Mel braced her hands against his arms.
“What is it?” Cobalt asked.
She answered in a low voice. “I can help…later.”
He thought of the scorched billiard ball, her burned hand, his ragged knuckles. She had healed them both. He found it hard to understand why he had ever feared her abilities as a mage. She was a miracle.
A question came to him, one that had the power to shake his world. “Can you heal my father?”
Silence.
“Mel?”
“I—I don’t know.” Softly she added, “I can help injuries heal, but I cannot mend what would not mend on its own.”
“Please.” It was a word he rarely used.
“Cobalt—”
“I know you and he do not like one another.” Although he meant to be calm, his voice shook. “But he is my father.”
“I swear, Cobalt, I would do no less for him than anyone else.”
“Will you not try, then?”
“But if I fail?”
He bent his head over hers. “We all must fail sometimes.”
“I just—”
“Please,” he whispered.
Her voice broke. “I will try.”
Cobalt pressed his lips against the back of her head, more grateful than he knew how to say. He had seen how badly the Shazire man gored his father. He wanted to shout at Varqelle for refusing to stay out of the battle. His father, like his wife, had his own mind and nothing would dissuade him from his decisions. Now Varqelle lay here, in this place of moans and pain, dying.
Ahead, a tent stood hunched between two trees. As Admiral approached, an army physician stepped out of the entrance. Cobalt dismounted and put up his arms for Mel, though usually she frowned at him and got off his horse without help. It told him how tired she was tonight that she slid into his arms without protest and let him lower her to the ground.
Matthew came over and extended his hand for the reins. Grateful, Cobalt handed them to him. Friend. Mel had called Matthew his friend. He put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder and the horseman nodded, sympathy in his eyes.
Cobalt and Mel headed to the tent. She swayed, and her slow pace warned she wouldn’t be on her feet much longer. But when he offered his arm, she shook her head and continued on her own.
The physician moved aside so they could enter. Although Cobalt bent his head, it still scraped the rough cloth of the entrance. Braziers shaped like jaguars were set in corners of the tent, and their coals shed ruddy light. Varqelle lay on a pallet between two of them, just as he had once slept in a bed with posts carved in totems of the great animal. Jaguar. His namesake. In the ancient language spoken in Harsdown a thousand years ago, “escar” meant the great mythical cat that prowled the high mountains.
Cobalt knelt next to his father. Varqelle regarded him with black eyes so very much like those that Cobalt saw when he looked into a mirror. The bandages wrapped around Varqelle’s chest were soaked with blood.
“Father.” The one word felt as if it ripped Cobalt.
“Remember me,” Varqelle whispered.
Cobalt put his hand on his father’s arm. “You will be here to remind me.”
Varqelle exhaled, his breath strained, but he didn’t answer.
Mel went to the other side of the pallet and sat cross-legged by the king. With her tangled hair falling over her body and her haunted eyes, she resembled images Cobalt had seen of the saint of souls that shepherded the spirits of the deceased across the ocean of death.
Varqelle turned his head to his daughter-in-law. “They have told me what you did at the battle.”
“She can help to heal you,” Cobalt said.
Mel looked as if she tried to smile but her lips wouldn’t hold the curve. She took a catapult ball out of a sling on her belt and cradled it in her hands.
“Why…help me?” Varqelle asked her.
“You are my husband’s father.” Her voice caught. “He loves you.”
A strange expression came over Varqelle’s face. He rolled his head back to Cobalt. “Is it true?”
Cobalt set his hand over his father’s. “It is true.”
Varqelle squeezed his hand and closed his eyes. “I…am fortunate.”
Mel bent over the ball. A blue glow appeared around her hands and deepened as it surrounded her body. Then it enveloped Varqelle. This was nothing like the harmless red light she had created on the battlefield. Cobalt felt power swelling around her. It saturated the tent.
Mel looked across to him, her eyes filled with moisture. Then, ever so slightly, she shook her head.
No. Cobalt wanted to shout the word.
She bent her head again and the glow intensified. A tear dropped onto her ball.
“Father?” Cobalt asked.
Varqelle’s grip eased on Cobalt’s fingers. “The wound is mortal, son. But…the pain goes…”
Cobalt could barely speak. The words felt thick in his throat, full of the tears he couldn’t shed. “You will ride with me again.”
Varqelle looked at Mel. “I know of no other woman who would ride all night…to stand by her husband in battle. With a sword of fire.” He struggled with the words. “It was honorable.”
“Aye.” Cobalt could say no more. His eyes felt strange.
Varqelle squeezed Cobalt’s fingers. “Remember that…I love you.” Then his hand went limp, and the blue glow faded from his body.
For the last time, Varqelle Escar’s eyes closed.
The wave of grief that had been roiling in Cobalt surged up and swept over him in an unbearable flood. He made no sound. He wanted to shout to the skies until the clouds froze and shattered, but he couldn’t move.
“Father,” he rasped.
Mel was sitting with the ball in her lap. In a nightmare of slow motion, her body crumpled and she fell to the side. Cobalt jumped to his feet, but he couldn’t reach her before she sprawled next to his father’s body. In that killing moment he knew the truth. She had drained herself to stop him from crushing Shazire. She had nothing left to give—and he had insisted she help the man who had attacked her people eighteen years ago and would have killed her family. He truly was the monster of his reputation.
“Mel.” Her name caught in his throat.
Cobalt lifted her body. He put his palm against her cheek and found it ice cold. He shook her arm but she didn’t stir. Her head rolled against his chest. He bent his head to hers and felt no breath from her mouth against his cheek. He found no pulse in her wrist or neck. He knelt with her limp body in his arms, and he knew then that nothing would ever matter again, that this night, at this moment, the world had ended—for he had lost them both, his father and his wife.
The Midnight Prince threw back his head and shouted. The cry was huge and agonized, and it wrenched out of him. The anguish rose from his throat and cracked open the night as his heart tore apart with grief.
21
The House of Zerod
Cobalt saw no one. He was dimly aware of leaving the tent and striding into the night, but he paid no heed to where he went. No one tried to stop him. He had no idea how he looked, but warriors who had fought on the Azure Fields without flinching backed out of his way now. He went blindly through the trees while inside he died a thousand times. He made no sound; he was screaming in silence.
They had come into his life, Mel and his father, and changed him, made him alive, made him believe he could love, that he was worth loving. Now they were gone and he knew the truth: Stonebreaker had always been right, he was nothing, worthless. He could topple a hundred countries and it would never be enough to prove his grandfather wrong. Perhaps he could have survived the death of his father, though he would have grieved forever, but without Mel he had nothing.
Sometime later he came to his senses enough to comprehend that he was crouched by a creek. Darkness surrounded him, and he could barely see the water running past his feet. He rubbed the heel of his hand over his cheek and it came away wet. Mel. Melody. She was a melod
y of light and love and laughter. He had extinguished that light.
“Forgive me,” he rasped.
The ruddy light of a torch cut through the darkness. Then Matthew spoke. “Cobalt?”
“I sent her home to her mother.” Cobalt choked out the words. “She came back. I told her to stay out of the battle. She said no. Saints, Matthew, I tied her to a damn pole and still she came back. Now I’ve killed her.”
Matthew knelt next to him. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”
“Yes. I should.” The words cut like broken glass. “I don’t know how to be anything else but what I am. And that ended her life.”
“I gave her the catapult ball,” Matthew said. “Blame me if you must blame someone.”
“No. I would have asked her to heal him no matter what. I didn’t know spells could kill. I didn’t know. She feared I would hate her if she didn’t try.” Blinded by grief, he had wanted his miraculous sorceress to save his father, and because of that he had lost them both.
“Come.” Matthew spoke kindly, though he sounded as if he were breaking. “Come back to camp with me.”
“I must—must make arrangements.” Cobalt stood up with him. “Arrangements.”
“We will take care of them.”
Cobalt walked at Matthew’s side, unable to think, unable to feel, encased in numbness. It wouldn’t last; soon he would break open and have to face this anguish. His great dream was all he had left, but it had turned to ashes.
Eventually they came to the medical station. It felt unreal, a nightmare. Surely he would wake. But the nightmare continued. He found himself back at the tent. Inside, two bodies covered in shrouds were laid out between the jaguar braziers.
The physician was kneeling next to Varqelle with his head bowed. He looked up as Cobalt came in, and immediately rose to his feet. An unbearable sympathy showed in his eyes. Cobalt couldn’t speak to him. He had no more words. He had given what few he had to Matthew and only silence remained. This physician had saved lives today, not killed the people he loved. Cobalt the Great. Cobalt the Fool.
Matthew and the doctor spoke in low voices. Cobalt couldn’t hear, couldn’t listen. Then they left, giving him privacy. He knelt next to Mel’s body and pulled back the gauzy white cloth that covered her face.
His entire life, he had been outside the warmth. He had seen other children in loving, complete families, but he had known that could never happen to him. As a boy, he had once stood outside the window of a cottage that belonged to a groom from the palace stables. Cobalt had watched hungrily while the family inside laughed and talked. The father had hugged his wife and son with unrestrained affection. Cobalt had run home that night, too torn apart even to cry. He had no father, only Stonebreaker. Had it not been for Dancer, he would have broken into a thousand pieces, inside his heart, where no one could see. All during his childhood he had wanted that scene in the cottage. As an adult, he had secretly dreamed of a loving wife, but he had never had any idea how to catch that elusive dream, and eventually he had stopped hoping.
Then somehow it had happened, not the way he had imagined, but with the same intensity that he lived the rest of his life. Varqelle would never have been like that gentle, affectionate groom, but he had approved of his son, admired him. Loved him. And Mel. Saints, Mel. She had been more than he could have dreamed, beyond his hopes. She had filled the holes in his life, those empty places he had lived with for so long, he hadn’t even realized they were there—until she took them away.
And he had killed her.
“I’m sorry.” The words choked out of him. “I am so very, very sorry.” He closed his eyes and tears ran down his face.
A finger touched his cheek. “Don’t cry, love.”
Cobalt froze. He opened his eyes—and found his wife looking at him.
“Mel?” he whispered.
“I tried to help him.” Her voice was so low he could barely hear. “I tried. I couldn’t do it.” Circles of exhaustion darkened her eyes. But they were alert. Alive.
The world quaked under Cobalt. Time seemed to stop. He drew her into his arms and cradled her against his chest. He said her name over and over and thought he would sit here forever, for he feared if he moved, this delusion would dissolve and he would be left with only his grief and her lifeless body.
Then she put her arms around his neck and leaned her head against his, holding him. “It will be all right,” she murmured.
Cobalt cried then, tears running down his face as he rocked her back and forth, her body so fragile in his arms.
“Don’t die.” His voice shook. “Don’t leave me, Mel.”
“I won’t.”
“I thought—we all thought—you didn’t breathe, you had no pulse—” He couldn’t finish.
“I went into a mage trance. To heal…like that night in the Sphere Tower.”
“Sphere Tower?” He couldn’t take in her words.
“That night King Stonebreaker found me…on the floor…”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For everything.”
“Don’t worry, love.” She held on to him and didn’t try to talk anymore.
Cobalt didn’t know how long he sat with her. Someone spoke to him and someone else tried to ease Mel out of his arms, but he refused to let her go.
Gradually he became more aware. The doctor was kneeling next to him. As Cobalt’s gaze focused, the man said, “Shall I tend your wife, Your Majesty?”
Majesty? It was the wrong title. He shifted Mel so that she was curled against him, her cheek pressed against his chest, his legs extended on either side of her. He bent his head over hers and his hair fell forward, mingling with hers, black on corn silk. She stirred but didn’t open her eyes.
“She’s alive,” Cobalt said.
“Did you bring her back?” The physician sounded subdued. Awed, even.
“No.” The last thing Cobalt wanted was for people to think he could do such deeds. “Not me. She was under a mage spell.”
“Ah.” He sounded bewildered.
Cobalt lifted his head. “My father?” Even now, he hoped.
The doctor shook his head. “He is gone.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes. It is not like with your wife. He shows all the signs of his passing.” He let out a quiet breath. “I am terribly sorry.”
Cobalt’s voice caught. “We must see to his funeral pyre.”
“I will begin the arrangements immediately.”
“Not immediately.” Cobalt held Mel against him. “I need to sit here. With them. For a while.”
“I understand.”
“Can you bring ale for my wife?” He didn’t know what mages needed to help them recover, but ale often made him feel better.
The doctor smiled kindly and rose to his feet. “I will fetch some.”
Cobalt nodded, grateful, and held Mel. When he was alone, he sat in the dimly lit tent and mourned for his father while he thanked every saint he had heard of for his miraculous wife.
They spread Varqelle’s ashes across the hills north of the Azure Fields, in green countryside that had escaped the weight of the armies. Skybells nodded in the wild grasses, and patchy shadows scuttled across the land from clouds. The ashes drifted on the wind and across a hill below the ridge where Cobalt stood with Mel and Matthew. Cobalt had thought he might place them in an urn and carry it with him, but this was better, giving his father the freedom of the land he had made his own before he died, though he lived only moments to know his victory.
“Rest well,” Cobalt murmured.
He wanted to stay there forever, high on a ridge under the clouds. But it wasn’t possible. Much remained to do. He had taken this country and now he had to prove to Mel that he could be a good leader instead of a tyrant.
Cobalt turned to her. “How are you?”
“Well,” she said softly.
She didn’t look well. Her face was gaunt and she had confined her hair in a braid that fell to her waist. Her tunic and
leggings were black to honor his father, an honor she freely gave, though Cobalt would never have asked for it after all that had happened. He didn’t deserve this wife of his, but for some incredible reason he had a second chance with her.
He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Her knuckles felt cold when he pressed his lips against them. Since last night, when he had thought she had died, he kept wanting to touch her, to assure himself she really was alive.
“Ride with me,” he said.
“All right.” She squeezed his hand. Then she let go and walked slowly back to where Admiral stood among the trees.
Matthew spoke at Cobalt’s side. “She is strong.”
Cobalt glanced at him. Matthew sounded strange today. Perhaps it was grief for Varqelle, but it confused Cobalt, for Matthew had avoided the king and knew him little.
“What troubles you?” Cobalt asked.
“I’m just getting old.” Matthew rubbed his eyes. “More aware of my own mortality.”
Cobalt laid a hand on his shoulder. “You must not think that way. You’re a fine, strong man. You will outlive me.”
Matthew set his palm over Cobalt’s hand. “I hope not.”
Cobalt lowered his hand and smiled. “We should catch up with my wife before she rides away on Admiral. I will return to camp to find she has taken over my army.”
Matthew tried to return his smile, but it didn’t reach the sadness in his eyes. “She just might.”
“Well.” Cobalt stood awkwardly, feeling as if he should say more, but he didn’t know what.
They crossed the meadow to the trees. Mel had somehow already mounted, though Admiral stood taller than most horses and usually tolerated no one except Cobalt to touch him when he was without a rider. Cobalt saw the tree stump Mel must have used, so he used it, too, to boost himself up behind her. Matthew swung onto his chestnut horse. Then they rode through the trees, following a trail that wound down a mild slope on the other side of the ridge.