A hand clapped Mel on the shoulder, and she turned to see her father. She went into his arms and hugged him, too, forgetting for this moment everything else but these two people she had so deeply missed.
After a while, they separated. Mel smiled and wiped her eyes. “It’s good to see you.”
“Aye,” her mother said, her face wet, too.
Muller’s voice caught. “Welcome home.”
“I’m so glad to be here.” Mel looked back at the gardens and the orchards beyond. She had ridden through them with Cobalt and their honor guard, and they were all waiting about fifty paces back, dismounted, Cobalt holding the reins for Admiral and Smoke. Matthew stood at his side.
Does no one else see it? Mel wondered. Matthew had the same cheekbones and nose as Cobalt. Their features weren’t identical; Matthew had a gentler cast to his face and gray eyes. He also dressed in rougher clothes. But if one looked past the external signs of social class, his Escar heritage was obvious.
Cobalt was watching her with his shuttered expression, but she recognized the pain behind his control. Seeing her with her parents, he was remembering his father.
“Cobalt!” The woman’s voice came from behind them.
Mel turned to see Dancer walking across the porch, her spectacles in one hand. As she descended the stairs, she nodded to Mel and her parents, then passed them, her attention on Cobalt. He handed the reins to Matthew and went to his mother. Their reunion was quiet. Restrained. Dancer lifted her arms as if to hug him, but she held back. Cobalt looked down at her with a gentleness he so rarely showed anyone. He hesitated—and then stiffly pulled her into a hug. For the first time since Mel had known them, they embraced.
They released each other after only a moment and stood awkwardly. Cobalt said, “You look well.”
She seemed to light up from within at the sight of him. “That is because you are here.” Her smile faded. “But Cobalt, you look tired. You must make certain to sleep enough. And are you eating enough? It is important that you do.”
He laughed, evoking flustered looks from his guards, who had probably never heard him make such a sound. “Ah, Mother, I am glad to see you.”
She patted his arm. Then he and Dancer came over to Mel and her parents. While the rest of their honor guard led the horses back to the stables, Mel took her husband into her home for the first time since their marriage.
Mel’s dearest friend Shim joined them for the evening meal. It seemed ages since Shim had stood up for Mel at the wedding, though it had only been months. It gratified Mel that Shim still considered their friendship strong despite all the changes.
It wasn’t until after supper was eaten and drinks shared in the spacious parlor that their guests departed and the household settled down for the evening. While Muller retired to his den to talk with his son-in-law, Mel spent some time with Fog. Then she wandered through the house alone and reacquainted herself with her home.
She found Dancer in the library.
The queen was standing by a shelf, reading a scroll about the matrilineal structure of Aronsdale farming households. She looked up as Mel came over to her. “This is astonishing! I had no idea.” She showed Mel the scroll. “I’ve never had a chance to read so much about Aronsdale.” Belatedly, she seemed to realize what she had done. Her face reddened and she lowered the scroll. “Good evening, Melody.”
If ever Mel had felt her name didn’t fit, it had been since she married Cobalt. It was good to see Dancer so animated, though. “Have you enjoyed the library here?”
“It is a fine collection,” Dancer said with formality. Then her voice relaxed. “Your parents have so many books I’ve never seen.”
“I spent many hours here as a child.” Mel grimaced with the memory. “Always I had some studies or other I had to do.”
“Learning is important.” It sounded like Dancer was no stranger to admonishing a reluctant child to study.
“My parents said that, too.”
“They are kind.” Dancer paused. “They have treated me better than I expected.”
It didn’t surprise Mel. She suspected almost anything would be better than what Dancer had learned to expect. “I had hoped you would like them.”
“Why?” Dancer seemed genuinely perplexed.
“They are your family now, too.”
The queen hesitated. “They have invited me to stay as the court historian.”
Mel thought it was a good idea, if Dancer would consider it. “It isn’t a royal court like you’re used to.” She indicated the sunbask room around them. “No castle or palace. Just this farmhouse. But it is a good place to live.”
“I love it here,” Dancer murmured.
“I, too.” The irony didn’t escape her, that Dancer Escar of all people could come to live here, but Mel could never come home again, not to stay. Her fate was too intertwined with Cobalt.
Dancer returned the scroll to the shelf. She stood with one hand against its surface, her gaze averted. “And my husband?”
Mel answered in a subdued voice. “I’m sorry about his death.” As much as she had disliked Varqelle, she did regret his passing, though mainly for what it had done to Cobalt.
“Ah, well.” Dancer turned to her. “He and I have barely spoken for over thirty years.”
“He died with his sword in his hand.”
“It is what he would have wanted.”
“Dancer?”
“Yes?”
“I wondered about Matthew—” Mel wasn’t sure what to ask. Is he Cobalt’s uncle? She didn’t have the right to pry. Dancer might not know, anyway.
“Why do you ask about him?” Dancer asked.
“I wondered if you would manage all right without him here. He has served your family for a long time.”
Dancer walked over to a table where a yellow vase was filled with rosy box-blossoms. A delicate glass sphere stood on a stand next to it. She ran her finger over the vase. “Matthew has asked Cobalt if he may remain here, too, if I stay.”
“Do you think you will?”
Dancer looked up. “If Cobalt allows Matthew, then yes, I will stay.”
It gladdened Mel to hear. “Does Matthew know?”
“I have told him so.”
Mel wondered just how close Dancer and Matthew had become over the decades. “He is a good man.”
Dancer’s expression softened. “Yes.”
So. Matthew had been Dancer’s closest friend at the Castle of Clouds. Did they wish it to be more? Dancer could wed again after a suitable time of mourning. In the Misted Cliffs, a queen couldn’t marry the man in charge of her stables, but here it might be different.
Mel smiled. “He is also a handsome man.”
Dancer’s mouth curved upward as she touched the box-blossoms. “That he is.”
Mel spoke carefully. “He resembles King Varqelle a bit.”
“Do you believe so?” Dancer’s face took on its closed expression. “I don’t think so. He has a much kinder face.”
Mel thought of Matthew caring for Dancer throughout the years, hiding Cobalt from Stonebreaker’s rages, smuggling the boy dinner when his grandfather locked him in his room without food, always there, always helping. “Yes. He does.”
Dancer sighed. “He and I are of an age, you know. A couple of old folks.”
“Not so old,” Mel said.
Dancer turned to her. “You have said nothing about the difference in our stations.”
“There is nothing to say.” Mel lifted her hand to indicate the library, but she meant all of her home. “This place is enchanted. Anything can happen.”
Incredibly, Dancer laughed, a lovely sparkle of sound, a hint of how the queen might have glowed had her life been kinder. “You almost make me believe that.”
Mel felt her own face gentle. “I am glad.”
Crickets were singing in the night, and the music of a fiddle trickled out an open window of the house. Mel strolled through the orchard and tried to imprint it on her mind so h
er memories of this place would remain vivid.
She concentrated on the glass sphere she had brought with her from the library. Dim orange light filled it and then faded. It would be a while before she could perform any significant spell, especially with high-level colors, but she was recovering faster this time than the last. She hoped that eventually she could use her powers without knocking herself out in the process.
“It is a beautiful night, Your Majesty,” a man said.
Startled by the title, Mel looked up with a jerk and saw a figure under an apple tree a short distance away. “My greetings, Matthew.”
“May I walk with you?” he asked.
“Yes. Certainly.”
They strolled together under the trees. After a moment, she said, “Dancer told me the two of you might stay here.”
“Cobalt has given permission.”
“I’m glad.”
Matthew paused. “Mel—”
“Yes?”
He had an odd expression, one of sorrow and something else harder to read. Regret? “Cobalt treasures the memory of his father. And he values his heritage, both in the House of Escar and the House of Chamberlight.”
“It means the stars to him,” Mel said.
“I would have it stay that way.”
Mel knew what he feared, that the more time Cobalt spent with her family, the more likely he was to hear ill spoken of his father. But they would never dishonor Varqelle’s name to Cobalt.
“My family respects the memory of the deceased.”
Matthew indicated a lawn seat under the trees, one of several set out in the orchard. He brushed leaves off the bench and they sat down together. Enough moonlight sifted through the trees for her to see his pensive expression.
“I would like to tell you a story,” he said.
“Please do.”
“You must promise to repeat it to no one.” He spoke firmly. “Especially Cobalt.”
“If my silence would harm him, I cannot promise it.”
“Will you trust me if I tell you harm will come to no one as long as you never speak of it?”
Mel thought of all she knew about this man. He had given her many reasons to trust him. “Yes. I promise my silence.”
He sat back in the lawn seat. Then he began. “Thirty-five years ago a beautiful girl married a king. Her husband mistreated her, but she knew of no other life, for she had lived with even worse in her home. She was like an injured dove.” He stared into the trees ahead of them. “Another man fell in love with her. He worked with the horses.” His voice softened. “He wanted to take away her pain and show her that she didn’t have to live without love. And incredibly, for one night in the loft of his stable, they shared that love.”
“Ah, no, Matthew,” Mel murmured.
“It was only one night.” He looked at her. “Nine months later she gave birth to a son.”
She stared at him. “A son?”
“Everyone believed the child was premature. It could be true.”
“Matthew—”
He put up his hand. “The son looked like the king. Walked like him. Spoke like him. Paced the keep with the same restless spirit that never found peace. Like the king.”
She spoke quietly. “Or the king’s half brother.”
“His bastard half brother.” His gaze never wavered. “As the king’s only child, and the only male heir to his mother’s father as well, the boy was heir of two kingdoms.”
Heir to two kingdoms—or dead. Mel knew the miserable laws; she had read thoroughly the history of this country. “In Harsdown, the sentence for a queen’s adultery is execution for both her and her lover.”
“And their child.”
Saints above. “And the king suspected? So the queen fled?”
“Never. The king believed the boy was his.” He spoke with difficulty. “And that may be true.”
Mel had seen Matthew’s kindness reflected in Cobalt, but never had she seen such in Varqelle. It might be because Matthew raised Cobalt, but now she wondered. “If the king didn’t suspect, why did his wife leave him?”
Matthew put one elbow up on the back of the seat and regarded her. “The king’s mistress knew. She spied on her rival.”
No wonder Dancer had been so unhappy. “The queen knew about the mistress?”
Matthew snorted. “Everyone knew. It was no secret.”
“And the mistress threatened to reveal the truth if the queen didn’t leave?”
“Yes.”
It made an ugly sort of sense. Dancer’s adultery had given her husband’s lover the ultimate weapon. No wonder Dancer was bitter. Varqelle suffered no consequences for openly keeping a mistress, yet he could have killed Dancer, Matthew, and Cobalt with impunity for the one night Dancer and Matthew spent together. Nor did Mel doubt that Varqelle would have done it.
“Is the mistress still alive?” Mel asked.
“She died years ago.”
Mel thought of Stonebreaker. “Couldn’t the queen go to someone else besides her father?”
Matthew’s hand clenched his knee, gripping the cloth of his trousers. “Her father wouldn’t allow it. Finally he had everything he wanted, a male heir and a weapon to control his daughter—her fear of her husband. He gave her a choice. Either she stay with him or his army would return her to Harsdown.”
Mel felt ill. It fit with what she had seen of the Chamberlight sovereign. “Did he suspect about her baby?”
“No one did. The child’s resemblance to the king was unmistakable.”
“Saints, Matthew. It is a terrible story.”
“Ah, well.” His face lost its harsh cast. “The ending is not so bad, at least for Dancer.” After a pause, he said, “And who knows. Cobalt could have been premature. I might not be his father.”
Mel laid her hand on his forearm. “In every way that matters, you were a father to him. You taught him, guided him, protected him.” She couldn’t imagine what Cobalt would have become without Dancer and Matthew. The tyrant existed within her husband, but his light had won over his darkness.
“Someday,” Matthew said, “he must face Stonebreaker. They are not done, those two.”
“He isn’t ready yet.” For all that the rest of the world saw Cobalt as invincible, Mel knew otherwise. “But someday.”
“You are good for him.” Matthew’s face relaxed into a smile. “I am glad you came to us.”
“I, too,” she said, and meant it.
Mel was walking along a hallway when her father came out of his study. He stopped and waited, his face lit by a spherical oil lamp in a wall sconce. It comforted her to see him so perfectly arrayed, his buff trousers, polished knee-boots, gold brocaded vest, and snowy white shirt. His hair was gold and thick, with streaks of gray. He had the same slender build and long-legged grace she recalled from her earliest memories. As a small girl, she had liked to run around the yard while he and Chime pretended they couldn’t catch her. It had delighted Mel that she could outrun them both even with her stubby toddler legs.
“Evening, Papa,” she said.
His smile crinkled the lines around his eyes. “It is good to see you prowling about in the halls again.”
“I am not prowling,” she said, indignant.
“Ah, Mel.” He chuckled. “We’ve missed you.”
She hesitated. “So much has changed. I wasn’t certain I would be welcome in Harsdown.”
“You are always welcome here.” He shifted his weight. “I cannot say that all of our people feel such about your husband.”
She didn’t doubt it. “I wish they knew him better.”
“He and I talked for quite some time this evening.”
“What do you think of him?”
Her father winced. “He’s rather alarming.”
She smiled wryly. “That he is.”
“King Lightstone has made his home in Aronsdale. A refuge. If you ever need to come here—” He let the sentence hang.
“Thank you, Papa. But I’ll be all
right.”
“Will you?”
She wondered at his mood. “What is wrong?”
“I have heard what people call you.”
“Call me?”
He regarded her steadily. “They are saying you are the Dawn Star Empress.”
“What!” She didn’t know whether to laugh or be appalled. “I haven’t heard that.”
“You will, I’m sure.” He studied her face. “Is that what you want, Mel, to have the world bow to you?”
“Saints, no.” Softly she said, “No.”
“Do you think this peace will last?”
She knew what he was really asking her. Would Cobalt be satisfied with what he had gained? She considered her words carefully. “He is driven. Nothing will change that. But it may be enough. And I do genuinely believe it is in him to be a great leader.”
Muller put his hand on her shoulder. “Just take care. If his dreams become heady and seductive, remember compassion.”
“I will, Papa.”
Although he smiled, he seemed sad. “Yes, I think you will.”
She hugged him then. He and her mother had taught her what she needed to remember, and she would always carry that with her.
Light leaked under the door of Mel’s bedroom as she creaked the door open. A candle was burning on the windowsill. Cobalt lay sprawled on her bed, fully dressed, with his booted legs hanging over the footboard and his head against the headboard.
She closed the door and padded over to him. He stirred, restless even in sleep, and his eyelids twitched. He tried to turn over, but his arm hit the wall on the other side of the bed. Mel sat next to him and traced her hand over the plane of his cheek.
“Eh?” Cobalt grunted, shifted again and smashed his leg against a bedpost. “Damn it all,” he muttered.
Mel smiled. “Good evening, my sweet-natured husband.”
His lashes lifted and he peered at her with bleary eyes. “Your blasted bed is too small.”
“So I see.”
He maneuvered onto his side, almost knocking her over in the process. “I would invite you to share, but there’s no room.”
She toyed with his hair. “We could put the mattress on the floor.”