar,” I said. “I worry for you here.”
She gave me a timid smile, looking more exhausted than I’d ever seen her in Umon, though our hours had been long and our rewards sparse. “I’d like to return to Grandmother’s house.”
I nodded like I could make it happen. “I’ll find a way.” I slipped into my clothes just as Matu knocked on the door. Donning my magician’s robe, I greeted him silently by stepping into the breezeway and taking his arm. Upon arrival in the outer courtyard, I found all one hundred magicians—as well as the High King.
He lounged in a recliner opposite the steps, sipping from a golden goblet. My first thought was to sing him into oblivion and then piece his particles back together and demand he lead me to Cris. My second thought focused on why he’d come at all.
I shelved all matters regarding the High King and focused on the magicians in front of me. “A test,” I called, and sang the same note as the previous day. Many of the same magicians were dismissed, despite the High King’s narrowed eyes and displeased scowl.
I invited the remaining magicians to the steps and we warmed up by singing scales. When we finished, I said, “I think we’ll start today with protective rhymes. How many of you know this line of poetry?”
After I had recited the stanza, only Castillo’s hand rose.
“Perhaps you can help us,” I said to him. “How do you start the spell?”
He kept his attention on a pebble at his feet. He opened his mouth and sang the opening line, his tone rich and powerful. He stopped and regarded me with eyes filled with fire.
I strode toward him, my robe trailing behind me on the cobbles. “The rhyme should grind in your throat before you give it true voice.” I clutched his throat with my cold fingers. “Hold onto that first beat for as long as you can, and then hold it a moment longer. That’s how you draw the power from the earth.”
I clasped my hands behind my back the way I’d seen Cris do a hundred times. “Let me hear it.”
I moved through the group, giving advice and correcting the note. So absorbed was I in my work that I didn’t notice the High King had ventured closer. I’d just set the range for a girl who couldn’t find the right note when I looked up and found him studying me.
“Yes?” My voice came out blunt and cold—an inappropriate way to speak to royalty.
“That’s too low,” he said.
“For someone with a soprano voice like hers, the lower she starts, the more magic she’ll be able to draw from her core.” I turned back to the girl. “That’s the right note. Start there and pull the magic through you as you move into the upper register.”
I faced the High King again. “Let me hear yours.”
Shock colored his face and moved through his eyes with a flash of anger. Then he parted his lips and emitted a note that would begin a very strong protective ward. I wished he wasn’t quite so good at magic.
“Well done,” I said. “Will you stay for the whole lesson?”
“No,” the High King said, already turning back to his recliner. “I don’t have time for defensive songs.”
Annoyance flooded me. “I don’t have to train the militia.”
“Someone in authority must,” he said. “And my other advisors are busy with political necessities.”
“Where’s Cris?”
The High King waved his hand in response, as if Cris existed in the sky and could land nearby if he so chose. The High King reached his recliner and snapped his fingers. The chair vanished, and the High King bowed with a smirk on his face before leaving the courtyard.
I continued the lesson, but I still felt the High King’s presence everywhere. Afterward, I made sure I stood next to Castillo when I dismissed the magicians. “Have you heard from or seen Cris?” I spoke through mostly closed lips.
“No.” He looked at something over my left shoulder as if we were not talking. “I’ll see what I can find out.”
“He said he could cause a distraction. Would that put him in danger?” I asked, giving up the pretenses and looking straight at Castillo now that most of the magicians had left the courtyard.
Castillo swallowed, a nervous gesture that increased the pressure in my stomach. “He was the distraction. I suspect he’s gone to the villages.”
Forty-Three
The next morning, I arrived in the courtyard much too early, having slept badly the night before. I couldn’t locate Matu, and I hadn’t been able to find a way to release my sister back to Iskadar without involving the High King. I had enough authority to make her assignments, so I changed her duties to my full-time maid. She might wish to work with bouquets, but I wanted to keep her close to me so I could protect her.
The High King rested on the steps, the recliner gone.
“Where’s Cris?” I asked, not expecting an answer—and not receiving one. The High King stared into the orchard beyond the courtyard, clearly disinterested in speaking with me.
“Can I see him?”
He swung his gaze to mine, licked his lips, and returned his attention to the sun rising over the eastern mountains. “When you train my magicians.”
I frowned. I was training his magicians. They arrived in clumps, all within a few minutes of each other. I attempted a few more questions, but the High King reverted to muteness. I fumed through the lesson, especially because Matu adopted Castillo’s treatment and wouldn’t look at me. I swallowed back my emotions and tried to fight through the feeling that I was being completely left out of everything important.
I assigned the trainees to a partner. I taught them to sing notes and twine them with mental chants to increase the magic. As I moved past Matu, who seemed to be struggling with the spell, I caught sight of the High King murmuring with a pair several paces away.
When I arrived on-scene, I found him instructing a hook nosed magician to start the chant before the note. Not only that, but the pitch of the man’s voice was wrong—much too low—yet I’d taught him the correct note earlier.
“You’re wrong,” I blurted, turning to the magician. His eyes widened and his lips quirked up into an amused smile. “Don’t listen to him. Do as I instructed, and the spell will be what it should be.”
I spun back to face the High King. My fingers curled into fists. ??
?Why are you forcing me to do this? It’s obvious you find me incompetent.”
He glared at me, a slow blush creeping into his face. “You’re extremely powerful,” he said with far too much control for me to be comfortable. I had no idea what he was getting at.
I took a deep breath and pictured Cris by my side. I heard him whisper warnings in my ears and saw that look of adoration when he said, “Curse that mouth.”
“You’re not required to be present during these trainings.” Movement to my right caught my eye. I turned to find Olive observing us, a bouquet of flowers clutched in her fists.
“Excuse me.” She glanced between me and the High King, something anxious in her expression. “Someone summoned me?”
A shout drew my attention away from my sister. I turned and found a magician had lost consciousness. Two of his friends supported his head.
“Castillo!” I called for my bond as I hurried away from Olive and the High King.
We roused the fallen magician, and I stood. “Dismissed,” I said, though the lesson was far from over. I turned and found Olive huddled with the High King near the edge of the courtyard.
I sidled up to them in time to hear the High King say, “Dinner is at six o’clock.” He spared me a withering glare before departing.
“Olive?” I asked.
My sister looked teary, but when she met my gaze, the water in her eyes turned glassy. She straightened. “The High King has invited me to dinner.”
“Why?” Such an invitation surely equated to something terrible.
Fear crossed her face, and her fingers shredded the delicate petals of the arrangement she held. “No servant has been seen after their private dinner with the High King.”